“If you want me to,” Gregor leans in. “Then I will take the crown. I'll see that the Kingdom endures.”
“What Kingdom?” asks the King, resting his head against the concrete. “I've lost everything. All that's left, Gregor,” he opens his eyes and fixes Gregor with a furious snarl, “is revenge.”
Gregor nods. “I understand, sir. I'll make them suffer.”
“Could you,” the King grunts and tries to move, but flinches and stops. “Could you bring me the screen? I want to see what's happening up there.”
Gregor nods, and hobbles to the King's desk to get the tablet. He switches it on and comes back to the blood stained wall, sitting beside the King like an old friend. Navigating the menus, he finds a news channel and tunes in.
“Here we are.”
As the scenes of the military occupying the streets of Glasgow light up the gloom, the King pats Gregor's thigh.
“You're the King now, son.”
“Not yet, sir,” he shakes his head. “Not yet.”
The King's eyes flicker, beginning to shut even as he watches the news unfold.
“Gregor?”
“Sir?”
“Could you stay? Until...”
“Until the end, sir. Of course.”
The King nods, and then says no more. His eyes remain half open as they watch the chaos on the screen, buried beneath the city together.
The skies above Glasgow are filled with the screech of aircraft, whilst the streets are clogged with military hardware – heavy weaponry, mortars, tanks, huge trucks with dozens of missiles mounted on their back.
The squad stand under the canopy of Queen Street station, outside the now empty refugee camp at George's Square. Most of them sit on the steps, their arms folded and their nervous faces hidden behind their masks whilst the Trespasser tries to discuss tactics with an alien life form.
“What about lasers?” he asks. “We could mount an anti-missile laser on a large aircraft and -”
“Heat won't work. Energy is no problem to us,” the deep bass tone of the alien's voice cuts through their bones. “The Destroyer could turn heat to sound if it desired. The only thing that will harm it is force, as I said before.”
“I don't remember much of high-school physics,” says Cathy, “but aren't force and energy the same thing at the end of the day?”
“Not to my kind.” It sounds like an orchestra playing the lowest of notes at the edge of their hearing – more a feeling than a sound. “Energy is easy. What gives my kind difficulty is the sudden, violent relocation of the machines that make us. De-pressurisation. Sudden acceleration. Kinetic force. These must be your weapons.”
The Trespasser's eyes light up. “De-pressurisation? We could drop a bunker buster on it?”
Jamie laughs. “A what?”
“A thermobaric bomb, Jamie,” says the soldier. “It creates a huge blast wave and consumes all of the oxygen inside the explosion: which causes massive de-pressurisation. It ruins bunkers, hence the name.”
The alien gives a rumble of approval. “These may suffice.”
“I'll tell command to load up the planes with them.”
“It may not be enough – you should have other weaponry at hand.”
“Other weaponry? What about massed ballistic missile fire?” asks the Trespasser, throwing his hands up. “Because that's just about all we've got.”
“There will need to be many.”
“Well every type of missile launcher that we can get here in the next half hour is what we're working with – not counting ships, planes, and long range launchers across the country. We'll need to time it to hit at once. Command is working on it.”
Mark, still in nothing but his shorts and trying his best to look resolute, puffs his chest out and says.
“What's the plan?”
The alien doesn't even turn to look at him when it speaks.
“We focus enough force in a small area to break its shell. Then you and I penetrate the shell and neutralise the swarm itself.”
Trespasser One cuts in. “Shell? Is it armoured?”
“It is like me: a swarm of tiny beings joined by their basic intent. Ours is to protect; theirs is to destroy. Though they outnumber us greatly, they are still only a single swarm. It will protect itself with a shield comprised of energy.”
“My head is bursting,” says Gary, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “When did we go from punching criminals to fighting an alien's war for it?”
Stacy nudges him. “You've never punched a criminal, Gary.”
Jamie sits up straight. “Here, have we made first contact then?”
“Yes,” says Donald. “We have.”
“We'll have our names in the history books,” says Stacy, only just realising the scope of this situation.
“Aye,” says Gary. “If there's any history left to record.”
“Guys,” the Trespasser silences them and turns to the alien. “So, the plan?”
The alien's voice drowns them out, and they all feel its voice in their gut.
“You will need to protect yourself from its attacks.”
“What are we talking here? Does it shoots flames? Fire lightning out its arse?” asks the Trespasser. “I need details.”
“The potential methods of attack are as numerous as the potential powers we can bestow upon lifeforms. It may attack with heat, sound, light, electricity, and more. Be prepared for anything.”
“Anything,” says the Trespasser, taking off his mask and rubbing the sweat from his eyes. “Be prepared for anything. We should give this guy a job in intel.”
“There is one more thing,” it booms. “The Destroyer is much like myself. I destroyed its army once before; it will try to raise a new one.”
“How?” asks Jamie, already catching on to the horrible truth that he is about to hear.
“The same way that I did. By searching out beings with similar intent, and empowering them with smaller swarms. It will reshape humans into warriors to aid its cause.”
“Like us?” asks Mark. “People with powers?”
“Not just people with powers,” says Jamie. “Oh christ – the wrong people with powers. Corrupt, hateful people with powers.”
“There must be balance,” says the booming voice of the human silhouette. “Where we create, they destroy. Where they destroy, we protect. Balance. It will turn the people that it can find into soldiers. It will absorb them when it is done, and then it will turn this planet to ash and leave, stronger than before, to find another planet. If we do not stop it here, there is no telling how many lives it may take.”
“Jesus christ,” whispers Stacy. “This is like a film.”
The Trespasser lowers his voice. “Could we nuke it? If worst comes to worst, would that kill it?”
“Of all the beings I have been within the minds of, none have ever deliberately detonated such a weapon within their own biosphere. You are a peculiar species.”
“We could nuke it though?”
“Possibly. It may simply destroy the bomb before it can detonate. We would have to preoccupy it.”
“Which is my job, apparently,” says Mark. “I wonder if I could survive a nuke.”
“Probably not,” says Jamie. “Why is Mark going to fight it alone anyway?”
“He is not,” says the alien. “He will go in with me.”
“No, I mean: why are we not coming too?”
“You lack the capacity to harm the Destroyer,” it booms. “Furthermore, the battle will likely end up in the air, and Mark is the only one capable of flight.”
The squad exchange puzzled looks – none more puzzled than Mark, who stares at the glowing human-silhouette of the alien.
“I can't fly.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I can't.”
“I created you myself,” it says. “I can assure you that you are capable of flight.”
“I can jump really high? But I can't stay there.”
“You w
ill have to learn then,” the alien's words shake the very air. “Otherwise I will be fighting the Destroyer alone within the core.”
“Look, I'll help as much as I can but I'm telling you, I can't fly -”
Mark is cut off by a sudden, wordless sound from the alien, a burst of bass-static that causes them all to flinch and clasp their ears.
“What the hell was that?” shouts Jamie.
“The Destroyer,” the alien says. “It is here.”
The night sky above Glasgow begins to glow red, as though the lights were all pointing upwards. Amidst the haze the stars vanish, and a single point of light begins to burn in the darkness. It flickers like a flame, a furious red: the colour of burnt skin.
As it falls towards the ground like a hammer-blow, a vicious bass-tone erupts across the city. Like the heralding call of a thousand trumpets, the ground trembles with the Destroyer's call. Windows shatter, glass panels obliterated by the vibration. Jamie looks down at his hands and sees that they have blurred with the violent shaking.
It comes to a stop in the air above the George's Square camp, illuminating the square, bathing it in the blood-red haze. They watch it change, taking the same shape as the Protector did when they found it. Red silk petals and rippling tissue unfold around it, giving it the appearance of a sea creature, stingers and tentacles drifting around it as though it were searching blindly for prey.
It changes like the alien did, cocooning itself within its own fire before re-emerging as a crudely drawn human, a red silhouette hanging in the sky like a fallen god.
The Trespasser brings a hand to his ear. “Command – it's here. Open fire.”
The flaming man, suspended metres above the George's Square monument, lets out another trembling bass roar, and a swirling field of red energy blossoms from its centre, expanding to fill the square.
The first missiles explode as they hit the barrier, and the energy field ripples – and then nothing.
More missiles streak from the streets into the barrier, creating a fireworks display around the bubble of red energy.
“They aren't concentrating,” shouts the Trespasser into his comms. “They need to concentrate fire -”
The darkness is lit up by streaks of energy – flame, lightning and crackling plasma – erupt from the energy field and pierce through the city, into the distant ranks of missile launchers. Plumes of flame and ash are blown into the sky.
Following the tendrils of destruction are the smaller swarms of flaming energy that crash through the night sky like eagles, hunting for prey before descending on the crowds of civilians evacuating the city. It finds those with sickening intentions, those with broken minds festering with hate and cruelty, and it changes them.
The Protector, glowing brighter and stronger now, begins to float towards the burning camp in the middle of the square.
“The time for battle has come,” it booms. “Mark. Follow me.”
Above the square – above the city – the Destroyer hovers within it's red sphere, lashing out with whipping tendrils of pure energy, tearing the military to pieces.
Mark follows the alien towards the flames of the camp, towards the red wall of oily-swirling energy. Fear twists in his gut as missiles and bombs rain upon the crimson forcefield to no effect.
Trespasser One pulls the rest of the squad back into the cover of the train station as flaming debris falls around them.
Out in the darkness, across the city, Glasgow catches fire and begins to burn.
Episode 11
Destroyer
Glasgow is burning.
The city, sparsely lit before, is illuminated by the fireballs arcing over the rooftops. Moving as though conscious, the fires seek out their prey like ocean predators.
It searches for people that desire nothing more than to hurt others; to cause harm and pain.
Where it finds them, it changes them.
In some, it hardens their skin and muscles. In others, it shapes their minds to manipulate the elements. Others it twists like monsters, giving them eyes that can see in the dark, and bristling fur that will pierce skin. It creates abominations wherever it finds that sickly inner darkness.
The monsters awaken, and begin to destroy everything – homes, people, soldiers, tanks.
Everything.
Glasgow is burning.
At the epicentre of the chaos is the glowing red orb housing the Destroyer. It lashes out with tendrils of heat and light, searing the bodies of soldiers to ash, leaving the tarmac so hot it bubbles and froths. Beams of pure energy cut through the buildings, blowing them to nothing more than smoke on the wind, leaving searing craters in the city blocks.
In the darkening sky above the end of the world, a fleet of aircraft release the fuel-air bombs that are weighing them down. Clusters of thermobaric explosives fall towards the city, aimed straight at the crimson beast in the eye of the fire-storm.
The squad are crouching in the blazing ruins of Queen Street station, ducking every time they hear the hissing bass trumpet tone of the Destroyer's beams cutting through the city's stonework. Trespasser One lifts a hand to his ear, and his eyes widen with urgency.
He turns to Gary, crouching beside the others. “Gary, bombs are falling, get a forcefield around us now.”
Putting a hand on his masked head, Gary focuses his thoughts until a blue bubble blossoms around the squad.
“Mark is still out there,” shouts Jamie. “What about him? What's coming?”
“Mark can take a bomb to the face, Jamie. I'm worried about us.”
Jamie gives him a reluctant nod, and the squad hold onto one another, crouched behind the remains of a white-tiled wall as the whistling of the bombs grows louder.
“Here they come. Brace yourself, Gary.”
The bombs hit, and their world becomes nothing but light and noise.
Fires are extinguished by the pressure wave as the air is sucked away in a blistering wind. The forcefield holds as bricks and debris shatter against it, driven by the cyclone-force of the bombs.
Gary falters and a long thin crack appears in the shield as though it were ice. The Trespasser puts a hand on his shoulder – though Gary can't hear his reassuring words over the blast.
Then it is gone.
Donald looks up. “Surely that killed it?”
“I hope so,” says the Trespasser, and raises a hand to his ear as Command relays more information. He turns to the squad. “Ok. We've got a problem.”
The squad watch him, judging his mood by his eyes. He takes his hand-held grenade launcher from his belt and uses it like a pointer.
“Not far from here are the last units to get out of the city centre – evacuation units escorting civilians. They are currently being torn to shreds by people with powers like you, people that the Destroyer is raising to fight for it; Command can't spare the fire-power to protect them, so we're going to do what we can to help them, ok?”
Jamie nods, but the rest of them are giving the Trespasser the look of herbivores in the headlights.
“I know that combat isn't what you signed up for, but we don't have much choice. Just stick close to me and follow my orders. Ok?”
There are a few reluctant nods, and the Trespasser motions for them to follow him outside. They rush through the smoke and ash coating the once-pristine station, and down the burning steps into hell, where the only light is the blood-haze cast by the Destroyer.
Mark is blown into the sky by the bombs. He feels the pressure tearing at his skin, trying to suck his eyeballs from his skull, like a hundred hands reaching into his lungs and trying to turn them inside out. The flame follows the blast, and for a moment he is floating above Glasgow in the night sky, fire clinging to his skin like glue.
In that peaceful second, he sees the shadow over Glasgow. For miles in every direction there are red flames falling, finding new psychopaths and murderers to convert to the cause. Sirens and gunfire form an orchestra, punching their sound into the deathly quiet; tracers and flic
kering lights drawing shapes in the sky.
He doesn't fall. A part of him thinks that perhaps he is flying – perhaps the Protector was right all along.
Then he sees that same alien holding him by the wrist, a dull green silhouette of a man keeping him suspended in mid-air.
“The bombs have created a gap.”
It points down at the Destroyer's shield, its words shaking Mark's stomach. A jagged iris has opened where the bomb hit, like the pupil of a red, wounded eye. The crimson forcefield has been torn open, showing them the red man-shape hovering inside. As though in defence, a long lashing tail of fire roars out of the gap. The alien throws Mark and itself aside to escape it.
“We must attack now.”
Then it drops Mark into the gap, letting him fall into the interior of the burning red orb.
He screams as he plummets through into the core, towards the crimson silhouette. It slaps him aside with a wall of force before he can close the distance. Mark flies to the side, crashing into the interior wall of the forcefield and sliding down it, clutching his face.
Struggling to his feet, Mark looks up in time to see two things:
The first is the green-glowing humanoid rocket through the gap like a superhero, fist-first, into the crimson shadow. The second is the red orb closing over, sealing them in this prison with the Destroyer.
Mark gets to his knees as the two shapes wrestle in mid-air. Cracking his knuckles, he roars and leaps like a tiger, crashing into the pair.
Without breaking step, the crimson-man grabs him by the throat, and Mark feels himself burning as he is bathed in flame. Whilst it has no eyes, he can feel it staring at him with disdain and pure, fiery hatred. It draws its fist back and punches him with the force of a lightning bolt, sending Mark flying back into the forcefield. He winces in pain, clutching the burnt skin where it struck him.
Mark looks up again, and sees the sickly green man doing no better. His ally is fast and smart, keeping a distance and flying around the crimson shade like a wasp, striking with bursts of flame, then lightning, weakening it.
Kingdom: The Complete Series Page 31
