When the deck was cleared of all but essential crewmen, Captain Leighton climbed the superstructure until he reached the bridge. He found his executive officer at the helm, as well as Max Stafford and Charles Weyland, who were studying the data spewing out of the navigational system.
“Holding steady at five knots, sir.”
“Very good, Gordon.”
Charles Weyland approached the skipper. “How soon to landfall?”
Leighton glanced at the Breitling on his wrist. “At this speed I should say within two hours.”
Weyland nodded, his jaw tense.
“Let’s get our people ready, Max. I want to disembark as soon as we arrive.”
Two hours later, the Piper Maru weighed anchor in the shadow of a dark mountain. Within minutes, a solid sheet of ice had already frozen around her stationary hull. Roughnecks swarmed across the decks, and the crane was busy once again, lifting tracked vehicles and drilling machines off the deck and lowering them onto the pack ice.
On the bridge, Captain Leighton directed Charles Weyland’s attention to the three mountains in the distance, a snowcapped gray-brown blot on an otherwise moonlit, snow-white terrain.
“The closest one is Olav Peak—the whalers used to call it the Razorback. Not much of a mountain compared to Vinson Massif or Erebus, but whalers used Razorback as a navigational beacon in the days when such trade was still profitable.”
Weyland gazed through the lens of an AV/PVS-7 lightweight, high-performance passive image intensifier system. These military-issue night-vision goggles turned the Antarctic twilight into day.
“You’ll find your whaling station in the mountain’s shadow,” Leighton continued. “I’m sorry I can’t take you closer, but the draft is just too shallow.”
Weyland scanned the distance until he spied the cluster of buildings a few miles away from the foot of the mountain. The whaling station was at least ten miles away—too far to make out much detail.
“You’ve done enough, Captain,” said Charles Weyland. “Just don’t go home without us.”
CHAPTER 9
The Predators were awake now, and active. Naked, their pale, mottled flesh still gleamed from their immersion in the pool of primordial ooze. Five powerful beings swaggered onto the starship’s bridge, their eyes gleaming with innate intelligence.
Computer monitors flickered all around them as red, green and violet ripples of energy pulsed throughout the chamber. The cybernetic brain’s voice—a constant, sibilant hiss like the sound of an angry rattlesnake—greeted its masters with an endless barrage of data. The bridge itself was dominated by a wide window that offered an awesome view of the planet Earth.
Silhouetted against a backdrop of the blue-green planet shimmering below, one of the figures ran a talon over a crystalline control panel. With a whizzing pop, an airtight section of the wall opened to reveal suits of gleaming body armor, five demonic face masks, a plethora of weapons, and an array of short-barreled, shoulder-mounted cannons.
Wordlessly, the creatures girded themselves for the coming battle.
Moving with mechanical efficiency, the Predators draped flexible mail-clad netting over their pale, hard-muscled arms and broad, barrel-like chests. Segmented battle armor was snapped into place, sheathing thick, corded arms and powerful legs. Reinforced boots, loin-plates and chest protectors followed. Then a bulky mechanism was attached to each creature’s forearm, just below the elbow joint. A similar device was strapped to their right wrists.
One of the creatures tested the mechanism. With a simple jerk of its sinewy arm, a long, curved, razor-sharp telescopic blade deployed with a soft snick. The formidable hunter examined the honed edge of the blade, then grunted in satisfaction.
Next came a ridged metal backpack attached to shoulder armor, with a built-in mount and power cables for a plasma cannon. Then the flat, heavy face masks were donned. Each mask was different, yet every one obscured its wearer’s full face—except the burning eyes and the dangling, metal-tipped dreadlocks.
Finally, a computer was linked to each Predator’s left wrist. Upon activation an LED display flickered, and, with a sudden hiss, the armored joints sealed to become airtight. Warm, humid air flooded the interior of the body armor, an atmosphere that mimicked the conditions of the Predators’ home world.
With this body armor in place, the hunters collected their weapons—long collapsible spears with serrated tips and curved double-edged blades with ivory grips. Clamps on their gleaming body shields held folded shuriken that, when thrown, would deploy wicked, retractable blades. Strangely, they left the plasma cannons on their racks, selecting only the less-advanced, almost primitive weaponry instead.
Only one creature chose a high-tech weapon—a wrist-mounted net gun—though he counterbalanced that choice with a more basic, long, curved blade fashioned from a diamond-hard, bony substance.
After they had all completed their preparations for the hunt, the Predators filed into a small ritual chamber and knelt in supplication before a mammoth, intricately carved stone effigy of a fierce warrior god, a deity who hurled thunderbolts as weapons like some mighty, extraterrestrial Odin.
As the Predators prostrated themselves before their savage god, a static-streaked image appeared on the bridge’s main computer screen. It was the real-time image of a parade of vehicles lumbering across a vast, frozen expanse.
CHAPTER 10
Five tracked Hagglunds, followed by the two large mobile drilling platforms, plodded in a long procession across the rugged ice pack. Lex rode in the lead vehicle, a gaudy orange Hagglund branded with the ubiquitous Weyland logo. Little more than a cabin mounted on tank tracks, the Norwegian-built all-weather people mover was the most effective mode of transportation at the South Pole, and its huge windows afforded passengers an excellent view.
Gazing at the pristine beauty of the harsh, moonlit landscape, Lex pressed her cheek against the cold Plexiglas and allowed the polar chill to seep into her. This was Lex’s way of acclimating her mind and body to the harsh climatic conditions she was about to face.
“A wasteland,” Sven declared. At his side, Verheiden nodded in agreement.
Lex shook her head, disappointed by their powers of observation. All you had to do was open your eyes to see that Antarctica possessed as rich an ecology as any other continent on Earth. This harsh, seemingly hostile environment actually teemed with a variety of flora and fauna—much of it easy to see if one only took the time to look.
Less than five miles from this spot, humpback, minke, and fin whales cavorted in the ocean. A dozen different species of penguin thrived along the coastline, mingling with fur and elephant seals. Albatross, petrel, gulls and skuas wheeled across the sky and snatched krill and fish from the breakers.
The mercenaries—along with men like Charles Weyland, or even that bandit Quinn—all thought of the natural world as something to be explored, tamed or exploited, not cherished or preserved.
“We’re about seven miles from the station,” Max Stafford announced from behind the wheel, interrupting Lex’s thoughts. Next to him, Charles Weyland huddled in his coat.
Sebastian directed Lex’s attention to the full moon, which hung so low in the sky that you could practically bump your head against it.
“When I was a kid, growing up in Sicily, you know what they’d call a moon that big?”