Vostok Station de Kerry Plowright

Vostok Station

Kerry Plowright

Vostok Station, the coldest recorded place on earth, a Russian research facility deep in Antarctica that sits on a dome of ice over 5000 feet deep. A place unique not just because of record cold temperatures but because of what lies beneath the ice, Lake Vostok, a fluid mass larger than Lake Ontario, nearly 2000 feet deep. Renegade Russian and Chinese scientists drill through the ice into the lake, discovering a secret that has been trapped there for millions of years. Compressed by trillions of tons of ice, the lake water is saturated in oxygen and explosive natural gasses. When exposed to low atmospheres, the water instantly boils into gas. Beneath that mix, the earth's crust, stretched by the huge mass of lake and ice, has laid bare the world's largest oil and gas reserve, held in check only by the weight above.

The discovery begins a chain of events that spiral into the biggest massing of military forces seen since the Second World War. And then the unthinkable happens. A blinding flash of light and an enormous electro magnetic pulse rips out from the northeast end of the lake, sealing off Vostok from the rest of the world. The Russians and Chinese blame the U.S.

The event triggers a military race to claim the ice. Amidst this, two brothers, Brian and Lance Hamilton find themselves dragged into the unfolding nightmare.

Colonel Brian Hamilton caught in the electro magnetic pulse, witnesses the annihilation of the Vostok research station from a cruise missile strike and the ignition of the wellhead that begins a count down to dooms day. His escape from the ice centre and pursuing Spetznaz forces enables him to warn the coalition of the approaching Armageddon.

With theentire Antarctic sealed off to the Australian and US forces, it is up to Squadron Leader Lance Hamilton to devise a strategy that will get him and his Pig, the venerable F111, close enough to extinguish the flame. The burning well head quickly creates a hole over four hundred meters wide which rapidly sinks towards the lake of oil and gas below.

"Within 72 hours, the ice will blow out and the lake will explode. Within minutes, the entire ice dome, over a thousand square kilometres of ice, 5000 feet thick, will collapse, throwing the contents of the lake tens of thousands of meters in the air. This is an extinction event. We will all either burn, suffocate, be killed by the resulting shockwave or drown in the biggest tsunami the earth has experienced since the last big meteor wiped out the dinosaurs. We have 72 hours to put the flame out or we are all very dead " "-Dr. Alexander Blake, RosenBridge Foundation.

In a growing conflict that debuts weaponry never utilized in battle before, the Russians, Chinese, Australian and US forces punch it out on the ice and Southern Ocean, each believing they are fighting the just cause. But for all of them, the ticking bomb at the end of the Earth threatens the extinction of all life. Brian and Lance Hamilton find themselves flung together in a desperate last minute attempt to avert a catastrophe of biblical proportions.

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