Johnson ran toward the battle scene, most of the rope trailing behind him, and a ten-foot long section of it swirling over his head with the weight of the aluminum biner. Eva thought momentarily that he looked like he was trying to become some kind of human helicopter, to battle the maddened pilot of the ARGO supply vehicle. As Quinn once again checked his running in time to dive away from the rotor blades, Johnson reached the distance he needed, and launched his makeshift bolas weapon. The rope sailed through the air, biner first, but as it approached the rotors, they sliced the rope into an array of short lengths, and the flight of the craft wasn’t even affected.
The craft aimed at Johnson next, and Quinn just managed to escape the horrible blast of the blades. Quinn was up on his feet again and running toward the helicopter as it banked. This time the pilot banked so that the rotor blades were closer to the ground. He knew Quinn would try to leap aside at the last minute, and the pilot planned to yank hard on the control stick as soon as he detected which direction his quarry would turn—which is exactly why Quinn’s plan worked. As the craft almost smashed head on into him, Quinn flung himself backwards onto the ground. He landed on his back with a bone-jarring thump, and the whirl of the blades was over his face almost instantly. A second later, Quinn reached up.
Then the world was flying by. He had grabbed the landing strut with both arms and gotten his left leg hooked around it as well. The timing was split second—but it had worked. Quinn was now hitching a free ride, just a few feet off the ground as the helicopter raced ahead and prepared to make its turn for the next attack run. As the craft began to gain altitude for its turn, Quinn released his grip. The ride had landed him on the hard packed snow close to the ruins of the campsite. Johnson saw the unusual stunt and ran a little slower, acting as a lure for the chopper. He suspected Quinn had something up his sleeve. He just hoped it worked and that it worked quickly.
Johnson and Quinn were in their 30s. Both men were at the peak of human fitness from mountaineering and non-stop training for their climbing trips. But even those in excellent physical shape can only take so much. Johnson was huffing and puffing heavily, as the sustained running and jumping had nearly worn him out. A plume of breath came out of his nose and mouth as he ran. He scanned the ground and found what he was looking for. He lunged downward, scooped up his own good-sized rock, turned, and launched it toward the cockpit of the helicopter as it roared at him. The rock smashed into the Plexiglas and sent out fracture lines, but the pilot of the craft wasn’t fazed. The damage was certainly not enough to be cause for ending the chase.
The pilot banked once again, and was planning to bring the rotor blades within inches of the ground. He was tiring of the game, and wanted the infidels to die already. As he brought the vehicle up to turn, Quinn was running away from the ruins of the camp and toward the chopper again. But this time his hands were full. In his left, he held the flare gun that had been in his pack, and in his right, he held the twin ice axes connected by the nylon webbing. He brought the flare gun up and fired it at the chopper during its bank. The flare went right into the cargo compartment. The interior burst into flame. There was no big Hollywood-style explosion as Eva had expected, as she watched the craziness from the shelter of her boulder. Just some small flames in the interior of the bird as it raced again at Quinn.
The pilot was distracted by the flame. Concerned, if not panicked. It was all Quinn had been hoping for. His next trick would be tough and would certainly be harder if the pilot was hell bent on killing him with the blades. Jason Quinn waited as long as he could. The helicopter was coming for him. Slower than it had been perhaps, but the rotor blades would carve him up at any speed. Instead of the bolas-style attack Curtis had used, Quinn just threw the axes straight at the rotor blades, aiming for the motor mount. The blades and the core of the ax shafts were made from one of the hardest substances known to man. If they won’t fuck up the damn blades, then I don’t know what will. He just stood still watching the damage unfold, waiting to see which direction he should dodge to avoid any shrapnel if there would be time. As it turned out, he decided to stand perfectly still.
The axes didn’t glance off the blades as Quinn feared they might. They plunged right into the rotation of the blades, and ripped one of them right off the mount. The nose of the craft made a sudden dip and slammed straight downward into the frozen ground. The long rotor blades all slammed the ground at the side of the bird, digging deep into the ground before snapping off, one after the other. Naturally, it all happened in the blink of an eye. Again, no huge explosion. No shrapnel. No flying debris. Just a shriek of sound like a car accident and it was over. The craft sat crunched into the ground less than three feet in front of where Quinn stood bleeding and breathing hard.
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THE SENTINEL by JEREMY BISHOP
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DESCRIPTION:
In the frigid waters off the Arctic Ocean, north of Greenland, the anti-whaling ship, The Sentinel, and her crew face off against a harpoon ship in search of Humpback whales. When the two ships collide and a suspicious explosion sends both ships to the bottom, the crews take refuge on what they think is a peninsula attached to the mainland, but is actually an island, recently freed from a glacial ice bridge.