“The crawler. Now.”
They scrambled down the rocks, any pretense of stealth abandoned in favor of speed. She reached the vehicle first, throwing herself into the driver’s seat and gunning the engine before he had fully folded himself into the cab.
“Hold on,” she warned, and slammed the crawler into gear.
The vehicle lurched forward, treads biting deep into the ice as they accelerated across the frozen waste. Behind them, the pursuing craft grew larger with alarming speed—it was faster than them, he realized. Much faster.
“Your path,” he said urgently. “Is there somewhere we can?—”
“The crevasse fields are six kilometers southeast. If we can reach them, the terrain will slow them down.”
“And if we cannot reach them?”
Her jaw tightened. “Then we improvise.”
He turned to watch their pursuers, his mind working frantically. The other vehicles had joined the chase now, all six convergingon their position like predators driving their prey towards a killing ground. The ice beneath them was solid, offering no natural obstacles.
But the ice was still ice. And ice was something he understood.
“Slow down.”
She shot him an incredulous look. “Are you insane?”
“Trust me.” He reached out with one hand, pressing it against the crawler’s metal wall, extending his senses down through the vehicle and into the frozen ground below. “Slow down and move to the left. There is a pressure ridge beneath the surface. I can…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he closed his eyes and pushed.
It was harder than collapsing the crater—that had been working with its natural instability, merely accelerating an inevitable process. This required directed force. The ice didn’t want to crack here. It was solid and stable, content in its frozen sleep.
He convinced it otherwise.
The sound started as a groan, low and ominous, rising from somewhere deep below. Then came a thunderous crack, spreading outwards from a point precisely behind them. The ice split, a jagged fissure racing across the surface like lightning frozen in time.
The lead pursuit vehicle tried to swerve but it was too late. Its front treads caught the edge of the newly formed crevasse and it pitched forward, sliding into the gap with a screech of tearing metal.
“Holy shit.” Her eyes were wide and shocked. “You can do that?”
“Not often.” He slumped against the seat as exhaustion washed through him. “Not again. Not soon.”
But he’d bought them time. The remaining vehicles were falling back, forced to navigate around the obstacle he’d created. The gap between them widened—meters becoming tens of meters becoming hundreds.
She pushed the crawler to its limits, the engine screaming in protest, the cargo sled bouncing dangerously behind them. The crevasse fields rose ahead like a frozen maze—towers and ridges of ancient ice, sculpted by millennia of wind and pressure into shapes that defied easy passage.
“This is it,” she said, steering them into the labyrinth. “Once we’re in here, most of them can’t follow. Not with those big vehicles.”
“They will follow on foot.”
“Maybe. But we’ll have the advantage.” She flashed him a fierce grin. “I know this terrain. I’ve been mapping it for years. I know every passage, every dead end, and every hiding spot.”
“You are remarkable.”
“I’m also terrified.”
He reached across the cramped space to touch her face, ignoring the strain the movement caused. “The brave are always terrified. You told me that.”
“I think you told me that.”
“Then I was very wise.”
