Earthfall: Retribution (6 page)

‘Cover the door,’ Sam yelled over the howling wind. ‘The drop-ship should be on its way.’

The four of them raised their weapons, training them on the doorway, which now had smoke pouring from it. Barely ten seconds later the first of the creatures burst out of the smoke, galloping on all fours across the roof towards them, its razor-lined mouth wide open. All four of them opened fire and the creature was cut down, falling in a twitching heap just a few metres from their feet. More of them began to pour out of the door, almost climbing over each other in their eagerness to reach their prey. The sound of gunfire became constant as the four members of the scouting party slowly retreated, firing all the time as they backed towards the edge of the roof. Sam looked over his shoulder as he felt his heel hit the low parapet well that ran round the edge of the roof. It was a nine-storey drop straight down to the pavement.

‘Reloading!’ Jay yelled, the empty clip falling from his rifle and clattering to the ground as he slammed another into place. The creatures were dropping like flies under the hail of gunfire, but their numbers did not appear to be diminishing in the slightest. They were advancing relentlessly and their prey had nowhere left to run.

‘I’m out!’ Rachel yelled, dropping her rifle and unholstering her pistol in one fluid movement. She fired twice and then glanced over at Sam, her expression matching the feeling in Sam’s gut perfectly.

They weren’t going to make it.

Sam glanced back over the edge of the roof as the creatures closed in on them. It was a long way down, but better that than being eaten alive. Suddenly, he was almost knocked off his feet as the down draft from the drop-ship’s engines hit him, the soft yellow lights on its hull appearing without warning from the swirling clouds of snow. The hatch in its side slid open, level with the roof, a metre-wide gap between the snow-covered concrete and the safety within.

‘GO!’ Sam bellowed, turning back towards the advancing creatures who now scrambled to climb over the piled-up bodies of their fallen, as if suddenly realising that their prey might escape. He fired a couple of bursts into the nearest of the monsters as Jack leapt across the gap and into the safety of the waiting drop-ship.

‘Ladies first,’ Jay called to Rachel and she shot him an icy glare before running towards the hovering vessel and leaping inside.

‘You’re next,’ Sam urged. ‘I’m right behind you.’

Jay gave a quick nod and then followed the other two, jumping on board the drop-ship and turning to offer his hand to Sam.

‘Come on!’ Jay shouted. ‘We’re leaving!’

Sam felled one more of the creatures and then sprinted for the drop-ship. He sprang across the gap and caught Jay’s outstretched hand just as one of the pursuing creatures reached the edge of the roof and leapt behind him. The monster’s outstretched claws caught Sam’s ankle in a vice-like grip, and the creature dangled below the drop-ship as it drifted away from the roof. Sam’s hand slipped from Jay’s and he flailed for a handhold. His fingers brushed past the edge of the door and for one fleeting instant he was framed in the doorway, a look of horror on his face before silently toppling backwards into the snow-filled void.

‘SAM, NO!’ Jay yelled, desperately flinging himself after his friend. Rachel, grabbing the back of his combat harness, stopped him from also falling to his doom.

‘Take us down,’ Jack yelled at the air.

‘That is impossible,’ the Servant replied, her voice coming from all around them. ‘The area below is too hostile to attempt a landing.’

‘What do you mean?’ Rachel demanded. ‘Take us down now!’

‘I am sorry – I cannot,’ the Servant replied. One of the drop-ship’s bulkheads shimmered for an instant and then resolved into a thermal image of the area below them. The entire street was filled with countless thousands of the creatures they had just been fighting, their faint heat signatures blurring together into one seething mass.

‘Oh my God,’ Rachel said, her voice a broken whisper. Behind her Jay stifled a sob. Their friend was nowhere to be seen. Not even the fading heat of his body was visible. Sam was gone.

3

The drop-ship landed in the compound in the ruins of St James’s Park with a soft thud. Rachel was the first down the boarding ramp, her eyes still red from the tears she had shed for Sam.

‘Rachel, what’s wrong?’ Nat asked.

‘It’s . . . it’s Sam,’ Rachel said, her voice cracking. ‘He didn’t make it.’

Nat’s mouth fell open in shock as Jay and Jack slowly walked down the ramp, looks of grief-stricken shock on their faces too. ‘Oh God, no,’ she whispered, feeling her stomach lurch. ‘What happened?’

‘It was . . . There was . . . It was horrible,’ Rachel said, fresh tears trickling down her cheeks. ‘He never stood a chance.’

Doctor Stirling approached, looking older and more tired than any of them could remember. ‘I’m so very sorry,’ he said. ‘The Servant informed me of the situation. Sam was a very brave young man. I’m sure we will all miss him, but we need to debrief immediately.’

‘Seriously?’ Rachel said angrily, jabbing her finger into his chest. ‘Is that it? Sam’s dead, the person who saved all our lives, the person who let us take London back from the Voidborn, and that’s all you’ve got to say? Well, screw your bloody debriefing. I have a friend to grieve for.’

‘I know how much this hurts,’ Stirling said to Rachel’s back as she stormed away, ‘but we have to understand what these creatures are. They’re like nothing we’ve ever seen before – this could be a whole new threat.’

‘Leave it, Doc,’ Jay said quietly.

‘But you don’t understand,’ Stirling said, ‘if this is some new sort of Voidborn weapon, we need to understand more about it so that we can properly defend our –’

‘I said
leave it
,’ Jay hissed.

Stirling opened his mouth as if to say something else, but the expression on Jay’s face made him think twice. He watched in silence as the other young men and women who might just represent mankind’s last hope for concerted resistance to the Voidborn slowly gathered around Jay and Jack, their shared grief obvious.

In the dormitory, Rachel sat down on her bed and buried her head in her hands, trying desperately to forget the last image of Sam that she had burned into her memory, the single look of fleeting horror on his face before he was gone for ever. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand just as there was a soft knock at the door.

‘Go away,’ Rachel said, her voice hoarse. ‘Whatever it is, I’m not interested.’

‘As you wish,’ the Servant replied. ‘I have something important to discuss with you, but we may address the situation later if you prefer.’

Rachel took a deep breath before standing up and opening the door. The Servant was walking away down the corridor.

‘Wait,’ Rachel said. ‘What do you want?’

The Servant turned and looked at Rachel with something that almost seemed like curiosity.

‘I have been given certain instructions that I must follow in the event of the death of the Illuminate,’ the Servant replied.

‘Sam,’ Rachel said quietly, ‘his name is . . . was . . . Sam.’

‘The Illuminate made his wishes quite clear as to what should happen if he were killed. I am to answer only to his chosen successor.’

‘OK, so now you belong to Stirling. What’s that got to do with me?’ Rachel said impatiently.

‘I fear you misunderstand me,’ the Servant replied. ‘Doctor Stirling was not the Illuminate’s chosen successor. You were.’

‘Me?’ Rachel asked, sounding bewildered. ‘Why? I don’t have any connection with the Voidborn other than this damn chip Stirling put in my head when I was a baby. I’m not like Sam – I don’t have some kind of weird psychic bond with you or the Mothership. I can’t control the Voidborn or anything like that, so what exactly is it that makes me qualified to take over from him?’

‘You were chosen by the Illuminate – it is not my place to question his decisions. My only function now is to serve your will.’

‘Just what I need,’ Rachel said with a sigh, ‘something else to worry about. Stirling’s going to love this.’

‘Is there anything I can do to assist?’ the Servant asked.

‘No, not really,’ Rachel said, shaking her head. ‘Just help Stirling work out what those things in Edinburgh were. We need to find some way to stop them, because I have a horrible feeling that this won’t be the last we see of them.’

‘Understood,’ the Servant replied. ‘I will render whatever assistance Doctor Stirling requires.’

The gold-skinned machine turned to walk away.

‘Did you feel it?’ Rachel asked. ‘When Sam died.’

‘No,’ the Servant replied, turning back towards her, ‘that was not the nature of the connection between us. I could sense his presence when he interfaced with a part of my consciousness in some way, but that was all. The Illuminate is gone; you are his successor. I do not
feel
anything. That would be an emotional response and as such it is not possible for me to experience it.’

‘So you don’t care,’ Rachel said, feeling her usual resentment towards the Servant’s cold, mechanical nature.

‘I cannot care,’ the Servant replied. ‘It is not part of my architecture.’

‘Yeah? Well, sometimes I envy you,’ Rachel said, feeling the knot of grief in her gut. ‘I really do.’

Everything hurts
, Sam thought to himself.
Everything really, really hurts, but that’s a good sign. It means I’m not dead.

First question
, he thought.
Why am I not dead?

He slowly opened his eyes and looked around. He was in a long, narrow chamber, but it was hard to make out any detail as only the faintest grey light filled the space. A slightly brighter light was coming from somewhere above and behind him, but he couldn’t crane his neck to make out exactly where because it would involve moving, and right now his entire body was telling him that trying to move would be a massive mistake.

S
o you’re just going to lie here and freeze to death, then?
Sam thought to himself.
Great plan.

He took a deep breath and tried to push himself up off the floor. The sudden searing pain in his side made him feel slightly light-headed and he fought the overwhelming urge just to lie back down again, but he knew that would only end one way . . . not well. He gingerly touched his side and his fingers came away wet with blood. He took a breath and forced himself to feel the wound area again, his fingertips brushing against something cold, hard and sharp that was protruding from under the edge of the body armour beneath his armpit.

‘Whatever it is, don’t pull it out,’ Sam said to himself, trying to remember his field-medic training. Pain was better than bleeding to death – that much he knew. He sat there for a moment or two, building up his strength for the next challenge: standing up. He made it to one knee before the pain in his side and back made him stop to catch his breath. As his eyes began to adjust to the gloom, he slowly realised where he was. The long, narrow chamber was lined with snow-covered windows that were only letting in the barest splash of light, but he could just make out the shape of the seats that surrounded him. As he began to see more detail, he realised that those seats were separated by a central aisle that led down to another single seat with a steering wheel in front of it.

‘How the hell did I end up on a bus?’ Sam said, slowly standing up. He turned round and saw the source of the brighter overhead illumination: the soft dawn light outside poured through the shattered remains of the large skylight in the bus roof. On the roof outside he could see snow piled nearly a metre deep. His last memory was of losing his grip on Jay and then falling into blackness. He must have hit the snow, and that and his pack absorbed the brunt of the impact. Their combined weight had presumably proven too much for the skylight, which had given way beneath him, dumping him inside. He supposed that made him incredibly lucky, but he certainly didn’t feel it at that precise moment.

He carefully unslung his pack from his back, ignoring the pain in his side, and assessed the damaged contents. He had enough rations for a couple of days and a rudimentary first-aid kit, but, besides a simple bivouac kit, that was pretty much all that had survived the fall. His radio was smashed to pieces and his rifle was nowhere to be seen. He felt for the holster at his waist and was relieved to touch the reassuringly cold metal of the handgun that was still clipped inside it. It was quiet outside, but that didn’t mean he was alone. The hideous creatures that had chased them up on to the roof could still be anywhere, and so he was very relieved to find himself not completely unarmed. He gathered up the remnants of his pack before moving quietly towards the front of the bus. The dawn light was growing brighter, but the snow that covered the windows made it impossible to see anything. He thumped the windscreen a couple of times, trying to dislodge some of the snow, but it was firmly frozen in place.