Eight

by WW Mortensen

  Enraged, the Female drew Oliveira towards the Black Hawk. He jabbed her leg. With another shriek she dashed him against the chopper—just as she had done earlier to Aronsohn—and the shard tumbled from Oliveira’s hands. In retribution, she wrenched Ed again, too. The safety harness bit into his flesh, and he almost slid from under it. Struggling to stay inside, Ed glanced out and locked gazes with Oliveira.

  “Behind you!” Oliveira called, blood spraying from his mouth as again, the Female slammed him into the chopper.

  Ed turned, craned his neck.

  No way…

  A khaki-coloured, square pack had shaken loose from its original place of storage to fly across the cabin. Its strap was snagged on the back of the seat beside him, the item straining at the end of it, angled towards the doorway and the sphere trying to suck it out.

  A satchel-charge.

  “HURRY!”

  Twice more the Female slammed Oliveira against the chopper, causing it to reverberate with sickening, hollow thuds. Blood splattered Ed through the window, but still Oliveira writhed.

  Clearly, the Female had had enough. Out of the corner of his eye—as he twisted in his seat, straining for the charge—Ed saw her bring the struggling Oliveira to her mouth—

  —and impale him through the chest with her yard-long, pickaxe-like fangs.

  There was no scream. Oliveira went limp.

  The Female crushed her victim between her jaw-like chelicerae. Bones snapped and crunched. She spat the mangled corpse against the chopper and turned to Ed fearsomely, intent on finishing him for good.

  Ed fought back bile, but Oliveira had bought him the time he had needed. He had the charge in his hands. Without hesitation, he flicked the switch at the top of the device as the frenzied Female pressed closer.

  Inside its canvas satchel, the charge was now armed. Ed raised it.

  The blast would be big, of course, and would more than likely take him along with it—but he’d run out of options.

  The Female hissed at him, her blood-spattered mouth wide open and ravenous, hungry for him. She was only a couple of feet away.

  Ed grimaced. “Here then—bite me, BITCH.”

  • • •

  Of course, he didn’t intend on losing his grip.

  Just as he was about to hurl the charge into the Female’s wide-open mouth, it flew abruptly from his grasp.

  Ed watched in dismay as it swept out the door, past the Female—out towards the sphere at the top of the temple.

  NO!

  It was over. He’d lost his only chance of defeating her. As if sensing this, the Female doubled her efforts, and Ed started to slip beneath the safety harness. She was too strong. He couldn’t resist her any more.

  Something halted his slide.

  Ed stared down the length of his body. He was flat on his back, feet angling towards the door. His vest, however, was stuck—too bulky to slip beneath the straps. It was keeping him in his seat, inside the chopper.

  And he suddenly knew why…

  The X40 strapped to his chest. He’d forgotten about it.

  So far, they’d had mixed success with the ultrasonic devices, but at point-blank range…

  He reached down and flicked the switch. The effect was instantaneous.

  With a high-pitched wail, the Female reared, releasing him and convulsing wildly. Her legs flailed as though in the grip of an electric current, and in pain and apparent surprise she tumbled backwards, across the roof of the temple, towards the sphere—

  —and the satchel-charge.

  And not a second later, it blew.

  97

  It blew big.

  The chopper rocked with the shock wave that blasted out from the temple—a huge orange ball of flame billowing into the air and out into the web. The Female was instantly pulverised, bits of her blasting in every direction, splattering Ed through the chopper’s open doorway.

  She was gone.

  But there was no time to celebrate. The blast hadn’t just rid Ed of the Female—it had shredded most of the surrounding silk as well. With her grip on the chopper lost, nothing held the stricken aircraft in place.

  Not even the sphere’s gravitational pull. It too was gone.

  The Black Hawk dropped like a stone.

  • • •

  Rebecca saw the chopper fall, impacting wheels-first on the steps of the pyramid’s northern face.

  Only moments ago, still pursued by the workers, Kriedemann had pulled her from her momentary stupor, transfixed as she was by the strange halo of light. But at the sound of the explosion, she’d again drawn to a halt, snapping around as the chopper was purged from the web. Now, in disbelief, she watched as the aircraft tipped over laterally, rolling sideways, roof to belly, down the steps towards them…

  “Oh shit…”

  She felt Kriedemann grasp her hand once more… and they ran.

  • • •

  The Black Hawk tumbled down the steps, gathering speed.

  Hoping to outrun the aircraft, Rebecca and Kriedemann sprinted for the bottom of the stairs, aiming for the plaza at the base of the pyramid. Desperately, they pushed through the barrier-web, the Black Hawk growing larger behind their fleeing forms. Their other pursuers—the few remaining workers that hadn’t yet been nailed by Kriedemann—were swamped behind them, crushed and spat out the back as the chopper thundered past, metal screaming and pounding against the stone. Rebecca knew that she and Kriedemann were next.

  The plaza beckoned, only a few steps away.

  Behind them, the bouncing chopper gathered the web as it tumbled, its spotlights jolting crazily. The roar was deafening.

  “GO, GO, GO!”

  They weren’t going to make it. The Black Hawk was right on their heels, yards away, about to collect them on the way through. They were still several steps from the bottom—

  “SHIIITTT!!”

  Too late.

  The Black Hawk caught them, clipping them on the heels as they leapt—hand in hand—out from the staircase, towards the plaza at the base of the pyramid.

  • • •

  Soaring through the air, nudged by the chopper, Rebecca and Kriedemann plunged into the stone courtyard and skidded across it.

  They’d timed their leap to perfection.

  The Black Hawk came down behind them with a roar, thundering into the plaza amidst a shower of sparks and slewing across the flagstones. Sensing it on her tail, Rebecca kept rolling, scrambling out of its path, but there was no time. Despite herself, she skidded to a stop, squeezing her eyes shut as ten metric tonnes of metal bore down on her, and she opened her mouth to scream—

  —just as the Black Hawk ground finally to a halt—

  And was still.

  • • •

  One at a time, Rebecca opened her eyes. Bent and twisted and creaking softly, the chopper, on its side, loomed above her.

  It had come to rest less than a foot from her nose.

  The huge rotor-blades and their mast were gone, torn fully clear of the hub, the mangled remains of which were directly above her head. She faced the roof of the crumpled Black Hawk.

  On his back less than ten feet away, Kriedemann lay panting.

  Rebecca let out a deep sigh—a sort of self-pitying whimper—then snapped out of it. “Ed…”

  She got up, groaning, and limped for the door.

  • • •

  The open doorway faced the sky.

  Rebecca scrambled up the roof and over the crumpled edge of the chopper’s port side. The metal was hot to the touch. She peered down through the opening to find Ed strapped into his seat, pinned by wreckage and covered in blood and silken spittle. He wasn’t moving.

  “Ed!” she cried, swinging into the cabin. She made for him through the surrounding detritus, pulling and pushing at twisted seat frames and loose, hanging cables. “Hang in there, okay, buddy? I’m going to get you out!” When she heard Ed moan weakly in response, she nearly wept tears of joy.

  Ed’s groa
n was followed by the sound of Kriedemann scrambling up the roof. The soldier dropped with a thud through the open doorway. “You okay?”

  “Yeah… keep an eye out for the spiders, will you?”

  “I think they’re gone, all of them. Strange, they suddenly just—”

  The noise was loud, a terrible shearing sound above them, like a huge piece of fabric tearing in two.

  Rebecca jumped in fright. Slowly, almost not wanting to know, she turned her gaze skyward. “Oh, come on. Give us a break…”

  • • •

  A short distance from the pyramid’s northern face and about two-thirds of the way up, the floatplane hung above them like the Sword of Damocles. The shearing sound, rising again, came from the old silken threads that had held the plane in place for the past two years. One after another, the strands snapped and unravelled.

  “Oh, shit,” Rebecca breathed.

  Clearly, the Black Hawk’s devastating tumble down the northern staircase had wreaked havoc on the web, severing most of the support threads. The few that remained seemed unable to bear the plane’s weight.

  More threads tore, snapped. Directly above them, the plane slipped several feet, sagging in the web, and then slipped again.

  Oh, shit!

  Rebecca spun back to Ed and tugged at his safety harness. She pulled at the buckle. It was stuck.

  “Not now…”

  More snapping…

  “NOT NOW!” Rebecca wrenched at the harness with all her strength. Kriedemann joined her efforts, but the buckle was jammed. Rebecca panicked, fumbling. “Come on, damn you! COME ON!”

  Above them, there was a final, loud twang, like a bowstring snapping, and the floatplane broke free. Rebecca looked up, a bitter thought rising in her mind as the aircraft nosedived towards them.

  Not like this.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and cried out, unable to hold back her scream as the plane crashed down on them with a roar.

  Then starkly, there was silence.

  98

  The aft took the brunt of the hit.

  For an instant, the plane remained upright—tail in the air, nose firmly buried in the wreckage of the chopper. Then, with a slow, drawn-out creak, the aircraft toppled, picking up speed as it went. The two machines came together like a set of metallic jaws snapping shut on a meal, rocking wildly with the impact before coming to rest. Nose to tail, they lay on their sides, the plane lying fully upon the chopper, lengthways above the ground. Together, they formed a single, tangled mess of machinery.

  • • •

  Inside the cabin, it was dark and still. Metal creaked, settled.

  The plane’s fuselage blocked the door above, creating a rudimentary ceiling. Rebecca drew a frayed breath. The hit had sounded like an exploding bomb, and the physical impact had been even more frightening. Ed, who remained strapped in his energy-absorbing, crash-resistant seat, had ridden the blow unscathed, but she and Kriedemann had been hurled violently across the cabin. Even so, Rebecca considered the two of them lucky. The Black Hawk, as a combat aircraft, was armour-protected and ballistically tolerant, designed specifically to absorb high-velocity impact. For that reason, the cabin had held its basic shape and form, protecting them. The outcome could have been far worse.

  A flashlight came on, its thin but powerful beam cutting a swathe through the blackness. Rebecca blinked, focusing on the dust motes swirling through the glow.

  “You okay?” Kriedemann said, moving towards her.

  “Yeah, I think so. You?”

  “I’ll live. Some ride, huh?”

  Rebecca didn’t answer. She was shaking and needed a moment. Her head swam. She thought she was going to faint.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  She got it together. “Yeah, a few stars, that’s all.” She nodded earnestly at Ed.

  Kriedemann followed her gaze. “Here, hold this.” He passed her the flashlight and she shone it in Ed’s direction.

  Like before, Ed wasn’t moving, but Rebecca could see his chest rising and falling underneath his bloodied shirt.

  Sliding a knife from his boot, Kriedemann started sawing through Ed’s harness.

  “Could have done with that earlier,” Rebecca said, directing the flashlight.

  “Wouldn’t have been time.”

  He was right: it took several seconds to slice through the toughened material of each shoulder strap.

  Once Kriedemann had finished, they left Ed in the seat and examined him thoroughly. Multiple cuts and scratches covered his face and body.

  “No sign of any broken bones, no obvious spinal injuries,” Kriedemann said. “I think it’s safe to move him.”

  Together, they extricated Ed’s listless form from the mass of warped and twisted metal. Groaning with the effort, they pulled him into their section of the cabin, which was more open, and set him down carefully.

  “We should tend his wounds before moving him again,” Kriedemann said. “In this heat and humidity, cuts turn septic fast.” He looked up at the ceiling the floatplane had formed above their heads. “If nothing else, we’ll be safe in here for a few minutes. We’ll treat our wounds, too.”

  Grazed and bleeding, Rebecca was already searching for a first-aid kit.

  Kriedemann joined her. “I don’t think I caught your name.”

  Rebecca reached out with her right hand and smiled faintly. “Rebecca Riley.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “And you… Captain?”

  “Staff Sergeant.”

  “And you, Staff Sergeant Kriedemann—though I can’t say as much about the circumstances.”

  “No. Me neither.”

  The chopper’s medical pack was tucked securely inside a closed but unlocked storage compartment. Unzipping it, Rebecca used one of the sterile dressings to wipe the blood from Ed’s face, flushing some of the deeper wounds with saline before applying an antiseptic cream. She closed the cuts with suture plaster. A gash above Ed’s left eye had to be bandaged firmly.

  They patched their own wounds in similar fashion. In addition to cuts to her hands, Rebecca had abrasions on her neck, knees, and face. Blood and silk matted her hair. She was a mess, but she was okay.

  Once they were finished, Kriedemann slung the med-pack and glanced about the cabin. “Right, then—what say we find a way out of here?”

  99

  Jessy moaned and opened her eyes with a flutter. Feeling dizzy, she closed them again.

  “Easy, ma’am, you’re gonna be okay.”

  She didn’t immediately recognise the voice. Again, she opened her eyes and this time saw the hazy, blurred outline of a figure bending over her. She tried to focus and was assailed by the acrid smell of smoke, maybe from an electrical fire—singed wiring or something. Then there was the sound of a fire extinguisher and the smell was gone.

  Her skull pounded, and she moaned once more. “Where am I?”

  The figure leaned in close. “Back on the ground, unfortunately.”

  Then she remembered—Raven Two had fallen from the sky and crashed through the canopy. The impact must have knocked her out.

  Her eyes regained focus. Tag smiled down at her as something cold and wet pressed against her forehead. “You got a nice bump there,” he said, patting her with the damp cloth.

  He turned away, and she followed his gaze to the dark-skinned soldier—she thought the man’s name was Bull—standing guard at the door of the felled chopper. It was dark outside, and Bull’s M16 was trained on the jungle. Three more, similarly positioned soldiers formed a tight ring around the aircraft, their weapons aimed unflinchingly into the night.

  “Bull,” Tag said softly. “Anything?”

  “Nothing. All’s quiet.”

  Tag nodded. “We better regroup. Let’s see if we can’t raise Raven One.”

  100

  Lying on her belly, Rebecca poked her head through the shattered cockpit bubble.

  Night had fallen.

  Slowly, she scanned the p
laza with her NVGs. She couldn’t see any movement: all the spiders, it seemed, had gone. She glanced at Kriedemann, also prone and searching for threats. He returned her gaze and gave her the all-clear.

  They didn’t delay. The glass of the windshield was gone, and they squeezed through, dragging Ed—now semiconscious, but still heavily concussed—with them.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  On the flagstones at the front of the chopper, Rebecca crouched like a wounded animal unwilling to venture from the security of its den. “What now?” she whispered, cradling Ed in her arms.

  Kriedemann moved beside her, less fearful, but nonetheless alert. “How did you get in here?”

  “There’s a tunnel over there,” Rebecca said, jutting her chin. “It leads to a burrow down below, which itself leads beyond the web. But it won’t be accessible; earlier, dozens of spiders poured into it.”

  “Perhaps they’re gone now.”

  “Perhaps, but even if they are, we can’t get Ed through, not in his state. It’s a tight squeeze.”

  Kriedemann looked at Ed, then up at the dark outline of the temple at the top of the pyramid. “You know, that was a satchel-charge he used.” He smiled. “He goddamned nailed that bitch.”

  Static hissed as Kriedemann’s radio came alive.

  “…en One..? Any… copy?”

  The connection wasn’t good, but Kriedemann answered. “This is Kriedemann. You copy?”

  “…you Sarge? It’s Bull… Listen… gotta situation here…”

  “Us too, Bull. What’s your sit-rep? You secure at your end?”

  “…for… moment…”

  “Bull, how many of you are… left?”

  A pause. “…six of us… including the girl… crew’s gone. And damnit—we lost…” A long burst of static. “…how ’bout you?”

  “Me and two civilians.”

  “Shit… what about the Cap…?”

  “The Captain’s no longer with us, Bull. Is Wit there?”