Polaris

By S.C. Jensen

The year is 2133. Captain ValCora Mortlocke, Extreme Terrain Specialist with the Canadian Armed Forces, has been pulled out of retirement. War has broken out in the Arctic Circle and the deadly letovirus has northern communities on lock-down. For Mortlocke, there is no choice. She is a soldier first; everything else comes second. Duty calls, and Mortlocke will answer. Even if it destroys everything she has been fighting so hard to protect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.C. Jensen
• Release date: Oct 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781386299783

Book preview

Polaris

By the time Len got home from work I had locked myself in the study.

I sat in the brown corduroy armchair facing the window, clutching a sweaty glass of premium Canadian rye. I hated the stuff; Len had bought it. I was knocking back my third glass when I finally heard her keys land on the kitchen table, missing the dish and crashing on the glass surface.

I didn’t even wince.

Outside, the sky was getting darker. It had mid-winter blues painted across the horizon in wide, glowing arches. Where the sun had just disappeared, a pale line of green outlined the western Glacier Mountains. Above, stars peeked out like tiny eyes. On any other night it would have been beautiful.

Water ran in the kitchen, and I vaguely wondered if Len had found something to eat. I always made sure to have dinner ready when she dragged herself through the door at night, weary from a long day at the office. Cooking is one luxury of home life that I relished above all else. Except maybe the sex.

Len tried the door. I’d locked it earlier. She paused, then knocked softly.

Baby, you in there?

I said nothing. My eyes slid up from the western horizon to the darkening sky above.. The mountains disappeared against the velvet curtain of nightfall, leaving only the stars to break up the pitch. Cynosura, the dog’s tail, seemed to burn brighter than ever in the north. It winked at me, sharing in the secret.

Len knocked again, louder this time.

Hey. Okay if I join you?

I sighed. I didn’t really expect she’d let me alone. It wasn’t in her nature. Solitude was as foreign an idea to her as companionship was to me. I didn’t know how she survived all those years I was gone. No. I did. But I didn’t hold it against her. I understood. My taste for loneliness had been finely honed over the years so I relished its bite along with its solace. Not everyone is built like me, and I didn’t start out this way.

I stood, carefully, and took measured steps toward the door. The movement, slight as it was, brought a flush up my neck and into my cheeks. I rested my forehead against the cool bamboo panelling. Rye always went straight to my face. Len wouldn’t mind the drinking, but I left the lights out, just in case. I slid the door open and stepped back into the shadows.

You gonna make me one of those? she said, after a beat. Len knew better than anyone that I didn’t drink rye.

Sure, I said. How was work?

Len cast a sidelong glance at me as I stumbled toward the bar. She didn’t mention it.

Fine, she said. Shitty. I don’t know. I’m tired.

She reached down to rescue her feet from a pair of vicious looking nude heels, rubbed her arches with perfectly manicured fingertips, and sat on the edge of my corduroy chair. She perched there, tugged a little at the burgundy satin blouse, loosening the waist where it had been meticulously tucked into a camel-coloured pencil skirt.

Stop staring at me and make with the booze, she said. Will ya?

She smiled and undid the top three buttons of the blouse so that I could just make out the soft curve of her breasts beneath the sharp lines of her collarbones. She was the picture of ease. But I could see the hard lines of tension beneath the surface. Inside, Len coiled up like a spring, a lioness ready to pounce. I brought her the drink and sat down in my chair. She put an arm around my shoulders and took a long swallow. Her dark hair fell next to my face, and her fingernails dug into my skin, almost too hard. She smelled of Jasmine flowers and formaldehyde.

EnCon made a bid today to stop all processing on the samples we harvested in Inuvik last month, she said. Her voice was strained. They said there was ‘insufficient evidence of environmental contamination to continue this line of investigation.’ Some bureaucratic bullshit like that. They’re putting pressure on the Ministry to shunt our funding back into exploration. The amber liquid tilted toward her lips as she took another pull from the glass. "We have 352 cases of letovirus that have suddenly leaped straight from incubation into Level 4 contagion, and it’s