“Thank you, Madam,” said the young man. He looked at her apprehensively. Like she was the cobra and he was the prey. How times have changed… “I’m sure you’ll get a fair trial, all things considered, though with Stormborn you never know; I never did trust that guy…”
Vyleria nodded her head weakly. She didn’t care anymore. How could she? Her planet had been decimated, her people wiped-out and now the love of her life had just self-immolated before her eyes. She looked through the rain-drenched window at a neon canvass of light. She saw advertisements for the latest plays, musicals, the newest and most sought-after products. Times Square hummed with energy, excitement, and yet for her it was empty, aloof.
Jack…
Thunder peeled overhead; lightning followed soon after. More thunder. A cacophony of noise, flashes. Were those firecrackers?
Dimly, through the window she could see people running, falling. Surely the storm wasn’t that bad?
“What’s going on?” she asked the policeman, surprised to find that she cared.
“Dunno,” he said. “I’ll just go and check. Stay here.” What else am I going to do?
Vyleria watched him leave the vehicle, his trunk-like legs approaching another pedestrian. Why are you interested? She told herself. You don’t even care. These aren’t even your people.
Vyleria shrugged her shoulders, turned towards the front of the car, looked out of the wind mirror. More people were running now, some seemed to be bleeding, carrying injuries. From what Jack had told her about Earth their storms were never this bad. What was going on? She looked out of the window towards where she had last seen the policeman.
He wasn’t there.
There was a large crowd now, and the thunder was getting louder and louder. Hands and feet clambered over the boot and roof of the car. One of the windows was smashed by a flailing boot, then an arm. Blood trickled over the jagged edges like paint. She was about to open the door and see what was going on when a long sinuous body thrust itself through the gap in the window. Metal screeched on metal, eyes shone the colour of blood. She saw it then for what it really was, what the teenage boy from Brooklyn had become.
Vyleria closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, let the young man who had come to Manhattan to buy his boyfriend a pair of tickets to Chicago fold his hands around her neck and gently, savagely squeeze.
“Where are we?” asked Kat, scanning the grey rooftops.
“London, I think,” said Padget, noting the band of water to his right. It tumbled away into the distance like a long blue ribbon.
“What happened?”
“Dunno,” said Padget, shrugging.
Suddenly the sky was filled with colour, as a thousand supernova seemed to explode at once. The ground shook, trembled. Sirens filled the air; car horns were honking everywhere; some of the vehicles had crashed. People were wailing, screaming, calling for loved ones.
“What was that?” asked Padget, looking-up at the clouds. It was like they had been doused with blood.
“I don’t know,” said Kat, staring at the butchered sky. “But I think it involved Jack somehow.”
“Perhaps the Scourge used a new weapon,” said Padget. “One that transports us from our ship. Jack could be just like us, around here somewhere… lost.”
“It’s possible,” she said. “But I doubt it… he has always wanted to be the hero, to make some kind of noble sacrifice in the pursuit of a larger aim.”
“How sanctimonious of him,” sneered Padget. “He could have at least informed us before he did it, I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
“Maybe he didn’t have time,” said Kat, wincing as an ambulance ran into the back of a pick-up truck. “Perhaps he has a plan for us - a mission - one he didn’t have time to articulate on the ship.”
“Such as?” said Padget.
“To help these people,” said Kat, watching a woman get loaded onto a stretcher. From the look of it, her leg was broken, several ribs too. “It’s his country after all.”
“But…”
Padget watched as Kat ran across the road and helped the paramedics load the pale-faced woman into the back of the ambulance. “Come on!” she yelled. “Give us a hand shifting this truck.”
Padget only became aware that he was crossing the road when several pedestrians almost ran into him. From somewhere far-off, perhaps the other side of London, he could hear the first drum beats of a storm. “Rain… great,” he muttered to himself as he lumbered over to Kat.
“That’s odd,” said one of the male paramedics. He was looking towards the other side of the river. “I didn’t realise it could rain without clouds.”
Kat turned around and peered into the blood-red sunset. “Those aren’t clouds,” she said, all the colour draining from her face. “They’re dreadnuts.”
“But that’s impossible,” said Padget following her gaze. “I thought we’d won, that Jack…”
Kat shook her head, fumbling for the weapon that had materialised in her hand.
“What are dreadnuts?” asked the other paramedic. He looked a little rotund, a shade over forty. He wouldn’t nearly be quick enough. None of them would.
“Listen,” she said, spinning round. “You’ve got to run. NOW. Before they get here, before…”
“I think it might be too late for that Kat.”
“What?”
Kat watched as a boy of around fourteen sprung over a car bonnet, the gleam of silver in his hand impaling a middle-aged woman with blonde curly hair. The woman struggled violently for a few seconds, blood frothing at her mouth, before a lattice-work of metal began to spread over half her body. A large red ball erupted from what looked like a badly mutilated hand, zipping through the air like a demented frisbee. It decapitated the fat paramedic instantly.
“Charlie!” yelled the other man, moving towards him as a mesh of metal and flesh bounded between the cars. “Dear God, no!”
The dreadnut’s head disappeared in a mulch of brains and steel. “There’s no time!” shouted Kat, firing at another leaping figure. “We’ve got to go; we will never hold here.”
“My husband, my husband.”
“Well he’s dead now,” said Kat, all traces of sweetness gone from her voice. “And you’re next if you don’t make a run for it; we’re running out of time.”
The man stepped away from the mutilated body of his partner, blood coating his trembling hands, and began to weave through the lines of vehicles. Kat and Padget followed him, eyes swiveling from the chaotic scene behind them to the dark spaces in between cars. Death waited at every corner. More people were getting out of their vehicles now, a stampede was starting, screams shook the night like gunfire. More panic. More running. From somewhere close-by a rifle recoiled, followed by what sounded like a stun grenade. Were those horses?
“Quick! Give me a hand!” yelled Kat, clambering over the last line of cars. They were almost at the other end of Westminster Bridge now. Parliament waited mute and helpless.
Padget grabbed the man under his left armpit and heaved with all his strength. Were all humans this heavy? Just when it seemed like it would never work the weight lifted, and they pulled him over the Mercedes’ bonnet, swiftly followed by a long red line of blood.
Padget looked at the man’s severed legs, then at the twenty-something woman who was holding them, her face a collage of lead. She launched herself through the air, coming back down with a sickening thump as his laser bolt sheered her in two at the chest.
“Come on!” shouted Kat, kicking both carcasses down to the slick tarmac.
“What’s that buzzing sound?” asked Padget, putting his hands to his ears.
Kat looked up as a wall of steel and flesh flooded over the cars, killing and assimilating as they went, blood-red eyes fixed on them.
“Why are they looking at us like that?” asked Grunt, taking in the sea of smartphones and camcorders.
“Because we are aliensss to them… monssstersss.”
“Then why are
they smiling?” asked Grunt. “It’s like we are famous or something.”
“We probably are,” hissed Xylem, looking up at the huge portrait strapped to the side of a palace. “Like him.”
“I don’t see him being invited to take selfies,” said Grunt, trying not to grimace as a young woman with black hair and glasses held her child up to his waist. A flurry of clicks and flashes followed. Now I know how Jack feels…
“What is thisss placcce?” hissed Xylem.
“China, I think,” said Grunt, “going off Jack’s geography lessons.”
Xylem nodded, tasted the air with his tongue. “Do you think he’sss dead?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Why elssse would he transssport us to the middle of Asssia and not tell us what he’sss up to?”
“I don’t know,” said Grunt, grudgingly smiling for the latest camera. “I guess we will find out sooner or later.”
“What should we do then?” rasped Xylem, looking up at a darkening sky.
“Protect the innocent, organize the resistance…”
“What are you talking about?” hissed Xylem.
“They’re here,” said Grunt, nodding in the direction of the roiling clouds.
Several flashes lit-up the sky, followed by loud bursts of what sounded like thunder.
Then it started to rain.
At first it was just a smattering, but then it turned into a deluge, as thousands of dark figures hammered into the tarmac. Some crashed through buildings, others impaled statues, TV screens, ornamental trees. People started to run and scream in all directions. Fear filled the air, followed seconds later by the sounds of gunfire. Grunt saw one young woman dragged to the pavement by three dreadnuts, her pink umbrella flashing wildly, before her eyes filled with murderous rage and her skin erupted with metal. She regarded Grunt with a grin full of leery malice, before lunging across the small river that separated them.
Her slim, half-pretty features were struck with pain for a micro-second, before Xylem’s laser bolt burned her from existence.
“What did you do that for?” shouted Grunt. “I could have saved her; there may be a way out of this for these people if Jack is successful.”
“And if he’sss not?” hissed Xylem, firing into the heaving mass in front of them. They sounded like a hive of demented bees. “What if he’sss dead? What if it’sss jussst us now?”
“I…”
Another figure broke through the cordon as a helicopter rammed into Tiananmen Square. It sounded like the God of War as lassoes of fire and smoke whipped out in all directions. Xylem speared the teenage boy through the chest, his exposed rib-cage sizzling away in the open-air like barbecued meat.
. “We will sssave as many as we can later,” hissed Xylem. His breath smelled of guts and war and savagery. “But now we have to fight, otherwise...”
“There will be no Earth left,” said Grunt, decapitating a man in an army uniform with one stroke of his space sword.
“No Earthsss anywhere,” hissed Xylem, edging back towards the palace behind him. “We need to retreat, allow as many people as possssible to essscape.”
A few seconds later and Grunt was backing down a long dark tunnel. He fired wildly at the dreadnuts in front of him, vaguely aware of the panicked voices behind. A blue bolt of lightning pinged past his face, carving a huge hole in the ceiling. Masonry rained everywhere. Some of it was in his eyes, up his nostrils; he stumbled around half-blind, ears ringing like demented church bells. Another missile curved past his head, the palace exploding in an avalanche of fire and masonry. He spun round, heard several laser rounds going-off, saw nothing but a grey film.
“Come on!” Xylem yelled, grabbing him by the arm. “Into the palaccce, before more dreadnutsss flank us, bar the gatesss.”
Dimly, Grunt heard himself bellowing orders, instructions. He felt like he was an actor in a movie, everything seemed like a dream. Unbelievably though, the crowd listened, followed them as they ran down a small passageway and then into a larger courtyard.
“Quick!” said Xylem. “Close the gatesss, check the area for dreadnutsss, we can hold them here for a while.”
“How long for?” said Grunt, wincing the last of the plaster from his vision. The gates clanged shut.
“As long as it takesss,” hissed Xylem.
Grunt looked closer at the gathered crowd. There had to be hundreds of them, a thousand maybe, many children, orphans now, some elderly.
“But…”
Grunt was interrupted by a colossal bang on one of the gates. It trembled violently, wood splintering in parts.
Another bang. And then another and another. People began to cry, shout, run. “They’re coming!” hissed Xylem. “Get ready, protect the people.”
“Protect the people,” Grunt shouted in return, aware that his arms were shaking almost as violently as the gates.
The gates exploded in a tornado of oak and iron, a dozen figures cascading through the air like confetti at a wedding. Weapons flashed, boomed, people died.
The boy rapped his knuckles on the dark mahogany door, then waited.
Silence.
He was about to head back to the hangar, when he heard the President’s thin, nasally voice beckoning him inside.
Once he entered the room several burly guards patted him down, turning out his trousers, examining the lining in his jacket. Nothing but a pocketful of empty dreams.
“Why are you here Mr. Finch?” said the President. He looked thin, weak, pale. Sweat oozed from his forehead in rivulets; he looked to be losing his hair, his bald forehead reflecting what lighting there was in the room. “My orders were quite specific.”
“Yes, I know,” said Gaz, “but…”
“Are you questioning me boy?” he growled. His security detail shifted, eyes darting from the President to their shiny black shoes, back to the President again. “Others have questioned me too…”
“But our people are dying Mr. President… in their millions, billions even. We’ve got to do something, we won’t last much longer. At least let me lead a sortie of TR3-bs against the enemy, slow them down, divert their attention.”
“No.”
“But…”
“I SAID NO!” shouted the President, eyes like green fire. “Our forces will remain where they are, under wraps… I need them safe for when we launch our counter attack.”
“You’re not serious, are you? There will be nothing left of our towns and cities at this rate, we are facing an extermination, Armageddon on a global scale. And when they are finished top-side…”
“I SAID THAT’S ENOUGH!” He slammed his hands down on the table like mallets.
“And when they are finished top side,” continued Gaz, surprised at the volume of his own voice, “they will come down here… for us! Surely you must see that?”
“My orders still stand,” said the President, locking onto him with his tractor-beam eyes. “Any repetition of these views will result in your immediate apprehension and court martial for treason. Do I make myself clear?”
Anger surged through Gaz like a vent of lava. “You can’t threaten me; I’ll go and see the Joint Chiefs about this.”
“You do that,” said the President, a wicked smile crossing his disfigured face. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Gaz shrugged, walked out the room, slammed the door behind him.
Gaz hammered away at the elevator’s buttons, the doors closing like wind escaping from a tunnel. He had to make the Joint Chiefs see sense, come round to his way of thinking; the alternative was the complete destruction of Earth, and humanity’s extinction.
Forty levels later and the doors pinged open. He turned left and marched down the corridor. He was running out of time. They all were.
That’s odd, he thought, looking at the mahogany doors. Where are the guards? There should have been at least six soldiers guarding the Joint Chiefs, not to mention the security service personnel.
From somewhere far off
a rifle recoiled. And another and another. He turned to investigate what was going on, only to stop in his tracks. There were plenty of soldiers in Area-53 to deal with any intruders; his duty was right here with the Joint Chiefs.
Gaz rapped on the doors three times. Nothing but the staccato sound of his own heartbeat. He tried again. Same result.
He heard gunfire again, this time more rapid. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa.
Dismissing it, he pressed his hands against the doors. He expected to find them locked. They slid open with barely a whisper.
There was blood everywhere. On the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, spattered over the table and chairs.
The seven men were piled on top of each other in the corner of the room, their uniforms littered with bullet holes.
Gaz stared at what was left of the Joint Chiefs until the sound of shooting ripped him awake.
More gunfire, followed by explosions, screams. Panic spread through him like a disease.
He ran.
“I take it you found the Joint Chiefs,” smirked President Stormborn. The scar on his face seemed longer than ever, his eyes more fierce.
“What have you done?” barked Gaz, dimly aware of gunfire emanating from the other end of the corridor.
“What I had to,” said the President, smiling. “To achieve a long and lasting peace sacrifices must be made.”
“By everybody but you,” said Gaz. More gunfire. More screaming. Pop. Pop. Pop.
“That is where you are wrong,” smirked the President, unbuttoning his jacket. “I have had to sacrifice more than anybody.”
As the President rolled up his sleeve, Gaz saw the twisting fibres, the blinking circuitry weaving up his right arm. They looked like electric snakes. “You’re a dreadnut,” he gasped, almost lost for words. “But…”
Jack Strong and The Last Battle Page 17