Avalanche: Book Five in the Secret World Chronicle

by Lackey, Mercedes

  * * *

  Georgi laid the Commissar’s body down on the ground, careful to keep her behind cover. The unit—his unit now—was still fighting. He heard the nearby explosions as the flanking teams breached the buildings simultaneously, followed by the constant chatter of fully automatic weapons. The ambushers would be dead, soon, and the assault would continue. He tried to muster something approaching satisfaction at that, but it was blotted out by the white-hot sun of his anger at the Thulians. He didn’t just hate them because they were fascista…he resented them. He resented them for destroying his world, for making it a place where he had to see a girl—who he had watched grow into a woman and then his commanding officer—die while saving their comrades. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to wrap his hands around the throat of every single fascista, one by one, and choke the life out of them.

  I’ve been fighting this same fucking war far too long, he thought to himself as he keyed his comm unit. “Medic!” There was nothing to be done for the Commissar—no, Natalya—anymore. From a glance, he already knew what had happened. A grazing shot from a Thulian energy pistol had burned away a section of her nanoweave jacket, not to mention her combat vest. Without full integrity, it had been useless to stop the bullets that had struck her from the side and in her back. Unable to stiffen and disperse the kinetic energy of the bullets, they passed through the armor as they would have with any other garment. Bear and the two injured soldiers, however, were still alive. Georgi had to focus on what he could fix; he had to keep moving forward. Just to be sure, he quickly moved over to Pavel’s still form and put his ear to the battered chest piece of the chassis; Old Bear’s plasma chamber heart was still whirring, though much quieter than it should have been.

  A moment later, Thea and Jadwiga rounded the corner of the building abutting their cover. Their eyes darted over the scene, taking in the details. Jadwiga’s eyes went dead, her face became stone. She was a professional healer, a trained medical doctor in addition to her metahuman abilities, and she knew her priorities. To Georgi’s surprise…Thea burst into tears. She collapsed against the wall, clinging to it as if it were the last thing grounding her to reality. He had never seen her be anything but reserved or, at best, laconic. Unlike for most of the other comrades, he had never seen her personnel file; the Commissar had accepted her into the CCCP without consulting him, and he hadn’t opposed her decision. Despite the mystery, she had demonstrated her willingness to help her comrades satisfactorily. What is your story, devushka? He wanted to go to her and comfort her, to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be fine…but he couldn’t. There was still too much that needed attending to.

  “Jadwiga, get her moving. As soon as you have them stable enough to move, get Pavel and the injured to one of the evac points. And the Commissar—”

  “No need to tell me my business, Georgi,” she didn’t quite bark at him. He opened his mouth to reply, but then promptly shut it. She was clearly suffering, and this was how she dealt with it; she had been closer to Natalya and Molotok than any of the other comrades. Instead of wailing and beating her fist against the ground, she shut that part of herself away, like a patient in triage, until she could deal with it. Have to stop the bleeding before anything else. She went back to Thea and slapped her once; not hard, but not gently, either. That pulled the young woman up short, midbawl. Then Jadwiga pulled her into a rough hug, and whispered something into her ear. A few seconds later, the pair were jogging towards the wounded, Thea wiping her tears away with the back of her gloved hands.

  Georgi split off a detachment of soldiers to help them with the wounded and the Commissar’s body; some helping to carry, the rest on security. The front line was, for the most part, stable and moving forward, but as they had just painfully learned, nothing could be taken for granted on this godforsaken ship.

  As if to punctuate his thought, the ground shuddered. Several of the soldiers looked to Georgi, a collective “What the hell was that?” expression on all of their faces. Then the ground violently bucked up to meet all of them, knocking everyone in the immediate vicinity off of their feet.

  “The ship is dying, Commissar,” Eight said in his ear. “It is not yet compromised enough to begin breaking up, but that end is inevitable.” He waited for some sort of advice as to what the AI suggested he do, but none was forthcoming. He wasn’t sure whether to be sorry or grateful that Eight was leaving command decisions to him. Unter picked himself up off the ground when he felt confident enough that there wouldn’t be any aftershocks, or whatever came after a “ship quake,” if anything. Everyone around him was already moving; Jadwiga, Thea, and the soldiers he assigned to them gathering the wounded and the Commissar’s body, the rest of his soldiers continuing to assault towards the center of the ship.

  Unter pushed forward when his men in the occupied buildings gave the all-clear. One of the buildings was completely consumed with fire, and the second wasn’t faring much better. Their casualties during the assault had been acceptable: one dead, six wounded. He noticed that zero prisoners had been taken; several of the human bodies—from the traitorous Supernaut unit undoubtedly—had been bound and killed in what looked like executions. He couldn’t even muster satisfaction that they were dead, or disgust that he normally would have been pleased by this outcome. Too much to do, too much hate flattening out his other emotions. This was war. He could deal with everything, the good and the bad, after. If there was an after for him, or anyone else.

  The ambush cleared, they advanced. He saw more Thulians now than he did Supernaut suits; they were definitely making progress, and there couldn’t be that many of the traitors left. He was about to order another movement, to advance to contact, when his HUD lit up with a bright warning and something like a Klaxon. That was followed with a series of rippling explosions to the right of his unit’s position, near the center of the ship. They overpowered all of the other blasts and booms across the ship, they were that loud. What the hell is it now?

  “Commissar Untermensch!” Eight said, with uncharacteristic urgency. “The dragon!”

  Georgi’s stomach dropped. They had all been afraid of this. The intel hadn’t included anything on the dragon, though they knew that it had been out there, somewhere, after the destruction of Metis. The weapons his unit had couldn’t even begin to be enough to damage the dragon, much less take it down. “Everyone, get to cover, now!” Just after he finished yelling, he heard the roar. Loud and resonant, it seemed to stop the fighting for the briefest of moments, all across the city. Then he saw it; it crested the rooftops in the distance, raising itself to its full height. It was terrible, but also a little beautiful: sleek and jagged, metallic and organic, and pure in its desire to kill every single one of them. The moment shattered when the artillery and close air support craft started hammering it. The explosions surrounded it like miniature and short-lived rain clouds, blossoming and then dissipating. The dragon didn’t seem to notice. It surged forward, crashing through buildings on its way to the far right side of the front line. It had to be killing some of its own, but if it was, it didn’t care. The artillery that had been targeting it couldn’t keep up; some of the attack helicopters were able to continue to land hits with their cannons and missiles, but even those slackened as they broke off to deal with harrying Death Spheres. Within seconds, the dragon smashed into the assaulting units on the right end of the line. Unter felt his gorge rise when he saw dozens of “friendly” dots on the HUD map suddenly go dark.

  What the hell are we going to do against that? It’s going to tear its way through the front lines, and then take out the ships. He felt a rising wave of panic for the first time since the battle had begun. Would they have to retreat? It seemed unthinkable…no, it was unthinkable. Whatever happened here today, they couldn’t turn back. They wouldn’t have another shot.

  Another warning buzzed on the HUD. “Incoming friendly unit, cease all attacks against the dragon. All units, clear lane Bravo into adjoining lanes immediate
ly!”

  Georgi almost shouted. What were they trying to do, give it a straight shot to the ships? It took him a moment to realize that they certainly were not. The ground rumbled again, in rhythmic bursts. Footfalls. Georgi spun around to face the edge of the ship, back where they had come from; Atlas, in all of his thousand-foot-tall glory, was running towards the dragon. Georgi didn’t know that the giant could even move that fast, and neither did the dragon. Atlas launched himself at the dragon, spearing it in the midsection with a flying tackle before it could do anything more than turn its head. They went down with a thunderous crash, pulverizing buildings as they rolled and thrashed. The men around Georgi gave triumphant cries, many pumping weapons and fists in the air.

  “Keep moving forward, comrades! We have a chance, and we must not waste it! Ura, ura, ura!” The men snapped to his orders, and they rushed forward. They had to keep up their momentum. If they stalled again, that would be all the chance that the Thulians needed to scrape them off of the ship and back into the sea. Georgi saw on his HUD that the other units, some of them more sluggishly than others, were back to pressing the attack as well. Everyone was steering clear of the furball between Atlas and the dragon, even the Thulians. It was the Great Patriotic War all over again; the metahuman heavies duked it out amongst themselves, while the conventional forces fought each other until one or the other won.

  Even with the renewed energy within the unit, Georgi kept an eye on the fight between Atlas and the dragon. His enthusiasm vanished almost instantly. Atlas wrestled with the dragon, trying to stay behind its head and pin it, occasionally punching or elbowing it with little effect other than to batter the monstrosity. The dragon, in turn, clawed and bit at every available piece of Atlas…and where its jaws snapped or its claws found purchase, it was doing damage. He can’t hurt it…he can only try to distract it and keep it from killing the rest of us. Georgi knew that the situation couldn’t last. Eventually, and probably sooner than later, Atlas would make a mistake, and the dragon would have him. He had had the advantage, surprising it. Now it was pissed; there was nothing beautiful about it now. Just an awful, demonic fury so intense that Georgi could swear it was giving off a heat mirage. His mind scrambled for a solution—anything; it didn’t matter if they pushed further in the city if the dragon killed Atlas, and then swooped in on them from behind.

  The idea came to him suddenly, like a bolt from the blue. He almost discounted it out of hand…but he couldn’t bring himself to. We are all going to die, one way or another. And we can’t hold back. He keyed his comm unit. “Comrade Chug, this is Untermensch. I need you at my position immediately.” He grabbed the nearest lieutenant, a young blond VDV man, and spun him around to face him. “You…Lt. Iaket?” The officer nodded, confused and obviously a little intimidated. Not every day one meets a member of the CCCP, I suppose. “You are in charge of the unit until I return.” More like “if I return,” but the young Russian didn’t need to know that. “Continue the attack. We must prevail—for Russia, and the world. Do you understand?”

  The lieutenant stared at him blankly, then saluted crisply. “Yessir!” With a nod, the young officer set off, already barking orders for the others.

  Georgi stared after the man, wondering if he would live through today. He stood there wondering for a second before snapping himself out of it. “Eight, where is Chug?” At that moment a section of wall behind Georgi exploded outward, showering the immediate area with dust and chunks of concrete. Georgi flinched for a split second, then whirled around with his rifle raised. A squat form shook itself once, then jogged over to Georgi. “Nevermind, Eight.” He lowered his rifle, looking down to Chug. His arm had healed after being reattached by the combined efforts of Belladonna, Jadwiga, and Victrix. Georgi didn’t even pretend to understand all of the complicated processes, much less the literal magic, that had gone into making the rock man whole again. Chug looked happy to see Georgi, which made it that much harder for him. He had been attached to another unit that was lacking any metahuman muscle, as it were, under the command of one of Proletariat’s copies. Normally unable to help in the day-to-day peacekeeping and law enforcement that the CCCP usually engaged in, Chug was usually occupied with coloring books or playing with his pet hamster. Or eating. Even as he looked expectantly to Georgi, Chug bent down to pick up a piece of the concrete to chew on. Here, however, he had been allowed to go all out. From the reports that the Proletariat copy had been sending to Georgi, Chug had been having an absolute ball.

  “Chug, I need you to come with me. We must assist Comrade Atlas.”

  “Okay, Unter,” Chug rumbled happily as he munched on the chunk of concrete like an apple.

  The pair of them set off at a run. They needed to be fast, but it wouldn’t do to get bushwhacked by the enemy, so they stayed behind the front line, well within friendly territory. That only changed when they got near to the site of Atlas’ own battle. There were no troops in this area; any closer and they had a real chance of being crushed beneath the two thrashing titans. A huge area of the city had been flattened by just the two of them, not to mention the ongoing bombardment. Georgi had already sent his plan to Eight via private channel, who had relayed it to Atlas. His only reply: HURRY!

  Georgi signaled to Eight when they came to a stop. The plan was insane, probably worthless…but he couldn’t think of anything else. Maybe Natalya could have, or Arthur Chang. But this was all Georgi had. He turned to Chug; he had already finished his bit of concrete while they were running, and was looking for something else to eat. “Chug, I need you to do something.”

  Chug looked up to Georgi, and for the thousandth time, he considered scrapping the idea. “Yes, Unter? Chug wants to help.” Since coming to America with the rest of the CCCP, he had taken to speaking English more often. He did it because it made the American comrades more comfortable; Chug was always eager to please his friends.

  No turning back. No retreat, ever, even if it hurt your soul. “That dragon is hurting Comrade Atlas. He needs your help to destroy it.” He considered for a moment, wrestling with his conscience. To hell with it. He deserves to know. “You may die. But if you can stop the dragon, you will save all of the comrades. All of your friends. We need you to help us, Chug. You’re the only one that can now.”

  That sobered Chug. “Da, Unter,” the rock man replied quickly. “Chug helps comrades.”

  Georgi’s attention was torn back to the gargantuan battle. Atlas, his stone flesh covered with bite and claw marks, had finally disentangled himself from the dragon. It was on top of him; he was on his back and was holding it at arm’s length as it tried to crane its head far enough down to bite his throat. With a tremendous effort, Atlas managed to get a leg between himself and the squirming dragon; with a single kick, he sent the dragon flying away from him. It landed several hundred yards away, buildings crumbling underneath it until it finally came to a rest. A particularly tall structure that looked like some kind of neoclassic tower collapsed on top of the dragon.

  Atlas flipped onto his hands and knees—again, Georgi was dumbfounded by how impossibly fast Atlas could move for someone so large—and swept a hand towards Georgi and Chug. Georgi was able to leap backwards at the last second, still close enough to feel the wind from Atlas’ massive hand as it scooped up Chug. The dragon was already freeing itself from the remains of the tower, its eyes fixed on Atlas with murderous rage. The giant whispered something—still booming and loud, but Georgi couldn’t make out the exact words—to Chug. The dragon had begun charging towards the pair, another awful roar issuing from its maw. With a short windup, Atlas coiled his arm, then threw Chug straight at the dragon. Georgi’s eyes tracked the hurtling, rocky bullet as it disappeared into the dragon’s mouth.

  Georgi held his breath. The dragon had come up short, confused. That didn’t last long, however. Satisfied that whatever had happened didn’t matter more than killing Atlas, it started forward again…and then stumbled and crashed into the ground, throwing up huge fountains
of ruined street and debris. Georgi ran for the nearest piece of hard cover he could find—the remains of an arch commemorating some bullshit battle or something that the Thulians cared about. Rocks pelted him on the head and shoulders as he ran, with huge pieces exploding on the street all around him. He skidded to a stop underneath the arch, hoping it would hold, before he turned to look at the dragon again. It was on its back now, and clawing at itself, tearing off great chunks of metal on its throat, then its belly and sides. Baleful orange light shone through the fissures that it created, and how it screamed; not a roar, but the sound of a thing in pain. It was unnerving; a machine, or what was supposed to be mostly machine, feeling pain.

  Atlas stomped over to Georgi, the ground shaking with every step. He dropped to the ground in front of Georgi, blocking his view of the dragon. “GET DOWN!” Georgi was nearly deafened by the giant’s voice, but he complied instantly. A second later the sky was filled with orange light, and Atlas’ body rocked with a concussive wave. The arch above Georgi groaned, the stones threatening to give way to gravity…but it held. Slowly, Atlas rolled away from Georgi, revealing a scorched wasteland. Something inside of the dragon, broken by Chug, had exploded. The immediate area, already destroyed by the giants’ brawl, was completely devastated now. A mushroom cloud in miniature rose from where the dragon had been, an inferno at the heart of it. Georgi could see what looked like the outline of the dragon’s lower body sticking out from the center of it, but with all of the fire—he could feel the heat as if he was standing right next to it—it was impossible to be sure.