by Mark Walden
The Shroud carrying Raven and the other prisoners touched down on the landing pad as the huge sliding doors overhead closed, sealing them below the desert floor. Pietor Furan watched as a dozen men surrounded the tail of the Shroud, weapons ready. He knew from personal experience that it was unwise to take any chances with one particular prisoner on board this aircraft. The loading ramp dropped down and after a few seconds Raven limped out on to the landing pad. She had a gash on her forehead and her face was half covered in dried blood, but there was still a look of defiance on her face.
‘Privet, Natalya,’ Furan said, greeting her in Russian as she approached. ‘It is good to see you again.’
Raven’s eyes widened as she saw him and she froze, standing motionless as he walked towards her. Somewhere inside her head a voice that she had not heard for years was screaming at her to run, to hide. She ignored it as best she could.
‘I should have known that scum like you would be involved with this,’ Raven spat on the ground at his feet, ‘you treacherous piece of filth.’
‘Come now, Natalya,’ Furan said with a vicious smile, ‘is that any way to greet an old friend?’
‘Take these off,’ Raven said, holding her shackled wrists up in front of her, ‘and I’ll greet you properly.’ She had murder in her eyes.
‘Ah, you never change, Natalya – that’s one of the things I’ve always liked about you,’ Furan said, smiling. ‘And I see you even brought some of your young charges along.’
Behind Raven, Franz and Nigel walked slowly down the ramp, glancing at the soldiers around them nervously. Just behind them were Shelby, Laura and Lucy, taking in their new surroundings with expressions of exhausted resignation.
‘You know, I never understood why you wanted to help Nero with his efforts to turn G.L.O.V.E.’s brats into useful operatives. The great leaders of our world are not manufactured like this.’ He gestured at the group of students. ‘They are born in blood, in the war zone or on the streets, like we were. Not in the classroom like battery chickens. Nero has always been an idealistic fool, but I would have expected better from you, Natalya.’
‘He’s a better man than you will ever be,’ Raven growled. ‘At least he understands the concepts of loyalty and honour.’
‘Honour?’ Furan laughed. ‘There’s no place for honour in our world. You sound just like that spineless fool Darkdoom. G.L.O.V.E. was never about honour; it was about power, control, ruthlessness – at least it used to be. But G.L.O.V.E. lost its way when Number One died and now it must be swept aside and replaced by a new order, a group that understands; that we rule through strength and fear, not misguided principles of honour. In time you will understand; in time you will join us.’
‘I would die before helping you,’ Raven snarled.
‘Nyet, Natalya,’ Furan said with an evil smile, taking her chin in his hand. ‘I’ve broken you before and I’ll break you again.’ He let her go and gestured to the soldiers surrounding them. ‘Take them away. Use maximum-security holding cells for all of them.’
Nero groaned and his eyes flickered open.
‘How are you feeling?’ Otto asked.
Nero sat leaning against a wooden crate in a dingy room. Shafts of light poured in through a cracked and dirty old skylight overhead, catching the dust that hung in the air. Wing stood nearby, looking out through a crack in the planks of a boarded-up window.
‘Other than the mother of all headaches, fine,’ Nero said, gingerly touching the crease the drone’s bullet had left in his forehead. ‘Where are we?’
‘In a warehouse on the east side of the river,’ Otto replied. ‘There was no way we could make it back to the safe house until you were on your feet again. Besides which, I wasn’t sure it could strictly be called safe any more.’
‘You did the right thing,’ Nero said, standing up slowly. ‘How long was I out?’
‘A couple of hours,’ Otto replied. ‘I was just starting to get worried.’
‘Oh, I’ve survived considerably worse than this before now, Mr Malpense,’ Nero said with a pained smile. ‘We need to work out our next move. Now we know the location of Drake’s facility we need to prepare to mount an assault as soon as possible.’
‘Shhhh!’ Wing hissed from across the room, signalling that he could hear something outside.
Otto strained to hear what it was that caught his friend’s attention and after a couple of seconds he could just pick up the sound of boots on concrete, and they were getting closer. Nero, Otto and Wing moved away from the door, backing into the shadows at the rear of the room as the sounds of running footsteps got louder and louder. Suddenly the sound stopped, and a moment later the door to the room was kicked in with a crash, half a dozen men in black body armour and face masks fanning out into the room, weapons raised. Wing stepped out of the shadows, assuming a defensive stance, determined at least to go down fighting.
The lead soldier lowered his weapon and pulled off his mask.
‘There’ll be no need for that, Mr Fanchu,’ Colonel Francisco said with a slight smile. ‘If we’re going to stop Jason Drake I’m going to need all my men in one piece, if you don’t mind.’
.
Chapter Seven
‘Thank you for getting here so quickly, Colonel,’ Nero said as they walked to where Francisco’s squad had assembled in the warehouse.
‘Once we got within range and were able to lock on to the transponder in your Blackbox it didn’t take us long to track you down but judging by the news reports I’ve been following on the way here you could have done with our help a couple of hours ago,’ Francisco replied, raising an eyebrow.
‘It has been rather an eventful day, yes,’ Nero said, smiling weakly. ‘It would have been a lot worse if it had not been for those two though.’ He nodded towards Otto and Wing, who were sat nearby being checked out and patched up by the squad’s field medic.
Suddenly, one of Francisco’s men came running into the warehouse.
‘Sir,’ the man said as he approached Nero and the Colonel, ‘we’ve just received a report from team two. The safe house that Doctor Nero directed us to has been attacked. It looks like they were hit hard and fast. There’s no sign of Raven or the students.’
‘Damn it,’ Nero hissed. He had felt in his gut that something had gone badly wrong but he’d hoped that somehow Natalya would have been able to escape. It was clear now that was not the case. ‘How did Drake find us?’
‘I think I may have the answer to that,’ Professor Pike said, walking towards them.
‘It’s unusual to see you away from the school, Professor,’ Nero said as the old man approached.
‘I was led to believe that it was an emergency,’ the Professor said with a smile. ‘Drop everything, highest priority, all hands on deck, that sort of thing. Besides which, I had some new equipment that I thought might come in useful and there was no way I was letting the Colonel and his men use it until they’d been fully briefed.’
‘Yes, the Professor spent much of the journey here briefing us,’ the Colonel said, rolling his eyes. ‘It was a very long journey.’
‘You have something for us, Professor?’ Nero said, gesturing at the papers that Pike was holding.
‘Yes, I suspect this is how Mr Drake has been tracking you,’ the Professor said, handing Nero one of the sheets. It was a blueprint of what looked like a satellite. ‘Project Overwatch, a military black-budget contract that Drake Industries was working on. I have some old friends in the R&D department at the Pentagon and they were kind enough to furnish me with these drawings. Judging by its specification, it is designed to render the concept of a ground-based manhunt quite redundant. If you can see the sky, then you can be identified and tracked. Quite impressive actually. The physical-profile reconstruction algorithms must be very advanced. I’d love to have a look at them.’
‘Was there anything else that your friend was able to tell you?’ Nero asked, handing the schematic back to the Professor.
‘Apparent
ly it was launched with another satellite that Drake Industries did not work on – a deep black military project that even my friend could find out nothing about, other than the name of the project: Thor’s Hammer. The two were designed to work in unison somehow, but beyond that he could tell me nothing.’
‘Thank you, Professor,’ Nero said, ‘that is most helpful. Drake must have tracked me back to the safe house earlier today and hit it soon after we left. Could he have tracked us here?’
‘It’s possible,’ the Professor replied, ‘so I suggest that we relocate sooner rather than later.’
‘Agreed,’ Nero said. ‘Colonel, get everyone on to the Shrouds. I’ll brief you on the next mission once we’re airborne.’
‘That is most disappointing,’ the figure on the screen in front of Drake said.
‘We will reacquire Nero,’ Drake replied, sounding more confident than he felt.
‘He cannot be allowed to interfere. We’ve spent too long planning this for our efforts to be derailed by a glorified school teacher,’ the figure on the left-hand screen said.
The faces of the people on the three screens were all digitally disguised, their features distorting and blurring in such a way that while one might be able to determine their race or sex, that was about as much as could be distinguished. To Drake they were known simply as the Disciples and that was all he needed to know.
‘It’s unfortunate that Nero became involved,’ the figure on the right-hand screen said, ‘but we have Raven and five of his students. That gives us leverage. Nero will not sacrifice them lightly.’
‘Does he know about the Nevada facility?’ the woman on the left asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Drake replied calmly. ‘A network intrusion was recorded while Nero and two of his students were inside the headquarters building in New York, but it was only brief, and the system contains no records of this location. I don’t believe they could have discovered our whereabouts.’
‘Nero was accompanied by his students?’ the man on the centre screen asked quickly.
‘Yes, two boys were with him,’ Drake said, pulling up the blurry security camera images of Nero and his companions that had been forwarded to him.
‘There, the boy with the white hair,’ the man on the right said with quiet venom. ‘Malpense.’
‘Should I know who that is?’ Drake asked.
‘No, his involvement in the death of Number One was kept from the ruling council,’ the woman said. ‘Nero has always done whatever he could to keep Mr Malpense out of the limelight, but he was there when Number One was killed, we know that much. We also know that if he got access to your files then the location of that facility is no longer a secret. Suffice to say, Otto Malpense has certain unique abilities.’
Drake studied the blurry image of the boy with the spiky white hair. He certainly didn’t look particularly exceptional.
‘It’s too late for anyone to stop us now,’ Drake said calmly. ‘We’re ready to proceed. Just a couple more hours and we’ll be ready for launch. Everything is going precisely to schedule.’
‘Good,’ the man on the centre screen replied. ‘The target will be at the coordinates we supplied. Make sure that everything is ready. It might be weeks before we get another opportunity.’
‘Understood,’ Drake replied and the screens in front of him went dark. He couldn’t help but feel a genuine sense of excitement. In just a few hours’ time the Disciples would remind the world what true villainy was and G.L.O.V.E. would effectively be destroyed in the process. A new day was about to dawn.
‘Nevada,’ Colonel Francisco said, sounding a bit impatient.
‘Yes,’ Otto replied, studying the map that was laid out on top of the equipment trunk.
‘And that’s all you have?’ the Colonel asked. ‘You are, I assume, aware that it is quite a large state.’
‘Two hundred and eighty-six thousand three hundred and sixty-seven square kilometres,’ Otto said, unconsciously calculating the precise figure from the map in front of him.
‘I think the Colonel wants to know if you can be any more specific,’ Nero said with a slight smile.
Otto continued to stare at the map, the rumble of the Shroud’s engines and the low murmur of conversation from the troops on board seeming to fade away as he concentrated. They had been airborne for just a few minutes and they needed to give the pilot a precise destination.
‘It has to be somewhere remote,’ Otto said, sounding distracted, ‘but somewhere that isn’t going to attract people who want to enjoy the great outdoors. You don’t want hikers stumbling into your secret launch facility.’ He looked up at Nero. ‘If you were going to build a facility here, where would you build it?’
Nero studied the map for a couple of minutes.
‘There is one obvious location,’ Nero replied. ‘Remote, largely unpatrolled within its own perimeter, it looks ideal.’ He pointed to a label on the map. It read ‘Nuclear Test Site’.
‘Well, I can see why you wouldn’t have to worry about people wandering around,’ Otto replied, ‘but wouldn’t that be too hostile an environment?’
‘Parts of it, yes, but it’s a huge area and there hasn’t been a live nuclear test there in years,’ Nero said quickly. ‘It seems unlikely, I know, but that’s precisely why I would build there. We know that Drake Industries has worked on black projects for the US military, so they may well have had access to the area for testing purposes. All of which would give Drake plenty of opportunity to scout for a suitable location under the cover of carrying out his legitimate business.’
‘It’s also somewhere where the locals are used to strange lights in the sky and mysterious aircraft. Look who’s right next door.’ Otto tapped his finger on a location on the map.
‘Groom Lake,’ the Colonel said.
‘Or to give it its more common name, Area 51,’ Otto said quickly. ‘The perfect cover for experimental flights of any type of aircraft.’
‘Also one of the most highly secured pieces of airspace in the world,’ the Colonel said with a frown. ‘Not a good place to be if you want to avoid detection by the military.’
‘The Dreadnought can render itself invisible to the air force’s technology,’ Otto replied, ‘at least for a short time. So that wouldn’t be a problem. The benefits would outweigh the risks.’
‘Even if you’re right and this is where Drake’s holed up, it’s still a huge area. How are we going to find him? It’s not like the air force are going to let us wander into a nuclear-weapon test site to have a quick look around.’
‘We may not need to,’ the Professor said, looking up from the stolen Overwatch schematics.
‘You have an idea?’ Nero asked.
‘Perhaps,’ the Professor said. ‘What’s the single most important raw material for a facility of this kind?’
‘Power,’ Nero replied after a moment. ‘H.I.V.E. was built on an island with an active volcano. Without that there would have been no geothermal power plant and without power there would have been no school.’
‘Exactly,’ the Professor said with a broad smile, ‘and that’s the one thing that Drake’s facility will not be able to survive without.’
‘Well, he can’t be tapped into the national electrical grid,’ Otto said quickly. ‘That level of power consumption would be too obvious, too easy to trace.’
‘So he must have an on-site power supply,’ the Professor replied, ‘something compact but extremely powerful. Possibly nuclear. The radiation in the environment would mask any environmental contamination.’
‘No,’ Otto said quietly, thinking back to the earlier events on the Dreadnought, ‘a fusion core.’
‘Yes, that would be ideal,’ the Professor said, ‘but it’s just theoretical at this point. No one has been able to produce a working prototype.’
‘Drake has,’ Nero said quickly. ‘The Dreadnought has one as its main power source. And if he installed one in the Dreadnought then it’s reasonable to assume that he could also be
using one to power the facility where it was built.’
‘Fascinating,’ the Professor said quietly. ‘If Drake really has got a fusion generator working . . . I would love to see it.’
‘The question at this point is not how it works,’ Otto said, looking again at the map, ‘but can we detect it?’
‘I believe we could,’ the Professor said, nodding. ‘There are several satellites that might give us some clues. I need a few minutes.’ He walked over to where his laptop rested on top of some equipment crates and began to type.
‘I’m going to check on Wing,’ Otto said as the Professor worked.
‘Very well,’ Nero replied. ‘The Colonel and I need to discuss our tactical options.’
Otto walked away, leaving Nero and Francisco in hushed conversation. Wing sat at the far end of the Shroud’s passenger compartment, naked from the waist up, his head resting against the bulkhead, wincing occasionally as a medic prodded at his injured ribs.
‘So what’s the verdict?’ Otto said as he approached. ‘Are you going to live?’
‘It would appear so,’ Wing said. He inhaled sharply through his teeth as the medic found yet another painful spot on the side of his chest.
‘The abrasions are bad and they’re going to hurt like hell for a while but they should heal up just fine,’ the man said, reaching into his pack and pulling out a paper-wrapped gauze bandage. ‘You’ve probably got a couple of cracked ribs; I can’t tell for sure until we get you back to H.I.V.E. and perform some X-rays. I’ll strap them up in the meantime but you still need to take it easy, give them a chance to heal. If you think you feel bad now, you really don’t want to know what a punctured lung feels like, trust me.’
The medic began to wrap the bandage around Wing’s chest, which Wing did not seem to be enjoying particularly. After a couple of minutes he was finished and he turned to Otto.
‘Right, your turn. Sit down,’ the medic instructed.
‘I’m fine, really,’ Otto said, holding his hands up in front of him.