The wind over Novaya Zemlya was not a sound; it was a physical pressure that sought to grind them into the ice. Sineus knelt before the vault hatch, a circle of reinforced steel twenty centimeters thick, sealed shut by fifty years of permafrost. The cold was absolute, a presence that leached heat through the layers of his arctic gear. He worked with the detached precision of a bomb disposal technician, his gloved fingers placing the shaped breaching charge onto the frozen metal. The charge was a dense, 1.5-kilogram block of composite explosive with a copper liner, designed to cut, not shatter.
Behind him, Isabelle Moreau stood with her rifle shouldered, a rigid silhouette against the screaming white of the landscape. She scanned the approach, her body utterly still, a study in lethal patience. Nadia Petrova huddled behind a ridge of ice, shielding her data slate from the wind, her face a mask of intense concentration as she monitored for any stray electronic signals. They were a kilometer from the relative shelter of the Kestrel VTOL, a kilometer of open, hostile ground.
Sineus finished connecting the detonator wires. He gave a final check of the placement, his mind a cold checklist of angles and material tolerances. Everything was correct. He retreated fifty meters, taking cover with the others behind the ice ridge. He pulled the remote detonator from his pack, a simple, rugged device with a single, shielded button.
— Ready, — he said, his voice flat against the wind.
Moreau gave a curt nod, her eyes never leaving the horizon. Nadia looked up from her slate, her own nod tight with anticipation. Sineus thumbed back the safety cover on the detonator. He pressed the button.
The explosion was a dull, solid thump that vibrated through the ice under their boots, followed by a sharp, metallic crack. The thick steel hatch did not fly outward. It vanished inward, punched clean through its frame by the focused jet of molten copper. A plume of black smoke and super-chilled air blasted from the opening, instantly turning to a cloud of glittering frost in the arctic gale. The way was open.
— Move, — Sineus commanded, already pushing to his feet.
They ran for the dark opening, three figures swallowed by the sudden void in the landscape. The air inside the vault was even colder than the wind outside, a dead, still cold that had been trapped for decades. Their headlamps cut sharp cones of light through the absolute darkness, revealing a chamber that was a perfect time capsule of Soviet ambition. Racks of servers lined the walls, their magnetic tape reels thick with frost. Cyrillic labels, faded but still legible, marked each console. The air smelled of ozone, frozen lubricants, and the faint, metallic tang of decay.
— I need a terminal, — Nadia said, her voice tight with excitement. She unslung her insulated case and pulled out her data slate, already moving toward a bank of consoles that looked like relics from a forgotten age.
— Guard the entrance, — Sineus told Moreau.
Moreau didn't need to be told. She took up a position just inside the blasted doorway, her rifle tracking back and forth across the white expanse outside. She was a predator at the mouth of a cave, her focus absolute. Sineus moved deeper into the vault, his own weapon ready, sweeping the dark corners. The only sound was the crunch of their boots on the frost-covered floor and the low hum of emergency power still flowing through the ancient systems.
Nadia connected her slate to a port on one of the Soviet terminals. A cascade of green text scrolled across her screen. She wasn't hacking the system; she was speaking its native language, her fingers flying across a virtual keyboard that mimicked the archaic interface. Her expertise was in dead languages, and this machine spoke a dialect as dead as any pre-Scythian script.
— The archives are indexed by stellar parallax and resonance frequency, — she murmured, more to herself than to them. — They were definitely mapping Memorum. The data is partitioned. Looking for the primary core.
Sineus watched the server racks, his senses on high alert. The place felt heavy, saturated with the dead memories of the men who had worked here, their hopes and fears frozen into the very walls. He felt a flicker of something else, a faint, dissonant hum beneath the steady thrum of the machinery. An echo of a purpose that had been erased.
— Got it, — Nadia announced, her voice sharp. The search had taken less than two minutes. She pointed to a specific rack against the far wall. — Sector Gamma-7. The primary data core for the deep-range resonance project. That has to be it.
Sineus moved to the indicated rack. A single, cylindrical unit, heavier and more shielded than the others, was locked into a heavy-duty cradle. The parallax tables they needed were inside. He pulled a specialized torque wrench from his pack and began to work on the locking mechanism. The bolts were frozen solid, groaning in protest as he applied steady, controlled pressure.
Moreau remained at the entrance, a silent statue. The wind howled outside, a constant, mournful sound. The silence inside the vault was a fragile thing, stretched thin over the hum of the dead machines.
The final bolt gave way with a sharp crack. Sineus slid the heavy data core from its housing. It was a dense cylinder of metal, cold enough to burn through his gloves. He had it. The key to the next stage of the journey.
The moment the core was free of its cradle, a new sound joined the wind. It was faint, distant, but unmistakable. A low, mournful klaxon, pulsing from the direction of the main Polyus-9 complex a kilometer away. Whoop… whoop… whoop…
He had made the choice. He had the data. The price was their anonymity.
He looked at Moreau. She had already turned her head, her ear tilted toward the sound. She met his eyes and gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. She had heard it too. The hunt was on.
Then another sound began to cut through the wind, a rhythmic whump-whump-whump that grew louder with each passing second. It was not the storm. It was the sound of heavy rotor blades, the signature of attack helicopters closing fast. Commander Joric, Axiom’s ruthless head of security, had found them.
— Time to go, — Sineus said, his voice calm and hard. He slid the data core into his pack.
They emerged from the vault into a maelstrom. Two sleek, black attack helicopters, their silhouettes like predatory insects against the bruised grey sky, hovered a hundred meters away. The downdraft from their rotors kicked up a blinding blizzard of snow. Muzzle flashes lit up the underside of the lead gunship, sharp bursts of orange against the monochrome world.
Heavy 12.7mm rounds tore into the ice around them, kicking up geysers of white. The impacts were like hammer blows, shaking the very ground they stood on. They were pinned down, exposed, with a kilometer of open, unforgiving terrain between them and the Kestrel.
— To the ravine! Go! — Sineus yelled over the roar of the engines and the storm.
He signaled the retreat path, a desperate sprint across the field of sastrugi, the hard, wave-like ridges of snow carved by the wind. Getting the data had been the easy part.
