Mission Failure

Sam woke up in a cold sweat. Although, that wasn’t any surprise to him. He sat himself up, staring at the wall of his tent, flapping in the Antarctic wind. He took a few deep, icy breaths before getting his gear on and leaving the tent. His tent was one of 30 others, all strapped to the ice and surrounding a few small, snow-covered buildings: the weather station, the mess hall, and a lab. The thermometer he had on the outside of his tent read -27 ° F. Wading through the freshly fallen snow, he entered the mess hall, grabbed a plate of food, and sat down. He poked at his food, lost in thought. His family, people he hadn’t seen in months, come to mind. His fork stopped moving for a moment as he thought about his daughter and his wife and his nice little home just a walk from the city and his work. He had the life he always wanted, but he had to leave so often to maintain it. Once a Marine in the Army, he fell victim to the interest he had in danger and excitement once more with the business of ice coring. The wonders of simply digging up a block of ice to uncover ancient secrets of the Earth and how its changed over time. He misses his family, but he knows he will get to see them in a couple of weeks, so he doesn’t stress over it. A familiar figure broke through his thoughts, Sam waving back to the other man.

         “Hey Greg.” Sam said, moving over on the bench to let Greg have a seat.

         “Hey.” Greg replied. “You’re more silent than usual, thinking about home?”

Sam nodded.

         The eerie feeling of anticipation had made its way across the room to Sam, feeling anxiety for the mission they were assigned today. Being multitudes more dangerous than what they had before, nobody felt prepared. Their goal was to drive 10 miles out in vehicles made for the Antarctic terrain to drill ice cores in one of the most unstable sections of ice. Sam tried to convince himself that his past successes would help him through this mission, but it wasn’t enough to get his hands to stop shaking.

         Sam finished his meal and got up without a word, agitating Greg, but Greg knew better than to say anything. Sam once again trudged through the snow over to the weather station. He grabbed his bag from a hook on the wall and checked the sensors. A small storm showed up on the radar, but the people in the weather station didn’t seem bothered by it.

“You think that’ll be a problem?” Sam asked.

“Nah, that’ll likely dissipate before it gets to ya. But we’ll keep an eye on it anyway.” Harley said without turning around. Jack paid no attention to Sam, but he didn’t mind. That was just typical Jack.

Sam nodded and thanked them before leaving the weather station. He brushed the snow off his snow car and unlatched it from the weather station. Greg was already prepared for the mission, leaning on the side of his car, smoking a cigarette. He flicked ash onto the ground as Sam walked over. Sam held his fist out to Greg. With unusually low energy, they tapped fists before getting into their respective vehicles. About ten minutes later, they departed.

         Even on the terminals in the cars, there wasn’t much conversation, just the occasional direction. For hours, silence fell over the team as images of home and family danced in their heads. That is, until, someone said “We’re here.”

         Unpacking the drills they would be extracting the ice with and getting the carrying containers ready was simple enough, but they had to be incredibly precise as to not cause the ice below them to shatter. Everyone held their breath as the ice began to drill. The ground shook a little below them and someone pointed at the base of the drill.

         “Break!”

         Terrified, everyone backed away from the crack that was forming slowly in the ice, its deathly fingers reaching beyond the vehicles. Terror erupted in the group, but they dared not to move as the slightest motion may cause everything to fall apart. Just as it had started, the cracking ceased, and the ice core began to emerge from a new hole in the ground. Carefully, it was retrieved and stored. It must have been the adrenaline, but someone began to laugh. As if they were possessed, they fell to the ice, clutching their stomach, unable to stop laughing amidst a silent crowd.

         The crew slowly calmed down as they continued extracting ice. The ground below them remained stable until the last core was extracted and everyone began to cheer. This had been one of the most incredible successes they had ever seen. They hugged one another and spoke of the discoveries they may have uncovered, their worries dissipated until a finger was raised to the sky.

         “I thought the weather team said the storm was small, Sam.” Hans said, turning to Sam.

         Sam hesitated. “Well, yeah, that is what they told me.” Everyone quickly got to their vehicles where Sam found that the weather station had sent a voice message: “The storm is going to be much worse than we thought. Evacuate Immediately! I repeat! Evacuate immediately!” Before fading into static. Leaving behind some of the tools to allow the cars to go faster, they left the site as quickly as possible.

         The storm was too vast for them to avoid in time, so they decided to go straight through. This was a mistake. The storm quickly became violent as cascades of snow threatened to smother the vehicles and wind tried to push them off course. Even with this, they were fine until the first vehicle stopped working. Everyone came to a halt to wait for the car to start up, but it was no use. The storm made it cold enough that the fuel had frozen. Speaking over the terminals, they pondered waiting for the storm to pass so the fuel could heat back up, but it could take days and they weren’t prepared to stay out that long.

         A crew member tried to get out of his vehicle to help, but the wind slammed him into the side of the car. He was out cold. This man was only the first of the crew to be picked off by the storm, some meeting his same fate, others unable to handle the cold. As each vehicle lost mobility, the crew lost more people and more hope. Eventually, they had to try to make it on foot.

They were silent as they walked, the sheer will of survival pushing them to get back to camp. But at this point, they didn’t even know if they were heading in the right direction. The storm pushed back on them, making travel nearly impossible. The feeling of loss would have been enough to stop them in their tracks. But they kept going, until they couldn’t. Sam had since lost feeling in his legs and his breaths became labored. Though he was wearing clothes to keep him from getting too cold, they weren’t made for temperatures like this. But he blocked out everything, just wanting to get back to camp so he could go home. So he could see his family again and never do one of these missions again. After Greg eventually fell too, he even promised that he’d never travel again, settling and getting a boring job sounded great. Then, he spotted something on the horizon: a light. Following that beacon of hope, Sam stumbled upon one of the buildings. Miraculously, Sam made it back to the camp. But he was alone.

         He made it into the mess hall, dug through the layer of snow covering the door, and fell to the floor. Everything hit him all at once. His crew. They were all gone. He didn’t know how to react or what to do, so he laid motionless. He didn’t realize that he had fallen asleep until he woke up, still on the floor.

         “Hello?” he called out into the empty hall. No one replied. He hoped it was just a bad dream.

         He stood up and left the hall to survey the damages of the storm. Most of the tents had blown away from the wind or had been buried under the snow. There was debris emerging from the ice all around him. He made his way to the weather station, the door under feet of snow. He began to dig out the door, hearing people banging on it. He eventually dug deep enough, sliding into the hole he made, telling the people inside to back away from the door. Sam slammed on it over and over, but it wouldn’t open.

“Hey, Harley!?” Sam yelled through the door. “Find something that can heat up this door, it’s frozen shut!”

He didn’t hear a reply, but he heard heavy footsteps and crashing noises.

“All we have are some matches! I don’t think it’ll be enough!” Harley eventually replied.

“Just burn some papers!” Sam called back.

He heard hesitant footprints and heard a faint crackling sound. A little later, the door swung open, releasing a plume of smoke. Harley and Jack came out of the building, coughing and wheezing. Sam slid the burning papers onto the snow where they sizzled, melting the snow below them.

         Stumbling over to the communications center, he sat himself down at the chair and attempted contact.

         “Mayday, mayday, this is Tundra five. We have mission failure.” He spoke into the console.

         Static.

         “I said mayday, mayday, this is Tundra five, please come in.” His voice began to crack.

         Static.

         “Please come in, anyone.”

         On the roof the satellites that once broadcasted messages to HQ was hanging from the side of the building. Jack walked back into the room, shaking his head. He knew the terminal wouldn’t work.

         “Is it just you?” Jack asked.

         Sam looked at the floor. Jack covered his face with his hands and fell to his knees. Even though they were together, the feeling of isolation began to sink its teeth into them.

Months passed, but Sam didn’t care anymore. He put on some gear and slid out of his tent, into the lab. Circling around a table, he took out the picture of Greg. He started to have small chats with it a while ago, but even this wouldn’t help to slow his dissent. Perhaps, it even sped it up.

“What?” He asked, looking at the picture, annoyed.

“Yeah, I talked to Rich this morning. He said the data was good! Yeah, the stuff we got is important and life changing. I told you!” Sam said to the picture. He let his arm with the picture drop as he continued to shuffle around the room.

“Hey…” Harley said from the corner of the room.

Sam whipped his head around to Harley, Jack right behind him. They held a food kit from the mess hall, but he didn’t want it.

“You.” Sam replied.

“Yeah, it’s us Sam…” Jack said.

“It’s all YOUR FAULT!” Sam yelled, charging at Harley and Jack.

They backed away, hoping that enough of Sam was left to rationalize the situation.

“We didn’t do anything wrong. The storm was a class D when you checked on it. The winds would have broken it up, but they shifted at the last moment and the storm grew!” Harley said, holding his hands up defensively.

This stopped Sam for a moment. But only a moment. He dove towards Jack, wrapping his hands around his neck.

“You’ll pay for what you’ve done! You’ll pay!” Sam yelled.

“Stop! Please! You’re hurting him!” Harley cried while trying to rip Sam off Jack. He saw a piece of lab equipment, a long metal pipe, and grabbed it. It took 5 bludgeons, but Sam was on the floor and Jack was gasping for air. Harley pulled Jack out of the room, trying to catch his breath as well, before slamming the door shut.

Sam hadn’t eaten in days. His face was flushed, his body thin and twisted. He would argue that he is alright, but there’s no denying the damage that has been done. Once he regained consciousness, he left the lab and went to the mess hall. Sitting down at one of the tables, he used an empty bottle to prop up the picture next to him. He stared at it for a while. Then, he decided to finally break the silence that had slowly been breaking him.

“You’ve been silent for a while. Thinking about home?” Sam said.