Icy
Passage
An
Antarctica Story
Ann
Gimpel
Hartwood
Publishing Group
96K
words
Release
Date: 2/5/15
Genre:
Science Fiction/Romance with a Splash of Paranormal
Lethal
cultures, bizarre illness, and political intrigue create an unlikely
backdrop for love in Antarctica, the last true frontier.
Book
Description:
Fresh
out of residency, Dr. Kayna Quan opts for a tour in Antarctica. Money
is short, so she hires on as medical officer aboard a Russian
research vessel headed for McMurdo Station. Primed for almost
anything, she plays her paranormal ability close to the vest. Being
odd man out in a world where most don’t believe in magic makes her
wary and feisty.
Brynn
McMichaels has been stationed on remote South Georgia Island for two
years, and he’s eager for a change. When cultures of the
single-celled organism, archaea, overgrow their bins in his lab and
begin shifting into another form, he worries he’s losing his mind
and talks with scientists at McMurdo, but they have problems of their
own—bad ones. After he hears about them, Brynn agrees to help. The
weather’s too uncertain to send a plane, so he hitches a ride
aboard Kayna’s ship and brings his mutant culture colonies along.
Attraction
sparks, hot and powerful, between Brynn and Kayna, but her disclosure
about her magic is a tough nut to crack. It doesn’t help that her
dead father is stalking her. Lethal cultures, bizarre illness, and
McMurdo’s refusal to let them land force Brynn and Kayna into an
uneasy alliance. Will their fragile bond be enough to thwart the
powers trying to destroy Earth, and them along with it?
Excerpt:
…“Dr.
Quan,” someone screamed at her over the howl of the wind. She spun,
almost lost her footing, and snapped up another cable.
“Coming.”
She ducked through a door onto deck four, bent double, and shook her
head briskly. Water flew everywhere. She straightened, shoved her
hood aside, and more water ran down her back.
The
ship’s staff captain, second in command on the vessel and staunchly
British, clucked in annoyance as he tugged the heavy, reinforced
steel door closed, latching it securely. Muscles bulged in his arms
and shoulders as he wrestled with the uncooperative door. “Thank
bloody fucking God I found you,” Harold Markham blurted and grabbed
her arm. Panic streamed from him in waves that battered her
paranormal side.
Kayna’s
eyes widened in surprise. She didn’t know Harold well, but he’d
seemed imperturbable until now. “What happened?”
“Tell
you on the way.” A corner of his mouth twisted downward. “Be
grateful. This saves you from a harsh lecture about going outside in
rough seas, without telling anyone.” He yanked on her trying to
jockey her down the corridor.
“Stop
that!” She raised her voice for emphasis. “If there’s a medical
emergency, I have to know what it is because I’ve got to stop by
the surgery to get my bag and anything else I might need.”
“Oh.”
An uncomfortable look washed over Harold’s face. Worry etched lines
into the skin around his blue eyes, and he raked a hand through
unevenly cut blond hair. He lowered his voice and spoke near Kayna’s
ear. “It’s one of the Russian seamen. He caught his arm in
machinery. It’s bad.”
“Amputation
bad?”
It
was a stupid question since he wouldn’t know. Kayna made a
dismissive gesture with one hand and said, “Don’t bother trying
to answer.” She sprinted past him, stopping in the corridor outside
the suite that contained both her surgery and living quarters. “Maybe
you should have someone carry him here,” she told Harold. “At
least I have an exam table we can strap him to.”
He
shook his head. “You need to have a look before we even think about
moving him. He’s on the raised walkway in the engine room, and
there’s more blood than I’ve ever seen.”
Kayna
keyed an electronic code and let herself in. She shucked her soaked
jacket, threw additional items into her medical bag, and raced to
where Harold waited in the corridor, bristling with tension. “How
do I get to the engine room?” she asked and jerked the door shut.
“I walked through it at the beginning of the trip, but I don’t
remember—”
“There’s
an access door at the end of Deck Three. I’ll be right behind you,”
he cut in, his normally cavalier voice edged with anxiety.
She
fought the rocking ship, moving as fast as she could, and hustled
down one flight of stairs. Once there, she ran toward the door that
led into the bowels of the ship where the engine took up two decks.
Harold followed hard on her heels. Her heavy bag, coupled with the
ship’s unpredictable motion, almost landed her on her ass—twice.
When she glanced back at Harold, his face was set in grim lines. He’d
given up any pretense of unnecessary conversation, but he held out a
hand for her bag and opened the door just wide enough for her to
squeeze through.
Adrenaline
hummed along her nerves as she navigated steep, oily steps into the
heart of the ship, grateful she could hang on with both hands. Her
clumsy bag would’ve made the stairway treacherous. Engine noise hit
her in the pit of her stomach, and she wished she had ear plugs.
Footsteps
pounded toward her, and one of the Russian engineers came into view.
He motioned frantically and added a volley of Russian. Close-cropped
black hair hugged his skull, and his dark eyes held a haggard edge.
Blood spattered his dirty white T-shirt, leaving a hell of a mess.
“Lead
the way.” Kayna didn’t know if he understood, but it didn’t
matter because he spun and raced back in the direction he’d come
from. Two more twists of the corridor and she heard screams even over
the noise of the ship’s enormous twin engines. Another moment and
she saw a tall, bald man writhing in a pool of his own blood. A
close-to-severed arm lay next to him. Kayna dropped to the metal
decking and made a dive for the brachial artery running beneath the
man’s arm, afraid if she hesitated long enough to glove up, she’d
lose him. Straddling his body, she put pressure on the artery while
the seaman lashed his body from side to side like a bucking bronco.
“Get
me a clean towel or shirt,” she yelled, wondering if anyone spoke
enough English to understand, but it didn’t matter because Harold
shouted in guttural Russian, dropped her bag by her side, and sped
into a side room.
She
eyed the mangled arm, and cursed softly. It looked as if a giant had
twisted the seaman’s lower arm until the severed section hung from
a slender flap of skin. Both the ulna and radius were broken, their
white, jagged ends protruding through a sea of tattered flesh.
Without a sophisticated operating theater, there’d be no way to
save the sheared off limb. Blood poured from the injured extremity,
jetting from injured arteries and flowing from torn veins, but at
least the rate had slowed. She ran her free hand down the man’s
neck, other arm, chest, and abdomen, searching for further damage
with a magical assist from her psi ability.
“Dr.
Quan.”
When
she glanced up, Harold hunkered next to her and handed her two bath
towels reeking of bleach fumes.
“Thanks.”
She nodded sharply. She’d been so focused on assessing if the
seaman had other significant injuries, she’d missed the staff
captain returning with towels. She folded one, tucked it into the
wounded seaman’s armpit, and pressed as hard as she could while the
sailor shrieked and thrashed, clearly in agony. “Put your hand
where mine is,” she told Harold. He complied immediately, and she
twisted to reach into her medical bag for a syringe and a vial of
morphine. She thought about gloves again, but she was already coated
in the man’s blood.
She
guesstimated the seaman’s weight, did some quick calculations, and
hoped to hell she’d gotten them right as she drew enough morphine
into the syringe to dull pain, but not totally knock him out. He
thrashed wildly beneath her, his blue eyes so crazed with agony they
were nearly all pupil. “Hold him down so I can give him this,”
she said.
Harold
started to move his hands. “Not you,” she cried. “Keep pressure
on that artery so he doesn’t bleed out.” Harold barked a command,
and four burly seamen stabilized their wounded companion. Kayna
plunged the syringe into the meaty part of his other arm. Her jaw
clenched as she waited for the morphine to spin its magic. She
dropped the empty syringe back into her bag and pushed Harold’s
hands aside, replacing them with her own.
“His
arm?” the staff captain asked in a rough voice.
Kayna
looked up long enough to meet his gaze. “His arm is probably toast.
Right now I’m fighting to keep enough blood in him so he doesn’t
die. The morphine will kick in soon. At least it will give him some
relief. Once he settles down, I’ll give him a whopping injection of
antibiotics and a tetanus shot.”
“What
can I do?” Harold asked.
“Where
exactly are we?” she countered.
“Not
far from the Falklands.”
“Better
news than I’d hoped for. Have someone radio for a medevac
helicopter. This man needs a hospital. Actually, he needs a level one
trauma center for that arm, but that’s probably not going to
happen.”
Harold
bolted from the engine room, and Kayna eyed the group of Russian
seamen ringed around her. She gestured to one to keep pressure on the
towel and dug in her bag for a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, and
a tourniquet. She filled another syringe with a mix of antibiotics
and readied it. The man’s body relaxed as the morphine kicked in.
Soon she could inject her antibiotic soup without anyone holding him
down. As grim and desperate as the situation was, Death was a worthy
adversary.
“Bring
it on,” she muttered as she checked vital signs and noted them.
“I’m going to win this round.”
Almost
as if Death had a corporeal presence and had risen to her challenge,
a chilly breeze passed through the overheated engine room. She’d
sensed Death before when she was pulling out all the stops to save a
life, had even mentioned it to some of the other docs when she was an
intern, but they gave her such odd looks, she’d never made the
mistake of disclosing her paranormal abilities again. When it got
right down to it, almost everyone was just as psi-phobic as her
erstwhile almost-fiancé.
“Easy,”
she murmured and injected antibiotics. The man’s eyelids flickered,
and for the barest moment he focused on her. “That’s right.”
She patted his uninjured hand and hoped her tone would bridge their
language barrier. “Help will be here soon. You’re going to make
it.”…
About
the Author:
Ann
Gimpel is a national bestselling author. She’s also a clinical
psychologist, with a Jungian bent. Avocations include
mountaineering, skiing, wilderness photography and, of course,
writing. A lifelong aficionado of the unusual, she began writing
speculative fiction a few years ago. Since then her short fiction has
appeared in a number of webzines and anthologies. Her longer books
run the gamut from urban fantasy to paranormal romance. She’s
published over 20 books to date, with several more contracted for
2015 and beyond.
A
husband, grown children, grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round
out her family.
@AnnGimpel
Thanks so much for hosting me. I appreciate your support for my books! Hope you have a wonderful 2015.
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