Invasion: Book One of the Secret World Chronicle-ARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Sorry for the reception. We’re a little jumpy right now.”

  “We did not mean to cause a commotion,” Nikolai said, silencing his daughter with a touch on her arm. “We are still reeling from our own tragedy.”

  “I heard. You have my condolences.”

  “And you have ours. Let us not, how do you say, get off on the wrong foot.”

  Red Saviour rolled her eyes. “Da, da. I apologize for pushiness, Mr. Tesla. Nazis are still being on loose and I have sense of urgency to get back to Russia and find them, instead of sit in plane for entire day.”

  Nikolai and Worker’s Champion exchanged looks.

  “So now you can tell us about dead fashista. Where is being his body?”

  Tesla met her gaze with his own shadowed eyes. The silence stretched out until the strain hinted of secrets concealed. “Ma’am,” he said at last, “I’m afraid I can’t produce it for you.”

  “Then why are we here?” she snapped.

  “I told you, I don’t know.” Tesla picked up the telegram again. “I’m getting an idea, though. The writer of this telegram is an associate of mine.”

  “Horosho! Send for him.”

  Tesla frowned, dragging the tips of his mustache down. “He’s indisposed.”

  “ ‘Indisposed’? I do not know this word.”

  “He ran into a squad of Thule troopers during the attack. Luckily he’ll pull through. He’s a tough—”

  “Thule!” Red Saviour nearly jumped out of her seat. She turned to her father, a light in her eyes., and spoke in rapid-fire Russian. “Papa! That’s where I recognized the commander’s insignia. Your scrapbooks from the Great Patriotic War—there was a man with the Thule emblem on his uniform. A dagger wreathed in ivy against a swastika.”

  Nikolai paused, thinking. “I do recall that picture. It was Boryets that ran into the Thule Society, however. A pack of mystics—”

  “Madmen,” Worker’s Champion said. “They believed that the Germans originated on another planet, orbiting the star Aldebaran, I think.” He noticed Tesla’s look of confusion and repeated the discussion in English. “In the Great Patriotic War, I broke up a ring of Nazi magicians who believed they could summon angels to strike the Russian people down and turn the tide at Stalingrad. It was our good fortune that there are no such things as angels, particularly ones who would aid fascists.”

  He inclined his head in respect. “I am impressed, Mr. Tesla, that you are familiar with the Thule Society. Hitler officially dissolved them before the Nazi party took power.”

  “Echo’s memory of World War II runs deep,” Tesla said. “You recall that my father founded Echo in Atlanta at the urging of Yankee Doodle and Dixie Belle.”

  “Da, da. I remember Yankee Doodle,” Worker’s Champion said.

  “And I remember Dixie Belle. Quite well.” Nikolai winked at his daughter. “However, I regret to say that Yankee Doodle and I did not get along.”

  “Do not remind me,” Worker’s Champion said. “Let me assure you that impetuousness runs in the Shostakovich blood.”

  “Bah,” Red Saviour and her father said in unison.

  “It was of no consequence. Your founding heroes fought bravely at our side, Mr. Tesla. It saddens me that they passed away before I came to their country to visit, although this tragedy would have broken their hearts.”

  “They would have been right in the thick of it.”

  “Indeed, if they had to choke the fashistas with their crutches.” Worker’s Champion smiled. “Our countries have had a tempestuous relationship during my overlong life. Yet in these modern times of unity, I would think that your organization and mine could work together against this threat. Cooperation makes us stronger, does it not, Natalya?”

  She frowned. “Da. Of course. Just what I was going to say.”

  “She speaks for all of us,” Worker’s Champion said with a straight face. “Commissar Red Saviour is the official representative of the CCCP. I am but a functionary, and Nikolai merely consults now and again, when his ladies will let him out of the house. Red Saviour should be the point of contact between Echo and CCCP.”

  “A splendid idea,” Nikolai said.

  “Well, we can use all the help we can get.” Tesla spread his hands. “You can see what we’ve been reduced to. It’s pretty clear the Thule Society targeted Echo facilities throughout the country and Europe, aside from the Red Square incident and a handful of others. They knew our radio frequencies and jammed them exclusively. No attempt was made to hold ground or steal our assets. The attack was a surgical strike.”

  “A Blitzkrieg,” Red Saviour said.

  “Exactly, which begs the question: what next? Why preemptively attack metahuman law enforcement if not in order to open the way for a larger force?”

  “What next, or where next?” Nikolai said. “Metahuman reinforcements can move quickly in a crisis. The goal may have been to weaken all outposts equally—every link in the chain becomes a weak link.”

  “Thus the Moscow attack,” Tesla said.

  “Unless that was merely revenge for handing them their heads in the Great Patriotic War.” Worker’s Champion stroked his chin. “It is an obvious motive.”

  Tesla raised a finger. “Only if they’re German.”

  “They wear swastikas, they speak German…how can they not be German?” Anger passed over Red Saviour’s face. “And Germany itself suffered no attack. Is obvious connection.”

  “Lots of Nazis weren’t German. But look, Germany’s tripping over themselves to offer aid to affected regions. The government issued a strong denial and an apology for even being associated with the Thules sixty years ago.” Tesla shook his head. “Whether the Thules are a renegade military force or World War II holdouts supplied by a serious blacksmith, I don’t think they have any genuine connection to the German government. No government could hide that kind of a force for so long. In fact, the very fact that they left the Berlin Echo facility alone suggests that they’re trying to make Germany a red herring.”

  “Or it could be a ploy by the Germans to confuse us while they prepare another strike,” rumbled Worker’s Champion.

  “The war ended sixty years ago, Boryets. The world has moved on. Someday you will, too.” Nikolai returned the elderly hero’s icy glare. “Alliances have shifted. Would you have been welcomed in America in 1967? Hardly. They would have treated you like a stray fighter jet—and rightly so. Now we are sitting in Atlanta, in America’s own Georgia, with our new friend, discussing our shared campaign against a common enemy. If you keep seeking hidden motives where they do not exist, you will miss the true motives.”

  Worker’s Champion’s expression froze. His jaw muscles worked under his skin. Red Saviour tensed for an explosion of rage. Her father had a way of getting under people’s skin, for good or ill.

  Yet the brawny old man merely crossed his arms and looked away with a pout.

  Natalya relaxed. Worker’s Champion had the capacity for ruthlessness if he did not get his way. In the context of an FSO council room, it carried all the shadowy power of the Russian government, with its various shades of authoritarianism. In Alex Tesla’s trailer, however, it came across as petulance. She flushed with shame that she had been acting the same way out of frustration and exhaustion. Her father and Boryets had been trying to maneuver her back towards behaving like a leader instead of a spoiled princess.

  I must regain lost ground with Tesla, she decided. “You are, of course, correct. The world is complex place today. Bald-faced aggression by first world government is unlikely. However, we must deal with immediate problem at hand. Comrade Tesla, please to tell us what CCCP can do to help you.”

  Tesla suppressed a grin. “Thank you, Commissar. I’m sure you saw how much our city has suffered at the hands of the Thules. Their attack was designed to reap as much chaos as possible in a short amount of time.”

  “Let me propose something,” her father said quickly. “We traveled directly from the airport to your fac
ility. My daughter has a keen eye for civil emergencies, thanks to her years with our militsya. May we impose upon you to provide her a tour of the affected areas so that she might formulate a better sense of the damage you’ve sustained?”

  Red Saviour nodded in agreement until she realized what her father had asked. “Papa, should we not—”

  “Of course, an excellent idea. One hour in Atlanta will tell you more than I could in a week. I’ll make the call at once.” Tesla brought out a cell phone and spoke quietly.

  Natalya gave her father a quizzical look. He smiled in response, a smile she remembered from when he and her mother were still married and wanted to discuss their daughter’s future without her presence.

  “We still have much to discuss,” Worker’s Champion rumbled.

  “And so we shall,” Nikolai said. “When Natalya returns, she can brief us on her findings. And then…” he paused long enough for her heart to sink, “we can brief her.”

  * * *

  “Old men,” Red Saviour grumbled, puffing smoke like a factory and then flicking away ashes. “Every decision on planet is made by old men. Why not just demote me and end farce?”

  After being sent away like a child, the sound of her own anger gave her some relief. “Take her on a tour of the damage” meant “find her a playmate while we solve the problem.” Granted, her reputation for a quick temper preceded her, but this was her father and Uncle Boryets, not the cringing bureaucrats of the FSO. If anyone understood her position, it should be those two.

  Had she crossed the line one too many times? Was she nothing more than a liability?

  Echo personnel bustled past her as she leaned against Tesla’s trailer. Aside from furtive glances—news traveled fast—no one paid attention to her, which was just as she wished it.

  With a slow, deliberate twisting of her bootheel, she ground her first cigarette into the dirt—and lit another.

  “Those things will kill you,” a woman’s voice chirped at her side. Red Saviour glanced up to see a slender, blue-skinned young woman in Echo Damage Control Officer attire. Curiosity gave the girl’s delicate features a warm cast that belied the icy color of her skin.

  “Not fast enough for my enemies,” Red Saviour said, inhaling the nicotine-laden smoke. “Echo Damage Control, da? Let me guess: you are Ice Pack Girl.”

  “Belladonna Blue.”

  “That was being my second guess.” Red Saviour returned to surveying the dark echo campus.

  The girl shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Tesla told me to accompany you on a tour. I’m also new to town.”

  “I am not ‘new to town.’ I am merely visitor. As soon as they—we—are finished with consultation, we return to Russia where we belong.”

  “Ah.” Belladonna Blue scratched her head. “I heard about the ruckus you caused today.”

  “What is ‘ruckus’?”

  “Commotion. Incident.”

  “Da. ‘Incident’ is my middle name.”

  “It is?”

  Red Saviour snorted out a cloud of acrid smoke but still did not face the girl. “Nyet. It is Nikolaevna.”

  “Ah.” Belladonna cleared her throat. “Well, zdrastvuitye, Commissar Krasnaya Spasskaya. Welcome to America.”

  “Shto?” Red Saviour turned to look at the girl again.

  “Sorry, my pronunciation is off.”

  “Was actually being quite good. Where did you learn Russian?”

  The blue girl spread her hands. “My folks are scientists. Politics can’t get in the way of a good debate about particle accelerators, so I met a few Soviets as a girl.”

  “Is that so?” After a pause, Red Saviour offered a hand. “Natalya Nikolaevna Shostakovich, Commissar of CCCP.”

  “Bella Dawn Parker, but everyone calls me Belladonna.”

  “Everyone calls me Commissar, and salutes,” Red Saviour said with a hint of a smile. “Tell me, Belladonna, what have you done to deserve tour guide duty?”

  “Nothing. Like I said, I’m fresh off the boat from Las Vegas. I think she’s our guide.” Belladonna pointed with her chin at a blond woman in a standard issue Echo OpOne outfit, stepping gingerly around piles of rubble.

  Red Saviour forced a smile.

  The petite woman who stopped before them stooped slightly, as if hiding from enemies in the shadows. Cropped blond hair dangled over her forehead. The collar of her Echo uniform was drawn tight around her neck, and long black gloves covered her hands. Her bright blue eyes never rested on one spot for long, and especially not on someone’s eyes. She had an Echo-issue messenger bag on one shoulder, and a bottle of water clenched tightly in one hand.

  “You have business with us?” Red Saviour asked with an arched eyebrow.

  “Oh, yes. I’m sorry. Victoria Victrix Nagy. Vickie.” She extended a hand. “Echo OpOne.”

  The two women introduced themselves to her. Red Saviour remembered to smile. “Nagy. Russian?”

  “Hungarian.” The young woman paused. “With many ties to the old country.”

  “The American South is not being what I expected.”

  “Oh, this is Atlanta, not the South. An hour out and you’d see the difference.” Vickie took a deep breath but found no words to follow it. An awkward silence settled over the women.

  Belladonna broke it with a thoughtful nod. She gestured at the still-uncleared debris. “I know, it’s bad. Were you on the campus when it happened?”

  “No. It’s not that.” She shook her head. “Never mind. You ladies ready for a whirlwind tour of our fair city? They gave me orders to drive you for two hours.”

  “I have no choice. Please to lead on.” Red Saviour tugged at her tunic impatiently.

  Vickie led the trio to a purpose-built Echo sedan. The gull-wing doors lifted out of the chassis as they approached.

  “Fancy,” Red Saviour said. “Such decadence is unbecoming in law enforcement.” Nevertheless, she folded her tall frame into the front seat without difficulty.

  Belladonna patted the extended doors as she climbed into the back seat. “Better for car chases. Easier to fire out of with a sub-machine gun.”

  Vickie practically shrank into position to drive the vehicle. She thumb-swiped the tops of two Echo prescription bottles, which clicked and allowed two pills each to fall in her gloved palm. She very deliberately placed them on her tongue and then squirted water in after them, swallowing with just a hint of frown. Bella knew capsule color and stripe codes by heart, like any long-term pro in emergency medicine, and she could tell these were heavy-duty antianxiety drugs. Someone new to her powers, maybe? Or did their driver have deeper problems than that?

  Vickie pulled her seatbelt tight and pressed the ignition button. The car emitted a quiet hum. The sound of gravel crunching drowned out the electric motor as they rolled into the street. Vickie’s knuckles were probably white under the gloves, by the way she held the wheel.

  “First time in a broadcast power car?” Belladonna said to Red Saviour.

  “Da. Feels like amusement park ride.”

  “They’re a lot like hybrids, except the batteries are continually topped off by Tesla-design broadcast power as long as they’re in range of the towers. A lot are still standing. There’s also a tiny gasoline generator, for long distances. These babies can do zero to sixty in five seconds. They top out at one hundred eighty miles per hour.”

  Red Saviour mentally converted the figure to kilometers and whistled. “Quite acceptable for police work.” She tapped the glass of the windshield. “Bulletproof?”

  “And armored. Ramming plates front and back. We’re riding in the smallest, quietest tank on the planet. Better than an armored personnel carrier, actually. You may have seen some of these used by heads of state.”

  “I am being impressed.”

  Vickie managed a shy grin. “Unfortunately, the rest of our trip won’t be so impressive. Atlanta’s a mess right now,” she commented. Her voice had a tremor in it. As if to illustrate her point, she maneuvered the c
ar around a crater in the road, roped off with yellow police tape and orange cones.

  “I haven’t seen much yet,” Belladonna said. “They settled me into a bunk in a trailer first thing. Folks are spooked around here.”

  “Who can blame them? The Nazis made a beeline for Echo HQ.”

  Red Saviour found the control pad for the window and lowered it before lighting another cigarette. “Is true that Echo has giant statue who fended off Nazi force?”

  “It is,” Vickie said. “But I didn’t see him. They drove him back to Stone Mountain before I…before I was activated.”

  “Drove him back?”

  “They sat him on a massive flatbed truck used for moving cranes. Actually two trucks. The first one’s suspension gave out halfway through Tucker.” She glanced at the Russian heroine. “It’s not easy being a hundred feet tall.”

  “We could have used a giant in Moscow.”

  An awkward silence settled over the car. At last Belladonna spoke. “Casualties?”

  “Most of my team.” Red Saviour puffed on her cigarette. “Hundreds of civilians.”

  “That’s…appalling.”

  “What is appalling is being forced to stay in America while bureaucrats replace my CCCP with army of blundering idiots in metal monkey suits. And I should be in field commanding search teams. Oh, but look, here is being Waffle House. Again. Horosho. Is important I see these things.”

  The car passed a brightly lit Waffle House, ubiquitous in Atlanta. A vinyl sign hung under the iconic yellow tiled sign: Still open for business. Food Bank Drop Box.

  Belladonna’s blue face darkened. “I know what you mean. I should be in Las Vegas. LVFD took as hard a hit as Echo.”

  “Why Tesla thinks now is time for niceties is beyond my understanding. Our united purpose is clear: search and destroy. What is need for secretive discussions?”

  Red Saviour and Belladonna watched the city pass by in silence, mulling over their resentments. Vickie drove north on side streets into downtown Atlanta, where sodium lights flickered on in anticipation of dusk. Storefronts stood dark; some had been boarded up. The usual tourist foot traffic had disappeared, leaving only the homeless and the sinister.