Hayden turned his escape plan over and over in his head. The Spector was designed for extreme situations just like this. It was built to dig itself out of almost any situation, but he had to admit it: melting through fifty feet of ancient, compressed ice had never been part of the plan.
Suddenly Lucas and his two cohorts were crowding into the bridge, getting in the way.
“You know,” Hayden said, losing what little patience he had, “There’s an economy section in the back for tourists.”
“What?”
“Can you move your guys to the ready room? There’s not a lot of space up here.”
Lucas stared at him for a moment…then broke away with a shrug, and motioned his men to move back into the other cabin. Lucas didn’t follow them. He simply retreated to the far corner of the bridge and stood quietly, clutching his rifle more firmly than ever as he watched Hayden and his team bring the Spector back to life.
Andrew was surprised at how easy it was. He had thought the bullets had done far more damage-the outer shields certainly looked like hell, and the entire structure had lurched slightly to the left where the ice beneath the treads had cracked and fallen a foot or two, but still…they had the boosters back on line in less than five minutes, and the external shields cycling up three minutes after that.
Samantha wanted to start looking for the inhaler the moment she entered the vessel, but she took a moment to resume her old chair at the science station as the consoles started to blink back to life, one after another. She quickly ran through the environmental protocols. “Life support is solid,” she said. “We still have oxygen; the recyclers are green, amazingly enough.”
Hayden himself was at the Ops station. Two of the AIs had been badly fried, but their processing load was easily assumed by the remaining units. Most of the external sensors came back online with full power as well; all they really lost was one of the external cameras for the forward-facing screens. It had been shattered by one of the scientist’s bullets.
Andrew pulled himself out of the maintenance corridor under the bridge. “Treads look five-by-five,” he said. “I don’t think any of the bullets got down there at all.”
Samantha stood up and left the science station, still looking for the inhaler or the med pack. Andrew had insisted Nastasia had put the nebulizer inside the pack, which didn’t make any sense at all. She had already checked every cabinet in the ready room, under the oddly watchful eyes of Lucas’ scientists.
“Nav’s up,” Ryan said from the co-pilot’s seat. Then he checked a second, different indicator. “Another three minutes, and power will be at one hundred.”
Suddenly Hayden pulled himself to his feet, still staring at the Ops console. “Okay!” he said. “I overrode the security and safety protocols, set up instructions to channel the entire power output to the shields. All we have to do is give it the command from this little tab here,” he held up a dedicated transmitter, no larger than a key chain fob, “and she’ll heat up and start melting ice ‘til we tell her to stop.”
Andrew touched one last glowing panel and stood up as well. “Ready,” he said.
Ryan was already on his feet and packing his tools. “Ready here,” he said.
“There you are!” Samantha said.
The little black insulated med pack was wedged in a tiny space by the security console-the one nobody used. She leaned forward, twisted her torso, and curled her fingers around the edge, right as Lucas said, “Good,” and raised his rifle.
There was something in his voice. Hayden turned to him and suddenly stopped moving. Samantha straightened very slowly, black bag in hand.
Hayden was gaping at the rifle. It was aimed squarely at Ryan’s chest. “Lucas,” he said, “Are you out of your mind? What the hell are you thinking?”
One of Lucas’ other men was filling the door to the ready room, blocking escape. The third was standing directly in front of the exit hatch.
“Shut up and get out of the vessel before I blow his brains out,” Lucas said.
“Lucas,” Hayden shouted, “Whatever the hell your problem is, once we’re out-”
“No,” Lucas said, “There’s no we, Hayden. There never was. You’ve been in hell for hours-a day at most. I-my men-we’ve been here for months. For years. I’m not staying a minute longer.”
“But-”
“Shut up! Get out!”
The third man who was not blocking the exit grabbed Samantha by the arm and shoved her toward the hatch. She snatched her arm away as the man pulled the small black case from her hand and pushed her out of the vessel. Ryan followed close behind her.
Still inside the Spector, Andrew wouldn’t cooperate. “Lucas,” he said. “You are fucking crazy. You can’t pilot this thing. You don’t even know how to turn it on. And if you think any one of us is going to help you steal it and-”
Lucas hit him on the side of the head-one sweeping, vicious blow-and Andrew fell unconscious before he hit the floor of the cabin. Then he too was thrown from the vessel like a rag doll, hitting the icy floor right outside the exit hatch. Samantha rushed toward Andrew.
“He’ll die there,” Samantha screamed.
Lucas ignored her scream outside the Spector. Still pointing the gun directly at Hayden, he said, “You’re next. Get the fuck out before I kill you.”
Hayden simply refused, “Without me the Spector won’t go anywhere,” he said.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Lucas snapped.
Hayden held up the tiny command unit. “It’s keyed to my thumbprint, Lucas. Only I can trigger the melt.”
Lucas just shook his head. “God damn it, Hayden,” he said, sounding almost sad. He lashed out again, this time with the butt of his rifle, and put Hayden down with a single blow.
The Hatch was still open, and Samantha could sense what was about to happen next. She screamed as Lucas bent over and stripped the glove from Hayden’s right hand.
“Lucas please!” Samantha begged. But it was too late.
Ryan seized her shoulder. “Sam! We’ve got to get them out of here! We’re too close to the Spector!”
Holding Andrew’s unconscious body, she couldn’t look away from what was happening inside the vessel.
Lucas had the command tab in his hand. He was wedging it between Hayden’s limp, unmoving fingers.
“If they trigger the melt from this close, we’ll all die,” Ryan said.
Hayden’s body was thrown out of the vessel as the Spector’s outer hatch closed shut with Raymond and his two men inside. The massive vessel’s treads retracted within its body as the entire submersible lowered itself, now sitting on the icy floor completely watertight. Its surface began to heat up less than five feet from Andrew and Hayden’s body.
Ryan rushed forward and dragged Hayden’s body back as Samantha struggled with Andrew.
The outer shields of the Spector exploded in a bright flash of light. The heat followed an instant later, searing Samantha and Ryan’s face, driving them back.
Now less than twenty feet from the burning Spector, Ryan continued to pull Hayden’s body away from the burning heat. He struggled to shield his face from the inferno. Samantha screamed, “Andrew! No!” She turned back, into the impossible heat, threw herself toward Andrew’s body, and grabbed onto the shoulders of his suit. She dug in and pulled back.
He was so heavy, and the floor of ice was already starting to soften, to melt.
Struggling with the weight of Hayden’s body, Ryan had reached an alcove fifty feet from the Spector-a spot that afforded the protection of a crack in the large ice wall and hid them from the worst of the heat. He had managed to drag Hayden, still unconscious, to the shelter with him. They were as safe as they could possibly be.
But Samantha wouldn’t leave Andrew. She faintly heard Ryan’s voice over the sizzling roar of the burning shields as her face burned from the heat. “Sam! Leave him!”