Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [55]
Gant turned, and on the catwalk in front of her, saw a vibrant, man-shaped, red-green-and-yellow blob moving quickly toward her.
It was Cuvier.
Or at least a graphic representation of the heat patterns inside Cuvier’s body.
He swung his knife. Gant parried the blow with her own knife and then let loose with a powerful side-kick to the Frenchman’s solar plexus. The kick connected and Cuvier fell, but as he did so, he lashed out with his hand and managed to grab Gant’s knife arm and pull her to the catwalk with him.
They hit the deck together.
Gant fell on top of Cuvier, rolled clear, slammed her back against the icy wall surrounding the catwalk. She reached out to steady herself and her hand hit something on the ground next to her.
The Mag –
And then suddenly, the coloured blob that was Cuvier leapt up into her field of vision.
Cuvier had thrown himself at her, had his knife at her throat. Gant threw up her hands to defend herself, dropping her knife so that she could grab Cuvier’s knife hand with both of her hands.
With all her strength Gant held Cuvier’s knife hand at bay, inches away from her throat.
But he was too strong.
The knife came closer to her throat.
Cuvier’s face was right in front of Gant’s and through her infra-red visor, Gant saw past his facial features – saw the macabre image of his skull and his teeth, surrounded by pulsating colours. It was as if she were being attacked by a demented skeleton.
And he was close, so close that Gant felt his night-vision goggles brush against her helmet.
The goggles.
Without even thinking, Gant suddenly let go of Cuvier’s knife hand with one of her hands, reached up and ripped his night-vision goggles roughly off his head.
Cuvier yelled. Gant threw the goggles over the edge of the catwalk.
Now it was Cuvier who was blind.
But he continued to fight.
The French commando desperately tried to push his knife down into Gant’s throat, but Gant suddenly shifted her weight and allowed herself to slide under him, so that her helmet was now level with his eyes.
‘You remember giving this to me,’ Gant said, seeing the blue outline of the arrow sticking out from the front of her helmet. ‘Well, now you can have it back.’
And with that Gant rammed her head forward.
The arrow jutting out from the front of her helmet penetrated Cuvier’s right eye and he let out a hideous, inhuman scream and Gant felt a sudden splash of warm blood explode all over her face.
She kicked Cuvier away from her and saw – through her infra-red visor – a computer-generated fountain of yellow-red liquid spraying out from his right eye socket.
Cuvier screamed as he fell backwards, clutching his bloody eye socket.
Gant had poked his eye out, but he wasn’t dead yet. He began to thrash about wildly, trying to hit her despite his total blindness.
Gant grabbed the Maghook from the catwalk beside her and levelled it at the Frenchman’s bleeding head. He was moving erratically, but Gant had all the time she needed now.
She aimed carefully, at the head of this wailing, multi-coloured blob that represented a man.
And then she fired.
The Maghook struck the screaming Frenchman square in the face and a split second before he dropped to the catwalk, Gant heard Cuvier’s skull crack in two.
While Gant fought with Cuvier, Schofield and Latissier rolled around on the catwalk.
As they fought, Schofield heard noises everywhere. Voices spoke frantically over his helmet intercom:
‘– They’re going round the other side!’
‘– going for the other ladder!’
Footsteps clanged on the catwalk above him.
A crossbow fired somewhere nearby.
Schofield heard a sudden snap as Latissier managed to lock another arrow into the bolt of his crossbow. Schofield quickly elbowed the big Frenchman hard in the face, up under his night-vision goggles, broke his nose. Blood splattered everywhere,