General Kovačević’s current headquarters is woefully inadequate. The loss of the Winter Cradle due to the actions of Alycia Chin and her team cost him considerable prestige. If he is to regain it and resume his ascent, this mission - as underfunded as it is - must succeed. He must prove he can do grand things with limited means before he will be entrusted with more.
MIA battled the General at the Winter Cradle in “413 - City of Clones” – Ed.
“Status report,” he orders to the man across the room, who is currently working from a computer with multiple screens attached.
“All strike teams went through the portal as ordered,” the subordinate, one Aleksei Sidorov, reports immediately. “Their coordinates were then established, and the creature has been dispatched to attack the facility.”
The General is thoroughly familiar with the plan. But even now, he has doubts about the man chosen to execute its most crucial part. “My Antibody has assured me that their city can float to the surface in an emergency, based on statements they made themselves. Your pet must provoke that emergency condition. The Russian Navy will not appreciate being kept waiting for nothing.”
Doctor Sidorov bobs his head. “It will be done, General. I crave revenge against those people, and I will not fail in claiming it.”
The team dealt with Sidorov’s former creations in “401 - Super-pirates on the High Seas!” – Ed.
The whole sphere shudders as something titanic strikes it.
The Newmen are thrown across the room, and land on their sides or backs. There’s no possibility of personal injury, of course - but Doctor Panya is here too.
“Stay flat,” Aria orders him. “Hold onto something if you can.”
“Yes ma’am,” the physicist replies quickly, once he’s recovered his wits.
Aria points at Mo. “Show me what the fuck just hit us.”
Mo has managed to get back to the console. He punches up some of the external camera feeds. He, along with Big Bill and Otto, look at the screen in startled recognition.
“That’s uh - what’s his name,” Otto says quickly. “Titalion! The big monster that went after south of France.”
The team encountered Titalion in “406 - The Beast That Blocks Out the Sun!” – Ed.
Aria’s question cuts through the mutual recollection. “You guys have a plan for dealing with it?”
Otto turns around slowly. “Uh. No? A whole team of supers drove it back into the ocean–”
The sphere rocks with another solid collision.
“–Where we are!” Aria practically shouts from her new place on the hard deck of City Ops.
Otto can take a hint. “Okay. Big Bill, let’s suit up and go play with our boy, see if we can lead him away from the city.”
“Ain’t the Hula Hoop outta plasma pressure?” Big Bill asks. “How are we gonna deploy vehicles without it?”
Shit, Otto tells himself.
Leo has finished with the last crop of soldiers. Now he prowls the city in search of more targets.
The first impact can’t be said to catch him by surprise. His reaction is that of any animal who’s constantly expecting danger - to land in a crouch after being flung through the air, to assess, to flee a more powerful enemy.
This danger, whatever it was, comes from outside. It isn’t a matter for him. He continues stalking.
Summer has been flying, and so is physically unaffected by the impacts. Emotionally, she’s very concerned.
“City Ops - Summer here,” she calls in. “What’s going on?”
“Titalion’s back,” Otto informs her. “We need a way to get outta the city and engage with it. We don’t have plasma pressure in the Hula Hoop.”
Her new Chariot is still under construction, but there’s one other thing she built–
“I yanked the activation circuit out, but that’s fixable. But listen. There’s reserve plasma for the Apollo System. It’s only good for a few seconds, but you can use that!”
The strike teams who have been found and fought are recovering, slowly. The Newmen who beat them have moved on.
The strike teams who haven’t been found are working their way through the spheres, looking for their goal. They came in via the Launch System. Now they’re looking for City Ops.
Some of them have talked about using their cutting tools and other equipment to break into the sealed emergency shelters or personal quarters, and start taking hostages. After the first impact from Titalion, those discussions ceased.
Sergei Ivanovich Tarasenko, the overall strike leader, ordered teams to focus and converge on their real objective. “Do not waste what we brought,” he counsels in harsh Russian over the radio. “We cannot re-equip.”
The lead team arrives at the sealed entrance to City Ops around the time Otto is leading the way out. The soldiers raise their weapons. Otto’s eyes widen, and he pushes his fellows back inside, and retreats. The door seals shut just as the bullets start flying.
“Get that door open!” Tarasenko orders. “Soldiers, keep the door covered. Cutters, get to work.”
Inside, Otto yells over the radio. “Summer! Get Leo and yourself over here. City Ops is under siege.”
“You guys could get out–” Summer begins.
“I don’t care about how to get out,” Aria announces, cutting her off. “I care about them not getting in. And right now you and Leo are the most effective fighters we have against them.”
“Okay. I’m on my way - and I’ll try to find Leo. Do you know where he is?”
“Lovelace Sphere, public area, level 5. He’s fighting.”
Summer finds Leo crouched down, looking at the soldiers around him the way a lion might regard fallen gazelles. He’s lost his shirt, and he’s got a few scrapes and cuts that look like near misses from firearms.
When Summer alights on the deck, he looks up, with eyes that make her feel uncomfortable. He doesn’t feel like he’s a danger to her specifically, just that he’s generally dangerous.
He’s weirdly attractive to her right now as well. She pushes this uncomfortable feeling away immediately - there’s a city to rescue, and her personal problems don’t matter right now.
How does Aria calm him down from this?
The one thing she knows is an appeal to her sister’s safety.
“Aria is in danger,” she says quietly, watching him but not staring, just in case it provokes him. “I want to take you to where she is, so you can save her from danger. Okay? Will you let me take you to Aria?”
He stands up, tilts his head to the left and to the right to pop his neck bones, and flexes his hands to pop the knuckles. But he seems ready.
“I’m going to pick you up and carry you,” she says in that same soft tone of voice. “Please lift your arms so I can hold onto you.”
He obeys, and she lets out a brief sigh of relief mixed with melancholy.
I wish I had someone feel this way for me.
Titalion is spreading his fury between the city’s spheres. Right now the creature is working on another one. But he’ll inevitably return here.
The door to City Ops is built out of the same carbon allotropes that Leo used in his other tech. It’s armored and invulnerable to mundane measures. It’s built to withstand submergence in the deepest depths of the ocean, with its oppressive and murderous water pressure. The cutting tools, however, exhibit the same purple glow as the soldiers’ ammunition, and it’s able to cut through.
Not quickly. The soldiers are a third of the way through cutting open the door to City Ops when Summer and Leo arrive.
Summer leads off. Her butterflies aren’t at full power, but they have enough to hold off the first round of assault rifle fire. The soldiers fire in disciplined fashion, with short bursts aimed for vital points. Too late, they realize their special ammo isn’t penetrating the screens the way it worked on the robot bodies they’ve faced.
Leo launches his attack at the soldiers who emptied their clips. He throws his knives, striking helmets and hands as before. Some of the soldiers try to shield themselves; others drop their guns. But his blades always aim at the most vulnerable points, and they never miss.
“Alternate fire! Aim at the male!” Tarasenko shouts at his men.
Summer can’t understand the Russian, but she understands the situation. She adjusts her drones, moving them to keep Leo’s flank and rear covered. Free to focus on just what’s ahead of him, Leo is like a hunting animal with its prey cornered. Punches and kicks alternate with knives. He’ll knock a rifle to the side just as it begins firing, and the shooter will find himself aiming at a comrade. He’ll throw a knife at a booted foot, then launch a kick at the soldier’s head as he comes to his knees to try and free it. The remaining troopers keep trying to anticipate what a man would do, and fail to account for the beast.
Tarasenko quickly recognizes the tactical situation. “Reposition!” he shouts. “Shoot the woman! Encircle her!”
The soldiers try to move into position as ordered. By this point, reinforcements are also approaching.
Summer flies upwards, drops downwards, and lands with her back against the door. During her brief time in the air, there’s a torrent of automatic fire, and some of her shields begin to fail. She pushes the cutting team away and raises a full-coverage barrier between herself and the soldiers.
She can’t last forever. But there is still something she can do. There’s one guy who keeps shouting stuff. He’s got to be in charge.
She tries a new trick - remote operating her drones. With her normal body holding still behind the force wall she erected, she casts her perceptions into one of the drones.
The drone’s force field projection takes on an image of Radiance, with sufficient solidity to interact with people. She confronts Tarasenko. He raises a handgun and fires at her head, but the projection collapses away and the bullets fly through empty air. She materializes and he fires again, emptying the clip. Again she dematerializes, but not before a few rounds strike the shield.
The butterfly has enough juice to do what she needs. She grabs hold of the pistol and wrenches it out of his hands. And then–
“Leo!” she shouts. “This is the man trying to hurt Aria!”
Leo’s head snaps to the left like an eagle spotting a rabbit running across snow. He leaps over the fallen bodies of the men he’s defeated. Tarasenko, recognizing the danger and without his gun, goes for a knife at his belt.
Leo grabs hold of the wrist as Tarasenko tries to stab him underhand. He ducks and twists, pulling the arm behind the lead soldier’s back. He wrenches the wrist, and the pain causes the man to release the knife. It falls into Leo’s waiting hand - another step of the dance - and he raises it immediately to the man’s bare throat.
Summer feels the need to call out - shout something - stop him, before he does something that can’t be undone. But the knife stops when a thin line of blood appears on the edge of the blade. It’s pressed against the skin - but it isn’t moving any further.
Something that could easily change if Titalion collides with this sphere, Summer realizes.
“Order them to surrender!” she shouts at Tarasenko.
“Сложите оружие и сдавайтесь!” the man shouts.
They hesitate, and Summer agonizes. But one by one the soldiers begin to lay their arms down.
A few of the men don’t, however. One shouts “смерть перед неудачей!” and raises his gun, aiming at Tarasenko’s head. Summer lets go of her control over the butterfly drone and expands its barrier to full coverage. Bullets bounce off the screen, inches away from a fateful encounter with the commander’s head.
I wish Jean Mana had been teaching us Russian, Summer tells herself. We could know what they were saying.
Jean Mana was introduced in “410 - The Fires of Conflict” – Ed.
The two sides stand at an impasse in the corridor leading to City Ops. In the next few moments, anything could happen.