New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl (19 page)

The Freedom Legion

Atlantic Headquarters, March 13, 2013

“We might as well get started,” Daedalus
Smith said wearily.

They had done all that could be done for
the living. The dead were being slowly extricated from the wreckage. Hyperia
and Kenneth had survived the explosion as well, although both had been badly
injured. Daedalus had been just far enough away to avoid the worst of it, and
his Myrmidon armor had weathered the distant flash and shockwave without taking
damage. The others had been too close to the blast.

The Legion’s meeting room was in the
Freedom Hall, which had survived the attack nearly unscathed. The assault had
focused on the office buildings on the island; the attackers had targeted
civilians and support staff. John felt ashamed about that. The island’s vaunted
defenses had been overwhelmed by the opening missile barrage, and the civilian
buildings had never been meant to withstand military weapons. Should they have
done more to protect the thousands of humans working for the Legion? The
aftermath’s answer was clearly yes.

Four of the eight Council Members
(Kenneth, Olivia, Daedalus Smith and himself) were sitting at the table. The
other four (Chasca, Darkling, General Xu and Meteor) were based on the Pacific
Headquarters in the Marshall Islands and had holographic avatars in place,
linked by the most secure communication systems the Legion could devise. John
missed the old days when the entire Legion could meet in a conference room.
That was no longer possible; the organization had over two hundred full-time
members. A governing Council had been formed in 1962, with eight Councilors
elected by the Legion’s membership for two-year terms. John had served in the
Council every term since then. People trusted him. If they only knew what was
going on in his head lately…

“… eight hundred and eighty-three
confirmed dead,” Kenneth Slaughter was saying. John blinked. He’d somehow
blacked out for several seconds. Kenneth was wrapped in bandages, but he had
insisted on attending the meeting. “Four hundred and thirty six people suffered
severe injuries, and we have about six hundred others with light injuries. The
main hospital was one of the facilities hit, so ninety-two critical cases were
medevac’d to hospital facilities in Port Au-Prince. Ten Legion members were
killed in action. In addition to Mind Hawk’s strike team, we lost Hailstorm,
Medicine Man, Mesmer...”

John hung his head as Kenneth read the
casualty list. Most of the deceased had been acquaintances, good people but
relatively new recruits. Mesmer – Jason Merrill – had been with the Legion for
fifty years. John had been at Jason’s wedding and his son’s baptism. Jason had
been a friend.

He felt numb.

“All losses, human and parahuman, are
painful and regrettable,” General Xu’s hologram said, his clean-shaven face
showing no trace of emotion. Xu was a recent entrant to the Legion, although he
had been an active Neolympian since World War Two, best known in the Republic
of China as Mao Zhe-Dong’s executioner. John had only a vague idea who Zhe-Dong
was, but if you heard Xu tell the story, Mao had been as big a threat to the
world as the Dragon Emperor. John had serious doubts about that. “I think we
should concentrate on the paramount question, however,” Xu continued. “Who
launched this unprovoked attack on the Legion?”

“Unfortunately, the carrier vessel was
thoroughly destroyed, and its remains scattered into the ocean.” Kenneth
replied. “We have just started redeploying assets from search and rescue
operations and tasking them to salvage what we can from the debris. The
explosion that obliterated the vessel was in the twenty kiloton range, which
means there is going to be very little to recover. The same teams are
recovering as much radioactive material as possible. I will have a preliminary
environmental impact statement ready for you later tonight.”

“Before Doc here buries us in reports and
graphs, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty,” Daedalus Smith broke in. Kenneth
and Daedalus were equals in sheer genius and brilliance and near opposites in
almost every other way. Where Kenneth was cool and reserved, Daedalus was
flamboyant and irreverent. Kenneth led an ascetic life, dedicated to his
scientific advancements and helping humanity. Daedalus managed to spend a good
deal of his free time in the public eye, a notorious playboy seen with an
endless variety of movie stars, singers and other notorious personalities,
human and parahuman. They were not friends, and the best one could hope from
their interactions was cold civility.

“Long story short, the missiles are Chimp
designs,” Daedalus continued, his eyes bright with anger. General Xu frowned –
the slang term for ‘Chinese Imperial’ wasn’t exactly liked by the Republic of
China – but said nothing. Daedalus absentmindedly pulled at his mustache as he
continued. “We salvaged enough pieces from some of the cruise missiles that
detonated over the island to identify them. They are designated C-755 types,
three hundred mile range, pack a nice 100-pound enhanced explosive warhead,
roughly equivalent to ten thousand pounds of TNT. From the video records from
my suit, we can identify the flying carrier as a modified ACV-12. I’m sure that
sometime between the environmental impact statement and our ‘fishing for
radioactives’ operation we’ll gather enough big chunks of the ship to
definitely identify it. But let’s get real, it’s Chimp technology. By tomorrow
Doc will have enough evidence to convince a jury, but he already knows I’m
right.”

Kenneth Slaughter nodded, although he
wasn’t happy about it. “The preliminary findings do point in that direction.
But do let me emphasize the word ‘preliminary.’”

“Of course, Doc,” Artemis said. She was
cool and collected, but John could see the pain in her eyes. As the Public
Affairs liaison for the Legion, Olivia had worked closely with most of the
civilian staff at Freedom Tower, which had suffered the most casualties in the
attack. Many of the dead had been close friends and colleagues of hers. “Still,
it does seem clear the attackers were using Imperial technology.”

Xu muttered something in Cantonese before
speaking out loud. “Insanity! Why would the rebellious provinces attack the
Legion in this manner? There has been peace between us for twenty years.”

“Yeah, it’s probably not an official
Chimp operation,” Daedalus agreed. “For one, they’d have sent at least a few
Celestial Warriors along for the ride. The attack was launched by drones and
vanillas.”

“’Vanillas’ is an insensitive term, Mr.
Smith,” Chasca said, her voice cold. “So is ‘Chimp,’ for that matter.” The
Peruvian beauty was the youngest member of the Council at a mere forty-three
years of age, but her forceful personality had made an impact since joining the
Council four years ago. She was right, too; ‘vanilla’ was Neo slang for normal
humans, and while not directly derogatory unlike other terms like ‘squishy’ or
‘normy,’ it wasn’t a compliment, either.

“Sorry, my mistake. Drones and humans,
with Imperial technology,” Daedalus said without a trace of remorse. “An ACV-12
has a crew of a fifty, but if its systems were automated, it could have been
cut down to a handful people, or even remote-controlled from somewhere else.
Even if there was a crew, I don’t think we’ll be able to identify any of them,
since they were at ground zero of the explosion.  Doubt we’re gonna find any
pieces big enough to fit in a sandwich bag, and even those are going to be
pretty crispy around the edges.”

“So there is no evidence of parahuman
involvement?” Xu asked.

“Nothing conclusive,” Kenneth said. “The
vessel had a very sophisticated stealth suite, which might be parahuman in
nature. That explains how it was able to approach the island without being
detected. Such stealth systems are not standard for any Aerial Carrier Vessel
in the Empire’s arsenal.”

“Yes,” Xu agreed. “If the Empire could
deploy undetectable flying carriers, we would have known about it.”
The
Empire would have tried to start another short victorious war
, John
mentally translated. The Dragon Emperor’s territorial claims included all of
China, and pretty much everything east of India up to and including Japan. He
had never been content with the territory he controlled, which spanned all of
Mongolia and several interior provinces of China. He had sealed those lands
behind an energy wall five times as long as the original Great Wall of China.
Twice in the last forty years, he had tried to seize more territory, leading to
the deaths of millions.

John had faced the Emperor a handful of
times. Each time, even fighting side by side with such powerhouses as Janus and
Hyperia, he had never been able to earn more than a draw. The man's power was
godlike and was matched only by his ambition.

“… should launch Operation Saint George,”
Meteor was saying. “It’s about bloody time, I say. We’ve been planning it for
decades, and all we’ve done is let the bugger consolidate his power.” Meteor
had always been a balls-to-the-wall type. John had known him since the war. The
British superhero had destroyed the city of Dresden in a firestorm that had
killed thousands, and John had beaten him to an inch of his life afterward. He
and Meteor did not care for each other, but in the ensuing three quarters of a
century had learned to work together. John still tended to disagree with Meteor
most of the time, and this was no exception.

“That’s not going to work,” Daedalus said
before John could voice an objection. “I wish it would. You all know I've got
plenty of reasons to hate the Chi... the Imperials.” Back during the First
Asian War, Daedalus had been captured by the Dragon Emperor. It had not been a
good experience, and he managed to escape only because his captors had tried to
force him to design weapons for them. It was never a good idea to let a
Genius-type parahuman near a weapon workshop. “I’d love to see the Chief Imp’s
head in a trophy case at the Freedom Museum. But even if Operation Saint George
does go off without a hitch and we take out ol’ Draggy and his WMD arsenal,
what do you think is going to happen to the Legion afterward? After we launch a
surprise attack on a sovereign nation? ‘Cause the only way Saint George has any
chance of working is if we attack by surprise.”

“Which is why we should strike now,”
Meteor broke in. His eyes gleamed like molten iron. “We could bloody well do it
tonight, they’d never expect us to react so quickly! The Legion is assembled
and mobilized; we can launch Saint George in six, eight hours at the most. We
can bring Janus in, and he can lead the way. He’ll do it too, there’s no love
lost between him and the Emperor.”

“Yeah, we could probably pull it off,”
Daedalus said. “I’d say a seventy-five percent chance. Do you agree, Doc?”

“If Janus could be convinced to join in,
I’d say closer to eighty percent. However….”

Daedalus cut him off. “Yes, however. The
UN would blow a gasket. At the very least, we’d lose our seat in the Security
Council. Come on, matey,” he told Meteor. “You know that plenty of people have
been bitching about a non-governmental organization having so much influence,
pretty much since we got our seat back in ’46. We are always getting accused of
being a US puppet, or part of a secret conspiracy to set up a Neolympian world
government, sometimes both. We take out the Chief Imp without asking for
permission first, and we become the villains of the piece.”

“Which we
would
be, if we acted
unilaterally,” Chasca said. “Our charter allows us to operate only in countries
that expressly grant us permission to do so, or when enforcing an official UN
resolution. But that is not a problem. If we have evidence the Empire is behind
this, the UN will act on it.”

“Sure,” Daedalus replied, his sneer
clearly visible. “It would only take a couple of months of debating the matter.
The French would threaten to veto any resolution until we dotted every ‘i’ and
crossed every ‘t.’ You were here when I said Saint George only works as a
surprise
attack, weren’t you?”

“That’s enough, Daedalus,” Olivia said.

“Hey, I’m just pointing out the facts
here. And I already said we couldn’t go with Saint George. Talk some sense into
our limey pyromaniac friend over there.”

“Somebody needs to teach you some
manners, Mr. Smith,” Meteor said.

“ENOUGH!”

The shout was loud enough to make the
room shake and the holograms flicker. Everybody froze and looked at John, who
was as surprised as everyone else. He had been listening quietly; an eye blink
later he was on his feet, the echoes of his voice reverberating in his ears.

He couldn’t just stand there looking like
an idiot, so he kept talking. “There is no point in debating an attack on the
Empire right now. If we find enough evidence linking the Empire to the attack,
we can discuss our options. Fair enough?”

“I strongly second tabling any discussion
involving an attack on the Empire,” General Xu said. “For one, my nation would
view such an attack with the utmost concern.”

“As would mine,” said Darkling, the
Korean Mistress of Shadows, who had been quiet throughout the discussion so
far. “Another war with the Empire would bring death and destruction throughout
Asia, and perhaps the whole world. So let’s try to keep the macho posturing
down to a dull roar, okay?” Meteor definitely resented the remark, but he kept
quiet. Even Daedalus didn’t come back with a smartass remark. John’s loss of
control had shaken everyone up, with good reason.