The Spiders reached the Osprey at the east side of the airstrip and began to close the distance between them and the soldiers. They only had to withstand a few more seconds of fire.
They’re going to save us.
The soldiers concentrated their attack, trying to force the Spiders back with a wall of bullets. The machines jerked and juddered under the impact, their progress slowing, but they were getting closer. They were gaining ground.
The Ark is going to save us.
Just a few more seconds and… the woman in black dropped her rifle and unslung the large weapon from her back. Bulky and deadly, Zak knew what it was. He’d played enough video games to recognize a grenade launcher when he saw one.
The woman in black tucked the stock against her shoulder and fired.
There was a short pause – less than a second – and the explosive detonated in front of the oncoming Spiders in a blast of ice and fire. The eruption shredded the muscular machines, blowing them into a thousand pieces. Their legs ripped away, their bodies shattered, and pieces of them tore across the ice in all directions. Burning fragments pounded the closest Osprey, like hellfire, and a second explosion erupted with a muted WHUMP! as the Osprey’s fuel tanks ignited in a huge ball of orange flames. The blast tore the aircraft in half, spinning it around on the landing strip as the fuel tanks beneath the second wing detonated. The air was filled with fire and smoke and heat as shrapnel blasted out in all directions. It thumped against the Storage building like heavy rain and Zak ducked as the reinforced glass shattered and sprayed fragments into the room.
The machines that had taken so long to build, that had been given life by something ancient and pure, were torn to pieces in a few seconds. They were nothing but broken parts.
And for Zak, all hope was lost.
35
OUTPOST ZERO, ANTARCTICA
NOW
One end of the airstrip was ablaze. The Osprey was twisted like a broken toy, black smoke pouring from the wreckage, and there were huge potholes where the aircraft had exploded. But the soldiers didn’t waste a moment.
Within a few seconds of the Spiders’ destruction, the woman in black was signalling to her people, issuing new commands. After a pause, one team split away and headed back into The Hub. The other soldiers fanned out across the airstrip as if they were protecting the remaining aircraft.
Zak couldn’t breathe.
Sofia was dead. There was no way out of Storage, and there was nothing he could use to defend himself. Not that he’d ever be able to defend himself against her.
Outside, the woman in black raised the weapon to her shoulder and aimed it at Storage. Zak saw it clearly from where he was standing, and he knew exactly what it would do.
In a few seconds he would be nothing.
But as the woman in black prepared to incinerate the building, the ground began to tremble. At first it was a gentle sensation accompanied by a low rumble that made the woman pause and look back, but it was growing stronger. Louder.
Storage shook, the contents of the shelves rattling as they had done when the aircraft were directly overhead. The ground moved beneath Zak’s boots and, outside, the woman in black side-stepped and put out her arms like a tightrope walker trying to keep balance.
Zak stumbled too, grabbing at the wall, trying to stay on his feet. Containers clattered. Supplies shifted and fell over. Cans rolled off the shelves. Mum and Dad and May bumped into the red-jackets as they swayed together, knees buckling, falling in a heap.
An earthquake. The thought flashed through Zak’s head. Saved by an earthquake.
Outside, a sharp crack split the air and Zak clung to the edge of the window, peering out at the soldiers who had dropped low to avoid falling over. The woman in black had her back to Storage now and was signalling orders. The rumbling was growing louder by the second, and The Hub was shifting from side to side. The ground beneath it rippled like the sea.
No, not an earthquake. It’s them. They’re breaking through. They’re leaving. All they needed was more time. That was all they wanted. Time to protect themselves.
Zak saw a huge, dark shadow appear on the ground under The Hub. He pulled himself closer to the gaping window and squinted against the cold. As he watched, there was a sharp CRACK! and a massive split opened in the ice beneath the Hub’s legs. Powdery snow cascaded into it like a waterfall dropping into eternity as it tore open from one end of the Outpost to the other, a vicious zigzag snaking in both directions, separating the ground right across the bowl of the landscape.
The soldiers backed away towards Storage and watched as the crack grew like a lightning bolt tearing through the ice, heading right for The Chasm in the distance. The ground began to swell upwards. It bulged around the edges of the fissure, stretching and splitting apart. The Hub rose higher than the other modules, the tunnels creaking and groaning as they strained at the places where they connected to the buildings.
Zak heard the shouts of the men inside as the modules separated, upended, and turned over on to their sides like they were cardboard boxes. The Control Module slipped backwards, hanging over the edge of the ravine until the weight of it became too much for its fixings and it broke away from the East Tunnel and slipped into the darkness. The Medical Station followed it, tearing away and collapsing into the abyss. Two or three seconds later there was a loud thump followed by a plume of powdery snow billowing upwards, rolling out across the landing strip and smothering the remaining soldiers. It forced its way in through the smashed window of the Storage building, exploding like a wet sneeze, coating everything in snow.
When the cloud settled, most of Outpost Zero was gone. The Hub, the whole of the East Tunnel. The West Tunnel, too, had disappeared into the newly formed ravine – only one of the living quarters remained, lying on its side at the edge of the huge split in the ground, the walls crushed inwards. The Drone Bay was far away from its original position, upturned and blasted outwards by the swarm that was now exploding from the gaping hole in the ice.
The size of it was overwhelming. Right across the length of the crevasse, as far as Zak could see, the swarm erupted from the ice like a rising curtain of shadow. Oil-slick colours shimmered through every part of it, dancing in time with the Aurora flickering in the sky over the mountains. It hummed with the clatter and buzz of countless wings, lifting further and further. Even when it was towering over the place where Outpost Zero had been, there was still no sign the swarm was close to having risen completely from its burial site, but it began to shift.
Insects started moving towards the centre of the swarm, focusing themselves into a massive column of shifting colour, growing higher and higher, turning like a vortex, a never-ending swirl that dragged the remaining insects towards it until they were all together, rising high into the glowing sky.
The only sound was the tremendous rattle of billions of tiny wings.
‘An Ark.’ Zak didn’t even know he said it aloud. ‘It’s an Ark.’
Lights blinked inside the dense column of insects, erratic at first, like a fluorescent tube light coming on, flickering, flickering, then moving with more confidence. Bright yellow streaks appeared as more and more of the insects illuminated the spots on their backs, and those which were alight began to spiral upwards within the main column. More and more of them followed, thickening the spirals, making an endless cord of movement along the length of the column.