Under A Winter Sun by Johan Dahlgren (ink ebook reader txt) 📕

The bug explodes into a thousand pieces of spinning metal shards under the concentrated fire.

Hildr walks up to it and spits on its leaking remains, and hisses something at it. The look on her face tells me even I might blush at her choice of words had I understood them.

She finishes her tirade with the Goliath word for ghost. “Draugr.” A chill runs down my spine at the mention of the word. What if the Goliaths at the ice bar had seen ghosts in the ice? Could there be more of these things out there?

Jagr wipes her sweaty forehead on her sleeve. “What the fuck was that?” The air is heavy with the smell of gunpowder.

“A spawn of hell,” says the priest and collapses against the wall with the gun still in his hand. The slide has locked back on an empty chamber which is just as well because he points it at Jagr for emphasis.

“You might be right.” Jagr wipes the sweat from her face with her sleeve, then reloads her rifle.

I stumble through the blood to Wagner.

He has collapsed on the floor and sits clutching his throat, breathing hard through his nose. His eyes are bloodshot from a thousand burst capillaries.

“Are you all right, Finn?”

He tries to speak, but all he can manage is a hoarse croak.

“Don't speak, Finn. I've got you.”

I look to the others. “A little help here, please.”

Hildr reaches out her hand to Finn. “Thank you, Thorfinn. You saved my life. I am forever in your debt. Son.”

Finn grabs her lower arm, and she pulls him to his feet. He stands swaying, but apart from his hoarse breathing, he seems to be fine. Thorfinn Wagner can take a beating.

“Forget it,” he rasps and breaks into a racking cough.

When the fit ends, he goes on. “Don't call me 'son' again.”

“That's a promise, Finn.”

She yanks her brother's sword out of the floor and slips it into her belt. “I will bring his sword home to Hrafnheim.”

If that is still your home, I don't say.

“Touching and all. Now, perhaps we could get back to business?” Jagr asks.

Then she pats her rifle. “Let's move before those things find another way out. Now we know what the Goliaths are hiding and why they killed our agent. We go back to the Sundowner and tell the world about the Galahad and those fucking bugs.”

“I'm afraid I can't let you do that.” The construct's rich, sombre voice issues from the walls. There could be speakers hidden in the darkness, but it's like the air itself speaks to us.

“Oh, yeah? And how are you planning to stop us?” Jagr sounds a lot more confident than I feel.

“Simple. By closing the doors and pumping the air out.” There are a series of thumps somewhere far away, and a sudden breeze springs out of nowhere.

Shit.

“Fuck. Move people.” Jagr starts up the passageway at a quick jog, and we follow her.

“Jagr, got any more of those bugs?” I call.

“One more. Why?”

“See if you can send another drone to scout for us,” I call.

“Got it.” She pulls the backpack from her shoulders while we run and digs around until she finds another drone. She launches it into the air without even breaking stride. “Drone away.”

She routes the drone's cam feed to our goggles.

The little machine goes whizzing up the passage, tearing through the darkness. As it reaches the door where we got in, the feed shows it's closed off tighter than a nun's legs in a sauna.

“Find us another way, Jagr. Fast.”

“On it.”

We keep jogging up the passage as the little machine switches to search mode and scans for an alternate route.

“Got an exit. Fifty metres ahead there's an air duct. That should take us to the outer hull.”

Air ducts are a hero's best friends.

We run to where the drone is hovering, and there's a large heavy-duty metal mesh plate in the wall.

“Perez, get it open.” She hands me a small power drill. “We'll cover you.”

“Don't you think …” I try, but Jagr interrupts me.

“Do it, Perez.”

“But …”

“I said do it.”

I shrug. Instead, I turn to Wagner and tilt my head at the mesh.

He pushes Jagr aside.

“Hey, what the fuck?”

Wagner grabs the mesh with both hands and tears it out of the wall.

“Oh,” Jagr says. “Right.”

I smile at her. She doesn't smile back.

“Get in people,” she says. “We're running out of time.”

She's right. I already feel winded.

Suffocation is one of the few things we immortals fear. Without oxygen, the nanites in our blood go into a dormant state. They switch off our bodies, but let our brains keep basic consciousness. It's like dreaming you're dead in real-time, and I don't want to do that ever again. Especially with those brain piercing centipedes around. And Wagner, Hildr and Rivera will die when the air runs out.

I'm not surprised the priest is first to go into the hole. Then goes Jagr, then me.

“Move,” Jagr calls from up the duct. “Oh, for fuck's sake, Rivera. Are you going commando?”

“It's good for circulation.”

Jagr groans. “Just climb. And don't fall on me.”

I hurry after her, then notice Wagner and Hildr are not coming.

Oh, shit.

“Jagr,” I call after her and the priest as I grab on to a ledge inside the chute. My voice bounces around the cramped space.

“What?” she calls back down, her voice mingling with mine in the strange echo.

“The big people won't fit.”

“Shit.”

There has to be another way. “Go on to the surface. We'll find another way out.”

“You're running out of time.”

“I know.”

“Here, take this.” Jagr wriggles out of her backpack and lets it slide down to me.

“What's this?”

“In case you don't make it out.”

I open the backpack and peer inside. Whoa. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Depends on what you think it is, but yes.”

“And you had this all the time without telling us?”

“I always figured that outcome was a possibility.”

“And were you going to tell us?”

“No.”

“You're one cold bitch.”

“Thanks. Here. You need these more than we do.” She hands me her rifle and spare magazines. “Good