Deadly Wands (40 page)

"General Moqali has a million quads and a
million two-wanders, organized into two thousand battalions, each
squad living in two hundred thousand huts. Moqali sacked Kiev in
1240, so he doesn’t dare trust Russian women. Instead he uses
refugees from the Stans for cooks, whores, and laundry maids.”

“I’ve heard that the military vault has more
coin than the Mongol Central Bank in Peking,” Ivan added
knowingly.

“The vault is ours,” Billy said sternly. “But
you can have everything else except the Bank of Mongolia. If every
quad averages one backup set, then you’ll find several million
wands on the battlefield tomorrow, plus whatever money the corpses
have on them.”

“Why do you get Bank of Mongolia?”

“Because a few thousand quads from Global
Bank will arrive soon to claim every Mongolia branch for their own.
Once you set up your government, make sure everything owned by the
Bank of Mongolia is deeded to Global Bank. Global Bank will loan
you whatever you need, but you must protect their branches. Were
you able to get the bombs?”

Prince laughed. “An independent company
helpfully transported a few million to Ivan’s warehouses.”

“So what’s the plan?” Billy asked Prince.
Some of the commanders looked surprised. Even Prince seemed
shocked.

“They don’t have airborne sentries or patrols
because the fighting is so far away, and who the hell attacks a
million quads? So I say we fall straight down tonight from maximum
altitude, each carrying fire and shrapnel bombs. At five hundred
meters, we each drop a firebomb on a hut. A three hundred meters we
throw shrapnel bombs where they gather the most, then blast
everything that moves. Have the Russians surround their perimeter
to prevent survivors from escaping. Once resistance fades, we wipe
out the million supporters from the Stans camped around them.”

“Fifty thousand marathoners, holding four
bombs each, targeting two hundred thousand huts. It sounds like
providence,” Billy said. “Ivan, have your quads surround the camp
to prevent any from escaping, but tell them not to enter the camp
until an hour after sunrise to give their wounded time to die. Even
then, they should stab every body to avoid getting shot in the
back.”

The big guy grunted his approval. “What
should I do if we win?”

“Form a credible temporary government to set
up local and national elections. That means you must include your
rivals.”

“Why, Mr. Baron?”

“Because a credible government will suck up
Mongol resources that otherwise would be used against me.”

Billy thought he detected a smile under all
those whiskers. “I now see why so many follow you.”

“Ivan, in return for saving a million
Russians, you’ll owe me a debt of gratitude that you cannot
possibly repay, but which you will try to repay whenever possible.
Is this understood?”

Ivan sat back in his wooden chair and almost
smiled. “Spoken like a Russian. I accept your terms.”

While Russians recorded them, the Red Baron
and Ivan the Terrible issued a joint video urging Russians to kill
everyone pro-Mongolian and proclaiming the independent nation of
Russia.

“Ivan, Russia needs an air force. You will
have the quads, armor, and the wands. All you lack is a uniform. As
it happens, we have thirty thousand Mongol uniforms that we won’t
be wearing anymore, and you’ll find several million more on the
battlefield. Have your women figure out the cheapest way to make
them look Russian and you’ll have a professional looking air
force.”

CHAPTER 51

Billy went over the plan with his commanders.
He preferred simple plans, and this could not get simpler. The
obvious drawback is any enemy units away from the camp could
surprise the hell out of them, so he broke his five thousand
super-quads into companies. After the initial attack, most would
patrol along the perimeter.

Billy remembered the friendly casualties at
the Summer Slaughter. “Remember to close your eyes or two hundred
thousand bombs will render you a blind target. And make sure you
use your ear protectors if you don’t want to go deaf. We don’t have
cloud cover to conceal our approach, but at least we have starlight
to see their huts.

“After we wipe out the camp followers, fan
out in squads to hunt down those who escaped. If things turn to
shit -- and we are in Russia -- this estate will be our rally
point. Stay out of their camp because thousands of the wounded will
live long enough to kill you while playing dead. Let the Russians
work for whatever the corpses offer. What we want is in their
vault.

“Grandma, I want you in charge of the
super-quads. Moqali surrounds himself with his best quads, so they
are yours.”

Everyone stood up and looked at each other
for doubts. Billy radiated confidence.

“How many balls does he have?” Tiny asked
Blade, who looked at him bewildered. “We’re gonna attack a few
million enemies, and Red doesn’t even look nervous. With him
around, I’m never the biggest guy in the room. He makes me feel
tiny.”

That made Blade smile. “He only has two, but
they’re so huge they can turn on a lesbian.”

“Speaking of which, I wonder how Bear is
doing.”

The Russian and Scandinavian divisions
arrived early. Billy feared sentries waking up a million quads in
time to swamp them, but the Mongols seemed oblivious to them as
they formed a “blanket” maneuver at maximum altitude, then dropped
in a controlled freefall.

The advantage of taking the time to spread
themselves out was that they fell uniformly. They could not afford
to hit some areas twice and others not at all. The valley was
shaped like a banana, so they formed the blanket accordingly.
Instead of faster fliers arriving sooner, and getting slower units
blasted badly, everyone fell at the same speed since they only used
their wands to control their spacing.

From maximum height, Billy could gleam the
first beams of light over the horizon. The farther they dropped,
with their arms and legs spread out in an X-shape, the darker it
became. Their eyes adjusted to the starlight in time to spot the
round dots where the enemy slept. The huts stood out against the
white snow like big zits on pale tits.

Billy dropped with the super-quads over the
enemy headquarters. He spotted a messenger about to leave, looking
up at them more confused than alarmed. A few wands below started
shrieking, but much too little and much too late.

Then, at five hundred meters above ground,
Billy vented his famous scream to begin the bombardment.

CHAPTER 52

Benes the Brave came out of retirement to
avenge the friends who died at the Summer Slaughter several years
ago. Now nearing his one hundredth birthday, the pressure to empty
his bladder got him up in the freezing cold. He cursed himself for
drinking so much again, but he kept bumping into old war buddies
who wanted to celebrate. Otherwise he’d have waited until dawn. Or,
better yet, noon. As it was, he had to maneuver past countless
obstacles to find the damn sanitation trench, his old bones
absorbing the cold as he stumbled in the dark.

As he stood peeing over the edge, something
drew his eye up. He looked at the sky for the longest time before
he shook himself awake enough to really focus. It looked like a
shadow falling. Yet even as some stars twinkled, others shined
uninterrupted. It made no damn sense, and again he cursed his
weakness for fermented horse milk.

No self-respecting quad goes anywhere without
wands, so he took one out to record whatever the hell was happening
because otherwise no one would believe him.

Finally he thought he saw men. His gut
reaction went from bad to worse. He tried to pee faster, but his
bladder took forever to empty.

So he still had a hand on his freezing penis
when someone screamed and flashed four wands right above him. The
sight was so unexpected that he’d have peed himself if he were not
already urinating. It couldn’t be the Red Baron, here in Kiev --
but, then, it couldn’t be anyone else. He turned to continue
recording the Baron and fell into the narrow trench.

As he splashed into urine-soaked feces, an
enormous explosion shook the world. A brilliant light illuminated
every detail of the crap he fell into. His hands covered his ears
even as his ear drums painfully burst. He couldn’t imagine what
could produce something so loud. Maybe Father Sky wanted to punish
Mother Earth with a thousand rounds of thunder. A pressure wave
swept over the “shit slit” and sucked out all of the oxygen. He
buried his face in mud, then discovered the mud tasted like
dung.

After the terrifying moment passed, his chest
heaved, desperate for air. He stood on the lip of the trench.
Although his ears heard nothing but ringing, his brain would not
accept what his eyes saw. He got out his second wand to record both
sides.

He had never seen so many fireballs!
Thousands flying up and shooting down. He turned slowly to capture
everything around him because if he didn’t believe it, why would
anyone else?

He stood there like a shitty statue rotating
with outstretched arms. Numb by more than the freezing temperature,
a desperate need to tell someone gripped him. The sanitation trench
emptied into the Dnieper River, so he flew within the slit, the
excrement of a million warriors fouling his senses and traumatizing
his appetite. Once across the river, he hid behind some bushes and
recorded the unbelievable scene behind him. Apparently, the sky
really was punishing the ground. Only now he could make out
thousands of quads firing upon his comrades. He stayed as long as
he dared before an obsessive need to share the news compelled him
to flee.

CHAPTER 53

Despite previous experience, Billy didn’t
appreciate how many ear drums he’d be exploding. Even with ear
protectors and flying high above, the detonations rang his head
like a bell. It was like falling into a room of exploding Chinese
firecrackers, except a million times louder. He couldn’t imagine
how much it hurt on the ground. He hoped his guys shut their eyes
because the surface suddenly shined as bright as the sun.

Billy asked several Russian women to record
the attack from above but, later, even he couldn’t believe the
videos. Their bombardment turned night into day.

His team got off several volleys at whatever
moved below them before a few hundred thousand Mongols soared up in
vengeance. After explosions that damaged their eyes, ears, and
throats, Billy was surprised they could stand, much less fly.
Without time to form into units, they rose individually, but over
several minutes, as they recovered their wits.

With better wands and greater height, Team
Red could hit them with lethal blasts, while those on the ground
could only warm them up with defused blasts on a cold night. The
Mongols almost did them a favor. Plus, the fireballs ignited
everything flammable, including people -- it was like hovering over
a really big campfire.

By the time they annihilated the first few
hundred thousand Mongols, Team Red found another few hundred
thousand shooting futilely at them from the ground. As they
descended to one hundred meters, they discovered a few hundred
thousand more people clutching their bleeding ears or blinded eyes.
They looked like sitting ducks, except laying down. Billy forbid
his troops from landing near enemy wounded, so their orders were to
fireball survivors from the air.

William often described the life of a soldier
as work, not unlike a butcher. Work marked not so much by heroics
as doing grim deeds that needed doing. Nobody likes carving up
cattle or digging graves or killing people, but someone must do it.
That’s how Billy felt, as he shot everything that moved: just
another guy doing his job. He felt neither heroic nor sadistic as
his troops moved to annihilate the support camps that surrounded
the military base. Annihilating those million refugees from the
Stans didn’t make Billy feel sick; it made him feel safe. Any that
survived would eat food that would otherwise keep a Russian alive.
Mongols killed more civilians than any other people in history, so
they were just getting what they deserved.

Many people would consider killing three
million people unconscionable, but Billy saw it as a great day’s
work. Those million quads would have killed several million
Europeans, and those million two-wanders and million civilians
would have helped them, so Billy was actually saving Europeans. As
Genghis Khan liked to say, there are no innocents in total war.
Billy thought civilization was a great idea, and hoped humanity
tried it some day.

Of course, the crucial difference between the
two groups is that Team Red killed to give people freedom while the
Mongols killed to take it away. Genghis Khan saw himself as a
conqueror while Billy saw himself as a liberator.

Billy dropped through a hole in the
headquarters roof and shot or stabbed everyone inside. He kicked in
doors until he found the grizzled old man in charge. Billy gave the
guy credit -- he knew what was coming and fought with his last
breath. Moqali swung long swords as soon as his doors burst open
and Billy dropped to the floor just in time. He blasted the
general’s knees off, then flew on the floor to get close enough to
slice his biceps. Like the Third Millennial, Billy sat on the guy’s
chest as he transferred his wands and watched him die.

“You know what I like most about a fair
fight?” he asked, even though he hated fair fights. “The better
fighter always wins.”

“Who are you?” Moqali angrily demanded.

“I’m the Red Baron. And one day I’ll take
your Immortal’s Millennial Wands as I watch him die.”

“A messenger just woke me up to show me video
of American Jack watching you die. I was on my second cup of wine
when the bombing started.”