Colony by Benjamin Cross (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

the cave. It wouldn’t have been such an ache if they’d had some proper intel. But so far all they knew was that Koikov reckoned creatures of one kind or another were holed up inside. Rumours of what the creatures actually were had stretched from an unnaturally large bear to a flock of killer birds to a colony of dragons! As far as Gergiev was concerned, the whole thing was crazy with a capital C.

“You want to hear something else weird?”

“You’re really a woman?”

“Fuck you!” Khabensky tore up a tuft of moss and flung it in Gergiev’s face. “No, I was down on R-Deck a couple of days ago.”

Gergiev’s eyebrows rose and he scanned around for anyone listening. R-Deck was where the G&S technicians carried out the research, testing and technical prep that underpinned the entire project; from assessing the quality of gas samples, to working out the optimum locations for the wellheads, to designing the plant itself. The industrial sensitivity of the activity taking place on R-Deck, and the mind-blowing sums of money riding on it, meant that access was highly restricted. Under no circumstances, Major Rabinovich, flanked by numerous company officials, had told them, was anybody to enter R-Deck unless expressly ordered to do so. “Shit, Khabensky! What the fuck were you thinking? Rabinovich—”

“Yeah, yeah, I could have been discharged, banged up, whatever. I had the same lecture.”

Gergiev tossed the clod of moss back at Khabensky and it struck him in the shoulder. “You were fucking lucky. Any one of those researchers could’ve raised the alarm.”

“That’s the thing.” Khabensky dropped his voice. “There were no researchers.”

“No researchers?”

He shook his head. “I got lost. You know what it’s like on that ship. It’s like a fucking maze, that’s how I ended up on R-Deck in the first place. Anyway, when I realised where I was I couldn’t help snooping in one of the labs.”

Gergiev waited. “And?”

“And nothing. No researchers, no equipment, nothing. Just an empty room. I tried the next one and same again. Every single room was empty. Didn’t look like they’d been used in decades. Whole place stank like rat piss and rust. It was worse than your mother’s bedroom.”

Gergiev grinned and cracked his knuckles but didn’t rise to it. “Must’ve been a decoy deck, fool any pin-headed little dumbfucks that manage to break in down there.”

Khabensky’s lips pursed. “No, I don’t buy it. That was R-Deck and there was no-one there. I’m telling you, Gergiev. This whole operation looks legit from the surface, but below decks it’s a fucking ghost ship.” He moved his attention back to the cave and peered through his rifle sight. “Creatures I can deal with, but ghosts—”

A voice crackled into their earpieces: “Listen up, this is Sergeant Marchenko. The Kamov is heading back to pick us up. We’re going back to the ship. Hold your positions until it’s on the ground.”

From further down the line, Private Tsaritsyn’s voice rang out: “All morning staking out this cave, and I don’t get to kill one stinking dragon?”

A low ripple of laughter passed along the rank.

“Feel free to head inside and claim your prize, Tsaritsyn,” Marchenko retorted. “The rest of you don’t know how lucky you are to be getting off this rock. You may not have seen these things, but I have, and once was enough. If the mist comes back, we won’t last five minutes out here.”

* * *

Koikov raised a pair of binoculars and peered over at the Albanov. He could see the remaining Kamov lifting off from the helipad. Perhaps when all this was over and the remainder of the team were safely back at base in Moscow, then it would finally be time for him to leave the department.

As he watched the blur of the Kamov’s rotors lift the aircraft further off the deck, he felt a weight lifting from his own shoulders. In twenty minutes time he and his men would be back on board the Albanov and the nightmare on Harmsworth would be over—

Without warning, the entire ship was replaced by a gigantic fireball. The roar of an explosion filled his ears. Columns of fire shot up into the air and a cloud of thick black smoke blossomed around the epicentre and rushed outwards in all directions.

“Jesus Christ!” Koikov yelled, ducking down out of pure reflex.

In an instant, every last bird had taken off from the Svayataya cliff-face, hollering in fright. They swooped around in their thousands, forming a cloud that engulfed the cliff-top and blotted out the sun. Hundreds careered into one another in mid-air, plummeting stunned onto the rocks below.

Bleeding from the assault of beaks and talons, Koikov had no choice but to turn and run before the sudden chaos threw him from his feet. He took cover behind a pile of rock, just as a second shockwave hammered into it and caused the ground below to tremor.

Suddenly, Marchenko’s voice droned in his ear: “Starshyna, what the hell’s going on? We heard an explosion. Starshyna, come in?”

Koikov kept his head down and waited. Then, when all movement had stopped, and the majority of the startled birds had either flown away or resettled themselves on their cliff-side nests, he climbed back to his feet.

Ears ringing, numb with shock, he staggered towards the precipice and raised the binoculars to his face once more.

Where the Albanov had been, chunks of burning debris now lay scattered over a huge area. Dark shapes, charred and indefinable, bobbed on the agitated water, which was discoloured with slicks of burning oil. The air around was hung with a dark semi-circular curtain, a decayed rainbow of thick black smoke.

“Starshyna, come in… Koikov! Come in! What’s your status?”

Still staring out in disbelief, Koikov searched for the words to reply. In a quiet voice he said, “The Albanov is gone. I repeat. The Albanov has been destroyed. Rabinovich was on board.”

There was a long pause at Marchenko’s end before: “What happened?”

Koikov raised a hand to his throat, heart racing, tongue dry.

“We just got stranded.”

Chapter