Fortunately, Mark had also told her how to handle it. Christine turned on her special vision and saw the Bitch of Pinsk just as she pounced on her. The Ukrainian woman was fast! Christine barely raised a shield in time. Claws and teeth lashed out at machine gun speeds, and her defenses sagged under the multiple impacts. Babalena was screeching like a cat on a hot plate: the sound waves were as much of a weapon as her claws, and they would have burst Christine’s eardrums and liquefied her brain if her protective aura hadn’t kept most of the noise out. For the time being, that was; the multiple attacks were weakening her. If her shields went down, Baba Yaga would tear into her with sound waves, talons and teeth.
The best defense was a good offense. A spear of pure force erupted from her shield and impaled her tormentor. The screeching came to an abrupt halt. Christine visualized a huge mace and sent it crashing down onto the Ukrainian uber-bitch, pile-driving her through the floor. That was for my eye, c-word. She jumped down the hole after her.
Baby Yaga didn’t look so tough anymore. The darkness dissipated just as Christine landed next to her foe. The witch was back in her human form, struggling to her feet. There was a hole in her torso about as wide as a softball. Christine could see right through it. The gruesome sight made her dry-heave once, but she didn’t throw up, and she didn’t freeze in horror at what she’d done. She launched another telekinetic spear instead. Baba Yaga extended a hand: a ring on her index finger glowed red, and a small sphere of energy deflected the attack, making the spear tear through a wall instead of flesh.
Crap, Christine thought before the ring flashed again and a thin beam of red energy stabbed at her. The beam pierced through her shield, her aura – and her. A burst of hideous pain erupted on her right shoulder, the agony so intense she almost passed out. She bit her lower lip and forced herself to concentrate, thickening her shield even as Baba Yaga drew the beam of light down like an energy sword, slicing into her. The shield grew stronger and pushed back the energy attack; if she’d been a second slower, her arm would be falling off her body just about now.
The Bitch of Pinsk wasn’t done, however. She kept playing the red beam back and forth over the shield, forcing Christine to concentrate on her defenses. The Ukrainian shifted forms again, turning into an old woman, a crone that extended her other hand while cackling with glee.
Next thing Christine knew, a figure made of shadow stuff pounced on her from behind. Fingers of pure darkness wrapped themselves around her neck and squeezed, pushing through her protective aura. She was being choked by a living shadow while Baba Yaga continued pouring energy into the red beam.
Help!
Nobody showed up to help. Mark was still trapped in his cell. She was on her own.
Neos didn’t need to breathe, but they could still be choked unconscious; their bodies responded initially to the lack of oxygen like a normal human’s. Christine’s vision blurred, and she felt her shield weakening, beginning to let through the red beam that would slice her to bits. Her mind groped desperately for a way out. Her protective aura! She made it explode outwards, shredding the shadow construct. Baba Yaga’s emotions changed from sadistic glee to shock. Her ring-beam managed to punch through the shield, however, and another stab of pain flared up on Christine’s left thigh.
She used her fear and pain to fuel her power, and created two flat planes of force, one on each side of Baba Yaga. She smashed them together with incredible force, crushing the Ukrainian woman like a mosquito caught by a hand-clap.
Blood splashed on Christine’s shield. What was left of the target of the brutal double impact no longer looked like anything human. Bones and flesh and internal organs had been crushed and burst apart. Most of the Baba Yaga’s body had been hideously flattened. Only her head and one arm were relatively intact.
Oh my God, what have I done?
What you had to. Her inner voice had never sounded so cold.
The worst part was, Baba Yaga wasn’t dead. Christine could see the woman’s aura, a nauseating medley of rage, terror and agony, and she could see the Ukrainian witch’s enormous energies rushing through the ruins of her body in a desperate effort to repair the damage. Her healing abilities were amazing; she would have a somewhat functional body in a couple of minutes, maybe even sooner.
Christine had to finish her off.
She was horrified and disgusted by the idea; it would be like stepping on a cockroach with her bare feet. But the worst part was she would be doing it in cold blood. Baba Yaga wasn’t a threat at the moment. She would be again, of course.
Mark wouldn’t have hesitated, but she did. She didn’t finish her off right away. Maybe if she’d had an extra second or two to overcome her scruples and force herself to do it, things might have been different, but she didn’t.
A massive amount of energy seemed to manifest out of thin air, somewhere behind her; she felt it with all of her senses, a change in temperature and pressure and emotion. Christine turned, shields at maximum power, and saw the Iron Tsar standing there: the slit in his helmet was a line of blindingly bright light. She’d read about that unstoppable destructive light.
The Dread Gaze of the Tsar rushed towards her in a torrent of pure whiteness. The world vanished in an apocalyptic flash.
Christine blinked. Winked, actually; one of her eyes – the same one Baba Yaga had poked out yesterday, as a matter of fact – wasn’t doing anything. Most of that side of her head and body felt strangely, terrifyingly numb. Out of her one good eye, she could see the sky overhead, clouds lazily floating above her. She was lying half-buried on a patch of dirt and rubble. Some of the dirt was smoking, and some of it had melted into lava. The parts of her that weren’t numb hurt down to the marrow of her bones. All she wanted to do was lie there and enjoy the morning sun.
Instead, she forced herself to lift her head and look around.
She was certain she wouldn’t like what she saw.
Chapter Seven
Face-Off
Kiev, Dominion of the Ukraine, March 29, 2013
As famous last words went, those weren’t going to win any awards. I’d have to make sure they weren’t my last words.
I tested the shackles carefully, and felt a warning tingling pain as the disruptor energy flared up in response to the movement. I would have to be quick. During the fight with Baba Yaga, I’d been able to call up increasing amounts of power. I tried to do it again even as I yanked on the shackles on my arms with all my strength.
Complete agony overwhelmed me and I passed out.
I came to a few moments later. The whole complex shook with a nearby explosion, and alarms were blaring out. Christine had broken free, and instead of escaping she’d try to rescue my useless ass. The experience of being the one needing rescuing didn’t bother me anywhere near as much as the fear she’d end up getting killed in the attempt.
Second try: the pain beat me down again. This time I didn’t quite pass out, but that was about the only difference. The sounds of battle were getting closer. Christine was probably duking it out with the entire Iron Guard by now. She needed me.
I hadn’t been this helpless since the day I became Face-Off. Since the day I’d been lying on the kitchen floor while being methodically beaten to death. I let the old familiar rage I’d felt that night seep out, stoked its fire. Fuck the pain. Fuck the burning inside my torso as I flooded my body with more energy than ever before. Fuck you all.
The pain was back but it only made me angrier. The chains snapped. More disruptors hit me from the walls, but only for the few seconds it took me to tear them to bits.
The building shook again, much more strongly this time. Bits of debris rained down on my head. Something had exploded. Something big.
Christine.
I ran through the door as if it wasn’t there. I reached out to her through our connection and the pain was so bad I had to shut it off again. She was still alive, but she was very badly hurt. I had to get to her.
&
nbsp; Parts of the building had collapsed; an entire section of corridor was buried by debris. I tore my way through it, made it up to another level, and saw open sky. A good chunk of the building was gone.
As I headed towards the opening, I was suddenly surrounded by darkness. Baba Yaga. Fuck. If she took me down, if she merely delayed me for more than a few seconds, Christine might die. I called more power into me, concentrating on my perceptions this time, and my notional eyes punched through the darkness and spotted her, crouching behind some rubble, getting ready to hit me from behind. One of her arms and both her legs looked abnormally skinny for some reason, and she clearly wasn’t in the best of shapes.
I didn’t have time for her. I pretended to be clueless until I walked into range and then gave her the good old one-two and left her bleeding on the floor. Dead or alive, she wasn’t going to bother us for now.
Christine had been thrown through the building and landed a good hundred yards away. She was lying at the end of a deep furrow she’d carved with her body. Even from the distance, I could see half of her body was horribly charred. Somebody had burned her almost to death.
The Iron Tsar and his Guardsmen were moving towards her to finish her off. His helmet was glowing; he was getting ready to blast Christine again with his infamous Dread Gaze.
Fuck that.
I crossed the fifty yards separating us in two strides. One of the Guards caught the rush of movement and tried to intercept me. He moved very quickly, despite being over eight feet tall, a living silver statue; his code name was the Metal Titan, which probably sounded better in Ukrainian. I knew his stats from my old days as a Neo fanboy. He could survive direct hits from a 120mm tank gun, could bench press three hundred tons and knock out a charging elephant with the back of his hand.
He went flying into the air when I barreled past him; I never saw where he landed. The impact didn’t even slow me down; I was still going at the speed of a runaway locomotive when I crashed into the Tsar and knocked him to the ground. The Dread Gaze went off target and blew up a guard tower two hundred feet away.
I grappled with the Tsar. He was strong, stronger than the Metal Titan. Stronger than me? I wasn’t sure. We wrestled. His helmeted head turned towards me, and I saw another energy blast building up behind it. I reached for the helmet and pushed it aside. A pillar of pure energy erupted just inches away from my left cheek, and its heat was unbearable. Skin burned despite my protective aura as the Tsar struggled to bring the beam to bear on me and I fought to keep it away.
There were other Guards all around, and they ganged up on me pretty damn quick, despite the continuing threat of the Tsar’s Dread Gaze. I was stabbed in the back with a sword; I felt it scratch me before the blade snapped. Somebody else shot me in the head with a very high-caliber weapon. I didn’t look around to check – I was pretty busy with the Tsar – but it felt bigger than any hand-held weapon should be. A third asshole grabbed the arm I was using to hold down the Tsar’s head, which turned out pretty badly for him, because I twisted around and the Dread Gaze got the guy, exploding him like a blood sausage in a microwave. I ignored the gore and tried to twist the Tsar’s head off. Bucket-head’s neck wouldn’t budge. Fuck.
I got up and dragged him along, keeping a good hold on his head, and used his helmet beam as a weapon. The Guards surrounding us scattered, but I got another one, a long-haired freak with an oversized pistol. The beam disintegrated him from the torso up. At that point, the Tsar turned it off, smart guy that he was.
He hadn’t been lying there and taking it, either. While we struggled I’d caught a lot of punches from him, on my ribs and my side, and when I pulled him to his feet he almost kneed me in the balls, but none of the blows hurt me much. What did hurt me much was when he produced an energy dagger from somewhere and stabbed me under the ribs a couple of times. I felt the weapon pierce my protective aura and go in. I had to release him to avoid more stabs: we broke apart but I got him with a snap kick to the chest that knocked him back on his ass.
The Metal Titan had come back. He came in swinging; I slapped away a silver fist the side of a Thanksgiving turkey and landed a right cross to his head that deformed his metallic skull, twisted his neck at an unnatural angle, and sent him flying again. I didn’t think he’d be getting up.
There were more of them, though. A short guy in body armor hit me with several fire blasts, but they barely singed me. I dealt with him by grabbing some moron who’d come into range – it had to be the asshole with the sword, although he was swinging a mace at me now – and using him as a thrown missile. Mace-moron hit the short guy pretty hard, and they both went down. The Tsar was getting up. I let him have it.
Punch, punch, kick. Each impact shook the ground around us, and I saw Iron Guards being knocked back just being in the vicinity. Bones broke under the impact, and the Tsar went down, which is the best time to kick a man. I stomped on his head with all I had.
The helmet bent, flattening the lips of the face slit together. Errant beams of energy flared out from cracks in the helmet, and the Tsar’s body convulsed. I went for another kick, trying to punt his head clear off his shoulders, but managed only to send him flying through the air, which meant he was unconscious or too weak to anchor himself to the ground; dead was too much to hope for.
Most Guards had taken flight, either to gain room to maneuver or just to get the fuck away from me. Only one guy remained on his feet. He was trying to work the action on something that looked like a 40mm anti-aircraft cannon reworked into an assault rifle. His skin was gray and his head was vaguely shark-shaped.
Akula. They guy who betrayed us and killed Father Alexander.
He managed to clear the jam and open fire before I reached him. The armor-piercing round bounced off my chest; it felt like getting hit with a Ping-Pong ball. I took the gun away. Our eyes met for a second: he didn’t beg for his life, I’ll give him that. I’d made a promise to him, and I kept it. I took his head clean off with one punch and let the rest of him collapse to the ground.
Throughout it all, the other Guards had been taking pot-shots at me; back during my vigilante days, any of those blasts would have put me down for the count, but now they were just so many Ping-Pong balls bouncing off my skin. Reinforcements were coming, however: half a dozen grav-tanks came into view, flying through the sky, brutal-looking masses of metal, shaped like flying pyramids or obelisks laid on their side. Their main guns were on the tip of the pyramid: hyper-velocity magnetic cannon firing depleted uranium crowbars at close to relativistic speeds. The four secondary guns on the pyramid’s corners were industrial-sized versions of the traditional Ukrainian blasters.
Seeing them meant they saw me too, and seeing me meant they could hit me. I only knew they’d started shooting when something slapped me on the chest, hard, and I was knocked back a step. The direct hit from the tank gun had cracked a couple of ribs. I didn’t have time to be impressed with myself, because three of them continued shooting at me while the rest headed for Christine’s position. The ground exploded all around me. I took two more hits on my chest, each one hurting more than the last. I ran, but their targeting systems kept track of me. A hit on my leg made me stumble and fall. The only thing between me and the tanks was the flying debris they’d kicked up with their first volley, and that wasn’t much at all. I took more shots and now the blaster secondaries were joining in the fun. I was getting pecked and singed to death.
I tried to struggle to my feet, not knowing how much more punishment I could take.
The Freedom Legion
Kiev, Dominion of the Ukraine, March 29, 2013
Specialist Irina Starovoitova was a computer technician. Her workstation was an integral part of the intranet system of Research Facility Thirteen. Currently, the real Irina was in a deep slumber in her Kiev apartment; someone who looked exactly like her, thanks to advanced holographic facial implants, was at her workstation that morning.
Impersonating the woman gave Chastity Baal access to the most int
imate secrets of the Dominion. There were heavily encrypted passwords and biometric keys blocking said access, but her wrist-comp special apps finessed their way past them. In the two hours since Irina’s shift had started, she’d recovered footage showing Daedalus Smith visiting the facility no less than six times in the past ten years. He’d worn a different disguise each time, but they had been simple ones, good enough to fool the human eye but not the advanced face-recognition software in her wrist-comp. Smith had been cocky, too arrogant to take the time to wear a more elaborate disguise. Even more incriminating was the fact that the disruptor weapons that had been used against Chasca in Hong Kong had been manufactured in this very facility, using components Smith himself had created. She had him now.
She’d also learned a lot about the prisoners. The woman was indeed the same fugitive wanted in connection with Ultimate’s rampage. The man was a New York vigilante, code named Face-Off. They were being held under the highest security protocols, although there was little documentation about them in the computer files. Chastity wished she could learn more about them, but there was nothing more she could do. The identity she’d stolen wouldn’t give her access to the prisoners – Specialist Starovoitova was a clerk, not a guard – and trying to enter the holding areas would immediately expose her.
She’d gone as far as she could, as far as she needed to go. She would complete her shift and depart from the Dominion that night. Delivering the information she had discovered – a plot by Daedalus Smith and the Iron Tsar to drag the Legion into a Third Asian War – was her top priority. The fate of the two American prisoners couldn’t be allowed to get in her way. And yet, her intuition was all but screaming that abandoning them was a mistake.
New Olympus Saga (Book 3): Apocalypse Dance Page 9
