Invasion: Book One of the Secret World Chronicle-ARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  Or at least, there wasn’t, until a dozen segmented metal tentacles whipped out from hidden ports on its sides. Like a nest of cobras, they struck, half of them seizing the chopper, half impaling it.

  It exploded in a massive fireball that hurled debris in all directions.

  Her throat closing with fear and anger, under cover of the smoke and flames, she ran.

  * * *

  She wasn’t sure where she was when her luck ran out. It wasn’t Peachtree Park, that much she knew. It must have been Four Corners. The streets were wider, and she could hear the screaming, see the black smoke from the fires on the Interstate, in the distance. It was at that point when she tried to duck across the street that she found herself looking up at the chromed armor of a Nazi metatrooper, flanked by two more just like him.

  The helmets featured aggressive blast shields covering the eye area, a mouth shield like the grill on a ’57 Chevy. Twin, swept-back antennae projected from the helmets, one over each temple. There were extremely stylized designs incised into the chest plates.

  The armor looked angry. No telling what the people inside the armor were like, but the armor itself was over eight feet tall. There was one not-so-subtle exception to the entire, shining chrome theme. That was the black swastika set inside a white circle on a field of red enameled on the right bicep of every suit of armor.

  There were five more closing in behind her.

  As she stared, part of her brain noted that there was one among the chromed supersoldiers who wore black armor instead of silver. This one had stylized eagle wings on its helmet instead of antennae. Or maybe these were still antennae, just decorative as well as functional. If the other armor looked angry, this looked lethal.

  SS, said her brain. That’s SS. The SS wore black uniforms—

  As she stood there, numb, frozen, waiting to die—a rabbit caught in a circle of wolves—she almost closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see it coming. But she didn’t. So she did see the panicking, crying ribbon of children that streamed in between two of the buildings, and stopped, the kids stumbling to a halt, clutching each other, and falling silent as they realized that they were trapped.

  The Nazi metatroopers raised their weapon-arms.

  A decade and more of training, practice, and discipline, coupled with rage, overcame Vickie’s fear, smashed through her paralysis, and took over.

  “You hateful bastards!” she shrieked, as the power rose up into her, from the Earth Her Mother, into her hands, building as quick as thought into the weapon she had wielded for most of her life.

  The Earth rose up in answer.

  When the Tuatha da Danaan fought, it was said, the Earth itself ran like water and crested like the ocean waves. That power was Vickie’s: the skill, knowledge, and the magic of the Geomancer. The Earth thrust upwards in a blindingly fast wave between the Nazi troopers and the children, a wall of broken asphalt and dirt and stone that caught and absorbed the terrible power of their arm cannons. Nor was that all, for like the wave, it crested and crashed down on them, half burying them in debris. A second wave began as they struggled to their feet. The Earth’s magic power flooded through Vickie in a molten torrent, and she stood there with her arms outstretched to it, surrounded by a golden glow.

  “Run!” she screamed to the children, intercepting a second, more scattered barrage of blue-white energy with her Earth-wave. “Run, you little rats!”

  And she sent a secondary wave, bulging the asphalt, to shove them on their way.

  They ran. And the Nazis staggered to their feet again, this time turning their attention towards her, exclusively.

  Energy beams concussed the pavement to either side of her as she changed her tactics, calling on the Earth to heave up right under their feet, knocking them down and back. Can’t aim if you can’t stand…

  But she hadn’t forgotten the spheres. She began backing away from the Nazis, alternating upheavals with Earth-waves, one eye on the sky. Because these guys were going to call for help eventually—

  Where the hell is Echo? Where are the metas? she thought frantically.

  But she knew where they were. She could see the black smoke of fires, hear the explosions, and in the distance, the screaming. The metahumans of Echo were all around, doing what she was doing. As the sweat of exertion and fear ran into her eyes and clumped her hair, she called on the Earth to deflect and protect her. As she ran low on personal stamina and her control over the magic faltered, she heard the sound of a heavy truck motor behind her. Incredibly, it was accelerating towards her and the Nazi metatroopers. Vickie heard the truck skid to a halt with screaming tires and shrieking brakes and she heard people pile out of it.

  And then she heard the barrage of gunfire.

  They’re nuts! she thought incredulously. They can’t—and the knee joint of the Nazi metatrooper nearest her, only just steadying himself and bracing to fire at her again, disintegrated.

  He toppled over. Another barrage erupted, and the knee joint of another trooper vanished in fire concentrated with pinpoint accuracy, as only a sniper could muster.

  But the remaining troopers aimed—and Vickie’s rage returned. She slammed into them with another upthrust of broken concrete and dirt.

  “Keep it up, miss!” came a voice from behind, cracking with strain. “I’m gonna run out of bullets before we run out of bad guys!”

  Moscow, Russia: Callsign Red Saviour

  “Commissar,” Stokov said. “Please pay attention to our discussion.”

  “I am listening,” she said, disgruntled. She’d lost any momentum she might have had.

  Korovin stepped back in. “FSO has spent money and time to defuse the negative publicity stemming from your zeal. You’re living in the past. We don’t brutalize rich men because we’re jealous of their success.”

  Outside, at the edge of the Square, a Delex truck pulled up close behind another, drawing her eye. “I don’t follow.”

  “That’s been obvious for months.” Korovin shook his head. “The council has discussed a reorganization of CCCP.”

  “You can’t do that,” she said. “Boryets—Worker’s Champion—is here. He’d never agree to it. He founded CCCP before you were even born.”

  “It is our responsibility now, and for your information, we have already discussed the matter with him. He has agreed to come out of retirement to lead—Commissar, I must insist that you pay attention to the proceedings!”

  Natalya had been staring at the third Delex truck, parking on the heels of the second. The space between the trucks wasn’t enough to squeeze a body through. Something was not right; a knot grew in her stomach.

  “Da,” she said, eyes glued to the window.

  “You’re being demoted, Natalya Nikolaevna,” the Chief Director said in a soft voice. “You’ll be given the rank of Associate Commissar, under Worker’s Champion’s direction.”

  “Associate, da,” she agreed. A fourth, fifth and six truck were completing a semicircle around the protest. They couldn’t possibly unload their cargo while parked so close together.

  “Commissar!” The Chief Director pounded his coffee cup on the table, splashing coffee. “I will not be ignored!”

  Her anxiety had reached her chest. She stood. “Something is wrong,” she said.

  “Natalya, sit down,” Korovin said.

  “Shut up, svinya,” she said, moving towards the window as if in a trance.

  As she touched the cold glass, the metal sides of the trucks shredded. Metal figures burst out of the trucks, dozens, hundreds, as if packed in the trailers like sardines. Their chrome armor reflected the artificial light in hyperreal starbursts. Arm guns the size of bazookas pointed at the crowd; the figures towered over the protesters at nearly three meters.

  Behind her, Korovin was the first to process what she’d seen. “Terrorists!” he shouted.

  Natalya sprinted for the door. The Chief Director called her name. “Where are you going? This building is full of officials who need to be evacuat
ed!”

  “Do it yourself,” she said, pushing a guard out of the way. In the hallway, members of the CCCP had gathered at the window. Red Saviour didn’t stop running. “Fall in!” she shouted. The metas fell into step behind her.

  “Natalya,” Worker’s Champion said, matching her stride. “What are you doing?”

  “Leading my troops,” she said. “You can fire me afterwards.”

  Molotok sped up to her side, getting in Worker’s Champion’s way. “You have a plan, sestra?”

  The window at the end of the hallway loomed before them.

  “Da.” She raised her voice. “Follow me down! Spread out and confront the terrorists! Protect the workers first!”

  Energy coruscated around her hands. Five feet away from the window, she threw it forward in an enormous blast. French windows that had been assiduously cleaned and painted for a century exploded outward.

  “Davay, davay, davay!” She yelled. “Come on!”

  By ones and twos, the heroes of the CCCP burst through the hole in Block 14 of the Kremlin, either taking flight as Red Saviour did on a plume of meta energy, leaping with metahuman muscles like Molotok and Chug, or sliding down the ice ramp that Father Winter formed from the moisture in the air.

  The walls of the Kremlin stood at twenty meters, forcing Winter to maintain the elevation of the ice ramp. The ice creaked and roared as it formed unnaturally fast. As quickly as they moved over the wall near the Saviour’s Gate, she knew they were seconds away from a massacre.

  The terrorists, moving with military precision, leveled their guns on the crowd. Blue-white light passed, and left death behind.

  They were already too late.

  “Squad Odeen, engage! Squad Dva, right flank. Provide diversion! The rest of you, crowd control!” She gathered her energy at her feet to follow Squad Odeen into battle.

  Beneath her, Chug had paused on the ice ramp, clenching and unclenching his fists. Tears fell from his eyes.

  “Chug not unnerstand,” he rumbled. “Why are silver men mad at shouting peepuls?”

  “They are bad men, Chug,” she said. “Go make them mad at you instead.”

  Chug unleashed a primal roar, his whole body shaking, sending mineral-laden tears to freeze in a misty halo around his head. His legs tensed and he leapt from the ice ramp into the nearest line of—were they terrorists?

  The militsya themselves had recovered first from the shock of the attack. Those nearest the attack opened fire on the armored figures with pistols. The terrorists as one then directed their fire at the militsya, cutting them down without effort.

  Petrograd and Netopyr had reached the front lines. Their own armored forms were dwarfed by the giants surrounding the square. They’d understood Red Saviour’s orders perfectly: draw fire away from the civilians.

  Petrograd unleashed his arm cannons in a wide spray. Something had jammed their microcomm units, so she only heard his howl of rage as a word she’d heard her father utter with venom during his war stories: “Fashista!”

  She swooped in towards the line of terrorists, and saw an emblem that awakened horror in the Russian collective memory. A black swastika in a white circle, on a flag of blood red.

  “Nasrat,” she cursed. “They’re Nazis, real Nazis!”

  Red Saviour accelerated towards her target, letting her meta energy crescendo in her body until she felt as though she’d burst. The Nazi trooper’s helmeted head turned up to watch her approach. Metal joints groaned as he elevated his gun to fire upon her.

  Two seconds, she gauged, for him to lock on to me. She twisted her body in anticipation of the blast. It came—a second earlier than she expected. The beam blazed across her back, missing by an inch but burning her nerves regardless. She focused her rage from the sudden agony towards the trooper. Her fist glowed with energy. One hit should shatter his helmet—in the past she’d knocked over a car with a well-placed, energy-augmented punch.

  The trooper was an easy target, slow and lumbering. She braked just enough to add her velocity to her punch and swung her fist at his head. The release of her energy would coincide with impact.

  Energy exploded in a shower of sparks; the Nazi’s helmet rang like a bell. He swayed for a moment, then hefted a gauntlet the size of her head to retaliate.

  “Shto?” Red Saviour couldn’t believe it. The armor had absorbed the punch as if it were a sandbag. She darted away from the trooper’s clumsy swing and hit him with both fists on the top of his head. Again, no effect. The unnatural hum around the trooper intensified.

  Remembering her Systema training, she let loose with a series of blows to his head and torso, expending quantities of energy that should have leveled a house. The more she hit him, the better a target she became. She knew she had to move before they opened fire.

  “Commissar!” The muffled shout was Netopyr’s. The walking tank planted himself next to her and blasted at the troopers with his own energy cannon, which glanced off their armor as harmlessly as her blows. They switched targets to the large, slow moving, armored Russian; a volley of beams lashed out at him, tearing his armor off in chunks, crushing the man inside.

  She howled as he crumbled to the ground like a bag of bones. The moment of distraction was all her opponent needed to connect. His metal fist caught her in the ribs and hurled her back into the panicking crowd.

  Stars erupted before her eyes. She spat blood and scrambled to her feet. Three militsya fired hopelessly at the Nazis. A captain helped steady her.

  “Commissar! We can’t hurt them!”

  “Then stop trying.” She pointed at the walls of the Kremlin: one of the ceremonial guards at the Saviour’s Gate, dressed in a colorful medieval uniform, was trying to attract the protesters’ attention by swinging his dulled halberd in the air and shouting. Over the tumult, no one paid attention. “Saviour’s Gate,” she told the militsya captain. The legend of the gate was that it had protected Moscow from invasion. “Get them through the gate. Now!”

  The captain nodded and shouted orders to his men. They turned their backs on the Nazi soldiers to herd the crowd towards the gate.

  Atlanta, Georgia, USA: Callsign Red Djinni

  In times of uncertainty we have abandoned jobs, split up, and vanished. Whether in the initial stages of planning a heist, or minutes away from our mark, if things looked too dicey, we booked. That’s the nature of the game. When we felt the law, we dropped everything and left, and we disappeared for a while. And I mean disappeared, brother. We never underestimated the detectives, especially ones with access to metahuman talents. They had ways to pick up on anything, no matter how insignificant, so time was the only thing we could leave in our wake.

  What we were about to do was in direct violation of all we had learned, counter to every method of guile and misdirection we had honed in our five years together.

  This was an all-out assault, and it demanded flawless execution. There was no time for subtlety. Just getting to the goods now meant a quick death to anyone who got in our way. This sort of “kick-in-the-door” approach guaranteed us being made. Made, and linked to multiple homicides. We might as well have faxed our vitals to Echo headquarters, we were so screwed. Our previous record of a few thefts and a minor brawl with an Echo Ops training team had kept our perceived threat level low. Infiltration of the Vault and the massacre of security personnel rated astronomically higher. You didn’t just walk away from something like that; this time, we would have to go into hiding for years.

  We each had our own way of dealing with that knowledge.

  Jon had started taking deep breaths. Trust me when I say that’s bad. It meant she was building up a thirst for some messy violence. She dealt with problems the only way she could; in her mind, any conflict or argument could be resolved with her guns. Sudden ambush? Spray down a little cover fire. Victim’s getting away? Clip him in the legs a few times. Red wants to give S&M a try? A clean shot through his shoulder should shut him up. She was still taking deep breaths when she left for a
final reconnaissance.

  When agitated, Duff would usually babble in a constant stream of descriptive cursing, often involving an adversary’s mother in various states of humiliation and affliction. As I watched him strap on his gear, I couldn’t help but notice that this time, he was strangely quiet. And he was shaking.

  That was a first.

  Was he scared? Well, I’m sure he was. We were all scared. Don’t let the calm exterior fool you, I get scared a lot. You learn to use fear, though. That shot of adrenaline tends to fire up all five senses, six in my case. Being in tune with my skin carried a lot of advantages, including a radial awareness. The more skin I had exposed, the more I could sense from my immediate surroundings.

  I caught a quick, furtive look from Duff. He blanched as I watched and quickly turned back to his guns. Another first, and a bad sign. We needed him at his best, and I was beginning to wonder if we should turn back after all.

  Jack was obviously thinking the same. As he climbed into his flak suit, his eyes were buzzing like he had hit REM sleep. It was one of Jack’s few tells. His mind must have been absolutely racing to deal with our current predicament. Did we have any alternatives left to us? It came down to who we were most afraid of—Echo or Tonda. Both had formidable resources and drive, but there were extremes the law-abiding Echo people wouldn’t go to. Jack, who persisted in his belief that there were always options, was pondering the angles and looking for loopholes. For once, he wasn’t seeing any. For Jack, that must have been torture.

  I was going through my own brand of hell. Unless your nerve endings have been rewired to perceive pain as pleasure, self-mutilation is not fun. Still, it was an emergency, so I took my pocketknife and slit my face along the hairline, sides, under the chin and around my eyes. Reaching up, I took several deep breaths and tore my face off.

  Nothing like immediate, searing pain to take your mind off a dismal future.