Ice Station (novel)

Ice Station is Australian thriller writer Matthew Reilly's second novel, released in 1998.

Plot summary

Ice Station's plot follows the events that occur in the wake of the disappearance of a diving team (they are attacked by elephant seals) at the remote Wilkes Antarctic research station. A team of Force Reconnaissance Marines led by Lieutenant Shane Schofield, nicknamed "Scarecrow" because of eye injuries he sustained in Bosnia, is dispatched to secure the station, where they learn the scientists at the base had discovered something made of metal buried within layers of ice hundreds of millions of years old. As Schofield's Marines set about securing the station, they must deal with French paratroopers posing as researchers, traitors within the unit looking to make sure only certain people know of the discovery, a team of British SAS operatives sent to the station, and Sarah Hensleigh, a member of ICG resident within the research team who has already killed one of her co-workers.

What is believed to have been an alien space craft is revealed to have been a prototype of the B-7A Silhouette, a stealth bomber constructed by Entertech, the losing tenderer in the bid to construct the original stealth project. Using a plutonium core, the plane is able to render itself invisible to the natural eye at a distance by artificially bending light around itself i.e. a cloaking device. Schofield and the survivors use the aircraft to make their escape to the USS Wasp. The plane is destroyed by Schofield himself after a British nuclear missile launched by a Eurofighter Typhoon removes any trace of the ice station and the events that unfolded there, while evidence comes to light of a conspiracy within the United States government known as the Intelligence Convergence Group, a clandestine US body involving the Joint Chiefs and the National Reconnaissance Office which seeks to preserve US military and technological dominance.

Characters

This is a list of Schofield's Marines:

• Buck 'Book' Riley - Schofield's close friend who also lead Scarecrow's rescue mission in Bosnia, fed to killer whales by Brigadier Trevor Barnaby of the Her Majesty's Special Air Service who had never previously failed a mission.
• Robert 'Rebound' Simmons - A young marine, the teams abseiler, he escapes the Ice Station with the remaining scientists to McMurdo Ice Station.
• Gunnery Sergant Scott 'Snake' Kaplan - A member of the Intelligence Convergence Group (ICG) along with Montana. Snake, an experienced soldier, betrays the team early in the book and is later killed by Schofield.
• Oliver 'Hollywood' Todd - Hollywood is killed by a fragmentation grenade.
• Lance Corporal Elizabeth 'Fox' Gant - A young female corporal, Gant is one of the few survivors.
• Augustine 'Samurai' Lau - At the start of the book, Samurai is mortally injured by the French, and later is suffocated by Snake while in a coma.
• Mitch 'Ratman' Healy - Killed by the French early in the book.
• Georgio 'Legs' Lane - Team's medic, killed by the French then eaten by killer whales.
• Gena 'Mother' Newman - An older female soldier, Mother survives but loses a leg to a killer whale.
• Morgan 'Montana' Lee - An ICG member along with Snake, betrays the team late in the book.
• Jose 'Santa' Cruz - Killed by Montana late in the book.