Zero Hour Read online

  ‘Lock down the sea doors,’ Raven said, ‘and shut down the electronic locks. Make sure that there’s no way the systems can be overridden by anyone.’

  ‘Understood,’ the man at the console replied and quickly began to seal off the area.

  ‘I’m going down there,’ Raven said to the commander. ‘They have nowhere to run.’

  Otto closed his eyes and willed the doors to the docking area open. The scanner flashed green and they dutifully rumbled apart. Nero went through first, his pistol raised, checking for any signs of hostiles. Otto and the others followed him closely, with Wing and Franz trailing behind supporting the wounded Professor. Once they were all inside Otto pushed with his mind again and closed the doors, mentally overloading the circuitry controlling the mechanism and jamming the lock.

  ‘OK, we’re locked in. We’ve got as long as it takes for them to get through these,’ he reported, patting the heavy steel blast doors. Nero ran over to where several small security patrol boats were tied up next to the dock, gently bobbing up and down on the calm water.

  ‘Otto, get the sea doors open,’ he shouted as he jumped down into one of the sleek boats. He knew that the patrol boats only had a limited range and that there would be little they could do to stop the helicopters Overlord’s men had arrived in from chasing them down but at the moment this was their only option. He’d worry about outrunning any pursuers once they were away from the island. He hated leaving H.I.V.E. in enemy hands like this but he also had enough sense to know when he was beaten. The priorities now were keeping Otto out of Overlord’s hands and living to fight another day.

  Otto ran to the far end of the dock and found the control panel for the giant doors that separated them from the outside world, cursing under his breath as he realised that it was deactivated. He reached out with his abilities but could not feel any connection to the locking mechanisms or giant hydraulic pistons that sealed the doors. Someone had cut the power to the pumps, isolating them, and without electricity he could not activate them, even with his unique gifts. They were trapped.

  ‘We’ve got a problem,’ he yelled as he ran back down the dock towards the others. ‘I can’t get the sea doors open – they’ve been completely shut down. The only way to release them would be to do it manually from the security control centre.’

  ‘Great,’ Shelby said. ‘I’m sure they won’t mind if we just wander up there and ask them nicely to let us out.’

  ‘Can we go back the way we came?’ Laura asked.

  ‘I . . . um . . . kind of broke the lock,’ Otto said sheepishly.

  ‘Is there anything we could use to blow the sea doors open?’ Wing asked.

  ‘No,’ Nero replied, ‘the patrol boats are only lightly armed. Their weapons wouldn’t even scratch them.’ He knew that other than the crater launch pad this was the only viable route for getting them out.

  There was a sudden banging sound from the door leading back into H.I.V.E.

  ‘What was that?’ Nigel asked as it suddenly stopped.

  ‘I fear we may have been found,’ Nero said, trying to not let his own concern at their situation show in his voice. Shelby walked back up the stairs leading to the doors and gently pressed her ear against the cold metal. For a few seconds she heard the muffled sounds of conversation from the other side of the door but then everything went quiet.

  ‘What are you hearing?’ Franz asked quietly.

  ‘Shhh,’ Shelby said, raising her finger to her lips and scowling at Franz before pressing her ear against the metal again. Suddenly the glowing purple tip of one of Raven’s blades slid through the metal with a hiss, just centimetres from her nose. She leapt backwards, almost falling down the stairs as the blade began to travel slowly upwards through the door, leaving a glowing trail of molten metal in its wake.

  ‘Professor, is there any way to stop her getting through?’ Nero asked, knowing that their chances of escape were dwindling by the second.

  ‘No,’ the Professor replied, his voice weak. ‘The blades of her weapons can cut through all but the hardest materials and their control circuitry is electromagnetically shielded so even Otto would not be able to shut them down. I’m afraid I may have designed them rather too well.’

  Nero watched as the glowing blade gradually carved a man-sized oval in the door.

  ‘Get into cover,’ he said as calmly as possible. He levelled his pistol at the door as Raven completed slicing through. To get to his students she would have to get past him. There was a thud as something on the other side of the door hit the loose section of metal and it fell inside the room, hitting the ground with a clang.

  Nero was suddenly knocked flat as the sea doors at the far end of the dock exploded in a giant ball of fire, debris flying in all directions. He struggled to his feet, staring in amazement at the cloud of smoke that concealed the other end of the massive chamber. A huge black shape slid forward out of the smoke and down the long channel in the centre of the dock. He felt his heart lift as he recognised the enormous vessel.

  ‘The Megalodon,’ he said under his breath.

  Turning back towards the opening that Raven had carved in the door he saw several soldiers climbing through. He opened fire with his pistol, forcing them to duck for cover. Moments later heavy machine-gun fire from somewhere behind him started to spray the area. Several of Overlord’s men were cut down immediately and the survivors scrambled back through the gap.

  ‘MOVE!’ Nero yelled as a ramp extended down from the side of the Megalodon. He continued to fire at the entrance doorway as Otto and the others ran on to the massive submarine. Turning, he raced towards them as Franz and Wing helped the Professor on board. The gun turrets mounted on the Megalodon’s conning tower kept firing at the doorway as he sprinted across the gangway and through the hatch.

  ‘Need a lift?’ Diabolus Darkdoom asked with a grin as he slapped the button next to the hatch and it slid shut.

  ‘Your timing is, as ever, impeccable,’ Nero replied with a quick smile, ‘but I think now would be a good time to make a strategic withdrawal.’

  Darkdoom snatched the comms unit from the wall and spoke quickly into it.

  ‘Captain Sanders, get us the hell out of here.’

  Raven ducked through the opening as soon as the machine-gun fire stopped and ran into the dock. Sprinting down the quay, she saw the rounded black nose of the Megalodon backing through the still burning remains of the sea door. She cursed loudly in Russian as she realised that there was nothing she could do to stop it. It was too far away and already starting to submerge. She pulled the communicator from her harness.

  ‘Raven to all aerial units,’ she snapped. ‘We have a submarine leaving the docking bay. I don’t care what it takes – I want it stopped.’

  ‘We’ll be off the ground in thirty seconds,’ one of the pilots in the landing bay replied, ‘but we don’t have any weapons that can stop a sub.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Raven yelled. ‘Crash into it if you have to!’

  She snapped the communicator closed but she already knew that it was almost certainly too late. The Megalodon was too fast and too stealthy and their chances of finding it, much less stopping it, were effectively nil.

  ‘I will find you, Malpense,’ Raven said quietly, ignoring the tiny voice screaming somewhere inside her mind, ‘and when I do, nothing will be able to save you.’

  g

  Chapter Five

  Nero and Darkdoom stood on either side of Professor Pike’s bed in the Megalodon’s sickbay. The old man groaned slightly and his eyes flickered open.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Nero asked.

  ‘Old,’ Pike said with a slight smile, ‘but that’s nothing new.’

  ‘My medical officer informs me that you were quite lucky,’ Darkdoom said. ‘The bullet did not hit anything vital. You should recover fully.’

  ‘You’ll forgive me if I disagree with your definition of lucky,’ the Professor said, raising an eyebrow, ‘though I’m glad that you ar
rived when you did.’

  ‘I was in the area on other . . . business,’ Darkdoom said, ‘when we began to receive reports of G.L.O.V.E. facilities all over the world coming under attack. I tried to contact you but something seemed to be jamming communications with the island. Then our radar buoy started tracking a flight of helicopters that had a rather disturbing flight path. As soon as I realised where they were heading I set course for H.I.V.E. immediately. I only wish I could have got there sooner. I might have been able to stop this before it started.’

  ‘I doubt anything could have stopped this,’ Nero said with a sigh. ‘Overlord was one step ahead of us from the start. He wanted me to send Natalya after the ruling council – he must have got to her while she was retrieving them. He knew that she was the one person whose loyalty I would never question. And now, thanks to my blindness, he has control of not just the council but H.I.V.E. as well. I shudder to think what he may have in mind for them.’

  ‘He didn’t get everything he wanted,’ Darkdoom said, shaking his head. ‘He didn’t get Otto. If retrieving him was what this was really all about then we still have something he needs. The real question is what do we do next? For now it might be best to lie low and try to find out exactly what his plan is. Between the attacks on our facilities and the ruling council falling under Overlord’s control, G.L.O.V.E. will be in disarray. Even if we were able to get in touch with any of the council members’ lieutenants, we still wouldn’t really know who we could trust. If Overlord can turn Natalya he can turn anybody.’

  ‘No,’ Nero insisted. ‘I will not just run away and hide. We may not know exactly what Overlord is planning but we cannot afford to sit back and let him make the next move. He’s too dangerous. We have to take the fight to him.’

  ‘Normally I would agree but our resources are now somewhat limited,’ Darkdoom said with a frown.

  ‘We have one option,’ Nero said, looking at Darkdoom. ‘Otto managed to save H.I.V.E.mind. That gives us one chance. We activate Zero Hour.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Darkdoom said, his eyes widening in surprise.

  ‘Deadly serious,’ Nero replied firmly.

  ‘We’ll only get one shot at this,’ Darkdoom said. ‘You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.’

  ‘I know that,’ Nero said, ‘but this is exactly the kind of situation we have been preparing for. We’ve always known that it might be necessary one day.’

  ‘I don’t suppose either of you would care to tell me what you’re talking about?’ Professor Pike said, looking slightly confused.

  ‘Let’s just say that it’s something I’ve been working on for a while,’ Nero replied, ‘and it may be our only chance of stopping Overlord once and for all.’

  ‘Do you know what the worrying thing is?’ Lucy said as she sat down next to Otto in the Megalodon’s cramped mess hall.

  ‘What’s that?’ Otto said, smiling at her.

  ‘I’m actually starting to get used to this kind of thing,’ she replied with a chuckle.

  ‘Oh, you’re definitely one of us now,’ Otto said with a grin, ‘and that should really, really worry you, by the way.’

  ‘You got any idea what will happen next?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Nope,’ Otto replied, ‘but it’ll probably involve things exploding. That’s the usual drill.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with a good explosion,’ Lucy said, ‘as long as you don’t get to experience it first-hand. Why are you sitting here all on your own?’

  ‘You heard what Raven said back at H.I.V.E. – Overlord’s alive. I’d just started to think that maybe we’d finally seen the back of him and now he pops up again with me at the top of his To Do list. It’s starting to feel like I’ll never be free of him.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Lucy said softly, putting her hand on his knee. ‘You didn’t ask for any of this. You’ve got to stop blaming yourself.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry – I think I’m probably past the brooding self-hate stage now,’ Otto said with a slight smile. ‘In fact, I think I’m moving on to the badly wanting to kick his sorry ass stage.’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ Lucy said, looking him in the eye and leaning towards him. ‘I like a guy who knows what he wants.’

  Intriguing.

  H.I.V.E.mind’s voice spoke somewhere inside Otto’s head.

  ‘Not now,’ Otto said with a sigh.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Lucy asked, pulling back with a puzzled look on her face.

  ‘Not you,’ Otto said quickly, ‘it’s just that we’re . . . erm . . . not exactly alone.’ He tapped his finger against the side of his head.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Lucy said, blushing slightly. ‘I’d kind of forgotten about that.’

  Do not feel you need to stop on my account.

  ‘It’s going to take a bit of getting used to,’ Otto said, looking slightly uncomfortable.

  ‘It’s not going to be . . . well, a permanent thing, is it?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘I hope not,’ Otto said, looking at her with a smile, ‘because I think I quite like what’s happening between us and – well, three’s a crowd, as they say.’

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ Lucy said, laughing slightly, ‘but I’m glad that’s how you feel. I do too.’

  There was a moment of slightly embarrassed silence.

  ‘Anyway,’ Otto said a little too quickly, ‘I need to find Darkdoom and see if he minds me using the Megalodon’s lab for a couple of hours.’

  ‘Yeah, I should probably go and find . . . erm . . . something important to do,’ Lucy replied just as quickly. She gave Otto a quick peck on the cheek and headed for the exit.

  Are you all right, Otto? Your pulse rate has increased quite significantly.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Otto said as he watched Lucy walk away. ‘Better than fine actually.’

  ‘This is unacceptable,’ Furan said, a cold edge of fury in his voice.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the commander of the strike team said, avoiding making eye contact with the man on the screen. ‘We had no idea that the submarine had tracked us to the island. We were unprepared for Darkdoom’s intervention.’

  ‘You allowed Nero and the boy to escape and all that you can offer as an excuse is that you were unprepared? We had spent months planning this operation and now it is jeopardised because of your stupidity,’ Furan snapped. He looked at Raven, who moved behind the commander and said something in Russian. The commander inhaled sharply in surprise as the glowing purple tip of Raven’s sword suddenly appeared, protruding from the centre of his chest. He fell to the ground in silence, his eyes wide with shock.

  ‘Find them,’ Furan said, looking at Raven as she slid the sword back into its sheath. ‘I don’t care what it takes. Overlord wants the boy alive but the others are entirely expendable. I have faith in you, my little Raven. This is, after all, what I trained you for.’

  ‘Understood,’ Raven said with a nod. ‘Do we have any information yet on where they are heading?’

  ‘No, but we have come up with a plan to force them to surface,’ Furan replied, ‘and when they do I will relay their position to you.’

  ‘I will have a Shroud prepped for immediate take-off,’ Raven replied. ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘Yes, make sure that H.I.V.E. is fully secured. We cannot afford any more mistakes and we may yet need the people we have captured there. Now I need to go and relay this news to Overlord,’ he continued. ‘I doubt that he will be pleased.’

  The President looked at the men seated around the situation room conference table and shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I’m not prepared to go that far.’

  ‘Sir, with the greatest respect, the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. You know that,’ one of the generals said.

  ‘I am well aware of our normal position on these matters,’ the President replied impatiently, feeling the fatigue of the past twenty-four hours, ‘but the last thing we need at the moment is me having to explai
n to several of our most valuable allies that I took the decision to drop a nuclear weapon on some of the most senior members of their governments. Not to mention the fact that the AWP facility is designed to withstand a conventional nuclear attack anyway.’

  ‘But, sir –’ the General began to protest.

  ‘No, I’ve made up my mind,’ the President said firmly, cutting him off. ‘You need to go back to the drawing board, gentlemen. There has to be another way.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the General replied.

  ‘Sir, we’ve got another call coming in from AWP,’ the officer manning the communications desk reported. The President let out a long sigh. He had been expecting this. The twenty-four-hour deadline that Overlord had given them was up and they had not managed to track down a single one of the people he had demanded they turn over to him. If they ever had existed they had now vanished without trace.

  ‘I’ll take it next door,’ he said, gesturing to the small private office adjoining the situation room as he slowly got up out of his chair. He entered the office and took a seat at the desk before hitting a button on the intercom.

  ‘Put it through,’ he said, and the screen on the far wall lit up.

  ‘Mr President,’ Overlord said with a smile, ‘so good to speak with you again.’

  ‘The feeling is not mutual,’ the President replied, feeling anger and frustration boiling up inside.

  ‘Come now, Mr President, there’s no need for unpleasantness,’ Overlord said. ‘In fact, I have some good news for you.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe,’ the President replied. He stared at the face of the man he had once known as General Collins and noticed that there was something strange about it. It looked like he had aged twenty years in the space of one day. The skin of his face was now thin and tight, almost grey in colour. He had been feeling the pressures of the last twenty-four hours himself, of course, but no amount of stress could possibly explain the transformation in the man on the screen.