by Dhar, Mainak
‘There’s more of them!’
This time Josh had spotted more activity and Vince grimaced as he identified the new helicopters.
‘Those aren’t transport choppers. If they’re Apaches, then we’re toast.’
The aircraft banked up to avoid a few trees and then began to descend rapidly.
‘Well, folks, as good a time as any to land. Brace for impact.’
When Alice looked at him, wondering what he meant, Vince grinned.
‘Just hold on to something!’
The plane landed on the road below, with one wheel making contact first. For a while, it seemed like they would flip over, but Vince fought the controls and brought it down. Alice held on, the sounds of the engine and Bunny Ears’s screaming both echoing in her ears as the plane skidded off the road and came to a halt in some bushes. Alice, Cynthia and Josh jumped out and Bunny Ears followed after some cajoling from Alice. As they began putting on their backpacks and checking their gear for the journey ahead, Alice noticed that Vince was still sitting in the cockpit.
‘Vince, what are you doing? Come on.’
Vince turned to look at Alice.
‘Can you guys give me a hand and push this bird back on the road a bit?’
Josh put down his backpack and walked to the cockpit.
‘Flyboy, what on earth do you have in mind?’
‘Just get this plane back on the road and I’ll tell you. One of the wheels seems stuck in a hole. Just push it a bit and I’ll start the engine—should be enough for me to get it back on track.’
As they heaved and pushed the aircraft, Vince started the engine and within a few minutes, the aircraft was back on the stretch of road where it had landed. Alice climbed back into the aircraft and sat in the cockpit next to Vince.
‘What are you planning to do?’ Part of her already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from Vince.
‘The moment they get an idea that you’re heading there on foot, they will send everything they’ve got after you. We don’t have the numbers or firepower to get through.’
Vince was looking straight ahead. She touched his chin and pulled his face towards her.
‘Vince, you don’t have to do this.’
Vince smiled, but it was tinged with sadness.
‘I can’t see any other way. Let me buy you some time—and it’s not as if I’ve suddenly turned suicidal. I’ll try and get away and land somewhere and make my way to the resistance, but at least I’ll get Zeus thinking that you’re on this plane and make them divert their forces in chasing me.’
Alice just sat there. This would not be the first time someone had sacrificed himself so that she could live to fight another day. She remembered how her father and a handful of men had kept Zeus at bay, fighting till the end against impossible odds so that others in the settlement could escape.
‘Vince, I will not have you throw your life away for me.’
Vince looked at her, and she saw that his eyes were misting over.
‘After all that we’ve lost and all the good men and women who have died so that we could get so far, my life or death hardly matters before the need to stop the Executive Committee before they get to those missiles. If they get them, then it will all have been for nothing. Don’t let that happen.’
Alice watched Vince taxi down the road and then take off. Cynthia came up to Alice.
‘You okay?’
When Alice turned towards her, Cynthia stepped back a bit. Alice’s lips were curled back and her eyes were narrowed.
‘Let’s go get those Snarks.’
***
ELEVEN
‘We’ve lost forty men that I know of. This is turning into a meat grinder. Shouldn’t we look at other options?’
Sam put his glass down and glared at Brian.
‘This is war and we will have losses. Now make sure that those men’s lives were not lost in vain. Get more reinforcements in as soon as we can.’
Brian clenched his fist, but he knew he could do nothing to stop what was unfolding. He didn’t care much for the filthy Biters or the rabble that had set up the so-called Wonderland, and couldn’t care less if they were all nuked to oblivion. However, he did care about his men, and he wondered how he would ever face them after this day.
Many of them were hardened mercenaries, old soldiers who had fought and killed for profit in many parts of the world before The Rising. However, several of them were young men from FEMA camps, drafted into Zeus to fight the so-called War on Terror. It was never spoken of loudly, and only when there were no prying ears about, but Brian had read all that had been floating about on the Net since the revolts in Deadland and in Mainland China began. A lot of it was nothing more than stories cooked up by conspiracy theorists up to no good, but he was old enough to know that the Executive Committee was not doing all it did out of the goodness of its heart. It was tightly controlled by ruthless and powerful men, men who would not hesitate to sacrifice dozens of soldiers like Brian if it served their interests.
Brian ordered four more sorties flown in. Now that the Zeus troopers were locked in brutal close combat in the forest, there was no question of attack helicopters coming in. However, he had two drones and a number of choppers up in the sky, several using thermal sensors to locate Biters and guide the ground troops. They had killed hundreds of Biters, but they seemed to keep on coming, defending their territory with a ferocity that Brian had not seen before.
‘Sir, I see a low-flying aircraft about five klicks from here.’
Brian rushed to the console where one of his drone operators was seated. On the screen he saw a white aircraft flying low among the trees.
‘Is it one of ours?’
Brian looked at Sam, trying to hide the disgust he felt for the drunk man whom he had to report to.
‘No, Sam. It’s her.’
Sam put his glass down. Now was his chance to finish this all. Yes, the fighting in the forest would continue, but it was only a matter of time before the troopers fought their way through the Biters and got to the bunker. Two large transport aircraft loaded with more than three hundred troopers had just landed at Cape Canaveral and they would be ferried to the combat zone by helicopters within an hour. What mattered most was that he removed any threat that Alice could pose before she got there.
‘Shoot that plane down now! Don’t we have missiles that can do the job?’
‘We didn’t exactly bring surface-to-air missiles to fight Biters. Anyways, I’ll divert one of the Apaches to do the job. It’ll only take a few minutes to bring it down.’
***
Alice was running as fast as she could, focused on getting to the combat zone and the bunker that Bellman’s map had indicated. Bellman had told them that she had destroyed the locking mechanism on the bunker and it would have to be opened with explosive charges, which Josh and Cynthia were carrying in their backpacks. She paused, waiting to see if Josh and Cynthia were far behind. They were some hundred meters back, and she waved to them and continued running.
Bunny Ears was on a mission of his own and had melted into the forest. Alice knew what battle did to Biters and that they would be both terrified and enraged at the violent intrusion by humans. Whatever the virus was that had caused humans to turn into Biters, it made them exceptionally territorial, and Alice wanted Bunny Ears to try and get a few Biters on their side before they ran into Biters who were battle-crazed.
She came into a clearing as two attack helicopters passed ahead in the distance, flying away from the combat zone. She took cover behind a tree but they did not seem to be paying her much attention. Then it struck her.
Vince.
She ran on with renewed resolve. Too many of her companions had given their lives to get her here. She would not fail them.
After a few more minutes of running, she entered dense foliage and the smell hit her. The smell of burning trees, and of burning flesh. As she looked around, she began to see several Biters lying, most of them badly burnt. Ye
s, a Biter would be put down for good only by a head shot, but many of these had lost their arms and legs to bombs and shrapnel and could no longer move. They lay there, watching Alice as she moved among them. She saw a child, with yellowed skin and dilated eyes, and with blood and pus running down his face, but a child nevertheless. He had lost both legs and was trying to crawl towards her. Alice pulled back her hood and knelt beside the boy. As he tried to snap at her, she held his head down.
‘Shh…I will avenge you all.’
Josh and Cynthia had caught up with her, and they stopped, stunned at the carnage they saw around them. Alice looked at Josh.
‘Someone sitting in a helicopter or in a drone control center presses a button and does this. They don’t smell the burning flesh, they don’t get splattered by the blood and brains, and they don’t hear the screams. Yet they claim that they are waging war. What kind of war is this?’
Alice got up and Josh saw her eyes turn red.
‘I will show Zeus what war really means.’
***
‘White Queen, get down!’
Alice wanted badly to wade into the troopers she saw ahead of her, but she heeded Josh’s cry on her radio earphone and went down to a crouch, giving Josh and Cynthia time to catch up with her. Both of them were carrying rocket launchers captured from Jabber’s men, along with two rockets. As they saw the odds they faced, Alice was glad they had brought the added firepower. Up ahead, in a small clearing in the forest, more than a dozen Zeus troopers were standing as two large transport helicopters filled with black-clad troopers hovered overhead. One of the choppers lowered a rope and the first man began to rappel down.
‘Once those troops get down, there’ll be fifty or more troopers there and there’s no way we can fight our way through those kind of odds.’ Without saying anything more, Josh reached out and gave his rocket to Cynthia.
‘Beaver, what are you doing?’
‘Baker, you get the White Queen to where she needs to. I’ll slow these guys down and give them something to think about.’
Cynthia tugged at Alice’s arm and began to pull her to one side. Alice wanted to say so much, to tell Josh that he should not needlessly sacrifice his life, to tell him it was madness for him to try and slow down so many troopers. In the end, she just looked into his eyes and saw a man who, like Vince, Tom, John and so many others she had known and lost, had found that their lives perhaps got meaning when they got a chance to sacrifice it for something greater than themselves. After all, wasn’t that Alice’s story as well?
She ran into the forest with Cynthia close behind as Josh started firing.
***
‘There she goes!’
Sam looked where Brian was pointing and saw the footage being beamed back from a camera mounted on the chin turret of one of the Apache attack helicopters. Four rockets snaked out towards the white aircraft below, and as Sam watched with growing exasperation, all missed as the aircraft dove and rolled out of the way.
‘Why the hell aren’t the missiles hitting the damn plane?’
Brian replied through gritted teeth. ‘Those are not air-to-air missiles. We didn’t expect to be dogfighting in the skies with Biters. Our pilots are using air-to-ground rockets and their guns, and this pilot knows his stuff. Must be ex-military, but it’s just a matter of time before we get him. Watch this.’
On another display, this one beamed down from one of the orbiting drones, another Apache took up the hunt. Both drones had been diverted to this new mission, and while the troopers on the ground were now effectively going in blind against Biters lurking in the forest around them, if they finished Alice then they could get to the bunker at leisure. As the second Apache fired with its cannon and the tracers homed in on the light aircraft, he began to think of how he’d frame his mail back to the Executive Committee, proclaiming his triumph. Sam King, the man who destroyed Alice, the greatest threat to the New World Order. That would ensure his place in the upper echelons of the Executive Committee and also make sure that he was no longer dependent on the mercies of men like the Baron for his family’s continued safety.
‘Damn that pilot!’
Sam was snapped back to the present by Brian’s exclamation as the small plane rolled away at the last minute from the tracers snaking out towards it. Sam gripped the table in front of him tightly as he willed the shells to hit home, but in vain.
‘What other assets do we have that can bring that plane down?’
Brian hesitated before replying.
‘We could retask the remaining three Apaches supporting our boys in the combat zone, but that would…’
Sam glared at Brian as he completed.
‘That would mean that our boys would have no air support and no warning of what was coming at them in the combat zone.’
Sam nearly shouted as he stabbed at the screen with his finger. ‘That bloody plane and the half-Biter bitch in it are the combat zone. Getting them is the only mission that matters now. Do what you have to, but I want that plane to be burning on the forest floor before it gets any closer to the bunker.’
Brian did as he was ordered, but he also passed on another order to his men. He asked the next round of reinforcements ready to be dropped into the combat zone to be held back, and also ordered his men in the forests to pull back to secure positions. If the drunken fool he had to take orders from had really meant what he said, then he would shoot this damn plane down and present Alice’s head on a platter. But then there was no need to get more of his men killed in the slaughterhouse that the forests below had turned into.
He watched the plane snake in and out of the trees as the Apache pilots fired on him. Part of him admired the skill and courage of the pilot, who in an unarmed light aircraft was taking on five heavily armed Apache attack helicopters in an attempt to get to the bunker, but part of him just wanted this to be over so that he and his men could go back and no more lives would be lost in this senseless mission.
Finally, one of the aircraft’s wings disintegrated from a direct hit and the plane went into an uncontrollable spin, skimming the tops of the trees before crashing in a ball of fire and smoke. Brian turned to Sam.
‘It’s over.’
***
Alice was running at full tilt through the forest, gun in one hand and knife in the other. Cynthia was struggling to keep up with her, but telling Alice to slow down was futile. Cynthia had seen it plenty of times before—men and women caught up in the heat of battle, oblivious to everything and everyone around them. To see it in such intensity in someone who was still a child was a bit unnerving.
Alice came upon two Zeus sentries and without even breaking her stride, she shot one in the chest and in the same fluid motion brought her right hand around, slashing the other trooper across the neck. She continued running deeper into the forest. When Cynthia passed the two troopers, both were badly wounded and crying out in pain. One of them was saying something into his radio headset. Cynthia paused for a second, wondering why Alice had not finished them off. Was it because she wanted to keep moving fast, or was it because she actually wanted to make them suffer?
Alice ran on, focused on getting to the missiles that had caused so much death and suffering in Shanghai, the pursuit of which had lost her so many friends and companions. Another two-man Zeus squad stumbled upon her, and one of the troopers asked her to stop, perhaps confused as to how a young girl had entered the combat zone. His eyes widened in fear as he saw her face, which was the last thing he saw before Alice shot him in the head. The other trooper fired, but Alice slid along the ground towards him, the shots going over her, and then stabbed him in the thigh. The young trooper screamed out in pain as she shot him twice. As he fell, Alice continued running.
She saw the abandoned helipad that Bellman’s map had indicated, and turned right as Bellman had told her to. There was still sporadic gunfire in the forest around her, but they were not the sounds of the pitched battle she had been expecting. She did not know that, thinking her
to be dead, the Zeus forces had been asked to hold back.
Alice looked behind her, seeing Cynthia running on. She beckoned for her to follow and then ran into the forest ahead of her. That was when she came face to face with a Biter.
***
Sam King had pulled out his bottle of Scotch and placed it on the table in front of him.
‘Come on, Brian, have a drink. We need to celebrate.’
Brian tried to look straight ahead, as if conscious that looking at Sam would betray his feelings.
‘Sir, I am on duty and in a combat zone. I cannot drink.’
Sam poured himself a drink and looked at his tablet. Congratulatory notes had begun flowing in, from the Baron and other members of the Executive Committee. Sam’s message had been forwarded on, and as replies flooded his inbox, Sam smiled. It wasn’t every day that members of the Saudi royal family, former Presidents, billionaire businessmen and media tycoons all joined in celebrating your achievements. The members of the Executive Committee represented the richest and most powerful men on the planet, and now Sam King had them eating out of the palm of his hand. His message to the Baron had a pithy subject heading, one which he thought said it all.
Mission Accomplished.
At one stroke, Sam King had not just kept alive hopes of sustaining the new world order that the Executive Committee wanted to bring about, but finally destroyed its most dangerous enemy. Without Alice, Wonderland would collapse, and Biters and humans would once again turn on each other. Into that chaos would step in Zeus, and things would be the way they once had been in the Deadland.
