John reached for his pack. He pulled out what initially resembled a small, polished silver bowl. Upon touching a button on the bottom of it, it unfolded to the size of a large kite. This was something new, “borrowed” from the Echo labs by Bella. It was designed to reflect the energy beams from one or two hits, but no more than that.
“This thing has been tested, right?” John whispered into the throat mic.
“So Bella says.”
“Then here we go.” John had started out around the corner, shield-first, when the blast came. It tore the upper right section entirely off of the shield, almost spinning John with the force. He quickly ducked back behind cover, forcing his back against the wall. “So much for that.” The shield was smoking from where the sentry gun’s cannon had shot away a portion of it.
“Odds are that thing is hooked up to an alarm. You’re on the clock and it’s ticking.”
“Got any bright ideas?” John slung his rifle at his side, examining the smoking shield.
“Lemme check—”
“No time; gotta improvise.” He threw the shield, hard, into the hallway, ricocheting it off of the wall. Almost instantly the sentry gun tracked to it and fired, finishing off the silvered partial disk. In the same instant, John ducked around the corner, concentrated, and released a controlled stream of plasma, impacting the Thulian machine dead-center. It exploded in a shower of sparks and acrid smoke, debris filling the hallway. “Time to move.” He brought up his rifle again, centering it on the door ahead of him. He kicked it just left of the handle, sending it flying off of its hinges; his augmented strength served him very well in situations like this. Reverting back to his training, he checked the corners of the room, sweeping it for any targets, Thulian or otherwise. The room was clear of any threats.
“Still with me, Vickie?”
“Five by five.”
“I think I’m at the objective.”
“Gimme a sec…okay. At your three o’clock. Big wall panel. Under the thing that looks like a clock is a slot. You’ll find the doohickey I gave you fits that. Let’s hope my techno-shamanism speaks alien.”
John fitted the palm-sized gadget—if you could call something that looked like Vickie had married half a science fiction gizmo to half of a voodoo doll a “gadget”—into the slot. Immediately a jury-rigged LED on it began flashing green. He could hear Vickie muttering under her breath, then—“Bingo. Human files.” Then: “And it doesn’t like me being there.”
The clocklike dial lit up and began pulsing. “It’s trying to self-destruct.”
“Get what you can; I figure I’m gonna be getting company—”
“Shit, this is like being in a wrestling match with an anaconda—” He could hear the strain in her voice. Whatever it was she was doing…it was a real fight.
John’s concentration was broken when he heard an almost imperceptible crunch of a boot stepping on glass. He immediately ducked and spun, bringing his rifle up and centering it on the doorway. Reflexively, John fired five rounds, all center of mass for the body that was standing there.
There was no way that anyone would mistake this creature for human. The eyes were so far apart they were almost on the sides of its head, the skin was shiny and gray-green, the mouth like a lizard’s, the nose reduced to the nostril slits. It smelled; a bitter, musky smell with an overtone of grapefruit. Thulian. It was wearing body armor, and merely grunted and staggered back as John’s rounds hit it.
“I got what I can! Grab the dingus and throw it at him!”
John did one better; he unslung his rifle, dropped it to the floor, and keyed his enhancements. In a flash, he was across the room and on top of the Thulian. The Nazi bastard was good; John led the attack with an elbow that should have killed the man, followed by a flurry of blows directed at his face, neck, and abdomen.
“Flashbang! Close your eyes NOW!”
“Shaddup! I’m in the middle of a fight, here—”
Too late. Vickie’s “dingus” went off like a solar flare. John and the Thulian commander staggered, but John recovered first. Still half-blind, he struck at the commander; bones cracked and John could feel the distinctly wet feeling of blood soaking into his gloves. He hit something hard, maybe the Nazi’s armor, and then his opponent was on the ground, dead or unconscious. John struggled back to retrieve his rifle, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. “Gimme a reading, here! What’s going on?” He had already started out the door and back the way he had come, shouldering his rifle to a low ready.
“Corridor ahead is clear as far as the camera can see. Pickup is getting remote footfalls, running, other end of the complex. Getting one…two…three. No sound at the stair end.”
“Got it. Moving.” John ran as fast as his metahuman legs could carry him. As he worked his way up through the base, he came to a section of hallways and spotted a group of Thulians at the end of it. One was carrying a box, the others, weapons; he triggered and threw an HE grenade without a backwards glance, and was already at the entrance to the stairwell when the explosion rocked the corridor. His legs pumped up and down, slamming loudly against the circular stairs, finally carrying him up into the old barracks room.
Thankfully, the only Thulians there were the ones he’d dispatched earlier. He ran in a flat-out sprint, busting through the door and out into the morning. It’ll be just my luck if some straggler or someone I missed spots me and tags my dumb ass. He couldn’t spare a moment to pause and check; the entire base, or what was left of it, was on full alert and likely heading right for him.
“Far west end of the complex, patrol of five, must be in a vehicle or powered armor, they’re coming your way about twenty klicks an hour—”
“Cut it; just lemme know when I’m clear of the facility.” John didn’t bother whispering now; his rifle was tucked away, and he was making a beeline for his vehicle.
He was well into the tree line when Vickie said, “Now.” John mashed his fist into a toggle on a device he had removed from one of the pouches on his gear. There wasn’t any sound, at first. But he felt what happened next, as clear as if he had seen it. The ground shook, jumped, and then fell down. He was in midstride when it happened, and was dumped hard into the ground at close to thirty-three miles per hour. He rolled, cutting himself against rocks and brush before coming to a rest.
“That’ll leave a mark. You gonna make it back to the truck?”
John took a few moments to breathe, then slowly picked himself up off of the ground. “Yeah. I’m not gonna look pretty, but I’ll make it.”
“Mind telling me what you did?”
“Dug a pretty big hole, by the looks of things.” He bothered to glance back at what used to be the Thulian-occupied missile silo; all that was left was a fifteen-foot-deep depression on the ground, black and oily smoke seeping from the center.
“Patrol still coming.” Vickie’s voice had gone sharp with alarm. “At least one power suit. No, two. Make that three. Coming in fast.”
“What happened to the other two?” John did a quick inventory. He only had his rifle, his pistol, a few of the charges that Bella had supplied him with, and some grenades. Not much, in the scheme of things.
“I think the blast got them. You’ll have visual in three…two…mark.” It was just as Vic had said. Three powered armor suits, all tracking towards him, coming up over the edge of the crater he’d made. “I think they are very unhappy with us.”
“Y’think?” They started to spread out; one was coming straight for John, while the other two veered off to his sides, flanking him. None of the Kriegers had fired, yet. Looks like they want a prisoner. Mistake on their part. The suits came to a rest about 50 yards around him. He gauged their distance, then looked to the lead Thulian in front of him. “Y’know, if it was me, I would’ve shot first.” Without waiting a beat, John snapped his arm out, a bolt of superheated plasma arcing from it and impacting the helmet of the Thulian.
“Johnny, I got nothing to help with. Wrestling that intel out of
the computer took everything I had.” It sounded as if she was grinding her teeth. “Someone out there in Krieger land knows some rudimentary techno-magery, and he has a lot of power behind him.”
John recognized and filed the information away as he heard it. He had already figured that he’d be alone for this fight. It was best to count on being alone for every fight, with whatever backup being a welcome bonus if it ever did come.The first Thulian’s body had hardly thumped into the fertile Kansas soil before the other two charged. They were looking to catch him in a pincer move, attacking from both sides at once to incapacitate him. John decided to take their initiative away, and ran hard towards the one on his left. The distance between them closed quickly, and at the last minute John engulfed the Krieger in a jet of flame before juking around him. Pivoting to face the temporarily blinded Thulian, he simultaneously unslung his rifle and dropped into a crouch, flicking the selector to ‘full-auto.’ Two suppressed bursts cracked from the rifle, stitching the knee joints of the Thulian from behind and sending it crumpling to the ground.
The second one that had been following John finally caught up—by jumping over its wounded comrade. Well, shit. That’s new. It took John’s mind less than a second to process several things about these Kriegers. They weren’t wearing the normal power armor that everyone was used to seeing. These suits were more streamlined, not as bulky, and physically smaller than the terrors that fought in the Invasion. Closer to normal metahuman size. They also appeared to have a lighter-weight armor over heavier exoskeletons, as opposed to fully-hardened power armor. The camo job over the normally shiny silver coating completed the differences—what looked like a Wehrmacht camo pattern from the ’40s, if John remembered correctly.
The second Thulian didn’t waste any time; immediately upon clearing its downed comrade, it fired an actinic energy beam at John. The shot went wide, rending the ground to his left. John barely had time to react before the Thulian was upon him. These suits were definitely faster than their counterparts. The Krieger immediately tried to deliver a double overhanded blow to crush the life out of him, kicking up more earth when John snaked out of the way. Every time John tried to gain distance and use his fires, the Krieger would be right there with him. Smarter than your buddies. With his enhanced strength, John could probably keep pace with the suit; only problems were that it had a longer reach, and armor. He was still his usual squishy self; a good blow could lay him out, permanent-like. The enhancements were very good and all, but he’d have a hard time getting up with a broken back. Gonna have to outmaneuver this bastard, outthink him. John focused solely on deflecting blows, keeping himself out of the way of all the energy being directed his way. The weight behind the punches and strikes the Thulian was throwing was staggering; several hundred pounds of metal, controlled by flesh, all hurtling towards John.
“Y’call that fightin’, scheisskopf? I’ve had a worse go in French whorehouses!” The Krieger certainly understood one word of what John said—one advantage of being at a US base in Ramstein was you picked up plenty of insults. He threw everything he had into a hard right hook; John leaned far out of the way, but still felt the air coming off of the punch. John reached down before the Krieger could react, and suddenly snapped the man’s arm behind his back. John did his best to lean away while he jammed the Thulian’s fist into his own spine. Then the blast came. The Thulian’s arm cannon triggered, blowing viscera and metal fragments out the front of his power armor, ending the fight. John was thrown back several feet, but managed to land without bashing his head against the ground for once. He picked himself up and examined the scene. The second Krieger was on his back, with a hole the size of a basketball through his chest, obviously out of the fight. The first one that John had disabled, however, was looking to get back into things; he was shakily trying to raise his arm cannon in John’s direction.
“No luck tonight, pal.” John raised his own arm in response, sending a bolt of fire right into the Krieger’s face. A few seconds later, there was nothing but a charred stump.
“Fourth Krieger, on the ground, unarmored, on your eight.” Vickie’s voice was harsh with fatigue.
“Did y’make sure to record that last bit? The suits these Kriegers are wearin’ are different. Scout variant, maybe.” John could appreciate that she was exhausted, but they both still had a job to perform.
“Ten-four. Saw that. Got the site tagged—explain later.”
“Roger. Gonna do one more camera sweep over the bodies, close-up and detailed, for the record. Then we’ll go talk with our survivin’ friend.” After John was done recording the bodies of the three dead troopers, he leisurely made his way over to where the sole survivor of the patrol was. An unarmored Krieger, human. He was struggling along the ground with what looked like a badly broken ankle—probably took a bad spill when the base exploded. John dragged the man bodily to his feet. “Can you understand me, pal?”
This one was fully human, or so much so that he didn’t show any of the alien traits. The man glared at him with hate-filled eyes, eyes that looked at him as if he were looking at a particularly large and violent insect, and said nothing.
“Okay, that’s fine.” John nodded. “Overwatch, I’m gonna need ya to translate in a second. But, not for this part.” John broke the man’s right arm. First at the elbow, then at the wrist, and then between the two for spite.
“Jeezus, JM—”
“Shaddup, an’ translate. Green, comrade? You can have output on this headset, right?”
“Yeah.” He heard her take a long and shuddering breath. “Pull out the right earbud. I’ll boost the output. Hold it at arm’s length.” John did so. He took a moment to think on Vic’s hesitation. But only a moment.
“All right, pal. Here’s how it is. You sons of bitches aren’t going to have your way with the world anymore. This is just a taste of what you bastards got comin’. Y’dig?” John waited for Vickie to translate.
She did so. There was a pause, then she added more. From the little German he had, it didn’t sound anything like what he’d said. Personal touch? Good girl.
That was when the Krieger’s face went just a little greener.
“Glad we understand each other, Fritz. Be sure to tell your bosses. We’re comin’ for ya, and next time? We won’t be so nice.” John punched the man in the abdomen with his free hand, cracking three of his ribs, and then dropped him to the ground before walking away. “We good here, comrade?”
“Put your ear back in. We’re good.” There was another pause on her end. “My Gramps was in Theresientstadt.”
“I didn’t ask any questions, comrade. We’re cool. I’m gonna peel off the ninja suit and drive back to the hotel. Gonna take me a while; gonna double back a few times and take some wrong turns, make sure we’re all right. You monitor on your end. Roger?”
“Ten-four. Bella and Saviour want to debrief ASAP. Do that on the way, or at the roach-tel when you get there?”
“Let’s wait till I’m back at the roach coach. I want my full attention to make sure I don’t have a tail stuck on my ass. Pin the donkey ain’t my favorite game when I’m the donkey.”
“Ten-four. Take the way you came, go left instead of right at the first turnoff. That’ll take you into a little town with a good distraction in it. There’s what was supposed to be a development that collapsed with the housing market, it’s a maze, I’ll guide you through.”
“Done. Good work, comrade.”
“Try and be quieter next time, comrade. I think you woke up Bear.”
“Heaven help us all, and Chef Boyardee.” John finished the drive with a sense of self-satisfaction for a job well done. It was a feeling he had missed for a long, long time.
***
The fuzzy picture in the TV screen looked like something on public access; three people crowded together at a very small table. Bella, sandwiched in between Red Saviour and Yankee Pride (who looked exceptionally uncomfortable out of his signature red-white-and-blue Echo armor and half-he
lmet).
“Okay, JM,” came Vickie’s voice, both out of the tinny TV speakers and through his earbuds. “I’m running the show from my laptop; we’re in CCCP HQ for security. Your cam is live. We’re ready for your debrief.” The tiny camera he’d taped on top of the TV set had no light to show him it was on; but then it was meant for Vickie’s use usually and was part of his shoulder-rig.
“Roger. Commissar, Bella, Pride.” John nodded to each in turn, and then dived into his debrief; the lead-up to the assault on the Thulian base, his actions inside, how he gathered the intel, and the skirmish once he was outside. “The last bit, I took some personal initiative on. Vickie, care to queue the vid for that last livin’ Krieger?”
“Rolling.” A new window popped up on the TV, effectively obscuring Bella’s head. The feed from his shoulder-cam ran. It paused as it got to the part where Vickie added something. “This was where I told him that they weren’t facing the sort of people they’d been spying on via our television, they were facing people who’d fought the originals of which his crew was a rather inferior copy. And won.”
Nat smirked. “I was catching ‘Stalingrad,’ I am thinking?”
“I might have mentioned it,” Vickie replied.
Bella made a choking sound. “Did you have to—the guy was on the ground for god’s sake, JM!”
“Broken ankle is nothing!” Nat spat.
“He’ll live. And it’s a message that he’ll take back to his masters, even past his words. Murderin’, genocidal bastard lived. Can’t ask for more than that. I didn’t cut anythin’ off.”
Vickie started the footage rolling again. “Look, Bella, YP—JM had to get out of there, didn’t have cuffs on him, and was running short of time. Ankle down, and he’s crippled—until he can reach a stick, then he’s ambulatory. Take out his arm, and he’s gonna have to crawl until he can get to a comm that can reach out to wherever his masters are. When I figured that out, I was good with it.”
World Divided: Book Two of the Secret World Chronicle-ARC Page 49