Battle for Earth (32 page)

“Are you OK?” Johnny asked.

“Of course I am able to look after myself without too many difficulties,” said Sol. “I will transmit the spaceport coordinates to Kovac, hoping I can trust him to take you and investigate, away from the fighting.”

“Good plan, Johnny out.”

Someone screamed. Deafened by his helmet's speakers, Johnny couldn't tell if it was Clara or Louise, but he could immediately see why. There was movement in one of the other spotlights, followed by the blinking of a giant eye.

“Kovac, get us out of here,” he said. “To the spaceport.”

“About time,” Kovac replied. Johnny spotted several giant squid circling at the boundary of the light cast by the computer's casing.

The tug was so sudden it was all he could do to hold on. As great columns loomed unexpectedly out of the darkness, he wondered if Kovac was deliberately trying to smash them against Atlantean marble. Johnny had a couple of scrapes, but knew his spacesuit was an awful lot stronger than it looked. Fixed within their own bubble of light, it was hard to tell how fast the computer was pulling them, but it felt very quick. Sadly, though, it didn't seem to trouble the cephalopods in the least, who kept pace effortlessly. More of the saucer-sized eyes were appearing alongside.

“Kovac, how long to the spaceport?” Clara had asked the question and Johnny sensed the anxiety in her voice as their
escorts drew closer. He hoped she wasn't thinking of folding herself away. He could now feel tentacles brushing against his legs and was sure it must be the same for the others.

“Thirty seconds ago,” said Kovac. “Either the spaceport is buried beneath the seabed or that half-witted spaceship's calculations were in error. I have my own views on which is more likely.” The pull from Johnny's reins was slackening.

“Then what are you doing?” he asked as a sucker-covered limb wrapped itself around his legs, clamping them together. He tried to kick himself free, but the grip was too strong. Either side, he struggled to make out Clara and Louise through water now thick with writhing tentacles.

“I detected unusual readings emanating from the seabed,” said Kovac, “and was attempting to investigate. We are close to the point in question, but I fear I am unable to progress further.” Johnny's reins fell limp. He was lifted off the sea floor and carried toward a massive beak. Either side flashlight beams danced wildly, as Clara and Louise struggled in vain to break free.

“Unhand me, you overgrown mollusk.” Johnny could no longer see the quantum computer when he spoke, suggesting that Kovac too had been engulfed. Carried ever closer to the squid's mouth he kicked hard, but couldn't break free. The spotlight on his shoulder was extinguished, followed quickly by those either side of him. The darkness of the nearly ten thousand meters of water above was as absolute as the edge of a black hole.

“Do something, Johnny.” It was Clara's voice ringing inside his helmet.

There was only one thing left for him to try. He sensed the ions in the seawater around them. With nothing to look at in the blackness outside, it was easy to see things differently—at the atomic level. He spun the electrons around, gathering more
of them to him. Thousands became millions became billions and more, all in a heartbeat, each one moving faster and faster. There was no way to avoid the girls and still shock the giant squid. He just had to make sure the pulse didn't do them too much damage. “Hold on,” he said, as he released the charge.

A bubble of blue sparks left him, electrifying the seabed, and instantly the vice-like grip relaxed. Both Clara and Louise cried out, but clung tightly to the reins connecting them with Kovac, while the silhouettes of the huge creatures fled into the darkness. Seemingly unaffected, the computer held his position. The ocean floor lit up, an eerie blue glow clinging around pillars as it passed over them. It looked as though the wave of energy Johnny had released would simply dissipate, buying them just a few seconds before the colossal creatures returned, but one small section of the seabed, only ten or so meters away, held onto the sparks and appeared to draw more and more to it. With their spotlights gone, it was the only light source and looked like a near circular window glowing on the sea floor.

“What's that?” asked Louise. Johnny was relieved that she sounded OK. Of course he knew that these were very special spacesuits they were wearing.

“I presume your descriptive question refers to the source of the luminescence,” said Kovac, “at the very center of the anomaly I was investigating.”

A human form appeared above the glowing patch of ground, lit up in the blue glow. Johnny guessed it was Clara, given she was such a strong swimmer. Kovac followed, tugging Johnny and Louise behind. Johnny glanced nervously over his shoulder, but in the dark it was impossible to tell how far away the squid were. Clara's voice came through so loudly inside his helmet that Johnny bashed his head on the sides in surprise.

“Johnny—it's hollow. It's an opening. There's a cavern beneath the seabed and … I can see ships.”

“Typical human wish fulfillment,” said Kovac. “My sensors detect nothing.”

The blue sparks that had coalesced around the feature were beginning to fade. Johnny peered through the center and thought he saw something beyond, but couldn't be sure.

“There's writing around the edge,” said Louise. She was busy scraping away the sand from the border of whatever the strange structure was, revealing striking red stone inlaid with ornate carvings. Once the layer of silt was removed, the hieroglyphics looked as clear to Johnny as when he'd last laid eyes on them. The electric glow from Johnny's sparks had completely abated, or been drowned out by the pulsing red of the familiar arch, toppled on its side, that framed the entrance to a vast underwater cavern.

“Amphibians,” shouted Clara, as ghostly green webbed limbs swam into view. “Come on. Kovac, let's go.” She grabbed Johnny's hand and pulled him toward and through the opening.

“No,” he shouted into the helmet microphone, but it was too late. As he and Clara passed through the arch to underneath the seabed, the reins connecting them to Kovac snapped.

The quantum computer was right behind, side-by-side with Louise, with a host of amphibians hot on their heels and giant squid just beyond. From beneath, Johnny could see the arch glowing brighter and brighter red. Louise and Kovac hung at its center for a moment, as though frozen in time, joined left and right by the strange green swimmers, their greedy mouths wide open. Then there was a flash of intense blue light and all were repelled into the blackness beyond.

“Louise!” Johnny shouted. Only static came through his helmet in reply.

“What happened?” asked Clara.

“It's the arch,” said Johnny, “the Arch of Lysentia.” He kicked upward toward where they'd entered the cavern, but without Kovac to pull him along Clara easily overtook him. She could swim like a fish and went through the arch, built by the galaxy's very first society and which only allowed those such as Johnny and Clara—those with special powers—to pass. All the time she was calling Louise's name. She even tried Kovac, but was met by silence.

One moment the darkness was so thick that the glow from the arch extended no more than a few meters before a wall of blackness suffocated it. The next, Johnny and Clara were bathed in green light. They were both pressed to the ground by the force of displaced water, expelled by the Krun Destroyer that had unfolded directly overhead. Green bolts of energy blazed from its underbelly, missing Johnny and his sister but destroying the ruins now lit up across the sea floor—vaporizing ancient structures that had stood undisturbed for millennia. Clara grabbed Johnny's hand and swam powerfully down through the archway and into the sanctuary beneath.

Above their heads, great pieces of marble were plucked from the ocean floor and tossed through the waters, merging with rocks blasted from the seabed. The debris rained down on the arch, unable to pass through but covering it and sealing Johnny and Clara on the underside.

“There must be another way out,” said Clara, but she sounded as doubtful as Johnny felt.

“Got to be,” he replied. The last thing he wanted to do was to mention folding, even though she must be thinking it. He touched his sister's shoulder light and it sprang to life, the narrow beam piercing the blackness. Then he repaired his own. “Let's do what we came for,” said Johnny. “Find the ships
and then we can help Louise and Kovac—they can look after themselves.” He knew there was no way to aid the others, but it didn't make him feel any better as his mind conjured images of giant squid and swarms of amphibian hybrids fighting over which would devour Louise first, unless the Krun blasted her to smithereens instead.

He checked his head-up display. Here beneath the arch the pressure readings were almost negligible. The roof of the great cavern shook and rocks started to detach and fall around them. “Come on,” said Clara, kicking out strongly and swimming away from the debris. Johnny moved his legs as fast as he could, but struggled to keep up. A faint glow ahead meant he could just make out his sister's silhouette. Clara was first to see the ten streamlined Atlantean fighters that were causing it. She directed her spotlight along the lengths of the ships of Gold Circle Squadron, which had escorted the
Spirit of London
to the spaceport all those years before.

They were beautiful but deadly vessels. Johnny joined his sister as she swam over one, peering into its empty cockpit. The tsunami that drowned Atlantis was so sudden the pilots never had a chance to board their craft and take off. He ran a gloved hand over the hull and sensed that, somehow, despite all the time that had passed, this fearsome fighting machine still had power. He needed to get inside. From above the spaceship, he tried the same trick as in Clara's quarters, imagining it flat and picturing himself settling on top of it, before rebuilding the walls around him.

“Johnny—what are you doing?”

He opened his eyes, remembering Clara had never seen him fold. He wasn't inside the cockpit as he'd hoped—he was standing on the cavern floor, beneath the fighter.

“I didn't know,” she continued. “After what happened to me, I don't think you should be folding either.”

He could hear the bitterness in her voice—the knowledge that this would always be denied her. “It's not the same,” he said. “I don't love it like you do—like you did. I can't do it like you.”

“Well, that's obvious, at least,” she said, settling on the sandy floor beside him. “There's protection around all these fighters—I guess Neith put it there, or made Mum do it. No one can fold in or out—can't you see it?”

“No,” Johnny replied, but now he remembered the same thing had happened with Bram's Starfighter when he'd been floating in space with the professor. Before he could say anything else, the pressure gauge on his head-up display spiked as the entire roof of the cavern was rent asunder by a vast green beam of energy. It felt as if an earthquake was happening and immediately above them the Atlantean spacecraft started sliding across the seabed. If it fell on top them, Johnny wasn't at all sure their spacesuits would cope. Then the roof of the cavern completely collapsed.

“Johnny,” shouted Clara, grabbing hold of him. They sheltered beneath the underbelly of the slithering fighter, moving as it moved, while giant rocks fell either side. Then, through the gaping wound in the roof high above, came a Krun Destroyer. The aliens had broken through. These, and hundreds more highly advanced Atlantean ships, were theirs for the taking. To prove the point, the fighters of Gold Circle Squadron rose into the water as one, joined by many more vessels as far as Johnny could see, leaving him and his sister brutally exposed.

“They're taking them, Johnny. We mustn't let them. Do something.”

The hold of the Krun vessel opened, like a gigantic mouth waiting to swallow a fleet of the most sophisticated spacecraft this quadrant of the galaxy had ever known. “Do what?” asked
Johnny. What could they possibly do against a display of such power?

“Johnny and Clara—I have just detected your transmissions.” Hearing Sol's voice gave him hope.

“The Krun are taking the ships—the Atlantean fleet,” said Johnny. “We need help.”

“I am under attack by six Krun vessels,” Sol replied. “It will take me 1 minute, 48.59 seconds to extricate myself and assist you.”

“We don't have that long,” said Johnny.

“The strategy is optimal,” the ship replied. “There is no faster way.”

The view through Johnny's helmet was thick with spacecraft, all floating upward, held in the Krun's tractor beam. He hadn't realized quite how many ships the Atlantis spaceport had catered for. The first fighters were about to enter the Destroyer's hold while the huge Battlecruisers caught in the beam dwarfed even the Krun ship.

“You have to fold them away,” said Clara. “Quickly—before the Krun get them.”

“How?” Johnny asked. “I've never done that.”

“It's easy,” said Clara, not helping at all. “Wrap them up and move them. Put them somewhere you know—that's big enough.”

He screwed his eyes up tightly and tried to think of the biggest place he knew—Wembley Stadium—and imagined the Atlantean fleet there. He wasn't at all sure it was big enough. When he opened his eyes, the ships were still there, the first ones entering the hold.

“Johnny—we need these ships to fight the Krun. They're our only hope to save Earth.”

At Clara's pleading he tried again. On Titan, surrounded by the Monks, it had been so easy, but without them he couldn't
think how to begin. With the vessels at so many different heights above the ocean floor, he couldn't picture them flat. Desperate, he tried closing his eyes completely and somehow reaching out with his mind, but nothing happened. Screaming with frustration, he sank to his knees and looked upward in despair.