Behind him, he heard a solid door bang open. Deep voices echoed through the station as the soldiers who’d been on outpost duty came hurrying back into the dining area to get out of the bitter, bone-chilling cold.

“Hey, what are you guys doing back inside?” he heard Cole Hynes ask, sounding annoyed. “You’re not due for another couple of hours.”

“The captain called us back in,” Vucovich told him. “He said we should grab some hot food and stand by for new orders.”

“What new orders?” Hynes demanded.

“Hell if we know,” Sanchez’s bass baritone rumbled. “I was freezing my balls off out there, so I’m sure not planning on bitching.”

That would change soon enough, Flynn thought somberly. Nobody in their right mind was going to be thrilled about the prospect of a night jump—let alone a night jump into the wilderness in the tail end of a blizzard. In fact, he might be lucky if he got out of this without a full-fledged mutiny on his hands. Or was mutiny only something that ever happened to the Navy?

He reached Takirak’s door, knocked once perfunctorily, and then pushed it open. “Sorry to bust in on you, Andy. But we’ve got a situation,” he said quickly.

Obviously caught off guard, Takirak looked up sharply from his tablet. He’d been sitting upright on his cot, apparently concentrating intently on something displayed on the tiny device. Hurriedly, he put the tablet facedown beside him. “Excuse me, sir? What kind of a situation?”

“A bad one,” Flynn said quietly. He kicked the door shut behind him and ran through a quick summary of their new orders.

When he was done, Takirak whistled softly and shook his head. “You weren’t kidding.”

“Oh, how I wish I was,” Flynn said with a twisted grin. “So, anyway, we’ve got a crapload of work to do and no time to do it in.” He nodded at the noncom’s tablet. “I’m sorry to cut into your poetry writing time, but there it is.”

Takirak stared at him with a puzzled expression. “Poetry, sir? Me?”

Flynn colored slightly. “Ah, shit, Andy. M-Squared hacked us all a while back, and he blew the whistle on that amateur writing group you’re part of. Forget I mentioned it.”

For a moment, the older man looked furious. It was not an expression Flynn had ever seen on him before and it made the powerfully built National Guard NCO seem strangely dangerous. But then, visibly, Takirak forced himself to calm down. He donned a half-abashed grin instead. “Already forgotten, Captain.” He shook his head slowly. “Somehow, Senior Airman Mitchell keeps managing to surprise me. I must be losing my touch.”

“He’s trouble with a capital T,” Flynn agreed. “Speaking of whom, where is M-Squared, anyway? I haven’t seen him since I got back inside.”

“In town,” Takirak said. “Along with Pedersen. They were next on the leave roster.”

Flynn nodded. Although they were still at DEFCON Three, his soldiers and airmen needed some occasional downtime to blow off steam if they were going to stay even half-sane in this remote, frozen outpost. Four-hour passes into Kaktovik were the best he could do for them. There wasn’t exactly any hell-raising nightlife in the little village, not with all alcohol sales and possession strictly banned, but at least they could eat different food and see different faces for a change.