Collision: Book Four in the Secret World Chronicle - eARC Read online

  “You’re being paired with Rusalka. She’ll be busting one or more hydrants and directing the water. You two figure it out from there, I’ll have my hands full here, and I’m handing CCCP off to Gamayun. Don’t yell for me unless you have no other choice. I’m putting out an all-points and we aren’t the only targets being hit.”

  All John could think of was the footage he had seen of the initial Invasion. The Death Spheres, the ranks of power-armor-clad troopers, and how they had shrugged off every attack. Well, almost every attack. Whatever sort of energy field they produced that made their armor nigh invincible, it was weakened by fire; heating up the suits made them vulnerable, even to small arms fire if it was concentrated at the right points. Time to earn my pay.

  He heard more people running up the stairs behind him; he chanced a look over his shoulder. Rusalka, like Vic had said, along with the local gal Mamona and a meta wearing an ECHO uniform and…black wings. Everyone was holding a rifle; Mamona and Rusalka each also had one of the new RPG systems slung over their shoulders, with the ECHO meta loaded down with ammo for them. After a few more flights of stairs, John burst through the door to the roof, followed by the others.

  “Rusalka,” he barked to the Russian, “you’re on the Northwest corner with me.” She nodded, then trotted over to her position, cocking her rifle as she went. John turned to the other pair. “Mamona, you’re going to be on the Southeast corner workin’ as a rocket team with…” John looked at the winged meta.

  “Callsign Corbie; I was on a walkabout in the ol’ neighborhood when Vix shunted me over—”

  “Handshakes and introductions later; you’re going to be covering Mamona an’ makin’ sure her RPG keeps gettin’ fed. Got it?” John started grabbing some of the ammo carriers from Corbie’s arms; Rusalka would need them.

  Corbie set his jaw, then nodded. “Roge-o. Let’s burn some metal.”

  “Get to it, people. Just like the drills; keep an eye out for our people on the ground. Remember; anythin’ worth shootin’ once is worth shootin’ three or four times.” Corbie and Mamona had both already started towards their position; John moved to get ready next to Rusalka. She had the ability for water manipulation; any fires that he started, she was there to put out if they got out of control. It just wouldn’t do to take out the Kriegers only to have half of Atlanta burn down. Again.

  John made a final check to ensure that everyone was locked and loaded, and knew their responsibilities; they were spread thin at the moment, and the action would be happening before anyone on patrol was able to make it back. They had two things going for them: the strange, alien-looking woman called Gamayun and her ability to see things with almost perfect clarity through remote viewing, and Vix, with her frighteningly prescient Overwatch system. Those hadn’t existed on the day of the Invasion, and they just might turn the tide today.

  Seraphym: Airborne

  The Seraphym found the microphone, earpiece and camera mildly irritating, but at least they were a substitute—a poor one, but a substitute nevertheless—for the senses she was now missing.

  When the earpiece screeched at her, she knew better than to pluck it out and throw it to the ground; instead, she sorted through all of the confused shouting, as once she had sorted through the futures, until she heard the voice of the Colt Brother who was looking at the right screen at the right time. From that, she knew the direction from which the Spheres heading for CCCP were coming; she arrowed upwards, knowing that she could no longer outfly the Spheres and was no longer able to heal so fast she was figuratively invulnerable to their weapons. She would have to rely on fire and agility. She was at falcon-height, when she spotted the Spheres moving towards the CCCP HQ at a terrifying speed. She waited until they were just under her, called fires, and went into the classic peregrine-dive, beating her wings until she had gotten all the speed she could get from them, then folding them and turning herself into a projectile, yielding to gravity’s embrace.

  She caught up with the Spheres just before they reached CCCP HQ. They, in their turn, must have seen her coming, and at least that pair of pilots was aware of what she had done to the Thulians in the past, and what her old powers had been. Instead of firing on the HQ, they unloaded their troops and sped away, with her in a full tail-chase, streaming flames.

  Bulwark, Bella (Training Course)

  “Overwatch!” Vickie shouted over all channels. “Priority One Alert!”

  Alarms were lighting up everyone’s Overwatch rigs. For those with implants, this meant a flashing “red alert” light in the upper right of your field of vision, and a single, piercing klaxon before the channel cleared for human chatter and the HUD lit up. “What is it, Victrix?” Bull demanded. “What are you…?”

  He stopped as he heard…it was a hum, but not like the background vibration of, say, an air conditioning unit. This was a deep thrum that rattled your heart all the way inside your chest, and gave you a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach, a hum that you felt in every cell of your body. And if you were Bulwark, with half of your skeleton made of metal, it vibrated every bit of you to an unnerving extent. And more. He had felt this before.

  “Nevermind,” he sighed, and turned to Bella. “Make the call.”

  “INCOMING!” Bella screamed, her voice amplified from long-ago operatic training. The recruits on the field, who did not yet have their Overwatch rigs, came to a surprised halt. Her cry startled some of them on the net-trap, who tripped and collided with each other and came to a tangled sprawl on the ground. Others dropped from place around the scaling wall, while more paused during their race through a scaled down, one-story parkour course. ECHO personnel, meta and non-meta alike, had been moving about the training field running courses, exercising or just socializing. They all stopped, and turned to her…

  …to see three enormous Death Spheres rise above the canopy of the neighboring park and dozens of armored Kriegers emerge from the treeline.

  “RETREAT!” Bella screamed again, then, using her Overwatch mic. “Overwatch: Broadcast all. BATTLE STATIONS! Overwatch: Open Mark One Control: Boys, I’m online, do your stuff and route me command!”

  There was a moment, just a moment, of surprise and fear, and then Bella watched her people scramble for the main campus. She bolted after them, and heard Bulwark following her at a steady trot, the faint shimmer of his shield guarding them both. The field erupted around them with explosions, with sudden craters and scorched earth as the Kriegers began to lay down heavy fire with their energy cannons, and something new…

  “Artillery!” Bull shouted, grunting as a shell reflected off his shield, bouncing up and exploding above them.

  “And RPGs!” Bella shouted back, her hands flying up to cover her head as the ground erupted around her. “We need to get to the main campus!”

  “Agreed,” Bull rumbled, and hissed as he risked a glance back. “Bella! To me!”

  “What?” she cried, and turned as he barreled into her and scooped her up in both arms. “EEEP!” She yelped as he launched himself up, his shield intensifying around them. Behind them, another artillery round crashed into the ground, and the blast suddenly hurled them forward. Bella felt Bull’s arms tighten around her as she instinctively curled up, ducked her head down, and tried as best she could to replicate Harmony’s ability to feed him energy. She felt like throwing up, and disoriented, she didn’t realize why until she opened her eyes.

  They were bouncing.

  Like a ground-serve on a tennis ball, they were bounding along the turf with way more forward momentum than height, his kinetic shield keeping them aloft. She caught a glimpse of some of her operatives sprinting for the main gate, their eyes wide as she and Bull flew past them. If she wasn’t so terrified, she might have laughed. She closed her eyes again; this was certainly an E-ticket ride but not one she would have willingly gotten on!

  “Did you know you could do this?” she gasped.

  “I had an inkling,” Bull replied. “But I never thought to put it into
practice.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I’m still working out how to stop.”

  “Oh.” She opened her eyes and stared up at him. It was times like this when she wished she could read him. Was he joking or what?

  His eyes were narrowed in concentration, and she could feel all his muscles tensing. Urk. Probably not joking. All the one-liners about how “It’s not the fall that gets you, it’s the sudden stop” no longer seemed so funny.

  She glanced up, and saw that they were hurtling towards the front gate of the main campus. “You, uh, might want to work that out fast. My stop’s coming up.”

  “I think I’ve got something,” he muttered.

  “Good plan?”

  “Stupid plan.”

  “Only plan?”

  “Only plan. Go limp. Get ready to roll.”

  Her eyes went wide, but she obeyed, knowing he would feel her relax, and yelped as she felt the shield begin to catch on the ground, slowing them down but sending them into a violent spin. She risked a glance at Bull, who grimaced in concentration. She caught a glimpse of his shield, it’s odd translucent sheen usually uniform throughout, become patchy and even ragged in places.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “New trick,” he gasped, his usual rumble now a bit forced and stuttering. “Haven’t practiced much. Think of this as a field test.”

  “Field test? ARE YOU INSANE?” she demanded.

  “No,” he grunted. “Just out of options.”

  They collided with the gate, and Bella felt the wind knocked out of her as they were hurled back. She barely registered the shield fading away, but reacted instantly as she felt Bull’s arms fall from her. She hit the ground in a near-perfect martial-arts shoulder-roll, relaxed but controlled, or as controlled as you could get under circumstances like this. But she knew she had too much momentum to get to her feet, so she kept rolling until enough speed had gotten scrubbed off to stop. She slapped the ground hard to finish the roll, leapt to her feet, struggled to regain her breath, and glanced up to see Bull laying sprawled on the ground just a few feet from her. He wasn’t moving. With a cry, she scrambled over to him. The big, overly-protective oaf had shielded her from most of the impact with his own body.

  Of all the…

  “Bull!” she cried, and laid her hands on him. He was still breathing, but she could sense torn muscles pretty much from neck to toes. At least his reinforced skeleton had kept his bones intact, but a quick scan confirmed a concussion. His poor brain had just taken a big hit. I could sure use a jolt of angel-juice about now, she thought grimly, took a deep breath, plunged into the Healing Gestalt and hit him with the equivalent of…

  Holy—

  She had been the equivalent of 220 volts, days ago, when the Seraphym had been an angel. Now she was 440. Not Seraphic strength, but certainly Industrial strength. It was kind of euphoric. She resisted the impulse to shout, “Be HEALED!”

  It took about a minute, because with power came speed, and she was already working with the benefit that he was a meta with fast-healing-factor. She began with his head. Swelling that had started, reversed. Damaged cells knitted. She felt the healing waves pulse out through his body like soothing tides. Sixty timeless seconds, more or less, and all the damage was reversed.

  —mother of pearl!

  And as she opened her eyes, she realized something else. She was…a little winded. But not drained. A shot of glucose would be good right now, but not something she had to suck down like a starving vampire.

  A movement caught her attention, and she cradled his head as he opened his eyes.

  “Stupid plan,” he whispered.

  “Stupid plan,” she agreed, then laughed as she held him tight. “Don’t ever do that without me, you moron. Can you get up?”

  “I’ll be fine,” he assured her, rising slowly to survey their surroundings. ECHO personnel from the training field were beginning to catch up with them, while others from within the compound had begun to take their stations both behind and in front of the gate. “Show time, leader lady. I’d say you’ve got about five minutes before they get here.”

  Time to be the boss of the outfit. “Overwatch: open Mark One Control: Sam! Dean! Rally at the front gate. Deploy the Quartermaster Corps. Keep the sensors watching for reinforcements. Until Vix gets to her suite, you’re running One and Two. Overwatch: broadcast all: ETA five minutes. Bring up blast shields. Standard positions and rally point, front gate, take cover, priority cover for civvies.”

  At the command, Sam and Dean Colt activated the blast walls that rose up from the ground, along with half a dozen Jeeps with mounted Mk. 19 grenade launchers. She glanced back to confirm that the Q-Corps was on the way with the shoulder-mounted launchers. She couldn’t make the vehicles run any faster by staring at them, so she turned her attention back to where it would do the most good; the people at the walls.

  As she took her position next to Bulwark behind one of the central blast walls, she noticed a civilian dressed in a bright red jogging outfit cringing next to them. He sat with his back to the wall, his knees brought up tightly to his chest. He was hyperventilating.

  “Breathe deeply, sir,” she said, risking a look around the wall. She saw the tops of the Death Spheres growing over the horizon, and heard the steady march of the Krieger troops in the distance. Her HUD confirmed all of it. “Don’t worry, we’ll get through this.”

  The man struggled to answer, his words catching on his ragged breathing.

  “Sir!” Bella dropped to one knee, and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Deep breaths. That’s right, nice and slow…”

  The man nodded frantically, and his breathing slowed and deepened.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “B-B-B-B-Bob…” he answered. “B-Bob McIntyre.”

  “Helluva morning for a jog, huh Bob?”

  “My usual route,” he gasped. “Figured ECHO campus would be… would be…” His voice trailed off.

  “Safe?” Bella offered.

  “Y-yeah.”

  “We’re going to get through this, Bob,” she repeated, and offered him a smile.

  “H-how do you know?” he asked. “Do you have a plan?”

  “Yes,” Bella nodded. “Let us handle this. It’s going to be a bit hairy at first, but we’ve got this, okay?” The Q-Corps had arrived and were distributing the RPG launchers and ammo.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Well Bob,” Bella said, and let a soothing pulse of calm radiate out from her hand, “for starters, we’re going to let them come in a bit closer.”

  The pulse wasn’t quite enough.

  “ARE YOU INSANE?” Bob demanded.

  Bella stared at him for a moment. She chuckled. She couldn’t help it, and soon she was chortling in helpless gales of laughter.

  Victoria Victrix (ECHO parkour course)

  Vickie didn’t remember coming down off the bar-climb. One minute she was shouting into her mic, the next she had a lump in her shirt that must be her keyboard, and she was on the ground, sprinting in a straight line for the ECHO Quartermaster Building. She couldn’t manage everything from her HUD; it wasn’t possible to get all the information she needed as fast as she needed it. Now all that parkour practice was paying off, even though her limbs were protesting mightily; she sped across the course without tripping once.

  There were plenty of people who had orders to get into the sky, but the folks working with the Q-master knew Vix had priority, and he kept one jetpack with her name on it in readiness at all times. She was counting on that, as she tried to manage the battlefields, pass what she could off to the Colt brothers and Gamayun, and run at the same time. Somehow she managed to stay on her feet, though when she came bursting through the Quartermaster’s door, she was staggering.

  The racks where ECHO jetpacks were normally kept were empty. But as soon as the Q-master spotted her, panting and staring wildly, he hauled one out from under the counter,
jumped over the counter, and got it on her back. She strapped in; he took care of what was needed at the back, and slapped the broadcast-energy engines when he was ready. And she was out the door, then in the air, heading for her apartment.

  Flying low, below the rooftops. No point in making herself a target for the Death Spheres. She was pretty sure she was flying too fast—and weaving among the buildings—for ground troops to target her, but if she got up in the air, the Spheres could and would take computer-guided shots at a lone flyer. She had to make this flight at top speed; at some point soon the ECHO Tesla-power-broadcasters, hidden in structures all over the city, would shut off. Then she’d be down to the half-power mode of the onboard generator. Which would be just enough power to land. The broadcast power weakened Krieger armor, but the Kriegers knew that now and would make any broadcaster they could find a top priority for demolition. Shutting them off would hopefully keep the Kriegers from getting a solid fix on all of their locations.

  She landed on the roof; punched in the code on the roof door and breathed a sigh of thanks that she’d managed to persuade the super to let her install a code-lock, because she would never have found the key in time. Then she staggered down the stairs, lurched to her door, shouted the keywords for the spell that flipped all the locks open at once, barreled through the door, dropped the jetpack in the living room, shouted the key to the spell that flipped the locks closed and pinballed into her Overwatch suite.

  “Overwatch: Battle stations!” she cried as she tumbled into her chair. The monitors lit up, and she lost herself in the meld.

  Ramona Ferrari (CCCP)

  The klaxons in the CCCP base came seconds after the cries of “Battle stations!” over the comms, and the occupants cleared the main areas as orders came through all possible channels. Ramona set the reports to the side and took off for the medical bay. With all of the battles she had witnessed with the Kriegers, she half-expected to scream, or panic, or rush to Soviette claiming that she didn’t know the first thing about fighting the alien metal behemoths. Instead, she took the stairs from the basement office two at a time, her mouth set in a grim line.