by Mark Robson
Also by Mark Robson
The Devil’s Triangle
The Dragon Orb series
Firestorm
Shadow
Longfang
Aurora
Imperial Spy
Imperial Assassin
Imperial Traitor
For more information on Mark Robson
and news on upcoming books, visit:
www.markrobsonauthor.com
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © 2012 Mark Robson
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Mark Robson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor, 222 Gray’s Inn Road
London
WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-84738-980-0
eBook ISBN 978-1-84738-981-7
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
www.simonandschuster.co.uk
www.simonandschuster.com.au
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINTEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER ONE
The target had seemed much bigger up close. Now, standing fifty metres away, Sam was surprised to see how tiny it looked. A warm knot of nervous excitement writhed in his belly. He was holding a gun – a real-life deadly weapon. How many of his friends back home could say they’d fired a gun in the open like this? A few might have fired one on a range with the army cadets, but not many.
He glanced across the valley towards the hulking skyline of the City of the Imperium and felt his shoulders tighten. It was impossible to ignore. There was an ominous and brooding atmosphere surrounding it that pervaded the countryside for miles around, filling the air with an almost palpable tension.
Sam couldn’t help feeling that the great walls had hidden eyes that were watching his every move. Was he far enough away to be safe? The rifle was sure to be noisy. Would the sound draw the attention of the inhabitants of the gigantic geodesic structure? He scanned the open ground around the city walls. There were no immediate signs of danger, but staying alert was essential here.
It had only been two weeks since he and his friend Callum had fallen victim to the Devil’s Triangle and crossed into this strange parallel world, but even in that short time, Sam had learned to keep a close eye on his surroundings. The Devil’s Triangle – most people knew it as the Bermuda Triangle, but Sam’s father, Matt, had been calling it the Devil’s Triangle for as long as Sam could remember. Now it was hard to think of it by any other name.
Poor Dad, he thought, picturing for a moment how frantic with worry his father would be by now. Will I ever see him or Niamh again? I know he won’t give up looking for us, because he’s not given up on Mum in nine years, but I don’t fancy his chances of finding me here.
‘Borrowing’ his dad’s boat without permission to go fishing that day with Callum while at their holiday home in the Florida Keys had seemed a good idea at the time, but Sam could never have anticipated the danger his rebellious trip would land them in. There was little point in pinning his hopes on his father managing to come and rescue them. Given what he now knew of how the Bermuda Triangle phenomenon caused crossings into this parallel world, the odds of any rescue party finding them were minuscule. If he and Callum were ever going to return home, it would be down to them.
Everything Sam had learned since arriving in this odd world made the chances of finding a way home seem increasingly remote. There were many things here that seemed familiar: the sun, moon and stars still in their well-known patterns, the blue sky, green plants and even some of the animals – but there were plenty of things he’d seen that he’d never have been able to imagine in a million years. And even though this world appeared to exist in the same space as Earth, Sam knew that when it came to getting home, he was as good as a million light years away.
Here, velociraptors were the dominant species. Not the primeval, lizard-eat-lizard prehistoric dinosaurs that Sam had learned about in school, but highly evolved raptors that looked to Sam like super-large scaly men with over-muscled legs, a residual tail stump and strangely distorted faces. The sharp teeth of a carnivore and the curved, blade-like central digit on each hand seemed to be all that remained of the velociraptor shape Sam knew from films and TV shows.
Hunching his head behind the rear sight, Sam raised the rifle towards the target and tried to steady the barrel. After a few seconds, he realised that shooting was going to be much tougher than Hollywood films made it seem. No matter how hard he tried, he could not seem to settle the front blade sight in a steady aim.
Sam could feel his muscles tightening as the weight of the rifle began to test his strength. If he didn’t fire soon, hitting the target would become impossible. He began to tremble with the strain and then, for an instant, the sights seemed to settle on the target. Sam didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger, reeling backwards as the recoil hammered the butt of the rifle into his shoulder. The explosive CRACK of the bullet as it left the chamber was deafening and Sam’s ears rang with the aftershock.
‘Ow!’ he complained, lowering the muzzle and rolling his shoulder to disperse the pain flowering there.
‘No, no, no!’ came a voice from behind him. ‘You’ll never hit anything like that! Remember – ammunition is precious, Sam. Our supplies are limited. We’re not playing games here. You must make every shot count.’
Claire Cutler’s eyebrows were drawn together in a reproving frown.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ Sam muttered. ‘It’s so heavy. I just can’t hold it steady enough.’
‘Don’t depress me, big man,’ Callum pleaded in an overdramatic voice. ‘If you can’t do it, what chance will I have? I mean, I’m hardly Mr Universe, am I?’
Callum Barnes pushed his Austin Powers lookalike glasses up his nose and struck a pose like a bodybuilder showing off his biceps. Sam burst out laughing and even Claire found she could not maintain her stern face. Callum looked ridiculous. Despite being a couple of months older than Sam, he was a full head shorter and looked all skin and bone by comparison.
Sam was relieved to see that Callum hadn’t lost his sense of humour after all
they had been through. He felt a momentary pang of guilt for having neglected his friend over the past couple of days, choosing instead to spend hour after hour talking with his mother. There had been so much to catch up with after nine years apart, and to begin with, it had been hard to reconcile his vague memories of the smiling, gentle mother he remembered with the tough, decisive woman standing in front of him now. Sam admired her immensely for what she had done, but couldn’t help feeling secretly just a little disappointed that she did not appear to have made more of an effort to get home. She was his mother, but even though there had been several moments of tenderness in the past few days, for much of the time he found it difficult to see past the tough outer shell of the rebel leader to the gentleness of the caring mother underneath.
What would Dad and Niamh make of this new Claire Cutler? he had wondered. And, perhaps more to the point – would they ever get a chance to meet her?
Callum had been patient and understanding, spending his time nosing about the rebel underground HQ and getting to know some of the others living there. Sam gave his friend an appreciative grin and a pat on the back. It felt good to be out doing something together again.
‘Shooting a rifle accurately doesn’t require brute strength, Callum,’ Claire pointed out, giving him an encouraging smile. ‘It’s much more about technique.’
‘But wouldn’t a pistol be better?’ Sam insisted. ‘That would be easier to hold.’
‘Unless you’re really skilled, a pistol is pretty useless beyond about ten metres,’ Claire told him firmly. ‘You don’t want to let a hostile raptor get that close without having put several bullets into it. Don’t be fooled by the ridiculous things you saw in cop shows on TV back home. A rifle is a far better weapon for this place. Trust me. I know.’
‘If you say so, Mrs . . . Claire,’ Callum said, looking as uncomfortable as ever about using her first name. ‘But I’ve never been good at physical stuff.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she assured him. ‘I doubt that I’m much stronger than you, Callum, but I’ve learned to use the levers of my body to create a stable platform. Combined with proper breath control, aiming becomes much easier. Think of it like an applied maths problem. Here – watch.’
Claire took the rifle from Sam, put her left arm through the sling strap and neatly twisted it once round her wrist before curling her fingers round the stock. Turning her body sideways on to the target, she drew the butt of the rifle tightly into her right shoulder and held it pointing down at the ground for a moment. The boys watched as she took several deep breaths through her nose – not gasping great gulps of air, but slow, deliberate inhalations. Thrusting her left hip out slightly, she raised the rifle and propped her left elbow on the shelf of her hip. Head cocked behind the sights, she looked rock-steady as she took aim and . . . BANG!
Even at fifty metres there was no mistaking the impact of the bullet in the middle of the wooden target.
‘Cool!’ Callum exclaimed.
‘Nice shot, Mum,’ Sam added, reminded again of how Callum had compared her to Sarah Connor in the Terminator films. ‘How did you learn to shoot like that?’
‘I had a good teacher,’ she said, expertly flicking on the safety catch. ‘And I listened to what he said. Now, try it again, Sam. But this time I want you to do exactly as I tell you.’
‘OK.’
For the next few minutes, Claire manhandled Sam into a position resembling the one she had used. To Sam’s amazement, the rifle was far easier to hold steady this time and his second shot blasted a hole through the top right-hand corner of the target.
‘Awesome. Nice shot!’ Callum cheered.
Sam lowered the rifle and rolled his right shoulder again. The recoil this time had not felt so severe, but his shoulder still hurt from the first shot. He was pretty certain he would have an impressive bruise later.
‘Better,’ Claire said, acknowledging his hit with a slight nod of her head. ‘But you snatched the shot. Remember, if you want to be accurate, don’t pull at the trigger – squeeze it gently. The best riflemen are relaxed as they take their shots.’
‘What about in the alley?’ Sam asked thoughtfully. ‘There was no time for all this preparation there. When you ambushed those raptors, the bullets were flying thick and fast.’
‘That’s true,’ Claire agreed. ‘But that was close-quarters shooting. It was hard to miss. Our targets were never more than five metres away. Even half full of lead, a raptor can be deadly unless you’ve managed a mortal shot. They’re dangerous until the final gasp of life has left them, so we had to down them fast. There was no room to take chances.’
‘That makes sense,’ Sam said, pursing his lips as disturbing images of the bullet-riddled bodies of the raptors filled his mind. It was one thing to practise shooting, but the thought of actually aiming to kill something, even a raptor that would tear him apart without hesitation, was unsettling.
‘Also, raptors move incredibly fast,’ Claire continued. ‘Learning to hit a static target like this is just the first step. Shooting a moving target that will kill you if you miss adds a whole new level of difficulty.’
‘Shooting at raptors sounds like my experiences with girls at school,’ Callum volunteered thoughtfully.
‘Really?’ Claire said, her lips twisting into a wry smile. She placed her hands on her hips and adopted a stance that seemed to say I was a high school girl once. Continue, if you dare! ‘How so?’
‘Well, for a start girls also hunt in packs,’ he said, keeping his face deadpan. ‘And if you fail to take out the right one at the first attempt, you’re as good as dead to the rest of them forever after.’
‘Brilliant!’ Sam laughed, shaking his head. ‘And so true!’
Claire didn’t say a word. She just nodded, her smile widening a fraction.
‘Your turn I think,’ she said, pointing at Callum. ‘Safety on, Sam, and pass Callum the rifle. Let’s hope his shooting is as sharp as his wit.’
It was hard to credit the monstrous-looking raptors with creating the many strange and wonderful technological marvels that Sam had seen since arriving here. However, he could not deny that some of their inventions made human technology seem positively backward. Indirectly, it was raptor technology that had caused humans to begin crossing into this world centuries ago. In their quest for a clean, sustainable energy source, the raptors had caused unpredictable tears to form in the fabric of time and space that kept universes apart – rifts that had caused many to cross between the two worlds. Yet for all of the scientific and sociological advances the raptors had made over millennia of evolution, the primal urge they felt to hunt and kill their food remained deeply ingrained. For the stranded human population, especially those rebelling against the raptor hierarchy, this made proficiency with weapons an essential skill set.
Callum took the rifle and did his best to imitate the techniques that he had seen Claire teach Sam. The recoil of the rifle made him stagger slightly, but to his delight, Callum scored a good hit first time.
‘Look at that!’ he crowed. ‘First shot and I deliberately killed a piece of wood. I doubt that I’m going to be able to hear anything for the next week, but who cares? That was very cool.’ Suddenly, he pointed up and to the right. ‘Hey! What’s that up there?’
Something large and silver-coloured was flying towards them at speed and against the breeze. It looked like a cross between a small hang glider and a large box kite. Although it was still a good distance away, Sam could definitely make out a figure sandwiched between the wings. Someone was flying the strange contraption. It looked like a raptor.
‘So it’s true!’ Claire exclaimed. ‘There’ve been rumours for some time that the raptors have been experimenting with building flying machines, but I didn’t realise they’d managed to take to the air.’
‘How did it get that high?’ Callum asked. ‘Do you think he jumped from the top of the city, or is that thing powered somehow?’
‘I don’t know,’ Claire replied. ‘
It seems to be moving too fast for it to be a pure glider, so there must be some kind of power behind it. But if the raptors have mastered flight, we need to find out as much about the machines as we can. Come on. We’re too exposed here. If we can see him, he sure as hell can see us by now. Let’s hope he’s too busy concentrating to care who we are, and that he doesn’t have any sort of remote communication with the city.’
Sam grabbed the heavy rifle from Callum and followed his mother in a sprint towards a nearby stand of trees. Seconds later, they were all crouched behind tree trunks, peering out to see where the flying machine would go. It passed almost overhead, the whispering swoosh of its passage through the air and the soft whine of the large fan-like propeller at the back of the machine clearly audible.
‘I’d say it’s about fifty metres up,’ Sam observed. ‘But it’s not descending. Do you want the gun, Mum?’
He held the rifle out towards her, but she gave a slight shake of her head. Her eyes were following the flying machine and its pilot intently.
‘I don’t kill unless it becomes necessary, Sam,’ she said softly.
‘Even if you wanted to, it would be a tough shot,’ Callum observed. ‘Look at it go! Wow! I’d love to try that. It looks like great fun.’
The contraption raced away, its pilot apparently not interested in their presence at all. Claire looked thoughtful as it disappeared into the distance.
‘I think we’ll keep any further shooting practice for another day,’ she said eventually. ‘And, Sam, you need to remember that a gun should only be used in extreme circumstances. Our rebel group are not murderers. We use weapons for self-defence, and if necessary, to achieve the bigger goal of stopping the raptors from destroying both their planet and ours . . . but only if there’s no other way. If I can’t trust you to follow that simple principle, then your lessons end right now. Understood?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ he mumbled, feeling deeply chastened. He hadn’t really considered the consequences of killing or seriously hurting the raptor. For all their fierce appearance, raptors were highly intelligent creatures. Sam could not imagine deliberately shooting another human, so what made him think that shooting a raptor was any more ethically acceptable? His mum was right: he needed to take things more seriously. This wasn’t a game on his Xbox.