For the first time in months, Captain Erik Ingman found himself waking up to
the tinny electronic beeping of the alarm on his watch. He looked at the
digital display on the face of the watch and read '06:13'. Taking a deep breath
he threw aside his heavy blanket and started the long rehearsed routine of
quickly suiting up into his uniform. Despite the constant 65 degree temperature
in the facility, ever since he had been assigned to this station at the bottom
of the world he felt a constant chill. Once he had gotten dressed, stomach
rumbling, he left his bunk and headed down the hallway that lead out of the
dorms and moved in the direction of the dining hall. Glancing out the window he
saw the red and green dancing lights of the aurora australis over the barren
white landscape of the southern pole and for a moment had a palpable sense of
the emptiness of the base and the continent.

Erik had been 26 when he had decided to join the Army. After getting his PhD in
electrical engineering he'd been disappointed to find that there were few
industry jobs in his career for someone with a PhD and no practical experience,
and teaching positions were rare and highly competitive. He'd hoped that by
joining the Army he could get practical real world experience, and if he was
lucky a research job with the DOD after his tenure was over. He regretted his
decision after his first deployment to Iraq. Working as a glorified mechanic on
the electrical systems of APCs, the scorching days and freezing nights, and
sand in everything from his nostrils to his ass crack. The deployment had
lasted 8 months, and when he was called in to talk to one of his superiors
before his next deployment about a 'special assignment' he was sure that
something worse was on the horizon. He had been told that he was going back to
the desert, but this time he would be assigned to the coldest desert on earth.

Monroe station was a research station operated by NASA, The national science
foundation, and the Department of Defense. The primary purpose of the research
station was to study technologies for building sustainable habitats in low
light, low temperature environments. The research done at Monroe would be used
to develop the first semi-permanent human habitats for Mars. As an electronics
engineer, Erik had been stationed at Monroe to assist the scientists in
developing and repairing equipment used in their experiments.

He had arrived at the start of the arctic summer and was shocked at the size
and modernity of the base. There were approximately 100 people including
scientists and support personnel living at the base. There was a telephone,
computers with Internet access, and even several televisions with new shows and
a large collection of DVDs. Erik enjoyed the work and had little difficulty
adjusting to the environment, other than the perpetual feeling of being cold.
When the arctic winter came on, three quarters of the base left and the 25
remaining researchers and support staff became something like an extended
family.

The arctic winter was a tougher time than the summer however. Weather patterns
made the satellite connections unreliable, and worse made it nearly impossible
for planes to land or ships to arrive on the coasts. Aside from aerial supply
drops which contained letters, and bulk email sent and received when the
satellite communications were up there was little interaction with the outside
world.

It was the difficulty of getting anyone on or off the continent during the
winter months that had made the announcement of evacuation the third month
after the start of winter so shocking. The email that came through was sparse
on details, but the message was clear. There had been some sort of a disaster
that had refocused all resources. There was no more funding for supplying the
base, and at any rate the best minds were needs to focus on... whatever it was
that was happening. Evacuation would be done by plane. Since only small
aircraft could manage the landing the 25 people on base would be evacuated in
three groups. Two groups of 10 researchers, and one group of 5 along with
whatever valuable supplies remained and could be salvaged. A list of names was
sent for who was to be evacuated in what group and a list of probable dates for
pickup. In the first group was a group of biologists who had been researching
plant life that could thrive in cold low-light conditions as well as the
facilities medical staff and a group of structural engineers working on
buildings that would withstand the cold and the winds while using minimal
energy. Next to be evacuated was the bases civilian support staff along with a
couple more scientists.

The last group to be evacuated consisted of the bases entire military
contingent: Erik Ingman and Sgt. Marcus Brown, as well as tech sergeant Sam
Talman and Sgt. Amanda Weiss, airmen who operated the bases communications
equipment, as well as Dr. Scot Thompson, a materials scientist who had been
researching nanofiber materials for use inflatable buildings and the only
civilian currently left at the base.

When Erik arrived in the dining hall he was surprised to see the bearded face
of Scot Thompson sitting at a table. "Leave anything for me?" Erik asked
jovially sitting down at the table opposite the doctor and gesturing at the
heaping plate of eggs and sausage on the mans tray. Although they had packed up
as much of the food as they could for their evacuation they would be leaving
behind easily enough to sustain the five remaining residents for a year. "I
think I need it more than you" he responded, gesturing down at his lanky frame.
The mans meager frame and habit of large meals had been a running joke. "Heard
anything from Weiss or Talman this morning?" Scot asked Erik between mouthfuls
of eggs. "Not yet, thought I'd head down to chow and give them a chance to see
if there's anything new on the sat-com." "I'm sure if there was we'd have heard
about it already." "Maybe, with the weather like it is it might take a while to
pull anything down; either way I need to get something to eat"

Erik stood up and walked over to the kitchen. Grabbing the bowl left by Dr.
Thompson he filled it with a couple of scoops of dried eggs and water and
stirred the mixture, adding in as he always did copious amounts of Tabasco
sauce. He reached into the freezer, cooled by circulating air from outside, and
grabbed some frozen sausage patties and a handful of frozen hash browns and
threw them into the bowl. He stuck the bowl in the microwave and pressed '4:00'
then set about to make some coffee- thankfully not of the freeze dried variety,
he thought. When the microwave beeped he pulled out the plastic dish and
fluffed the egg mixture with a fork then dumped it onto a tray and set back out
to the dining hall.

Returning to his seat opposite Scot he sat down and started eating. After only
a few mouthfuls Marcus Brown's long shadow preceded him into the dining hall.
"Sir," he said, addressing Erik, "Tech sergeant Talman wants to see you in
the Comms room." "Alright, thanks Marcus." and with that he stood up with a
wave to Scot and walked out of the dining hall.

Erik, as he had done before, wondered at Sgt. Brown's formality. Before he
joined the Army Erik, like most people, had the impression of the military as a
strict and regimented existence with "Sir!"s and salutes flying left and right,
but the reality, he found, was that most of the time, especially at Munroe-
which was not a military base- the military personnel were fairly casual and
easy going.

The communications room for Munroe station was not part of the main building,
and Erik had to suit up in heavy winter gear. In the blistering cold an
ungloved hand could get frostbitten in the minutes long trek to the
communications building. When he arrived he saw Talman leaning over Weiss's
shoulder reading something off a terminal. "What's up? Brown said you wanted to
see me". "We got orders down on the sat-link; I think you need to see this."
Talman's voice had an edge to it that Erik hadn't heard before and quickly
stepped over to read the message on the screen.

The orders started out as Erik had expected, with information on the arrival of
the plane that would take them back to the states and details of the cargo they
should have ready for transport. The plane would be arriving in three days at
1300 zulu time to transport them to Andrews Air Force Base outside of
Washington DC. The choice of Andrews struck Erik as strange. Neither Talman nor
Weiss had been stationed at Andrews, and there was no Army contingent there as
far as he knew. Furthermore there were several bases that were closer to
Antarctica that would have made more sense, he'd expected them to fly into
Okinawa. He kept reading. As he neared the bottom of the document he still
wondered what had put the edge into Talman's voice, and then he saw a line that
made the airman's reaction clear. 'ALL SURROUNDING REGIONS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED
HOSTILE TERRITORY'. Whatever was going on, the area outside the base was
considered hostile.

"Hostile territory?" He repeated the last words of the sentence to the room.
"You know what we know captain" Weiss said. "Could it be terrorists?" Talman
wondered. "Doubtful, it sounds like whatever is going on in the area isn't
limited to just a few hostiles" Weiss replied. The three of them discussed the
matter over the next hour, but as they all had the same information little was
gleaned from the discussions.

When they had finished talking they suited up and made the trek across the
snowy landscape to the main building. In the living area Scot sat cross legged
in a recliner typing into his laptop. Marcus sat at a table reviewing an
inventory of recoverable supplies at the station. "I got this" Erik said to Sam
and Amanda. They nodded and headed off to the dining hall. At his words Scot
and Marcus looked up. "We received word, the flight to pick us up is scheduled
for 1300 Friday to take us to Andrews Air Force Base. We've been given a
revised list of supplies to bring when we evacuate, so we'll need to start
gathering things up today and get it out to the landing zone ASAP. We weren't
given details, but we were informed that we could encounter hostiles outside
the base, high alert. I don't know what's going on, but it sounds like whatever
it is, it's bad."

"What can I do to help?" Scot asked, closing the lid to his Laptop. "Based on
the supply list we got, it looks like they are after food, medical supplies,
and the spare generators. Marcus and I will handle moving the spare generators
to the loading area, Scot, you can go grab the medical supplies from the
infirmary. Talk to Talman and Weiss and find out how they're going to pack up
the food, If they are going to tape it up onto pallets you should be able to
get the medical equipment in there too."

It only took the group a day to gather the supplies near the landing zone. Most
of the supplies were still on pallets from their delivery, so they just had to
be tied to the facilities' snowmobiles and hauled out to the landing zone. When
the days labors were over everyone returned to their bunks to get some rest. As
Erik lay down, staring up at the metal ceiling of his room and pondering what
they would find when the landed at Andrews he heard a gentle knock on his door.
Opening it he saw Scot Thomposon standing there, holding his laptop.

"Do you have a moment?" he asked Erik. "Yeah, what's up?" Erik replied,
gesturing for Scot to come in. The doctor entered, shutting the door behind him
and took at seat at the small beaurue in the corner of the room, sitting his
laptop on it. "This emergency that caused them to evacuate the station- what
information do you have on it?" he asked. "I told you all they told us. They
evacuated because they couldn't spare the resources, and whatever is going on
they think the area outside of Andrews at least is considered hostile." Scot
sighed, causing Erik to ask "What?". "Well, I- I just, they really didn't tell
you anything more than that?". "Man, I dunno, something is going down but yeah,
they didn't tell me any more than I told you. Do you know something?" "Know?
no, I don't know anything really, but I've heard things. Things that I didn't
think much of at the time, but now..." "What's up?" "You remember Olivia
Tress?" "That red headed chick you had a thing for?" Scot blushed for a moment
then proceeded "...Well yeah... the Biologist. I remember hearing her talking a
couple of months ago to Dr. Jacobs about her research getting diverted. And Ted
Palmer mentioned a few times some research he was working on that didn't fit
well with what he was supposed to be studying either. I never thought much
about it before, you know how these things go, funding for research gets pulled
or else the uppity ups want to show results for some trendy buzz-word, but I
realized that a lot of the biologists and structural engineers all seemed to
have their research focus changed on them shortly before the winter season.
That's when I started going through some old emails and I noticed a few
references here and there to other areas of research that seemed to be related,
but only partially, to the fields of study of several of my collegues." "Hmm,
interesting, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything, someone on one of the
comittees funding the research could have retired. For that matter since the
summit in Coppenhegan the president has been focusing a lot of funding toward
climate research." Scot stared at Erik for just long enough to make him ask
"What?" "Sorry," Scot replied, "I just forget sometimes that you were a
scientist to." "Gee, thanks." "Anyway, I don't disagree that the change in
research could all be political, it even fits, it seems like most of what
people were working on was related to low-energy ways of growing food and
building low-cost defensible buildings. All stuff that's reasonable for any of
the scientists here to look into, but I still feel like there's something
there, I just can't seem to make the connection..." he tapered off.

With the packing done and their departure time set, Thursday at Munroe station
was tense but uneventful. Scot, Erik, Sam, and Amanda sat in the common room
discussing the apparent disaster in a fruitless attempt at gleaning some new
information. All agreed that it was likely that the DOD was attempting to
gather as many cleared scientists and engineers as possible to work on solving
some problem, and that the severity of whatever it was had drastically
increased sometime in the last three months. Marcus sat in the common room
apart from the rest, not participating in the conversation. That evening
everyone went to sleep feeling a mounting anticipation, wondering what news
they would hear tomorrow.