The Will To Live✔️

Chapter 39: Tension

Greg sank into his chair aboard the Pelican the second the back ramp had finished closing, effectively sealing them off from the rest of the world and ensuring their safety. Or, at least, doing so as much as could be done on this godforsaken ball of rock and ice. They hadn't run into anything else on their way back from the lift to the Pelican, and Breaker told them that he hadn't seen anything lurking around out there while they'd been gone.

"Now what?" Ellis asked.

"Gimme a minute," Greg replied. He took a deep breath, let it out, then activated his radio. "Gibson, this is Walker. We got the data."

The reply was immediate. "Thank Christ. Send it to me right now." Greg nodded to Izzy, who began the process of uploading to the secure link.

"On its way."

"Good. I'm forwarding your pilot some new coordinates. Get there as fast as you can."

"Understood. Breaker?" he asked.

The man was already dialed into the team net. "On it," he replied from the cockpit, and Greg heard the engines surge to life.

"Where are we going? What are we doing?" Greg asked.

"With this data, we can track the Proto-Gravemind. I hope. Did it look legit?"

"It seemed to be legitimate, but I'm not expert in that field and I didn't have a lot of time," Turner said.

"Good enough, I guess. We have contingencies in place in case this falls through, already in effect, but honestly this needs to work or we'll mostly all die. But anyway, enough doom and gloom. The good news is that we've managed to track down three power scanning arrays that should be sufficient for what we need. In short: we bring them online and reconfigure them based on both the weather data and the Flood-tracking data, and they should point us to the Proto-Gravemind. After that, we blow it to hell. Problem solved. The location I'm giving you is the nearest array. I've got two other teams already scrambling to secure the other pair of arrays. Once you get on the ground, secure it, and ensure it's brought online, let me know. I've got techs here customizing the specific scanning parameters and it should be ready by the time you get done."

"Understood. Breaker, how long?"

They were now taking off, leaving the desolate rig behind.

"Flight time looks like thirty minutes."

Greg glanced at the countdown clock in his HUD. They were now down to just around nineteen hours. Great.

"By the way, did anyone from the first team make it? Or from the rig itself?" Gibson asked.

"One man survived from the team. Lance Corporal Baranov. He's alive and well and willing to join the fight. And...while we confirmed that no one was alive on the surface of the rig or in the waters around it, we didn't have time to confirm whether or not there were any survivors of the original staff at the rig. Although I severely doubt anyone made it."

"Understood. Well...good luck out there."

"You too."

The link was cut and Greg settled back into his chair, hoping to catch a nap.

Before he knew it, he'd drifted off.

* * *

"Five minutes out."

Greg came awake with a start. He straightened up and looked around, taking in the interior of the Pelican with a quick sweep of his gaze, prepared to open his eyes to a world of flames, of screaming, bloody people and gunfire.