Aftershock (22 page)

The leader of the Disciple tracking team studied the heat signatures of the children who were lying on the ground or hiding behind trees thirty metres away. The night vision system in his suit’s mask was good but it was impossible to tell at this range which one was Otto Malpense. His instructions had been clear: once he had Malpense the other H.I.V.E. students were to be eliminated.

‘Last chance,’ he yelled, ‘three, two . . .’

Wing struck without mercy, silently dropping from the trees overhead, and delivering a scything chop to the squad leader’s throat. The man emitted a strangled gurgling sound as he dropped his assault rifle and clutched at his throat. Wing ripped the soldier’s mask off as he collapsed to the ground. He pulled the mask on and the previously invisible soldiers lit up in front of him, five of them in a tight group, their backs turned.

‘Sorry, boss, didn’t get that. What did you say?’ one of the other men in the squad said, turning his head. He just had time for a frightened yelp as he saw the figure leaping towards him. Wing grabbed the barrel of the man’s rifle as it swung towards him and wrenched it upwards, the shoulder rest smashing into the soldier’s chin and knocking him clean off his feet. Wing kept moving, swinging the rifle like a hammer into the ribs of another soldier, while delivering a vicious kick to the side of his knee. As the crippled man dropped to the ground, screaming in pain, Wing swung the rifle into the side of his head, knocking him out cold. There was a burst of panic fire from one of the other men as Wing dived for cover, rolling towards the nearest one of the Disciple troops who was still standing. He leapt up, driving the heel of his palm into the man’s nose, shattering the bones with a crunch. The man squeezed the trigger of his gun instinctively and the wild shots cut down one of his own team-mates. Wing delivered a backhanded fist to the side of the gunman’s head, dropping him like a stone. Wing spun towards the last remaining uninjured member of the squad but the Disciple soldier had him cold, his rifle aimed straight at Wing’s head. His finger was tightening on the trigger as, from nowhere, a glowing purple blade flashed through the air. The rifle dropped to the ground as the soldier toppled over, about a foot shorter than he had been just a moment before.

‘I am relieved to see you are unharmed,’ Wing said calmly.

‘Likewise Mr Fanchu,’ Raven replied with a nod.

Otto and the others slowly began to emerge from cover as Wing and Raven walked towards them.

‘I had a feeling we hadn’t seen the last of you,’ Otto said with a grin.

‘Six hours and thirteen minutes,’ Raven said, looking at her watch. ‘Looks like my twenty-four hour record is safe. To be honest, I was expecting slightly better from this group.’

‘Very funny,’ Otto said. ‘I don’t suppose you have a plan for getting us out of here alive, do you?’

‘Yes, first we take anything that might be useful from our friends back there,’ Raven replied, gesturing towards the battered remnants of the Disciple tracking team. ‘Then, we run.’

‘I was being afraid you were going to say that,’ Franz moaned.

‘Come in, Frostbite Three,’ the commander of the Disciple troops said urgently into his communicator but there was no reply. They had lost contact with the tracking team half an hour ago and there been no communication since. They were the last of his troops equipped with the new camouflage suits which were supposed to make them undetectable and he was starting to worry that something had happened to them. He had dispatched his helicopter gunships to the scene but they would soon have to return to base if the winter storm that they were flying through continued to develop.

‘We’re nearly at the rendezvous point,’ the pilot of the transport helicopter reported. ‘ETA two minutes.’

The commander nodded and headed back into the cargo compartment of the chopper. Inside were a dozen of his men. They had been trained by the best and they were extremely well equipped but he had started to wonder if that would be enough. Raven and the remaining H.I.V.E. students were proving to be difficult, dangerous prey.

‘We’re heading to the secondary staging area,’ the commander said. ‘We will rest overnight there and restart the search for our remaining targets in the morning. This storm should have blown itself out by then. It is likely that, by then, there will be G.L.O.V.E. forces in the area searching for their people. If you encounter them you are cleared to engage.’

‘I assume
she’s
still out there, sir,’ one of his men asked.

‘Yes, we believe that Raven is still active,’ the commander replied. ‘You have all been briefed on her capabilities. I’m sure that I do not need to remind you of the threat she represents. Do not engage her without backup.’

‘There’s a transmission coming in for you, commander,’ the pilot shouted back from the cockpit. The commander tapped his earpiece.

‘This is Frostbite One, go ahead.’

‘Good evening, commander,’ Minerva replied. ‘I hear you have lost contact with one of your tracking teams.’

‘Yes, I’d like to call off the search for Raven and the H.I.V.E students for the night. This storm is too intense for airborne operations and visibility on the ground will be no better. The weather should have improved by the morning and we can relaunch the search then.’

‘Very well,’ Minerva replied. ‘I too will be arriving at the rendezvous point in the morning.’

‘You’re coming here?’ The commander asked, sounding surprised.

‘Yes,’ Minerva said. ‘I want to make sure that you and your men are sufficiently . . . motivated.’

‘Understood,’ the commander said, swallowing nervously. ‘We will prepare for your arrival.’

‘Up there,’ Raven shouted over the howling wind. She pointed towards a darkened hollow in the mountainside above them, barely visible through the increasingly heavy snow. ‘We have to find shelter. This storm is going to get worse before it gets better.’

The Alphas followed behind her as she picked her way carefully up the rocky slope. The trees were thinner here and provided less protection from the freezing wind. Even with their specially adapted environmental suits it was getting unbearably cold. They were exhausted but knew that they could not stop until they’d found a safe place to rest. Raven reached the mouth of the cave and peered inside. She pulled a glowstick from her tactical harness and lit it up, bending it until the glass tube inside cracked and then shaking it to mix the phosphorescent chemicals. Pulling one of the swords from her back she advanced into the cave with the glowing stick held high, the eerie green light from the plastic tube casting unsettling shadows on the walls as she went deeper. The cave went much further back than it had seemed it would from the outside. By the time they reached the back of the cave the sound of the howling wind outside was little more than a distant moan.

‘We should be safe here,’ Raven said, sticking the light in a small recess in one of the rocky walls. The tired Alphas leant the rifles they had taken from the Disciple soldiers against the wall before finding places to rest on the gravel-strewn floor.

‘We can’t risk a fire, I’m afraid,’ Raven said. ‘Not that we could gather firewood in this blizzard anyway. Just stay close to one another to conserve your body heat and you’ll be fine.’

‘Who were those guys?’ Otto asked as Raven sat down nearby.

‘Old friends of ours,’ Raven replied. ‘The Disciples.’

‘I was hoping we’d seen the last of them when Overlord was destroyed,’ Wing said with a frown.

‘It would seem not,’ Raven said.

‘Did any of the other Alphas escape?’ Laura asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Raven said, looking at the ground, ‘but the initial missile attack on the other Shrouds was . . . some may have survived, but many will not. I fear our casualties will be heavy. This was a well-planned ambush. God only knows how they found out where the Hunt was taking place. Only Nero, H.I.V.E.mind and myself knew the location. All I can think is that they managed to track the G.L.O.V.E. Hunt team here somehow but I don’t see how.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Penny asked.

‘We stay here overnight and hope that this storm breaks,’ Raven replied. ‘Then we make ourselves as easy for H.I.V.E. to find as possible.’

‘You mean head back to the landing site?’ Nigel asked, looking confused.

‘No,’ Raven replied, ‘too risky. Besides, we don’t need to.’ She reached into one of the pockets on her tactical harness and pulled out a small metal box. ‘We have this.’

‘What is it?’ Otto asked.

‘It’s the homing beacon from the ejector seat that I used to escape the Shroud before it was destroyed. It’s supposed to help with locating downed pilots but we can use it too. It won’t activate again until I reattach the battery but when I do it will give H.I.V.E. our exact position.’

‘So why haven’t you activated it?’ Shelby asked with a frown.

‘Because it will tell
everyone
else exactly where we are,’ Otto said. ‘Right?’

‘Exactly,’ Raven nodded. ‘We need to find somewhere we can hole up, some kind of fortified position, before we activate it. When we do we’ll be broadcasting our location to the Disciples too so we have to find somewhere that will allow us to hold them off until H.I.V.E.’s forces can get to us.’

‘OK, so where do we go?’ Shelby asked.

‘There’s an abandoned Russian army training base on the other side of these mountains,’ Raven said. ‘I’m not sure exactly what kind of facility it was but it’s probably the best option if we want to make a stand.’

‘And then we just hope that H.I.V.E. gets to us before the ammunition runs out,’ Otto said, gesturing towards the rifles stacked against the wall.

‘Great,’ Shelby said, ‘nothing I like more than a hopeless last stand against overwhelming odds.’

‘Way to boost morale, Shel,’ Laura groaned.

‘Sorry, what I meant to say was that it’s a brilliant plan and I don’t see how it can possibly fail.’

‘Somehow, that’s actually worse,’ Nigel said with a sigh.

‘OK, try to get some sleep,’ Raven said. ‘We have a long climb tomorrow. I’ll keep watch.’

He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. There was a problem that had been nagging at him and something that Raven said had made it bubble back to the surface. Only she, Nero and H.I.V.E.mind had known about the location for the Hunt but Otto knew that wasn’t entirely true. Everyone in the cave had known. As he looked at his friends settling down to try and get a few hours’ sleep he realised something horrible. There was only one explanation that made any sense. Someone here had sold them out. One of his friends was a traitor.