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.’
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.
The following morning Otto woke with a start. What little sleep he’d managed to get had been plagued by nightmares. Raven was still watching the entrance to the cave through which the grey light of dawn was now visible.
‘Good morning,’ she said quietly.
‘How’s the weather?’ Otto asked, slowly getting to his feet. He felt stiff and uncomfortable after the night spent on the rocky floor of the cave.
‘Much improved,’ Raven replied. ‘We should be able to set out for the abandoned facility shortly.’
‘I’ll wake up the others,’ Otto said.
A few minutes later the Alphas were all awake and getting ready for the trek that lay ahead of them.
‘I’m starving,’ Tom moaned. ‘I suppose it was too much to ask that one of those Disciple soldiers might have been carrying some rations.’
‘I believe that part of the challenge of the Hunt was that we were to find our own sources of food,’ Wing said, ‘though I concede that foraging probably isn’t very wise under the circumstances.’
‘I am thinking that I am actually being too frightened to be hungry,’ Franz sighed.
‘OK, that’s it, we’re doomed,’ Shelby whispered to Laura.
‘There are five rifles left,’ Raven said, slinging one of the salvaged weapons over her shoulder. ‘So three of you will have to remain unarmed. Wing, I know you won’t take one even if I tell you to so I need two more volunteers.’
‘I’ll pass,’ Penny said. ‘I’ve never fired a gun in my life. I’d probably only end up shooting myself.’
‘I don’t need one either,’ Laura said. ‘I’m no good with the damn things anyway.’
The other five Alphas all took one of the rifles. Tom picked one up and gave Otto an embarrassed look.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a minute to . . . erm . . . show me the basics have you?’ he asked quietly.
‘Sure,’ Otto said, ‘it’s a piece of cake really. Safety’s here, white dot means that the safety’s on, red dot means it’s off. Best to leave it on until you’re ready to shoot. Sights are here – just make sure that you keep whatever you want to hit in the middle of them but never point your weapon at anything you don’t want to kill. Keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you want to pull the trigger. I’ve been chewed out too many times by Colonel Francisco for bad trigger discipline to forget that. Right, OK, pull the stock tight into your shoulder. That’s it. It will kick a bit so lean into the rifle as you squeeze the trigger. Squeeze, not pull, gently does it. Try to use short controlled bursts of fire – you haven’t got enough ammo for spray and pray. OK?’
‘How do you know all this?’ Tom asked, looking at Otto with a slightly bemused expression.
‘Benefits of a good education,’ Otto replied with a smile.
‘OK, time to go,’ Raven said. ‘Keep together and keep up.’
Nero stared at the satellite image of the Hunt base camp as Francisco’s assault Shroud touched down. Two more hovered nearby, scanning the area for any sign of hostile forces. Nero watched the Colonel’s men move around the wreckage-strewn site.
‘It’s bad, Max,’ Francisco said over the comms system. ‘There are a lot of bodies. All the pilots and security personnel are dead and we’ve found nearly twenty dead students. The others are all missing. Raven’s Shroud seems to have escaped the initial attack at least. We’re going to sweep the area and see if we can find any sign of it.’
‘Damn it!’ Nero shouted, slamming his palm down on the display. ‘Colonel, I want you to find the people responsible for this atrocity and I want you to make sure they suffer before they die. Do I make myself clear?’
‘It will be my pleasure,’ Francisco replied. ‘We’re going to start our search immediately but it’s going to take some time. There’s a lot of territory to cover.’
‘Report anything you find,’ Nero said angrily.
‘Understood, Francisco out.’
‘H.I.V.E.mind, begin scanning the satellite imagery of the surrounding area,’ Nero snapped. ‘Look for something that might give us an idea where these people are or where they may have taken any survivors.’
Nero stood in the middle of the control room and felt pure rage welling up inside him.
‘Summon the ruling council,’ Nero barked at a nearby communications technician. ‘Tell them I will be sending Shrouds to pick them up immediately for an emergency meeting at H.I.V.E.’
If it was war that the Disciples wanted, it was war they were going to get.