Scarecrow by Matthew Reilly

way too fast, like the whirring of a six-barrelled mini-gun . . .
    And then she saw something that took her completely by surprise.
    She saw the Al-Qaeda blockade get absolutely raked with internal gunfire—its walls blew out, assaulted by a million hypervelocity bullets—and suddenly a whole crowd of terrorists were leaping over their own barricade out into no-man’s-land, fleeing some unseen force behind their own blockade . . . exactly as Gant had done herself.
    Another thing was clear.
    The terrorists were fleeing something far worse than Gant was.
    As they leapt desperately over their barricade, they were shot in mid-air—from behind—and all but ripped apart, their limbs exploding from their bodies.
    A split-second before one such Al-Qaeda warrior was ripped to pieces as he clambered over the barricade, Gant caught a glimpse of a green targeting laser zeroing in on him.
    A green laser . . .
    â€˜Er, Lieutenant!’ Mother yelled from beside her. ‘What the hell happened to this fight! I thought wars were supposed to be fought between two competing forces!’
    â€˜I know!’ Gant called. ‘There are more than two forces down here! Come on, follow me!’
    â€˜Where!’
    â€˜There’s only one way to solve this problem, and that’s to do what we came here to do!’
    With that, Gant made a break across no-man’s-land, ducking underneath the overhead conveyor belt that ran up its left-hand side, and headed towards the left-hand air vent.
    Gant came to the northern end of the elevated conveyor belt just as four Al-Qaeda terrorists came running out from behind their barricade, chased by gunfire.
    The first three holy warriors scrambled up some boxes that had been arranged like stairs and jumped up onto the conveyor belt while the fourth hit a fat green button on a console.
    The conveyor belt roared to life—
    â€”and the three men on it were instantly whisked out of sight at tremendous speed, heading towards the Allied barricade. The fourth man jumped onto the belt after them and— whoosh —he was swept southward as well.
    â€˜Whoa. Fast belt . . .’ Mother said.
    â€˜Come on!’ Gant yelled as she dashed behind the Al-Qaeda barricade.
    She burst into open space—the high-ceilinged area underneath the air vents. It did look like a cathedral here. Dim white light from electric lamps partially illuminated the area.
    She also saw the reason why the Al-Qaeda terrorists had bolted from the safety of their barricade.
    A team of maybe 15 black-clad commandos—dark wraiths wearing green-eyed night-vision goggles and motorcross-style Oakley anti-flash glasses—was fanning out from a small tunnel located behind the Al-Qaeda barricade, tucked into the north-eastern corner of the cavern.
    It was, however, the weapons in their hands that seized Gant’s attention. The weapons which had unleashed hell on the Al-Qaeda troops.
    These new soldiers were equipped with MetalStorm M100 assault rifles. A variety of rail gun, the MetalStorm range of weapons do not use conventional moving parts to fire their bullets. Rather, they employ rapid-sequential electric shocks to trigger each round, and as such, are able to fire at the unbelievable rate of 10,000 rounds per minute. It amounts to a literal storm of metal, hence the name.
    The MetalStorm guns of this new force of men were equipped with ghostly green laser-sighting devices—so in her mind, until she found out their real name, Gant just labelled them ‘the Black-Green Force’.
    One thing about them was truly odd. This Black-Green Force didn’t seem to care about her at all. They were pursuing the fleeing terrorists.
    In the midst of all this confusion, Gant slid to the dusty ground underneath the left-hand air vent and started erecting a vertical mortar launcher.
    When the launcher was ready, she yelled, ‘Clear!’ and hit the