Anno Frankenstein

by Jonathan Green

  “Shit!” Jinx exclaimed sharply. “Will you look at that?”

  Everyone’s attention turned from the haunted Ulysses and back to the converted castle below them.

  The Icarus Cannon had fired. The intense searing radiance of the beam of concentrated sunlight, three and a half thousand degrees strong, caused them to wince in actual physical pain, throwing their hands up to shield their watering eyes.

  “What’s it firing at?” Cookie asked, urgently.

  “There’s no way of knowing,” Hercules said, making a rough calculation in his head, “not from here, but it’s clear the cannon’s been targeted at a location to the north-west.”

  “Wherever it is, I don’t think it’s going to be helping the Allied war effort any, do you?” Ulysses commented.

  “What sort of range could a weapon like that have?” Cat murmured, awed.

  “Who knows?” Hercules replied. “But if the beam could be focused tightly enough… Hundreds of miles?”

  “Hundreds?” Cat exclaimed.

  “Amiens!” Ulysses whispered, recalling his history lessons.

  “We have to destroy it,” Agent K said with a shudder, “and without further delay.”

  “I thought that was the plan,” Ulysses said.

  “Yes,” Cookie snapped, “but how?”

  “Just get me off here and point me in the direction of whatever it is you want destroyed,” Hyde’s voice rumbled up to them through the hole in the cabin floor.

  “All in good time, Edward,” Hercules called back, “all in good time.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” Cookie challenged him.

  “Um… I’ve got an idea,” Jinx said hesitantly.

  “Really?” Ulysses said, sounding a lot more surprised than he had intended.

  “It has been known,” the young woman said with a pout.

  “Whatever it is you have in mind, we have to act fast,” Hercules said. “Whatever else happens, we have to shut off that beam.”

  “If only we had something we could drop on the castle,” Cookie said, “like – oh, I don’t know – some bombs perhaps?”

  Ulysses wilted before her glare. “I did what had to be done at the time,” he said weakly.

  “Then time for Plan B, I think,” Hercules said. “Or should that be Plan J?”

  “Leave it to me,” Jinx said, grinning now from ear to ear. “I suggest you all hang onto something.”

  The iron eagle banked abruptly – throwing those who were still unprepared across the cabin into an enforced huddle on its starboard side – and began to circle the castle in an ever-tightening spiral.

  Ulysses watched the cloud-clad peak as it spun below them.

  Slowly the great shadow of the iron eagle fell across the turrets of Schloss Adlerhorst and the sunlight-focusing dish.

  “Clever girl,” Hercules said softly, allowing himself a smile as he stroked at his moustache. He turned to Jinx, secure within the pilot’s position. “Can you keep the bird hovering in this position?”

  “I think so,” she replied, looking justifiably proud of herself. “I can certainly try.”

  Ulysses struggled across to the other side of the cockpit to keep the Icarus Cannon in sight. Was it his imagination, or had the beam it was projecting lost some of its intensity? But it was still aflame and, at the end of the day, what difference did a few degrees of heat make? It was still as incandescent as the sun and probably as hot as well.

  “It’s not enough,” he muttered.

  “What?” Hercules snapped.

  “The dish is still collecting enough light for the cannon to function,” he said, speaking up so that they could all hear.

  “Are you sure you’re seeing clearly through that eye-patch of yours?” Hercules retorted.

  “On a day like today, in these conditions we’re going to need a better solution than simply casting a shadow over the collector array.”

  “So what do you suggest?” Hercules threw back.

  “Well,” Ulysses said uncertainly, “something more permanent.”

  “Marvellous! That’s your suggestion, is it?”

  “All I know is that until that cannon is put out of action, the Magna Britannian forces at Amiens are going to be cooking like marshmallows on a jamboree campfire.”

  “Like I said,” Hyde’s voice rose from where he was penned in the belly hold, with all the patience of a beast pacing its cage. “Just drop me off now and I’ll get this party started.”

  “All in good time,” Hercules called back. “All in good time.”

  “So you keep saying,” the giant grumbled. “But the time for talking is past, and the time for arse-kicking is upon us.”

  “Like this, you mean?” Jinx countered, pulling hard on the flying machine’s controls, forcing the great metal bird into a sharp dive.

  Once again, the rest of those on board were forced to hang on as the iron eagle plummeted towards the cannon itself.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Jinx!” Cookie shouted over the screaming drone of the bird’s engines. “We knew this was a suicide mission when we signed up for it, but I’ve got used to the idea of living again and I don’t want it to end too soon!”

  “Don’t worry,” Jinx said through gritted teeth as she fought the rising strain to keep the bird on course, the battlements of the castle filling the viewports in front of them. “I’m good at landings – honest. But, just in case, you might want to put your head between your legs.”

  “What, and brace for impact?” Cat asked.

  “To kiss your arse goodbye,” Hyde laughed from below.

  “Why aren’t we under attack?” Cat asked, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of the skies above. “Where are the cyber-eagles? The dirigible gunships?”

  “Sheer bloody arrogance?” Ulysses suggested.

  “How so?”

  “Either they considered their position unassailable or they thought the cannon would protect them? Or perhaps they’re low on resources and have had to commit everything to the land battle to hold back the Allied advance.”

  “How do you know all this?” Cat asked, scrutinizing him intently.

  “History lessons,” Ulysses replied, just a little too quickly.

  “History lessons?”

  “I mean, history has a habit of repeating itself.”

  “Right, here we go,” Hercules announced.

  “Here goes nothing,” Ulysses muttered to himself, “once again.”

  The cannon loomed larger and larger, coming nearer and nearer.

  Just when it looked like the eagle was going to come down on top of the firing platform itself, Jinx pulled back hard on the stick, and the iron eagle, wings outspread, swept into the path of the super-heated beam of sunlight.

  The eagle was engulfed in a searing supernova of light as it came between the devastating beam and its target, more than a hundred miles away on the ground. But even as the highly polished steel began to liquefy under the intense heat, it reflected a measure of the blast back at the fortress.

  The air temperature inside the cockpit suddenly rose sharply, until in the space of only a few seconds, they felt as if they were inside a blast furnace.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Ulysses shouted, the air scorching his throat.

  “Bloody hell!” Hyde roared from below. “It’s hotter than Hades down here!”

  Ulysses’ attention was suddenly drawn to Cat as she passed out beside him. Ulysses caught her and laid her gently on the floor.

  The control dials popped in quick succession, sending shards of glass whickering into the cabin.

  Just when Ulysses thought he might black out from the heat himself, the flying machine was rocked by a violent explosion.Almost instantly, the air temperature began to drop.

  A second explosion sent the metal bird spinning out of control. Without a second thought, Ulysses sprang to Jinx’s aid, grabbing hold of the flight controls and adding his strength to hers as the iron
eagle entered the sea of clouds below the mountain’s crest.

  They fought to regain control of the plummeting bird. A wingtip clipped a snow-covered black rock outcrop, and the eagle described a parabola through the freezing mists and burst clear of the dense clouds again. The flying machine now under control, they gathered before the eye-windows once more. The sight that met them caused Cookie to whoop for joy and Hercules to punch the air in delight. Ulysses just stared at the Schloss Adlerhorst, his mouth agape.

  The Icarus Cannon was gone. In its place was a smoking ruin of twisted steel and blackened, fused glass. The polished wings of the iron eagle had re-directed the cannon’s lethal beam at the super weapon itself, which had proved just as susceptible to its effects as anything else.

  JUST AS SUDDENLY as the fatal heat ray had appeared, it cut out again.

  Sir Stamford Raffles blinked hard, trying to banish the after-images of burning tanks and blazing cannon blasts from before his eyes.

  He remained where he was sheltered, beneath the collapsed howdah beside the fallen pachyderm, smoke still rising from its scorched armour casing, half expecting the beam to strike again, like the wrath of God descending from heaven on wings of flame.

  It was Lister who first dared clamber clear of the wreckage of the toppled tent.

  “It’s stopped,” he said, negotiating the wreckage of melted automaton Tommies and staring in shock at the devastation left by the heat ray – vitrified craters where tanks had once stood, the statuesque forms of Samson and Atlas like toppled statues of Greek Gods.

  “You’re sure?” Raffles asked, peering out through a rent in the howdah’s awning.

  Lister came to a halt. They both listened.

  They could hear the crackle of flames where the super-heated ray had struck, the horrified cries of shell-shocked men, the startled cries where the chain of command was in danger of shattering altogether in the aftermath of the sudden and inexplicable attack.

  The brass-rimmed binoculars were lying in the mud within arm’s reach. Sir Stamford Raffles picked them up and turned his magnified gaze on the serried lines of Germans beyond the boiling crater holes and melted barbed wire rolls at the edge of no man’s land. The anxious looks the German soldiers were giving each other told him all he needed to know.

  The hose and horn of the speaker tube hung from the blistered body of the elephant droid beside him. Seizing hold of it, hearing the crackle of static through the speaker grilles in the pachyderm’s head, he gave the long-awaited command at last.

  “Men of the Fourth Cybernetic Expeditionary Company, for Queen and country – attack!”

  SLOWLY, AND WITH some regret, the cheers filling the cabin and hold of the iron eagle died away.

  “It’s still not enough,” Shelley said.

  “What’s not enough?” Cat mumbled, coming to again, now that the strength-sapping temperatures had eased.

  “What do you mean?” snapped Hercules, turning on the one-eyed doomsayer. “The Icarus Cannon is destroyed. We’ve done what we set out to do. Our mission is complete!”

  “Not for me, it’s not,” the other said resignedly. “Not until I know Dashwood’s dead. Not until I’ve seen the bastard’s warped corpse for myself. It’s too dangerous to risk leaving him alive. We have to land and search the castle, just to be sure.”

  For a moment no one said anything.

  Shelley really knew how to suck the joy out of a moment, Hercules thought. He must be a nightmare at parties.

  When the uneasy silence was finally broken, it was Jinx who spoke.

  “We might not have a lot of choice,” she said, sweating from the effort of keeping the great metal bird level and under control.

  Hercules was horribly aware of a shuddering sound, and the twanging of wires under tension, from somewhere within the body of the craft.

  “This thing’s flying days are over. We’re going down.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Bad Landings

  “HOLD HER STEADY,” Hercules instructed, placing an encouraging hand on Jinx’s shoulder as they came in low over Schloss Adlerhorst.

  “The heat blast must have evaporated the cavorite coating,” Shelley was muttering, talking nonsense to himself again.

  But they were coming in at the wrong angle. At this rate, the iron eagle would like as not hit the top of the tower and go right off the other side, dropping them over the mountain to be smashed to pieces on the rocky crags a thousand feet below.

  “Do you think you can bring her around one more time?” he asked in a low voice, so only she could hear.

  “I can try,” Jinx said through gritted teeth, briefly releasing her grip on the controls to wipe a stray strand of sweaty hair out of her face.

  Hauling back on the controls, Jinx swung the beak of the great bird around, the trailing edge of the eagle’s left wing clipping a tower and sending a cascade of stones crashing onto the tiered rooftops below.

  Those on the bridge clung onto whatever handholds the cabin afforded them as, with terrible slowness, its fuselage shaking and groaning in protest, the iron eagle left the schloss behind.

  THE FLYING MACHINE moved with laboured reluctance as Jinx brought it around again over the cloud banks, but Ulysses’ mind was racing.

  The bird’s aerodynamic form must be all that was keeping it airborne now, the vaporising heat ray having raised the temperature of the cavorite beyond boiling point, at which point the mysterious alloy had lost its anti-gravitic powers, leaving the eagle nothing more than several tonnes of iron and steel, and about as airworthy as a locomotive.

  And then, as the eagle’s nose dropped lower, the vista of the cloudscape beyond the cockpit gave way to the devastated ruin of Schloss Adlerhorst again and the buckled smoking debris field of the gun platform.

  “EVERYONE DOWN THE ladder!” Hercules commanded, turning from the view of the white walls of the tower, despoiled by curtains of black smoke now, hastening them all with a wave of his arm.

  Cookie led the way, followed by Cat and Shelley, the Russian agent finally quitting her station to follow them.

  “Mr Hyde!” Hercules shouted. “If you would be so good as to pop the hatch and prepare to disembark?”

  “Consider it done!” Hyde boomed back.

  That left only Hercules and the pilot. The once crowded cockpit seemed almost empty.

  The smouldering, shattered towers of the castle loomed large ahead of them.

  “Come on, Jinx, it’s time to go,” he said, feeling the blood drain from his cheeks as the platform came ever closer.

  “If I can just bring the bird in level,” Jinx gasped through gritted teeth.

  “No you don’t,” Hercules said, grabbing her arm, and Jinx finally allowed herself to be pulled out of her seat. “You’ve done more than enough already. You’re coming with me.”

  Pushing the young woman ahead of him, Hercules slid down the ladder after her.

  The two of them arrived in the hold to be met by a gust of icy wind as Hyde cranked the ramp open.

  And then the eagle hit the platform.

  Suddenly noise was vibration and vibration was noise and the two became indistinguishable. The seven survivors were sent tumbling about the belly hold as the metal bird ploughed across the platform with no sign of stopping. Hands were flung out as they grabbed hold of each other and whatever else they could to keep themselves on their feet.

  A second loud clang reverberated through the hold as the trailing edge of the ramp hit the buckled frame of the weapon, throwing up a trail of sparks behind it.

  Hyde crouched before the hatchway. The bird was shaking around them now as it ground over the debris. Hercules saw pieces of twisted metal the size of tree trunks bounce past, the ramp bouncing on its hydraulics. There was the occasional drawn out red smear, too, as some poor sod or other was pulverised beneath the bird.

  “Go!” Hercules shouted over the grating scream of metal on metal. “Go! Go! Go!”

 
Cookie, Cat and Jinx joined the hulking Hyde at the exit.

  “Ladies, after you,” the brute offered graciously.

  Not one of them moved. All were transfixed by the metal platform speeding past their eyes.

  “Here,” Hyde growled, grabbing hold of Cookie by the scruff of her jacket, “let me help you.” With one swing of his arm he hurled the leader of the Monstrous Regiment out of the back of the iron eagle.

  Her scream was drowned out by the noise of tortured metal. She hit the deck on her left hand side, automatically curling herself into a tight ball as she rolled across the platform.

  The iron eagle careened onwards.

  “Right,” Hyde said, eyeing up Jinx and Cat, “who’s next?”

  With stifled yelps of fear, the two women jumped together. The athletic cat burglar described a graceful dive out of the back of the bird, landing in a forward roll and springing up onto her feet. Jinx wasn’t so lucky and landed badly, her knee twisting under her.

  “KATARINA, YOU’RE NEXT,” Ulysses declared, shouting to be heard over the terrible, ear-splitting noise.

  She turned her penetrating eyes on the man whose release she had fought so hard for and, taking his hand in hers, said, “We go together.”

  And with that they leapt, the vampire pulling him clear of the crashing craft. They landed an impossible fifteen yards away and still on their feet.

  “That was unbelievable!”

  His gasp of excitement quickly became a gasp of pain as her hand tightened about his with bone-crushing force.

  He turned towards her, and the expression on her face said it all. In the unfiltered Alpine sunlight, the vampire was in agony.

  “Come on,” he said, and now it was his turn to pull her to safety, heading for the shade of a toppled gantry.

  “JUST YOU AND me left,” Hyde said, grinning at Hercules. There was something about the great brute’s expression that reminded him of a dog poking its head out the open window of a speeding steam-carriage.