Кристофер Голден: The Predator: The Official Movie Novelization

McKenna shot them a withering glare.

“Shoot it down!” he called over the wind that began to whip around them as the ship took on speed. “Aim for the engines!”

Nebraska and Nettles traded shrugs, then all three of them opened fire. Bullets spat from their weapons, raking the ship’s roof, then ricocheted off with nary a dent. Even so, McKenna kept pulling his trigger with grim determination, trying to quell the thought of just how fucked they would be, standing on top of a rising spacecraft, if they couldn’t force it to land.

And then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, the ship abruptly turned, tilted, and all three of them fell. McKenna hit the hull, sliding, scrambling to find a handhold, seconds away from having nothing but open sky beneath him.

Casey had managed to find a place with a gentle gradient where she could scramble down into the quarry without mishap. Unslinging the M4 from her shoulder, which she had picked up in the clearing after the firefight with the Upgrade, she ran across the dusty surface of the quarry floor until she was standing directly beneath the rising ship.

From below, she couldn’t see any part of the ship that looked particularly vulnerable. Everything looked shielded, armored, the outer skin of the craft—knowing the Predators as she now did—seemingly as tough and uncompromising as everything else about them. She knew that for several reasons it was probably a very bad idea to stand beneath the ship and fire up at it—but she did it anyway. Gritting her teeth, she fired a full clip at the ship’s underbelly, hearing her bullets whine and clatter as they ricocheted.

When the ship tilted to one side, she was astonished, then elated, then alarmed. She’d done it! Or at least one of them had. But she quickly realized that wasn’t the case, that the ship’s pilot was simply either taking evasive action or adjusting the ship’s trajectory as part of its normal take-off routine. Next moment, as if to confirm this, the roar of the engines abruptly increased, and the jet-wash knocked Casey off her feet.

“…ohshitohshitohshit…” Nettles chanted like it was a prayer to God. Maybe it was, McKenna thought, as in, oh-shit-please-God-don’t-let-me-die .

McKenna knew how he felt. He clung to the roof of the ship, the wind whipping around him. He could see Nettles and Nebraska in his peripheral vision, but he dared not look at them. It required all his focus just to hang on. The ship kept ascending. Their perch was precarious. At any second, he figured the ship would zip further skyward, moving faster, tilting backward, breaking through the atmosphere. All three of them would take a long, long fall to their deaths… and Rory would still be aboard the alien craft, where he’d suffer at the hands of the Upgrade Predator. It would tap his spine for his DNA, tear him apart. He’d scream in pain.

His boy.

McKenna needed to focus. He had to hold on. But if he, Nettles, and Nebraska had any chance to survive—and to save Rory—then he couldn’t wait another second. It was all or nothing, now.

Back in the clearing he’d given Rory one of the earwig comms units he’d brought with him from the RV, so that, if for any reason they got separated, they could still communicate with each other. Now he cupped one hand to his ear, and, hoping the comms unit was still working, shouted over the rushing wind.

“Rory, I’m on top of the ship! Are you okay?”

For a few seconds, he heard no reply. But then there came muffled static, and Rory’s shocked reply.

“Mom was right. You are crazy.”

Rory knew there were two things keeping him alive. The first was that the Predator wanted something from him. The second was that the monstrosity didn’t consider him a physical threat. He peered from the open pod, or hibernation chamber, or whatever this thing was, watching, waiting for an opportunity to do something that would save him, or his father, or by some miracle both of them.

He’d just told his dad he was crazy when he saw the Upgrade press a series of buttons, and next second something started happening on one of the monitors. The screen showed an outline, like a blueprint, of the ship and all its systems… and then a blinking dotted line began to form, surrounding the ship. Rory’s eyes widened as he realized what it meant, and tucking himself back into the pod, he frantically tapped the comms unit his father had given him.

“Dad? There’s a force field going online—automatic!”

Static. Then: “Uh… say again?”

“Look out!” Rory hissed.

McKenna saw the air shimmer around him. He felt a prickle of static around his legs. Whipping around, the import of what Rory had reported hit him, and he had time to shout only a single word. He screamed at his men to jump, even as he did so himself… or tried. The instant he attempted to launch himself upward, the pain from his injured ankle flared up again and his leg buckled. He stumbled to one side like a drunk, then fell flat on his back on top of the ship.

Nebraska must have felt the tingling too—either that, or he trusted McKenna implicitly—because he jumped without hesitation.

Nettles, on the other hand… hesitated. Maybe, McKenna thought, his mind was racing and he just needed a moment to process. Unfortunately, he didn’t get that moment. He was still standing on the surface of the ship when the force field blasted on with an ionized sizzling noise—a force field that, although invisible, still sheared neatly through Nettles’ legs at knee-level.

McKenna lay beneath the field, which was just above him, and watched a lock of his hair feathering down, clipped, to rest on the invisible barrier before being carried away by the wind. He also saw Nettles’ foreshortened body falling away, his blood running in a dozen trickling lines across the outer surface of the force field.

Nebraska, meanwhile, came down boots first on top of the force shield. It looked surreal, as if he was standing in midair. He threw himself onto his belly, legs splayed, palms flat, eyes wide with terror as he held on, separated from McKenna only by a meter or so of invisible energy.

Breathless but protected, McKenna lay beneath the shield, and looked helplessly up at his friend. They locked eyes through the barrier, inches apart—then, as the ship rose higher, increasing speed, Nebraska’s hands began to slip. For a second he looked anguished, desperate, and then all at once he seemed to accept his fate and his face relaxed. He looked again at McKenna through the invisible shield, gave him a wry smile and shrugged his shoulders. He mouthed something—McKenna couldn’t quite make it out, but what he thought Nebraska said was: It’s been fun .

Then Nebraska’s body slid away, over the curve of the ship’s surface, and he was gone.

McKenna wanted to mourn him, knew that the memory of Nebraska’s last moments would be seared into his mind forever. But he didn’t have the luxury to grieve now. Nebraska and Nettles had just died trying to help him save his son, and his best tribute to them would be to try to complete the mission.

But how? Desperation mounting, McKenna drew the pistol he still carried. He gripped it tight, steeled himself, and then rolled toward the edge of the ship. Every survival instinct told him to stop, screamed at him that this was lunacy, that it was suicide.

But he kept going.

He rolled right over the curving edge of the ship, and fell.

But not very far.

He hit the inside of the force field and tumbled down an invisible slide, slewing and twisting in what seemed to be midair until he came to a stop, underneath the alien craft. Where his hands touched, where his knees touched, there appeared to be only air. The utter wrongness of that made his brain reject what he saw and caused his guts to churn, so he flopped over and focused on what was above him.