by Mark Walden
‘We are all going to be dying, we are all going to be dying,’ Franz whimpered at the other end of the compartment. ‘I don’t want to die, especially not on an empty stomach. Oooooh God!’
Lucy leant over and whispered in his ear. ‘Sleep.’
Franz looked surprised for a moment and then his chin dropped on to his chest as he fell unconscious.
‘On behalf of everyone, thank you,’ Shelby said, her knuckles white where she clung on to her seat harness.
‘My pleasure,’ Lucy said through gritted teeth as the Shroud plunged downwards again before slowly clawing its way back to higher altitude.
‘You couldn’t do the same thing for me, could you?’ Laura asked, only half joking.
Back on the flight deck, Nero winced as another bolt of lightning struck the Shroud. The pilot growled as he pulled hard on the joystick, almost willing the ailing aircraft to stay airborne. Then just as suddenly as their roller-coaster ride had started, it stopped, and the Shroud punched out through the interior wall of the storm cell and into the area of calm surrounding the Dreadnought.
‘Good God, is that what I think it is?’ the pilot said as they both saw the plane suspended by giant clamps under the belly of the Dreadnought with its unmistakable blue and white livery.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ Nero said quietly. ‘What has Drake done?’
Down on the engineering deck of the Dreadnought, Darkdoom knew he was running out of time. He scanned the control panel in front of him, trying to work out the best way to disable the safety interlocks on the system without alerting anyone on the bridge. He was relatively familiar with the ship’s systems, but this was still beyond his experience.
‘You don’t need to know how something works in order to break it, Diabolus,’ he whispered to himself. He flicked a couple of switches and twisted a large black handle that was underneath a screen displaying a series of green bars. As he twisted the handle the bars began to get longer, first turning yellow, then orange and finally red. ‘Well, that looks promising,’ he said with a slight smile.
He pulled the pistol he had taken from one of the fallen guards in the brig and pointed it at the control panel, emptying the clip into the machine. Nobody was going to be undoing his sabotage any time soon. He heard voices coming from the other end of the compartment. That was hardly surprising given that he’d made a point of setting off as many intruder alarms as he could on his way through the engineering deck. He just hoped that he’d provided enough of a diversion for Raven and Otto in the process. It was time to go.
‘What do you mean, you did this?’ Drake said, staring in amazement at Furan.
‘It was not difficult,’ Furan replied calmly. ‘The substance is self-replicating. I only needed to insert a tiny amount into the system while the Dreadnought was docked in Nevada; it was already programmed to do the rest. The Disciples call it Animus – I do not begin to understand how it works, I just know that it is some kind of organic computer that takes control of any system it’s inserted into.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Drake said. ‘Why would you do this?’
‘Because our esteemed guest over there was right,’ Furan said, gesturing towards the President. ‘You are insane. I’ve always known it and so have the rest of the Disciples, but until now we needed you. We needed your technology, your contacts in the military, your ship, but we knew that once those missiles detonated and the world was ours for the taking that you would be too much of a loose cannon to keep around. We knew that we were going to have to dispose of you and this ship. But how could we be sure that we could take control of its systems, that you wouldn’t have locked us out? Fortunately, technology that we have recently developed made that quite simple. As soon as the Dreadnought launched, the substance you just found began to multiply and integrate seamlessly into your systems, allowing us to seize control when the right time came. I’m afraid Mr Malpense has rather spoilt the surprise, but no matter. It just means that you learn that you are surplus to requirements a little ahead of schedule.’
‘Surplus to requirements?’ Drake yelled. ‘This was my plan. Without me there would be nothing, and this is how the Disciples repay me?’
‘You’ve served your purpose and so has the Dreadnought. We cannot take the chance that at some point in the future you might turn against us, or worse, reveal our part in the catastrophe that is about to befall the United States. You’re a dangerous loose end, one that it is now my job to cut off. Goodbye, Jason.’
Furan fired twice, both rounds hitting Drake squarely in the chest, and he dropped to his knees, eyes wide, before slowly toppling forward and hitting the deck with a thud. There were a couple of angry cries from members of the bridge crew but these were quickly silenced by the arrival of more of Furan’s men. They raised their rifles and kept Drake’s people covered. Furan looked at his watch.
‘Ten minutes to impact,’ he said and turned to one of his men. ‘Take the President back to Air Force One and take this with you.’ He handed the man the black briefcase that was the key to America’s nuclear arsenal. ‘They both need to be on board so that no questions are raised if and when the wreckage is retrieved.’
The soldier nodded and he and one of his comrades forced the President towards the door at gunpoint. Furan gestured to two more of his men.
‘You and you, get rid of that,’ he said, pointing at Drake’s body. ‘Now, what to do with you two.’ He smiled evilly at Otto and Raven. ‘It seems such a waste to just kill you. I know for a fact that at least one other senior member of the Disciples would very much like to dissect you, Mr Malpense, and Raven, you have always been my greatest unfinished project. The truth is, though, that you are both too dangerous to leave alive, too loyal to our enemies, too difficult to turn. So I’m afraid it’s goodbye, Mr Malpense, dosvidaniya, Natalya.’ He raised his pistol.
Outside the bridge windows something suddenly lit up with an impossibly white light. The Zeus Sphere reached its limits as the terminal overcharge that Darkdoom had accidentally set in motion reached its climax and the giant ball at the prow of the Dreadnought detonated catastrophically. The bridge windows blew out in a lethal hail of flying glass and the pressurised air raced out through the gaping holes. Several of the bridge crew and a couple of Furan’s men were sucked out of the windows, their screams vanishing in the roaring wind. Furan was blown off his feet, his pistol skidding away across the floor as he grabbed desperately for something to hang on to. Heavy steel emergency shutters slammed down, sealing the bridge windows as the pressure loss was detected and the bridge was plunged into darkness for a few seconds before emergency lighting came online, illuminating the chaotic scene with a dim red light. Furan struggled to stand, blood trickling into his eye from a vicious gash on his forehead. Raven and the boy were nowhere to be seen.
Wing felt the deck move as an enormous shudder ran through the Dreadnought’s hull, accompanied by the muffled sound of an explosion.
‘What was that?’ Nigel said as the whole ship seemed to emit a low-pitched groan.
‘Nothing good, I suspect,’ Wing replied with a frown. ‘But we may have a bigger problem.’ He looked out across the hangar deck. There was only a single Shroud in the whole bay and it was surrounded by at least a dozen of Furan’s men. He and Nigel were concealed behind a large fuel tank fifty or sixty metres away at the other end of the hangar.
‘Now what do we do?’ Nigel asked, pushing his glasses back up on to the bridge of his nose.
‘Honestly, I have no idea,’ Wing said. He had been trained well enough by the tutors at H.I.V.E. to be able to recognise a tactically hopeless situation when he saw one, and this was exactly that.
Suddenly there was the sound of another distant explosion and this time the whole deck seemed to tip violently towards the starboard side of the ship. Wing struggled to keep his footing, grabbing on to Nigel and stopping him from sliding away across the deck. The docking clamps holding the Shroud to the hangar floor groaned in protest and a fe
w of the soldiers surrounding it fell to the ground.
‘I think we need to find a way off this ship sooner rather than later,’ Darkdoom said from behind them.
‘What’s going on, Dad?’ Nigel asked.
‘My attempts at diversionary sabotage may have been a little . . . overenthusiastic,’ Darkdoom replied, sounding slightly embarrassed.
There was the sound of another explosion from somewhere off in the distance.
‘I think we really need to get off this ship,’ Nigel said uneasily.
Otto and Raven ran down the corridor towards the hangar bay. They rounded a corner and Raven suddenly stopped. At the far end of the corridor were the President and the guards from the bridge who were escorting him back to Air Force One. They turned into a doorway at the end of the corridor and disappeared from view.
‘I can stop this,’ Otto said.
‘What do you mean?’ Raven asked, looking back down the corridor they had just come down for any signs of pursuit.
‘If I can get that briefcase, then I think I can stop the satellite from launching its missiles,’ Otto replied.
‘You heard what Furan said about “the wreckage”,’ Raven said with a frown. ‘They’re planning to crash that plane.’
‘I’m not stupid,’ Otto replied quickly. ‘I know that there’s no way to save the people on board but we could be talking about hundreds of millions of people dying if Yellowstone blows, not to mention global environmental chaos and financial meltdown, the blame for all of which will be placed squarely on G.L.O.V.E.’s shoulders. I can’t just stand by and let it happen. I have to at least try to stop it.’
Raven looked Otto square in the eye. She may have had a lot of blood on her own hands but she knew what he meant. If Drake’s plan worked it would mean indiscriminate slaughter on an unprecedented scale. Not only that, it would mean the end of G.L.O.V.E. Anyone who had ever had anything to do with the organisation would be hunted to the ends of the earth if Drake’s plan to pin the blame on them worked.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Raven said.
‘No,’ Otto replied, ‘they need you in the hangar bay. Don’t worry, I have no intention of tangling with any of Furan’s men. I leave that kind of thing to you and Wing. As soon as I’m done I’ll head for the hangar. I’ll be right behind you. This won’t take long.’
Raven hesitated for a moment, weighing up the risks.
‘Make it quick,’ she said, ‘and good luck.’
‘Let’s hope I don’t need it,’ Otto said with a tiny smile.
Raven gave him a small nod and Otto quickly headed after the President. He opened the Dreadnought’s external airlock and crept down the stairs to the forward door of Air Force One, listening for any signs of Furan’s men. As he stepped inside the plane he could hear voices coming from the stairs leading to the upper deck.
‘OK, get to the hangar,’ a gruff voice said. ‘Furan’s ordered a full evacuation.’
Otto ducked into the galley opposite the door and hid behind a bulkhead as the men filed quickly off the plane, resealing the door behind them. Otto waited a moment before coming out from his hiding place and heading to the upper deck. Unconscious bodies lay everywhere, everyone from flight attendants to bulky men in dark suits, some of whom were still holding the weapons they’d been wielding when they fell. He hurried up the stairs, looking for any sign of the President. He noticed that a nearby door with the presidential seal on it was standing slightly ajar and he pushed it open cautiously.
‘Hello?’ a voice said from inside.
‘Hi,’ Otto said as he walked into the room. The President sat behind his desk, each hand cuffed to one arm of the chair. ‘Where’s the case?’
The President nodded towards a filing cabinet on the other side of the room. The case sat on top of it.
‘Mr Malpense, wasn’t it?’ the President asked. ‘What exactly are you doing here?’
‘Trying to stop this nightmare from happening,’ Otto said, popping the latches on the case. ‘And much as I’d like to discuss it, we really haven’t got much time.’
Suddenly there was a clunking sound from somewhere overhead.
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Otto said quietly and then the floor seemed to drop away from beneath him.
‘Docking clamps disengaged,’ one of Furan’s men reported, looking up from the screen in front of him. ‘Payload away.’
Furan had activated the direct wireless interface with the Animus that now coursed through the Dreadnought’s hull giving him direct control of the giant vessel without the need for any of the recently deceased Drake’s command codes.
‘Sir, I have multiple radar contacts heading this way. Judging by their size and speed they have to be fighters,’ another of his men reported.
‘So the Americans have come to see what has happened to their President,’ Furan said. ‘What is their ETA?’
‘Four minutes, sir,’ the man at the tactical station replied. ‘The storm cloak surrounding the Dreadnought has dissipated since the destruction of the Zeus Sphere and weapons systems are non-responsive, presumably due to the damage caused by the explosion. There’s nothing to stop them blowing us out of the sky.’
‘Very well, then it is time to leave,’ Furan said. ‘Transfer the primary control interface to my system on board the Shroud. Clear the bridge.’
His men quickly gathered their equipment and headed for the hangar bay. Furan looked at his watch again. There was now only three minutes until the missiles were launched from orbit and nothing could stop that now.
Nero watched in astonishment as the giant blue and white plane detached from the underside of the Dreadnought and dropped away. The 747’s nose began to point downwards, going into what would soon become an uncontrolled dive. There was nothing that anyone could do to save Air Force One now; its next stop would be the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, thirty thousand feet below.
‘Head for the hangar,’ Nero ordered the pilot. ‘If any of our people are still alive on board that thing, that’s where they’ll be heading.’
‘Sir, without our cloak the anti-aircraft weapons on the Dreadnought are going to rip us to pieces,’ the pilot said nervously.
‘If those systems were active and functioning properly, I rather suspect we would already be a cloud of burning debris,’ Nero said. ‘I think whoever’s currently in control of the Dreadnought has rather more pressing concerns at the moment.’
As if in response to Nero’s words, a huge explosion ripped through one of the four clusters of engines that kept the giant aircraft aloft. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the blazing tangle of wreckage at the front of the ship, where the storm-generating Zeus Sphere had once been, tipped downwards. The Dreadnought too was going down.
‘The hangar. Now!’ Nero snapped.
Raven stuck her head around the corner of the large doorway that led on to the hangar bay. At the far end there were at least a dozen of Furan’s men guarding a solitary Shroud. She looked around the bay for any signs of Darkdoom and the others. After a few seconds she spotted Darkdoom’s head pop out from behind a fuel tank on the other side of the bay and then disappear again. There was another loud rumbling explosion from somewhere outside and the deck lurched sickeningly. Raven took advantage of the distraction to dash stealthily across to Darkdoom’s hiding place while the guards struggled to stay on their feet. She found Diabolus, Nigel and Wing all crouched in the cramped space behind the bulky tank.
‘You might want to be a bit more careful,’ Raven said. ‘You weren’t exactly difficult to spot.’
‘Fortunately, I think our friends over there are more concerned with getting themselves out of here than looking out for intruders,’ Darkdoom said with a crooked smile. There was another muffled crump and the deck shook again. ‘As you can see, my attempts at sabotage were rather overzealous.’
‘Trust me, I’m not complaining,’ Raven said quietly. ‘You saved our skins, that’s for sure.’
‘Where’s
Otto?’ Wing asked, looking concerned.
‘He’s on his way. There was something he had to take care of,’ Raven replied. ‘In the meantime we need to secure a way off this death trap.’
There were the sounds of more running feet from over by the entrance to the bay and Raven risked a quick look to see what was going on. Furan and another dozen of his men ran on to the hangar deck. Raven had been hoping that he might have been seriously injured during the chaos on the bridge a few minutes earlier, but it looked like he had escaped relatively unscathed.
‘Where’s Drake?’ Darkdoom asked as he saw Furan too.
‘Drake’s dead,’ Raven replied.
‘I knew we could count on you, Natalya,’ Darkdoom said with relief.
‘It wasn’t me, it was Furan,’ Raven said and then quickly recounted the events on the bridge.
‘Whoever these Disciples are, they certainly like to do a clean job,’ Darkdoom said finally. ‘Such ruthlessness is almost admirable.’
‘Unfortunately Drake’s plan did not die with him,’ Raven said. ‘They seem quite happy for that to proceed as scheduled.’
She watched as Furan hit the controls to seal the hangar access door and then aimed his pistol at the control panel.
‘No!’ Raven spat, moving to try and stop him, but she was too late. He fired three times into the panel and it disintegrated in a shower of sparks.
Furan heard her cry and spun around, aiming the pistol in her direction and snapping off a couple of shots without aiming. The bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the floor and the wall behind her as he turned and ran after his men, who were hurriedly boarding the Shroud.
Raven sprinted across the hangar bay as Furan ran up the loading ramp at the rear of the Shroud, which started to close behind him. He turned back towards Raven as she raced across the hangar towards him.
‘Goodbye, Natalya!’ he yelled over the noise of the Shroud’s engines. ‘I’d say we’ll meet again, but frankly that looks unlikely under the circumstances.’ He gave her a quick wave as the ramp rose into place, sealing the Shroud’s rear hatch.