Slumping onto his mattress, although part of his mind was screaming at him to get undressed and get into bed, he was just too tired. Instead, he closed his eyes and thought that falling asleep fully clothed was in character with someone who'd consumed too much alcohol. Seconds later, he was snoring like a pig with sinus trouble.
Days passed with most of Flash's time spent within the confines of Casey Station, setting up his state of the art equipment. Longing to get outside the station and begin his search proper for the missing dragon scientists, he knew appearances were important, and that he must not arouse too many suspicions. So he played his part, working hard, seeming nerdy, geeky and not being a threat to anyone. In the meantime he'd telepathically scanned the missing residents from the greetings party and had found nothing out of the ordinary. From this he concluded that no one on the base had anything to do with the disappearances; the guilty party, or parties, had already shipped out, if indeed they existed at all. Either someone living in the area but outside the base had something to do with it all, or indeed, it may just have been what everyone thought, that there had simply been two unconnected accidents in the harshest environment on the planet. He found it easy to believe that everyone at Casey was completely innocent; the possibility of someone here previously having some involvement and then leaving in the meantime was very real, however. In the hope of retrieving details of everyone who'd left over the last few months, he would have to try and gain access to the base's mainframe. As far as believing that somebody could survive out here, but not on the base, that took more than a little imagination. Difficult to rule out of course, something about it just didn't ring true. Two separate accidents were looking increasingly likely, but the more he thought about it, the more something at the back of his mind screamed, "NO!" at him. Over time, he'd learned to trust the little voices inside him, because they'd been right in the past, almost all the time.
Two days later, after proving that he was qualified on all the station's vehicles and passing a very simple health and safety course, Flash got his wish. Opting to take a skidoo with a heavy field sledge for his equipment, rather than one of the much smaller quad bikes, he packed up early and was ready to leave before most of the residents had even begun to start their day. Before setting off, he checked that he had all his equipment. Not the scientific stuff of course. No, his personal equipment that he had specially prepared for this particular part of the mission. His watch was fully functional, with not even a hint of it icing over in the harsh temperatures. It was fully loaded with eight toxic, titanium darts, with two more clips each with eight darts hidden in his belt buckle on his trousers beneath the cold weather gear that he wore. The darts in his watch were activated by his pulse, which in turn was constantly monitored by an ingenious bit of technology mounted into the underside of the wrist strap. If needed, he could unleash all eight darts in under three seconds, and they could pierce just about anything. It did give him a little extra reassurance, on top of all his training and special talents.
Scrolling through the watch's functions, he checked the GPS transmitter was working properly, and that the self destruct checked out. Bending his left knee, he lifted his boot up behind him and tapped the smallest looking irregularity in the sole, once. Out shot the meanest looking knife in the world. Glinting in the bright Antarctic sunlight, deadly barbs adorned one side, with a razor sharp edge traversing the other. Feeling its comforting weight in his gloved hand, Flash tossed it lightly into the air, catching it by its handle as it came spiralling back down. Slickly he hid the blade back in its housing, concealed in the bottom of his boot. Last, but by no means least, he checked with his left hand that he had his necklace on, and that the ring on the index finger of his right hand was still firmly in place. There was no reason why either of these wouldn't be there, his body would have told him if they weren't, because both ring and necklace were made from laminium, and were the most valuable items that he owned. Checking them physically with his hand was more of a ritual than a necessity, but he hadn't gotten this far in his career without looking out for the small details.
Confident that he was ready to go, he stepped up to the bright yellow skidoo, gave a hard yank on the starting cord and listened to the pleasing sound of the harsh petrol engine kicking into life. Donning his shiny, black crash helmet, he mounted the throbbing vehicle. Knowing that there might be residents watching his departure, he sedately headed out of the Station and into the frozen wilderness, heading directly towards Law Dome, the nearest small ice cap.
As soon as he was beyond the visual range of Casey, he opened up the throttle, gunning the poor skidoo for all it was worth. Even with his enhanced dragon abilities, which were severely limited by the freezing temperatures, riding the machine at high speed was a life threatening risk in this environment, with its steep slopes, rough hidden rocks, jutting peninsulas and detritus filled valleys, but he just couldn't resist. Risk and thrill seeking were simply part of his nature, as much as a ten foot tail, brown shiny scales and teeth that a crocodile would die for, were part of his body.
Every twenty minutes or so, he would stop and take in his surroundings, using his dragon senses to see if he could detect any sign of the missing scientists. By his third stop he'd had no luck whatsoever, but told himself that it was early days yet as he still had many hundreds of square miles to cover, and that was just the area the scientists were known to have been in.
Carrying on in the bright sunlight through the untouched powdery snow, Flash focused purely on the task at hand; his dedication to the mission was unparalleled in both dragon and human worlds.
After five and a half hours, he stopped the skidoo abruptly in the thick fresh snow, convinced that just for a second he'd felt something recognisable. Undoing his helmet and placing it on the skidoo's seat, he trudged through the knee high snow, the only sound accompanying him the sharp 'crunch, crunch, crunch' beneath his boots. Opening his mind to the harsh surroundings, he tried desperately to use the laminium in his ring and necklace to augment his flagging abilities, the brisk wind all the while clawing at the exposed parts of his unshaven face.
'There it is again,' he thought. 'There's something close by, but where...?'
Standing on the edge of a steep, rocky slope on one side, a valley laden with thick, fresh snow on the other, there was nothing he could see that led him to believe there was anything of importance here. About a hundred yards away stood a snowy, ice encrusted overhang, something he'd seen about fifty of already today. Still, his senses were telling him there was something of importance here. Knowing only too well that he could search this area for a week with all this fresh snowfall and not find a thing, he had to at least try. After wandering carefully through the lower part of the rocky slope for about an hour, figuring that he was more likely to find something there rather than in the deep, fresh snow field, frustrated he returned to the skidoo and procured a ration bar and a drink of water from the heated bottle in his pack. Opting to walk around the area as he drank and ate, his mind wandered, having not found what he was searching for. Before he knew it, he'd meandered up to the icy overhang that resembled something like a giant frozen wave. The snow had built up against its base, while delicate icicles hung like vicious looking needles from the overhang itself. In the brilliant bright sunlight, it sparkled like an expensive jewel. Even Flash, not known for his appreciation of any sort of beauty, thought that it looked magnificent. The perfect silence all around was shattered by the radio attached to his jacket.