Author's Note: End game, second part. In which Cobra Commander explains, Cobra loyalties are put to the test, revenge is sought and to some extent attained, Mindbender does something really fucking stupid for reasons which are not clear to anyone with a functioning cerebellum, and Scarlett officially comes to the end of her majestically long rope.
This was supposed to be the last part, but aliens and Zartan are surprisingly hard to get to cooperate. But one more part and an epilogue to go, people—we're almost there!
And yes, I know several of you have questions regarding various tidbits of the story: don't worry answers are forthcoming, but it's hard to get down to the explaining when characters are in the middle of a knock-down-drag-out bloody brawl. However, some thingummies do get explained here, so I hope that helps.
Oh, speaking of blood: there's a lot of it in this chapter. My autocorrect now believes that every word I type beginning with "bl" must naturally end in "-ood-slicked." If you're squeamish, this is an excellent place to turn back.
And again, I'm sorry for ending on a cliffhangerish note. I'm trying to find the most natural places to break up the narrative, and if I hadn't cut it off here, it would just be too. Much.
Rating: T.
Disclaimer: G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.
Chapter Fourteen: War of the Worlds, Part Two
They descended the ladder one at a time, dropping their gear down ahead of them. Cobra troopers surrounded them the minute they stepped off the ladder, roughly searching them for any hidden weapons and getting a few "accidental" whacks in while they handcuffed them. Scarlett just set her jaw and stared straight at Cobra Commander, ignoring the grabbing and the bruises: Zartan was still holding the gun to 'Rat's head, and all bets were off until then.
Each handcuffed soldier was then forced into a kneeling position, their wrists shackled to their ankles behind them. Two Vipers took up their station next to each of them, weapons aimed and safeties off. Cobra Commander had clearly been putting some thought into this.
The only kink in the plan was Yutani, who didn't take kindly to Vipers trying to grab the unconscious Faraday off his back. As he rounded on the nearest Cobra trooper, teeth bared, another one fired a taser square into his chest. Even that didn't stop him: with spasming hands he ripped the wires away and knocked the trooper off his feet. Scarlett instinctively tried to rise, itching to help him out, but the shackles kept her pinioned. She could only watch as a gleaming black form pounced on Yutani, uttering a horrible nails-on-chalkboard screech that ran straight down her spine.
To her grateful surprise, though, the bug didn't kill him. It crouched over him, poised with its claws at his throat, but moved not an inch further. Yutani froze, eyes wide.
The momentary silence was broken by a gleeful chuckle. Cobra Commander's fists were clenched, and he thrust one towards the ceiling, almost giggling. "I love it!" he exulted. "I love it! Mindbender really is a genius! I've had my doubts lately, but for once, he's actually justified himself! Perfect!"
He fumbled at his belt, producing a small remote control, and pressed a few buttons. The alien drone clamped its claws around Yutani's forearms and moved stiffly backwards, dragging the sergeant major and his burden with it. Yutani's face was an inch from its needle teeth. Cobra Commander laughed again, as happy as a child with a new toy, and pressed another button. The alien slammed Yutani into the ground again, knocking the wind out of him.
"Hive mind," he said with an air of great satisfaction. Leaving the unconscious Yutani, the drone skittered off again, vanishing into the crowds of Cobra Vipers and other drones that filled the huge chamber. "A hive mind. An alien queen. And-" he waved towards the huge metal scaffolding "-a carefully-placed Brainwave Scanner. Or a modified one, anyway."
"Ah don't believe this." Beach Head's tone was equal parts anger and disgust. "Y'really think this is gonna end well for ya? Yer tryin' to remote-control alien slobbermonsters with help from a loony dentist!"
"Yeah," Tunnel Rat piped up woozily, raising his head and revealing two ripe black eyes. "I mean, at what point do you wake up and go 'Hey, my life is kinda going bad places real fast'-"
Zartan slammed the butt of his pistol into 'Rat's head, and the tunneler slumped forward again. Beach Head said a word that he would have almost murdered any of his greenshirts for using and tugged on his shackles.
"Beach," Scarlett said sharply. The sergeant major quieted down, glowering murderously. Scarlett couldn't blame him one bit for his behavior—given the chance, she would have broken Cobra Commander's neck herself. But they had to weigh the odds. They had to. She bit her lip and leveled a determinedly steady gaze at their enemy.
"But he has a point," she continued levelly. After everything she had seen and done in the last twenty-four hours, that little bit of diplomacy was almost more than she could manage. "I really don't see this ending well for you, Commander." She hated using his self-chosen title, but it was a sop to the man's overbearing ego, and it would only encourage him to gloat more instead of having them executed immediately. More time spent on his gloating would give Storm (and perhaps, Buckingham and company) time to throw a spanner into the works.
"That," Cobra Commander said with evident satisfaction, "is because you never had any imagination, Scarlett. The aliens are only the first part of it. With their DNA, Cobra will be able to create an entire new race—Xeno-Vipers! Acid-blooded insect-troopers, loyal only to me!"
Scarlett had to admit, she was impressed that Cobra Commander knew the Latin word for 'foreigner.' Slightly less impressive was his plan to create yet more genetic monstrosities. "Another Serpentor?" she said, keeping her voice neutral.
Cobra Commander bristled. "Better than Serpentor! That was Mindbender's mistake, and I won't let it happen again."
"Maybe you shouldn't let Mindbender overhear you saying that," Scarlett suggested, nodding to the teeming aliens. Cobra Commander jumped and whirled frantically, looking for the doctor in question, but Mindbender himself was barely visible through the crowd on the other side of the cavern and safely out of earshot. The Commander rounded on Scarlett and glowered accusingly. "Just a suggestion," she continued blithely.
"You shouldn't be so overconfident," Zartan interjected while the Commander recovered his aplomb. "Tunnel Rat and Storm Shadow's lives are in the balance here. I've never seen someone fed to an alien, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be an experience you'd like them to go through, eh?"
Scarlett stared at the floor, feigning intimidation and willing herself to keep her mouth shut. They really must have a low opinion of the Joes' intelligence; the white-clad man on the floor was clearly wearing an ill-fitting old white Cobra uniform, placed with his back to the Joes and Tunnel Rat in between the two in order to disguise the fact that he was neither Japanese nor dressed appropriately. Why hadn't they had Zartan take Storm Shadow's place, if they were that determined to carry off the imposture? Couldn't they have found another flunky to hold the gun to Tunnel Rat's head?
"Enough, Zartan," Cobra Commander said sharply. The shapeshifter glowered. "I have other, better plans for the Joes. Send Zarana to me and go check on the mining crews. We need to finish propping that back passageway soon! Failure will not be tolerated."
There was a flicker of movement in the corner of Scarlett's vision. Still keeping her head down, apparently defeated, she shifted her gaze sideways and caught it. Lady Jaye, shackled on the other side of Chuckles, was tapping one finger against the edge of her other hand. Two long taps, two short taps, another long tap . . . not ASL, but good old-fashioned Morse Code. Scarlett sagged another inch or so, clenching her fists in her own shackles and doing her best to look frustrated, while she mentally translated.
Dash dash dot, pause, dash dot dash dash dash dash, pause . . .
Z not yay w CC.
Scarlett flexed her wrists and began to tap back, doing her best to hide it from Cobra Commander with the angle of her body. Dash dash dot dash dash dot dot, pause . . . Mad re Drdnks?
The other woman's reply was swift and illuminating. Does Z kno abt RP, Bzr?
Did he indeed. Scarlett raised her head, examining Zartan and Cobra Commander with fresh eyes. She remembered the bodies glued to the walls—bodies of people that Zartan ordinarily wouldn't have consigned to a grisly death just for the sake of one more mind-controlled alien monster. And then there had been Buzzer's genuine terror, the way the Dreadnoks had shrieked and fought to defend themselves against the aliens . . . the aliens who had been definitely tearing into them indiscriminately, in a way no mind-controlled Cobra drone ever would have.
Buzzer in the MASH unit: He didn't tell us nothing, not even that he was using different monsters for the ambush!
Despite her exhaustion, despite the insanity and the terror and the complete and utter loathing for the men who now held them hostage, Scarlett fought the urge to grin. Oh, this was too perfect. Hoist by his own petard, indeed. No wonder Cobra Commander hadn't ordered Zartan to impersonate Storm: he wanted to keep Zartan believing in his own untouchability within the organization, which was tough to do when you were having a man impersonate an enemy hostage. Flexing her fingers to keep them from cramping, she signed back to Jaye.
Z neg kno. Tense bc RP et al gone? MyD?
It was an indication, she noted, of how bizarre their unit was that Jaye had no trouble recognizing the Morse abbreviation for 'mysterious disappearance.' The other woman signed an affirmative and just responded with dot dot, dash dash, dot dot. Or, in English, a question mark. Waiting on orders.
Scarlett took a deep breath and raised her head slightly, assessing the situation. They were surrounded on all sides by Vipers, mind-controlled aliens, and psychotic would-be dictators. Tunnel Rat had a gun to his head. Their restraints were well-locked and difficult to worm one's way out of. Storm Shadow was out there somewhere, but he was just one man . . . and frankly, there was no way of knowing where the hunters were, or if they were even still on the Joes' side. Scarlett might have offended them by daring to give them code names. And to top it all off, Faraday was still out, and Scarlett wouldn't put much money on him being unconscious as opposed to one hundred percent comatose. All in all, the odds were not stacked in their favor.
But . . . choosing personal (and personnel) safety versus letting Cobra Commander go on his merry way with an army of monsters? The hell with that.
Yo Joe.
Zartan had pulled the radio from his belt and had been conferring with Zarana. When he paused for breath, Scarlett jumped into the gap. "While you're at it," she said bitterly, "tell her Road Pig's dead. That ought to make her happy, right? Maybe she won't try to overthrow you this time."
There was a buzz of static from the radio and a squawk of "What?" from Zarana. Cobra Commander almost growled under his hood and seized the gun from Zartan before the shapeshifter could respond. Stars erupted in front of her eyes as the stock of the weapon slammed into Scarlett's temple, sending her reeling and toppling her over onto the ground, still shackled. Her vision blurred, and blood dampened her hair as she landed hard on the rough floor of the cave.
"I hate—being—lied to!" Cobra Commander shouted, throwing the gun down. Snake-Eyes tried to headbutt him, but the Commander skipped neatly back out of the ninja's range. "Vipers!" the commander snapped. "She's getting on my nerves. Go find a hole and throw her in it!"
"Wait," Zartan said. He didn't shout, but there was a layer of ice on his tone, and somehow it still carried. "This is interesting."
"What do you mean, he's dead?" Zarana was shouting from the radio. "He can't be dead! He's the most useful flunky I've ev-" Her voice died in a buzz of static as Zartan turned off the radio.
"Zartan, did you just countermand my order?" Cobra Commander demanded. "Don't even think about-"
He, too, was cut off, this time by Chuckles. "And Demolisher," he said, staring Zartan straight in the face. His expression was grim, as if he were unwilling to say what he was saying but couldn't hold back any longer. Good for Chuckles, always knowing when to pick up the gauntlet. "And Rat Man. Buzzer's in the MASH unit with a brain injury, Thrasher's comatose, and Zandar is going to be damn noticeable from now on."
A spasm passed over Zartan's face at the mention of his brother's name, but it passed quickly. Instead, he grabbed Chuckles by the front of his shirt and hauled him into the air. "How do I know," he hissed, "that you and Red aren't just lying to save your necks?"
"Try us." This time it was Lady Jaye, and both Zartan and Cobra Commander's attention snapped towards her. Scarlett felt a quiet thrill of pride: that was it, Joes, keep them off balance . . . "We interrogated Buzzer. Commander, your mind-controlled aliens nearly killed him, and he said he didn't have a clue what had gone wrong."
"Silence!" Cobra Commander shouted furiously. "Vipers! Shut them up!"
The ring of guarding Vipers closed in, but Zarana was sprinting towards the group now, and she was bringing several Dreadnoks with her. None of them looked happy. There was the merest rustle of movement as, to Scarlett's right, Snake-Eyes took advantage of the guards' distraction to begin the painful process of dislocating his thumbs in order to slip from the wrist shackles.
"An' he sure as hell wasn't thrilled about it," Beach Head contributed happily. "He was swearin' up a storm at the nurse when our guys went in. Didja know he was a limey? I sure as hell didn't, but Jaye said the Aussie nurse caught 'im out right away."
Another twitch in Zartan's face: he did know, but he hadn't thought the Joes did. One more little piece of proof in their favor.
Cobra Commander sounded like he was frothing at the mouth. "This is one of the most ridiculous tricks you've ever tried, Joes!" He gestured, and the Vipers raised their weapons, clicking off the safeties. Now the ring of guards around them looked like a firing squad. But the Dreadnoks were circling too, their own weapons at the ready, and not all of those weapons were aimed at the Joes.
No time to wait for Snake to slip his restraints—Scarlett had to be ready as well. She strained, bending backwards as much as she could without being noticed, and slipped her fingers into the lining of her back pocket. Where, where, where—aha! There it was. A long-haired lady's best friend, the all-purpose bobby pin. She secreted it between two of her fingers and settled back into position, cupping her hand over the lock to the ankle restraints while she worked the pin into it.
"I'd say let them talk," Zartan said, slowly and deliberately putting Chuckles down and crossing his arms. "I seem to recall you telling your pet mad scientist that it was important to use all available resources."
"Zartan, you are explicitly disobeying my orders." There was real venom in Cobra Commander's voice. "If you don't stand down and shut up, now, my Vipers will have to kill you along with this trash!"
Now the attention was definitely away from the Joes. Scarlett felt, rather than heard, the lock give: the bobby pin snapped, but the shackles on her ankles were loose now. A barely distinct tremor ran through Snake-Eyes' arms, and she knew his hands were free. Now he would be able to slip the picks out of the hidden pocket on his hip . . .
"'This is the plan, Zartan,'" the shapeshifter quoted. His features shimmered, and for a moment, his red hood became a distinctive blue cowl. "'Your Dreadnoks will go up in front of my new experimental monsters. The Joes will be lured into thinking they aren't being challenged. No, it isn't a trap—I don't intend to waste a valuable resource.'" He snorted. "But apparently, you don't consider my Dreadnoks valuable any more—not next to your new pets."
"How dare you-"
Snake-Eyes needed to free his feet and pass the picks along the Joes' line. Scarlett knew that they needed to keep attention away from him. "How long did it take you to change the plan?" she said sharply, drawing another hiss from Cobra Commander. "You probably came here for the snake artifacts, right? Maybe hoping to field-test some monsters in a suitably dangerous setting. And then you found better monsters."
It was a shot in the dark, but from the way Cobra Commander reacted, it was closer than she'd thought. He aimed another blow at Scarlett's head, but she ducked to the side, "accidentally" toppling over onto the ground again and hiding her freed hands and feet under her body. In the confusion, Snake-Eyes slipped a lockpick to Beach Head.
"Much as I hate to agree with a Joe," Zartan said flatly, "she has a point." He had pulled out his sidearm, and now its barrel was inextricably trained on Cobra Commander. Half of the Vipers moved their weapons to cover the shapeshifter, but the Dreadnoks were muttering amongst themselves, and several of them had the Vipers in their sights.
"Ah hate Mexican standoffs," Beach Head muttered. The lockpicks went from him to Lifeline, who was out of his restraints almost quicker than anyone: thanks to his non-combatant status he had spent a lot of time being captured. He slipped the picks to Chuckles.
Then Cobra Commander put his hand on the remote, and a tense silence dropped over the group. Hands wavered on guns as his finger sat, poised, on one of the buttons.
"Don't," he said. His voice was steely. "You will die."
For a moment, there was dead quiet among the small group. Heads were turning all across the vast cave as more and more people became aware of the tense confrontation, and work was slowing to a halt. Zarana's teeth were bared in a silent snarl.
Then the silence was broken by a shriek from Cobra Commander. Something metallic appeared to sprout from the back of his hand—a shuriken, now lodged deep in the tendons of his wrist. His fingers went limp as blood spurted from the wound, and the remote dropped from his grasp and bounced onto the floor of the cave.
Good ol' Storm.
Zartan caught the remote before it even hit the ground. A tremor ran through Snake-Eyes as he prepared to leap, but Scarlett hissed between her teeth, and the ninja froze in place. All eyes—Joe, Cobra, and Dreadnok—were fixed on the shapeshifter, who held the remote in a vicelike grip as he stared down at the bleeding Cobra Commander. The latter was swearing and clutching his wrist, trying to stem the all-too-quick flow of blood. The crimson fluid stained his uniform, turning the blue fabric a lurid purple.
"Now," Zartan said. "Where were we?"
Cobra Commander let out an agonized whimper. "Get me a medic!"
"Tell me the truth."
"I'm bleeding out! Get me a medic!"
"Tell. The. Truth."
Loss of blood makes anyone lightheaded, Scarlett knew. She had vivid memories of the faintness, the horrible weak feeling in the limbs, the poor judgment . . . Cobra Commander was shaking now, trying to pry out the shuriken with blood-slicked fingers and no longer able to stand. If an artery had been severed, Scarlett bet he would have been dead already: nicked only, then. Which shadow was Storm hiding in?
"I," the terrorist leader managed. The shuriken clattered to the floor, smeared with bright red. "I was . . . it was the plan! They were part of the plan!"
"They," Zartan said with cold finality, "were Dreadnoks."
His fingers contracted. Something snapped. With a squeal of dying electronics and a crunch of plastic, the remote splintered and fell apart. A tangle of sputtering wires landed on the rock floor of the cave.
And the aliens came alive.
They didn't screech this time: they howled, sending chills skittering down Scarlett's spine. One reared up on its hind legs, whiplike tail thrashing. Others weren't as theatrical. Before Scarlett could blink twice, a full-grown drone pounced on the nearest Cobra Viper, its claws digging into the horrified man's chest. Even as she reacted instinctively, leaping to her feet and reaching for the weapon on the hip of the nearest Cobra trooper, the victim had been torn in half. Blood sprayed out in a warm rain, dampening her hair and stinging her eyes.
Zartan had bolted. His most trusted Dreadnoks took off after him, taking advantage of the still-shocked crowd to barrel their way through before anyone could stop them. Even as they plunged into the mass of people, though, the bisected Viper hit the ground, and chaos erupted.
A war was one thing. A brawl was another thing entirely. A slaughter was something Scarlett had never expected, but she was forced to guess that it was something like this.
There were no lines of battle, no reinforcements or patches of cover or support of any kind. The bugs attacked like starving dogs, lashing out with claws and teeth and spike-tipped tails. Gunfire broke out as the Vipers and Dreadnoks panicked, each targeting the nearest thrashing black thing. Several of the humans died almost instantly, victims of their comrades' wild firing. The bullets barely penetrated the shells of the aliens, only making them angrier, and when one did strike the soft meat its acid blood sent the humans shrieking and reeling in pain.
Oddly enough, Lifeline was the first of the Joes to get moving. He grabbed a discarded knife and ran full-tilt towards the captives, slicing through the ropes with an efficiency that belied a lot of experience with sharp objects. Tunnel Rat still looked dazed, but of the two, he was in the best condition: Hayesworth didn't seem to be conscious. Lifeline knelt down next to him and began checking his vitals, while 'Rat grabbed a sidearm and pushed his way through the chaos towards the rest of the Joes. Dazed or not, they needed every man they could field.
Humanity had the advantage of numbers, and Scarlett knew that that was not going to last. The Joes were seizing weapons from anything and anyone that they could find, but they didn't have a plan and there was no time to think of a plan. The bugs were loose, and if they got out of the cave-
"Joes!" she shouted. They didn't look at her—they couldn't afford to look at her, with bullets and blood and claws flying from every direction—but they were close enough to hear. "The queen!"
The queen. The queen laid the eggs, the queen controlled the aliens. The queen, still locked in her scaffolding, with Zartan and his best Dreadnoks headed straight for her. And Scarlett was going to bet good money that the shapeshifter wasn't planning to kill her himself.
Something white whizzed over their heads, and Storm Shadow catapulted into the fray. "Catch!" he said, dropping two heavy bags at the Joes' feet. Their weapons: not all of them, but better than stolen ones or none at all. Scarlett snatched up her crossbow and a belt of grenades.
"Storm, clear the way!" she called out. "Beach, watch our backs!"
"Ah gotcha!" the sergeant major yelled back. He was pulling some heavy, canvas-shrouded object out of one of the bags. Storm Shadow whipped a dozen shuriken into the crowd, sending Vipers stumbling and fleeing, and the Joes plunged forward. Scarlett tried to shout for Lifeline, but before the second syllable left her mouth, the little medic waved for them to go on: he had stabilized Hayesworth and now he was focusing on the half-dead Cobra Commander. First do no harm indeed-he knew what he was doing. They should leave a man with him, but with so few of them left, they couldn't afford it. As the roiling crowd hid him from sight, Scarlett could only hope that that wasn't the last they would see of him.
A bug leaped in front of them, teeth bared, and she fired half a dozen rounds into its stomach. As it recoiled, Storm Shadow finished it off with two quick swipes of his sword. Acid already pitted the blade, but one sword wasn't much next to getting to that scaffolding right now. A Viper shrieked and toppled forward into her path, his fingers locked onto the slimy face-hugger that had already enveloped his head. Scarlett took care of both of them with one quick bullet. No time, no time, no time, the scaffolding was closer and closer, please God don't let anything stop them now-
There was a strange, metallic whine, right on the edge of Scarlett's hearing, and blue light exploded on the very edge of her vision. She dared a split-second's look back, and saw to her astonishment that a miniature rockslide had buried several thrashing Vipers and an alien in dirt and rubble. It looked like an explosion had gone off, but the person bringing up the rear hadn't been carrying any explosives-
Oh.
Beach Head's face was drawn into an odd grimace as he struggled to control the oversized weapon, but the bright blue glow lit up a face that was nevertheless almost gleeful as the cannon discharged again. What looked like a ball of plasma smashed into a huge drone, sending it flying into the mass of panicking humanity.
"Ah told em!" Beach Head shouted. "An' Ah'm tellin' you!" A Viper tried to leap onto his back, but he slammed one elbow back, catching the unfortunate trooper in the solar plexus and sending him crashing to the ground. "You don't fuck with no god—damned—Airborne Ranger!"
Not strictly appropriate battlefield conduct, but Scarlett could live with it. With a jump, she cleared a pile of fresh bodies and stopped just short of slamming into the base of the scaffold.
It only took one glance upwards to see what was happening. Zartan was crouched on the top level of the scaffold, only feet from the thrashing, howling queen, with several veteran Dreadnoks at his back. And he was holding a gun to the head of a very familiar figure: a bald, monocle-wearing figure, who was working frantically at the makeshift console of the machine hooked up to the alien queen.
With a creak of metal, a lock disengaged. Then another. One of the chains snapped, another fell slack. The restraints began to tremble.
Scarlett couldn't believe what she was seeing, but she couldn't afford to stand and gape. If Zartan wanted to get his revenge by causing a mass Cobra slaughter, he'd already done a damn good job. The queen was practically frothing at the mouth as she reeled in her restraints—if she got loose, Scarlett wouldn't give five cents for the chances of any human being left in the cave.
The others were on the same wavelength. Before she could say a word, Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow had left their spots in the the line and charged the scaffolding. Snake-Eyes seized one of the now-loosed chains and swarmed upwards, aiming straight for Zartan, while Storm flicked a kasuri-kama at the upper level of the scaffold. The blade lodged, and the white-clothed ninja leaped, using his momentum to swing upwards and land beside his sword-brother. The rest of the Joes followed by any means possible—most taking the ladders, but Scarlett eeling up the chain after the black-clad commando.
"Beach! Stay!" she shouted as she climbed, and the sergeant major stayed. Much as Scarlett dearly would have loved to have him cram that cannon down the alien queen's throat, she didn't want to even imagine what kind of acid explosion that would create.
Scarlett, Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow, Tunnel Rat, Chuckles, and Lady Jaye stormed the platform. The Dreadnoks rounded on them, but the Joes were fighting with the strength of desperation and no quarter was given. The bikers were removed by any means necessary. A few died instantly, and Scarlett knew that that would be one more thing to keep her awake at night—but right then, she didn't give a good goddamn. Guilt later. Save human race now.
Zartan rounded on them. The muzzle of his weapon was still pressed to Mindbender's head, and the normally confident mad scientist was wide-eyed, sweat trickling down his bald dome. Zartan's free hand rested on a makeshift console hooked into the tangle of machinery that surrounded the queen, and while Scarlett could never have hoped to decipher it all normally, someone at Cobra had thoughtfully made one button extremely large and ominously red. No-brainer.
"Don't even think about it!" she snapped, bringing her own weapon to bear. The shapeshifter was surrounded now, but none of the Joes could make a move while his hand was on that button.
"Why not?" Zartan said calmly. Scarlett almost missed Cobra Commander: he was always so reliably maniacal in situations like this. "Half the creatures down there were probably made out of my Dreadnoks. Maybe I want what's best for my gang."
"I don't believe that, and I know you don't either," Scarlett said flatly. "Cobra Commander's betrayed you and your people plenty of times before now, remember? One alien rampage isn't going to change that."
"Who said anything about a rampage?" the shapeshifter responded. Still calm: you'd almost think there weren't a dozen weapons aimed at him. He nodded to Zarana, who unclipped a short-range radio from her belt and threw it down at Scarlett's feet. "You're going to use that to call up to the UN camp. Zandar and my other Dreadnoks will be released, unharmed, and escorted to the edge of the perimeter by unarmed peacekeeping troops. When that's been done, Mindbender here will activate the backup shutdown system." He pressed the muzzle of the gun into the scientist's temple. "You do have a backup, don't you, you little weasel?" Mindbender gulped and nodded. "Good. If Mindbender tries to activate it before I give the okay, he dies, and I let the queen free. If you try to go back on your word, the queen's free. If you even think about getting your big ape to aim that bazooka of his my way, then the last thing I do in this life will be letting that queen free. Do you understand?"
Scarlett was used to dealing with psychotics. Cobra Commander was really only the tip of the iceberg there; the team had spent enough time in Borovia, Sierra Gordo, and Trucal Abysmia to meet quite a who's who of dime-a-dozen dictators. Zartan, however, was playing a different game than the Joes usually saw—especially from someone who was supposed to be a member of Cobra high command. He'd been betrayed before, but the knowledge that Cobra had used his people to incubate those monsters had hit him harder than anything Scarlett had ever seen before. Now he was determined to get what he want, and damn the consequences. Definitely not the Joes' area of expertise: prisoner release usually wasn't their bag. And the other side's guns usually weren't twenty feet long, alive, or filled with acid.
Lady Jaye held up one hand, almost as if she were trying to call a halt to a ball game. "If you let her loose, everybody is going to suffer, Zartan. Including your Dreadnoks. She's obviously more intelligent than Cobra Commander understood-" A statement punctuated by a lethal hiss from the queen, who swung her head until her translucent teeth were only a few feet from the Joes. "-and if she gets out, then nobody on this planet is safe. Would you rather have your people in our custody, but safe and healthy—or free and likely the first target of this thing?"
Jaye was a better diplomat than any of them, but Zartan didn't seem to moved. "The Vipers will be dead soon," he said. A strangled shriek from one of the Vipers, and a corresponding report from the plasma cannon, underlined the point. "Call the surface, now, or sign your own death warrant."
"Then we have a problem," Scarlett said flatly. Vipers were dying. Aliens were dying, too, but not nearly fast enough. There was no sign of the hunters—had they run off? Died? Scarlett had no idea, and she had no time to think about it. She was the mission leader, and they had an almost-stalemate and this was not the time for a dramatic staredown!
And she was just. Fucking. Sick of this. That was strictly an unprofessional attitude, but intel agent or not, Scarlett wasn't feeling very professional right then. Tango Team had been jerked around from the very beginning: sent into a situation under false names, saddled with UN peacekeepers in a move that almost certainly had gotten most of the poor underprepared bastards killed, and of course, finding themselves caught in a war between fang-faced, prophylactic-headed aliens from God only knows where who apparently didn't give a shit when the chips were really down. Mix Cobra into that, Scarlett had been having a very, very bad couple of days. Every moment of hesitation meant more people-hers and Cobra's-dying, and now Zartan was playing Dr. Strangelove, Alien Warfare Edition.
So she shot him.
It would not be the finest moment of her career. But it was one that nobody had expected, and right then, that was good enough for her.
Mindbender was to Zartan's right, and the alien queen was to his left. One shot shattered Zartan's left knee, sending him reeling with a pained grunt as blood spattered his already-dark-red trousers. He threw one hand out, trying to slam down on the red button, but Scarlett put two shots into his shoulder and he went stumbling backwards.
"You bitch!" he hissed. His mouth had been open when the shots landed; his own blood was staining his teeth, and his skin shimmered and shifted as his chameleon abilities began to activate. He was trying to blend into the background, trying to get away despite the holes she'd put in him—but Scarlett was seeing red, much more red than even the blood and his god-damned idiotic cowl, and she almost unconsciously shifted her weight to her back leg as she raised the other. The flat of her heavy boot slammed into Zartan's chest with the full force of her exhaustion and frustration and rage on behalf of the dead peacekeepers, and the shapeshifter wavered on the edge of the platform for one heart-stopping moment before tumbling off into the chaos of the bloody battle.
Mindbender, with Zartan no longer menacing him, dived for the panel even as Scarlett returned both feet to the ground. "Bad idea!" he shouted gleefully, hitting keys for all he was worth. He slammed his fist down on another glowing button—green, this time."My turn!"
And with a groan of metal, the last of the locks disengaged. The scaffolding trembled as the chains fell away, and an ungodly howl sliced through the air as the alien queen's restraints opened.
The Joes hit the deck, hard, and clung to the scaffold while it rocked and shuddered with the queen's half-triumphant, half-enraged exertions. Scarlett hitched an arm around one of the rungs of the bolted-on ladder and began to reload her sidearm with the other, her teeth gritted as the reverberations rolled through them. Mindbender. Fucking Mindbender. He must have had emergency protocols, all right . . . She almost wished she'd shot him too. (Shoot an unarmed enemy combatant? Check yourself before you wreck yourself, Scarlett.) Storm Shadow and Lady Jaye were closest to her—the latter eyeing Scarlett as if she wanted to say something important but knew it wasn't the time. Storm Shadow, on the other hand, considered no time like the present and turned his head towards Scarlett even as he unsheathed one of his last swords.
"I have to say!" he shouted, barely audible over the thunderous screeching of the freed queen. "That was very nice! Just what my father used to do when the government inspectors told him he had to send me to school!"
The scaffolding rocked again, and metal shrieked in pain as it was bent and twisted almost beyond endurance. The queen had gotten a loop of chain caught around her neck, and in her thrashing attempts to free herself, the whole structure was being wrenched off its base. The Joes were thrown violently sideways as the platform tilted. Mindbender leaped for one of the swinging chains and rappelled down the opposite side as quickly as he could—damn sensible for a man who typically went around in a cape and scaly codpiece, Scarlett's brain couldn't help noting.
"We have to free her!" Tunnel Rat shouted. The Joes that could spare the attention stared at him as if he was a lunatic. "She's gonna bring this whole thing down if she doesn't get loose, and someone's gonna get crushed!"
"Better idea!" Storm Shadow cut in. "Brother? Let's go for a ride!"
"Don't you da—" Scarlett began. She didn't get to finish the word, as the platform gave a violent shudder and almost bucked the Joes off entirely. With freedom so close, the queen was getting angrier than ever, and the aliens down below were picking up on her rage: in the midst of the battle, black shining heads were turning, and the bugs were beginning to swarm towards the scaffold.
Storm Shadow and Snake-Eyes darted across the heaving platform. The chain looped around the queen's neck was one thick loop, each individual link easily eight inches thick: the kind of thing people used to secure boats and aircraft. Yet the mere fact that it was still holding the queen meant that it had to be made of something special, and any ninja worth his salt knew when a sword wouldn't do the trick. Snake-Eyes grabbed a grenade, popped the pin, and jammed it between two of the links.
Scarlett knew the plan before they even finished executing it, and her heart was in her throat for those few frozen split-seconds as the two of them worked. The plasma cannon went off beneath the platform again, making the queen rear back and almost uprooting the scaffold entirely, but that didn't seem to stop them. Another grenade went into the chain link. It would blow the chain clear off, but nobody could guarantee that it would kill the alien queen—and even if it did, having her facing that direction would kill all the Joes in one spray of acid blood. But if somebody was pulling her in the other direction . . . for Christ's sake, it was the kind of plan Clutch would come up when he'd been drinking that mystery fluid one of the cooks liked to brew in the motor pool.
"Ride 'em, cowboy!" a voice shouted. For fuck's sake, was that Chuckles? Scarlett would have punched him if she and the others hadn't been too busy clinging for dear life to the reeling platform. She wanted to scream fifty different things (don't do it, stand down right now soldier or you're up on charges, come back alive, or just no) but it was a bit late for that. Snake slammed the last grenade into place and pulled the final pin, Storm Shadow took a running start, and as the first of the explosions snapped the chain like a piece of string, the white-clad ninja leaped off the edge of the platform and landed on the back of the alien queen . . .
Then the world turned upside-down. There was a final tortured wail of metal, the scaffold reeled, and Scarlett's arm wrenched violently as the horizontal became the vertical and the vertical became the ceiling. She could hear the queen's screeching, Storm Shadow shouting something that might have been yippie-ki-yay! and yet another explosion, but the sounds were muffled as she was thrown violently from the collapsing scaffold. Something blue exploded in the edges of Scarlett's vision, a metallic hum filled her ears, and for a moment, darkness fell. She had the odd sensation of falling . . . floating . . . flying? Something like it. There was an iron-like grip on the straps of her pack, but the rest of her hung limp.
She landed almost gently, for all that she was being dropped on the dirt floor of the cave. The grip on her pack disengaged, and tiny stones crunched underfoot as someone landed beside her. Someone big.
Her eyes flicked open. A dark shape was looming over her, seven feet tall if it was an inch, its silver mask gleaming brightly despite the blood that had sprayed across it. One clawlike hand clutched a long lance, which hummed slightly with some sort of energy as its owner shifted a little on his huge feet. The clean-scraped skulls on his belt leered down at Scarlett.
"Well," she said, pulling herself into a kneeling position. "You took your sweet time."