Planet Genocide I (Galaxies Collide Book 3) by Andrew McGregor Page B

sentries would walk a route along the outer wall for approximately twelve minutes, then spend another twelve in the heated guard blocks, rotating through the upper observation post, the extreme exposed temperature outside now lowering further below minus twenty-three degrees centigrade. After the respite, they would patrol the inner, more sheltered area of the base for a further twelve to fifteen minutes before returning to the next guard block and then repeating the process after another warming break. Four squads totalling forty-eight soldiers in all, rotating their duties through the bitter night temperatures.
    The most exposed walk along the upper wall was the least popular, soldiers spaced equally apart, sounds of the wind whistling around the walls and the thick ice below shifting and cracking under the elements, the only sound for company. Talking outside was not permitted in the lowest of temperatures, the soldiers barely able to hear each other, but also an identified key loss of body heat.
    In the guard blocks, the naval infantry were permitted to smoke, warm soup and stew provided for nourishment, their bodies burning calories at an accelerated rate in the bitter temperature. The sentry duty would last eight or twelve hours, the soldiers eagerly gathering together in the morning for a hearty breakfast with a generous ration of Vodka before retiring to their quarters in bleary eyed exhaustion.
    When not at sea, a proportion of a refitting or resupplying Russian Baltic Fleet sat in the docks behind the thick sea wall, sturdy steel gates permitting entry and exit when open, a narrow channel maintained through the thick blockages by the resident navy ice breaking vessel, one of the sturdiest in the world. The submarines in their pens and ships would now rotate duties, from the far north in the Arctic Circle, to St Petersburg, then further south into the Mediterranean to join the Black Sea Fleet based at Sevastopol with another deep sea naval port on the Syrian coastline.
    The ice shifting and cracking was a sound the sentries had become more than accustomed to, some even embracing the chilling echo as a personal closeness to nature’s harshness and respected invincibility. The dense solidified water sometimes became up to four or six feet thick against the outer wall, the upper ice now complete with razor wire and movement sensors to prevent approach across the surface, automated lighting systems and ground radar having been added in the last few years.
     
    In the dark forbidding, freezing, almost slurried dense water beneath the ice, the movement and current was restricted due to the extreme temperature. The ice above, cracking and splintering due to the violent pressure of compression and movement was thick this night, the elements and clear night sky with sparklingly bright stars having been below freezing for days.
    Several cold water fish swept across the lower surface of the ice, their scaled shapes casting eerie shadows against the cracked and solidified water above as they shot away startled. The water swirled, the ice cracking deeply once more as pressure to the lower surface broke into small air pockets, bubbles shifting on the underwater current and movement like dispersed liquid mercury swayed in the darkness.
    A dark armoured fist stretched upwards through the gloom, feeling along the lower side of the dense surface as more fish darted away in natural fear. More thickly armoured fists joined the first, several long metallic objects thrust upwards into the lower gaps in the thick surface, the cylinders primed and intense heat searing from the tips. The ice began to splinter, melting under the overwhelming warmth as the spear like devices pushed up towards the surface and through the shattering layers.
    Gradually the thin cylinders reached the top of the ice, breaking through into the air above and then surging backwards, the sides heating and melting the solidified water between the small crevices, slowly