by John McNally
Finn dragged himself up.
He took in the massive, writhing Scarlatti as Delta dumped the last of her explosives into the nest beyond, illuminating the twitching devil’s dark profile. Kelly’s head and shoulders were clear, but the rest of him was trapped beneath it.
There was a grenade in the dirt just beyond Kelly’s reach. Finn could run in. He could reach it. But he’d be in range of the tail.
He had to decide what to do. But, before he got the chance, the Alpha Scarlatti flicked its evil tri-stinged tail one last time, whipping it past his face, missing it by centimetres.
The Scarlatti’s movement suddenly set Kelly free. He twisted. Snapped up the grenade. Pulled the pin and punched it – right up to his elbow – into an open wound in the beast’s abdomen. It writhed and shot out its stings.
Kelly hopped clear and jumped on top of Finn, flattening him completely. A tonne weight forcing Finn down into the dirt, and then –
BOOM!
Finn felt it like a thump in his chest. Kelly rolled off him. They both looked over.
The Alpha Scarlatti was blown clear of them. In three distinct gooey parts.
And it was gone.
The ordeal was over.
The badger was a burning pyre.
And then, from above the flames…
WwkzzkzkwkwkwkzzzWWKWZZZWZWZWWKZWZWKZWZWKKZ
TWENTY-ONE
DAY TWO 17:42 (BST). Siberia
Kaparis’s eyes flashed and skittered over the optics around his head as he tried to make sense of the destruction and action playing out on the screens. The limited resolution on the Willard’s Copse camera meant it was difficult in real time, but there seemed to be little doubt that the nano-team were causing considerable destruction.
Heywood and the two other staff members stood frozen in fear. Kaparis rarely lost control, but when he did…
His heart rate rose further. Heywood adjusted the iron lung to take deeper, faster breaths, as Kaparis fought to remain calm and reason through events.
The nano-team had clearly escaped the crash and pursued their objective, unbeknown to the authorities.
To maintain the credibility of the threat the remaining Scarlatti or nymphs must be preserved.
If the nano-team completed their mission then they must be caught and destroyed before they could communicate as much.
“How many Tyros do we still have in the UK?” he asked.
“Only Kane, sir.”
“Get him. Now.”
* * *
“Bombs away, run good,” shouted Stubbs.
Delta banked sharply at the end of her third run, the Apache hugely more manoeuvrable after shedding so much weight. Her heart was pounding. No matter how many times you did it, firing ordnance was incurably exciting – and now the craft was so light it felt part of her, like a running girl.
“Final pick-up,” said Stubbs.
“Check.”
She tipped the stick forward and hammered the thrust to rush back through the wood to the smouldering target.
Then beneath them they saw it.
The Beta.
Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill…
An attack on the swarm.
Every fight receptor in the Beta’s brain was on fire. Every cell in its body was hyper-sensed. Every muscle, every sinew, every nerve was geared to kill to protect the few young now wriggling and scattering across the earth and undergrowth.
The smoke confused it. A bullet punched and confused and angered it. Another.
Then it saw the Queen. Dead. Dead… And it saw and smelt them.
Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill…
Finn and Kelly lay in the dirt with a single Magnum 9mm handgun, surrounded by abandoned guns and spent shell cases.
The Beta curled into a death-dive, poised to strike. Delta gave everything she had to the 30mm chain gun slung beneath her nose cone.
DRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRT!
The shells split the air, ripped off two of the diving Beta’s legs and tore a flesh wound in its abdomen. The pain and impact forced it into a reflexive wheel for cover, for safety, and to get an angle on whatever was attacking it.
“We don’t have enough fuel for this,” concluded Stubbs as Delta threw the chopper back round the target area in a tight arc to max the distance between them and the wheeling Scarlatti.
“You want to leave them to that thing?”
“I’m simply providing ‘real-time updates’,” Stubbs replied, using bunny fingers to illustrate his quote marks. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Finn and Kelly ran for the cover of the ivy, unsure if Delta had seen them or if she was simply trying to take the Beta out.
They were joining a nano-scale exodus of ants, earwigs, woodlice, assorted forest-litter bugs and even earthworms, all fleeing the smoke and fire.
BANG! BANG! Kelly blasted escaping Scarlatti nymphs with his sidearm as they went.
The nymphs were heading for the ring of slain birds and mammals around the burning badger. One was crawling over the head of a dead crow trying to burrow frantically under the feathers. One nest was becoming five.
There were never going to be enough bullets. But if they could slay the Beta Scarlatti, the grubs would be starved of growth hormone and that would kill them all.
The Beta fizzed with anger, unable to locate its airborne foe, but fixing again on the scent of its tormentors.
Kill…
Wwkzzkzkwkwkwkzzzwkzzkzkwkwkwkzzzwkwkkkwkkwkwkwkw!
“It’s coming back!” said Finn.
Kelly grabbed him, looked him square in the eye, intense, like the son he never had.
“Listen to me now, Finn. Don’t look back, whatever you do, don’t look back. Now – RUN! RUN!”
Finn ran… Finn looked back.
Kelly took out two grenades. Three.
Kelly stood and waved like crazy at the Scarlatti.
“BRING IT ON!” he roared at the beast.
Finn realised Kelly was going to sacrifice himself… that he was inviting death.
Kelly looked back. “RUN, I SAID!” he yelled, levelling the Magnum at Finn. “I fire at him or at you!”
Wwkzzkzkwkwkwkzzzwkzzkzkwkwkwkzzzwkzzkzkwkwkwkzzz
Finn turned on his heel and started to run again as the Beta again went into a death-dive.
Aiming directly at Kelly.
“Come on then!” shouted Kelly at the diving beast above, offering himself as a sitting target and blasting away with the Magnum. Pulling the pins on the grenades. One. Two. Three…
But Finn could not run and let Kelly die. This was the only thing he knew. Nothing else.
The Scarlatti twisted in its dive, veering away from Kelly and heading towards…
“FINN!” Kelly shouted.
Oh crap. It’s me, thought Finn as the Scarlatti sped towards him. He was caught. Stuck. Helpless before death again. The awfulness and the inevitability. The weakness. Time seemed to slow. Would he get some kind of answer when it hit him? Would he get it in the moment of death? Answer to what? He was as confused as he was weak as he was helpless. It was exactly how it was the morning his mum died.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Three grenades burst in the air just before the Scarlatti struck home.
The beast and Finn were both knocked sideways. The beast ploughed into the dirt
, grenade shrapnel burning, stuck fast in its armoured thorax. Stunned.
Finn opened his eyes. The face of death was over him. Upon him. It twitched as it came to… opened its great mouthparts and dropped its fat tongue down to taste him. Then buzzed furiously to life – WKWKWKWWKZZZWZKWZKZKKZKZ! Rising and flicking its tail round at once to…
DRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDR!
The Apache’s chain gun spun, spitting fire, centimetres above Finn’s head, blasting away the Beta, paying out spent cartridges like a slot-machine jackpot, the downdraught beating Finn against the earth.
The Beta Scarlatti took the full force of the 30mm rounds against its thorax, and again, while they did not penetrate its exoskeleton, they blew it into an instant retreat.
The Apache door opened. Stubbs reached down. Finn reached up.
He was back.
“Kelly!”
Delta hopped the aircraft the few nano-metres over to Kelly who was scrambling up, just as the Beta screamed towards them from the chain gun’s blind side. Skimming the undergrowth on a collision course.
WWKWZZZWZWZWWKZWZWKZWWZZZWZWZWWKZWZWKZWZWKKZ!
Kelly grabbed hold of the hardpoint weapons mount braced to the fuselage and screamed, “GO!”
Delta hauled on the stick, spinning and rising and firing all at the same time, corkscrewing the hell out of the nest area, heading for the tree canopy.
Kelly held on for dear life, gravity and centrifugal force trying to tear him away.
Bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip… sounded the fuel alarm as Delta ascended.
“Fuel alarm,” Stubbs deadpanned.
Delta levelled out. From right beneath her the Beta came.
She put the aircraft into a dead drop, trying to lose the beast – but not shake off Kelly – and at the same time get a fatal shot off at the Scarlatti with either the Stingers or the chain gun.
She had to get behind it. The Scarlatti jackknifed and dived down with her, down through the wood, banking past the smouldering nest site, skimming the ivy and underbrush, centimetres behind.
Bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip. The fuel alarm echoed the stress within – and without: Kelly was slipping.
“We’re losing Kelly…” said Finn.
“We’re losing power…” said Stubbs.
“Shut up,” said Delta and banked hard left and along the course of the stream, inky black in the growing dusk. “Tell him to drop when I hit the brakes!” she said and slammed the aircraft into almost a dead halt. They watched the Scarlatti slingshot by and try to turn.
Finn leant out of the chopper as far as he dared. “Drop, Kelly! Drop!” he yelled.
Kelly let go of the hardpoint. He seemed to Finn to hang in mid-air an age… then SPLASH! hit the water from twelve nano-metres.
Delta was at last behind the Scarlatti.
DRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRT!
Bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip
DRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRTDRT!
Bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip
“Low on ammo. Low on fuel,” said Stubbs as Delta again hauled the Apache round in a tight circle to take the dogfight downstream.
“Grab that M27!” she yelled. “Get off some lateral shots!”
Before Stubbs could move, Finn grabbed it.
The flank of the Scarlatti briefly appeared through the open door and Finn let rip –
DRRRRRRT! DRRRRRT!
“Hold on!” said Delta and threw a corkscrew, turning them upside down at the equivalent of 120mph along the course of the stream, then pulling hard on the stick to end up directly behind the confused Scarlatti, like a World War Two ace.
Bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip
There it was, the softest part of its abdomen, right in the crosshairs of the chain gun…
They had followed the course of the stream out of the woods now.
Delta hit the button.
DRRRR— The Beta veered away at the sound alone. Clickclickclickclickclickclickbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep…
“Out of ammo. Out of fuel.”
“I know!” shouted Delta as the engine died. The rotors were still whizzing, they could glide to the bank… but where was the Beta?
In the sudden silence they heard the roar of a patrolling macro-aircraft overhead and their radio finally crackled to life.
“Come in, Messi, come in, Messi? This is Ronaldo, repeat, this is Ronaldo. Over,” said an RAF voice.
Stubbs grabbed the mike. Too late.
The Beta Scarlatti sensed their weakness. With a burst of energy, it thrust down at them, stings first – SMACK! – into the rotors of the gliding Apache. The rotor blades sheared from the aircraft and the Scarlatti was flung against the bank.
SPLASHSHSHHSHHHWCKDHDSHSHH! The Apache spluttered into the water upside down, the rotor scything off alone downstream while the rest of the craft tumbled head over heels into a floating bed of weeds, the force of which caused them to detach from the bank and drift into the fast water.
Finn – thrown clear of the cabin – found himself losing consciousness as he was assaulted by water on all sides, water trying to crush him and wrench him and spin him all at once. A memory of being in the flume ride with Grandma and Al flashed to mind, before more water tried to force its way into his lungs as the current sucked him under and kept him there, his every instinct and nerve ending screaming FIGHT as he struck out at the water, trying to reach the light…
…as a shadow arrived… and hovered over him… waiting…
…Kill…
TWENTY-TWO
DAY TWO 17:54 (BST). Hook Hall, Surrey
The tiny, blurred movement of a white line on a screen.
First it moved this way, then it moved that.
Keep going, thought Al. It had been his internal mantra since the Cooper-Hastings video had come through and, whenever he slowed down, whenever he doubted, whenever things seemed hopeless… Just keep going (and stay one step ahead of your worst fears).
For nearly two hours they’d been clutching at straws. The white line was just the latest. Al had split the scientists and technicians into small groups and told them to think “outside the box”.
Could there be any clues in the reflections in Cooper-Hastings’ eyes? (No, the resolution was too poor.) Could there be a coded message in Cooper-Hastings’ mannerisms and speech patterns? (None could be detected.)
The only hint of a lead they had was that analysis of the brief ‘nest site’ clip had suggested a background plant distribution more likely associated with the loamy soil found to the southwest of the search area, thus search aircraft were patrolling the quadrant more heavily.
It was barely scientific, but it was a straw, and Al made damn sure they clutched at it.
Other teams sought to track the source of the video, examining any trace of the digital pathway. And one group had been studying
blow-ups of various background details in the main part of the video.
And it was this group who had spotted the blurred white line. Who had spotted – movement.
“…pack the Cambridge Fat Doughnut Accelerator into two shipping containers and have them placed freestanding on the deck of the container ship Oceania Express… steam along the Great Eastern sea lane, there to await further instruction…”
First the white line moved this way, then it moved that.
“Run it again,” said Al.
At the opposite end of the gallery, Commander King was attempting to keep order among a collection of seriously rattled global heavyweights.
The 18:00 deadline was about to pass, and everyone wanted answers. He felt like a holiday rep trying to explain to a group of disappointed tourists why their flight had been delayed. He did not know how or why. They knew he did not know how or why. They just needed to let off steam. And in the meantime he must maintain perfect calm and remain courteous in order to preserve the only sensible strategy: “To keep as many options open as we can, for as long as we can.”
“But we’re going to have to meet their demands, surely?” said the British Prime Minister.
“It’s got to be preferable to a nuclear strike,” said the US President.
“No Scarlatti, then no more threat,” agreed the German Chancellor.
“Hand it all over,” ordered the US General Jackman. “Then you can just worry about how you chase the bastards down.”
“I must say I have to agree,” said the UK’s own General Mount. “Even the Royal Navy can’t lose 110,000 tonnes of cargo ship in the North Sea.”
“Just give everything away?” asked King. “Just allow ourselves to be blackmailed?”
“Sometimes you have to trade with the horse,” said the French President.
