Colony by Benjamin Cross (best way to read books .TXT) 📕

runway, its cross arm drooping down at around forty-five degrees. The surrounding area was still strewn with chemical drums.

He revved the hovercraft and descended towards the compound. It may not have been much, but it was shelter.

Sitting next to him, Marchenko said, “The men are exhausted.”

“Me too,” Koikov replied, surprised at his own openness. “My nerves are as close to being shot as I can remember.” He spat over his shoulder. “What’s the ammunition situation?”

“Depleted.”

“Check the numbers. I want to know exactly what we’re playing with.”

He pulled up next to the bunkers, dismounted and watched as his team jumped out the back and formed up. To a man, they were wide-eyed and pale, their white combat uniforms daubed with streaks and swirls of dried blood. He did a quick headcount. Fourteen. Only fourteen of them had survived the mist, including himself and Marchenko. Fourteen men. A day on Harmsworth and over half his team were already dead.

Koikov’s mind replayed the horror of the last few hours. It had been a fucked-up scene, carnage cloaked in white. The creatures had encircled them. There might have been twenty, two hundred or two thousand. Even with LVV there was no telling. They had moved too fast, bolting in through the circle of men and inflicting what wounds they could before disappearing again. It was classic hit and run. If he hadn’t been on the receiving end, Koikov would’ve felt nothing but admiration. But he had been. And after the longest hour of his life, the enemy had simply melted away with the mist.

He addressed what remained of his team. “Home sweet home.”

No reaction. Just the same rank of sunken faces. He thought about trying to reassure them, but they were way past it. “Okay, this is how it’s going to work. Marchenko. Take Khabensky and two others. Go search for a radio transmitter. There must be one here. Without reliable external communications, they’d all have gone nuts.”

“Yes, Starshyna. Turov, Dubrovsky, with me.”

“Corporal Voronkov. I want you and Zyryonov up on top of that ridge over there.” He pointed to the moraine where Private Dolgonosov should’ve stayed put. “Regular comms, you hear me? And don’t you even think about moving from that post. Dragons and mist are what you’re looking for. You see so much as a flash of white that isn’t clearly a seagull and I want to know about it.”

“Yes, Starshyna.”

“Ivanov. We need a medic and you’re it. I want you to take care of Private Tsaritsyn.”

Tsaritsyn was laid out in the back of the hovercraft, his stomach crudely bandaged, barely conscious. Koikov removed his glove and placed a hand over the young man’s forehead. It was cold and clammy. He was no expert, but he could see that the abdominal wounds were serious, probably mortal. Tsaritsyn’s condition was deteriorating fast. “Do what you can for him. If all you can do is keep him warm and comfortable, then that’s what you do. Private Koshkin. You assist.”

He turned back to face the remainder of the team. “The rest of you, I know you’re tired and I know you’re hungry, but I want the drums removed from these bunkers,” he gestured to the semi-subterranean structure, “and sorted into two stacks, empty and full.”

“What about the half-empties?” Corporal Aliyev asked.

“You mean the half-fulls,” Koikov replied. “Positive is all we’ve got out here, Corporal, so do me a favour and suck its dick. Count them with the full ones. And Aliyev, you take charge here while I’m gone.”

“Gone where, Starshyna?”

“Recruitment drive,” Koikov replied. “Private Gergiev, with me.”

2

While Turov and Dubrovsky were checking out the other Nissen shelters, Marchenko and Khabensky had searched three of the four huts and found precisely fuck all. Hastily constructed out of breeze block and corrugated iron sheeting, the remnant barrack blocks were sparsely furnished with rows of wall-mounted wooden bunks. Construction debris and other oddments cluttered their interiors – abandoned items of clothing, cigarette packets, even the remains of a broken dartboard. Something large, hopefully a bear, had made a nest in the back corner of one. But so far there was no sign of any radio equipment.

“This place looks more like a prison colony,” Khabensky said. His blond hair was smeared with grime, and his eyes were pale and bloodshot.

“My thoughts exactly,” Marchenko replied. He approached the door to the fourth building and kicked it in. The sound of the timber splintering echoed around the compound. Once inside, he could see that the internal layout was different. A large table was positioned centrally and desks were pushed up against the walls. The door to the rear partition was still in place and it led through into a narrow back room.

“Bingo!” Marchenko said. “It’s the comms room.”

“But there’s nothing here, Sergeant.”

Khabensky was right. The long, wall-mounted wooden surface in front of them bore nothing but a few scraps of old timber and the fingerprints of former items thrown into relief by the dust.

“It looks like they’ve taken most of the portable comms equipment,” Marchenko said. “But I doubt they bothered with the antenna.”

“What antenna?”

Marchenko turned his attention to a room-height timber unit jutting from the wall to the right. He pounded at one side of it until it shifted and creaked open on a concealed hinge, exposing a transmitter mast.

“It’s retractable,” he said. “The conditions out here get too bad for a fixed mast.”

“Does it still extend?”

Marchenko fiddled with the control toggle. “It was meant to be electronic, but there must be a manual override here somewhere.” He felt around the back of the mast and his fingers fell upon a handle that had seized up with cold. “Khabensky, see if you can shift this while I give Koikov the news.”

Khabensky started work loosening the handle.

“Starshyna, this is Marchenko. Over.”

There was a pause before: “Give me good news, Sergeant.”

“I’ve located the comms room.”

“Does the equipment still function?”

“The equipment’s gone, Starshyna.”

There was another pause, before: “I said give me good news!”

“The good news is that the transmitter mast is still in