White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Boss? We're iced in!"

I want nothing more than to pull my sleeping bag over my head and make it all go away. I turn my face into my pillow. "Fuck."

And then I'm up and speed-dressing, because it's cold as our shower in here and I didn't mean to oversleep. I usually wake up long before this.

Krüger is in the common room, his face grim. With the low-level lighting, thick ice on the windows, and already-pitiful sunrise outside, the space feels more like a cave than anything. I move to the nearest window to try to assess the extent of our predicament. The ice coating the station is at least an inch thick.

"Did you check the greenhouse windows?"

"It's all over the Pod. There's snow riding up the sides, too."

Mahaha has sealed over the station, a first step before burial if I ever saw one. This is happening. And no amount of anticipating it is going to make it any better.

The ice distorts the view outside, but I can just make out the squiggly outlines of snow hills around us. We're not on the highest ground anymore. But we're not sunk yet. If we play this right, we might get one more move in before the Pod goes down, giving us another week or so to prepare. That will keep strain off the internal systems, too. It could save our lives if we don't resurface for the next few months; the tech I had installed is state-of-the-art, but the station it services isn't. I just hope to god this new carapace doesn't make the station too heavy for Samson to move. I hope we can even get to Samson to move it.

"Get the defroster and start on the airlock door," I say. "We're going to need someone inside so it doesn't ice up on us again while we're out; I doubt we'll be able to melt it open again from outside." I take a breath and call up the hallway, "Liu?"

She appears from her room, her face pale and peaked.

"Has Kwon shown you how to use the snow guns and open the garage door?"

She nods.

"Good. I want you on that when we go out. I'm taking Kwon with me."

"What?" says Krüger.

"There's equipment out there that can take a shot from a heat cannon, and equipment that can't. She knows the difference. I need you in the airlock."

His stormy look tells me he thinks there's more to my reasoning, and he's absolutely right. But another fight is the last thing I need right now. I give him a pointed look, and he stalks off to the entryway.

Kwon is not as experienced with working outdoors in extreme environments as Krüger is, but she's done enough to know the ropes. We help each other suit up, then join Krüger in the airlock as he gives the defroster a last sweep around the exterior door. He and Kwon shoulder-check it together, and it pops open. The wind outside pauses. It stays paused as Kwon and I navigate the knee-deep fringes of the drifts to the back of the Pod.

The snow guns at least are still working. Liu blasts away a good chunk of the drifts blocking the garage door, revealing that the door itself is frozen shut. I scale the Pod's ice shell and get to work. Kwon alternately directs me around heat-sensitive panels and wires, and keeps an eye on the shifting snow.

I pull back with a surge of relief when the garage door finally moves. It breaks the last of the ice on its own and thumps open. Kwon goes in and starts Samson's engines. She backs down the ramp as I jump down from the Pod's side, just in time to see the snow rear behind the vehicle.

"Dea, look out!"

Samson pitches forwards as the ground beneath it gives way. Snow lunges for my teammate. It moves like a water wave loaded with ice, and both vanish under the surge.