Peter Hamilton - Great North Road

“Fuck you!” Angela screamed at the monster as it slashed its five-bladed hand through another set of bladders. She kicked her legs as hard as she could, desperate to cover the distance between them. The monster regarded her for a second, pausing with a disdain that was positively human before turning and walking away, leaving the bioil gushing freely onto the ground behind it.

Another ball of lightning descended into the canyon, landing on the far side of the circled vehicles. It rebounded, oscillating wildly into a hemisphere before disintegrating into a globular cascade of glaring lightning strands. The entire convoy was illuminated with pure white solar splendor, as if Sirius had returned to its pre-redshift grandeur.

Angela’s net link vanished. She saw two figures lying on the snow beside biolab-2, the fuel hose snaking between them. Big patches of crimson blood were growing sluggishly out around each of them. The Legionnaires—Lieutenant Botin and Omar Mihambo—were close by, moving as fast as they could in the hurricane wind, their weapons already drawn, thin ruby laser beams tracking around in search of a target. They must have seen the monster at the same time. Their carbines started to level in unison as the monster strode off beyond the sledge, creating its own micro swirls within the rampaging snow.

“No!” Angela yelled at the top of her lungs. She waved frantically, trying to stop them. But she was too far away; they never saw her.

The carbines opened fire. Thin plumes of ice spiked up out of the ground just short of the sledge, stitching a fast line in pursuit of the monster. Explosive-tipped armor-piercing rounds that shattered the rock-hard snow and ice in small gouts of flame. Three of them struck the spreading pool of bioil as the corona of lightning flares began to fade.

Flames whooshed up from the spilled fuel, blue fire burning bright, sliding inexorably toward the residual torrent still leaking from the bladders. The Legionnaires realized what they’d done and stopped firing. One of them stood perfectly still, watching the flames in horror. The other lunged forward. Angela watched in dismay as the figure reached the elongated puddle of flame. It skidded to a halt and bent over, dropping the carbine so gauntlets could shove at the snow, trying to create a break in the bioil like a child playing dams and streams on the beach. For a moment it looked like he’d succeed. The flames started to splutter, then suddenly he was lifting his hands, which had become two balls of striking turquoise flame.

A frightened Angela slowed to a halt and began to run in the other direction. She crashed into Paresh who was heading in to help, sending both of them tumbling onto the unforgiving ground. The lightning died. Leaping blue flames illuminated the scene. They’d burned their way around the Legionnaire, and were racing for the sledge. But the flaming figure rolled over, deliberately crashing down on top of the smooth bright wavefront, extinguishing the blaze. It writhed about, kicking up ridges of saturated snow. The flames began to track wide.

Then the other Legionnaire was racing up to the sledge, snatching a fire extinguisher off the framework. Foam jetted out, smothering the leading edge of the flame. Then he was directing the foam onto the blazing puddles and their splash-pattern rivulets.

Angela’s link to the convoy net resurrected. It was instantly full of incoherent shouting. The grid showed her it was Lieutenant Botin in the flames, with his arms still alight, and flaming bioil seeping down his legs. Bioil somehow transferred to his hood, and he was engulfed in a halo of blue flame, the burn accelerated by the howling blizzard.

Paresh was rolling fast, onto his feet to struggle over to Botin. He grabbed a second extinguisher with his functioning arm, and played the foam over the lieutenant while Omar Mihambo battled the slurry of flaming bioil seething over the ground. Flames began to rise up Paresh’s own boots, and he fired the extinguisher down.

Angela shamefully shuffled backward, fearful of the sledge and tanker exploding. The guilt at not helping Paresh was overwhelming, but not enough to push her to her feet. All she could do was squat there in the middle of the inimical blizzard watching the three Legionnaires risk their lives to protect the bioil that everyone else needed to survive another few days.

Eventually it was over, and the flames snuffed out beneath the bubbling foam, itself already starting to freeze. Elston’s voice was strong in the net, overridden by Botin’s agonized screams. That finally galvanized Angela into action. She put her head down and pushed through the horizontal snow to reach Paresh. Together with Omar they tugged the lieutenant over to biolab-2.

Coniff and Sakur helped Angela, Paresh, and Omar heave Botin onto the vacant gurney. Ravi was moved aside, while Leora, Winn, Chris, and Juan-Fernando with their serious but non-life-threatening injuries were unceremoniously dispatched into the laboratory section itself to clear some space.

With the snow and ice melting in the cabin’s warmth, the damage the flames had done to the lieutenant’s hands and arms was becoming apparent. Angela stood as far back as she could, with water dripping off her parka as Sakur cut the crusted, blackened balaclava away from Botin’s head. Two sacs of sedative were quickly bumped against the charred skin of his neck, silencing his whimpers.

“We need to strip all his clothes off and apply the flesh membrane seal,” Coniff said. “Omar, can you help us, please? Take the armor jacket and torso layers; the flames seem to have missed them. Use cutters, don’t worry about buttons and zips.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Omar said in a hushed, reluctant tone. He pulled his own gloves and parka off and went to stand at the gurney.

“I’ll take the arms and hands,” she said. “Sakur, legs and feet, please.”

Water and splats of yellow, blood-curdled foam continued to drip off the gurney. Strips of stained cloth followed them, crumpling into a soggy mush on the floor. Angela looked away. There was a smell starting to build up in the biolab’s main cabin that the aircon couldn’t entirely deal with even though the vent fans were running on high.

The door chamber slid back, and Elston bustled in unzipping his parka. “Is he okay?” He craned forward for a look at the lieutenant on the gurney, and blanched when he saw the ruined flesh of both limbs and face.

The doctor was spraying the raw burns with antiseptic oil. She turned to face the colonel and shook her head, tight-lipped.

It was a wonder Elston didn’t slam his fist into the cabin wall. Angela hadn’t seen him quite so angry before. Cross, yes, but this was a rage that was consuming him. “That thing ,” he choked out.

“Who did it get?” Angela asked quietly. Her grid was showing her identity icons and their status, so she already knew. But there was some kind of primitive belief going on deep in her brain that wanted the deaths confirmed by something other than a machine.

Elston glared at her, then relented. “Atyeo and Garrick are confirmed dead. You saw them out there. Bastian is missing. It must have carried him off.”

“What does it do with them?” Omar demanded, his ruined face wrinkling up heavily in an expression of frightened dismay. “Is it eating us? Is that it?”

“It won’t be biocompatible at that level,” Coniff said without looking up from her patient. “Even if it is carnivorous, our protein structures will be all wrong for it.”

“Then what—” Omar began wretchedly.

“I don’t fucking know!” Elston shouted back.

Angela realized a mild shock was starting to set in. Her skin was beginning to flush. Somewhere underneath all her layers, her arms were shaking. She wanted to ask Elston what he was going to do about refueling now. About safeguarding the tanker and the remaining bioil in the sledge. But they were past that now. All they could do was wait in their vehicles for the fury of the blizzard to pass, like peasant primitives, and hope the monster didn’t come for them in the meantime. It riled her that she had no other option.