Icy Demeanor

The shock hit her much more quickly than the cold had. While the latter was more of a slow burn, gently taking her hand and leading her into the freezing waters until her nose was stinging and her feet numb, the former had bowled her over like a train, leaving her shaking, breathless and doubled over. The victim’s vision swam. 

Not four yards away lay a body cloaked in neon orange and white, motionless in the snow. The name tag identifying the figure simply as “Captain” was peeling off at the corner and flapping desperately in the wind. The victim reached out to the hidden spot of color, but even the very movement rendered her temporarily unconscious. Tears froze on her pink cheeks. 

The enemy stood over her, a man, six feet, eyes like a wild beast who had been backed into a corner. His elongated shadow cast their bodies in darkness as he neared. 

He was in the middle of saying something as she came to, his voice crackling over the radio. 

“--you know the calculations as well as I do. It could take months for the rescue team to reach us, and our base isn’t stocked enough for all of us--” 

“Where are the others?” she croaked, managing to lift her head. “What did you do?!” 

The enemy frowned. “They’re safe in the cryopods. Don’t worry, I took care to put them there unharmed. They’ll wake up in three years in the embrace of the mothership, alive and well.” 

A fresh assault of snow and blistering wind engulfed them in white, and the static on the radio blocked out his voice for a moment. The victim looked at her vitals, displayed on a screen on her suit. She didn’t have long before she’d freeze to death. 

She coughed harshly, the spasm sending a pump of warm blood through her veins. “Don’t lie to me,” she yelled at him. “I know the cryopods aren’t equipped to be sustainable for that long. What really happened?”

When the wind died, he was standing over her. He knelt down, the gun resting on his thigh. 

“My dear,” he said, cupping her chin in his gloved hand. “Take the lie. It is preferable to the truth.” 

A wave of revulsion coursed through her. She had loved this man, once. Now his very presence made her sick. How far would he go to ensure his own survival? How far would he go after he had? She turned away from him, panting. 

Better do something quick, she told herself. The frostbite had already taken her fingertips and her nose, and was slowly creeping up her skin. She looked at her Captain, immobile in the snow bank, probably dead. Rage twisted in her stomach. It was all her fault, if the Captain hadn’t had chosen this doomed-to-fail mission, if she hadn’t insisted the victim had come, they would all still be safe at home in their warm beds. They would all still be alive. She would still be married in blissful ignorance of what he was truly capable of. 

The enemy sighed at her defiance and stood up. She refused to look at him, instead fixating on a point in the snow-- 

A glimpse of silver caught her eye. There, only a few feet away, lay the Captain’s unused flare. If she could only get to it… 

“You’re going to eat them, aren’t you?” she spat, slowly shifting her position. 

He fixed her with a look. “I don’t think I’m ready to bite into human flesh just yet, but once the rations run out… well, I’m prepared to do whatever is necessary.” 

Fifty mile an hour icy wind overcame them both, and she used the opportunity to roll with it, closer and closer to the flare gun. 

“We could have worked together!” she shouted, keeping him too occupied to notice where she was headed. The wind picked up speed. “We could have figured out a way to survive!” 

The enemy’s sigh over the radio was only a surge of static, but she was long accustomed to the sound. “I tried, darling. I did. But there simply isn’t enough supplies to--” 

From the cliffs above them, snow slid down in a massive front, crashing down a little ways out from them. A booming crack, like thunder, echoed across the barren tundra, and they were again covered in snow too thick to see through. 

The victim pushed herself as quickly as possible towards the flare, mere inches away. Small particles of ice ripped her face. Air was knocked out of her lungs. One of her hands didn’t move when she told it too. 

Don’t have long… don’t have long… don’t have long… 

In the back of her mind she wondered if it was all for naught, if her struggle was pointless, if he was going to win anyway, and she should just wait for the ice to crack and the frozen river beneath them to swallow her whole. 

“It’s no use!” the enemy’s voice over the radio ruptured through the static. “Just give up now, I promise I’ll make it quick!” 

She didn’t look for him, though she knew he was close, only focused on the flare gun. With a final burst of energy, she lunged forward and her fingers wrapped around the ice cold metal-- 

Suddenly, he was there, and he struck her across the face with his gun. Blood sprayed from her cheek as she screamed, reared back, and shoved at him with all her might. 

She caught him off-balanced, and he stumbled away from her, momentum and wind knocking him to his knees. 

The enemy growled audibly over the radiowaves and raised his gun. She shook silently, still holding the flare, but she could only see double. Two glints of light flashed off the steel of two guns, and she had no target, nothing to aim at, no plan, and all the while she was fumbling, his finger was inching towards the trigger-- 

“Wait!” she screamed. He hesitated. “Stop!-- I’m pregnant!” 

She barely registered the flicker of surprise on his face, his moment of conflict, the gun dropping slightly in his grip; meanwhile, she was lifting hers and blinking rapidly--curse her vision!--and within a single instant, she had fired toward the one thing standing between her and life. Light illuminated the ice, casting away his shadow. 

The beam hurtled toward him, and he, realizing all too late he had been tricked, threw his arms up and shielded his face in terror. But the flare landed a few inches short and burned for a solid second on the ice, and then it was gone again. 

She exhaled shakily. She would have to run. She prepared herself. 

The enemy lowered his arms. 

“Ha!” he laughed incredulously, his voice a breathy thing over the radio. “You missed.” 

She stood. The dent where the flare had burned shifted the tiniest bit, a single hairline crack extending from the middle. 

“You missed,” he said triumphantly, standing as well, and raising his gun. “You always were a poor shot.” 

Her knees shook and she stumbled, but she managed to place one foot in front of the other, limping weakly across the ice. 

“And now, dear wife.” The enemy’s smile was cruel, victorious, and all too ignorant. The hairline crack deepend and split. “You shall become victim to the Arctic, and I will live to see the green grass of Earth again. Don’t worry, I’ll remember you fondly.” 

She fixed her eyes not on him, not on the gun, but on the base in the background, a blur of darkness against the snow. She gathered her energy. 

“I’m not the victim,” she said. Now the cracks had reached his feet. He looked down, sudden realization hitting him.

He cursed and stumbled back, but the fractures were spreading too deeply and too fast now for him to escape. “No--” 

“I am the hero.” 

She did not watch him, did not see the fear in his eyes, only started toward the base, moving faster and faster and further and further away from where he stood frozen in panic. 

With a great heave, the ice split, and he fell through with a final shriek of defeat. 

“And I want a divorce.”