In this thrilling conclusion to the ColSec Trilogy, five young outcasts return from exile to free Earth from an authoritarian government. In the savage streets, they rally the Earth's people to fight for freedom.
Release date:
July 31, 2014
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
126
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The broad, triangular shape of the spaceship floated through the upper atmosphere, above the planet Klydor. The orange sun reflected from its gleaming metal surface, brightly enough to be painful to the eye, had any eyes been watching. And upon that brightness were patches of coloured metal, letters that spelled a strange name: COLSEC.
The spacious interior of the ship contained five people. Two of them sat together at one side of the control panel, studying images of the planet’s surface that appeared on the screens of the ship’s scanners. One of the two was a stringy, balding man with small spectacles, whose mouth was pinched in what looked like a permanent expression of disapproval. His companion was a middle-aged woman, taller and much broader, whose firm jaw suggested that she was used to giving orders and having them obeyed.
Both of them wore short, voluminous robes, colourful and luxurious. The others in the control room, three heavyset men, wore uniforms of metallic blue cloth and dark leather, with guns holstered at their belts. One of the three, the pilot, sat hunched over the instruments of the panel. The other two, their helmets laid aside, lounged idly in reclining couch-seats, faces blank with boredom.
As the ship continued on its drifting way above the planet, the stringy man waved a hand at the screens.
‘I see no reason to descend further,’ he said. ‘The scanners show no signs of human life. It is not likely that any of them survived.’
The woman next to him went on studying the screens in silence. The images showed an expanse of forest – shadowy and alien. The trees had smooth trunks, crowned by upward-thrusting silvery leaves. Among the leaves, at the top of each trunk, was a strange bulge, like a large whitish fungus. In the dimness on the ground, under the trees, there seemed to be little undergrowth and no sign of movement.
But the part of the forest directly below the ship revealed a long, narrow clearing, where the grey-green turf was entirely bare of trees, save for broken stumps. It looked as if a gigantic scythe had swept down, slicing away the trees like stalks of grain. The clearing must have been formed some months earlier, for saplings had begun to sprout at the clearing’s edge. But the observers in the spaceship had no concern with trees, young or old.
Their attention was fixed on the object at one end of the clearing – the object that had surely created that open area. It was a cylindrical metal shape that had once been a ColSec space shuttle, but was now a wreck.
The front section was crumpled and shattered, torn metal splaying out in all directions. Clearly the shuttle had crash-landed, hitting the forest at a flat, skimming angle, ploughing through the trees until it came to a halt. The shuttle’s airlock was firmly closed, and as in the rest of the forest there was no sign of life around it.
The stringy man smirked over his glasses at the blue-uniformed pilot. ‘No need for Civil Defenders on this voyage,’ he said. ‘We seem to have come to inspect only corpses.’
The pilot shrugged, not taking his eyes from his instruments. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ he muttered. ‘Sir.’
The last word was added almost insolently, and the thin man’s mouth pinched even tighter. But before he could speak, the woman nodded decisively.
‘Certainly there are no survivors here, Muril,’ she said. ‘But let us not jump to conclusions. Remember the other object that the scanners showed.’
‘Of course, Reema,’ Muril replied. He waved a skinny hand grandly. ‘Pilot!’
Silently glowering, the pilot touched the controls. Smoothly, the great ship curved away. In seconds the forest, and the crumpled shuttle, were left behind. The ship soared above a broad valley, bisected by a winding river, and then – many kilometres further on – swept across a forbidding area of rocky hills scarred with steep ravines.
Beyond that area, the terrain changed again. It rose towards rolling uplands, where the thick grey-green turf reappeared, with plentiful thickets of brush and clusters of trees. But these were not the blade-leaved trees of the distant forest. Some were slender and gracefully bushy, others were tall and stately with enormous flat leaves.
Again the spaceship slowed into a drifting circle, then began a steeply angled descent, retro-jets flaring. It settled heavily to the ground about two hundred metres away from where a small rivulet gurgled down into a glade to form a clear pool, with feathery bushes growing abundantly on the banks.
The ship’s airlock slid open and the three Civil Defenders stepped out warily – wearing their heavy helmets now, guns in their hands. Even more warily, Muril and Reema followed.
All five of them seemed indifferent to the beauty of the place – the warmth of the sunlit air, the music of the rivulet, the delicacy of the feathery brush. For a second they were startled, and their guns came up sharply, when a fluting chirrup sounded among the treetops. Then a host of small flying things, bright yellow, with wings as delicate as the brush, fluttered out of a tree – their chirruping calls continuing as they swirled in the air like falling petals from some enormous golden flower.
Ignoring them, the five humans moved forward. And now all their attention was fixed on the one object, within all that alien beauty, that was entirely out of place.
Near the pool, at the edge of the glade, stood a machine. It was more or less cylindrical, about half as tall again as a man, standing upright on angled metal legs.
Reema regarded the machine as she had regarded the landscape, with distaste. ‘Pilot,’ she snapped, ‘take your men and investigate. Carefully. Try not to disturb anything. Inspector Muril and I will wait here until you have examined the interior.’
The three Civil Defenders looked at each other grimaced, then strode swiftly towards the machine.
‘It is of course a standard escape module from a ColSec ship,’ Reema said briskly, as if offering instruction. ‘No doubt one of our pilots has been stranded here. Perhaps he is still alive.’
As she spoke, the Civil Defenders had reached the machine. One of them cautiously opened the module, then stepped inside, vanishing from view. The other two appeared to relax, lowering their guns.
Reema nodded with satisfaction. It seems to be secure. Come, Muril.’
They began to move away, passing between a dense thicket of brush and a clump of the tall, stately trees. But then they paused. From the huge leaves of one tree, above them, they heard a sudden low sound, like a choking growl.
As they jerked their heads up, Muril turned white, his scrawny throat working as panic stifled the scream rising within him. Reema, just as pale, could only give a strangled bleat of terror. They stood rooted, staring at the grotesque mass of alien horror slithering down the tree towards them.
There were four creatures, looking like a combination of oversized porcupines and giant slugs. Each massive, humped body was nearly two metres across, covered with stubby spines. Small claws glittered around the flattened edge of each body, which curved inwards to cling to the tree. And as they reached the ground, their broad heads were thrust forward, mouths half-open to reveal rows of evilly stained fangs.
Two hundred metres away, the Civil Defenders stood with their backs turned, unaware of the monsters. They did not hear Muril’s whimper, or Reema’s muffled gurgle of terror. Nor did they hear the new chorus of soft growls, as the four horrors slithered jerkily towards the humans, claws gouging the turf.
But in that moment the air was split by a searing hiss. A pencil-line of fiery light lanced out of the thicket next to Muril and Reema. It stabbed into the ground in front of the monsters. And the creatures wheeled and fled, in a frantic slithering scuttle, as flame erupted from the turf.
Muril sank to his knees, as if his legs had given way. But Reema, trembling, turned – to see a man step out of the thicket, a laserifle cradled casually in one arm.
The man seemed to be in his early thirties, slim and wiry, wearing the remains of a silvery jumpsuit that was ragged and oddly stained. He had fair hair and piercing blue eyes, which held a glint that might have been mockery, or dislike, or both.
‘Why didn’t you shoot to kill?’ Reema demanded, when she finally found her voice.
‘No need,’ the man said easily. ‘They’re vegetarians, leaf-eaters. Harmless, unless they feel threatened.’
By then Muril had also regained the power of speech. ‘You were in those bushes all along!’ he said accusingly, as he scrambled to his feet.
The man with the rifle nodded. ‘Seemed safer.’ He gestured towards the three Civil Defenders, who had become aware of the commotion and were running towards them. ‘Your men looked like they might shoot first and ask for ID after.’
Reema snorted. ‘Certainly not – unless they were told to do so.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Presumably you are the pilot who landed here in the escape module?’
The man nodded, but before he could speak again Muril had stepped closer, peering at him. ‘I know you!’ he announced. ‘You’re Bren Lathan, one of ColSec’s best space explorers!’
‘I’m Lathan,’ the man agreed coldly.
‘There was quite an outcry when you were reported to be lost in space,’ Muril went on. ‘ColSec will be pleased to know that you have survived.’
‘I’m sure,’ Lathan said dryly. ‘And I suppose you’re the inspectors, come to check on the colony that should have been set up here on Klydor?’
As he spoke, he stepped casually away from the thicket, in the direction of the ship. The others turned to follow his movement – so that when Lathan paused again, the other five were standing with their backs to the thicket from which Lathan had appeared.
‘We are indeed,’ Reema was saying. ‘I am Inspector Reema and this is Inspecto. . .
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