We're back in Africa, in the bunker the Chinese built next to the teleportation platform. Jonnie wakes up to feel the ground shaking, and is quickly attended to by Dr. Allen and some of the named Scots. The doctor assures Jonnie that he's nearly made a full recovery from the heart-exploding venom, Angus explains that the control console for the platform is hooked up and ready to go, Thor tells how they only lost Andrew and MacDougal (whoever they are) in the fighting in Denver, while Foxy is being suspiciously nonchalant about what's happening outside.
Thor also has a package. While searching for bodies they found a scorched, mangled corpse with a pellet of matter in it - the core of Jonnie's duplicate bomb, which Terl tore out and threw like a bullet to kill Brown Limper. Terl's bomb was apparently recovered and disarmed by Angus, I guess while he was sitting in a coffin-foxhole hiding from the recoil?
Oh, and Terl's recycling has been rescued, which includes gems such as a pamphlet titled "Known Defenses of Hostile Races and Surveys of Their Homelands." An excerpt reveals that Tolnep vessels' engines are too inefficient to work in atmosphere, which is a rather convenient bit of foreshadowing.
Jonnie realizes that his henchmen are trying to paint a rosy picture for him and demands a true report. The aliens are attacking the false base at Singapore, but also Russia and Edinburgh. Oh, and there's a carrier approaching Africa that's been bombarding them for hours and could launch a thousand Tolnep marines at any minute. So a still-dizzy Jonnie gets up and heads to his room to get dressed. He now has a Chinese manservant named Mr. Tsung who in broken English tells Jonnie to have some soup, then helps him put some clothes on. Though initially worried due to all the bombing going on, Tsung quickly feels better now that this shining Aryan hero is here to save the day.
Aaaand that's about it for this chapter. A lot of exposition, and Jonnie gets dressed. In case you're curious, he's in a fancy black sling for his still-wounded arm, but positioned so he can quickly draw his Smith & Wesson if he needs to.
Back to Chapter One
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment