Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Keep that in mind. Might save us munitions.” John kept his suppressed rifle trained down the hallway, careful not to peek the barrel around the corner.

  “Roger. I can bounce on your signal.”

  “Go for it.”

  “Roger. Two guards, your 10 and your 3 o’clock. Two guards, Unter’s 4 and 9 o’clock.” There was another pause. “And mark.” There was a shudder of the floor, a pop, a loud hissing sound, followed by angry shouts in German. John swung around the corner; his Thulian was right where Vicky had said, at his 10 o’clock. Two bursts of suppressed fire from his and Unter’s rifles, and all four Nazis were down. Some Halon gas hung in the air, but not enough to be dangerous.

  “Time to get to work. Bear, Mamona, plant the charges. Unter, take up position on the door; an’ don’t shoot me. It’d ruin my day.” Bear and Mamona ran behind the counter of the armory; the transparent door to the main arsenal slid open after Pavel pressed the hand of one of the Kriegers to its reader-pad. They began to set the explosive charges, while John and Georgi took defensive positions on the door.

  “Guys, drag the corpsicles over behind those crates. Can’t be seen from the door.” Vickie seemed to have eyes everywhere. “Fewer internal alerts we set off before we blow this pop stand, the better.” Bear did so after he finished setting his last charge.

  The last few digits of the countdown began flashing in John’s HUD. “Heads up. Incoming.”

  The metallic footsteps of the patrol marked their approach, even over the hum of unfamiliar tech and the faint vibrations of floor, walls and ceiling.

  Untermensch slapped his hand onto the weapon barrel of the first Nazi through the door; he jerked it towards the center of the room, and the Thulian followed, still gripping his weapon out of reflex. The rest of the patrol quickly rushed in, confused; they were greeted with a barrage of suppressed rifle fire. Unter unloaded the rest of his magazine into the trooper he had pulled through the doorway. John could see a quiet fury behind Georgi’s eyes, carefully controlled. There was a lot of rage built up in the man, leftover and allowed to stew since the Great Patriotic War.

  With the charges in place, the squad moved out to their next objective. Gravity generators. Gonna have to be sure to document as much as we can. He spared another thought for Sera, this one of gratitude. If she hadn’t filled him with her own strength, he’d have already collapsed by now. Gotta make this count…and get home.

  * * *

  Motu and Matai were providing security on the door, with one of Vix’s cams stuck right outside it, scanning for threats. The room had been easy to take; there were only four Nazis in it, after all, and they didn’t have power armor in this part of the facility. What had been hard was leaving one of them alive, and relatively unscathed. Bulwark had taken care of that; it’s amazing what a well-placed rifle butt will do for a man’s ability to stay conscious.

  Bulwark stared for a moment at the unconscious Thulian, then at Djinni. His jaw tensed. “Djinni—” he gestured at the body. “This would be your job.”

  “This is gonna play merry hell with my radar,” he bitched, then set about stripping the unconscious Thulian. Roughing in a face—just taking the face he was wearing and giving it a slightly more Thulian cast—didn’t involve having to rip it off, and he didn’t see any good reason to do a full copy of the guy in his tighty whities on the floor. While the others scuttled around setting charges, he sat on the floor, staring at one of Magic Girl’s wizard-cams, while she fed the image of his own face back to his retinas. Boy, was that trippy. The eye-slits were longer, the nose was more of a suggestion than a real nose, the nostrils were slits. Damn near no upper lip, and a thin, long lower one. Skin a jaundiced-yellow. And Victrix had supplied him with something to replicate the orange-cinnamon smell of the Thulians; he sprayed himself down with her concoction.

  He stood up. “Ready for my close-up.”

  Bulwark gave him a long stare. “That’ll do.”

  When everyone was ready, Djinni lead the way. The team stayed several paces behind him, allowing him to go around corners and into hallways first. This paid off, when Vix warned them “Infil one, little busy here” and they went on ahead because the clock was ticking. She was juggling two infiltration teams in an enemy base that was buzzing with activity, as well as helping coordinate comms and intelligence for the ground battle raging above; it was understandable. Red was able to hide his surprise when he rounded a corner and almost bowled over a Thulian. The Nazi spilled what looked like a stack of manuals, cursing loudly in German.

  “Entschuldigen mir bitte, Uberlautnet,” Red bleated, then groveled. “Das tut mir sehr leid—” He bent down as if to pick up the manuals, then shot up like an uncoiled spring, catching the Nazi under the chin with his hardened fist. The Thulian went down like a felled tree. Red knelt down to throw the Nazi over his shoulder, and then behind a stack of crates in a small alcove.

  “When did you start learning German?” Motu asked.

  “When I needed to.”

  The team moved faster. They didn’t run into any more Thulians along the way, so they actually arrived ahead of schedule. Red placed his back against the wall just outside of the supposed command and control room for the entire headquarters. He could hear a lot of movement and talking inside. Looks like the good guys upstairs are keeping them busy. Since we’re not dead, they haven’t figured our angle out yet.

  “That’s an awful lot of talking going on in there…and what I don’t like is they don’t sound panicked.” That was Vix in his ear. “Lemme boost it.”

  Red’s German wasn’t good enough for him to make out what the rapid-fire conversation was all about. But Vix could.

  “Oh bloody hell.” Her voice took on that flat tone that told him they were probably in trouble. “Listen up, peeps. What they just said was that they aren’t worried, that they’ve only engaged about a twentieth of their force out there and it was the second-stringers at best. And that now that we’ve made them, they are on schedule to pack up and move the rest to a new base by this time tomorrow. There’s several hundred of the bastards outside. You do the math.”

  “That doesn’t change the mission,” Bulwark said firmly. “If anything, this makes it more critical.”

  “That’s a big 10-4. Just wanted you guys to know what’s riding on it. Already relayed the intel. RD, gimme an eye, please.”

  Djinni pulled one of the eyes out of a pouch, and held it in the palm of his hand. The weird little dingus that looked like something out of a steampunk illustration slowly levitated up, then winked out of sight. He waited while she scouted with it.

  “They aren’t even the least little bit alert. We can do this the easy way,” she said. “Showtime, Djinni.”

  Red took a limpet from Motu, and stuck a bandaid on it. The moment the adhesive strip went down, the limpet faded from view. The bandaid happened to have a drop of Vix’s own blood on it, which was kind of creepy, actually, but gave her spell contact. Funny that she entrusted that packet of bandaids to him…

  He walked in, trying to look as if he was there to get something, spotted a warmer full of empty coffee pots, and headed for them. He was in the middle of what could have been any big Command and Control center he’d ever seen; desks, lots of monitors, that skewed Thulian control stuff and odd shaped keyboards and a few sleeves. And…they drank coffee?

  “Frisch Kaffee?” asked one of the men at the nearest desk as he picked up pots and left the limpet. He nodded. “Jawohl, Kapitan.”

  “Gut. Macht schnell.”

  Red walked out just as calmly, taking up his position next to the door. Matai handed him his rifle, and he checked the chamber to make sure it had a round in it. Bulwark nodded to him. Retrieving a small control with a nice, shiny red button on it, he said, “Ready?” He waited for the nod. Thought of Amethist. “Ignition.” He depressed the button, and a too-loud explosion rocked the hallway. Not wasting precious seconds, Red pocketed the control, bringing his rifle up. The team fil
ed in behind him; the entire control room was full of smoke, with several small fires started where the distraction device had caught combustibles. The Thulians were all on the floor and dazed, some that were the closest to the blast being completely unconscious. The team took them down easily, gunfire and rifle strikes finishing off any resistance.

  Once Bulwark was certain the room was clear, he slung his rifle and walked over to what he had been briefed on, specifically; a mainframe computer.

  The eye unstealthed. It whizzed over the control areas, then stopped. Some sort of plug popped out of its rear, and it backed into a slot. Vix sighed with satisfaction in his ear. “Bingo. Come to Momma.”

  While he busied himself with that and the two brothers providing security on the door, Red and Silent Knight began to gather up any physical intelligence they could; hard-copy, maps, and manuals, mostly. “Overwatch, go private. How’re we doing, Vix?” Red had switched over to a direct line with her.

  “It’s getting ugly outside. JM’s Commies are on track so far; I gave them the bad news, so the Reds on Infil Two are trying to plant the rest of their ordinance for the biggest possible boom. Good news: the Nazis never figured on anyone unfriendly getting to this computer station, so there’s no firewalls, no ice, and no interference.”

  “So, what’re you waiting for? Labor Day?”

  “May Day, bonehead. Hush. I’m downloadin’ as fast as the connection’ll let me. Silly me, I didn’t have you pack a T-1 line.” In spite of everything going on, he almost grinned. Put her in her safe spot and damn if she didn’t have moxie.

  Once the team was done, Bulwark gave them the signal to get ready to move. Bulwark unstrapped his backpack; it was his mission-specific loadout, and one that he was going to particularly enjoy getting rid of. Not because it was heavy, but because of what it would do. He plugged it in place of the eye. “Operative Victrix; be ready to initiate the infestation, once we’re safely away. On your word, we’ll activate the package.”

  “Roger. I’m giving them a dose of their own worm, and I think I can get it outside this complex.”

  “Let’s be a nuisance. Double-time, everyone.” The team jogged out of the command room, running down the hallways that Vickie told them to. They managed to avoid any Thulians, but that wouldn’t last.

  “Fly my little virii, fly!” The lights began to flicker almost instantly. The vibration in the floors and walls took on a ragged edge. Then both lights and vibration cut out.

  “Murdock, this is Bulwark. Light the match.” With that, Bulwark pressed a button on his belt controller.

  * * *

  The lights flickered, then cut out. “Murdock, this is Bulwark,” came the voice in his ear. “Light the match.” There was a muted whump, and the floor shook slightly. The HUD flipped over to night-vision mode, triggered, no doubt, by Vickie. The team had IR-illuminators on their shoulders, to make up for the lack of any ambient light.

  John looked over to Untermensch, the Russian gleaming dully in the green glow of NV. “I’ve been waiting all day to do this.” He flipped the safety cover off of the detonator, and depressed the button. A half dozen similar explosions shook the entire base. The floor, walls, ceiling all began to damn near hum with the vibration of something deep inside of the base going very wrong. The team was in what John thought was the biggest room he had ever seen, indoors. It was impossibly big, given the dimensions of the mountain and how deep they were supposed to be. The boys at ECHO are gonna be really interested in tryin’ to figure out what this means.

  Situated on a gangwalk, they had something like a hanger or storage area combined with barracks, containing the entire massed Thulian army below them. It appeared that the Thulians weren’t very conscious of the importance of interior layout; thousands of trooper suits were lined up, mixed in with the open-air living quarters.

  “Ranger isn’t gonna like this, Yogi. You gonna steal their pickanick baskets?”

  “Somethin’ like that, Vic.” Emergency lighting came to life, and loud, warbling klaxons sounded. “That’s our cue.” The Thulians below had begun to scramble, readying weapons, getting into suits, and generally panicking.

  “Why is it that people never, ever look up?”

  John slung his rifle over his shoulder, readying himself. “Everyone, stay behind me. Vic, kill the NVGs. We won’t need ’em in a second.”

  The HUD went to standard. Vickie switched to Russian. “Ja ne mogu perezagruzit’ eto! Vi nadeli svoi shlemi? On sobiraetsja sam vse obstrelivat’.” And for Mamona’s benefit “I can’t flare-screen with these things. You guys got face-shields on? He’s gonna do a one-man arc-light.” The rest of the team exchanged a look, and snapped down their face-shields, forgotten until now. John breathed once, deeply, closing his eyes, trying to relax and focus. Visualized what he needed to do. He was going to try something he had never tried before, and wasn’t quite sure what would happen. He felt the fires, and they came freely. It started along his arms, racing down his hands. He breathed again, and opened his eyes.

  And for the first time that he could remember, he let go.

  The fires rippled outwards from his arms, covering the distance to the closest Nazis in an instant, mushrooming out from the center-point that was himself. The entire room, as big as several stadiums, filled with flames in seconds, billowing and animate clouds of fire seeking victims. The firestorm rocketed across the floor; every unsuited Thulian was instantly burned alive, screaming. Explosions rang out; exposed and storaged munitions cooking off. John felt the fire feeding off of him, bleeding him dry. But he had to keep it going, had to take out as many of them as possible, had to make it count.

  “Holy CRAP!” Almost as quickly as the fires had erupted, a thin sheet of rock-fragments cascaded down from the ceiling, and in a few moments, had melded together to make a shield between the rest of the team and the fires. “Warn a girl next time!”

  Before John could reply to her, a stabbing pain shot through his chest and his vision flared white from the trauma.

  John’s fires abruptly gave out, and he coughed up a gout of blood, falling to his knees. Mamona bent down to help him, but he waved her off, snatching his rifle from his back. “Take out the suits, before they figure out what happened.” John was pale, sweating and shaking, but he managed to raise his rifle. “Weapons free; take ’em down.”

  * * *

  Vickie stared in horrified fascination at the carnage under the walkway. She’d expected something big. What John had unleashed was…epic. Fire and brimstone raining down, Apocalypse on a small scale, if a cavern the size of five football fields could be considered “small.” The backblast alone would have taken down the team if she hadn’t shielded them. She could magically “feel” the barrier shake with the impact of the superheated air coming from the firestorm.

  This is it. This is going to kill him. It’s killing him now. They have to get out.

  She dropped her control on the shield; the steaming fragments fell apart, and rained off the walkway. John was the first to open fire, prone on the walkway. The rest of the team soon followed suit, with Bear firing off plasma blasts next to his PPSh. The remaining troopers, their numbers drastically reduced, were cut to ribbons; not a one had time to return fire, and those that were out of range were still busy recovering.

  “All right people, go go go! Otlichno, poshli, poshli, poshli! Ne obiazatel’no atakovat’ etix, oni pokoiniki! You don’t need to finish this bunch off, they’re toast!” When they hesitated, she added “What? Zshdesh vodki e ikri? Ja skazala idi! Are you waiting for the caviar and vodka to go with the toast? I said GO!” Untermensch and Mamona helped John to his feet, after which he shook them off. The team ran for the exit, rifles at the ready.

  * * *

  Just because you’re paranoid, that doesn’t mean that they are not out to get you. If Vickie had a motto by which she lived her life, that was it.

  So besides everything else, she had sensor balls peppered all over the edges of the battlefield,
looking for anything…weird. And she was not particularly surprised when ten of them went off at once, all in a far corner, where there wasn’t supposed to be a hanger door.

  Well, it wasn’t a hanger door.

  It was bigger, much bigger, than a hanger door, even by Thulian standards.

  She zoomed in cameras as the sheet of rock-face slid up.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh no. Oh hell no.”

  It was an Orb. But it wasn’t like any Orb that had ever been seen before. There were no tentacle ports, no weapons ports, just a single slit that bisected the entire thing. A slit that began to glow a deep and ominous, sickly yellow-green.

  “Overwatch: Command, speed-dial, Mom.” she snapped, her hands flying over the keys. “Command, speed-dial, School.”

  Just because you’re paranoid…you need to have contingencies.

  “Grey, packets.”

  On it. Her familiar sat poised over the boxes of USB packets.

  Both phones were answered on the first ring, almost simultaneously. “It’s bad.”

  “Roger,” said Moira Nagy, crisply, and “We have your back, honey,” drawled the head of the De Danaan School for Talented Teens.

  “Grey, plug in Mom and Charlotte.” The Familiar pawed through the boxes, then delicately extracted two. He picked them up one at a time with raccoon-like hands, and plugged them into USB slots on a hub at his own eye level.

  “Command, phone, disconnect.” She cut the calls off. This was her backup. There was no way she would have enough strength all by herself to even dent a regular Orb, much less that thing. And…paranoid meant prepared, so she had contacted her old school and her mother to put together—well call them magical power supplies. Two circles of magicians, one headed by her Mother in Washington, and one at the end of Hudson Bay in Canada at the school, stood ready to feed her magic power. She was connected by blood to her mother’s, and by four years of living and working there to the school’s—and most of the teachers there would be in that circle. Thirty seconds had passed and the glow at that slit was increasing as it rose out of the bay.