by Steve Voake
3 – 7 – 4 – 4 – 0 – 3 – 9 –5
and a new screen appeared.
LAUNCH COMMAND
SILOS:
16 84312 – B 14 73642 – F
CO-ORDINATES:
N26 – 48 E 21 – 42 N32 –27 E38 – 36
ORDER CONFIRMED
ABORT
SEND
‘I can’t start the engines!’ shouted Sam, desperately twisting the ignition key. ‘They won’t fire!’
Defence Secretary Dan Steele looked at the time displayed on his mobile phone and knew that he was not going to make it. He stood alone on the lawn, looking up at the stars and listening to the fountains pattering across the surface of the pond. As he thought of his wife and children asleep somewhere in the suburbs – at peace beneath the glittering sky – he hesitated, and then put the phone back in his pocket. They didn’t know of the horror that was about to descend upon them and – much as he longed to – he decided it was better not to wake them.
The President moved the cursor above the SEND command. He was about to click on the mouse when he heard a cry of pain and looked up to see that the other members of his team were holding their heads. He paused, confused. Then suddenly he was holding his own head and it seemed to him that his brain was on fire, consumed by blue flames which raced down the crimson corridors of his mind and burned away all fear and confusion, cleansing his thoughts and leaving him breathless and gasping like a man who has awoken from a nightmare.
He looked at the missile tracking system and saw that all the red dots had vanished from the screen.
Turning back to the Briefcase, he moved the cursor to the left and clicked ABORT.
Then he looked at General Miller who, along with everyone else, was staring at the blank screen in disbelief.
‘What the hell just happened here, General?’ he asked quietly.
General Miller shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Mr President,’ he said. ‘But whatever it was, I don’t think it’s happening any more. Everything looks completely clear.’
At that moment the phone rang and the President snatched the receiver off the hook.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked after a while.
He listened some more and then nodded. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘That’s what we’ve got too.’
Slowly and carefully, he replaced the receiver and turned to General Miller.
‘General,’ he said. ‘I want you to get everyone together immediately. I want to know exactly how this happened and I want to know today.’
‘Yes, Mr President,’ said General Miller. ‘I’ll get right onto it.’
He turned to go, but the President put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. ‘There’s one more thing,’ he added, looking around at the men who had gathered in his office to witness the end of the world. ‘This must never, ever get out.’
He paused and stared out of the window at the floodlit rose garden.
‘As far as the rest of the world is concerned, this never happened.’
So it has all been for this, thought Steele.
All the struggle, the love and the passion was to end in a fireball that would turn everything to meaningless dust.
Steele searched the sky and wondered if he would see the missiles approaching in the last seconds before his life was over.
Would he know the moment of his death?
A ringing sound.
Steele thrust his hand into his pocket and flipped open the cover of his phone.
‘Yes?’ he said. He nodded, listening and saying nothing. ‘Thank God,’ he said at last. ‘Thank God.’
Standing alone on the White House lawn trying to make sense of it all, he was startled to see what appeared to be a large hornet flying over his head before disappearing off into the darkness.
It had, he thought, been a day for surprises.
Suddenly – like a wave rolling in to the shore – a feeling of relief swept over him and he fell to his knees, resting his face against the soft, cool grass. Then Defence Secretary Steele began to weep as he hadn’t wept since he was a child, and his tears soaked into the dark, sweet earth like rain.
‘For a second there I thought we’d had it,’ said Sam.
‘How come he never pressed the button?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Skipper as they flew up above the White House. ‘I don’t understand it. Maybe something went wrong with the parasites. Or maybe,’ she added with a smile, ‘we just got lucky at last.’
But sitting alone in his apartment and watching the dawn break over Vermia, Doctor Janik Jancy knew it had nothing to do with luck. Staring out of the window at the empty streets, he remembered how he had discovered Alya in the laboratories late one night before she disappeared, trying desperately to alter the codes that were to be programmed into the parasites.
‘Miss Blin!’ he had hissed at her in the half-light. ‘What are you doing? Do you want to get yourself killed?’
She had told him everything then, about the cruelty of the camps and the atrocities that the Vermian Empire was committing in the name of freedom. ‘And look,’ she had said, showing him the pictures from Earth. ‘These are not monsters we are about to kill. They are people. Don’t you see? They are people, just like us.’
But Jancy had pulled her out of the room and sent her home. ‘It is not our concern!’ he had told her angrily. ‘We are scientists, not politicians! If you lose sight of that, then you will lose your life too. Now go home!’
And Alya, with tears pouring down her cheeks had cried bitterly, ‘Life is a wonderful thing, Doctor Jancy. But surely it is not to be had at any cost?’
He had been unable to sleep that night, thinking about what she had said. The next day he had tried to contact her. But she was nowhere to be found, and no one could say where she had gone. He guessed that Krazni had got wise to her plans and arranged her ‘disappearance’ as they liked to call it. But in the days that followed, he realised two things: firstly, that he cared for her a good deal more than he had ever cared for anyone, and secondly, that he would never see her again.
All of which had led him to do what he recognised now as probably the one decent thing he had ever done in his life. He carefully and painstakingly programmed the parasites to self-destruct seven minutes after they were first activated. He had figured that this would give enough time to abort the launch of the missiles while still giving the people on Earth enough of a scare to ensure that they completely reviewed their safety procedures.
Odoursin wouldn’t be able to try the same thing again any time soon.
Outside, Jancy heard the sound of car doors slamming. Looking down into the street he saw the soldiers running up the steps of his apartment building and knew what they had come for.
He had, after all, been expecting them.
For as Alya had said: life was a wonderful thing, but it was not to be had at any cost.
Twenty-nine
‘This is Hornet Seven calling all units,’ said Skipper into the intercom. ‘Mission is accomplished. I repeat: mission is accomplished. All units return to base immediately.’
‘Hello, Hornet Seven. This is Hornet Four.’
Zip, thought Sam, relieved.
‘Nice work, you two. Take it easy and I’ll see you back at the ranch.’
‘Thanks, Hornet Four. Any sign of Hornet Five?’
‘Yeah, no worries. Mump downed a couple of hundred flies and now he’s on his way home.’
‘Good news. What about the others?’
‘Don’t know. I saw at least five brought down. Search and rescue teams are going in now, so fingers crossed we haven’t lost any.’
‘Here’s hoping. All right, Hornet Four. Stay safe.’
‘You too. See you back there.’
As they circled the White House, Sam spotted another hornet skimming across the lawn below.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Down there. Who’s that, do you think?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Skipper. ‘Brindle maybe?’
Selecting the all-channels frequency, she pressed transmit.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘We’re currently above the White House and we can see one of you guys down there by the fountain. You want to check in with us – let us know you’re OK?’
There was no reply. Sam watched as the hornet turned suddenly and started to climb.
Skipper frowned.
‘Strange,’ she said as it accelerated up through the sky towards them. She leaned forward and spoke into the intercom again.
‘This is Hornet Seven. Pilot, please identify yourself.’
The radio remained silent as the hornet continued on its upward path, getting closer with every passing second.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Skipper. ‘It doesn’t feel right.’
‘Your Excellency,’ said Krazni, staring at his target through the screen. ‘I have located our friends. Shall I bring them into the parlour for supper?’
There was a moment’s pause and then the cracked, painful whisper of his Emperor breathed like a ghost across the airwaves.
‘Thank you, Major,’ he said. ‘I shall look forward to it.’
‘What’s he doing?’ asked Sam as the hornet approached them at high speed.
‘I don’t know,’ said Skipper. ‘But I don’t think I’ll stick around to find out.’
She reached forward and cut the motors, folding the hornet’s wings so that they spun into freefall just as the other hornet roared into the airspace they had occupied a split second before.
For a few moments there was silence except for the swoosh of air outside the cockpit. Then Skipper fired up the engines again, flipping the hornet onto its back and executing a 360-degree turn that drained the blood from Sam’s face.
‘Awww, Skipper!’ he protested. ‘I think I’m gonna be sick.’
‘Shut up, you wuss,’ said Skipper, banking the hornet round hard to the right. ‘Have a look out of your side a minute. Is he still with us?’
Sam swallowed the bile in his throat and looked back through the side of the cockpit.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I think we lost him.’ He swallowed again. ‘Could we fly straight now?’
Krazni was directly beneath them now, flying in their blind spot.
He knew they couldn’t see him.
It had taken him years of planning and hard work to get this far. His careful, patient strategy had paid off; by ruthlessly eliminating those who crossed him, he had quickly risen to become one of the most powerful men in Vermia. Vahlzi was defeated and the human plague was about to be eliminated. And with Martock interested only in an easy life, Krazni knew it wouldn’t take much for him to become Odoursin’s number one.
Up until now, everything had gone according to plan.
But all of a sudden, things had started to go wrong. First there was the screw-up at the Vahlzian Resistance base.
And now this.
Hearing the girl’s voice on the radio he remembered how – as he had escaped from the mountain in the stolen hornet – he had caught sight of her, arm in arm with the boy.
He had no doubt that the pair of them were behind all of this, just as they had been before.
But this time they were going to pay for it with their lives.
And he knew someone very special who was ready and waiting to help them do it.
His face white with fury, he red-lined the wing motors until they screamed into the wind and executed a sharp, fast turn which brought his cockpit level with the rear of their hornet. Then he opened the jaws of his hornet as wide as they would go, pulled full throttle and slammed hard into the back of them.
There was a pop as the sharp jaws punctured the insect’s body, followed by a loud crunch as the tail section crumpled like a paper bag.
Skipper squeaked with fright.
‘Pull away!’ shouted Sam. ‘Pull away!’
‘I can’t!’ Skipper shouted back. ‘The engines aren’t responding!’
Krazni smiled to himself and pushed the stick forward so that the nose tilted downwards at 45 degrees. He throttled up to maximum power and the two hornets went into a steep dive, accelerating towards the ground at lightning speed. He leaned forward and pressed transmit on the intercom.
‘Hello, my friends,’ he said, as the engines whined and the wind roared outside the cockpit. ‘This is Major Krazni checking in, as requested. Whereas you, of course, are about to check out. Permanently.’ He chuckled unpleasantly, pleased with his little joke. Then his voice changed suddenly; became hard and bitter.
‘This is where it ends!’ he spat. ‘So much for your faith, Sam Palmer. So much for your wretched faith!’
Sam gripped the arms of his seat as the ground rushed up to meet them.
He heard Skipper whisper, ‘No. Not like this.’
Shutting his eyes, he waited for the smash as they ploughed into the hard earth.
Somewhere above them, Krazni’s engines roared and faded into the distance.
Then, suddenly, they stopped in mid-air.
Everything was eerily silent.
The cockpit began to rock gently back and forth and it reminded Sam of being at a fairground, sitting at the top of a Ferris wheel with the seat swaying in the breeze. It felt incredibly peaceful and for a few moments, he wondered if he was dead. Turning to look at Skipper, he noticed that her face was white.
He reached out and gently touched her arm.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘it’s all right, Skipper. We made it. We survived.’
But Skipper continued to stare straight ahead as though transfixed by what she saw.
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘It isn’t all right, Sam. It isn’t all right at all.’
Sam was puzzled.
‘What do you mean?’
But Skipper made no reply. Instead she raised her hand and pointed up ahead through the hornet’s eyes.
Sam looked up and gasped. The outside of the cockpit appeared to be covered with silver cables that crisscrossed the screen in a glittering net of breath-taking beauty. The cables – although strong – were obviously quite flexible, stretching and wobbling as the hornet continued to sway gently against them.
‘What the heck is that?’ he asked.
‘It’s a web,’ whispered Skipper, as though she was frightened to speak too loudly for fear of being heard. ‘We’re caught in a spider’s web.’
Sam’s heart beat faster as he realised that Krazni must have released his grip at the last moment, hurling them headfirst into the web before flying his hornet clear. As he stared at the sparkling grid that lay like frosted ropes across the screen, Sam became aware of a strange vibration in the cockpit, a faint sound which reminded him of electricity humming along a telegraph wire. He looked at Skipper, and as they listened the hornet began to quiver all over, like a steel track awaiting the arrival of a distant train.
‘It’s coming,’ said Skipper. ‘The spider is coming for us.’
Using a secret fabric gap known only to himself, Odoursin had taken the spider deep beneath the city of Vermia and emerged next to a tree on the White House lawn. Against the advice of his generals, he had been determined to oversee the operation himself, to watch the final minutes of humanity tick away here on Earth before retreating back into the darkness as the missiles found their target.
But the operation had failed – only temporarily according to Major Krazni – but still it had left him incandescent with rage. How much longer would he have to wait before this plague of humanity was expunged from the face of the Earth for ever? Gradually, from the mist of confusion, the truth had begun to emerge. It appeared his ambition had been frustrated once again by the same two people who had sabotaged his previous plans: the wretched girl pilot and her friend Sam.
But then came the news he had longed for:
Krazni had found them.
Odoursin peered down through the spider’s eyes at the hornet trapped in his web.
At last he could do what no one else seemed capable of doing: he would
destroy the pair of them. He remembered the words of the prophecy from the Book of Incantations: The Great One shall come and Earth shall be saved… When the two of them were gone, nothing would stand between him and the bright new world he had dreamed of throughout the long and desperate years.
The vision would, at last, become reality.
His mind racing at a thousand miles an hour, Sam released his harness and searched for a possible means of escape.
‘Give me your CRB!’ he shouted in a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘Quickly!’
‘What? Oh…’
Skipper fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the small silver torch, throwing it to him just as the humming stopped and the whole cockpit turned upside down. Sam caught the CRB in mid air and then crashed down heavily onto the control panel. He saw Skipper dangling from her seat above him and then the whole cockpit rolled again and he tumbled around like a doll in a tumble drier, bumping from floor to ceiling to seat and back to floor again.
Moving the levers skilfully with his bony white hands, Odoursin used the spider’s front legs to turn the hornet over in the web again and again until its legs and wings were bound fast by the sticky white threads. It gave him a warm feeling to imagine the pair of them in there, consumed by fear. Let them suffer a while longer, he thought. Let them pay for all the years of frustration they had caused him. There was no hurry.
He would kill them when he was good and ready.
And he would do it slowly…
Lifting his head from the floor where he lay, Sam saw that the hornet’s eyes were now completely covered by the web and the interior of the hornet was gloomy, like the inside of a car when its windscreen is covered in snow.
Skipper released her buckle and dropped down next to him.
They looked at each other as something scraped against the top of the hornet.
‘That didn’t sound good,’ said Skipper.
Seconds later – with a noise like knives ripping through leather – two massive fangs plunged into the cockpit, shattering the control panel and embedding themselves deep in the padded seats. With a cry of alarm, Sam leapt backwards and found himself next to Skipper in the rear of the hornet. As they lay in the semi-darkness there was a sound like water gurgling through pipes and then, with a loud whoosh, a green viscous liquid came gushing out of the hollow fangs, splattering over the seats and control panel before cascading down onto the floor. Immediately the fabric of the seats began to blister and smoke, filling the cockpit with thick, noxious fumes.