Quake (14 page)

Carter climbed slowly to his feet, panting, sweat stinging his eyes and the cuts on his face. Natasha leapt up beside him, licking fear-dry lips. ‘You killed them,’ she said, awed. ‘You killed them all!’

Carter nodded emotionlessly. Pride was his enemy. And complacency meant death.

Natasha turned - and saw that ten more Nex had stepped into the clearing.

‘Yeah, but here comes the main course,’ muttered Carter as the killers opened fire with JK49s and the two Spiral agents fled, skidding on ice, sprinting as best they could for the sanctuary of the RX-16. Leaping aboard, Carter fired up the engine and with Natasha clinging on grimly he twisted the throttle hard round. Snow spat and streamed from the tracks as they raced off between the trees. Bullets hissed past them, gouging into tree trunks and whistling through branches. They weaved madly left and right, hunched low.

The firing finally stopped.

Carter pulled the Yamaha to a halt, spraying snow against a wall of black glistening rock where ice had formed long glittering stalactites. ‘We lost them?’ panted Nats through frozen lips.

‘Listen.’

She concentrated as Carter killed the engine.

‘What?’

‘Shit.’

‘
What?’

And then she heard it. Engines. Screaming engines.

Carter fired the Yamaha into life once more and urged the machine on hard; snow shot up behind them as compact black snowmobiles with mounted SMGs appeared, weaving through the trees. The machine guns roared, fire flashing from their muzzles, and bullets slapped into trees and snow all around, ricochets striking sparks from the rock wall. Carter ducked and Nats hung on grimly as the snowmobile rocketed through the snow and trees ...

Carter glanced behind. Through the haze of kicked-up snow he saw at least ten machines pursuing them.

‘Fuck. I thought the fucking SAD teams had wiped out the Nex!’ he screamed over the roar of the tortured engine.

‘So did I,’ shouted Natasha, clinging tightly to him.

Carter dragged the RX-16 around, heading up a steep slope, the engine pulling powerfully. The black snowmobiles started to fall behind as the Yamaha sped from the cover of the trees, swaying slightly through banks of snow and then skimming fast over a field of sloping ridged ice. Up they headed, towards another tree line and the sanctuary of the forest. Rocks glittered all around and with some skill Carter dodged through them, setting into a rhythm with the machine, feeling it as a part of him ...

A few more bullets skimming past reminded him of their impending doom.

Carter powered the machine on, his stare fixed. Glancing back, he lifted his Browning in his right hand, sighted, fired off ten bullets but hit nothing. ‘Moving too fast,’ he muttered.

‘Or
maybe you’re just a shite aim
,’ observed Kade.

Kade laughed at him, and that made Carter mad. He gritted his teeth, swerved the snowmobile into the line of trees and suddenly slammed on the brakes. They left a long straight line of grooved ice. Carter leapt free as Natasha screamed, ‘What the hell are you
doing?’

Carter was attaching something to his Browning.

‘Remember I was telling you about the mod I got from Simmo? A NeedleClip?’ There came a snapping sound, metal grinding metal. ‘This is it.’ He moved to the tree line where he could hear and now see the swathe of black snowmobiles speeding up the incline, their formation a tight V.

‘NeedleClip?’

Carter glanced back, where Natasha crouched behind him.

‘Fucking needle
bombs,’
He grinned savagely, holding the Browning two-handed and sighting down the bulky barrel. The NeedleClip had its own sight and squatted above the gun, a small black symbiotic metal cube, its sides laser-carved with a cryptic military designation.

He flicked a tiny switch with his thumb. There was a heavy deep hum which belied the weapon’s size and Carter pulled the Browning’s trigger. There was a soft click and instead of a bullet, a sliver of metal shot from the NeedleClip, glistening like a tiny, glittering dart as it flashed buzzing low over the snow and connected with the lead snowmobile ...

There was a searing flash and then a massive boom as the snowmobile and the two that were closely following it were kicked up into the air, spinning, before blossoming into unfurling flaming petals. They soared briefly as the snowmobiles still on the ground skidded to a halt in clouds of powder snow. Then the mangled vehicles fell, pluming black smoke and with their screaming Nex riders clawing at shrapnel-filled faces.

Heads looked up towards the tree line.

Carter fired again as eyes went wide and engines howled in hastily revved panic ...

Another two snowmobiles were smashed skywards, Nex squirming as the exploding metal melted into their flesh. Black smoke blossomed and a crackling like fireworks going off reached Natasha’s ears ...

The other snowmobiles fled.

Carter turned to Natasha, but she was staring at the ECube. ‘We have to get out of here, Carter.’

‘What is it?’

Her gaze met his. ‘There’s more of them, up there through the trees. Hundreds of them.’

‘Impossible!’ he snapped. ‘Why didn’t the ECube pick it up before?’

‘Remember the shields they used, back in Scotland?’ A year ago an assassin had infiltrated Carter’s house and had somehow managed to sidestep not only his own personal defence systems but the all-ranging scanners of the ECube. In essence, the effectiveness of the ECube - a Spiral operative’s major defence mechanism - had been compromised.

‘I thought we’d cracked their technology!’

‘So did I.’

Carter cursed and glanced back at the black billowing smoke. ‘We’ve just fucking advertised ourselves.’

‘Better than getting bullets in the back.’

‘Come on.’

They ran back to the RX-16, leapt aboard, and Carter started the engine, setting off in a straight line.

‘Where you going?’

‘Towards them.’

‘Are you fucking crazy? The ECube’s registering more than two hundred Nex. We need an airlift!’

‘Yeah, and they’ll have one.’

‘Carter, they’ll be sending search parties to check out the smoke! And the others have probably commed ahead and told them we’re here.’

‘Yes.’ Carter smiled. ‘Last fucking thing they’ll expect us to do is head straight towards them. If the ECube is picking them up, I’m pretty damn sure they know about it. If they have ECube cloaks, then their technology is more advanced than we suspected ... and there’re more of them.’

Turning back, Carter opened the throttle wide and slid the exhaust silencers into place. Stealth came at the expense of power, but the machine was still functional as they cruised almost silently through the trees, weaving gently, Carter’s vigilant stare on the lookout for the Nex search parties that he knew would come.

The engine clicked softly as it started to cool. Carter dragged some fallen branches roughly across the RX-16 in a crude version of camouflage, and Natasha and he set off through the snow on foot.

‘I don’t like leaving it behind,’ said Natasha softly.

‘Yeah, but we’ll need to get close. The branches should hide it from air obs.’

Snow had started falling again, more heavily. The forest was quiet, almost silent, occasional falls of snow from over-laden branches crumping in the distance.

‘What are the Nex doing all the way out here?’

‘An interesting thought.’

‘I bet Jam doesn’t know about their existence.’

‘I’m pretty sure
nobody
knows about their existence.’

They moved warily, guns out, the metal cold even through their gloves. Natasha looked more closely at the NeedleClip, amazed that something so small could pack such a punch.

The cold was beginning to get to the two Spiral operatives as they weaved warily through the trees. They had to stand stock-still once as snowmobiles thundered off to one side, flashes of black between the distant tree trunks, and then they dropped to a crouch and waited.

Natasha kept a close eye on her ECube’s scanners.

Several groups were moving, spreading out.

‘They’re searching for us,’ she whispered.

Carter merely nodded.

They moved stealthily for nearly forty minutes, creeping from tree to tree, the falling snow their ally, the forest their protector. They halted while Carter carefully removed the NeedleClip and screwed the Browning’s silencer back in place. As they moved off again through the thick snow Natasha watched the ECube, but was surprised when Carter’s hand came up in a ‘halt’ signal. She met his gaze as he put a finger to his lips and gestured for her to wait and be perfectly still.

She watched him move carefully through the snow and then crouch beside a stunted conifer tree. He was moving with great care, placing each foot with an infinity of consideration. Then he levelled the Browning and aimed. She heard the hiss of a silenced shot and nearly jumped as a mound of snow seemed to collapse - to reveal a camouflaged Nex bearing a sniper’s rifle. Carter signalled for Natasha to approach, and she checked the ECube again.

‘He wasn’t there, on the scanner.’

‘I know.’

‘How the fuck did you see him?’

Carter’s breath steamed, and his eyes were twinkling. ‘Let’s just call it magic,’ he whispered. He moved towards the Nex and lifted the Heckler & Koch SN5 sniper rifle. ‘Good weapon,’ he said, hoisting it thoughtfully.

‘He’s dead?’

‘It
is dead,’ Carter corrected gently. ‘It was the perimeter guard - we must be getting close.’

‘I don’t understand: they cloak the guards but not the compound where the ECube is showing hundreds?’

‘No point having a guard if he can be seen - even by a scanner. Nobody knows that this base - or whatever it is -is here. Why cloak it? What are the chances of somebody stumbling across it up here? Maybe it’s arrogance, or maybe you can’t cloak such a large group of Nex - we’ll have to sneak in and ask them.’

‘Very funny.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘That’s what worries me.’

Moving on through the heavy snow they exercised even greater caution until once more Carter signalled for a halt. They had been climbing a steep incline, an embankment peppered with trees, that overlooked a compound of some sort up ahead. Trees ringed the compound on ridges of land and snow, and low buildings of grey concrete blended naturally with the ground, barely visible - especially in this climate of snow and mist and from the air.

‘Probably left over from the Bright War,’ whispered Carter, gazing down at the buildings. There seemed to be some activity going on in them but very little outside.

‘They are all inside,’ whispered Natasha.

‘Well, they wouldn’t be sunbathing.’

‘The buildings look like barracks.’

‘Maybe. Who fucking knows what they’re doing? All I’m thinking about at the moment is one of those.’ Carter pointed, his movements cautious, to where a high fence surrounded a small square of cleared concrete on which sat four squat black helicopters.

‘Airlift?’

‘They look familiar,’ growled Carter, remembering the great air battle that had taken place between the Demolition Squads and the Nex over the Arctic seas and the improvised WarCentre created by Durell and Feuchter after they had betrayed Spiral. ‘Some bad shit is going down here.’

‘A problem for another day,’ said Natasha.

‘I agree. Come on.’

They circled wide, Carter on the lookout for guards and snipers, his senses screaming at him and Kade making the occasional maddeningly sarcastic comment.

Carter halted, gesturing. A guard was stationed outside the compound, protecting the helicopters with a heavy machine gun. ‘We need to get a bit closer.’

They moved carefully, coming in on the guard’s blind side. Carter took him out with a single bullet to the back of the head.

The helicopter enclosure was protected by a digitally locked gate; Carter knelt beside the fence and stared at its metallic strands. ‘Titanium IX, very advanced,’ he said, impressed. He removed his own ECube and a tiny silver beam emerged from it, slicing through the Titanium IX strands, making tiny pings.

‘How did you do that?’ said Natasha, frowning.

‘A new mod.’

‘Why doesn’t mine do that?’

Carter smiled, cutting the final strand and bending the glowing edges wide. ‘Come on.’

They squeezed through the opening and moved warily towards the first black helicopter, which was cloaked with a veil of snow. ‘This is too easy,’ muttered Natasha.

‘I agree, although I’m pretty sure they’re not expecting us. You hot-wire this baby and I’ll keep watch.’

‘You think they know we’re here?’

‘Maybe. But maybe they’re playing a game with us ...’

Chilled by Carter’s words, and with the hairs on the back of her neck standing up, Natasha gently opened the cockpit and climbed in. With ECube in gloved hand, she began the complex process of hot-wiring the helicopter’s digital ignition, utilising her pre-Spiral hacking skills. She was illuminated by the curious witch-light of the snow-enclosed cockpit.