New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl (17 page)

“Very good, Christine,” Condor said, and
now he sounded nothing like Mr. Phelps. “I’m going to switch to something a bit
harder. Let me know if it gets to be too much.”

“Okay,” she replied, and another machine
started spitting baseballs at her, and these were pretty hard fastballs. She
concentrated on her shield, and the baseballs hit it and bounced off. The
impacts felt different, harder and focused on a narrower area. She could feel
the shield bend slightly as the hits increased in speed and power. As the
impacts got harder, the shield drew more power from her.

After a while, the balls started hitting
the shield pretty darn hard; if her control slipped those things were going to
leave a bruise, or even break something. She looked at the machine shooting at
her. Half of the shots seemed to be aimed right at her face, and that wasn’t
very nice. She glared at it.

There was a loud crack like a gunshot as
the machine flew apart in an explosion of metal bits and plastic shards.

“No way!” she shouted. Her concentration fell
apart along with her shield and the last baseball from the doomed machine hit
her right between the eyes. Things got blurry for a second or three.

“You’re okay,” Face-Off said when she
could focus again. He was leaning over her. She hadn’t quite gotten knocked
out, but she had ended up on her ass and spaced out for a bit. That fastball
had hit hard. Yay for super-bones, or her brains would be leaking out of her
nose and ears just about now.

“You’re supposed to ask me if I’m okay,
not tell me,” Christine grumbled as he helped her to her feet. “My skull may be
super-strong, but I think I got a concussion.”

“No worries, we recover from concussions
in a matter of seconds, mostly. Although this guy I know got shot in the eye,
bullet lodged in his brain. After a few hours the bullet came right out of the
bullet hole, but he had trouble remembering stuff for a few days.”

“I can’t tell if that was a joke or not,”
Christine complained.

“Must be my poker face,” Face-Off
replied, startling a laugh out of her.

“Well, that was special,” Condor said as
he walked up to them. “I won’t charge you for my pitching machine, mostly
because I’m grateful you didn’t accidentally do that to me or Face-Off here.”

“Oh, God, that would have been horrible,”
Christine said, her good humor vanishing. She normally didn’t glare at people,
but the idea of her getting angry at somebody and blasting a hole through them
made her a little nauseous. Or nauseated. One of those two, or maybe both.

“It’s okay," Condor assured her.” I was
able to measure the energy level of the impact, and it would have been
survivable by your average Type Two Neo. It wouldn’t have been pleasant,
though.”

“So how did I do it? I didn’t see energy
beams coming out of my eyes or what not.”

“Most energy beams are invisible to the
naked eye. Plasma discharges are visible, but what you unleashed on my poor
pitching machine was pure kinetic energy. To be exact you caught one of the
baseballs and accelerated it to three thousand feet per second, right into the
mechanical pitcher.”

Christine did some quick math in her
head. Let’s assume a five ounce baseball at 3K fps. Don’t forget to carry the
zero… “That's like sixty thousand joules of energy!”

“Give or take,” Condor said, sounding
impressed. “Four times the punch of a .50 caliber bullet. I forget you’re a
Genius, too.”

“I’m a Physics major,” Christine said. “I
can do math; that and being a gaming geek meant I had no prom date, or much of
a social life. But I could do math before I became Wonder Womyn. Danica
McKellar is my personal idol.”

“They didn’t have girls like you when I
was going to school,” Condor said bemusedly.

“Of course, that was back in the
Sixties,” Face-Off commented.

“As in the Nineteen-Sixties?” Christine
blurted out.

“You didn’t tell her about Neo
longevity,” Condor said to Face-Off.

“I was going to get to it, but I’ve been
answering a bazillion other questions all day,” Face-Off said. “Sorry, Gramps.”

“You’re saying Neos – we – don’t get
old?” Christine broke in.

“Not that you’ll notice. I told you about
Ultimate coming out in 1938, right? He’s still around, and he looks about the
same as he did seventy-odd years ago.”

“Except the eyes,” Condor said. “You can
see his age in his eyes.”

“Well, I haven’t had the honor of looking
into his eyes,” Face-Off muttered.

“So how old are you?” Christine said.
“Sorry, rude.” Was he like eighty or something insane like that? Creeposome.

“Twenty-seven this July,” Face-Off said.
“I’m a newbie.”

“And you should respect your elders,”
Condor said.

“You got it, old-timer.”

Christine ignored the byplay. Never
getting old. Not the kind of thing you really think about at age twenty-one,
except when reading bad vampire romances, something she was guilty of doing on
occasion. Go Team Edward, but without having to suck blood or glow in daylight.
Kinda neat. Watching every normal friend you have die of old age, not so neat.
Maybe not having a lot of friends had an upside.

“You okay?” Face-Off asked her.

“Yeah, just thinking things through. I
keep getting hit with information overload, but I figure some meditation time
and a hefty dose of anti-psychotics will take care of it.”

“Well, no time for either,” Condor said.
“Now that we know what you can do, we need to get a feel for your limitations
and capabilities.”

That meant more balls to the face,
Christine guessed. “Fun.”

The Freedom Legion

East Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, March 13,
2013

Chastity Baal coughed and spat blood onto
the sandy oil. A broken rib made its presence known with a sharp jab of pain
when she tried to move. Behind her, the flames consuming the burning jeep
alternatively crackled and roared. For a few seconds, she didn’t know where she
was or what had happened.

Ah, yes. The Celestial Warrior.

She had seen the figure rushing towards
them faster than the Jeep had been traveling. She started to swerve but the
running man had smashed into the vehicle. Metal crumpled and the world spun out
of control as the multi-ton vehicle was flung into the air. That was the last
thing she remembered.

Celsius had gotten his wish.

Chastity looked around. Bao was crawling
away from the ruins of the vehicle, still alive but badly injured. Some fifty
feet away from the Jeep, Celsius was confronting the Celestial. The Chinese Neolympian
was short but heavily muscled, with a shaved head and eyes that blazed with
unnatural light. He was bare-chested and the Imperial Sigil branded into his
skin glowed with the same hues as the Dragon Wall. Celsius was unleashing a
torrent of fire onto the Celestial, but the flames sputtered away inches away
from the target, leaving the Imperial unscathed. The Celestial advanced through
the stream of fire, leaning forward like someone pushing into a strong wind.

She reached for the pistol in her belt
holster, ignoring the stabs of pain from the broken rib. The Celestial was
nearly upon Celsius. The Legionnaire switched tactics and encased the Chinese
Neo in a sheath of ice. That stopped the Celestial, but the ice began to crack
seconds later under his relentless strength. Celsius’ face was contorted with
exertion and fear. He knew he wouldn’t be able to hold the Celestial for long.

The pistol’s 9mm rounds would be useless,
but the weapon also had an integral mini-grenade launcher under the barrel.
Chastity calmly loaded the launcher as the Celestial broke through the ice and
hurled himself at Celsius, who tried to dodge away but wasn’t fast enough. The
Imperial grabbed the Legionnaire in a grip meant to rend him limb from limb.
Chastity took her shot.

The 15mm grenade hit the Celestial on the
right temple. Its shaped-charge explosive warhead created a jet of plasma no
thicker than a knitting needle, concentrating all its power in the smallest
possible surface. It was designed to punch through the protective fields that
made some Neos largely invulnerable to conventional weapons. The explosion’s
flash hid the Celestial’s head for a second, and the man staggered but did not
fall. When the smoke dissipated, Chastity couldn’t see any signs of injury on
him. The Celestial’s hold on Celsius had not slackened, either. He twisted the
Legionnaire’s body. Celsius screamed in overwhelming agony and even from fifty
feet away Chastity heard the loud crack when his spine broke.

The Celestial Warrior let the limp body
drop to the ground as he turned towards Chastity. The Imperial hesitated for a
second when he saw he was facing a woman. His angry expression was replaced by
a lascivious smile.

Panic flickered inside of her, stirring
the animal desire to flee. Fear was an old acquaintance of hers; she had lived
with it from an early age, and from an early age had learned to set it aside.
Running wasn’t an option; it would only provide the Imperial with the thrill of
the chase to add a little spice to the main course of rape and murder.

Chastity struggled to her feet, letting
go off the useless gun. Only one thing left. She reached for the scabbard built
into her right boot and pulled out a dagger. It was a fighting blade, seven
inches of high-quality steel, curved and single-edged with an unusual symbol
carved along its length, a sinuous interlaced design that Chastity had not been
able to identify even after consulting with several experts. The weapon had
been a parting gift from a lover. “Keep it with you, kiddo, but don't use it
unless you're at death's door,” he had told her. “It's a prototype, and it's
got flaws. Flaws that might kill you. But if you ever need someone dead, no
matter what the cost, this is the tool for the job.”

For five years Chastity had kept the
dagger around whenever practicable, but had never used it. It was time to see
what it could do.

The Celestial reached for her, going for
a grapple. She sidestepped the overconfident attack and slashed at him with the
dagger, striking his forearm. The protective field that had ignored Celsius’
flames and the armor-piercing grenade parted under the impact like an elastic
membrane pierced by a scalpel. The blade cut through his flesh and scored the
bone beneath. With a cry of surprised pain, he spun away from her. The shocked
expression in his face matched her own.

The dagger was glowing. Chastity saw the
blood on its edge disappear, absorbed into the weapon; the symbol carved into
the blade flared brightly. It appeared to be moving as well, but she had no
time to look at it closely. The Celestial charged her again. This time he was
all business, intent in destroying the woman who had hurt him. For several
seconds, Chastity was too busy dodging a whirlwind of punches and kicks to
strike back. She used the knife defensively, presenting a threat to his
bare-handed attacks and forcing him to be cautious. The man had been trained
well, a rarity for someone who was largely invulnerable to conventional
attacks. She did not score another hit on him, but she managed to keep him from
striking her.

They broke contact and circled each other
warily. The Celestial's shock at being wounded had been replaced with anger,
but he was still proceeding coldly and deliberately. She had a slight speed
advantage on him, but it would not make a difference if he pressed on with his
attacks. Chastity might cut him again, but if one of his blows landed it would
kill or at best cripple her, and the fight would be over. She watched her
opponent intently, looking for an opening.

That's when she noticed the dark tendrils
extending from the Celestial's wound, thin veins of blackness that drank the
blood spurting from the slash and spread like a network of roots beneath the
man's skin. The tendrils pulsed bright with purple-black hues, and a tingling
feeling in the hand holding the dagger matched the rhythm of those pulses. Chastity’s
eyes widened in surprise.

Sensing her distraction, the Celestial
struck. She ducked away from a kick, but wasn't fast enough to completely avoid
it. The impact of his foot against her midsection should have sent her broken
body flying into the air. Instead, Chastity had her breath knocked out of her and
was pushed back a couple of steps. The Imperial warrior tried to follow up his
attack, but the graceful maneuver turned into a clumsy stumble. The dark
tendrils around the wound had spread further; she saw them creep under the skin
of his chest, surrounding the Imperial Sigil, and quickly slither towards his
face. The Celestial screamed and his body started convulsing.

Chastity moved closer. In an ordinary
fight, she would have cut the man’s throat and been done with it. There was
nothing ordinary about this. Dark light flowed from the fallen Imperial and
reached towards her. Chastity felt its approach as a wave of heat and pressure
rushing in her direction like a slow-motion explosion. The dark light coalesced
around the dagger and flowed into its blade. Its handle shook and grew hot in
her hand. She tried to let go of the weapon, but her fingers wouldn’t obey her.
The symbol along the dagger’s edge was clearly moving now, twisting and turning
in a hypnotic pattern, and the metal was humming with a matching rhythm. The
Celestial at her feet gave a last galvanic spasm and was still.

Pure agony rushed into the hand holding
the dagger and beyond, suffusing her entire body. Chastity had been beaten and
tortured dozens of times during her checkered career, with items and techniques
ancient and modern. None of those experiences had prepared her for this. Every
nerve, every cell in her body burned in a fire that seared without consuming.
Worse still, the pain did not overwhelm her consciousness; she remained fully
aware. She knew several mental disciplines that allowed her to distance herself
from pain and discomfort, but she was overwhelmed too quickly to use them. Her
writhing body collapsed next to the man she had killed.

Along with pain, her mind was flooded
with alien thoughts and memories. She became a young boy growing up in a family
farm until government soldiers with the scarlet markers of the Imperial Guard
came to take him away. A kaleidoscope of sensations followed: brutal training sessions,
being forced to kill while still a child, steps in a relentless process that
leached away all traces of humanity and compassion, a final ceremony in which
the young man’s body was transformed, granted superhuman powers through the
Imperial Sigil carved into his chest.

The fire within her flared up one final
time, erasing all thought.

Chastity woke up some indeterminate time
later. The pain was gone; the dagger was still in her hand, an inanimate object
once more. Her first impulse was to fling it away, but she forced herself to
put it back in its scabbard. The weapon had saved her life, after all. As she
finally let go of the handle, she felt fresh pain on the palm of her hand. A
mark had been burned there. It looked like a combination of the symbol on the
blade and the Imperial Sigil. She examined the Celestial’s body. The man’s face
was contorted in a final rictus of agony, and the Imperial Sigil was gone from
his chest.

There was no time to think about what had
transpired. Imperial troops would be on their way, and perhaps more Celestials.
She activated an emergency beacon and went to check on Celsius. The Legionnaire
was breathing shallowly, still alive despite having his spine broken. She
injected him with a heavy dose of restorative serum. The Doc Slaughter
invention would seal internal injuries and speed up the healing process, even
the miraculous healing process of Neolympians. Celsius would probably recover.

Bao was next. The Mandarin had two broken
legs and painful but non-life threatening burns and scrapes. She set the broken
limbs and injected him with a dose of serum. Just as she was done with her
ministrations, a low rumbling noise alerted her to the arrival of the stealth
helicopter.

Chastity waved at the descending vehicle.
Once they were out of danger she might have the leisure time to dwell upon the
gift that had saved her life.

She was afraid it had exacted a price she
would regret paying.