Web of Fire Bind-up

by Steve Voake

  ‘The attack on the Resistance base has ended in failure, Your Excellency,’ he said. ‘The enemy has developed a new insect – a giant hornet – which is far superior to our robber flies. A squadron of them was used against us in the attack on the enemy base and these hornets now control much of the airspace around Vahlzi.’

  Odoursin made no immediate reply, but Martock could see the anger building in his eyes as he digested this piece of news. After a few more seconds of uncomfortable silence, Odoursin’s gaze alighted on Field Marshal Stanzun.

  ‘So Field Marshal,’ he said coldly, ‘are we to put this down to your incompetence?’

  Martock saw Stanzun blink twice as all attention in the room was suddenly focused upon him. But Stanzun was a brave man who was used to staying calm in a crisis, and when he spoke his voice betrayed no obvious signs of nervousness.

  ‘It would have been impossible for us to predict such a turn of events, Your Excellency,’ he replied. ‘If our sources are to be believed, then the enemy’s discovery of this rare insect was purely accidental – it was just bad luck on our part.’

  ‘There is no such thing as luck!’ spat Odoursin angrily. ‘Only poor planning and preparation!’

  At this point, Lieutenant Reisner – Leader of the Ant Squadrons – raised his hand and began to speak. Most of the Council were unable to hide their surprise, knowing it to be an unwritten law that junior members of the Council do not address the Emperor unless invited to do so. But a brief conversation with the young officer before the meeting had led Martock to expect the interruption, even though he had tried to dissuade him from it.

  ‘Forgive me, Your Excellency,’ said Reisner, ‘but I think it would be prudent for us to pull all our resources back from Earth immediately. That way we can hit Vahlzi with everything we’ve got before they have the time to consolidate their positions.’

  Odoursin slowly turned his head to face the young officer.

  ‘Really? Is that what you think?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Reisner. ‘I think, quite frankly, that anything else would be madness.’

  ‘I see,’ said Odoursin. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant, it is always important to speak one’s mind on such matters.’

  Martock saw Reisner smile nervously and felt sad at the young man’s innocence.

  ‘Come here, Lieutenant.’

  Reisner looked at Odoursin quizzically.

  ‘Come here,’ Odoursin repeated, ‘I have something for you.’

  Reisner left his place at the table and walked slowly towards Odoursin. If he suspected anything, he didn’t show it.

  Odoursin smiled.

  ‘Shut your eyes,’ he said.

  Martock turned away just as the sound of the gunshot split the air, echoing loudly around the chamber. When he looked back, Reisner lay untidily against the wall. His eyes had fallen open one last time and in death they displayed a look of utter surprise.

  Odoursin calmly replaced the pistol in his holster and stared defiantly around the room.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘does anyone else want to make a suggestion?’

  As evening fell, Martock stood at the edge of the airfield and watched the pilots sprint eagerly across the tarmac toward their waiting insects. Odoursin’s view had prevailed as he had guessed it would, and the Earth mission was going ahead as planned. Above him, the air was thick with the squadrons of tsetse flies and robber flies, sweeping up through the darkening sky toward the fabric gap which would lead them towards their ultimate goal: the destruction of human life on Earth.

  In spite of his excitement, however, Martock felt an underlying anxiety that was hard to ignore.

  Odoursin’s brutal treatment of Reisner this morning had clearly demonstrated that he was not a man to be reasoned with. But Reisner was right: in his obsession with ridding the Earth of its human parasites, Odoursin had failed to see the wider picture which was developing in Aurobon.

  Martock knew that unless the Earth mission was completed quickly, then Odoursin’s regime was in grave danger. It was essential that they hit their final target quickly and returned all their forces to Aurobon for a last, decisive attack on Vahlzi.

  It could be done, Martock was sure of it. And if they were successful, then their hold on power in both worlds would be virtually unassailable.

  But Martock knew it would be a close run thing. And as he watched the swarms of flies silhouetted against the coloured moons that rose over Vermia, he thought sadly of the words that the young lieutenant had spoken to him that morning before the meeting began.

  ‘I will have to tell Odoursin the truth as I see it,’ Reisner had said. ‘I will have to tell him the truth because he is my Emperor, and I love him.’

  Twenty-seven

  ‘These are really comfortable,’ said Sam, sinking back into the black leather seat of the hornet and feeling it mould itself around his body. ‘You could go to sleep in them.’

  ‘Probably best not to,’ said Skipper, leaning down into the cockpit through a hole in the top of the head, ‘seeing as how you’re supposed to be flying it.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming? I thought you were flying with me.’

  ‘Not this time, Sam. There aren’t enough pilots to go round, so we’re flying solo this mission.’ She paused. ‘Are you OK with that?’

  ‘I s’pose so,’ said Sam, feeling butterflies fluttering around his stomach. ‘But I’ve never flown one of these before. What are they like?’

  ‘Same as a wasp really,’ Skipper reassured him. ‘Except they’re ten times as powerful, so you might want to keep an eye on your air speed indicator. Things come at you much faster in one of these.’

  Sam smiled and patted the instrument panel. ‘I like it already,’ he said.

  ‘Where is he then?’ called a voice from somewhere outside. Sam heard the sound of feet climbing up the metal ladder and then a beaming face appeared at the hole in the top of the cockpit.

  ‘Mump!’ said Sam, extending his arm up to shake his hand. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Hi, Sammy,’ said Mump, squeezing Sam’s hand enthusiastically. ‘I’m doing great, thanks! Hey – I heard you were here for the big scrap earlier on!’

  ‘Absolutely,’ replied Sam. ‘Wouldn’t have missed it.’

  ‘Me neither,’ agreed Mump. ‘It’s always a pleasure to see those Vermian boys getting a taste of their own medicine.’

  ‘Or, in this case, drinking the whole bottle,’ said Sam with a grin. ‘Swallow it down, fellas!’ He smacked Mump’s hand as he raised it up. ‘Swallow it down!’

  As Mump chuckled happily, Sam thought for a moment and then asked: ‘Hey Mump – are you and Zip flying this next mission?’

  ‘But of course,’ said Mump airily, ‘when things get hot, they always call on the Dream Team to put out the fire.’

  ‘Oh please,’ said Skipper, catching Sam’s eye, ‘spare us.’

  ‘Where’s Zip now?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Just climbing out of the shower I expect,’ said Mump. ‘Again.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Skipper with a mischievous look in her eye. ‘That wouldn’t have anything to do with the arrival of Alya, of course.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Mump, grinning.

  ‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘I’d love to sit here gossiping all day, but don’t you think we should get going?’

  ‘Better had,’ said Skipper. ‘Oh – thanks for the explosives, by the way. Hope you saved some for yourself.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Mump, ‘I’ve got plenty.’

  ‘Explosives?’ said Sam, alarmed. ‘What are they for?’

  ‘For making big bangs,’ explained Mump helpfully.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mump. I know what explosives do. But what do we need them for?’

  ‘Just in case,’ said Mump. ‘I find they often come in handy.’

  ‘Well, be careful,’ said Sam. ‘I know what you’re like. Can’t have you wiping out the White House.’

  ‘Samuel,’ said Mump, pretending to
be offended, ‘safety is my watchword. Rest assured that proper procedures will be followed at all times.’

  Skipper giggled. ‘Tell me, Mump. What are proper procedures exactly?’

  ‘Simple,’ said Mump. ‘One: cause maximum chaos in the shortest possible time. Two: try not to get your head blown off.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said Sam. ‘I’m all for that.’

  ‘OK, my lovelies,’ said Mump, climbing back down the ladder. ‘See you for tea at the White House.’

  ‘Two sugars in mine, please,’ said Sam.

  Hornet

  ‘Right, Sam,’ said Skipper, ‘we’re leaving in about five minutes. Do you have all your flight co-ordinates?’

  ‘Yup. Flight engineers loaded them this morning.’

  ‘We should be flying in tight formation most of the way out, so you probably won’t need them, but if you get lost for any reason then they’ll guide you onto your target.’

  Sam watched the wall in front of them suddenly dissolve in a flash of blue. A shaft of bright sunlight lit up the inside of the cockpit.

  ‘Time to go,’ said Skipper.

  ‘Weather’s improved,’ said Sam. ‘That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’ll be spring-time before we know it,’ said Skipper. ‘When all this is over, Zip says he’s going to take us fishing. Fancy it?’

  Sam imagined himself in the mountains with his friends, breathing the clear air and sitting by the cool waters of a mountain stream.

  ‘I would love to,’ he said. ‘Let’s definitely do it. When we get back.’

  The words felt like a talisman; we will come back, they said. When this is over, we will come back and our lives will be better…

  ‘But first, we’ve got to catch some flies, eh?’ said Skipper, touching him lightly on the shoulder.

  Then she was gone.

  And as Sam closed the hatch and started up the engines, he put a hand to his shoulder and wondered when, if ever, he would see her again.

  Colonel Jackson made his way across the compound to the Weapons Control section where he knew that Sergeants Ryan Hanson and Scott Mercer would be starting their shift. It was 90 degrees in the shade and part of him envied the two men their comfortable, air-conditioned bunker. At least the plague of troublesome flies seemed to have disappeared, which was some consolation. Whatever they had paid those pest control boys, it had been worth every cent.

  He stopped for a moment beneath the shade of the water tower and massaged his eyes with a finger and thumb. Wiping a sleeve across his forehead he watched a patch of warm air shimmer above the hot tarmac. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d suffered such a bad headache. The pills hardly seemed to touch it. Every now and then he would get a blinding flash of red that sent fingers of pain searing through his skull and a vivid image of heat and fire would burst into his mind.

  Colonel Jackson was a brave man, but this was something new that he had never experienced before.

  It unnerved him.

  Perhaps it was time he started drinking two litres of water a day, just like the Doc recommended.

  Trouble was, it didn’t taste nearly as good as a cold one straight from the fridge.

  ‘You OK, Ryan? You’re not looking so good.’

  Sergeant Scott Mercer had worked this shift with Ryan Hanson for nearly eighteen months and they had got to know one another pretty well. You didn’t spend six hours a day holed up with someone and not get to find out a fair bit about them. So Mercer knew all about Hanson’s likes and dislikes, he knew how his kids were doing in school and he knew when he was feeling out of sorts. And tonight, he was definitely out of sorts.

  ‘Yeah, I guess I’m OK.’ said Hanson. ‘It’s just my head, y’know? It’s all right for a while and then all of a sudden it feels as though it’s gonna explode. You ever had anything like that?’

  Mercer scratched at the insect bites on his arm and nodded. ‘Funny you should say that, but just before I came in this afternoon I had a real blinder. In fact, it was so bad I had to go and lie down for a while.’

  ‘Maybe we’ve been staring at these screens for too long,’ suggested Hanson, rubbing his temples with the tips of his fingers. ‘Do you ever wonder what the point of it all is?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, thirty years ago everyone was terrified the Russians were going to turn round and nuke us at any second. But no one really thinks that’s going to happen any more, do they?’

  Mercer shrugged. ‘Maybe not. But perhaps that’s because there’s people like us, sitting in little bunkers with their finger on the button.’

  Hanson nodded. ‘Yeah, I guess so. Hey, what’s up, Scott?’

  Scott Mercer put his head down on the desk and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. The pain was intense, unbearable. It was like staring into the mouth of a volcano, staring until the molten rock exploded and the red hot lava poured through every alleyway of your brain. There was nowhere to hide…

  When he opened his eyes again, he noticed that Hanson was staring at his computer screen with a look of utter horror on his face.

  Turning to look at his own screen, he saw that it was covered in red dots.

  Each dot was moving slowly towards the centre.

  Each dot was blinking.

  Each dot was a nuclear missile, twelve minutes away from striking the United States of America.

  Twelve minutes and counting.

  Twenty-eight

  The hornet squadron broke through the clouds in formation and turned north-west along the Potomac River towards the centre of Washington. Sam could see the moon rising over the city and he watched the night vision display at the bottom of his screen blink into life. The streets below were fairly well lit, but it was reassuring to know that it was there. A red arrow on the navigation display rotated a few degrees towards a flashing green circle and Sam looked up to see a brightly illuminated white building just a few miles to his right. He banked the hornet round and saw the others do the same, holding formation as they turned and dropped towards the target.

  ‘There it is,’ said Sergeant Brindle calmly over the radio. ‘The White House.’

  Zip’s voice came crackling in over the airwaves. ‘Do we definitely know he’s there?’ he asked. ‘Be a bit of a bummer if he was away on holiday.’

  ‘He’s there all right,’ replied Brindle. ‘We just got confirmation from an ant patrol in the Oval Office. He’s just eaten a sandwich, apparently.’

  ‘What sort?’ asked Mump. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘You’ll see for yourself in a minute,’ said Brindle. ‘All right, remember. Soon as we’re on target, we split up and look for open windows. We’ll do an internal sweep to hunt for flies and then regroup and secure the perimeter. Skipper, you take your section to the left, my section, we’re going right. You copy?’

  ‘Roger that,’ said Skipper and Sam watched Brindle’s section peel off towards the right hand side of the building.

  ‘OK, pair up folks,’ said Skipper. ‘Stay with your wing man and let’s hit ’em hard!’

  Sam followed Skipper’s hornet down as it dropped suddenly and fell away towards the smooth green lines of the floodlit lawn that lay like an emerald in front of the White House.

  The President’s face was ashen as he listened to the news that he had always hoped would never come.

  ‘How can you be certain?’ he asked, speaking into the phone while looking around at the grim-faced defence staff who had suddenly seemed to materialise from nowhere. ‘Could it be a system error?’

  ‘No, Mr President. We have confirmation from five separate units. This is no error, sir. It’s the real thing. The Vice President is already on his way to the Presidential Command Bunker.’

  The President replaced the receiver and screwed his eyes shut for a few moments in an effort to dampen the fires that burned inside his head. I must be coming down with a fever he thought. Bad timing.

  Defence Secretary Dan Steele interp
reted the President’s expression as a possible sign of indecision and decided to try to move things along.

  ‘The computer link is fully operational, Mr President. You’ll be able to see the status of the incoming missiles for yourself. You might want to check it, sir. It’s on the desk.’

  The President glared at him. ‘I know where it is, Dan,’ he said.

  Steele cleared his throat awkwardly as his Commander-in-Chief snapped open the lid of the laptop and stared at the screen.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ he said. He’d been through this scenario countless times as part of his induction to the top job, and the training had left him in no doubt that – in the event of an enemy attack – the computer screen would be blinking with red dots charting the progress of the missiles. But this time the screen was blank.

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ he said. ‘Look – come and see for yourself.’

  His aides quickly gathered around the desk and began pointing at the screen.

  ‘But, Mr President sir,’ insisted Defence Secretary Steele. ‘There’s dozens of them. What are we going to do?’

  The President gasped and closed his eyes as something erupted in his brain, an explosion of red heat that burned into his mind. He was falling through bright tunnels that swirled and pulsated all around him; then his eyes were open again and he was looking at the screen and the screen was covered in red dots.

  ‘How can this be possible?’ he breathed. ‘China and North Korea?’

  ‘We think they must be operating together,’ said Steele. ‘It’s the only explanation.’

  ‘Get me the hotline,’ said the President, his voice shaking. ‘Now.’

  ‘We are unable to establish a connection at this time, Mr President,’ said General Miller nervously. Miller had recently been promoted to Head of Internal Security and was beginning to wish someone else had got the job.

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’ snapped the President.

  ‘We’ve tried everything,’ replied Miller. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘All right,’ said the President grimly. ‘Get me the Briefcase.’