Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [123]
Schofield said fiercely, ‘We’ve been hit bad over here! We’re fucked, our game’s over. Go! Get to McMurdo! Get help! You’re the only chance we’ve got!’
‘But what about –’
‘Go!’
‘Yes, sir.’
At that moment, Renshaw said, ‘Ah, Lieutenant . . .’
Schofield wasn’t listening. He was watching Rebound’s hovercraft as it sped away in the other direction, into the driving snow.
Then Schofield looked out through the side window of his destroyed hovercraft and saw in the distance, a small dark lump on the ice plain.
Book and Kirsty.
‘Lieutenant . . .’
Schofield saw the last British hovercraft approach Book and Kirsty, saw it slow to a halt beside Book’s doubled-over body. Black-clad men got out of the hovercraft.
Schofield just stared. ‘Damn.’
Beside him, Renshaw was wrestling with the steering yoke. ‘Lieutenant! Hold on!’
At that moment, as Renshaw pulled on it, the steering yoke snapped and broke and suddenly the hovercraft spun laterally to the left and performed a slingshot, and in an instant Schofield and Renshaw were travelling backwards again.
‘What the hell are you doing!’ Schofield yelled.
‘I was trying to avoid that!’ Renshaw yelled as he pointed out through the destroyed rear end of the hovercraft – the end that was now their leading edge.
Schofield followed Renshaw’s finger and his eyes widened.
They were hurtling – in reverse – towards the edge of the cliff.
‘Why can’t this fucking day just end,’ Schofield said.
‘I think it’s about to,’ Renshaw said flatly.
Schofield shoved Renshaw out of the driver’s seat and slid into it. He began to pump the brake pedal.
No response.
The hovercraft continued to rush toward the edge.
‘I tried that!’ Renshaw said. ‘No brakes!’
The hovercraft raced toward the cliff-edge, travelling backwards, totally out of control.
Schofield grabbed the broken steering vane. No steering, either.
They would have to jump –
But the thought came too late.
The cliff-edge rushed toward them, too fast.
And then all of a sudden they ran out of ground and Schofield felt his stomach lurch sickeningly as the hovercraft shot out from the clifftop and flew out at incredible speed into the clear, open sky.
SIXTH INCURSION
16 June 1635 hours
The hovercraft fell through the air, rear-end first.
Inside the cabin, Schofield snapped around in his chair to look out through the shattered forward wind-shield of the hovercraft. He saw the cliff edge high above him getting smaller and smaller as it got farther and farther away.
In the seat beside him, Renshaw was hyperventilating. ‘We’re gonna die. We are really gonna die.’
The hovercraft went vertical – its tail pointing down, its nose pointing up – and suddenly Schofield saw nothing but sky.
They were falling fast.
Through the side window of the hovercraft, Schofield saw the vertical cliff-face streaking past them at phenomenal speed.
Schofield grabbed his Maghook and put his nose in Renshaw’s face, silencing him. ‘Grab my waist and don’t let go.’
Renshaw stopped his whimpering and stared at Schofield for a second. Then he quickly wrapped his arms around Schofield’s waist. Schofield raised his Maghook above his head and fired it up through the destroyed forward windshield of the falling hovercraft.
The Maghook shot through the air in a high arc – its steel grappling hook snapping open in mid-flight, its rope splaying out in a crazy, wobbling line behind it.
The hook came down hard on the edge of the cliff-top and then slid quickly backwards toward the edge, its claws digging into the snow.
The hovercraft continued to fall through the air, rear-end first. The grappling hook found a purchase on the clifftop and suddenly it snapped to a halt and held, and its rope went instantly taut –
– and Schofield and Renshaw, at the other end of the rope, suddenly shot up out of the falling hovercraft.
The hovercraft fell away beneath them – fell and fell – before it smashed loudly against the white-tipped waves one hundred and fifty feet below them.
Schofield and Renshaw swung back in toward the cliff-face. The hovercraft had launched