“You wouldn’t!”
“I would,” Bull said. “Fortunately for you, there’s another option. Given that I was your commanding officer from the time you attained your OpOne levels, I don’t have much say in what will happen to you other than as the warden of Top Hold. I’m too close, they won’t allow it. All I can do is send you to GenPop for further questioning, or without any substantial evidence to hold you, release you outright.”
“You can’t!” Scope hissed, rising to her feet. “If you release me, I’ll be thrown out of ECHO altogether! No active duty, no reason to stay, I’ll be sent packing!”
Bull turned to the camera in the corner of the room, and motioned the guards outside to stand down. He turned back to Scope, and motioned for her to take her seat with a irritated flick of his eyes.
“Would that bother you so much?” he asked, after she had slumped back in her chair.
“Yeah,” she answered. “No. I don’t know.”
“Well, fortunately for you, you don’t have to decide just yet. Turns out you have a sponsor.”
“A sponsor?” She glanced up at him in surprise. “Who would be crazy enough to sponsor me?”
“Who amongst us isn’t crazy by now?” Bull muttered, retrieving his tablet and scrolling down to a memo he had just received that morning. He shook his head in disbelief. “As if she doesn’t have enough to do. Operative Victrix wants you to report to her as soon as you’re released, if you’re released. It seems she requires your aid.”
Scope looked baffled. “What does she want me to do?”
“It seems your recent absence has caused some unforeseen complications with another inmate.”
“Harmony,” Scope nodded, understanding. “She wants me to see Harmony.”
Bull nodded. “Normally I wouldn’t have problems with a withdrawn and quiet Harmony, but Victrix wants her at her talkative and snarky best for some monitoring she wants to try. Seems she was only that way when you were around. For her, it’s a chance to catch Harmony with her pants down. For you, it’s a chance for a new start. If you want my advice…”
“Always,” Scope breathed.
“…you will do exactly as she tells you to. You need all the goodwill you can get.” Bull stood up and motioned for the guards to release the door lock. He turned to leave, but paused briefly, swinging his head back around the door. “One more thing…”
“What’s that?”
“I wasn’t kidding about the smell,” he grunted. “Clean yourself up before you see her. Goodwill starts with not forcing your foulness on everyone within fifty feet.”
And with that, he was gone.
Sorry, dear, imagined Reader. You’re going to have to wait to find out what Jack and I wanted Scope for. Let your imagination soar.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
* * *
Song of Solomon
Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin
It had been a long week, and it looked like it was only going to get longer. John and Sera had been deployed twice already, responding to new major attacks. The Thulians were stepping up their game, and the attacks were coming more and more frequently. First it had been a major railyard near Atlanta; then a nuclear power plant right on the border with Alabama. The power plant had been a tough one; the security forces weren’t a match for the combined Thulian assault. Most of the guards were rent-a-cops with a couple of weeks training, maybe a few years on the job working on a beer gut or counting the days until retirement. With the War on Terror, a lot of them had had AR-15s shoved into their hands, a couple of pamphlets on terrorism and NBC—nuclear, biological, and chemical—precautions, and expected to be prepared to defend the plant. The smart ones had run when the Thulians had shown up; most of the brave ones had died, despite everything John and Sera had done to help. The plant itself was going to be under repair for at least three months; John didn’t want to think what would have happened if the Thulians had been able to take it out, and the havoc all that nuclear material would have played with the entire South.
John almost missed the days of the pop-up attacks from before the Fall of Metis. If it were still business as usual, as it had been back then, he and Sera could have been used a bit more tactically instead of like strategic assets: going and actually hunting the Thulians, instead of responding to their attacks. Recon, infiltration, destroying high value targets or rescuing VIPs were the things that he used to live for. Hell, if they weren’t on call at all hours of the day, they might have even been able to go visit Zach surreptitiously. Probably not, all told. After all of that shit with the Feds, we’re probably being watched more than ever. Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
No rest for the wicked. They had another call. John and Sera were flying hard and fast for the port in Savannah; it would be the second time they had to defend it. Usually the Thulians didn’t try to hit the same location twice, especially after they knew that it was within range of John and Sera. Almost too late, three Death Spheres had been detected going for the port; one F-15 had valiantly tried to intercept them, but was destroyed, pilot lost. The three Death Spheres were larger than the most commonly encountered ones; not as big as the gigantic one that Vickie and the orbital “Hammer” weapons platform had taken out in the battle at the Superstition Mountains, but still too damned big for John’s liking. Troop carriers, with that crazy space-bending tech. How many suits of armor do they have in there? Dozens? Hundreds? It didn’t matter; however many Thulians there were, John and Sera could not allow the port to fall. It was the fourth biggest port on the East Coast, and losing it would be a horrendous blow to the war effort. There had been some international shipments hit on the open seas already, but it seemed that those were more “might as well” attacks as Death Spheres were on their way to juicier targets.
John double-checked their position on a wrist-mounted PDA; he could “feel” where they needed to go, and had his Overwatch HUD projecting their flight path, but he liked redundancy when it came to navigation. Almost there, darlin’, he sent to Sera; the roar of the fires that were propelling them, in addition to the wind from how fast they were flying, made verbal communication all but impossible.
The situation is very bad, love. I think they are offloading troops into the ocean and having them walk the floor of the bay to the shore. The water will protect them until they are right at the edge of the docks.
It was a different tactic than the Thulians had used last time; a little sneakier, at least for Thulians. Got your boots on? I think we’ll have to kick ’em right back into the ocean, he sent to her with a hint of a chuckle. If only it were that easy.
The port was supposed to have some defenses; antiaircraft guns and missile systems, and two of the missile launchers that used the ECHO/CCCP incendiary loads, as well as several teams of soldiers to man it all and provide ground security. It wouldn’t be enough to hold off a sustained assault, though. That’s where he and Sera came in. Hopefully.
“Heads-up. They’re offloading in the ocean.” That was Vickie, confirming what Sera had guessed. “You won’t be able to hit them until they’re out of the water. They must have modded the suits for an onboard air supply. I’ve cleared you through and sent your flight paths and vectors to the ground support so you don’t get splashed before you can help.”
“Roger that, Vic. We’re breakin’ through an’ ought to have visual on the port right ’bout…now.”
On cue, John and Sera came out of the low clouds they had been flying through, and were greeted with a bird’s-eye view of the Port of Savannah. Three Death Spheres were descending on it from the east, heading straight for the canal. Streams of AA shells lashed out at the Death Spheres, the tracers looking like angry fireflies in the early morning twilight. Contrails from surface-to-air missiles trailed up impossibly fast towards the Spheres; the missiles either missed, or more often than not, were shot out of the air by actinic energy blasts. The Spheres looked like they hadn’t taken any damage by the time they hit the water, submergin
g completely with tremendous gouts of water splashing out from the impact.
Let’s get to work.
The more that they had been using their battle-sense, the easier it had become for John to enter into it with Sera. Now it hardly required any conscious thought; one moment he was in the Present, and then he was seeing Possibility. Studying the Futures for a moment, he and Sera both knew what they had to do. Instead of diving for the docks or the position in the water where the Death Spheres had submerged, he and Sera simultaneously angled their flight sharply to the right, aiming for a spot over the top of one of the defensive emplacements. Looking on from the outside, it would seem like they weren’t reacting quickly enough to what was happening. They weren’t reacting at all, in fact, but anticipating.
Seconds later, two of the Death Spheres emerged from the canal in sprays of water, the first rays of true sunlight striking their glistening hulls. They split from each other, aiming at either end of the docks. The defensive batteries opened up again, trying to track the aggressors, still to no apparent effect; the Thulians had actually been learning, it seemed. Instead of just throwing troops at a problem and counting on the relative invulnerability of their armor, they had adjusted tactics, carefully marshalling their assets. They knew they could be hurt, and did their best to prevent that. Not like the first Kriegers, the ones actually wearin’ swastikas. I don’t like fightin’ this new breed any more’n I did their predecessors.
The defenders figured out what was about to happen; the Death Spheres were going to make attack runs on their positions, softening them up for a push from the troopers that the ships had undoubtedly dropped off. Troopers that would be protected by the water until they leapt up on the docks themselves. The soldiers on the docks hunkered down; those that could, at least. The operators on the AA emplacements and missile systems continued to fire their weapons; they knew what the score was. If they stopped firing, there’d be no chance to take down the Death Spheres. Even allowing one to run amok would have been more than enough to catastrophically damage the docks, maybe even the surrounding civilian population. They were there to prevent that, even if it meant dying in place.
The Death Sphere on the right-hand side of the docks from where the Thulians had landed was just about to start its run. The whine of its energy cannons ramping up was audible over the cacophony of the other weapons, and sinister orange light began to spill from the thermite ports on its underside. Right before it could begin raining death down on the soldiers on the docks, Sera separated from John. She pulled up and hovered, while John slowed and formed up behind her with one hand on her shoulder, while manifesting his fire-claymore with the other. The spear of fire that she manifested was brighter and hotter than the ones she had produced at the beginning of the attack on Ultima Thule. She flung it, and it burned through the air like a meteor, impaling the Death Sphere like an apple on a stick. Its attack run halted in midair; it seemed as if the Sphere was shuddering in place, that something critical inside of it had jammed and was keeping it from moving. The weapons were still functional, and entered the last stage before they discharged. Without hesitation, John and Sera dove towards the end of the spear sticking out from the Sphere…and pushed.
There was a whump of displaced air from the blast wave of the explosion that followed. The Death Sphere split in half; part of it completely disintegrated, and a smaller section fell flaming into the canal. Through the cloud of flame where the Death Sphere had been came Sera and John, flying directly for the next Death Sphere—John with his sword at the ready, and Sera with her own sword and another spear—looking like two avenging gods come to exact justice. The second Death Sphere veered suddenly and sharply skyward, putting on speed and gaining distance from the docks.
That one ain’t gonna trouble us for a bit, darlin’. Let’s get to the docks.
Agreed. Those troopers are about to leap out of the water…
Let’s give ’em a warm welcome, then.
The couple picked a landing spot in the dead center of the cement docks, about two hundred feet back from the edge. If they stood right at the edge, they’d be vulnerable to shots from the trooper energy cannons coming from the waters below. From where they were right now, they’d be able to respond to any that made it onto the docks. And the docks themselves were a good place to fight; essentially giant cement slabs, built to take accidental low-speed ramming by enormous cargo ships. Rail tugs were frantically moving as much cargo away from the combat area as possible, though…there were millions of pounds of cargo containers, and no way to move more than a fraction of it away in time. Brave, if a bit ill-advised. Can’t imagine that the cargo is worth dyin’ over, even for union wages.
John keyed his comms. “Vic, tell the soldiers to keep the edges hemmed in when the troopers get up on the docks. Sera an’ I’ll take care of the bulk of ’em in the middle. If they get out around the security forces, we’ll do our best to take ’em out ’fore they do too much damage. Copy that?”
“You’re patched in now. Just say ‘Docks’ and it’ll go straight to C and C there.” As always, John had to marvel at her ingenuity and resources. He relayed the message to the CO for the security forces on the docks.
“Thank God you’re here,” came back the response. “I’m glad they sent you two. Just tell us what you want, you’ve got it.” John gave the soldier on the other end of the line a quick rundown; all that was left for John and Sera was to wait.
It was a tense minute before the troopers made their presence known. John and Sera were ready; if they had been in any immediate danger, their battle-sense would have let them know. As one, an entire rank of troopers leapt from the canal in a shower of water droplets, landing on their feet on the dock. The first line was followed by a second, then a third, then a fourth. Immediately, the first two ranks activated energy shields that sprouted from their arm cannons, interlocking the shields to close any gaps in the front. John and Sera knew from previous experience that the troopers with shields on wouldn’t be able to shoot, or even move very quickly. So long as they kept those shields up, they’d be almost completely protected from anything that might attack them from the front. The lines of troopers stretched for four hundred feet; there must have been at least one hundred troopers, all together.
Everyone held their breath as the troopers stood stock-still, dripping with water and waiting. That changed when a pack of ten Robo-Wolves leapt from the water, completely clearing the ranks of troopers, and landing with a crash in front of them. The Wolves didn’t wait; they immediately surged forward, using their momentum to get a fast start. The defensive batteries and soldiers on the ground began firing, at first wildly at the Wolves and the ranks of troopers; after a moment, their commanders regained control, and the sectors for fire were established. The soldiers would keep the troopers and the Wolves concentrated in one area. Now it was time for John and Sera to do their job.
The thing to do would be to shock these troopers who hadn’t been at the defeat of Ultima Thule. And the best way to do that would be to punch a hole where they thought they were strongest. John amped himself up, then let go with a steady blast of fire; it wasn’t nearly as hot as he could make it, just enough to give them something to think about, keep them buttoned up. Sera jumped into it and ran for the troopers, hidden in the glare. They were already reeling from the impact against the shields when she reached the front lines—they could hold off some of the effect with their energy shields, but not even those shields were impervious to the incredible heat roiling off the point of impact.
Then Sera got there. She had manifested her fire-sword and lay about her like a whirling dervish, attacking the shields where her battle-sense told her they were weakest. Unable to see her through the glare of John’s fire, the troopers had to strike where they guessed she was, and their guesses were no match for her speed. John held the fire as long as he could; an instant before he had to cut it off, she leapt into the air, assisted by her wings, blazing as white-hot as a star hersel
f, and landed at his side again. There were at least twenty troopers down, right in the center of the Thulians’ formation. It was clear from the smoking holes and severed parts that the ones that had fallen would not be getting back up again. The Thulians, while shaken and not having anticipated taking so many losses so early, reacted more swiftly than John had expected; they split their formation into two groups right where the hole had been created. Now they were firing back. The soldiers in the front rows would part long enough for three or four troopers with arm cannons to let loose with a fusillade of energy blasts or power-armor-enhanced grenade throws. Where the blasts or grenades hit their mark, they were devastating; luckily, very few found their intended targets, most detonating harmlessly on the docks or trailing off into the sky to dissipate. When John and Sera were the intended targets—they simply were not there when the blows came. Their battle-sense showed them where the blast or grenade was going to fall, and they evaded everything but a few flying chips of concrete.
They didn’t have time to rest; the Wolves were almost upon them. Instead of standing and waiting for the Wolves, John and Sera charged at them. With John’s enhancements and Sera’s wing beats, they moved almost too fast for the eye to track effectively; the Wolves faltered, for a moment, trying to figure out how to attack the couple. John and Sera split from each other, then crossed paths at the last moment, attacking towards the opposite side. John rushed forward, letting the battle-sense guide him; his first cut split a Wolf from shoulder to hip, sending sprays of sparks and ruined parts clattering across the docks. The second Wolf he faced snapped at his head; he dodged under the flashing metallic jaws easily, swinging his sword, in an easy two-handed strike horizontally, lopping off the front paws of the Wolf and part of its underside. It struggled uselessly, scraping against the concrete as it tried to push itself forward with its hind legs.
Avalanche: Book Five in the Secret World Chronicle Page 23