Talon of Scorpio

by G T Almasi

  By then, Director Kennedy was leading ExOps south to take part in the ongoing battle for Berlin. When Bobby got within sight of the Great Dome, he turned his tribe of nomads west to connect with Victor Eisenberg and his Loyalist army, who were marching to Berlin from Frankfurt. This route required ExOps to pass the dense columns of the American Expeditionary Force advancing from their points of embarkation in Hamburg. Fortunately, the AEF was in such a hurry Kennedy’s group slipped through without any awkward incidents. I almost asked why the director didn’t stay with the Americans. Then I remembered he’s not supposed to be anywhere near this Sheissturm, and the Army would have been obligated to arrest the lot of them.

  My old pal Victor Eisenberg, however, was more than happy to acquire a company of deranged commandos, complete with a swarm of highly motivated pension-or-death civil servant support staff. After Victor and Bobby joined forces, they surfed the waves of artillery barrages straight into battle.

  Raj’s most recent information places my parents in Director Kennedy’s mobile command center. This slick-sounding entity is simply a “borrowed” telephone repair truck with five hungry, unwashed people riding around in it. My mom helps RFK track the deployment of personnel while my dad operates the comm-gear. Two ExOps Protectors provide security, one driving and the other riding shotgun—literally—with a Mossberg my father converted to full-auto because, y’know, manually racking a 12-gauge to blast someone twice is such a hassle.

  50

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2:10 P.M. CEST

  WILHELMSTRASSE, PARISERPLATZ, BERLIN

  We exit the warren beneath Berlin into a man-made monsoon of steel. The thickly constructed buildings around Pariserplatz reverberate with a continuous explosive drumbeat. The three of us crouch behind a pile of broken masonry the size of a single-family house.

  Artillery pounds Brandenburg Gate, the historic centerpiece of Pariserplatz. Half of the gate’s supports have collapsed, and the structure’s crown droops precipitously. The surviving concrete columns are creased by gaping holes.

  Seven German Army pretzelheads return fire from what remains of the monument’s roof. The men’s left sleeves are wrapped with black armbands bearing the Gestapo’s eagle emblem.

  Behind Brandenburg Gate, the harsh light of hundreds of weapons flickers across the thirty-story walls of the Volkshalle. High above, looming like Mount Everest, is the Jumbo Dome. I’ve been looking at the beastly half-moon for days—it’s by far the tallest structure in Berlin—but standing so close to this architectural whale gives me the feeling it’s gonna tip over and crush me. My eyes climb the dome to its summit.

  The thick smoke plays with my eyesight—I could swear something up there just moved. I adjust my vision Mod to maximum magnification. A pinprick of light pops from a tiny, shaded shape then streaks down to street level like a shooting star.

  Good God.

  Another bright point pricks the same spot and zips to a different target on the ground.

  It’s a sniper!

  “Darwin,” I comm. “Do you see that?”

  Patrick follows my gaze. “No, what is it?”

  “Hey.” I nudge Raj in his side. “Do you see a sniper on top of the dome?”

  Raj fixes his upgraded peepers on the distant peak. “I’ll be damned.” His forehead wrinkles as he raises his eyebrows. He comms, “ExOps, this is Raj, Scarlet, and Darwin, checking in.”

  My father’s comm-voice says, “This is Big Bertha for the director. Go ahead, Raj.”

  “Big Bertha, can you confirm if we have a shooter on top of the dome?”

  “Wait one.”

  Raj tilts his head at Patrick and me. “C’mon,” he calls over the endless thunder. “Let’s keep moving.”

  We weave through the crazily slanted wreckage of a hotel until we reach Unter den Lindenstrasse. From here we observe the fire coming in from the Tiergarten. While we take in the chaos, two more of Brandenburg Gate’s columns crumble. The concrete tiara cantilevers off the single remaining leg. One corner of the tumbling crown gouges a hole in the street. The top rolls over then belly-flops into the cobblestones, shaking the ground. The men on the roof are pulverized beneath the shattered ruin.

  The gate’s death throes nearly drown out my father’s comm-voice. “Raj, be advised, ExOps has not deployed any units to the top of the dome.”

  “Understood, sir.” Raj turns to me and shrugs his big shoulders. I look at the dome’s zenith again. Somebody’s up there. The sniper scrunches into a tight little ball to aim his shots, just like—

  My father comms, “What’s your position, Raj?”

  “East side of Pariserplatz, sir.”

  “Condition?”

  Raj comms, “We’re good, sir.”

  “Excellent. What’s happening there?”

  “Loyalist artillery from Tiergarten just destroyed Brandenburg Gate, along with the Gestapo squad positioned on top of it.”

  “Copy that, Raj. Wait one.”

  One turns out to be more like five. I say to Raj, “I’m gonna scout around the plaza.”

  Raj nods at Patrick. “Better if you both go.”

  I grab my partner’s hand. We break cover and serpentine across Pariserplatz until we reach the remains of Brandenburg Gate. It’s been reduced to a jumble of crushed statuary and broken stone. Blood flows from under the wreckage before trickling into a shell hole.

  Patrick carefully inspects our surroundings, but not the way he normally does. He isn’t scouting for defensible positions, escape routes, or firing lanes. He’s just…looking around.

  “Hey.” I nudge him. “What’re you lookin’ at?”

  “Nothing really, just checking things out. I used to work right over there.” He inclines his head toward the south side of Pariserplatz. The American embassy is only a couple doors down from what used to be Brandenburg Gate.

  With near-edible irony, I ask, “Has the neighborhood gone downhill since you worked here?”

  Patrick gives me a slow-motion eye roll. “Yeah, they put in a McDonald’s.”

  “There’s a Mickey D’s? Where?” I point across the plots of smoking, blood-soaked drifts of crushed concrete, warped steel, and shattered brick. “Is it that McPile over there?”

  Brando is still laughing when Dad returns. “Scarlet, Darwin, Raj, we have a mission for you.”

  My partner and I hunker into the crags of Brandenburg Heap and get back to work.

  Raj comms, “Go ahead, sir.”

  The incoming comm-voice changes. “Scah-let, Dah-win, Raj, Director Kennedy here. I need you to assist a Loyalist company north of Pariserplatz.”

  “Yes, sir, Director. What’s our objective?”

  “You’re to precede the Loyalist force and rescue the German parliament.”

  “The Reichstag, sir?”

  “Affirmative. Wolf’s operatives captured the building then took the ministers hostage. If those officials don’t survive to form an interim government, Germany may never recover.”

  “Yes, sir,” Raj comms.

  “Kennedy out. Stay on the line.” Bobby switches the call over. I expect my dad again, but—

  “Angel?”

  “Mom!”

  “You’re okay, sweetheart?”

  Brando is still on the call. Hearing my mother’s pet names for me gives him an amused expression.

  “I’m fine, Cleo, except for worrying about you.” I take a moment to stick my tongue out at Patrick, then continue, “What the heck are you doing in the field?”

  “Someone has to keep an eye on your father.” She laughs. “Besides, fieldwork is fun.”

  I comm, “This must be a bad connection, I thought I was speaking to Mrs. Cleopatra Nico.”

  “Very funny. Oh, hang on.” She pauses, then comms, “You aren’t the only agents Dire
ctor Kennedy is sending to the Reichstag.”

  I ask, “Who else?”

  “King and Jade. You can probably see them; they’re near Madame Tussauds.”

  I crane my neck to look down Unter den Linden, but smoke and dust have reduced local visibility to only a hundred feet or so.

  Mom continues, “Plus, another Vindicator, Tiger, is only a few blocks away from you, near the Friedrichstrasse U-Bahn stop.”

  Wow. Tiger is Level 18.

  “Any more?” I comm.

  “Yes, actually. This came in a few seconds ago. While you’re outside, you’ll have sniper support from the top of the dome.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s Falcon.”

  Fuckin’ A! I knew it!

  51

  TEN MINUTES LATER, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2:29 P.M. CEST

  THE REICHSTAG, BERLIN

  The Reichstag is the home of Germany’s parliament. This isn’t the first time it’s been under siege, but if we screw up this mission, it could be the last. A company of Loyalist soldiers have isolated the old building from the rest of The Citadel. The one escape still available to the Gestapo-led occupiers is a back-door passage to the Volkshalle.

  The Loyalist forces, with help from us ExOps Levels, have taken the north–south axis and hold most of the city. The Citadel has been reduced to a two-block radius around the Volkshalle. It’s here Markus Wolf will meet his maker.

  The Reichstag’s colonnaded front façade bristles with rifles, rocket launchers, and a pair of anti-tank guns behind an ersatz fort made of busted rocks, manhole covers, disabled cars, cabinetry, tables, and—increasingly—corpses. The variety of cover works to the defenders’ advantage because it’s so confusing to look at. Every irregular shape could be—in fact, often is—a firing hole. They’ve piled this crap in such depth that even Punx can’t penetrate the dense layers of flotsam.

  We crouch behind a row of shot-up armored personnel carriers. I peek across a broken windshield. “Christ,” I comm, “this could take hours.”

  Patrick studies the scene through a foot-wide rip in the vehicle’s steel plating. He absentmindedly begins to chew his thumbnail. “Blech,” he says, spitting, removing his mud-and-soot-covered thumb from his mouth. He stares at the Reichstag, speed-ruminating.

  We know the members of parliament are in there somewhere. One approach would be to call in egregious amounts of artillery and pulverize the opposition flatter’n flapjacks. That might work if the officials are in the basement, but if they’re anywhere on the upper floors, we’ll kill them, too.

  My partner and I retreat from our advance scouting position and return to our growing gang of ExOps Levels. Tiger, as senior Level, has taken command of the group. He’s set up shop in a burned-out storefront across the street from the bullet-pocked Reichstag.

  Brando and I link our arms together then dash into the road. Spattering volleys of slugs chase us across the cracked pavement. We barrel into Tiger’s small command center. Raj sees us coming and positions himself as a tackling dummy to help us make an abrupt stop before we skid into the wall. Our momentum shoves him backward, but he keeps his feet.

  Tiger and King look up at our dramatic entrance. King says, “I told you they work well together.”

  Tiger nods, then returns to the map on the table in front of him. Vindicators are big, but Tiger is huge. Where Raj has a balance of speed and strength, Tiger is all brawn. I figure his basic tactic must be to have a fast teammate draw attention long enough for him to lumber in to F.U.C.K. everyone up with his big bear paws. If that doesn’t work he can gnaw their heads off. His mouth is full of heavily modified, very sharp dentistry, which I suppose is where his name comes from. I shudder to think what Tiger’s Close Combat rating is.

  Jade keeps watch out the windows. She sits below the windowsill, holding her LB503 over her head. She swivels the pistol back and forth like a periscope. I cross the room to sit next to her.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey. Good to see you, A-J.” Jade holds her free arm out and I give her a hug. Brando leans in to embrace her, too.

  I start choking up, so Patrick says, “We’re sorry about your partner.”

  Jade squeezes my arm. “Thanks.” She sighs, then waves at the surroundings. “The activity is…helping me think about it later.”

  “How about your chems?”

  “Those, too.” A hint of a smile plays across her lips. “Thanks for coming over to say hi, but I’m on watch.” She tilts her head toward our jumbo-sized teamies. “You’d better check in with the Brute Squad.”

  I give Jade’s arm another squeeze, then follow Patrick into the tall circle of Vindicators. I feel like a basketball team’s token midget.

  Tiger says, “The three of us will provide suppression fire for the Interceptors while they rush the front of the structure. Darwin can supplement their situational awareness. Once the entrance is subdued, we’ll enter the Reichstag, establish a foothold inside, then split into three teams. When one team finds the hostages, we regroup before escorting the officials outside.”

  “Sounds good,” King rumbles.

  Raj, Patrick, and I mutely nod. Of course we agree. Tiger and King are so fucking far above our pay grade, they normally wouldn’t even notice us.

  One minute later Jade and I kneel behind a displaced sheet of blacktop. Guns brandishing. Hairs standing. Gooses bumping.

  Tiger comms, “Vindicators, open up.”

  The Vindys’ weapons systems instantly launch a ceiling of screaming metal above my head.

  “Interceptors, go!”

  Jade and I slither out of cover then charge the defensive position in front of the Reichstag. Jade is lighter than me, but I’ve got more powerful Mods. We run side by side and step for step, arms pumping with what’s left of our hair blowing behind our ducked heads. The boys’ deafening fire pummels the barricade at the base of the wide, main staircase and riddles the windows overlooking the square on front of the building. For a few seconds, the defenders’ fire drops to zero.

  A few seconds is all we need. The two of us reach the heaped-up shambles at the same time. We clamber over the obstacle like cybernetic mountain goats then drop to the ground with simultaneous thumps.

  I point my weapons to the left and pull both triggers. There are at least fifteen enemy twinks on my side, six of whom suddenly sprout gaping gunshot wounds. Behind me, Jade’s pistols bang a murderous stanza into the goons to our right. She and I press our backs together to absorb the frantic kicks of each other’s blazing sidearms.

  Jade’s shouts blend into her gunfire. The smoke scratches my throat raw while the baked, gritty air stings my eyes. Some of our competitors panic and try to climb over the barrier. The Vindicators blow them to pieces.

  Four gasbags remain on my side. Two try to get away by running up the stairs, but they’re cut in half by the three kalobberos.

  My last two targets have scrunched their terrified asses into crags within their wall of rubble, out of my line of fire. I stop shooting.

  “Jade, I’ve got two birds hiding over here.”

  “Me, too. I have three competitors dug in around the barrier’s edge.”

  “Interceptors, maintain initiative,” Tiger comms in. “Flush your remaining opponents with F-90s.”

  I feel Jade’s shoulders shift as she lifts grenades off her belt. I do the same. We chuck baby bombs at our enemies’ hiding places then drop flat on the chewed-up street with our hands over our heads.

  Rapid explosions crackle from either side of the barrier. Jade’s side of the wall erupts with a giant secondary detonation. The ground drops away, then smacks back into me. A dense cloud of gravelly dust washes over us.

  Li’l Bertha buzzes her gyroscopes in a fast warning pattern. I raise my eyes. A dirty pair of black boots run through the smog straight at my face.<
br />
  I roll sideways and point my pistol at the boots. The soldier’s wild soccer kick swings by my shoulder. Li’l Bertha unloads a compact flight of .22-caliber shots at point-blank range and blows his leg off at the knee.

  The soldier’s momentum carries his crippled body past me. Suddenly a small foot rams into his stomach and sends him sailing back the way he came. I blink grit and sweat out of my eyes. Jade stands over me with her leg extended like Chuck Norris.

  “Tiger,” I comm. “We’ve captured the barrier.”

  “Good work,” he answers. “We’re on our way.”

  Jade helps me off the ground. She and I quickly reload our sidearms, careful not to touch their scorching-hot barrels.

  The boys clatter over the defensive heap. They pause to take in the spectacular carnage. Opaque red sap oozes from the barricade into the pavement’s low points. Arms and legs jab at impossible angles from the thickly packed corpses. A severed head gently rolls off one of the piles.

  “Well, now.” King beams at us. “If it isn’t the Meat Grinder Twins.”

  Jade looks at me from under her long eyelashes and smiles. Her sharp cheeks are pink from Madrenaline. Sweat drips off her pointy little chin. I return Jade’s grin and bump my shoulder into hers.

  The Vindys reload their weapons while watching the Reichstag’s front windows for competitors. Patrick checks Jade and me for injuries. He decides the glop in our hair and clothes is from our victims.

  Tiger advances up the steps. I’ve always been impressed by Raj’s Bitchgun, but I am truly dazzled by what Tiger carries for armament. It has three distinct components: an automatic cannon mounted over a grenade launcher attached to a flamethrower. This unbelievable death system is what Paul Bunyan would have carried if he were a Level. It must weigh more than I do. Stenciled on the pudgy grenade launcher is the word MEDUSA.