Chapter 5

The Creature

SNOW’S WORLD WAS shaking. As consciousness seeped back into her mind, she was vaguely aware of something squeezing her shoulders tightly.

Hands.

But it wasn’t Salt’s firm, reassuring grip this time. These fingers had the hard, cold feel of metal.

Snow opened her eyes – to stare straight into the visored face of a White Knight.

Satisfied that it had roused her, the android guard stopped shaking her roughly.

‘Your presence in this sector is unauthorized,’ it droned. ‘Identify yourself.’

The adrenalin rush of panic brought information flooding back into Snow’s mind. She was in the cargo pod, in the garage. She’d been checking out the yellow canister when she’d fallen. This guard must have found her.

‘I repeat, remove your headgear and state your citizen identity code immediately,’ commanded the White Knight.

Headgear. Snow felt a rush of relief. Of course – she still had her helmet on! Which meant that she hadn’t exposed her real identity. Yet.

Without further hesitation, Snow went into action.

The White Knight was stooping over her, having hauled her into a sitting position. Its hands were still gripping her shoulders.

Snow brought her own arms up between the android’s, swinging them up and out. Her self-defence move broke the robot’s grip. Rocking backwards, she tucked up her legs, then thrust a fierce double-footed kick into the White Knight’s chest. It toppled backwards, clattering against the wall of the cargo pod.

Snow was on her feet in an instant. She dived through the gap between the pod’s partly opened sides, out into the garage.

Except that it wasn’t the garage.

Snow’s sore head spun. Instead of the familiar scene she had expected, she appeared to be in the middle of a large, open hangar. There were numerous people in white uniforms bustling about the area. To her left loomed the vast hulk of a freight-carrying starship, from which cargo pods were being unloaded by a squad of White Knights.

Her brain struggled to process what she was seeing.

They must have loaded the pod with me still inside! she realized. While she’d been unconscious, the pod had presumably left the Academy in the Corporation shuttle she’d seen, then been loaded on the freight ship beside her.

So where on Earth am I now?

She caught sight of a large transparent section in one of the hangar’s walls and realized, with gut-churning shock, that she wasn’t anywhere on Earth. The strange landscape visible through the window was clearly not terrestrial.

Snow knew that the Corporation had outposts throughout the galaxy. This must be one of them. Judging by the scientific-looking staff milling about, she guessed it was some sort of research station.

‘Halt! You are under arrest!’

Snow’s confusion had cost her valuable seconds. The White Knight she had knocked down came staggering out of the pod behind her. The sound of its yell drew the attention of its fellow androids and several of the human staff.

Snow ran. She made it to the passageway leading from the hangar before the Corporation guards could give chase.

She sprinted along the passage, then darted down another, hoping to shake off her pursuers. This short corridor had no side-branches. It brought Snow to a transparent door, through which she could see the rocky, bluish-grey terrain outside. But she couldn’t get the door to open.

Snow could hear the pursuing party approaching fast. Without her Armouron suit and tonfa – her T-shaped combat baton – a fight would be futile. She looked around desperately for somewhere to hide.

A few metres back along the corridor, there was a domed skylight in the ceiling. Snow dashed back to stand beneath it. She squatted, then leaped up to grab the thin ledge around its rim. Clinging on with her fingertips, she hauled herself up, then wedged her body inside the clear dome.

Only seconds later, the White Knights burst into the corridor. Snow watched them charge past beneath her. She pressed herself up tight against the skylight.

She saw the guards come to a halt at the transparent door, realizing with a sinking feeling that if she could see them, they would be able to see her when they turned. For the moment, though, they had their backs to her.

‘This is the definitely the route the fugitive took,’ asserted the guard with the black shoulder flash – the unit’s captain. ‘She must have activated the emergency exit door. Search outside.’

One of the other androids took a slim keycard from its belt. It swiped it across a domed sensor and the door slid open.

Snow’s hand slipped a fraction against the skylight’s smooth surface, making a very slight squeak. The White Knight bringing up the rear turned its head.

In a flash, Snow dropped to the floor and dashed past the huddle of guards, out through the open doorway. A moment later, they were after her, like hounds running down a fox.

Snow sprinted desperately away from the research station. She made it ten metres across the rocky ground, then twenty, then thirty. She had no idea where she was running to – only that she must keep going, must not be caught. Thirty-five metres . . . forty . . .

Then, suddenly, all thoughts of escape were driven from Snow’s mind by an explosion of raw pain that seemed to detonate in her brain. It wasn’t the cry of a voice this time – just a paralysing flare of white-hot agony.

As Snow staggered forward and fell, the pain suddenly diminished, as though she had stumbled past its point of greatest intensity.

Her mind still thumping with shockwaves of pain, Snow struggled onto her hands and knees and scrabbled desperately forward across the dusty terrain, expecting to feel the metal grip of a White Knight at any moment. After dragging herself as far as she could from the invisible barrier, she slumped down once more, unable to continue. With difficulty, she rolled over, craned her neck and looked back.

The scene that met her eyes was like nothing she had ever witnessed before. The White Knights who had been pursuing her were not far from where she had fallen. But for the moment they were paying her no attention. Instead, they were engaged in a violent battle with – what?

Snow shook her throbbing head, then stared again at the bizarre, alien creature. It was hovering in the air above the Knights, beating huge wings that fanned out behind its long, jointed forelimbs. As she watched, it reared up to slash at the androids with the curved claws of its hind feet.

It was enormous – at least five metres from wing-tip to wing-tip. The only flying creatures Snow could think of that compared in size were the legendary prehistoric beasts she had read about in the Academy library’s data-files. Pterosaurs, that was it. This strange creature’s featherless, leathery wings, anchored to its arms and sides, reminded her of those ancient monsters.

But the creature’s resemblance to any beast Snow knew of ended there. It had a peculiar elongated head, which was fringed along each side with a thin, rigid, brightly coloured frill. Its long brow was topped by a bony crest. Its short, thick neck was rooted in bulging shoulders that powered its massive wings. Behind them, its body tapered towards its slim tail-end. Other than the grey membranes of its wings, its outlandish body was covered with thick interlocking plates of some coarse, stony material.

As the creature wheeled round to attack the group of White Knights from another angle, Snow noticed something particularly odd. Below its narrow eyes, there was no sign of a nose or mouth. And despite the ferocity of its attack, the beast was making no sound whatsoever. It seemed natural that it should roar or screech as it set upon the White Knights. But it was fighting them in complete silence.

Its assault was so savage that two of the Corporation androids had gone down already and the remainder were in retreat. The creature drove them backwards, until they reached the point where Snow had painfully burst through the invisible wall.

As the White Knights continued to fall back, the flying creature swooped after them – and its vast body suddenly went rigid. It began to spasm, as though suffering some kind of fit. It veered violently aside and crumpled to the ground, in obvious agony.

Like it hit something, thought Snow’s aching brain. Just like I did. As if there’s some sort of barrier it can’t pass  . . .

The White Knights seized their chance to advance on the stricken creature. But it was quicker than Snow to recover. It struggled into an upright position, standing on its wing-tips, like a primate resting on its knuckles. By the time the first android lunged at it, it was ready. The White Knight went down, wires spilling from its electronic innards, its armour torn open by a razor-sharp wing-tip.

Three down!

The other guards retreated warily once more – but only to just beyond the invisible barrier. They seemed well aware that the creature could not get through it from the outside.

The unit’s captain peered across to where Snow lay. She sensed that it was analysing the pros and cons of trying to capture her while the alien beast was still on the rampage out there.

It clearly decided against it, for a moment later it gave a swift hand-signal and the remaining White Knights turned and trudged back towards the research station.

The creature watched the retreating androids until they re-entered the compound. Then it turned slowly, lurching from one wing-tip to the other in its peculiar fashion and fixed its yellow eyes on Snow.