Read Revolution Page 13


  Chapter Thirteen

  A weak looking man dressed in tattered clothing ravaged by some kind of disaster gazed at the young agent laid before him with great sorrow. White as a sheet and heavily bruised, survival did not look good for Daryl Troy. Janner worked hard with what medical equipment was now left after the destruction of the headquarters and he worked with great skill, but it seemed useless. Agent Troy had been left to the elements as he lay unconscious, his armour had deactivated after some hours and pneumonia set in.

  He shook violently on the operating table in the once clean medical lab of the SIA, it was now stained with soot and a smell of burnt plastic. Janner wrapped Troy in a thermal blanket and hoped for the best, he had done all he could and it was now in the hands of fate. The majority of the underground quarters had been saved protected from destruction and Janner was lucky enough to have been in one of the most protected parts, the classified bunker. Janner ordered one of the remaining workers at the facility to stand over Troy and watch him for progress.

  He left the room and headed for the remains of the control room perhaps there were survivors in there, he didn’t yet know. It didn’t seem likely however, considering the control room was much closer to the surface. The only reason he found Troy was his communicator. The device which was arguably the SIA’s most useful tool was designed to alert everyone with a communicator if a wearer’s heart rate fell dangerously low. He knew that the other three were dead, his communicator alerted him for a few seconds until their hearts stopped and the signal ceased. There were only five workers left as far as he knew and they had all joined the one hundred-metre climb up the remnants of the lift shaft to the surface where they found Troy. For the first time in over twelve hours he had chance to reflect. Fires still raged in the corridors, he took no heed and merely held his breath when it was too much to take. He missed General Thorn; he had classed him as his only best friend and looked to him for advice. Boy did he need Thorn’s advice now.

  Janner pushed the door with all his strength and finally he got into the devastated control room. There were no human remains which surprised him; maybe the blast incinerated them he concluded. To his surprise Janner found that one of the terminals in the control room was still partially intact. The machine was not part of the mainframe but it was responsible for some important functions. Janner scanned the system as best he could, re-writing the wrongs that Frost had unleashed on it. Some systems were irretrievable but he managed to repair a great deal more than he expected.

  Eight hours passed, his fingers were sore and his eyes were as dry as desert sand. He was suddenly broken from his intense work by a familiar but despised voice.

  ‘Hello Janner I guess Thorn didn’t make it then? Oh well I guess this place is mine now!’ a slimy voice that sent shudders down even the most rigid of spines filled the stale air of the control room. It was Jefferson of the Planetary Commission with four heavily armed soldiers at his side. He looked even more rodent-like than before and his face seemed to squirm like a jellyfish.

  ‘Jefferson. No Thorn didn’t survive but I fail to see how the remains of this facility now belong to you!’ Janner responded with a mix of anger and surprise at this pitiful excuse for a man who obviously had no respect for Thorn or the great facility he had commanded so well.

  ‘I have personally decided that the facility is mine. If you cause a fuss Dr, my good friends here will fill your scrawny body with lead. Are we understood?’ Jefferson continued.

  Green laser-light illuminated the blackened room and four guarding soldiers fell to the ground in a heap. Troy rescued Janner from his plight.

  ‘No we are not understood Mr Jefferson. The only thing that belongs to you is the shallow grave I’ m about to put you in’

  ‘Well er, let’s not be rash about this we are all gentlemen here. I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement’ Jefferson squeaked and as he looked at his dead minders his pointed chin began to quiver uncontrollably.

  ‘Yes we can make arrangements, funeral arrangements’ Troy shouted at the skinny weakling before him who screamed and dropped to the ground. Green light again filled the room and Jefferson slumped like a dead weight next to his henchmen.

  ‘They are in charge of us now Daryl that was not a wise move!’ Janner said meekly, looking at the dead men before him.

  ‘Wake up and smell the coffee Janner, Frost is loose with no one to stop him and he intends to wipe out all human life. What is the harm in getting rid of a few worthless idiots before that happens?’ He was not in the mood for fooling around nor did he have the time. He had recovered from his near death experience and his life force was back in full swing.

  Troy and Janner walked back to the medical lab, he was now more or less back to health but it was the only place where the musty smell of the fried base did not consume them.

  ‘So Janner I want to know all about the Inhibitor Chips. Frost told me all about them and I must say I also quite fancied a bit of a rampage, knowing you’re kept as a pet is not exactly the nicest thing to hear’ Troy wanted answers, answers he rightly deserved.

  ‘We decided we needed to control you just in case. When you were all children how did we know what you would turn out to be as adults? You could have rebelled and that would be no good to anyone. I mean it didn’t stop Frost in the end but that couldn’t be helped I'm sure’ Janner was ready to open up and tell Daryl everything he wanted to know.

  ‘How did he find out about them anyway?’ Janner continued with curiosity.

  ‘Your alliance with the Planetary Commission let many more people in on our little secret. Frost removed his chip and a new twisted vision of the future is all he thinks about now. His armour didn’t help either, wearing it too much has made it bond with him and I would say that is the biggest catalyst for all of this’ Troy told Janner the ins and outs of the demise of Frost.

  ‘I knew we should never have joined them Daryl, I knew they would be the death of the SIA I just knew it!’ Janner said energetically.

  ‘Then why didn’t you stop it from happening Janner, you knew the possible consequences!’

  ‘But I…’

  ‘We have no time for this Dr what options do we have left?’ Troy cut off Janner in an elegant and forceful manner.

  ‘Well there is some good news we have a prototype helicopter in the classified bunker. I don’t think it’s entirely safe yet, we put too much power into her but that’s our only option I’m afraid’

  ‘Too much power is exactly what we need Dr’ the young agent’s eyes lit up like headlights as they both ran towards the bunker.

  ‘So why did Frost come here apart from wanting to destroy the base, he must have had another motive’ Troy said inquisitively.

  ‘He accessed a top secret file on the SIA database just before he destroyed it. He was searching for the file’s on, I suppose you could say, his mother. If I was frank about it she merely donated the egg for his embryo’

  ‘That would make her my mother as well Dr. For some reason I feel compelled to know her, I’ve never had anything like these kinds of feelings before today’ Troy was clearly shocked to find out the main reason his twin brother had attacked SIA HQ and now the mention of a mother, he wasn’t prepared for such emotions and they hit him like a slap to the face.

  ‘I had no idea you had such files. I mean I knew that me and Arrin were from the same embryo and it ended up as twins but I’ve never thought about where it came from!’

  ‘We expected such emotions to come to the surface when you we’re all teenagers but the day just never came. I want to apologise Daryl for not letting you know but you all never asked. What’s the saying? What you don’t know...’

  ‘Doesn’t hurt you Dr, so do you think he’s going to kill her?’ He finished Janner’s words

  and pondered why Frost had wanted to know who had donated the embryo that eventually became them both.

  ‘I think there’s a good chance it’s all that is left of Ar
rin’s human side. Maybe he’s trying to fight the control of his armour, maybe he will change his mind when he meets her?’ the Dr was renowned for thinking optimistically but Troy felt differently.

  ‘No I think it’s more a case of one first hello and one final goodbye, he’s changed too much now, inside and out’ Troy felt he knew his brother better than anyone and he was on the mark.

  Janner looked into a dark slit next to the huge titanium door that housed the SIA’s most secret technological developments. The slit scanned his eye and the huge doors opened slowly. They entered a darkly lit bunker that felt huge from echoes of their footsteps, Janner remembered some other important points and quickly voiced them to Troy.

  ‘He also took a Nucleonic pulse generator, he must be constructing some kind of doomsday

  ‘He intends to create several Orgapulse detonators with which he intends to wipe out all the life on this planet’ Troy recalled Frost’s words causing Janner let out a gasp that echoed for a few seconds around the pitch black hanger.

  ‘We developed that weapon but had no use for it, this is disturbing news Daryl’ Janner looked scared as he spoke but the agent was far too eager to see Janner’s little surprise and didn’t respond.

  Janner flicked the lights and there it was hovering above the ground inside a huge rock walled cavern that seemed to go upwards for hundreds of metres in one wide cylinder.

  ‘Behold the Armageddon Class helicopter; the Gunship as I‘ve called her’ Janner was dwarfed by the huge black vessel he stood in front of. Indeed it did not look like a helicopter of any description; it was more like a space shuttle of some kind. It looked like its Mark Class predecessors but for the front which resembled a huge smoothed-out arrowhead. It had three small openings on either wing which Troy concluded must have been part of its weapons systems. It had no landing gear and was hovering just above the ground; it struck terror into Troy as Janner powered it up. He felt an enormous throbbing pressure on his chest; he had felt this sensation before from powerful music speakers in his youth, only that sensation was far less nauseating. He walked up to the sleek black behemoth and placed his hands on the side. He could feel a dull but powerful pulsating hum coming from inside, like the slow beat of a tremendous mechanical heart.

  ‘That’s the plasma drive you can feel, highly experimental and extremely dangerous but we think we’ve tamed it enough to use. In principal it’s the same as a fusion drive but it generates ten thousand times more energy from the same amount of matter. One hundred percent efficiency!

  She also has new weapons on board; we’ve developed An-Tam Torpedoes for devastating destruction but you use one of these on Earth and you’ll wipe out an eighth of the planet, no shit’ Janner said smugly.

  ‘They consist of two compartments one containing matter and the other containing antimatter. When it approached the target, it lets the two sides mix which if you remember from my science lessons results in the most powerful energy discharge we humans know of; the total annihilation of matter’ Janner was loving the introduction of his new masterpiece.

  ‘She also has a particle field generator which encompasses the vessel and protects it from any weapon assault from anything, including the Mark Two! And the finest addition I have made is the visual disruption system. Basically the particle field is activated around the vessel, it is stretched to a width of fifty metres and the light that hits it slips over and around it, making the Gunship completely invisible!’ Janner was reaching boiling point with excitement and so was Troy.

  ‘But I thought that was impossible!’ Troy said in disbelief.

  ‘No not at all. I’m sure you’re aware that when you look into space there are stars whose light is bent and distorted by a huge object like a black hole. It makes a star appear in one place when it is really in another. Their light is distorted and bent around huge gravitational forces. The same principle is use in this system. I assure you Troy it works’ Janner knew his physics and Troy believed him.

  ‘The Mark Class helicopters were used for attack and defence. The Gunship has only one function; annihilation’ Janner said dramatically.

  ‘Well this is jaw-dropping stuff Janner but does this pressure on your chest stop or what?’

  ‘As soon as you get inside Daryl the feeling will cease. Take her and be careful, the An-Tam torpedoes are not to be used on Earth they will wipe out whole continents like I said. Try and lure Frost into space, you could use one to wipe him out up there without a problem. Make sure you’re at least three K from the blast though Daryl, with the particle field activated or you too will be destroyed by the blast’ Janner continued, while Troy opened the side door and stepped in.

  ‘Oh and by the way I’ve created a device that will stop Frost from deactivating your armour. That should surprise him a bit!’

  ‘Makes a change’ Troy answered as the slim black door slid shut behind him.

  The steel roof of the Kilometre-deep cave opened slowly and awkwardly due to the power loss of the devastated facility and the Gunship’s rotors thrashed the air aggressively as it rose. Troy could feel the power surging through the mighty helicopter as he took hold of the control column. He felt incredibly small and insignificant as the black beast manipulated the planets elements like a God. For a helicopter of its size it was nimble and agile. The Gunship rose slowly to its target height and Troy tapped in the coordinates for Frost's Tibetan ranch where Nikita would be waiting patiently for him or at least he hoped so. He logged in full speed and the plasma drive let out a deafening banshee-like noise, he activated the sound diffusion system and the engine noise ceased.

  The rotors retracted and the nose of the helicopter moulded into a sharp, sleek point. It now resembled a sharpened arrowhead. Troy was rammed back against his command chair and after four seconds the Gunship had achieved fifty three thousand Kph. A wide, slim blue flame ejected from the rear and the Gunship rode the sky like a swordfish through water. Whole cities flashed by in the blink of an eye as the devilishly powerful chopper pelted across the new morning sky. Only fifteen minutes had passed and already Tibet was near at hand. The Gunship slowed rapidly and halted directly over the small box below that was Frost’s ranch. Troy activated the invisibility device and see how well it worked. A large ball of blue shimmering particles encircled the vessel, its image began to get thinner and finally the Gunship had vanished. He switched to whisper mode and dropped to the ground below. Nikita suddenly felt a thudding pulse change the air pressure in the huge house. She ran to the main window and looked outside, she could see nothing but she felt the pulsating feeling even more on the windowpane. She ran outside to get a better look but all she found was the same sensation and a strong downward wind. She fell to the ground in horror as a huge black helicopter slowly shimmered into view.

  The nose of the strange vessel began to merge back into a softer shape and the door at the side slid open.

  ‘I’m back! Sorry if I startled you, I wanted to try out some of the new gadgets on my new toy!’ Troy said as he ran towards her and held her in his arms. They gripped each other tightly, both unwilling to relent the happy embrace.

  ‘You’re still alive!’ Nikita said as they eventually loosened their grip of each other.

  ‘No shit Sherlock!’ He responded laughing, then his face saddened slowly.

  ‘I wish I could say the same for the remnants of the SIA’ Troy informed Nikita that his comrades were now dead. She had not known them well so the loss was Troy’s but she was sure she could feel his hurt like it were her own.

  ‘Anyway let’s not dwell on such matters, what‘s done is done and cannot be changed. How about I take you on a little journey to the stars?’ Troy wanted to relax a while before his final confrontation with Frost and a day with Nikita was just what the Doctor ordered.

  ‘The stars! Wow! Will this get us there?’ Nikita said looking over Troy’s shoulders at the magnificent helicopter before them, still pounding the air with its awesome rotors.

/>   ‘This is the Gunship, it will take us to anywhere your mind can conceive. It has an Ion Drive like all the Mark Class helicopters but in this vessel a plasma reactor helps it along so it can achieve one eighth of the speed of light. It could reach Jupiter within a day! And according to Einstein we ought to be a little younger than the rest of the planet when we get back!’ He said jovially. They ran to the Gunship the door slid open automatically and they got in. Nikita sat to the right hand side of Troy and watched him curiously as he worked the controls sending an almighty helicopter high into the air.

  Hundreds of towns streamed by, all the small specks of dust were people going about their everyday business Nikita thought to herself.

  ‘Life seems so easy from up here. No instant chance of being knocked over. No aggravation from ass-holes. If only life were as easy as it seems from up here!’

  ‘They are all so enveloped with their unimportant lives they have no idea what is going on behind the scenes. I mean a pulsar millions of miles away in space could rotate into the path of the Earth and fry the atmosphere away in minutes, yet none of them are in the least bit aware as they go to their meaningless jobs or do the weekly shopping buying shit they don’t need’ Troy added a little philosophy to what Nikita had said.

  ‘Or a power corrupted maniac with alien technology at his fingertips!’

  The Gunship reached the maximum speed that the fusion drive could handle; Troy lifted the craft nose-up towards the blackness of space. Up she rocketed losing no speed or grace, her sharp nose piercing the sky like the arrow she resembled.

  The Gunship finally left the Earth’s atmosphere and Nikita gasped in awe as she saw the stars more clearly than she had ever done in her life. Troy activated the gravity generator that prevented weightlessness and they again felt their own weight.

  ‘This is amazing Daryl it really is. Thank you for showing me a place I thought I would never see!’ Nikita said in amazement to the man she had grown to love in such a short space of time. Troy slowed the vessel down and little blue flames burst out from small holes in the side of the Gunship in all directions as it manoeuvred itself in the vacuum of space. He turned the craft about to face the Earth and they sat and looked at the colourful goldfish bowl that was the birthplace of the human race and everything they had ever known. They felt a great feeling of grandeur and they knew it was a sight mankind would never get tired of looking at. Was man ever meant or designed to see such a sight? One which shows him how small and insignificant he is in the blackness of space?

  For a second they saw the big picture, the meaning of life and how simple it really was. They were dumbstruck. Troy wondered if it all really mattered, future events that may or may not take place on the planet before him would never have an effect on the rest of the Universe or even the Solar System.

  ‘It makes you wonder you know, what if civilisation had seen this centuries ago, would they have gone to war if they knew we were all just one big family, animals plants and all?’ Troy broke the deep reflection and again tapped away on his command console. A powerful roar came from the rear of the Gunship the Ion drive had activated. Safety lights began to flash as the Ion Drive picked up its pace.

  ‘What are all these lights Daryl it looks as if it’s about to blow up!?’ Nikita said worriedly.

  ‘No not at all they are just alerting me to make sure I have activated all relevant systems for the velocity we are about to endure. Jeese I sound like such a dick sometimes, it’s telling us we’re good to go!’ Troy felt a little pang of introspection and realised that a lifetime talking to geeks must’ve been contagious in some way.

  They laughed it off and the Gunship picked up speed rapidly, Troy guided it over the curvature of the Earth. Nikita did not feel the sensation of speed for some time until she took a passing glance at the main viewer and saw the speed they were doing.

  ‘Seventy thousand Kph? Jesus it doesn’t feel like we’re moving that fast!’ Nikita announced with surprise in her voice.

  Suddenly they were rammed into the backs of their seats as the Plasma Drive kicked in and the Earth Slowly got smaller and smaller until it looked like a large star. The vessel accelerated like a bullet from a gun, the Gunship’s inertial dampeners which prevented the harsh effects of acceleration were working overtime. Nikita took another look at the main screen the speed was now registering in Kilometres a second. After some time the speed reached forty three thousand Kilometres per second and the Earth was far, far behind them. ‘This is unbelievable I never knew humans would ever be able to travel so fast’ Nikita said to Troy with a smile. Troy just kept his eyes on the state of the engines which was being displayed on the panel to his left.

  ‘The silent atmosphere of the Gunship suddenly changed to one of frantic alarms and warning lights.

  ‘Damn! The Ion Drive’s overheating! Janner and I never discussed using this in space so erm. We’ll be fine don’t worry!’ he responded and attempted a confidence boosting smile failing miserably.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Nikita replied sensing something was seriously amiss.

  ‘Well Janner said that there was too much power in the Gunship for her own good. I guess he was right. The computer says the only option is to eject the ion drive completely but if we do that it will take us weeks to get home!’ Troy gave the bad news as he tapped away trying to find some other way of saving them from oblivion. she became more and more worried as a loud thunderous noise started from the rear of the chopper. Troy did all that he could to avert the seemingly inevitable explosion. Nikita watched with worried eyes at Troy’s lightning-fast fingers working the complex computer systems. After only a moment or two the noise suddenly started to reach deafening levels and if they weren’t scared before they certainly were now.

  Plumes of purple and green balls of plasma began to eject from the rear exhaust of the Gunship like a cascade of beautiful light. One would believe they were at a firework display of some kind although the light was riddled with radiation. The noise stopped abruptly and the Gunship was now without ionic propulsion but it lost no speed due to the nature of space.

  ‘That certainly was close!’ Daryl Troy said to an obviously terrified Nikita at his side.

  ‘What happens now then?’ Nikita said sharply, nerves fraying.

  ‘Well I guess we just have to restart the Ion Drive when it’s cooled and try again. I ejected all the overheated material and it seemed to do the trick, I suppose it could happen again though. I’ll check if there were any systems offline shouldn’t have been’

  As Troy spoke the computer announced that they were approaching the vicinity of Mars.

  ‘Good we’re here! I just hope we can get back’ he said hoping Nikita’s nerves had settled. A ball of white light shot from the front of the Gunship and erupted. It was a Nucleonic pulse the very weapon that Frost had unveiled to the world killing millions in the process. This one however was intended for much more peaceful uses.

  ‘What speeds up must eventually slow down’ he looked at Nikita and smiled again as the Gunship shaded the view screen to protect their eyes, they looked forward and a dim blast rocked the vessel. Troy had used the destructive power of a Nucleonic pulse to slow them down to a measly sixty thousand. He now had a new respect for powerful machines and wished he had treated the Mark One better.

  A halo of blue shimmering light surrounded the Gunship as the blast enveloped it and slowed it down by thousands of Kilometres per second. The halo was the Gunships particle field system which was doing its job of protection perfectly. Troy brought the Gunship around so the huge red planet was before them on screen. They sat for sometime in silence as they studied the planet ahead, a planet that only a handful of humans had ever seen with their own eyes. Nikita pondered fantasy after fantasy, perhaps there were alien beings on Mars hiding beneath the rock away from the prying eyes of the beings from its blue sister. Troy broke her concentration.

  ‘You know scientists believe that Mars once resembled Eart
h billions of years ago. It had an atmosphere and oceans and micro-organisms such as amoeba’s and the like’ Troy said.

  ‘Then why is it so barren and lifeless now? Isn’t the water all ice?’ Nikita replied curiously.

  ‘Apparently Mars had a thick atmosphere just like Earth does but with Mars there wasn’t enough molten Iron in its core to keep a strong magnetic field. Once the iron cooled and ceased spinning there was no magnetic field and Mars was ravaged by radioactive solar winds from the sun, making the planet what it is today. Barren, lifeless and hardly any atmosphere’ Troy was well versed in matters of the solar system, it interested him immeasurably.

  ‘The Particle Field generator on this vessel is based on the same principle; it holds electrically charged particles in place with magnetic fields. Magnetism will defend you from everything including radiation’ He finished.

  ‘That’s incredible! So you mean there could eventually have been organisms much like us on Mars had it kept its magnetic field?’ Nikita said inquisitively.

  ‘Yeah I suppose there could have been. But there are many slight and major differences between our planet and this so they would probably be built or ‘designed’ a little differently’ Troy answered her question but added a little reality also.

  The Gunship was stationary just outside orbital range of the red planet.

  ‘Did you know there’s an obelisk on Mar’s moon, Phobos?’ Troy asked

  ‘An obelisk? You mean a man made structure?’

  ‘Well that’s what people thought it was but if you take a closer look it’s actually a pointed asteroid comprised of Iron and other heavy elements. That’s if you believe NASA of course’

  ‘That’s amazing I want to see it for myself though!’ She replied and he obliged.

  The Gunship turned and headed towards an object a little smaller and darker than the moon Nikita was used to back home. As they approached the moon it was clearly a huge body and it started to take up the whole view screen. They watched awestruck as the mighty helicopter turned star-ship carried them to within two kilometres of the dark moon’s surface. On the far horizon a tall striking object came into view and grabbed their attention. As it slowly made its way towards their position they both surveyed it carefully.

  ‘That looks man-made! I mean even Iron rich asteroids have some rock on them and that edge there’ she pointed out a perfect square edge and the front section of the object was perfectly aligned with it.

  ‘Obvious geometry’

  ‘That’s exactly what I thought when I saw the images Arrin brought back, he took the twenty day trip in the Mark One when we we’re in our early twenties’ Troy started to reminisce and it brought back old feelings for the brother he now had to kill. He remembered how his twin had always been someone he looked up to, someone he respected enough to ask advice.

  ‘So what is it? I’d say a shard from some gigantic spacecraft considering we’re here thanks to technology from one ourselves’ Nikita felt inside she knew exactly what it was.

  ‘You might be right you know’ He answered.

  They continued looking at the curious and mysterious object now leaving their view and finally Troy decided they must try the ion drive once again. He had a deadly assassin to catch and time was of the essence. He realised an extremely important cooling by-system was not engaged and that was why the drive had overheated. Clearly Janner’s new helicopter had not been booted up properly. The vessel turned around sleekly and Mars was now at their left, Nikita kept her eyes fixed on the red mystery as the Gunship’s engines began to roar. Its monstrous noise did not travel through space but the shockwave certainly did, if there were any hidden aliens on Mars then they would be cowering in fear at the black beast that had unleashed such power.

  Mars shot out of view as full speed was reached. There was tension in the air, both passengers were anxious of whether the engines would hold up this time as well as deep thoughts about the near future and what it may hold for them both. The Gunship did not disappoint and she carried her precious cargo back to Earth. Troy was the only thing that could stop the murder of every living thing on Earth. He was now equipped with the tools necessary to defeat his brother but if he were killed; the indestructible Frost would be unstoppable.

  A familiar blue and green planet came into view overshadowed by the radiant power of the sun. The sun that had given life to all the organisms that had ever lived in the Solar System. Troy looked at it and realised that someday the sun would go supernova and take away the life it had at first given, all would perish. He also knew the planet they had just visited could have looked very much like its sister planet had the Sun not destroyed its atmosphere.

  ‘The sun giveth and the sun taketh away’ he said in his mind. His fight with Frost would only become known as one of Earths minor setbacks in a dossier of many. One day the blue planet would have a disastrous date with the great yellow ball of fire and it would not survive.

  After some time Troy directed the Gunship down towards the ocean-covered planet that was their home. Neither of them said a word as they gracefully re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, sheltered completely by their guardian helicopter. Streams of red-hot light flew over the front of the mighty chopper though it took no heed of the high temperatures it was being subjected to. Troy headed straight for Tibet, he and Nikita knew what was going to happen next. Nikita understood but she did not dwell on it, she knew she might lose her new love. As Tibet came into range the Gunship plummeted to the ground below like an eagle in a steep dive; the dark chopper graced the sky inexpressibly.

  ‘Well I guess this is it then, we ought to say our goodbyes now’ Troy said sorrowfully as he landed the Gunship.

  ‘Just in case’ he finished glancing at Nikita trying to instil a little confidence in her troubled mind.

  ‘Don’t think like that. What happens now? What happens if you don’t stop him?’ Nikita began to realise the full consequences of the next few days.

  ‘Just leave it to me Nikita, I’ll take him out and then everything will be back to normal again’ Troy’s words were meant in reassurance but no words could reassure Nikita now. She kissed him on the lips and a tear formed in her eye. He kissed her back and smiled, he was under no illusions that this final undertaking would be easy, but Frost would smell his fear if he let it get to him. The Gunship rose from the dusty Tibetan plains as Nikita watched woefully, like a child abandoned by its parents she looked lost.

  Thunder had nothing on the mighty Gunship, rising to a comfortable height powerfully and yet gracefully. Troy had to find Frost but had no idea how he would do it, he had no idea what the Gunship was capable of. He was about to find out.

  ‘Computer try every means possible to locate special agent Arrin Frost and or the Mark Two helicopter’ he announced.