Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle

by Mercedes Lackey

  Underground Atlanta was only ten blocks away; fast for him and Knight, who had built-in flying capabilities. Not so good for the Samoans, or for Leader, who could only go as fast as the dogs could run. “Vix,” he said, once he was in the air.

  “Go.”

  “If you got to split your attention, stay with the brothers until we all join up.”

  “Shouldn’t have to, but that’s a Roger. CCCP is on-site. I have one of their snipers on the roof of NomKitteh. If the goons have eyes in the sky, he’ll pick them off.”

  He heaved a huge sigh of relief while pumping his wings as hard and fast as he could, feeling his back and chest muscles straining. He still didn’t know how he could fly; his wings weren’t nearly big enough to lift his mass, much less allow him to carry another whole human. Echo eggheads and plenty of professors had wondered over that for years to no avail. Well, time enough to worry about that some other day. Echo Med had the protection they needed, now it was just up to him and his team to show that bastard Verdigris that he wasn’t going to get a second shot at anyone else. The day we take him down and make him pay for Tesla, I’m breaking open that bottle of granddad’s brandy. It was supposed to be for his wedding . . . but that didn’t look like a day that’d be coming along anytime soon, at this rate.

  “Corbie.”

  “Go,” he said.

  “Come in hot. CCCP’s taken out a sniper that was overlooking your entry point; only a matter of time before they get another one on the roof.”

  “Gents, we need to go in fast,” he radioed to Silent Knight and the rest. “Door’s probably hot. These guys are mercs, only a matter of time before they get a sniper up.” A little editorial revision would not go amiss in keeping Vix’s involvement a secret, here. Leader of the Pack’s dogs rounded a corner half a block away, with himself in hot pursuit.

  “I have Motu and Matai on your freq, they’re getting what you get. Guinness is on me when this is over.”

  “Not that Limey crap,” rumbled Motu over the same freq.

  “All right, let’s get the thing done.” He could see the remnants of smoke where the NomKitteh was; the wind was carrying the din from all of the police and EMS sirens up to meet him. Below, he spotted his landing zone. Corbie did what a falcon does; he pumped upwards, then arced over into a dive, wings folded tightly against his body, the better to present a small target to anything unfriendly, and trading height for speed. His build wasn’t the best suited for such a maneuver, but at least it was better than Knight’s. The entrance was one of several in the otherwise blank walls fronting on an alley; at the last moment, he fanned his wings wide as an air brake and touched down hard, taking immediate shelter behind a dumpster, then unholstering the PDW from his leg. He bent to the side, reaching out to shove at the door with his free hand. It opened at his touch. “I really do love you,” he told Vix fervently.

  “Get a room,” said Matai.

  “You boys just get your arses over here. Clock is ticking.” At that moment, Knight touched down beside him. Not long after that, the pack showed up, with Leader bringing up the rear, weapons drawn. He didn’t go unarmed anymore.

  “In, and stack up,” Corbie ordered. “Knight first.” Knight nodded his helmet, then rushed through the open portal. Corbie followed, with Leader and his mutts bringing up the rear. They were a dozen paces inside of what looked like a service tunnel when he started to get a gnawing sensation in the pit of his guts. “Halt. Wait a moment.” Why would they have a sniper guarding this specific entrance? That spot the bloke was at wasn’t a good spot for much else than that. “Knight,” he whispered, “you made that mod to your suit that allows you to put out an echolocational ping, right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Do it. I’ve got a bad feeling about this hallway. Call it instinct.” One thing that Corbie had learned early in his career with Echo was that one always trusted their gut feelings when it came to dangerous situations. Knight nodded again, then looked forward intently. After several seconds, he tilted his head to the side and turned back to face Corbie.

  “There appears to be a trap of some sort ahead, near the door.” He pointed to it; for the rest of the team it was barely visible against the wall from this distance, but Corbie’s eyesight was better than the average chap’s. He was able to see it clearly enough to make out specific details.

  Corbie sighed. “Early warning device,” he said into his mic. “We’ve found their escape route. Guess they liked this way as much as we did. Can you disable it from here?”

  “I cannot. There’s not enough ambient noise for me to generate a proper resonate frequency—”

  “It’s not wified into anything, so I’m out.” Well so much for witchy-poo.

  “Right, right.” Corbie cut him off. “It looks like a simple laser trip wire; no explosives that I can see. We can get right up to it, but I don’t wanna risk—”

  He stopped short as one of Leader’s dogs—the one that looked like it was mostly mastiff—trotted ahead of the group, right up to the device.

  “Normandy!” Leader called out in a harsh whisper. “Back here, dammit!” Leader had named all of his dogs after famous battles; one of his quirks, it seemed. The mastiff looked back, snorted, and then lifted a leg over the device. And peed on it. There must have been a quart of yellow liquid arcing through the air to land accurately on the device. A few seconds later the device let out a shower of sparks and a small cloud of smoke. Normandy trotted back, just as nonchalant, and planted himself next to Leader, dopey eyes looking up for approval.

  “I’m firin’ you and keepin’ the dogs, Leader,” Corbie said, shaking his head. “The mutts are smarter than you.” Everyone ducked as a cacophony of gunfire erupted on the other side of the door; dozens of automatic rifles and shotguns were all going off at the same time in measured bursts. The firing slackened, then stopped, and then there was muffled yelling: civilians and what Corbie assumed were the mercs.

  Their radios cracked simultaneously. “This is Matai. We were able to get the downed SWAT out, but their captain is pissed. He’s trying to keep us from going back in. This might take a minute.” He could hear the SWAT commander arguing with Motu; Corbie could swear that he heard one comment about Motu using the SWAT van for material for his armor, and couldn’t help but smirk.

  “Make it a fast minute. There’s still civvies in there.” He turned to face the rest. “We’re going to hold here until they’re in position. We need to do this at the same time to make it work—”

  Corbie was interrupted when the door to the main concourse slammed open behind him. He whirled around to find one of the “Rebs” staring at him, slack-jawed. There was a tense moment where everyone was too shocked to react; the Echo Ops and the probable merc just stood looking at each other for several heartbeats.

  Both had the same reaction.

  “Shit!” Two voices rang out as one. Both grabbed for their weapons.

  “Perimeter breach!” the merc managed to squawk—presumably into his headset—before Corbie could bring his PDW to bear on the man. The merc, even fighting against his rifle’s sling, was faster on the draw; his gun was leveled at Corbie’s chest. Before either of them could fire, a barking mass of fur and teeth sped around Corbie; Leader’s dogs swarmed the merc, knocking him to the floor. Corbie heard the merc’s head impact with a dull thud; he ran forward with his gun trained on the downed man, but he already knew by the sound that he was out cold.

  “Dammit!” He slung his PDW to the side, relieved the merc of his weapons and radio, and then zip-tied his hands and feet together. “We’ve lost the element of surprise. They know we’re comin’; we gotta move now! Matai! You get all of that?”

  “That’s a big ten-four. Sorry, Chief, put in a complaint with the boss, we gotta move.” Corbie could hear more shouting over the radio, followed by the shriek of crumpling metal. “Ready here.”

  Corbie looked over his shoulder at Leader and Knight. “All right. Here we go!” He kicked
open the door to the main concourse with his PDW shouldered, followed by the rest of his team. He took in the scene in front of them instantly; much of it was what he had expected; a lot of the stalls and storefronts were trashed from the gunfight between the mercs and the cops. There were several dozen civilians scattered like terrified rabbits wherever there was even a modicum of cover; some of them were clearly hurt. What he hadn’t expected, however, was for the mercs to be ready for them; they all had their guns trained on his team. Some of the bastards were even smiling.

  “Cover!”

  Without a word, the mercenaries started to fire. Corbie dove behind the nearest pillar; he felt his nanoweave jacket stiffen with impact from two hits. It took him a moment to get his breath back and sit up; after switching the rifle to his left shoulder he leaned out from the left-hand side of the pillar, firing a burst from his PDW at the mercs. Their return fire forced him back behind his cover. Frantic, he looked around for the others. Knight was sending out blasts, but they weren’t having nearly the effect they should have; the mercs must’ve had some sort of active hearing protection on. Leader was writhing on the ground, screaming and holding his ears; his dogs were all in similar condition, wild-eyed and frothing at the mouth as they pawed at their ears frantically.

  “What the hell’s wrong? What’ve they done to you?” Corbie leaned out, firing another burst from his weapon.

  “Ultrasonics!” Leader gasped out, clenching his teeth against the pain. “They’re hurting them!”

  He looked for the brothers; surely they had to be faring better. If they could get to Corbie and the rest of the team, they’d have a chance to get to better cover, not pinned down against the wall. With Leader and his pack down and Knight’s powers ineffective, they’d have to form an alternate strategy, and fast; some of those wounded civilians wouldn’t make it unless they got to a hospital, and soon. It took him a few moments, but he was finally able to locate the brothers; his heart sank immediately. They were enveloped in a cloud of gas; tear gas or something like it, from the way they were coughing and choking. Both of them were blinded by it, especially Motu; with his amalgamation armor his vision was already limited enough. Heavy caliber rifles were pounding away at the armor; it was everything that Motu could do to shield his brother and try to renew the armor as fast as it was being stripped away.

  Knight wasn’t in any better shape; his armor, while sturdy, couldn’t stand up forever to the barrage it was getting. Eventually they’d take him down. He knew it, too. But he wasn’t moving; he stood there, continually blasting at the mercs and trying to protect his team. While they were focusing on Knight, they weren’t shooting at Leader or his dogs.

  They were ready for us. Not just ready—but for us, specifically. They had to be. They’ve got our bloody number. We need to turn this around right now, or we’re all dead. Think, man, think!

  “Vix!” he shouted into his mic. “Can you do somethin’ to shield Knight?”

  The answer came as the floor suddenly heaved up around where Knight had taken shelter. “It’s reinforced concrete, sorry; it takes me a little longer to work through that shite.” Earth ramparts, studded with bits of concrete laced with reinforcing rods formed around Silent Knight. A moment later, the ground shuddered and more heaved up to give Corbie and Leader and the dogs lifesaving shelter.

  “This won’t last. We need to go on the offensive!” Think!

  Wait . . . Knight’s suit didn’t just collect and project sound, he could absorb it, maybe cancel it out in an area. Couldn’t he? “Knight!” The armored engineer canted his head to the side, still firing sonic blasts. “Take all of the noise! Even the ultrasonic stuff!” Knight didn’t make any move for a moment, then finally nodded. It was dangerous for his suit to absorb too much energy like that; it could become catastrophically damaged, maybe even kill Knight.

  Corbie went around the right side of the pillar this time, switching his grip back to his strong hand. He fired two bursts, but something was wrong. He saw the muzzle flash, felt the PDW shake with recoil, and felt the hot brass of the casings as the odd few bounced off the back of his hand. But he heard nothing.

  The effect on Leader and the dogs was immediate. The dogs stood up and scrambled to join their pack leader under the cover of Vickie’s ramparts. Leader stopped writhing and gathered them in around him.

  Evidently what Knight was doing didn’t much affect the headset. “I can’t heave up the floor under those guys and knock them off balance. Those are load-bearing pillars they’re under. I’ll bring the whole thing down on you.” A pause. “But I can screw with their comms.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Do it, Vix.” He turned to Leader, shouting. Back this far, they were out of the field that Knight was absorbing sound in. “We’ve gotta help Knight, right now! His suit can’t take much more, bullets or sound.” Leader nodded; a second later all of the dogs ran along the wall to the right until they were out of sight. Corbie noticed that very few shots were directed at them. Peeking around the edge of the pillar and over the top of the earthen barrier, he noticed that some of the mercs seemed to be confused. Their attention was split and they were distracted; a few were yelling at the others, trying to direct them, but it was clear that their ordered ranks were in chaos. It looked as if Vix was doing something a little more elaborate than just jamming the mercs’ comm system. “Form up on Knight! Let’s give ’em hell!”

  Corbie vaulted over the barrier, bringing his PDW up. He started firing measured bursts, forcing some of the mercs to keep their heads down; he even caught one that wasn’t as fast as his friends, shooting him in the chest. Leader was covering Corbie from the barrier; as soon as Corbie reached Knight, it was Leader’s turn to advance. “Cavalry is here!” Just when it looked like the mercs were about to regroup and focus their fire again, a snarling blur of teeth and fur streaked in behind the mercs from the right. Leader’s dogs tore into them, knocking mercs off of their feet and mauling the odd one here and there. Their speed and the nanoweave overcoats they had been fitted with protected them from any retaliation; whenever it looked like a merc was getting his bearings and was about to fire on an individual dog, the rest of the pack mobbed him.

  Corbie, Knight, and Leader all started to advance towards the mercs’ position; Corbie and Leader kept crouched behind Knight for limited cover, firing whenever a target of opportunity popped up. Knight was still firing sonic blasts, but was now keeping them narrow beam and focused for individual targets since the dogs were in the middle of things. Corbie’s PDW ran dry when they were about fifteen paces away from the mercs. “Mag!” he shouted. Leader poked around Knight, firing his pistol to cover Corbie; by the time he was empty himself, Corbie had already changed mags and was firing again. Leader tapped Corbie on the shoulder twice.

  “They’re all down, mate! The dogs just informed me.” As one, Corbie and Leader ran up to the mercs’ barricade and aimed over it; all of the mercs were either dead or incapacitated. Several of them were being sat on by Leader’s dogs. Leader moved quickly to those who looked as if they could still get up, securing their weapons and zip-tying their hands behind their backs. Some looked as if they were bleeding from the ears; the dogs must’ve removed whatever hearing protection they had been wearing, opening them up for Knight’s blasts. Not bad for a pack of mutts.

  There was still gunfire coming from the direction of the main entrance. “We’ve gotta get to the brothers.” The team moved as fast as they dared; no telling what other traps the mercs might have set up to cover their backs. Corbie took the lead this time; when he rounded the corner he saw why there was still shooting going on. Motu and Matai both seemed to be blinded still; the gas had mostly dispersed, but the effects would take hours or some decontamination wipes before they went away. Matai was in better shape than his brother, though; he was actually behind Motu, steering him like a wrecking ball with legs. “Left, brother! No, your other left!” Pushing and cajoling Motu, Matai was wrestling him into position to beat the rema
ining mercs. There were already a half dozen of their still forms on the ground.

  “It’s Corbie, we’re comin’ in behind them to help you lot out. Try not to squish us.” He motioned with his free hand to the rest of the team; as one, they sprang from cover. It was easy work, since the mercs all had their backs turned. The first one that Corbie spotted, he ran up to; the merc turned just in time to receive a kick on the point of his chin, knocking him cold. His friends on either side went down just as quickly; the ones on the left were convulsing, while the ones on the right were trounced by a combined weight of about one thousand pounds of dog.

  “Boss,” Matai was on his knees, his arms wrapped around one of Motu’s legs. “I think I need a hand.” Corbie left the others to secure whatever mercs remained alive, opting to run over to the brothers. Motu’s armor sloughed off, clattering on the floor; his eyes and nose were streaming in between hacking coughs. Matai looked the same, save for a hole on the left side of his nanoweave jacket. Blood was coming out in frothy bubbles.

  “I see you, Med is alerted. Bella’s on the way; she’s not more than a hundred yards from you guys.”

  Corbie sighed with relief. Vix was on the job again. He really wanted to meet this bird.

  “I got a blowout kit.” Leader was right next to him now.

  “Tell Leader to get a chest seal out.” New voice. Belladonna’s? Sounded like her. “That’s a pneumothorax wound. Sucking chest wound to you. Swab it down, follow the instructions on the packaging and slap the chest seal on it. I’m almost there.”

  Leader handed him what looked like a piece of plastic and a big pad of gauze; he followed the Echo Med leader’s orders.

  “Corbie, we have a problem.” Knight was standing over him, looking down.