The Fae Wars: Onslaught

by J. F. Holmes

  The colonel and the professor I ignored, slumped together on the couch. The stink of their death was in the air, but I was used to it - far too used to it. I pulled the bodyguards and the woman into the first bedroom and then covered the other two in a blanket. Locking the front door, I tested the shower and found the water lukewarm, which was better than I expected. The next ten minutes were spent scrubbing the filth of combat off me while my jeans and socks soaked in the kitchen sink. Then I devoured some ramen noodles that I found in a cabinet in the kitchen, thankful the gas was still on and I had a lighter on me. As I had supposed, the apartment was a Chinese safe house, and the neighbors had other things on their minds right now.

  *****

  I woke with a start, gun raised, when I heard voices outside the bedroom. I had been dreaming of the dead girl, telling her, “Hey, I’m not the one who killed you!” while she sat there in a kitchen chair, smoking a nasty Chinese cigarette, bleeding from her forehead.

  I listened before I opened the door, trying to make out what was being said, and relaxed a little. Power was back on and apparently it was some kind of newscast, one of those slick anchors talking. The Chinese probably had it tuned to Fox News or something while they were conversing to hide bugs. Stepping out, I cleared the place anyway, the two huddled figures under the sheets kinda creepy. I sat next to them and flipped through the TV but every channel was showing the same thing. A man, looking exhausted and like he was reading off a script with a gun to his head, kept repeating the same statement.

  “If you yield, you live. The Lords,” and he said it with a capital L, trust me, “have no desire for more bloodshed and only wish to bring peace to our lands. Show your hands in the air to the nearest,” and here he used a word which I would come later to recognize as retainer, “and pledge fealty. Then you will be allowed to return to your regular lives.”

  He said that over and over, not a repeat clip though, until his voice was a croak. Then right in front of the camera, an ax flashed out and split his skull. A struggling woman who I recognized as an anchor for a national news outlet based in Atlanta was shoved into his still warm seat and she started repeating the same words, terror in her eyes. OK then, I thought, this is nationwide. I turned it off before she got the literal ax.

  Late afternoon sun spilled into through the doors to the balcony and I figured it was around four or so on a mid-August day. The power hummed through the fridge and lights blinked on the microwave. Great, maybe I could take a hot shower soon. I cautiously snaked my way out on the balcony and put my face to where I could see a narrow view of Central Park stretched out in front of me. I was careful not to get too close to the openings in the railing; I had no desire to get my head blown off by a sniper watching the buildings around the beachhead.

  When I finally settled down what I saw was a scene from Hell. Long lines of human prisoners stripped naked, mostly young women and men in good shape. No kids, thank God, though I didn’t want to think of what their alternative fate was. They were being escorted into smaller portals from holding pens, and I strained to see what was on the other side, no, couldn’t, nothing but darkness. Each one just stepped in and vanished, but the orcs escorting them did too, so at least it wasn’t an oven. Slavery for sure, and I thought hard about the Barrett a couple of blocks away.

  Instead I went back inside and found a pen, but nothing to write until I dug a bloodstained notebook out of the professor’s suit jacket. The first couple of pages were filled with mathematical equations and code, and I mused at how irrelevant that had become. Then a thought hit me, and fuck me, now that power was back on, maybe the internet was still connected. No way to access it now; my cell phone had no coverage, which I checked just to be sure. Nope. That could wait. I had no hope of being able to log into any laptop that the Chinese might have carried. if there even was one. I guessed it would have to wait until I could get someplace with an unencrypted laptop. Maybe I could steal one from a neighbor. Still more work to do.

  This being New York of course there was a telescope on the balcony. Real convenient, but to be honest, I expected one. Those of you who aren’t from a big, crowded city might not understand, but to people living in tall buildings spying in others windows was a pretty popular past time. It was a cheap one on a small tripod, almost like a kid’s toy, but better than nothing. I grabbed a pillow for my elbows, crawled back out and got to work. Information is the key to defeating an enemy, and I had spent days on end doing the same thing before a fifteen minute op. As Sun Tzu said, know yourself and your enemy, and you will never be defeated, or something like that, and we didn’t know crap about these people.

  First thing was numbers. How many troops? What were they doing? What was the command structure like? Of course, I had no idea how many had come out during the last twenty four hours. Thousands, from what I saw, but ten thousand? A hundred thousand? No clue. What I did see was a rough guesstimate of about ten thousand gathered on the Great Lawn. Call it a short division. There were tents scattered through the wooded areas of the park, everything from circular yurt style ones, maybe a half dozen capacity, up to one huge circus like thing over by the theater. After watching closely for a while, I figured those were for the Elves, who apparently were the people in charge. The bigger ones flew banners with distinctive insignia, five in all. The largest flew outside the biggest tent, a silver dragon on a black background. OK, so call that four division commanders with an overall head motherfucker in charge. That was between eighty and a hundred thousand troops in the field, just here in New York. Shit.

  Next, assets. I had seen the dragons before, and now I made a count. The short ones, maybe twenty feet long, flew fast as hell. There were a lot of them, and they apparently acted as scouts and couriers because they were darting all over the place. Then bigger ones, maybe three dozen, many sleeping after what I guess had been a tough ass day and several bore bloody wounds. The biggest I saw was over a hundred feet long, all gold scale, wings and teeth. They were being fed, I didn’t want to guess what, but they would snap and fight with each other, and I noticed that some, though not all, had chains and collars around their neck and were spiked to the ground. I saw one that wasn’t chained having what appeared to be a conversation with an Elf in bright red armor. Then the dude got in its neck and took off in the direction of Harlem. Matter of fact, a lot of the traffic seemed to be heading north, which is kinda what I figured. If the military was going to make a fight of it, it would be somewhere above Manhattan where there were plenty of interstates and higher ground. As if to confirm a horn blew and the troops started falling into formation. That took about twenty minutes for all the ranks to form up and then they started filing out of the north end of the park. Each section of infantry was accompanied by what looked like a company of wingless dragons, maybe forty each, with riders. They moved deceptively fast, most of the time being held back by their riders. I saw one spit something, a huge glob of glowing liquid, and it frigging ATE the corner of a building half a mile away. Ok then, that was their armor.

  One thing I think we had on them was speed, though. Infantry couldn’t keep up with Bradleys and Abrams moving cross country in an attack, and I don’t give a shit how powerful your magic is, you ain’t stopping a depleted uranium sabot round. As far I could remember, though, the nearest tank unit was probably at Fort Riley in Kansas or at Fort Stewart in Georgia. Not going to get here anytime soon. That left it up to the 10th Mountain and the local Guard and Reserve units to put up a fight, and they were going to get slaughtered if the Air Force couldn’t support them.

  Speaking of which, I started looking at the effect of the bombing last night / early this morning. There were craters on either side of the lawn and one section of the A train tunnel on the west side of the park looked to have caved in for half a dozen blocks. Four or five buildings were down, and there were the remains of a B-52 sticking out of one of the buildings to the north, the structure still burning furiously. Inside the limits of the park … nothing. No crater
holes, no bodies from Tomahawk bomblets, no dead dragons or burned out tents.

  Yeah, we were screwed. The Air Force had thrown their best at them, and nothing. Maybe we’d have some tactical success, but unless we started slinging nukes, we were done. It was time for me to get off this island.

  I took a warmer shower, stripped and reassembled all the guns, slipped the Chinese pistol with the armor piercing rounds into my pocket. The rest went into a backpack I found in the other bedroom, probably the professor’s travelling bag. Then on top of that as much non-perishable food as I could find, a couple cans of soup, some ramen, a bag of cheese doodles, a spoon, and I emptied a gallon milk jug and filled it with water. I rifled through the medicine cabinet, finding candy goodness in the form of a bottle of Motrin and downed a few. Darkness was settling over the town and even as I opened the door, the power went out again. That was fine - I was at home in the darkness - unless, of course, the bad guys could see in the dark. Who knew? But I wanted to find out. That and snatch a prisoner to question, but off the island first.

  Chapter 11

  Manhattan is riddled with tunnels. I once saw a drawing of what it would look like if the island was torn up by the roots and there were thousands of subway tunnels, water mains, electrical conduits, messenger tunnels, hell even pneumatic postal delivery lines. Of course that didn’t mean that I wanted to crawl through one of the smaller ones; hell I don't think a human being could carry enough ammo to kill everything living in them. There were, however, ten different subway connections between Brooklyn or Queens and Manhattan. It was either that or one of the bridges, but I wasn’t going to chance those just yet. I had no real intel on what was happening outside the immediate few blocks I could see, but that dragon was still sitting on top of the Queensboro Bridge.

  Being a native New Yorker, well, really Long Islander, but same thing, I was aware of some of the ways to get into a subway without using the regular platforms. There were quite a few abandoned stations and tunnels, plus the maintenance access. Normally they were chained and guarded, but I didn’t think anyone would give a crap right now. The closest that I knew of was a private line that ran under the Waldorf Astoria delivering celebrities to the hotel in secrecy, but I wasn’t going to go hunting for it and get trapped in the building. If you knew where to look, there were regular maintenance access points, usually a block or so from a station. I just needed a key.

  I stepped out into the twilight, looking around carefully, but the streets were deserted. I didn’t know it then but the Elves were herding civilians towards the southern end of the island, clearing out Manhattan. The ones they missed I guess were just hunkering down in their homes, which made sense. I was a highly trained soldier and I was scared, which is what any sane person should be. Drawing the QSZ and holding it down by my leg I moved slowly down the service alley and kept my head on a swivel. I had a theory about the Orcs and Elves, what abilities their armor and defensive capabilities were. I kinda suspected the orcs maybe just got regular old shit armor and might be expendable; I hadn’t seen any of them use magic. Maybe the armor piercing rounds might be useful but I wasn’t going to count on it. Hardened angled steel plate backed by leather might be enough to stop a round and they looked like tough bastards, but energy was expensive. Energy, magic, whatever. Maybe someone at DARPA would figure it out. But I was betting that only the Elves had the magic shield protection stuff.

  A patrol passed by, just enough moonlight and glow for me to see them before they saw me. I melted back into the shadows and held perfectly still, only shaking on the inside. Two Elves, one a swordsman and the other with a bow, and four orcs. A pattern, a squad. Noted.

  When they had passed I waited ten more minutes as best I could figure, trying to ignore the screams of a woman and the harsh curses of a man, cut short by a death shriek. Not my business right now. I moved south one block and headed east towards Grand Central Station where a ton of rail and subway lines met. There had to be a million entrances to get in there, and once in, I knew my way around enough to find the IRT line and the Steinway tunnel. I had taken a small mag light from one of the bodyguards, and it would be a comfort in the tunnel, but I was seriously wishing for some night vision. There were sets back in the van, but that was way deep in enemy territory and probably looted by now.

  I made my way the few blocks and spent some time just watching the entrances to Grand Central. The fact that the streets were completely empty in the City That Never Sleeps was really disconcerting; I had counted on some activity to screen my movements and slip in through one of the street level stores, and then make my way in through their back service entrances. Instead, I would stand out like a sore thumb. By staying to side streets, I managed to recon most of the main entrances to the station. What most people think of when they picture Grand Central is the huge vaulted main concourse, but there are more than a dozen entrances and exits to various streets, some going directly to the tracks. I would have to use one of those if I couldn’t find a maintenance access point. What I really needed was a store that was on ground level that also had a facade facing the station. I found two on 42nd Street, Banana Republic and Vineyard Vines, a wine shop. That one was out, too many bottles and broken glass, too much noise.

  The problem was that there were three of the orcs standing guard at the terminal entrance between the shops. Rock solid. I didn’t think they would go for any distraction, even if it were almost right in their faces. I knelt in the shadows, thinking hard about what to do. Maybe I could get all three down, but I’d have to do it on the run, in the semi-dark, and if I missed …

  “Hey buddy, I know what you’re thinking, but that’s suicide,” said a voice behind me, and I spun, raising the pistol. I found myself staring at the barrel of a 12 gauge, pointed at my face. Behind it was the shrouded, dirty face of a NYPD cop.

  I safed and lowered my pistol and said, “Major David Kincaid, U.S. Army. And I don’t plan to commit suicide. I’m going to reach into my pocket and get my ID.”

  She thought about it, then lowered her own gun. Behind her were three other cops, one with an M-4, another with a shotgun and the last unarmed with his shoulder bandaged, blood showing black in the darkness. “No need,” she answered. “I’m with the SU, I saw the DHS email about some op going on up here and to stay the hell away. Lemme ask you, did Homeland Security have anything to do with this shit? Someone at DARPA fuck up and open up some weird interdimensional crap?”

  “Uh, no. My team was here to, um, arrest a terrorist cell.” Ah, screw it, didn't matter anymore. “Check that, I’m Special Forces, and we were here to pop a Chinese colonel and one of his sources. This is as much of a surprise to me as it was to you.”

  “Uh huh,” she said with that New York cop attitude of ‘I don’t believe you but I don’t give a crap either,’ tone of voice. “So, you were just going to charge into the pig faces and get down into the tunnels and get the hell out of here?”

  “Something like that.” I could do it, too, but there were too many variables to ensure a one hundred percent outcome. “And what are you all doing up here, officer...”

  “Sergeant O'Neill. Protecting and serving the people of the City of New York, major. What else would we be doing on a night like tonight? Plus a shitload of overtime!” There was a grim round of laughter from the men behind her.

  “Actually I think you had the same idea I had, getting the hell off the island,” I answered. She seemed like a tough character, I liked her.

  “Yeah, but we ain’t as dumb as you. We brought a key.” And the guy behind her held out a set of bolt cutters. “And we thought when we saw you that, well, maybe you might want to come with us. Protect and serve.”

  “Sounds like a plan, but once we get in there, let me lead, OK? This is kind of my thing.” It was, and she knew it. The Special Unit guys of the NYPD were no joke, I’d trained with them, but my experience was light years beyond theirs.

  “Hey, super trooper, no killing anything until we try to arre
st them first,” she said. “Miranda rights and all that.”

  “You’re serious?” I asked incredulously.

  She laughed and so did the guys behind her. “No, dumbass. Everyone we see down there is resisting arrest.”

  “Got it,” I answered, relieved. This WAS New York, after all. “Is your first name Brit by any chance?” I asked, seeing a strand of blonde hair poking out from under her NYPD ball cap.

  “No, Shannon, and why the hell does everyone ask me that? If you’re done flirting, stud, I suggest we move out before the bad guys move in. Times a wastin!”

  “Good point,” I conceded, and we moved through the darkness, paralleling Lexington Avenue. After half a block we stopped and one of the guys shone a flashlight down a stairwell, hooding it with his hands. It highlighted a chained door with the Metropolitan Transit Authority logo on it. Piled in front of the door were two bloated corpses, and we all recoiled from the smell.

  Stepping gingerly over them, the guy with bolt cutters made quick work of the chain on the door, then O'Neill stepped forward and actually unlocked it. There was a small landing and steps that led down into the darkness. “I’ve been here before,” she said, “Two flights and then a corridor that runs to Grand Central proper one way, south the other.”

  “Good thing you just happened to know this,” I said.

  “Hey, Captain America, if the Special Unit didn’t know all the ways in and out of a major transportation node and prime terrorist target, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs, would we?”

  “Point taken. For now, you lead.”

  She made a “gather on me motion” and then said, “Listen, I don’t remember your names, but as of right now we’re a unit. Once we get to Queens, you all can ditch, I know you have families you want to check on. Just don’t forget your jobs too. Report to the nearest precinct house as soon as you can. We’re going to follow the Four line down to the IRT and hopefully take the tunnel over to Long Island City. From there, it’s every man for themselves. Repeat back to me.”