Earthfall: Retribution Read Free Page B

‘Stirling just called for everyone to get together. He must have some sort of announcement to make.’
    ‘Do you think it’s about the Sleepers?’ Sam asked quietly.
    ‘Could be,’ Rachel said with a shrug. ‘Suppose we’re about to find out.’
    ‘Thank you, everyone,’ Stirling said, waiting a couple of seconds for everyone to quiet down. ‘I’m sorry to gather you all at such short notice, but there’s been an exciting development.’ He turned to the Servant. ‘Please go ahead.’
    Stirling watched the faces of the gathered children as the Servant replayed the recording that she had shown him less than an hour earlier. Their expressions perfectly summed up his own feelings, a mixture of excitement and curiosity.
    ‘When was this recorded?’ Sam asked as the playback ended.
    ‘The transmission occurred sixty-three minutes and fourteen seconds ago,’ the Servant replied.
    ‘Do we know where it came from?’ Rachel asked, gesturing to the map that stood between Stirling and the Servant.
    ‘My calculations have narrowed the point of origin to somewhere within this area,’ the Servant said, picking up a marker pen and drawing a perfect circle on the map.
    ‘That’s Edinburgh,’ Rachel said, ‘but that area covers the entire city. Can’t you be any more specific?’
    ‘Not without receiving further transmissions,’ the Servant replied. ‘It was only by chance that I intercepted the first broadcast.’
    ‘And you’ve not heard anything else since?’ Nat asked.
    ‘No, but I am still scanning for any other transmissions,’ the Servant replied.
    ‘So we got lucky,’ Sam said.
    ‘Yes,’ Stirling replied, ‘so the question now is what do we do?’
    ‘There’s no guarantee that the transmission source wasn’t mobile,’ Will said, pushing his glasses up on to the bridge of his nose. ‘If that’s the case, intercepting more of them may not help narrow the search area – if anything it might just make it larger.’
    ‘Will’s right,’ Anne said, nodding. ‘We won’t necessarily get a more precise fix than we already have.’
    ‘So, the real question is, do we go take a look?’ Sam said.
    ‘Surely we have to,’ Nat said. ‘If there are other people fighting the Voidborn up there, we have to try to find them. Don’t get me wrong – we’re more than capable of holding our own here now that we have our own tame Mothership, but more guns on our side can’t hurt, surely.’
    ‘Might not be that straightforward,’ Jack said, shaking his head. ‘What if they’re not so friendly? What if they decide that they want our resources for themselves?’
    ‘A shared foe doesn’t automatically make people allies,’ Liz said, nodding her agreement.
    ‘I still think we should at least go and have a look,’ Sam said. ‘We may have driven the Voidborn out of London, but we’re still a long way from winning the war. Whoever these people are they sound like professional military. That’s the kind of help we need.’
    ‘Yes, well, the Voidborn presence outside of London may be more relevant to this discussion than you realise,’ Stirling said with a slight frown.
    ‘How so?’ Rachel asked.
    ‘My telemetry data revealed that the Voidborn Mothership heading towards the northern half of the British Isles stopped at almost exactly the same location,’ Stirling replied.
    ‘So the area’s probably crawling with bug-eyed creeps,’ Jay said.
    ‘It will make any reconnaissance of the area more difficult,’ Stirling said. ‘I would suggest that we only send a small team. We must avoid detection until we have a better idea of what’s going on up there.’
    ‘OK,’ Sam said, looking at the map, ‘four-man team. No more. We travel light and fast, get in and out as quickly as possible. If we find whoever’s giving the Voidborn a hard time up there, great. If we don’t, we head back to London and think again.’ He turned to the Servant. ‘How close can a drop-ship get us without being