The Citadel Read Free Page A

wings was a powerful aircraft, and Vannet felt confident in its abilities. Bracketed over the plane's pontoons were sets of skis that allowed them to negotiate the 2,000 meters of relatively level ice and snow that these people called a runway. He would be damn glad to never see this place again.

"Closing the ramp," the loadmaster announced in Vannet's headset. In the rear of the plane the back ramp lifted from the thin, powdery snow as hydraulic arms pulled it up. Descending from the top of the cargo bay came the top section of the ramp. Like jaws closing, the two shut against the swirling frozen air outside. The heaters fought a losing battle against the cold as they pumped hot air out of pipes in the ceiling of the cargo bay, ten feet overhead.

Vannet turned to Captain Whitaker. "We're all set, sir."

Whitaker simply nodded and clambered down the steps to take his seat in the rear.

"Let's do it," Vannet told the copilot. Carefully, they turned the nose straight on line, due south. As Vannet increased throttle, the plane moved, slowly gathering momentum as the propellers and skis threw up a plume of snow behind.

Vannet waited until he was satisfied they had enough speed, and then pulled in the yoke. The nose of the MARS lifted, and the plane crawled into the air. Once he reached sufficient altitude to clear the mountains, Vannet banked hard right and headed west. In the distance, out the right window, the ice pack that hugged the shore of Antarctica could be seen as a tumbled mass of broken sea ice that extended to the horizon.

Vannet turned the controls over to his copilot. Four hours and they'd be at High Jump Station, the temporary sprawling base established under the auspices of exploring Antarctica; they would refuel, and then he and his crew and passengers could begin the long stop-filled flight back to their home base in Hawaii. After four months down here they were more than ready to see loved ones and bask in the sun.

The whole mission had turned strange after the initial order to support Operation High Jump, a massive exploration of Antarctica by the military. Almost their entire squadron had received the tasking and deployed south. But on arrival at High Jump Station, a cluster of Quonset huts set next to another ice runway on the shore of a large ice-covered bay, their plane had been detached from the others and given this strange mission to support Captain Whitaker and the Citadel. They'd been warned, in no uncertain terms, that they were not to discuss the mission with anyone.

"I've got the beacon clear," the copilot informed Vannet.

As long as they kept the needle on the direction finder centered, they'd come in right on top of High Jump Station. That was another odd thing. They'd flown every mission on instruments in both directions, never once using a map, not that there were any maps available. As any good pilot would, Vannet had a rough idea where the Citadel was located, using both flight time and azimuth, but he certainly couldn't pinpoint it, and if it weren't for the radio beacons, they could easily become lost.

Satisfied all was going well, he kicked back in his chair to take a quick nap. He was going to need the rest since he was the primary pilot for the longer ten-hour leg from High Jump Station to New Zealand.

Three hours later he was awakened by the copilot. He could feel the plane descending, and looking out of the cockpit, saw the cluster of huts and tents and mounds of supplies that was the land-based hub of the Antarctic High Jump Expedition. Out the right window he could see the massive form of Mount Erebus, an active volcano dominating the horizon. Below lay the Ross Ice Shelf, the edge more than five hundred miles from its origin at the foot of the Queen Maud Mountains.

The copilot swung them around on approach. As soon as the skis touched the ice runway, he reduced throttle and used the flaps to break the plane. It was a long slow process as they slid down the strip, and Vannet