The Great Zoo of China (51 page)

Then, standing at the mouth of the tunnel above the massive cave, she fired off nearly every grenade she had in her grenade launcher.

Explosions rocked the cavern. Eggs blasted out in sprays of albumen before they caught fire and burned. The squeals of dying infant dragons cut through the air.

Then CJ aimed her grenade launcher at the ceiling of the cavern and fired off more grenades.

Under the weight of those explosions, the cavern’s ceiling crumbled, dropping great boulders of nickel down on the eggs, smashing them, crushing them, while the curved spiralling ledge containing the eggs just fell away from the cavern’s walls.

Eggs and nickel dropped down into the giant funnel-shaped cavern. Owing to the shape of the cavern, they all fell into the narrow base, where they were more easily crushed by the falling rocks.

In a final move, CJ stepped back up the tunnel, moving past the remains of the dead superking, and fired off her last few grenades there, causing the tunnel’s roof to collapse and cave in.

The roof came down, flattening the corpse of the superking and blocking the exit, and leaving CJ Cameron standing there, breathing hard, her face blackened with soot and dust but her victory achieved.

Her ammunition spent, CJ tossed her MP-7 to the ground and began the long trudge back up the tunnel.

C
J emerged from the tunnel to see the first rays of sunlight peeking over the crater wall to the east.

She had survived the night.

No sooner was she out of the tunnel, however, than she dashed for the lake. She splashed to her knees beside Lucky.

The yellowjacket lay on her side in the shallows, moaning painfully.

She jerked suddenly at CJ’s arrival—probably assuming CJ was the other dragon coming to finish her off—but then she relaxed when CJ began stroking her forehead.

‘Easy, girl. Easy.’

CJ saw a large gash running down Lucky’s right hind leg: a terrible wound. She embraced the dragon, resting her head against Lucky’s huge cheek.

Lucky sighed, a pained braying noise.

‘
White Head . . . fight master . . . ?
’

‘Yes,’ CJ said. ‘White Head fight master. White Head kill master.’

Lucky grunted, still lying on her side. ‘
Lucky like White Head
. . .’

And for a short while the two of them just lay there together in the shallows of Crater Lake as the sun crept over the horizon.

After a time, CJ rose and took a look at Lucky’s laceration.

It was an awful wound—right across the top of her thigh—but CJ figured if she could stitch it up, it would only affect Lucky’s ability to walk. She should still be able to fly.

‘This is not going to be pretty and not very hygienic either,’ CJ said as she fashioned a needle out of a sharpened stick and used her own bootlaces as thread. ‘And it’s going to hurt like hell.’

It hurt all right.

Lucky howled in agony throughout the operation but eventually CJ stitched up the wound, drawing the skin firmly together.

Lucky panted quickly.

‘Lucky stand?’ CJ asked.

The dragon tentatively rose to her feet . . . and promptly fell down as the leg failed to bear her weight. But she tried again, favouring her other legs, and managed to hold herself upright.

CJ grinned. ‘You are one tough chick, you know that, Lucky?’

‘
Lucky no understand White Head
. . .’

‘White Head like Lucky.’

The dragon nuzzled CJ. ‘
Lucky like White Head
. . .’

CJ then got Lucky to test her wings and the dragon proved able to fly. Not exactly powerfully; it was more gliding than flying, but it was enough.

And so, soon after, they were soaring over the forests and rock formations of southern China, heading back toward the zoo.

T
he sun had risen fully by the time CJ and Lucky beheld the vast rectangular crater containing the Great Dragon Zoo of China.

In the harsh light of day, the amount of damage that the dragons had done to the zoo was simply astonishing. Columns of black smoke rose from numerous sites around the megavalley, from smashed helicopters and destroyed buildings. The revolving restaurant at the top of Dragon Mountain had literally been ripped apart. Its two levels yawned open to the elements.

At 6:20 a.m., CJ keyed her radio to channel 20. ‘Bear? You out there? Bear, come in?’

Static . . . then: ‘
I hear you, Chipmunk.
’

‘Are you good?’

‘
Lying low after a shitstorm of a battle but not in enemy hands yet. Whatever you did, sis, it worked. The dragons are contained. The outer dome is working. I’m gonna guess that whatever you got up to was character building?
’

‘You better fucking believe it,’ CJ said. ‘What about the Chinese? What are they doing now?’

‘
They suffered heavy casualties, but those who are left are on the move. Saw a fleet of jeeps zoom in toward the zoo ten minutes ago. What do we do now, Chipmunk?
’

CJ was thinking the same thing. ‘Now we have to find a way out of this place—’

‘
CJ?
’ Another voice came on the line. A male voice, speaking in English. ‘
CJ, is that you? It’s Ben Patrick
.’

Patrick, CJ thought. She’d last seen him in the revolving restaurant, when he’d said she was crazy to be going into the Nesting Centre.

‘Ben? Where are you?’ she said.

‘
I’m at the main entrance building. On the roof. I came over on a maintenance cable car. I can’t believe you’re still alive
.’

‘Only just.’

‘
CJ, the zoo is under control again, which means the Chinese are about to go into serious damage control
,’ Patrick said. ‘
They’ll kill all of us now to keep this disaster a secret. It’s time to get the hell out of here and I know a way out
.
If you’re still riding your yellow friend, meet me on the roof of the main entrance building as soon as you can
.’

CJ thought about that. ‘Okay. We’ll be there as soon as we can. Bear?’

‘
Yeah?
’ Hamish’s voice replied.

‘I’ll contact you shortly.’

CJ and Lucky made two stops on their way to the main entrance building: the first was at the Birthing Centre, where they picked up Minnie. CJ grabbed a portable surgical kit from the infirmary there: scalpels, stitches, anaesthetic, cleaning alcohol. She also took the opportunity to clean and restitch Lucky’s new wound with a sterilised needle and proper thread. She finished by giving the dragon a shot of epinephrine to make sure her heart rate and blood pressure stayed up.

Then, with Minnie riding pillion, they took off.

Their second pause was a quick stopover at the mountainside monastery on the eastern side of the zoo where Lucky’s pack of yellowjackets lived.

CJ, Minnie and Lucky arrived to find Lucky’s family very agitated by recent events, but after a short series of barked communications between Lucky and her pack, CJ performed a quick surgical operation on each of the four other yellowjacket dragons: on their left eyes.

Then CJ and Lucky, with Minnie, took to the air again and headed for the main entrance building.

The colossal main entrance building still stood at the southern end of the valley, but it was not looking its best.

The huge white building had been assaulted at some point by the rampaging dragons: many of its windows were shattered. The large eye-like circular window of the master control room had been smashed and the control room now lay empty, trashed and blood-smeared.

Suddenly, lights began to wink on all over the building . . . and all over the zoo. The Chinese must have driven the airfield’s cable repair truck to the waste management facility and reconnected the internal main there.

As she soared in toward the main entrance building from high above, CJ saw the broad sunken amphitheatre on its roof, the same amphitheatre in which she had first seen Lucky.

And there, standing on the amphitheatre’s wide central stage, was a figure.

Ben Patrick, and he was waving.

Lucky landed on the stage a short distance from Patrick. CJ and Minnie dismounted.

A light breeze blew. The vast valley stretched northward behind CJ. It would have been a postcard shot, gorgeous in the early morning light, had it not been for all the fires and wreckage.