Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  He put on a look of mock-innocence mixed with mock-horror. “My dear girl, how could you imagine that I would do anything to endanger the lives of my own ECHO personnel? Didn’t you see, right there? It was Rebs! Probably in retaliation for what happened to Rebel Yell and the sentencing of Bad Bowie.”

  Then he dropped the act, smirking. “You know my motto; it’s better to bury trouble if you can’t buy it off. And if anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing with extreme prejudice. I just got rid of some specific people who were fomenting dissent down in the Support Ops cadre, and I distracted everyone else. And I did it in a way that will create a wave of sympathy for ECHO. Oh, by the way, put a press conference together in say…five hours for my reaction to this despicable attack, won’t you?”

  “I should think your PA could do that,” she sniffed, more than a little annoyed that he was treating her like a secretary. Again.

  “Oh, stick around for right now. Part two is coming up. As they say, ‘But wait! There’s more!’ This is where we get our money’s worth, so to speak.” He grinned, and tapped on his glass keyboard, closing the cam view of the sandwich shop and bringing up one of Atlanta Underground.

  * * *

  If there was one thing that Vickie was perpetually grateful for, it was that Dominic Verdigris didn’t believe in magic. He was ridiculously careless about things like fingernail clippings and haircuts. She had enough of Verd squirreled away in various safe caches—including a packet filed with her Mom—to clone him a million times over. Of course, cloning him was scarcely the point.

  No the point was that with such a tight-band connection to Verd, she didn’t even need the Overwatch suite to keep tabs on him.

  Although the suite was very useful in keeping a record of what he was doing. In sort of a magical version of keystroke-logging, she had a monitor and standalone computer setup devoted to tracking everything he did on his computers, whether they were ECHO or not. She also had an alert wired up to tell her when he was looking at or tinkering with something out of the ordinary.

  Tapping into a security cam just outside of Atlanta Underground was definitely out of the ordinary. Directing it to point at NomKitteh was wildly out of the ordinary.

  Watching live feed of a van full of Rebs mowing down thirty to forty ECHO SupportOps was off the scale.

  “Shit!” She thought she had gotten inured to scenes of massacre by now. Evidently not; it took her a moment to swallow her revulsion before she simultaneously hot-keyed Bella’s freq, put the Overwatch suite into full-boat recording of everything Verd was doing, and tried not to throw up.

  * * *

  Verdigris put an ordinary-looking Bluetooth earpiece on, holding up one finger to Khanjar. “Excuse me for a few moments, my dear. Personal finishing touches.”

  “I am going to assume that, appearances to the contrary, those were not Rebs.” Khanjar was inured to scenes of massacre a long time ago, and she examined the burning restaurant-front with an analytical eye.

  “Of course not. Scum like that has its uses, but they’re highly unreliable. This needed to be a precision job, especially with what’s coming next.” The earpiece flashed, indicating an incoming call. He tapped a button before answering. “Yes, still a ‘go.’ They’ll be on their way shortly. Keep up appearances.” He tapped the button again. “Dispatch? This is Verdigris; check the roster and find out who is nearest to the incident. Yes, yes, I heard everything on the comm channels. We need to deal with this, now; full response mode, our people have been hurt.” With that he took the earpiece off and deposited it in a drawer from his desk. As soon as he closed it, there was a slight ‘whumpf’ sound as the built-in incinerator kicked in. Another of the things that should have been on the “Evil Overlord” lists: never leave evidence.

  Khanjar raised an eyebrow. “Obviously there is more to this than just removing a few SupportOps.”

  “Much more.” Verdigris keyed up the desk display again, narrowing his eyes. “Things will be much easier for us with ECHO after today, my dear. Then we can really get down to business.”

  * * *

  “…sending to your monitor,” Vickie said. “I’m only getting his side of the conversation—Khanjar is a lot more diligent about her magic-protection, I still haven’t got a piece of her yet—but this is only part one. Don’t scramble yet, because there’s more coming, and when you do, haul in protection with you.”

  “Jesus Cluny Frog,” Bella replied. “Right, I just got the alert. I’ve tagged Ramona, she’ll issue the scramble, since I’m supposed to look incompetent. Who’s wired outside of Bull’s Misfits, CCCP, and my med teams?”

  Vickie was already calling up the roster. “Motu and Matai are your best bet. I think between them and me we can keep your guys protected. I’ll tag them. I’ll go ahead and liase with Gamayun in case we need more backup. Saviour may elect to send some anyway. You get your team together.”

  “Yeah. Armed. No Einhorn. Out.”

  Had Verd still been watching the feed from that security camera, he would have seen a curious thing happening. Or rather, things. Where there were no people, waves of earth erupted from the cracks between the cement paving blocks and smothered the flames immediately. Where there were people, dust gathered in purposeful swirls and did the same. Dust, after all, is powdered earth. Fire is a triangle: oxygen, heat, fuel. Remove one of the three and the triangle collapses. Dust smothers quickly enough to kill flames before it kills people.

  And when that was done, more earth rose up into ramparts protecting the victims from any possible follow-up attack, with narrow passages that would allow the ECHO Med teams in.

  Vickie unclenched her fists and grabbed a fistful of energy-shots, then sucked one down while pulling out one of the “talismans” she used to store magical energy in. This was going to be a test of her endurance. Because she had the sinking feeling that not only was this not over, but was only just beginning.

  * * *

  Corbie got the scramble order for his default “team”—although he wasn’t officially a team leader, he seemed to be the one in charge for the loose group of himself, Silent Knight, and Leader of the Pack. Sometimes Motu and Matai came along as well, on loan from Bulwark.

  But a split second after he got the go-order, the special tone came over his headset that signaled incoming from that magic bird, Victrix.

  Oh crumbs. That can’t be good…He switched freqs. “Corbie; go.”

  “Corbie, stop; I mean it, halt in place,” came the grim response. “PDA on, briefing incoming, you’re being set up. Three guesses who, and the first two aren’t ‘Daleks’ or ‘Cybermen.’”

  Corbie clenched his jaw so hard his teeth almost cracked. “Right you are, love. Powered up, gimme the brief while I get the boys rounded up. We’re in a destruction corridor, it’ll take a minute to gather ’em up anyway.”

  During that minute, he watched the massacre at the sandwich shop, watched the “Rebs”—and if those were Rebs, with those weapons and short hair cuts, well, he was the Prince of Wales—hole up in Atlanta Underground, and noted the location. Very nice. Lovely kill-chute. What d’ye call…a channeling trap. Everyone files in nice and tidy in order to be chopped to mince.

  “OK now you can go. This is the first time for me being eyes-above for you, so let’s hope my practice shows. I can see anything a security cam can see, and Underground is lousy with them. If you need anything let me know, otherwise I’ll fly by the seat of my pants.”

  “Wot’s the sitch with our Ops at the shop?” He still felt vaguely sick after watching fellow ECHO personnel being gunned down so casually, but tamped the feeling down. He needed to focus, and right now.

  “We’ve got med scrambled with everything they need and most of ’em are packing heat. We have CCCP incoming for locking down the perimeter and cover fire. And since Motu and Matai are wired, if we need cover before then, they’ll peel off to provide it.”

  “Roger luv. The boys’re here, keep me updated.” The rest of his
team had formed a rough semi-circle around him, with Leader’s dogs occasionally poking their heads in between people. He left the mic on; he figured she was like every other intel officer he’d ever worked with. There was no such thing as too much data for those sorts. “Listen up. We got a hit on NomKitteh.” He didn’t have to say anything else, everyone knew how popular the shop was with the SupportOps. Leader cursed under his breath. Motu and Matai nodded; from their expressions, Corbie figured the witchy tech had already briefed them. “Med is scrambled, the bad boys are holed up in the Underground. They’re dressed like Rebs.” Corbie let the words hang in the air.

  Silent Knight rumbled. “Clearly from your statement they are not.”

  Corbie shrugged. “Short hair, really good combat boots, and weapons I’ve never seen in the hands of scruffy rednecks that wasn’t stolen, yeah? And never that many of them.” He shook his head. “My bottom pound is on it being a group of pros.”

  Leader’s face darkened as his dogs all started to growl in unison. He quieted them with a quick look. “Blacksnake?” Ever since the confrontation at the shopping mall, he’d wanted a chance to mash some merc heads.

  “No telling. They’re not the only dirty merc outfit in town, but they are one of the best.” He frowned in disgust. “It was an efficient and professional hit.”

  “Then let’s stick their efficient weapons up their professional asses,” growled Leader.

  “Update. Med’s on the scene, no sign of interference. CCCP is about 4 minutes out.”

  Corbie scrolled back to his shots of the mercs holing up, then pulled up his store-map of the Underground. “They’ll be expectin’ us to come in this entrance,” he said, holding his PDA where everyone could see and pointing. “They’re here.”

  “Funneling us into a kill zone,” Knight noted.

  “Update. SWAT just went in the CaffeeBucks entrance and got waxed.”

  “And SWAT just found that out how much of a kill zone.”

  Leader winced. “What—”

  Corbie cut him off. “Motu, Matai, CCCP ain’t more than two minutes away, Med won’t need you. You boys give SWAT the cover to get their men out, and that’ll give us a distraction to come in from…” he studied the map. “…here.” They both nodded; Matai checked his paintball gun to make sure that it was loaded. Knight leaned over and peered at the map.

  “Service entrance? Won’t it be locked? Breaking it down would be noisy.”

  “Sorted. Electronic lock. Already tripped and waiting for you.”

  He couldn’t help it. The words came out before he could stop them. “I love you,” he said fervently to his little guardian angel.

  Knight looked at him with that expressionless helmet tilted quizzically. “You know I do not swing that way. Nor do you.”

  He blushed, Knight, of course, couldn’t hear her. Yet; he was a good sort, but Corbie would have to consult the others about bringing him into the fold. “Right then. Lock’s been unlocked for us. We have Motu and Matai cover ’em from there. We come in from the other way, and sort these bastards out from both ends. Ought to put a kink in things for ’em.”

  Knight tilted his huge helmet to the other side. “There is an incoming transmission on your headset that is not ECHO.”

  Before he could say anything, Motu made a shushing motion. “Not now, mon. Just say it’s a friend that is helpin’.”

  Knight and Leader looked at each other, and Leader shrugged. “Commies,” he opined. Knight nodded.

  Corbie decided to leave them with that assumption. It was as good as anything else, and until Victrix brought them into the conspiracy, better than speculation. “Right-oh. That’s about as much plan as we’re going to get; we need to get these sods out of the Underground ’fore they kill anyone else.” He unholstered his issued PDW, checking to make sure a round was chambered. “Let’s move!”

  Underground Atlanta was only ten blocks away; fast for him and Knight, who had built-in flying capabilities. Not so good for the Samoans, or for Leader, who could only go as fast as the dogs could run. “Vix,” he said, once he was in the air.

  “Go.”

  “If you got to split your attention, stay with the brothers until we all join up.”

  “Shouldn’t have to, but that’s a Roger. CCCP is onsite. I have one of their snipers on the roof of NomKitteh. If the goons have eyes in the sky, he’ll pick them off.” He heaved a huge sigh of relief while pumping his wings as hard and fast as he could, feeling his back and chest-muscles straining. He still didn’t know how he could fly; his wings weren’t nearly big enough to lift his mass, much less allow him to carry another whole human. ECHO eggheads and plenty of professors had wondered over that for years to no avail. Well, time enough to worry about that some other day. ECHO Med had the protection they needed, now it was just up to him and his team to show that bastard Verdigris that he wasn’t going to get a second shot at anyone else. The day we take him down and make him pay for Tesla I’m breaking open that bottle of granddad’s brandy. It was supposed to be for his wedding…but that didn’t look like a day that’d be coming along anytime soon, at this rate.

  “Corbie.”

  “Go,” he said.

  “Come in hot. CCCP’s taken out a sniper that was overlooking your entry point, only a matter of time before they get another one on the roof.”

  “Gents, we need to go in fast,” he radioed to Silent Knight and the rest. “Door’s probably hot. These guys are mercs, only a matter of time before they get a sniper up.” A little editorial revision would not go amiss in keeping Vix’s involvement a secret, here. Leader of the Pack’s dogs rounded a corner half a block away, with himself in hot pursuit.

  “I have Motu and Matai on your freq, they’re getting what you get. Guinness is on me when this is over.”

  “Not that Limey crap,” rumbled Motu over the same freq.

  “Alright, let’s get the thing done.” He could see the remnants of smoke where the NomKitteh was; the wind was carrying the din from all of the police and EMS sirens up to meet him. Below, he spotted his landing zone. Corbie did what a falcon does; he pumped upwards, then arced over into a dive, wings folded tightly against his body, the better to present a small target to anything unfriendly, and trading height for speed. His build wasn’t the best suited for such a maneuver, but at least it was better than Knight’s. The entrance was one of several in the otherwise blank walls fronting on an alley; at the last moment, he fanned his wings wide as an air-brake and touched down hard, taking immediate shelter behind a dumpster, then unholstering the PDW from his leg. He bent to the side, reaching out to shove at the door with his free hand. It opened at his touch. “I really do love you,” he told Vix fervently.

  “Get a room,” said Matai.

  “You boys just get your arses over here. Clock is ticking.” At that moment, Knight touched down beside him. Not long after that, the pack showed up, with Leader bringing up the rear, weapons drawn. He didn’t go unarmed anymore.

  “In, and stack up,” Corbie ordered. “Knight first.” Knight nodded his helmet, then rushed through the open portal. Corbie followed, with Leader and his mutts bringing up the rear. They were a dozen paces inside of what looked like a service tunnel when he started to get a gnawing sensation in the pit of his guts. “Halt. Wait a moment.” Why would they have a sniper guarding this specific entrance? That spot the bloke was at wasn’t a good spot for much else than that. “Knight,” he whispered, “you made that mod to your suit that allows you to put out an ECHOlocational ping, right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Do it. I’ve got a bad feeling about this hallway. Call it instinct.” One thing that Corbie had learned early in his career with ECHO was that one always trusted their gut feelings when it came to dangerous situations. Knight nodded again, then looked forward intently. After several seconds, he tilted his head to the side and turned back to face Corbie.

  “There appears to be a trap of some sort ahead, near the door.” He poi
nted to it; for the rest of the team it was barely visible against the wall from this distance, but Corbie’s eyesight was better than the average chap’s. He was able to see it clearly enough to make out specific details.

  Corbie sighed. “Early warning device,” he said into his mic. “We’ve found their escape route. Guess they liked this way as much as we did. Can you disable it from here?”

  “I cannot. There’s not enough ambient noise for me to generate a proper resonate frequency—”

  “It’s not wi-fied into anything, so I’m out.” Well so much for witchy-poo.

  “Right, right.” Corbie cut him off. “It looks like a simple laser tripwire; no explosives that I can see. We can get right up to it, but I don’t wanna risk—”

  He stopped short as one of Leader’s dogs—the one that looked like it was mostly Mastiff—trotted ahead of the group, right up to the device.

  “Normandy!” Leader called out in a harsh whisper. “Back here, damnit!” Leader had named all of his dogs after famous battles; one of his quirks, it seemed. The Mastiff looked back, snorted, and then lifted a leg over the device. And peed on it. There must have been a quart of yellow liquid arcing through the air to land accurately on the device. A few seconds later the device let out a shower of sparks and a small cloud of smoke. Normandy trotted back, just as nonchalant, and planted himself next to Leader, dopey eyes looking up for approval.

  “I’m firin’ you and keepin’ the dogs, Leader,” Corbie said, shaking his head. “The mutts are smarter than you.” Everyone ducked as a cacophony of gunfire erupted on the other side of the door; dozens of automatic rifles and shotguns were all going off at the same time in measured bursts. The firing slackened, then stopped, and then there was muffled yelling; civilians and what Corbie assumed were the mercs.

  Their radios cracked simultaneously. “This is Matai. We were able to get the downed SWAT out, but their captain is pissed. He’s trying to keep us from going back in. This might take a minute.” He could hear the SWAT commander arguing with Motu; Corbie could swear that he heard one comment about Motu using the SWAT van for material for his armor, and couldn’t help but smirk.