Batman/Command & Conquer: Red Gotham

By Christopher W. Blaine

e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com

http://darthyoshi.topcities.com

DISCLAIMER: Batman and related characters and situations are ©2003 by DC Comics Inc./Yuri and related characters and situations are ©2003 by Westwood Games. All are used here without permission for fan-related entertainment purposes only. All original content is ©2003 by Christopher W. Blaine.

CHAPTER 9

The telephone inside the guard shack started to ring and the lone conscript standing outside the small structure cursed and shouldered his AK-47. He did not believe that there would be any good news coming with this phone call and he was loath to answer it.

His position was at the entrance to the battle lab area of the massive Soviet complex that took up most of what had been downtown Gotham City. It was not the only lab the Soviets were operating, but it was the one he had been assigned the wretched duty of maintaining watch over. Late in the night, when his senior commanders thought it would be funny to assign him watch, he would hear screams coming from the upper floors of the prefabricated structure.

Next to the battle lab were the barracks, where the poor soldier, along with his comrades, slept in relative discomfort. Ever since Yuri had arrived he had diverted every resource available to either probing the Allied position on the outskirts of the city or for his own private projects. The rumors were that he was doing human experimentation in the labs, trying to create mutants.

The phone continued ringing and the soldier stepped into the musty guardhouse and unslung his rifle. Grumbling some more about how unfair it was that someone who graduated from the University of Moscow with a degree in music should be doing such work, he picked up the receiver.

"Da?" was the only thing he got out before the Atom, shrunk to atomic size and riding the electrons in the phone line, exited the receiver and landed a punch to the poor soldier's jaw. Through the use of his personal size and weight controls, the blow landed was not that of an extremely tiny man, but that of a full-grown 180 lb version. The soldier tumbled down and ended up in heap on the floor of the guardhouse.

The Atom, returned to his normal size stopped what he was doing and waited to hear of any alarm klaxons went off. Satisfied he had not been discovered, he wrestled the now-sleeping soldier into the single chair in the shack. After a few minutes, the Atom had successfully made it seem like the soldier was sitting and talking on the phone; only close examination would betray the ruse.

Silently, the mighty mite exited the guardhouse and started to make his way to the battle lab. The Batman had agreed with the Commander that it was necessary to see if any more super-heroes were under the control of Yuri. So far it was confirmed that Green Arrow and Black Canary were now working for the Soviets. The Commander wanted to know about any other dangers; the Batman was curious to see of there was a way to save them.

The death of Nightwing had brought the war way too close to home for the Batman and the Atom was happy that the Dark Knight had at least made the effort to try and compromise with the Commander. The Atom was a practical man and knew that regardless of the efforts of Batman, once the Allies established a foothold in Gotham, they would be there to stay. It was better to get along with them than to fight them.

The Atom stopped when he heard a dog bark. The Soviets had the best guard dogs in the world, so good in fact that the Allies had stolen the documents relating to the training of such animals for their own use. The dogs could smell a spy no matter how good the disguise and more than once the Atom had worried he was going to be eaten for his efforts at espionage.

The dogs were too far away and he picked up the conversations of the handlers. Their accents were American and he guessed that they were conscripting the local population into their forces. It made sense; the United States was a big place to try and occupy and the Atom had heard that the Soviets were even now attacking London as well.

"Damn French are going to lose England for us," the Atom muttered as he quickly made his way to some trees. He had to cover as much ground as he could at his regular height for the sake of time. It would be daylight in a few hours and at six inches tall, he could only make roughly 10% of the stride that he could at normal height.

The Atom paused to get a good look around. He was surprised at how easily he had slipped into the role of a spy as soon as he joined Batman's crew. Both had served in the Justice League, the Atom joining the original team long before the Caped Crusader. Yet it was Batman who was most associated with the League.

The League had represented the best and brightest that America, no the free world, had to offer in the way of a peacekeeping force. Even now, many months after the last of them had been confirmed dead, it was hard for him to believe that his friends were gone. The Mighty Mite could not even begin to imagine what could have killed Superman.

But all of them had fallen before the Soviet onslaught. Yuri, the mutant who was in charge of this particular base, was obviously a very powerful villain and now he was recruiting super-heroes for his team. The thought made the Atom shudder.

Batman had guessed that Yuri had taken control of some of the League members when the task force arrived in Moscow. In the first war, the government had kept the Justice Society from getting involved and maybe it had been for the best. Though Yuri was too young to be involved in that war (though the Atom wondered about that), it was possible that Stalin might have had the technology available to him. How would the world have changed if Stalin had won that one?

Shrinking down to six inches, the Atom hopped through some barbed wire and dodged around cigarette butts and debris until he got to the side of the battle lab. He heard screaming form within; some of it from pain, some of it from passion. Some was a mixture of both. All of it sickened him.

The scientist within him was fascinated with the technology behind the prefabricated buildings that both sides used. He considered how better that technology would have been used it if had provided a home for every family; a school in every neighborhood. Now it was simply used to further the cause of death. The Soviet invasion had nothing to do with the spread of communism. If that were true, then there would be the true equality of all of the people that the Russians always claimed they strove for. Instead the Atom saw two classes of people in the supposedly classless society of Soviet-controlled America. The living and the dead.

One of the flaws to all of the Soviet prefab buildings was that they had too large of openings for the power line and water hookups. There was enough space between the walls and conduit for him to squeeze in which is exactly what he did. Following the lines to lower utility room, he would then be able to get access to the rest of the building. None of the battle labs were set up exactly the same. Most had the same types of rooms and equipment, but there was always something unique about each one.

This one was much more different in that the Atom saw several scientists and very few soldiers. Normally there was an entire squad on each floor just in case. The six-inch hero made his way to the stairs and waited, listening for the sounds of an approaching guard. Though it took longer than expected, a conscript finally came walking down the stairs, a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. The Atom adjusted his weight and jumped, grabbing hold the guard's leg and crawling up to the edge of his coat.

The soldier never knew what happened.

By the time the Atom reached the top floor, all hell had broken loose. Glancing out a window, he saw the anti-aircraft guns of the Soviet base firing in rapid succession, filling the skies with flak and shrapnel. Alarms were sounding and several troops were scurrying about, firing their AK-47's here and there as confusion overwhelmed the young soldiers.

Even in the battle lab there was a heightened sense of urgency. A general lockdown was occurring, but that didn't matter to someone who could slip between a door and the floor when he had to. The Atom did not like to shrink down to that size; people would be shocked to find out what critters reigned as king in the small world.

He didn't know what the commotion was about, but he could guess. He had heard the Commander discussing with some of his officers of launching a night raid on the Soviet base, but the Mighty Mite had never heard exactly where. Apparently paratroopers were jumping in and attacking the Tesla power generators located nearby. Without power, nothing would work and the Soviets would be sitting ducks for Harrier strikes.

The Atom decided to get back to his mission and started looking around for some lab that didn't have any screaming. One of the first things he had to teach himself when he started getting involved in this war was he had to block out the screaming. There was always someone in pain when there was a war on. No single person could stop all of it and that was one reason why he stayed with the Batman.

The Commander offered only one solution to the war. Despite his gut desire to wreak revenge on the Soviet aggressors, he had elected to stay with Batman and try a different approach. If there was  away, he wanted to bring Green Arrow and Black Canary back home. With them, they would have four Justice League members and that could serve as a rallying point. Batman didn't see it that way. His view was free Gotham and keep it free and that would serve as an example.

He returned to normal size when he realized that the top floor was empty. Obviously this was a newer building or else Yuri had ordered most of his work taken to the more secure labs in the center of the city. It was rumored that he had a small nuclear power plant operating there as well.

The gunfire outside was getting closer and the Atom heard a huge boom as a troop carrier was shot out of the sky and came down into some abandoned buildings nearby. Curiosity got the best of him and he moved to another window. Down below him, five Allied troopers were dug in and mowing down every passing Soviet. In the bright, white light of the Soviet guard towers, the Atom could see blood everywhere.

A sound behind him caused him to shrink immediately to six inches. He was moving before the last bullet left the barrel of the AK-47 pointed in his direction. Adjusting his size and weight controls, the Atom scurried over to the boot of the conscript, who was now looking around for his target, and lifted. The gunman fell back, his riffle firing off a shot as he did so. The bullet punctured the sprinkler line and the fire alarm went off.

Luckily, with the Allied attack going on outside, there was very little chance that a Soviet damage control party was going to show up any time soon. The Atom dispatched his assailant with a quick one-two punch as he returned to normal size. He turned and moved over to the stairs. Satisfied he was in the clear, he pulled out a small radio. "Control Freak, this is Shrinky Dink."

"You know I don't like that name," the Batman answered. The Caped Crusader would have been inside his private room in the Batcave, the only room the Allied engineers had not figured out how to get into. The Atom knew that both Batgirl and Robin would have been busy either repairing equipment or playing horizontal tag under the sheets.

"I'm in the target, but there's really nothing here. Mostly some torture cells and some pleasure cells. My guess its either a decoy or they've moved everything in town." The Atom took a second to look out the window again. Two of the Allied troopers were down and he could see a Soviet Main Battle Tank moving in to get a shot.

"Did you know that the Commander was calling in an attack?"

There was a pause. "No, but he doesn't include me in his meetings. He's also managed to find just about every bug I had installed in the Manor. I assumed he would be rebuilding the defensive lines with the reinforcements coming up from Cuba." The small island nation had fallen to the Allies the week before and General Carver was already shipping as many troops as he could up to Gotham City. "I think his mission now is to keep us out of the picture as long as they can."

"What do you mean?"

"I think he expected me to cave in when we lost all of those volunteers. He's also hinted that he's been in contact with the Huntress and Deathstroke." The Batman didn't need to say anymore. Obviously, if he wouldn't play ball, someone else would.

"What do you want me to do?" the Atom asked as he watched the three remaining G.I.'s get up and race around the building. Seconds later, he heard rapid gunfire and ricochets from far down below. "Christ! They're shooting this building!"

The prefabricated buildings were tough and durable and easily repairable, but they also had some weak points that properly trained troops could exploit. It was known fact that the same access that had allowed the Atom in was also someplace that could be made structurally weak with the right amount of gunfire.

The first indication that there was a serious problem was when the lights went out. "I'm in complete darkness," the Atom said.

There was a pause before Batman responded. "Robin just told me that they are launching a full scale raid in the downtown facilities, trying to take out as many power generating station that they can. They've even called in some air support from off-shore aircraft carriers."

The Atom moved over to the window again and looked out. He was shocked to see a lone Soviet figure armed with a composite bow taking down the approaching Allied forces. "Damn it! Arrow is outside!"

"Do you see any Hornets for the carriers overhead?" Batman asked. "Batgirl said that air traffic control is going nuts. It seems that the Soviets have launched flying saucers or something like that…"

Another explosion down below shook the building. "Did you say flying saucers?" The Atom asked as he pressed his face up to the window and strained to look up. In the distance he could see some explosions, but it was too dark to make anything else out. In fact, he noted, several parts of the city were darkened.

"I can't see anything," the Atom said. "This is a bust. Arrow is outside and there's too much confusion for me to get near him." He took another glace down and saw that the Emerald Archer was gone, replaced by several tanks. He recognized one of the vehicles as an IFV modified for use with Tesla coil weapons.

That signaled something odd. "I think the Soviets have control of an Allied construction facility somewhere in the area," he remarked.

Batman agreed. "I suspected that they had found some of the National Guard buildings but I would say they never repaired them."

"Until this Yuri guy showed up. He's bad news, Batman…" The Atom turned as he heard footsteps running up the stairs. "Gotta go!"

He shrank down to six inches and ran to a corner of the hallway. He didn't want to jump into a room until he saw what was coming. The lights started to flicker and the Atom noted that he had not heard any gunfire for a minute or two. Obviously the Soviet engineers had started restoring power. Their efficiency was unnerving.

The first person at the top of the stairs was definitely female. What he saw in the strobing effect of the overhead lamps was figure that was accentuated by the pleasing curves of the female body. Then he was knocked back by a sonic wave as the Black Canary let loose with her Canary Cry.

The cry was not enough to knock him out and that told him it was being used at a lower frequency. His scientific mind theorized that she was using her sonic powers much like a bat or dolphin did, for echo location. He rolled his little body and tried to get up, his last thought was what a shame it was that such a beautiful woman, and a good friend, had been turned to darkness.

Green Arrow lowered his bow and moved slowly down the passageway towards the small target he had skewered with his arrow. Black Canary walked beside him, neither of them smiled. They felt no relief, no pity and no joy. They simply obeyed the commands of Yuri through the small psychic receivers inside their heads. They had to hurry, as the Allied attack was more pressing on the eastern side of the city and seemed to be enhanced by partisan support.

Green Arrow lowered himself on his haunches and grabbed the green shaft sticking in the plastic wall. At the end of it was what looked like a damaged action figure, but was in truth the dead form of Ray Palmer, the Atom.

A small radio, barely discernable to the eye, fell from the dead hero's costume and struck the floor with a sound that was not audible. The cries of the Batman for a status report were unheard of as well.