by Greg Cox
Red envied the gunner. He wanted a gun like that.
The rising sun did little to alleviate the biting cold and wind. Swirling snow fell on humans and apes alike. Nearby, more soldiers launched another round of missiles at the attacking army from the north. The missiles struck a pair of large mobile rocket launchers at the head of the convoy, blowing the armored vehicles to pieces. Smoking debris scattered across the icy approach to the camp.
Raucous cheers greeted the direct hits. Soldiers high-fived each other, convinced that the tide of battle had turned in their favor. Red hoped they were right about that, despite what Caesar had said before.
The other humans are not my allies, Red thought. And neither are the apes.
Then the gunner beside Red spotted something below. His jaw dropped and his piggish human eyes bugged out beneath his ugly flat brow. Recovering from his shock, at least to a degree, he hollered at the other humans.
“LOOK! THE APES!”
Red looked too. To his amazement, a horde of apes could be seen scrambling out from behind a sizable outcropping of rock beyond the wall. Caught between the camp and the northern army, the apes were obviously making a dash for freedom after somehow escaping from the pen, trying to cross a flat stretch of frozen terrain toward the foothills to one side of the camp. Red blinked in confusion: how and when had the apes gotten free from their chains?
“Uh-uh,” the gunner muttered. “No way.”
He rotated his heavy machine gun toward the apes and opened fire.
* * *
High up in the watchtower, Caesar was about to climb out the window when he saw the apes taking heavy fire from the soldiers on the wall. From his elevated vantage point, he watched in horror, desperate for a way to keep his people from being slaughtered.
I have to do something, but what?
He scanned the camp below, searching for a strategy, and his eyes locked on the tanker cars lined up on the old railway tracks stretching all the way from the foot of the wall to the depot at the rear of the canyon. Tankers filled with hundreds of gallons of fuel…
An idea occurred to him and he rushed back into the Colonel’s trashed command center. Fists pounded furiously on the other side of the barricaded door; the Colonel’s officers had finally managed to break through the locked door below and make it up the stairs.
“Colonel!” a man shouted through the door. “Are you in there? Colonel!”
They were calling out to a dead man, but Caesar didn’t care to inform them of that; they could find their leader’s corpse on their own. Instead he snatched a bandolier of grenades off the cluttered table, even as the human soldiers smashed through the crudely constructed barricade. The piled furniture tumbled and skidded across the floor. Swearing profanely, the officers caught sight of Caesar and went for their weapons. Rifles and pistols swung toward the chimpanzee, and bullets slammed into the walls as Caesar leapt through the open window onto the ledge outside, where he barely noticed the brisk morning air in his haste to get away from the watchtower and save his people. He could hear the machine gun on the wall firing, cutting down the other apes.
No! he thought furiously. No more dead apes!
The desecrated state flag flapped in the wind below him; a stray spark or shot had set the banner afire, so that it was burning like a torch. Swinging down from the ledge, Caesar grabbed onto the flagpole, which only barely supported his weight, breaking his fall. The end of the pole tore loose from its moorings, but Caesar held onto it for dear life, riding it down toward the ground before letting go and tumbling onto the snowy floor of the canyon.
The rough landing knocked the breath from him, but he sprang to his feet immediately and took off across the yard, still clutching the grenade-laden bandolier, as the enraged officers fired on him from the tower window. Bullets slammed into the ground behind him, tearing up the ice and snow.
The Colonel was gone, but Caesar’s people were still in danger.
Keep my son safe, he silently pleaded with Lake and the universe. While I take the war to these humans.
* * *
Hundreds of apes were pinned down behind the outcropping, driven back from the hills by the machine-gun fire from the wall. Not for the first time, Rocket wished that they could have made their escape under the cover of dark and before the other humans had arrived with their army. He fired back at the wall with Boyle’s rifle, hoping to provide cover for the other apes, some of whom were still emerging from the tunnels to discover that there was nowhere to go.
Simian bodies, cut down by the humans’ guns, littered the icy flats between the outcropping and the foothills. According to Bad Ape, Maurice and most of the children had managed to make it up into the mountains at least, but the rest of them were trapped here behind the rocks. The wooded hills called out to Rocket, but how could they cross the exposed flats without being gunned down?
If only Caesar were here, he thought. Caesar would have a plan…
* * *
A hail of bullets assaulted the machine-gun station on the wall, forcing the gunner to duck down behind his weapon as bullets tore into the wooden timbers and concrete around him. He swore obscenely before shouting at the other soldiers. His hairless pink face flushed with anger.
“Kill them, man! Kill them all!”
Keeping back, out of the line of fire, Red realized that the apes were fighting back. He wondered briefly how they had managed to get their hands on an automatic rifle before deciding it didn’t matter. He flinched at the unbridled bloodlust in the gunner’s voice. He was talking about killing those other apes, right?
The sight of the besieged apes coming under fire bothered Red more than he thought it should. He had no love for Caesar’s people, who had chosen Caesar over Koba, making Red and his comrades into outcasts, but Red couldn’t help recalling that Koba had always fought to protect apes from humans, not the other way around. Guilt pricked Red’s conscience.
I have no choice, he thought. None.
But what would Koba do?
“Donkey! DONKEY!” the gunner bellowed at Red, jolting the gorilla from his bitter musings. Spittle flew from the soldier’s ugly human lips. “Get the grenade launcher!”
Flustered, Red shrugged off his rucksack and turned to retrieve the launcher from the pack. As he fished out the weapon, he was startled by what he saw down in the camp far below.
Caesar was racing on all fours across the prison yard. A mortar shell, arcing over the wall, hit the ground and exploded in his path, but the chimpanzee kept on going. Darting hard around the empty ape pen, he charged fearlessly through the billowing smoke. Red watched spellbound despite himself as Caesar rushed toward a large tanker car sitting at the base of the wall. The gorilla’s eyes widened as he spotted the bandolier of grenades Caesar had with him. The chimp was less than thirty feet from the tanker, and closing, when he plucked a grenade from the belt and reared back to throw it. Caesar reached for the pin on the grenade, but his face contorted in agony and he collapsed, clutching his side…
Blood leaked from a wound in his abdomen, staining the snow red. He’d lost his grip on the grenade, which had landed harmlessly amidst the debris a few feet away. Reaching back behind him, Caesar discovered a crossbow bolt in his back.
Red could guess where the bolt had come from.
Preacher stalked through the smoke and snow, emerging from the empty ape pen. The soldier hesitated briefly, as though reluctant to finish off his foe, before loading another bolt into the crossbow. He advanced slowly toward Caesar, who gasped in pain as he snapped off the steel shaft piercing his body, leaving the point embedded in his flesh. Grimacing, the wounded ape turned to see Preacher approach him, ready to loose another bolt from his weapon.
Red couldn’t look away. “Goddamn it!” the gunner screamed at him. “You stupid donkey! Where’s my launcher?!”
Red stared down at the grenade launcher in his hands. Turning back, he saw that the irate human was still firing relentlessly at the apes pinned down
outside the camp. The M2 machine gun chewed up ammo, spitting it out at the apes, who would stand no chance once the gunner got his hands on the launcher. Images of apes blown apart by the grenades filled Red’s mind.
What would Koba do?
What would Caesar do?
38
Pain stabbed Caesar with every movement, every breath, but even worse was the knowledge that he had come so close to freeing his people, only to be brought down by a human whose life he had once spared.
Lying in the snow, his hot blood draining from him, Caesar saw Preacher drawing nearer to him, brandishing a freshly loaded crossbow. The injured ape glanced about desperately, searching for a viable avenue of escape, but there was nowhere to go. The grenades rested nearby, but not so close that Caesar could grab one before the human squeezed the trigger on his crossbow. Caesar could not help but note the irony that it would be Preacher of all people, not the Colonel, not Red, who ultimately ended him.
I had my killer at my mercy once, and I didn’t even know it.
Preacher halted several feet away from Caesar. He peered unhappily at his victim, clearly conflicted, before raising the crossbow and taking aim at Caesar’s heart. Caesar braced himself for the fatal shot, regretting that he could not try to save his people one last time. It was up to Rocket and Maurice and the other apes now.
Goodbye, Cornelius, my son. I pray I will not see you soon.
Prepared to face his death head-on, Caesar stared back at Preacher. Then a deafening blast stunned him, sending him tumbling into the snow. Preacher vanished in a heartbeat, blown to pieces before Caesar’s eyes, leaving nothing behind but charred, unrecognizable fragments and a blackened crater.
Dazed, his ears ringing from the blast, Caesar blinked in surprise. It had happened so fast that it took him another second to realize that he was still alive and that Preacher was… gone.
He looked around in confusion and saw Red high on the wall, holding a smoking grenade launcher. The renegade gorilla gazed stoically down at Caesar, who could not believe his eyes.
Red? Red saved me?
The gorilla stood calmly on the wall, cradling the weapon, looking more at peace than Caesar had ever seen him before. For a second, he reminded Caesar of the loyal ape he had known years ago, before Red had thrown in with Koba and turned against Caesar and the other apes. Before he had sided with the humans against his own kind.
The gunner behind Red was notably less serene. With his ears still ringing from the explosion, Caesar could not hear what the soldier was screaming at Red, but the furious human was obviously shocked and outraged by what the gorilla had just done. Drawing his sidearm, he pointed the pistol at Red, who made no effort to escape his fate or to even look at the man about to execute him. He merely gazed down at Caesar—until the flash of a muzzle signaled his end.
The ape’s massive form crumpled.
Caesar’s back still bore the scars of Red’s whip, but nonetheless he regretted the other ape’s sacrifice. Red had to have known what would happen to him if he fired on Preacher, but he had done so anyway, trading his life for Caesar’s when it mattered most.
Then the soldier who had killed Red swung his gun toward Caesar. Reacting quickly, the ape snatched the fallen grenade from the snow and sprang to his feet, despite the sharp pain caused by the sudden motion. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the pin and hurled it straight at the fuel-filled tanker beneath the wall.
The gunner watched in horror as the grenade arced toward the tank car, even as Caesar spun around and sprinted away from the tanker as fast as he could.
The entire tanker erupted like a gigantic fire bomb. Towering flames engulfed an entire section of the wall, consuming all the gunners in an enormous blast that dwarfed the one that had killed Preacher. The din from the explosion drowned out the world, including Caesar’s own pounding heartbeat. Billowing black smoke, reeking of burning fuel, rose like a malignant cloud toward the sky. Blasted wooden logs, boulders, and slabs of pulverized concrete broke away from the wall, crashing down into the blazing wreckage where the tanker had been. The roar of the flames challenged the din of war.
Caesar felt the heat of the fire at his back as he raced into the adult pen, clutching his wounded side. Blood seeped through his fingers, but he knew he couldn’t slow down. If everything went according to his plan, the tanker explosion was just the beginning.
Any moment now…
As he hoped, the tanker next to the flames exploded, too. An equally titanic explosion rocked the camp, sending up sky-high flames and smoke and shattering whatever windows remained in the barracks, as Caesar sprinted toward the tunnel entrance in the middle of the pen.
A third tanker ignited, adding to the conflagration, as a chain reaction set off one car after another, blasting the camp apart. Caesar tumbled into the tunnel, half-propelled by the shock waves ripping across the camp as the chain of explosions headed down the tracks, toward the depot at the base of the mountain. He tumbled into the tunnel right before a cataclysmic explosion destroyed the wall, the camp, and everything above him.
Rolling onto his feet and hands, he raced through the crumbling tunnels, which were already collapsing around him. Dirt and ice rained down, threatening to bury him alive. His feet and knuckles splashed through muddy puddles. Caesar had never navigated these tunnels before, let alone in the dark, so he gasped in relief as he spied a shaft of daylight shining down from the surface. Falling snow danced in the light as he rushed toward it and leapt for the ladder, scrambling up it only a few paces ahead of a wave of mud and dirt and broken timbers that came whooshing up the shaft after him, propelling him up and out of the pit as though he had been launched from a cannon.
He landed flat on his stomach on the icy plain above the tunnel, the impact triggering a stab of agony so intense that he had to catch his breath. Gasping and panting, he let the pain subside a little before lifting his head to see dozens of hairy simian feet pointing away from him. The feet belonged to a throng of apes whose backs were all turned to him. Rising painfully to his feet, he found his people staring out beyond the huge outcropping in awe. The air stank of smoke and burning fuel.
How much damage did I do?
Unable to see past the transfixed horde, Caesar dragged himself higher onto the rocks and was stunned by what he beheld. The escalating explosions had utterly destroyed the prison camp. The wall, the watchtower, the barracks, the empty pens, and the railway tracks and depot, had all been devastated by the earth-shaking blasts set off by the detonating tankers. A voracious inferno now blazed where the camp had been. Charred and flaming debris still rained down on the cratered canyon, which was now a funeral pyre of epic proportions, many times the size of the pyres that had once burned along the shore beyond the apes’ fortress. The martyred apes had been avenged many times over. Caesar found it hard to believe that any of the Colonel’s fanatical flowers had survived the fiery holocaust.
Alpha and Omega, he recalled. The Beginning and the End.
The Colonel had promised his soldiers both, but there would be no beginnings here. Only an end to his mad crusade.
Looking away from the burning canyon, he spotted Rocket and Bad Ape among the survivors, gazing up at him in shock and wonder. No doubt they had thought him consumed by the explosions as well, but they looked happy to be proven wrong. Rocket in particular appeared deeply moved to see his friend again after their poignant goodbyes back at the camp.
Caesar knew how he felt.
He was about to sign to his friends, and was looking about for Lake and Cornelius, not to mention Maurice and the girl, when the groaning of heavy machinery overpowered the fading echoes of the explosions. Turning his eyes to the north, Caesar was brutally reminded that the war was far from over.
The enemy army was still coming.
39
The Colonel and his troops were gone, wiped off the face of the earth by an Armageddon of Caesar’s creation.
But the Colonel’s human foes remained.
&
nbsp; Despite the damage that had been inflicted on the advancing army by the camp’s defenders, the convoy rolled across the icy expanse. A column of tanks, troop carriers, trucks, jeeps, and Humvees had been dispatched to rein in the rogue commander and his death squads, only to find the Colonel’s base blown to pieces right in front of them.
You’re welcome, Caesar thought grimly.
The convoy braked to a halt before the raging inferno, less than twenty or so yards from the outcropping sheltering the apes. Soldiers in winter gear—their faces hidden by parkas, ski masks, and goggles—stared at the devastation, their mission abruptly completed in the most extreme fashion imaginable.
Just for a moment, Caesar allowed himself to hope that the soldiers would assume that one of their own mortar shells had set off the chain reaction and simply turn around and head back north. Their objective had been obtained; the Colonel would no longer be eradicating every infected human he could find.
They can go home now and keep looking for a cure.
But he knew he was fooling himself. Hundreds of apes, even skulking in the shadow of the mammoth outcropping, were difficult to overlook. And indeed, within minutes one of the faceless soldiers looked away from the blaze and spied the teeming horde of apes over by the rocks. He pointed wildly as other soldiers noticed the apes as well, while Caesar remembered the Colonel’s warning from before, that his enemies were no friends of the apes.
They all want to kill us.
The soldiers had many guns. The apes had one, and Caesar didn’t even know how much ammo Rocket had left. The apes were without defenses; their only options were fight or flight. Caesar prepared to order a retreat. Perhaps some of his people would make it up into the hills alive.
A long, tense moment passed, as though the humans had to mentally switch gears before targeting a different enemy. They slowly began to raise their guns…
One more explosion, even larger than the earlier ones, tore apart the face of the mountain, throwing great chunks of woods and hillside flying. A thunderous boom, echoing off the crumbling walls of the canyon, jolted both humans and apes.
