by WW Mortensen
Rebecca hesitated, wondering why the creature hadn’t simply exited, just as something—the second egg-layer—struck her hard in the back and sent her sprawling to the deck.
• • •
Jessy jolted forward as Raven Two snagged in the understorey and lurched to a jarring halt.
Hanging from her harness, too scared to move, she carefully shifted her gaze. Leaves and branches poked through the window beside her. Below her feet, through the windshield, the ground, maybe a dozen yards away, beckoned.
She couldn’t see the pilot.
Is he gone, too? Am I alone up here?
All around, a faint tick of metal echoed in the stillness. Other than that, silence.
“Hello?”
No answer. Even Priscilla was gone. Had Johansson released her? She couldn’t recall.
You’re stuck up here by yourself.
A sudden loud groan caused Jessy to jump… but in truth, what really scared her was the horrible tearing sound that followed.
Oh no…
With a faltering lurch, Raven Two broke free of the surrounding foliage.
The ground rushed up through the windshield.
• • •
Rebecca’s chin crashed into the floor, sparking a lightning-bolt of pain. Ignoring it, bouncing off the deck, she spun onto her back—at the same time whipping up the AK-74 to meet her attacker.
As expected, the second egg-layer was there, its pale three-inch fangs swarming large in her vision, legs rearing in a threat-pose—
Rebecca squeezed the trigger, the sudden report deafening in the confines of the chopper.
The pale-grey carcass stuttered back from her, quivering uncontrollably.
• • •
Rebecca whirled back to the doorway and the egg-layer still poised there, in time to see the sudden eruption of dark and viscous blood burst from its dorsal surface.
Within an instant of the object entering its cephalothorax—the hard, shell-like region housing its brain—the egg-layer was dead. Rebecca realised the projectile was Oliveira’s gas-propelled grappling hook—he’d fired it into the cabin of the Black Hawk, through the egg-layer.
With a clang, the hook found purchase on the floor’s metal grating. The knotted rope, chasing in blurring loops behind it, tightened as Rebecca scrambled for the doorway. As she went, shots rent the air: Ed and the other soldier firing at the egg-layers still skittering outside, jostling to get in. The chopper rolled again, but Rebecca maintained her footing and pushed past the dead egg-layer still frozen in a starburst at the door’s threshold. Fighting to stay upright, Rebecca peered through the opening.
Oliveira dangled below, trailing at the end of the rope.
• • •
Rebecca grasped the rope and pulled upwards with all her might.
Aronsohn joined her, and together, they hauled Oliveira to the base of the door. The chopper heaved again, but Rebecca had braced herself tight against the doorframe. Aronsohn had, too, and each of them reached down with a single free hand, seizing Oliveira’s wrists. The chopper bucked and swayed like a faulty mechanical bull.
Kicking away the dead egg-layer, Rebecca used the extra space and fell to her belly, straining to reach down. Oliveira swung from the base of the door, gripping the edge fiercely. She grasped him by the collar. As though cresting a wave, the Black Hawk rolled back towards the pyramid, and Rebecca’s stomach rolled with it. Behind her, both Ed and the other soldier fired non-stop, the tattoo thunderous. Rebecca looked towards the pyramid. If she could gauge how much time they had before—
Too late.
The spur caught Oliveira without warning, hooking him around the ankle and jerking him backwards. He cried out, and Rebecca and Aronsohn barely held on. Rebecca had been wondering how close the Female had dragged them, and realised they were less than five or six yards from the temple. A claw at the end of one of the Female’s feet—normally used for climbing—had snared Oliveira.
The huge Female pressed against the stone columns, still pulling with the appendage that held Oliveira, but at the same time hooking several legs around the chopper.
She had them.
The chopper rocked as she dragged it closer. Another leg appeared and flayed at Oliveira. His collar started to rip.
“The gun!” Oliveira yelled to Aronsohn, his gaze darting to the open window and the pintle-mounted M2. “USE IT!”
“If I let you go—” Aronsohn cried.
“JUST DO IT!”
Aronsohn nodded and let go.
“No!” Rebecca screamed. She braced against the door with her thigh, half outside the chopper, gripping Oliveira’s shirt with both hands. But without Aaronson’s assistance, she couldn’t hold him for long…
With his left hand, Oliveira let go of the doorway.
Rebecca lunged, fighting to keep hold of him. “What the hell are you doing?!”
With his free hand, Oliveira rifled inside his vest. There was something about the way he looked at her…
“Here, take this,” he said, holding out his hand.
And with that, he was gone.
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“NO!”
Rebecca watched helplessly as the triumphant Female reefed back her prize with a whip-like snap of her leg. Like a toy doll, Oliveira soared through the air, shooting over the Female’s head and into the darkness beyond the temple columns. The huge arachnid didn’t turn as he disappeared; she seemed to have no further interest in him.
She wanted more.
The M2 opened up with a roar.
Aronsohn strafed the temple point-blank. The assault was withering, the stone columns disappearing behind clouds of dust and shrapnel. The Female shrieked, shrinking from the barrage. Aronsohn didn’t relent, sweeping the gun back and forth. Rebecca covered her ears and shut her eyes against the dust.
But as quickly as it had begun, it ended in abrupt silence, and Rebecca opened her eyes again, only to scream.
• • •
Lightning-quick, the Female had shot one of her long forelegs through the dust-cloud, right through the open window of the Black Hawk—
And right through Aronsohn’s chest. She plucked him from the chopper like a cocktail onion on a toothpick.
Rebecca watched in stunned horror, shocked by the gruesome sight, and as the dust dispersed, she saw something that caused her heart to sink even further.
Aronsohn’s barrage had done more harm than good. The columns of the temple, centuries-old, had splintered under the assault, and the Female, seemingly unharmed and pressed up against them, had crashed through.
She came for the chopper, but only after dashing Aronsohn against the side of the Black Hawk and waving him in the air like a trophy. Somehow still alive, he struggled in her grip, so the Female reached across and grasped him with three more legs.
Victorious, she quartered him in the air and tossed the four pieces of his battered body to the steps of the pyramid below.
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The chopper was now the Female’s to do with as she wished.
Frenzied, the huge megarachnid dragged it flush against the pyramid, ramming it hard against the temple. The impact, however, forced the pummelled chopper to tip back in the opposite direction, causing the floor to buck away from the structure.
Rebecca lost her balance, as well as her grip on the pouch of diamonds Oliveira had passed her a moment ago. To her dismay, the bag, still tied, dropped to the deck and skated down the slope towards the starboard-side doorway. Reflexively, Rebecca fell to her belly, sliding after the pouch—
—and tipped right out after it, into space.
• • •
“Bec!” Ed cried.
He’d tried, but failed, to catch her as she slid past—he’d reached for her, but then something had seized him from behind and pulled him in the opposite direction. As he was dragged away, he saw the last remaining soldier grasp Rebecca’s wrist, but her momentum had been too great and holding on, the soldier had exited the aircraf
t with her.
Now, Ed turned. The Female had latched onto his ankle with one of her clawed legs. Shifting the chopper’s weight so that its floor angled towards her, she hauled him backwards, towards her open mouth. He slid fast but managed to catch hold of one of the metal seats as he whooshed by. The seat was bolted to the floor and he hooked his arm around it, halting his slide, but howled in pain, suddenly terrified she would tear his leg free of his body.
Pistol out, Ed hit the pale foreleg attached to his ankle with two quick shots before squeezing for a third.
Click.
He was out of ammo.
• • •
Rebecca and the soldier fell…
…but not far.
Fortunately, the Black Hawk had been dragged flush against the temple, so the distance to the steps beneath it was short. Had the two of them exited farther from the pyramid, the fall would have been fatal. As it was, they dropped fifteen feet at most, and even then, they were slowed by the barrier web.
Still, it hurt.
Rebecca and the soldier struck the stairs together, bouncing down several steps before coming to a halt and untangling. Dazed, Rebecca leapt to her feet without stopping to brush herself off. She screamed back up at the chopper. “ED!”
Shit!
Even if they climbed back to the temple, the Black Hawk was beyond reach. They wouldn’t be able to get past the Female.
The soldier who had fallen with her rushed to her side. He was roughly her age, maybe a few years younger, and covered in silk. He placed a bloodied hand on her arm. “Ma’am, my name is Kriedemann. We need to get out of here—”
Rebecca shrugged him off and scrambled up a few steps. “We’re not leaving him!” Positioned beneath the chopper, she couldn’t see through its doors or windows—the aircraft’s twisted underside blocked everything, even her view of the temple. She climbed still more steps and grew more frantic. “ED!”
Only a few feet above her head, the chopper shuddered against the pyramid. On its other side, the Female barked madly—
Again, a strong hand landed on her arm, this time spinning her around. “MA’AM!”
Rebecca glanced up. The chopper’s spotlights blazed into the web, and in those powerful beams, she detected movement.
The creatures were built more solidly than the jumpers: hairier, but lighter in colour, not dissimilar in hue to the surrounding silk. And though maybe not as agile, they were still quick.
Very quick.
In scattered groups, they scurried through the barrier web towards her and Kriedemann, at least a dozen of them, on all sides.
Workers—the caste responsible for building and maintaining the web… and attending to captured prey.
Kriedemann’s grip tightened on her arm as he pulled her forcefully towards the pyramid’s base.
“RUN!” he cried.
• • •
Ed looked down at the huge, grotesque face framed by the open doorway.
Pressed to the opening, the Female’s mouthparts worked feverishly, the rows of tooth-like serrations that surrounded her wide-open jaws exposed to him in all their glory. Her downward-striking fangs clicked and scraped against the chopper. Venom, or some sort of digestive slobber, flew everywhere. She seemed rabid, frothing at the mouth, trying desperately to get in, to get at him. Enraged, she attempted to drag him back towards her, but Ed managed to keep hold of the seat. At least two more of her legs shot inside the cabin and flailed about, ripping at everything, trying to force the door wider.
Frantically, Ed searched for options. The pilot and co-pilot were gone, probably hauled by the egg-layers through the shattered windshield. He was alone up here.
The Female pulled harder.
Ed screamed. Invisible tongues of flame licked at his ankle, spreading up to his hip. He glanced back at the Female, certain she was going to tear his leg clean off. And she could do it, too, but she had no need for the limb. She wanted everything.
She pressed closer, almost inside the chopper. Slobber from her gaping mouth sprayed across his face. Her huge eyes—now only a few feet away—swarmed large in his vision. They seemed different to how they’d been down in the nuptial chamber. Darker, perhaps. Lifeless.
Oliveira’s flashbang had blinded her. She’d used her other senses to locate him.
Rearing, she spat at him.
A spray of silken threads zigzagged towards Ed at one six-hundredth of a second; before he knew she’d even expelled anything, he was spattered head to toe. Clearly, she wanted to pin him there, stop him from escaping—not that he could have. Ed screamed again, the pain in his leg at fever-pitch. Unable to endure it any longer, he moved to let go of the seat, but hesitated as he caught sight of something odd.
95
Flung back inside the temple, behind the Female, Oliveira had been all but ignored.
Perhaps thinking him dead, or no longer a threat, the creature had willingly exposed her huge, bloated abdomen, and when the M2 had opened up, he’d taken cover on the ground behind it. There, within arm’s reach, had been his discarded pack. It contained no weapons, and a scan of the area confirmed the flamethrower was gone, too. But he had found something. Unlike his men, who had loaded up with as much treasure as they’d been able to carry, he’d taken this single item from the chamber below, knowing that private collectors paid handsomely for rare and unusual artefacts.
He lifted the object from his pack, and on a shattered left ankle, hobbled for the centre of the temple and the moai with the tiny sphere in its hands.
At the foot of the statue was a slot. Oliveira raised the crystal rod. It was identical to those that protruded from the larger sphere below—and from this sphere, too—except this rod was deep red, and had been grafted at one end to an elongated piece of stone. The fused pieces had been fashioned into a short staff, the stone portion bearing the same grooves and markings as the disc Rebecca had used to power the lift.
If he couldn’t attack the Female, he’d distract her.
And when he jammed the rod into the slot at the moai’s feet, the response was precisely what he’d hoped for.
With a low rumble, the moai began to shake… and rise.
• • •
Tears in her eyes, Rebecca fled down the steps. She’d had no choice but to leave Ed. The workers were too close—
She stopped, spun back to the temple.
Trailing behind, Kriedemann didn’t notice that she’d halted. He kept running, firing his M16 at the pursuing creatures, and nearly collided with her on the way through. But Rebecca’s attention was elsewhere. She looked back up the stairs, unsure as to why she’d stopped and turned, and now unable to believe her eyes.
Enveloping the temple was an orange-gold ring of light. It seemed to be emanating from inside the structure. No, from above it—from the sphere cradled in the moai’s hands. Somehow, the statue had risen from the floor, in the process lifting the orb and pushing it through the roof of the temple, which had seemingly parted to allow it passage. Blinding lights arced outwards, igniting the near-dark. Pillars of flame—like solar flares, but also like forking electricity—burst forth in every direction.
But to Rebecca, even more incredible was what was happening in the sphere’s immediate vicinity—to the objects caught within the halo of light.
Objects like the chopper containing Ed.
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Ed felt the Female’s grip slacken as she turned to the strange light. It was all he needed.
Realising what was happening to his body—and in the split-second afforded him—he pulled himself into the seat, still restricted but not thwarted by the silken spittle. He strapped himself in.
Somehow, he was being sucked upwards, towards the door. What the hell? All around him, anything that wasn’t physically bolted down began levitating and flying out the door, towards the temple. Even the chopper seemed to become weightless and rise. The Female, clearly fighting the effects herself, hadn’t let go of him, but she was distracted, and a
s the chopper bumped up higher to nudge the temple’s roofline, she rose with it, too.
At the top of the portside doorway, a gap appeared, affording Ed a narrow view above and across the temple. His eyes went wide.
The sphere! Still cradled by the moai, it had risen through the ceiling, arcing and flaring with the orange-gold light that had initially drawn his attention. Now, everything that had flown from the door of the chopper swirled in a ring around the mysterious sphere.
Ed’s mind raced. It was as though the sphere were a tiny black hole—not actually consuming things like a black hole, but at least dragging everything towards it.
A black hole.
A black hole was a collapsed star.
A collapsed sun.
The power of the sun…
You’re kidding me…
The instant he’d laid eyes on the sphere—falling into a stupor of disbelief, awe, and elation—he realised this was the object he’d been searching for all his life. Then everything had gone to hell, forcing him—momentarily, at least—to abandon it, but it hadn’t left his thoughts. He’d always assumed the legend of the object, and its fabled ability to harness the ‘power of the sun’, meant that it could, in some way, channel or exploit the Earth’s Sun. But now, it dawned on him that he may have misinterpreted the myths—that maybe something had been lost in translation. In fact, he knew that was the case. The myths referred to the tiny sun in the moai’s hands.
They referred to its power…
A loud, alien shriek pierced the air, and as if in pain, the Female reared, swivelling back inside the temple. As she did, Ed saw the cause of her distress—a gaping wound on her swollen abdomen.
Fighting the sphere’s pull, the Female wrested a flailing figure from the temple and raised it into the air.
Oliveira! Ed had thought him long gone. In Oliveira’s right hand was a foot-long, knifelike shard of stone, likely sheared from the columns by the gunfire. It dripped dark, ichor-like blood.