Mungwortt didn’t like him.
I’m coming, Tay-Lor!
But his friend didn’t look good. Aside from all the blood, the human had a very scary look on his face. Zaius was yelling at him, and Tay-Lor didn’t seem to like that. The man dropped to his knees and reached out for the crystal levers and knobs on the podium in front of him.
We don’t want him doing that.
It was Zao. Mungwortt didn’t know what “that” was, but Tay-Lor was too far away for the half-breed to stop him. Whatever it was, Tay-Lor was going to do it.
Zao sighed one last time.
See you soon, dimwit.
What do you mean by that, Zao?
Zao?
* * *
ANSA Launch Operations Center
Cape Kennedy, Florida
January 14, 1972
Liberty 1 stood tall at the launch complex at Cape Kennedy, primed, fueled, and ready to go. Her command capsule capped a Dyna-Soar-type bird perched on top of four massive Titan rockets.
Mission Commander George Taylor sat in that command capsule, surrounded by the three people with whom he would likely spend the rest of his life—whether that be two minutes, if Liberty 1 crashed and burned on the launch pad, or two thousand years, if their mission was a success. To his left sat their last-minute replacement, Navigator John Landon. Formerly of Juno mission, he was graduated early from officer training with top marks, and rushed through the Liberty program.
Taylor didn’t know much about the man, but he already considered him a milquetoast. Behind Landon sat Lead Science Officer Thomas Dodge, an explorer whose only belief system was logic and science. He was solid and dependable. A good man. Behind Taylor sat Maryann Stewart, serving as the team’s biologist—and the future mother of mankind. Other than these three, he never again had to see a single human being from the twentieth century.
That was fine with him. Future man had to be a lot more civilized than the monsters his lifetime had produced.
“T-minus sixty seconds on the Liberty 1 mission,” ANSA’s announcer declared, “the first interstellar flight to Alpha Centauri. All indications coming in to the control center at this time indicate we are go.”
“Third stage completely pressurized.” Dodge spoke from the engineering station. “Power transfer is complete—we’re on internal power at this time.”
“Forty seconds away from the Liberty 1 liftoff,” someone at launch operations said. “All the second-stage tanks now pressurized. We are still go with Liberty 1.”
Taylor was relieved. Forty seconds away from leaving this hellhole. Then an all-too-familiar voice broke his reverie.
“George.” It wasn’t the announcer at the Cape. The voice was gruff and informal. It was Admiral Taylor himself. “If any of your people want off the bus, now’s the time.”
The admiral had chosen to be on site at Cape Kennedy, rather than Mission Control at the Pentagon. The younger Taylor had assumed his father had wanted to see him off, but ever since they arrived at the Cape, the admiral hadn’t shown his face or spoken a word to his son.
Until now.
Taylor grimaced. The old man didn’t even know how to say goodbye. Instead, he offered his son a chance to scrub the mission they had spent nearly two decades realizing.
It was surreal.
Switching his microphone to internal communications only, George Taylor queried his crew.
“Any naysayers?”
Not one of the Liberty crew replied. Taylor resumed external communications.
“Liberty 1 here,” he said. “We’re along for the ride. It feels good.”
“Twenty seconds and counting.” The voice was the announcer again. Without another word, Admiral Taylor was gone.
Goodbye, Dad.
“Circuits on,” Landon offered. “Guidance is internal.”
The countdown continued.
“Twelve, eleven, ten, nine—”
“Ignition sequence begun,” Dodge reported as the boosters fired.
“—three, two, one…
“Zero,” the announcer declared. “All engines running, liftoff!” The earth shook and the sky quaked as Liberty 1 fought gravity itself. After a moment, she won.
“Seventeen minutes past the hour. Liftoff on Liberty 1. Tower cleared.”
“Roger that, Kennedy, we have a roll program,” Taylor said. “Transferring command to ANSA Arlington Mission Control.” He paused before flipping the communications channel to the secure line at the Pentagon. “Thanks for the lift, Kennedy. Liberty 1 out.”
Pushed back in their seats, Taylor and his crew absorbed the gravity of liftoff. After a moment, Mission Control went live.
“This is Arlington, Liberty 1.” It was Lazenbe. “We have command.”
“Roger, Theo.” If his dad could break protocol, so could he. Taylor imagined his exasperated friend shaking his head. “Roll’s complete and the pitch is programming,” he told the general.
“Down range one mile, altitude three, four miles now,” Landon said. “Velocity 2,195 feet per second.”
“Altitude is two miles,” Lazenbe replied. “Liberty 1, you are good at one minute.”
“We’re through the region of maximum dynamic pressure now,” Dodge reported. Taylor affirmed it.
“Liberty 1, this is Arlington,” Lazenbe said. “You are go for staging.” As the colossal booster arrays fell away, Taylor leaned back and stole a glance at Stewart. Inside her helmet, she was laughing. He turned forward again, just in time to watch the heavens and the stars rush up to greet them.
No more Earth.
No more war.
No more mankind.
A brand-new start.
His face cracked into a toothy grin. For the first time since he flew against human pilots and foo fighters, George Taylor felt good to be alive.
* * *
Taylor wasn’t quite dead. Certainly, he was on his way—he just wasn’t wholly there. Not yet.
After Ursus shot him he fell from the pillar and rolled down the church stairs toward the launch controls. Clawing at his chest, he was unable to stop the scarlet flow that bubbled up from under his skin. Even so, he tried to raise himself up.
It was too late for Nova, too late for their unborn child, and too late for Taylor, as well. Maybe it wasn’t too late to save the world.
For Brent. Cornelius. Zira. Lucius. Even that stupid gorilla, Mungwortt—if he was still alive. Yes, even for the apes’ revered Minister of Science.
“Zaius,” he growled. “It’s doomsday.” He gurgled blood.
The orangutan regarded him. Taylor could tell he didn’t recognize him—then the ape’s expression changed, as he realized…
“Taylor!” Zaius said, and he gaped.
“The end of the world,” Taylor said. “Help me.”
Astonishment was replaced with anger, then sheer rage. “You ask me to help you?” he said, his voice rising. “Man is evil,” he shouted. “Capable of nothing but destruction!”
“I don’t have time for this crap,” Taylor said, then he looked up just in time to see Brent riddled with machine-gun fire. He took a bullet to the head, then slid down the cathedral wall, dead.
That was it. Even facing his own end, he had been trying to save the world, and for what? Human, ape, hybrid. It didn’t matter.
Everyone was the same. Ungrateful and undeserving. There was no one better out there. This was all there was. It wasn’t worth keeping alive.
“You,” the astronaut gurgled, “bloody bastard.”
With his last words, Colonel George Taylor tumbled toward the prie-dieu, reaching out to activate the bomb—reaching out to rid the planet of man, ape, and the disease that was evolution. He wanted to pull that trigger, but life slipped from him.
Taylor’s dead hand fell directly on the red crystal.
The cylinder dropped.
The Alpha/Omega bomb’s rockets ignited.
* * *
The cathedral shook as the missile attempted
to launch—but she was still lying on her side. Pointed toward the church doors, Alpha/Omega fired anyway. The soldiers closest to her were incinerated instantly. Others were engulfed in flames, and died slowly.
Zaius threw himself to the ground. He realized now what Taylor was trying to tell him, and what his own arrogance had goaded the insane human to do. As she sailed over him, his clothes caught fire. While he tried to put them out, the rumbling increased. The missile hurled itself across the church and exploded through the massive wooden doors.
Her nose tipped downward, digging a furrow in the concrete and hardened lava of the street. Then the missile found a target, smashing into the molten remnants of a sunken square across the way. The impact cracked the already damaged firing mechanism, and the pin dropped within her primed core.
The Alpha/Omega bomb detonated.
A stark white blaze engulfed the church, searing Zaius’s eyes. In that instant, he knew that despite a lifetime of devotion, he had failed to protect his family, failed his promise to Malia.
Lawgiver, forgive me.
Together, man and ape had ended the world.
* * *
A loud boom echoed overhead. Thunder rolled across the sky.
Minister Sabian woke with a start.
He had dozed off in his office.
Things were not moving fast enough for his liking. While Gaius had practically turned the city over to him, Sabian knew he had to root out any and all dissenters. The escape of that rabble-rouser Zira would not go unpunished. He had been lucky not to break a hip during the fiasco.
While the boom had startled him, it was the gunfire that followed which threw him from his seat. Sabian rushed to his window. Outside, a group of armed chimpanzees held the gorilla Security Police at bay. One of the chimps was Quirinus, the athlete they were supposed to have locked up in the constabulary.
Across the square, more chimpanzees corralled a flabbergasted Gaius and most of the High Council.
A coup?
How in—
His office door burst open. Five chimpanzees with guns rushed in. Two of them were escaped prisoners—the teen Tian and that nurse, Jaila. He recognized their leader as Liet—the wife of the late Dr. Galen. She wore traditional chimpanzee garb, fitted over with a gorilla’s leather vest. A pink and black beret sat neatly on her head—the colors of the Simian flag.
“Minister.” She sauntered toward him, rifle slung over her shoulder. “In the name of the Citizens’ Liberation Front for a Free Simia, you are under arrest.” One of the chimp soldiers behind her cocked his rifle.
“You will be held pending a fair trial,” she continued. “Will you submit peacefully?”
Before Sabian could respond, light blasted through his window. He struggled to gaze past the glare, and witnessed an expanding mushroom cloud, along with a blinding whiteness that was growing toward them.
Ursus and Zaius.
This is what the doctor had warned against. The gorilla general had found and engaged the “unknown.” He was certain of it, and this was the price of their arrogance.
Sabian thought of his former friend. Of his friend’s liberal nonsense, and how he wished he could somehow spin this to be his fault.
Lawgiver damn you, Zao.
The wave of fire struck.
EPILOGUE:
THE TORNADO IN THE SKY
“Where are we going?” Zira asked.
“Probably to our deaths,” Milo responded.
In orbit now, the mated Liberty 1 and Liberty 2 were preparing to get underway. The accidental pioneers were helpless to stop it. As the ship raced around the planet, Zira gazed out the viewport, coming to terms with the fact that she would likely never see her home again. That her child would never feel the heat of a midsummer’s sun, never smell the cool splash of a waterfall, and never taste a fresh gust of autumn wind. She thought of Lucius and Seraph and the others who had died for them.
We’ll be seeing you all soon, she feared.
A blinding light burst forth from the surface. As her pupils dilated, Zira watched a growing ball of fire push its way up through the atmosphere. The sky itself caught flame. The vibrations shook their craft as the planet cracked like an egg.
Speechless, she didn’t realize that she was holding her breath. As she began to process what she had just witnessed, Zira finally found her voice.
“The fools!” she cried. She thought about Ursus, Zaius, and their war machine, marching into the unknown. “They’ve finally destroyed themselves!”
In finding what they sought, they had taken with them everyone she had loved, and the entire planet they had called home.
* * *
His mind racing, Cornelius squeezed his wife’s hand. He wanted her warmth in his palm. The gloves of the overstuffed garments they wore prevented that.
“And… we’ve escaped.”
He was numb. Somehow, they had survived—for all the good it would do them. Everything that had mattered before had disintegrated before their eyes.
Not everything, he amended. Looking to Zira, he knew she and the baby she carried were what really mattered. At least they would be together until the end. As the starbird hurled itself away from the burning ball, Liberty 1 began to shudder. The white death-sphere was expanding, fast.
Soon it would overcome them.
* * *
“We have,” Milo said, agreeing with his fellow traveler. He tried desperately to make the controls do something, anything. Zira’s notes provided no clues as to reasserting control. The ship was still locked on a course to… somewhere.
Alarms sounded in the cabin. In his peripheral vision, Milo could see the light creeping up on all sides of the ship. There was no doubt that it would engulf them, and soon.
“If we survive the shock wave,” he mused through grinding teeth. “Brace yourselves!”
It was like tumbling down a cliff face. Liberty 1 was buffeted, twisted, twirled, and thrown around like Cornelius’s talking human ragdoll. Zira’s carpet bag and anything else not lashed down launched across the cabin. The blast catapulted the ship into a crushing acceleration. Strange multicolored stars began to whirl around them as they barreled toward the unknown.
After what seemed like forever, the shock subsided. Slowly, they began to gather themselves, and were relieved to find nothing broken. Then the immensity of their accomplishment began to sink in. They had indeed escaped the destruction of the world.
Milo noticed something new, a change in the reading on the instrument panel.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered. The “Earth Time” meter had read January 29 3955. As he watched, it clicked downward at a consistent rate.
December
November
October…
The dates were changing, as well.
3954
3953
3952…
Yet the meter marked “Ship Time” stayed firm at 3955.
“The shock must have unbalanced the mechanism,” Milo suggested. Or the inconceivable had been conceived.
He decided not to tell the others of his new hypothesis until he had more data. Better to let them ponder for themselves than to put insane ideas in their heads—insane ideas that he was almost certain would turn out to be true.
For better or for worse, their future awaited them… in the past.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Do you want apes? Because this is how you get apes.
Without Rod Serling and all the talented people involved in the original film, without Paul Dehn for being the master of both twisted endings and impossible sequels, without someone in television programming scheduling Apes Week for the ABC afternoon movie, Planet of the Apes would never have become an obsession of my nine-year-old mind. Viewing those films with a fresh fascination, I was certain that there must be more to the story (When the heck did Cornelius and Zira get married, anyway?). In order to ease my mind, I made up in-between movies that simply had to have happened to link them all together
and put it to rest.
Rediscovering the classic apes saga in college, I realized that those “other movies” never existed and were merely a product of my youthful exuberant imagination. Strangely enough, many of the concepts hatched back in those formative years you now hold in your hand.
When I made the move to break into publishing, Debbie Olshan, formerly of Fox, decided to take a chance on this then-unknown writer with a Planet of the Apes illustrated novel. With Apes on the rise (pun intended), Mark Smylie at Archaia saw value in the project. Soon my first Apes work, Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes, was published. We had more books planned but that got stalled.
Meanwhile, Debbie’s successor at Fox—Josh Izzo—read Conspiracy and recognized my pedigree of useless knowledge. He chose to make it useful—by bringing me in as an Apes consultant. I’ve continued to work in that capacity with Steve Tzirlin.
Finally, Titan picked up the classic Apes license. Through Josh, they brought me on to finish what Archaia started, and editor extraordinaire Steve Saffel slaved over my fevered scrawlings to make me look good.
Without these amazing people, a series of fortunate incidents, the Eds for inspiring a character or two, Tyler Reinstein for her in-depth WWII pilot research, Hayley Shepherd for her keen attention to detail, Maria Landy for getting me out of a tough spot, and ape fans like Jess, Michael, Char and you, this book would not exist.
Oh, and let’s not forget my mother, who gave me incentives to read as a child while supporting my sci-fi habit at an early age. In no small way, she’s responsible for this book as well.
Thank you, all of you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With two decades of experience in the comics and video-game industries, author Andrew E.C. Gaska is now the Senior Development Editor at Lion Forge Comics. There, he creates and develops new properties for the publisher, develops existing IP for media adaptation, and works closely with creative teams to guide their vision to fruition.
Gaska is perhaps best known for his previous three years’ work as a freelance consultant to 20th Century Fox, where he created continuity and canon bibles for franchises including Alien, Predator and Planet of the Apes. He has additionally written prose and graphic novels based on the Planet of the Apes, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and Space: 1999 franchises. He also served for seventeen years as a visual consultant to Rockstar Games on the Grand Theft Auto series, as well as Red Dead Redemption and all other releases, and he worked as a sequential storytelling instructor at New York’s School of Visual Arts. His online essays at roguereviewer.wordpress.com and on social media draw controversial debate and discussion from all sides. Readers can follow the action on Facebook at
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