Downtime - Marc Platt [94]
As he had hoped, the Yeti stood their ground, forming into a line of strategic sentries along the perimeter. As far as he could ascertain, none of them had been destroyed or even disabled.
Only seven UNIT soldiers straggled back to the jeeps.
Crichton, determined not to lose momentum, barked,
‘Sergeant, break out the Bonze ATR. Yes, I know it’s got a smart-map homer, but I’m not risking any more men.’
He waited for a second, but Sergeant Beagles was staring at him.
‘Sergeant. The ATR launcher!’
‘Sir, your shoulder,’ exclaimed Beagles.
Crichton angled his head. The web caught on his jacket was moving. Its mycelium was throwing tiny filaments out over the camouflage material.
The Brigadier slid out of the jacket and threw it into the gutter. Shreds of sky web were still drifting around them. He surveyed the enemy line. He knew it had been too quiet lately.
His battles had been with the lobby to cut back the British Forces contribution to UNIT – to make the organization less militaristic, more civil-service-based. The government, of all people, complained about too much secrecy. Crichton’s promotion was at risk. His wife kept mentioning separation.
The sound of an incoming helicopter turned their heads.
There was no immediate reaction from the Yeti. The helicopter was a Hind 63 troop-carrier, rescued from a museum from the look of her. She settled in the field across the road swirling up clouds of dead web.
Captain Bambera jumped down and ran towards Crichton.
Behind her, a line of troops began to disembark and fall into line. Bambera saluted. ‘Zen Platoon Three reporting, sir.
Where do we start?’
Viewed through the observation window, Modem Nucleus Room One was empty.
Travers shambled through the door, slicing at the web with his stick. He stopped at the first modem terminal and began to run his trembling fingers over the keyboard.
He faltered, trying to recall the log-in codes.
All the monitors in the room turned towards him. Their screens began to glow.
A voice in the audio system hissed out at him. ‘Travers?
What happened to your faith, old man?’
The Professor guffawed. ‘Huh. Saw your Light of Truth, that’s what. Brought it back here from Tibet. But I’ll put a stop to it.’ He started trying to force open the maintenance panel on the terminal.
There was a burst of laughter from the loudspeaker system.
Travers turned and saw a group of Chillys staring coldly in through the observation window.
A distant claxon was sounding.
‘More intruders as anticipated,’ announced the Intelligence.
Travers watched the Chillys file into the room. They approached a web-covered metal coffer. Its lid slid open for them. In turn they each extracted a silver sphere.
The Chillys stood in a circle. The spheres bleeped and leapt, vanishing, absorbed into the human bodies.
As the shapes burst into their new monstrous imagos, Travers gave a wail of anger and started to strike at the nest of computers he had designed and created.
The voice mocked his rage. ‘Travers, Travers! You are still my closest instrument of all!’
The screens flared.
Travers was caught in a globe of light. The radiant envelope slowly faded, leaving only a cold gleam that froze over the old man’s watery eyes. He stumbled and reached helplessly for the desk. His trembling fingers suddenly gripped it hard, feeling the shape and contours. A power indivisible from hatred and need gripped the shape and contours of his thoughts again.
The new Yeti ignored him, striding off to reinforce the university’s defences.
The Brigadier reckoned he’d had some close calls in his time, but this call came closer than anything he could remember.
Obviously his arrival was not a moment too late.
So they called his days Blood and Thunder, did they? Well, he didn’t feel like Attila the Hun. As much as the battles, he remembered the men who died. He had always undertaken to break the news of a death in action to a soldier’s family himself. He had done it many times. And every time it was painful.