The Trinity Sitch - Book 3: Blade of the Fury

Chapter 10: KP on Ice

Even with the sun slowly climbing into the crystal clear blue sky the temperature didn't seem to be rising very much. Even with the spotless cerulean sky a distinct darkness to the west promised snow or worse. Accustomed to a somewhat more restrictive range with their older jetpacks, they set down as soon as the debris from the destroyed aircraft settled. Silently Kim prayed that the craft had been remotely piloted, though she doubted it. Somehow she knew that a machine sent to kill them would not have backed down from a chicken run.

Kim hit the call button on her Kimmunicator as soon as her wings snapped back up into their casings. Her heart sank when all she got was a tiny red telltale and a string of holographic text saying "no signal."

"Ron, try yours." He did and shook his head when he got the same result.

"It worked a few minutes ago up in the air." He was trying to keep the edge of panic out of his voice.

"At the speed we were flying, we're a long way from where Wade contacted us. My guess is we're in a dead spot."

"Did you have to say dead? I thought we could go anywhere in the world with these things?"

"Amp down Ron! We can go almost anywhere, but the system isn't perfect. Wade has to tap into communications satellites to do it and there are a few small gaps in the coverage. Most of the time, there aren't any people here so the signal can be spotty. Also, when we were in the air, we were a few miles up, so the horizon was a bit different there. We were probably right in line of sight with a satellite."

Ron seemed to calm down, but only just a little. "So, as I see it, we just need to fly until we can pick up a signal?"

"Yeah, except I don't know how long our suit power will last without a recharge. Normally it draws on our own body heat, but here it's having to expend power just to keep us relatively warm." As if to illustrate her point, she started to shiver. The suits could keep them warm a little bit, but the conditions here were well past the design parameters. They were meant to adjust their body temperatures in, say, a cold rain, or underwater or keep them cooler in high-heat conditions, but they weren't designed with arctic survival in mind.

Kim noted Ron's hands in his pockets and started to reconsider the wisdom of wearing cargo pants over the suit.

As if he were reading her mind, Ron sat down in the thin layer of snow and started untying the blousing straps around his ankles. He stood up and shucked them completely off, leaving him in just his suit. He held them out to Kim.

"Ron, no!" she held up her hands in protest, trying to prevent him handing them to her.

"Put them on, KP!"

"Ron, they're your pants, you don't have to prove you're a gentleman or anything with me!"

"This isn't about gentlemanliness or anything like that. This is just logic. You've got a lot smaller body mass than I do and you'll lose heat faster. Now put these on!" his voice brooked no argument.

Rufus popped his head out of the pocket as she slipped them on, shivering and almost to the point of turning blue. Kim scooped him up and unzipped her collar a few inches then closed him up inside against her skin. The top of his head and his eyes popped out of the collar, leaving his mouth inside to conserve heat. Satisfied he was out of danger, she finished fastening the pants, folding the excess material at her side and actually tying the too-long belt in a knot to keep them on her hips.

Kim actually couldn't quite make up her mind what they had to do. They were in the middle of the debris field and while there wasn't anything much to see from the air, that would be the logical center of a search area. That was assuming Wade was still able to track them up to that point. The jamming of their own radar had started with the fighter closed on them. She was still hopeful he was able to read them through the jamming, much as the advanced scanners they had discovered late did. The scanners of the Trinity were able to track it, even thousands of miles away.

Then there was the problem with the Kimmunicators. There was no way to know how large the signal gap was. How long should they wait in this area before an attempt to re-acquire the signal? Wouldn't Ron's suggestion of flying until their comms came back to life actually a wise move?

But what if the fighter wasn't alone?

That brought other troubling questions to mind. How did it know their flight plan? They were hundreds of miles away from commercial routes. Their whole flight plan had only been officially filed with Global Justice, due to a special dispensation from the FAA. That meant there was potentially someone inside the organization betraying them or somehow their communications were being intercepted. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if it just turned out one of their enemies had simply spotted them by chance.

Also troubling was just who was responsible for the attack. The fighter, what they could see of it, was like nothing they had ever seen before. It had a control module near the fore, with the stubby, bat-like wings and a small triangular tail plane. What they didn't see were any kind of air intakes, at least that they could see during the brief glimpses they had of it. That in itself didn't mean anything, since many stealth designs had specially shrouded intakes that reduced their radar signature. However, the apparent lack of air scoops, coupled with the unusual bright white exhaust made them thing the plane was something more than an ordinary jet or rocket.

Kim about had a heart attack when Ron took off his pack and casually took the back casing off. "Ron! Don't mess with that, we may need it to get out of here in a hurry!"

He opened his mouth, very nearly telling her to 'chill' before thinking better of it, given their 'sitch.' How many times before would he have simply blurted it out? "Look, KP, survival supplies!" He held up a small packet that had been concealed by the outer cover. Stamped in black letters over the shiny olive colored plastic wrapper was "Global Justice Emergency Survival Kit."

"Way to go, Ron!" She slipped out of her own pack and found the snap levers holding the outer casing on. Inside the zip top pouch she found a small bottle of water, waterproof matches (too bad there was absolutely nothing to burn for a fire) a folding aluminum handled knife and a roll of something that looked like metallic Mylar. There was also a supply of signal flares, utilizing a stick shaped launcher instead of the more familiar gun. For food there were a trio of commercial brand energy bars.

Ron was considering the exposed internals of his pack. "Think there's a way to connect the power core or our jet packs to our suits if the power runs low?" Ron asked, eying the energy bars like they were a Grande sized Naco.

She considered it, thinking it actually was a good idea if they had no other choice. "I would rather first try flying around like you said earlier and finding a clear signal before risking ruining our packs."

He snapped the cover in place and mulled over the meager supplies he found inside. "I swear, it's like I had better luck when Drakken and I were stuck at the North Pole and all we had was a bin full of his garbage."

Kim smiled and finished the line of thought for him, "…and Drakken's cell phone miraculously had service all the way up there."

Ron opened his mouth as if he was going to speak, then his features screwed up in confusion. "Hey, I didn't even think of that when he was able to reach Sheg…I mean Sherry!"

"I don't think even super-villains get that kind of coverage. Best guess is those cameramen shooting 'X-Treme X-mas' brought some kind of repeater or something with them."

Ron looked at the bulge just below Kim's neck line. "Hey, what if Rufus could rebuild one of our packs into a repeater, then maybe we could boost the signal enough for them to hear us."

"That's actually a good idea, except without a Naked Mole Rat sized super-suit he's going to freeze solid inside of two minutes in this air." She patted the part of his head sticking out of her collar.

"I guess you're right." He said, wandering around, sifting through some of the debris, though there wasn't anything left of the two flyers that wouldn't fit into a cargo pants pocket.

Kim unzipped Rufus a couple inches and checked on him. He was still shivering slightly but his healthy pink color had returned. He chittered a bit and snuggled down deeper. She could have sworn he squeaked "love Kim" before becoming a tiny lump on her upper chest.

She looked at the sky. The sun was now fully up, forcing her to lower the visor of her helmet. At least Ron had the presence to keep his own as well, to keep as much heat from being lost out the top of his head. Off in the distance, the gray clouds looked like they were closer.

If a bad storm caught them out in the open, they would die.

Ron returned to the glider packs and started fiddling with them again. Working with the controls, he managed to extend the wings without igniting the drive. Using his hands, he pushed the wings half way down toward their folded position. How he got them to stay that way, she didn't know. He then jammed the ends of the wings into the snow and ice. Moments later, he did the same thing with Kim's, only six feet away. She watched with growing interest as he spread the Mylar sheets over them, somehow clipping the edges to the outstretched wings. That's when she recognized what the sheets were – survival blankets! The foil-like plastic somehow was able to retain heat.

Amazingly, Ron had come up with a makeshift shelter! Using bits of metal he gathered, he pinned the edges of the crude pup-tent into the ground, then crawled inside and pushed the thin layer of snow away. Finally, he started packing snow around the edges, hoping to keep as much wind as possible out.

Simply stunned, Kim joined in, piling up snow at the two ends, sealing off one of them. Before long they had what looked like an afflicted igloo. She had no idea how much wind it would stand up to, but if it was a simple snow storm, they might just weather it. A good thing, too, since the storm was closer still.

As the sun disappeared into the gray clouds, she climbed into the crude shelter with Ron and started saying her prayers aloud.

Fortunately, there didn't seem to be too much wind. It began with a few gusts, but that died down as a chill fog rolled in. That's when it began to snow in earnest. That mad Kim worry that the 'roof' over their heads wouldn't hold too much in the way of snow.

She needn't have worried, as the snow slowly slid to the bottom, building up there and compacting, creating a thicker and thicker 'wall' around their shelter.

"Ron, I can't get over your mad survival skills. Where in the world did you learn this?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's something I picked up on TV or something."

"I take back what I said about you and cable. Maybe that's the best way to pound something into your head."

Even though the 'floor' was made of ice, they curled up on it, relying on their suits to insulate them as much as possible. They clung close together, keeping their cheeks close since the helmets had no way of covering their faces.

Slowly, the day crept into night. Kim checked the chronometer built into the wrist of her suit. They were close enough to the arctic circle the day was significantly shorter than they were normally used to.

It was, quite literally, going to be a very long night.

Ron jerked awake with the sensation that he had been falling. Disconcerted for a moment he looked around. That didn't help much, since it was pitch black inside their shelter. He tried to check his pockets and realized he no longer had any. Kim was still wearing his pants.

She was quietly snoring a few inches away from him. Carefully he started reaching into the pockets, which wasn't the easiest thing to do since she had to bunch them up so much to even keep them on. Finally his hands closed on the tiny tactical light he kept with him.

Snow had piled up at the entrance. It was cold, but only manageably so. Their body heat had brought the interior temperature up to right at freezing, the material and the snow acting as insulation. Worried, he checked the power meter built into the wrist of his suit. It was still reading an eighty percent charge, slightly up from the reading he had seem before climbing into the shelter. It was working! Carefully, he checked Kim's.

He was shocked when it read only forty five percent.

Her suit wasn't recharging properly. It had dropped thirty percent in just five hours. Much more and she was in danger of hypothermia or worse.

He shook her. "Kim, wake up. Come on, KP, you need to be awake!"

She mumbled slightly, finally sitting up, shielding her sleep addled eyes from the intense blue-white beam of Ron's light reflecting off the shiny insides of their tent.

"Kim, you need to keep moving around or something. You're suit is losing energy." He started rubbing her shoulders, hoping the friction would generate some heat for it to convert."

"Okay, Ron, okay." She said a little testily. "I'll stay awake." She pulled her helmet off for a few moments and rolled her neck. "I'm going to have such a crick in my neck sleeping in this thing anyway."

Despite her protests, Ron kept rubbing her arms and sides. He checked the meter on her suit again. Fifty two percent. It was coming up, slightly. She scratched her head furiously for a moment, then tucked her hair back up into her helmet. At least the thick foam padding inside was a good insulator.

He doused his beam to conserve the battery and went back to rubbing Kim. "I think what you said earlier about my body mass it true. I'm losing heat faster than you simply because there's less of me than you." She admitted in the darkness.

"I don't think it helps we're sitting here in an icebox."

"It's warmer in here than it is outside. That's what counts."

Ron put a finger to her lips. "Did you hear that?" he barely whispered.

"I don't hear anything. I can't even tell if it's still snowing."

"There it is again! I think there's something out there."

"What are you hearing, Ron? I can't hear anything besides your overworked heart."

"What if it's a snow monkey?" he whisper/shrieked.

"Ron, there is no such thing as a snow monkey!" She whisper/shouted back at him. Then she heard the sound herself.

It wasn't like something was crunching around them in the snow. It was more like a hesitant musical note, an almost angelic sound. Then it was gone.

"Okay, so not a monkey." She said in a more normal tone of voice.

"Shh! Here it comes again!"

It was clearer this time, as if it were some slightly discordant note carried on the wind. The sound rose and fell, sometimes clear, sometimes barely discernable.

"This is getting extra-freaky." Kim finally said.

"I think I know that sound." Ron whispered excitedly. "Remember that game I played a couple years ago where I was this little blonde kid in the green outfit who went around on a boat trying to complete a bunch of tasks so he could rescue some pirate girl who turned out to be a princess so he could go up against a wiza…"

"Cliff's notes version, please." She said, rolling her eyes despite the fact he couldn't see her do it.

"Ezmerelda: Galemaker. It's that one I bought the whole GameCylinder for. Every time his little boat got near a treasure or something, it made that sound."

"Okay, still not getting it, but, it's not a sound that a snow storm is supposed to make, now is it?"

"No."

"Well, aren't you the least bit curious why we're getting magical, flying saucer kinds of sounds in the middle of a glacier?"

"KP, I was thinking maybe it wouldn't see our shelter and maybe it would go away on its own."

"Ron!" She hissed.

"Fine." He shot back as he started pushing the snow away from the entrance. A cold blast of air pushed him back as some snow blasted through the hole. He squeezed through, making the hole even wider. All the heat they had pooled inside was lost. They'd have to huddle close, rubbing each other just to build their warmth up again. Kim pulled herself out second, running right into him as he stood in the foot deep snow.

He had stopped right in his tracks.

Floating about ten feet above the ground was a semi-transparent apparition of a short, stout Asian man wearing robes. His head was clean shaven and perched upon his shoulder was a small monkey.

"I told you there was a monkey!" Ron screamed, pointing at the glowing phantom.

Not speaking, the monk-like man held out his hands toward Ron as he drew near them. As he got closer, he realized what he was holding. The sheath was made of dark colored leather, with silken ribbons criss-crossing it's length. The tip of the scabbard was clad in gold, as was the opening at the other end. The grip made Ron's eyes go wide.

Without quite understanding why he was doing it, he reached out and took the sword from the monk. The bald man smiled, fading away into the wind and snow.

Ron was left standing there, holding the softly glowing weapon. Grasping the sheath, he pulled it free. The blade glistened as if it were bathed in full sunlight. The light spread, traveling down his arm, enveloping his whole body, light spreading all around them, illuminating the white shrouded ice all around them.

Slowly the blade grew dim and the sword, plus its scabbard, faded, twinkling around him like pixie dust until that too withdrew into his body.

Kim just stood there, staring at him. Despite the utter lack of light, she could still see him. He wasn't glowing as he had when he held the phantom blade, but she could still see him as if he were in the full light of day. Then it dawned on her.

He wasn't wearing his super suit!

He was standing in front of her, wearing his old dark red jersey, his tan cargo pants and his old sneakers. She saw this and recognized what she saw.

She was seeinghis soul.

Suddenly they were both bathed in light from above. What little moonlight filtered through the snow-clouds was blotted out bay a large shape. The roar of engines reached their ears as the large shape descended toward them. The searchlight winked out and another point of light shone one them as a hatch lowered toward them. Two figures rushed out, both apparently male and slender. Warm blankets were wrapped around them as they were ushered up the ramp. As they reached the top, their eyes adjusted enough to discern their saviors.

It was the Tweebs!

The ramp closed as the X.S.S. Trinity slowly lifted into the air.