Going Dark by Linda Nagata

sitting upright on the ice and facing the wind, showing no obvious damage. The pilot must have been able to guide it to a soft landing, which means Glover and his remaining crew could still be aboard, waiting for the weather to clear.
    Logan scans the ship with an infrared scope, putting an end to that speculation. “We’ve got a body in the pilot’s seat. It’s above ambient, still chilling. Everything else is one temperature—damned cold.”
    “They’re long gone,” Tran concludes.
    I take him with me to check it out.
    No one shoots as we approach. I wipe the frost off a window and peer inside at the pilot, bulky in parka and hood, head bowed, still strapped into the seat. “Check the back,” I tell Tran as I open the pilot’s door.
    It’s a woman. There’s a bullet hole that goes through the hood of her parka, into the right side of her head. Everyone else is gone.
    “What the hell ?” I demand. “Glover didn’t have to kill her. He didn’t have to kill all those people back on the platform.”
    “He’s looking for a big payday,” Kanoa says. “And he’s not taking any chances.”
    I wonder who he’s really working for. I hope I get a chance to ask him.
    •  •  •  •
    It takes less than a minute for me and Tran to search the interior. We don’t find anything you wouldn’t expect to find on a helicopter working in the Arctic. There are parkas, blankets, first aid supplies, chem lights, batteries . . . but no weapons and no biowarfare cultures.
    Logan has been conducting a hunt for footprints, but the gale and the now-steady snowfall are against him. “Wind has wiped this place clean.”
    Tran slams the helicopter door shut. “Or maybe Santa swooped in and scooped them up. We’ve got no way to tell if another helicopter set down here.”
    “No, they’re on foot,” I say. “Even assuming Glover knew another pilot willing to fly in this weather, there’s no way a second ship could have already come and gone.”
    “They’re going to be rigged,” Escamilla points out. “So they’ll make good time.”
    Logan shakes his head. “They have a civilian with them. Dr. Parris isn’t going to know how to use a rig. That’ll slow them down.”
    Tran uses his HITR to gesture toward the dead pilot inside the helicopter. “Until they decide to shoot her like they shot everyone else.”
    “They took Parris for a reason,” Logan insists.
    I’m inclined to agree, but that still leaves the central question. “Where did they go?”
    Our intelligence team comes through with an answer, relayed by Kanoa: “There’s a private research station twenty-nine kilometers to the northeast. It looks like they changed course, tried to reach it after they knew they were hit.”
    “Private?” I ask. “Like for tourists?”
    “Private, like dragon-funded. Mars research. If they prove they can live in extreme conditions, then maybe they can figure out Mars.”
    I don’t give a fuck about dragon hobbies. There’s only one thing I want to know. “Have these assholes got a helicopter that Glover can steal?”
    “The data I’m looking at indicates they do.”
    “You think he can make it there on foot? Because that’s like running a North Pole marathon.”
    “Until he can arrange another ride out of here, he doesn’t have a choice.”
    I expand the map on my display and then zoom out until I see a tag: Tuvalu Station . The tag marks a cluster of three buildings erected side by side and linked by covered passages. I cannot let Glover get there, get that helicopter, get away. I don’t know yet who was paying Dr. Parris for the work she was doing in her lab; I don’t know who’s paying Glover to recover that work. But I am not going to let this plague escape. The reason I’m here, the reason ETM exists, is to hunt down and slam any asshole who thinks it’s a good idea to brew up an apocalypse.
    I intend to see that we get the job done.
    •  •  •  •
    My guess is the enemy will