shrugged off the praise. âNo thanks necessary,â he said to Drummond. âIâm sure you would have done the same. Just before you passed out you mentioned you had a message from the King. What was that about, if I might ask?â
If Drummond intended to answer, he didnât get the chance, for at that moment Lieutenant Colonel Ellington stepped up to the head of the table and said, âIf you would all find a seat, weâll get this meeting under way.â
There were a few minutes of delay as the senior officers in the room settled around the table, their aides in chairs lining the walls of the room behind them. Burke was about to join the latter when Nichols caught his eye and pointed to a seat at the table on his left. Knowing there was no sense in arguing, Burke did as he was told, noting with amusement that Sergeant Drummond was grudgingly settling into the chair on Nicholsâs right, looking even less happy about it than Burke was. A glance around the room showed him another familiar face; Professor Graves was seated near the rear of the group.
Ellington waited until they were all settled and then got to business.
âAs you all know, twelve days ago the Germans launched a devastating attack on the cities of London and New York. Using two armored airships designed to fly higher and faster than we believed possible, they evaded our air patrols and rained devastation down upon our countrymen in the form of a gas designed to turn the living into the walking dead.â
The horror of the event, now nearly two weeks in the past, still had the power to bring the room to silence. You could have heard a pin drop as Ellington went on.
âWhat most of you donât realize is that Paris would have suffered the same fate if it hadnât been for the effort of a small team from our Military Intelligence Division who successfully penetrated enemy lines and, at a secret base outside of Verdun, were able to destroy both the airship and the gas supply it was due to carry.â
A cheer went up at the announcement, causing Burke to shake his head in disgust and look away. Yes, he and his men had managed to destroy the Megaera, the Paris-Âbound airship, during their mission to rescue his half brother Jack, and yes, he was proud of that fact. But that pride was not enough to overcome the dismay heâd felt when he learned that just as her namesake had two sisters, so, too, did the airship heâd destroyed. The Alecto and the Tisiphone had launched from other facilities, miles away from where Burke had been at the time, and had carried out their missions with resounding success. Millions died, or worse, were turned into flesh-Âhungry zombies, because he couldnât see far enough ahead to realize that a ship named after the Three Furies of Greek mythology simply had to have two sister vessels.
No, he didnât deserve cheers for that at all.
Ellington went on.
âThe strike on London decimated the city and severed contact with the palace. Our scientists tell us that the gas dropped on the city is similar to the corpse gas the enemy is using on the battlefield, but rather than raising the dead it is infecting the living, turning them into zombies. An evacuation effort was started almost immediately and has saved thousands of lives to date, but thatâs small potatoes compared to the population of London and the surrounding area.â
He turned to an oversized map of London hanging on the wall behind him. âUnits of the U.S. Engineer Corps and the Royal Corps of Engineers have managed to erect a makeshift barrier that completely surrounds the city of LondonâÂfrom West Thurrock in the east, north to Waltham Cross, west to Staines and south to Redhill and Seven OaksâÂin an effort to keep the shredders, as the troops are now calling them, from turning the rest of the British populace into more of these undead creatures. As of this morning, the perimeter was
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