Macaque Attack (28 page)

The confined spaces in the heart of the Leviathan proved an advantage, as Célestine’s cybernetic soldiers couldn’t overwhelm him; they could only attack one at a time, which suited him fine. When he swung his chainsaw in the narrow gangways, they didn’t have the leeway to dodge, and more than one of them went down with their faces shredded from their skulls and their brains ripped to purée.

His other advantage was that his strategy seemed to be confusing them. They were deploying themselves to defend access to the control room at the top of the vehicle, whereas Ack-Ack Macaque’s target was lower, and to the rear. They thought he wanted to destroy the tank, or capture it; that he gave a flying fuck about their nuisance invasion, when, in reality, stopping it wasn’t on his immediate to-do list—later maybe, but not right now. Right now, he had another objective. As they moved to block his upward progress, he moved back and to the side, wrong-footing them at every turn.

Behind him, the rest of his squad raced to keep up, fighting off pursuers and pausing only to finish off those wounded cyborgs he’d left in his wake that were still capable of offensive action.

“How much further?” he shouted over the noise and vibration of the Leviathan’s engines. Behind him, Erik consulted an infrared photo of the tank, taken via scopes on the
Sun Wukong
, his rubbery-looking fingers measuring the distance from where they thought they were to the large heat source at the Leviathan’s stern.

“Five metres. Just the other side of the next hatch.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

“Ah, fuck it.” Ack-Ack Macaque spat out the soggy butt of the broken cigar. He was gambling everything on the assumption that the heat source marked the position of the engine room, and that the engine room housed the device he sought.

“Well, it’s certainly loud enough. Tell Cuddles to get his arse up here. If what we’re looking for is in here, we’re going to need him to carry it.”

“Roger, Chief.”

Ack-Ack Macaque put a hand against the hatch. Like the rest, it was made of thick, uncoated steel, with rivets the size of golf balls, and he could feel it throbbing to the beat of the Leviathan’s mechanical heart.

“This has to be the place.” Hefting the chainsaw in his right hand, he holstered his Colt and gripped the wheel that opened the door. The steel was shiny with use. He gave it two quick yanks and it spun open. The locks disengaged, and the hatch swung inwards.

Beyond, the engine room was a mass of ducts, pipes and tangled wiring, at the centre of which lay two vast and thundering turbine engines. He sniffed. The air stank of hot oil and choking exhaust fumes, and the racket was so loud he couldn’t hear the whine of his chainsaw—only feel it juddering through the bones and muscles of his arm.

“Right,” he yelled over his shoulder, hoping his troops could hear him, or at least get the gist, “let’s get in and out before they have a chance to figure out what we’re doing.”

He stepped over the raised threshold, onto a catwalk suspended above the grinding turbines. At the far end, the device he’d come for stood bolted to a bulkhead, looking like an upturned coffin leant against a wall. Between him and it stood a cyborg, and Ack-Ack Macaque sighed. The walkway didn’t seem all that secure underfoot, and he could feel it sway with the cyborg’s movements. There was no point trying to speak over the din, so he simply bared his teeth and drew his revolver.

“
Adios, muchacho.
” He squeezed the trigger and the gun bucked in his hand, once, twice, three times. The advancing figure stopped. The first shot had torn a gash across its temple, exposing the shiny silver skull beneath the skin and biting away a sizeable chunk of ear. The second and third had hit it in the chest, but Ack-Ack Macaque could see no evidence of damage. He’d hoped to hit something vital, but the shots didn’t seem to have penetrated anything save for the cyborg’s cotton overalls.

“Bollocks,” he muttered, tossing aside the empty handgun. Facing him, the cyborg frowned, and put a hand to its ruined ear. Anger flashed across its features. With slow deliberation, it started walking forward, hands grasping at the air. Ack-Ack Macaque swore under his breath. He needed the box at the other end of the gangway. He needed it to save the world—and if that meant going through this robotic motherfucker to get his hands on it, then that was the way it had to be.

“Okay,” he snarled, shaking the chainsaw, “you want some more, eh?” He ran to meet his opponent, and they crashed together at the walkway’s midpoint, suspended above the spinning turbines. The cyborg parried Ack-Ack Macaque’s first swing, using his left forearm to deflect the whirring teeth, while swinging his right fist at the monkey’s midriff. Luckily, Ack-Ack was ready for the move, and twisted aside, bringing his chainsaw back and around for another swipe. As he did so, the cyborg smiled, and vicious-looking blades sprang from his wrists. He used one to block Ack-Ack’s second attack, and stabbed with the other. Unable to counter the thrust, Ack-Ack Macaque was forced to relinquish the chainsaw and skip back. He only just made it. The tip of the attacking blade ripped a razor-straight gash across the front of his jacket and the leather sagged open, revealing the white sheepskin beneath.

Incandescent with rage but now unarmed, Ack-Ack Macaque screeched at his attacker and did the only thing he could think of. Bending at the knees, he waited until the cyborg took another swing, and leapt, launching himself over the gangway’s rail. For a split second, he seemed to hang in space. The turbines spun beneath him, ready to crush and mangle him. Then his tail hooked one of the wires supporting the walkway. He swung down and round, passing beneath the feet of his surprised attacker. His hand grabbed the underside of the gangway, and he let the momentum carry him, so that he came up the other side and hit the cyborg in the head with both feet. The impact jarred every bone in his body and snapped the metal man’s head back on its shoulders. Something cracked, and the figure staggered.

Ack-Ack Macaque dropped to the floor. When he got back to his feet, he saw the cyborg tottering, its head dangling behind it, held in place by electrical wires. Ducking under its swiping, blindly scissoring arms, he grabbed its overalls by the knees and heaved. The metal body went up and backwards, and toppled over the rail into the engines below.

For an instant, it seemed to bob and dance on the spinning turbines before getting caught and dragged into the machinery. He saw the head fly in one direction, one of the arms in another. Then its torso must have caught on something, because there was an ear-splitting bang, and the engines whined into smoke and silence.

Looking back to the hatch, Ack-Ack saw Erik and Cuddles were watching him with wide, awestruck eyes.

“Come on,” he barked, ears ringing in the sudden silence. “I need you guys to grab hold of this device and get it back to K8 on the
Sun
.”

Erik the orangutan blinked at him.

“What about you, Chief?”

“Me?” Ack-Ack Macaque scowled down at his damaged jacket. “I’m going to need my chainsaw and some ammunition. I’ve got some unfinished business with Célestine.” He tried to pull the two sides of the slit together with his hands. “And, while you’re at it, see if you can find me some goddamn safety pins.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

AMELINE

T
WELVE KILOMETRES ABOVE
the battle-torn fields of northern France, the former trading ship
Ameline
slowed to a halt in the air. The ship had been travelling at Mach 4, but now it was stationary, hanging in the sky like an impossible statue. In cross-section, it was a snub-nosed wedge, its sheen of blue and red paint bleached by the light of a dozen alien suns. Jacked into its virtual senses, Katherine Abdulov looked down at the carnage beneath. Even from here, she could see the Leviathans crawling around like tracked armadillos, and the massive airships harrying them from above.

“Any sign of Célestine?” she asked the ship, and felt it run a sensor sweep, scouring the countryside below for signs of their quarry.

> DIFFICULT TO TELL.

Kat heard the ship’s words in her mind via her neural link, and pursed her lips.

“But this fits her M.O.?”

> OH, DEFINITELY. THERE ARE A LOT OF CYBORGS DOWN THERE. MONKEYS TOO.

“Monkeys plural?”

> IT SEEMS NAPOLEON’S FOUND HIMSELF A POSSE.

Kat gave a weary sigh.

“And what about our other target, the Valois woman?”

> ACCORDING TO RADIO TRAFFIC, SHE’S ON ONE OF THE AIRSHIPS.

“You’re sure?”

> SURE AS CAN BE.

“Have they seen us yet?”

She felt a shiver in the connection, like the electronic equivalent of a sniff.

> WE’RE INVISIBLE TO THEIR RADAR. THE ONLY WAY THEY’LL NOTICE US IS IF ONE OF THEM STEPS OUT ON DECK AND LOOKS UP WITH THEIR EYES.

“Which is always possible.”

> MEH.

Kat took a moment to savour the view: the clear blue skies and rolling brown and yellow countryside, the grey urban sprawl of Paris to the north and the sea to the west. All of it alive, untouched, and relatively unspoiled.
Djatt, Inakpa, Strauli
... Those tragedies seemed so long ago, so far away—and yet their pain never lessened, never left her. And so here she was at the other end of the universe, trying to save this world—trying to avert yet another apocalypse.

She opened a channel to the forward weapons pod, where Ed Rico lay cocooned in alien technology, as much a component of the gun as its operator.

“How are you doing, Ed?”

“Hanging in there.” His voice sounded bubbly and distorted, forcing its way up through layers of alien mucus.

“Keep an eye on the horizon,” she told him. “I’m going to try landing on the airship, but if this all goes tits-up, we can expect an armed response.”

“Don’t worry.” He sounded like a man choking, pushing each syllable through the glop that filled his lungs and throat. “I’m on it.”

“Thanks, Ed.” She turned her attention back to the downward view. The airships moved like armoured clouds, raining fire on the tanks, which in turn resembled the restlessly moving buildings of a mobile city.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s go down there and say hello.”

She looked down and flexed the fingers of her artificial left hand. The metal of the fingers and wrist had been stained and half-melted during an attack by the Recollection.

The ship trembled around her as the engines changed their pitch, and the deck skewed forward.

> DESCENDING NOW.

Through the ship’s senses, she felt the wind caressing the outside of the hull and the hairs on her arms and neck prickled in response. Tingles in her feet represented the push of the thrust, growls in her stomach the power of the engines.

“Let’s
try
to do it gently this time,” she implored the cranky old spacecraft as she felt it fire up its fusion motors. “Remember, we want to speak to these people, not incinerate them.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

WRENCH

O
ING WAS THE
first to die. A tall, golden-skinned female cyborg came crashing through the engine room door. Her mane of bright red hair gave her the look of an idealised Roman centurion, and her shining blades were black with blood and gore. She dispatched the chimp with a single backhand swipe of her arm, gutting him with a vicious slash from right hip to left nipple.

As Oing collapsed in a flood of gore, Boing opened fire with his sidearm. K8 covered her ears. The gunshots were shockingly loud in the confined space, but seemed to have little effect on the gleaming woman. When the gun was empty, Boing threw it at her. It hit her on the chest and fell to the deck.

K8 looked around for a weapon, but the only thing with any heft was the wrench she was already holding—and even that looked pitifully small and ineffectual compared to the half-metre blades extending from the woman’s sleeves.

The cyborg looked down at the gun on the floor.

“Is that it, Cheetah?” she asked. Her voice was rich and deep, and only slightly human. Boing snarled. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and tightened his grip on the bayonet in his other hand.

“That’s not my name.”

“Do you think I care?”

She raised her arms—one held forward defensively, pointing at him and daring him to rush her; the other pulled back, fist level with her ear, ready to strike.

Boing growled.

Feeling helpless, K8 called the hive for assistance, but they were all too far away to offer practical help.

All save one.

Be strong, my child.
The Founder’s words emanated an indignant and flinty resolve. K8 squeezed the wrench in her fists. Boing and the golden woman were circling each other.

Help us.

I am trapped on the bridge with Valois and the Marines, but I will come as soon as we can.

We need you now.

I’m afraid that’s not possible.

K8 felt anger stir up inside, let it leak onto the communal channel.

Then what bloody use are you?

She crouched beside the metal cradle she’d improvised on the engine room’s floor, thinking maybe she could unplug the power cables she’d just connected and use them to electrify the deck. She didn’t know whether doing so would affect their cyborg attacker, but was certain it would, in all likelihood, kill her and Boing.

Best leave that as a last resort.

Motion caught her eye. Boing leapt forward, lunging with the bayonet. His long, hairy arm gave him tremendous reach and the tip of his weapon actually touched the golden woman’s breast before her arm—moving so fast it was little more than a blur—swiped him aside with all the power of a car crash, sending his broken body tumbling and flopping across the deck like windblown laundry.

Sickened, K8 swallowed hard. Slowly, she rose to her feet, wrench held shakily before her. At this point, her fear and anger had become interchangeable. She couldn’t tell where one finished and the other began, but both were firing her with a desperate, insane urge to fight back, no matter how mismatched and hopeless the struggle—the same instinct she imagined filled swimmers and led them to struggle in the jaws of a shark, or compelled doomed cavemen to pit their fists and fingernails against the claws and teeth of a sabre-toothed cat. Whatever happened here, she knew she would not beg, would not grovel, and would not die like cowering prey. She knew that if the Skipper were here, he’d do the same. He’d never give up, never surrender, and never give his opponent the satisfaction of seeing his fear—and neither would she. She took a deep, steadying breath, and gripped the wrench with both hands. Gold eyes flicked in her direction. The cyborg let its head tilt to one side. It looked her up and down, from the ratty baseball boots on her feet to the tousled top of her carroty hair.