She straightened up in her seat, aware of some odd-looking glances from her fellow passengers. At some point during the nightmare, she must have cried out, very likely in Mandarin. That was terrible fieldcraft, something she would have never normally done. Not since she’d been a child had she fallen asleep without wishing to do so.
The soul she’d stolen via Daedalus Smith’s cursed dagger was slowly destroying her mind. The mysterious weapon had saved her life, but at a price she would have never willingly paid.
Chastity looked at the scar on her right palm, where the dagger had burned her and left an indelible mark. Far from the first time, she considered getting rid of the weapon. Once again, she dismissed the idea. Alone in enemy territory, she would need every advantage she had.
Yev’s story had added more pieces to the puzzle even as it provided more questions. His boss, the Neo smuggler known as Akula, the Shark, had been apprehended and forced to rejoin the Iron Guard he’d once served in. Much of his network had been rolled up, all in a frantic effort to capture one target: a young woman. By her description, she could very well be the mystery woman linked to Ultimate’s strange behavior in Chicago two weeks ago, a woman wanted by the US authorities as well as the Legion itself. Chastity had learned the hard way not to believe in coincidences. Her investigation had put her in the right place at the right time.
She had come to the Dominion prepared for a deep infiltration mission. Contacts developed over decades of clandestine work served her well. After getting off the train at the busy Kiev station, she made her way to a bakery owned and staffed by a Russian family which had long done far more than serve food. A casually-mentioned code word had gained her passage into a room behind the store, where she was provided with a secure space to work in.
Not many women served in the Galician Rifle Regiments, the elite units that guarded special facilities in the Dominion, but there were a few, and one of them was due to return from leave the next day. Chastity’s wrist-comp had hacked into the Dominion’s service records. Later that night she would pay a visit to the guard’s home. By the time somebody discovered the woman’s unconscious form, Chastity’s mission should be over.
Her new, self-appointed mission was simple: infiltrate the facility where the prisoner was held, try to learn as much as she could about her, as well as any information linking Daedalus Smith to the Dominion operation, and escape.
She was taking insane risks, operating with no Legion support and relying solely on her personal contacts, some of which involved the grandchildren of people she’d befriended over the decades. During her long and checkered career, Chastity had learned to trust her instincts and intuitions, however, and every fiber of her being urgently felt she needed to be inside that facility the next day.
Something major was at hand, and she had a role to play in it, even if that meant serving as a sacrificial pawn.
Beijing, Republic of China, March 28, 2013
“The Empire is finally mobilizing,” General Xu reported. “The First and Second Golden Horde Cavalry Corps are deploying to the Wall. Once the evolution is complete, they will be within striking distance of the capital. War is at hand.”
Nobody was surprised. The Republic of China had been preparing for this very moment within hours of the attack on Freedom Island. Even if the Empire had been wholly innocent, the troop movements within the ROC demanded an equivalent response. The two Chinas had been drawn inexorably towards this moment.
“The Empire still denies having any knowledge of or involvement in the attack on the Legion,” Artemis stated. She’d returned from Guangxi Province now that intelligence reports indicated the war was more likely to start near Beijing, as it had happened twice before.
“At this point, does it matter?” Xu replied. The Chinese Legionnaire had switched from his earlier aversion to any conflict with the Empire to a shocking eagerness to fight. Olivia suspected that the reversal reflected a change of mood in the Republic’s government. “The Emperor was merely biding his time before striking again. Even if this conflict is not of his making, we have an opportunity to put an end to this cancer in my country, once and for all.”
“Wars are chancy things, and their outcome is never certain,” Darkling said; the Korean Councilor’s face was hidden by her mask, but her eyes twinkled with anger. “The millions doomed to die in this war won’t thank you for the opportunity to perish in a conflict that is just as likely to end in yet another draw – or worse, in defeat – as in the victory you think is inevitable, General Xu.”
“Things have changed,” Xu insisted. “The Republic’s Ten Thousand Immortals have never been stronger. President Lao has authorized me to reveal to you that the Immortals now include twelve individuals rated at Type Three in the Parahuman Ability Scale. They represent a concentration of power of unparalleled and unprecedented levels.”
Artemis fought to hide her surprise. If Xu’s words were not an empty boast – the Republic of China had historically been given to exaggeration, if not outright fabrication – that was the largest grouping of Type Threes in history. The Legion itself had only seven of them; five, actually, now that John Clarke was on trial and Cassius Jones was a fleeing fugitive. There were perhaps another seven or eight in the US, and half a dozen in Europe. Her files on the Republic’s Immortals mentioned only four of its members were rated at that power level, which meant the other eight had to be recent additions. They would be young and inexperienced, unaccustomed to wielding power on those scales. The devastation they might inadvertently inflict was enormous.
Her husband was the first to break the silence. “Are they out of their ever-loving minds, Xu? You have recruited eight new Type Threes, and they have to be brand-spanking new, or we’d have heard about this before now, and you want to send them out into a war?”
“The heroic Immortals have all undergone basic training over the last year.”
“So that’s the reason for all those seismic events that have been happening all throughout China, isn’t it?” Larry Graham continued, a sneer in his face. “You know what kind of damage a Type Three can do, Xu, even after years of experience learning to minimize collateral damage. Twelve of them – you could end up depopulating the Dragon Empire!”
“I think the servants of the Republic will do their duty with as much diligence and restraint as we Legionnaires, actually,” General Xu said. “I understand the concerns with which the world will view the Republic’s power, but I have been assured such power will be wielded wisely, as befits the oldest continuing civilization in human history. The West’s inflated sense of superiority to the contrary, my people know what they’re doing.”
“For a Legion Council member, you sound a little too much like an ROC propagandist,” Larry snarled back.
“How dare you...?”
“Legionnaires!” Artemis broke in, and her commanding voice stilled the argument. “We don’t have time to bicker. If the ROC’s claims are true, then the balance of power favors us. That still doesn’t mean a war won’t unleash untold destruction upon both Chinas and all their neighbors.”
“Indeed,” Darkling said. “The Empire can deploy some six hundred Celestial Warriors, possibly more, and at least five Type Threes, not counting the Emperor himself. They can lay entire cities, entire countries, to waste, and even if we have, what, sixteen or twenty Type Threes available, they can’t be everywhere at once. We’re talking about megadeaths here.”
“Once things reach a certain point, there is no turning back,” Xu countered sourly. “The sooner we accept it, the sooner we can ready ourselves to deal with the inevitable.”
The inevitable. All their findings continued to point directly at the Empire as the source of the initial attack. Even the Dominion, a traditional ally of Imperial China in the United Nations, had voted in favor of the near-unanimous resolution condemning the Dragon Empire. Chastity Baal, one of the few dissenting voices, had gone AWOL when her opinions had been disregarded. Even if the rogue agent discover
ed the truth, it would likely be too late.
Larry’s posture sagged slightly, and Artemis knew her husband had surrendered as well. “All right, Xu,” he said tiredly. “If both Chinas are insistent in having it out, I guess we’ll all have to join the dance. If you don’t mind sharing the capabilities of the new Immortals, we and the UN contingent can make final dispositions. I take it you’re not planning on launching a pre-emptive strike, correct?”
“Of course not,” Xu replied. He used a kinder tone now. Why not? He’d gotten what he wanted. “The Republic would never start a war of aggression. The Empire will make the first move, as it always has. We’ll merely strike the final blow in this war.”
As the talk of war continued, Artemis made an unexpected decision. Like Chastity Baal, she would go off on her own. There was still one man who could stop all of this.
She had to speak to the Dragon Emperor.
The Humanity Foundation
Aboard the Kamahashi Maru, Near the Cape of Good Hope, Indian Ocean, March 28, 2013
Mitsuo Fuchida looked at the dying man with a mixture of pity and satisfaction.
“You did well, Kuo Wei-Fang,” he whispered in Cantonese to the sweating, bleeding figure lying on the cot in one of the ship’s cabins. The Chinese magnate’s condition was worsening rapidly. It appeared that Thaddeus Twist’s warnings had been accurate. The process stolen from Daedalus Smith could grant humans Neolympian-like powers, but the effect was short-lived and ultimately fatal. It was just as well. Had it been otherwise, the temptation to abandon the Cause and join the ranks of the Abominations might have been overwhelming even for the most dedicated members of the Humanity Foundation.
Kuo Wei-Fang had been a member of their organization for quite some time, and had played a vital role in the coming conflict, knowing full well that he was risking his life. He had undergone the Smith Process to pass himself off as a Celestial, one of the servants of the Dragon Empire, as a precautionary means to escape capture, and also to further implicate the Empire on the attack on Freedom Island. He had managed to perform both tasks admirably, but now he was paying the ultimate price for his success. Kuo’s body was breaking down, poisoned by the very energies that had given him godlike powers for a brief few days.
Fuchida looked at the ship’s doctor. “The damage will prove to be fatal in less than six hours,” the physician reported. “I tried overdosing him with morphine to spare him any further suffering, but, perversely enough, his enhanced physique was able to withstand the drugs easily. I don’t know what else to do.”
“You have done your duty, as has he. That is enough,” Fuchida told the physician. He stepped out of the room, leaving Kuo to die. It was a pity, but there were many things to do.
Fuchida had flown from the fateful meeting in Washington D.C. as quickly as the new orbital transports could convey him back to Asia, where he’d had to oversee the aftermath of the Hong Kong incident. Thankfully, all the pieces had fallen into place almost flawlessly. A carefully-rehearsed imperial defector’s report had led the Legion to Kuo, and Kuo had left behind mountains of evidence linking the Empire to the attack on the Legion. Fuchida’s hand-picked team, armed with wonderful new weapons that could strip a Neolympian of his powers, had helped Kuo escape and in the process had killed another Legionnaire, one of their leaders as a matter of fact. If only such devices could be mass-produced, they could rid the world of all Abominations without having to resort to the extreme measures Twist had outlined. Unfortunately, the devices were Neolympian artifacts, hand-crafted creations that required a powerful Abomination’s powers to be built.
It was God’s will. Fuchida’s revelation a lifetime ago had shown him the path to salvation would be arduous and drenched in blood. God’s grace had kept him alive and hale for a long time, but his work was almost done. Twist’s plan was audacious, but it would work. The Legion and many more of the Earth’s mightiest beings would be lured to China to do battle with the Empire, and, on the other side of the world, the source of their powers would be destroyed, rendering them helpless, vulnerable, merely human once again. Humanity would regain control of its destiny, and Fuchida would be able to move on to his greater reward. He had done terrible things in the name of the Cause, but he was confident God would forgive him. In any case, he was willing to accept His judgment.
He looked out of one of the portholes and watched the sea extending out into the horizon. Being on a maritime vessel on a fateful mission brought him back to his younger, heroic days as an officer in the mighty aircraft carrier Akagi, where he had fought for the glory of Nippon. He and his comrades had performed great deeds, until the Abominations had ruined everything. The memories turned sour; his mind’s eye showed him the burning deck of the Akagi after the black American Janus had delivered a bolt of fiery energy that had turned the powerful vessel into a gigantic funeral pyre. Fuchida had been one of the handful who survived; the rest, over sixteen hundred men, had gone down with the ship.
This time, there would be no fleeing, no survivors. He would die at the end of this trip on the Kamahashi Maru. It was a humble vessel, a merchant freighter of no great lineage, but it would soon pass into history as the deliverer of the weapon that struck a decisive blow against Parahumanity.
Hidden inside the bowels of the ship lay a bomb, a very special bomb, a thermonuclear device with a yield in excess of two hundred megatons. It was more than a mere explosive, however. A cunningly designed set of electro-magnetic shields would channel much of the bomb’s energy into a concentrated burst of x-ray and gamma waves, aimed directly at the heart of the Source, the alien construct that had granted the Abominations their blasphemous powers. The incredible power of the burst would tear apart the Source, likely releasing even more energy as the alien construct was destroyed.
The human costs would be both regrettable and enormous. Even if the destruction of the Source did not release any more energy, which was highly unlikely, the detonation of the bomb would level most of Manhattan and set ablaze much of the surrounding provinces. Millions would be killed instantly, and millions more would perish from the ensuing fallout. It was impossible to predict the casualties resulting from the ensuing chaos and collapse. It would be an unprecedented atrocity, but the results would be worth it. The Abominations would be rendered helpless, which would save billions of lives in the long term.
Fuchida wouldn’t live to see any of it, of course. The bomb would be emplaced in a secret facility in New York City. He would activate the device and be one of the first to die. The crew of the Kamahashi Maru and the ship itself would also be consumed in the ensuing holocaust.
He would die a happy man, knowing he had made the world a better place.
Chapter Six
The Great Escape
Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, March 28, 2013
“And how long are you planning to stay?”
“Two weeks,” Kyle Carmichael told the officious customs agent. He was actually hoping to be off the damn island in two days at most.
“That’s nice. Welcome to Freedom Island.” The agent looked tense and harried, which was unusual. All Freedom Island employees, especially those who had to deal directly with the public, had been trained by veterans of Disneyland to present a cheerful and warm façade at all times. The Legion’s troubles were affecting everyone involved.
He and Melanie walked arm in arm, the platonic ideal of well-to-do tourists, dressed in expensive tropical-casual clothing, their robotic self-steering luggage obediently following a few steps behind. Melanie’s hair was bright red and long; her skin was several shades lighter than normal, and her facial features had been drastically altered. The implants and the nose job would only last a few weeks before her healing factor undid the changes, but the caper would be long over by then, one way or another.
The terminal was beautiful, combining functionality with artistry. The gleaming metal walls were adorned with holographic displays showing off the Legion’s most iconic characters. The Ultimate
and Janus displays had been discretely turned off, of course.
Kyle made good use of his tourist persona, subtly looking around like the Canadian mid-level executive he was pretending to be; too self-conscious and polite to openly gawk at his surroundings but unobtrusively getting a good view of all the wonders around him. His sunglasses recorded everything, just like a normal tourist’s smart-goggles would, but unlike a tourist’s model his glasses also ran deep scans in a multitude of spectra, pinpointing security cameras, sensor systems, and hidden guard posts.
The scans revealed a paradox. Security had been heightened since Ultimate’s capture; heavily-armed reaction teams waited behind innocuous-looking doors, six-man squads placed every two hundred feet or so around the terminal, reinforced by three Legionnaires. Three fairly powerful Legionnaires, according to their energy signatures.
On the other hand, it was clear the security forces were stretched pretty thin. They must have sent most of the troops over to China, in preparation for the war. Most of the Legion had been redeployed to China as well. Only thirty-seven Neos had remained behind, but they included twenty-four Type 2.6s or higher. That was a lot of firepower.
They got a cab outside the terminal and made for their hotel, a four-star establishment catering to couples rather than families. Once they were alone in their room, they emptied their suitcases and started disassembling them. All their equipment had been concealed in the body of the luggage, including their costumes, weapons and several assorted devices.
Kyle made a call from his wrist-comp. “We’re in. Everything is nominal.”
“Very well,” Hades 2.0 replied. “Everything is in place on our end as well.” Their end was the Condor Jet, submerged and maintaining station some six miles from the island’s eastern coastline. “Your ship’s stealth systems are excellent, by the way. I doubt I could have matched them myself.”
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