Clorvine fell out of the twisted wreckage of the magno-chopper, landing flat on her stomach. The ground was rocky and cold and she lay there a protracted moment before murmuring, ‘I can feel vibrations on my face. I think they’re coming. Bring the guns and you’d better hurry, it sounds like a lot them.’
The tank driven by Private Murley pulled up alongside her. Murley emerged from the top hatch and dropped nimbly down to the ground. Clorvine could see her reflection in his shiny black boots.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Clorvine replied. ‘How does it look from up there?’
Murley looked over her a moment. ‘You’ll know more on your feet.’ He patiently helped her up.
Her weapons bag was meanwhile tossed through the shattered windscreen of the magno-chopper and Kaptu emerged after it with a knife between his teeth.
‘Are you a Marine?’ he muttered.
‘I’m a private but the tank belongs to the base commander. He has invited you back there.’
‘Are you sure there is still a base? We saw the explosion.’
‘It’s damaged, but plenty worth defending. Marines do not get eaten by rats.’
‘Then we’ve come to the right place, but why would the camp commander spare his tank to come rescue us?’
‘Because the Major thinks you know who sent the rats against us.’
Kaptu picked up the weapons bag and headed for the tank. He looked over the cannons, missile launches and saturation guns. It was a Poison 130 Fast Tank, probably a leftover of the Artic Wars. Dated but it would do. ‘While we’ve got the use of the Major’s wheels,’ Kaptu said, ‘we can investigate the more pressing question: why?’
‘I could not even begin to contemplate that. The Marine Corps consider this deployment as nothing less than the world’s highest butt-hole. The nearest things to action in these parts are the marches and boot shining.’
‘Do you have any classified installations?’ queried Clorvine, finally getting her breath back.
‘I’m only a private,’ replied Murley.
‘A private on a very small island. You must know something.’
‘There’s the army base, the polar bear camp and a weather monitoring station. And that’s it. Didn’t you see? You were above the island long enough before you crashed into it.’
‘What do you know about the weather station?’ asked Kaptu.
‘I have never been there. It’s off-limits. Apparently, it has sensitive equipment on site.’
‘Perhaps more sensitive than you can imagine.’ Kaptu gazed hard at Clorvine. ‘The Artic War Peace Treaty required all combatant nations to remove their weapons of mass destruction from within their protectorates. It seems most nations, however, settled merely for removing them from sight. You cannot blame them, I suppose. There is never a lot of trust after wars.’
The weather station’s satellite and antennae towers were just visible in the distance.
Kaptu murmured, ‘When the missile in the base misfired, you lost a roof. If the missile under the weather station misfires, the damage could be cataclysmic.’
‘I don’t much know what you’re talking about,’ snapped Murley. He jumped up onto the tank and swung his legs into the hatch. ‘But it is my job to find out.’
Kaptu motioned to follow him, only for Clorvine to grab his arm. ‘Are you sure you aren’t simply trying to take my mind off the rats?’ she queried dubiously.