Monster Planet(5)

Osman knew a direct order when he heard it, though, and did what he was told.





Monster Planet





Chapter Three


Ayaan knelt and touched the sand, then her heart, then her forehead. It was a very old gesture, one that predated the Epidemic: she was thanking the Earth, her mother, and her God for the right to make war. The other women hurried to copy her, but Sarah refused to go along. 'Okay. Okay, so this is stupid.' She knew she sounded whiny and selfish but she couldn't help it. 'Someone tell me why we're doing this again? The ultimate lich of all time is over that hill and we're going to stand here and fight him on foot. Even though we have a helicopter and we could just leave.'

'You have never understood what orders mean,' Fathia said, rising to her feet, her rifle swinging in her arms. The barrel wasn't pointed at Sarah'it never would be, not unless Fathia truly intended to kill the younger woman'but the implied threat was meant to be taken seriously. 'You were a foundling that she took like her own child''

Ayaan raised her hands for silence, and she got it. 'Do you know why we came toEgypt ?' she asked, her voice low, soft as the sand under their feet.

'There was nothing to eat inSomalia ,' Sarah replied. It was true. When the dead rose, when the Epidemic came famine had already ransacked the Horn of Africa. With few living people left to raise crops the food shortages had turned into outright starvation.Egypt , with its modernized cities full of markets and groceries, had promised at least some preserved foods. Cans and jars full of tinned meat and pickled vegetables. Ayaan had brought her unit out ofSomalia in the hopes of a better life and she had delivered on her promise.

Ayaan nodded. 'We've come so far. I won't be driven out now.'

A protest bubbled out of Sarah's heart. 'We're in danger. When we find ourselves in danger we fall back to a defensible position. You taught me that.'

A smile touched Ayaan's tight face. 'I'm glad to see you listened. Perhaps you will take another lesson. There are times, however rare, when running away is a mistake. This Tsarevich grows stronger every day. If I do not stop his evil now, when I have a chance, I may not be able to face him the next time. Today I will kill him. If he has the ability to project images of himself then it isn't enough to shoot him from the air. I am forced to go after him on foot, so that I can feel his skull breaking and know I have finished the job.'

'So let's call in some backup. Get the others in here, get some free fire zones established, maybe build a redoubt to funnel his advance''

'Sarah,' Ayaan interrupted.

'No, seriously, we can get the other helicopter down here in twenty, maybe thirty minutes, we can establish a killzone, then draw him into''

'Sarah.' Ayaan closed her eyes and shook her head. 'Please go wait with Osman.'

Stunned, Sarah finally shut up. She couldn't believe it. Ayaan had uttered the ultimate insult'she had suggested that Sarah was a liability. That she didn't want Sarah around during the fight. It was the kind of thing Ayaan would say to a child, a baby.

There was also no appeal possible. Once Ayaan had given an order she never took them back. Feeling the stares of Fathia and Leyla and the others on her back she headed back to the helicopter. It occurred to her when she was halfway there that she should have just been quiet, should have accepted Ayaan's command without question the way the others did. It also occurred to her that if she was in the helicopter she was less likely to get killed.

She was thinking such thoughts, her head lowered in dejection, when something fast and horrible smacked into her like a moving car. She fell down hard on the sand as something colorless and violent and extremely fast reared up over her, its stubby arms lifted high, its shining head sparkling in the sunlight and she knew, was absolutely certain, that in the next few microseconds she was going to die an unguessable but extremely painful death. She closed her eyes but she could still see the aura of the dead thing that was about to kill her. Its energy was like nothing she'd ever seen before. It was dark, of course, cold and hungry like any ghoul's. But instead of smoking and hissing away like ice melting in the sun, this energy fizzed and snapped like something on fire. Its shape was wrong, too, something was missing'

She heard gunfire and it fell away from her, out of her vision. One of Ayaan's squad had saved her. She opened her eyes and saw a still-moving body sliding down the slipface of a dune. Its arms pumped wildly at the air, moving so fast they blurred. Impossible'the dead lacked the energy to move like that. They were slow, lumbering, uncoordinated wrecks.