Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  Even if they weren’t wired with Overwatch rig, the past several weeks of Bella as their CMO had instilled a firm confidence in her in every member of ECHO Med. And by this point, most of ECHO Med was on Overwatch Mark One. Including the DCO with Bull’s teams on the train—Gilead, who Vickie could see looking up at the camera from Car Seven and nodding slightly. Good.

  The response was immediate. “Panacea here, lead DCO. We copy, CMO. Pacifist protocol off. Moving now. Out.”

  “I take it we scramble as ordered?” That was Corbie coming in. His team was one of the three Verd had ordered out. Probably to be cannon fodder.

  “Yes,” said Bulwark, very quietly. Clearly he too was avoiding being overheard. “Then ignore anything that doesn’t come from me or Red Saviour.”

  “They could be to ignorink you, too, comrade Bulwark,” Saviour sniped. “I see you beink pinned down, I believe I am beink true free agent.”

  “Bull, how do you want me to handle the ones that aren’t on Overwatch?” Vickie asked.

  “Can you patch into the ECHO freqs without Verdigris finding out about it?” he asked.

  She ran through some mathemagical calculations in her mind. “Maybe. Fifty-fifty.”

  “Who’s ECHO dispatch today?” he wanted to know.

  “Dean Colt.” She knew him by voice; he had been on the list of those they wanted to approach, but she hadn’t gotten around to her usual grueling background check yet.

  “Good man. I’ll take the chance he’s not on Verdigris’ payroll. Contact him directly and do it through him.”

  Vickie’s hands were flying again, while she issued more commands. “Overwatch: command: open direct line ECHO dispatch op.” Meanwhile she directed her rig to scan for Blacksnake comm. They were using one, of course, how could they not be? You couldn’t pull something like this off without comm. Probably scrambled, but Blacksnake was a big organization, and the thing about big organizations was that they got lazy. There was a high probability that they were reusing an old code or an old protocol to scramble, and Overwatch had every old one that Vickie had ever been able to find.

  “Operative Colt,” she said as soon as the link was established.

  “Ma’am, whoever you are, this is ECHO dispatch and—”

  “This is Operative Nagy, callsign VickieVee, ECHO Project Overwatch,” she said, interrupting him. The Colt brothers, Sam and Dean, shared split shifts on dispatch duty, and they were polite Southern boys. It was almost painfully easy to run right over the top of them if you were female.

  “Overwatch? But—”

  “No, Overwatch is not the DNA storage project.” She patched in Yankee Pride. “I have ECHO Dispatch. Authorize me, Pride.”

  In the monitor she watched Pride turn his head away as if scanning the crowd. “This is Yankee Pride, Colt. You are authorized to give Overwatch any damn thing she wants.”

  Vickie blinked, It was odd to hear Pride say anything stronger than “darn,” a testament to how much frustration he must be enduring.

  “Y-yes sir!” Colt stammered. Vickie began explaining the situation to him in crisp, concise detail, pausing only when the search program reported it had found a presumed Blacksnake freq, and again when it reported that, as she had expected, it was using an old scrambling protocol and began relaying the little chatter there was through one of the auxiliary speakers.

  “Patching you through to Operative Bulwark, who has onsite command at the train,” she said when she was done, and turned her attention to the Blacksnake chatter.

  “Colt,” Bulwark said, sounding ridiculously calm. “I assume you’ve been briefed.”

  “Sir yes sir!” Colt responded, and added heatedly. “When we round up Verdigris—”

  “We’ll deal with him later,” Bulwark said sternly. “We do not tip our hand. The only way we’ll get him is if he is unaware that we know what the true situation is. Now, this is what I want you to do…”

  * * *

  Natalya clearly hated every moment of the ride in the van. She kept threatening Mamona with excoriation if she didn’t go faster; given the state of the van and the Atlanta streets between the HQ and the terminal, it was amazing that they hadn’t crashed a dozen times over. More testament to Mamona’s reflexes and knowledge of the city than anything else, but it still wasn’t enough for the Commissar. Untermensch knew what she was thinking. Is proper tactics to seal off the terminal, seal off the Blacksnake dogs’ route of escape…But he knew there was still the not so little voice clawing at the back of her mind, urging her forward to take the fight to the enemy.

  Untermensch had been watching the Commissar from his seat on the left side of the van as he and the rest of the squad were doing final checks on their gear and weapons; merely habit and redundancy, since everything had been checked over rapidly right before they left. After having worked with Natalya Nikolaevna Shostokovich over the years, he had become a very good judge of her moods. Since before the van had screeched out of the CCCP garage, the Commissar had been chain smoking—far more heavily than was usual for her. She had just thrown her last cigarette out of the window and crumpled the empty pack with disgust, her knee bouncing frantic energy, when he decided to speak up.

  “Commissar?” She waved a hand over her shoulder, indicating that she was listening. “Are you…alright?”

  She whirled around in her seat so fast and viciously that for a moment Untermensch thought that the Commissar was going to strike him for daring to ask such an impertinent question. For half a second her face was cast with a crazed, manic mask. Just as quickly, however, she regained her composure; she looked like Natalya again, and not some crazed animal. Well, perhaps not as crazed.

  “No,” she blurted out. “I am nyet fine.” The Commissar clumsily scrambled out of her seat and into the back of her van, her feet kicking towards the windshield and in front of Mamona’s face as she climbed over the seating, causing the car to swerve several times on the road.

  “Hey!—I mean, uh, Commissar. Almost lost a bit’ve control there.” Mamona fixed her eyes front and grip tight enough to turn her knuckles white on the steering wheel, weaving in and out of traffic and down side roads in order to beat the MARTA train.

  “Georgi, we are to be leaving the van now.” The Commissar turned in her seat to face John. “Murdock, you are in charge of evacuating and securing the station until I rejoin you there; no mistakes, understood? None of these svinya are getting away from us, not today.”

  John shrugged. “Roger that, Commissar; it’ll get done.” He racked the charging handle on his M4, chambering a round to punctuate his sentence.

  “Horosho.” She turned back to Untermensch. “Come. Will explain plan on the way.” The Commissar opened the side door for the van, the wind and humidity rushing in. “Time for us to get a horse in this fight.”

  “Dog,” Mamona corrected automatically. “Dog in this fight.”

  “Nyet,” Bear piped up, “is being correct Americanski saying about pig—”

  “Da, da, what it ever is being! Davay!” Natalya threw an arm under Georgi’s arms, and kicked out of the van on a plume of energy, causing the van to rock perilously from side to side as Mamona swore and tried to correct. The van quickly dwindled away below the pair as the rush of the wind in his ears grew louder. He saw that the Commissar was making a beeline for the MARTA line.

  “Commissar!” Unter had to shout several times to get her attention; he’d hardly ever seen her fly this fast before. Finally he was able to gain her attention; she looked down at him, annoyed. “What are we doing?”

  “Getting you to be on train! ECHO is needing all the help it can get!” She outlined the rest of the plan to him by the time they had the train in sight; with perfect timing and more luck than Unter thought existed in the world, the plan just might work.

  Good. I was needing a work out.

  * * *

  “Overwatch to Bulwark. Sitrep update. Teams that Verd scrambled diverted to clear Five Points station of civilian
s. ECHO Med staging at Five Points. MARTA authorities contacted and all trains being halted or cleared out of the station. CCCP moving to rendezvous with ECHO at Five Points. I ID Red Saviour and Untermensch as leaving main force and heading your way by air. Your DCO in car Seven is briefed.”

  “Understood, Overwatch,” Bull said. “Dean, am I patched through?”

  “Sir yes sir.”

  “This is Operative Bulwark, coming across multiple Overwatch, ECHO and CCCP channels. If you’re hearing this, you’re either already aware of our underground movement opposing Verdigris or we’re sure we can trust you to join us. For the latter, we had planned to approach you in time but Verdigris has forced our hand early. He has staged a force of what we believe to be Blacksnake operatives posing as Rebs on the MARTA train escorting the ECHO veterans and has taken the train hostage. We will advise on his motives when we have determined them. For now, if you are not already en route to the Five Points station, please proceed there ASAP. The train has been rigged with explosives, so our goal is to commandeer the train before it proceeds into the downtown core. This will likely be messy, expect casualties and well-trained foes. Bulwark out.”

  “Yankee Pride, verifying Operative Bulwark.”

  “Belladonna Blue, verifying Operative Bulwark. ECHO Med, rendezvous with Panacea on the Plaza Level outside the MARTA Police Station.”

  Bull turned to his crew. “All right, give me the lay of the land.”

  “They’ve got us by the balls, Bull,” Frankentrain said, jerking his thumb towards the front of the train. “That Tammy girl is now in the next car. Her thumb’s not moving from what looks like a remote detonator.”

  “You’re sure?” Bull asked.

  Frankentrain nodded. “She’s making a point of letting us see it.”

  “She’s got about twenty with her in that car, Sir,” Rider added. “From what I remember, she’s got another thirty in the other cars, not counting the lead car which is closed off. We’re going to need a distraction, and somehow get out and over to it without them knowing.”

  Bull nodded. “We’ve got a couple of reinforcements from CCCP coming in. They’ll head for the lead car. Rider, when I give the signal, you take Team 2 outside and join them. How are our captors for weaponry?”

  “If they’re Blacksnake, no idea on powers except for that girl who makes smoke,” Rider reported. “I see a lot of pistols though, and some rifles.”

  “Rifles on a moving train?” Bull said, shaking his head. “That’s a little careless for Blacksnake, isn’t it?”

  Rider shook his head. “Not conventional, Sir. By the looks of them, I’d say they were packing electrical discharge cannons and projectile tasers.”

  “How do you know that?” Frankentrain asked.

  “Read about ’em,” Rider said, simply.

  “All right then,” Bull said. “First things first. Before we move out to stop this train and take out those Blacksnake mercs, we need to get the veterans out of danger. We need to disable that detonator, and failing that, disarm those bombs. I need options here, and I need…”

  “Mister ECHO Man!” Tammy’s voice chimed over the P.A. “You know I can hear you, right? And hel-lo, you should really get your story straight and know who your captors are. As a rule, us Rebs don’t like to be confused with Blacksnake…”

  “Save it!” Bull snapped. He approached the door leading to the next car. Tammy stood on the other side, smirking at him through the glass. In one hand she held a small comm unit to her mouth, in the other she kept her thumb gently pressed against an illuminated red detonator button. “We know damn well who you are, and who you work for. You also know we can’t meet your demands before we get this train under the city, so why don’t we cut the crap and get to it. What do you want?”

  Tammy chuckled, her voice dropping an octave. “Oh good, that voice was beginning to grate on my nerves. So you know, Operative Bulwark. It changes little.” She glanced down at the elevated track and the ground far below. “Tell me Bulwark, have you ever wondered what would happen if you and your kinetic shield hit the ground from this height, and at this speed? Would you bounce like a shimmering ball? Or would the impact knock you out and dash your brains out on that cold concrete? Me? I’m kind of curious to find out.”

  “What do you want?” Bull repeated.

  “Oh, don’t you worry your giant, disproportionate head over that,” she said with a smile. “You just worry about keeping calm, keeping your people still, and hey, maybe I’ll even let you try to negotiate with us.” She craned her neck to look around his crew. “Strange, I thought you even had a negotiator with you, the dumpy one with the nice smile. Oh well, the offer still stands.”

  “What did you do with Dusty?” Bull said, and slammed his hand against the protective glass.

  “Careful!” Tammy hissed, and raised the detonator in a menacing gesture. “My thumbs feeling a bit…twitchy. Don’t test me, Bulwark, I won’t warn you again. We see any of you trying to leave that car, any motion to break down the glass or those doors, or any funny business from the vet cars, then I press this nifty little button to separate your cars off and blow you sky high.”

  Bull bared his teeth in frustration, and was about to retort when a new voice came across the P.A. system. A very familiar voice.

  “Hey Harmony!” the voice crackled against sounds of high winds. “Can you define ‘funny business’ for us?”

  Bull turned around and stared through the glass at the other end of the car. Riding the outside of the veteran’s car, a female figure hung by one hand between the compartments. Her face was masked by goggles and a scarf, though it was clearly her shouting through a handheld walkie talkie.

  “Unit Five!” Tammy shouted. “What are you doing out there?”

  “Harmony?” Bulwark said, his head whipping back to stare incredulously at Tammy.

  Tammy sighed and closed her eyes. Bulwark watched as her features shifted in place. When she opened her eyes again, it was Harmony staring back at him.

  “That’s a bit of relief, actually,” she muttered. “Unit Five, I believe spankings will be in order when we get back.”

  “I’m looking forward to it!” the masked girl shouted. “But you didn’t answer my question!” She jerked her head back to the interior of the passenger car. “Would that satisfy your definition of ‘funny business’?”

  Bull turned again. Inside the next car, the ECHO metas stationed with the veterans, and it appeared, some of the veterans themselves, had overtaken and bound their Blacksnake captors. He looked back at Harmony, who was now seething in anger.

  “Who is this?” Harmony demanded. “You seem familiar!”

  “I should!” the girl shouted. “You almost spotted me a couple of times, but what can I say? I was well trained!”

  “Can’t have been that well,” Harmony snarled. “Guess I get to see if Bull can bounce after all.” She raised the detonator.

  “No!” Bull shouted, and slammed his hands against the glass.

  Harmony pressed the button.

  * * *

  Verd had paused again, frowning, with on hand on his earpiece. Bella knew why; Vickie was updating her practically by the second, and he must have gotten word from his goons that his plan had gone seriously pear-shaped. His frown deepened. “Go to Plan B, then,” he growled, and wrapped up his speech.

  But it sounded rushed, and nothing like in keeping with the rest of the speech. People in the audience were reacting with vague unease, detecting the change and not understanding what they were uneasy about.

  His hand is being pushed. He’s distracted. His timing is off…

  “And now, Yankee Pride will unveil the monument to our honored fallen,” Verdigris said, waving at Pride.

  This was not in the script either. It was Bella who was supposed to pull the rope, which was on her side, and they had to swap places so Pride could reach it. That was when she suddenly realized that Verd’s split concentration, the distraction of the fabric
falling away from the monument, and increasingly negative reports coming in on his earpiece just might give her that opportunity.

  She edged closer to him. Yankee Pride pulled the gilded rope, and the canvas dropped, revealing a bland and tasteful—and utterly soulless—abstract of a curving arc of stone rising out of what were probably supposed to be equally abstract ruins. The sharp tip of the arc glinted crystal. Polite applause began. Bella edged even closer.

  Then—

  “Bella, whatever you’re planning, don’t do it,” Red Djinni’s voice said harshly in her inner ear. “Khanji’s gone into full bodyguard mode, and I can’t get to her before she gets to you.”

  The hell? It took everything she had not to start in surprise. “Where are you?” she hissed.

  “Close. Bull put me on bodyguard for you. Stay focused.”

  Oh that was—frustration and anger welled up in her. What was he doing here? He should be with the rest of the team, not wasted on babysitting her! She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself!

  “Dammit, Red, you should be on that train right now! And since you aren’t, you should be at Five Points! We—”

  “Don’t be stupid,” he interjected, cutting her off. “You’re too important. Now stop making my job harder and keep your damn head down. Verd’s pretty pit bull is on full alert, and if you make any moves towards him, she’s going to drop you.”

  With the hope of refuting him, she let her empathic sense drift towards Khanjar…

  Only to be slammed with a wall of adrenaline-charged purpose. Khanjar’s attention was, impossibly, everywhere.

  Red was right. All that would happen if she tried her planned move would be that she would—if she was very lucky—be dropped unconscious before she got close enough to touch him. It was unlikely Khanjar would give her the benefit of the doubt, so probably she’d be dead, and for nothing.

  All right. Plan B. “What if I think of a way to distract Verd so Pride can get out of here without risking myself?”

  “Only if you run it by me first.”

  “I just knew you would say that.”