Hunting The Snark: An Alice in Deadland Adventure (Alice, No. 4) (13 page)

As he thought of this girl who had proven to be such a
nuisance, he felt something that he would not openly admit to anyone. Fear. So
far, for Sam King, the operation to control the Homeland had been like any
other corporate job before The Rising. He would put in place resources, monitor
production and meet targets. Yes, there were people’s lives involved, but perhaps,
in a vain attempt to assuage his own conscience, he kept telling himself that
he was only doing a job. Now it was much more than that. Hearing the explosions
from missiles fired by attack helicopters and drones in the distance and
knowing that Alice and her friends were headed here, Sam knew that he was now
in the thick of the action.

‘Sir, we’ve flown ten sorties this morning but with the
forests down there, we cannot do this from the air alone.’

Sam looked up at the young aide who was pulling together all
the reports from the assault zone. The Zeus commander in charge of the assault,
a former Marine General called Brian Finn, walked into the tent.

‘I’ll have to send my men in if you really want to get to
that bunker.’

The unspoken question was whether Sam was willing to condemn
hundreds of young men to a horrible death in the forests below to get to the
missiles. The answer was obvious, and he was a bit irritated that the General
would lose his nerve so easily. Brian commanded the armed forces here, but Sam
had overall control, and he resented that the General was trying to pass on the
blood that would be shed to his hands.

‘General, you know our objectives, and you know how critical
this is for Homeland Security. Now do your duty.’

Brian kept a straight face, but Sam noticed he did not
salute as he walked out of the tent. Thirty minutes later, four transport
helicopters came into view, heading towards the forest. He wanted to see the
action unfold and also to ensure that he could report back that he had been
there in the midst of the action. Brian ushered him into a waiting helicopter
and they took off.

Sam had his eyes glued to his binoculars as he scanned the
forests below.

There.

He caught a glimpse of a group of moving figures in a
clearing.

Biters.

Seeing Biters after so many years brought back very
uncomfortable memories for Sam. The weeks following The Rising had been
traumatic, and he had lost a lot of family and friends, and been more terrified
than he ever had been when he came face to face with the Biters for the first
time. He did not want himself and his family to be thrown to the Biters. If he
failed in this mission, there would be no mercy for him or his family.

‘Sam, they’re going in.’

He was snapped back to reality by Brian’s words. Black-clad
Zeus troopers rappelled down from the transport choppers while door-gunners on
the helicopters fired away with their Gatling guns to clear the landing zones
of Biters. Within seconds of the first trooper hitting the ground, the radio
was filled with sounds of gunfire.

‘See, Brian. You were worrying too much about sending the
boys in. They’ll fight their way into the bunker in no time.’

Brian, who had done two tours of duty in Afghanistan before
The Rising, looked away with scarcely disguised contempt. Sam ignored him, now
more confident that he would succeed in this mission. The Executive Committee
would no doubt renew his contract as President for at least a year. The Zeus
team leader in the forests below radioed in.

‘Sir, we’ve killed about a dozen Biters in the first contact
and the others seem to have escaped. We’re less than two klicks from the bunker
location and are now proceeding.’

As the Zeus officer continued with his operational update,
Sam smiled and took out his tablet to tap an update to the Baron.

That was when the voice on the radio began to scream.

***

‘Watch out! The tree…’

Vince smiled to himself as Alice shouted for what must have
been the tenth time in as many minutes. It was ironic that someone who had seen
more violence and bloodshed than any kid should ever see should be so spooked
by a flight in a light aircraft.

Of course, this was not just a joyride. They had reached the
airfield after meeting up with resistance forces who took them aboard
motorcycles for a hair-raising one-hour journey. Zeus had been looking for them
and spotters had reported drones in the air. The only saving grace was that with
attacks by resistance forces on several locations, Zeus had been forced to
spread its air assets thin. Still, Konrath had judged it too risky to have all
of them travel in a Jeep or van that would be easily visible from the air. So
they had raced through forests on their bikes till they reached the airfield.
As their luck would have had it, the helicopter’s engine had malfunctioned and
they had had to try their luck on an old light aircraft that Vince had
improvised for use as a reconnaissance aircraft, complete with a camera
attached.

Zeus had only a handful of fighter aircraft, and they were
busy on other fronts. However, if even a single Apache attack helicopter
stumbled onto them, they would be a sitting duck. As a result, Vince had been
flying at barely twenty feet altitude, literally skimming the tops of the
trees. They had not encountered any Zeus forces, but as they got closer to the
target zone that Bellman’s map had indicated, they would be flying into the
thick of the fighting.

‘Alice, I don’t think we should risk getting much closer.’

Josh, who had been quiet after the battle where he had lost
some of his closest friends and comrades, spoke up.

‘Flyboy, any bright ideas on where we could set down?’

Vince grinned.

‘We’ll have to make do with what we have. I plan to set down
on that highway there. I reckon it’s about ten klicks to the action and we’ll
have to get there on foot.’

‘There!’

Alice turned to see what Cynthia was pointing at and she saw
three dark dots in the sky ahead.

‘Transport helicopters. Looks like Zeus is bringing in
reinforcements.’

With that observation, Vince took the aircraft even lower
and he was now actually flying at a height lower than many of the nearby trees.
The helicopters ahead were well above them, and Zeus was likely so preoccupied
with the battle raging in the forests below that it was not looking for a
threat from the skies. However, Vince was being extra cautious and given the
ambush they had just survived, Alice thought with good reason.

‘There’s more of them!’

This time Josh had spotted more activity and Vince grimaced
as he identified the new helicopters.

‘Those aren’t transport choppers. If they’re Apaches, then
we’re toast.’

The aircraft banked up to avoid a few trees and then began
to descend rapidly.

‘Well, folks, as good a time as any to land. Brace for
impact.’

When Alice looked at him, wondering what he meant, Vince
grinned.

‘Just hold on to something!’

The plane landed on the road below, with one wheel making
contact first. For a while, it seemed like they would flip over, but Vince
fought the controls and brought it down. Alice held on, the sounds of the
engine and Bunny Ears’s screaming both echoing in her ears as the plane skidded
off the road and came to a halt in some bushes. Alice, Cynthia and Josh jumped
out and Bunny Ears followed after some cajoling from Alice. As they began
putting on their backpacks and checking their gear for the journey ahead, Alice
noticed that Vince was still sitting in the cockpit.

‘Vince, what are you doing? Come on.’

Vince turned to look at Alice.

‘Can you guys give me a hand and push this bird back on the
road a bit?’

Josh put down his backpack and walked to the cockpit.

‘Flyboy, what on earth do you have in mind?’

‘Just get this plane back on the road and I’ll tell you. One
of the wheels seems stuck in a hole. Just push it a bit and I’ll start the
engine—should be enough for me to get it back on track.’

As they heaved and pushed the aircraft, Vince started the
engine and within a few minutes, the aircraft was back on the stretch of road
where it had landed. Alice climbed back into the aircraft and sat in the
cockpit next to Vince.

‘What are you planning to do?’ Part of her already knew the
answer, but she wanted to hear it from Vince.

‘The moment they get an idea that you’re heading there on
foot, they will send everything they’ve got after you. We don’t have the
numbers or firepower to get through.’

Vince was looking straight ahead. She touched his chin and
pulled his face towards her.

‘Vince, you don’t have to do this.’

Vince smiled, but it was tinged with sadness.

‘I can’t see any other way. Let me buy you some time—and
it’s not as if I’ve suddenly turned suicidal. I’ll try and get away and land
somewhere and make my way to the resistance, but at least I’ll get Zeus
thinking that you’re on this plane and make them divert their forces in chasing
me.’

Alice just sat there. This would not be the first time
someone had sacrificed himself so that she could live to fight another day. She
remembered how her father and a handful of men had kept Zeus at bay, fighting
till the end against impossible odds so that others in the settlement could
escape.

‘Vince, I will not have you throw your life away for me.’

Vince looked at her, and she saw that his eyes were misting
over.

‘After all that we’ve lost and all the good men and women
who have died so that we could get so far, my life or death hardly matters
before the need to stop the Executive Committee before they get to those
missiles. If they get them, then it will all have been for nothing. Don’t let
that happen.’

Alice watched Vince taxi down the road and then take off.
Cynthia came up to Alice.

‘You okay?’

When Alice turned towards her, Cynthia stepped back a bit.
Alice’s lips were curled back and her eyes were narrowed.

‘Let’s go get those Snarks.’

***

ELEVEN

‘We’ve lost forty men that I know of. This is turning into a
meat grinder. Shouldn’t we look at other options?’

Sam put his glass down and glared at Brian.

‘This is war and we will have losses. Now make sure that
those men’s lives were not lost in vain. Get more reinforcements in as soon as
we can.’

Brian clenched his fist, but he knew he could do nothing to
stop what was unfolding. He didn’t care much for the filthy Biters or the
rabble that had set up the so-called Wonderland, and couldn’t care less if they
were all nuked to oblivion. However, he did care about his men, and he wondered
how he would ever face them after this day.

Many of them were hardened mercenaries, old soldiers who had
fought and killed for profit in many parts of the world before The Rising.
However, several of them were young men from FEMA camps, drafted into Zeus to
fight the so-called War on Terror. It was never spoken of loudly, and only when
there were no prying ears about, but Brian had read all that had been floating
about on the Net since the revolts in Deadland and in Mainland China began. A
lot of it was nothing more than stories cooked up by conspiracy theorists up to
no good, but he was old enough to know that the Executive Committee was not
doing all it did out of the goodness of its heart. It was tightly controlled by
ruthless and powerful men, men who would not hesitate to sacrifice dozens of
soldiers like Brian if it served their interests.

Brian ordered four more sorties flown in. Now that the Zeus
troopers were locked in brutal close combat in the forest, there was no
question of attack helicopters coming in. However, he had two drones and a
number of choppers up in the sky, several using thermal sensors to locate
Biters and guide the ground troops. They had killed hundreds of Biters, but
they seemed to keep on coming, defending their territory with a ferocity that
Brian had not seen before.

‘Sir, I see a low-flying aircraft about five klicks from
here.’

Brian rushed to the console where one of his drone operators
was seated. On the screen he saw a white aircraft flying low among the trees.

‘Is it one of ours?’

Brian looked at Sam, trying to hide the disgust he felt for
the drunk man whom he had to report to.

‘No, Sam. It’s her.’

Sam put his glass down. Now was his chance to finish this
all. Yes, the fighting in the forest would continue, but it was only a matter
of time before the troopers fought their way through the Biters and got to the
bunker. Two large transport aircraft loaded with more than three hundred
troopers had just landed at Cape Canaveral and they would be ferried to the
combat zone by helicopters within an hour. What mattered most was that he
removed any threat that Alice could pose before she got there.

‘Shoot that plane down now! Don’t we have missiles that can
do the job?’

‘We didn’t exactly bring surface-to-air missiles to fight
Biters. Anyways, I’ll divert one of the Apaches to do the job. It’ll only take
a few minutes to bring it down.’

***

Alice was running as fast as she could, focused on getting
to the combat zone and the bunker that Bellman’s map had indicated. Bellman had
told them that she had destroyed the locking mechanism on the bunker and it
would have to be opened with explosive charges, which Josh and Cynthia were carrying
in their backpacks. She paused, waiting to see if Josh and Cynthia were far
behind. They were some hundred meters back, and she waved to them and continued
running.

Bunny Ears was on a mission of his own and had melted into
the forest. Alice knew what battle did to Biters and that they would be both
terrified and enraged at the violent intrusion by humans. Whatever the virus
was that had caused humans to turn into Biters, it made them exceptionally
territorial, and Alice wanted Bunny Ears to try and get a few Biters on their
side before they ran into Biters who were battle-crazed.