Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [166]
The bullet wound in Gant’s side burned.
She crawled on her backside away from the fissure, keeping one eye on the approaching elephant seal and the other on the fissure itself. A snail-trail of her blood stained the frosty floor behind her, betraying her path.
Montana emerged from the horizontal fissure, gun first.
Gant was nowhere to be seen.
Montana saw the trail of blood on the floor, leading off to the right, around and behind a large boulder of ice.
Montana followed the trail of blood. He quickly came round the ice boulder and let rip with a burst of gunfire. He hit nothing. Gant wasn’t there. Her MP-5 just lay there on the floor behind the ice boulder.
Montana spun.
Where the hell was she?
Gant saw Montana come back round the ice boulder and catch sight of her.
She was now sitting on the floor in front of the horizontal fissure, clutching at her side with both hands. It had taken all of her strength – and both of her hands – to get to her feet and run back to the left-hand side of the fissure without spilling any more blood before Montana had emerged from the hole. She had actually intended to go back in through the fissure, but she had only managed to get this far.
Montana smiled, walked slowly over to her. He stood in front of her, with his back to the main part of the cavern.
‘You’re a complete son of a bitch, you know that,’ Gant said.
Montana shrugged.
‘It’s not even an alien fucking spaceship, and you’re still killing us,’ Gant said, looking out into the cavern behind Montana.
‘It’s not just the ship anymore, Gant. It’s what you know about the ICG. That’s why you can’t be allowed to go back.’
Gant looked Montana right in the eye. ‘Do your fucking worst.’
Montana raised his gun to fire, but at that moment, a blood-curdling roar echoed across the cavern.
Montana spun just in time to see the big bull elephant seal come charging across the cavern toward him, roaring loudly. The floor shook with every booming stride.
Gant took the opportunity and rolled quickly back through the horizontal fissure behind her. She fell in a clumsy heap to the floor of the tunnel behind the fissure.
The big seal loped across the cavern at incredible speed, covering the distance between the ship and the fissure in seconds.
Montana raised his gun, fired.
But the animal was too big, too close.
From inside the tunnel, Gant looked up and saw Montana’s outline on the other side of the translucent ice wall above her.
And then suddenly – whump! – she saw Montana’s body get slammed up against the other side of the translucent ice wall. A grotesque, star-shaped explosion of blood flared out from Montana’s body as the big seal slammed him against the ice wall with thunderous force.
Slowly, painfully, Gant got to her feet and peered out through the horizontal fissure into the main cavern.
She saw the elephant seal extract its fangs from Montana’s belly. The long, blood-slicked teeth came clear of his wetsuit and Montana just dropped to the floor. The elephant seal stood over his prone body in triumph.
And then suddenly Gant heard Montana groan.
He was still alive.
Just barely, but – yes – definitely alive.
Gant then watched as the big seal bent down over Montana and ripped a large chunk of flesh from his ribcage.
Schofield strode into the radio room on A-deck on the tick of ten o’clock. Renshaw and Kirsty came in behind him. Schofield sat down in front of the radio console, keyed the microphone.
‘Attention, McMurdo. Attention, McMurdo. This is the Scarecrow. Do you copy?’
There was no reply.
Schofield repeated his message.
No reply.
And then suddenly: ‘Scarecrow, this is Romeo, I read you. Give me a Sit-Rep.’
Romeo, Schofield thought. ‘Romeo’ was the call-sign of Captain Harley Roach, the commanding officer of Marine Force Reconnaissance Unit Five. Schofield had met Romeo Roach on a couple of occasions before. He was six years older than Schofield, a good soldier, and a legend with the ladies