"Ok, look – if they cut the power, they're up to something. And if they're up to something, we don't have much time. I think we've gotta press on."
"I don't disagree with you Kai – but I can't see."
"Ok, I can just about see the stuff on the floor, just turn towards my voice, that's it. Slowly walk forwards, ok, we're at the door now. Turn right, and reach out with your left hand, that's the wall, first step down – there we go…" Kai coaxed Shimazu forwards, using the almost non-existent light from his keypad so he could just see the edges of the structure himself, and hoping he spotted everything he needed to.
They edged down the staircase, feet shuffling and scraping on the bare undressed concrete as they felt their way down the long staircase. It certainly wasn't like a normal set of stairs, with a limited number of treads before a landing – this went down five or more metres in a single flight, and they worked their way down trying to be as quiet as possible. At the bottom, the stairs turned to the right into a corridor that stretched away in front of them, certainly further than Kai could see.
"Hello? Spirit? Are you there?" Kai called out quietly, and a moment later the guardian spirit Tads had summoned as dusk appeared before him in astral space, a glowing form of vaguely humanoid proportions. It looked at him in silence, waiting for instructions whilst it gently bobbed up and down before him. "Scout ahead down this tunnel please, looking for other life forms. If you can find some, come back to us and warn us. Try not to be seen." The spirit waited a moment as it ensured there was nothing more to be said, then floated down the corridor ahead of them.
Shimazu dropped into astral as well, and could see the very faintest of outlines of the corridor, with the spirit heading straight down the middle away from them. Normally the world showed a bright white, the radiant life force of bacteria providing a constant source of illumination. Down here, with so much sterile concrete, even that was diminished, and only the damp areas on the wall where microscopic moulds clung showed any kind of light. Still – it was better than being completely blind, so he stayed astrally perceiving – his hand gripped tightly around the handle of his sword. It was a risk – by perceiving, he made himself dual-natured, existing on both sides of the astral divide at once, and vulnerable to attack on both. Hopefully though, he'd see any foe coming before it could actually attack, and he could defend them both.
They slowly inched their way forward down the corridor, feet scraping on the rough and slightly uneven surface as they tried to balance speed and stealth in the inky darkness.
Back on the upper level, Hunter pushed on quickly, wanting to keep the pressure up on the enemy and not give them a chance to set any traps or prepare ambush positions. He could hear the occasional noise behind him as Aswon followed along, rifle in hand and spear close by. From the lack of noise, both Tads and Marius were hanging back a little, letting them do their jobs without ruining the element of surprise. As he moved into the long cross-corridor leading towards the front of the dam, his ultrasound sensors picked up a shape far ahead of him, where the north-south passage intersected. He moved from one side of the tunnel to the other, trying to create a more three-dimensional view of the item to get a better idea of what it was.
A few more steps closer and he realised it was once of the rucksacks they had seen the enemy using, apparently dropped and abandoned there. He keyed up his mic, and spoke as quietly as he could.
"Rucksack ahead, at the junction point, looks like the others. Might mean they've taken the mines out already."
"Roger that, will check the side passages and spillway, if you press forward." Aswon heard Hunter respond with a double click and saw the big ork move forwards, carefully placing his feet in slow wide steps that saw him roll from the edge of his foot down onto the sole, minimising the sounds of his steps. While Hunter continued to move forwards at a steady advance, rifle raised and scanning the passageway for any sign of movement, Aswon ducked down the side passage to the door that should lead into the spillway – assuming that this was a mirror image of the other side they'd already examined.
Sure enough he found a pressure door, the same as the ones already examined – but this one was closed and the hatch was dogged shut. Carefully he worked the handle and swung the door open, then glanced inside carefully. Inside there was just an inky blackness, with barely a sliver of light making it from the cross-tunnel into the doorway, and nothing beyond that. With a sigh, Aswon reached over and flicked the light switch, illuminating the bulkhead lights that ran along the inspection tunnel, and sprang into the room – hoping to catch anyone in there by surprise with the sudden flash of light. All was quiet though, and he moved through the room carefully, checking the supports and pipework. There was no sign of bombs or activity, and the inspection hatch on the pipes was also sealed shut still, with no sign of fresh water ingress.
Hunter had cleared to the top of the passage by the time Aswon made it back out of the spillway and reported it all clear, and he stopped and listened carefully, not wanting to lean out into the corridor without a quick check. All he could hear, though, was a faint sound of wind and distant echo – no footsteps, breathing or the rattle of equipment. As he heard Aswon close on him, he risked a quick glance out, head whipping from left to right as he looked for targets before he ducked back around the corner. There was more debris to his left – back towards where the targets had been and closed the first passage, but the corridor to his right looked clear.
With a quick hand motion, he counted down, and then both Hunter and Aswon darted around the corner, weapons raised and ready to fire. Their eyes scanned forward, sweeping the corridor from side to side and looking for any signs of the enemy, but all they could spy was a pile of rubble between where they were now and where the passage had been sealed. Aswon leant back around the corner and waved to Tads and Marius in the distance, beckoning them to move forwards, then returning to Hunter's side to support him.
As they advanced down the corridor they spotted the large hole in the floor and the pile of displaced concrete rippled up and to the side of the hole, forming a crater around the tube that led down and to the east at a sharp angle. It looked like the mage had been busy with another earth-shaping spell, carving an escape route for them that led down into the depths of the dam. They did a quick check around and saw a few blood splatters on the floor and wall, that led from the side of the first passageway over to the tube, and then down. When he engaged his thermographic vision Aswon could just spot the faint traces of heat from the blood as it slowly cooled in contact with the cold corridor walls.
They glanced over the edge of the tube and down into the depths, thermographic and ultrasonic vision each giving them a different view of the tunnel that descended at a roughly forty degree angle straight through the concrete of the dam. They could see ripples and protuberances in the wall, where the spell had pushed aside the material as it worked down, rather than cutting through the stones and aggregate that made up the heavy construction material.
"We going down?" Hunter asked?
"If we're going to keep the pressure on them, I think we have to. Who knows how we get down here otherwise, and that could give them far too much time."
"I agree. We'll be fine, but I'm not sure Tads is going to make it, not unless we lower her on a rope. And that's going to take a few minutes."
Tads and Marius caught up with them, and each examined the hole. Watching the way Tads swayed from side to side still, it was clear that Hunter's assessment was correct – she could barely walk in a straight line, trying to crawl down a steep tube in the dark was not a good idea at all.
"How stable are those mines, Aswon?"
"When they're primed, not at all. Without the primer in, they're big chunks of shaped plastic explosives. They're not unstable, but you don't want to take liberties with them. Why, Marius?"
"I was just wondering if we could get a couple of grenades and drop them down the hole first, to clear the way. Especially if you have any concussion grenades or flash-bangs left." He glanced over to Hunter who shook his head.
"Got a bunch of anti-personnel and some hi-ex, that's it."
"That doesn't sound like a good idea. They both sound far too likely to set off a sympathetic detonation." Aswon nodded vigorously as Marius spoke, and restrained himself from pointing out that they'd already had one detonation as a result of throwing grenades around in the cramped confines.
"What's to stop them just tunnelling all the way out to the lake?" Tads drawled, as she looked down the tube once more.
"Nothing I suppose. Other than the water would hit them like a hammer as soon as they broke through. But if they got close and placed a mine, they could ruin everyone's day." Hunter looked at the schematic, and tried to work out how close they were to the front face. It didn't look very far, and if the mage could make a tunnel down this deep, they could almost certainly make it horizontally as well as vertically. "We need to move – the longer we give them, the more likely this thing is to go horribly wrong."
"We can both get down there ok – but Tads won't. I suggest you and her head back to the entrance, and go meet the engineers or relief troops, and make sure they know what's going on. When you get out, you can get to the chopper's systems and the drone, in case any of the shifters make it past us anyway. Hunter and I can head down here, and try to flush out whatever we find." Marius looked from Aswon to Hunter, then nodded, and grabbed Tads by a shoulder, steering her down the corridor at the best speed she could manage.
Aswon turned to Hunter as he called upon the power of Gecko infused into his flesh, and saw the little tiny reflections on the end of the ork's fingers as the climbing claws slid out of their recessed slots at the end of Hunters fingers, and then they both plunged down the hole, descending as fast as they dared to get out of the narrow confines quickly.
Below them, Kai and Shimazu saw the spirit floating back towards them at speed, and they paused to let it approach.
"Two animals and a human, ahead, down that way." It gestured down the corridor ahead of them, and slightly to the left.
"Good, good. What are they doing?"
"Don't know. You just said to go and find them and not get seen."
"I did say that, but I would have thought… never mind. Never mind. Ok, let's go forward then and get closer. Can you lead me to near where they are?" Kai thought about arguing with the spirit, but remembered Tads saying how carefully orders or requests had to be phrased for spirits, who could be very literal about carrying them out.
The spirit started to drift forward again, at a walking pace this time rather than travelling at any great speed. As Shimazu took his first step forward, Kai placed a hand on his shoulder, close to the join with his neck.
"I'll astrally perceive, and try to stay focussed on where we're going. Let me guide you. That way, if something pops around the corner and targets us, they'll only be able to affect me initially. If you feel me do anything other than steer you, then drop into astral yourself and attack – it might buy you enough time to close the distance and kill it. Shimazu grunted, then slowly walked forwards, concentrating on the tiny little motions as Kai steered him with one hand, while he kept both hands on his sword, ready to attack. As they headed forwards, they both felt rather than saw a side passage to their left, leading off to the west. The change in air currents made it seem like a reasonable size, but a quick glance didn't reveal any life signs to Kai as they went past it.
Hunter and Aswon reached the bottom of the gouge carved through the concrete of the dam, and dropped down into the corridor below. Much the same as the vehicle tunnel on the level above, it was a few metres wide and high, but otherwise of similar construction to the ones they had encountered thus far. To the north the tunnel stretched off into the distance, a few discoloured patches on the wall that could be doors or passageways, but with no sign of life. As they turned to the south, they saw in astral two figures and a spirit slowly making their way towards them – Shimazu and Kai. Another quick glance to the north to confirm the passageway really was empty, and then they set off to the south to rendezvous with the other part of their team.
"Shimazu, it's ok – I think I can see Aswon and Hunter ahead. No sign of the others. But they're closing on our position." The two groups made their way towards each other, but stopped when the spirit pointed to the side of the tunnel. The walls of the tunnel could just be seen, indicating that someone or something had a light on down the tunnel – though the light barely made it this far.
Kai held up his hand, waving for the others to wait, and keyed up his microphone before moving in close behind Shimazu and speaking quietly, using the bodyguard's body as a shield to dampen the sound.
"Spirit said there is a pair of animals and a human around this next corner. If it's like the passages we've already gone past it's a couple of metres wide, so we should get three abreast down there. I'll count us down, we go on three. Shimazu left side, Aswon right side, Hunter cover fire in the middle, I'll bring up the rear." He raised a fist, and then bounced it once in the air before raising a finger, then a second, and on the third they moved in, heading for the corner with all their senses straining.
As they rounded the corner they could see three figures ahead of them – one on the right side of the passageway holding a battery-powered worklamp, aimed down at the end of the passageway, and two other forms who were turning towards them as they skidded around the corner. They were easily fifteen metres down the tunnel, near another heavy set pressure door that led into a chamber or corridor beyond. Most of the team were looking on the astral plane now, and they could clearly see the bestial nature of the two figures turning towards them – more seal shapeshifters, while the single figure holding the light appeared to be human. But over the top of all three of them, they could see the large roiling mass of a spirit, staring at them. Kai and Shimazu recognised it immediately – it was the second free spirit they'd encountered at Samara.
Shimazu accelerated, closing the distance sprinting down the left hand wall and trying to leave the middle area free for Hunter to fire in. He knew that either of the two seals could also be a mage – but he knew without doubt that the spirit could certainly manifest the powers of a blizzard, and didn't want to get hit in the face with that. A split second after he'd started his run, the corridor rang out with automatic gunfire as Hunter directed a long concentrated burst of fire into the man holding the lamp.
They weren't sure if he was mind-controlled, a traitor, or just some innocent worker scared for his life – and Hunter didn't really care at this point. The string of shots hit a hand span above the base of his spine, shredding the body as the 5.56mm rounds punched through the lightly padded boiler suit with ease. So many rounds hit him, they almost cut him in half – but at least his death came mercifully quickly.
Aswon was hot in pursuit as well, also scraping along the wall as he felt the bullets whizzing past him in the dark, his spear raised before him ready to thrust and spit the first target that came into range. The shifter on the right was marginally in range, so he extended the spear forward, driving the weapon focus into the ribs and causing it to recoil back in pain.
The two figures reacted – the uninjured one of them charging forwards and making the unfortunate decision to close the distance with Shimazu. As he closed, the head transformed slightly, reverting back to a more animalistic form and the head shot forwards as the neck elongated, mouth wide open and revealing a huge mouth full of razor sharp teeth. Sharp teeth and quick reactions might have helped against a typical Russian soldier – but not against a highly skilled swordsman. A sharp thrust left nearly thirty centimetres of sword sticking out the back of the skull, and a strain on the wrist ripped the blade back out through the side of the neck, sending the shapeshifter tumbling to the ground.
The second seal was still flinching back from the stab to the ribs and twisting from left to right as it did so. Both hands raised to either side of the face, and as the mouth opened a sonic blast emanated from the mage, a pulse of incredible noise that even overmatched the echo still ringing from Hunter's burst of gunfire. The sonic pulse slammed into Shimazu, sending his hair back against his skull and his flesh rippling. Shimazu dug down deep, his feet fighting for purchase as the blast drove him backwards, but his armour saved him from the worst of the blast.
"Turn around, NOW!" Kai's voice boomed down the tunnel, trailing on the end of the sonic blast and sending fresh echos ringing out. By now Aswon had almost shut down his hearing entirely, whilst the others were trying to make the best they could of the noisy situation, struggling not to be affected by the auditory assault. His voice modulation was pitched just right though and the enemy mage twisted round to look behind him, costing them vital seconds.
The free spirit had fully materialised by now and launched a withering cone of cold towards Aswon, chunks of ice blasting at his body and forcing him to raise both his arms to shield his face, turning the spear away from the mage instead of following up his attack. As the blizzard battered at him, he was driven back a few steps, sliding on the slick floor as it rapidly iced over – but he managed to retain his balance and his footing and stay upright.
Shimazu darted forwards, swinging towards the spirit and trying to catch it off guard while it dealt with Aswon, raising his sword high and slashing down towards the large vortex of air that spun in front of him. The spirit had other ideas, though, sliding to the side and a condensed clout of compressed air slapped at the side of Shimazu's head, staggering him and making him take a step to the side in sheer shock.
Another rattle of gunfire hammered down the tunnel as Hunter put a long burst into the turning mage, spinning his body around even further as the rounds punched through his armoured clothing and grievously wounding him. The mage summoned desperate reserves of energy in response and gestured with his hands, raising them high into the air and then dashing them downwards, and the concrete beneath Hunter disappeared abruptly. He scrambled for the edge, his climbing claws extending in reflex, but the hole was too wide and he dropped suddenly out of sight.
The spirit turned its focus from Aswon to Shimazu and darted forward, clubbing ethereal hands raining down blows with the force of concussive thunder blasts. Shimazu slipped inside the blows though, swaying, twisting and turning and bought his sword up in a swift uppercut, slicing open the spirit from bottom to top. The spirit started to fade away, but Shimazu followed up with another blow, slicing it in half just before it could fade away back to its own meta-plane and escape. As the blizzard faded away, Aswon sprang forward with his spear reversed and clouted the mage around the head with enough force to drive him to his knees in a single blow, before drawing back and then ramming the butt of his spear forward again, driving the seal into unconsciousness.
Silence descended for a moment, until they heard grunting and straining, along with scraping noise from behind them. One grimy hand appeared over the top of the lip, and then Hunter pulled himself up out of the hole, streaked with dirt and with his face splattered with muddy water.
"Bastard thing. I'm gonna kick him in the balls."
"Sure you can. Just after I do this though." Kai aimed the taser at the mage and depressed the trigger, watching the body leap and convulse as the electricity coursed through the body. "There, all yours. Should keep it under for at least a few minutes."
Marius made it to the entrance, and pushed the door open, guiding Tads through the doorway and out into the cool night air, where he immediately froze as half a dozen MPs raised their weapons to aim at him. He slowly released the SMG from his grip, letting it fall to his waist, and then making sure Tads wasn't going to fall, he opened both his hands and reached out ahead of him, showing everyone his hands were now empty – but without raising his hands in surrender.
"Freeze!", "Stop right there!", Identify yourself!" The commands were shouted at him by several different figures, and as his eyes adjusted to the different light level, he could see the MP markings on their uniforms. He looked around quickly and spotted someone with some rank tabs – it looked like the sergeant from earlier, so he raised his voice slightly and addressed him, ignoring the others.
"It's Marius, from the specialist team. I had to escort our mage out after she got injured. The rest of my team is in the dam, engaged with Yakut agents who we found trying to sabotage the dam and set explosive charges. We have called Colonel Frunze and engineers and demolition experts are on the way. The dam personnel should have been all evacuated by now, and were told to surrender themselves to you, and inform you of what was going on." His perfect Russian and calm manner seemed to defuse the situation, and hearing the situation summarised calmly and succinctly seemed to reassure the MPs that what he was saying was legitimate – which only proved to Marius how unprepared they were. He gave them a small smile, while internally he despaired at how easy they were to manipulate.
A moment later the smile vanished as he picked up the faint beating of rotor blades, and he looked to the north – and spotted the anti-collision lights of some kind of air vehicle approaching from the direction of the airport.
"Marius, what do you need from us?" The sergeant had approached whilst he was watching the sky, and it was indeed the same man from earlier.
"Well, I think keeping the perimeter secure and keeping a watch on the engineers is the best thing to do right now. There's a troop chopper coming in, should be here in less than a minute. I suspect things will get a little interesting for a while, as we try and deal with the saboteurs – but making sure they have nowhere to go and can't take hostages will be of great help." The man nodded and then started to bark orders out, redeploying his men and giving them fresh instructions. "Beyond that, communications are very difficult in the dam due to the construction methods used – but we really need that demo team and some mage hoods. I'm guessing you don't have either." The sergeant shook his head regretfully, but Marius wasn't really surprised. With only an estimated one in a hundred people having any kind of magical potential, and only one in a hundred of those being identified and trained – the number of mages they would have to deal with was tiny, and thus it was very unlikely they had equipment for dealing with them.
The troop chopper closed in, and he saw the bird circle a little, the pilot just as unhappy as he'd been to get close to the transformer yard. It didn't matter how robust your aircraft was, or how much armour it had – touching a 240,000 volt line and getting tangled up was a sure fire way to end your career, and helicopter pilots the world over were ever cautious around them. After thirty seconds of looking for somewhere safe and not finding it, the pilot went into a hover quite high up and the ropes that tumbled out of the sides ended up a good metre short of the ground. Never the less, the Russian troops slid down the ropes smartly, no doubt landing a little harder than they would have liked, but with skill and panache.
A ghostly figure appeared next to him, slowly becoming more solid and growing features, until Marius could recognise Captain Fredericks.
"We have some mages coming physically to support your operation here, but as you know we're spread thin. But we should have some watcher spirits here momentarily to provide sentry duty to assist."
"Excellent, Captain, that will help. But what we really need are engineers – we have demolition charges in the dam that are live, and we daren't try to disarm them without experts. But some physical mages here will help, we probably have some enemy agents to take into custody."
"I will inform the operation commander, but I believe they are on the way." The figure faded out quickly, leaving Marius and Tads standing alone outside the dam, while soldiers and MPs raced around to secure the area and the engineers, and to take up vantage points.
Another troop chopper disgorged a second platoon of troops, and the officer approached Marius and snapped off a salute – presumably some kind of word had been spread about who he was. As quickly as he could, Marius explained that his team was in the dam, hunting down enemy agents, and gave a quick description of what Kai, Hunter, Aswon and Shimazu looked like. The officer listened, and then repeated the description back, his radio open and broadcasting to his own team as he did so. As soon as Marius nodded that he had the description correct, he bounded off towards the dam entrance, splitting his platoon down into three sections and detailing them to start moving through the dam and clearing the tunnels, looking to engage any enemy or support Kai and his team, whichever they found first.
A third chopper was approaching, but this pilot came in very low over the river, inching forwards underneath some of the power lines with extreme caution. Marius wondered why he was risking that, until the side door was slid open and he saw Colonel Frunze, a medic, a radio operator and some junior officer, presumably an aide, jumping down onto the quayside. No fast roping for senior officers, it seemed. As soon as the passengers were off, the pilot started to drift backwards and away from the pylons, his rotor creating a circular pattern in the water from the downdraft as he tried to extricate himself from the position.
When the colonel reached him, Marius gave his report for the third time, detailing what they had found and where the charges were, what the enemy seemed to be doing and what Hunter made of their plan of attack and the risks involved. Frunze seemed a little sceptical at first, as he glanced over at the massive concrete structure that lay before him, over thirty metres high and nearly sixty metres thick. When Marius described the tunnels they'd seen though, and the ease with which the enemy mages had carved their way through the dense concrete, he started to nod in understanding.
"Thank you, Marius. The demolition engineers are coming by truck – their equipment was too large and heavy to get aboard the available choppers, and it was quicker this way. They should be here imminently." He turned to his aide and started to give orders, ensuring the MPs were ready to clear and escort them in to their location.
Down in the dam, Kai, Shimazu, Hunter and Aswon readied their weapons and got ready to fight as they heard multiple sets of footsteps running down the tunnel towards them, and could see the bouncing lights waving madly up and down the tunnel walls. After a moment though, they could hear someone calling out, calling Kai's name. He gave the rest of the team a quick look, then responded, and they heard the footsteps approaching. Moments later the squad of Russian troops appeared around the corner, playing their barrel-mounted torches over the team, and the scene before them. Blood was everywhere, there was a six metre hole in the ground with scratches and scrapes etched into the concrete around it, and the air reeked of cordite.
"Hold it – carefully." Aswon called out. "We have one prisoner alive, the other looks dead but isn't confirmed. And we have live explosive charges placed here. We need engineers down here, as soon as possible." Aswon moved to the side slightly, and pointed at the pressure door, where the last two of the massive mines they'd been looking for where placed onto the bulkhead, held in place with magnets. "If you're coming down here, mind the hole and for all our sakes, be careful around the demo charge!"
The troops moved forwards, suitably carefully, and after quickly checking the team over to ensure they matched the descriptions, secured the bodies. Two of them had roll out stretchers, and they moved the two shapeshifters onto those, then started to move them back down the corridor leading to the upper level.
In the distance they could hear more shouting, and as the team moved out into the main corridor they caught the sight of more squads of troops moving through the facility, clearing the area room by room and leaving guards at junction points to keep the area secure. Their radios were just as affected by the structure of the dam, but within a few minutes there were enough troops scattered throughout the building that they could relay instructions back and forth with relative ease.
It took another ten minutes before the first bomb technician turned up, waddling forwards in his extra heavy duty padded suit, a thick plastic visor lowered over his face. He listened as Aswon explained what he'd found, and then moved a few paces closer to examine the device.
"Yes, that's one of ours. Older model, a SA-122. Designed to take out a main battle tank. I can see where they've attached the timer, that's normally for command cable for remote detonation. It should be easy enough to defeat, but I think your team should fall back, just in case." He sounded confident, and Aswon was more than happy to follow his advice and bug out – leading the rest of his team along with him.
By the time they reached the entrance to the dam and made it outside to rejoin Marius and Tads, the situation had calmed slightly. Frunze was just outside the door, while his aide had a sketch map thrown together on his battle pad, constantly being updated by the radio operator as each team reported in. They could see a rash of dots on the rough schematic indicating check points or guards, and a few golden orbs where the demolition techs were defusing the devices or checking out the dams systems and structural integrity.
The team just stood – as for the moment it looked like everything was under control. A ring of MPs and soldiers stood around the two shifters who were now strapped to their stretchers with multiple bindings and were covered with significant firepower, while the engineers had been taken over to an ambulance that had arrived and were being checked over, again under armed guard. Just as Kai was about to suggest they should head back to the chopper, he felt his pocket vibrate. With a frown, he pulled it out and activated it. Before he got a chance to speak though, he heard a female voice speaking rapidly.
"Specialist, this is Lieutenant Yahontov." Kai hit the speaker button, and held out the phone so the rest of the team could hear. "Our tracking sensors have picked up an anomaly on the lake! There is a tidal wave, running down the lake, perhaps thirty centimetres high, but travelling at nearly four hundred kilometres per hour! You have about forty five seconds before it will hit the dam!"
"Thirty centimetres doesn't sound like much?" Kai said. His stomach which had flipped when he heard 'tidal wave' settled slightly. Hunter however, paled, and his jaw dropped slightly open.
"Oh crap – you don't understand. In deep water a wave has low amplitude. It is very small, because there's so much water it can displace and move. When it gets into the shallows, the water is forced higher and higher. If that tidal wave comes up the channel the other side, it's going to grow from thirty centimetres to thirty metres!" Kai swallowed as Hunter tried to explain what was going on. It was Aswon though that reacted first.
"EVERYONE – MOVE TOWARDS THE DAM. INCOMING FLOOD WAVE. MOVE TO THE DAM RIGHT NOW." He watched as some people stared to move, while others just looked at him, wondering what the tall black man was shouting about. "Colonel, we've got fifteen seconds…"
"You heard him. MOOOOOOVE!" The colonel though did the best thing he could in the situation, which was to grab the radio operator by the shoulder and start to drag him towards the dam himself. Seeing the senior officer on the scene suddenly running for his life and dragging his men with him galvanised the troops and they burst into life. Most of them ran for the dam, though a few ran away, either not understanding the instruction, or thinking it was a death trap.
They heard a strange rushing noise from above them, almost like someone was sucking up water from a cup, but magnified a thousand times over.
"That's the surge, a sudden outrush of water sucked under the bottom of the oncoming wave. It's in the channel. Brace for impact!"
The noise stopped, and then a roar started to build up, growing louder and louder. Kai suddenly grabbed the radio operator, shouting at him over the noise.
"Get the troop choppers to spray down the tidal wave. Open fire, all weapons! The enemy may be concealed inside!" Colonel Frunze nodded, and the radio operator shouted over the sound of the onrushing water, repeating his orders several times.
The wave hit the dam, a sledgehammer three hundred metres high and travelling at several hundred kilometres per hour. The entire dam structure resonated, a drum struck hard sending a base note out that made the ground tremble beneath them. Hunter had been expecting it, but pretty much everyone else was stunned by the impact, the enormous slap of pressure that made the forty thousand tons of concrete, steel and glass vibrate violently beneath them. Frunze had been leaning against the wall, and felt the ripple flow through the concrete as the enormous forces were absorbed by the dam, transmitting through it from the centre to each shore.
But the dam held. The enormous footings were dug deep, and despite the charge that had gone off, the team had stopped the enemy from excavating tunnels through the key structural members that stiffened and braced the massive structure. It was a close thing – but the dam held.
A moment later a deluge of water sloshed over the dam, as pressure forced the water high up in the air. Tens of thousands of litres of Lake Baikal were thrown up in the air as spray, while hundreds of thousands of tons of water were driven over the top of the dam, where it landed on the downstream side. Those clustered by the dam were mostly safe, sheltered by the walls and structure itself. Those that had run off downstream were less fortunate, with many of them swept away by the surge of water, carried into the river that swelled to triple its normal volume.
But the dam held.
A shower of sparks and explosions rose up from the transmission yard as water slammed down over the transformers and switching gear. Equipment designed to be out in all weathers had never been designed for submersion, and circuit breakers blew, transformers shorted and control systems failed under the crushing blow of the watery onslaught. All over the city, entire districts were plunged into darkness as the power dropped out.
The tidal wave that crashed down was only a fraction of what should have swept through the area though, if the Yakut plan had come to fruition. A few moments passed, and backup circuits swung into place, bypass circuits engaged, and redundant equipment spun up. Lights flickered on and off around the city, stabilising as the power was routed via alternate equipment.
As the noise of the wave receded, they could hear long bursts of fire as the gunners aboard the choppers raced to see who could expend the most ammunition in the shortest time possible. They could see lines of tracers flying through the air as the gunners swung back and forth, sending thousands of rounds down into the water and firing long enough that their barrels started to glow in the dark night sky.
For the first time since they'd met him, they saw Colonel Frunze at a loss. He watched the wave of water rolling down the river, smashing and destroying industrial units and houses on either side of the river, and they saw his hands trembling as the impact of events washed over him. Nobody could really blame him – this was so far out of any imagined scenario, that it was hard to conceive of, even now it had happened.
"Colonel! Colonel!" Aswon stepped in front of him, capturing his attention. "This was an attack, a distraction. But it's not the only thing they will be doing. We have won this battle, but now you and your forces need to win the war." Frunze focussed on him, and his mouth shut, then he took a deep breath and seemed draw himself in, regaining his composure a little. To the north, the mournful wail of air-raid sirens started to sound, joined by more and more until there was a choir of undulating tones singing across the entire city.
The enemy was clearly on the move, and a moment later the sky lit up as the artillery and rocket brigades opened fire. Flames billowed from the tubes as every gun and weapon system went to rapid fire, and as the first round of rumbles died away, a snarl could be heard faintly on the breeze – the combined sounds of a hundred tank engines revving up as they drove forwards to meet their foes.
"Colonel, would you and your radio operator care to come with us – we can give you a lift closer to the front and a bird's eye view of operations from the chopper?" Kai offered. The Colonel nodded, and Marius fired up the chopper remotely, even as they trudged through the thick mud and sludge that covered the ground, heading to the other side of the transformer yard.
Once in the air, Marius took the chopper up to about a thousand feet and then swung around, lowering the rear ramp and giving Frunze a grandstand view of the city and the area beyond. Sheets of flame raced out from tank formations, briefly illuminating the ground before darkness swept back in. Tracer fire from heavy machine guns raced back and forth across the hillsides, and rocket and artillery fire landed in huge crescents beyond the tanks, marching to the north as the guns slowly elevated further and further. They saw squadrons of attack choppers diving back and forth, operating in cleared lanes between the artillery regiments, and the occasional fireball scorching out from distant trees, lightning bolts that quested up towards helicopters and strange ghostly lights that moved across the battlefield.
Chaos reigned for ten minutes, but then they noticed the guns starting to settle down. Instead of the frantic constant fire, they slowed and began to fire in sequences. The tracer lines slowed, and were less like a constant beam of fire from a hundred different sources. Instead, three or four tracer lines would instead congregate on a spot from multiple vehicles as an enemy was spotted, or the artillery would fall silent for a moment, before striking out in regimental force on a single concentration of the enemy. A few minutes after that, even that seemed to fade away, the guns falling silent and the growl of engines fading into the distance as the mechanised units chased the routing enemy back towards the front.
Kai had been busy patching up Aswon's lacerated face and arms, sealing the wounds inflicted by the close range blizzard to the face he'd taken deep in the dam, and approached the Colonel.
"Impressive sight. But it seems that your forces have prevailed."
"Yes indeed. The enemy is falling back in disarray, and the front elements are giving chase. But we need to control them and make sure they don't over-extend and fall into an ambush. Can you get me back to the airport? Or even better, the HQ? I can call and secure the airspace now."
Kai nodded, and passed on the request to Marius, and the chopper swung around, nosing down towards the Hotel in a straight line and accelerating even as they dropped altitude. It wasn't that he didn't trust the Russian gunners not to shoot at their Colonel – but mistakes happened, and he didn't want to be in the line of fire any longer than he had to be.
They landed in the street outside the hotel, Marius dropping them neatly into the confined space with his usual skill and attention to detail. Frunze led them upstairs, and the team noticed that the guards suddenly did not seem so insistent on disarming them – they had earned their trust, or the guards realised that they'd had a rough night and would not take kindly to it. Either way, they bounded up the stairs and entered the war room, which had descended into a scene that would make the average stockbrokers trading floor look calm and serene. Radio operators lined the walls, passing orders back and forth, while aides updated locations of units, and the status of formations.
The map was a chaotic sprawl, and they noticed that there was a motley variety of tokens now on the board – staplers, glasses, ashtrays, loose rounds of ammunition, each presumably signifying an enemy position or encounter. At the end of the table the General stood on a chair, looking down from on high with godlike vision, watching the flow of battle and occasionally directing one of his aides to pull a regiment back, or reorient a battalion to a different threat axis. Frunze led them around one edge of the table and approached the General, saluted smartly and gave his report.
"Good Frunze. Good. And well done – we had reports of the wave striking all along the river, but casualties were almost non-existent and our fighting capacity was barely impacted. Now – my next question is – can you assist us with pursing the enemy?"
"I'm sorry. What?" Kai seemed stunned, and a small bubble of silence grew around him as aides and officers turned to stare at him. Apparently it wasn't the done thing to address a senior officer this way. The general didn't seem to be too bothered though, and just repeated his question.
"Well, technically, I suppose we could – though my team is somewhat fatigued from being on combat ops last night and tonight. But mainly, I'm not sure what we can do. Our mage needs rest, she was almost killed in a magical assault back at the dam, and we only have a few door-mounted guns on our craft. It's a smug…cargo ship, not a gun ship." Kai coughed, hoping that nobody would make too much of an issue of his faux pas.
"They have indeed done well, General. I've had a few reports in from the dam, and they are operational. The demolition teams have recovered all of the enemy munitions and we have the remaining enemy agents in custody. The engineers tell me that if the enemy had not been stopped, the dam would have failed, and we would have lost all power to the city, and had a flood at least two hundred times worse than what was experienced. By my estimates, we would have lost the majority of the 127th Motor Rifle Division, along with the 92nd Rocket Brigade and 385th Guards Artillery Brigade in their entirety, based on their proximity to the river, along with severe casualties elsewhere.
"I see. Very well, perhaps one additional aircraft won't help us much more then. Perhaps your team could stand down and we'll talk again in the morning." Kai listened to the tone of voice, and was happy enough to accede to the 'request', and allowed Frunze to gently herd them back out of the room and into the corridor, then lead the way back down one floor to the room they'd stayed in the night before.
"Perhaps you should rest and recuperate, and we'll see what changes the day brings tomorrow?"
"Of course Colonel, that sounds like a good plan. And I think… yes, Tads is already asleep, so that seems like a VERY good idea. But, just needed to raise something with you. Obviously we came here at the Brigadier's request, when he heard about the problems you were having with spirits. And the understanding I had was that we'd help you with that problem, in exchange for the rights to be able to stop and refuel here from time to time, something inconsequential to you I'm sure, but very helpful to us." Frunze looked at Kai, his eyes narrowing, while he waited for Kai to get to the point.
"But of course, we've gone somewhat beyond that – helping you find the enemy casters that were summoning the spirits, doing the recon up the lake, and of course the little adventure tonight in the dam. So, I was just wondering… is it yourself that we should pass the invoice on to, or direct to the general?"
Frunze spluttered and his face started to colour up as he listened to Kai's words.
"Oh Colonel – don't worry. I'm joking – mostly. I know that money is tight in the army – after all, if you had plenty of cash, you'd hire in a mercenary unit with magical support to assist you. But, I just wanted to let you have a little think to see if there's some other way you could perhaps show your appreciation for what we've done to help out."
The Colonel's colour faded and he took a deep breath, realising that Kai had played him – and gave him a sharp look. Kai just beamed his most innocent smile at him in return, a picture of innocence.
"Rest for now, and we'll speak again in the morning. And I'll consider your…request."
"Splendid Colonel. Splendid."
