Avalanche: Book Five in the Secret World Chronicle

by Lackey, Mercedes

  For a moment, she worried that the foundation of the HQ would crack. This time, the Thulian was prepared for the attack. It actually jumped over the wave. Natalya swore that she could feel the weight of its landing through the street. It canted its head to the side momentarily, and then continued forward. Natalya felt desperation clawing its way through her, a sheen of sweat covering her entire body. If that thing gets to the base…nothing will be able to stop it, short of leveling the entire block. Maybe not even that.

  Before Natalya could say anything else, the Thulian stopped in the street. The comrades on the roof continued to rain down rockets and bullets; they had kept their discipline and were firing accurate, measured bursts. The Thulian turned its helmet to look at them. Just then, Thea fired an RPG. The Commissar could tell it was a beautiful shot, even from her position on the street. In the blink of an eye, a rippling wave issued from the T-shaped visor of the helmet, hitting the warhead in midair and causing it to explode. Thea barely had enough time to duck before the wave hit the side of the HQ; Natalya watched in growing horror as the brick started to melt and explode.

  “Nasrat! Some kind of heat beam?” She steadied herself, then continued to fire energy at the Thulian. “Roof team, take cover! Do not get caught by that thing’s weapon!” She stopped firing for a moment, then turned to Chug. Her squat comrade had been standing beside her silently for the entire fight. “Chug?”

  “Da, Commissar?” He turned his head so that he could see her, his black eyes searching.

  “Go kill that fascista, comrade. He is going to hurt Thea! He has hurt your friend Kirill.”

  “Hurt…Thea? Hurt Kirill?” he rumbled, looking from Saviour to the Thulian.

  “Da. Now go hurt him back!”

  Chug roared, charging towards the Thulian. For such a bulky creature, Chug could move with frightening speed when he wanted to. Natalya was infinitely grateful—not for the first time—that Chug considered the CCCP to be his friends and family. The Thulian didn’t appear to take notice of Chug until the last moment. The sound of Chug crashing into the Thulian rattled the teeth in Natalya’s skull; she had witnessed a train collision once during a CCCP mission, back in the Motherland. It was the closest thing she could think of to compare to hearing Chug hitting the Thulian at full force.

  And the Thulian…stopped. It had caught Chug’s charge at the last moment; it hunched over, with a single leg thrust behind it, bracing against the force of Chug’s rush. Chug and the Thulian grappled with each other like a pair of wrestlers, clutching each other by shoulder and forearm. Natalya held her breath, hoping…could Chug actually do it? There was the scrape of metal against asphalt as the Thulian was inched backwards, ever so slightly. Natalya was about to whoop in triumph, but it caught in her throat. The Thulian tensed, and then flexed suddenly. A crack of thunder split the air, and Natalya barely had enough time to drop to the ground as Chug flew over her head, hitting the corner of a building half a block behind her, and crushing it. The rock man did not stir from the pile of rubble. Natalya looked back at the Thulian, just as it rose back to its full height. Something hung from its left forearm…with sick realization, she saw that it was Chug’s right arm, still firmly gripping the Thulian’s armor. The small, analytical part of her that was still working past the fear noticed that the armor was partially crumpled underneath Chug’s fingers.

  It can be hurt. It can be hurt. It can be hurt…

  The Commissar picked herself up off of the ground, doing her best to make her voice steady as she spoke. “Jadwiga, Chug is down. In need of medical attention immediately.”

  There was a pause, followed by, “…shto?” Jadwiga partially recovered a moment later. “On the way with the crash cart, Commissar.” There was a tremulous note in her friend’s voice that Natalya had never heard before, and never wanted to hear again.

  “Eight replacing comrade witch, Commissar,” she heard, but barely registered.

  * * *

  Vickie ran full-out all the way to the Egghead Room. She used a spell to slam the door open ahead of her, and another to slam it shut behind her.

  “What in hell are you two doing?” she screamed, as her sneakers squeaked in protest over her abrupt halt. “And don’t bother to deny it. I have a keystroke logger on you and Eight says the appearance of that monster absolutely coincides with you two screwing around!”

  The ectoplasmic entities flashed a guilty look at each other that pretty much confirmed they had been the reason this new Thulian had “shown up.”

  “We were…we were trying to find a way to confirm that the information from your new source is correct, signorina,” Marconi stammered, as Tesla nodded so fast he looked like a bobblehead.

  “SHUT THE DAMN THING OFF! NOW!” she bellowed.

  Marconi’s semitransparent fingers flew on the interface as Vickie stood by, frowning fiercely, arms crossed over her chest.

  “Now,” she said, in a voice so cold the two miscreants probably felt chilled to their ethereal bones, “tell me what you did. There may be a way out of this catastrophe.”

  * * *

  Natalya felt the same despair that she had felt in Metis. Her comrades were dying, were going to die, and she was powerless again…NO! She slammed the hopelessness down as quickly as it had risen. So long as we draw breath, all of us, we will fight.

  “Pavel,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on the advancing Thulian. Her jaw tightened as a burst of anger fixed her resolve.

  “Da, Commissar?”

  “You and I will engage the threat. Try not to die, Old Bear. I may have some further use for you. Stay back, harry it with your plasma and don’t shoot me, fool. Focus on its helmet, see if you can blind it or distract it. I will move in…closer.”

  Pavel opened his mouth as if to question her orders, but a single hard look silenced him. “Da. Is not can of ravioli, but will try to open it, regardless.”

  “Roof team, we are moving in. Hold fire once we are within fifty meters. Use best judgment for when to resume fire; will be busy.” Absently, she noticed the eerily calm voice of Eight repeating her command in English.

  “Commissar,” Eight said in Russian, “hold in place for thirty seconds. We have not attempted the use of electricity on the threat.”

  “Shto?” Saviour said, then shrieked in wordless shock as a transformer over her head suddenly overloaded and a massive arc of electricity shot across the street to connect with the Thulian. It jittered in place for a second or two, just long enough for Saviour to feel another moment of hope.

  But then the heat beam turned towards the transformer and melted it out of existence.

  “Nasrat,” Eight said philosophically. Natalya wasn’t sure whether or not she liked the entity adopting a personality; cold equipment could be hit with a wrench when it was disobedient, but living subordinates generally were opposed to such corrective action.

  “Our turn, Old Bear. Davay!” Nat started forward at a jog, Bear clanking behind her. The roof team stopped firing when the pair were approximately fifty meters away from the Thulian, right on cue. Bear split off to the left, hanging back; Natalya could hear the thrum of plasma flooding his gauntlets, waiting to be discharged. She gathered energy into her own fists until they glowed with barely contained power. When she was within three meters of the Thulian, she released a burst of energy from beneath her feet, kicking off of the ground and launching herself at her enemy. The suit of armor stopped in place, raising the helmet to watch as she arced toward it. Her first punch was staggeringly powerful, a full blast of energy and all of the strength she had in her arm. It managed to turn the Thulian’s helmet to the side. Better than it not moving at all, she thought. She didn’t stay in front of the suit; Bear was already firing blasts of plasma at the helmet’s visor, as fast as his plasma chamber heart could charge his gauntlets. Natalya called on all of her Systema training, augmented with her metahuman strength and weird energy; she danced around the Thulian, targeting joints with energy-laced punches, kicks
, and chops, while using plumes of energy to launch herself from stance to stance. The Thulian, curiosity seemingly satisfied, reacted; it lashed out with those horrible claws, trying to catch Natalya. She already knew that even a glancing blow would be fatal, so she stepped back her attacks and focused on avoiding any damage. It was hard work; despite the Thulian’s immense size, it was fast.

  Natalya miscalculated once, and that was all it took. She landed heavily in front of the Thulian, just out of reach but unable to move immediately. The suit of armor stomped on the asphalt; the shock wave in miniature took Natalya from her feet and planted her hard on the street. She barely managed to keep her head from cracking open against the ground, and her chest felt tight as her breath left her. The sun was blotted out as the Thulian loomed over her, raising a single clawed hand. She heard Pavel yelling at her, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying; blood thundered in her ears, and all she could focus on was the orange glow of the visor, staring at her.

  She forced air into her lungs, willing herself to breathe. “I have died before, bastard. You had better hope that I do not return again.” She propped herself up from the ground long enough to spit directly on the visor. The claws slashed down—

  —and the Thulian tilted over sideways, flailing for balance, when a geyser of water crashed into its flank. Natalya sputtered for a moment, instantly drenched. Hands looped under her arms; then she was dragged back and away from the Thulian. She recognized the hands as Pavel’s mechanical prosthetics; the old man cursed under his breath with each clanking footstep. Natalya looked back to where the Thulian stood; it turned from her to face a small figure behind it.

  “Rusalka…”

  Her left arm was gone; all that remained was a burnt, bleeding stump. Half of her hair—and her face—were burned away, and she was clearly in unbelievable pain. And yet she stood defiantly, her remaining good arm in front of her, the hand balled into a fist. Rusalka screamed; three of the hydrants nearest to her exploded, and columns of water shot into the air. The water gathered, a floating tidal wave, before she brought it crashing down on the Thulian…and herself.

  The water receded; the armored suit had been driven to a knee, and Rusalka…a crumpled form on the ground, unmoving.

  “Commissar,” Bear said as he pulled her to her feet. “We need a plan.”

  Natalya turned her eyes from Rusalka’s body, weariness spreading over her like a wave. “Plan is to fight. Only plan we have ever had, or needed.” For all of the good it is doing us, she added silently. The Thulian resumed its march towards the HQ; it was finally done with distractions, perhaps, and meant to get down to the real business of killing them all.

  “Commissar, it would be advisable to reposition to the sidewalk immediately,” said Gamayun.

  The roar of a motorcycle engine echoed off of the buildings as a Ural screeched around the street corner behind the Commissar. Untermensch sat behind the handlebars, while Mamona rode in the sidecar, a KS-23 shotgun against her shoulder and pointed at the Thulian. Natalya and Bear scrambled out of the way as the motorcycle barreled past them. Mamona fired the heavy shotgun as quickly as she could rack the slide. Untermensch gunned the throttle; a moment later, he seized Mamona around the waist and pulled them both off the bike, curling up around her to protect her as they tumbled free. She was up again in a moment and fired two more bursts just as the Ural rammed the Thulian. There was a moment as the Thulian staggered, then the gas tank went up, engulfing the thing in flames and shrapnel.

  Untermensch and Mamona quickly fell back to where Natalya and Pavel were waiting. Natalya fought against the urge to break into a wide smile, and only barely won. “So. Another Ural lost. They do not grow on trees, Georgi.”

  Untermensch shrugged, cracking his neck. The scrapes and wounds he sustained from dismounting the motorcycle at speed had already begun to heal. “I lay the blame at being put on patrol with Murdock and other Amerikanski so many times, Commissar. Cowboys, one and all.”

  “Hey, this is the only time blowing up a Ural has been my idea,” Mamona piped up.

  * * *

  “Brilliant,” Vickie spat, fingers flying on the ghostly keyboard. “Here we’ve managed to keep the fact that you two survived a secret, and you proceeded to light up a big neon sign with your names on it. I’d murder you if you weren’t already dead. Eight, follow my lead and replicate at any idle transmitter, on my mark.”

  “Ready when you are, Vickie,” Eight-Ball replied.

  The two ghostly forms of Tesla and Marconi stood aside…but they were not as quiet as they seemed.

  “I have control of the flying eye, Nikola,” Marconi “whispered.” “It is the one on the south side of the CCCP roof.”

  “Good. I see a good place to lodge it. There are cavities behind the two protrusions at the rear of the helmet. You can jam it in there, and I don’t think it will notice.”

  * * *

  The Commissar entertained an idea that she had never dared consider in all of her life.

  We need to retreat, or we will all die here.

  She had recalled all comrades to help with the fight. Metahuman powers, RPGs, and bullets were levied against the Thulian, yet it still came forward. Leisurely. As if the creature inside it was savoring these moments; untouchable, against everything that the CCCP could bring to bear. It was almost to the front door of the HQ; Saviour had no doubt that it could have just ripped through the nearest corner of the building and torn its way through the interior. Even with all of their hardened defenses, the armored suit was more than capable of cutting its way to her office and propping its feet up on her desk if it had wanted to. But, no; it wanted them to watch as it virtually ignored them, walked up to their front door, and casually violated their home.

  They had drawn up evacuation plans, of course, and practiced them until every comrade knew the procedures by heart. Even so, Natalya had never dreamed that they would need to use them. Hubris, stupid girl, Boryets’ voice echoed in her mind. You are weak and selfish, and your pride will kill all of the people that you love and call family. You will be alone, and it will be your fault.

  It took a great deal of effort to silence her traitorous “uncle’s” poisonous words. She needed to focus. Her powers, those of her comrades, all of their weapons were ineffective. She wouldn’t throw away more of her comrades’ lives trying to find this bastard’s weakness. It wanted something in the HQ, that much was clear. Fine. We have contingencies. Evacuate all personnel, then detonate “exit plan” charges; all the servers will wipe, any intelligence materiel will be destroyed, and it’ll drop the building down on the svinya. She needed to give the order, and soon, if they were to have time to enact it; she still had comrades on the roof and in the building proper. Jadwiga was tending Chug in the medical bay; she had recalled all of Kirill’s duplicates to carry the rock man, since destroying more Supernaut suits wouldn’t do anything to help. And there was Vickie, somewhere in the base; she had gone off of Overwatch for…something.

  “All comrades,” Natalya said, swallowing hard. “Prepare to—”

  The Commissar’s teeth rattled in her head, and she felt her skin crawl. It was an all too familiar sensation. The Thulian Death Sphere had returned; it crested over the roof of the building opposite of the HQ, gliding death in a silvery shell. The Sphere’s tentacles had deployed, and thrashed restlessly. The bastard is done playing with us. It has called its dogs to kill us, so it can do whatever it came here to do, she thought bitterly. They still had their RPGs and powers, though probably too few rounds for the former. All the same, they could at least hurt the fascista. There wouldn’t be any time for retreat, not before the Death Sphere could level the roof and pulverize the street with its energy cannons.

  A wash of flame streaked across the sky, and for a moment, Red Saviour thought that someone had fired a missile at the Death Sphere, or a meteor had entered the atmosphere. The trajectory was too perfect for the latter; the object hit the Sphere with a deafening crack of sp
litting metal. The Death Sphere listed to the side, and all of the tentacles dangled lifelessly from their apertures. As the Sphere spun towards her, Natalya could make out the thing that had slammed into the Sphere…it was a spear made of blinding white and gold fire. Before the Sphere could recover or reorient itself, twin bolts of plasma burned through the clouds and finished the job that the spear had begun. The Sphere’s engines sputtered as the craft was nearly cleft in half by the explosion, sending it careening and tumbling in an uncontrolled descent down into one of the nearest destruction corridors.

  The Thulian had stopped. It turned to look at the falling Death Sphere as Natalya gaped. A moment later, the entire block was shaken by a tremendous explosion, followed by a cloud of fire and smoke rising from the destruction corridor. She spotted a fireball descending through the clouds where the spear and plasma had come from. She was rocked by a sonic boom, and had to shield her eyes against the light.

  For a moment, Saviour thought it was the Zhar-ptica, the legendary Firebird, that had come to their rescue. After what had just happened, she felt as credulous as a child and inclined to indulge in such superstitious thinking. Enormous flame-sheathed wings thundered, blowing hot wind and dust towards her as a figure between them, too bright to be made out as anything more than a shape, and came to rest between the Thulian and the CCCP HQ. The second half of the fireball was nowhere near as graceful, but still breathtaking; a human-shaped flame shot towards the ground, then stopped abruptly with a sound not unlike a rocket erupting before coming to a rest. Natalya saw the asphalt underneath the figure blister and bubble from the heat, vitrifying before her eyes. As one, both shapes emerged from the flames.

  “Bozhe moi…”

  The Seraphym—Sera now—and John Murdock stood together against the Thulian. Since Murdock’s…reawakening, and Sera’s transformation, Natalya had not personally seen them in action at their full strength. Certainly, she had seen the aftermath of their powers at Ultima Thule, and Pavel was a constant reminder of the inhuman nature of the forces they were capable of wielding. But to witness it firsthand… Her entire life, the strongest metahuman she had ever known had been Worker’s Champion, Uncle Boryets, with her father and Moji not far behind. They had all been paraded as the very best that the Soviet Union had, pillars of revolutionary spirit and Russian might. For all of their power, they did not rank higher than a top-tier OpThree, even Worker’s Champion. In her time at the FSB, Natalya had heard rumblings and rumors that Russia had metahumans that rivaled the worst that America could offer; OpFours of such titanic power that it was almost unfathomable. The rumors went, however, that instead of risking such beings potentially going rogue, or deciding, like the legendary Amphitrite, that they were gods, that the government had found a simpler solution. Kill them. Nuclear weapons tests, it was said, made for fine cover when destroying metahuman bodies.