Time/Date Stamp Error
Night, Winter
Core Voltage Fluctuation
All Systems Online 58%+
GPS ERROR
Landmark Navigation System Online
Alfenwehr, West Germany

As soon as we got outside I shook my head.

"Yeah, this was a good idea," I mumbled to myself, the cotton inside of the extreme cold weather mask rubbing against my lips.

It was dark as hell, the snow being driven against us by the shrieking wind. Somewhere off in the distance I heard metal tear with a long forlorn sound. I pushed the noise and my imagination away and checked my compass. It was cold enough that if I didn't keep it against my skin the liquid inside the chamber would freeze up, but right now I could read it.

We needed to head south-west and up. About a half mile trek that took us up about three hundred feet. I'm sure it didn't sound like much, but that two hundred feet, during air pressure gradients, could be the difference

I tugged on the 550 cord connecting me to Little-Bit and felt her tug back.

This wasn't going to be easy. We'd checked three pairs of NVG's, not a single one had worked.

I should have destroyed the sensitive data, but to be honest, most of it had been destroyed when the FSB had gone cannibal. To top it off, if we died there, the result would be even worse. If we relocated, I could do periodic checks, if we died, nobody would be there.

Plus, I was willing to bet the building, and the mountain, would defend those documents to use them as bait to draw in more victims.

Step, shake, step, shake.

You had to shake the snow off of your snow shoes or the buildup would tire you out extremely quick. It was rough on the ankles if you weren't practiced, and it made my left knee and thigh ache every time I time I did it. It would be worse if I didn't do it, the weight increasing with each step until I'd be flat on my face dreaming I was somewhere warm.

The cold wind was worse. Pinching, tugging, prying at me with razor sharp claws. My eyeballs hurt and I knew I was getting frost around them as they watered defensively. The mustache I'd grown for some stupid reason was icing up under the cold weather mask and each breath made my lungs ache. I wanted to pant, but knew it was the thin air. Each step was torture on my left leg, the bone still tender, but I kept going.

Past the motorpool. Past the access road. Into the woods. Steer around the treetops so I didn't hit thin snow and plunge to my death. Thin snow would break through, sending me plummeting down, bouncing off frozen branches with bone snapping organ rupturing force, leaving me dead and frozen at the base of the tree. Come spring, when the tree woke up, I'd be thawed out and rotting, providing it with vital nutrients.

Alfenwehr hated the living.

I kept cracking glowsticks, moving between the trees. They were older here, higher, half the trunk sticking out of the snow. Pine trees for the most part, with ice covered needles. In a cold way it was beautiful.

Deadly, but beautiful.

Little-Bit was behind me. Every time I checked back she was moving at high ready, the big XM-82A3 held tightly, ready to fire. It was already coated in frost, same as her, both of our OD Green cold weather gear coated in snow and frost and turned white.

We were halfway through the forest, if I was right. The sloped ridge was only a few dozen meters away, rising quickly to the edge of the glacier. I couldn't see it, but I knew it was there. In front of us would be the cliff face. Two hundred feet straight up, winding along the SW face of the mountain for half a mile.

That was our target.

Had to make it to the...

The lizard slapped the button and everything slowed down as my perceptions widened.

If it hadn't been for him, the wolf would have caught me flat. As it was, I only had a split second warning.

My brain ran the decision trees and I let the rifle fall on its sling, the bayonet on my LBE sliding into my hand as I pivoted.

It was bunching, ready to launch itself. Younger, but still massive. Two-fifty, three hundred pounds, probably shoulder high on an average man. Massive jaws, ice clotted ruffled black and gray fur, red eyes my brain insisted were glowing.

The snow shoes slowed me down, but gave me a slight advantage.

The wolf's leap depended on me standing still or falling back. Jaws open, hind legs coming up to the belly to rake mine, front paws extended to slam me onto my back. He was young, and had jumped early. An older one, a cannier one, would have come in fast and silent and hit the back of whatever leg was behind me, tearing at the tendons of the knee or ankle. He didn't, he depended on the leap.

He was wide open.

I got two steps before I raised up to my full height, slamming my left shoulder into its body just behind its left leg.

We went down in a flurry.

The wolf, no, the warg was trying to claw away from me, but my left arm was looped around the upper part of its front left leg, my legs kicking at his, aiming for the knee as he suddenly realized I was the ultimate predator in this situation.

The bayonet crunched every time it went home, and blood spattered the snow every time I yanked the blade free, gleaming in the air as it went from liquid to frozen during the arc. Two of the wounds were arterial sprays that turned into black frost in the air.

The warg was howling now, trying to get loose. I knew he'd come back around on another pass. Little-Bit was down on one knee, the XM-82A3 .50 caliber anti-material rifle aimed at me and the warg.

The lizard hissed at it, tried to warn me, but my blood was up.

"I'M THE ATLAS ANT AND YOU'VE GOT NOTHING!" I bellowed out, kicking down his body as he tried to roll and shake me off.

The lizard saw its chance and took it, altering my aim.

The edge of my boot scraped down its stomach, the inside edge of the arch of my boot slamming into the front of his penis sheath with all my power.

The warg's scream sounded like a woman behind stabbed.

It was trying to get away now, brutalized to the point it would lair up and heal or die.

Like too many people and creatures before him, he just wanted to be somewhere that a psycho with a knife wasn't.

We rolled again, and it was above me. It snapped at my face.

I carved its lower lip, snapping several teeth, and when the bayonet hit the joint of its jaw I gave a savage twist, feeling the tendons in my wrist burn.

"I'VE GOT IT, TONY!" Little-Bit yelled.

I realized what she was about to do right before she did it.

"NO!" I held out the bayonet toward her.

The warg lunged, trying to get away.

Little-Bit pulled the trigger.

The front of the warg's skull splashed away from me. The impact whipped it around, and the blood was thick enough that some of it was still warm enough to melt the snow when it hit.

The roar of the .50 caliber rifle, louder than a jet engine in one sharp burst, echoed.

She looked at me.

I heard it.

The crack of ice, not an echo of the anti-material rifle, but easily mistaken for it.

"What?" She asked.

I lunged forward, heading for the nearest tree.

"COME ON!" I bellowed.

Another crack, followed by a roaring sound that sounded like the earth was ending.

I had once had a Tomahawk missile used as close fire support, packing a fuel-air warhead. When it had hit, it had sounded like a freight train, and then the end of the world.

This sounded the same.

"What?" She asked again, pulled along by the 550 cord connecting us.

A loud booming noise shook the entire world. Ice and frost shivered down from the tree I was hugging tightly, my back toward the cliff and glacier.

Little-Bit ran up, grabbing the opposite side of the tree.

"No, back toward the mountain! Another one!" I yelled.

"This is safer!" She yelled.

The snow hit us like a wave. Crushing me against the tree trunk, driving the breath from my lungs. I could feel my ribs creak as the tree actually leaned with the avalanche that the retort of Little-Bit's XM-82A3 had caused.

Sparkles filled my vision as the breath was driven from me and my chest compressed hard enough that I couldn't breathe in. My ribs screamed, pushed to the point I could feel them start to get ready to go. My face was pressed against the frozen bark, my LBE compressed into my chest.

I felt a sharp pain when my rifle was torn off my back, snapping, and disappearing, the strap's buckle hitting me in the face as it vanished into the snow.

It went on and on, my brain said forever. I was about to pass out from lack of oxygen. My spine crackled as a chunk of ice, who knew how big, slammed into me, stuck for a moment pressing me against the tree, then slid away, almost tearing me off the tree.

Then it was over.

I let go.

And fell five feet to the ground.

The lizard kicked my stiffened and sore limbs out, so I was spread eagled when I hit the snow, landing on my back. I laid there for a second, staring up into the darkness. My flashlight lit the snowflakes falling and for a long moment I just breathed.

I'd survived.

"Little-Bit?" I called out.

Nothing.

I called for her again, then fumbled at my waist, finding the 550 cord we'd tied ourselves together with. I pulled on it, winding it around my forearm.

The end was frayed, snapped, less than five feet of the twenty-five foot length.

She'd stayed on the opposite side of the tree, where the snow swept around the tree and tried to pull her off of it instead of crushing her against it.

And now...

she was gone.

I got to my feet, carefully, my left thigh twinging and my knee brace squealing. Some of the parts had gotten torqued.

I called for a few more times but stopped when I heard a crack off toward the glacier.

Closing my eyes I took a deep breath.

She was gone. If she had survived, she was probably a half mile vertically below me, probably still being tumbled along by the avalanche I could hear still moving below me, and at least two miles away, and who knew how far to my right or left.

Little-Bit was gone. If she was alive - she was on her own.

There was a chuckle from the trees. Not the thick, phlegmy chuckle that preceded Tandy, but something else. Something darker. Something... older.

I rolled my shoulders, setting my LBE and body armor, and turned away from the downslope.

I had to get to the old Templar fort. Every minute sapped body heat, every minute robbed me of calories and carbohydrates.

Step, shake, step, shake.

An image of Little-Bit, face to face with me, one arm around me, the other positioned so her fingers could stroke my face as she whispered 'my beautiful boy' as she stared at me, appeared in my mind's eye.

I ruthlessly crushed the image and moved on.

There was only the mission.

Step, shake, step, shake.

The bayonet was still in my hand. It took me a moment to realize it. I stopped, staring at the blade in the red light of my flashlight. It was clean, but the sleeve of my parka was soaked with blood. I shook my head and carefully sheathed it, snapping the retaining strap, then moved on.

Step, shake, step, shake.

The cliff face swam out of the darkness. I looked up, checking the overhang, and saw that the edge of the cliff was a knife against the clouds, my flashlight washing over the edge.

The snow had slid off of it too.

I moved up the cliff face and oriented myself.

I needed to move to my left.

Step, shake, step, shake.

I found the entrance quickly. I was shivering with cold when I reached the two meter gap in the cliff face. I moved through it, and moved across the three meter diameter gap of a courtyard.

There were carvings under the ice. Saints, the Virgin Mary, the Cross, even one of Jesus Christ. Carved centuries ago by men who were ordered to bring the light of the Catholic Church to the slopes of Alfenwehr.

They had died here, to a man.

Through the cave entrance that had been carved into an engraved arch. The loss of the wind gave me false warmth as I moved into the Templar tunnels.

I had caches here.

I could survive till summer here if I had to.

Little-Bit could have to.

But she'd made a mistake.

And Alfenwehr had killed her for it.