Colony
Page 1
Benjamin Cross has a postgraduate degree in archaeology from the University of Oxford. An experienced field archaeologist, he has worked and travelled widely, exploring the remains of ancient civilisations around the world. A member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, he is now Principal Heritage Consultant with a global planning and environmental consultancy. Cross lives with his family in Carmarthenshire, Wales. He has published short stories and academic papers and has written two novels.
Colony is Cross’s first novel.
First published in Great Britain in 2021 by
The Book Guild Ltd
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Wistow Road, Kibworth
Leicestershire, LE8 0RX
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Copyright © 2021 Benjamin Cross
The right of Benjamin Cross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This work is entirely fictitious and bears no resemblance to any persons living or dead.
ISBN 978 1913913 403
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
For my family
Hannah, Ethan & Ted
Contents
Prologue
White Death
Chapter 1
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo…
1
2
3
4
5
6
Chapter 2
Icebreaker
1
2
3
4
5
6
Chapter 3
Ice Mummy
1
2
3
4
5
Chapter 4
Tusking
1
2
3
4
5
6
Chapter 5
Zero Hour
1
2
3
Chapter 6
Caves
1
2
3
4
Chapter 7
Sea Centaur
1
2
3
4
Chapter 8
Atomic Particle Explosion
1
2
3
4
Chapter 9
Survivors
1
2
3
4
5
Chapter 10
Finback
1
2
3
Chapter 11
Possum
1
2
3
4
5
Chapter 12
Lazarus Taxon
1
2
3
Chapter 13
The Compound
1
2
3
4
5
6
Chapter 14
Grudge
1
2
3
4
Chapter 15
Chamber 2
1
2
3
4
5
6
Chapter 16
Gunship
1
2
3
4
Chapter 17
Data Stick
1
2
3
4
5
6
Chapter 18
The Hive
1
2
3
Chapter 19
Tansu Taibaa
1
2
3
4
Chapter 20
Harpoon
1
2
3
4
5
6
Chapter 21
Loch Ness
1
2
3
4
5
6
Acknowledgements
Prologue
White Death
6000 BC
The hunter’s whalebone skis tore across the drift, carving up the surface and thrusting clouds of snow into his wake. The slipstream lashed his cheeks as he accelerated. His eyes watered. His muscles ached. Beneath the thick fur lining of his jacket he coul
d feel the bite of his talisman, the tips of the three teeth probing at his skin.
He threw a glance behind.
Nothing; it was nowhere to be seen.
Ahead, the slope gouged a narrow aisle through the outcrops of rock before disappearing into the blizzard. The snowfall was thickening around him, the mist closing in fast. Gritting his teeth, he drove his ski poles hard into the snow and propelled himself onwards.
As he sped downslope, the storm fed him glimpses of the world ahead. And there was something there, at the bottom of the slope. Like a dark ribbon draped across his path, it grew wider, darker with every glance…
The hunter’s eyes bulged with terror.
It was a gorge, wide and deep, hewn into the valley.
With no time to lose, he swerved away, calling on every last fibre of skill to keep his balance, to weave amongst the scattered outcrops now littering the way ahead…
…his ski ploughed into a talon of rock. There was a crunch as the shaft split open. His heart sank, his legs buckled and he was slung forward. In the chaos that followed, the momentum toyed with him, twisting his limbs around his torso. As he hit the ground, his ski snapped off at the toe and the jagged splinter sheared into his gut.
He tumbled for what seemed like eternity. Then silence.
He blinked his eyes open. The world was now a brutal haze. Blood dripped from his nose and lips, freezing into trails in the snow. He waited, breathed, slowly unfolded himself. As the delirium subsided, pain flared in his stomach, sent a surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins.
He staggered to his feet. His ribs were fractured and his shoulder dislocated, but he had to keep moving. Instinctively he reached for the shaft of bone sticking spear-like from his gut. Then he thought better. Leaving it to plug the wound, he took off as fast as he could along the side of the gorge.
Up ahead he could make out a towering rockface. A low, narrow tunnel was worn into its base where the line of the gorge passed through. It wasn’t much, but it was shelter. As he limped towards it, the world bucked suddenly and he was thrown forward. On reflex, he rolled straight over, straining for breath and clawing the snow from his face. He scanned around, his head darting from side to side with every imagined movement, his eyes wide, frantic. But there was nothing, just a thick curtain of white that suffocated his senses.
He glanced behind, searching out the tunnel. It was only a few strides away, and he prepared to drag himself to his feet—
A guttural hiss broke the silence.
The air froze in his lungs.
It was there. Right in front of him. Its head cocked. Its mouth cracked open. Watching. He had never believed the stories meant to frighten him as a child. But here they were: every tale, every description, every warning that he had ever ignored, staring down at him through the flurry.
Plumes of condensed breath fired from its nostrils as it slunk forward a pace, bobbing its head and shaking the snow from its back. Then it froze, its lips curling, peeling back to reveal the teeth emerging from its bloodshot gums. With its face caught in a snarl, it stretched its neck towards him and bellowed.
The hideous sound seemed to bite into his skull, and the hunter scrabbled to his feet in sheer terror. His hand jumped instinctively to the bag hanging from his belt. He fought with the lashings, desperately wrenching them free, until he could tear the fibre sack loose and hold it before him.
The creature’s eyes flashed. It screamed out and lunged at him, sending the bag flying from his grip and skidding across the ice into the mouth of the tunnel. With the creature’s frenzied screeching ringing in his ears, the hunter dropped to his knees and scrabbled after it, dragging himself in through the narrow folds of rock.
The cold seeped up into his palms. Then the gut-churning stench of putrefying meat wafted in from behind him. Pain erupted in his ankles and panic took hold. He screamed out, struggling as unseen teeth hacked into his flesh and stripped the strings of muscle from his bones. Clouds of steam billowed up into the night as his blood spilt out in rivers, and the freezing air congealed with the crunching of bone.
As the world began to fade, he reached forward and dug his fingers into the surface of the ancient stone. Then, with all that remained of his strength, he heaved himself on into the dark.
Chapter 1
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo…
1
Harmsworth Island, Russian Arctic
Present day
Starshyna Alexander Koikov ground the gear-shift lever into neutral and brought the forklift juddering to a halt. It was mid-morning and just below freezing. In the new silence he wasted no time lighting a papirosa and taking a long drag. As the tar-heavy smoke tripped from his nostrils, he traced a finger across his scar. The rest of his jaw was covered in coarse, week-old stubble, but nothing had ever sprouted from the distinctive hook of scar tissue gouged into his cheek, not a single bristle, and now the cold was causing it to ache.
It was two months since his detachment had been posted to the Albanov icebreaker. As far as Koikov was concerned, being a member of Department V could be the best job in the world. Could be. His squad’s last rotation had been to Chechnya, where he had spent three months dispatching prominent Chechen rebels, and almost having his balls blown off by a sniper in the process; the proudest day of his life was when he had been promoted from sergeant to starshyna at the end of that tour. But this new detail, working security on some pampered gas tycoon’s boat in the high Arctic, it was a sentence not a sortie. It was dull as shit.
He pushed the collar on his jacket up around his chin and tugged at his knit cap, stretching it down over the tops of his ears. And what about his men? Like him, they were no ordinary soldiers. They had all endured the same selection programme, the brutal interrogation exercises, the endless forced marches and night-time parachute jumps. And they had all seen their share of action since. From long experience Koikov knew that charging men like his with tycoon babysitting was a gamble. Hardened, well-trained and well-disciplined they may have been. But they were also human. Humans got bored. Bored humans got sloppy, elite or not.
He watched as Junior Sergeant Sharova and Private Dolgonosov emerged from behind one of the half dozen barrack blocks dispersed around the incomplete runway at the heart of the old military compound. The only other things still standing were a couple of rusting, partially collapsed hangars, an old crane and the three conjoined concrete bunkers peering up out of the bedrock right in front of him. Trails of steam gushed from the men’s shoulders as they rolled another enormous metal drum towards the forklift. Moments later they were joined by Private Yudina, whose bear-like stature made a toy of his rifle as he slung it around onto his back and pitched in.
Koikov had half-hoped that the sub-team’s deployment onto the island itself might have boosted their morale a little. At least served as a distraction. But the expressions on the faces of the three men only reconfirmed what he already knew: clearing up a bunch of old petrochem containers in sub-zero temperatures was a million miles short of stimulating.
He restarted the forklift’s engine and lowered the carriage so that they could heave the recumbent drum up onto the forks. With the clamp secured over the top of it, he then killed the engine once more and jumped out of the cabin. He slapped a palm against the side of the drum. “How many more are there?”
“Fifty or sixty,” Sharova replied. “Plus a bunch of smaller canisters. Mostly full.”
“Can we be finished today?”
Before Sharova could respond, Dolgonosov let out a loud, indignant snort and slumped back against the side of the forklift cabin. “What the fuck are we doing here, Starshyna?”
Koikov looked hard into the young man’s eyes. He was already a formidable soldier, but he was also as hot-headed and restless as Koikov had been at age twenty-one. Ordinarily he would have stung Dolgonosov for the attitude, but on this occasion he was voicing th
e question on all of their lips. “We’re doing what we’ve been instructed,” Koikov replied. “Any day now and the science club will be all over the place, poking their noses here and their dicks there.”