World Divided: Book Two of the Secret World Chronicle-ARC

by Mercedes Lackey; Steve Libby; Cody Martin

  The next Krieger was smarter; as soon as it looked like John was targeting him, the trooper angled his shield to face the mounted gun. This also had the effect of turning the trooper’s arm cannon in a safe direction; namely, one that wasn’t facing John. That’ll work! John began raking the remaining Kriegers with the machine gun; whenever he began to fire at one, it would avert its arm cannon. Even slowed by their shields and the mud, they were still plodding forward; they’d be able to spread out and flank him, especially once they were up onto the parking lot.

  Just as the first of the troopers was about to reach the asphalt, John barely made out the familiar chatter of assault rifles. That first Krieger did an awkward stutter step before falling over; dozens of holes were stitched through its back. “Lawson! ’Bout goddamned time!”

  The troopers were done; when they turned their shields to face John, they also turned their backs to face Lawson and his squad. They weren’t protected by their armor or their shields any more, between the M2 machine gun and the soldiers’ rifles. The remaining Kriegers were cut down one by one; the last two switched off their shields. They were able to use both arm cannons for only a few blasts before they were cut down. John saw one connect with Lawson’s position. Before he could react, one ripped through the corner of the building that the Humvee’s front end was hiding behind. The Humvee’s hood and engine both caved in exactly as if something big going ninety miles an hour had hit the front, and the Humvee bucked backwards. Suddenly the entire world was spinning for John. After an eternity, he woke up on his back, and could feel blood trickling along the edge of his scalp. Must’ve been knocked out. How long have I been down? Where are the others?

  The sound of running boots started to drown out the high-pitched ringing that John had been hearing since he woke up. He tried to roll onto his side, and found that he couldn’t. Something was pinning him to the ground.

  “Holy crap, are you all right?” One of the soldiers? John heard something metallic scraping against the ground, and he felt the thing holding him to the ground come free.

  “What happened? Is everyone all right?” Things were still blurry around the edges for John. Probably a concussion. Like I really needed another one. He was having trouble thinking, and the world seemed slower than it should be.

  “Naw, man. Lawson…he bought it with those last two.” A pause. John was able to turn his head up far enough to see a nametape, “Fieldhouse,” but nothing else. “Listen man, we’ll get ya some help, just relax.” Then there was the familiar hair-on-end feeling from before. What did that mean again? John’s vision finally came into focus.

  “Sphere…Death Sphere is comin’ back!” John struggled to stand up, and more details became clear. He stared at his hands and noticed that he still had the control mechanism for the machine gun; at his feet was the M2 itself, all easily fifty feet away from the Humvee wreckage. How in the hell did I rip this beast loose? No time, no time, notimenotime. “Fieldhouse, get whoever is left in position; we’re gonna have company!” He stumbled to the earth berm where the others had taken cover, scooping up a discarded rifle from one of the downed soldiers. There were only six of them left, including John. The unease he was feeling was only growing. “It ought to be here by now. If we can feel it this much—”

  John turned around in time to watch the damaged Death Sphere glide over the parking lot behind them, three troopers disengaging and landing with a crunch.

  “Man, we’re dead. We’re so dead.”

  “Fire, soldier!” John raised his rifle along with the others. This is it. They’ve got us, dead bang. To hell with it; we’ll make them pay for it—

  Then, a new sound—no, sounds. In the distance and approaching. There was something coming. The Thulians stopped their advance, evidently hearing it as well.

  It took him a moment, but suddenly the sound clicked for him; jet packs…and another set of engines, not as shrill, though nothing like the snarl of a fighter jet. What the—CCCP didn’t have—

  It wasn’t CCCP.

  First down, and coming in so fast it looked like a crash, was an aircraft about the size of a stunt jet. Except that at the last minute the engines suddenly rotated, and what had been a near crash turned into a vertical landing; something with V/STOL capability, like a Harrier jump jet. The rear canopy flipped up, and one of the biggest men JM had ever seen in his life popped out of the thing like a giant out of a clown car. The plane was still setting down as he flung himself out of it, landing hard on a wrecked car and rolling. As he rolled, John could hardly believe his eyes as the car—and then the asphalt—rolled up around the man, forming a crude armor.

  Right behind the little jet landed another pair of big men, both wearing Echo jet packs. One was black, the other looked like some sort of Pacific Islander. The black man was wearing nothing but boots, a pair of nanoweave trousers and a nanoweave vest with a helmet. “Matai!” he bellowed, pointing at the three Kriegers. “Light ’em up for your brother!”

  The second man raised up what looked like a sleek paintball gun and began tagging the visors of the three troopers; fluorescing, self-illuminating paint splattered their viewports, obscuring any view they might have had. Wonder if those damned helmets come with windshield wipers.

  By this point another Echo Op popped out of the front of the jet and vanished upwards before John got a good look at him, as a second jet landed and two more Echo Ops emerged from it. The first Op was head-to-toe in what looked like jousting armor—as armored up as the Kriegers were. The second was followed by a flood of dogs that looked as if they should have been the armored one’s pets, since they, too, had helmets, armored neck braces, and shoulder armor.

  The leader of the Echo group shed his jet pack and charged the troopers on the ground, colliding with them at the same time as the junk-covered giant. The troopers began blasting them, with pieces being torn and continually renewing themselves on the scrap-heap meta; the leader just shrugged off the beams that hit him.

  John heard the sound of nails clicking against the ground; a blur of teeth, armor and fur streaked off from where the dogs had been sitting by their keeper. They circled around behind the Kriegers, whose attention was still diverted.

  What the hell kind of good are dogs going to do against trooper armor?

  Coming from behind, the pack launched themselves at the knee joints of the armored troopers, hitting them right at the bend of the knee with the sort of shoulder bump that two fighting wolves would use, and one by one the troopers fell over. The melee was too busy for John to fire into; he might hit the two Echo personnel or the dogs if he tried. But he could see why the dogs were in armor now; if they tried to smack into the Kriegers without it they’d probably break their necks or concuss themselves.

  There was still that Death Sphere; if things started looking sour for the Thulians, they’d just give everyone a thermite bath, hose the field down with their energy cannons, or beat whatever they could reach to death with the tentacles. John turned to face Fieldhouse. “Get your guys and get clear of this! Unless you have any LAWs or surface-to-air stuff, you guys are just targets. Move!” The National Guard soldiers didn’t need any more encouragement. John spotted the Echo operative that looked like an ancient knight, and sprinted to his side. “Got a name, buddy?”

  A clean, synthesized voice replied, quietly, “Echo OpTwo: Silent Knight.”

  “Right, that figures.” John gestured towards the Death Sphere. “We’ve gotta take that sucker out, or we’re all dead. Can you help with that?”

  “Yes.” Silent Knight gave an approximation of a nod. “But you’ll want to stand behind me when we do.”

  The man with the dogs didn’t do anything, but suddenly the dogs all came streaming back to take a position behind him, as he fell in behind Silent Knight. He looked at John. “Leader of the Pack. Knight here projects coherent sound beams. Like lasers, only sound. SASERs.” He leaned down and did something to the dogs’ helmets, then tapped Knight’s shoulder. “Okay, Kni
ght, the pups are safed.” He leaned a little to one side and spoke into where his lapel would have been if he’d had one. From working with Overwatch, John recognized he must have a button or throat-pickup mic on him. “Okay, Corbie. Hit it. Knight’s in position.”

  A black blur dove down out of the equally black, smoke-filled sky, briefly hovered next to the damaged section on the side of the Sphere, then arrowed up before it could react. John actually didn’t think the Sphere’s operators realized it had been there, whatever it was; he wouldn’t have seen it if it wasn’t for his enhanced vision. There was a brief flash, followed by a gout of smoke and flame that emanated from the panels above the damage; they sheared away, falling uselessly to the ground, with the metal around the hole still burning. Silent Knight braced his feet.

  Suddenly it seemed as if all the sound had been muffled.

  John looked around, confused; the troopers were still wrestling with the two Echo people, and it should have created a ruckus. He felt someone yank the back of his collar, suddenly, pulling him behind Knight’s shoulder.

  “Now!” The black meta shouted, disengaging and clapping his hands over his ears. The Islander with the paintball gun shot up into the sky on his jet pack, and the asphalt-covered one rolled up into a ball. Knight suddenly thrust his hands forward, and there was thunder; all of the sound that had disappeared was back and amplified, projected in front of the meta. John saw the air ripple ever so slightly along a narrow band, impacting directly where the bomb had gone off on the Death Sphere.

  There was shouting from behind them. John turned to look in time to be thrown to the ground; a Krieger flew over his head, glancing off of Knight’s shoulder before clanking against the side of the Death Sphere.

  The Sphere was collecting its troopers.

  The junk-heap meta and the Echo leader tried to dogpile the last Nazi on the ground, but the inexorable force emitted from the Sphere drew it up the same as the others, sending both of the metas rolling on the ground. Pieces blown off from the other Kriegers earlier in the fight shot up to join the two live Nazis on the sides of the Sphere.

  “Hey!” Leader of the Pack elbowed John’s shoulder. “You’ve got fire powers; use ’em!” The Sphere was turning to make an escape; it rotated perfectly, the damaged opening in its armor facing directly at John.

  A quick breath, the familiar twinge, and then a lance of fire. Burn, you bastards. Burn! John had been suppressing his hatred for the Thulians up until now, trying to keep things impersonal and objective. Now, he let it all flow into his fires, his entire energy invested in controlling them.

  “Bull’s-eye!” The Islander shouted. For a moment, John wasn’t sure that the blast had been effective. The Sphere continued upward quickly; it looked like it was going to escape after all.

  Just what I need right now would be for my powers to give out again, to fail right when everyone needs them most.

  Then it slowly began to cant sideways. It barely skimmed through the lower layers of the clouds before it plummeted straight down, out of control. When it slammed into the ground, the impact was loud and hard enough to shake everyone off of their feet. Seconds later, something detonated deep within the Sphere, sending a huge fireball into the evening sky.

  The National Guard soldiers were the first on their feet, shouting and hollering from the other end of the parking lot. They came running and limping over, clearly glad to have lived through the battle. John picked himself up off of the ground, still dizzy from when the Humvee had exploded. “Not a bad little bang.” He turned to face the Echo Ops. “Name’s John Murdock, with the CCCP. Pleased t’meetcha, comrades. I figure me an’ the troops owe y’all one. Hell, a case.” He extended his hand to shake the tall team leader’s hand, wiping away the blood from his scalp wound with his free hand.

  “We got a call from OpTwo Victoria Victrix that you were out here solo,” the big black man said. So it was Vic with all of the ground stuff. She’s got her voodoo to tell her where on a map I was, even though she couldn’t see anything without me being wired. That must’a been the best she could do, blind. I guess Gamayun got through to her. I owe ’em both, big time; could turn into a nasty habit. “Sorry about the small team. I’m Flak, team lead—the Kriegers are popping up all over tonight, looks like they’re hitting mostly power stations and important electricity junctions. Happy to say we’re holding ’em off at the moment.”

  John nodded. If the Thulians took out some key infrastructure, they could cripple the entire country; everything was codependent nowadays. Knock out a few critical junctures, and the entire power grid would go down. Power fails, so does shipping; shipping fails, so do most of the cities that depend on regular supplies. And so on from there; the trigger effect, in short. “Who else is on your team, here? Didn’t have too much time for proper introductions. What with the explosions an’ all.”

  A black shape dropped down out of the sky; for a moment he got a strange feeling of familiarity as the huge wings fanned the air. And…a sense of disappointment because it wasn’t Sera.

  It was a man in a mottled gray-and-black night camo suit and black camo paint, with black wings. “Cheers, mate,” he said in a pronounced British accent. “Corbie. I’m liking these night gigs, makes a lad less of a target.”

  “That was you with the explosive charge? Pretty handy.” John looked at his wings. “A whole bunch more stealth than the jet packs, I imagine.”

  “Flak’s idea. Brilliant, eh?”

  “Not bad at all. Who’s the walking trash heap? I’ve never seen anythin’ like that.”

  “My brother Motu. I’m Matai.” The Islander, his broad face wreathed in a smile, came forward to shake his hand. Matai was huge. Motu was twice as tall and proportionately broad. “We’re from Samoa, mon. I’m no meta, I’m just a big, growin’ boy. Our mama, she feeds us good.” The other Islander had shed his “skin” as he approached, and now was just clothed in his Echo nanoweave. “Come say hello to Johnny Murdock, of the commies, brother!”

  “Comin’, brother.” Motu also shook hands with John as he reached the group. “Glad to see we didn’t have to scoop you into a bag for Victrix.” John’s hand was completely engulfed in Motu’s, but the big meta’s gentle grip wouldn’t have ruffled the feathers of a baby chick.

  “Makes two of us.”

  Flak interjected. “You’ve already met Leader of the Pack and his mutts. Got them especially outfitted for fighting these Kriegers. Leader got the notion for armoring them when some of ’em kept knocking even the biggest of us over for fun when they were romping around. Knees lock forward, not back, even on those suits.” The dogs lined up beside their—owner? handler? pack leader?—and sat down in a neat row. John could hear panting inside the helmets. It sounded like doggy laughter. “Then there’s Silent Knight, here. Last thing a lot of Kriegers have ever heard, if you get my drift.”

  “I am very pleased to meet you, John Murdock,” said the synthesized voice. “I hope you will forgive my abruptness. The situation was critical.”

  “Not a problem, comrade. You guys pulled all of our asses outta the fire, so to speak.” John remembered suddenly why he was out in the lovely swamps of Georgia in the first place. “Speakin’ of fire, if I don’t get that sorry lookin’ van an’ its contents back to HQ, the Commissar is gonna use my hide as a rug in her office.” He looked to Flak. “Can you radio in, make sure that these soldiers have help comin’ for ’em? Their RTO and squad leader got taken out, an’ if things are really goin’ hairy all over, the message might not have gotten out.”

  “Of course. We have to move out again, but we’ll make sure they get the help they need.” One of the soldiers came trotting over—one of the ones that John never heard a name for.

  “Uh, sir? You’re Flak, right? If it’s all right, could I get your autograph?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Respect the Wind

  Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin

  I’ve probably mentioned before that the Invasion provide
d a vast smorgasbord of delights for the bottom feeders. In many cases, they enjoyed it unopposed. But not in Atlanta.

  And especially not in the territory protected by CCCP.

  The CCCP had changed substantially in the last few weeks. For one thing, Hensel had worked wonders, turning the old building into a real working headquarters. For another, there were more people here now than just Untermensch, Chug, People’s Blade, Soviette and the Commissar.

  A planeload of CCCP members had arrived to media fanfare; mostly just news jackals looking to capitalize on the controversy that surrounded Atlanta’s newest “Reds.” They were a mixed lot of the very old and the young, for the most part, led by a startlingly handsome and charismatic man about the same age as Red Saviour, who announced to the female reporter who was all but swooning over him that she could call him “Molotok.”

  John had learned that these were older Soviet metas from World War II and the Cold War era, and shiny new young socialists that Saviour said, enigmatically, were “unconventional” and thus did not fit into the Supernaut defense cadre. He wasn’t sure what that meant. The Supernauts seemed to be mostly armored metas under the supervision of Worker’s Champion (who Saviour called “Uncle Borets” or something like that) and Saviour’s own father. There seemed to be a lot of shouting in this relationship…and John got the distinct impression that the CCCPers who had arrived on this shore had been more unacceptable than unconventional, those whose powers were waning and had retired, and those whose powers were erratic and not yet under control. He had to wonder how many metas the Russians had lost. He’d heard numbers bandied about of the Echo Ops lost that ranged from a half to three-fourths. Certainly the numbers were bad if Echo was reduced to taking petty criminals now. Maybe not so petty. He’d heard things about Red Djinni, for instance, during his days on the run.…