Free Empire: Book 2, The Chronicles of the Invaders (The Chronicles of the Invaders Trilogy) by John Connolly, Jennifer Ridyard

shuttle’s peg weakened by the drag of the human being on the wire. Faster now, faster. He could see the shuttle platform ahead. It seemed as if he could already touch it with his toes, although he estimated that he had another ten feet to go.
    And then the strut shifted. He felt it move, and the wire dropped him toward the sand. He waited for the impact, but it didn’t come. He was still hanging in the air, but he was at least a foot closer to the ground. Paul was afraid to move. If he moved, the strut might finally be pulled from its position. But what was the other option—to remain hanging from a line until tiredness took him, or the strut inevitably came loose, regardless of whether he was moving or not?
    He inched forward.
    The strut, held against the shuttle’s peg by only the barest of margins, came away, and Paul tumbled to the sand.

CHAPTER 10
    P aul’s first thought upon falling was: I am going to die.
    His second thought was: I don’t want to die.
    He rolled as he hit the sand, and was on his feet almost before he registered the impulse that caused him to react so quickly. It was as though his limbs were working faster than his thoughts, realizing what was required of them before his mind could spur them into action. He was aware of sand churning behind him, but he did not look back. The shuttle pad was only a few feet ahead of him, with its ramp raised. It stood about six feet off the ground, so that the pad was slightly lower than Paul’s head. He sprang, gripped the edge, and used his back muscles to raise himself, grateful for the long hours spent performing pull-ups as part of basic training. He heard gunfire as the survivors on the ramparts tried to hit whatever was pursuing him, but by then he had flung himself flat on the pad. He turned on his back, drew his Colt, and prepared to shoot between his knees, but nothing appeared.
    “It’s too short!” shouted Steven. “The creature—it can’t raise itself high enough to reach the pad.”
    Paul sank back on the metal. He tried to swallow, but he had no moisture in his mouth. His head ached from thirst and, he knew, barely suppressed panic and fear. It was all that he could do not to curl into a ball and wait for someone to rescue him, but he knew that he was the rescuer, and his comrades were depending on him, coward or not.
    He forced himself to rise, and saw that Steven was already hurriedly drawing the cable back. One of the creatures made an ineffectual snap at it, but it didn’t seem as interested in the metal as in the humans. Once he had the end in his hands, Steven flung it toward the pad, andPaul caught it before it could slip off the edge. He wound it tightly around the shuttle’s landing, looping the cable back on itself so that it held the anchoring strut in place.
    “All right,” he called to Steven. “Down you come.”
    Steven slid off the rampart, curling his feet over the wire and moving hand over hand down its length. He moved fast—faster than Paul had done. Not for the first time, Paul noticed how his brother’s baby fat had fallen from his body in recent months, leaving him lithe and rangy. He would be taller than Paul when he was fully grown.
    Suddenly the landing pad shuddered. The impact was so strong that it sent Paul stumbling against the hull of the shuttle. The vibration traveled up the wire, but Steven managed to retain his hold on it and keep going. The creatures had felt movement on the pad but were unable to reach Paul. Just as with the walls, they were opting instead to bring him down to them. The beasts were smart, he had to give them that. He’d still happily have seen them wiped out of existence, but there was no denying their intelligence. From somewhere below the sands came a grinding, and the pad canted about five degrees to the right. The creatures were buckling the central support. It wouldn’t be long before they sent the shuttle sliding to the sand.
    Steven dropped down beside his brother.
    “You