A light snow fell as the drumbeats of war marched through the city's main avenue. Cobra soldiers dressed in thick winter garb marched onward through the bitter cold, their fog of their breaths coming through their reflective masks. With them rode the Cobra HISS tanks and STUN vehicles, while FANG choppers cruised overhead, ready to swoop down at the first sign of trouble.
From a window on the top level of the Kazan Cathedral overlooking the Nevsky Prospect, where a large column of Cobra troops and vehicles rumbled past, Zarana sat crouched with Daina and Low-Light. Zarana looked through a pair of binoculars and watched the column march on. Nevsky Prospect, the main avenue of St. Petersburg, was the road through which Cobra marched through as troops made their way to the transports at the eastern edge of the city that would take them to the eastern front, where the fighting was still going on, just past the Ural Mountains. Nevsky Prospect was also the road through which Cobra made periodic military parades, to remind the citizens of the occupier's power. A half century ago, the Nazis had done the same thing on the Champs-Elysee when they occupied France.
It would all change soon, Zarana pondered, as her binoculars traversed the other end of the street, where, she knew, Mainframe and the others would begin the surprise ambush.
Daina sat next to Low-Light, their backs to the street, their heads below the the facade walls. At a moment's notice, they would get into sniping position, but for now, they enjoyed a brief respite before the fighting.
She looked at Low-Light, who sat polishing his telescopic sniper scope. She wondered what thoughts ran through his head. Ever since she had met him in that hostile, lonely interrogation room, she had been struck by his coldness and detachment. Something caused him an anguish, a heartache that went deeper than his memories of dying and being cloned by Cobra. The night before, the two of them had gone to the roof after the meeting in which Flint had instructed Daina to kill Low-Light if he showed any sign of aberrant behavior. It was just the two of them, gazing at the stars from the top of the old apartment building.
"Aren't you going to say something?"
"What do you want me to talk about?"
"Tell me about yourself. Where you're from."
"I'm a clone. I don't remember a thing."
"What about where you're from? Your mother? Your father? Don't you remember them?"
And then, suddenly, Low-Light was remembering the haunting echo of a long-dead past. Trembling, a ten-year old Cooper MacBride stood over the fallen deer. He was out in the North Dakota woods hunting with his father, and he had shot and mortally wounded an adult deer. Now, the falling rays of sunlight descended over the forest, signaling dusk. Cooper hesitated as he lifted his eyes to the canopy of leaves above him. The weak sunlight that filtered through the twilight sky weakened with every passing minute. Soon darkness would fall.
"What you waiting for, boy? Shoot him!" Cooper's father yelled at his son as he deliberately strolled through the woods toward where Cooper stood. Cooper hesitated as he loaded his hunting rifle and took aim. He lined the deer's head in his sights. The deer's eyes met his own. The deer blinked at him. Its eyes glistened with moisture. Cooper felt himself beginning to feel sorry for the deer. He'd never killed a living thing before. Growing up and going out hunting with his father, he'd always found an element of excitement and adventure in the act of stalking and shooting game. It was a challenge, a game of skill. Hold the rifle in the correct position. Line up the target in your sights. Adjust for distance, and wind. Fire. One shot. One shot was all it took. "What's the matter with you boy? You afraid of killing?" Cooper's father stood next to him with a disdainful expression on his face. Cooper's father slapped him on the head. "Go ahead and finish it. You afraid of a little death?" "No, I'm not afraid-" "Shut up and pull the trigger! One shot is all it takes." Cooper stared down the barrel of his rifle. His hands trembled, and he hesitated. "Do it!" Cooper's father shouted, breaking the serenity of the quiet forest. Cooper didn't want to kill the deer. Up close, it looked so sweet and innocent. "Do it!" There can be no doubt, Cooper thought to himself. There can be no second thoughts. Just pull the trigger and go home. Cooper clenched his teeth and tightened his grip on the rifle. He put a bullet into the deer's head. The deer shook violently for a second and was still.
From both sides of the street, over a length of an entire city block, multiple bombs exploded, sending debris and fire into the middle of of the Cobra column. The whole street was covered in a cloud of smoke. And then, the battle cry that had not been heard for many months, a battle cry that rang through the screams and confused shouts of the Cobra troops, instilling in their hearts a sense of shock and dread.
"YO JOE!"
On the ground, Flint led Lady Jaye, Mainframe, and a dozen other Russian resistance fighters into action, driving a wedge through the divided Cobra column, firing and throwing grenades into the smoke, taking the confused enemy by surprise. The forward section of the Cobra column turned to face the threat on the ground, but at that moment, dozens of Russian fighters emerged from their hiding spots in the windows of the buildings along the Nevsky Prospect and hurled Molotov cocktails at the terrified Cobra troops and onto the HISS and STUN vehicles. The air above the street was instantly a rain of flaming bottles of vodka, exploding and burning countless Cobras alive.
From the mid-section of the embattled street, Low-Light, Daina, and Zarana supported Flint's force with sniper fire. As the smoke cleared, some of the HISS tanks turned on the buildings and fired back at the Russians who had thrown down Molotov cocktails, sending several of the buildings along the street into flames and crumbling piles of twisted concrete and blood.
Like a madman, Flint raced through the street, blasting one Viper after another as he charged through the exposed line of Cobra ranks. He couldn't help but think back to a similar situation, when he and his fellow Joes had faced annihilation at the hands of Dusty and the Cobras. Back then, it had been a massacre. He remembered getting shot in the chest and watching his friends fall, one by one, wanting to save them but powerless even to scream in anguish. He had stared up at the barrel of Dusty's gun as Dusty and Carol had stood over him, ready to finish him. Dusty had spared him that day. He'd always wondered why. And then, years later, he understood. He'd finally understood Dusty's guilt, his pain, his turmoil. Flint's bloodlust knew no bounds at this moment. He was exacting revenge for all the brave friends he'd seen mercilessly killed at the hands of Cobra in the initial moments of their triumph, and then the devastating dagger in his heart when they'd lost even more Joes at the last attack on Washington, DC and the failed assassination of Cobra Commander. Lady Jaye and Mainframe were right behind him, helping clear the way for him. The remainder of the 200 Russian resistance fighters likewise had charged onto the street. The battle was quickly degenerating into a melee of close range fire and hand to hand combat.
In the midst of the fighting, Buzzer led his fellow Dreadnoks Ripper and Torch on their motorcycles, stopping to hack and slash the enemy Russians with his chainsaw. With Zartan gone, he, Buzzer, had become the leader of the Cobra force in Saint Petersburg. It was not a role to which he was accustomed, but in his ascension to the top, he found himself enjoying the newfound power. Buzzer rode between the fighting soldiers, hollering orders and attacking the Russians, all while ignoring the pain in his groin, where Zarana had stabbed him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two Vipers next to him fall after what sounded like shots from high powered rifles. At once, his head turned, and he saw ahead, and to the left, the Kazan cathedral, and a small group of snipers, firing at will on the crowd. In a flash, he knew he was staring back at the hated Zarana, through the sniper sight of the traitor's rifle.
Immediately, Buzzer made a sharp turn on his motorcycle, pulled his pistol from where it lay tucked in his waistband, and emptied an entire clip of ammo in the direction of the snipers, forcing them to take cover.
"Snipers in the cathedral at 10 o' clock!" he hollered at the platoon of Vipers to his left and forward. "Take them out now!"
Two Vipers aimed bazookas at the snipers' position and fired.
Inside the cathedral, Daina saw the rockets coming and shouted for the others to take cover. A deafening explosion followed, and then there was the sound of crumbling stone and a shower of debris and shrapnel hitting the floor. When Daina came to, she found herself covered by Low-Light, as if the Joe sniper was shielding her. He got up as if nothing had happened, peered down from the blown out section of the wall where the rockets had struck, and saw a squad of Vipers racing down to the cathedral, breaking away from the rest of the crowd.
"They're coming for us," Low-Light whispered.
He was calm in the midst of chaos. He was a man without fear. How was that possible? Wasn't he afraid of anything? Who was Low-Light?
Daina turned her head as she lay on the floor and saw the unconscious face of Zarana, blood seeping from the corner of her mouth, her rifle knocked loose from her hands. Bricks and broken shards of glass lay all around them, covering and surrounding them. With a grunt of pain, Low-Light moved himself to his hands and knees and crawled away from the outer window to the interior of the cathedral. They were positioned along the upper balcony of the cathedral, and a long staircase led upward from the ground level of the mid-section of the church. The balcony extended all around the upper level of the cathedral, guarded by iron railings from a height of two stories. The dim winter light lent the interior of the cathedral a weak, pale glow filtered through the myriad stain glass windows. Low-Light lay on his stomach, his rifle aimed through the spaces between the balcony guard rails. He waited in silence, unmoving.
Daina felt her head growing faint again. It throbbed with pain from something hard that had hit her during the explosion from the rockets, as it had Zarana, and she felt her sense of presence fading into a dark abyss.
"Low-Light," she whispered, as she faded into sleep.
I'm counting on you, she voiced in her mind.
"I'm counting on you," a young Cooper MacBride said to his hunting rifle. "You and me, we'll get through this together."
He was lost, all alone in the dark woods. Where had his father gone off to? Had he gone and left him alone on purpose? Cooper couldn't imagine why he would have done something like that, even a man like his domineering, stern father. He was alone, in pitch black darkness, sitting on a large stone in a clearing, listening to the sounds of the night. The chatter of the crickets, the rustling of leaves, the hooting of the owls. The spine tingling howl of the distant wolf. Above him, the faint light of the moon revealed to him the depth of his isolation in this unfamiliar forest, before being covered again by the thick clouds.
Everything was still for a moment.
And then it came to him.
A faint rustle of leaves on the ground, the sound of an animal prowling the grounds, coming nearer and nearer to him.
Cooper's ears pricked at the sound, and the hairs stood up all over his skin. Blood rushed to his head, he felt the rush of adrenaline. Something was approaching him, possibly hostile. Perhaps it was a wolf or a bear or a boar. There was no limit to the monsters he conjured in his imagination at that instant. He sat on the stone, deathly still, and brought his rifle to the ready.
"Can't see a thing," he murmured.
The rustling noise grew louder, more urgent. Cooper's breath quickened and his finger tensed on the trigger. It was a wolf, maybe more than one, coming to attack him. He couldn't see his enemy. It was realization of his worst nightmare. All his life he'd feared the dark, feared being alone in the darkness. He used to feel the most intense desolation at the moment when his mother kissed him good night in their North Dakota home, because it meant she would turn out the bedside lamp and leave him alone to face the dark and the monsters that lurked in his room, and in the deepest recesses of his imagination. He couldn't see. And then, at the critical moment, when the beast had entered the clearing at full charge, racing to take him down, Cooper closed his eyes and felt his other senses taking over. He shifted the aim of his rifle and fired. It all ended in a flash, yet the moment stayed with him, and he remembered the way his body had adjusted to the darkness. Then at the moment when it was over, and he realized he was unscathed, with a dead wolf just ten feet in front of him, he opened his eyes to the sky and howled a cry of triumph. He'd conquered the darkness; he'd conquered his fear. He'd never be afraid again.
Half a dozen Cobra Vipers entered the eerily silent cathedral, flashlights in one hand and pistols in the other. They spread out and proceeded to sweep through the ground level before moving to secure the balcony. When the first Viper went down with a shot in the head, the others turned at once to the sound from above them and opened fire, but Low-Light was already on the move. He found a new spot and lay still, watching the others move in the darkness. They were a bunch of scared boys, afraid of the dark. They depended on their flashlights. They relied to much on the light. He could have shot them in total darkness, but the light coming from their flashlights made it that much easier.
Low-Light smiled. He pulled out a couple of empty cartridges and tossed them fifteen yards down to his left, causing a loud clanking sound as the ammo cartridges hit the floor. The Vipers reacted at once to the sound, firing blindly on the location. They fired as they charged the staircases on either side of the cathedral, trying to find their way upstairs to face their adversary. While the Vipers unloaded entire clips of ammo on what they thought was Low-Light's position, the Joe sniper swiftly and methodically picked off another three with head shots before they even realized what had hit them. He stopped, and, keeping low, crawled on his hands and knees, getting into position for the final kill.
The remaining two Vipers reached the balcony and slowly made their way to the unconscious bodies of Daina and Zarana.
Low-Light, from the other end of the church, gazed through his sniper scope at the two Vipers, framed by the light coming in through the destroyed section of the wall near Daina and Zarana. The two Vipers were nervous.
They always are.
Their backs were turned to him for a moment, and he fired, taking down one. The other turned with his gun, saw him, and at the moment he was ready to fire, Low-Light took him out with a shot to the head, sending him staggering back, actually falling backwards, head first, out of the cathedral to the street below.
At that moment, in the midst of the chaotic hand to hand melee on the street, Buzzer, who was smashing someone's head in with the butt of his chainsaw handle, paused and turned on his motorcycle and saw the Viper fall a height of fifty feet from the top of the Kazan Cathedral, and he realized what had happened. The snipers were still alive in there. Most likely, she was still alive in there. He remembered the glorious feeling he'd had, sucking on her nipples and fingering her vagina, back in that interrogation room; it made his cock stiffen and throb just thinking about it; it made him want to plunge into her wet core and make her scream his name. But that feeling of lust was subsumed by another feeling, one of overwhelming hatred. After all, she'd slammed his head onto the floor and then stabbed him in the groin.
You wait, Zarana. I'll pay you back for what you did to me.
But the situation was deteriorating out on the Nevsky Prospect. The Cobra forces were divided, the heavy armored vehicles had been taken out by insurgents' rockets, and it was impossible to think of a strategy with everyone out in the open like this, duking it out man to man.
He would have figured a way out of this mess.
He, of course, was Zartan. Zartan had always been the smart one. That's why he was their leader, of course. Zartan would have thought of some trick, something dirty, to turn the battle around. But he, Buzzer, was not Zartan. He was out of his element now. After so many easy victories by Cobra, he'd forgotten what it felt like to taste defeat. He'd forgotten that he could lose.
"What do we do, boss?" Torch said as he pulled up to Buzzer on his motorcycle.
"We turn back," Buzzer said with a dry croak. "Tell everyone to pull back."
When Daina awoke, Zarana and Low-Light were crouched over her, their eyes filled with concern. Outside, the air was filled with the sounds of celebratory gunfire and the cheers of the Russian fighters on the streets.
"What happened?"
"We beat them," Zarana said, "we sent them packing. We broke their lines."
"It's not over."
"No," Low-Light said. He looked down at the scene below them, and amongst the crowd, his sharp eye spotted Flint embracing Lady Jaye. Mainframe was with them. He turned in the direction of the cathedral, and Low-Light flashed a thumbs up sign to let him know everything was all right.
"It's going to be a war from here on," Low-Light observed. "We'll attack them at every opportunity and we won't stop until we've chased them out of Europe."
Zarana left the cathedral to join Mainframe down below, and for a while, Daina and Low-Light watched the celebration in the streets below in silence.
"I knew you could do it," Daina said at last. "I knew I could rely on you."
"Why?" Low-Light said, turning to the Russian sniper. "Why do you trust me?"
"You and I are the same," Daina said, smiling. "We've both been through the same pain."
Half a world away, Shipwreck and Cover Girl sat at a table with a woman named Margaret, having just finished relating their tale of what had happened to Mara the Mermaid. Margaret, of course, was Mara's sister in San Francisco, who had helped Shipwreck after he'd fallen off the Golden Gate Bridge, so long ago. Margaret's hand trembled as she took her cup of tea.
"So that's how it happened," Margaret said.
All this time, all these years, she had lived not knowing what had happened to her dear sister, and not knowing was an immense torment to her. Mara had suffered much, but she had found peace at last, dying in Shipwreck's arms. And the knowledge of what had happened lifted a tremendous burden from the heart of Mara's sister. How many years had she walked the beaches of their home town, wondering if she would ever get to see her by an accident of good fortune?
"I just wish I could have seen her one last time," Margaret said wistfully. "I wish I could have told her how much I loved her."
"She knows," Shipwreck said softly.
"Thank you so much for all that the two of you did for her," Margaret said warmly taking their hands as they rose to leave.
"When you defeat Cobra at last and end this madness, come back sometime and visit me," she said.
"We will," Cover Girl promised.
When they left the house, neither of them said a word. Shipwreck had insisted on coming to San Francisco from Hawaii, on their way back east. It was in San Francisco that they had been separated, with Shipwreck falling off the Golden Gate Bridge during a Rattler attack. There were so many memories here, so many painful memories. But now that they were together and loved one another, they could make new memories together, happier ones. They'd promised to stick together no matter what, no matter what obstacles came between them, no matter what Cobra did to bring them down. Word on the street was a civil war had erupted on the east coast. Most of the country remained loyal to Cobra Commander, but a vociferous faction on the east coast had declared their loyalty to Destro. Now an insane civil war raged, and the surviving Joes were right there, mixed up in the middle of it. Shipwreck intended to find those Joes, find them and rejoin them. They would become a team again, a family again, a family with a common dream of coming back to retake the world which they had lost but whichnow appeared ready for the taking.