Garrick climbed up the shaft, aiming for the flickering torch Violet held at the top. His feet struggled to find purchase, so he relied on his arms to do most of the work. By the time he pulled himself over the lip, his biceps were protesting loudly, and his palms were smarting. Hardy reached over to his belt, grabbed the back of his body armour, and helped pull him over the edge and onto the floor of the chamber. Across from him, Violet was untying Anna in the insipid light.

As he stood, whipping the rope from his waist, a blast of euphoria hit him. They’d made it this far. The rest was surmountable. He grabbed Hardy’s hand, pulling him into a one-armed bear hug. “Thanks.”

Hardy pounded him on the back with a thick fist, pushed him away, and pointed. “I’m not doing this every week. Just so you know.”

Garrick stuffed the rope into his backpack, his voice rattling in clipped battle tones. “Let’s keep moving. We still need to get out of this shit-hole.”

Anna interrupted. “Blake decoded enough of their language to communicate with them. He planned it all. He told them to come. He invited them.” Her eyes flashed with anger. “If you hadn’t turned up, the Chittrix would have taken all of us.”

Garrick, handed his reloaded SIG to Anna. “You’re with us now.” She took it in her good hand and checked the safety. She gave him a hesitant smile, dipping her head in agreement. She wiped her hands across her cheeks, straightened her back, and sniffed. “I’m good. Let’s plant the Sweeper.”

Garrick reached forward and planted a brief kiss in the centre of her forehead. Her body was confident under his touch. It was time to go.

* * *

Garrick kept his pace swift as they jogged back along the tunnel to the huge vaulted room they’d come from. Anna remained close behind him. Exactly where she was always going to be from now on, as long as he had anything to do with it. Behind Anna, Violet followed with Hardy.

As they entered the central chamber, Garrick, checked the map to get his bearings. Behind him, the others remained in a neat defensive circle, their ears pricked to the soft humming vibration permeating the air.

Anna took his wrist and flicked through the digital maps their tracking pads had constructed of the colony.

“We’re too high. The egg chambers will be lower, where they’re easier to defend, and the environment is the most consistent.”

A rising hum of vibration saturated the space around them. Hardy’s eyes narrowed. The noise was definitely getting louder. “Hurry up,” he muttered, nervously checking each of the entrances facing them.

“Here.”

Anna pointed to a golden tracery that streaked down the centre of the map, connecting the jigsaw of tunnels.

Garrick tracked the route with his finger, tracing a swerving line below the hive with plateaus of chambers branching off the main tunnel at regular intervals. The passageways of the colony descended in graceful spirals mirroring each other, each feeding into one central line and all terminating deep underground. “That’s more than a hundred feet under, Anna.”

She looked up at him. “We need to plant the explosive down there somehow, but these descending tunnels are too long and steep.”

She chewed on her lower lip, concentrating. “Give me the Sweeper. And Hardy, give me your digital map.” Garrick nodded, and Hardy placed the small screen in the palm of her injured hand where she could read it.

“The Sweeper?” Anna asked, raising her voice in impatience.

Garrick unslung the rucksack and ripped the fastenings open. He lifted out the cuboid device and handed it over. She took it and kneeled, placing it on the ground in front of her.

Hardy swore under his breath. “You guys hurry up with that shit.”

Garrick scanned the walls, checking his own map for the tunnel to lead them back out. He spun and twisted the image with a flick of his fingers. A small orange blip flashed onto the screen, next to the end of a golden line. Foster’s craziness. He’d take that as a sign; it was as good a direction to head in as any.

Around them the humming changed in tempo and urgency, riding up though the soles of Garrick’s boots and kicking more adrenalin into his overworked system.

Anna crouched in front of him, hissing under her breath as she worked at the Sweeper with her knife. The blade slipped, and she swore.

As his gaze skimmed the walls for signs of alien activity, Violet and Hardy rotated with him, sheltering Anna.

“Coming from all around us,” Garrick muttered, as the hum became a thrumming reverberation in his bones. Above his head the walls and tunnel entrances were silent and dark.

Violet bumped gently against his hip, her pulse rifle rock-steady. “They’re coming.”

She was right. “Anna, you done? We need to go now.”

Anna stood, and yanked the silver chain from Garrick’s neck with a hand bloody from the knife slip. She’d removed the yellow protective cage of the Sweeper, the pieces scattered at her feet, next to an unassuming silver globe. Her face pale with determination, Anna inserted the silver lozenge into a narrow slot at the base of the globe. A black panel slid open, revealing a keypad. Her fingers flew, keying in the activation code.

The attack came from all directions at once. Firing out of tunnels in the walls, black-spiked spheres the size of basketballs hurled themselves towards the group. They bounced once or twice, speeding across the floor, then exploded open, their spiky, slated bodies revealing their true form. Rows of grasping legs unfurled from under their armoured upper bodies, like alien supercharged wood lice. Razor-sharp pincers snapped at the human intruders.

Garrick’s boot connected with the first closest to him. It spun across the floor, colliding with others, while the rest reared up on their back legs and trilled an excruciating war cry. He lifted his machete high, slicing one clean in half midair, splattering Anna in yellow gunk. She fell backwards, clutching the Sweeper.

Hardy and Violet fired their weapons, cutting broad swathes into the attacking arthropods, but hordes still rushed from the walls.

“Move with me!” Anna shouted over the cacophony of shrieking insects. She began to inch to the west side of the chamber, the Sweeper in one hand, consulting the map on her wrist simultaneously. Garrick inched forward with her, keeping within touching distance, Violet and Hardy following suit.

The noise of battle was deafening and Garrick’s arms grew slick with the neon fluids bursting from the gutted insects. For a moment he doubted himself, but when he risked a glance at Anna, he saw only resolute determination.

Spitfire.

Seeing her gave him the impetus he needed. There was no way in hell he wasn’t bringing her out of here. He bellowed his rage and charged a few steps forward, clearing a path to the far wall.

Anna broke from the protection of the group and entered one of the tunnels. Garrick jerked towards her in panic. Where the hell was she going? But she only took a few paces into the narrow tunnel before dropping to a squat.

Her fingers pressed against the sides of the Sweeper then her right arm swung backwards, and she hurled it into a gaping breach in the floor like a prize bowler. It barrelled out of sight into the dark recesses of the nest. She rose and spun in one movement, giving Garrick the smallest inclination of her head as she rejoined him.

Garrick took a final check on his bearings. “Hardy.” A twist of his arm indicated the direction for their exit. “Take the lead. Violet. Anna. I’m covering the rear.”

Hardy responded instantly, a dark, swarthy blur. He bolted without hesitation into the tunnel. Violet followed next, while Garrick hustled Anna behind her. He turned his back to Anna, shadowing her path as he fired at the creatures crowding the tunnel entrance.

The passage darkened as the giant wood lice tried to cram themselves through the narrow gap in one heaving mass. Their exoskeletons ground against each other in an excruciating scrape. Hardy was calling out but Garrick ignored him. His fingers closed over bumpy metal in his trouser pocket, and he withdrew the avocado-shaped forms of Foster’s grenades.

He yanked the pins, one after the other, and threw both overhand in quick succession, his shoulder protesting. Both devices disappeared into the black, seething mass of insects.

Garrick bellowed a warning and threw himself across Anna, slamming her down, protecting her body as the explosion rocked the air. Severed insect remains rained onto them in a storm of black chitin and jellied fluids, landing with loud, wet splats. He covered her body with his until the macabre downpour stopped. Finally, he raised his head and wiped his eyes. Anna trembled beneath him.

“You alright?”

“Yes.” She pushed the hair from her forehead, surveying the devastation. The walls were fully pebble-dashed with sticky shards of alien remains.

For a moment, the opening behind them was clear, ambient light filtering in from the chamber they’d just left. Then it darkened in a swoop, Chittrix lice filling the entrance once more, rattling and ticking in fury. They seethed at the tunnel entrance, hesitant and wary of the technology that had just detonated.

Garrick hauled himself back to his feet, fatigue eating at him as he helped Anna to her feet. He’d bought them extra time, he just didn’t know for how long.