Through Glass Darkly: Episode Two (3 page)

I saw the shadow first. Racing across the distant horizon toward us, and then the steady drone of those wonderful, powerful engines. It took all my self-restraint not to look up, but I allowed myself the narrowest of smiles at the idea of what was about to happen.

Arc weapons it has to be conceded are some of the least accurate, but more dangerous weapons carried aboard the Kubla Khan. To the casual observer, or even to their target the discharge takes the form of a bolt of forked lightening, but unlike the lightening created in a thunder-storm which releases its electrical energy with a crack or bang, the discharge of Arc weapons seems to scream like some kind of malevolent eagle.

Too late the creature understood what was happening, and looked skywards at the great bronze craft that was dropping out of the heavens like a stone toward us.

That it recognised its own destruction was heading straight toward it was probably no great surprise, nor was its panicked attempt to get away.

But even as it turned to flee the heavens screamed their vengeance down upon the solitary fleeing form, super-heating and super-energising everything in the path of the lightening. As soon as I heard the distinctive discharge I dived away from the creature at the same time shouting to the men to get down behind their barriers.

While not accurate, the impact of any form of Arc discharge is distinctive. Semi-conductive materials like metals that are struck by the forks of Arc energy are simply heated to a couple of thousand degrees within the space of a second, while less conductive materials like, brick, wood, glass and if we were lucky the flesh of the creature, would be energised and heated to the point where some of the material would simply explode into its constituent atoms, propelling small fragments of almost equally hot, flaming or molten material away from the point of impact at high velocity.

I don’t know who was firing the gun, but they weren’t happy with just one shot, firing time and again over a period of perhaps thirty seconds, doubtless chasing the creature as it tried to flee, before they finally let go of the trigger.

I’d been aboard the ship many times when these weapons were unleashed, but I’d never been so close to the target when it was hit before, and after experiencing it I was quite thankful that I hadn’t.

Dusting myself off after the firing stopped, I turned to check on the men and find out if anyone had been hit by the flying shrapnel from the impacts. But fortunately what few pieces of shrapnel had come our way had safely impacted on their barricade, starting a few small fires here and there but hurting nobody further.

They’d been through an enormous amount during the course of the day, but I felt for them now as I saw the dumbfounded shock written all over their faces at what had just happened, and this from just one battery of guns aboard the ship, what would they have thought if they’d seen all twenty batteries open fire at once, and the damage that the assortment of different weapon types could inflict.

From the numerous shots that the gunner had taken I was far from certain the creature was actually dead, but if it had survived it would surely have been caught countless times by the flying shrapnel and other super-heated material, so would at the very least be severely wounded, with its fear of people well and truly re-affirmed.

In the meantime, as the cradles descended from the ship to take the dead, wounded and able-bodied aboard, I thought briefly about heading over to see if I could find the creatures remains, until a waft of intense heat on the breeze reminded me that it would take several hours if not days for the fires to go out and the super-heated pools of glass and metalwork to cool down to the point where it would be safe for anyone to walk amongst the wreckage that now filled this part of the railyard.

CHAPTER 20 – POST MORTEM

It was the work of minutes to get aboard the Khan using the cradles, which I was pleased to see all seemed to be working perfectly again, though as they were being operated for the most part by Bradbury and his men who’d only been using them for a few days now while doing their repair work, there was some uncertainty about how many people they could safely carry until I explained that each cradle was designed to carry things far heavier than people.

As soon as the injured were safely installed in one of the medical bays, and under the care of Dr Zimmerman, who appeared to be aboard again, and the rest of the men had been made comfortable in one of the nearby crew lounges I reported to the bridge, where I expected to find the Captain would need some help in flying the ship.

When I got there though, I was pleased to see he’d once again recruited Jenkins and Hughes as his bridge staff. The Captain was at the helm, while Jenkins had now taken over at the engines and Hughes at the power distribution station.

‘Welcome aboard again Mr Hall, and well met,’ called the Captain as soon as I entered the bridge. ‘If you wouldn’t mind taking the helm while I check on the rest of the ship, it would be much appreciated.’

‘Of course Captain,’ I responded taking the helm from him. ‘Our heading?’

‘West North West for the moment Mr Hall,’ he replied simply, with a genuine smile on his face. ‘We’re heading back to our dockyard in the park.’

‘This is Fraser to the bridge,’ came a familiar voice over the intercom, ‘Do you need me to stay out here Captain Hughes, or would you like me to return to the bridge?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind staying where you are for the moment Agent Fraser, just in case we need your assistance again?’ asked the Captain cordially. ‘Mr Hall has arrived to assist us on the bridge.’

‘Mind sir! I think I’ve got one of the best views across the city imaginable from here,’ came Fraser’s equally cordial reply. ‘Oh and Ashton, good idea!’

This raised a smile from the Captain and a bit of chuckle from both Jenkins and Hughes.

At this the Captain gave the order that sent us back up into the bluebird skies where I began the manoeuvre to turn the ship around and head back to the park. As I did this he absently started to check on the various engineering consoles around the bridge to confirm the good operation of the ship, hesitating momentarily as the deep golden sunlight spilled in through the windows to bathe the often austere glass and polished metalwork of the bridge in its gentle warmth.

After enjoying the sight of the city below in the warm afternoon light, he slowly turned back to the ships instruments, occasionally issuing instructions to Jenkins, Hughes and myself about our course, speed or elevation, before eventually settling back into the Captain’s chair.

Sailing through the afternoon sunlight reminded me of the shakedown cruise we’d completed over Portugal sailing up the Tagus River that divided the old city of Lisbon, before heading northwards to the Pyrenees for our high altitude tests.

We’d seen many beautiful sights as we’d traversed America and the Atlantic, but the trip up the river still stood out in my memory. The azure sky framing the pale buildings of the historic city, while the sunlight flickered and danced on the waters of the wide river below. The buildings were unmistakeably taller in Manhattan, but the combination of sky, sun and sea was equally lovely.

I was lost in the moment, when Jenkins unexpectedly asked the Captain if it would be alright to ask me a few questions about my rather busy day now that we were underway.

‘I have no objection at all Mr Jenkins,’ replied the Captain. ‘In fact I’d quite like to hear some of the details was well. If Mr Hall has no objection?’

‘None at all Captain,’ I was happy to reply.

Over the next ten minutes or so, as we sailed back to Central Park, Agent Jenkins asked first about what had happened with the first creature, and in particular to explain the rumour he’d heard that once we’d brought it down, it had appeared to be part human.

I answered his questions, firstly explaining how Riley had been injured when the creature tried to get away, but how Shelby has saved the day by planting a couple of shots squarely into its back, knocking it over and in the process impaling it on a long shard of toughened glass. I then explained how as a consequence of Shelby’s work I had enough time to join him in putting several more shots into the creature as it got back up, which resulted in the thing first crashing through an interior window before falling to the warehouse floor two stories below.

I had to confess my own confusion and uncertainty at discovering what appeared to be Ariel’s face hidden beneath the creatures carapace armour.

‘Surely you don’t think this monstrous thing could actually contain some trace of your former crewman?’ Jenkins asked almost incredulous.

‘I honestly don’t know,’ I had to concede. ‘But there are some things about its behaviour that have been odd from the start. It always seems to prefer to run rather than attack. Even when I was defencelessly hanging from the warehouse roof, it didn’t attack, it just stood and observed, which I’ve never seen one of these creatures do before.

‘Compare the oddly peaceful behaviour of that gruesome looking creature with the violent and aggressive behaviour of the second creature, which looks exactly like one of our crewmen . . . and suddenly anything seems possible.’

I pulled no punches with my account of our encounter with the second creature either.

‘It was the scopes I made for the search teams that were the cause of the problem,’ I admitted earnestly. ‘While they allowed the men to see the creature, the field of vision through them is just too narrow, and as a consequence they struggled to follow the creature when it was moving quickly, especially when the surroundings also provided so much natural cover.

‘This allowed the creature to get in close with the men, and injure some of them. And that’s when the second problem with the scopes became apparent. The officers with the scopes needed both hands to be effective, one to hold the scope, the other to aim their revolvers. Consequently as the injuries start to stack up the group had to start reducing the number of people using the scopes or guns, either that or restricting the group’s ability to move.

‘By the time we arrived from the boat yard to relieve them, the number of dead or injured who needed to be carried had got to the point where even with our numbers there weren’t enough able bodied individuals to allow the group to move and defend itself effectively, which put us in the impossible situation of just about being able to guard against the thing, or being able to move the group, but not both.’

‘So you walked off into the yard by yourself to call for help?’ Hughes asked.

‘It was a calculated risk,’ I admitted. ‘At the point when we arrived the creature had once again managed to get in close with the group and was attacking them hand to hand. But unlike the others, with my lensing rig I was not only able to see the creature with perfect clarity, I was also able to follow it amongst the melee, which it clearly wasn’t expecting.

‘As a result I was able to seriously injure it before it knew what was going on. Naturally, it fled and I guessed it would probably be half an hour at least before it would come out of hiding and realise it wasn’t being hunted.

‘Well within that time, we’d established the nature of the predicament the group was in, so I decided the only option was to do something unconventional, some way of getting the men out without putting other people at risk, all I needed was a two-way radio to be able to contact either the ship or the control room.’

‘But how did you know where you’d find a radio in the rail yard?’ Jenkins asked.

‘Fortunately, one of the railyard workers was able to direct me to the main site office, which he knew had a two way radio in the back to co-ordinate activity across the city.

‘As soon as I had that I gambled it was just a question of getting away from the group before the creature returned, and then not being unlucky enough to run into it on the way.’

I was just about to ask a question of my own in return, about how confident the Captain was that the creature had been destroyed when the doctor called the bridge over the ships internal communication system.

‘This is Dr Zimmerman to the Captain, can you hear me?’

‘Yes doctor,’ was the Captain’s reply. ‘We hear you, is there a problem?’

‘I’m afraid so Captain,’ he responded. ‘I have several patients who need immediate surgical intervention of type I cannot deliver. Is there any possibility of diverting the ship to drop them off at a hospital with a surgical facility?’

‘We can certainly divert the ship without any problem doctor,’ replied the Captain. ‘But I’ll have to contact the ground to confirm which would be the best hospital for us to use. I’ll call you back as soon as I have an update.’

The moment the Captain explained the situation to Platt over the radio he recommended we head for Belle Vue hospital, the same site that had accepted the bulk of the injured crew when the ship had first appeared. He had to place a few calls to confirm this, but it took barely two minutes for him to do so and then radio us back.

Despite having a huge number of injured from the Khan still on their premises and only a few minutes to prepare, the hospital medical teams were ready and waiting to receive the injured and the dead as soon as we came to a halt above them. They’d already been patched through to the ship in order to get the patient specific details from Dr Zimmerman, and had then asked to speak to the Captain in order to direct us to the specific area of the hospital grounds where we could lower the cradles in order to transfer the men. Along the way it had also been decided by Platt that the rest of the search teams should also alight at the hospital for a quick check-up following their ordeal.

I was half expecting I’d be forced to join the rest of the men for a check-up, but I wasn’t going to volunteer to join them, so when nobody asked me to go with them I just stayed at my post, and acted as though there were no reason for me to be anywhere else.