Then, after a while, the noises had died down. The last sound of movement Ellie had heard had been - she guessed - about twenty minutes ago.
‘We need to get some more oxygen,’ she whispered to Jez.
‘I know. I think mine’s nearly out.’
Ellie pulled her mask down and took a few breaths. The air was poor, the O2 content low. She endured it as long as she could before starting to feel dizzy, then she pulled the mask up and sucked in another lungful of precious oxygen that restored her fogging mind.
‘We need to get to the cat or the oxygen tent in the green house,’ she whispered again.
‘I know.’
‘Soon.’
‘Who are they?’ asked Jez.
‘I don’t know…I just…’
‘Is there anything you’re not telling me?’
‘Like what?’ Ellie whispered. ‘I…I’ve not done anything to anyone. I don’t know why anyone would want me!’ she added, a tone of desperation in her reply. ‘Maybe they’re criminals or terrorists or something…and this is their secret hide out.’
Jez had heard them use Ellie’s name. They were after her. They sat in silence for a moment before Jez asked the question they were both thinking. ‘Do you think they’re gone?’
‘I haven’t heard them for a while now.’
Neither had Jez, but that meant nothing; they could be lying in wait. They certainly seemed ruthless and determined enough to sit tight until the job was done. She recalled the brief exchange she had heard when they had first entered the weather station, something about ‘samples from the family’. Jez hadn’t had time to dwell on what those few words actually meant, until now.
Oh, no. Please, not that. Not them.
If they got out of this mess alive, she wondered what appalling discovery might be awaiting poor Ellie. Jez had seen with her own eyes how close a family they were. Despite the fact that Ellie had run away from her life here, there was still a powerfully strong, almost magical, emotional bond between them all.
‘What’s that?’ gasped Ellie.
It was something they both felt rather than heard; a deep vibration that caused the metal door of the storage locker to rattle ever so slightly.
‘You think that was a shuttle engine?’ whispered Jez hoarsely. ‘They’re going?’
‘Sounded like it.’
The vibration increased in intensity for a few moments before beginning to diminish and finally, the gentle metallic tapping of the door against its frame ceased.
‘Do you think it’s safe to head out?’ asked Jez.
‘Give it a few minutes to be sure.’
*
Deacon watched their shuttle rise up a couple of hundred feet amidst a cloud of dust, then bank and head across the arid desert. He watched its navigation lights winking in the dark as they receded into the distance. Eventually, when the shuttle was far enough away that the orange and green wing-tip lights seemed to converge as one, he watched the ship set down on the ground again without a sound, several miles away.
The ruse would surely flush these girls out.
It had become patently obvious that he didn’t have enough men to search the abandoned installation thoroughly, there was too much of it, and clearly these two girls had a good knowledge of the layout. They could spend endless hours going in circles, searching one area then the next, only to find those two had discreetly scuttled past them from one bolt-hole to another.
If they packed up and left now, the two girls would die when the last of their air was spent. But Deacon needed bodies. He needed a sample to be sure Ellie Quin was Mason’s handiwork.
No, the shrewd way to play this was to sit tight and wait for them to come out. Unless they had managed to secure an additional supply of oxygen, they would surely be running out of whatever they had on them at the point they went to ground. His men had found the oxygen tent set up in what looked like the colony’s old greenhouse, and there was also additional oxygen inside the caterpillar, parked outside the entrance. At some point they would have to make a dash for one of those, or suffocate somewhere in the ruins.
He had sent two of the mercenaries and the lab technician, Nathan, to hunker down in the module nearest the front entrance. It overlooked the caterpillar. They were now hiding in the dark and keeping an eye on the vehicle whilst he, Leonard and the third mercenary were lying low in the shadows of the greenhouse and watching the tent.
They had been quietly holding these positions now for twenty minutes. He had instructed the shuttle to wait a while before lifting off and ostensibly leaving the scene, so that the combined period of quiet followed by the noise of it taking off would hopefully be enough to convince them that the coast was finally clear.
Even if they were still suspicious, they needed that oxygen. Deacon looked at the faint glow of the holo display on his watch. They had to be out of air by now, or very close to it.
CHAPTER 16
Ellie’s mask was faltering. The last breath she had taken from it had delivered a less than adequate hit of oxygen. The supply in the attached cylinder was all but gone, a few more minutes at best, and then she would be going on whatever traces of oxygen her lungs could filter from the air in and around the ruins.
‘I’m out, how’re you doing?’ she asked Jez.
‘Me too I think.’
Ellie looked down at Harvey who, it seemed, had been drawing less oxygen from his mask than either of them. He looked okay for now though they might have to share the oxygen left in his mask if it came to it.
‘Then we have to go, or die here,’ replied Ellie, a shudder of trepidation catching her muted voice.
‘Yeah, we’ve got no choice,’ Jez reluctantly agreed.
With a gentle creak, they pushed the door to the storage locker open. Jez turned on the torch and quickly panned it around. ‘It looks clear,’ she whispered.
They climbed out and Ellie led the way to the cubicle’s doorway. She waited until Jez and Harvey had stopped moving and listened intently for a few moments. There was only silence.
She reached out for the jimp, felt his coarse skin and quickly found one of his hands. ‘The quickest way out is left, through the community hall, take a right and head for the entrance module,’ she whispered quietly.
‘Got it,’ replied Jez.
‘Then let’s go.’
With only the faintest glow leaking from the end of the finger-smothered torch, they padded down the corridor towards the large communal module. The hatch had been left open by one of the men who had trawled down this way earlier. As they drew closer, by the faint glow of the torch, they could see from the disturbed centuries-old layer of clay dust, the footprints, the scrape marks, that the room had been thoroughly searched.
They entered it warily. Jez briefly uncovered the torch and panned it around the hall, before covering it once more.
‘Looks clear,’ she hissed.
Ellie led Harvey by the hand across the space, sticking close to the wall to avoid knocking into any of the chairs and benches scattered haphazardly across the floor. They reached the bulkhead leading to the passageway beyond. The hatch had been left firmly shut.
The last of the oxygen in Ellie’s mask was gone, the valve clicking yet not giving her any more. She pulled it off her face, and dropped it. ‘No good now,’ she whispered, beginning to gasp from the paucity of O2 in the air around her.
Harvey instinctively understood and pulled the mask from his face. ‘Eh-leeee,’ he said softly, offering it to her. She reached for the mask, pulled it over her mouth and took several deep breaths before passing it back to him.
Jez removed her mask. ‘Crud, mine’s just gone too.’ She casually pulled the mask away from Harvey’s face and placed it over her mouth, and sucked in three or four breaths before letting him have it back.
‘Thanks Harv,’ she said, patting his head like a dog.
Ellie grabbed hold of the hatch and pulled it open. It creaked and clicked as the ancient hinge complained;
the noise echoed worryingly down the corridor beyond. It wasn’t too far now. Just twenty feet or so along this section, through into a small module, another short passageway and then the cabin that functioned as the foyer entrance for the colony.
Ellie, still holding in her lungs the last breath she had sucked in from Harvey’s mask, led the way into the corridor. Their pace was faster this time. The necessity to find oxygen was the increasingly urgent driving factor now. They passed down the length of the corridor quickly and stepped into the small module beyond, little more than a small round, widened section where a number of pipes and cable junctions converged at a maintenance point. With a final shared glance of hope, Jez nodded and they both advanced side by side, each leading Harvey by one of his hands, down the short and final length of corridor towards the entrance module.
A blinding flashlight snapped on ahead of them.
There was no verbal warning issued for them to stop, just the click of a weapon’s safety being flicked off and the deafening burst of a short volley, accompanied by the dazzling flash of strobing light coming from the pulse rifle.
Ellie felt a warm pulse beside her left ear and a streak of white-hot agony along the right side of her neck. She dropped to her knees clutching at her throat. Jez dropped to the floor beside her.
Harvey’s head spun both left and right to see both of his owners on the ground beside him. His soft voice was at first a low keening which quickly changed to an enraged howl that startled Ellie, as she slumped to a sitting position, still clutching her bloody throat and gasping for air.
Jez looked up in surprise as the jimp hurled himself forward, propelled powerfully by his short legs, towards the torchlight. A second later, the torch was knocked aside, and in the flickering light as the hand that held it thrashed around wildly, they saw the four powerful arms of their jimp flail with brutal intent at the man that he had latched himself onto.
‘Get this thing off me-e-e-e!!!!!!’ a man’s voice screamed desperately. The wretched cry ended with a gurgle.
Jez impulsively pushed herself to her feet and ran forward, her torch now no longer covered by her fingers, revealing the chaos ahead more fully. Dark strips of liquid splashed across the small room as Harvey, a whirling blur of grey motion, ferociously beat at the unfortunate man’s head and chest.
A second man stood beside them, fumbling with an ammo clip dislodged by a blow from one of Harvey’s flailing arms. Jez, taking advantage of the momentary confusion, and emboldened by Harvey’s unpredictable full-frontal assault, charged towards him. The man managed to slam the clip in, hip-aim the gun towards the jimp and fire a sustained burst at the rippling grey body.
Harvey was hurled by the impact of a dozen bullets against the metal wall beside the exit, his dark blood sprayed in viscous stripes across it.
Jez swung the two foot length of the torch horizontally across the man’s face as he turned towards her, his gun swinging round to deal with the new threat. The heavy, bulb-end of her torch caught his chin with a sickening crunch, and his head and body spun like a top as he flopped unconscious to the ground. Jez collapsed on top of him.
And then there was a moment of calm.
Jez, gasping from the exertion and the lack of good air, turned back round to look at Ellie, who was beginning to scramble to her feet. ‘Ellie!!’ she screamed, seeing a torrent of blood streaming over the hand pressed into her neck, and down her front.
‘I’m okay. I think it just snicked me,’ Ellie replied shakily, struggling for breath like Jez. ‘Oh my crud, they got Harvey,’ she added stooping down to place a hand on his narrow chest, torn open by half a dozen ragged holes.
Harvey stirred, his all-black eyes opened and focused on Ellie leaning over him.
‘Harvey,’ Ellie whispered, tears already welling up in her eyes. ‘You’re going to be alright,’ she said soothingly, stroking his cheek.
‘Harv-eeeee, good?’
She smiled and nodded. ‘You were very good. You saved me and Jez.’
Harvey reached up with one of his arms and a finger gently brushed her eyes. The jimp curiously inspected the drop of moisture on the tip of his finger.
‘Whattt isssss?’
Ellie swallowed hard. ‘It’s a tear. It means I’m sad, Harvey.’
Harvey nodded, understanding. ‘I ssssaaadd tooo.’ The jimp exhaled a final gurgling breath and then sagged, his sightless eyes staring down the passageway.
‘Oh Jez,’ she gasped. ‘Why are they doing this to us?’
‘You two better run now,’ said someone from a dark corner of the room.
Jez spun round and aimed the torch towards where the voice seemed to have come from. Another man was kneeling in the corner, his pulse rifle aimed squarely at Jez. ‘Which one of you is Ellie Quin?’
Ellie found herself raising a hand like a child in a classroom. ‘Me,’ she replied weakly.
The man studied her for a moment. ‘Your wound looks minor. You’ll live.’
‘You’re not g-going…going to kill us?’ she asked.
‘No. But you must leave now,’ he answered gruffly, ‘before the others arrive.’
Jez was now struggling unbearably for breath and sagged to her knees.
The man hesitated for a moment before lowering his gun and pulling out an oxygen mask from a survival pack slung low on his hip. ‘Here take it,’ he said, tossing it across to her, ‘share it with your friend, but get out of here now. You’ve got seconds before the others get here!’
Jez grasped the mask, pulled it over her mouth and took half a dozen reviving mouthfuls of air, before handing it to Ellie who did the same. In the distance, they could hear the pounding of feet along the metal grating of a distant corridor.
‘Go! The others are coming,’ he said again, looking anxiously down the corridor.
‘Why are people after me?’ asked Ellie through the mask.
‘Don’t know. I’m just a hired hand. I was hired to kill you, but someone else has paid me twice what these people did to help you get away. I don’t know why, I don’t care why. Now just-’
‘But why does-?’
‘There’s no time for any of this!’ the man growled quietly. ‘If you don’t go now, I’ll have to kill you myself. Otherwise they,’ he nodded towards the approaching sound of footsteps, ‘will know I’m getting a payment from somewhere else. That’s a death sentence for me. So you better move now, or I will kill you!’ he said readying his gun.
Ellie reached out with one hand and grabbed Jez’s. ‘The cat, Jez…let’s go!’
Jez scrambled to her feet and the two girls turned and fled outside into the night. Ellie staggered across the uneven ground towards the caterpillar. It was a slow vehicle, but faster than a person could run. If they could start the thing up in time and get going before those other men arrived…
‘Ellie! Look!’ shouted Jez, pointing up into the sky.
Ellie followed the direction she was pointing and saw a shuttle coming in towards them low and fast, two brilliant beams of light sweeping the ground ahead of it.
‘It’s Aaron I think!’ she screamed.
Both girls waved their arms frantically in the air as they continued to run from the entrance of the weather station. One of the floodlights swung across Ellie and steadied on her.
‘Please Aaron!’ she yelled, ‘quickly!!!’
They heard a burst of gunfire. Jez turned to see the man who had let them go, standing outside the entrance running down the ramp, firing his weapon towards them, but intentionally, marginally, wide of them. A moment later he was joined outside by three other men. All three aimed with far greater accuracy and divots of orange clay and dust jumped from the ground into the air either side of their feet, as both girls continued to run desperately out into the desert towards the approaching shuttle.
The shuttle descended quickly, the access ramp at the back of the hold already beginning to open and extend for them with the high-pitched whine of servo-motors audible above the deafening, de
ep rumble of the landing thrusters as they kicked in.
Another rattle of gunfire, and Jez felt the hot buzz of a shot whistle through her hair and past her cheek.
‘oh freg-freg-freg-freg,’ she muttered as she raced towards the ramp, now twelve feet, now ten feet above the ground, as Aaron brought the shuttle down.
Ellie hurled herself onto the ramp as it thumped heavily against the ground, and Jez landed with thud beside her a second later.
‘Come on take her up, you big lump!’ Jez shouted, knowing full well that Aaron wouldn’t be able to hear her. The shuttle remained on the ground, the thrusters still roaring at a constant pitch, blasting the ground viciously, the air filling with a dense cloud of dust.
The men outside the entrance to the weather station were now running towards them, weapons firing. The ramp rattled and sparked with the impact of shots slamming home around them
‘Come on!!!!!’ Ellie screamed.
‘Go-go-go-go-go!!!!!’ Jez bellowed hoarsely.
The pitch of the thrusters dropped momentarily and for one terrifying moment Ellie thought Aaron was winding them down. But then with a burst of renewed power, and an alarming jolt that nearly shook Ellie off the ramp, the shuttle began to lift off again, and the ramp began to rise.
Ellie and Jez began to pull themselves up the ramp, clawing at the corrugated grooves in the metal to stop from sliding off the rising access ramp and down into the swirling sandstorm beneath them.
An elbow appeared over the lip of the ramp and then a head appeared as one of the men desperately pulled himself up after them. Ellie looked down at him and recognized the face as the mercenary who had just let them go. He shouted something urgently at Ellie which she failed to hear over the roar of the thrusters and the continued rattle of gunfire from below.
But she guessed what he was asking her to do, and obligingly she kicked out at his face so that he dropped back down to earth before the height was enough that the fall would kill him. With the servo-motors whining against the load, the ramp continued to rise upwards until angled at forty-five degrees, and nearly closed, Ellie and Jez rolled down it and tumbled into the passengers’ suite, one on top of the other.