The convoy was a temporary necessity, a fragile alliance of steel and desperation crawling across the bottom of the world. Four hulking ice-crawlers, their heavy treads churning through the wind-scoured snow, moved as a single unit against the howling white. Sineus had traded the last of his stealth ship’s emergency fuel cells for a place in the third vehicle. The price was steep, but walking to the Polaris Vault was not an option. His fractured arm was a dull, persistent ache, a physical reminder of the station and the vacuum.
He sat in the cramped passenger compartment, the air thick with the smell of recycled oxygen and hot metal. The vehicle’s operator, a heavy-set man named Roric with the logo of a defunct mining co-op stitched onto his parka, kept his eyes glued to the heads-up display projected onto the forward viewport. The HUD was a clean, green overlay of topographical lines and navigational data, a thin layer of order painted over the chaos of the blizzard outside.
— Another hour, we make the shelter at base of the glacier, — Roric grunted, his voice a low rumble beneath the engine’s drone. — Just need to keep the pace. 30 kilometers per hour. No more, no less.
Sineus said nothing. He watched the ice, not the display. The world beyond the plasteel was a maelstrom of white, visibility dropping to less than fifty meters. The only features were the occasional, monstrous shapes of seracs, jagged teeth of ancient blue ice that loomed out of the storm before vanishing back into it.
They stopped for a scheduled maintenance check an hour later, the four crawlers forming a defensive square against the wind. A figure in grease-stained RosNova coveralls moved from the lead vehicle, a diagnostic kit in hand. The man’s movements were quick, efficient. He plugged a data-jack into the lead crawler’s external port.
— Just running a cold-weather diagnostic on your nav-suite, — the mechanic called out to Roric over the wind’s shriek. — Archive State’s been spoofing GPS in this sector. This’ll keep you true.
The mechanic’s hand moved with a speed that was almost invisible, a flick of the wrist as he uploaded the malware packet. He gave a thumbs-up, then retreated back to his own vehicle. The lie was planted. A perception filter, subtle and seamless, now nested within the lead driver’s HUD.
For the next two hours, the green lines of the HUD showed steady, linear progress. The distance-to-destination marker ticked down with reassuring regularity. But the fuel gauges told a different story. Consumption was high, far too high for the distance they were supposedly covering. The lie had a physical cost, measured in wasted resources.
— We’re burning heavy, — a voice crackled over the convoy’s shared comms channel. It was the driver of the rear vehicle. — You sure about this vector, Roric?
— The nav is green, — Roric replied, his tone defensive. — The line is the line. We follow the line.
Sineus felt the discrepancy in the pit of his stomach. The engine’s pitch, the vibration of the treads, the subtle shifts in the vehicle’s orientation—it all felt wrong. Repetitive. He ignored the HUD and focused his gaze outward, letting his eyes adjust to the blinding white. He was looking for a constant, something the filter could not edit.
He found it. A serac, shaped like a fractured jawbone, its surface scarred with a unique pattern of wind-etched lines. He had seen it twenty minutes ago. He was seeing it again now. They were driving in a ten-kilometer loop, a perfect circle of wasted time. The Archive State was not trying to kill them. It was trying to delay them, to bleed them dry on the ice while its own forces closed on the Polaris Vault.
The visual static of the blizzard resolved for a half-second. In the swirling snow, he saw the faint, grey flicker of a Palimpsest Phantom. It was the ghost of a long-dead explorer, his arm pointing insistently in a direction ninety degrees from their current heading. The phantom was distorted, its form wavering as if seen through heat haze, a ghost corrupted by the local lie of the perception filter.
He had to act. There was no time for debate, no room for consensus. He stood, his movements fluid despite the cramped space and his injury.
— What are you doing? — Roric demanded, turning from the controls. — The nav is green!
Sineus did not answer. He shoved the man aside, his augmented strength easily overpowering the driver’s resistance. He grabbed the steering yoke, his eyes fixed on the true heading he had divined from the stars visible in a momentary break in the clouds. The price of his action was immediate and absolute. He could feel the trust of the entire convoy evaporating, replaced by fear and hostility.
His other hand went to the combat knife sheathed at his hip. He located the fiber-optic trunk line that fed the HUD its data, a thick, insulated cable running beneath the main console. He severed it with a single, clean cut.
The green overlay vanished. The blizzard outside was no longer a backdrop for data, but a raw, unfiltered reality. The comms erupted in a cacophony of angry, confused shouts. He had just traded the convoy’s trust for five seconds of clarity.
— Everyone, shut up and listen, — Sineus’s voice cut through the static, cold and devoid of emotion. — Your navigation was compromised. You’ve been driving in circles for two hours. I have the true heading. Follow me, or die out here.
He killed the crawler’s powerful external lamps, plunging them into a deeper darkness. The only light now was the faint, ambient glow of the blizzard. He looked up through the top viewport. The clouds had parted enough to reveal the cold, hard points of the Antarctic stars. An ancient, un-editable map. He set his course by their unwavering light, a truth that no faction could rewrite.
The other three crawlers hesitated for a long moment, their headlamps painting nervous circles in the snow. Then, one by one, they fell into line behind him. They did not trust him. But they feared the ice more.
The treads bit into the fresh snow, the sound a rhythmic, grinding crunch. The vast, silent emptiness of the ice shelf stretched out in every direction.
