by Lucas Bale
Abruptly, he rose. Slowly, smoothly, like a predator slipping away into the shadows. She let out a long, shaking breath. She was about to reach back to untie herself when the rustling began again. Much louder, and stronger, this time.
She saw the next one too late to press herself back against the tree. She realised she was out of position; that she had leaned out to untie the rope and was now much more visible. She wanted to move back, but she knew they would see it.
They moved quickly through the jungle—more quickly than the first, who had obviously been the scout ahead of them. They all wore the same armour as he did. They wore their hair the same way. They all carried rifles and each moved as though the jungle was their home.
She counted ten of them, each breaking through the foliage about fifteen metres behind the last. Had they been moving any less quickly, she would have been seen. But the scout had already cleared the path, and these man had no need to do anything other than focus on their progress. There was no doubt now—they were not searching for her. They were moving too quickly for that. They were heading for Skoryk’s freighter.
And there was no way she could get there before them, or stop them.
C H A P T E R 12
GANT LAY on cold wet rock, a frigid chill seeping into his chest and thighs. He shivered, despite the heavy wool coat and the thermal layers beneath his trousers, and he wondered how much of that was down to fear, rather than the cold of the mountain. Above him, the wind clamoured as it swept across the col and tugged feverishly at his hood and coat. It had taken eight hours to trek the high-altitude trails to the col where he now lay, beside Nikolaj, observing the deep basin below, and he was already feeling the altitude in his lungs and muscles.
He lifted the oculars to his eyes and waited for the blurred view to shift into focus as the rangefinders locked on to the image hundreds of metres beneath them. In the dim light of the moons, visibility was poor, but the oculars magnified the existing light tenfold.
The ship was a small, light freighter, he could see now. Its hull was charred and battered, and the single ragged fissure sheared into one flank made Gant wonder if it would ever fly again. Thin plumes of charcoal smoke drifted upwards from flames that darted through the opening and licked the side of the hull. One of the freighter’s landing stanchions was missing, and now the stricken ship lay nose forward against the rock, collapsed like some half-unconscious beast. At least it’s in one piece, Gant thought. It could have been worse, the way it came down.
There was no movement on the rock and ice around the freighter. The cockpit glass had shattered, but Gant could see no pilot inside, alive or dead. Blood was spattered over the cowling of the cockpit and continued onto the nose. If the pilot had come through the glass, there would be a body, Gant thought. So where did the blood come from?
He panned the oculars over every inch of the craggy terrain, searching for any sign of the freighter’s occupants, but he found no evidence that anyone had ever been on board. He wanted to be relieved—to believe he could go down there and there would be no danger—but he knew survivors might easily be hiding among the loose rock and scree, watching and waiting, just as he was. And although he was quietly grateful for the fact that he saw no chukiri, he knew they were coming. Eight hours it took us, he thought. They move quicker than us. They can’t be far.
He dropped the oculars from his eyes and packed them away. He was increasingly feeling the cold and wanted to get moving. Too much longer on the frozen rock, and he and Nikolaj would find it impossible to get warm again. Up here, on the massif’s sprawling plateau, the cold sank into the deep basins—it would be even colder down by the freighter.
From the moment he’d arrived, Gant had considered the ecology and climate of the planet to be characterised by almost polar extremes. A balmy and unpleasantly humid heat lay in the jungle that stretched across the landscape only a few miles lower in altitude than the mountains, yet on the high-altitude plateaus, between the endless teeth of the summits, the air was almost lethally frigid, and the glaciers that fed the rivers below imprisoned vast banks of razor-sharp, slate-grey rock beneath them. At least the flanks of the mountains that fell away to the leeward side, and down into the basin, would shelter them from the bitter wind.
From the col, it would be an hour or so at least before he reached the freighter. It was an untechnical descent, but it would take time, and he would still need to be careful; the mountain was covered in scree and loose rock, and strewn with sporadic sections of ice that were almost invisible at night. A slip could mean a slide for hundreds of metres. There was a route he had used before that traversed the flank of the mountain then crossed the glacier that cut through the couloir and fed the wide river miles away. It would take him down into the basin more slowly, but it would give him the chance to scan the mountainside as he descended, rather than head straight for the freighter in plain sight of anyone who might be watching. If he kept to the shadows cast by the overhanging seracs, he would hopefully disappear against the ash-grey and blue of the glacier.
‘Did you see anyone?’ Nikolaj asked him.
Gant shook his head inside his fur-lined hood. ‘There’s no movement down there,’ he said. ‘The hull’s damaged, but from the look of it, I’d have expected survivors. The freighter didn’t come apart when it hit. It must have been under some sort of pilot control to land that way. If there was anyone inside, they may have made it out alive.’
‘So where are they?’
Gant didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘I’m hoping there wasn’t anyone,’ he said finally. He didn’t really believe it though—something inside him warned against such a convenience.
‘Remote pilot?’ Nikolaj offered.
Gant considered this and shrugged. Eight hours was more than enough time for survivors to have evacuated the freighter and found somewhere to shelter and hide in the basin. There was only one way to be sure.
‘I need to get down there and see inside,’ Gant said. ‘Stay here and cover me with your rifle. It’s possible, if there was someone, they’re hiding on the flanks of the couloir. You see or hear anything, you contact me.’ He handed Nikolaj one of the comms units.
‘You’re not worried the chukiri will pick up a radio signal?’ Nikolaj asked as he took the unit. ‘Their suits have comms too.’
‘If you get to the point where you need to contact me, then it’s likely they already know we’re here. We’ll just have to deal with that if it happens.’
He turned to look at Nikolaj. The younger man had never told him his age, but Gant doubted he was much past twenty. He was a good climber: clever and willing to take risks, sometimes too many, as Gant himself had once been. Gant was more careful now—with everything. Nikolaj could shoot accurately enough too. But he had never taken another’s life, Gant knew that, and it was a door he had hoped Nikolaj would never need to step through. You can’t protect him forever, he thought. Nor are you his father. He’s not your responsibility. He has burdens to shoulder, just like everyone else.
‘Don’t shoot unless I tell you to—and only if it’s absolutely necessary. Don’t give away your position. If anything happens to me, you need to get back and warn the others. One of us has to make it back.’
Nikolaj hesitated, and Gant saw uncertainty in his eyes.
‘Keep it simple,’ Gant said. ‘Like I showed you. Aim for the torso. That will be enough.’ He didn’t want to stare at the young man for too long—it would just make him nervous. He nodded to him and slung his own rifle over his shoulder.
‘And I just leave you behind?’ Nikolaj said softly.
‘If you have to,’ Gant replied. ‘The colony is more important than any one man, Nikolaj.’ That will be your hardest lesson. He turned away before Nikolaj could say anything else, and began to traverse the fringe of the basin.
Gant scanned its broad rim as he climbed and hiked across slick crags and ice like polished stone. The ridge was silhouetted against the deep blue of the night sky,
but it was hard to see without the oculars, and he couldn’t waste time stopping to use them. Anxiety drove every step, and his breath rasped in his ears. It would only be a matter of time before the chukiri arrived.
He was halfway through the descent when he first saw them. He caught their movement as they crossed a col a short distance from where Nikolaj would still be lying. They glided almost silently across the rock and ice, unhindered either by the terrain or the weather. Every movement, he knew, was being augmented by the gears and servos in their Peacekeeper suits.
Gant swore and found a place to hide behind an outcrop of stone and ice. He watched as the chukiri descended, far more quickly than he could, and approached the freighter. There were two of them, the facial scars of their torn-away Kolyma affiliations crystal-clear through the oculars. The first disappeared into the freighter through the tear in the side, while the second brought his weapon up and scanned the mountainside in a single, wide arc. When he reached Gant’s position, Gant flinched involuntarily, ducking behind a boulder. As he did, he kicked shards of stone down the mountainside. They bounced and careened downwards, sharp cracks echoing round the basin with each hit.
Seconds passed before he could bring himself to look again. The chukiri was gone. Gant panicked—had he seen him? The chukiri had ocular scopes on their weapons; perhaps he had caught the movement as Gant had ducked back behind the rock. He surely heard the stones as they fell away from his position.
Gant scanned the mountainside, but could find no sign of the second chukiri. His heart began to thump hard in his chest.
The first emerged from the freighter and waved to someone unseen up by one of the cols. Almost immediately, Gant caught movement against the scree and saw more chukiri begin to make their way down the mountainside. He counted them as they descended in their efficient, practised way, moving together as a unit. Five, each armoured in a Peacekeeper suit and carrying a heavy rifle. Three other men were being led behind the chukiri, their hands bound behind their backs and rope hanging between them. If one fell, all three would fall.
The chukiri and their prisoners disappeared behind the ridge of the couloir, taking a direct route down the across the scree and ice. Soon, Gant could no longer see them. He glanced up towards Nikolaj’s position at the right of the crest of the col. He couldn’t pick him out against the rock and ice; the younger man had managed to keep himself well hidden and had known enough to not yet use the comms link. Gant traced Nikolaj’s line of sight to the gully, and realised that the young man could no longer see the chukiri from where he was. But if Gant moved round the basin to watch them, Nikolaj would lose sight of him.
Who the hell do they have with them? He had to find out. He left his position and began to move. He traversed the wall of the basin as quickly and quietly as he could, hunched low, until he could see into the couloir.
What Gant saw there chilled him. They were much closer now; the trail had taken him lower than he had wanted, and in his haste, he hadn’t realised. The prisoners, he could see now, were stripped to the waist; their torsos had been slashed and beaten and were caked in dried blood. Each was hunched over—from exhaustion, cold, or both.
Then Gant saw the first man’s face.
It was Henrik Bradman.
C H A P T E R 13
THERE WAS a crack of ice breaking against rock, faint, as though it was somewhere in the far distance and carried along by the wind. Gant hardly heard it, and it was instinct that made him turn. But he was sluggish, weary from the hike and the cold, and he knew he was already too late. He tried to bring the rifle round, but it was long and cumbersome, and the ledge on which he had perched was too small. He mishandled it and jammed it against the rock. He glanced up, panicking, and immediately knew he was dead. A chukiri stood over him, the heavy rifle extended at his eye line, pointed directly at his face.
Gant realised then how careless he had been. In his haste to discover who the prisoners were—to try to save them—he had taken risks and betrayed his position. Foolish mistakes, he knew, driven by desperation.
Had he compromised Nikolaj too? If the boy didn’t know that he’d been captured—Gant’s traverse, trying to see into the gully, had taken him out of Nikolaj’s field of vision—then Nikolaj might unknowingly expose his presence with a simple transmission to Gant. Gant wanted to reach down and switch off his comms unit, but the chukiri would see the movement and understand its purpose. So he could only will it not to spark to life. Blindly hope that Nikolaj wouldn’t choose that moment to check up on him.
‘Set down the rifle,’ the chukiri commanded in a low voice. ‘Slowly now, and keep the barrel pointing away.’
Gant obeyed, laying the rifle down on the rock.
‘Where are the rest?’ A low voice, barely a whisper above the wind.
Gant shook his head. ‘It’s just me.’ Don’t call, Nikolaj.
‘Another lie, and I’ll take off your leg,’ the chukiri said. ‘You know what that means, up here. We have others, so we know you’re not alone. Last time: where are the rest? You tell us, or they tell us.’
Bradman! Gant thought. He means Bradman. Not Nikolaj. He felt immediate guilt at his relief, and he tried not to imagine what awaited Bradman and the men with him. His mind felt sticky as he tried to think. I have to get them out. Before one of them gives up the location of the huts. If they haven’t already. The longer he waited, the greater the risk one of the men would succumb.
‘There were four of us,’ he said, maybe a little too quickly. He could hear the tremor in his own voice and tried desperately to keep it level. ‘I went on ahead to scout the wreckage.’
‘You’re a bad liar,’ the chukiri said. The rifle was steady in hands—it didn’t waver for a second.
They don’t know yet, Gant thought. But he’s right—it’s only a matter of time.
‘There’s no more of us,’ he replied. He didn’t care if the chukiri believed him. They'd ask again later and take some time over it. He’d seen evidence of the brutality of their methods; he knew what was coming. Either he or Bradman, or one of the others, would tell them eventually. And when that happened, the whole colony would be gone.
No one man is more important than the whole.
He glanced over the edge of the precipice, down into the basin below. He told himself that a fall of hundreds of metres on loose scree and ice might only injure him rather than kill him, but the truth was, he was afraid—he couldn’t bring himself to do it. To throw himself off to save the others. And he hated his fear. He eyed his rifle, wondering if he could get to it and force the chukiri to shoot him instead.
Out of the shadows behind the chukiri something shifted so quickly it was hard for Gant to follow—a half-second blur in the darkness, a flash of moonlight on a polished sheen. A knife came from behind the hunter’s throat, and instantly, a river of dark liquid flowed from beneath the chukiri’s chin. As suddenly as the knife had appeared, it disappeared, and a hand stretched around the hunter’s mouth, hauling him backwards. His face looked stunned as he fell, his eyes white and staring in the darkness.
The silence of the basin was shattered as the heavy rifle went off, slinging thunder into the night sky. An incandescent flash engulfed the mountainside, and Gant rolled away. He reached for his rifle and pulled it up, finger closing on the trigger. But he didn’t know where the hell to aim it.
Into the shadows of the crevasse in the rock face, where his benefactor—not necessarily a friend—still remained unseen, holding the struggling chukiri as his life drained away? Or down at the remaining chukiri by the freighter, who had begun to shout up to their comrade?
They don’t know what happened, Gant reckoned. They’re not going to shoot for fear of hitting their own man. They don’t know what he was shooting at.
He searched the col for Nikolaj, but saw nothing. Where was he now? What would he do, having heard the rifle shots?
Gant chose to stay low, and he aimed the rifle at what he saw as the most immediate threat
: the shadows that concealed whoever it was that had taken the chukiri’s life.
A man’s taut voice came from within. ‘Put away your rifle. You’re still alive because you seem to be their enemy. So am I. Come with me. It won’t be long before they’re up here.’
A tall figure crept from the gloom, hunkered low against the mountainside. An older man, clothed in a spacesuit. His creased face was angular and lean, framed by a thin beard. His eyes were bright and hard. There was a pack on the rear of his suit, and he held a heavy rifle which he pointed at Gant.
‘I said put away your rifle,’ he said quietly. ‘And stow his too. But before you do, take out the magazines and pass them to me. I don’t want you to do anything that makes me think I should kill you. Don’t take too long about it either; they’re on their way.’ The tall man paused for a moment as he took in Gant’s face, and his expression grew severe. The rifle moved slightly in his hands. There was something in the man’s bearing that Gant recognised, but it’d been so long since he’d seen anyone who wasn’t from the fleet, he couldn’t say what it was.
‘I’m no threat to you,’ Gant replied. He reluctantly tossed the magazines to the man. ‘And if you want to get out of here, I’m the only one who knows the path out of this basin.’ He nodded down to the basin, and he knew he was taking a risk. ‘They have friends of mine.’
‘There’s nothing you can do about that now.’
The coldness of the words surprised Gant. They wouldn’t kill Bradman until they’d had a chance to make him talk. Bradman and his men were hard—they'd try to hold out. Gant reckoned if he could keep the chukiri on the move, following him, maybe he could buy enough time to get back to the huts before—
‘Lead on,’ the man said. He tucked the magazines away into pockets in his spacesuit. ‘I’ll be behind you. You give me even the slightest concern and I won’t wait to pull the trigger.’