"What do you think is taking them so long?" Renner asked Igneous, who turned to the ship and sighed.
"It's a big ship, and they've got to fight a bunch of Russian spec ops, probably." He said it jokingly, but inside he realized that, considering their luck, they were. The ship rose above them like a talon out of the ocean, like some massive creature wanted to rip the zodiac under the waves and drag them to the lair of the mecha-kraken. Igneous kept up the happy face, but as the sun started to rise, and the ice sparkled more and more, the frost around them seemed less like gems, and more like an icy tomb.
"Do you hear something?" Renner looked around, and Igneous listened carefully. Then he heard it, a small beeping sound, echo across the frozen waters, and he raised his rifle. Then more noise came in the form of gunfire above them near the flight deck. Before they could turn their attention, the beeping grew louder.
"Is that-"
"Coming from beneath us?" They peeked down and the ice around the ship started to glow red.
"Explosives?" Renner guessed calmly, and suddenly the ice blew skyward like a geyser.
"Yea, explosives." Igneous nodded, then dropped his rifle, and grabbed the minigun at the head of the boat. He turned towards the ship, and the ice breaking beneath it. Another explosive went off and the whole ship lurched sideways. Out of the corner of his eye Igneous saw a pair of body's come off the top deck, and fall straight towards the shattering ocean. Igneous recognized one of them easily, and he called out with no a second thought.
"Gneiss, no!"
Gneiss- US Special Forces deployment, STORM
A few minutes prior, I had just stepped into the mess hall, and taken a bullet to the chest. I'd only ever been winged in the arm, or taken a small caliber to non-vital areas, but this was different. The round had cut past under my armor, and dug into my abdomen. Ridge and Marble had dropped at least two dozen soldiers before I'd managed to get my head straight. Then the pain hit, and I bit down onto my tongue to avoid screaming.
"Gneiss!" Ridge kneeled over me and looked at my wound.
"God damn, that hurts." I tried to sit up, and ended back on the ground.
"We've got to get back to the Ford." Ridge slung my arm over his shoulder and Marble covered him as he kicked open a door. My own weight bearing down was pressing my side against Ridge, and each step sent me another jolt of pain. I was just managing to focus when Ridge reached towards the hatch containing the stairwell down. Then suddenly it exploded, and we were thrown back into the adjacent wall.
"Can we stop knocking Gneiss over on his ass, please!" I shouted, and dragged myself to my feet.
"Gneiss, be careful." Ridge stood himself up and reached to hold me.
"No, I'm okay, we're too vulnerable if you're worrying about me. We can't go down here, so we've got to go up." I changed the subject, and Ridge stared at me for a moment. Then nodded.
"Up it is, Marble, keep an eye on our six." He didn't wait another second. He knocked open a hatch upwards, and I scrambled after him. Marble went back-to-back, and helped push me up the stairs. We rounded a corner at the top, and I pulled up my rifle. A number of soldiers were taking position ahead of us, and Ridge and I opened fire. He dropped two, and I dropped three more. Then he moved forward. Moving on my own helped my balance, but the pain was making it difficult to breath. We turned down another hallway, and a small metal orb rolled past me into a closed room. If the grenade had been thrown a few feet shorter I'd have died, but instead the shock only knocked me against the wall. I shook my head, and shot the soldier who'd thrown it, then Ridge hit an advancing man across the face with the butt of his gun. Marble fired two shots into him, and we moved onward. Ridge opened another hatch, and we were climbing the last set of stairs. Marble pushed her back against mine again, and I muttered a thanks for her assistance.
"Are you okay?" Marble asked, while Ridge disappeared over the peak of the ladder to the flightdeck.
"It's not my first time being shot." I grit my teeth and pulled myself into the sunlight. The cold felt good on my wound, and I wanted to take a moment for a deep breath, but I wasn't so fortunate.
I had no time to think. Ridge was already under fire, and I immediately dropped to my knees behind a pile of aircraft tires. Marble stayed in the door, and opened fire. I raised my rifle, and dropped two Russians who were trying to cross the open air strip. Then I tossed a grenade which blew a piece of cover to smithereens. the heat of the bullets made visible streaks of condensation as they flared past through the icy air. I felt warm heat running down my hip, and chose not to look at what I knew would be a blood trail.
Instead I looked up, and spotted a Russian soldier running towards Ridge, and time seemed to slow. My CO was reloading, and Marble was turned away trying to handle a second wave coming out of the control tower. I tried to fire, but my gun jammed. The soldier took aim, and, on reflex, I sprang forward. I made it a few feet and collapsed, but managed to wrap my arms around his knees. He toppled to the side, and I couldn't tell if it was my spinning head or reality, but the whole ship seemed to shift with him.
"Something broke the ice!" Ridge hollered, and the ship shifted again. I realized that the tilting wasn't imagined, but it was the ship sinking.
"Ridge, get that guy off of Gneiss!" Marble seemed to order him, and I heard him coming toward me. The soldier kicked me, and his boot connected with my lower chest, causing another burst of pain from my wound. Ridge was feet away, so I fought harder. I caught his second kick, but then the ship lurched again. The icy metal landing strip had no traction, and I felt us sliding. I was too busy grabbing at his flailing limbs, however, to see that we slid right to the edge. Though I did notice once we were falling towards the ice below us. I could hear someone scream my name, and then I heard what sounded like a tree shattering in high winds and crashing to the ground. The ice beneath us emitted the sound as it tore in two, opening a path right into the freezing waters.
The impact was nearly as bad as falling off the Golden Gate, but the freezing sensation that immediately overtook my limbs was far worse. On the bright side, my bullet wound went numb just as quickly as my fingertips. The Russian flailed and kicked, but with the revitalizing sting of the cold, and the lack of pain in my abdomen, I had gained a second wind. He lunged towards me, but I grabbed his wrist as quick as I could. I reached out, grabbed the knife from his own vest, and plunged it into his neck. He pushed me away, and started grabbing at his neck. I lost sight of his face as the dark cloud of blood rose up around him. It was good he didn't see what came next.
The dark shape was moving like a jet through the water, and I spotted it behind him. I kicked down, and started to rise, but the Russian had no idea what was coming. I'd heard Marble mention that Arctic Seals were territorial, but I hadn't expected them to be so ferocious. The creature opened its jaws, and ensnared the struggling man. I could see the dark cloud get wider as the beast shook him to and fro. Then it pushed him aside, and turned to me. I pulled out my own knife, but the seal's nose flared, and it turned abruptly. I spotted another dark shape, and the ocean mammal disappeared back to the depths. I didn't take time to watch the other shape, but I swear to this day I spotted a tentacle come off the shadow, and grab the limp corpse of the soldier.
I exploded out of the ocean, and scrambled to find a grip on the cold ice. The air seemed to have dropped ten degrees from when I'd fallen in, and the wind was suddenly biting. I could see two boats pulling away in either direction, and I tried to speak, but no noise came. My stomach seemed to convulse, and I looked down at the red puddle forming beneath me. Knowing I had no time, I pulled out my pistol, and fired four rounds directly upward. Before I could see or hear a response, the cold inched it's way to my brain, and I collapsed onto the bloody ice.