In
the tray at the back of the truck, Sanchez, Astro and Hulk were doing battle
with four apes that had just swung inside.
Sanchez
shot one in the chest, while Astro disarmed another and kicked it through the
side canvas of the truck, but Hulk wasn’t so lucky. The other two apes took him
on together, and in the scuffle one managed to shoot him in the stomach.
Hulk
roared in pain—just as the two apes did something totally unexpected: they
yanked him off the back of the speeding truck, jumping with him, without any
thought, it seemed, to the injuries they themselves would suffer.
Astro
saw it all in a kind of surreal slow motion.
He
saw Hulk’s eyes go wide as the big man fell to the ramp behind the
upwardly-racing truck, gripped by the two gorillas.
Then
he saw the onrushing army of apes overwhelm Hulk, choosing to use their M-4s
as clubs rather than guns. Astro winced as he lost sight of Hulk amid the mass
of black hair.
But
even then, not every ape stopped to join in the mauling of Hulk—the rest just
kept running, clambering around the gorillas battering Hulk’s body, still
chasing the fleeing truck.
‘Jesus
...’ Astro breathed.
* *
And
then
wham!
Mother’s truck burst into grey daylight, into the pouring
rain assaulting the flight deck. Uncountable raindrops hammered its windshield.
The
four remaining gorillas on the truck made their move.
They
converged on the cab in a coordinated manner—swinging down together from the
roof, one arriving at each door, the other two landing on the bonnet of the
truck, right in front of Mother, guns up.
‘Yikes
...’ Mother breathed.
There
was no escape. No chance.
Except...
‘Hang
on, boys!’ she called into her UHF radio.
And
with that, she yanked on the steering wheel, bringing the truck into a sharp
right-hand turn, a turn that was far too fast for a vehicle of its type.
Gravity
played its part.
The
truck turned sharply ... its inner wheels lifting off the tarmac…and it rolled.
The
big truck tumbled across the rain-slicked flight deck, sending the apes on its
cab and bonnet flying in every direction. Then it landed on its side and slid
for a full sixty feet before coming to rest against the lone Super Stallion
helicopter on the deck.
Mother
clambered out of the overturned truck, raced to its rear.
‘You
okay?’ she called, crouching to her knees.
Sanchez
and Astro lay crumpled against the side wall of the tray, bruised and bloody
but alive.
‘Come
on,’ Mother peered back at the ramp. ‘We gotta keep—’
She
cut herself off.
The
apes were already at the top of the ramp.
A
great crowd of them—easily one hundred strong—now stood on the deck, in the
rain, at the entrance to the ramp, grunting and snorting and glaring right at
her.
* * * *
X
Still
on her knees, totally exposed, Mother just sighed.
‘Game
over. We lose.’
The
apes charged, raising their guns, pulling the triggers.
Mother
shut her eyes.
The
sound of gunfire rang out—loud, hard and brutal—and Mother imagined this was
the last sound she’d ever hear.
Braaaaaaaaaaaap!
But
there was something wrong with this sound.
It
was
too loud
for an M-4, too deep. It was the sound of a much larger
gun.
Crouched
at the rear of her overturned truck, Mother had never noticed the port-side
elevator rise up to deck-level behind her.
Never
saw what stood
on
the open-air elevator: an F-14 Tomcat, pointed right
at her.
And
in the cockpit of the Tomcat…
...
were Shane Schofield and Bigfoot!
Schofield
sat in the pilot’s seat, gripping the control stick and jamming down on its
trigger.
Sizzling
tracer rounds whizzed by Mother on either side, popping past her ears, before
razing into the crowd of gorillas beyond her, mowing them down.
The
first three rows of gorillas fell at once. The others split up, fanned out,
sought cover.
‘Mother!’
Schofield’s
voice said in her ear.
‘Get out of here! I’ll hold them off!’
‘Where
can we go?’ Mother dragged Astro out of the truck and started running, with
Sanchez by her side.
‘Get
to Casper’s door!’
Schofield said cryptically.
‘Go over
the stern! I’ll meet you there!’
Mother
did as she was told, hustling to the rear edge of the deck, where she lowered Astro
over the side, down to a safety net just below the edge. She and Sanchez then
jumped down after him and disappeared inside a hatch.
That
left Schofield and Bigfoot in the Tomcat on the port-side elevator, facing the
now 80-strong force of apes.
‘Bigfoot!
Let’s move! Time to get out of here—’
All
of a sudden, their fighter started rocking wildly.
Schofield
spun in his seat. ‘Shit! They must have climbed up the side of the ship!’
The
rest of the ape army—nearly 300 gorillas— was now climbing
up and over the
outer edges of the elevator platform!
They
swarmed around the plane, clambered up onto it, shook it, hit it, fired at it.
Schofield
closed the Tomcat’s canopy a split second before it was hit by gunfire. Made of
reinforced Lexan glass, the canopy was capable of deflecting high-velocity
air-to-air tracers, so it could handle this small-arms fire, even from up
close.
But
then one clever gorilla climbed into the towing vehicle that was attached to
the Tomcat and started it up.
‘Aw,
no way, that just ain’t fair...’ Bigfoot breathed.
Covered
in rampaging apes and now pulled by the towing vehicle, the Tomcat slowly
started moving...
...
toward the edge of the elevator!
‘They’re
going to tip us over the side!’ Bigfoot exclaimed.
Indeed
they were.
The
Tomcat rolled toward the edge of the elevator, six storeys above the
waterline.
As
it did so, the apes on its back started bailing off it, jumping clear. They
knew what was about to happen.
‘Ah,
Captain…’ Bigfoot said. ‘Any ideas?’
‘Yeah.
Buckle up.’ Schofield was already strapping on his seatbelt.
‘Buckle
up? How’s that going to—oh!’ Bigfoot clutched at his belts, started clasping
them.
The
towing vehicle came to the edge of the platform and the ape driving it bailed
out just as the towing vehicle tipped over the edge, now hanging from the
Tomcat’s front landing gear.
The
ape army did the rest. They pushed the F-14 until its front wheels lurched off
the edge and the entire plane—with Schofield and Bigfoot in it—fell, off the
carrier, plunging ninety feet
straight down
to the water far below.
* * * *
XI
The
instant the Tomcat fell off the edge, the canopy of the fighter blew open and
the F-14’s two ejection seats shot up out of the plane.
The
ejection seats—with Schofield and Bigfoot on them—rocketed up into the sky
above the aircraft carrier while the Tomcat went in the opposite direction,
the plane falling in a clumsy tumbling heap down the side of the boat and into
the water, where it landed with a great splash and immediately began to sink.
Schofield
and Bigfoot flew high into the air before they disengaged their flight seats
and initiated the parachutes that were attached to their seatbelts.
As
the two of them floated back down to the earth, they scanned the huge force of
apes on the deck of the carrier. They looked like an army of ants swarming over
the aft runway.
Then
suddenly Hail Mary gunshots started to zing past Schofield’s head, tearing
through his chute.
‘Where
to now?’ Bigfoot asked over the UHF.
Schofield
pursed his lips, thinking fast. His eyes fell on the chunky CH-53 Super
Stallion in the centre of the flight deck.
‘It’s
time to even the score a little. Follow me.’ He angled his gliding flight back
toward the carrier, toward its mid-section.
* *
Schofield
touched down on the middle of the flight deck. Bigfoot landed a second after
him, not far from the catapult launch controls.
The
apes charged forward, roaring, firing, rampaging.
‘Stay
here,’ Schofield ordered before racing across the open deck to the massive
Super Stallion.
Hunched
in the pouring rain, he did something near the front of the chopper out of
Bigfoot’s sight before he came back around and charged into the chopper via its
forward right-side door, slamming the door shut an instant before the gorillas
arrived, banging on the side of the chopper, massing around it.
Inside
the Super Stallion, Schofield hustled into the cockpit, shutting its door
behind him, locking it.
* *
Watching
from the outside, taking cover behind the on-deck launch controls, Bigfoot was
confused.
What
was Schofield doing?
But
then something even more confusing occurred.
The
rear loading ramp of the Super Stallion folded open.
Naturally,
the apes stormed it, fifty of them rushing inside, hungry for Schofield’s
blood.
Bigfoot
frowned.
What on earth is he
... ?
‘Bigfoot!’
Schofield’s
voice said over the UHF
‘After you do what I ask, get down to Casper’s door
and find the others. I’ll meet you there.’
‘Casper’s
d—? Oh yeah, sure,’ Bigfoot said. ‘But what do you want me to do now?’
‘Simple.
Initiate Catapult No. 1.’
‘What—!’
At
that moment, Schofield brought the rear loading ramp back up, closing it,
trapping
the fifty-odd apes that had gone inside.
It
was then that Bigfoot saw what Schofield had done at the
front
of the
chopper: via a tie-down chain, Schofield had attached the helicopter to the
carrier’s No. 1 launch catapult.
‘You
have got to be kidding ...’ Bigfoot said.
‘Uh,
now please, Bigfoot. They’re about to break down the cockpit door.’
‘Right.’
Bigfoot
hit a switch on the launch console, igniting Catapult No. 1.
* *
The
Super Stallion hurtled down the length of the runway at a speed no helicopter
had gone before.
The
steam-driven catapult slingshot it down the tarmac at an astonishing 160 km/h!
The
great chopper’s landing wheels snapped off after about ninety feet and the
CH-53
slid
the rest of the way,
on its belly,
sparks flying everywhere,
the ear-piercing shriek of metal scraping against the flight deck filling the
air.
And
then ...
shoom ...
the Super Stallion shot off the bow of the
Nimitz,
soaring out horizontally from the flight deck for a full 150 feet, hanging
in the air for a moment before it arced downward, falling toward the sea.
A
second before it hit the ocean, a human figure could be seen leaping from one
of its cockpit windows, jumping clear of the falling helicopter, hitting the
water at the same time it did, but safely alongside it.
The
helicopter came down with a massive splash and as the splash subsided, it could
be seen bobbing slowly in the water.
And
then it began to sink.
Shrieks
could be heard from within it—the cries of the trapped gorillas.
Ten
seconds later, the Super Stallion went under, with its cargo of murderous apes,
never to rise again.
* *
Shane
Schofield trod water for a few moments, staring at what he’d just done. Then he
started swimming back toward the ship, heading for the bow.
Once
there, he pulled a Pony bottle from his combat webbing—a compact bottle-sized
SCUBA tank fitted with a mouthpiece. He jammed it into his mouth and went
underwater.