Polar Bear

[Cassie Granger 0]

Polar Bear

 

Outside the confines of the shuttle the planet had the same snow-and-ice glare white reminiscent of glaciers, especially those that covered earth's southernmost continent. It was bleak, but that went along with the snow and ice because not much survived on the surface of Rura Penthe. Just for them to survive took specialized Marine recon arctic white camo gear; anything less froze in seconds, became brittle, and crumbled at the slightest touch - not a good idea considering it was the only thing between you and eternity.

 

So it was cold, but that's taken for granted on a frozen ice planet. In the words of the lab rats, the place had "an absence of heat" that sucked whatever heat you had in your body right smack out. But special gear or no, after a certain period of time - say twelve hours give or take - you still got chilly.

 

"Damn, it's cold out here," Souter broke the silence that'd been hanging over them for a while.

 

Souter and Cass had left the relative warmth of the shuttle to check out what appeared to be an opening in the surface: some kind of hatch or small door that appeared once. Passive shuttle sensors picked up what looked like a life sign, but it blinked in and out so fast they couldn't verify. Hence, the recon team. If it was a life sign they figured the hatch might be a tunnel into the penal colony, which sure could help with exfil.

 

That was almost 12 hours ago. Yeah, they were getting chilly.

 

Flicking her gaze across the barren landscape, Cass keyed her comm to reply. "S'matter Montana," she said, pausing to take a reading on an outcrop not far away, "afraid somethin' important's gonna freeze and fall off?"

 

"Eh, I figure everything else'll freeze first and then it won't matter anymore."

 

"Just make sure the trigger finger is the last to go, aight?"

 

Cass shifted her eyes across the horizon. Her visor monitor picked up the motion of her retinas and took readings, then displayed them in a semi-transparent mode on her visor monitor. Handy thing that was.

 

"Trigger finger? Got somethin's more important than that I need to protect."

 

'And if your trigger finger's frozen, then you're dead meat and what good's the other thing gonna do ya?"

 

Cass gave a snort, checked the chrono read on her visor monitor, and got ready to check in with the shuttle just as Souter's comm stopped her short.

 

"Contact."

 

Cass shielded her visor and froze in position. Souter lay directly west of the point they were watching and Cass to the south east. Their arctic whites gave them a lot of cover, but the glare from prevailing sunlight made them more difficult to spot with a simple visual.

 

"Got it. Can you get a read?"

 

"Workin' on it, Boss."

 

From her vantage on a slight rise, Cass watched a section of snow-covered ice rise, an alien head and torso emerge to scan the horizon, then disappear as the section of ice closed. Several minutes passed before Souter called back.

 

"Got a hatch big enough for two, maybe three people." Cass could tell he was thinking. Hard. His Montana backwoods casual tone was gone, his voice deepened, and his speech came out clipped and analytical. "Temperature under the hood varies from positive 20 to positive 30 Celsius, depending on the reading area. Got some images of the alien; we can ID later. It was looking for something and there was another peeking out from behind."

 

They waited in silence several minutes. Cass looked skyward, an eerie feeling that they were being watched triggered by Souter's comment that the alien was 'looking for something.'

 

"That it?" she asked finally.

 

"All she wrote." His tone had shifted to backwoods casual.

 

"Pack it in, Montana." She keyed the shuttle channel. "Bear actual, this is Bear one. Returning to base. ETA 30."