Final Dawn: Season 3 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series) (6 page)

Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims

6:36 PM, April 24, 2038

“So, what do you think?” Commander Krylov strode down the center of the brightly lit chamber, lifting his arms and gesturing to either side. The immense room filled the forward portion of the Arkhangelsk, running from the bottom to the top of the ship and extending out to both sides. Rows of large cylinders stood upright to the left and right of Nancy and Leonard as they followed Krylov, gazing around in awe. Radiation symbols were affixed to the tubes, along with long and cryptic metal signs filled with Cyrillic script. One third of the tubes were several feet in diameter while the rest were of smaller sizes all the way down to just two feet. As Krylov continued to lead them forward, Leonard noticed that the orientation and styling of the cylinders changed abruptly. Instead of being nearly featureless and standing upright, the tubes at the front of the chamber were laid out horizontally in large stacks along the outer walls.

“Torpedo tubes, I assume?” Leonard nodded in the direction of the horizontal tubes and Krylov stopped to see what Leonard was referring to.

“Ah, yes. Indeed. For both forward and aft launching. Good against targets in the water, though I’m afraid they won’t do much to the creatures on the surface.”

“What about the nukes?”

“I think you’re forgetting something.” Nancy spoke from behind Leonard as she peeked through a small window in the side of one of the torpedo tubes, examining the weapon inside. “The nanobots feed off radiation. We’ll destroy the creatures, but feed them at the same time.”

“Damn… how could I forget that?” Leonard muttered, putting his hand to his forehead.

“Nancy is correct, Mr. McComb. From my study of the data you provided, if it comes down to us being responsible for destroying the nano-robots and their nexus, we’ll have one shot at destroying enough of them to cripple them before they can start rebuilding themselves. We can only use the nuclear devices on the nexus if we hope to maintain the element of surprise.”

Leonard leaned up against one of the torpedo tubes, taking his weight off his good leg and the crutches. “Well I would assume you’ve got
something
non-nuclear that you can use out of the water. Right?”

Krylov’s blank stare and his hesitation at responding to Leonard’s question gave Nancy and Leonard the only answer they needed.

“Well shit, Krylov. How’re you fixed for spit?”

A puzzled look passed over Krylov’s face before he ignored the colloquialism and continued speaking. “Unfortunately, Mr. McComb, you are correct; our only surface-to-surface weapons are nuclear, as was our loadout when we left port.” Walking to a set of locked containers in a corner, Krylov extracted a key from his pocket and opened one of them, pulling out a large gray object and holding it aloft. “We do, however, have this.”

Krylov threw the object toward Leonard, who caught it and turned it in his hands, examining the writing. Warnings were emblazoned in not only Russian, but in six other languages, including English. “WARNING: HIGH EXPLOSIVES! HANDLE WITH CAUTION!”

Leonard looked up at Krylov, a thin smile crossing his face. “Nicely done. How’re we going to plant it without getting overrun by the creatures, though?”

“That, Mr. McComb, will be simple. If you’re ready, please follow me again.”

Krylov walked back down through the chamber the way they came, leaving Nancy and Leonard standing alone. Leonard threw the explosive back in the crate where Krylov had retrieved it before pulling his crutches back under his arms. Nancy walked next to him as they hurried to catch up to Krylov, who was already at the doorway leading into the room.

“I think you offended him.” Nancy whispered in Leonard’s ear.

“He’ll get over it. Besides, he could do to be stirred up a bit when we get there.”

The walk to the next attraction was shorter than the first. A brief walk up a flight of stairs led them to a dimly lit area near the top of the submarine, an area that seemed oddly familiar to both Nancy and Leonard. Krylov stopped near a flight of stairs that went upwards into a closed hatch, then he pointed at the floor.

“I believe you left something of yours here, Mr. McComb.”

The dark metal of the stairs and floor around them was discolored. As Nancy’s and Leonard’s eyes adjusted to the lighting, they both realized why the stairwell felt familiar.

“You’re going to send your men up on deck to place the explosives by hand?” The disbelief was plain to hear in Leonard’s voice as he ignored Krylov’s poor joke about the dried blood that still coated the stairs. Nancy started to respond to Krylov’s remark, not liking the tone in which he made it, but Leonard stopped her, shaking his head slightly as he didn’t want to make any sort of fuss about it.

“Of course, Mr. McComb. The canal’s width is such that the men should be able to plant explosives at both sides of the bridge with ease before we submerge to go underneath. If they work quickly and quietly enough, I assume they should be able to do it without drawing the creatures’ attention, yes?”

“I… guess it’s possible.” Leonard was starting to second-guess the idea of trying to destroy the bridge, wondering if it was worth the risk, when Krylov clapped his hands together and smiled broadly.

“Well then, it’s settled.” He glanced at his watch, raising an eyebrow as he looked back at Leonard and Nancy. “You’d both be wise to get some rest. We’ll be arriving shortly, and I’ll need you close by when we do. I’ll send a crewman to retrieve you then.”

Krylov turned and walked quickly away, leaving Nancy and Leonard to stand alone together in the dimly lit hallway.

“Is it just me,” Nancy said, “or does Krylov seem a bit off compared to when we first met him?”

Leonard replied cryptically as he watched Krylov disappear around a turn. “Things aren’t always as they seem.”

Nancy sighed and turned around, trying to remember how to get back. A sign nearby with a small red cross on it had an arrow pointing in the opposite direction from where Krylov had gone. They followed the arrow dutifully, slowly making their way back to the medical ward.

Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry

11:52 PM, April 24, 2038

“Hell yes!” Marcus’s outburst was accompanied by a short jump and a quick pump of his arm in the air. Stretching his arm out, he grabbed Rachel and David, pulling them in tightly for a hug. Overcome with a sudden feeling of happiness and excitement, Marcus’s smile was contagious, and Rachel and David quickly found themselves joining in with the impromptu celebration.

“I still can’t believe that worked!” David craned his head out the window again. Though they had traveled too far to still be able to see the damaged section of track, he was still marveling over the fact that their repairs had held up long enough to allow them to get by.

Marcus slapped David on the back and grinned from ear to ear. “Have some faith in us, David! Pulling off the impossible is what we’re meant to do.”

“Apparently so.” Rachel sat slowly down on the floor and smiled, shaking her head in disbelief. The tension caused by the long ordeal had finally broken, snapping like a rubber band and leaving her overcome with a sense of relief. Despite the fact that they were still nowhere near where they needed to be, they had—against all odds—managed to both recover from Doe’s attack and deal a retaliatory blow that had taken him out of the picture. This realization led to another, more sobering one that quickly erased her smile. Noticing her sudden change in mood, Marcus and David sat down next to her.

“What’s up?” Marcus asked playfully, still smiling. “Wish we had left him alive or something?”

“Of course not.” Rachel’s glare was subtle, but behind it stretched more rage and fire than Marcus had seen before, instantly making him regret the joke. “But with him out of the way, all we’ve got left is the AI to contend with.”

“Sorry, but isn’t that a good thing?” David broke in, looking at Rachel in confusion.

“Oh, sure. It’s great. But compared to fighting the AI, dealing with that megalomaniac almost sounds like a walk in the park. It wasn’t, but… well, you know what I mean.”

Still confused, David stood up and dug into his bag, pulling out a dust-covered bag of chips. “Better one than two,” he said, stuffing a handful of chips in his mouth. “Besides, we’ve got a trump card with Bertha. When we reach the nexus, all we’ll have to do is fire her up and the nanobots should be gone just like that.”

“I hope you’re right.” Rachel sighed heavily and stood up, stretching her arms and legs as she rose.

“Okay, that’s enough doom and gloom for now.” Marcus jumped to his feet. “We’ll have plenty of time for that later. For now, we need to set up a watch pattern. I’m feeling alert enough, so I’ll go first. David, you can go next, then Rachel.”

Standing there at the front of the locomotive, one arm bound in a sling with bandages taped across his shoulder, Marcus looked like he had been to hell and back. His attitude, on the other hand, was that of a boisterous three year old once again, happy and full of energy. Rachel smiled at him, glad to see that he was beginning to return to his old self. After being worried about him, and how he and David were behaving toward each other, it was good to see a positive change in the midst of everything that was going on.

As Rachel stretched out near the back of the locomotive with Sam curled up next to her, she couldn’t help but think about Marcus’s question.
“Wish we had left him alive or something?”
Having the thought of Doe to deal with had kept her marginally distracted from the larger picture. With that distraction now gone and left by the side of the tracks to rot, she had no other choice but to face the AI head on, including the numerous implications that came with it. Doing so meant dredging up thoughts and feelings she hadn’t considered for many days. Rachel closed her eyes, but instead of darkness, the image of her daughter flashed by, followed by her husband and her home. Cities that she had passed through, the remnants of bodies, burned out cars and collapsed buildings all came trickling back to the forefront of her thoughts, though they didn’t come alone. A slow, steady buildup of guilt accompanied them, along with a profound sense of emptiness. A rustle from David several feet in front of her suddenly made her wonder.
Does he feel the same thing?
If David felt a similar measure of guilt for what had happened, he didn’t show it.

Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims

7:02 AM, April 25, 2038

The clear skies that had allowed the Arkhangelsk to obtain imagery of the canal persisted through the morning. Commander Krylov rotated the periscope slowly as the Arkhangelsk sailed the last few miles down the coast past Veracruz on its way into the first section of the canal. The soft tap of rubber on the metal floor made Krylov turn around and he smiled as Nancy and Leonard approached him.

“Ms. Sims! Mr. McComb! So good of you to be here.” There was no trace of the dark sarcastic humor Krylov had shown earlier in the darkened hallway. Nancy and Leonard had gotten no sleep, having spent the last few hours discussing Krylov’s strategy to take out the bridge the creatures were using to cross over the canal.

“Commander.” Leonard nodded and sat down in a seat next to the periscope. Krylov stepped back and motioned for Nancy to step forward.

“Please, take a look, Ms. Sims. Place your arms on the handles and use them to turn left and right.”

Nancy pressed her forehead against the padded surface above the eyepiece, well-worn from years of use. The bright light of the rising sun made her squint as her eyes struggled to adjust. As the outside world came into focus, Nancy began to see the coastline take shape, with beaches, trees and a few scattered houses near a large runway in the distance. As Nancy slowly rotated the periscope, her hand brushed against a button on the side of one of the handles, causing the magnification of the scope to change. Everything in her view suddenly leapt forward, appearing larger than it had before and startling her in the process.

To someone who hadn’t spent weeks traveling cross-country and witnessing destruction on a scale never before seen by mankind, the few shattered buildings and scorched fields in the distance might have appeared to be the result of a fire or an earthquake. Nancy knew differently, though, recognizing the tell-tale patterns of destruction that told of bombs that had fallen close by.

“Commander Krylov?” Nancy stepped away from the periscope, rubbing her eyes. “It looks like at least one nuke was dropped nearby. Are you sure the canal’s clear?”

Krylov pointed at a nearby computer screen and nodded. “Everything we looked at indicated that it was. The area was hit hard, but the canal was out of the danger zone for most of the damage from what we can tell.”

Nancy looked at Leonard who nodded slowly. “Let’s hope you’re right, Commander.”

Leonard jumped in next before Krylov had a chance to reply. “Mr. Krylov,” he said, deliberately avoiding the use of Krylov’s position as a test of sorts, “the Panama Canal isn’t exactly short. The imagery we saw was only of a fraction of it; aren’t there other bridges that run across?”

If Krylov was bothered by Leonard’s use of the term “Mr” instead of “Commander,” he didn’t show it. “Oh, but of course, Mr. McComb.” Krylov motioned to the same computer screen again as he pushed a few keys, pulling up a wider satellite view of the area they were entering. “There are three main bridges through the area. One at the start, one near the middle, at the automated locks, then another near the end. These bridges appear to operate as both pedestrian, train and vehicular ones, which makes our job much easier.”

Leonard whistled softly as he stood up, leaning forward on his crutches to examine the image up close. “That’s a lot of concrete and steel to take out without getting spotted. Are you sure we can do it?”

Krylov nodded. “We don’t have a choice, Mr. McComb. Unless you can think of another option.”

Leonard shook his head and sat back down, idly rubbing around the stump of his leg. “Not really another option so much as wondering how we’ll pull it off, especially in broad daylight when these things’ll be streaming across the bridges like cockroaches during spring cleaning.”

Commander Krylov pointed at the screen again, tapping the locations of the first and last bridges. “From the last pass of scans we were able to obtain, it looks like these two bridges get the least amount of traffic. Most of the creatures seem to be congregated around the central one. For the first and last bridges, we shouldn’t have any trouble getting the explosives set. For the middle one, though, you may be right. But it’s a risk that you and Ms. Sims made clear that we need to take to try to delay these things as long as possible.

“Once all sets of explosives have been set and we’re clear of the final bridge, we’ll blow them all at once to ensure that we’re nowhere near when it happens. It’s an imperfect plan to be sure, though I see no other option.”

“All right,” Nancy said, looking to Leonard for his silent confirmation, “how long until the first explosives are planted?”

Krylov looked at his watch. “We have approximately fifteen minutes until we reach the first bridge when we’ll surface and plant the first set of explosives.”

“Mind if we go up and watch?” Leonard stood up and balanced on his crutches, demonstrating that while he might have been knocked down, he was anything but out. “We’ll stay out of their way. Plus, we might be of some use.”

Krylov hesitated, nearly denying Leonard’s request before relenting. “Very well. Don’t leave the stairwell, though. If we have to close the hatch in a hurry, you two cannot be anywhere close to it.”

Leonard turned and started hurrying toward the exit, calling over his shoulder as he departed with Nancy. “No problem!”

Ten minutes later, Leonard and Nancy stood near four men in the blood-stained stairwell. The men looked nervous, more with themselves and the task they were about to perform than with the two strangers standing nearby. Nancy kept her arm around Leonard to help him balance as they waited for the hatch to open.

“How much longer?” Nancy whispered to Leonard, who shrugged in response. A soft flashing amber light answered Nancy’s question, as did a loud mechanical rumble from the direction of the top of the wide stairwell.

Light burst through cracks in the hatch as it rolled open, flooding the compartment with fresh air, the smell of the ocean and the sound of rushing water. The Arkhangelsk had barely surfaced as it was passing under the first bridge on its way to the locks as the helmsman fought to balance stealth and speed. The depth of the canal was less of a worry, since there was more than enough room for the Arkhangelsk to remain fully submerged and make its way through.

Radios strapped to the crewmen’s chests crackled and a terse order was issued. They immediately ran up the stairs, exiting onto the exterior of the Arkhangelsk. Two of the men ran for the port side while the other two headed to the edge of the starboard. They dropped to their knees as a shudder ran through the ship, causing Leonard to tip forward, nearly losing his balance. The ship came to a near stop and began to surface faster, bringing them high on the water.

When the submarine finally finished moving, the men extracted sets of tubes from bags carried on their backs and began aiming them at the bridge supports high above their heads. Small black shapes flew from the tubes and landed on the steel of the bridge with rhythmic thumps as the magnetic sheaths wrapped around the plastic explosives kept both the explosives and their detonators attached to the bridge. Even as high as the Arkhangelsk was in the water, launching the explosives at the high points of the bridge was risky, and more than one failed to attach because it simply didn’t gain enough altitude. The combination rail, vehicular and pedestrian bridges were all of the bascule drawbridge variety, designed specifically to ensure that ships of all heights passing through the canal could get through. A high arch on the first drawbridge meant that the explosives couldn’t be evenly distributed, but instead had to be clustered around both ends.

The total time the four crewmen took to affix the explosives to the drawbridge was under two minutes, after which they hurried back down the stairwell as thousands of creatures continued to stream over the structure high overhead. One of them spoke softly into his radio and the hatch began to close as the submarine sank back into the water, moving forward to the next target.