The Artemis Fowl Files - Eoin Colfer [5]
Captain Trouble Kelp explained the logic to her as he used his own magic to seal the corporal’s tiny wound. “Sometimes you get stuck on the surface with nothing: no weapon, no communications, no magic. And you still have to track down a runner, who’s probably trying to track you down. If you can’t accomplish that, then you won’t make it in Recon.”
Holly had expected this. They had all heard the initiation stories from other veterans. She wondered what kind of hellhole they would be dropped in, and what they would have to hunt.
Through the shuttle portholes, she watched the chute flash by. The chutes were vast subterranean magma vents that spiraled from Earth’s core to the surface. The fairy People had excavated several of these tunnels worldwide and built shuttle ports at both ends. As human technology grew more sophisticated, many of these stations had to be destroyed or abandoned. If the Mud People ever found a fairy port, they would have a direct line to Haven.
In times of emergency, Recon officers rode the magma flares that scoured these tunnels in titanium eggs. This was the fastest way to cover the five thousand miles to the surface. Today they were traveling as a group in an LEP shuttle at the relatively slow speed of eight hundred miles an hour. Root set the autopilot and came back to brief Holly.
“We are headed for the Tern Islands,” Commander Root said, activating a holographic map above the conference table. “A small archipelago off the east coast of Ireland. To be more precise we are headed for Tern Mór, the main island. There is only one inhabitant: Kieran Ross, a conservationist. Ross travels to Dublin once a month to make his report to the Department of the Environment. He generally stays over in the Morrison Hotel, and takes in a show at the Abbey Theatre. Our technical people have confirmed that he is booked into the hotel, so we have a thirty-six-hour window.”
Holly nodded. The last thing they needed was humans butting into their exercise. Realistic exercises were one thing, but not at the expense of the entire fairy nation.
Root stepped into the hologram, pointing at a spot on the map. “We land here, at Seal Bay. The shuttle will drop you and Captain Kelp off on the beach. I will be deposited at another location. After that it’s simple: you hunt me and I hunt you. Captain Kelp will record your progress for review. Once the exercise has been completed, I will evaluate your disk and see if you have what it takes to make it into Recon. Initiates are generally tagged half a dozen times over the course of the exercise, so don’t worry about that. What’s important is how difficult you make it for me.”
Root took a paintball pistol from a rack on the wall and tossed it to Holly. “Of course, there is one way to get around the review and straight into the program. You tag me before I tag you, and you’re in. No questions asked. But don’t get your hopes up. I have centuries of aboveground experience, I’m running hot with magic, and I have a shuttle full of weapons at my disposal.”
Holly was glad that she was already sitting down. She had spent hundreds of hours on simulators, but had only actually visited the surface twice; once on a school tour of South American rain forests, and another time on a family holiday to Stonehenge. Her third visit was going to be a bit more exciting.
CHAPTER 3: THE ISLAND OF BROKEN DREAMS
Tern Mór
THE sun scorched away the morning mist and Tern Mór gradually appeared off the Irish coast like a ghost island. One minute there was nothing there but cloud banks, and the next the crags of Tern Mór cut through the haze.
Holly studied it through the porthole. “Cheery place,” she noted.
Root chewed on his cigar. “Sorry about that, Corporal. We keep asking the runaways to hide somewhere