by Paul Crilley
A bolt of energy came directly at her. She barely managed to drop before it soared through the space where her face had just been.
“Surrender!” shouted a voice. “We have you surrounded.”
Octavia frowned. She straightened up. “Mother?” she called.
There was a pause. “Octavia?”
Octavia moved out of cover. Molock and her mother were leaning around a wooden crate similar to their own.
“You were shooting at us!” exclaimed Octavia.
“We thought you were the enemy. Sorry.”
Tweed hurried past Octavia. “We've got some friends,” he said proudly.
“So I see. Who are they?”
“Kidnapped scientists,” said Tweed dramatically.
“Ah. Are any of them evil?”
“Don't think so,” said Tweed. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, you know. In all those Atticus Pope books, there's always an evil scientist. I mean, we've found the lair, I was just hoping for a scientist.”
“Atticus Pope!” Tweed whirled around and grinned at Octavia. “Nightingale. Your mum reads Atticus Pope! How wonderful.”
“Yay. Wonderful,” said Octavia wearily, making her way for the door in the far wall and the set of stairs on the other side.
The group climbed to the top floor, moving quickly until they came to a final corridor. At the end was one last room, and then a stairwell leading directly to the roof.
Octavia gently pushed the door open. Darkness, then the flash of muzzle fire, the rat-a-tat of gunfire, and bullets ripped into the wall by her face.
Octavia ducked back and slammed the door closed. Bullet holes were sprayed across the corridor wall, but the burst had been badly aimed. She could hear someone screaming at the shooter inside the room.
“I told you to wait! I told you to hold your fire until they'd all entered the room, you stupid pieces of scrap!”
She recognized that voice. It was Temple.
“Guess they heard the little rumpus downstairs,” said Tweed. “How many?”
“How many flashes?” Octavia thought back to the terrifying moment. “At least twenty. That I saw. Probably more.”
Nobody said anything, but she knew what they were thinking. That they couldn't do this. There were too many.
But if they didn't stop Sekhem and Nehi, then everything they had been through was for nothing. All the people they had hoped to save would die.
“We can do this,” she insisted.
“There are too many,” said her mother softly.
Octavia opened her mouth to argue, but her mother held up a hand.
“I don't want to lose you again, Octavia. We've only just found each other.” She turned to the scientists. “There has to be another way up to the roof.”
“There isn't,” said Ampney. “If there was, we would be using it right now.” He sighed. “I fought in the Crimea, girl. I know you think we can do this, but I have to disagree. There will be deaths if we go through that door.”
“There might be deaths, but we also might win. Right?”
“It is possible,” he said reluctantly. “But not probable.”
“Don't you see?” she said to everyone. “We have no choice. If we do nothing, even if we fail, then they've won.” She looked at Ampney. “Did you want to go to war?”
“Of course not. But it was my duty.”
“And why is this different?”
Ampney opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“Octavia—” began her mother.
“Hey, where's Dr. Campbell?” asked Tweed.
Octavia looked around. All the scientists were there except the Scottish doctor. “I saw her just now. She was standing right here.”
“She wouldn't have run, would she?” asked Tweed.
“Hah!” said Kolotcha. “No chance. Better to ask if she went into the room ahead of us. A fierce woman, that one. She would not run.”
“Should we…go look for her?” asked Octavia.
There was a noise from the room behind them. Tweed opened the door slightly and peered through. Then he quickly pushed his gun though the gap and fired blindly. Octavia heard clattering and shouting from the other side.
“No time. They're coming at us.”
He fired again. Bullets peppered the door in response, forcing everyone to duck against the walls.
The gunfire stopped. But another sound replaced it. The sound of running feet, coming from along the corridor. Running feet, and swearing. In a Scottish accent.
Dr. Campbell sprinted into view waving a bag furiously over her head.
“Where have you been?” asked Octavia.
Dr. Campbell took a huge gulp of breath and held the bag out. “Remembered seeing these back in the armory. I think they might be grenades.”
Ampney took the bag from her and peered inside. He held one up. It was round, made from metal, about the size of her clenched fist, with Hyperborean runes circling it.
Molock peered at it. “Yes, that is indeed a grenade.”
“That would kill them,” said Octavia.
“Might do,” said Ampney. “Depends where it's thrown.”
“Do we really have time to worry about that?” asked Strauss. “You think they're worried about killing us?”
Octavia chewed her lip. He had a point. What if—
She heard a noise and turned to find Kolotcha standing by the door looking guilty.
“What did you—?”
She was cut off by a huge explosion from the room beyond. The doors slammed open, sending Kolotcha sprawling. The shock wave struck the rest of them, sending them staggering back. Octavia's ears rang. She used the wall to steady herself.
“What did you do?” shouted Strauss.
“Sorry,” said Kolotcha, wincing and wiggling a finger in his ears. “I thought it might have been a simple concussion grenade.”
“I don't think it was,” said Tweed, peering through the door.
Smoke poured out into the corridor. The dim lights in the room flickered—those that were still working, anyway. Octavia could just see that Kolotcha had thrown the grenade to the right, while most of their enemies had been on the left.
No one was left standing. Some were sprawled, unmoving, while others were groaning, trying to pull themselves to their feet.
Now was the time to move.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Ready?”
The others nodded uncertainly. They hadn't really recovered from the shock of the blast, but there was no time. This was the only chance they'd get.
“Let's go.”
She pushed the door open, firing her gun ahead of her. Blue lightning streaked through the smoke, blowing wooden crates apart. The others joined her and formed a line, firing into the dimness. One of their shots hit a hybrid, wreathing him in orange electricity, his limbs shuddering then seizing up.
Some of the cultists had made it to their feet and were moving backward, heading for the door that led to the roof. It looked like they had sent the hybrids ahead of them, so the constructs had taken most of the damage from the grenade.
The cultists fired their guns as they retreated, but they were confused, disoriented. Octavia and the others kept up a steady barrage of gunfire, blue and orange light mixing, climbing up the walls, crawling across the floor, grounding itself into anything that was metal.
The cultists finally made it to the door, then turned and bolted up the stairs.
Octavia paused on the threshold. The stairs zigzagged upward. No one was waiting for them. They hurried up the stairs, arriving at an open door that led directly outside.
Octavia could see some of the cultists scrambling up ropes that hung from the Albion. Octavia fired wildly through the door. She missed, but one of the cultists still on the rooftop turned and glared at her. Temple.
He shouted at the others, waving at them to return fire while he tried to grab a rope. But it shifted just out of reach. The Albion was rising. Temple jumped a se
cond time, but the rope was getting farther and farther away. He screamed at the airship.
Tweed shot through the door, narrowly missing Temple. He swung a furious glare at them, swept up his gun from where he'd dropped it, and returned fire. They ducked to the side. Tweed put his guns around the doorframe and fired blindly. The others followed suit, shooting wildly into the open.
That was when Octavia noticed the strange white glow that reached them through the door.
“What's that?” she shouted, straining to be heard above the gunfire.
Then, slowly, one by one, the guns outside fell silent.
They peered outside. Their eyes were drawn immediately upward. The huge lens that hung below the Albion was glowing bright white.
“They've activated the death ray,” whispered Strauss, fear evident in his voice.
Temple was standing directly below it. His face was bathed in light, his hands outstretched to either side.
And then he started to scream.
His skin flaked, sloughing away from his head, floating into the air like ash. His hair fell away and burst into tiny flames.
Octavia watched in horror. His skin boiled away, revealing muscle and sinew. Then that bubbled, vanishing in clouds of steam to reveal the bones underneath. He dropped to his knees. A red puddle formed around him, then the bones collapsed and disintegrated, crumbling away and vanishing.
The area around him started to fragment in the same way, the stone of the roof melting away like ice.
The scope of the death ray expanded, creeping outward, stone disintegrating like sand funneling into a hole. More cultists were caught in its grip, as were some of the hybrids who had made it up to the roof. Their metal frames rusted in an instant, flaking and bubbling as if touched by acid.
The hole in the roof was ten feet across. The other cultists had realized what was happening and were running back to the stairs.
Octavia thought that was a very sensible idea.
“Run!” she shouted. “Out! Out now!”
No one needed a second warning. They sprinted down the stairs, back into the room where the grenade had exploded. Light appeared above them. Octavia looked up and saw a hole forming in the roof, simply appearing and expanding. It touched the wall and the hole carried on growing, devouring everything in its path.
The death ray was moving faster, picking up speed. The group sprinted through the corridors, the compound collapsing all around them. Dust hung in the air like a choking mist. They ran down the stairs, holes appearing at random all around them. It was like some kind of nightmare. A nothingness that spread and ate anything it touched. And this was what they wanted to do to London? The thought drove anger through her body, gave her an extra burst of speed. She helped Dr. Campbell over a fallen roof beam. She could hear screams close behind them, screams that were abruptly cut off.
They reached the front atrium, where the huge hybrid had charged Tweed. They sprinted through the entrance, slipping and sliding on the snow outside. They kept going, moving as fast as they could.
They made it to the bottom of the slope, taking shelter behind the curve in the mountain wall, then turned back to watch.
The complex was almost completely gone. Dust and smoke hung heavy in the air and Octavia was thankful for that. It should have masked their escape. The area where the complex had once stood was now a vast depression, a gouge in the mountaintop. There was nothing left to show that anyone had ever been there. Just an empty crater.
The Albion still hung in the air. As they watched, the white light underneath it flickered out. Silence dropped over the mountains. No screams, no cries for help, no moans of pain.
Nothing.
The Tesla engines flared to life and the Albion turned around in a slow circle. It moved forward, gradually picking up speed as it flew west.
They watched till it was a speck against the grey sky. No one said anything. What was there to say? They had failed. London was as good as finished.
Not only that, but they were likely going to die as well, stranded out here in the frozen mountains.
There was nothing else to do but trudge back the way they had come. Her mother came to walk next to her. She put an arm around Octavia's shoulder, and Octavia slipped hers around her mother's waist.
“Just don't say ‘you did your best,’” said Octavia.
“I wouldn't dream of it.”
They walked in silence for a while.
“But you did,” said her mother. “We all did.”
“Not much of a comfort for the people in London, is it?”
“No,” sighed her mother. “No it isn't.”
They passed the bodies of the hybrids, buried beneath the snow, and toward late afternoon arrived at the crevice where they had spent the night. Without talking, they all headed inside. This time they lit a fire straight away. There was no need to hide from anyone anymore.
Night fell, and the stars burst into glittering life. They huddled together and slept fitfully, rising early the next morning to continue their trek.
They were heading back to the entrance into Hyperborea. Octavia wasn't sure why. They had destroyed the elevator with the last rocket launcher. It wasn't as if they could go back down.
But it was the only place they could go.
They were about an hour away from the cave entrance when they heard the noise, a dull booming that echoed around the mountainside. It went on for a while, accompanied by the screeching of metal, then the crump and rumble of falling snow. An avalanche, perhaps?
They picked up speed, curious to know the cause.
They found out soon enough.
The Boisterous Lady hung in the air above what used to be the cave entrance leading to Hyperborea. The ship was terribly battered, the sides scraped and shredded, huge dents in the metal where rocks had hit it. The entrance to the cave itself had collapsed, rock and rubble now piled up high, sealing off the entrance completely.
Octavia stared at the ship in shock. She wondered briefly if she was seeing things, but then Solomon's voice boomed over his speaker system.
“Hallo over there. Solomon wonders if you might need a ride somewhere? Excuse the lateness of my arriving, but some silly person destroyed the lift shaft and I had to blast my way up. Very time consuming! You want to come? I have hot drinks and chocolate. Lots of chocolate.”
“Chocolate?” said Dr. Campbell. She looked speculatively at the others, then elbowed them out of the way and set off at a run.
The others soon followed.
The wind whipped Tweed's hair around his face. He bared his teeth into the gale, grinning like a maniac. Then he remembered that this kind of thing annoyed Octavia, so he quickly stopped.
He looked guiltily around and saw her flying her pod off to his right. Was that starboard or port? He wasn't sure. He tapped the controls, his pod banking, and dropped beneath her. The waters of the channel weaved briefly into view, then vanished again, replaced by heavy grey clouds as he pulled up on her right.
He waved.
The battle pods, as Solomon called his escape craft, were surprisingly easy to steer. Just a stick control, the slightest touch of which sent you spiraling left or right, and a lever to control speed. That was it.
They had two seats, front and back. They'd mounted a gun in the rear of each pod so that one person could drive and another could shoot.
And Tweed had a feeling they were going to be doing a lot of shooting. They were half a day out from London now. It had taken them four days of travel, with Solomon coaxing every last bit of speed out of The Boisterous Lady. The Hyperborean was convinced they would be able to catch up with the Albion. It was too heavy, he said, too cumbersome. No match for his beautiful ship.
They hadn't quite caught up with it, but they had made good time. Tweed didn't think they were too far behind.
But would it be enough?
At first there had been some discussion about why they even had to learn to fly the pods. Octavia had raised the po
int that if the Albion flew into view above London and started firing a Tesla death ray at the city, the Ministry would respond. They had to have their own airships and weapons to fight off an attack.
That was when Dr. Strauss told them about the invisibility devices. The same technology they had encountered on Harry Banks's constructs had been brought to Sekhem and Nehi by Temple. The scientists had adapted the devices to the Albion.
Which meant the airship and the death ray itself was invisible. No one would know where the attack was coming from.
Tweed glanced over at The Boisterous Lady. Molock was waving at them from the railing. Tweed wiggled the lever, the pod dipping left and right in response. Molock gestured for them to head back aboard, then he pointed over his shoulder.
Tweed dropped the pod beneath the airship and saw that land was visible in the distance.
They were back in England.
The Boisterous Lady crested the white cliffs. Tweed stared down at them, then nudged Octavia, who was leaning on the railing next to him.
“Hey, Songbird. Do you think we're ‘proudly cresting’ the white cliffs of Dover? Or are we sort of limping over them?”
Octavia gave him half a smile. “Guess we'll know in a little bit, won't we?”
“Yeah.” Tweed sighed. “I suppose we will.” He turned his gaze back to the grey clouds. Snow was falling again, covering the familiar countryside with a comforting, suffocating blanket that hid the truth of what was to come.
“Do you really think they'll go ahead with it?” he eventually asked.
She searched his eyes. “You don't, do you? You think they'll realize what they're doing is wrong. That they'll have an attack of conscience.”
Tweed shrugged uncomfortably and broke eye contact. He did sort of think that. No, he hoped that. Everything Sekhem and Nehi were doing, it was out of pain, hurt. Surely they'd realize that killing millions of innocents wasn't the answer.
He had to hope.
He stared into the distance, watching the hills and towns roll by beneath them.
About two hours later, he saw the smoke.
At first he thought it was just the clouds, or perhaps the normal smoke and steam that gathered above the city.
