Jaunt (12 page)

“Spacetime was briefly fractured, and nature abhors a vacuum. Somehow, these extraterrestrial objects have the capability to do just that, apparently rather easily, with our current technological level. We’ve now sent two of these objects to the past, practically handing them over to anyone with the will and the means to employ them for whatever gains. Nobody in recorded history has ever been able to substantiate the manipulation of spacetime. Now, we can do it with ease. Too much ease.”

He stepped away from the troublesome Casimir. “From here on out, now that we all have firsthand knowledge of what these jewels are capable of, we must prepare ourselves, in the event that someone from the past has acquired the objects we unwittingly sent to them. Let’s just hope that our friends are successful in their mission. If not, we could all be in trouble.”

Strapping on their arctic camouflage, Louris, Gilmour, Mason, Constantine and McKean were led to the conning tower’s docking tunnel, where the
Hesperus
personnel would shove off their gear to the pack ice above. The submarine had surfaced through the frozen shelf just moments prior, after an extended lidar survey of the East Siberian Sea, coupled with data from the Global Security Network, eliminated the chances of any potential witnesses.

Clambering up the stepladder after their gear had been unloaded, the five agents were wished a reserved farewell by Captain Conway. Once Constantine was grounded on the thick ice, the docking door was hastily shut, severing the agents’ links to the world, leaving them to their own wits in the arctic twilight.

They wasted no time hoisting their gear onto their backs. With hand gestures to another, signaling their readiness, the five men began their trek inward, crossing the icedover Indigirka River delta. The
Hesperus
had deposited them one-and-a-half kilometers from the Russian coast, but the vast sea ice had created its own LZ, visible to the horizon. Walking the distance of the delta would not prove too difficult for the agents; keeping their arctic gear—goggles, thermal gloves and face guards—secured to protect against frostbite would be the paramount concern.

Mason turned to see the conning tower disappear into the breeze-blown snow. Behind that white shield, nothing could be discerned, not even the stars from the evening sky. The sea ice creaked under their boots as they left tread impressions in the powder, which were promptly consumed by the breeze, erasing any note of their presence.

It really was a shame this was enemy territory, Gilmour thought. Beautiful in its own manner, the overcast sky gave the ice a sheen he could only imagine existed as a child. The Indigirka had a serene spirit, perhaps inherent in its remoteness from the rest of

“civilization.” Gilmour hoped that if time could heal old wounds, then he could return here some day, not as a soldier, but as a friend, with the blessing of the land, and its people.

Thirty-five minutes after disembarking, McKean pointed the way to the true coast, where lichen-rich rock protruded from the ice. All five joined hands to assist one another up the coastal land, surprisingly bare of snow. Today’s fine powder had difficulty adhering to the taiga of the coast, all the better to help conceal their presence.

Now that landfall had been achieved, the group’s first priority would be to scout along the river edge for a suitable encampment for the night. They all wore lowlight goggles, enhancing the ambient illumination without having to blatantly blast torchlight across the terrain and flag their wanderings to anyone who cared to look. Despite having at least five more hours’ worth of walking time left, there was never a bad time to be on the watch for a good shelter, even if they had to retire earlier than necessary. In this climate, that made the difference between meeting your eventual goal, and dying the first night.

This far north, the river country was flat and night came early, giving the men little assistance in fostering shelter. They pressed forward, becoming increasingly aware of the limited time they had to set camp for the optimal rest required in this harsh land. Following the river south, by an hour’s passing they had traversed nearly three kilometers, a good start, but only a skip compared to the nearly two hundred kilometers needed to reach the crater site.

Throughout their journey, McKean would be taking continuous lidar surveys of the country, in anticipation for their return, tentatively scheduled four weeks from now. Dark Horse had arranged for a Navy vessel to retrieve the five agents upon achieving their goal, or act on their distress signal after a mission abort. If the agents did abort, a prolonged stay would be most likely, so familiarity with the coastal taiga and its terrain would be a paramount concern. Louris and his men hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but illegally entering foreign soil almost never went according to schedule.

Ninety minutes later, McKean detected a ravine that carved out a nice angle from the Indigirka, sloping at twenty-three degrees towards the frozen banks. Crossing the ground to the ravine, the agents broke out their hammers and constructed their tents, then placed thermal camouflage over the site to obscure their presence from eyes in the sky.

Commanded by Louris to get a good dose of rest, the agents settled in with their rifles as bedmates, content to know that this would probably be the most secure slumber they would have for their entire stay.

With each successive day, the sun lowered its grip on the arctic lands, bequeathing its domain minute by minute to the moon and stars until finally, the great burning sphere remained hidden, hibernating for the duration of winter. Darkness gave the agents more flexibility in their route, and the less daylight there was for any natives to be wandering the taiga, the better for the team to slip in, and then flee.

To Louris’ discontent, most of their travel schedule the first night had been consumed by the
Hesperus
’ and Global Security Network’s sweep of the East Siberian Sea’s coastline, necessitating a belated shove off, but not this night. Louris had rousted his agents just prior to dusk, allowing them time to prepare for the next leg. The day's MREs were consumed by all, and their waste was collected and recycled into emergency rations in the event of an extended mission. Despite having enough supplies for a month-and-a-half in the wilderness, experience had taught the agents that missions could go for much longer than planned, sometimes necessitating the consumption of “prior matter,” or as Mason quipped, “shit on a stick.”

Before exiting their sheltered ravine, Mason took readings from his meteorological lidar, indicating a cold front would be moving in over the region within the next few hours, bringing potentially severe winds and temperatures. The group tied a line between themselves, enacting a hazard precaution in the event the weather threatened to separate them.

Setting off, the five hastily covered ten kilometers in the few hours prior to the inclement weather blowing in. Although this heightened leg would prove quite exhausting, it was worth the extra effort to traverse now, rather than double timing it during a snowstorm or minus fifty degree winds.

A howling gale soon roared above the river valley, slamming down upon the agents from the distant, dominating Cherskiy Mountains and, further southwest, weather twisting Verkhoyansk range. Shelter was constructed on the quiet side of a ravine, and the agents waited out the storm with a few hours of rest.

Journeying to the iced branch of the Indigirka, the Kolymskaja, proved monotonous, with only the occasional, curious fox or two to break the endless landscape of taiga. Now a full week into the mission, the agents were on the second, longer leg of the mission, about five days from penetrating the large land plate, Kondakovskaja Vozvysennost’, forming the north end of the Ulahan-Sis.

Time had actually passed faster than anticipated, due to the exceedingly flat terrain of the Kolymskaja bed, allowing them to nearly double their usual hiking rate for the ninth and tenth days. Another branch of the Indigirka, the ascending Keremesit, revealed to the group the full breadth of the East Siberian Sea from behind them, and the opportunity to scout the upcoming terrain from a distance.

Climbing to the zenith of a hill, Gilmour utilized a forward telescoping eyepiece, capable of discerning landmarks tens of kilometers away in a two-centimeter-diameter focal lens from his goggles. Flashes of light to the west, along the artery of the Indigirka, revealed four tiny villages, flickering like fireflies in the turbulent mountain air, which the group doubtless would have met up had they continued along the riverbank. Despite the range of tools and modern technology the men had been outfitted with, Gilmour could’ve done for some alcohol to proffer the natives in exchange for some local hospitality. Perhaps another day, when he didn’t have to surreptitiously travel the quiescent river bends to dig holes in the ground.

After they had concluded their surveys for the night, the agents retired to a copse of abundant spruce and birch trees, which provided a good shelter for their camp. That night, and for three successive, the agents received the most restive hours of sleep, despite the high elevation lowering the temperature several degrees further.

Seven days since beginning the rise to the Kondakovskaja Vozvysennost’, the agents soon glimpsed the the seven-hundred-meter-tall Ulahan-Sis Mountains—their final destination—lingering in the sky at twice their current elevation through a slash in the flank of the Keremesit valley.

Gathering themselves for the final push, the agents headed through the forested taiga, locking eyes on the mountain peaks that concealed secrets perhaps no man should possess, certainly not the Confederation and its
siloviki
. Survival now hinged on what the five would find; hopefully, an undisturbed range gathering snow like any other, silent for almost twenty decades.

The twenty-third morning seemed the longest of all, and a heavy air crawled over Gilmour’s and Mason’s skins, a feeling of relief, but anxiousness. Constantine had mapped out a route to the coordinates de Lis and the DoD had furnished them, and all they had left to do was reach a basin carved into the northside spine of the range. Satellite analysis determined the crater basin spread over an area of roughly five square kilometers, a rather large region in which to achieve their stated mission goal of securing every object resembling the Nepal jewels.

They didn't hesitate, knowing the sooner they reconnoitered the area and determined what status it was in, the quicker they could retrieve any samples and head home. Louris had repeatedly drilled this into their heads, but only Gilmour and Mason truly understood how difficult this would be. Keeping this to themselves, they hustled through the thickly brushed route, calculating and recording every meter of the way.

Gilmour’s eyepiece found the foot of the basin, a depression seemingly kicked out of the face of a mountain. Plotting these datapoints into Constantine’s holobook, the agents created a cartograph of the area to match up with the Global Security Network-based one.

Once inside the basin, the five men noted the way nature had reasserted itself after such a cataclysm; black spruces dominated the slopes, coupled with birch and willow trees, the higher ones curiously lying parallel to the ground, even up the side of mountains. Without foreknowledge of the crater, the agents would have had difficulty believing this basin had been created by a spectacular crash.

Unpacking their magnetic and gravimetric resonance detectors, the agents fanned out, allowing several meters between them. The devices fired electromagnetic pulses, enabling them to map the basin’s subsurface for the extraterrestrial specimens they knew were here. The work was tedious, but perfect for five agents groomed to perform hours of long, fastidious labor. Years of underground missions proved to be ideal training for the patient men, who dutifully combed the virgin taiga ground, gradually encircling the perimeter of the basin.

Their schedule for the first day was to thoroughly scan the ground, disregarding any other scientific work. Most of that day shift had elapsed before each man had even completed their assigned segment of the basin. As night fell, the agents convened in the center of the crater, at Louris’ predetermined quarters. Louris collated the respective data from each holobook into one large, multifaceted cartograph, following de Lis’ instructions. Meanwhile, they sampled various floral and soil specimens to return to the Ottawa lab for contamination analysis. De Lis was adamant about this part, strictly emphasizing the importance these samples would have on their knowledge of the area, mostly the effects on the quantum structures of the samples by the jewels.

Louris ended the shift unceremoniously, ordering his agents to break out their equipment and prepare for rest. The next day would be the most strenuous of all, as the group would begin excavating the already promising site, scrabbling around like the moles de Lis had sent them out there to be.

The chiming alarm threw Gilmour’s eyes wide; he rose from the taiga, weary and tender. In the area beside him, he could hear Constantine and Mason already moaning about the six hours of restlessness. Three weeks of roughing it had reduced them to bedsores, strained muscles and fruitless rest. Each man, save for Louris, of course, had mentioned the lack of worthwhile sleep, but all dutifully, but not so rightfully, dismissed it as contemporary laziness, brought about by the conveniences of modern life. Despite his allegiances to his agency, there were days Gilmour grew tired of quoting the Agency line for the sake of mission morale.

Presentable for work once more, Gilmour and the others stretched their muscles and yawned, ready to resume their duty shift. Louris retrieved their optically connected holobooks from his tent, updating himself on the status of the data collation.