Shoggoth Unbound

Chapter 01 - A Publisher’s Prologue:

While dining recently in a most fashionable establishment, the publisher overheard a man shout, "There’s a shoggoth loose out there! If that’s not the start of the damned end of the world, I’d like to know what the hell is!"

That was followed by a burst of laughter from the people still seated at the man’s table, for he had risen, and now paced with a military briskness toward the restaurant’s fashionable exit without another word or glance.

Until he reached the publisher’s table. Here he stopped. I overheard you say earlier you were a publisher, he said. Lost in the cocktail chatter was that publishing e-books was actually the business, but he rushed on. You can do it, then, he said, rather urgently. You can get it out. He took a box labelled as quality resume paper out of his side bag and put it on the table. Burn this when you’re finished. He turned.

"Wait!"

He was gone.

So the publisher was left with the contents of the box,165 handwritten pages, each page now transcribed into formats for the widest distribution possible, then burned as directed by the original author. The task was completed 15 January 2013.

Res ipsa loquitur.

Chapter 02 - Introduction: 7 Jan 2013

I have served in combat and have seen Death’s achievements in many forms, taking many shapes, but after surviving the ill-fated Hobblestone-Thorpe 2012 Antarctica Expedition I no longer have the luxury of simple PTSD nightmares. The horror that consumed all the others but spared me has still left me with wounds unseen, deeper than any inflicted by other humans during war.

Waking drenched in sweat, I often wonder if I would have proceeded South, had I known what awaited me – concluding that no one would have actually believed any description of the monstrosities ahead. Certainly not me.

I am a believer now, though. Especially when the wind howls through a cracked window. Or at night – even though the terrors were all in the broad graylight of an Antarctic Summer.

Chapter 03 - Sun 16 Dec, 2012

The C-17 Globemaster III heavy cargo jet can be a sweet ride, providing one knows where to sit (or lie down). If rigged for passengers, the seats are reasonably far apart and comfortable enough, and a pallet loaded the right way can provide a decent space for some sleep. But a crew seat in the rear of the cockpit offers the best views and nicest chair, especially if the crew is at all friendly. The real trick is getting to ride up top with the crew, if there was room.

In my case, the real trick was in making the flight at all.

Chapter 04 - Sat 15 Dec 0300 – Miami, Florida

My trip into perpetual daylight started on a dark night in Florida, not far from Miami, watching the rain fall. The system was already causing snow up in the weather battered North, but this southern fingertip was just brushing through here.

I had just gotten in from an undergraduate Finals Party I had been invited to despite being a graduate teaching assistant, and then felt old at. I wasn’t more than five years older than most everyone else, but I preferred talking to people, not watching them fidget as they text and multitask their e-peripherals all night. The pseudo-company they gave each other made me miss the Air Force, and a daily working reality where the combat zone tasks being done almost always counted a lot more, which meant people really did talk to each other.

I had studied enough psychology by now to know I was missing the brotherhood of shared trials under combat in Afghanistan, and I could either go into a two or three day tailspin which never helped, or do something to make certain I stayed occupied.

A woman at the party had been curious about the Mayan Calendar and had then spent a long time asking me questions, once I opened my big mouth in passing (she was pretty, and I was buzzed). By the time she finished interrogating me, I had a hangover and had repeated the same information twice. She had gone off to reassure her world, then a woman I recognized from some of the fall junior-level anthropology classes, who had heard some of it, started talking with me about sites in Guatemala, like Tikal.

I strongly doubted that second woman, who I had given my number to, would call me; I knew I was one of many numbers on her cell, judging by the number of texts she got and sent while we talked Tikal. She was young, pretty, popular, and willing to flirt with a good looking graduate teaching assistant she might get next Spring semester. And she was like cotton candy, sweet without substance, no one who would keep me occupied very for long.

Well, I had tried, at least. Who Dares, Wins.

I turned on the 24 hour local news for the 3AM report to get updated on the weather, which I knew was not helping my mood tonight.

The international tone on my cell phone went, surprising me. The deal that had brought the phone to me (and the funds I used to pay for my current higher education) also put me on call, but I could hardly imagine what sort of job my British science consortium paymasters would ever actually need me for. That was why I had signed up – after all, I wasn’t a translator, needed all over the globe, I was a former Air Force pararescue specialist, now working for SantAngel Group as a field consultant. They had several consortium funded environmental research projects worldwide, and a large natural sciences media division making documentaries, including some that covered and thus in part promoted their own efforts. They had at least one billionaire on the board. They usually needed technical specialists in media and research collection, not in pararescue drop procedures.

The odds of being paid to go to school and never actually be needed for a job had seemed very high when I had accepted their sweet offer just over eighteen months ago, and nothing I had heard since (except at some orientation sessions early on) had done anything other than confirm my original hunch – until now.

I answered the call. Oliver.

"Sam! Hullo! I recognized the slightly plummy British voice of the senior manager I had met with in Gibraltar when I was recruited soon after my early retirement from the Air Force. How’s the class schedule at the moment?" Wherever he was calling from, he seemed to have no idea it was just after three in the morning in Miami.

Hi. Finals are over for me, and there’s a Christmas break coming up. Why?

Situation has come up that seems to fit your set of talents and skills like a well tailored thermal, Sam.

Something cool, then?

Antarctica. Expedition needs a field guide with deep cold training, climbing, rope setting, and loadmaster experience. Ultra short notice, I’m afraid. Shall I proceed?

Go ahead, sir.

"Hobblestone and Thorpe are leading an expedition survey of a… A Mount Takahe in West Antarctica. Total party of twelve, with one other mountaineer guide, and all of the scientists are climbers. Their primary field climbing guide was supposed to meet them before they departed south, but instead sent a message saying, quote, ‘unexpectedly unfortunate circumstances will prevent meeting my contracted obligation.’ They departed Port Stanley anyway, but this is going to quite literally stop the expedition dead in the water. We’re already providing some logistical assistance, as part of our own polar survey efforts, so we were contacted about any suitable personnel we might also possibly provide. Although it’s early summer down there, given the possible extreme weather conditions, the climbing aspects, and the loadmaster skills needed for their helicopter supply scheme, you do fit our selection matching paradigm precisely, Sam." He seemed very proud of that.

It seemed insane to me, but SantAngel Group had an almost military precision when it came to these things. If they thought it was possible, and could be safely and reliably supported by their resources, then it probably could be done, even on short notice. What is the skill of the climbers?

"They’ve all done Kilimanjaro, Denali, North Slope Alaska, the Tetons, the Cascades, and this peak has a glacier running down from the crater rim – about two thousand meters from the mountain base to the rim. Rather like an Antarctic Kilimanjaro, I’d say. Nothing too crazy, or they could never have sold the idea, you know. The same initial target site on the rim was surveyed and sampled in 1985, so it can be done, but the whole thing’s a challenge."

Rather like an Antarctic Kilimanjaro? Even a nice summer in Antarctica is definitely a challenge, plus all of the other elements (he hadn’t classified the climbers, but if those were their only climbs, then somewhat inexperienced would probably fit) – it was a nice bit of British understatement to call this a challenge, but it could possibly be done. SantAngel Group was providing logistical assistance, so they had researched the expedition and developed an idea what sort of funding, backing, and planning had gone into the whole project, deciding it was something that had risks, but could be achieved safely despite them.

Now SantAngel Group had done another assessment, made a personnel match, and accepted a last minute, desperate request – provided I accepted the job when they offered it to me.

I had never been offered a field job before. They had paid my university bills and given me a scholarship stipend I could live on, with the understanding I was on call for them, should they ever have a job that fit my skillset. They understood that certain outside circumstances (family situations) might limit my ability to take a rush job. And I could also simply decline it for cause, they had told me. They would understand and there will be no consequences, should you decline because you assign the tasking a higher risk to yourself than our evaluation personnel have, but there had to be limits, right?

Can you take this job tasking, Sam? he asked. Time is terribly limited.

If I declined, they might have someone else – but I knew of only one other person with my skillset within SantAngel Group, and I knew they were already on a job in Europe, at altitude. I wasn’t busy and had no crucial time obligations for at least three weeks. I had no track record for turning down jobs yet, so I could risk declining this one; but it sounded kind of interesting, without being impossibly crazy to pull off. And it would also keep me occupied.

Once I agreed, things happened quickly to get me down there.

Theo Alexander was one billionaire on the consortium board, and his Alexander’s Chariot cargo transport business was the SantAngel Group’s general urgent transport carrier of choice. I had just a few hours to assemble my cold gear bag before the SantAngel Group limo arrived at ten. The next stop was a local airport, where a loaner B737 cargo jet from Alexander’s Chariot Cargo Transport was just rolling out, all checked, fueled, ready to go. It was in the air by eleven.

I was slightly surprised to be heading south-south east, rather than west toward the main Antarctic departure points from Chile, or to Christchurch, New Zealand, where there were international preparation centers that gave everyone extreme cold weather gear and made sure they knew how to use it. The Hobblestone-Thorpe 2012 Mount Takahe Expedition left from Port Stanley, though. That was where the British Antarctic Survey operated from.

The 5,600 nautical mile flight from Miami down to the Falkland Islands would take sixteen hours. The jet crew was friendly enough, but no one on this flight had been briefed on anything beyond getting me to the Falklands ASAP, and they did not have any brief or data file to be given to me.

I took advantage of that to work on a research paper for four hours and catch up on ten hours of sleep, but as we landed, I began to wish someone had thrown me a few lines regarding details, since at some point I would have to sound like I knew what The Plan was. I’ve also done checklists my whole career in the Air Force, so although I’ve since gotten used to almost no one else doing it that way, not even having an outline of The Plan for this mission had me feeling I was on thinner ice right now than I liked to be – well rested or not.

As I stepped out of the cargo jet onto the roll-up stairs and a Falklands dawn, that wish returned. The cargo jet crew hadn’t volunteered their exact destination in the Falklands, and once I learned they had been told to get me to the Falklands, and had no files or data to be given to me, I hadn’t pestered them about any other details they wouldn’t know about. It never occurred to me to ask them exactly where in the Falklands they were going. I’d assumed it would be Port Stanley Airport, near Port Stanley, and although they did know their exact final destination, I hadn’t asked.

This wasn’t Port Stanley Airport, near Port Stanley. Port Stanley Airport would have had signage and a small crowd of civilians in transit, or at least airport personnel milling about. That was not the case at a Royal Air Force base.

This was Mount Pleasant Air Force Base, southwest of Port Stanley. There was a very large cluster of one story buildings running off into the distance. The cargo jet had been directed to a taxiway in an isolated end of the sprawling base, with little save mountains and one distant, lone hangar to keep us company.

It was a beautiful but hard countryside. No trees locally, just cool, green hills – it was just before six in the morning here, the early sun hanging in the east, lighting blue summer skies full of white clouds in scattered fleets. As I looked around from the top of the roll-up stairs, I decided that when it came to SantAngel Group jobs, the next time I did a gig like this, I would ask certain very specific questions as part of my preparation routine.

The young RAF airman who had waved the jet to its final stop out here had a very small computer case at his feet. He called out, Mister Oliver? and passed it over to me as I came down the stairs. He then pointed toward the lone, distant hangar building, said, That way, sir! and ran off to put wheel chocks on the cargo jet.

The cargo jet was already parked at the far end of the base hangar complex, and I was in the middle of nowhere. The place was huge, non-descript, and deserted in the early mornng quiet, at least in the immediate vicinity. I shifted around my personal gear bag and my deployment bag, re-slung the computer case, and started off that way.

There wasn’t anything else out that way, except for that most distant hangar, the very last one along the taxiway/runway, so between not knowing details and not having a real idea just how far to go that way, I was starting to wonder just a bit about the logistics net I was now caught in. Did they really know we were here? And why the RAF? When using the Falklands as a base port, British Antarctic Survey expeditions generally went through Port Stanley (and via the airport, or its docks).

At a quick scurry, it took me five minutes to reach the hangar, and when I opened the entry door, it was empty. The huge hangar doors on the opposite side of the hangar were open, and through the gap I could see the taxiway beyond, also empty.

"Oi! Oi! YOU! OI! Someone appeared around the big hangar door opposite, a small figure waving and shouting at me. OI! LET’S GO, MISTER!! DOUBLETIME!!"

I’ll be damned if I wasn’t instantly running in cadence, the computer case and my gear bags all somehow weightless.

Chapter 05 - Sun 16 Dec 0600 – Mt Pleasant RAF AFB, Falkland Islands

It was good to be moving flat-out after sixteen hours in the air, so much so that I didn’t think about how I’d simply reacted. Even if I now no longer worked directly for the military, I had trained hard and worked for many years to reach that state of instant response, I suppose. The good news was that my personal physical training since my early retirement seemed to have had kept me fit enough to handle this.

As I neared the large hangar door, I saw I was heading toward a flight officer of some kind, apparently a lieutenant, judging by the insignia on the oversize jacket they wore, patched for the Royal Australian Air Force. Closer still, and the RAAF lieutenant resolved into a woman, and she looked good when she was angry. That was the state I met her in when I reached the other side of the hangar, only to keep running, because she turned around and started sprinting. Now I was running after her – and she promptly picked up the pace!

Once we were both clear of the hangar door I saw a C-17 Globemaster III with Royal Australian Air Force markings on the taxi runway. The big jet engines started up on the far side as we approached it, and the roar helped to hide my gasps. I must have run almost a mile in four minutes, carrying about sixty pounds of gear, without any warming up. All of that hard physical training I had kept on doing had just paid off.

I followed the lieutenant through a side hatch door into the C-17 and saw the whole cargo area was filled with loaded cargo pallets – no obvious passenger seats installed there for this trip. This was an all cargo heavy run.

The lieutenant peeled off the oversize jacket and threw it to a giant man in a flight overall with lieutenant marks on it. Thanks, Menkins, she said.

Menkins caught his jacket and held his other hand out in my direction. I’ll take the bags, sir, he said to me, very politely.

Thank you, Lieutenant Menkins. I passed him everything but the computer case.

Follow me, snapped the – captain? Under the oversized jacket was a tall, strapping, blond captain, and she promptly turned and shot up the steps to the cockpit.

I knew better than hesitate, and up I went.

The captain hitched her thumb toward an empty crew seat in the left rear of the cockpit and went forward to the flight deck proper. By now all engines on both wings were up and running, and the flight crew was a well oiled mechanism about to produce flight as soon as their captain slid into her left side flight chair and buckled in. "Now that we’re all here, she said rather pointedly while putting on her headset, loud enough that I could hear her over the engine thrum, Let’s get on our way! You set, Menkins?"

I guess he said he was, because she immediately got us rolling onto the taxiway toward the runway. The copilot turned and pointed to his headset and then to a small wall panel near my seat. Inside the panel was a flight crew headset with OLIVER, S. written on a piece of tape. I put the headset on and plugged it in to the designated headset port.

– Only lost twenty minutes of the projection here, so the weather is clear all the way – so far. Male voice