by Mark Walden
‘Thirty seconds till detonation.’
‘Is it working?’ Shelby asked.
‘I’ll let you know in thirty seconds,’ Laura replied.
‘Twenty seconds till detonation.’
Everyone in the room fell silent. There was nothing more they could do now.
‘Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . seven . . . seven . . .’
Laura looked at the screen. A new window had popped up and then another and another, filling the screen with cascades of error messages.
‘Catastrophic viral intrusion detected,’ the computerised voice reported. ‘Initiating system restore and reboot.’
‘GO!’ Laura yelled, leaping up from behind the desk and sprinting for the door with the others right behind her. She dashed down the stairs leading to the hangar floor, taking them two at a time.
‘How long have we got?’ Lucy yelled as they ran.
‘I have no idea,’ Laura replied honestly.
They sprinted up the loading ramp at the rear of the nearest Shroud and it began to lift off immediately, the ramp closing as it rose out of the hangar.
‘I wonder if any of Drake’s people are still down there,’ Laura said as she strapped herself into one of the seats that lined the wall of the bay.
‘Definitely falls under “not my problem” at the moment, I’m afraid,’ Shelby said as the Shroud’s engines roared.
Up in the cockpit Nero watched the navigation display nervously as it showed their range from Drake’s base.
‘Three kilometres out and counting,’ he said.
‘We’re red-lined,’ the pilot reported, holding the control stick tightly as the Shroud’s engines reached their maximum output.
‘Five kilometres.’
The engines screamed, the airframe groaning in protest at being pushed to its structural limits.
‘Six kilometres,’ Nero said, bracing himself against the bulkhead.
‘Coming up on minimum safe distance,’ the Professor reported from behind him.
Suddenly the cockpit lit up like it was daytime with a searing bright double flash.
‘Brace for impact,’ the Professor yelled.
Moments later the shock wave hit and the pilot fought desperately with the controls, trying to keep the bucking dropship in the air. After a few seconds the wave had passed, the turbulence stopped and the pilot brought the Shroud back under control.
‘I think I’d describe that as uncomfortably close,’ the Professor said.
‘And I think I might describe that as an understatement,’ Nero said, letting out a long deep breath.
Nero climbed down the ladder into the cargo area. Between Francisco’s men and the original crew of the Dreadnought that were squeezed on board there was little room to move. He made his way through the crowded passenger compartment until he found the Colonel, who was checking on one of his injured men.
‘How are our losses?’ Nero asked.
‘It could have been worse,’ Francisco replied, ‘a lot worse.’ He nodded his head towards Laura, who was sitting with her eyes closed and the back of her head resting against the wall between Shelby and Lucy.
‘Ladies,’ Dr Nero said as he approached and Laura’s eyes flicked open, ‘I’m glad to see that you’re all safe. When I learnt of your capture by Jason Drake I feared the worst. Mercifully my fears were unfounded. Miss Brand, you averted potential disaster. You have my thanks – you saved us all.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Laura said. ‘Are Otto and Wing safe?’
‘As far as we know they’re alive,’ Nero replied with a slight frown, ‘but I think it might be a little optimistic to say that they’re safe. They’re on board the Dreadnought.’
‘What?’ Shelby asked. ‘How were they captured?’
‘Oh, they weren’t captured,’ Nero replied. ‘In fact, I believe it would be more accurate to say that they stowed away.’
Otto and Wing slowly and carefully made their way down the external walkway running along the starboard side of the Dreadnought, the wind constantly threatening to pluck them from the precarious platform as the giant aircraft climbed higher and higher into the sky. It was pointless trying to talk; the howling gale would have made them inaudible to each other. Worse than that, at this altitude the air was already starting to get thinner and it was bitterly cold. Otto knew that they had to get inside soon, before they started to suffer from oxygen deprivation or exposure. He stopped for a moment and pointed ahead of them to a hatch at the far end of the walkway. Wing nodded and they continued edging painstakingly towards the entrance.
As they reached the hatch there was a bright double flash that illuminated the Dreadnought’s superstructure like daylight. At first Otto thought it was lightning, but then Wing tugged on his arm and Otto turned around. Many kilometres behind them a giant fireball was rising from the desert floor, creating a distinctive mushroom-shaped cloud. It was beautiful and terrifying all at the same time. There could be little doubt that it had come from the location of Drake’s secret facility and Otto silently prayed that the others were safe. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind, and turned back to focus on the locking mechanism of the hatch. Compared to some of the other machines that he’d had to interface with over the past couple of days, this one was comparatively straightforward. All he had to do was convince it that it really, really wanted to be unlocked right now. A moment later a green light came on above the door and it slid open. Otto pulled himself inside and then helped Wing through before hitting the switch inside to reseal the hatch. They found themselves in a dimly illuminated steel-lined corridor.
‘Come on,’ Otto said, ‘we need to find somewhere to hole up. You can bet that hatch opening has just set all sorts of alarms buzzing up on the bridge. We’re going to have company any minute now.’
They both crept away down the corridor, hoping to find somewhere they could lie low for a while. Nigel was somewhere on board this thing and there would be nothing they could do to help him if they were locked up in a holding cell somewhere.
The flash lit up the bridge for an instant.
‘Confirming detonation of self-destruct device,’ one of the bridge officers reported to Drake.
‘Excellent,’ Drake said with a smile. That was another loose end taken care of. After they had completed their mission there would be no need for somewhere to hide the Dreadnought.
‘I’ve got a couple of odd readings here,’ the security chief said, looking at the screen in front of him with a frown. ‘One of the external hatches just opened for a few seconds. Probably a glitch, but I’m going to send a team to investigate anyway. The other thing is a pressure leak on one of the engineering decks. It could be another error or it could just be some minor damage to the hull that we picked up during the battle in the hangar. I’ll get engineering to send someone down there just in case.’
‘Very well,’ Drake replied. ‘Keep me updated.’ He was not entirely surprised that the Dreadnought was experiencing the occasional glitch; they had, after all, carried out some fairly major modifications over the past couple of days. ‘I’m going to my quarters for a short while,’ he said, standing up from his command seat. ‘Inform me immediately if you encounter any further problems.’
Drake walked off the bridge and down the short corridor that led to his private quarters. A tiny retinal scanner above the door flashed as it confirmed his identity. Once inside, he sat down at his desk. Drake had ordered that Darkdoom’s possessions be destroyed and replaced with his own. Now that Number One was gone, this was his ship and he didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that any other man had commanded it, even if it had only been for a short time.
There was a beep from the console on Drake’s desk and he pressed a button to respond.
‘Yes, what is it?’ he asked impatiently.
‘We have a transmission coming in on your secured channel, sir. Would you like to receive it?’
Drake sighed. He had been expecting this. Better to
get it out of the way now.
‘Put it through,’ he replied and leant back in his chair. The large widescreen display on his desk split into three sections and in each appeared the distorted face of one of the three Disciples.
‘Good evening,’ Drake said cordially, ‘what can I do for you all?’
‘You can begin by explaining why there has just been a thermonuclear explosion at your facility in Nevada,’ the woman on the left-hand side snapped.
‘G.L.O.V.E. forces attacked the facility,’ Drake replied. ‘I took the decision to ensure that they would never be able to retrieve anything of use from the site.’
‘A somewhat extreme solution to the problem,’ the man on the right said. ‘The Americans are going frantic. The public are being told that it was an unscheduled nuclear test and that it’s nothing to worry about. At least the location of your base allows them to use that as a plausible cover story, but behind the scenes the security forces are on high alert.’
‘Not only that, but you know how jumpy unscheduled nuclear tests make the Russians and Chinese. It has made an already complex situation even more difficult,’ the other man explained.
‘I think we should all maintain a sense of perspective,’ Drake said. ‘In a few hours it won’t matter what the Americans are doing and our friends in Russia and China will have far bigger problems to contend with.’
‘The target has not diverted?’ the woman asked.
‘No, why would it?’ Drake replied. ‘If anything it will mean that the target is viable for longer if a state of emergency has been quietly declared by the US intelligence services.’
‘Even so,’ the man in the centre said, ‘I think we would all rather any unscheduled improvisation be kept to a minimum for the rest of the day.’
‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs,’ Drake said with a smile.
‘I would hardly classify a one-megaton nuclear detonation as a broken egg, Mr Drake,’ the woman replied.
‘I’ll contact you when the target has been intercepted,’ Drake said impatiently. ‘Drake out.’
He hit the button on the console and settled back in his seat, frowning. He was beginning to wonder if the Disciples were as far-sighted as he was. They seemed to have embraced his plan but he didn’t know if they would have the nerve to carry through with what had to be done. Did he really need them once the plan was in motion? After all, one could not rule the world by committee.
Otto and Wing crouched at the back of the power-distribution junction, hiding behind one of the humming transformers that filled the room, barely daring to breathe as the guard swept the beam of his torch back and forth. Seemingly satisfied, he closed the door again, plunging the room back into barely illuminated gloom, just a single dim light in the centre of the ceiling still burning.
‘I’m getting really sick of sneaking around,’ Otto said, leaning back against the wall.
‘Perhaps we should just go and ask Mr Drake if he is prepared to hand Nigel and his father over to us,’ Wing said, raising an eyebrow. ‘He seems such a reasonable man.’
‘You do know that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, right?’ Otto asked with a smile.
‘I thought it was funny pictures of kittens from the internet,’ Wing said with a straight face.
‘OK, that’s the lowest form of wit but just above that is sarcasm,’ Otto replied. ‘Now perhaps we should concentrate on finding Nigel.’
‘Indeed,’ Wing said with a nod. ‘Can you detect anything from the Dreadnought’s network?’
‘No, I need to get nearer to an access point. I can feel the control sub-systems all around us but there’s no way into the central network from here.’
‘So where do we find such an access point?’ Wing asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Otto said, thinking back to the limited tour that Darkdoom had given them of the Dreadnought just a couple of days earlier. It already seemed like weeks ago. ‘I suppose the best bet is to head towards the bridge, but that’s going to be the most secure location on the ship. It won’t be easy.’
‘When is it ever?’ Wing asked with a tiny smile.
‘I know,’ Otto replied, ‘but just once it might be nice, you know.’
The technician headed towards the area of the engineering deck where the bridge had recorded a pressure drop. The pressure doors at the end of the passageway, where the leak was located, had sealed shut automatically, just as they were supposed to do. It looked like it was more than just a glitch after all. He sighed and slipped on the oxygen mask attached to the tank on his back before punching the override code into the pad on the wall to open the hatch. As soon as the door opened, air rushed in, trying to escape from the pressurised interior to the outside. He clipped his safety line on to the bracket next to the door and headed inside.
‘Jeez,’ the man whispered into his mask as he saw the true extent of the damage to the outer hull. He’d been expecting a bullet hole maybe, or a small shrapnel puncture, but this was a neat, almost circular hole about half a metre in diameter. It looked for all the world like something had sliced through the hull, but the edges weren’t molten as he would have expected with someone using a cutting torch; they were smooth.
The man gasped as an arm wrapped around his neck from behind, pressing against his windpipe, making it difficult for him to breathe. He felt something hard and sharp press into his side and immediately scrapped any idea he might have had of offering resistance to whoever had hold of him. His assailant turned him back towards the door and he dutifully opened it. As soon as they passed through the door he was pushed forward and he fell on to all fours, rolling on to his back and scrambling away backwards as his attacker hit the button to reseal the pressure hatch. He gasped as the woman stepped forward into the light. She took a long deep breath and looked down at him.
‘Not much oxygen up here,’ she said, her Russian accent unmistakable. ‘Haven’t had to do that for a while.’
She stepped towards him, sliding the sword with the strangely glowing blade that she’d been holding against his ribs back into one of the crossed scabbards on her back.
‘I’m sorry, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Raven,’ she said. ‘You’ve probably heard stories about me. Let me assure you that most of them are true.’ She took a single step towards him, a terrifying predatory smile on her face. ‘Now, tell me where I can find Darkdoom and his son or I’ll have to prove it to you.’
Otto crept down the corridor behind Wing. They were getting nearer to the bridge now and still he couldn’t sense the Dreadnought’s central network. It was strange, because when Darkdoom had been showing them around the ship, Otto had been able to feel the low-level buzz of the computer core that controlled the giant vessel from much further away.
‘Anything?’ Wing whispered, listening for the sound of anyone approaching their position.
‘No and I don’t understand why not,’ Otto said. It was almost like there was a dead spot where the data stream should be, like a living healthy body with no heartbeat. It made no sense. He suddenly remembered the last time he’d felt anything like that. He’d been on an automated train speeding through the Alps that had been equipped with a new system, an organic supercomputer that had been immune to his control.
‘Wait!’ Otto whispered urgently and looked up at the corridor ceiling. ‘Give me a leg up.’
Wing moved over to Otto and crouched down, lacing his fingers. Otto put one foot in his friend’s hands and Wing lifted him up towards the ceiling. He pulled a panel off the cable trunking that ran along the top of the wall and looked inside. There, interwoven with the normal cabling, was a slimy black web that looked for all the world like the veins of some hideous creature’s circulatory system. Otto went to touch one of the tendrils, but before he could the tendril whipped out towards his outstretched finger. Otto recoiled, snatching his hand back before the thing could touch him, and leapt down to the floor again. The tendril that had reached for Otto snaked back ins
ide the thick bunches of normal cabling that ran through the trunking.
Otto’s mind raced. When they’d first encountered this stuff it had been inert, not capable of moving in the way it just had. This was an evolution of that technology but, even more worryingly, it meant that Drake must be somehow involved in its development.
‘What is it?’ Wing said, noting Otto’s shocked expression.
‘Something really bad,’ Otto said. ‘I’ll explain later. Forget the access points. We just need to find Darkdoom and Nigel and get off this ship.’
‘Report!’ Drake ordered as he walked back on to the bridge.
‘Target is 1.5 kilometres out, sir,’ the tactical officer reported.
‘And they have no idea we’re here?’ Drake asked.
‘No, sir,’ the man replied. ‘Cloaking systems are functioning perfectly. There is no indication they have detected us. The escorts are still in formation.’
‘Communications jamming?’
‘Ready, sir,’ a woman sat at another station reported.
‘Weapons?’
‘Locked and tracking, sir!’
‘Very good,’ Drake said with a smile. ‘Let us begin.’
Colonel Matthew Woods was a thirty-year man – thirty years service in the United States Air Force – and he knew that, like the type of plane he currently flew, he was nearing the end of his working life. He couldn’t complain; he’d had as good a career as an air force pilot could hope for and the job didn’t get much more glamorous than the seat he was currently sitting in. He couldn’t honestly say it was exciting work, but it was certainly satisfying.
‘What the hell is that?’ his co-pilot said and Woods looked up from the flight plan he’d been studying. He had more flight time logged than almost any other pilot he knew but he’d never seen anything like this before. Ahead of them a boiling black storm front was blossoming into existence out of thin air. It was exactly the type of cloud that no pilot in his right mind would ever dream of trying to fly through.
‘Where the hell did that come from?’ Woods asked. They’d have to go around it; there was certainly no way through it. He pushed at his flight controls and the giant aircraft slowly banked to the left. As it turned, the storm clouds seemed to spread across the sky, blocking their path. It was uncanny.
