Aftershock (19 page)

Raven watched through the cockpit window as the other Shrouds transporting Alpha students uncloaked and touched down at the Hunt base camp beneath them.

‘Take us down,’ Raven said to the pilot.

‘I’ve got an urgent message from H.I.V.E.,’ the co-pilot said suddenly.

‘Put it on speaker,’ Raven said quickly.

‘Raven, this is Nero, get out . . .’

The message dissolved into nothing but static.

‘What’s wrong?’ Raven demanded.

‘Something’s jamming the comms signal,’ the co-pilot replied.

Raven immediately hit the switch that would connect her to the other Shrouds.

‘This is Raven to all transports, abort, abort, abort! Site is compromised, repeat, site is compromised.’

‘Incoming!’ the pilot yelled and Raven grabbed for a nearby handhold as he banked the Shroud sharply, jamming the throttle up to full power. There was an enormous bang as something struck one of the Shroud’s engines and the cockpit was filled with the blaring sounds of automated warnings.

On the ground below, a volley of missiles streaked into the Shrouds that had already landed, and they disappeared beneath a blossoming cloud of fire and black smoke.

‘Get us out of here,’ Raven yelled at the pilot.

‘I’m doing my best,’ the pilot shouted as he fought with the controls, sending the wounded Shroud diving into the valley below. He jabbed at another button on the control console and turned to Raven, his face dark. ‘We’ve lost the cloak.’

‘I’ve got two faint radar contacts,’ the co-pilot reported. ‘One’s coming after us.’

‘I’m going below to check on the students,’ Raven snapped. She slid down the ladder to the passenger compartment. The bay was already filling with acrid, black smoke.

‘Is anyone injured?’ Raven yelled above the screech of the Shroud’s one remaining engine.

‘No, we’re OK,’ Otto shouted back. ‘What’s happening?’

‘We’re under attack,’ Raven shouted. ‘We may have to ditch. If we make it down in one piece, trigger the emergency hatch release and get out of here as quickly as possible. Understood?’

Raven turned and headed back towards the cockpit. Suddenly there was an explosion of debris as heavy cannon fire blew holes in the fuselage. The Shroud lurched drunkenly and Raven leapt for the cockpit ladder, dragging herself up it as the whole compartment began to tip. She pulled herself into the cockpit only to find a scene of carnage. Both the pilot and co-pilot were dead, the wind howling through the shattered remains of the cockpit canopy that had been shredded by the enemy cannon fire. Raven dragged the pilot’s body out of the flight-seat and pulled hard on the control yoke. The Shroud’s single turbine screamed in protest as she levelled the Shroud out just a few metres above the valley floor. A wasp-like helicopter gunship covered in angular black panels drew alongside the Shroud’s cockpit thirty metres to Raven’s right. The heavy cannon mounted beneath its chin rotated towards her as Raven pulled back hard on the controls. The lethal torrent of tracer shells passed just below the Shroud with an explosive roar. Raven banked hard, trying to get out of the gunship’s line of fire. She jammed on the airbrakes and rotated the engine into a landing position as the gunship shot past beneath her. It began to bank, turning back towards them as Raven brought the stricken Shroud lurching down towards the ground. There was a bang as the undercarriage crunched down on to the rocky valley floor.

‘Get out, now!’ Raven yelled down to the passenger compartment as the enemy gunship began another attack run.

Otto leapt out of his seat and slapped his palm down on the emergency hatch release. The explosive bolts on the hatch fired instantly and the whole ramp flew away from the back of the Shroud, bouncing away across the ground.

‘GO!’ Otto shouted and the Alphas dashed out of the hatch and scattered across the rough terrain outside. Otto ran as fast as he could towards the cover of some nearby pine trees. He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see a pair of missiles streak from the underside of the helicopter gunship and strike the downed Shroud. The Shroud vanished in an incandescent ball of fire, the shock wave from the explosion knocking Otto flat on his face. The helicopter moved slowly along the valley towards the blazing wreckage.

‘Get into the trees!’ Otto yelled to the others who were running for cover as fast as they could. He knew that it probably wouldn’t do much good but any cover from the gunship’s weapons was better than none at all.

‘Laura! Get down!’ Shelby screamed, sprinting towards her friend as the gunship rotated towards them. She slammed into Laura and pushed her down behind a large boulder as the helicopter’s chin cannon opened fire. The fire tore up the ground all around them, the air filling with choking clouds of dirt and stinging stone chips.

Otto knew what he had to do. Shelby and Laura only had a few seconds before the gunship moved into a position which would leave them with no cover at all. He had to act now. He ran towards the gunship, praying that he was close enough. He closed his eyes and reached out with his abilities, straining to connect with the sophisticated computers that controlled the helicopter’s flight control systems. He could feel nothing: it was as if the computers on-board the helicopter simply didn’t exist. They had to be using some sort of shielding that was stopping him from accessing them. The gunship started to turn towards Otto and he realised that there was no way that he could get to cover before it opened fire. Suddenly a thought raced through his head. They might have taken the precaution of shielding the gunship’s systems against his abilities but perhaps they’d not shielded everything. He reached out again with his senses and found what he was looking for. They were unshielded, just as he had hoped. The gunner inside the helicopter brought the cannon to bear, his cross hairs centred on the white-haired boy standing out in the open. He watched as the boy pointed a hand at the gunship, his forefingers extended as if to make a child’s imaginary pistol.

‘Bang,’ Otto said as he simultaneously triggered the detonators in all of the helicopter’s remaining missiles.

The gunship disappeared in a ball of fire, debris bouncing across the valley floor. Otto dived to the ground, his hands over his head, as huge chunks of burning metal flew past him. After a few seconds he looked up and slowly climbed to his feet. Pieces of tangled metal lay everywhere – it was a scene of total devastation.

‘Otto!’ Wing shouted, running towards his friend. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ Otto said, dusting himself off. ‘Did everyone make it out?’

‘Not everyone, I fear,’ Wing said, looking towards the smouldering wreckage of the Shroud. There was no sign of Raven.

‘Then we’re on our own,’ Otto said grimly, trying to ignore the churning feeling in his gut. ‘We have to get moving. There’s no way we can go back to the original landing site. Whoever ambushed us is sure to be waiting there and we can’t stay here either. The people this helicopter belonged to are bound to come looking.’

‘Agreed,’ Wing replied. ‘Do you still have the map?’

‘Yes,’ Otto said as he reached inside his insulated bodysuit and pulled out a folded piece of paper. ‘Let’s gather everyone up and we can make a decision on our next move.’

Slowly the Alphas gathered under the trees. They all looked shocked by the events that had just unfolded.

‘What do we do now?’ Nigel asked.

‘We have to get away from here,’ Otto said, smoothing out the map on the ground. ‘Our best bet is to head this way through the forest and towards the mountains here.’ He pointed at the map. ‘They probably have other helicopters and we have to assume that they’ll also have forces on the ground. We can’t go back to the landing site, it’s obviously been compromised, so we keep moving through the best natural cover we can find and hope that H.I.V.E. come looking for us.’

‘Wouldn’t it make sense to try and head for the nearest settlement and see if we can find some way to contact H.I.V.E. directly?’ Tom asked.

‘The nearest town is over two hundred miles away,’ Laura said, shaking her head, ‘and that’s exactly where they’ll expect us to head. I think Otto’s right – the mountains will give us better cover and more places to hide if they are searching for us from the air.’

‘With Raven gone we are having no way for H.I.V.E. to track us,’ Franz said, sounding worried. ‘How will they be finding us?’

‘Franz is right,’ Shelby said. ‘The harder we make it for our attackers to find us, the harder it’s going to be for whoever Nero sends after us.’

‘That’s assuming that they don’t just find the wreckage of the Shroud and write us all off as casualties anyway,’ Penny said gloomily.

‘OK, look,’ Otto said. ‘I know that this seems bad but we’ve got to try to stay positive. I don’t know about you guys but I’m not just going to light a campfire and sit around waiting for whoever sent that helicopter after us. That’s not an option. We get moving and we keep moving and we try to stay one step ahead. It’s not about breaking a twenty-four hour record any more.’ He stopped and looked at each of his friends. ‘It’s about survival.’

The commander of the Disciple strike team surveyed the scene at the Shroud landing area. The burnt-out shells of the H.I.V.E. dropships still smouldered as his one remaining helicopter gunship circled overhead. Just as they had hoped, they had caught the H.I.V.E. forces completely by surprise. On the other side of the landing area half a dozen of his men surrounded the handful of H.I.V.E. students who had been the only survivors of the attack. Some lay groaning on stretchers but even the ones who were uninjured still looked disorientated and frightened. As well they might, he thought to himself with a grim smile, given the fate that awaited them. A transport helicopter would be there to take them to their new home shortly.

‘Sir,’ one of his team said, approaching him holding a tablet display, ‘I’ve reviewed the gun camera footage from the downed helicopter’s flight recorder. We believe Raven was piloting the Shroud that was destroyed in the air, but there’s something you should see.’ His man handed him the device and the commander watched the shaky video. He saw at least half a dozen H.I.V.E. students, possibly more, running for cover as the gunship began its final attack run and then the camera swivelled to focus on a boy with white hair pointing a finger at the camera. There was a bright flash and then the screen went black.

‘Otto Malpense,’ the commander said.

‘Yes, sir, he appears to have been responsible for bringing down our aircraft.’

‘I thought the gunships were shielded against his abilities.’

‘They are, sir, but we overlooked something,’ the soldier replied. ‘The flight recorder indicates that the detonation circuits on the aircraft’s missiles were triggered. The helicopters are shielded but the missiles aren’t. As I say, it was an oversight on our part.’

‘We cannot afford mistakes like this today. Have the other gunships land and unload their missile racks,’ the commander said with a frown. ‘Make sure that Malpense won’t be able to use that trick again. In the meantime have the tracking team hunt our runaways down.’

‘Do they have sanction?’ the soldier asked.

‘Yes,’ the commander replied, ‘except for Malpense. Minerva would rather he was taken alive if possible.’

‘Understood,’ the solider replied with a nod.

The commander pulled the radio from his belt and thumbed the transmit button.

‘Frostbite One to command, over,’ the commander said.

‘This is Minerva,’ the distorted voice on the other end replied. ‘Go ahead.’

‘We’ve taken the landing site. Fifteen of Nero’s students have been captured, at least six are on the run and the rest are dead. I’ve dispatched my best men to track down the runners. They should be neutralised before nightfall.’

‘Malpense?’ Minerva asked.

‘One of the runners – he won’t get far.’

‘See that he doesn’t,’ Minerva replied. ‘And Raven?’

‘We believe she was piloting a Shroud that was destroyed,’ the commander replied.

‘You believe? You don’t have her body?’ Minerva snapped.

‘The Shroud she was piloting was destroyed. Her body would have been incinerated.’

‘Listen to me very carefully, commander,’ Minerva said angrily. ‘I don’t care if you bring me a bag full of charred bones, I want her body found. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Of course,’ the commander replied. ‘I’ll send a team to retrieve her remains immediately.’