His attention returned to his surroundings as he flew north of Indian Point and spotted something ahead of him. It took a second to decide what he was seeing, but there was only one thing it could be really: smoke. There was smoke rising from some point to the north and he had a strong suspicion of where it was coming from.
It took less than three minutes for him to cover the distance to the academy town. Then he dropped lower to take a closer look because he was fairly certain that no one was going to be shooting at him.
The smoke was rising from Taylor Hall, though several other buildings looked as though they had been through a war. There were bodies in the streets. Some looked like they had been shot; some looked like they had been burned on the spot. Worse, there was no sign of any of the armoured vehicles Joe had seen on his previous visit.
Faith had asked Joe to run a recon over the town to see whether there was any sign of Hart there. Instead of a traitor, Joe had found a massacre.
West Point.
Mercy materialised on a street in West Point to find herself looking at the charred husk of a human. Male or female, it was impossible to tell, but she had seen few women the last time she had been here, so probably male and very dead. The damage looked a lot like the burned scouts she had found in Danbury.
‘Damned Ones?’ she asked herself in a mutter as she started toward the still-smoking remains of Taylor Hall.
She moved in with her pistol in her hand, but she was not really expecting any opposition. The place was a mess. There were few bodies, but the building had been turned over for anything the attackers thought might be valuable. What was left had been set on fire. She checked the basement and discovered that the armoury had been stripped. There had been plenty of weapons down here, all of them modern, and now there were none.
The barracks building where the troops had been located looked like a slaughterhouse. That was not entirely accurate since few slaughterhouses barbecued their product. There had been more than one Titan here. The charred remains of Lilith’s work were obvious, but other victims showed different, less extensive burns, and there were bodies which looked like they had been folded in half. Skulls had been crushed or limbs torn off; someone with a lot of strength had been among the attackers. At first appearances, no one had survived the assault. It was difficult to be sure, but it seemed as though the mercs had been caught entirely off-guard and massacred to a man.
It was also difficult to be certain that the Damned Ones had been the attackers. They had either had no casualties, or they had removed any fallen comrades. The only real evidence was the collection of bodies which showed alarmingly similar damage to the scouts who had fallen victim to Lilith.
‘This is bad,’ Mercy said to herself. ‘This is really bad.’
New York Authority.
‘I can’t be certain it was the Damned Ones,’ Mercy said, ‘but they seem like the most likely culprits.’
‘But how did they know about those men?’ Faith asked.
‘I’m not sure how it’s possible,’ Mason Millhouse replied. Millhouse was the other general of the NYAS. He was a lot younger than Hart and he had a lot less experience, but he was all Faith currently had left to lead her troops. He did not look especially confident in his now-solo position.
‘It’s a good question,’ Mercy said, ‘but hardly the most important thing here. If it was the Damned Ones, they now have a large stock of military weaponry, armoured troop transports, and several tanks. They may not be able to use the tanks to full effect, but they can probably get them to shoot.’
‘Can we get Joe to fly out over Danbury?’ Faith asked. ‘Perhaps he can confirm–’
‘I’m sure he’ll go, but if he can’t see anything out here, it doesn’t confirm that the Damned Ones don’t have them.’
‘If that’s their staging post,’ Millhouse began.
‘They know we know about it. If they want to keep the armour a secret, they’d position it somewhere else. Joe can go looking, but it doesn’t take a lot of effort to camouflage some vehicles if you’ve half a brain.’
Faith stared at her desk for a second or two, but there was nothing much to consider. ‘Please ask Joe to do as much recon as he can. If he can locate those tanks, great. General, do we have a higher alert state we can move our troops to?’
‘Uh, well, we don’t really have a formal alert state list… I can give orders to increase patrols on the buffer zone and double up on guards at Indian Point.’
‘Then do that. The Damned won’t wait too long if he has got his hands on some heavy weaponry. I expect we’ll see things kicking off within the next couple of days, and we had better be ready. Otherwise, we may regret getting the sappers to finally collapse the Holland Tunnel.’
Indian Point, 10th June.
It began in the early hours of Saturday morning. Kennedy Baxter was awoken by the sound of a siren blaring in the corridor outside his apartment at Indian Point and, for several seconds, he sat in his bed wondering what was going on. Then the door burst open.
‘Colonel!’ It was one of the command centre personnel, a pretty blonde girl by the name of Kara Langley. Under more normal circumstances, Baxter would have been quite happy to be woken by her. ‘It’s them. The Damned Ones are attacking! They’ve got tanks!’
‘Calmly, Private Langley,’ Baxter replied, not feeling calm himself. ‘We have a plan in place for this.’
‘Yes, sir, and it’s being followed, but… They seem to know exactly where to hit us, sir. They know exactly where our defences are weakest!’
~~~
The sound of artillery firing greeted Mercy as she appeared in the corridor outside the command centre. Indian Point had five light artillery pieces on site, and all of them sounded like they were in use. On the bright side, it did not sound like there was much in the way of true artillery being fired back.
On the negative side, no one tried to stop her as she marched into the room which ran the defences of Indian Point. There was a lot of controlled chaos happening around her and no one was paying much attention to who walked in. There were no guards posted, probably because every available soldier was fighting. She located Colonel Baxter and headed toward him.
To his credit, he spotted her coming. ‘Colonel Garner, I’m glad you could make it.’
‘One of the president’s people dragged me out of bed,’ Mercy replied. ‘Capitaine Janvier should be over the area by now too. Hold on.’ She tapped at her earpiece and spoke again. ‘Capitaine, are you on site?’
‘I’m here, Colonel,’ Joe replied. His voice sounded stiff in Mercy’s ear. It was not unexpected, but Mercy’s heart still sank. ‘It’s not good. They’re concentrating their attacks on the areas with the non-functional tanks. The artillery is giving them pause, but they seem very determined.’
‘Thanks. I’m giving Colonel Baxter a radio. He’ll coordinate your recon with his people.’
‘Understood. Janvier out.’
Mercy suppressed a wince. Joe had agreed to fly recon for the operation, but he was doing it for the security of the enclave and Faith, not for Mercy. At least he was doing it. Mercy dug a portable radio and headset from her pocket and placed them on the map table in front of Baxter. ‘We’re using radios from Pallas. They’re digital, so the Damned Ones can’t intercept the transmissions. There’s one in the command centre back in the city too, so we should have some clear comms they can’t listen in on.’
‘Thank you,’ Baxter replied. ‘That’s something. How could they know about the breaks in our lines?’
‘Hart. He warned them about the scouts in Danbury. We think he’s been planning this for a while. He gets the Damned Ones to attack and then his mercs come in and save the day. He becomes president. Job done. The only thing that doesn’t fit is how the Damned Ones found out about the mercs.’
Baxter shrugged. ‘There are all sorts of Titans among the Damned Ones. Maybe one of them can read minds.’
‘Hm. Well, speaking of the Titans out th
ere, I’m here to see whether I can get rid of some of them. I’ll be on the radio if you need me somewhere.’ Turning, she headed back out the way she had come.
‘Good luck,’ Baxter called after her. ‘We’re all going to need it,’ he added in a mutter.
~~~
If it was controlled chaos in the command bunker, there was less control out in the trenches. It was not a matter of the defence being disorganised, because they were operating as best they could under the circumstances. However, they were dealing with a superior force hell bent on taking the facility. The Damned Ones were, overall, not as well equipped as the NYAS. They had the weapons they had taken from Hart’s mercenaries, but their force was too large to equip them all. The remainder were carrying whatever weaponry they had scrounged from gun shops and police stations. The ones who did have modern military weapons and armour were hampered by unfamiliarity, but they demonstrated an impetuous, almost fanatical, disregard for the possibility that they might be hurt and the tactic was working to some extent. The Damned Ones were gaining ground. They were pushing forward, especially where the defences were at their weakest. Mercy doubted that the light tanks which should have been firing back in those areas would have made a lot of difference, but they might have turned the attackers back a little. As it was, only the barrage of artillery shells from within the compound was slowing the wave of fanatical assault troops rushing forward into oncoming fire.
Mercy operated on a spot-defence principle. She translocated into an area, took out as many enemies as she could as quickly as possible, and then jumped to another location. All the while, she was hunting for the Anathema, the six men and women who acted as The Damned’s primary battle commanders. They were all Titans, and she knew that three of them were Juggernauts. Something called a Juggernaut ought to be easy to spot, right? Thus far, she was not having much luck.
It ended up being Joe who located her first target. ‘Colonel Garner, there’s someone shooting lightning from his fingers about two-hundred metres to your east. Possibly one of your targets.’
Mercy turned her head. She was in a trench and could not see the area Joe was talking about, but she could aim for it. ‘Thanks, Capitaine. I’ll go take a look.’ She focused and made the jump and, for all the difference in the view, she might have been left right where she had started. Another trench with earthen walls held back by wooden planks. In this one, however, there were more enemy troops and one of them had glowing eyes.
He was not a tall man. His body was wiry muscle under combat fatigues and a bulletproof vest. His eyes were glowing blue with a black background, which was definitely not something a human should have. He was grinning as he watched a Security soldier dance within a cage of electricity, hence he was not paying sufficient attention to his surroundings. Mercy lifted her PDW and snap-fired a three-round burst. He let out a scream of pain and lurched away from the source of it, his glowing eyes turning to glare balefully upon the woman who had shot him. Except that he was doing it in slow motion, and by the time he was looking her way, Mercy had taken careful aim and squeezed off another burst from her P52. The pulses of raw energy tore into his flesh, destroying muscle and tissue, and the man went down, spinning as he did so to land face-first on the rough boards at his feet.
A roar from behind her made Mercy turn before she could be sure her target was dead. A woman was barrelling down the trench toward her, though you could only really tell she was a woman from the way her shirt fitted over her bust. Said shirt was also struggling to contain the muscles of someone who had gone seriously overboard with the steroids. The woman’s thighs were like tree trunks. Her skin was a sallow, off-white colour, her nose flattened, and her brow large. Big, yellowing teeth showed clearly as she screamed and charged. A Juggernaut: not a giant one, but big, powerful, and headed straight for Mercy.
Three blue energy pulses lanced out toward the oncoming target. They slowed as they hit a barrier like the one Mercy could project, but they penetrated, punching into the woman’s chest. It slowed her down, but she kept coming, and Mercy let go of her PDW as the Juggernaut closed the distance, swinging back a meaty fist to strike. Mercy’s energy blade lanced out, searing into the woman’s scalp and causing her to stumble and fall, but it was still utterly amazing that someone could survive that kind of damage. Mercy brought her blade down in an arc. Unkempt black hair sizzled as the blade burned deep into the back of the Anathema’s head and, this time, she stopped moving entirely.
Lifting her head, Mercy looked around for the lightning wielder, but he was gone, probably carried away by his subordinates. There were other Damned Ones advancing on her with murder in their eyes. She decided that discretion was the better part of valour at that point and vanished.
~~~
‘The lightning freak was Azazel,’ Faith said over the radio. ‘The female one was Ghulah. Do you think both are dead?’
‘I’m sure about Ghulah,’ Mercy replied. ‘Azazel was down, but I can’t be sure about dead.’
‘Well, one of them down is a big plus.’
‘We need the pluses. Speaking of which, how are those reinforcements doing?’
‘Millhouse has sent them in. They should be arriving in the next few minutes, though I’m not convinced he sent enough.’
‘I guess we’ll have to see.’
~~~
‘It’s having an effect,’ Joe reported from high above the battlefield, ‘but the Damned Ones are deep into the defences and it’s going to be hand-to-hand to dig them out.’
‘I’d noticed,’ Mercy said. She was working her way through one of the trenches closer to the facility, clearing enemy soldiers out. She was more than aware that she was one person with a limited effect on the course of the battle.
‘The Damned Ones have shifted their tanks into more of a defensive role to counter the ones General Millhouse sent up. The new mobile artillery units are having an effect on the rear lines, but there’s not much they can do to help closer in.’
‘We could do more with dedicated forward observers, but we don’t have the equipment.’
‘If I had a laser designator… But I don’t. The Damned seems to have shifted his personal tactics.’
‘Oh?’
‘He’s fighting in a unit with his remaining Anathema. Uh, the lightning guy definitely survived.’
Mercy grimaced and took out her frustration on a trio of Damned Ones she came across as she turned a corner. Bits of them were falling to the ground before they even realised she was there. ‘So, they’re sticking close to him?’
‘Especially the lightning one.’
‘Huh, maintaining his barrier now he’s lost a damage sponge. What kind of name is Ghulah anyway? Where did that come from?’
‘It’s Arabic,’ Joe replied. ‘It’s the female form of ghul, which is where English gets ghoul from.’
‘Really? Huh. I didn’t know you knew Arabic.’
‘A few words, but that’s not why I know that one. I like horror movies, remember?’
Thinking back, Joe had been the one to bring along a lot of horror videos. There had been storage aboard Theia for entertainment of various kinds, but you had to select your genre. Joe had selected mostly monster movies, zombie flicks, and slasher flicks. A couple of them had been pretty good… ‘I remember. Never knew they could be educational.’
‘Yeah, well, zombie apocalypse movies have been particularly inspirational since we got back. I just wish I’d paid more attention to the mutant survival horror ones.’
~~~
Mercy located the group of Damned Ones commanders and took her time observing them before she acted. There were only five of them, including The Damned, which meant that one of them had been injured or killed by Baxter’s troops. Go Baxter’s troops!
The Damned was just as he had been described; perhaps a little less demonic, but then Lilith made up for that. He was massive, at least nine feet in height, broad across the chest, thick in the waist, and muscled to the point of absurdit
y. He wore no shirt and the slacks he was squeezed into had obviously been designed for someone smaller. His skin was an ugly mottled grey while his teeth and nails were dull yellow. Straggly, dark-grey hair fell to his shoulders, but his shoulders had risen up to consume his neck in bulging, corded muscle. He had a flat nose, sunken eyes, and a thick upper lip which gave him a permanent sneering expression. Mercy saw him pick up a soldier by the neck with no apparent effort, strangle him with one hand, and then use the corpse as a projectile against other men. She got the strong impression that he was enjoying every moment.
Beside him were two more massive men, not quite as tall as The Damned, but fairly even in the muscle department. One was a bald man with skin as white as snow and red eyes. He wore a wife-beater shirt and torn jeans; Mercy was not sure they had been torn before he had stretched them over his thighs. The second was jet black, like he’d been carved from obsidian.. His unkempt hair and his eyes were the same. Both Juggernauts seemed to be acting more as shields to The Damned, taking on anyone who became a threat.
Azazel was also there, sticking to The Damned’s side and taking on more distant targets with his lightning. His brush with death at Mercy’s hands seemed to have made him more cautious.
Lilith was more of a roaming death machine. All confidence, she walked ahead of the group, though she never strayed too far from her leader. In her hands was a chain, the links blazing with hot, red flame. Whenever someone got within range of it, she would lash out, and her targets would burst into all-consuming flames. There was a rifle slung across her back, but she did not seem inclined to use it at the moment; the chain was all she needed. She was an attractive woman, if you discounted her horns and eyes. She was slim, toned, tanned, and busty. She had full, curvy lips and a cute sort of nose. Her hair was short and fiery red. However, a pair of short, up-curved horns were growing from just behind her temples, and her eyes were black with glowing-red irises. The demonic features somewhat detracted from what might have been a truly beautiful woman. Her outfit was, frankly, outlandish. She wore a red bra and a very short black skirt with a leather harness which circled her neck and ribs and seemed to be the only thing she was wearing as underwear. Added to that were black thigh-high boots which at least were flats. Black latex bandages wrapped around her arms and fists. Aside from lacking stiletto heels, she looked like a fantasy succubus or something, which was possibly what she was going for. She also seemed to be very much enjoying burning men alive as she advanced.
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