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

hail of bullets sprayed in an arc across Callum’s shoulder.

But… the killing was over… I was on my way home…

As reality hit, he flung himself and Darya to the ground. From the shadow of the helicopter, he looked back and saw the first bullets tear into Sergeant Marchenko’s chest. The smile on the gentle soldier’s face became an open gasp of shock as the bullets peppered his flesh. The force lifted him off his feet and sent him reeling backwards, his back arched, his chest coughing up a cloud of blood.

With a hideous polyphonic rasp, the bullets sliced through Corporal Aliyev’s back and shoulders, unzipping the flesh and passing through into the medic. The man’s throat opened up as the bullets pulverised the top of his chest, almost severing his head. The snipers’ stomachs turned to red pulp as they waved frantically, then collapsed against each other in a heap, their bodies seizing, seeming to throb under the continued strafe.

A bullet passed through one of the soldiers’ eyes, another through his ear, then the centre of his forehead, leaving his grin unchanged as he toppled onto his face. As the others turned to run, the bullets found their legs, blowing out their ankles, shredding the meat from their thighs and ripping into their backs. As they stumbled down, the bullets criss-crossed their shoulders, necks and heads, and one by one, in quick succession, their faces hit the freezing rock.

The universe crawled. Sound vanished. Callum could only watch as the men that had saved his life lay crumpled over one another, their limbs twitching, their remaining eyes wide with shock. He closed his own eyes in disbelief; when he reopened them, the team would be clambering up into the helicopter, alive and well. It was all just a figment of his exhausted imagination.

But as his lids crept back open, the scene of carnage was unchanged. The only people left standing were Lungkaju and Ava, who had gone to ground just behind him, both unharmed. Lungkaju wore that same look of intense pain and anguish that he had at the death of Fenris, while Ava’s tear-streaked face bore dumb incomprehension.

Instinctively, Callum ran his hands across Darya’s body. Not a scratch.

With a final, sadistic pass over the mangled corpses, the gunfire ended. The machine gun barrel was now silent and smoking, pointed directly at Lungkaju. With his eyes glued to the twin-muzzle, he took Ava by the hand and climbed slowly to his feet. “Doctor Ross. Are you hurt?”

Callum grunted and shook his head. The world had fallen out from under him.

The helicopter’s side door opened and a Russian voice boomed out over the PA system.

“He tells us to get on board,” Lungkaju said. “We should do what he says.”

The cabin was cramped, much smaller than that of the Kamovs. Like a robot, his mind still clouded with shock, Callum lay Darya on the floor between the two opposed rows of seating and slumped down next to Ava.

The door slid shut.

The images of what he had just witnessed played over in front of him, and he watched them, powerless to turn away, barely conscious of where he was or what was happening around him.

Opposite him sat another man. He was tall and dressed in a neatly pressed navy-blue uniform. His back was turned as he leant in-between the two front seats and spoke loudly to the pilot, but Callum recognised him even through his daze, and the realisation brought him crashing back to earth.

“Doctor Ross. Doctor Lee.” Volkov beamed, turning to face them. “It is so wonderful to see you both again.”

Chapter 17 Data Stick

1

Wonderful was not the adjective Callum would have chosen. Disturbing, maybe. Confusing, for sure. He went to speak, but he was unable to. His brain cried out for answers, but his tongue felt like a lead weight.

“Come now, Doctor Ross,” Volkov teased. “If this is truly the limit of your communicative abilities then I am afraid I must cancel my application to the University of Aberdeen.” He sniggered.

“You… you murdered those soldiers,” Callum said, regaining the ghost of speech. His tone was so naturally hate filled that he could hardly recognise it as his own. “Marchenko and his team, you just… gunned them down… in cold blood.”

Volkov sneered, “As an educated man, Doctor Ross, you do surprise me. You must surely understand that there are no rights or wrongs in this fairy-tale world of ours. Faith. Fact. Fiction. Reality itself. They are all determined by one thing, are they not? Perspective. These were not saints. These were professional killers. Mercenaries. They had blood on their hands, each and every one.”

“They saved my life.”

“Do you imagine that the families of the many young mujahedeen fighters that these soldiers have brutally cleansed from the Caucasus would share your appreciation? Tell me, what makes your horror any more relevant than their elation?”

“But why, Mr Volkov?” The voice was Lungkaju’s. “Why did the soldiers have to die?”

“Everybody must go down with the Albanov,” Volkov snarled. “Otherwise it is… awkward.”

This made no sense. Go down with the Albanov?

“What the hell are you talking about?” Callum said. “Do you know what happened to the ship?”

Volkov waved his hand dismissively. “I know rather a lot about what happened to it, Doctor Ross. It was me that gave the order to destroy it.”

Callum gasped. “You did it?”

“It was my design,” Volkov replied. His tone was conversational, as if he were chatting over coffee. “Not to force the issue of perspective, but the deed itself was carried out by none other than your friend and colleague Mr Daniel Peterson.” He shot a glance in Ava’s direction.

Callum felt her twitch beside him. As if awakening from a dream, she eased her grip from Lungkaju’s arm and stared at Volkov. Her look of torment sent a shiver creeping along Callum’s spine. Dark crescents hung beneath her eyes as she peered through a veil of matted hair. “You’re saying it was Dan’s fault what happened on the Albanov?”

Volkov’s eyes lit up.