Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  * * *

  Harmony thumbed the detonator in fury, anticipating the rear cars to break off, the glorious explosions and flames to follow, and perhaps the sight of Bulwark attempting in vain to save as many as he could.

  Nothing.

  Incredulously, she thumbed it again, harder, then whacked it against the side of the car. Nothing.

  “Whassa matter, Harm?” the girl shouted back. “Toy not work? I wonder why?”

  “What did you do?” Harmony screamed back in a white-hot rage.

  “Found all the bombs and defused them! Oh, and disabled the device to separate the cars! Told you we were trained well!”

  The girl reached up to pull down her scarf and raise her goggles. She was grinning. With a feeling as if she had been drenched in ice-water, Harmony recognized Scope.

  “Scope…” Harmony snarled. “And I’m guessing Bruno’s with you?”

  Acrobat rose up from between the cars. His face was also hidden behind a ventilator, mask and goggles, but his boyish salute and wave gave him away. Harmony realized something else. He was getting smaller.

  No, they, and the vet cars, were getting smaller…because they were separating from the train. Acrobat waved again, and in his hand Harmony saw the manual locks that connected the cars together.

  “Don’t worry about us, Harm,” said Scope over the Blacksnake comm. “We have someone in here who knows how to drive. Oh, and about your toy, you did realize there were bombs planted in every car, didn’t you? We didn’t want you to miss our show, so we disabled all of them for you. Wasn’t that nice of us?”

  If Harmony had felt drenched in ice water before, she now felt as if she had been frozen solid. Verdigris had sold her out and set her up, just as Verd had set Jack up. He had never intended to pay up. And he had figured on making sure he wouldn’t have to by killing them all. She seethed with anger, but fought it down. She had other problems right now, loose ends to take care of before she paid Verdigris one last call. One of those loose ends was staring down at her, his jaw set, his face a stone mask to his fury.

  “Just you and me now, Harmony,” he said. “I told you I’d see you again. Let’s see how much you break this time.”

  “Fall back!” Harmony cried, and backed away from the door. “Defensive positions! If they breach, take them down!”

  * * *

  Bull turned away, and motioned one of his men to the door. The meta grinned and raised his arm. His hand seemed to disappear, replaced by a hot, incandescent flame that blew out like a torch. Bull let him pass to work on the steel door, and motioned to Paperback Rider. “Rider! Move your team out!”

  Rider nodded. He motioned his team around him. They did a quick check of their gear, including their magnetized gloves and boots, and gave him the go sign. He knelt and raised one fist high in the air. As one, they reach out and took hold of his arm, and then they vanished.

  Frankentrain whistled. “That’s a new one!”

  Bull grunted. “You know how he works, his powers are all one-shots. He’s been saving that one for a while now, for when we needed it. Too bad it’s short range, or he could’ve taken them all to the front compartment…”

  They heard heavy footsteps on the roof as Rider’s team leapt to the next car.

  “…but that’ll do. C-Torch, we through yet?”

  “Just about!” C-Torch yelled, his hand burning a slow circle through the barrier.

  “Frank, you’ve got point. You’re on anything energy-based they throw at us. I’ll pick up the slack behind you for any stray projectiles with the shield.” Bull stared intently through the glass. Harmony’s forces had set up a barricade halfway up the next car. “Standard melee assault maneuvers, ladies and gentlemen. We take territory and hold it. If you see Harmony, chance the artillery. She’s blinding fast, and you don’t want her touching you, is that understood?”

  “Yes Sir!” the ECHO Ops answered.

  C-Torch hooted as he finished cutting through.

  “Then let’s go to work,” Bull snarled, and kicked the door down.

  * * *

  “Overwatch: Command: full in slash out relay Gamayun, ECHO dispatch,” Vickie ordered, giving Gamayun of the CCCP and Colt of ECHO Dispatch full access to the chatter on all channels. That took some of the coordination off her hands. Which was a good thing, since a few seconds later, Bulwark came on her private freq. It was fairly noisy with shouts and sounds of combat.

  “Overwatch, can you switch Scope and Acrobat’s Blacksnake comm over to us?” he asked.

  Hoo boy. Don’t ask much, do you? “Maybe,” she replied, and quickly told her Heisenberg Calculator to give her numbers. “Uhm, Probability, 40%. With a 75% modifier that we’ll lose Blacksnake chatter altogether.”

  “Anything we can do at this end to better those odds?” he replied. “I don’t want to lose the Blacksnake chatter, but we need our ops back online.”

  “Will it to happen,” she told him, honestly. He hesitated a moment, probably not sure if she was being serious or not. She was.

  “Do it,” he said. “Out.”

  Oh crap. She dove for her box of personal packets and got out Scope and Bruno’s, plugging them into the first available spots. “Overwatch: Command,” she said as she worked. “My personal freq. Open ECHO Dispatch. Open CCCP Dispatch. Colt? Gamayun?”

  “Go, Overwatch.”

  “Da, tovarisch.”

  “I might lose the Blacksnake chatter in a minute; something I have to do might drop it. If you’ve got a free hand, try and pick them up. They’re using Blacksnake Protocol Baker-Niner-One-Alpha, and they’re on Harry Dog Six Seven Oh point One Baker. Colt, this’ll mean you’ll have to tap into ECHO’s comp capability and—”

  “No worries, Overwatch. I woke up Sam and sent him down to the computer room. It’s ours, and Greenboy won’t get a whiff.”

  “I think I love you and will have your children,” she said fervently, getting back into her chair. “Gamayun, CCCP’s rig isn’t as sophisticated—”

  “Da but is more robust. Sturdy socialist construction. Nechevo, sometimes brute force wins day.”

  “Roger that. OK, I need to do my thing. Pick up the slack for me for about a minute. Try and catch if the Blacksnake ball drops.” She took her hands off the keyboard for a moment, closed her eyes, and calculated. Law of Contagion, Scope and Acrobat had their comms in their hands or on their belts. Law of Identity, Vickie could see those comms via the security cameras on the cars. Law of Similarity, make their freqs look like Overwatch freqs. And in…three…two…one…go. She blazed through the equations like a rocket, because there was no time. No time.

  And in the monitor showing Scope and Acrobat’s cams…the Blacksnake comms at their belts failed. Spectacularly. In a shower of sparks.

  Oh bloody…Vickie’s thoughts dissolved into a cascade of Romany cursing, when two freqs that hadn’t been live in far too long suddenly lit up. “Scope to Overwatch. Overwatch, did you hex our Snake comms?”

  “Scope?” she yelped.

  “And Bruno,” Acrobat said gleefully. “Hiya VeeVee. We kept our Overwatch rigs, we figured we might need them.”

  She thanked all the gods of communication as she typed commands into the keyboard. “Overwatch to Misfits. Big Man wants you on comm instanter. Or in person. Can you make it to him?”

  “Sorry Overwatch,” Scope answered. “We’re slowing down, the big guy’s pulling away and we haven’t learned to fly yet.”

  Vickie swore. “Well that’s just…wait. Did you say fly?”

  * * *

  It only took a few minutes of flashing over the rooftops of the city before they neared the MARTA line. The train was easily visible, even from a distance. As they swooped in, Natalya glanced at the group of ECHO metas on top, moving hand over hand towards the front car. She hissed as she saw another group of Blacksnake emerge between the second and third cars. A train-top battle! Unter knew that she had always wanted to take part in one of those. But there was other wo
rk to do first, then she could play. They had to take control of the train, and her cargo was just the sort to do it. The Commissar banked left to intercept the lead car, staying as high as possible until they were almost directly above it. At the last moment she dived, plunging them towards the unforgiving metal roof of the lead car; Georgi was afraid that she was going to smash both of them into it until she braked with another plume of energy. He gave her a thumbs up, and she set him down; it was difficult, but he was able to land on the roof of the car without a loud impact; something like that would have surely alerted the occupants inside, which would ruin the entire plan. Natalya nodded to him once before rocketing off again, eager to return to the rooftop fighting.

  Untermensch hunkered down, crouching to the train car’s roof; the wind from the train’s speed was enough to stagger him if he stood at his full height. Lowering himself so that his belly was flat against the roof, he slowly crawled until he was at the left edge. Gripping the edge of the car, he used his free hand to retrieve a tactical mirror from a pouch; it had an extendable neck, but he only pulled it out to about half a foot. He had to keep a firm hold on it; the wind kept threatening to tear it from his grasp. Carefully, he placed the end of it over the edge, and angled it inward. Squinting, he could make out the interior of the cabin.

  There were eight “Rebs” in the car, including one that was at the controls. They were wearing a mixture of denim and leather, with typical biker patches and the Rebs’ club patch on their cuts. He scanned each one carefully. There. Many of them had tattoos, but Unter noticed that they weren’t biker tattoos; most of them were military-themed. Under their cuts were low-profile plate-carriers and load bearing vests. True Rebs are never so well outfitted. Sloppy work, scum. Replacing the tactical mirror in its pouch, Unter decided that the time to act was now.

  Coming up into a crouch, Unter gripped the edge of the car, and then oriented himself to face inwards. He reversed his grip, and then kicked his feet off the edge of the car, swinging toward the center of the car feet first. The glass window in front of him exploded inwards, the sudden rush of wind in the car sending the shards flying. There was a Blacksnake merc directly in front of him; bracing his legs, Unter pushed against him as he fully entered the car. Taken completely by surprise, the merc was launched off of his feet and through the opposite window, sent screaming and bleeding to the ground below the tracks. Landing in a crouch, Unter unholstered his battered Makarov pistol; one of the Blacksnakes to his right was starting to recover and draw a weapon. Unter fired rapidly three times, striking the merc in the chest and arm. He went down, but Unter could tell he was only wounded. Body armor! I must aim for their faces.

  Before Unter could line up another target his pistol was kicked from his hand. The Blacksnakes were circling around him as they regained their bearings. The one that had attacked him lunged with a knife; Unter caught it in his nearly invulnerable hand and snapped the blade off at the hilt, throwing it to the ground. The stunned merc still had enough sense to keep his guard up. Unter began pummeling him with blows, aiming at joints and weak spots not covered by the body armor under the merc’s clothing. He had driven the man against the control booth for the car, and was about to deliver a crippling blow to the bleeding merc’s neck.

  Then he felt the muzzle of a pistol pressed against the back of his head. Less than a second later everything went dark, and Untermensch didn’t feel anything more.

  * * *

  Natalya shot up into the sky, hung for a moment, then began a glorious swan dive and hurtled towards the Blacksnake operatives climbing up onto the roof of the train. She had never before had the opportunity to knock mercenary svinya off of a moving train, and she planned to enjoy herself.

  “We can’t be leaving Georgi to be having all of the fun.” She was accelerating to ramming speed when the call came over her comm. She slowed her descent, and grumbled at the interruption.

  “Red Saviour, this is Overwatch.”

  “Da, go ahead Rasputin’s Daughter, I am listening.”

  “I thought you’d promoted me to Hero of the People, Commissar. I read you as being right over the train.”

  “Correct. Am going to be smashing mercenaries soon. Out with it, Hero of the People.”

  “You should see that the last two cars have separated from the rest—that’s the ones with the WWII vets in them.”

  The young witch was right; the last two cars had detached from the main section and were slowing down. That was most excellent for Natalya; it would give her more freedom in blasting the kidnappers to steaming bits.

  “It seems two ECHO Ops moled themselves into the Blacksnake ranks and dropped a shoe into their gears. Can you pick them up and haul them to the rest of the train? They don’t want to miss out on the action. Request of Bulwark, with his compliments and thanks.”

  Nasrat. “Beink taxi for ECHO spies is not what I agreed to when beink signed up for this ‘conspiracy.’”

  “Of course not. The advantage is that Bull is going to have the back door open for you and a gun and ammo waiting.”

  “Have both already, needing neither anyways.” She mulled it over for a moment; time was wasting, and the train was only getting closer to the station. “Fine, fine, I will be there. Tell them to back away from open doors; don’t want to scare any of the little heroes or be squishing one when I land.” Natalya flipped in the air and twisted, turning towards the end of the train. She flew in a wide arc, decreasing in altitude until she was almost level with the tracks. Her HUD from Overwatch was keeping her updated on her speed, elevation, and other vital information; a marker in her vision indicated where her two ECHO charges were. Increasing speed, she accelerated towards the open door at the back of the rear car, cutting off energy for flight when she was twenty feet away. Her momentum carried her forward, and she was able to clear the doorway by five feet, landing heavily on the floor of the train car.

  Two people, a slender young woman and an elfin young man, stepped forward to meet her. They wore what looked like generic uniforms, but were oddly covered from head to toe. They wore battle masks under rough scarves and goggles to cover their necks and faces, their hands clad in tough leather. Her HUD immediately identified them as her pickups, that they were wearing tactical armor under the uniforms, and the arms they were both carrying. “Good,” she said, nodding. “You are not beink fat with Amerikanski fasting food. Am beink your taxi, da?”

  “More like our angel, Commissar ma’am, if you Russkies have angels,” said the young man. “Overwatch gave us instructions on running the car, we’ve got that under control.”

  “What we are havink is no time for theological discussions. Are both of you ready? Where am I taking you?” She had placed her fists on her hips, impatient already.

  “Where else?” the girl said. “To the fighting!”

  “Davay, then. Come over here so I can grab both of you, under your arms.” They moved as fast as ones of her own comrades in the CCCP, she was gratified to see; Bulwark must train his underlings well. A nice change. She wrapped her arms around both of their chests tightly; she was taller than both, so she had to crouch down slightly to do so. “Do not be shrieking like frightened babushkas when we fly.” Without another word, she kicked off from the edge of the door, dragging the ECHO metas with her. Her energy plume erupted below her feet, carrying them up. Both of the metas kept silent, but she felt them both scrabble and grasp onto her arms tightly as they ascended. With the extra weight Natalya wasn’t able to turn as quickly or as gracefully; she felt as if she were hauling sacks of grain on a farm. Fortunately her HUD was able to allow for all of that; it even gave her several options for a plotted trajectory depending on how high or fast she wanted to go. Useful thing, this. Victoria was definitely elevated to Hero of the People.

  Very shortly they caught up with the rest of the train; flashes of light seemed to erupt from the fourth car, and there was open fighting on top of the first. She swooped down sluggishly, coming to a rest atop the
back compartment. “Packages are beink delivered.” She released her hold on Scope and Acrobat; it took them a half second to release their grips on her arms and drop down to grab firm holds of the train roof.

  “Commissar, much appreciated!” Scope yelled. She nodded to Acrobat. “Let’s go!”

  “Which fight?” Bruno shouted back. “Outside or in?”

  Scope glanced at Rider’s crew. “Looks like the outside team have them on the ropes! Let’s get inside to Bull! C’mon! Hurry or there won’t be any fighting left for us!”

  “I like your thinking, girl!” Nat grinned, and motioned to follow them into the train when her inner ear pinged with an incoming message.

  “Overwatch to joint command.”

  “Chyort voz’mi!” Natalya shouted. “Vedma, what is it now?”

  “Blacksnake units moving openly on Five Points Station. Estimate twenty based on comm chatter and headcount via traffic cams. Not enough ECHO in place to hold them off and what there is, is mostly ECHO Med.”

  “Chush’ sobach’ya,” Saviour swore. Small arms, mostly healing powers, they will be target practice. “Was lookink forward to using Systema in close quarters. Have not had enough practice.” She sighed. “Overwatch, am comink to strafe svoloch Blacksnake from air. With luck, will catch them at entrance; will make nice cozy place for Blacksnake to beink turned into paste.” She gave Scope and Acrobat a quick salute, turned on her heel, and kicked off of the train car. As she rose, she saw a group of ECHO fighting their way atop the car she had dropped Untermensch onto. There was still one Blacksnake left. Unable to resist, she charged her fists, squinted a little to sight, and blasted that last man off the top, sending him in a graceful arc that was doomed to end in a not-so-graceful splat onto the pavement. Mollified, she accelerated up, using her energy to speed into the blue Atlanta sky.

  Be leaving some for the rest of us, Georgi, she thought. Otherwise it is going to be a boring day indeed.

  * * *

  “Overwatch to joint command. Man down, Car One, Untermensch.”

  Rider was channeling the novelization of Enter the Dragon and thanks to his opponents was a little too busy to do more than swear. The writer hadn’t been very good, and as a consequence his Jeet Kune Do was a lot weaker than Bruce Lee’s.