Spiral (56 page)

A crazy thought slammed into his mind.

The Priest was wrong.

They were all wrong.

There was nothing; nothing but freezing sea, and cold cold ice flows.

Laughter welled up madly in his throat as he flipped free the HIDSS and with the power of ordinary human eyesight transgressed a billion dollars of technological development funding. Then he saw it. A black dot on the horizon: a matt black sentinel, squatting against the grey churning freezing waters.

Carter would have to be ready; he would have to be strong; he would have to be a machine without emotion ... without fear ...

The black dot started to grow; to materialise; to enlarge before Carter’s very eyes.

The battleship was moving at a rapid speed for a ship so large; a churning wake of white foam followed it.

Carter grinned nastily within the insect-like HIDSS helmet.

All I want, he thought, are answers before I die.

All I want, he thought, is to kill those responsible -before I die.

He had resigned himself. Made his peace with God -or whatever other warped and wicked deity was waiting for him on the Other Side. Feuchter had asked him once if he was ready to die and now he understood, now he truly understood.

Carter knew.

Knew that he wasn’t coming back.

□
Ωclass relay
□
qiii mainframe code logon

01001010

booting...

□
GetStdHandle
□□
GetFileType P
□

GetStartupInfoA
²
FreeEnvironmentStringsA

³
FreeEnvironmentStringsW Ò
□

WideCharToMultiByte
□□

GetEnvironmentStrings

□□
GetEnvironmentStringsW β
□
WriteFile
□

HeapAlloc »
□
VirtualAlloc

¢
□
HeapReAlloc ¿ GetCPInfo
¹
GetACP 1
□

GetOEMCP

Â
□
LoadLibraryA ä
□
MultiByteToWideChar S
□

GetStringTypeA

V
□
GetStringTypeW ¿
□
LCMapStringA
À
□

LCMapStringW
/
□
RtlUnwind

KERNEL32.dll ~ _AIL_lock@0 v

_AIL_get_preference@4 E
□
_AIL_unlock@0

_AIL_lock_mutex@0 F
□
_AIL_unlock_mutex@0
□

_AIL _set_error@4 Ê

»»»»»»»»

errors rectified

qlll 01001010 100%on-line

operational procedures confirmed

HKLM,%KEY_OPTIONAL%, ‘sysmon*,, ‘ sysmon’

HKLM,%%\sysmon,INF,, ‘appletpp.inf ‘ SP1Q,%KEY_OPTIONAL%\sysmon,Installed,,’0’

SP1Q,%KEY_OPTIONAL%, ‘sysmeter’,,’sysmeter ‘

SP1Q,%KEY_OPTIONAL%\sysmeter,Installed,,‘0’

HKLM,%KE YOPTIONAL%, ‘netwatch’,,‘netwatch’

SP1Q,%KEYOPTIONAL%, ‘demolimminent’,

‘demolsquads=37’

HKLM,%KEY_OPTIONAL%\demol,INF,,

‘squadthreat.inf’

script engaged script locking engaged

launch sequence initiated= threat=

demolsquad=37

co-ords 234.456.555.211 - eq%345.331

satellites= 248

satellites= qiii operational takeover complete

satellite request= granted

logged.

The warship, while not the largest cruiser ever built, was certainly the most menacing. Its dull matt black flanks crouched on the ocean crests and it growled through the sea water, its heavy squat hull smashing the waves apart as it powered towards its destination. Carter, like the other members of the DemolSquads, had listened to Jam’s briefing, based on information gathered by a hundred different DemolSquad operatives, including The Priest. Reconnaissance scouts had learned that the vessel was armed with extensive weapons and guidance systems, far superior to those a cruiser would normally carry. As well as the standard surface missiles and guns, it had extensive anti-submarine sensors and weapons, and a powerful Mk IV phased-array radar giving 360° coverage able to track up to 250 targets simultaneously. It carried fixed-wing aircraft and heavily armed and armoured support helicopters. And the ship was nuclear-powered. Unlike normal cruisers, this machine had a top speed of over 60 knots. And there had been no signs of a crew...

Carter hovered for a while at a distance, the Comanche humming softly to him, the HIDSS screaming proximity warnings at him. Below, the sea spun away in circular patterns, brushed aside by down draughts from the ‘copter.

And yet—

And yet the cruiser was not on his displays.

The QIII processor, he thought.

It’s fucking intercepting satellite, radar and scanner readings.

It’s bouncing everything away from the ship!

No wonder it was never discovered ... and now? Now that the QIII was quite obviously working?

Was he too late?

Behind, despite their agreed radio silence, Jam connected, using the ECube.

‘You OK, Carter?’

‘Yeah. You guys ready?’

‘We’re fucking ready. Me and Slater are heading off -we’re gonna do our bit for the boys.’

‘Be good, Jam. And if you can’t be good?’

‘I’m always fucking good,’ snarled Jam.

Grinning, Carter eased the Comanche forward, leading this huge pack of metal wolves. They grouped closer now, machines coming up and around the Comanche to form a huge black swarm buzzing angrily against the Arctic heavens... Carter found himself suddenly tense, awaiting incoming fire, waiting for those huge 12.5cm calibre guns to spit their welcome...

The matt black cruiser groaned and growled through the crashing sea. Waves smashed against its prow. The odd seagull cawed, following the mighty vessel in the hope of some stray scrap of food. Sections of ice floated in the water, chunks that were brushed aside easily by the warship’s ram.

Carter grimaced.

It began to rain, lightly at first, then a downpour of heavy droplets laced with ice from a tumultuous cold sky; clouds gathered and bunched, huge bruises against the skin of the heavens.

The rain and sleet fell with increased ferocity.

The dark sea churned, rain turning waves into dancing patterns among bobbing blocks of ice.

Against the sky sat an inky blot that expanded, multiplying, replicating; then what had been one blot against the backdrop of the sky became many smaller ones.

‘Let’s do it,’ came the crackle of Carter’s voice.

Insect-like, the DemolSquads advanced on the cruiser. They separated; aboard the helicopters, aboard the Lockheed AH-56As, the UH-1N Iroquois Hueys, the CH-47s, the MH-53Js, the MH-60G Pave Hawks, the Apaches and Black Hawks - aboard these metal monsters, these machines of war, stood men and women armed with machine guns and bombs, waiting to fight, waiting to suffer, and waiting to die.

In one machine stood The Priest. His eyes flashed with fire. He pointed down from the heavens; he pointed at the cruiser where a swarm of small black squat powerful helicopters lifted from the decks, rotors screaming through the rain, guns and missiles armed and ready ...

‘Here we go,’ muttered Carter, arming the Comanche’s weapons systems in a splash of coloured lights and flickering data within the HIDSS. Alarms screamed around him as, on the deck of the battleship, one of the gun turrets rotated on well-oiled rails. The 12.5cm-calibre twin barrels lifted in their angle of ascent; there was a massive concussive
boom
and the turret recoiled.

An advancing DemolSquad helicopter, a Pave Hawk, was plucked from the sky. Fire erupted, glittering bright orange and yellow against the grey sky, a ball of bright iridescence before it smashed down into the sea, rotors spinning screaming splashing into the churning waters where the blackened fire-filled carcass disappeared swiftly below the waves.

Swarms of small black helicopters came sweeping from the darkness and rain, their machine guns hammering.

The DemolSquads returned fire and the skies were suddenly lit by streamers of tracer.

Carter fired off two rockets and allowed the Comanche to spin, rotors scything, below heavy-calibre fire, closely missing a small black helicopter ... he allowed the Comanche to drop — away and
down
from the battle, and towards the suddenly looming deck of the enemy ship: Spiral_mobile ...

Above him, bullets crackled across the sky—

And the heavens were painted crimson.

Durell’s twisted blackened fingers crept from beneath the soft folds of cloth and his hooded eyes stared into the void. His hand moved, slowly, a sliver of ice down the spine of the world ... and he gently pressed RETURN.

Nothing ...

And then a quiet hum filled the massive control deck. The computer monitors that lined the walls dimmed momentarily, as if bowing before some electronic deity, then brightened into life once more.

Words - QIII script - sped across the display. Then, from a laser encoder, a globe sprang into existence, a spinning white-laser representation of the Earth. It hung in front of Durell’s face. His gnarled hands lifted and were bathed in white light that illuminated the deformed grotesque within Durell’s heavy folded hood.

Durell laughed, a cold and ominous sound.

He reached out and pointed; the globe spun, located its target, and zoomed through layers of sparkling laser light to highlight Spiral_mobile, crashing through the waves. Durell pulled back from his own base and spun the globe; he located the nearest Russian air base and smiled softly.

‘So you come to destroy me, my sweet young DemolSquads? Like virgins to the slaughter?’

He initiated the sequence.

The QIII hummed from the heart of the black terminal.

□
Ωclass relay
□
qiii mainframe code logon 01001010

booting...

HKLM,%KEY_OPTIONAL%,
^<
Sp1on-line’„‘sp1on-line’ HKLM,%KEY_OPTIONAL%\sp1on-line,INF„‘appletpp.inF

HKLM,%%\sp1on-line,Section,,’sp1on-line’

HKLM,%KE Y_OPTIONAL%\sp1on-line,Installed,,’0’ HKLM,%KEY_OPTIONAL%\CharMap556ar,Section,,

‘CharMap’

SP1Q,%%,’ZipFldr’„‘ZipFldr’

SP1Q,%KEY_OPTIONAL%\sysmon,Installed,,
‘0’

SP1Q,%KEY_OPTTONAL%,’sysmeter’„‘sysmeter’

SP1Q,%KEY_OPTIONAL%\sysmeter,Installed„‘0’

HKLM,%KE Y_OPTIONAL%,‘netwatch’,,‘netwatch ‘

tracking... located Russian server

krostevskyTTQBGGHl#####

tracking... locked.

SP1Q,%KEY_OPTIONAL%,’demolinuninent’„

‘demolsquads=37’

HKLM,%KEY_OPTIONAL%\demol,INF„

‘squadthreat.inf’

script engaged script locking engaged

launch sequence initiated= threat= demolsquad=37

co-ords 234.456.555.211 - eq%345.331

launch MIG30 fighter config= 32armed

satellite request= granted

logged.

T
he sea crashed and churned against the hull of the warship as it growled forward. Missiles and bombs detonated. There was a deafening roar of explosives from the ship’s deck; steel shuddered; helicopters were smashed, burning insanely, from the sky to die, their flames extinguished in the waves. Guns roared, sparks spitting and kicking across metal and flesh.

Out of nowhere, a tiny black vessel was heli-dropped into the bounding waves. It sped at an incredible velocity and with absolutely no sound across the churning waters, crashing into troughs and riding them bravely before gliding up alongside the cruiser. There was a tinny
crack
and it secured itself.

Aboard, two figures gave one another the thumbs-up. Jam lifted his goggles for a second and stared into Slater’s eyes. Both men grasped hands, and Jam said: