Keeping low, she scampered out of the living room and into the ruined kitchen. Through the smashed windows she could hear the other Predator, still patrolling above the courtyard. She peered out, and then ducked back as she saw it sliding through the air towards her. It had come low, and was almost level with her on the first floor. The pilot was checking the houses, looking for targets.
Pressed against the wall, she flexed her hand on the hilt of her pistol. What she wouldn’t give to get just one of those flying bastards off her back. Was it worth trying for a lucky shot? To empty her gun at the cockpit, see if she could get the pilot through the windglass?
Her breathing quickened. The thought of it excited her. Fright had made her reckless. Yes. Rot and damn, yes! Fire off all five rounds then run. She’d do it. She’d take down that gunship, and then maybe they’d have a real chance.
She listened to the engines, waiting for the right moment, when the gunship had passed by.
Not yet. . not yet. . NOW!
She popped up and thrust her pistol through the window. But the gunship hadn’t gone past her as she thought. It was right in front of her, a monster’s face of cannons and metal, looking in. Blindly she fired, squeezing the trigger again and again. Bullets panged and sparked off the gunship’s nose. Somehow she hit the cockpit, putting a hole in the windglass. The pilot, shocked and surprised, flinched away from the bullet and pulled the gunship aside. It slewed in the air and retreated a few metres.
She hadn’t hit the pilot. She should have run then, but the enormity of her mistake struck her and rooted her to the spot. There was no way she was going to make it out of the building. In a second, the pilot would recover and press down on his guns. He’d drill the house to rubble with those rotary cannons.
On the far side of the courtyard, she saw a movement. On the first floor of a half-demolished shell of a house, Colden Grudge stepped into view, his enormous autocannon slung low on his hip. He tipped up its barrel, aimed it at the gunship, and pressed the trigger.
The autocannon thumped three times. Ashua threw herself down. The gunship exploded.
A wave of heat and flame and choking smoke blew through the kitchen. Shrapnel spun through the air and embedded itself in the far wall. She heard the gunship’s engines cough and shriek as the great mass of metal fell out of the sky. It crashed into the fountain at the centre of the courtyard, crushing itself up like a ball before detonating in a final blast that sent parts of it flying off as far as the bridge.
When the echoes had died, she pulled herself up and looked down into the courtyard. There was no sign of Grudge. Only the flaming wreck of the gunship was left, belching smoke into the snowy sky.
A great surge of exhilaration swept through her, lifting her. She felt suddenly immortal. Dirtied and bruised, she lifted her fist and laughed wildly.
‘That’s what you get when you mess with us!’ she screamed hoarsely at the broken gunship. ‘Yeah! That’s what you get!’
And she hurried off down the stairs to find her companions, buoyed by a new belief that they might just live through this after all.
Where are they? Where is everyone?
Crake fled through the darkened mansion. Panes of wan light striped chilly and still rooms. He clattered and shambled, fighting with his pack. Wires tangled his legs. He tore them away, pulled off the damper sphere that dragged along behind him. He fumbled at his belt and tugged at the screamer and its battery, fighting to remove them without breaking stride. After a short struggle, they came loose, and he tossed them aside too. They were useless now, their charge used up.
He broke out into a corridor. The sonic flux emitter in his backpack jogged and clashed against the battery inside. The pinecone transmitters sticking out of the top wobbled and jerked. It was a makeshift design, not built to withstand violent shaking. It wouldn’t hold together long.
But it wasn’t that which brought him up short in the end. It was the recollection that he had dynamite in his pocket. Wasn’t that supposed to be dangerous if you shook it around too much? Or was that only when it was old? He didn’t know, but the thought was enough to check his panicked run. He came to a halt, gasping, leaning on his knees.
Calm down, Grayther. Calm down.
Spit and blood, he was frightened. The first time he’d met an Imperator was bad enough, but then it had been one Imperator against a half-dozen targets or more. This was three Imperators against three, and the sheer force of them was awful. He was in no doubt that his heart would have given out under the stress if he’d been subjected to much more of that. The Imperators wouldn’t have even needed to enter the room to kill their opponents.
He’d nearly died. The reality of that thought wormed its way into him.
What about the others? Did they get away? Plome wasn’t exactly in great shape: had he even survived that first assault? Where were they now?
And where were the Imperators?
From outside he heard the sound of gunfire over the wind. They were still fighting out there. Good. It was when the gunfire stopped that he’d really begin to worry. He wanted to put his earcuff on, to found out what was going on, to see if Samandra and his friends were alright. He wanted the comfort of other voices. But he didn’t dare. Imperators were somewhere nearby; he couldn’t afford the distraction.
A creeping sense of dread began to build up behind him. His finely-tuned senses rang a warning. He looked over his shoulder. Was it his imagination, or was the darkness thickening at the end of the corridor? Was it just his fevered mind that told him the walls were closing in, ever so slightly? Did he hear a soft, gasping breath, like the last exhalation of a dying man?
Fear clawed its way up his throat from his belly, and he had to move again.
He went slower this time. Now that he had a lid on his panic, stealth was needed rather than speed. He wished he could shuck off his pack entirely, but the sonic flux emitter was his most potent weapon, and he couldn’t abandon it.
He needed to find the others, that was all. Most importantly, he needed to find Kyne. He couldn’t go up against the Imperators on his own.
But the house was silent, and if his companions were out there, they were staying quiet.
He slipped into a dining room dominated by a long table. Another fire was burning here, casting welcome warmth and light into the monochrome nightmare that Crake had found himself in. Feeding the flames to make the mansion look occupied had kept them busy during their preparations. A pointless ruse, in the end. The Awakeners had them outmanoeuvred from the start.
There were three doors from the dining room: one at each end and another between them. Crake snuck through the room, reached the door in the middle and looked through it.
Beyond was a corridor with several rooms and a stairway leading off it. At the end was a large rectangular window, its pane frosted and its sill piled with snow.
Silhouetted in the drab light from outside was a tall figure wearing a cloak and hood. Crake thought for an instant that it was Kyne.
It wasn’t.
The terror hit him again, but he was already running, sprinting as fast as he could towards other side of the dining room. His muscles seized and the strength fell out of them, but his momentum carried him forward, and somehow he stumbled through the doorway and into the small sitting room beyond.
To his relief, his strength came back. The fear was huge but bearable. And the more distance he put between himself and the Imperator, the more it diminished. He crossed the room, out into a corridor, turned a corner.
It’s lost me, he thought. They cast their power like a net, and I slipped out from under it.
The Imperator didn’t know where he was for the moment, but he’d been seen. His pursuer would come hunting.