Free Ellie Quin Episode 5: A Girl Reborn by Alex Scarrow Page A

many candidates could you grow at the same time?’
    He’d visited the lab aboard this ship earlier today. The equipment had been hastily appropriated from the DGA and some of it was still crated-up and yet to be assembled. He’d logged about half a dozen growth tubes.
    ‘Perhaps six.’
    ‘Six?’ She pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘Well then, let’s make six Ellie Quins.’

CHAPTER 12
    Ellie shot a glance to her left; her creatures were being massacred. It looked like half of their number had already been pincered in two. However, she could see one of the scorpions had collapsed, either from the exhaustion of carrying around its heavily armoured body, or, her little soldiers had managed to inflict some kind of damage on it.
    There was consolation in that…at least it was
possible
to take them down.
    To her right, Max and his band of soldier-bears were still luring the other five scorpions after them. The giant lumbering beasts now seemed to be struggling from the exertion of the pursuit, their spindly legs every now and then faltering and stumbling on the uneven ground.
    She had a vague hope forming that maybe she’d let the chase continue until those things all started dropping from exhaustion, then she’d give Max the sign to turn on them and finish them off.
    She looked down at Jonny. ‘Can you see how much further to the castle?’
    Jonny stepped out of the pack of grunting and straining midgets and peaked around the side of the giant peach. ‘We are approximately half way up the hill, General!’
    And the hill was going to get steeper near the top….and their progress, much slower.
    She wished she had more bears down here pushing this stupid thing.
    ‘
Well, well well! Seems like General Jez
’
s killer giant scorpions are kicking ass over there on the right? Have you seen how bloody messy it
’
s getting down there, buddy? What
’
s your take on the game so far, Shelbs?
’
    ‘
Hmm
…
yes, I do believe they are struggling. But then I do believe that
’
s Ellie
’
s strategy. She has deliberately sacrificed her troops on the flanks to distract Jez
’
s heavy armour. Meanwhile, focusing her un-weaponised units on retrieving the tactical object. Which, I do believe, is the point of the game
.’
    Ellie looked up at their grinning faces projected across the sky, gurning at each other like presenters at a HardBall match. She cursed both of them for making light of the slaughter going on down here.
    Game? A game?! You sick fregging creeps!
    ‘
Ellie clearly has come into the game with a strategy, Graham. Unlike her opponent who seems to have just unleashed-
’
    ‘
Ah-hah! Sorry to cut in on you Shelbs, it looks like General Jez has woken up to Ellie
’
s game-plan. Here come the cavalry!
’
    Ellie turned to look over her shoulder. Jez was charging down the hill towards her, leading her pack of the smaller creatures. Closer now, she could see more clearly what they were; they looked like small shiny coal-black men, slender limbed, with thin torsos and serrated edged spear tips for hands. Their heads looked oddly triangular with horns at the top; like little imps.
    ‘Hoy there, Ellie!’ screamed Jez at the top of her voice as she closed the gap between them. ‘Your fuzzy bears are goin’ down, girl!’
    ‘Jez! No! Please! I don’t want to play this stupid game anymore!’
    Too late. The spiny little men crashed into Jonny’s pack of straining bears and a moment later the ground around the peach was a squirming mass of blonde fur and shiny coal black limbs, thrashing and swiping. Although her peach-rollers out-numbered the spindly men and outsized them, their jagged hand-spears were slicing and stabbing and spilling gouts of blood onto the swaying, recoiling, amber grass. She watched Jonny, wrestling one of them to the ground, his tubby weight more than a match for the stick-thin creature, but without anything he could use as a weapon, all he could do was to hold it down while the vicious