by Mercedes Lackey; Cody Martin; Dennis Lee; Veronica Giguere
Finally he found some sort of honky-tonk station that faded in and out, but at least it was music. It finally strengthened when the DJ announced that he was going for a break and was going to play a Creedence Clearwater Revival set. That suited John.
Or at least, it suited John right up to the point when the set cycled to “Bad Moon Rising.” The tune was upbeat, but the lyrics? The lyrics sounded like they’d been written as a vision of the Invasion. It had gotten to the chorus, when John felt all of the hairs on the back of his neck stand up; something felt off. Over the years, his instincts had become fairly well honed; doing the work that he did with the Army, you had your training, your buddies beside you, and your gut. Nothing else. You had to trust all of them.
Instinctively, John scanned the swamp on either side of the road. It was nearing twilight, with the sun already sunk behind the trees, so details were harder to make out. The fact that he was trying to pay attention to the road—and the headlights on the van were in no better shape than the rest of it—didn’t help matters. Slowly, he became aware of an odd hum; some sort of vibration that permeated the air. That’s familiar as all hell for some—
When the Death Sphere screamed over the road, bathing everything in the sickly orange light from its alien propulsion; John had to slam down the brakes to avoid getting thrown off the causeway by the backwash—or whatever you’d call it. Near as anyone could tell the Death Spheres used antigrav and whatever was under them got shoved, hard. The trees that were under its path had smashed-off limbs, and some had been completely blown down.
“Time for the understatement of the century: that can’t be good.” John gassed the van, which was gracious enough not to die on the spot. A few dozen yards ahead on the road was a turnoff in the direction that the Thulians were heading; it was marked with a sign denoting a power plant ten miles away. There’s nothing else out here for miles; that has to be where they’re going. He skidded the van around the turn, gunning its engine for all that it was worth. John fished out his issued cell phone from a pocket, hitting the speed dial for CCCP HQ.
“Privyet tovarisch. Is to be hoping you are not walking to Atlanta, Comrade Murdock,” said Gamayun’s voice. “Commissar will be wroth.”
“Comrade, I’ve got a real emergency out here. We’ve got Nazis headin’ for a power plant along the highway about thirty miles from where I picked up the van. It’s gonna beat me there; this piece of crap is too slow, and they’re goin’ too fast. I need help fightin’ these guys.” John paused a moment, listening for some sort of response. There was a rapid-fire burst of Russian in two voices, both female; Gamayun must be alerting—someone. Then—“Co—”
The phone cut out. “Goddamn it!” Rotten cell phone reception might actually be the death of me. He tried to raise HQ on the phone again, but no joy. He threw the useless device into the passenger seat in disgust and exasperation. “I’ve got bigger problems right now.” Like how he was going to fight off an entire unit of Nazi troopers in power armor, along with air support from a Death Sphere. He’d never had to take that much on by himself. When the CCCP HQ got hit, he’d had Saviour, Georgi, Sovie, Chug and Bella.
Let’s hope that Gamayun is getting everyone on their feet; even if they moved like demons out of hell, they’d still only get here in thirty minutes at best. More than enough time for me to have either saved the day or been turned into fine paste. Maybe both.
How many Nazis fit in a Sphere anyway? He didn’t have a chance to see if there were any attached to the outside, either; that’s how they picked up ground troops that got taken out. The number might be crucial. One too many would be fatal.
Never mind. He’d have to deal with all of them, no matter what. Pushing thoughts of getting atomized or burnt alive out of his mind, he focused on keeping the battered van on the road.
Before John knew it, he was around the last bend in the road.
“Oh shit!” There, across the road was a very nervous looking squad of soldiers, all pointing their weapons at him.
He screeched the van to a halt, being very careful to keep his hands on the top of the wheel. All of the soldiers were shouting commands at him. It wasn’t hard to figure out he was supposed to turn the van off and get out with his hands up, and he complied quickly. He got his bearings fast; the plant was a good-sized one, with a large grassy clearing on one side and the other three sides bordered by forested swamp. There was a sign proclaiming that this plant had been converted to burn waste wood, and there was a series of huge mounds of the stuff along one side. The road dead-ended at a parking lot with a security fence and a tiny guard-shack, with the squad between him and it. The parking lot in front of him only had a few cars in it: one Humvee with a mounted gun on the coaxial turret, and then regular civilian vehicles. What caught his attention was the smoldering wreckage in one corner only a hundred yards away. Clearly some piece of military equipment; it was completely destroyed, preventing John from properly identifying it.
“Keep your friggin’ hands above your head! Get down on your knees, now!” The soldier was wearing a staff sergeant’s stripes; he looked like the “average middle-aged white guy,” with a face that could have belonged to a mailman or an office worker.
John followed the sergeant’s instructions, moving slowly and deliberately; these guys had just been attacked, and John didn’t want to get shot by a scared Specialist. “My name is John Murdock, and I’m a metahuman. I’m with the CCCP. I’m here to help, guys.” He nodded at the still-smoking wreckage. “I saw the Sphere from the road.”
“Sarn’t Lawson!” One of the other soldiers moved forward from the staggered line, still keeping his rifle trained on John while he talked to the staff sergeant. “I’ve heard of these guys; commie metas that work with Echo in Atlanta. They’re legit.” The sergeant took in the information, and spent a few long moments looking John over before he relented.
“All right, stand down, squad.” They all lowered their weapons; John noticed that no one engaged safeties, however. The sergeant walked forward to John, extending his hand as John moved to meet him. “Glad to see you. Name is Staff Sergeant Lawson, with the National Guard.”
“I tried to get through to HQ but—all I have with me is a cell. Reception broke off ’fore I got a response.” Now he wished he had Vickie on Overwatch. Even if she couldn’t make the CCCP transport move any faster, at least she could keep him updated. “What’s your status here, Sarge?”
“After the Invasion, we all got activated; they’ve got us tasked to protect key points in case there was another push. We had just got done with helping to do some clearing and reconstruction in Atlanta before we were sent here. We’ve been here a week with nothing happening, until that damned silver ball came floating over.” He pointed at the burning wreckage. “That used to be our air defense—an old MIM-72 Chaparral that they dug up from God knows where. Maybe a museum.” He shrugged. “Anyways, it tracked and fired on the Sphere as soon as it was over the trees; Army had outfitted the usual Sidewinder missiles with new warheads that they said were gonna burn the Nazis up. It did hit, and it set ’em afire, but it didn’t kill the Sphere. The Charlie got zapped, along with two of my men.” The sergeant shuffled his feet and had a look on his face that John had seen too often, especially when he looked in a mirror. Never an easy way to deal with troops dying under your command. Something that I’m more acquainted with than most. I’ve gotta keep focus, and keep Lawson focused.
“Is that it—Lawson, right? What happened to the Nazis after that?”
“We used up all the Stinger missiles we had on it; took a chunk out of them, but didn’t finish it off. It limped away about due west, right over that clearing. We got off a call to McPherson Base, but they’re on the other side of the goddamned state from us. Help is on the way, but it’s gonna be a while before they get here.”
One of the men had the squad radio with him, and he was listening with increasing alarm. “Sarge!” he interrupted, “We ain’t the on’y ones! Them Nazis
is poppin’ up all over!”
Ah hell, another Invasion? We barely made it through the last one . . .
He could hear humming again. That kind of tooth-rattling humming that he could only associate with the Nazi antigrav drives. It was hard to locate, but he thought it was coming from just the other side of the grassed-over area. “Lawson, help isn’t gonna get here fast enough, and they’re comin’ back. We need to take up defensive positions an’ get ready for a fight. What other weapons do y’all have?”
Lawson held up his rifle. “You’re looking at them. There’s a .50 on the Humvee, but that won’t do much against their armor unless we’re shooting at the joints.”
John nodded. “Deploy your men, and then grab cover. I’m gonna try to give us an edge.”
“You heard it, girls! Mount up! Gilley, Jackson, Fieldhouse, get behind those barriers on the right! Move with a purpose! Rest of you, form with me on the left. Keep your spacing, and watch your sectors!” All eight men started running; the sergeant was shouting orders and positioning his soldiers. It was a small squad; two fire teams, with one of them short two soldiers. Do we have enough? Would it matter if we had a dozen more soldiers? John keyed up his enhancements, readying them and clearing his mind. He set off on a fast trot, getting to Lawson’s position in a few strides.
“I’ll be on the right, in the tree line. Try to keep from blowing my ass off; I’m rather attached to it, hooah?” Friendly fire isn’t, and Mr. Murphy isn’t ever kind.
“Hooah, roger that! Let’s kill these bastards and call it Miller Time.” John nodded and began to run. His enhancements came up to full, and he was across the parking lot in less than three seconds; weaving through the trees at the edge of the swamp, he found a concealed spot behind a small mound of earth and dropped to the ground behind it. This was going to suck; he didn’t have comms with the National Guard troops, and was the only metahuman. Lately, he’d gotten back in the comfortable position of knowing there was someone at his back. He was feeling better since his run-in with Blacksnake, but still wasn’t quite up to par; it felt like he was always fatigued. Count yourself lucky; you should have been dead from that stab wound, and any other person would have been. He still wasn’t sure how Sovie had kept him going. Then again, he’d never had a metahuman healer fix him before he stumbled up to CCCP’s door.
The sound was what pulled him out of his reverie to focus on the fight. The trees in front of the field were breaking and splintering as something forced its way through them; the cracking and squealing sound of the wood being split quickly grew deafening in the still night air. Almost as if they had magically teleported, the Nazis were suddenly into the clearing. They seemed to pause at the edge of the open space for a moment. There were a dozen of them, in two staggered rows. It looked like they had learned from their mistakes; no more random stomping through the opposition without any sort of formation. The Thulians just stood and watched, probably analyzing what was in front of them, then started their advance again, and firing started on both sides: the National Guard soldiers with their rifles and the Nazis with their energy cannons.
The oncoming troopers were clearly confident that they were in minimal danger; while they were in formation, they hadn’t bothered to move in leaps and bounds or utilize any other sort of tactics other than stomping towards their targets and firing methodically. John waited, keeping as still as he possibly could; the Nazis had some pretty good sensors and other vision enhancement gear in their helmets, and he didn’t want to give himself away. Sweat was running down his back and sides.
This was the worst part. Waiting was always the worst part.
It didn’t take long for the Thulians to all completely enter the clearing, moving well away from the trees and swamp.
Now.
John raised his right arm over the tiny berm he was behind and concentrated, relaxing his inner guard. Fire sprang up around his hand, then exploded outward to fill the entire back half of the field. The firing from the Nazis momentarily stopped as they were completely engulfed; the Guard held back a little, since they couldn’t see definite targets through the inferno. John cut the fire off; his skin had pinpricks of pain from the flashover, and he was sweating even worse than before.
The entire field had spot fires where there was still anything left to burn, and smoke obscured everything. Thankfully, the Nazi power suits were glowing, they were so hot; immediately, one of them went down as the squad of soldiers concentrated their shots on its joints and weak spots. John popped up in a half crouch, focused, and blasted the nearest trooper with a stream of superheated plasma. The Nazi was dead after a few seconds, a ragged and melted hole through its chest.
Time to move.
Tracers—and giant columns of fire—worked both ways. John ran, his enhancements still keyed; Thulian energy beams exploded trees all around him, sending deadly wooden shrapnel flying through the air. He was able to make a baseman’s slide under one beam, skidding to a halt behind a hefty barrier that two soldiers had taken position at.
“Jesus Christ! Think you could’ve given us a little warning about the fire?” the nearest soldier shouted over the gunfire as he reloaded his rifle.
“I’ll be sure to stand up and wave my arms next time, letcha know when the ambush is goin’ off, kid.” John punched him in the shoulder. “Keep firin’!” He didn’t listen for a reply; he was already scanning for where his next bit of cover was going to be. There wasn’t much; a few overgrown mounds of dirt left over from whenever this place had been built, some concrete highway barriers, and nothing else on this side. The soldiers had disabled another Nazi suit; with its elbow and knee joints shot out it couldn’t lift itself up. If the trooper inside didn’t bleed to death, he might live long enough to be interrogated. Keep moving, keep moving; if I stay here too long, they’ll nail these soldiers just to get to me. John angled his upper body around the side of the barrier—it exposed less of him as opposed to going over the top—and blasted the Thulians with fire twice. With their suits softened up by heat, they were starting to take a lot of damage. One headless and one maimed; John hardly ever missed. Before the enemy could orient on him again, John was up and running for a barrier on the far side of the parking lot.
More dodging; the troopers were really unhappy with him, this unhappiness was reflected in the volume of energy beams coming his way. Well, when they were shooting at him, they weren’t shooting at the unenhanced and poorly armored soldiers. Then again, when they were shooting at him, they were all concentrating on one target: his favorite hide, the one that happened to be covering his body at the moment.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a mud-and-water geyser erupted in the middle of the field. It subsided, leaving behind a seething mass of mud with grass floating on top, roughly the diameter of a home swimming pool. A moment later, another erupted, this time in the middle of the troopers, leaving another mudhole. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth, all placed randomly, as if God was poking holes in the ground blindly from below. Startled, some of the troopers stumbled into the holes, and ended up sunk to their waists in the gooey, sucking mud. John didn’t waste any time, and neither did the soldiers; while the troopers were mired, three more went down from grenades, plasma, and automatic fire. Some of the rest were splattered with the gouts of mud, their visors plastered with the thick ooze, effectively blinding them.
What the hell is doing that?
It wasn’t one of the soldiers, at least he didn’t think so. Well, whoever was lending a hand, he wasn’t going to turn it down.
A strange thing happened; each of the Nazis sprouted what looked like a glowing orange umbrella in front of their left arm cannon. They expanded to cover half of the area in front of a trooper, leaving the right arm cannon exposed with part of the suit.
Shit. Energy shields? What other sci-fi crap are these guys gonna pull out next?
The shields absorbed any bullets that struck them. But the Kriegers seemed to be moving slower, as if operating the shields was dra
ining them. One less cannon for each of ’em, and they move slower. We can use this. John was up and dashing again, this time for Lawson. The cannons couldn’t keep up with him now, but he could still get whacked by a lucky shot; for his trouble, he snapped a plasma wave at the thighs of an entrenched trooper. With both legs cut in half, it toppled forward onto its face, still firing. Shields aren’t too good when they get overwhelmed. Even at half of my best, I could still probably blast one. A second later, John was at Lawson’s position.
“Fancy seein’ you around these parts, Sarge. How’re you lookin’?”
“Not great. My RTO is dead, along with another specialist, and my SAW gunner is out for the count. We can’t take much more of this.” His words were punctuated by an energy beam impacting their shared cover, sending up a heap of vaporized dirt and rock. “Got a plan?” John looked over to see the mangled bodies of Lawson’s soldiers. Hell. Can’t think about it right now. Got to save everyone we can, everyone who’s left. Think, damn it!
“Yeah, but it ain’t much of one. I’m gonna take the Humvee, start usin’ the .50. Try an’ flank around their shields, if you can; they only face forward, it seems. I’m gonna burn these guys again, soften ’em up. You’ll have to move fast after I do, though. Tell me when you’re ready!” The Humvee had its front end hidden behind the corner of the plant; he’d still have a decent field of fire from the turret, though. John felt the tap on his shoulder; Lawson gave him the thumbs-up. His men were in position and ready to run when the order came. “Rock an’ roll.” John stood up to his full height, exposing half of himself. Relaxing, he sent another monstrous plume of fire rocketing towards the Kriegers; they continued to shoot wildly, but were at least temporarily blinded. “Now!” Lawson and his bloodied squad ran hard and fast for the swamp on the right side of the field. John tried to keep the fire going, but some of the cannon blasts were getting uncomfortably close.