Outpost

The crew mustered in the canteen. They kicked off their heavy boots and zipped themselves into survival suits: insulated wetsuits designed to keep a man alive if he fell into the sea and was immersed in heart-stopping cold. Each man checked his buddy’s suit seals and life jacket.

Nail zipped a deck of cards into his suit. Essential supplies. He instinctively retreated to the gym equipment in the corner of the canteen. His territory. His kingdom. He was joined by Mal, Gus and Yakov.

‘Any idea what’s going on?’

‘Keep seeing Punch run back and forth,’ said Nail. ‘Fucker won’t look me in the eye.’

He sniffed.

‘Smell that? Burning plastic. If we all sit here waiting for someone to kiss it better, we’ll choke.’

‘Can we kill that fucking announcement, at least?’ said Gus. ‘It’s driving me nuts.’

Nail ran to Rawlins’s office. Empty. He sat at the desk. He checked the screen. The adjacent habitation block flashed red. Fire alerts on every level. He switched on the PA and grabbed the mike.

‘All stations. All stations. Abandon rig. Abandon rig.’

The cargo platform swung towards the helipad. Punch touched down.

He ran down the stairwell towards the canteen. Thick smoke. Alarms and strobes.

‘…All stations. All stations. Abandon rig. Abandon rig..!

We’re going to lose the whole fucking refinery.

What would Ghost do?

Punch stood on a chair in the canteen and clapped for attention.

‘Okay, folks. We’re out of here.’

He led the crew down the smoke-filled stairway. They coughed. Their eyes streamed. He counted them off as he pushed them into an airlock. One man down.

He found Nail lying unconscious on the stairs. He gripped Nail’s ankles and dragged him to the airlock.

They sealed themselves inside. They were choking. Three men puked.

Punch shouldered the exterior door. They whooped freezing air.

‘We need to get to the boathouse. The elevators are out of action. We’ll have to use the ladders.’ The evacuation order was relayed to the crane cab.

‘We must go,’ said Ivan.

‘What about Jane and Ghost?’ said Sian.

‘I am sorry for your friends.’

He climbed down the ladder to the deck. Sian stayed in the cab. She sat in the operator’s seat and tried to make sense of the controls.

‘Ghost? Jane? Do you copy, over?’

Ghost ran to Medical. Acrid smoke.

Jane was still throwing drugs and equipment into bags.

‘What the fuck are you doing, girl?’

‘Help me.’

They hurried up the stairs. They dragged bags.

Alarms. Smoke. Warning strobes.

‘Who gave the evacuation order?’

‘Sounded like Nail,’ said Jane.

‘I saw people down on the docking platform. They were climbing into the zodiac.’

‘We can’t abandon the rig. Without it we are fucked.’

‘We don’t have a choice,’ said Ghost. ‘There’s plenty of octane distillate left in the pipes. Soon as the fire reaches the injection pumps this place will detonate like a fucking H-bomb.’

They reached the roof.

Driving smoke. They couldn’t see the crane cab.

‘Sian? Ivan? Do you copy?’

Ghost checked his radio. Low battery warning.

He stood at the edge of the roof and yelled.

‘Sian. Ivan.’

He looked down. White furnace heat.

Eight men in the zodiac. The boat rode low in the water. Overloaded. The outboard laboured. They weaved between pack ice.

They reached the island. They lifted Nail ashore. They carried him up the jetty steps to the bunker door.

The crew camped in the tunnel mouth. They lit a couple of storm lamps. They huddled round a hexamine stove for heat. Nobody spoke. They were all thinking the same thing. They were dead bodies. The refinery was life-support. Without the supplies aboard the rig they would last less than a day. Once the stoves burned dry, they would all freeze.

Nail was conscious. He lay still, breathing shallow. Punch crouched beside him.

‘How you doing, big guy?’

Nail coughed and flipped him off.

‘Take it easy, all right? Give your lungs a chance to recover.’ Punch left the bunker. He stood on the jetty and watched the refinery burn.

D Module was ablaze. The fuel store had been on the lowest level. The fire spread upward, floor by floor, until the habitation block was a pillar of fire.

Flame lit the surrounding sea and ice, flickering orange.

‘I’m taking the boat,’ Punch told the crew. ‘I’m going back to help. Any volunteers?’

They looked away.

Punch rode the zodiac back to Rampart.

He could see the underside of the refinery. Liquid, rippling flame washing over pipes and spars. The sight was mesmeric.

White light at the heart of the conflagration. Thousand-degree heat. It was like staring into the sun. He had to look away. Debris fell into the sea, spitting geysers of steam. A shriek. An explosion of sparks. A steady groan, like the refinery was in excruciating pain. A major structural collapse under way.

A cascade of girders: fatally weakened chunks of superstructure tumbled into the ocean with a roar like Niagara.

Punch gripped the side of the boat as waves rippled outward from the refinery, bucking the boat, cracking plates of ice.