An Atlantean Triumvirate

by C. Craig R. McNeil

  “That’s the last of the charges in place, Colonel Scott, sir.” said the sergeant as he crouched next to his commanding officer.

  “Excellent stuff. Any problems?”

  “No sir, no problems. The Khadrae are all out in the grounds. Could be a problem if we want to take out as many as we can when we blow the buildings.”

  “Hmm…” replied Scott, frowning as he took this in. Below, Nightshade were getting a damn good hammering. From the sound of things their guns were either jamming or they were running out of ammunition. And to cap it all, Murdoch wasn’t back. He was overdue by a good ten minutes now, which had Scott worried. Murdoch was a stickler for punctuality, a rigid disciplinarian of the clock. Scott checked his wristwatch again.

  “Nightshade could do with some help, do you not think sergeant? Seems the best fire positions will be on top of those buildings over there,” he nodded to the a collection of buildings near the wall. “Won’t be able to blow them up with our men on them will we?”

  The sergeant grinned, knowing exactly what the Colonel meant. Help Nightshade while giving Murdoch more time if he was still alive.

  The sergeant turned away, motioning to several of the men lined along the wall to follow him.

  Jumping from the walkway onto the top of the nearby buildings, the men stealthily ran over to the far end of the buildings in a loping crouch and set up their Bren heavy machine guns pointing down to the Khadrae. Scott motioned to the Commandos still on the walkway, ordering them to open fire. The Bren guns ground out their large calibre bullets, fire stuttering from their muzzles and empty bullet cases chiming onto the concrete. They were quickly followed by the guns of the Commandos on the rooftops. The Khadrae were caught totally by surprise as a rain of hot lead thudded into the rear of their lines. One after another fell to the ground but it wasn’t enough.

  The Khadrae were so fast. Within seconds several groups of Khadrae streamed into the buildings and the Commandos on the rooftops had to split their fire between two fronts, muffled booms rocking the concrete edifices as the British tossed their Mills bombs down the stair cases.

  Colonel Scott realised they had only the slimmest of chances now. If Murdoch had failed then they were all dead. There was no escape.

  “Can you understand me?” shouted Murdoch to the chamber.

  The column behind him pulsed and flickered.

  “Think that’s a yes?” asked Doyle licking his lips nervously while eyeing up the Khadrae surrounding them.

  “God knows,” muttered Jane. “It could be laughing for all we know.”

  Murdoch ignored them and continued. “If you attack us then we’ll blow you to Kingdom come!” he shouted raising the detonator above his head. “See this? I’m warning you! One wrong step by those bloody things and you’re dead!”

  The column pulsed rapidly, red circles of light flashing in sequence from top to bottom.

  Murdoch took a deep breath and edged towards the still shut door, gesturing for Doyle and Jane to follow him. He held the detonator in both hands, the wire leading to the explosives trailing behind him.

  Sweat poured down Murdoch’s face and not just from the heat that was building up in the close room. As they neared the motionless Khadrae, Jane cocked her gun and Doyle aimed at the nearest monster. Thankfully and without a murmur the Khadrae backed away, slaver dripping down their scaly jaws onto the ground as it hissed menacingly.

  “Get the door opened!” yelled Murdoch to the Node as they crept closer to the tightly shut door. “Come on! Hurry it up!” Lowering his voice he whispered to Doyle and Jane, “When we get through that door, run as fast as you can. Just get out of here.”

  “What about you?” asked Jane.

  “I’ll be right behind you once I’ve done the dirty deed. Don’t you worry about that.”

  A low rumble signalled the door spiralling open revealing the path to safety beyond.

  “There! Go. Now!”

  Once again the guardian Khadrae moved with breathtaking speed, one of their number dashing towards the Node. Doyle fired twice missing both times such was the speed of the creature and before Murdoch could react, the wire connecting the explosives to the detonator in his hand had been cut, sliced delicately in two by a shining claw.

  The Khadrae all let out a hideous cry of victory and advanced slowly on the trio of humans, jaws agape as if they were laughing at the stupidity of these puny human insects.

  Murdoch recovered quickly from this totally unexpected event. “Doyle. Dynamite. Chuck it at the explosives. Very quickly now. Otherwise we could die a painful death.”

  “Way ahead of you son,” grinned Doyle as a sparking rust red stick span gracefully overhead to land next to the scarlet lit Node.

  The trio didn’t hang about to see what happened next, sprinting through the gaping doorway and down the wide corridor racing to get as far away as possible from the resulting explosion. And when it came, the blast knocked them heavily to the ground driving the breath from their bodies, heat searing the back of their necks, scorching their outstretched hands.

  The noise was tremendous. There wasn’t just one explosion, there were several, causing the ground to quake under their feet. Murdoch wasn’t sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him or if he’d banged his head but there was a fine red mist in the air slowly dispersing.

  Another explosion sounded through the corridors, and pipes and debris jolted loose from the ceiling and fell close by. Murdoch picked an unsteady Jane up from the floor and half carried, half dragged her the final yards back up into daylight, Doyle following close behind.

  Riley grimaced as his chainsaw juddered painfully through the bones of another Khadrae, slicing vertically down through its skull, through its ribcage and out through its groin. His armour was covered in deep gouging scratches and blue ichor. Blood dripped stickily down his right leg which lay exposed, the armour that had been there long since ripped off in the ferocious hand to hand combat that had ensued. Steed was dead, his head bitten off with a ferocious savagery, Grant was well on his way out of things as blood continued to pour from the stump of his severed arm, Palmer was struggling desperately against the pain of his broken ribs and was valiantly defying the odds and helping beat back the countless Khadrae. Colonel Scott and his Commandos were doing an excellent job of attacking the Khadrae from the rear. The momentary confusion that had spread through the ranks of Khadrae had allowed Nightshade a brief and welcome respite. Riley never thought he’d ever say that he wished he was back fighting the Afghans in their lofty mountains but these animals sapped your strength with their very presence, they drained your will to live with the sheer bloodlust that howled from their prehistoric throats. But still Nightshade fought. For King and Country. For the Empire. For the common good of mankind. And out of sheer bloody mindedness.

  The explosion blew up through the surface throwing up a huge spire of dust into the air, shaking the ground and causing several grey buildings nearby to collapse. At that moment all the Khadrae stopped in their tracks, some collapsing to the ground thrashing and squealing piteously, legs bicycling in the air. The Khadrae growled, pawed the ground and shook their heads in confusion as the Core left them all alone for the first time in their lives.

  “Keep attacking men!” commanded Riley. “Mr Murdoch has come up with the goods! Keep pressing them, drive them back towards the gates and into the buildings.”

  With that Riley charged into a confused unit of Khadrae swinging his chainsaw in a wide arc that abruptly cut short the lives of several Khadrae. The remaining ones careered back into the crowd of creatures keening in alarm. Others followed them, and more followed them and then more, hastened on their way by a rampant and rejuvenated Nightshade division that killed indiscriminately and with little fear of retaliation. The Khadrae battered themselves off the gates of their prison, rapidly breaking through the thick metal and streaming out into the world beyond. Others ran for the shelter of the pens where they had been born and raised to become th
e shock troops of the Core that had so suddenly abandoned them to their fate. Cowering within the thick walls hundreds died as the Commandos blew the explosives they had planted, collapsing the buildings onto the creatures within.

  Overhead, the air was suddenly filled with growling American Mustangs spitting hot lead at the escaping Khadrae, vengeful angels exacting their toll on escaped devils.

  It was a victory. Riley smiled through the blue gore that covered his face and tattered helmet.

  18 Over the Atlantic

  The euphoria of destroying the Node in the Nevada desert quickly evaporated as it was realised that the attack on the Core itself would be a logistical nightmare. The Americans, blasted coffee drinkers that they were, refused to co-operate once the British soldiers had dealt with their problem in Nevada. The British ambassador in Washington, Sir Basil Wellington-Snype, had berated the US government soundly with little effect apart from an apology from Senator Donaghue for the lack of assistance. Senator Donaghue had applied considerable pressure through his contacts in the Senate but the most he could get was a map of the excavation workings in Greenland. And depressing reading that made.

  Riley and Murdoch pored over the plan. To say they were walking wounded would be a typically British understatement. Most of Murdoch’s torso was swathed in bandages - a result of the stitches in his back bursting and the burns he had suffered from being caught in the explosion that had destroyed the Node. Murdoch looked like an exuberant picture of health compared to the man mountain that was Riley. Riley’s left arm was in a sling strung across his bare chest. Plasters and rows of bandages criss crossed the hard lines of his back and upper body barely leaving exposed a bitter patchwork of old scars and wounds. A bloodstained bandage looped round his head covering an eye. And finally a plaster was stuck to his square jaw.

  “Cut yourself shaving?” asked Murdoch nodding towards to the plaster on Riley’s chin.

  Riley grumphed unhappily. “Yes, would you believe it? Just giving the Khadrae a helping hand at getting myself cut to pieces.”

  Murdoch laughed at the big man. “Just don’t drip blood or sweat all over the plan. This is the only copy on the ship.”

  “Not that it’s doing us any good,” sighed Riley as he smoothed out a crease in the large sheet of thick paper. The plan of the excavation accurately defined the large U-shaped valley in Greenland where Murdoch had first spied on the Americans. It made depressing reading. Being a U-shaped valley, the sides were steep glacier carved lines of ice covered rocks. The excavation itself lay on the valley floor, a snow covered wasteland that was already a mess of broken huts, the remains of the American camp that had been savaged by the cold moaning winds. Or so Murdoch saw it in his mind’s eye as he gave an involuntary shiver at the thought of going back to Greenland.

  An additional plan showed the extent of the mine workings. Exploratory tunnels ran off in all directions, with two meeting a vast array of tunnels and caverns in an underground complex. Probably swarming with Khadrae. Why couldn’t the blasted Core be somewhere warmer, on the surface of the earth? If that’d been the case it would be a simple matter of dandering over with a couple of dreadnaughts to the blissful haven blighted by evil, blowing up the dastardly dastards and then sipping champers on a beach with some of the local lovelies. But no, the Core was in Greenland under at least a hundred feet of solid rock with not a local lovely in sight. Bugger.

  “Am I right in thinking that the only way down is where the original drilling was made?” asked Riley.

  Murdoch felt like banging his head of the table. It wasn’t that Riley was wrong. Far from it. Nor was it that Riley was pointing out the blindingly obvious. He was. It was the fact that as far as he could see there was no way that they could transport sizeable numbers of soldiers down that mineshaft to assault the Core in any meaningful way. The Americans had hinted that they had seen Khadrae down there as well as other huge beasts that kept to the shadows. Oh, and they’d also said the dwarves were quite scary. Piling on the sarcasm, Murdoch wondered if Snow White was down there as well. Bloody hell, it wouldn’t surprise him if he bumped into Goldilocks the way things were going.

  The door banged open and Doyle marched in, his standard issue British Army boots pounding off the floor. The man would make enough noise to raise the dead even if he was standing still.

  “Hello there, boys. How’s it going?” the small man asked patting them hard on their backs causing both men to wince with pain. Not that Doyle noticed as he pored over the plan on the table.

  “That’s top secret Doyle. You can’t just barge in and look at stuff,” complained Murdoch as he tried to cover up the blueprints. Doyle had obviously never been to a public school. His manners were quite appalling.

  “Greenland isn’t it? Somewhere around the east coast. Hard place so it is,” Doyle said, completely ignoring Murdoch’s attempts to push him away. “Went for a wee dander up there with old man Kerr a few years back.”

  Murdoch stopped pushing Doyle away and trying to get him out the door. “You’ve been here before?” he asked astonished.

  “Oh, aye, sure. Old man Kerr and me walked up from the south coast of Greenland, all the way up here…” he said as he traced a trail on the map “…down here and then up north again. Bloody cold but a good laugh. Had to blast our way through a couple of glaciers. Actually we didn’t need to but we did it anyway. Old man Kerr taught me everything I know about explosives. Great fella.”

  Murdoch thought he’d like to meet 'Old man Kerr' and tell him how bloody stupid he was letting a man like Doyle mess about with explosives.

  “What’s the terrain like?” asked Riley, all business like. “Murdoch has been in the area and said it was cold with lots of snow and ice and a few hills, so high.”

  Doyle laughed heartily. “That’ll be about right! Let’s be honest here boys. The Core is there isn’t it?”

  Riley nodded, much to Murdoch’s annoyance. Doyle didn’t have any security clearance, MI7 or not. Or possibly not even MI7. Jane had never mentioned who Doyle was with.

  “And from what I’ve heard, it’s deep underground and the only way down to it is by the mineshaft that the Americans dug. So your problem is how to get to it.”

  “The Core is probably very well protected. Loads of Khadrae and God knows what else will be hanging about just waiting for us. We’ll be picked off one by one as we go down the mineshaft. We need to get a critical mass of troops down there so our attack will be unstoppable,” explained Riley as Doyle nodded thoughtfully. Murdoch was trying to catch Riley’s eye and tell him to shut up but Riley was pointedly ignoring him.

  “Sounds fun. Why not just dynamite the mineshaft and seal in the Core?”

  At this point Murdoch gave up trying to keep Doyle out of the plan and interrupted, “That’s too much of a short term solution. We need to be sure that the Core is destroyed or at least disabled for the long term. The only way to do that is go down into the tunnel complex and see first hand that the Core is done for.”

  “The shaft is three hundred and fifty yards deep. That’s not much. In fact that’s a fairly shallow depth. Once you’ve cut through the ice that’s only a couple of hundred yards into the ground. The Core could be located in a mountain under the ice what with it being so shallow.”

  “Fantastic,” said Murdoch sarcastically. “Spare me the geology lesson and tell me how to get a few hundred troops down there.”

  Doyle smiled broadly showing his slightly crooked teeth. “There’s no easy way to do it boys. The only way I can think of is to blast out the ice and rock all the way down and build up a ramp leading into the complex. The problem you’re faced with then is, as I’m sure you already know, how to co-ordinate superior forces against an entrenched defence through a series of narrow tunnels.”

  Both Murdoch and Riley nodded gloomily in unison. The odds were so poor as to be non-existent. Underground warfare was a nasty business. Both men had experience of hunting down the tunnel entrenched Mujahadeen i
n the mountains of Afghanistan and neither had enjoyed it. The tunnels weren’t that narrow as to disallow the use of superior firepower but there would be a slaughter once the Khadrae got in amongst the tightly packed soldiers. That was the last thing the government wanted on what had been termed “Arctic training exercises.” Riley was damned if he was going to send his men to certain death.

  “We could just dig it out, you know,” said Doyle.

  “What? Dig the Core out? How?” Murdoch asked quizzically.

  “With big diggers with big buckets on them,” replied Doyle cheekily before noticing Murdoch’s brow furrowing and metaphorical storm clouds gathering. He added quickly, “Seriously. If you want to dig, you dig and it becomes nothing more than a mining operation. And the British Empire has countless numbers of mining operations from Canada to the Raj. The Empire borrows a few big shovels, you blast through the ice and rock and then scoop it all out and there you are.”

  The sheer scale of the operation Doyle outlined dazzled Murdoch. It was seriously brilliant. It would cost a fortune but what was money to the greatest Empire the world had ever seen? Especially when it would rid the world of the threat of the Core.

  “It’ll take months though,” said Riley dubiously.

  “Bollocks, boy. Ice is ice. You blow it away and scoop it all out in a week or so. Then you get to the hard stuff. But even rock will give way under a few pounds of TNT. You get enough diggers and shovels up there and it’ll be cleared away in no time. You’ll need to get civilians involved though. I doubt the Royal Engineer Corps will be up to this,” Doyle grinned.

  “And you know just the man?” asked Murdoch, his head hurting. How had it got to this?