Chapter 14
Scarlet could not help but marvel at the engineering that was Cobra Command Station. It was too bad that it was going to wipe out half the United States and she tried to remain calm and professional about this possibility. It was practically impossible though and her hands nearly shook with the possibility and the sheer magnitude of evil that Cobra displayed every time that they returned. Wrapping oneself around that thought was the fact that while Snake Eyes, Gung Ho, and Dialtone had died because of this place she had been spending it with her ex-lover....a title all too recent. It was shame enough that one could burn one's very face the color of a bright red tomato.
"So what exactly are we looking for here Red?" Demolition Derby asked as the man looked more than a little trigger happy himself. Scarlet wanted to slap him abit about and tell him to get his mind off Icicle but she couldn't do that with what she'd done, could she? Scarlet hadn't been close to Beach Head. The man had been an arrogant, obnoxious, and occasionally sexist jerk but he'd been a fellow G.I. Joe who should have been able to depend on those under his command. Instead he was one more man to be added to the Killed in the Line of Duty roster that until this war had been miraculously low in G.I. Joe names.
"We have to locate either the control bridge for this ship or the power center and sabotage it so it'll burn up the station harmlessly in orbit rather than kill a hundred million people. Now if that doesn't sound hard enough then we have to check to see if they're holding any of the world leaders here as well and figure out a way to rescue them before Cobra's entire military gets back from their mission," Scarlet was at least able to kill her curiosity for whatever required the entire forces of the terrorist organization, she really didn't want to know.
"Let's hope the guys on the ground manage to take care of that little eventuality," Last Chance said as she looked at Punch Card who was rapidly typing away at the computer terminal he'd transformed in five minutes into a laptop computer.
"If I'm not mistaken then the main shuttle bay should be directly beyond these doors," Punch Card muttered while typing merily away at the machine.
Scarlet looked at the doors that dominated their steps. The station wasn't content to be mere metal but had a life all it's own that reminded Miss O'Hara of the cathedrals she had visited on some of her sight-seeing of the rest of the world. The doors themselves were carved with elaborate golden images of Set's betrayal of his brother Osiris into the Nile. A few hallways back had been the story of the Midgard Serpent fighting the god Thor. Scarlet thought Jupiter's Thunder was a great deal like Jonathan, it was bizzare mixture of the beautiful and the repulsive. The old and the new meeting in such a way that she questioned how anyone got any work done on this place.
"Do you know how to fly a Space Shuttle Demolition Derby I hope I am not too late in asking?" Scarlet asked. If they managed to blow this station, that was all well and good but she still wanted to get off this place. As close as she'd been with him recently, she didn't want to burn with the man she loved's funeral pyre. Her face flushed further at that particular complication to this mission that was about as welcome as terminal cancer.
"Would it help you to know that I washed out of the program but I think I can fake it?" Demolition Derby smiled as he waved his hand a bit in front of his face.
"No, not really," Scarlet shook her head even as the huge doors parted before her and the team drew its weapons on whatever might lie on the other side.
The sight was an unexpected one with the hundreds of diplomats, dignitaries, and leaders of planet Earth loading onboard a Cobra shuttle while being overseen by someone that Scarlet had never expected to see again. It was a tender reunion between the ninja and the red haired martial artist that was one of the sweetest of their lives.
"I've been looking everywhere for you Scarlet," Snake Eyes signed to her as Shana burst out laughing.
"Guys I don't mean to bore you but from what I can tell just by our walking with the silent guy with the sword we need to mosey on down back to planet Earth. My country needs me," The President of the United States said peering out from the side of the plane and Scarlet smiled at him, glad to see he was all right. Admittadly, he looked like hell but that was to be expected under his present situation.
"You're right Mr. President it does. Demolition Derby, get on board and get these people down to their homes," Scarlet said with a wave of her hand.
"I'm not leaving until Icicle gets what is coming to her," Demolition Derby cocked his confiscated Cobra rifle. The intense look in his eye betrayed a need for revenge and the magnitude of the pain that Scarlet herself had to deal with just a few days ago. It was going to get alot of people killed and she couldn't allow that as long as she was in charge.
"This isn't a place for personal vendettas DD. Millions of lives depend on what decisions we make here both personal and private. Right now our responsibility is to make sure that those people that we can save are. I order you, Punch Card, and Last Chance to get onboard that ship and take these people to to safety," Scarlet swallowed the lump in her throat as it registered just what she was going to be ordering herself. If she sent them on down while she stayed to destroy the station, that meant...she wasn't going home.
Snake Eyes put his hand on Scarlet's shoulder as she put her hand on his.
"I didn't think you weren't comming old friend," Scarlet smiled weakly as the thought loomed, together they just had a shot.
"I understand Major. Yo Joe," Demolition Derby stared down and gave a salute. The final cheer a short and weak one before he made a brisk run towards the cockpit of the Shuttle.
"Okay onto the next part of our plan....stopping the destruction of the Atlantic. How long do we have Snake Eyes?" Scarlet looked up dimly as if the ninja could know such a thing
"Thirteen minutes," Snake Eyes signed.
***
Destro moved through eight sets of doors that talked about the story of Quezeticoatl on his way to the Baroness's quarters. He'd barely managed to dodge the buffoons led by the old formerly new Cobra Commander, power changed hands so quickly, and make it to this latest display in archanic decor. Destro was swiftly developing the theory that the reason of Cobra's success was also the reason that it could never achieve complete victory. Cobra's philosophy and imagery harkened back to different times that men remembered fondly or with a kind of horrofied awe. James McCullen Destro the XXIV had always prided himself in his family's traditions and more every moment it was comming to pass that it was a cage keeping him locked in a tragedy of Greek proportions.
"You may have chosen a very poor time to come into my bed chambers again Destro," the soft, cool, and seductive voice of the only woman that Destro could ever feel anything for echoed in the back of his ears like a symphony. The Baroness was dressed quite provacatively for a woman onboard a lit bomb and in her hands was a automatic Asp-7 which would be able to explode a large portion of his chest even on a glancing hit if using the right ammunition. Rather unnecessary for a woman who only failed to win the world championship for pistolry because of terrorist activities suspicions. It was an affect that Destro found distinctly arousing.
"I was under the impression that there was no better time to visit your bedchambers than when imminent death loomed," Destro said sardonically as he turned around.
"Unfortunately the Cobra Commander, the King has returned to claim his throne, has ordered your death Destro. It seems unlikely that this time you will be able to make one of your infamous escapes and worm your way back to his good graces," The Baroness smiled as she chuckled. James questioned occasionally just how mad the woman he loved was. All too often with his new found clarity the MARS chairman could see her poisonous venom turning himself and the Commander upon one another even as she always enjoyed the favor of the leader. It was enough to make him want to strangle her for the infidelity then and there.
"While escape is indeed my plan if I were to worm my way back into his good graces I would ask you to shoot me immediately upon so. What sort of world awaits us should we continue to follow the Commander?" Destro said as he waved his metal gauntlets in front of her and clenched his fists as tightly as possible. He had been seduced he was sure now into agreeing to even half the plans that Cobra Commander had done before, the only reason he could imagine why he hadn't pulled out a gun and fought with G.I. Joe when Cobra-la was going to destroy the planet.
The Baroness made sure her aim was right at Destro's heart as she spoke the next words with resounding clarity "The world that is deserved! Ashes! In prison I watched the entire world sit complacently awaiting its doom. A world which was content to allow the rest of the planet to disentagrate as long as they had their next twenty channels. Millions must die so that everyone may know that no matter where they are, that they are not safe! This is what we are fighting for,"
Destro took a moment to put his steel fingers to his mask as he tried to follow the logic of something that would have made an appealing sort of sense to him a decade ago. Given the way the Decobray military aristocracy was raised before her kidnapping, Destro suspected this was all some need to make the world aware of the dangers of terrorism. Given he didn't want touch that sort of mental insecurity, much like his own, he simply backhanded her and grabbed at the weapon which fired several times into the air.
"DESTRO! YOU TRAITOR!" The Baroness screamed as she slammed her head against Destros which was a mistake to prove she wasn't operating in her right mind. Cutting her air off with a headlock a few moments later, the weary Baroness slipped into unconciousness as Destro stared at his digital watch. There was just enough time to get onboard one of the escape capsules and lower himself to some place far below on the planet Earth. Whether Cobra Commander won or not was immaterial, he would never find either him or the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with.
Whether she wished it or not.
***
Cobra General had dispersed the Crimson Guard throughout the station to check every nook, cranny, and otherwise place that he knew that the Lady Scarlet would not hide. Psychologically one could learn a great deal about a person from the way they did battle and the people that they cared for. Scarlet would go directly to the G.I. Joe prisoners, followed by the politicians, then she would go directly to the main power generator. The chief of Cobra's now defunct military intended to head her off there and see what fate would decide to be the end of their particular romance. A measure of pity crossed his darkened heart that she was chosen to care for him. Had she been with any other being on Earth from the strong men of her team to the fool that had married her yet had let the snowflake melt through his fingers.... he had considered having that man killed for the crime.
"And yet do I contain the capacity to give any more than I have been given or do I merely entertain the possibility that something is better than me?" The General wasn't entirely without a sense of irony and recognized that if this were a drama that now would be the time, staring into the huge piles of boiling liquid spent coolent from the middle of a catwalk across it, that someone would appear in order to confront him with his sins.
"Can the Shakespeare John, they hate that in Hell," Fallen Angel emerged from the other side of the walkway. She was as beautiful as she was deadly which was something she was extremely.
"Your timing is impeccable," Cobra General smiled a almost Chesire grin.
"My place is to merely gaurantee the Cobra Commander's success. You can no longer be trusted with the security of our imminent victory," Fallen Angel said as she kept the gun trained on his chest even as it shook visibly.
"I shouldn't need to remind you that this imminent victory would not be possible if it weren't for the wars I've won in Cobra's name. The thousands of troops that I worked to instill fanatical loyalty in while providing them with the SKILLS that they needed to survive. YET YOU DA..." Jonathan could barely contain himself and nearly tore into her like a rapid wolf. Destro, Bludd, The Baroness, Storm Shadow, the Twins, his own father ALL betrayed Cobra at various times in their life and had been forgiven to carry on their battle! Was his treason so different?! He had given everything to a cause he didn't believe in and this was how they repaid him!?
"SILENCE!" Fallen Angel screamed and walked forward with the gun aimed at his skull now. "We were to watch the world burn together for the things it had done to us! Whatever emerged from the ashes was going to be shaped by us and even if nothing did it was still righteous! Yet you've lied to us the entire way! Twenty thousand soldiers and more lie dead on the ground of the Earth and all you can think about is how dearly you want to be with your G.I. Joe woman!" Fallen Angel hissed bitterly as her eyes flashed in anger at the crumbling ideals of her life.
"Very well then, if you want all that I have to give. Take it!" Cobra General ripped open his shirt and left his heart exposed. "You wish to know whether I would rather be a one of the Enemy, then let me tell you YES I would. I tried to make Cobra my own but, alchemy aside, it is impossible to turn lead into gold. Twenty thousand Cobra soldiers may dead but I bet it was WORTH IT to those people who killed them, no matter how titanic the losses must have been, to see monsters like us put to death. I may be destined for the lowest pit of Hell reserved for traitors chewed in Lucifer's mouth but it is only moderately worse than yours who would condemn me for trying to rise above what you embraced openly!" The former leader of Cobra tossed his weapon over the side of the railing even as a finger pulled on it's trigger and a head was struck squarely with a laser bolt.
The General opened one of his serpentine eyes and looked down at the crumbled leader of the Crimson Guard on the ground.
"Jesus Boss. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find you in this place?" Iceheart said as the woman sheathed her smoking pistol.
"You shouldn't have done that," Cobra General knelt down and picked the woman who was his lover up off the ground and then dropped her into the pit below. The destruction of the station would be a fitting pyre for a woman who wished to consume the world and so desperately had not wanted to be alone during it.
"Yeah and just let Blonde shoot you dead while it happens. Not happening CG," Iceheart shrugged as she looked distinctly uncomfortable next to the man and pulled out some of her trading cards to play with, it was a most unfortunately inappropriate habit.
"How much of our conversation did you hear?" Jonathan asked as he looked to the Black Asp operative. She was the absolute finest that Cobra had ever produced with such a youthful brilliance that she had managed to infiltrate the army perfectly as a spy til she was chosen for the most important of all assignments. Yet he had never been sure just exactly where her loyalties lied. It may in fact be that she was preparing to turn him directly over to his father for the worst crime of all, betrayal of his madness.
"Pretty much all of it. Thankfully I'm just in it for the money," Iceheart said as she began trotting toward the generators.
"You know for a woman of your intelligence, there are easier and more profitable ways to make money than mass murder," Cobra General said as he jogged behind her towards the most powerful power plant the world had ever known.
"Ya but I have too much morality for dot-coms." Iceheart said with a shrug.
***
The Great Wall of China
Five minutes later
Cover Girl flipped through her fashion catalog as she peered out of the top of her tank to take a look at the remains of the Chinese Cobra partisian army. General Hawk had made her a full Colonel which had to be the largest promotion she'd ever seen in her life, not that it wasn't deserved, in order to lead an allied assault on the fortress of the ex-communists who wanted to land themselves a few nuclear missles. They wanted to make sure that it was them on top of the heap that the new wacko who was running the show in space finished turning everything to ashes.
"Hey Private! How many enemy were there?" Courtney had to ask, she wasn't keeping score or anything like that. However there was a cold feeling of security in knowing just how many of the enemy that were no longer out there to try and kill you. Looking back on that particular train of thought made her wonder if she actually was crazy or just a very good soldier.
"46 tanks maam! Anti-aircraft artillery and air support reports that six of the enemy were shot down!" Private whatshisname said. It was really sad she couldn't remember the guys blasted handle. She was usually very good at this but there was plenty of other stuff on her mind other than the average soldier in this airforce base.
CG didn't particularly like the results of this fight which had been a rather nonstop barrage of artillery fire defending the missile defense force from the thieves. The ex-model knew should probably be thankful that the big hunk with black eyes and James Earl Jones's voice vaporized the majority of the country's nuclear arsenal but she couldn't bring herself to be grateful to the man who was potentially going to kill half the United States population. Cover Girl's own daughter was a beautiful ten year old whisp of a thing that, bless her heart, wanted to be a G.I. Joe after she was a model too. Courtney's daughter was in Kentucky so she shouldn't be in any danger from the weapon should it land but that was like saying getting shot in the face was easier than dying from AIDs.
"Good! And don't call me ma'am!" Cover Girl shouted as she sat back down in her tank. For crying out loud it wasn't like she was middle aged or anything, she was just approaching the age that most people turned middle age at.
"Yes ma'am!" The private shouted and the Colonel wished she could demote him.
There were few places that Cover Girl felt more at home in than her armor. Cover Girl had always been trained to be a model by her mother and hated it as often as she enjoyed the girlish things but as a girl she had always admired Joan of Arc more than Audrey Hepburn. There was still a photo of her father and her when she'd absolutely blown a Little Miss pagent because she'd gone to play swords with the neighborhood boys. Admittadly todays suits of platemail were a looser fit but they were no less beautiful for it.
'God I wish Dusty were here....' Cover Girl didn't particularly feel like leadership material, despite being good at her job. After leaving the military Dusty had gone on to become a full time mechanic and she did consultant work for the very tank that she was now driving. She'd been happier at the Pitt more than she'd been anywhere else in her life prior but now she'd grown beyond war and didn't want to go back to it. The Colonel supposed that was the purpose of being in the force, to make sure that no one else had to suffer the consequences thereof.
"Colonel Tadur? We've got an odd message for you..." the communications system on her Krieger-4 crackled to life. It had been the honor of the company to name the tank after her and all she needed was to get it painted pink and it would be perfect for her garage.
"Who is it?" Cover Girl asked.
"Well....it seems to be a shuttle that wants to land in our airstrip. They're saying they have the entire leadership of the world onboard and G.I. Joe team members,"
-Charlemagne
Scarlet could not help but marvel at the engineering that was Cobra Command Station. It was too bad that it was going to wipe out half the United States and she tried to remain calm and professional about this possibility. It was practically impossible though and her hands nearly shook with the possibility and the sheer magnitude of evil that Cobra displayed every time that they returned. Wrapping oneself around that thought was the fact that while Snake Eyes, Gung Ho, and Dialtone had died because of this place she had been spending it with her ex-lover....a title all too recent. It was shame enough that one could burn one's very face the color of a bright red tomato.
"So what exactly are we looking for here Red?" Demolition Derby asked as the man looked more than a little trigger happy himself. Scarlet wanted to slap him abit about and tell him to get his mind off Icicle but she couldn't do that with what she'd done, could she? Scarlet hadn't been close to Beach Head. The man had been an arrogant, obnoxious, and occasionally sexist jerk but he'd been a fellow G.I. Joe who should have been able to depend on those under his command. Instead he was one more man to be added to the Killed in the Line of Duty roster that until this war had been miraculously low in G.I. Joe names.
"We have to locate either the control bridge for this ship or the power center and sabotage it so it'll burn up the station harmlessly in orbit rather than kill a hundred million people. Now if that doesn't sound hard enough then we have to check to see if they're holding any of the world leaders here as well and figure out a way to rescue them before Cobra's entire military gets back from their mission," Scarlet was at least able to kill her curiosity for whatever required the entire forces of the terrorist organization, she really didn't want to know.
"Let's hope the guys on the ground manage to take care of that little eventuality," Last Chance said as she looked at Punch Card who was rapidly typing away at the computer terminal he'd transformed in five minutes into a laptop computer.
"If I'm not mistaken then the main shuttle bay should be directly beyond these doors," Punch Card muttered while typing merily away at the machine.
Scarlet looked at the doors that dominated their steps. The station wasn't content to be mere metal but had a life all it's own that reminded Miss O'Hara of the cathedrals she had visited on some of her sight-seeing of the rest of the world. The doors themselves were carved with elaborate golden images of Set's betrayal of his brother Osiris into the Nile. A few hallways back had been the story of the Midgard Serpent fighting the god Thor. Scarlet thought Jupiter's Thunder was a great deal like Jonathan, it was bizzare mixture of the beautiful and the repulsive. The old and the new meeting in such a way that she questioned how anyone got any work done on this place.
"Do you know how to fly a Space Shuttle Demolition Derby I hope I am not too late in asking?" Scarlet asked. If they managed to blow this station, that was all well and good but she still wanted to get off this place. As close as she'd been with him recently, she didn't want to burn with the man she loved's funeral pyre. Her face flushed further at that particular complication to this mission that was about as welcome as terminal cancer.
"Would it help you to know that I washed out of the program but I think I can fake it?" Demolition Derby smiled as he waved his hand a bit in front of his face.
"No, not really," Scarlet shook her head even as the huge doors parted before her and the team drew its weapons on whatever might lie on the other side.
The sight was an unexpected one with the hundreds of diplomats, dignitaries, and leaders of planet Earth loading onboard a Cobra shuttle while being overseen by someone that Scarlet had never expected to see again. It was a tender reunion between the ninja and the red haired martial artist that was one of the sweetest of their lives.
"I've been looking everywhere for you Scarlet," Snake Eyes signed to her as Shana burst out laughing.
"Guys I don't mean to bore you but from what I can tell just by our walking with the silent guy with the sword we need to mosey on down back to planet Earth. My country needs me," The President of the United States said peering out from the side of the plane and Scarlet smiled at him, glad to see he was all right. Admittadly, he looked like hell but that was to be expected under his present situation.
"You're right Mr. President it does. Demolition Derby, get on board and get these people down to their homes," Scarlet said with a wave of her hand.
"I'm not leaving until Icicle gets what is coming to her," Demolition Derby cocked his confiscated Cobra rifle. The intense look in his eye betrayed a need for revenge and the magnitude of the pain that Scarlet herself had to deal with just a few days ago. It was going to get alot of people killed and she couldn't allow that as long as she was in charge.
"This isn't a place for personal vendettas DD. Millions of lives depend on what decisions we make here both personal and private. Right now our responsibility is to make sure that those people that we can save are. I order you, Punch Card, and Last Chance to get onboard that ship and take these people to to safety," Scarlet swallowed the lump in her throat as it registered just what she was going to be ordering herself. If she sent them on down while she stayed to destroy the station, that meant...she wasn't going home.
Snake Eyes put his hand on Scarlet's shoulder as she put her hand on his.
"I didn't think you weren't comming old friend," Scarlet smiled weakly as the thought loomed, together they just had a shot.
"I understand Major. Yo Joe," Demolition Derby stared down and gave a salute. The final cheer a short and weak one before he made a brisk run towards the cockpit of the Shuttle.
"Okay onto the next part of our plan....stopping the destruction of the Atlantic. How long do we have Snake Eyes?" Scarlet looked up dimly as if the ninja could know such a thing
"Thirteen minutes," Snake Eyes signed.
***
Destro moved through eight sets of doors that talked about the story of Quezeticoatl on his way to the Baroness's quarters. He'd barely managed to dodge the buffoons led by the old formerly new Cobra Commander, power changed hands so quickly, and make it to this latest display in archanic decor. Destro was swiftly developing the theory that the reason of Cobra's success was also the reason that it could never achieve complete victory. Cobra's philosophy and imagery harkened back to different times that men remembered fondly or with a kind of horrofied awe. James McCullen Destro the XXIV had always prided himself in his family's traditions and more every moment it was comming to pass that it was a cage keeping him locked in a tragedy of Greek proportions.
"You may have chosen a very poor time to come into my bed chambers again Destro," the soft, cool, and seductive voice of the only woman that Destro could ever feel anything for echoed in the back of his ears like a symphony. The Baroness was dressed quite provacatively for a woman onboard a lit bomb and in her hands was a automatic Asp-7 which would be able to explode a large portion of his chest even on a glancing hit if using the right ammunition. Rather unnecessary for a woman who only failed to win the world championship for pistolry because of terrorist activities suspicions. It was an affect that Destro found distinctly arousing.
"I was under the impression that there was no better time to visit your bedchambers than when imminent death loomed," Destro said sardonically as he turned around.
"Unfortunately the Cobra Commander, the King has returned to claim his throne, has ordered your death Destro. It seems unlikely that this time you will be able to make one of your infamous escapes and worm your way back to his good graces," The Baroness smiled as she chuckled. James questioned occasionally just how mad the woman he loved was. All too often with his new found clarity the MARS chairman could see her poisonous venom turning himself and the Commander upon one another even as she always enjoyed the favor of the leader. It was enough to make him want to strangle her for the infidelity then and there.
"While escape is indeed my plan if I were to worm my way back into his good graces I would ask you to shoot me immediately upon so. What sort of world awaits us should we continue to follow the Commander?" Destro said as he waved his metal gauntlets in front of her and clenched his fists as tightly as possible. He had been seduced he was sure now into agreeing to even half the plans that Cobra Commander had done before, the only reason he could imagine why he hadn't pulled out a gun and fought with G.I. Joe when Cobra-la was going to destroy the planet.
The Baroness made sure her aim was right at Destro's heart as she spoke the next words with resounding clarity "The world that is deserved! Ashes! In prison I watched the entire world sit complacently awaiting its doom. A world which was content to allow the rest of the planet to disentagrate as long as they had their next twenty channels. Millions must die so that everyone may know that no matter where they are, that they are not safe! This is what we are fighting for,"
Destro took a moment to put his steel fingers to his mask as he tried to follow the logic of something that would have made an appealing sort of sense to him a decade ago. Given the way the Decobray military aristocracy was raised before her kidnapping, Destro suspected this was all some need to make the world aware of the dangers of terrorism. Given he didn't want touch that sort of mental insecurity, much like his own, he simply backhanded her and grabbed at the weapon which fired several times into the air.
"DESTRO! YOU TRAITOR!" The Baroness screamed as she slammed her head against Destros which was a mistake to prove she wasn't operating in her right mind. Cutting her air off with a headlock a few moments later, the weary Baroness slipped into unconciousness as Destro stared at his digital watch. There was just enough time to get onboard one of the escape capsules and lower himself to some place far below on the planet Earth. Whether Cobra Commander won or not was immaterial, he would never find either him or the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with.
Whether she wished it or not.
***
Cobra General had dispersed the Crimson Guard throughout the station to check every nook, cranny, and otherwise place that he knew that the Lady Scarlet would not hide. Psychologically one could learn a great deal about a person from the way they did battle and the people that they cared for. Scarlet would go directly to the G.I. Joe prisoners, followed by the politicians, then she would go directly to the main power generator. The chief of Cobra's now defunct military intended to head her off there and see what fate would decide to be the end of their particular romance. A measure of pity crossed his darkened heart that she was chosen to care for him. Had she been with any other being on Earth from the strong men of her team to the fool that had married her yet had let the snowflake melt through his fingers.... he had considered having that man killed for the crime.
"And yet do I contain the capacity to give any more than I have been given or do I merely entertain the possibility that something is better than me?" The General wasn't entirely without a sense of irony and recognized that if this were a drama that now would be the time, staring into the huge piles of boiling liquid spent coolent from the middle of a catwalk across it, that someone would appear in order to confront him with his sins.
"Can the Shakespeare John, they hate that in Hell," Fallen Angel emerged from the other side of the walkway. She was as beautiful as she was deadly which was something she was extremely.
"Your timing is impeccable," Cobra General smiled a almost Chesire grin.
"My place is to merely gaurantee the Cobra Commander's success. You can no longer be trusted with the security of our imminent victory," Fallen Angel said as she kept the gun trained on his chest even as it shook visibly.
"I shouldn't need to remind you that this imminent victory would not be possible if it weren't for the wars I've won in Cobra's name. The thousands of troops that I worked to instill fanatical loyalty in while providing them with the SKILLS that they needed to survive. YET YOU DA..." Jonathan could barely contain himself and nearly tore into her like a rapid wolf. Destro, Bludd, The Baroness, Storm Shadow, the Twins, his own father ALL betrayed Cobra at various times in their life and had been forgiven to carry on their battle! Was his treason so different?! He had given everything to a cause he didn't believe in and this was how they repaid him!?
"SILENCE!" Fallen Angel screamed and walked forward with the gun aimed at his skull now. "We were to watch the world burn together for the things it had done to us! Whatever emerged from the ashes was going to be shaped by us and even if nothing did it was still righteous! Yet you've lied to us the entire way! Twenty thousand soldiers and more lie dead on the ground of the Earth and all you can think about is how dearly you want to be with your G.I. Joe woman!" Fallen Angel hissed bitterly as her eyes flashed in anger at the crumbling ideals of her life.
"Very well then, if you want all that I have to give. Take it!" Cobra General ripped open his shirt and left his heart exposed. "You wish to know whether I would rather be a one of the Enemy, then let me tell you YES I would. I tried to make Cobra my own but, alchemy aside, it is impossible to turn lead into gold. Twenty thousand Cobra soldiers may dead but I bet it was WORTH IT to those people who killed them, no matter how titanic the losses must have been, to see monsters like us put to death. I may be destined for the lowest pit of Hell reserved for traitors chewed in Lucifer's mouth but it is only moderately worse than yours who would condemn me for trying to rise above what you embraced openly!" The former leader of Cobra tossed his weapon over the side of the railing even as a finger pulled on it's trigger and a head was struck squarely with a laser bolt.
The General opened one of his serpentine eyes and looked down at the crumbled leader of the Crimson Guard on the ground.
"Jesus Boss. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find you in this place?" Iceheart said as the woman sheathed her smoking pistol.
"You shouldn't have done that," Cobra General knelt down and picked the woman who was his lover up off the ground and then dropped her into the pit below. The destruction of the station would be a fitting pyre for a woman who wished to consume the world and so desperately had not wanted to be alone during it.
"Yeah and just let Blonde shoot you dead while it happens. Not happening CG," Iceheart shrugged as she looked distinctly uncomfortable next to the man and pulled out some of her trading cards to play with, it was a most unfortunately inappropriate habit.
"How much of our conversation did you hear?" Jonathan asked as he looked to the Black Asp operative. She was the absolute finest that Cobra had ever produced with such a youthful brilliance that she had managed to infiltrate the army perfectly as a spy til she was chosen for the most important of all assignments. Yet he had never been sure just exactly where her loyalties lied. It may in fact be that she was preparing to turn him directly over to his father for the worst crime of all, betrayal of his madness.
"Pretty much all of it. Thankfully I'm just in it for the money," Iceheart said as she began trotting toward the generators.
"You know for a woman of your intelligence, there are easier and more profitable ways to make money than mass murder," Cobra General said as he jogged behind her towards the most powerful power plant the world had ever known.
"Ya but I have too much morality for dot-coms." Iceheart said with a shrug.
***
The Great Wall of China
Five minutes later
Cover Girl flipped through her fashion catalog as she peered out of the top of her tank to take a look at the remains of the Chinese Cobra partisian army. General Hawk had made her a full Colonel which had to be the largest promotion she'd ever seen in her life, not that it wasn't deserved, in order to lead an allied assault on the fortress of the ex-communists who wanted to land themselves a few nuclear missles. They wanted to make sure that it was them on top of the heap that the new wacko who was running the show in space finished turning everything to ashes.
"Hey Private! How many enemy were there?" Courtney had to ask, she wasn't keeping score or anything like that. However there was a cold feeling of security in knowing just how many of the enemy that were no longer out there to try and kill you. Looking back on that particular train of thought made her wonder if she actually was crazy or just a very good soldier.
"46 tanks maam! Anti-aircraft artillery and air support reports that six of the enemy were shot down!" Private whatshisname said. It was really sad she couldn't remember the guys blasted handle. She was usually very good at this but there was plenty of other stuff on her mind other than the average soldier in this airforce base.
CG didn't particularly like the results of this fight which had been a rather nonstop barrage of artillery fire defending the missile defense force from the thieves. The ex-model knew should probably be thankful that the big hunk with black eyes and James Earl Jones's voice vaporized the majority of the country's nuclear arsenal but she couldn't bring herself to be grateful to the man who was potentially going to kill half the United States population. Cover Girl's own daughter was a beautiful ten year old whisp of a thing that, bless her heart, wanted to be a G.I. Joe after she was a model too. Courtney's daughter was in Kentucky so she shouldn't be in any danger from the weapon should it land but that was like saying getting shot in the face was easier than dying from AIDs.
"Good! And don't call me ma'am!" Cover Girl shouted as she sat back down in her tank. For crying out loud it wasn't like she was middle aged or anything, she was just approaching the age that most people turned middle age at.
"Yes ma'am!" The private shouted and the Colonel wished she could demote him.
There were few places that Cover Girl felt more at home in than her armor. Cover Girl had always been trained to be a model by her mother and hated it as often as she enjoyed the girlish things but as a girl she had always admired Joan of Arc more than Audrey Hepburn. There was still a photo of her father and her when she'd absolutely blown a Little Miss pagent because she'd gone to play swords with the neighborhood boys. Admittadly todays suits of platemail were a looser fit but they were no less beautiful for it.
'God I wish Dusty were here....' Cover Girl didn't particularly feel like leadership material, despite being good at her job. After leaving the military Dusty had gone on to become a full time mechanic and she did consultant work for the very tank that she was now driving. She'd been happier at the Pitt more than she'd been anywhere else in her life prior but now she'd grown beyond war and didn't want to go back to it. The Colonel supposed that was the purpose of being in the force, to make sure that no one else had to suffer the consequences thereof.
"Colonel Tadur? We've got an odd message for you..." the communications system on her Krieger-4 crackled to life. It had been the honor of the company to name the tank after her and all she needed was to get it painted pink and it would be perfect for her garage.
"Who is it?" Cover Girl asked.
"Well....it seems to be a shuttle that wants to land in our airstrip. They're saying they have the entire leadership of the world onboard and G.I. Joe team members,"
-Charlemagne