Battle for Earth (33 page)

“I'll do it,” said Clara. Her voice was full of fear.

Before Johnny could respond, the entire Atlantean fleet vanished in front of his eyes. His sister wobbled for a moment. Then her legs buckled and she collapsed.

“Clara—talk to me.”

He held her, there on the cavern floor, and peered through her helmet at his sister's face. Was the blackness he saw in her eyes really there, or a reflection of the murky waters all around?

Quietly, as though it cost her a lot to speak, she said, “I had to do it. It was the only way. Help me, Johnny.” With that she closed her eyes and her body went limp in his arms.

“Sol,” Johnny shouted, “Clara's in trouble. I need you
now
.” A blaze of green fire from the Krun Destroyer scorched the seabed nearby and Johnny knew they'd been spotted.

“I cannot unfold within the cavern,” said Sol. “You must try to access the ocean floor from where I can protect you.”

“How?” Johnny asked. He was a poor swimmer and would have to carry Clara too. More green bolts raked the surface nearby.

“I will send help,” Sol replied.

“I hope it comes quickly,” said Johnny, kicking upward, cradling Clara in his arms. He figured it should be harder to hit a moving target, however slowly it was traveling.

From the hold of the Destroyer above came two Krun spheres, heading straight for him. Just when things couldn't get any worse, through the narrow gap in the cavern roof, either side of the Krun ship, streamed hordes of green-tinged
amphibians, also heading in Johnny's direction. The escape route he was plodding toward was well and truly blocked.

Then the lead Krun sphere fired straight at them. The bolt struck Clara full in the face and Johnny's world exploded green. He clutched his sister to him, knowing at least they would die together, or go on together, wherever and whatever that meant. He felt strangely calm. A ringing filled his ears and then he remembered the very same thing had happened before, at his execution on the Senate Steps on Melania. Then, unknowingly, he'd worn a personal shield. Here, at the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean, a bolt of beautiful white fire shot from inside Clara's spacesuit, almost blinding him as it tore directly at, then through, the Krun sphere, burning a hole at its center. The craft instantly imploded. His sister's locket had saved them.

“Some of us don't possess personal shields, yet we have to risk our lives to charge to the rescue of those who do.” As the swarm of amphibians changed direction like a shoal of fish, Kovac was revealed, with Louise being pulled behind. The computer pressed on toward Johnny and Clara, while the human-alien hybrids surrounded the remaining Krun sphere. The slight extra pressure on the ship's hull was enough and it, too, collapsed inward from all sides. Like the
Spirit of London's
shuttles, the Krun ships clearly weren't designed for deep-sea exploration.

“How is she?” asked Louise as she and Kovac reached Johnny. Clara's limp body said everything that needed to be said and together they worked quickly to strap her into the harness. “Go, Kovac,” shouted Louise, slapping him on the side. He shot away before Johnny could grab hold.

Louise had stayed behind too. Up above, a blast of weapons fire from the
Spirit of London
was enough to see the Krun Destroyer fold itself elsewhere, but any relief Johnny felt was
short-lived. The shoal of hybrid amphibians streaked toward them and, within seconds, he and Louise were surrounded.

Drained, he wondered if he could create an electric shock big enough to repel quite so many, but before he could act two of the creatures came forward and floated alongside him and Louise.

“Grab hold,” she said. “They're the quickest way back to the ship.” Louise grasped the fin of the nearest amphibian.

“What?” said Johnny.

“No time to explain,” Louise replied.

With little choice, Johnny wrapped his gloved hands around his new companion's dorsal fin and was instantly pulled upward toward where the
Spirit of London
had just come into view.

“Status?” said Johnny, stepping out of the elevator cabin onto the deserted bridge. Louise had made straight for sickbay to help Alf look after Clara.

“Shields are at 82.1964%,” Sol replied, “and the aft targeting system has taken heavy damage.”

The battle outside still raged. Sol was giving far better than she was getting, but the
Spirit of London
was heavily outnumbered. As well as the Krun, giant squid had returned, attracted by the bright flashes of weapons fire, and Sol reported that the Corporation submarines, one of which had caused so much damage before, were converging on their position.

“Where's Kovac?” asked Johnny.

“In sickbay,” replied the ship. “Your quantum calculator claims to have been damaged during ‘his heroic rescue mission.'”

Johnny nodded, sitting down in his chair beside the Plican. Through the windows on the bridge he could see the Krun vessels disappearing and reappearing, folding and unfolding all
around as they probed for weak spots in the
Spirit of London
's shields. He knew that Sol could simply have asked the creature scrunched in the tank beside him to fold them to safety, but she was as reluctant as he was to take that step until the implications for Clara were clearer. None of them was willing to lose her again.

A long tentacle slid across the outside of the hull, followed by another, and then a third. One of the squid had clearly grabbed hold.

“Are you OK?” Johnny asked. He was desperate not to fold the ship, but they were running out of options.

“The cephalopod is not a problem. However, a Corporation submarine has just arrived in the vicinity.” Between the giant tentacles, Johnny marveled again at the elegant stingraylike craft that appeared out of the blackness. “It is charging weapons,” Sol continued.

“Divert emergency power,” shouted Johnny. “Full shields.”

He braced for impact, remembering the damage the hyperspatial gravimetric charges had done before, but it was a Krun Destroyer that suffered the full force of the attack. Seeing their sister ship implode in the ocean depths, the remaining alien vessels vanished as one, their hive mind arranging synchronized folds.

“I am being hailed,” said Sol.

“On screen,” said Johnny. In front of him appeared the face he had last seen on Westminster Bridge above the River Thames. “Colonel Hartman,” he said. “Long time no see.”

“This is no time for pleasantries, Johnny Mackintosh,” came the terse reply. “My planet is under attack. I have spared your vessel because in the past you professed some loyalty to this world. Surrender the Atlantean fleet to me and I shall allow you to leave.”

Johnny was amazed at her arrogance. Before, they had been
caught off guard, but he knew full well that Sol could destroy both Corporation subs long before they'd have the chance to fire their Imperial weapons. “I don't know where they are,” he said truthfully.

“Don't play games with me, Johnny. If our former friends the Krun had them, I know full well they wouldn't have hung around as long as they did.” A giant squid approached one of the Corporation vessels and was shredded by a powerful laser. Johnny winced—there was no need to have killed it. “I see you are too squeamish for the fight that is to come,” said Colonel Hartman. “You have five seconds to tell me where those ships are.” The Colonel had risen from her seat and now walked toward the viewscreen. “If you could have escaped this place, it is clear you would have done so by now. Give me the ships. Five seconds.”

Johnny found a hatred welling up for the woman who began counting down in front of him. She was putting Clara in unnecessary danger.

“No choice, Sol,” Johnny said.

The figure on the viewscreen smiled.

Understanding Johnny perfectly, the ship set the casing around the Plican's tank pulsating with a blue light. The small compartment at the top opened and the creature fell through, unfurling its tentacles as it went.

“Hold on, everybody,” said Johnny into the comm. system, knowing it was unlikely that Clara and Louise were in sickbay's gel pods.

The smug smile vanished from Colonel Bobbi Hartman's face as Johnny saw the walls of the
Spirit of London
rush toward, and then through, him. For good or ill, the fold had begun.

Weak and nauseous, Johnny forced himself to his feet and into the elevator cabin. He was desperate to reach sickbay quickly and, as its doors swished open, the scene he had feared presented itself.

Alf lay unconscious on the floor beside Louise, who had evidently been sick. Rusty was nearby and the same fate had befallen the red setter. Bentley, though, was awake and weakly wagged his tail at Johnny's entrance. Unaffected by the fold, Kovac hovered overhead. Johnny ran to Clara's bedside.

Around her neck hung the locket that had saved them both. Even from beyond, their mom's influence could still be felt, but Johnny wondered if it would be enough to save his sister now. The surrounding air crackled with electricity. Clara's clammy forehead burned at his touch and blackness was creeping across the whites of her pale blue, wide-open eyes, still splattered with silver specks, which gazed upward to where the quantum computer was watching. A new Klein fold was beginning to form—it was happening all over again.

“Clara,” said Johnny, taking her hand. His sister was twisting and turning on her bed, delirious.

“She can't hear you,” said Kovac.

“I know that's not true,” said Johnny. On his visits to see his mom at St. Catharine's Hospital for the Criminally Insane, he used to talk to her. Despite her condition, he knew full well
the words had registered. “I'm not letting you go,” said Johnny. “Whatever it takes, I promise I'll do it.”

Clara muttered something that sounded vaguely intelligible. Johnny leaned in, his ear just above her mouth, but at that moment Louise groaned and the whisper was lost. The older girl looked at Alf lying beside her, pulled out his left ear and rotated it three hundred and sixty degrees before it snapped back into place. The android sat up and looked around. “You OK, metal man?” she asked.

He nodded at her, before turning to Johnny and saying, “It was surely unwise to fold, given Miss Clara's condition.”

Under his breath, Johnny cursed Colonel Hartman again. “No choice, Alf,” he replied.

Meanwhile, Louise was now coaxing Rusty back to consciousness. “Did you get the ships?” she asked.

“Kind of,” he replied. “The Krun almost had them and there was nothing I could do. Clara folded them away.”

Louise put her hand to her mouth, while Alf jumped to his feet. “Miss Clara did what?” asked the android. “How could you allow her?”

“She did it for Earth,” said Johnny, looking squarely at the android. “I'd have stopped her if I could, but I don't know if I should have.”

The android looked far from happy as he walked over and examined the screens on the wall nearest to Clara's bed. From Alf's demeanor, Johnny didn't need to ask how his sister was.

“So, where are they now?” asked Louise, clearly trying to lighten the mood. “If you've taken over the garden deck and there's nowhere to walk the dogs …” She ruffled Rusty's coat.

“I don't know,” said Johnny quietly.

“Sorry, I didn't catch that,” said Louise.

He knew it wasn't her fault, but Johnny hated being made to say the words again. “I don't know where the ships are. OK?
Only Clara does, and it doesn't look like she's going to tell us any time soon.” Louise's face went bright red.

“You couldn't make it up,” said Kovac from near the ceiling. “Just when it appeared impossible for the running of this spaceship to be anymore farcical.”

“You're not helping, Kovac,” said Johnny. Guilty for snapping at Louise, he asked her what had happened after she failed to pass through the arch. “I was really worried,” he added. If possible, she turned even redder.

“I thought we were done for,” she replied, “me and Kovac, but he was great.” She looked up at the computer near the ceiling, who seemed to glow a little brighter. “My spotlight had failed, but Kovac kept talking just so I could see him.” Since no one liked the sound of their own voice quite so much as the quantum computer, Johnny doubted Kovac needed a reason to have been prattling on. “Of course that drew the giant squid, but the amphibians came too,” Louise continued. “I think they see much better than us anyway down there.” Johnny nodded, sure she was right. “But they're not all the same. Some are more … human than others. Less far gone. And I think they recognized me. They knew that I'd tried to help Peter—that I was on their side. I don't know how, but they knew. They fought the squid off and brought us back here, but Sol and Alf couldn't find you. We were worried sick.”