Collision: Book Four in the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  “You’re right. Darlin’, you know me. Who I was, what I did. There are a lot of guys like me here today, ’bout to help us on this job. That’s a good thing. It’s not ’bout emotion; it can’t be. It’s ’bout the job. If it starts gettin’ away from that, people start gettin’ hurt. So…” He sighed deeply. “We do the job. We make sure everyone else can do their job. But, it ain’t gonna be easy.”

  She held his hand to her lips. “We must do what we must, beloved. Trust in me, as I trust in you.”

  He grinned lopsidedly. “That’s the easiest thing in the world for me, love.”

  “No, I mean trust me. Completely. There are things you are holding from me.” Her eyes searched his. “There is not much time, and we must be as one, if we are to succeed in this undertaking.…”

  John’s breath caught. She knew. Shit, of course she knows, grunt. After what both of you have been through, how couldn’t she? “You’re right again, darlin’.” He took her by the elbow, leading her to the only quiet corner of the barn, a spot where a forlorn little table stood with now-drained and cold coffee urns, where they wouldn’t be run over by all of the commotion. “I’ve been gettin’ new…I don’t know what to call them. Senses? I’ve been able to read people better, see things more clearly. I’ve never been one to miss details, but now…this is somethin’ else. I mean, like beyond, even with my enhancements.”

  Her eyes continued to search his. “Are you anticipating actions? Not as in, something you think others will do, but something you know they will do? And then, they do it?”

  John became animated. “Yes! It’s…it’s not even anticipation. I mean, with trainin’, you get a feel for what’ll happen, because of cause an’ effect. This was more. Surety, almost. Like y’know what to do, how to do it, and when.”

  She nodded. “I no longer see the futures as I did, as the great tapestry of all that has been and everything that might be. But…when someone suggests something, or I think of an act…I can see the consequences. Can you?”

  John thought back, specifically to their first incursion into Ultima Thule. “It’s not…always on. Uncontrollable; it’ll happen when it happens. What is it, d’ya think?”

  “I do not know what to call it. But I know I have shared some of my powers with you, and some with Bella.” Now a faint ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “I think some of it happened when you came back to us, the first time, though you were not then yourself. And then the second time, when you reawakened, divided the remaining powers equally between us. But do not fear, my heart is wholly yours, beloved.”

  “Never a doubt in my mind, love.” John noticed that everyone was starting to move towards the entrance. “Looks like it’s time to go. Y’ready?”

  “As are you.” She squeezed his hand but did not let it go. “Trust. I think that trust will carry us through.”

  They held hands tightly a moment longer, then shouldered their packs and walked through the entrance. It was past three am, local time. The lack of nearby light sources from cities meant that the entire starscape was laid out above them and the sky was so full of stars that it would make you dizzy to stare at them for too long; the milky way was clearly visible, not as a mere band of stars, but a great wash of star-filled light across the sky. The beauty of it was enough to momentarily distract him from what was to come; he could feel Sera’s silent awe at the sight as well.

  Ahead of them, on a hastily constructed airfield, were easily dozens of ECHO Swifts, spooled up and ready to take off. They were in a valley among the mountains; their staging area was a goat and sheep farm, gladly given up for the effort by the owners, who might have looked as if they were unchanged from their herding ancestors of centuries past, but who knew all about the Invasion, the second attempt, and did not want to see a third. The airfield had been laid out, rather than constructed, John now saw as he approached more closely; the Swifts were VTOL craft, and they were about to fly nape-of-the-earth plots to get the infil teams to within an easy hike of that cemetery-valley.

  Nape-of-the-earth. In the Himalayas. This was not going to be a comfortable trip. On the other hand, at least the Swifts were unlikely to fall apart in mid-air.

  Each of the Swifts had a hastily-made paper sign next to the loading door, with the name of the infil team prominently on it. John scanned the field, spotted “Red” with a Red Star on the side of one Swift off to the—inevitably—far left of the field. He spoke softly. “Overwatch: Open: Team Red,” waited a moment, and said, “Comrades, spotted our ride. Far left, front.” Sera was already beside him, but the rest of the team soon fell in behind. Molotok, like any good team leader, made sure his entire team was on the bird before he boarded. Every op. Last on, first off. Despite his limited contact with the Russian, he liked the man immensely; he had the qualities that people looked for and needed in a leader.

  Once the entire team was on, Molotok looked toward the pilot of the craft; he made a spinning motion with the index and middle finger on his right hand. The pilot gave a nod, and shortly after the pilot had spoken into his mic the craft began to lift off. It was going to be a long and bumpy ride to their DZ, but John felt ready for it.

  “Rock an’ roll,” he said quietly to himself. As if in answer to that, Overwatch began to play CCR in his ear. He couldn’t help himself. Despite the hazard and the danger, John Murdock reached over and squeezed the hand of the strange and beautiful creature he loved, and smiled.

  Belladonna Blue: Command and Control Center

  Bella waited in the Command and Control Center trying not to fidget. She was waiting for the Operations Commander…who was not her. She felt the eyes of everyone else in the cramped quarters surreptitiously watching her. She was head of ECHO. But command had been bestowed upon someone else. And they wondered how she was going to take that.

  Gairdner had been with her when she’d been told. They’d sent a four-star General to deliver the edict. He had come at the worst possible time, of course. It wasn’t often that Bella and Bull argued, and the General had stepped into a doozy of a fight.

  “… I don’t see why we are arguing about this,” Bull said. “It’s my team, my call. Scope is a liability in the field right now. I’m grounding her for this one. She simply isn’t ready.”

  “If you don’t clear her for your team, I’ll just put her on another,” Bella snapped. “We don’t have the luxury of holding back anyone. Hell, I’ve conscripted Spoonbender and re-upped some retirees for this! If Saviour hadn’t screwed the pooch and we’d done this on our schedule and not scrambling to catch the Thulians before they catch us, then sure, fine, you could have done whatever you wanted to with her. But Saviour did, and we field every living meta we can get.”

  “It’s a mistake to just field anyone you can get your hands on,” Bull insisted. “More bodies doesn’t mean squat if you have to watch over them like…”

  “She goes!” Bella barked. “That’s it, soldier! You have your orders!”

  And that was when the Four-Star had turned up at the door and the argument stopped dead and had never really been resolved.

  So now Gairdner was about to get on an ECHO Swift with his team, Scope included, and she was about to hand over command of this whole enchilada to someone she had never met. Someone who didn’t know her people the way she knew them. Someone who—

  The door opened, and the entire complement inside the plane stood—no, leapt—to attention. But the Chinese-American who entered had no insignia whatsoever on his uniform. No rank. No ribbons. Just a name tag. A. Chang.

  “Arthur Chang?” Gairdner had exclaimed, before Bella could say anything. “Arthur Chang from—”

  The General had nodded. “He told me he knew you, Bulwark.”

  Bella stood, but slowly, as the gentleman with the face of a Buddhist monk and the eyes of a sage approached her. He paused before her, and offered her his hand. She took it. The handshake was neither weak nor aggressive. “Arthur Chang,” he said, with a touch of formality. “Callsign Art o
f War.”

  She couldn’t help it. Her lips twitched a little. “I hope you bitchslapped the idiot that landed you with that callsign into next week. That is a terrible pun.”

  He smiled, fleetingly. “Yes,” he said, simply. “It is.”

  Bella had listened carefully as Bulwark described the metahuman they called “Art of War.” How they had both discovered their abilities while serving together in the Marines…Bulwark first, because his was obvious. But then…Art…discovered that he had something that must have been the military equivalent of Verdigris’s genius. For him, strategy, tactics, the ebb and flow of battle, it was all instinctive. There was nothing for him to learn, nothing to study, it was all right in there, in his head, without picking up a single book.

  According to Gairdner, Arthur had been tested by every simulation, had been put in charge of one side of war-games time and time again, and at greater levels of complexity, and nothing had been much of a challenge for him. Then he’d come one day to say goodbye. Now here he was again. And every single military leader had agreed; this was the man who would lead in this battle.

  And Gairdner…

  She stood aside, and made a slight gesture towards the command chair, then picked up the headset—wired to Overwatch One, not Two—that had been hanging off the arm and handed it to him. “To be absolutely honest, sir, under any other circumstances, I’d be fighting you tooth and nail for the hotseat,” she said quietly, for his ears only, although she knew that those closest to them could probably hear her. “But the one person whose judgment I trust most in the world trusts you. And that’s enough for me. Take care of this fight. I’m going now to take care of my people.”

  He took the headset from her with his left hand, and slowly saluted her with his right. “I will take care of all of our people, Ms. Parker. And will do my best to deliver yours back to you.” He paused for a moment, looking to the floor before meeting her eyes again. “Thank you for your trust. I know it couldn’t have come easily; it wouldn’t for me, at least.”

  Bella nodded, as the tension that had been in the air faded. Without another word, she made her way through the cramped Command Center, and back out the door, to the Swift that was going to take her to the forward Medical Station, which was where she calculated she could do the most good. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have her Overwatch implants; whatever she needed to do for her ECHO people, she could do from anywhere. But the only place she could heal them was there.

  And Vickie and her secrets are secret still. No matter how much Gairdner trusts Chang…I am not trusting him with that.

  Behind her, as the door closed, she heard Art of War speaking. “All right, gentlemen, ladies,” he said in a firm, commanding voice. “We’ve trained for this long enough. Time to go to work.”

  Red Saviour: Forward Command Center

  Natalya felt the cool morning air on her face as she walked briskly to where the secondary Observation and Control Center was located, in a squat communal building a distance from the barns where the teams had been preparing. As much as she wanted to be in the thick of the fighting, her place was here; receiving directives from the operations center and then ordering her people how to best carry them out. She knew that this made sense, tactically, but she still couldn’t help but feel resentful of it all the same. She did her level best to completely inhale the smoke from her cigarette during her walk. It didn’t help to calm her, but it gave her something to do besides look for something to punch. Just before entering the building at her destination she stamped out the butt, much to the disdain of the door sentries.

  “Overwatch to Red Leader.”

  “Da. Speak.”

  “Away teams are within ten minutes of the touchdown point. Teams Red and Blue will probably land within five seconds of each other or less.”

  “Horosho. I will be in position, ready to act as man of middle, barking into microphone like a good devushka.” Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Natalya confidently strode forward, through the doors and into the building. It was awash with activity, just like the buildings she had come from. Instead of weapons and the people that would use them, however, this place was full of tactical displays, communications equipment, and more of the highest-ranking military men than she had ever seen in one place in her entire life. Everyone was moving, talking, reading, typing on PDAs and the like. And on a side table, the ubiquitous urns of coffee, though from the aromatic odor, the coffee was of considerably higher quality than what the infil teams had been granted, and from the bustle of underlings around the table, said coffee was never allowed to grow scorched or stale. And for the Indian, Japanese, Chinese…who knows, even Arabic leaders, who liked their tea as well as their coffee, the urns of coffee had been joined by urns of tea. Presumably also of high quality.

  Rank hath its privileges.

  In deference to the Russians, she even spotted a samovar.

  The Commissar spied her position; each of the command stations were clearly marked for each team or element of the assault. She walked towards it, but was suddenly obstructed. Worker’s Champion—how had she not noticed his massive frame when she first walked in?—blocked her way.

  “Natalya Shostakovaya,” he said by way of a greeting. Instantly she felt small and young—-again. “It seems your CCCP is of use.” Unspoken, but not unfelt, were the words “after all…” She hadn’t seen or spoken with him at length since she had been demoted and disgraced in Red Square, at the beginning of the Invasion. More than a year later, and yet she continued to feel intimidated by her “Uncle Boryets.” She set her shoulders, crossing her arms as she looked up at the giant of a man. Steel in your voice!

  “Sturdy comrades will always be of use. I would not have any others than those in my command.”

  “Art of War asked specifically that CCCP and the best of ECHO be the first teams in.” That was Victrix in her ear. And there was an evil little chuckle. “He said the Supernauts would probably blunder around like unweaned bull-calves and throw the entire plan into ruins within the first five minutes.” Now that brought a tiny smile to Natalya’s face, whether it was true or not, curling her lips. Worker’s Champion’s frown deepened at the sight of it.

  “Something amuses you, devushka? I would not have thought sending your ‘sturdy comrades’ into a killing zone would be something to cause you amusement.”

  His comment killed Natalya’s smile instantly. “Without my comrades, we would not know about the enemy stronghold in the first place,” she replied, an edge to her voice. “And they got in and out without detection the first time, despite what Blue Girl says. Could your tin-suited men boast of such things, busy as they were with protecting oil refineries, train stations, border crossings, and airports?”

  A shadow of anger crossed Boryets’ face, but he repressed it. One point scored. “The Supernauts go where they are commanded, and are obedient to their orders, which, I fear, is not always the case with the CCCP,” he retorted smoothly. “If you value the lives of your comrades, Natalya Shostokovaya, you would learn the folly of this. Or perhaps their lives only matter as a way for you to slake your thirst for violence.” Without another word, he stepped from in front of her, moving to the other side of the building where his own command station was.

  Natalya’s jaw hung open for the barest fraction of a second before she snapped it shut, gritting her teeth and marching for her command station. She stood behind it, gripping the edges of the desk unit…and wanting nothing more than to tear it from its moorings and throw it as hard as she could at the wall. At first all she could think about was how Boryets could have the gall to speak to her that way, about her own people. Then her anger cooled, and it was replaced by something…worse, and insidious. Doubt. This was supposed to be her war, as her father and Boryets had had their Great Patriotic War. Was she making grave missteps in how she was fighting it? She had always been hot tempered, and had long ago decided that she would rather have spirit and the ability to drive ahead while others pond
ered and dithered, trying to decide. But was her anger blinding her? Did she let it guide her decisions, even to the detriment of her comrades?

  This entire operation started due to her unwillingness to wait for the plans of her adopted sestra, Belladonna Parker, to come to fruition. Would things have been better if she had waited, had listened to her friend and ally? Not only the billions of lives of the planet were at stake, but more immediately, those of her last friends and family?

  “Commissar, Boryets may be trying to goad you into revealing how the CCCP team managed to get in, get out, and stay in communication without revealing themselves. Not even Art of War knows about Overwatch 2, only Overwatch 1.”

  “Worker’s Champion has even less use and even more disdain of magic than I do. What would his motive behind this being, besides?” It seemed unlikely to her…but the little vedma had uncanny insights into people and their behavior. More than once, since creating Overwatch, Victrix had warned her about peoples’ actions or motivations that seemed unlikely, but had proven true.

  “He doesn’t know it’s magic. He doesn’t know how you did it. But you can bet your favorite bust of Lenin that he wants to find out, so he can use it with his Supernauts. He probably assumes it’s a technical breakthrough one of your tinkerers did, something you got from Bella and ECHO, or a powerful psion you discovered. The first two, he probably thinks he can steal if he knows what it is, and the third—he can take from you directly, if it’s a Russian. Don’t let him trick you into saying something before you speak. He knows how to push your buttons; after all, he installed most of them.”

  “Da, da.” The witch-girl was right. It did little to soothe the pain of having incurred Boryets’ disappointment and disdain, however. As much as her “Uncle” frustrated her, and her plans…there had been a time, once, when he had been a second father figure in her life. Stern, but the height of what it meant to be Russian at the same time. He had taught her much, had been the one person outside of Molotok that she could confide in when she had displeased her father. Even though that time had ended long ago, she still could feel its echoes when she spoke with him.