Aftershock

by Mark Walden

  ‘Far enough,’ Minerva said. ‘Lose the weapons.’

  Raven slipped out of her tactical harness and let it drop to the ground. One of the Disciple soldiers ran over and picked it up as two more kept her covered with their rifles.

  ‘Hands behind your back,’ Minerva instructed. ‘Commander, tie her hands.’ The commander walked forward and pulled a thick cable tie from one of the pouches on his belt. He looped it round Raven’s wrists and pulled it tight with a zipping sound.

  ‘You couldn’t let them die, could you,’ Minerva said, walking towards Raven. ‘Sentimentality was always your weakness, Natalya.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Raven asked, her expression furious. There was something hauntingly familiar about the woman’s rasping voice.

  ‘Don’t you recognise your handiwork, my dear?’ Minerva said, lifting up her veil. The hideously disfigured face beneath was covered in scar tissue, the relics of what must have been horrific burns. Despite the disfigurement there was one thing that had not changed – her eyes. Eyes that Raven would never, could never forget. In that instant Otto saw something in Raven’s expression that he had never seen before. Fear.

  ‘That can’t be. You’re dead . . . I watched you die,’ Raven gasped, her eyes wide with horror.

  ‘No, Natalya,’ Anastasia Furan said, ‘you didn’t kill me, you just left me wishing you had. You betrayed me, you killed my brother Pietor and you helped that brat destroy Overlord. For that I am going to make you watch me kill these children with your own weapon.’ She put her pistol back into the shoulder holster inside her coat and took one of Raven’s katanas from the soldier that had been carrying them. ‘Then I’m going to use it on you.’

  Anastasia walked towards Otto, Wing, Shelby and Franz.

  ‘I’ll even let you decide which one goes first,’ she said with a sadistic smile.

  ‘Just get on with it, you scar-faced old hag,’ Otto said, his voice filled with contempt, ‘or are you going to try to talk us to death like Overlord did. I honestly can’t tell you what was better – the fact that Overlord died in agony or that he was wearing your brother’s body like a cheap suit at the time. I suppose you’d call it two birds with one stone.’

  Anastasia turned towards him, her face furious.

  ‘You obviously have a death wish, Mr Malpense,’ she snarled. ‘Well, consider your wish granted.’

  She raised the sword above her head. Otto closed his eyes. The world seemed to slow as he used every ounce of his mental strength to push past the electromagnetic shielding that Professor Pike had installed round the tiny but incredibly powerful fuel cell that powered the sword’s variable geometry forcefield. He could not see but could sense the sword swinging towards his neck in slow motion as he commanded the fuel cell to discharge all the power it contained in an instant. The handle of the sword detonated like a tiny bomb with a bright white flash. Furan shrieked as the blade clattered to the ground, clutching at the shredded remains of her hand. The soldiers nearby staggered backwards rubbing their eyes, temporarily blinded by the light of the detonation. Otto opened his eyes and leapt forward, slamming into her and knocking her off her feet. They tumbled backwards together as Otto reached inside her coat and pulled the pistol from her shoulder holster and pressed it to her forehead.

  ‘Drop your weapons, all of you,’ Otto shouted to the Disciple troops, ‘or I pull the trigger.’

  ‘Shoot him!’ Anastasia hissed. ‘That’s an order.’ Otto cocked the hammer on the pistol, pushing the muzzle harder into her scarred brow.

  The soldiers looked to their commander, unsure what to do. The commander raised his rifle, aiming it at Otto. In the split second before he could pull the trigger there was an enormous explosion above them. Everyone’s heads snapped upwards just in time to see the blazing wreckage of the Disciples’ helicopter gunship crash into the glass dome overhead. The dome disintegrated as the doomed aircraft hit it and the blazing remains of the helicopter and a shower of giant glass shards plummeted towards the startled occupants of the square below.

  ‘Run!’ Otto yelled at his friends as the Disciple troops scattered in all directions. Otto leapt to his feet and sprinted for cover in the fire station garage as Anastasia Furan staggered to her feet and ran in the opposite direction. The commander of the Disciple troops seemed frozen in place as the burning hull of the gunship fell from the sky and smashed down on top of him. The explosion knocked Otto and his friends off their feet, sending them sprawling. Massive glass sheets smashed down around them, exploding in sprays of deadly crystal shrapnel. Otto, Wing, Franz and Shelby all ran headlong for the fire station garage. They dashed inside as more and more glass tumbled into the square, huge sheets impacting like mortar shells. After a minute or so the dust in the square began to settle and the full extent of the damage became visible. The flaming debris of the gunship lay surrounded by tons of shattered glass and the church building was on fire, the flames spreading rapidly across its wooden structure. Several of the remaining Disciple troops had not made it to cover and lay where they had been cut down by the lethal rain of glass.

  ‘Stay down,’ Otto whispered to the others as he saw Disciple troops starting to cautiously emerge from the buildings they had taken cover inside around the square. One of them pointed over to the fire station. Otto was just about to shout to his friends to run when the air behind the advancing Disciple troops shimmered and one of H.I.V.E.’s assault Shrouds decloaked. The soldiers never even knew what hit them as the Gatling cannon under the chin of the dropship spun up and opened fire. Seconds later a dozen men in black body armour leapt from the loading ramp at the rear of the Shroud and spread out, forming a defensive perimeter.

  ‘Looks like the cavalry’s here,’ Otto said with a relieved sigh. ‘Guys, this is going to sound weird but don’t tell them anything about what Laura did. Let me handle it.’

  He looked at his friends, seeing his own confusion, anger and sadness reflected in their eyes. One by one they nodded their agreement.

  ‘OK, let’s go.’

  Otto, Wing, Shelby and Franz walked slowly out of the fire station and a couple of the G.L.O.V.E. troops spotted them and raised their rifles.

  ‘Hey, same team!’ Shelby yelled.

  ‘Hold your fire,’ Colonel Francisco bellowed as he ran down the Shroud’s loading ramp.

  ‘I think I can honestly say that this is being the first time I have ever been happy to be seeing Colonel Francisco,’ Franz said quietly, a relieved smile on his face.

  ‘I’m glad to see that at least some of you made it,’ the Colonel said. ‘Sorry it took us so long to get here. If it hadn’t been for that beacon, I doubt we would have ever found you.’

  ‘Well, you can thank Raven for that,’ Otto said, suddenly frowning. ‘Hold on, where is she?’

  Anastasia Furan ran along the corridor leading out of the hidden facility, trying to ignore the agonising pain from her shredded right hand. She had endured far, far worse before now. She reached the shattered exterior doors and stepped out into the daylight. The transport helicopter was waiting, its rotors spinning at full speed, ready for take off. She hurried across the snow-covered ground as the rear ramp of the helicopter lowered and climbed inside with the help of two of the Disciple soldiers on-board. Laura, Tom and Penny sat huddled at the other end of the compartment with Nigel lying on the stretcher next to them.

  ‘Get us out of here,’ she yelled at the pilot who pulled on the collective control and sent the giant twin-rotored chopper climbing into the sky. Anastasia looked out of the rear hatch and felt a chill as she saw a familiar figure sprinting across the snow towards the slowly climbing helicopter.

  ‘We need more altitude,’ she yelled.

  On the ground Raven aimed her grappler at the rear of the transport which was now twenty metres off the ground and fired. The dart attached to the helicopter’s metal skin and Raven hit the retraction control, sending herself shooting into the sky, trailing behind the helicopter as it tipped forward an
d swooped away from the mountain.

  One of the Disciple troops on the helicopter braced himself just inside the open hatch, drew his pistol and aimed at Raven as she whipped around on the end of the monofilament line a dozen metres behind the helicopter. The motors in the grappler screeched in protest as they tried slowly to pull Raven towards the back of the transport, fighting against the massive turbulence that tossed her around like a fish struggling at the end of a line. The soldier fired and missed twice before Furan snatched the gun from him with her good hand. She didn’t aim at Raven – instead she took careful aim at the silver dart embedded in the helicopter’s fuselage just outside the hatch. She fired and the bullet struck the dart with a spark, dislodging it and sending Raven tumbling away into the sky. Furan ran to the rear hatch and looked down at the dark green treetops that flew past below. She handed the pistol back to the soldier and hit the switch to close the rear hatch.

  ‘Goodbye, Natalya,’ she said as the hatch closed with a thud.

  ‘We’ve finished our sweep, sir,’ the G.L.O.V.E. soldier reported. ‘There’s no sign of anyone else inside the facility. The Shroud even performed a thermal scan of the cavern from the air and there’s nothing.’

  ‘Understood, lieutenant,’ Francisco said. ‘Get the rest of your men back on-board the Shroud. We’re heading back to H.I.V.E.’

  Francisco walked up the ramp to the Shroud’s interior and watched as the medic finished checking over the four Alphas.

  ‘They all seem fine,’ the medic said as Francisco approached. ‘A little dehydrated and some cuts and bruises but nothing serious.’

  Francisco nodded and walked over to where the four exhausted-looking Alphas were sitting.

  ‘There’s still no sign of Raven or the other missing students,’ Francisco said. ‘I’m taking you back to H.I.V.E. Nero’s orders.’

  ‘We’re just going to leave?’ Otto said angrily. ‘How do we know that the Disciples aren’t holed up somewhere nearby with Laura and the others?’

  ‘We don’t have time for a full search of the area and Disciple reinforcements might arrive at any moment,’ the Colonel said, shaking his head. ‘We have to get out of here.’

  Shelby suddenly burst into tears, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed. Wing put his arms around her and hugged her.

  ‘We will find them,’ Wing said. ‘I swear to you.’

  The last of the G.L.O.V.E. troops filed on to the Shroud and Francisco headed towards the rear. He walked down the ramp and looked around the debris-filled town square. The fires started by the destruction of the gunship that they’d shot down were spreading and there was little they could do to stop them. Soon the whole facility would be ablaze. He was just about to head back up the ramp when he saw a familiar figure walking slowly towards him across the square.

  ‘You weren’t going to leave without me, were you?’ Raven asked, raising an eyebrow. She was walking with a slight limp and her bodysuit was torn in several places, blood covering her face from a nasty gash in her hairline.

  ‘You look like hell,’ Francisco said, smiling.

  ‘We’ll see how you look after you fall from a helicopter,’ Raven said. ‘The other Alphas are gone. I tried to stop them being taken but I was too late.’

  ‘Nero’s ordered us back to H.I.V.E.,’ Francisco said.

  ‘Good, I need to speak to him. Our situation may be worse than we thought,’ Raven said, frowning.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Let’s just say that a ghost from mine and Max’s past has come back to haunt us.’

  Raven walked up the ramp and into the Shroud, Francisco just behind her. The Colonel closed the loading ramp and the Shroud’s turbine engines roared into life, lifting it into the air and up through the shattered remains of the glass dome overhead. As it climbed out of the cavern its cloaking systems engaged. It shimmered for a moment in the fading autumn light and then vanished.

  chapter twelve

  ‘How you doing?’ Shelby asked Otto as she sat down next to him. They had been in flight for more than an hour and he had barely said a word to anyone.

  ‘I feel like an idiot,’ Otto said, staring at the deck. ‘How could I have not seen what was happening?’

  ‘Come on,’ Shelby whispered, shaking her head. ‘There was no way that any of us could have known what Laura was being forced to do.’

  ‘I don’t know why she didn’t just tell us.’

  ‘Because she was frightened,’ Shelby replied, taking Otto’s hand. ‘She couldn’t do anything that might endanger her parents and her baby brother. If she’d told us or even Nero, how could she know that the Disciples wouldn’t find out.’

  ‘Oh, I’m pretty sure that they’d have found out,’ Otto said with a sigh. He had told no one about Laura’s final words to him. There was only one person he was going to give that information to and he was going to deliver the message in person.

  Dr Nero watched as the assault Shroud touched down on the crater landing pad. The loading ramp whirred into place and Otto, Wing, Shelby and Franz walked down it, closely followed by Raven.

  ‘Welcome back,’ Nero said. ‘I am truly sorry that you have all had to endure such an ordeal. Rest assured that the people involved will suffer for what they have done. Our retaliation will be swift and decisive. I will also not give up on all of the students who have been captured by these people. I cannot tell you how long it might take but I can tell you that we will not rest until they are returned.’

  ‘Doctor Nero, I need to speak to you in private,’ Otto said. ‘It’s extremely important.’

  ‘Of course,’ Nero replied with a slight frown. ‘Please wait outside my office, Mr Malpense, I shall be there shortly. The rest of you should return to your quarters and get some rest. I think it’s fair to say that you’ve earned it.’

  ‘What do you need to see Nero about?’ Shelby whispered as the four of them climbed the stairs leading up from the landing pad.

  ‘I need to tell him about Laura,’ Otto replied.

  ‘I thought we weren’t going to tell anyone,’ Shelby said.

  ‘I have to,’ Otto said firmly, ‘because it’s the only way he’ll believe what else I’m going to tell him.’

  ‘Which is?’ Wing asked.

  ‘I promise I’ll fill you in later,’ Otto replied. ‘I know what I’m doing, trust me.’

  Back in the hangar Nero walked over to a quiet corner with Raven.

  ‘You said on the radio that there was something we needed to talk about,’ Nero said, ‘though I still don’t understand why you couldn’t have just told me then.’

  ‘Too many ears open nearby on-board the Shroud,’ Raven explained. ‘Max, I know who’s running the Disciples. I met her a few hours ago in Siberia, or, to be more precise, I met her again.’

  ‘What is it, Natalya?’ Nero asked with a frown, noticing her worried expression. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Anastasia Furan,’ Raven said, looking Nero straight in the eye. ‘She’s alive.’

  ‘But that’s not possible,’ Nero replied, his eyes widening in shock. ‘We both saw her die, Natalya.’

  ‘She survived. God only knows how but somehow she survived.’

  ‘As if this situation wasn’t bad enough already,’ Nero said, shaking his head.

  ‘I want to go after her, Max,’ Raven said. ‘This is unfinished business and I intend to be the one to finish it.’

  ‘I understand how you feel, Natalya, you know I feel the same way,’ Nero said, ‘but this is no longer an isolated skirmish between G.L.O.V.E. and the Disciples. This situation has escalated and we need to consider our next move carefully. I need you here for now. There is a war to be fought and you are one of G.L.O.V.E.’s most powerful weapons. I promise you that when the time comes, when the axe drops on Anastasia Furan, you will be her executioner but for now I cannot afford to lose you to a personally motivated mission of revenge. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ Raven said with a nod, ‘but, you are ri
ght, this is personal for me, in ways that you cannot even begin to imagine. I cannot . . . I will not wait for ever. I want blood, her blood, and I want it soon.’

  She turned and walked away. Under other circumstances he might have felt a vague sense of pity for anyone that Raven hated with such a passion but Anastasia Furan was someone he too would never be able to feel anything but hatred for. She had murdered the one woman that he had ever truly loved and for that he could never forgive her.

  The helicopter touched down on the ice sheet with a bump, its twin rotors slowing as the rear boarding ramp descended. A pair of Disciple soldiers shoved Laura, Tom and Penny down the ramp. The icy wind cut through even the insulation of their environmental suits, their exposed hands and faces stinging with the cold. They trudged towards a concrete block, shrouded in ice with a heavy metal slab set into it. As they approached the slab slowly rumbled down into the ice to reveal a steel-lined lift carriage beyond. They were followed into the elevator by Anastasia Furan and two more Disciple troops who were carrying Nigel’s stretcher. Once they were all inside, a set of internal doors closed and the lift began to descend. After a minute or so the lift stopped and the internal doors slid open once again. Suddenly they were hit by the noise of hundreds of voices as they walked out on to a concrete walkway that ran all the way round the outside of the massive circular chamber in front of them. A man in a white coat ran up to Nigel’s stretcher and began to examine him.

  ‘We need to get him to medical immediately,’ the man said.

  ‘Will he survive?’ Anastasia asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the medic replied. ‘It looks like he’s bleeding internally. We’ll do our best.’

  ‘See that you do,’ she replied with a frown. ‘This boy is strategically valuable and he’s no use to me dead.’

  ‘You need to get that hand looked at too,’ the doctor said.

  ‘I am quite aware of that, doctor,’ she snapped.

  As Anastasia and the doctor talked, Laura walked forward and peered over the waist-high concrete wall and down into the vast chamber below. The drop to the large open area at the bottom must have been at least a hundred metres and down there, far below, she could see tiny figures running assault courses and sparring. Every floor of the structure was ringed by an identical walkway, all lined with doors and regularly patrolled by armed guards. Hanging from the centre of the ceiling above them was a multi-storey glass structure that was occupied by what looked like a high-tech control centre. From where Laura was standing the whole place looked very much like a prison.