Read Online Battle For The Planet Of The Apes by David Gerrold - Free Book Online

and began firing his own gun.
    MacDonald and Virgil blasted away at the mutants. Backing away as they fired, they followed Caesar into a darkened corridor, suddenly turning and running. Their assailants, confused and shocked, came scrabbling after them.
    Watching his screens, Kolp was enraged. “They got past! They got past! All right—then shoot them on sight. Never mind about bringing them here! Just get them! ”
    His voice reached a hysterical pitch. His face was contorted with rage. Méndez and Alma exchanged concerned glances.
    “Get them!” Kolp was shouting. “Get them! Get them! Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!”
    The deformed creatures slogged up the corridor after the trio of intruders. Kolp’s words blasted in their ears—from walkie-talkies and loudspeakers, from remote command posts and individual ear pieces. “Get them! Kill them! Kill them!”
    The chimpanzee, the orangutan, and the man struggled up the corridor, exhausted by their run-in with the mutants. They approached another junction.
    There was a sharp flash and an explosion of sound ahead of them, then a rapid staccato. They were being shot at. MacDonald felt something thump into his side, blossoming into a rivet of molten pain—he clutched at his wound, almost toppled, then threw himself backward against the wall. The two apes dropped backward, too. Seeing that MacDonald had been hit, Virgil crawled to him. Bullets ricocheted around them. “We’ve got to get out of here!” gasped the man.
    Virgil gently pulled MacDonald’s hands away from his side and peered carefully at the wound. “It appears to be only a crease in the epidermis,” he remarked, then asked, “Is there another way out of here?”
    MacDonald pointed back down the way they had come.
    “I’ll find out,” said Caesar. “Stay here, but be ready to move . . . fast!” He strode off down the corridor, away from the mutant-controlled junction. As he moved, in his funny hunchbacked way, he watched for an alternate exit from the maze of underground passages. He cast his gaze from side to side.
    There it was! A large door that they had passed on their way up, leading to a closed-off side corridor. He pushed at it—it gave a little bit, then stopped. He pushed harder—it gave a little more. Caesar anchored his feet against the rubble and pushed with all his strength. If he could get it open just enough for them to squeeze through . . .
    Abruptly the door stuck. It would open no farther. Well, that would just have to do. Caesar squeezed halfway through and looked. There was an exit light very far ahead, a long way off down the tunnel. Yes, this was a way out!
    He pulled back and yelled up to Virgil and MacDonald, “I’ve found it! Come on!”
    MacDonald lurched to his feet, Virgil helping him. The two came running down the corridor. They squeezed painfully through the door, first Caesar, then MacDonald—the apes helping him—then Virgil, following. “Hurry!” he yelped. “Hurry!” There were mutants racing toward him from both ends of the tunnel. Somewhere a voice, a strangely reverberating voice, was yelling, “Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!”
    Virgil jumped through after MacDonald, he was the smallest of the three, and together they ran toward the distant exit light. MacDonald moved slowest because of his wound; the two apes were almost dragging him. Behind them they could hear the sound of running boots.
    There was a junction of corridors up ahead. “Wait!” cried Caesar, skidding to a stop. He sniffed the air, paused to listen. Virgil, too.
    The orangutan pointed down one of the side corridors, “They’re coming from down there!”
    “No!” said MacDonald, pointing down the other. “From there!”
    “You’re both right!” snapped Caesar. “From everywhere!” Behind them, more mutants were pouring into the corridor.
    “Ahead!” cried the chimp, and they ran on. They came to the light Caesar had seen; it marked a T-shaped junction. They dashed to