“How so?”
“Because I want to get onto his ship.” He curled his hands, picturing his thumbs digging into the other monkey’s larynx, choking off his air supply. “He’s got K8. If I’m going to get her back in one piece, I’m going to need to meet him, face-to-face. And if that happens, I can kill him.”
“But he’ll know you want that, won’t he?”
Ack-Ack Macaque shrugged. “Yeah, I’m sure he does.”
“So, why does he—?”
“Because he wants to recruit me.” Ack-Ack Macaque tapped his temple. “And because he’s fucking nuts. He probably wants to fight me as badly as I want to fight him. There’s only room for one alpha monkey, and neither of us will stop until we find out which of us it is.”
“This town ain’t big enough for the both of you?”
He stuck the cigar in his mouth and grinned around it.
“It’s a primate thing.”
Abruptly, the map vanished and the wall screen cleared to a picture of Paul’s face.
“Head’s up,” he said. “Something’s happening.”
The display changed again, to a BBC News feed. The volume was off, but the pictures spoke for themselves. They were being relayed from a camera in Trafalgar Square, on the steps of the National Gallery, looking South down Whitehall towards the tower of Big Ben. Above the roofs, the sky crackled with blue and white sparks. People were standing and pointing, or running for cover. Police vans tore past, lights flashing. A cloud of pigeons flew in front of the lens. And then, blam! Something vast, black and impossible snapped into solidity above the city, blocking out the daylight. The picture went dark, and then came back up as the camera adjusted to the sudden shadow.
Ack-Ack Macaque scowled at the screen and swore under his breath. They were looking at the underside of an airship so large he couldn’t see its edges—just row upon row of gun emplacements; a scattering of engine nacelles; and more than a dozen large, armoured gondolas, each bristling with missile tubes and machine gun turrets. The thing had appeared partially inside the low cloud layer, and rivulets of displaced grey fluff rippled away to either side.
Turning away from the screen, he looked to the front window, and whistled. Ahead, the Leader’s flagship filled the skies. It must have been at least two kilometres long, more than twice the size of the Tereshkova. Its footprint stretched from Green Park to Waterloo, and every inch of it radiated a brutal menace.
And then, even as he watched, he saw the first missiles streaking down from the giant warship, hitting the self-same targets he’d just selected on the map, turning the skyline into a series of fireballs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE COMMONWEALTH EXPECTS
AS THE FIRST explosions still shook the capital, Ack-Ack Macaque dropped to all fours and scampered from the bridge. He threw himself up the nearest companionway. He had to get airborne. It was his default response, a reflex written into the software of his mind. He’d been created to re-fight a fictionalised Battle of Britain, and had scrapped his way through countless simulated air raids and scrambles. This was what he did, and what he knew. When the bell rang, you ran for your plane. It was as simple as that. In some ways, it was a comfort to find himself back in such a familiar situation.
Using his arms to haul himself upward, he charged up flight after flight of metal stairs, until he reached the top of the Tereshkova. By the time he got there, he was wheezing for breath, and coughing up globs of brown tobacco-tasting mucus. All five of the planes were waiting at the end of the runway. There wasn’t much room for them, but somehow they’d managed to cram themselves together. The pilots and solitary mechanic had been in the process of loading ammo belts into the machineguns built into the wings of the lead plane when the attack began, and had stopped to stare at the carnage, hands shading their eyes as they peered ahead.
“Hey!” He did his best parade ground yelp. “No time for gawping. I need these babies in the air, right now. How are we doing?”
The nearest pilot turned to him. Like the rest of this ad hoc squadron, he wasn’t military. He was a retired airline pilot, a volunteer at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, and his face dripped fear and bafflement.
“Have you seen—?”
“Of course I’ve fucking seen it. Why do you think we need the bullets?” He pushed past, to where the mechanic knelt on the wing. The mechanic’s name was Smithy. He wore oil-stained overalls and a battered, shapeless cap.
“It’s okay, chief.” Smithy closed the lid of the ammo compartment and wiped his hands on an old rag. “This is the last one. I can’t swear they’ll all work, mind, but they’re loaded and ready to go.”
Ack-Ack Macaque felt his teeth peel back from his gums. His pilots were looking to him, plainly shocked and badly frightened. None of them were warriors. He spoke loudly, to cut through their confusion.
“Okay, sweethearts, this is it. ‘The Commonwealth expects’, and all that crap.” He strode to the leading plane, and hopped onto the wing beside the open cockpit canopy. He knew he had to say something to motivate and inspire them, but, “Follow me, and don’t get yourselves killed,” was the best he could come up with. In annoyance, he flung a hairy arm at the distant warship. “I’m going to land on that big bastard and try to rescue my friend. Your job is to keep it busy. Try to stop it deploying its doomsday weapon before the jets get here.”
Cigar clamped in place, he glared around at their upturned faces. Like startled owlets, they blinked back at him. They were weekend hobbyists pitched into an unforeseeable war. When the firing started, they’d be lucky not to crash into each other, let alone take on the enemy. Still, they were all he had, and he knew he had to make the best of them. If this was going to be his final flight, his last battle, he was damned if he wasn’t going to take it seriously.
He snapped his heels together and threw them a stiff salute. Then, with as much style as he could muster, he turned and dropped into the pilot’s seat.
Oh well, he thought. Here goes nothing.
HE BARRELLED ACROSS the London sky with the other four planes arranged in a line behind him. This new Spitfire wasn’t the same as his old one. Like horses, every plane had its own character and set of quirks. This was a Mark V, with wings clipped for greater manoeuvrability—a model he hadn’t flown before. A few of the controls were in different places, and the stick felt jumpier than he was used to. Nevertheless, it was still a Spitfire, and he thrilled to the guttural growl of its engine. Like him, it was a relic from another time.
Ahead, the Gestalt warship loomed like a cliff face. Ack-ster, it’s Paul.
“What is it?”
We’ve received a signal from the RAF. Planes are scrambling from the Shakespeare and Verne. They should be with you in five minutes, and suggest you hang back until they arrive.
“Screw that, I’m going after K8.”
A fresh volley of missiles burst from the underside of the behemoth, and he followed their white smoke trails down to the ground. That was Downing Street gone. The Parliament buildings and large areas of Whitehall already lay in ruins. The invasion seemed to be proceeding exactly the way he’d told Victoria it would, with a decisive first strike aimed at destroying the country’s political and military leaders.
Well, not on my watch, motherfuckers!
With his left hand, he pushed the throttle forward as far as it would go. The Gestalt ship hung in his gun sights.
“Okay, spread out,” he told his wingmen, “concentrate your fire on the gun turrets and missile launchers. Try to knock out as many as you can.”
He watched them peel away to either side, taking up attack positions, while he held his course, hurtling straight at the enemy. He couldn’t afford to show fear or hesitation. Somewhere on board, the Leader would be watching. He would guess who was piloting the lead Spitfire, and be ready to attack at the first sign of weakness or hesitation.
This was a test of courage. They were sizing each other up.
Stabbing at the ra
dio with a gloved hand, Ack-Ack Macaque changed the frequency.
“Okay,” he said into his mike, “it’s me. I’m coming aboard.”
As if in reply, fire erupted from every turret he could see. Lines of tracer raked the sky. Anti-aircraft missiles streaked like sparks. And, one by one, his Spitfires fell. The first two disappeared in greasy fireballs. The third seemed to fall apart in midair, hacked to bits by bullets. The fourth pulled up sharply—a sure sign the pilot had been hit—and tipped over onto its back. He watched it dive on Lambeth, accelerating into the road just shy of the bridge. And, just like that, all four of his wingmen were gone, blown away before any of them had managed to fire even a single shot.
When he looked up, the airship’s guns had all swivelled in his direction.
“Oh, bollocks.”
His squadron hadn’t stood a chance; and now, if he was at all mistaken about the Leader’s desire for a face-to-face confrontation, neither did he. For a long, long moment, he kept driving forward, into the teeth of the arsenal arrayed against him, knowing it would be fatal to flinch now. If he was right, this was all still part of the pre-fight posturing. The Leader was demonstrating his superior firepower, and Ack-Ack Macaque his courage. Essentially, they were beating their chests and circling each other.
For tense seconds he continued to hurtle at the juggernaut. Then he heard a burst of static over his headphones, and a familiar voice hissed, “Welcome, my brother. I am flattered you have decided to accept my invitation.”
Ack-Ack Macaque felt his hackles rise. His tail thrashed against the cockpit wall.
“Screw you.”
“Crude as ever, I see.” The Leader sounded weary, almost bored. “But it can’t have escaped even your limited attention that I have you at something of a disadvantage.”
Ack-Ack Macaque pushed his goggles up onto his forehead. The gun barrels twitched in unison as they tracked the movements of his plane. He was beaten, and he knew it.
“Just tell me one thing.” He fumbled one-handed for a cigar. “What do you want with me? First you send Reynolds, now all this. Why’ve you got such a hard-on for my approval?”
The Leader didn’t speak for a few moments. When his voice came back over the airwaves, his tiredness held an edge of disappointment.
“Don’t you feel it too?”
“Feel what?”
“Haven’t you ever wanted to meet another one of your kind? Haven’t you ever been lonely?”
Ack-Ack Macaque jammed the cigar between his teeth. The black armour plated flank of the airship filled his entire forward view. If he didn’t pull up soon, he’d hit it dead centre, at three hundred miles per hour.
“So,” he rolled the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, “you’re looking for a playmate?”
“No, my simple brother.” The Leader gave a half-hearted chuckle. “I’m looking for a lieutenant. Now—” his voice hardened. “—I want you to come aboard.”
Ack-Ack Macaque pulled back on his stick, and the Spit’s nose rose towards the low grey clouds. He zoomed over the whale-like back of the airship and looked down. “You haven’t got a runway.” All he could see were a few helipads, with choppers and VTOL jets parked on them.
“You have a parachute.”
“Fuck off.”
“If you want to see your little friend again, you’ll do it.”
Ack-Ack Macaque snarled.
“If you’ve hurt her—”
“I’ll give you thirty seconds.”
Ack-Ack Macaque screeched, and hammered the Perspex canopy with his fists.
“Twenty-eight…”
He thought of K8 and took a long, shuddering breath through his teeth.
“Twenty-six…”
“Okay, okay.” He wiped his right eye with the back of one hairy wrist. “I’ll do it. But I’ll need to gain some altitude, or the ’chute won’t open properly.”
The radio crackled.
“Understood. But we’re still tracking you. Try anything idiotic, and I’ll blow that balsawood kite out from under you before you can blink. Capeesh?”
Ack-Ack Macaque’s shoulders hunched, and he drove his plane skyward.
“Yeah, I got you.”
As the Spitfire’s prop drilled into the rainclouds, he took a last look downwards, and saw a glint at the airship’s bows. What was that?
Were they windows?
A wicked grin smeared itself across his face. His plane circled upward in a narrowing spiral, like a vulture riding thermals above a wounded buffalo, and then the clouds enveloped him and everything turned to fog.
* * * aS Soon aS the monkey’s plane vanished into the overcast, the Gestalt warship opened fire on the Tereshkova. Bullets punched through the black and white zigzags at its bows, piercing all five hulls. Propellers sparked and windows smashed. Radio aerials snapped and fell.
On the Tereshkova’s bridge, Victoria grabbed for support as the floor lurched. In the doorway behind her, William Cole yelped as he was thrown against the frame.
Slowly, the bow began to turn. Clinging on to the arm of the pilot’s chair, Victoria shouted, “What are you doing?”
“Turning away,” Paul’s voice quailed through the intercom speakers. Bullets rattled against the aluminium hull like hail clattering on a tin roof.
“No!” She pulled herself upright. “If you turn sideways, you’ll just make us a bigger target.”
“What, then?”
She glanced at the cloud layer.
“Take us up. Follow the monkey.”
“I can’t!”
The front windows shattered, and Victoria ducked.
“Why not?”
“We’re losing gas from the port hull.”
“Jettison it!” The Tereshkova’s five hulls were kept in place by lightweight steel girders. Up until last year, they could only be disengaged manually. Then, after damage to one of the outer hulls had almost cost the whole craft, one of Victoria’s first acts as Captain had been to install explosive bolts at all the key junctures.
“It’s losing buoyancy,” Paul protested. “It’ll crash.” “Better it than us.”
She heard a detonation, and the deck shook. She couldn’t tell if it had been the bolts, or a shot from the Gestalt.
“Separation complete,” Paul reported.
The Tereshkova’s four remaining hulls quivered like a wet horse, and began to rise. The hail of bullets paused as the sudden change in altitude threw off the Gestalt’s gunners.
Through the howling gap where the window glass had been, Victoria caught sight of the discarded section pitching down towards the city like a kilometre-long torpedo, trailing smoke and debris. Almost in slow motion, it dove into the shadow of the Gestalt craft and hit the brown waters of the Thames, throwing up a huge fan of spray. The nose smashed against the piers of Westminster Bridge, crumpling even as the bridge cracked and buckled before the weight of the impact. Clumps of masonry fell into the river. The fins at the stern rose into the air, hung there for an instant, impellers still spinning wildly, and then crumpled back with a splash.
“Jesus.” William Cole joined her behind the pilot’s chair.
“You said it.”
“No, I mean those engines. They’re nuclearpowered.”
“They’re designed to survive crashes.”
“Will they?”
“Who knows?” Right now, irradiating half of London was among the least of her concerns.
She lost sight of the chaos on the ground as the Tereshkova reached the clouds. For a moment, the bombardment wavered, but quickly picked up again with equal ferocity.
Damn. For a minute there, she’d thought they might find cover in the overcast.
“They must have infrared tracking.” Paul’s voice held an edge of panic. The deck shuddered again. “We’re taking damage to all sections. Venting gas in a dozen places.”
Victoria turned to Cole, who was in the process of brushing glass and dust from his hair and beard.
“Take your family,” she said, “and get out.”
He looked at her, wild-eyed.
“Marie can’t move.”
“Then find a way to move her.” She seized him by the shoulders, span him around, and shoved him at the door. “Allez-y!”
He ran off unsteadily into the corridor, heading aft.
She heard the blang, blang, blang of bullets punching through metal and flinched. Her hand went to the sword at her side.
“What do we do?” Paul cried.
“How the hell would I know?” With the Tereshkova literally falling apart around them, her options were shrinking by the second. “How much longer can we stay airborne?”
“Assuming they don’t hit the airbags again, another ten minutes. Twelve at the outside.”
“Not good.”
“And we’re losing manoeuvrability.”
She shook her head.
“Putain de merde.” She climbed into the pilot’s chair and pressed the ship-wide intercom. “Attention all hands,” she barked. “This is the Captain. Assume crash positions. We are going down. Repeat. We are going down.”
a t the top of its climb, the Spitfire emerged from the clouds into sunlight, and stalled. As it hung vertically in the clear air, with its prop spinning at the cobalt sky, Ack-Ack Macaque pulled the goggles back over his face, and dragged open the canopy. He had only seconds before gravity’s fingers brought the nose down and the plane began the long fall earthwards. Bracing himself against the lip of the cockpit, he used his knife to hack a strip from his safety harness. Then he stood up, and gripped the control stick with his prehensile toes.
“Think you’ve got me, fuck-knuckle? Think again.” The plane began to slip backwards and he clung on with his feet until the nose snapped earthwards and he had it aimed where he wanted. With all the cloud and murk between him and his target, he had to line it up from memory, and then use the strip of harness to lash the stick in place. It was trickier than he’d thought it would be, but he did the best he could do in the few seconds available to him, and hoped it would be enough.
Falling nose first, the plane began to pick up speed. The wind flapped at the collar of his jacket. He crouched on the seat and leapt, arms and legs stretched out as if hurling himself from one jungle branch to another.
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