Shadow Ops 3: Breach Zone

by Myke Cole

  Bonhomme leapt back from the rattling glass and Bookbinder cursed inwardly. He opened his mouth to encourage Bonhomme again when Marks handed him the radio. ‘It’s . . . it’s for you, sir.’

  Bookbinder held up the radio and thumbed the button. ‘Bookbinder.’

  ‘General Bookbinder, sir! You’re okay!’ Bookbinder recognized the voice, but not the anxiety in it.

  ‘Lieutenant Colonel Thorsson! You’re the last person I expected to hear from! How the hell did you find me?’

  ‘Gatanas said you were underway with the Coast Guard. I’ve been beating the hell out of this radio for the past hour.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘No time, sir. I need you onshore right now. Got a problem you’re uniquely suited to solve. I’ll explain everything once you’re here. For now, just hang on. Help’s coming.’

  ‘Onshore is . . . where the hell onshore?’

  ‘Battery Park. Castle Clinton. We’re right on the water. You can come straight to us.’

  Relief swamped him. Bonhomme visibly relaxed. ‘That’s great to hear. We’re under attack out here. Looks like . . . some goblin variant. They came through . . . it’s like a gate, only . . .’

  ‘I know,’ Thorsson answered, ‘we’re dealing with the same thing here. It must extend out over the water. I’m sending navy support to pick you up right now; they’re going to bring you to my position.’

  ‘We’ve got at least two casualties here,’ Bookbinder began, heedless of how Bonhomme blanched at the words. ‘One might be KIA, we need medevac.’

  ‘Just hang on,’ Thorsson replied. ‘We can’t do anything until we get you clear.’

  ‘I see them, sir,’ Marks said, pointing over the horizon, where two ships were coming into view. The first was roughly the same size as the Breakwater, but sleeker, gray lines showing a prominent deck gun. Bookbinder could see men scrambling over her gun deck. Sunlight glittered off several light machine guns fixed to hardpoints on the railings. The other ship was double the size, bristling with armament.

  Bookbinder began to breathe easy. These were warships. There wasn’t a whole lot a pack of swimming goblins could do to them.

  ‘Cavalry’s here, Commander,’ he said to Bonhomme.

  ‘Looks like it,’ Bonhomme said, clearly embarrassed. He began to give orders, and the Breakwater’s engines coughed into life as the buoy tender picked up speed, moving toward rescue.

  A moment later, the radio crackled into life. ‘Coast Guard Cutter Breakwater, Coast Guard Cutter Breakwater, this is Littoral Combat Ship Giffords. Hold your current position. Stop all engines. We’re going to try to clear some of the enemy here. We’ll come to you.’

  Bonhomme gave the order as the Giffords opened up with her machine guns, and Bookbinder heard the familiar chatter of 7.62 rounds. The water off the Breakwater’s bow churned as the bullets tore into it. The goblins shrieked, flattening themselves against the crane. Their brethren in the water dove, but not before Bookbinder saw many of them cut to ribbons by the withering fire. Spears, hatchets, and knives bobbed in the froth. Small blooms of blood dotted the surface.

  The hairs on Bookbinder’s neck stood up as he felt a magical current eddying off the Breakwater’s starboard beam. The current felt charged, sizzling against his senses. Aeromancy.

  He rushed to the starboard bridge window just as the water off the ship’s bow began to bubble, something close to the surface channeling a torrent of electricity toward the approaching ships. Bookbinder hauled on the magical current, feeling it flow into his own body, blotting out his vision and buzzing in his ears. He doubled over, nearly overwhelmed by the force of the energy, then held out a hand and Bound the magic into the water where the goblin sorcerer swam.

  His vision returned as the magic poured out of him, leaving only the steady flow of his own tide. The water sparked, flashing below the surface, runnels of steam wafting skyward, a lightning storm unfolding in the deep. Goblin bodies began to float to the surface, charred and smoking.

  Bookbinder heard cracks from the navy ship, saw goblins behind the Breakwater’s crane spin and drop under sniper fire. He sucked in his breath at the risk. The skipper must be truly desperate to get him back if he was willing to chance hitting someone on the buoy tender.

  The water around the Breakwater was a bobbing field of discarded weapons, shredded goblin bodies, and blossoms of brackish blood. The larger ship maintained position, while the Giffords held her fire, turned broadside, and began to circle the Breakwater.

  ‘Hold position until we’re certain you’re clear, then we’ll come aboard,’ came the call over the radio. Bookbinder thought of Ripple and had to stop himself from yelling at them to hurry.

  Bonhomme thanked them as Rodriguez came onto the bridge, sweating and bleeding and obviously relieved.

  ‘Captain Ripple?’ Bookbinder asked. ‘How’s she holding up?’

  Before Rodriguez could answer, Bookbinder felt the deck slide beneath him. At first he thought it might be the regular rolling of the ship, but the deck refused to right, the Breakwater leaning steadily to one side. Bookbinder flailed, grabbing Rodriguez’s shoulder and bracing himself against one of the console rails.

  Out the starboard window, he could see the water sloping, running down into itself, as if some vortex had opened beneath it. The Giffords’s bow slid downward, looking like she rode some bizarre aquatic roller coaster. She opened up with her small guns again, the deck gun spinning uselessly.

  Bookbinder noticed the huge shape, the black blot below the water that Rodriguez had thought was a whale. It grew as it came closer to the surface, the black slowly resolving into gray-green, ridged and gnarled, some leviathan out of the Source. Its vast bulk crawled with living protrusions, swarming across the wrinkled skin, barnacle things, skittering as they waved frond tentacles. The thing tilted upward, bullet-shaped snout pointing toward the surface, spade-shaped tail trailing below, huge gill-like flaps flexing, drawing water. The rounds from the Giffords’s rail mounted guns rattled down around it, carving trails through the water, tiny puffs of blood wafting up where they impacted. The gill flaps pulsed, flexed as its mouth opened.

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ Bookbinder breathed. ‘Everybody get down!’

  The giant body spasmed, flexed. The huge mouth stretched wide. A sheet of bubbles issued forth, whipping the drifting blood into a froth, erupting through the surface. The Breakwater slewed drunkenly as the enormous wave arced up and out, sweeping forward at a speed breathtaking for something so large. By the time it reached the ships, it was a solid wall of water over twenty feet high.

  It caught the Giffords straight on her bow, lifting her up in the air. The warship hung there, balanced on her stern, men tumbling into the water, until she finally corkscrewed sideways and flipped back onto the surface, shallow keel and twisting thrusters exposed to the sky. Beyond her, the larger ship spun in tight circles, looking suddenly like a giant bath toy, before heeling over on her side, her tall bridge smacking into the water with a thundering splash.

  The wall of water raced past the overturned ships, looming above the Breakwater’s gunwales, its shadow racing across the buoy deck. Bookbinder could see corpses tumbling in the breaking foam, goblin and human, chunks of driftwood, knives, and spears, all sliding down the slick, gray-green surface.

  And then it was upon them.

  ‘Hold on to something!’ Bonhomme shouted, as the wave curled in on itself, collapsing down toward them. Bookbinder looked at the wall of water and realized it wouldn’t matter. He was no seaman, but even he knew the Breakwater couldn’t hold against this.

  Bookbinder felt a sudden pulse, a measured discharge of magical energy. He looked around wildly for the source, half-expecting to see Ripple standing on the bridge. But the magic was flowing from farther away. He narrowed his eyes, looking through the bridge window at
the boomer, pocked with bullet holes and splashed with blood, but still tied to the crane. The magic flowed from it and the giant wave recoiled, split in half, suddenly going gentle around the bow. The fury of the rough water churned around them, but from the Breakwater’s beam to ten feet off her bow, the water went suddenly placid.

  ‘Well, I’ll be . . .’ Bookbinder managed.

  The vessel’s aft had no such protection. The fury of the wave swatted it like a giant hand, spinning the huge ship on its centerline, the thrusters groaning beneath it. Bookbinder fell to the deck, the ship shaking, tortured metal rumbling. Papers flew around the small cabin. A clipboard bounced off his head. He could hear Bonhomme and Rodriguez crying out, wondered if the ship would hold together. Vertigo seized him, and he bit back nausea as the spinning slowly eased, stopped.

  All was silent as the ship pitched, violently at first, then more gently, and finally stabilized. Bookbinder looked up, saw Bonhomme’s horrified face. The commander slowly got to his feet. Bookbinder stood beside him and looked out over the buoy deck where the crew was already scrambling to look for damage. If the ship was taking on water, he couldn’t tell. The console electronics had gone dark. The radios buzzed with static.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ Bonhomme asked.

  ‘The boomer.’ Bookbinder pointed to the device, swinging gently from the end of the crane, its magic spent. He could still feel the current coming off it, but it was barely detectable. ‘Covered us from the bow, but not the stern. I guess that tells us its range.’ He smiled weakly. ‘I’ll make a note.’

  Bonhomme didn’t return the smile. Instead, he called into the radio, asking for a damage report. Silence greeted him. But the action was good, Bookbinder thought. At least the man was doing something without prompting, showing his crew some of what they needed to see. Rodriguez ran out of the hatch and stood in the ladder well, shouting down to the sailors below. Within a few minutes, shouts came back up to her. The hull was intact. They had power, the thrusters responded. Steering. But the radios were still down, as was the radar and sonar.

  ‘Mast must have come down,’ she said.

  ‘Well, that’s good. We can still get out of here,’ Bookbinder managed. But Bonhomme’s eyes were farther out, on the overturned hulls of the two navy ships. The larger one had already vanished beneath the surface. The Giffords still bobbed lightly, sinking slowly. All around them, he could see men thrashing in the water, interspersed with a goblin spear tip or arm, as the creatures regrouped and took them on. The goblins might be smaller, but they were in their element now, and the stricken sailors didn’t stand a chance. Bookbinder couldn’t make out a single life raft. They hadn’t had time to deploy them.

  Suddenly, Thorsson’s words echoed in his ears. Battery Park. Castle Clinton. We’re right on the water. You can come straight to us. That monster had capsized two warships.

  It could drown a low-lying park at the water’s edge.

  They’d stumbled across the invasion’s rearguard.

  Bonhomme stared, and Bookbinder tapped his elbow. ‘Skipper, we should get over there, see if we can pick up any of the survivors.’

  Bonhomme gave no commands. His voice was only a whisper. Bookbinder knew what he was thinking. If two naval warships couldn’t withstand the enemy, what chance did they have?

  ‘We’re on our own now, aren’t we?’ Bonhomme asked.

  Bookbinder sighed. ‘Yes, skipper. I’m afraid we are.’

  Chapter Seven

  The System And The System

  Years of relentless pressure by the US government moved the Mexican authorities to push their Selfers underground, into the sewers. These ‘flushed’ people, the ‘Limpiados’, turned to the only force in the country with the resources to help them, the drug cartels. The result was a devil’s bargain that enfranchised both parties beyond their wildest dreams. Years of declining central-government power saw the Limpiados rise on the tide of the cartels until they were a force in their own right. The sewers were no longer a refuge, they were a kingdom.

  – Professor Osvaldo H. Soto

  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

  Harlequin sat across from the two scouts, Special Forces operators just in from a reconnaissance run through the battlespace, drumming his fingers on the folding table.

  Two days in command of the Breach Zone. Two days with only catnaps stolen in the corner of the bustling command post he’d made out of Castle Clinton. He’d gone longer on less, but that didn’t mean he liked it. The creeping delirium eroded his focus when he needed to be at his best. He shook his head and gulped down the can of energy drink, willing the caffeine to do its work.

  ‘I remember you guys,’ he said, setting the can back down. ‘You two escorted General Bookbinder to FOB Sarpakavu, right?’

  The bigger SF operator was a grizzled sergeant first class whose resemblance to a desperado out of a Western was so strong it was almost comical. His name tape read SHARP. ‘We had that honor, sir. There were more of us when we started out. Specialist Archer and I were the two who made it.’ He chucked the elbow of the other SF operator, a short, thin sergeant with longish hair that clearly violated regs.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Harlequin said. ‘I remember the reports now. I should have . . .’

  Sharp waved a hand. ‘We all do our jobs, sir. How are you holding up?’

  Harlequin could control his expression and tone of voice, but not the bags under his eyes. ‘Tired.’

  Sharp nodded. ‘I can imagine. You should get some sleep, sir. You’re no good to anyone if you’re swaying on your feet.’

  There’s nobody else who can handle this. I can’t sleep until it’s over. Harlequin stared at the empty can of energy drink, his fourth one that day. Or was it the fifth? He’d lost count. ‘I’ll take it under advisement.’

  ‘Colonel Bookbinder here, sir?’ Archer asked. ‘We’d like to say hi.’

  ‘General Bookbinder,’ Sharp corrected him.

  ‘Right’ – Archer grinned – ‘takes some getting used to.’

  Harlequin shook his head. ‘He’s . . . he should be inbound. We need him.’

  Sharp nodded. ‘Yeah, I reckon his particular ability would help with the mountain gods.’

  ‘It is . . . sorely missed.’

  ‘Well, I hate to say this, sir, but I’d highly recommend you get him in here most riki-tik.’

  Harlequin suddenly felt wide-awake. ‘I do not need more bad news.’

  Sharp held up his smartphone and began thumbing through the photographs on the touch screen. ‘Well, then you might want to plug your ears and cover your eyes, sir.’

  Harlequin did the opposite. His eyes narrowed as he leaned in to examine the picture. ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘That’s the Lower East Side, sir. Well, part of it. Along East Broadway,’ Archer said.

  ‘No.’ Harlequin tapped the screen, trying to expand the picture. ‘What’s that on the buildings?’

  Sharp took the phone, magnified the picture, and handed it back. ‘Webs, sir. Those are spiderwebs.’

  The magnified picture showed a long stretch of a wide New York City avenue, still clogged with abandoned cars. Apartment buildings hunched over restaurants and bodegas, many with signs in Chinese. It looked like the Manhattan Harlequin remembered from his tour of duty in New York, a hodgepodge of mismatched buildings, beaux arts alongside ultramodern, shoehorned in beside falling-apart.

  All were draped in thick curtains of spider silk.

  It hung from every building, sticky tendrils anchored to fire escapes and car hoods. It drifted lazily in the wind over awnings and fire hydrants, turning the street fuzzy, a vista seen through a thin veil of cotton candy.

  Thick black lumps dotted the webbing, meaty clots the size of cars.

  Harlequin knew what they were without squin
ting further. Their spinnerets were blurs in the still frame of a photo. The streets were deserted, but the webs were dotted with long, narrow cocoons of silk, each about the size and shape of a person. Hundreds of them.

  ‘Those are people . . .’

  ‘We think so, sir,’ Sharp said. ‘We didn’t investigate further.’

  ‘Why are you showing me this?’

  ‘Because that’s just one block. Rocs have set up the world’s biggest nest in City Hall Park’s Fountain. We fought these . . . burning things when we escorted Col . . . Sorry. Still getting used to the promotion. When we escorted General Bookbinder to FOB Sarpakavu. They live in ashes. They’ve taken over a few blocks under the Williamsburg Bridge. Turned the whole thing into a charcoal pit. We could barely get close enough to sketch out the borders.’

  ‘Jesus. So we’ve got . . . monster ghettos. They’re setting up neighborhoods?’

  Sharp nodded. ‘Except along the barricade line on Houston. That’s where the fighting is.’

  ‘Okay. You’ve mapped all this out?’

  ‘With notes on who’s living where, sir.’

  ‘Outstanding. That’ll help us match capabilities to missions when we get it cleared. It’s going to take a while to . . .’

  ‘Sir,’ Archer interrupted him. ‘Respectfully, there’s more.’

  Harlequin froze, mouth open.

  ‘There are two . . . zones, sir. They’re clear,’ Sharp said.

  ‘Clear . . .’

  ‘Clear, sir. Some signs of fighting, but they’ve held. No goblins, no demon horses. Not even Gahe.’

  It was a long time before Harlequin could speak. ‘Where?’