Sakkara

HarperCollins Children’s Books

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2006

Text Copyright © Michael Carroll 2006

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content or written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007210930

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780007369928 Version: 2016-09-08

For Bliz & Murt

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

TEN YEARS EARLIER…

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

THREE MONTHS LATER…

Keep Reading

About the Author

About the Publisher

THE LARGE-CALIBRE bullets slammed into Paragon’s armoured chest and knocked him to the ground. He scrambled forward, took hold of Quantum’s arm and dragged him back to the shelter of the fallen tree.

“You hit?” Paragon asked.

No answer. Quantum was barely conscious, his eyes rolling, but otherwise appeared uninjured.

Paragon checked his friend’s pulse. It was strong but erratic. “Come on, man! You’ve got to stay awake!”

A voice came over his communicator. It was Josh Dalton, a member of The High Command. “We’ve got Dioxin,” Josh said. “Energy was right – the girl was able to stop him. We’ve handed him over to the marines.”

Titan’s voice said, “Are you nuts? What could the marines do to stop Dioxin? The man’s a walking acid factory!”

“True, but he’s not bullet-proof. They could shoot him in the head.”

“Enough chatter!” Paragon said. “Josh, get back here ASAP. We need to take out that tank!”

Titan yelled, “We can’t make a dent in it, Paragon! You’re the mechanical genius; any ideas on how we can stop it?”

“Find a weak spot,” Paragon replied.

“We’ve tried. Can’t find one.”

“Then we’re going to have to make a weak spot! Someone cover me – I’m going in!” Paragon activated his jetpack and soared towards Ragnarök’s battle-tank, zooming low over the ground.

Ahead, close to the hundred-metre-long machine, Paragon could see the arcs of lightning issuing from Energy’s floating body. The gun turrets on the battle-tank were firing at her, but somehow Energy remained unharmed.

Then Paragon noticed a pale blue blur zipping through the air around Energy: before the bullets could reach her, Titan was stopping them. Possibly even catching them.

Another volley of gunfire from the tank ripped into Paragon’s chest plate, knocking him off balance. He zoomed up, out of the line of fire, and activated his communicator. “All right, people…This is what we’re going to do. We need to tear a hole in that tank’s armour and get Titan inside. Energy? I’m going to take out its main cannon – you just keep me covered and Titan will cover you!”

Paragon zoomed towards the battle-tank, its heavy gun turrets swinging in his direction. Missiles and plasma bolts streaked towards him, vaporised by Energy’s powerful bolts of lightning.

He dodged left, then right, as the tank’s twin flamethrowers scorched the air around him, then tucked his feet up just as he crested the rear of the tank’s hull, the toes of his boots brushing the roof of a small jet-like pod.

There! That’s the one! Fires in twenty-second bursts, then a gap of eight seconds before firing again. He pulled his last grenade from his belt and set down on the roof of the tank next to the powerful turret. This close, few of the tank’s weapons could target him without hitting each other.

The cannon let loose with another deafening volley and Paragon counted down: Three. Two. One. The firing stopped. He rushed around the cannon towards the barrel, its heat blistering his skin even through his armour. He activated the grenade, dropped it down the barrel, then hit his jetpack’s afterburners, pulling himself from the tank as fast as possible.

Energy allowed herself a quick glance at the battle-tank as its cannon exploded, then refocussed her concentration.

All around her, she could feel the energy from the tank’s plasma bolts, the heat radiating from its engines, the light from the midday sun, even the kinetic energy from the tank’s weapons. She concentrated, channelling that energy into herself, converting it, letting it stream back out of her in the form of lightning, aimed at the ragged tear in the hull where the cannon had been.