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

doing 180-degree arcs. They were spinning round and round, continually, as the driver fought to shake the creature from the roof.

The cabin felt like a G-force chamber and Callum was thrown up against the side window. As he tried to right himself, an eye appeared on the other side of the Perspex. It peered through at him and a pair of jaws ground menacingly below it.

He ducked as the creature’s leg snapped towards him. The hind foot collided with the Perspex and left a deep gouge in front of his face, but the material didn’t shatter.

The soldier’s voice sounded and Callum felt something cold thrust into his hands. He looked down to see a machine gun. The soldier was repeating the same instruction again and again in Russian.

“He says to shoot!” Darya said.

“What about the window?”

“Through the window,” she shouted. “Just shoot!”

The creature was clinging to the side of the cabin with its foreclaws tucked around the handle. As Callum raised the rifle barrel and took aim, it reached upwards and tried to slide back the window.

Callum pressed his finger down and unleashed a burst of automatic fire. The rounds peppered the little pane, blowing the centre out and propelling the creature from the side of the machine. Trails of warm blood lashed against his face and streaked what remained of the acrylic screen.

It was Callum’s turn to yell out in triumph. But all celebrations were quickly off as another two thuds sounded on the roof.

The soldier shouted something to Darya.

“He says to take the controls.”

Before Callum could protest, the machine jerked to a halt. The hulking soldier turned and shot him a glance. His dark eyes were narrowed, his lips crushed together in a determined half-grin-half-grimace. He cracked his knuckles, seized the rifle from Callum and shoved past.

On reflex Callum slipped into the driving seat. His feet fell naturally onto the pedals and his hands clasped on to the two control sticks mounted at the end of either armrest. The seat was warm and the controls clammy. “But… what does what?” he shouted over his shoulder.

There was no reply as the soldier’s boots disappeared through the shattered window.

4

Callum slammed his foot onto the pedal. To his relief the machine bucked and trundled forward as before, the engine roaring, the tracks squealing below. He had no idea where he was going and he didn’t dare mess with any of the other controls, so he simply held the control sticks steady and ploughed blindly ahead.

The mist flowed past in a torrent, thick and unrelenting as the minutes ticked by. The growling of the machine’s engine filled his ears. His leg wound pulsated with the frantic beating of his heart, and Darya’s fingers dug into his already-aching shoulders.

Gunshots rang out suddenly from above. Then, before either of them could react, the machine slammed to a halt. Callum was thrown forward over the controls, while Darya was hurled from her perch behind the seat. The smell of burning metal filled the cabin, and the machine’s engine shuddered and gave out.

Callum looked up, dazed. Piercing through the shattered screen was a corner of grey concrete. “I think we’ve found the compound.”

There was no reply.

He looked around to see Darya draped over the floor of the cabin. She looked like a ragdoll. Her arms were twisted beneath her and blood dripped from a gash on her head. Callum ignored the ringing inside his own skull and dragged her up into a sitting position. The wound above her eye was only small, but it was bleeding profusely, and he bunched his sleeve up and stemmed the flow.

“Darya? Can you hear me?”

She said nothing. When he drew his hand away to check her pulse, her body slumped back down against him. She was alive, but she was out cold. He tore a strip of fabric from his undershirt and fastened it around her head. As he fumbled to secure the knot, a loud thunk rang out beside him, and a boot came smashing through the windscreen. It was followed by a forearm, which forced its way through the cleft and levered the screen open.

Callum expected to see the soldier who had been driving the machine. But it was a different man who clambered up into the cabin. He was taller, and his face looked as if it had been chiselled out of solid granite. A large, hook-shaped scar ran the length of his cheek and the dense surrounding stubble looked more like iron filings than hair.

His white uniform drenched in blood, the soldier wasted no time scooping Darya up into his arms and backing out of the windscreen.

Without a word, Callum followed on.

5

The bunker was a reinforced concrete shell set around a ribcage of steel girders. Soldiers were stationed at intervals along the rifle slits on either wall. Their steaming rifles were shouldered and a vomit of spent cartridges lay scattered around their knees. Some were still firing, prompting more explosions off in the distance.

The scar-faced soldier passed into a second chamber. It was danker, and the lack of rifle slits on either wall heightened the gloom. In the middle of the floor, a wounded man was being tended to by one of his comrades. Barely out of his teens by the look of him, the young man’s injuries looked horrific. There were clear puncture marks across his shoulder and chest, and a deep gouge ran just below his ribcage.

The soldier stopped and lay Darya gently down next to the dying soldier. The older-looking medic set to work examining her, as Scar-face addressed him in a commanding tone.

“What is it?” Callum asked. “She’ll be okay, right?”

The two soldiers stopped their conversation and stared at him. The medic then spoke to Scar-face, who nodded, grunted and spat on the floor.

Callum went to speak again, when another voice cut him off: “Doctor Lebedev will be okay, my friend. She is unconscious, but she is not badly injured.”

Lungkaju was kneeling down in the corner of the room. His arm was