Just Cause Universe 2: The Archmage (11 page)

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Fine,” said Doublecharge. “How do we stop him?”

Stratocaster looked at her with sadness and panic evident in his eyes. “I have no idea. At this point, I think we’d have to kill him to stop him.”

“I’m not particularly keen on killing,” said Juice. “It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

“What if he’s unconscious or comatose?” asked Switchboard. “We’ve got Deep Six sleeper sets on board.”

“Hmmm. A coma might work.” Stratocaster rubbed his chin in thought. “But all he’d need was a flash of coherent thought to be free once again. The problem is getting to him and knocking him out in the first place.”

“Leave that to us.” Jack spoke with confidence.

“I hope it’s that easy, for all our sakes. I’ll do what I can to counteract his magic with my own, but honestly he’s much more powerful than I am.”

“Look,” said Sally, “you said he’s only limited by the power of his imagination. Well, he’s imagining castles and dragons instead of missiles and tank divisions. He’s got a thing for the fantastic. Maybe we can use that somehow.”

“That’s a good point,” said Sondra. “If he tends to think along those lines, that’s a limitation we can exploit. We play by his rules, lull him into a sense of complacency, and then we break those rules.”

“Unless by then he’s already beaten us,” Shannon pointed out. “I say we sneak in, knock him on the head, and ship him off to Deep Six.”

“
Sir?
” Ace interrupted them. “
Ten minutes to target
.”

“Thank you, Ace.” Juice leaned forward to address the others. “Okay, people. Here’s the plan. We’ll have two teams; insurgence and reserve. Doublecharge will command the reserve team, of her, Sondra, and Switchboard. Since the three of you are the only fliers, you’re in a better position to scope out the entire situation. The rest of us will attempt to enter the castle, then find and subdue this Archmage. Will, you’re with us.”

“Sure. What else am I going to do, sit here and wait to die?”

Juice rolled his eyes at that. “All right. For the insurgence team, primary mission is to locate and incapacitate Wolfgang
Frazier
. There is no secondary mission objective for the insurgents. The reserve team’s primary mission is to patrol the area and to assist the insurgence team if required. Secondary mission objectives are to assist local authorities in any way requested. Are there any questions?”

For once, even Jack stayed silent despite being handed a straight line. Nobody else said anything either. Sally felt pre-combat butterflies in her stomach.

“
Sir, I have hostiles approaching on intercept vectors. They don’t show on radar. Only visual,
” said Ace.

Juice looked sharply at Stratocaster. “Could they be illusions? Could this whole thing be some huge illusion and that’s why it’s not registering on any instruments but cameras?”

Stratocaster shrugged. “No way to tell unless they interact with us.”

“
Sir, they’re not very fast but they’re angling to intercept
.” The clipped tone of Ace’s voice made it plain she’d rather be talking with the
Bettie
’s guns.

“Hold your course, Ace. Do not fire unless fired upon. Remember that this is public airspace and there are civilians beneath us.”

“
Yes, sir
.”

“Give me a fly-by of the target. I want a good look at it before we deploy.”

“
Roger that. Three minutes to target.
”
The
Fasten Seat Belts
indicators lit up.

Tension mounted among the heroes as they went through their various pre-combat rituals. Juice cracked his knuckles. Doublecharge made sparks jump between her hands. Sondra checked the safeties on her custom .50 caliber handguns. Jack yawned.

Suddenly, Ace shouted “
Ben zona!
” She
flipped the
Bettie
over and pointed her nose toward the ground in a spiraling dive. She cursed some more in Hebrew over the cabin speakers as a bright stream of energized plasma shot from the mouth of a dragon to clip the edge of the
Bettie
’s wing and melted one of the elevators. Heat washed through the cabin and Sally felt prickling like incipient sunburn on the right side of her face.

“
Evasive maneuvers. Stand by
,” shouted Ace, late on the warning.

The plane shook as a passing dragon buffeted it with its tail. The cabin lighting shorted out and alarms shrieked. Sally got a very good look at the dragon as it passed over the plane’s wing. It was
enormous
, with a body the size of a small helicopter and a wingspan to match the
Bettie’s
. Thick scales like tank armor protected it and its face could have scared Godzilla.

“
Permission to return fire, sir?
”

“Granted!” Juice braced himself between the seat in front of him and one across the aisle. Sally could see his arm muscles quivering.

Chattering thunder filled the air as Ace opened up with the machine guns in the
Bettie
’s nose. She jinked the jet left and right to avoid plasma jets from the dragons. A tremendous explosion outside the plane starred two of the portside windows.

“
Scratch one bogie, sir. They explode when hit.
”

“Nicely done, Ace. How many more?”

“
Not sure, sir. They don’t—son of a bitch!
” With a bright flash from near the tail section, a fist-sized hole appeared in the hull. The edges glowed white-hot. The
Bettie
shuddered and Sally felt her stomach try to leap out of her throat. Wind whistled through the cabin with deafening volume.

“Ace?” called Juice over the noise.

“
I’m a little busy here, sir
.” Ace vectored the jet nozzles forward to kill the
Bettie
’s momentum. Sally watched out a window as three dragons wheeled about and closed in on them.

A new voice came over the cabin speakers. “
Attention, Just Cause. This is Lieutenant John Howard, Air National Guard. Mind if we join your party?
”

“
Plenty of room at the bar, Lieutenant. Don’t be shy,
” said Ace.

“
Happy Hooligans at your service. Let’s go, 119
th
!
” With a roar, three F-16 fighters raced past like steel counterparts of the attacking dragons. One of the dragons turned to face the new threat and took a missile right up its snout for its trouble. The dragon exploded in a colossal fireball and sprayed cooked dragon meat across the side of the
Bettie
.

Sally looked over at Jason. His face was white with terror. Her own nerves sang like taut violin strings and her accelerated perceptions had kicked in and forced her to experience every nuance of the danger they faced.

“Ace, can you get us to the ground?” Juice shouted.

“
We’re going to the ground no matter what, sir. I’m trying to get us there in one piece
.” The plane heeled over and began to tumble toward the ground. Overstressed metal shrieked and the airlock assembly ripped away. Jason’s seat belt snapped and he was flung hard into a bulkhead with a yelp of pain. Ace tried to regain some kind of control, but the
Bettie
fell like a wounded bird.

“Everyone who can, get out now,” shouted Juice. “Regroup on the ground. Charge me up,” he added to Doublecharge.

Jack swung his bag over his shoulder, ran to the back of the jet, and leaped out into the swirling sky.

With a crackle of electricity, Doublecharge fed power into Juice to increase his strength and toughness. “
Go!” said Juice
, and she flew out after Jack.

Shannon faded into mist and then vanished. While insubstantial, she could drift safely to the ground unharmed by impact, dragon, or explosion. Switchboard levitated himself out of the gaping hole.

“Sally, with me,” shouted Sondra. Sally shrank back into her seat, terrified of falling. Ever since she’d ridden Destroyer on what should have been a one-way trip toward the stratosphere, she’d been afraid of falling. She shook her head, not wanting to leave her seat, not wanting to leave Jason, knowing she had to do both. “Girlfriend, we don’t have
time
for this!” Sondra wrapped her muscular brown arms around Sally and dragged her to the back of the plane.

“
No, wait! What about Jason?
” screamed Sally as she looked back at him. Their eyes locked and she saw in them his love for her. Not for Shannon; for
her
. Then Sondra leaped into the open air with her wings spread wide and her arms wrapped around Sally like they were tandem-skydiving.

“Stratocaster can get them out!” Sondra shouted over the noise of air combat. Sally screamed and thrashed. “
Do you want me to drop you?
” hissed Sondra in her ear.

“
No!
”

“
Then hold still!
”

Sally tried to be a good passenger as Sondra cupped the air in her wings, and turned their tumble into a spiraling descent.

The Air National Guard jets made another strike and one more dragon exploded into flames. Two dragons still wheeled in the air, but they were hard-pressed by the fighters as they provided cover for the descending heroes.

Sally watched as the engines on the
Bettie
gave out. Their once-proud transport was a broken shell of her former glory. Purple flashed from within the cabin and a glowing sphere emerged that held Juice, Jason, and Stratocaster inside it as Ace ejected from the cockpit.

Seconds later, the
Bettie
smashed into the ground. Her remaining munitions exploded from the impact and tore the wreckage apart in a brilliant fireball.

A dragon closed in on Sondra and Sally. Sally squealed in terror. She needed to run; it was the only way she knew to get to safety, but she was still too high up to drop from Sondra’s grasp.

“Shit. Sally, I’m going to need my hands.”

“I can’t!” cried Sally in a panic.

“Sally, there is a
very large
dragon coming toward us and
I can’t reach my guns!
”

“
I can’t!
”

Lightning engulfed the dragon. Doublecharge rose up behind the dragon as raw electricity poured out of her. The dragon’s wings collapsed and it plummeted toward the ground, its scales charred and smoking.

The Air National Guard jets took down the final dragon with another heat seeker missile. The pilots waggled their wings in tandem before they turned back east toward Fargo.

Sally clutched Sondra as the winged woman glided down toward the ground. “I’m sorry I lost my head,” she said.

“That’s okay. Flying isn’t for everyone. We’re down now.” Their feet touched the ground and Sally immediately crumpled to dig her fingers into the hard Dakota soil.

Sirens screamed as emergency vehicles and the rest of the team converged on their position.

“Don’t worry, folks, Just Cause is here. Everything’s under control now,” said Sondra under her breath.

Sally could tell that Sondra didn’t believe it for a second.

Neither did she.

Chapter Seven

“A group of parahumans poses a far greater threat to us than an individual might. Just Cause is the best, the brightest, and the
biggest
hero organization in the world. No one person in their right mind would want to challenge that.”

-Rick “Lionheart” Lyons,
Time Magazine
, December 3, 1976

May, 2004

Rugby, North Dakota

The magically-created mountain loomed in the background as Just Cause regrouped. The team clustered around Juice and awaited new orders. Jason was getting his left ankle taped up. The paramedics said it was sprained and maybe broken. Juice gave rapid-fire orders to a North Dakota State Trooper, who pushed his hat onto the back of his head to mop his brow.

“But they’re mostly just engineering and water supply battalions out here,” said the trooper. “We don’t have combat battalions.”

“They’re still
soldiers
, aren’t they?” asked Juice. “Get the Governor to mobilize whatever National Guard units he can.”

“I don’t think I have the authority…”

Juice changed to his courtroom voice. Greater men than the State Trooper had wilted under that voice. “I’m here as a direct representative of the Department of Homeland Security, and I’m
giving
you the authority to make that call, Trooper, because I don’t have the goddamn time.”

The trooper mumbled something apologetic and turned away to speak into the radio clipped to his shoulder.

A Pierce County SUV pulled up to the group. Almost before the vehicle ground to a halt on the dirt road, the passenger door flew open and a furious Ace stomped out. She flung her helmet to the ground so hard it cracked. “Sixteen years!
Sixteen years
in the Israeli Air Force and
not once
did I lose a jet!” she shouted at Juice, her accent grown thicker in her fury. “And now you bring me to dragons and look at me. I’m a pilot without a plane. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Easy, Ace. You’re alive and so are all of us, thanks to your flying,” Sondra said as she tried to smooth things over. “Has anyone seen Jack?”

The young deputy who’d delivered Ace swelled with pride. “The guy who fell without a parachute? Jolson’s bringing him. He landed a few miles away.”

The trooper that Juice had ordered to call the Governor returned with a sheepish look on his face. “Mr., uh, Juice? The Governor wants to talk to you.”

Juice caught Sally’s attention, a plea in his eyes.
Coffee?
He mouthed silently at her. She nodded. “Yes, sir, this is Juice,” he said into the cell phone the trooper offered him.

Sally turned to the young deputy. “Excuse me.”

“Hmmm?”

“Coffee. Where can we get some?”

Right on cue, a catering truck pulled up, horn honking, and the front of a long procession of motor homes, pickup trucks, motorcycles, and one solitary news van. Doublecharge was aghast. “What the
hell is this?
”