Aftershock (21 page)

chapter nine

now

Raven woke with a start, her head throbbing. She was strapped into the Shroud’s ejector seat but she was lying on her side, her head resting on the rock that had knocked her out when she landed. She had known it was almost suicidal to attempt to eject from an aircraft at very low altitude, let alone one that was actually on the ground. She remembered the heat and the shock wave from the Shroud exploding beneath her and then she had been spinning violently, which had meant that the chute had not deployed properly from the back of the seat. The last thing she remembered was falling much too fast towards a thick stand of pine trees and then nothing. She hit the release on the seat harness and rolled away from it, before sitting up and looking around. There was no sign of anyone else nearby. About half a mile away, above the treetops, she could see a column of black smoke rising into the air. That had to be the wreckage of the Shroud. She slowly got to her feet and was relieved to find that other than some cuts and bruises and a throbbing head she was relatively unscathed. She also still had her tactical harness and the swords strapped to her back. Not exactly the perfect equipment for surviving in the Siberian wilderness but it would have to do. She looked at the ejector seat and a thought occurred to her. She pulled out one of her swords and used it to cut into the back panel of the seat before reaching inside and retrieving a small metal box with a battery attached to it. She detached the battery and slipped it and the box into her pocket. She looked at the sun, low in the sky to the west, it was already getting gloomy. Late autumn in this part of the world meant short days and long nights.

Raven made her way silently through the trees until she came to the edge of the forest where it met the valley floor. A hundred metres away were the smouldering remains of the Shroud. She scanned the surrounding area carefully, there was no sign of anyone. She moved quickly to the Shroud but it was immediately obvious that there was no hope of salvaging anything from the wreckage – it was gutted, completely burnt-out. What was more intriguing was the fact that not all of the twisted pieces of debris that littered the valley floor appeared to have come from the Shroud. Some of it was clearly from the helicopter gunship that had attacked them which meant that someone or something had brought it down. She had also been relieved to not find any bodies. She knew that it didn’t necessarily mean that the Alphas had got away but it was at least a slightly positive sign. That feeling of cautious optimism was increased when she walked towards the treeline on the other side of the valley floor. There she found tracks, footprints that were too small to have been made by adults. Worryingly, however, there were adult footprints too. Fresher, but heading in the same direction as the smaller tracks. She had no intention of returning to the original landing site – it would be suicide at this point. Even if there had been survivors of the initial attack she knew that they were sure to be heavily guarded by the forces that had attacked them. Better instead to follow the trail and save those that she could. She was still studying the marks in the dirt when there was a tiny noise from somewhere behind her. In a single, impossibly fast motion, she drew one of the swords from her back and spun round. There was a tiny flicker at the very point of her blade.

‘Don’t move a muscle,’ Raven said, pushing the tip of her blade forward just a millimetre or two. A single drop of blood appeared out of thin air. ‘Turn it off, now.’ There was another flicker and a figure in a thermoptic camouflage suit appeared, Raven’s sword tip pressed into his neck. His hand was frozen halfway towards the pistol holstered on his belt.

‘Take the mask off,’ Raven said. The man did as he was told, revealing a face that was never going to win any beauty competitions. ‘Who do you work for?’

‘I’m not going to tell you,’ the man said with a heavy Eastern European accent.

‘Oh really,’ Raven said, pressing the tip of her sword just a millimetre further into the man’s neck, ‘and why is that?’

‘Because you’re already dead,’ the man said with a smile, his eyes flicking towards something over Raven’s shoulder as she felt something cold and hard press into the back of her head.

‘I’ll give you this,’ Raven said, dropping her sword and raising her hands, ‘you’re quieter than your friend here. I’m impressed that you got so close to me. Too close for your own good, actually.’

Raven twisted with lightning speed, rolling inside the invisible gunman’s arm and dropping her arm over and around his. She twisted hard and lifted and there was a crunch and a bang. The visible soldier behind her dropped to his knees and fell slowly forward on to his face with a thud.

‘Oh dear,’ Raven said, ‘it appears you have just shot your friend.’ She lifted the already broken arm again and the invisible man screamed in pain and dropped his gun. Raven ripped his mask off with her free hand.

‘Now you’re going to tell me who you work for,’ she said as she pushed the crippled man away from her and drew the other sword from her back, ‘or you, my friend, are going to experience some very, very dramatic weight loss.’

‘Please, I am having to stop, just for a minute,’ Franz said, leaning against a tree and breathing heavily. It was really dark now, especially deep within the forest. They were forced to move more slowly as it became more difficult to pick out a path through the trees in the gloom.

‘No, we should keep moving,’ Wing said. ‘Our pursuers will have little difficulty tracking us through this terrain.’

‘Two minutes,’ Otto said, ‘everybody take a breath but we can’t stop for any longer. Wing’s right, we have to try to get to the mountains by nightfall. We need to find shelter.’ Otto knew full well that this was not a part of the world where you wanted to be outdoors at night if you could help it. The only consolation was that the same would also be true for their pursuers.

‘Who do you think attacked us?’ Tom asked, sitting down on the trunk of a fallen tree.

‘I have no idea,’ Otto said, shaking his head, ‘but whoever it is they’re unusually well equipped. That helicopter gunship was state of the art and its on-board systems were shielded against my abilities. I’ll tell you one thing though, they’re certainly not amateurs.’

‘Do you think any of the other Alphas escaped?’ Laura asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Otto replied. ‘I hope so.’

The others continued to rest for a minute as Otto walked over to Wing who stood silently watching the forest in the direction they’d just come from.

‘You see something?’ Otto asked, searching for any sign of movement amongst the trees.

‘No,’ Wing replied with a frown, ‘but something is not right. We should get going.’

The commander of the Disciple assault team watched as the last of the captured Alpha students were forced on to the heavy transport helicopter. A few seconds later the twin rotors of the giant machine began to slowly rotate. He turned his back and walked towards the other transport that the rest of his men were boarding. His earpiece emitted a soft bleep and he tapped it once to receive the incoming communication.

‘Go ahead,’ the commander said, raising his voice over the noise of the transport’s thumping rotor blades.

‘Sir, we’ve found the men who were sent to retrieve Raven’s body,’ the voice on the other end reported. Those men had been sent out an hour ago and had not checked in. The commander had despatched another team to investigate. ‘They’re both dead. One was shot and the other appears to have been killed with an edged weapon.’

‘She’s alive,’ the commander said angrily. ‘Get back here, we need to move to the rendezvous point before G.L.O.V.E.’s forces arrive.’

‘Roger that,’ the soldier on the other end replied.

The commander hurried over to the other side of the clearing where the crew were watching the last of the missiles being removed from their helicopter gunships.

‘I need you in the air now,’ the commander said to one of the pilots. ‘Raven is somewhere out there and I need eyes in the sky.’

‘Wheels-up in five minutes,’ one of the pilots replied.

‘Good, the rendezvous point is set up and ready. Return there to refuel and rearm when necessary.’

‘Understood,’ the pilot replied with a nod.

The commander switched channels on his communicator and waited for a second as the device connected.

‘This is Minerva, go ahead,’ the voice on the other end said.

‘It appears that Raven survived the destruction of her aircraft,’ the commander replied slightly nervously. The Disciples were notoriously intolerant of failure and the consequences for disappointing them were always harsh.

‘I see,’ Minerva said calmly. ‘I did warn you that she would prove to be a more challenging kill than you expected. We have lost the element of surprise. She will be considerably more difficult to eliminate now.’

‘Should we abort?’ the commander asked.

‘Certainly not. I said she would be difficult to eliminate commander, not impossible,’ Minerva said impatiently. ‘Do you have any idea of her current location?’

‘No, but I believe she will attempt to rendezvous with the group of H.I.V.E. students that we’re currently tracking,’ the commander said.

‘Good, if she meets up with them it will make her much easier to track,’ Minerva replied. ‘She will not abandon them and we will use that fact to our full advantage.’

Otto jogged along beside Wing as they struggled to pick out a path through the forest in the darkness. The other Alphas followed, some finding the demanding pace that Wing was setting easier to maintain than others.

‘I am thinking I am having the heart attack,’ Franz said, his face red with exertion.

‘Hey, this is good exercise,’ Shelby said with a grin. ‘I don’t know about anyone else but I’m really starting to feel the burn here.’

‘I am still hoping to be avoiding the burning,’ Franz replied breathlessly, ‘and the shooting and the stabbing and the strangling and . . .’

‘OK, Franz, we get the idea,’ Nigel gasped.

Wing suddenly stopped.

‘What is it?’ Otto whispered.

Wing cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something.

‘Everybody get down!’ Wing yelled, pushing Otto to the floor. The Alphas dropped to the ground just a split second before the forest behind them exploded with the sound of gunfire, lighting up with muzzle flashes. Otto scrambled to cover behind a tree as bullets buzzed through the air all around him. He looked for Wing but his friend was nowhere to be seen.

‘Hold your fire,’ a voice shouted and the gunfire stopped immediately. ‘Surrender now – you have nowhere to run. The next time we open fire we will not miss.’