Red America, Western Front:
Chapter Nine: Instruments Of Destruction
Commissar-Colonel Elisabeth Braddock folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. Before her, she could see several ranks of Doctor Pym's experimental soldiers, all of them fully kitted out for battle, their weapons and body armour fresh from the factories and ready for immediate use. They were all stood rigidly to attention, waiting for her to break the silence with a single word. She decided that she didn't want to do that just yet, and instead walked forwards to inspect the first rank of soldiers, her hands clasped behind her back. As she passed each trooper, she took in their uniforms and weapons, checking for any imperfections or breaches of protocol, and found none. Every one of the soldiers had polished their boots and weapons to parade-ground standards, and was standing as crisply straight as they possibly could. Elisabeth smiled briefly, once again impressed with the standard of training and discipline in this particular division of the Red Army. Von Doom had been a treacherous, egotistical fool – that much was certain – but he had at least instilled an exemplary standard of order in his rank-and-file troops. For that, she supposed, she had to give him some grudging respect. She stepped back again, clasped her hands behind her back and cleared her throat, readying herself to speak.
"You have been chosen," she began, "to represent Mother Russia as battlefield prototypes for our war against the last of the capitalist dinosaurs that are infesting this country and the rest of the world, and today will be your first mission. We have been tracking a group of rebels that are moving through this city along with Tony Stark, a valuable asset that High Command wishes to acquire. He has been using a suit of powered armour that can take on a tank and survive, and we are obviously anxious to examine this technology." She stepped forwards, beginning to pace back and forth in front of the men. "We have word, though, that Tony Stark has left the rebel group and struck out on his own."
One of the men coughed and raised his hand. "Permission to speak, sir?" he asked cautiously.
"Yes, Private Thompson?" Elisabeth replied. "Do you have a question?"
"Yes, sir," Private Thompson said, still looking very apprehensive about speaking. "How can you know that Stark has left the rebels?"
"The Crimson Commando has infiltrated the rebel group," Elisabeth said simply, enjoying the collective shocked gasp that rose involuntarily from the ranks. "He has been providing us with GPS locations of the rebels through his implanted hardware, and has been sending us covert reports through his communications devices. We know where the rebels are, and we know how many of them are in the squad." She gave the soldier a half-smile. "When the time comes, Private Thompson, I'm sure you'll enjoy taking the opportunity to see how your new abilities match up to his." Returning her attention to the whole group of men, she continued "You have your orders, gentlemen. Report to your commanding officers." Without another word, the soldiers marched out of the room, their boots ringing on the floor in perfect unison with each other, and Elisabeth found herself standing alone in the briefing room. Taking a moment to examine her nails, she closed her eyes and felt the telepathic centres of her brain coming to life. Lieutenant Wagner, she said. Give me a progress report.
The telepaths are working around the clock, Commissar, Lieutenant Wagner replied. There are several leads that they have picked up on, and they are currently pursuing them as far as they can. We should have some concrete targets within a day or so.
Good, Elisabeth replied, feeling a wolfish smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Do you have anything else to report?
There was a slight pause, and then Lieutenant Wagner said Yes, sir, I do… although perhaps you should see it in person.
Elisabeth raised an eyebrow at that. It wasn't like Lieutenant Wagner to be so cryptic about information, especially over a secure telepathic mind-link. Clenching her hands into white-knuckled fists, she found the doorway and proceeded to the nearest elevator. When she was inside, she pushed the button for the ground floor, where she knew Lieutenant Wagner would be waiting. The elevator hummed as it lurched into motion, the polished mirrors on its rear and side walls reflecting her puzzled expression back at her as she stood with her arms folded, tapping her foot impatiently. When the elevator came to a gentle stop, the abrupt cessation of motion momentarily making Elisabeth feel like she was being compressed in a vice, she marched out into the corridor, saluting other officers and soldiers without thinking, and then found Lieutenant Wagner as soon as she could, standing in a large meeting area looking extremely pleased with himself.
"You wanted to see me, Lieutenant?" she asked. Lieutenant Wagner nodded, and gestured over to the man leaning against the wall – a man she had only just noticed.
"Ja, Commissar Braddock," he replied. "This man surrendered to us just hours ago. His name is –"
"Tony Stark," the man interrupted, pushing himself effortlessly off the wall and walking forwards to take Elisabeth's hand in a firm handshake. "Nice to meet you."
Clint crouched down beside the battered, dented shape of a trash-can and touched his fingers to the ground, raising them up to his nose and taking a sniff. "We can't go this way. Russkies are still close."
The girl who seemed to be in charge of this bunch of rebels, who'd introduced herself as Kitty, raised an eyebrow. "How can you know that just from smelling some dirt?" Clint smiled wolfishly, and indicated the patch of ground he had just touched, showing the girl the wet imprints of Russian Army-issue boots on the cracked sidewalk paving, the edges unsmudged by other trails of footprints.
"It's not just their scent that's fresh – the boot-marks they left are fresh too. Nothing's got mixed up with them yet, so that means that either this street never gets used, or the Ivans are close by." He stood, flexed his hands a little, and started padding down a divergent alleyway, which was strewn with garbage, small whirlwinds of dust and shredded paper whirling in the small, filthy depressions in the concrete ground. Turning slightly, he pointed in the direction he was moving. "You may want to follow me. This is the best way around those bastards."
"Is that right?" said another rebel, a rangy young man with tousled brown hair. His name was Jamie, Clint remembered, and he seemed to be sexually involved with the Kitty girl, if their body language was anything to go by. "And exactly how do you know that?"
Clint tapped his nose with an index finger. "Mutant powers," he said with a sly smile. "I can track Russkies all day with this. Just trust me, all right?" Turning back in the direction he had been moving beforehand, Clint allowed himself a small chuckle and began loping easily along the narrow alley, taking care to merely keep pace with the rebels behind him. The last thing he needed to do right now was give away the fact that his cybernetically-enhanced muscles were over twice as efficient as unaugmented flesh – he had done enough infiltration work to know that blending in was the most important thing here. He had no desire to end up on the wrong side of his new "friends" until it was absolutely necessary, after all. Glancing from side to side as the group came up to a T-junction, where another street tacked onto the alley's exit, he nodded to his left. "This way," he said with what he hoped was obvious certainty. He could smell the exhausts of several Red Army vehicles – mostly troop transports, he guessed – but he was confident that at this distance, the rebels would be oblivious to it. None of them seemed to be tracking by scent, which suggested in turn that none of them had enhanced senses, as he did. He allowed himself a brief, momentary smile, thinking that the job at hand would be a lot easier if he was the only one who could smell the trap closing.
"I wouldn't go any further," he said, beckoning the two lead rebels back and drawing the pistol he had stashed at his belt. Moving out in front of them, he flattened himself against a wall and looked around the edge of the decaying brick. "I thought so. There's a squad of Russkies out there," he hissed, raising the pistol and racking the slide. Jamie raised an eyebrow.
"I thought you were supposed to be finding us a way around the Ivans?" he asked sourly.
"I am," Clint snapped back, as quietly as he could. "This way there are only six Reds out there, instead of a whole fucking battalion. Now do as I tell you, and we'll get through this alive."
"Hold on a moment, pal," Kitty said with a certain degree of irritation. "No offence, but I don't know you from Adam – and I'm in charge here. Why are you the only one who can get us out of this?"
"Look," Clint replied, secretly impressed with the girl's strength of character, "I'm ex-Red Army, so I –"
At the mention of the words "Red Army", he found himself looking at a forest of gun barrels, each one accompanied by the clicking sound of a round being chambered, and Clint knew he'd have to talk fast if he didn't want to end up being the human equivalent of Swiss cheese. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said, holding his hands up in a submissive gesture. "I said ex-Red Army. I got dishonourably discharged two years ago."
"Why? What'd you do?" said the compact, sleekly-muscular Hispanic woman who was currently holding a Magnum revolver aimed squarely at his chest – Cecilia, he thought he'd heard her called by the large, brutally-strong man called Hank.
"Stabbed a superior officer," Clint replied, shrugging his shoulders. "He told me to kill some kids and their parents, and I told him to go fuck himself. He threatened me with a court-martial, so I showed him just how much I didn't care by shoving my bayonet so far into his guts he was crapping steel for a month." He smiled wolfishly, as much through a remembered memory as the desire to look like an ex-soldier recalling some past event. After all, there was an element of truth in this lie; he had stabbed a superior officer once, a month prior to being selected as the Crimson Commando, for virtually the same reasons. The only thing that had saved him from a Siberian gulag was the Red Army's habit of using soldiers they considered already dead as experimental subjects. Waiting in his cell, he'd been visited by high-ranking Army officials and offered a way out of his predicament. Needless to say, he'd grabbed it with both hands.
Still, these rebels didn't need to know that…
"Hold on. Why weren't you executed?" Cecilia asked. "Sounds like something the Reds would definitely kill you for."
Clint shrugged again. "Got Alaskan penal service for a full year – I think they figured a year in the ice was enough for an assault charge, especially since the guy lived. Then they kicked my ass out and slammed the door behind me." He paused. "It's not often I feel grateful to the Ivans, but that was one time I did feel like I owed them. Now do as I say, and we'll get through this." Nodding at the young man with the machine gun, he said "You – I'll need you to lay down some covering fire for us. With any luck, that'll rattle the Reds enough that we can get close to them."
The girl with the scarred face snorted in contempt. "Why should we break cover at all? I can snipe every one of those bastards from here."
Clint muttered a curse under his breath, inhaled deeply, and said "Are you sure? The Reds are faster than you think… Tabby, is it?" The girl nodded, still looking utterly scornful.
"Yeah, that's right. And just because I'm not a professional soldier, sweetheart, doesn't mean I can't shoot straight-like. Watch and learn." She shouldered her way to the front of the group, dropped to one knee and lined up her rifle, its long barrel apparently lovingly maintained. Then she squeezed the trigger six times, her aim shifting almost imperceptibly with each twitch of her finger. Clint watched, suitably impressed, as the six Red Army soldiers barely had time to register their surprise before they were all dead on the sidewalk, bloody splatters of bone and brains decorating the walls of the buildings behind them. Tabby sprang to her feet and dipped forwards in a brief bow. "See what I mean?" she asked, grinning broadly. Clint noticed that the scar on her face twisted as she did so, giving her smile a strangely sinister quality to it. "Three, two, one – all gone." She clicked her fingers. "Just like that."
"Of course, we could have just told you she'd done that once already on this trip," Kitty said with a brief smile, "but a demonstration works better, don't you think?"
"I guess it does," Clint replied, still secretly astonished at the standard of the girl's shooting. The last time he'd seen that kind of marksmanship had been when he'd been schooled in sniper tactics during his Crimson Commando training, and it made him wonder if perhaps this girl had actually been ejected from the Red Army, and just wasn't telling anybody.
Save your questions for later, he told himself angrily. He decided that was good advice…
Elisabeth blinked as she took in the man standing in front of her, pulling her hand out of his grip with surprise still rattling around her skull like a pinball. She wasn't used to this feeling – telepathy did rather take the sting out of life in that regard, after all – and it had put her on her guard already. She adjusted her cap, folded her arms across her chest slightly defensively, and said "So you're Tony Stark, are you? To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"
Stark raised his eyebrows briefly. "Let's just say I had a change of heart and wised up," he said. "The rebels didn't want to keep my Iron Man suit, so I decided to take it to somebody who would."
"I… see," Elisabeth said, secretly elated that such a technological leap had fallen into her hands so easily. "Where is the suit? I'd like to see it for myself, before I decide whether to hand you over to High Command so that they can debrief you. And believe me, they would be considerably less gentle than myself." She injected just the right amount of menace into her voice, just to remind Stark who was in command here, and was suitably pleased when she saw him swallow involuntarily for a moment or two, before he composed himself and gestured towards the direction of the vehicle depot.
"I had to leave it outside," he explained. "They wouldn't let me bring it into the building itself. I understand that, but I don't –"
"You don't need to understand," Elisabeth snapped, impatient. "We do as we must. Now please, I'd like to see this machine before the end of the day."
Nodding, Stark turned and walked out into the corridor that led down to the depot, his hands clenched into fists and apprehension dripping off his mind with every step. Elisabeth followed after him at a far more relaxed pace, with Lieutenant Wagner taking care to keep one step behind her at all times, clutching a clipboard and a specially-designed pen that was easier for his two-fingered hands to use, and busily scribbling out notes as he walked.
It was the smell that hit Elisabeth before her eyes could register what was in the vehicle garage – a thick, enveloping scent of petrol and oil that filled the entire length and breadth of the largely enclosed area. Tanks, half-tracks and armoured personnel carriers, all in various states of repair, occupied the bays organised along each of the three walls. Pieces of engines and armour plating littered the ground, amidst glittering puddles of oil and water. The stained water dripped down into gullies at the end of each bay, carrying the dirty oil down into the base's waste disposal system and feeding the water purification mechanism at the same time. And then she saw it.
Standing at the end of a row of T-90 tanks, Stark's Iron Man suit was completely at rest. Elisabeth took in its haphazard armour plating and weapon systems, noting as she did so that, with only a few exceptions, all of it seemed scavenged from Soviet equipment. Walking forwards so that she was stood in front of the Iron Man suit, she pulled off one of her gloves and reached up to touch the machine's gun, feeling the cold metal under her bare fingertips. The multi-barrelled cannon seemed to have been torn from the nose of a MiG-29 fighter jet and wired directly into the suit's right arm, making the main weapon exactly like the rest of the machine's patchwork design – which in turn made it seem rather dangerous to operate. She would have to have some specialised engineers take a look at it later, she decided, to see whether the mechanisms could be duplicated a little less haphazardly. Turning, she marched back to where Stark was standing, pulling her glove back on as she did so. "This… is a unique piece of work, Mr Stark," she said, trying to keep her voice neutral.
"I assure you, the engineering is sound," Tony Stark said, mirroring her thoughts. "Every system in the Iron Man suit works perfectly."
Elisabeth cursed inwardly, realising that her facial expression had inadvertently given her feelings away. "That's as may be, Mr Stark," she began, "but it isn't exactly a uniform design, and I doubt it can be easily reproduced. I suggest you consider this your prototype, and speak to Dr Pym about reserving some research space. I have plenty of manpower available to help you, if you want it."
"Thanks, but I think I'll work better if I do this alone," Stark said with a disarming grin. "Too many cooks, and all that."
"I suppose so," Elisabeth conceded. "However… I do insist that you start briefing my mechanics on how to repair that thing in case it gets damaged. I'd hate for my new investment to be in vain, after all…"
The room was dark, its one light bulb hanging cold and dead from its cord. Two men were sitting inside it, one with their hands folded in their lap, and the other playing with a dagger, nervously spinning it in his fingers and occasionally using it to dislodge dirt from the cracks and furrows in the small table that stood between the two of them.
"How much time do we have?" said the one with the knife.
"Not much," said the other. "Commissar Braddock might still be talking to that Stark guy in the vehicle depot, but I hear tell that she's trying to use psychics to track us down."
"Then we have to move quickly, don't we? General Doom asked us to help him deal with that bitch, and she's still here." Dirt and varnish peeled off the table as the knife scoured its way through the weathered surface like the prow of a ship through water.
"You ever think maybe we should just give up? I mean, Doom's dead and she's in charge. Maybe we should just –"
The knife stabbed into the table's surface. "No. This is what he ordered us to do, and we're gonna do it. You think she'll accept an apology if she finds us out? I don't. It's Doom's way or the highway, buddy."
"You're an idiot, Wade," the other man said, with a shrug. "Okay, let's do it. Don't have anything to lose, right?"
Wade Wilson grinned. "That's the spirit, Dave, old pal. We'll have this mission finished before you can blink."
"If you say so, Wade," David North sighed. "If you say so…"