2041 Sanctuary (Genesis) (13 page)

‘Go!’ Sarah grabbed Trish and ran for the passageway.

‘Look out!’ Jason shoved Sarah left.

Something whistled past her head and Jason was spun round, his wrist pinned to the stone entrance by a strange device.

Sarah’s visor revealed the shimmering form of a man bearing down on them, gun raised. Bullets ricocheted from the assassin’s armour, forcing him to take evasive action and giving Sarah the chance to prise Jason free, just as more bullets tore into the stone inches from her head.

♦

Hilt parried the thrust of the woman’s sword while ducking a projectile that whizzed over his head. Falling back, he grasped his shield and deflected a hail of bullets that peppered the ground around him. The chrome assassins vanished from view and Hilt joined his men to form a shield wall, like the soldiers of yore. He glanced round to see Susan running into the labyrinth, followed by Morgan and her friends.

‘Fall back!’ Hilt said.

Under relentless assault, the Darklight unit retreated on command, shields interlocked. Hilt sheathed his sword and scooped up the missile launcher dropped earlier by one of his men. With another order his team broke formation and entered the passage at a dead run. Bringing up the rear, Hilt continued for fifty yards before skidding to a stop. Turning, he armed the weapon – took aim – and depressed the trigger.

♦

Colonel Samson chased Nexus with a hail of bullets until the man vanished from sight. With the clip depleted, Samson threw the gun to the ground and held out his hand to receive another. He cocked the weapon and fired at the retreating Darklight mercenaries.

Seconds later a message flashed up on his visor:

WARNING!

HIGH YIELD MISSILE LAUNCH DETECTED

‘Incoming!’ Samson shouted and sprinted away from the cliff edge.

♦

A trail of smoke shot out from the entrance to arrow into the base of the cliff. A blaze of light blossomed into being as the missile struck and the earth shook. Sound built and stone shattered as the detonation erupted in a cataclysmic shockwave that flashed out like a supernova.

Inside the labyrinth, Sarah stumbled as the ground shuddered around her. Trish screamed and a wave of light swept down the passage. Sarah glanced back and saw Darklight soldiers following. Behind them a cloud of dust burst into the passageway at breakneck speed.

‘Keep going!’ Jason said.

Heart racing, Sarah ran faster, and the small form of Susan disappeared around the next corner.

They emerged into a large channel that cut through the centre of the labyrinth and Susan waited for them fifty feet away. Reaching her side, with Trish and Jason at her back, Sarah slowed to a stop, breathing hard.

The sound behind faded before a tremendous rumble built above.

Sarah looked up as the topmost level of the labyrinth collapsed onto the level beneath. In a chain reaction floor after floor came down with a successive boom Boom BOOM!

Sarah’s eyes widened and she was running again as the collapsing floors chased them down the central avenue.

The vibration underfoot grew stronger. A glimmer of silver made Sarah glance left to see chrome-clad forms on the level above fleeing before the same storm.

Susan angled right down another passage.

‘Where’s she going?!’ Trish said.

Sarah didn’t know, but instinct told her to follow and so she did, while behind them, the Darklight soldiers ran past the entrance, carrying straight on.

The thunderous noise continued and they were running through a maze of tunnels again. Tiring, Susan slowed, allowing the three friends to catch up.

‘Which way?!’ Jason said.

‘Right!’ Sarah ducked into the right of three passages.

‘Sarah, wait,’ Trish said, ‘Susan’s gone left!’

Sarah slid to a stop and ran back to follow Jason and Trish, who were hot on Susan’s heels.

The ground beneath Sarah’s feet lurched and she bounced from one wall to the other, and staggered on. The levels behind continued to collapse and the roar of falling stone filled the air.

Jason glanced back. ‘Sarah, watch out!’

Sarah looked up. A massive ceiling block plunged towards her. A force smashed into her from behind, flinging her from her feet.

Hauled up by armoured hands, she was pushed forward.

‘Move!’ The Darklight commander said.

Followed by the bulky form of Hilt, Sarah ran for her life as giant blocks thudded into the ground behind them.

They reached another intersection. Susan hesitated, and Jason and Trish took the lead, but the collapse was on them. The entrance to the tunnel crumbled. Susan covered her head with her hands, but Hilt was there again, leaping forward to hold up the massive load. Trish dragged Susan onwards and Sarah crawled beneath the Darklight officer as his left leg buckled under the weight, forcing him down onto one knee.

Sarah grabbed his arm. ‘Come on!’

His helmet’s mask retracted. ‘Go,’ he said, grimacing in effort, ‘keep Susan safe.’

Sarah looked back at the tsunami of rock seconds away.

‘GO!’ he roared.

Sarah scrambled to her feet and ran.

The ground beneath Hilt gave way and the Darklight leader was carried into the depths in a cloud of dust as thousands of tons of rock came crashing down.

The rumbling continued and Sarah sped through twists and turns after her friends. A large crack appeared in the ground, its black maw splitting the ground in two and lancing down the tunnel through which they ran. Sarah found herself with nowhere to go. With a scream she fell into turmoil, to be joined soon after by Trish, Jason and Susan. With a jarring thud, Sarah slammed into a slope and was swept down in a sea of debris. Down and down she slid, into the black. Surrounded by chunks of tumbling stone, she was washed along on a wave without water. Gradually her descent slowed and the noise from above petered out to distant tremors. The labyrinth had ended and they’d escaped its final death throws by the skin of their teeth.

Standing up, Sarah sidestepped some smaller rocks, which bounced past, and looked for her friends.

Trish came clambering over the boulders, her injured arm cradled against her chest. ‘Where’s Jason?’

Sarah shook her head and searched for him with her visor.

‘Jason!’ Trish called out.

A slew of stone and dirt trickled down to the left and the small form of Susan appeared, the mute woman stumbling towards them before stopping close by.

Trish cupped her hands to her mouth. ‘JASON!’

‘Over here!’ he said, his voice coming from the right.

Sarah and Trish worked their way over to find Jason lying on his back. He turned his head and looked up at them.

‘Stop messing around,’ Trish said, ‘we need to keep moving.’

Jason pointed at his leg. ‘That might be a bit of a problem.’

Sarah looked down to see Jason’s leg trapped beneath a large piece of masonry.

‘I can’t feel my foot,’ he said.

Trish moved round to the other side of the obstruction and Sarah followed to where Jason’s foot was twisted back at an abnormal angle.

‘How bad is it?’ he said.

‘Not good.’ Sarah crouched down to see if they could free him.

‘Can we move it?’ Trish said.

Sarah thought they could, but she wasn’t sure and she didn’t want to make things worse. She stood up. ‘I don’t know. You take a look.’

Trish bent down and felt around with her hand. ‘If we can lever it from the other side it should roll off without doing any more damage.’

Sarah nodded and after a couple of minutes of struggle they managed to remove the block of stone from Jason’s leg.

He looked down at his injury. ‘That doesn’t look good.’

‘It might not be that bad,’ Trish said.

‘Not that bad!’ He gestured at his foot. ‘It’s pointing the wrong way!’

‘Can we twist it back?’ Trish asked Sarah.

‘I don’t know.’ She looked at Jason. ‘Do you want us to try?’

He nodded and dropped his head back to the ground. ‘I can’t go anywhere with it like that. Do it.’

Sarah looked at Trish and saw her incapacitated arm left the job up to her. However, as she considered the task she realised she could do more harm than good, especially if her track record on poor decision-making was anything to go by. As she delayed, her doubts continued to mount and she shook her head. ‘No, I can’t do it, I might make it worse.’

‘How can you make it worse?’ Jason said. ‘Look at it!’

Sarah glanced at Trish for support.

‘I can’t do it,’ she said, indicating her injury.

Left with little option and despite her own anxiety, Sarah bent down and grasped Jason’s ankle with one hand and his foot with the other.

‘Okay,’ she said, feeling queasy, ‘I’m going to move it on three, all right?’

Jason nodded, unable to watch.

‘One,’ Sarah said and wrenched his foot round.

Jason screamed in agony.

Sarah felt resistance and twisted harder.

Jason screamed again. ‘Stop! Fucking stop!!’

‘Just a bit more!’ Sarah gave the foot one last push and let go. ‘There,’ she said, turning to him, ‘all done.’

‘I think he’s fainted.’ Trish lent down to listen to his breathing, and straightened when she was satisfied he still lived. She then dug something out of her pocket, which she passed to her friend.

Sarah looked down at the Anakim pendant, glinting in the palm of her hand under the glare of her helmet’s torches. It was if the artefact didn’t want to leave her, like it had a mind of its own. She ran a finger over its surface. She was tempted to launch it into the dark, to get rid of its curse once and for all, but she knew, despite its ability to attract disaster, it also represented the only way out of the black hole that had become her life.

Sarah looked up as Susan shuffled closer.

The woman, gaunt and filthy, gazed down at Jason with scared eyes.

‘Its okay, Susan,’ Trish said, ‘he should be better when he wakes.’

Susan didn’t reply; she just stood there, staring at Jason and scratching frenetically at her wrist with sharp, broken nails.

An ugly red rash had developed on the woman’s skin due to the OCD-like habit and Trish grasped the girl’s hand to stop her.

Susan tensed at the contact and frowned.

Trish let her go. ‘It must be the stress of being down here, in the dark – alone.’

‘Except she wasn’t alone, was she?’ Sarah said.

‘Perhaps that’s why she doesn’t speak,’ – Trish’s expression turned to pity – ‘she must have been terrified half to death, the poor thing.’

Sarah reached out to stroke Susan’s hair. She felt for her, Trish was right; the poor woman must have suffered horribly, but her thoughts couldn’t help but stray to the vision of Riley being held at gunpoint by the Terra Force colonel. Just before the carnage had begun, she’d glimpsed the Deep Reach team leader rolling away to safety. That he lived should have brought her joy, but she knew he was forever lost to her. There was no doubt in her mind that he was there to help the Special Forces track her passage through Sanctuary.
After all
, she thought,
he taught me all I know about traversing this hidden realm
; she touched the pendant in her hand,
well … nearly all
.

That Riley knew her as the colonel had declared – a thief, a terrorist and a murderer – was also yet another nail in the coffin of their union. Not only had she betrayed his trust by stealing his multifunction card, he must have thought her responsible for the death of his friend and colleague, Cora, who’d died when touching the orb. For who else could she have killed, or been accused of killing? No one as far as she knew.
He must hate me
. The idea repulsed and dismayed her in equal measure. But such fascinations were for the past. She was stuck in the present and everything that entailed.

Sarah turned her attention back to Jason.

What with Trish’s arm, his foot and this strange woman, they weren’t just down the creek without a paddle, but down it without the whole damn boat. Couple that with the creature in the dark and its attraction to Susan, and it might not be long until they encountered the light again. And this time they wouldn’t have the mysterious Darklight to protect them.

As Sarah’s fears grew and doubts strengthened, the newest member of their company remained oblivious in silent vigil. Susan stared without blinking into the dark, watching … waiting. The fingers on her hand twitched and a few seconds later the scratching began again.

Chapter Eighteen

Shouts and cries for help rang throughout the chamber as the massed ranks of Terra Force worked together to free those trapped beneath the mounds of fallen rock. Fortunately for most, the blast resulting from the Darklight missile attack had been deflected by the high escarpment on which they’d been positioned and as such, casualties had been limited to hundreds instead of thousands. But as the excavations continued, the death toll rose and along with it hope faded that any more would be found alive.

Amongst the floodlights and armoured soldiers, the teams from Sanctuary’s Exploration Division assisted their Sancturian brethren in the search for survivors.

Deep Reach team leader Riley Orton struggled with a large rock before being helped by his colleague, the bearded Jefferson Church.

‘There’s someone under here,’ Jefferson said, rolling the boulder aside with a crash.

Dust hung in the air and Riley increased the intensity of his effort as more of the man’s armour was revealed.

‘Can you hear me?!’ Riley said, heaving off another piece of rubble.

A pair of glowing green eyes glittered to life in the dark and a powerful hand grasped Riley’s shoulder.

‘I can hear you, boy,’ said a gravelly voice.

Riley stepped back as Colonel Samson rose from his tomb of stone. Dust and dirt cascaded down from his broad shoulders and the SFSD leader removed his helmet and breathed deep.

The colonel flexed his arms and cracked his neck before focusing his cold eyes on Jefferson and then on Riley.