Chapter One: Two Friends, Separate Missions
"Em?" Katie called, tossing her helmet on the chair near the door. "You here?"
"Yeah," Emily Hawkins responded, coming out of the bathroom and toweling her wet, shoulder-length hair. She had just finished showering in time to make her run to the German base about twenty-five miles northwest of the McMurdough base on the coast of the frozen wasteland of Antarctica – her home. She deftly caught the keys Katie tossed to her.
"The bird's all yours, Emmy," her friend and fellow bush pilot said with a grin.
"How many times have I told you not to call me that?" Emily growled, glowering at her friend.
"At least a hundred times," Katie replied, ignoring Emily's look and crossing to the refrigerator, opening it, and glancing over the contents. "Get anything good since I left for the American outpost?"
"There's leftover pizza in that plastic container on the top shelf," Emily responded. "Courtesy of a frozen-food shipment from Italy that got in two days ago."
Katie's eyes brightened as they settled on the said item. "That's better than freeze-dried beef-and-potatoes any day."
Emily pulled her coat out of the closet. "Yeah, well, don't eat it all; I should be back sometime tomorrow and I'll be hungry."
"Yes, ma'am," Katie teased. She and Emily had been friends for almost three years now, ever since meeting in a hotel in New Zealand and discovering that they were both headed down to Antarctica as rookie bush pilots for the National Science Foundation (NSF). It was their job to ferry supplies, food, and people between the various research bases sprinkled along the Antarctic coast, as well as handle any evacuations of personnel in hazardous conditions. Katie, an Alaskan native, loved the cold and had pursued the career because it suited her interests. Emily had literally been brought up – for half her life, at least – in the pilot-seat of a plane: her father was an Arctic bush pilot and renowned scientist who spent his summers studying the verdant, rugged tundra of Northern Canada. His only daughter nearly always accompanied him on those excursions, so she was well-acquainted with life in snow-covered outposts and command centers – she'd just decided to try life at the other end of the world.
That wasn't to say that neither of them enjoyed warmer climates. Katie had attended a university in Miami, receiving a degree in technical engineering and mechanics, while Emily had been born in the San Francisco bay area and had gone to school there, growing up on the soft foam of a surfboard.
Flipping her strawberry-blonde hair upside down and securing it in a ponytail, Emily then donned a pair of dark sunglasses over her green eyes and shouldered her duffel bag, pocketing the keys to the plane.
"Hey Emily!" Katie called suddenly, just as she was about to leave.
"What!" she called back, her hand on the door knob.
"When are you coming with me to the American base, Victoria? You have to meet my boyfriend!"
Emily's shapely lips twitched in a smile and her eyes twinkled behind her sunglasses. "Maybe soon, Kate! Bye!" She opened the door and stepped out into the breathtaking cold, barely catching Katie's returning farewell before the wind whipped the sound away. Taking a deep breath, she put on a cocky grin and strode with long paces across the grounds to the hangar and registered her mission info with the transportations officer – an attractive young sergeant with dark wavy hair and a ready smile for the female bush pilots that came through. He flashed a brilliant smile at her and nodded as he took down her name and destination.
"You've got a cargo of two scientists, some gear, and a month's supply of food for Gretchen (the German base). Watch the air currents on your way back; we're looking to have a mild storm by tomorrow afternoon."
"I will, sir," Emily said, nodding to him in return.
"Don't be so formal with me, Hawkins. I won't bite your head off like Captain Mitchell might," the sergeant, whose name was Bryan Rice, said.
"And you stop flirting, Rice, or I'll report you to Captain Mitchell," Emily responded with a grin.
The officer gave her a sassy salute. "Yes'm."
She rolled her eyes and turned away from him to scan the hanger, her eyes picking out her plane and tracing its familiar contours with satisfaction. Grinning again at Rice, she saluted him and strode towards her aircraft.
"Good flying, Hawkins!" he called after her.
"Thanks, Rice!"