Shadow Ops: Control Point so-1

by Myke Cole

  But Harlequin appeared overhead and dove at him, lightning springing from his fingertips. Britton opened a gate to receive the burst and began shifting it into the Aeromancer’s flight path, edge turning outward toward him.

  Then suddenly he was freezing. Wavesign grinned at him, hands extended. A cloud of swirling frost cloaked Britton, numbing his limbs, his teeth. The Hydromancer’s voice was confident, precise, mature. All of his uncertainty, his childlike affectation was gone.

  Britton recognized it as the voice of a trained solider.

  “Once a traitor, always a traitor, I always said,” Wavesign said. “I knew we couldn’t trust you, Keystone.”

  “I’m the traitor?” Britton yelled at him, his teeth beginning to chatter. “You sold out everyone who trusted you!”

  Wavesign shook his head, his wry smile reminding Britton of Harlequin’s. “I’ve never betrayed anyone,” Wavesign said. “I’ve been carrying out my assignment, just like good soldiers do. But you wouldn’t know much about how to be a good soldier, now would you, Keystone?”

  The cold began to overwhelm him and Britton swore, shutting the gate and opening another one on the sauna in the Air National Guard base where he’d been assigned. He dove through it, but not before a bullet whined past his head, tearing a notch out of his ear. An inch to the right, and he would have been dead. He slammed against the cedar wall and collapsed, shivering, willing the heat from the stifling chamber into his frigid bones.

  He looked up at another soldier who sat, wide-eyed on one of the wooden benches, clutching a towel over his privates. Britton smiled at him, working his fingers and stamping his feet, feeling sensation slowly drift back into them. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”

  The soldier got to his feet and ran past Britton, bursting out the sauna door and yelling for help, admitting a blast of room-temperature air that felt freezing to Britton. Britton took another moment to suck in the hot air, the silence, the pleasant smell of the cedar. The heat was as delightful as the absence of battle around him. No time for that. He opened a gate behind where Wavesign had stood a moment before and stepped back in, reaching for his neck. But the Hydromancer had moved on and he grabbed empty air, then suddenly Britton’s magic rolled back, and his head rocked forward, somersaulting him face-first into the dirt.

  As he rolled over, he caught a glimpse of Harlequin and Swift grappling in midair, with Swift getting the worst of the beating, his skin blackening with electrical burns from each of Harlequin’s charged punches.

  “Thought you’d get away, didn’t you?” Fitzy said, stomping at Britton’s face. He rolled out of the way, catching the chief warrant officer’s boot and kicking up to catch him in the small of his back. Fitzy winced and fell on Britton, dropping an elbow into his shoulder joint that knocked it out of socket. He howled in pain and threw Fitzy’s bulk off him, scrambling to his feet. Fitzy was up in time with him, pointing his pistol at Britton’s face. A grim smile spread across his face as he pulled the trigger.

  But the bullet flew wide, for Fitzy was suddenly swept aside by a branch of the gnarled central tree. He saw Peapod gesturing to it as the Master Suppressor went flying through the air, slamming into Downer, who had just completed animating a bolt of frost that Wavesign had produced. The elemental bounded into the press of Goblin warriors, knocking them aside with great sweeps of its arms, sending them staggering, blue-lipped and freezing.

  The elemental plowed toward him, and Britton backpedaled, calling up his magic for a gate. Then the elemental was gone, disappearing in a cloud of vapor. Britton sawed his head toward Pyre, his hand still smoking from the flame bolt. Satisfied that Britton was safe for the moment, Pyre dropped to one elbow, his face pale and sweating. The blood had stopped flowing from his gut and came in weak spurts. After a moment, he collapsed.

  Around him, wolves darted, snarling at their former masters. Britton spotted Richards standing among the SOC assaulters, Whispering the animals on to greater ferocity.

  Fitzy sprawled facedown in the plaza. A Goblin warrior raced to him as he rose and thrust its spear through his arm, pinning him to the ground. Fitzy shrieked and hauled on the spear, gritting his teeth as he moved up the shaft to reach his assailant. The muscle of his biceps squelched around the shaft, oozing bright blood. The Goblin quailed, openmouthed, at the chief warrant officer’s bald ferocity, too terrified to drop the weapon. By the time it recovered its senses and released it, Fitzy had hooked his fingers into its eye sockets and slammed its head down into his knee. As the creature collapsed, Fitzy spun on Britton, ripping the spear from his arm and casting it aside. Britton goggled. Even with a Goblin-sized spear, the feat was impressive. Fitzy howled, covered in gore, looking like he had stepped out of hell.

  Britton staggered toward the edge of one of the smooth stone chairs and slammed his shoulder into it, screaming as the joint popped back into place. The pain flared and ebbed as Britton tried his shoulder and found he could move it with some pain.

  All around them, the battle raged. The sky was riven by streaks of lightning and gouts of fire as the Goblin sorcerers joined the fight. The sharp reports of gunfire and the stink of cordite thickened the air.

  Britton still felt his current blocked by Fitzy, who charged him, screaming. He snapped a kick at Britton’s face, but Britton sidestepped, catching the chief warrant officer’s leg and pulling him into a solid punch on Fitzy’s wounded arm. Fitzy grunted and spun away, only to be grappled by the Goblin spear bearer, who snarled and sank his teeth into Fitzy’s shoulder.

  Britton felt a hammerblow to his thigh and collapsed, clapping his hands to his leg. He didn’t see where the round had originated, but someone had shot him. He rolled on the ground, biting back the pain and trying to see how bad it was. It was impossible. If he released pressure on the wound, he might bleed out in moments.

  A shadow fell across him and he looked up to see Wavesign standing over him, wreathed in a halo of spinning frost. He grinned. “Hurts? Maybe I’ll numb it for you.”

  He raised his hands, runnels of water snaking down his arms to ball around his fists, where they spun, violent and sharp-looking, tiny waves tipped with icy razors. Therese stepped between them. “No way, Ted,” she snarled.

  Wavesign’s face twisted. “Move,” he husked. “I’m not going to hurt you, and you’re not going to hurt me.”

  “Wrong,” she said, and laid her palm across his face.

  The Hydromancer shrieked as his head wobbled and stretched, losing shape and running down his shoulders. His scalp unfolded, taking patches of the skull with it, opening like a blossoming flower. Gray matter churned beneath. Ice exploded from him, and Britton could see Therese’s skin turning blue under its impact. Her beautiful hair crumbled away in chunks, snapping off with the sound of breaking twigs. She pushed Wavesign away to collapse in the dirt, and turned to Britton, her magic already repairing the damage to her face, the skin losing its pale, frostbitten color. She placed her hands over his thigh, and he felt the magic warm him, the bullet sliding forward and popping out the rear of his leg to lie in the moss.

  Soldiers raced toward them, leveling their carbines, then shrieked and doubled over, their hair crumbling and skin flaking onto the plaza as one of the SASS enrollees advanced, snarling. She extended her hands, drawing the water out of them until they were nothing but piles of blowing dust.

  Then she staggered backward, a fireball exploding into her chest and sending her sprawling, shrieking and beating at the flames. A Pyromancer advanced past his fallen soldiers. Britton recognized his perfect black hair and smug smile from the raid that first took down Sarah Downer. At his side shambled two dead Goblins and a soldier, his head mostly severed, and attached to his body only by a scrap of flesh. Truelove came behind them, arms extended and brow furrowed with concentration. Around him, dead Goblins tangled with their living fellows, stabbing with broken spear shafts or kicking and punching with mute resolve.

  And then B
ritton looked up and all hope died.

  A huge gate opened again, LSA Portcullis’s bay a black maw behind it. With a whine and belching of diesel fumes, an armored personnel carrier rolled through behind the SOC forces. Atop the turret, a gunner hunched behind a fifty-caliber machine gun, the muzzle already blazing as rounds spit in the combatants’ direction.

  The fire was withering. The huge bullets churned the earth, tore chunks from the smooth thrones, spun Goblin and human alike, leaving them in bloody heaps. All around them, the Goblins fell back. A few of the white-painted sorcerers weren’t even bothering to fight, and instead herded their folk away from the plaza, making for the gate on the far side of the palisade wall. Britton had no time to make a count, but many of the remaining enrollees lay sprawled in the dirt. One of Richards’s Whispered wolves lay dead beside him. Peapod lay facedown in the dirt, smoke rising from her back.

  We can’t win this, Britton thought. Not anymore. I have to get us out of here.

  Guilt rocked him. They thought I was helping them, and I’ve only led them to their deaths.

  Therese screamed at the Pyromancer and rose to meet him, then fell away as a bullet clipped her shoulder and sent her stumbling backward. She clapped her hand to the wound, her brow furrowing as the magic worked.

  Britton could hear Tsunami screaming and thought he caught a flash of the Hydromancer crouching behind one of the stone chairs, bullets whining around her.

  Swift fell from the sky, hitting the plaza hard enough to bounce in front of where another enrollee knelt, cradling his face. Fitzy stood over him, blood streaming from his fist.

  Fitzy motioned at the SOC force, and they began to fall back around the APC and its giant, smoking gun. With the SASS enrollees and Marty’s tribe battered and pinned down by the stream of fire, there was no need to risk his men in close quarters.

  Harlequin landed beside the Pyromancer, suppressed Britton’s magic, and smiled. Behind him, the line of SOC soldiers advanced into the square in front of the APC. The Goblins had fled. Those of the enrollees who remained ducked behind the stone chairs.

  “No pardon for you this time, Oscar,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re all out of chances.” His voice grew sad as he drew closer. “A shame, really. I had high hopes for your redemption. You might have been able to make at least some of your crap right. Now we’ll never know.”

  And then he was reeling sideways as Therese charged him, shrieking. Britton felt his magic return as Harlequin transferred his current to Suppressing her.

  “Never say never,” Britton shouted, and dove forward, spreading his arms. One caught Harlequin about the waist, checking his flight. The other caught the Pyromancer around the neck. A gate snapped open behind them. Britton knocked both men through and onto the top of flight observation tower back at his old base at the 158th. The structure loomed nearly two hundred feet above the flight line, its hexagonal roof barely eight feet across and covered with slick tile. He threw himself backward as the Pyromancer screamed, tumbling over the edge, his shriek abruptly cut short by a wet thud. Harlequin somersaulted in the air, landing on top of an adjacent water tower beside the flight-line fire station. Britton turned the gate and slid it sideways after him, but Harlequin stretched out his arms, and the gate vanished as the Suppression canceled Britton’s magic.

  He grinned, muttering into the microphone clipped to his lapel, too low for Britton to hear.

  “You blew it, pal,” he shouted across the distance to Britton. “Unless you’ve learned how to fly, that is. You can just cool your heels up there while my crew mops up the rest of your pals.”

  “Screw you!” Britton shouted at him, circling around. The top of the tower offered no way down, with only the huge drop to the concrete flight line below. There was no hatch through the roof. Harlequin was right. Unless he’d learned to fly, there was no way down. “Go ahead and keep me Suppressed! So long as you do, you can’t come after me. We’re going to just sit here until we get old?”

  Harlequin laughed. “Nope. Got plans for you, pal.”

  The rotary whine of helicopter blades sliced the air. The sound was deeper than a Kiowa, and Britton recognized the low pitch as one of the larger Blackhawks. They were usually on practice flights or patrols around the base. It wouldn’t have taken the pilot more than a few seconds to respond to Harlequin’s call and divert to his position. Britton could see the minigun barrels pointing out the sides of the helo as it drove toward him.

  It made no effort to go broadside as it approached at high speed, no effort to bring the guns to bear.

  Then Britton noted that Harlequin’s pistol was still in the drop holster strapped to his thigh. He stood with a clear shot and all the time in the world to aim, but instead had his arms crossed, waiting.

  He wants to capture me again. Maybe he was willing to kill me if he had to, but I still have value to these people.

  Hope blossomed in his chest.

  Britton turned and sprinted for the edge of the tower, putting a mad look of fear on his face.

  Harlequin cried out and leapt off his perch, dropping the Suppression and flying to intercept Britton’s fall.

  At the edge of the tower, Britton dug in his heels, abruptly reversing direction and throwing himself back onto the tower roof. He spun to face the Blackhawk.

  A gate opened right before its nose.

  Directly on the other side stood the APC, its gun silent for the moment. Fitzy and the bulk of the SOC force gathered around it.

  Britton could see the pilot through the helo’s windscreen, hauling on the cyclic controls, but it was far too late to pull up. The Blackhawk passed neatly through the gate, the ends of the rotors shearing off and spinning over the flight line below. A grinding boom sounded from beyond the portal.

  Britton closed the gate and leapt off the tower as Harlequin screamed, tackling the Aeromancer in midair and opening a gate beneath him just before the stone chairs.

  Harlequin’s body cushioned his fall, but both men still hit the ground hard enough to jar them apart, just as the explosion of the crashing helicopter caught them. The blast drove them against the base of the great tree as the Blackhawk slammed into the SOC force, turning over and catching fire as it spun among their ranks, its half rotors ripping themselves to fragments on the ground and tearing the soldiers apart. The shock wave struck Britton like a massive hand, forcing him up against the tree trunk and singeing his eyebrows. His head fetched up against the hard trunk, and he saw stars. His whole ear filled with a ringing buzz, and the angry wound on the other side of his head wept blood and rang in agony.

  He sat against the tree trunk, all strength gone from him, shaking his head. As his sight cleared and the ringing began to fade, he noticed something strange.

  Silence.

  No gunshots. No crackling of arcing electricity or whooshing flame. The field of battle was quiet, with the occasional moan coming from the gory path left by the Blackhawk’s ruined impact. The aircraft was buried halfway through a small two-story hut, which had collapsed over it, the thatching burning brightly. The APC had been knocked over on its side, the turret popped off and smoldering. Sarah Downer scrambled in the wreckage, her enemy forgotten, desperately trying to haul broken beams off the crushed bodies of soldiers.

  Britton slewed his head to the right. Harlequin stirred weakly on the ground, blood running from a gash in his head, half-conscious. Behind them, Therese, Swift, Peapod and a few others had begun to stand, their faces streaked with blood and filth, their mouths open in shock.

  Harlequin began to prop himself onto this elbows. Britton shot out a bootheel and caught him in the temple, knocking him back into oblivion.

  Pyre lay a few feet before him, sprawled on his side. His eyes were open, seeing nothing.

  Fitzy. Fucking Fitzy.

  Britton launched himself to his feet, running to the wreckage.

  He found Fitzy lying on top of two dead soldiers. His wounded arm had been burned to a stump from the elbow down, t
he wound mostly cauterized, but still leaking blood. Ribs protruded from his ruined side. He groaned, his eyes darting around, his good arm scrabbling in the dirt, searching for a weapon. Truelove was pushing himself to his feet behind him, swaying, blood streaking his shredded uniform. Richards sprawled beside him, his charred body cut neatly in half by a chunk of the helo’s tail boom.

  Britton staggered a few more steps and collapsed on top of the chief warrant officer, his knee slamming into the broken ribs and eliciting a weak moan.

  “Kill you,” Fitzy whispered. “Fucking kill you.”

  Britton leaned in and whispered back, “You’re done killing.”

  Fitzy grinned at Britton’s closeness, then moved his good arm with sudden speed to his belt, hauling out a small knife and lunging for him. Britton twisted aside, and the slim blade found his thigh instead of his side, gouging out a furrow of flesh.

  He screamed and head-butted his former instructor, who sprawled in the dirt, spitting blood. He tried to open a gate and found that Fitzy, for all his injuries, could still Suppress him. He looked around for a weapon and settled on a fragment of the helo’s rotors, its jagged edges sharp. He snatched it up as Truelove regained his senses, and their eyes met. They held stares for a moment while Fitzy flailed weakly beneath him.

  Finally, the Necromancer nodded and turned away.

  Britton raised the rotor fragment over his hand.

  “Fuck you,” Fitzy snarled.

  “No,” Britton answered. “Fuck you.”

  He brought the sharp edge down across Fitzy’s throat, suppressing the instinct to look away as the hot blood washed over him. The magic tide rushed back to him as Fitzy gurgled his last.