A/N: A note on recent changes to the story: while drafting this chapter, I reread Echo Nine from the beginning and identified some areas for improvement. Aside from general typo-hunting and sentence tightening, I've made changes to old chapters that hopefully help to better develop the setting and ensure consistent characterization.
First, chapter 3 (Destructible Times) now provides more context on Echo Nine's worldbuild and alternate history, including the split between the USA and the Allies and the rise of the GLA.
Second, the chapters from Colonel Burton's perspective now have sharper characterization of Burton and Lieutenant Lee. I also added a leaflet drop to the fray, just because.
Finally, I've changed some details of how Doctor Thrax torments his captives to better reflect his focus on poison and disease.
On a side note, the author encourages all C&C fans reading this to check out the entire series ('Ultimate Collection') of these classic games now available on Steam (excluding Tiberium Twilight, which we will not speak of again). Speaking personally, canon review for this story is now a whole lot easier!
With that out of the way, here comes a full-scale battle!
Chaos
Throw everything at them!
-Unknown Chinese soldier, overheard during Operation Caduceus
November 7th, 1995 - Tian Shan Mountains, 35 kilometres South of Bishkek, Liberated Aldastan (former Kyrgyzstan) - 1815 hours
Solomon could feel the mission disintegrating into mayhem around him. The tidy organization of the team into pairs and plans no longer applied, swept away by the second-by-second battle for survival.
Keller was doing his part for that battle by flying like a man possessed. Under his hands, the big Nighthawk chopper danced through a hostile sky, slaloming around streams of shells spewed by Quad Cannons and swooping low over the rooftops of structures, leading pursuing AA missiles on a hopeless chase. The chopper's chain gun buzzed and buzzed, obliterating GLA fighters below.
The pilot couldn't keep it up forever. But every weapon aimed at the chopper was a weapon not aimed at other members of Echo Nine. Solomon would take that trade.
But all the fancy flying in the world couldn't stop the missile. As the chopper zoomed around the base, the missile climbed higher into the sky atop a fiery column of smoke. Making things worse, Solomon had just heard on the radio that General Townes' precious prototype laser turrets and vehicles had just suffered a catastrophic computer failure, eliminating their backup plan for missile interception.
Solomon had studied chemical weaponry at West Point. He'd seen war footage of what sarin nerve gas did to human beings. Soviet forces had unleashed the gas to break Allied resistance in Greece, to devastating effect. The victims had begun to spasm, to drool, to sweat and vomit and soil themselves as their nervous systems betrayed them. He remembered how quickly they had stopped breathing… or how slowly, in the cases of those who lingered in agony for almost ten long minutes before they finally stopped twitching.
Sarin was twenty-six times more deadly than cyanide. And now a fourteen-thousand-pound missile loaded with the shit was on the way to its target. Which, according to General Liang's previous promise, meant that Chinese nukes would soon be dropping to incinerate them all.
"Iron Tiger, do not, repeat, do not execute the contingency!" Solomon yelled into the radio as though he could control China's nuclear bombers through sheer force of will, putting forth the Voice of God to sway the iron will of the Tigress. "We can still stop the missile! Over!"
In the cockpit, Keller banked the chopper hard to the right, flying it straight through the missile's exhaust trail. The vapour enveloped the aircraft, buying precious seconds where the enemy couldn't target them.
Beneath the chopper, Adilet and Lotus were hunkered in the Scud Storm's control bunker, watching helplessly through a cloud of missile exhaust while the GLA closed in around them. Word was out about the cornered saboteurs, and a swarm of enemy infantry and vehicles were coming for the kill.
And beneath the ground, Toyama and King fought for their lives and the lives of the hostages under the GLA Command Centre. James Seabury and Oybek Uzoqov lay flat behind cover in the 'fuselage' of the fake training airliner, while the two soldiers put their bodies between them and the enemy. They fired steadily down the narrow hallway, holding the enemy back while brownish-yellow mustard gas flowed into the room. Just one leak in their protective gear, and their skin would swell and bulge with hideous blisters.
The only team member not seconds from near-certain death was Parker, who was having a grand time while safely nested in the hills above the base. He didn't know for sure that Jarmen Kell was dead, but he didn't have time to confirm his kill. Instead, Parker had embraced Solomon's 'weapons free' order with gusto, laying waste to the shooting gallery of targets spread out below him through his rifle's night-vision scope. Parker was picking off anti-aircraft troops as fast as he could aim and fire, trying to disrupt their response and protect his teammates in the chopper.
As he fired, Parker tried to gauge how long he could maintain fire before he had to relocate. A good sniper didn't stick around too long, but every moment he was moving was a moment the team would lose his fire support.
Aboard the chopper, Solomon couldn't know about Parker's assistance. All he knew was that 'Pinpoint' was on the radio, instructing Keller to make way for imminent fire support from a codenamed source.
"Stand by, Echo Goat. Revelation incoming, over."
The fuck is a 'revela- holy shit!" Keller screamed and banked sharply to the side as a brilliant blue column of light streaked down from the sky above.
The pillar of blue flame now burning next to the chopper was thick enough to swallow a car. It enveloped the in-flight missile and instantly blotted it from existence, vapourizing its deadly payload in a blink.
Then the searing light began carving through the perimeter of the GLA base. Infantry burst into flame, tanks melted into slag, tunnels collapsed into rubble, and Stinger Sites exploded into fireworks. Everything that touched the beam died.
Solomon watched in awe. The name 'Revelation' was well-chosen. The column of pure energy was blazing in its radiance, astounding in its power. It resembled nothing so much as divine punishment cast from the heavens themselves. The power of God to rain judgement from the sky, commanded by the United States of America.
The rumours were real, Solomon thought. Followed by: the world just changed.
Satellite-based weaponry had been theorized for decades, ever since the Allies first lofted crude reconnaissance satellites into orbit to gain a badly-needed intelligence edge over the Soviets during the Second Great War. Solomon had followed the theories in the journals, as experts debated between placing fully-contained weapons in orbit or simply firing ground-based particle beams into the sky to be reflected back to Earth by space-based mirrors. He'd never dreamed that he would see any of it operational before the 21st century.
It was no surprise that 'Revelation' was now directed by General Townes, the USA's most fervent champion of directed-energy weapons. The beam was the ideal blend of devastating power and surgical precision so favoured by American tacticians.
By the time the Particle Cannon's beam finally faded, it had drawn an enormous charred circle around the base, like a giant bullseye. It left Doctor Thrax's long-prepared defenses in flaming rubble behind it.
"Fuck me," Keller breathed, wiping sweat off his brow. "Don't see that every day, now do ya?"
"You certainly don't," Solomon said, blinking the spots out of his eyes, which felt like he'd just looked into the Sun itself. "Focus up pilot - we've still got people pinned down there."
"Wilco."
Down below, the awestruck enemy was already regrouping to attack again. Keller guided the chopper in a long arc around the embattled Scud Storm below, now surrounded by Marauder Tanks and Quad Cannons in addition to infantry and light vehicles. Adilet and Lotus didn't have much time left.
"I haven't got guns for that armour, boss."
"Do what you can," Solomon ordered.
He got back on the radio while Keller sent their bird into another strafing run. The aircraft's frame vibrated around them as the chain gun ripped into the enemies below.
"Echo Goat to Pinpoint, thanks for the assist. Echo Leopard is still under heavy assault at the primary objective. Need immediate air support, over."
"Pinpoint copies all, Echo Goat," said Lieutenant Lee. "Patching you through to Mojo One now, over."
Now the cavalry was coming. As the chopper wheeled away from its strafing run, Solomon saw far-off dots on the horizon: approaching aircraft, beginning their attack runs.
"Mojo One here, Echo Goat." The woman on the radio sounded unusually cheerful for someone flying into a white-hot combat zone. "Flight of three A-10s inbound low from your one o'clock, delivering close air support around that missile site. Confirm, over?"
Solomon frowned slightly. Through the chopper's windows, he could glimpse the squat, stubby shapes of the three 'Thunderbolt' attack aircraft - lovingly known as the 'Warthog' by its admirers - slowly skimming toward the GLA base over the mountains. The 'hog was built to wipe out tank columns and demolish bunkers. He didn't know if it had the precision needed to rescue Black Lotus and Adilet without risking friendly fire in the process.
He did know he didn't have a choice. His people had seconds to live without support.
"Echo Goat confirms all, Mojo One," Solomon said. "Exercise caution, friendlies and civilians are danger close, over."
"Mojo One, solid copy. We'll be nice and gentle. Just watch the air show, over."
"They're going in!" Shouted Keller from the cockpit. "Fuck me, look at 'em go!'
Quad Cannons, RPGs, and small arms all hammered the Warthogs as they flew low and slow over the base. Aside from the bright red flashes of point-defense lasers zapping away incoming missiles, the A-10s acted like they didn't notice. Mojo's pilots trusted in their armoured planes' famous survivability and flew on straight and steady, into range of the Scud Storm.
There were two Marauder tanks, two Quad Cannons, three Technicals, six motorcycles and a swarm of infantry surrounding Echo Leopard's position within the Scud Storm. The Warthogs wiped them all out in a single pass. They didn't use missiles or bombs. Instead, they relied on the awesome power of their comparatively precise thirty-millimeter rotary autocannons, cutting the enemy down with short, accurate bursts of depleted-uranium shells. Exploding vehicles hurled fresh flame and smoke into the air as the aircraft swept overhead, leaving twisted wreckage and shattered bodies in their wake.
His people were safe, at least for now. Solomon fought the urge to pump his fist. Keller, less reserved, whooped loudly.
"Fucking beauty! That's right! Get some!"
"Goat to Mojo One," Solomon said. "We confirm all targets destroyed and friendlies safe. That's some fine flying, pilot. We owe you, over."
"It's Morelli, Captain. You can pick up the bar tab after we're done here. Give 'em Hell, Echo. Mojo out."
As Mojo pulled away, streaking yellow shells began screaming down onto the base's barracks and garage from overhead: a sign that a Spectre gunship was now engaging as well. Flashes and smoke swallowed up both structures, which rumbled as they collapsed. Moments later, Chinese MiGs swooped in for a finishing blow, dropping napalm. The scorching orange blooms swallowed up any toxins stored in their targets, incinerating them in a fireball.
Up in the hills, Parker grinned savagely at the sight of the GLA base in flames, relishing the sound of explosions echoing from the rocks around him. Between the Warthogs and MiGs pounding the place from down low, the Spectre gunship raining airborne Hell on the enemy from on high, and the actual real-life ray gun that had just zapped their precious superweapon from space, it was turning into a real bad day to be 'Gladys.'
But no one ever said the GLA were quitters. People willing to strap bombs to their chests tended to have funny ideas about giving up. Most of their vehicles and base defenses were down, but Parker saw more enemies slipping out of the tunnels on foot, and spotted machine guns being set up in the windows of the buildings that were still standing.
The remaining enemies were making their stand around a long, rectangular building surrounded by sandbags and barbed wire. The building loosely resembled a palace, but Adilet had identified it as Thrax's central lab. The fortified structure spat defiant rockets and bullets in all directions as coalition forces moved in to finish the job.
Parker got to work on suppressing the lab's defenses, dropping a trooper shouldering an RPG, eliminating a machine gunner setting up his bipod, and taking the head off a guy gesturing orders to other fighters, one after the other. As he fired, he saw a small cloud of helicopters inbound from multiple angles: bulging Chinese Helixes and twin-rotored USA Chinook transports, escorted by sleek Comanche attack choppers. The swelling roar of their combined rotors was almost louder than the gunfire and explosions ripping through the air. Almost.
A bright red flare rocketed upwards from the Scud Storm and hung like a star in the evening sky: a signal from Black Lotus, calling for extraction. Two of the Comanche choppers swept in and took up a hovering perimeter over the missile site, their nose-mounted chain guns blazing. Seeing the opening, Echo Goat's Nighthawk wheeled around and descended.
Parker kept watch through his scope as Adilet and Black Lotus emerged from within the missile control bunker. They were half-shrouded in the dust whipped up by overhead rotors, but Parker could still glimpse the blue scarves around their necks and arms, marking them as friendlies.
He watched his teammates crouch-run together to a nearby storage shed, where they retrieved the two American hostages. The two supported the limping civilians between them as they exited the site. Keller's Nighthawk was already landing, ramp down and ready.
The LZ was beside the burning wreckage that the A-10s had annihilated. As Parker's scope tracked his teammates toward the ramp, he spotted a rumour of movement within the smoke and dust of a wrecked Technical. The vehicle had been shredded, and its gunner was missing his right leg, pinned by jagged metal. Yet through the smoke, Parker watched him suck in a breath and lift a pistol towards Black Lotus in a final act of defiance.
Parker breathed deep, corrected for the wind and the smoke, and squeezed the trigger. His bullet punched through the smoke and into the dying man's chest. The pistol dropped from his target's hand, unfired.
Black Lotus startled for a moment, seeing a dead body loll from a destroyed vehicle. Then she gave an appreciative nod toward the hills where Parker lay. Echo Leopard boarded the chopper, hostages safely in tow.
Halfway there, Parker thought. Now we just need to get Doc and King, and-
The whistle of an incoming mortar cut through his thoughts. Parker covered his head as the shell burst. Slivers of shrapnel slashed through the trees nearby, shaking snow down from their branches.
Someone in the base had finally figured out there was a sniper in the hills, and they clearly knew their shit. The next shells would probably land on his head.
No more slow, patient moves. Parker scrambled up, grabbed his kit, and hauled ass down the hill. Another shell detonated behind him, close enough that he could hear the splinters ripping at the scrub and trees around him. The noise made him grin wider, his heart drumming joyfully in his chest as he skipped over a fallen log.
He heard more mortar shells incoming, and beneath their screech, the buzz of motorcycle motors. Was that the sound of enemy troops heading into the hills to hunt him down? Parker hoped it was. He really, really did.
He'd beaten Jarmen Kell and helped save a bunch of people, and once he reached his secondary position he could get back to seeing how many more kills he could rack up. For Parker, it was a good day.
Underground, a lull in violence had finally fallen over the embattled training room. Lieutenant Toyama panted through her gas mask as she loaded the last magazine into her borrowed AK rifle, while Ben 'King' Solomon thumbed fresh shells into his combat shotgun. Both soldiers wore blue armbands to identify themselves to their rescuers… if they were rescued.
The fake airplane no longer looked like an airplane: the plywood and foam mock-up had been shot to ribbons during the firefight. Bullets and shrapnel had ripped away the room's mask, revealing stark grey rock beneath like bone peeking through skin. The metal 'serving cart' that James Seabury and his interpreter Oybek Uzoqov were hiding behind was the only part of the room still intact. At least a dozen GLA fighters had died trying to overwhelm Echo Wolf and the hostages.
A fog of poisonous gas tinted the world a sickly yellow through the goggles of her gas mask. Toyama finished reloading, double-checked the seals on her hazard gear, and then turned to do the same for the two civilians. No leaks. Yet.
In that moment, the only noises were King and Toyama panting, the moans of the injured hostages, and someone in the corpse-clogged hallway choking on their last breath. Then a voice broke the silence, calling down the hall in Chinese-accented English.
"Hold fire! Friendlies! Sergeant Fang, Chinese Anvil Battalion. We're here to rescue you!"
Toyama released a relieved sigh, and started to stand up. Then she felt King's hand on her arm.
"Beijing!" He called back, shotgun ready.
The countersign had been established before the mission. But planning for Operation Caduceus had been hasty, and the countersign prep was no exception. Maybe not everyone had gotten the word.
Footsteps. Getting closer.
Lifting her head, Toyama peered through the toxic fog, squinting at the three advancing silhouettes. She glimpsed Chinese uniforms. Each man wore a gas mask and carried a Chinese battle rifle, bayonet fixed. Fang kept shouting.
"Hold fire! Hold fire!" He said something in Mandarin that Toyama couldn't understand.
"I said Beijing, damn it!" King yelled.
"Friendlies! Friendlies! Frie-"
King fired at the same instant that Fang's squad raised their rifles. The shotgun's pellets ripped Fang's stomach open like a pouch filled with red sauce. He lurched forward, stumbled over a dead GLA member, and fell on his face across the doorway, halfway between the hallway and in the room. A bullet cracked over Toyama's head and punched through the cart shielding the hostages, who screamed in terror. King's shotgun boomed twice more. The other two soldiers fell dead.
Toyama had to remind herself to keep breathing. She had frozen rather than risk harming an ally. She stared at Fang, thinking: multiple gunshot wounds to lower abdomen. Severe trauma to internal organs, massive internal bleeding. Extreme pain.
"He's GLA," King insisted, keeping his shotgun pointed. "I got briefed on all Thrax's top guys. Must be 'Fever,' his infiltrator."
Fang - or Fever - lifted his head. His mask had cracked, and he wheezed as the pellets in his gut raced the gas blistering his lungs to see which would kill him first.
"Filth. You… won't leave… alive…"
"Neither will you." King drew his sidearm and shot Fever in the head.
Toyama turned and checked that the whimpering hostages were still safe. The bullet had pierced their cover, missing the two civilians by inches. She sighed with relief once again.
"You saved us," she said.
He just shrugged. "It's what I do. 'Sides, I promised Jim, remember?"
Before she could say anything, fresh gunfire announced that the GLA knew their ploy had failed. Counting her bullets, firing one round at a time to conserve her last magazine, Toyama returned to the fray.
Back aboard the chopper, Solomon and Adilet tended to their two rescued hostages. The civilians were in immense pain from their broken ankles. The cameraman Marvin Cyr was on the verge of passing out, his normally florid face drawn and pale. Kevin Handler was chewing his lip to keep from screaming.
We need Toyama, Solomon thought. We're home free once we've gotten her and Ben, with the last two hostages.
He listened to information flowing through the comms net, and silently thanked God that the fragile Chinese-American coalition was hanging together in the chaos. The air bombardment was over, and the ground troops were now moving in.
China's elite 'Anvil' troops had deployed from their Helixes in force, tasked with clearing the base building by building, room by room. Their squads now surrounded the few GLA structures still standing, flaying them with suppressing fire from miniguns and battle rifles, backed by the chin-mounted rotary cannons of the Helixes. They'd already reported destroying a mortar team on the roof of the lab, spattering the men with a hail of rapid-fire shells.
Colonel Burton's 'Achilles' Special Forces unit was also on the field. The Americans were cautiously descending into the warren of booby-trapped and ambush-riddled tunnels beneath the base. Their task was to rescue Echo Wolf and their hostages, then kill or capture Doctor Thrax himself. Both Chinese and American soldiers were equipped with biohazard gear, to counter the poisons and diseases piled throughout the base.
"Black Lotus, coordinate with Iron Tiger," he ordered the hacker, who already had her laptop open. "I don't want any friendly fire when Echo Wolf exfils."
Lotus didn't respond. Solomon glanced at her, and thought that he'd never seen her face so tense and rigid before. She looked distracted, even emotional, and her hand was pressed hard to her ear. Solomon wondered whether she was getting bad news from General Liang's Command Centre.
Solomon frowned and began to say something, but his next words were drowned out by a sonic boom, followed immediately by a crashing detonation and the rumble of a collapsing building.
"Fuck me!" Keller exclaimed. "Toyama's gonna be pissed."
Toyama would be more than pissed. Toyama would be furious. Toyama had clearly marked the base Supply Centre with an infrared strobe to protect the dozens of defenseless workers inside, at Adilet's request. That Supply Centre was now a jagged, crumbled ruin, shattered by the armour-piercing ordnance of an Aurora supersonic bomber. Unless the workers within had fled into the tunnels, nothing could have survived that devastation.
Seeing the devastation, Adilet cursed fiercely in Russian. Solomon wondered how many of the workers he had known personally.
"Son of a bitch," Solomon fumed. "Echo Goat to Pinpoint, check fire, repeat, check fire! Civilians are- damn!"
Echo Goat's luck ran out moments after the Supply Centre's did. Keller was distracted from the bombing, and he had gotten used to the helicopter's cutting-edge Point Defense Lasers intercepting incoming rockets. But the GLA men still fighting were hardened veterans, men who knew adaptability and improvisation. Men who, in the mayhem of a losing battle, could still find an idea: namely that the accursed American aircraft might be unable to stop two projectiles aimed at the same spot at the same time.
The two militants coordinated their attack perfectly, launching their RPGs near-simultaneously into the chopper's rear. The first rocket was intercepted by the helicopter's rear-mounted Point Defense Laser.
The second wasn't.
The helicopter lurched hideously. Solomon braced himself, barely keeping his footing. Alarms screamed in his ear. Air whistled through shrapnel-torn holes in the chopper's side. Smoke billowed through the compartment. Lotus hugged her laptop before it could fly from her hands. The two injured hostages were hurled to the floor, howling in pain.
And Adilet moaned as he slumped down, hands clutching at his side, blood seeping between his fingers.
"Engine's fucked!" Keller yelled. "I gotta set down!"
Solomon didn't respond, trusting Keller to handle the machine. Lotus knelt by Adilet, speaking to him in Russian, while Solomon saw to the hostages. The inside of the chopper smelled of blood and smoke.
Now we really need Toyama, he thought, as the helicopter dropped downward alongside his stomach.
Direct assault had failed. Gas had failed. Trickery had failed. Toyama waited to see what the GLA would try next.
Beside her, King tapped his radio twice more, then shook his head. "They're jamming us. We're cut off."
Toyama nodded and wished he'd spoken more quietly. The news was hard enough on her. She felt like she'd been fighting for hours, with no way of knowing when relief would arrive. She could imagine how the two civilians were feeling right now.
The whole situation felt too much like the Sinai Massacre. Once again, it was just her and a Solomon against seemingly the entire GLA. Once again, she was down to her last rounds against an enemy that just kept coming. Once again, she had nowhere to run.
For a moment, she thought she could smell cooking meat through the stale air of her gas mask. The smell of her comrades' bodies, burning in the shattered APC.
"Shit," King said. "Clever bastards."
A terrible scraping racket clamoured down the hall towards them. Through the gas-fog, Toyama could see a sheet of rusty, bolted-together scrap metal being shoved into the hallway, salvaged from some vehicle or structure, large enough for infantry to shelter behind. The makeshift shield squealed as it began sliding down the hall towards them, pushing forward the bodies of previous attackers like a clunky bulldozer. A hand poked above the shield and sprayed their position with a machine-pistol, keeping their heads down as the enemy came.
In the last days of the 20th century, moments after the first combat use of a space-borne directed-energy weapon, the GLA had reinvented the ancient shield wall to protect their troops. And it was working.
"I'm out of grenades," King whispered. "Ideas?"
Officer school hadn't covered gas-choked hallways and bulletproof corpse-bulldozers. Toyama tried to think. They couldn't attack around the shield. They couldn't shoot through it. And they had nowhere to retreat.
"We have to let them get close," she said. "Then storm them. It will have to be hand-to-hand."
King cocked his head at her. Then he smiled behind his mask.
"No wonder Jim likes you. Okay Lieutenant, let's do it."
Toyama nodded to him, trying to look as confident as he sounded. She was fully aware that she weighed a hundred and twenty pounds, that she hadn't practiced her judo in years, and that she'd be fighting men who were bigger than her, stronger than her, and liked to decapitate people with knives.
Just as she was turning to explain to the hostages what was coming, she heard a new noise from down the hall. From behind the shield, there was a sharp gasp, followed by a choking gurgle, and what sounded like a scuffle.
As she watched, the shield toppled forward, clanging to the ground. Behind it, holding a dripping combat knife in hand, was a masked figure in American uniform, standing over a fresh mound of dead GLA. This time, Toyama kept her weapon ready and shouted the challenge herself.
"Beijing!"
"Chang'an." It was Colonel Burton's voice. Toyama would never have expected to be so glad to see him, or the Ranger troops sweeping into the hall behind him.
Ben lowered his shotgun. "You're just in time. Good to see you, Colonel."
"King." Burton's mask nodded to his former right-hand man, a little stiffly. He wiped his knife clean, then sheathed it and took up his assault rifle.
Toyama rose to her feet. "Colonel Burton. The hostages are badly injured. They need medical attention right away!"
"Take 'em, Bravo."
Burton gestured, and four of his men moved up to get the two civilians up and ready to evacuate.
She moved to follow the hostages, but Burton held up a hand.
"You're with us," he said firmly. " We're short a medic. You'll back us up while we push for Gasbag."
"That wasn't the plan," Toyama protested. "I should help the hostages-"
"This isn't a debate." Burton's voice hardened.
Toyama looked to King for support, but Ben's priorities were elsewhere.
"What happened to Hendricks?" He asked.
"KIA." Burton's voice was grim. "Demo trap in a tunnel, loaded with toxins. It was ugly." King bowed his head while Burton continued. "Look, right now we need to focus on taking Gasbag while we've got the chance."
King shook his head, then looked to Toyama.
"Come on," he said softly. "Help us finish this shit."
She was tired. And filthy. And low on ammunition. But she still nodded.
"Let's go get him," she said.
Someone handed her a fresh rifle. As she checked it, she realized something: James Seabury had observed that entire exchange. The reporter's gaze had been clouded by fear and pain, but she suspected that those eyes still saw much. And he would recognize the brief dissension as being very unusual for a US Special Forces unit.
One thing at a time, she thought. Right now, she had to help the Americans take down the most wanted man in the world.
Above Toyama's head, Black Lotus felt her heart squirm in her chest as the dying helicopter wobbled toward the ground, engines whining. The aerial emergency was less distressing than what General Liang had said to her, after Lotus did not launch the Scud missiles at the American base as ordered.
You've failed for the last time. The Tigress' voice had been cold, the words bitten off. You will never see China again.
The General had cut contact. Lotus expected that if she ever heard that voice again, it would involve a trial or an execution.
Focus, she told herself. Do your job. The mission mattered, not her personal feelings.
She brushed a stray hair back into place, then carefully opened her laptop. It was a struggle to guide her fingers in the shaking, swaying environment. She accessed a map of the operating area, did some quick mental math, then banged in a pre-prepared shortcut.
"Brace yourselves!" Keller yelled. The aircraft lurched a final time, then dropped.
The helicopter slammed down onto the ground, upright and more or less intact. Its tortured motors finally quieted as Keller cut the power. He leaned back, sighing.
"Not bad, eh?" He said proudly. "Any landing you can fucking walk away from, that's what I-"
A spiderweb cracked through the glass of the cockpit, radiating around a bullet hole. Keller flung himself to the side. More bullets followed, barely missing his head. Fluff filled the air as they chewed into the foam of the pilot's seat.
"Enemy infantry, twelve o'clock!" Solomon yelled as he reached up to grab a Raptor assault rifle from the netting over his head. "Keller, drop the ramp! I'll hold them off. Lotus, you get Adilet and the hostages out of here."
"Heroics are unnecessary, Captain." Her voice sounded right to her. She sounded in control, and that gave her confidence as she dropped to the floor and covered her head. "I suggest taking cover."
Solomon gave her a quizzical look, then trusted her. As she had known he would. The Captain covered the civilians with his body and waited.
The enemy got closer. More shooting. The cockpit window shattered into shards of glass, raining down on Keller's prone body. Someone outside yelled for them to surrender.
Then there was a roaring from overhead, a tremendous crash, and an explosion. Suddenly there was no more shooting.
Solomon lifted his head and blinked, hard. Lotus knew what he would see: A broken white cross sticking out of the ground just in front of the chopper, buried halfway into the ground like a giant dart hurled from the sky. The fallen American scout drone had crashed directly on top of the advancing GLA.
Sitting up, Keller brushed glass off himself, straightened his bent sunglasses, and gaped. "How the fuck?"
"GLA tactics follow certain patterns." Lotus explained as she kept working, checking Adilet's wound as the engineer gritted his teeth. "And American cybersecurity is weak. I predicted the enemy would converge on our position, and took appropriate action."
"By dropping a drone on their heads." Solomon shook his head admiringly. "You had a backdoor in the system all ready to go, didn't you? Agent Lotus, I am glad you're on our team."
"So am I, Captain," she said, keeping her head down and face still. "So am I."
The deeper Toyama got into the tunnels, the more narrow and twisted they became. The GLA had built their network with dead-ends, choke points, and murder holes cut into the rock. Every step that Burton's Rangers took exposed new angles of attack. Still they pressed on, shooting their way through ambushes with practiced skill.
Sandwiched in the middle of the American formation, Lieutenant Toyama tried to keep track of where they were, but soon found herself hopelessly lost. These twisty passages all looked alike, and the flickering flash of automatic weapons fire made light and shadow dance around her in a bewildering rhythm. She felt less like a participant in the battle than she did a piece of debris, being carried along by the flow of a bloody underground river.
Colonel Burton and his unit seemed to know just where they were going. King had dropped back into his previous role like he had never left, always at Burton's side. Toyama couldn't help but compare the Rangers' smooth, efficient maneuvers to Echo Nine's own rough improvisations. The Rangers were an oiled machine. Echo Nine was a jigsaw puzzle found at a garage sale, whose pieces had been grabbed out of different boxes and assembled in the dark.
Something else didn't fit. While they fought many guards, there were no more booby traps like the one that had killed Hendricks, the American medic. Or rather, they found several such traps, but someone had already disabled them, shutting down their detonators and cutting their wires with precision.
Burton had brushed it off as evidence that Chinese forces had entered the tunnels to seize the glory of taking down Doctor Thrax themselves. Toyama wasn't so sure. It felt more like someone unseen wanted them to reach Thrax, for their own purposes.
"This is it," Burton said. "It's about time."
A doorway up ahead, a black rectangle cut in the rock, lit by a flickering bulb overhead. Only one way in or out. Someone threw a flash-bang through, and then Burton led the way into the command room. Inside, Toyama finally saw Doctor Thrax with her own eyes.
Everyone else was dead. Blood had been sprayed across the strategic maps on the wall and the weapons diagrams on the table. At least six men in green GLA garb were sprawled on the floor or slumped in their chairs. The only man still standing was Doctor Thrax, perched on top of a desk as though he had suddenly jumped up to dance at a wild party. A machine pistol was jammed into the front of his pants, like a teenaged gangster planning a drive-by.
He wore the same green camo jacket as his file photo, and his scarf hung over his shoulders, exposing his face for the first time. Toyama was surprised that the world's most dangerous terrorist looked so young. He couldn't have been much older than Toyama herself, and his features would have been striking if not for the pox-scars and boils erupting across them. His dark eyes burned feverishly, and his mouth was twisted in a snarl.
"Stop right there, Colonel Burton!" The enemy General's voice was harsh, ragged, like he'd been coughing for a long time. He held a detonator aloft, his thumb pressing its red switch. "I release this little button, and you'll all become my latest test subjects. My special Gamma sarin is right here… plus a little acid to melt your precious hazmat suits."
Thrax's free hand patted the bomb vest beneath his jacket. Strapped across his chest was a row of alternating green and purple canisters attached over yellow blocks of plastic explosive, with a tangle of red wire running through his sleeve to the detonator in his hand.
"Keep it cool," Burton ordered. His voice didn't waver.
The Americans spread throughout the room, stepping over bodies and overturned furniture, forming a semicircle of assault rifles, all pointed at the Doctor. Toyama was the only one who didn't raise her weapon. She looked at the bodies. Most of them had been shot in the back.
"Your own men," she said softly.
"My men? Ha!" Thrax sneered. "Your spies! Traitors, everywhere! You think I'm a fool? I know how you found me!"
Burton started to say something, but Thrax cut him off with a scream.
"I want immunity! Immunity, and an airplane out of here! Or-" he waved the detonator again. His free hand pulled down his shirt, revealing more wires suctioned to his chest.
"You think you'll die alone? Look at this heartbeat monitor! Bombs in my lab, ready to burst. My beautiful missiles, their warheads brimming with toxin. I die, and everyone goes with me!"
"You're bluffing," Burton growled.
"Pah! Typical American. You think everyone else is as cowardly as you. And you!" Now his gaze fell on Toyama. She fought the urge to look away. "Ah, my fellow Doctor. You don't like my practice?"
She thought of Adilet, of the workers in the Supply Centre, of the dead in Beijing, of what sarin and anthrax did to human bodies. Slowly, she shook her head.
"You know nothing, girl." Thrax kept talking feverishly, tripping over his own words, so fast Toyama could barely follow him. "You never saw the slums as I did. Disease, sewage, death! Why not share it with the world? Why shouldn't I make you all feel the same pain?"
He pointed accusingly, sweeping his finger over the room.
"Idiots! You think that you beat me? You're just a distraction for them… as I was." Burton tried to say something, but Thrax's cry drowned him out, loud and shrill. "We are all their pawns!"
Listening to him rant, Toyama wondered which possibility was more frightening: that the terrorist was completely deranged… or that he might actually know more than anyone else even suspected.
Adilet needed to be evacuated, Solomon thought. The engineer had fallen unconscious, and something foul-smelling and probably toxic coated the bloody shrapnel lodged in his side. Solomon frowned down at him, wishing for Toyama.
"Captain," Lotus called. "Reinforcements have arrived."
"Beijing!" Someone yelled from outside.
"Chang'an!" Solomon called back. "I'm coming out!"
Leaving the chopper, he found himself face-to-face with a platoon of Chinese soldiers… and Lance Corporal Nick Parker, who had somehow come down from the hills and acquired a Chinese minigun in the process.
"Hey Cap," Parker said, hoisting the chain gun like a trophy. "Check it out! My new buddies brought enough to share."
Behind Solomon, Lotus emerged from the helicopter and spoke with the Chinese unit's leader, a big Anvil battalion trooper with his own minigun and an eyepatch on his left side. Solomon recognized him from the aftermath of the Beijing attack: Master Sergeant Chen, who'd lost an eye to Jarmen Kell's sniping. Chen had featured prominently in state media broadcasts rallying the Chinese people: the brave and loyal soldier, who survived the attack and recovered the strength to avenge its victims.
Trusting Lotus to arrange medical assistance for Adilet and the hostages, Solomon stepped forward to meet his sniper.
"Good to see you, Parker. I thought you were still up in the hills."
Parker shrugged. "I saw the chopper going down and thought someone needed to come save you. So I killed a bunch of motorcycle guys, grabbed a ride into the base, crashed a little bit, and then met up with Sergeant Chen here. I would have rescued you all single-handedly, but…"
He trailed off, pointing at the crashed drone that Lotus had slammed down onto their enemies.
"It's the thought that counts," Solomon said dryly.
Technically Parker had disobeyed orders to stop sniping and come charging into the base to rescue the team. But Solomon knew he would personally have done the same thing in Parker's place. And now that Parker was here, Solomon could use his help.
Lotus appeared behind him, wiping some of Adilet's blood off her sleeves. "Captain. Lance Corporal. Master Sergeant Chen will evacuate our wounded to medical attention. I suggest I accompany them, for translation."
Solomon nodded. "Approved. Take Keller with you. Parker and I will push underground to link up with Echo Wolf. We'll rendezvous once we've got our people… and Thrax."
Lotus nodded, and turned to Parker. "Jarmen Kell?"
Parker just grinned and mimed a gun firing with his thumb and forefinger.
A faint smile darted across Lotus' face. "Well done. Thank you, Parker."
Then she turned back to Solomon, and stepped closer to whisper to him.
"Chen tells me the base is almost secured." She pointed at the palace-like laboratory, its guns now silent. Squinting in the evening gloom, Solomon could make out a red Chinese flag flapping atop the roof.
"However, we are not the only forces involved here," she added. "Chinese Listening Posts picked up chatter about a woman spotted to the north, just after you signaled the attack. We haven't confirmed her identity or allegiance."
Solomon frowned. "Noted. We need to consider that the 'Brotherhood' might use this as an opportunity to target Thrax again. Look into it, and keep me updated."
He looked to Parker. "You and me, 'Havoc.' Let's find us a tunnel."
"Bring 'em on!" Parker gripped his new chaingun with feral glee. "I got a present for them."
Down below, Doctor Thrax had a present for his enemies as well. He was holding forth at length on the beautiful engineering of his sarin gas, the exquisite sensitivity of his deadman's switch trigger mechanism, the excruciating potency of the acid laced in with the vest, and the personal touch represented by the vials of anthrax mixed in with the payload.
"I'd die happy if this bastard would shut up," King muttered, close enough for Toyama to hear. True to his promise, Ben Solomon hadn't budged from his position, keeping himself between Toyama and the blast that could erupt at any moment.
Toyama realized that she had to do something, however little she wanted to. Thrax wasn't backing down, and neither was Burton. The Colonel's negotiating tactics seemed to consist of growling "Give it up!" Or "It's over, punk!" At regular intervals. This only prompted more demands from Thrax: for escape, for immunity, for a billion dollars, for a Nobel Prize.
She wondered how much of Doctor Thrax's raving was madness and how much of it was method. Despite his heated words, she thought she could see something cooler and calculating behind his eyes. And she could imagine that acting insane and unpredictable could be valuable if you were trying to terrorize people into meeting your demands before you killed them with nerve gas.
A true madman could not have raised and led such a large army among the region's warlords, could not have built a secret nerve gas program or assembled advanced ballistic missiles, could not have infiltrated China's capital and played two superpowers off against each other. Toyama suspected that there was more to this man than the spittle flying from his lips.
"Doctor," she said. "You said we were a distraction. A distraction for who?"
Thrax cut off mid-rant and gave her a surprised look. Then a sickly grin grew across his face.
"Ah, curious now? There's so much I could teach you! You think I'm the face of evil? I'm just what you can see."
He waved the detonator again, and Toyama's heart froze for a moment when it looked like his thumb might slip off the button.
"I know what's coming," Doctor Thrax said. "I've seen into the shadows. A new disease growing, spreading across the entire world! They've planned this for centuries! They're everywhere! They're he-errrnnngh!"
It happened fast, faster than Toyama could follow. One moment Thrax was talking and waving. The next, something sharp stabbed through his chest, something hazy that she couldn't quite focus on. For a moment, Toyama glimpsed a shimmering, silhouetted figure behind Thrax, like a desert mirage. But it was real enough to pierce the man… and rupture the pressurized canisters of sarin nerve gas on his chest.
Green vapour hissed into his face. Thrax gasped, inhaling his own poison. Toyama saw his horror as he realized that he was already dead. He twitched, spasmed, choked.
And then, his trembling hand betraying him, he dropped the detonator.
"Down!"
King tackled her to the ground, just as Toyama's world was swallowed by the roar of the explosion and the screams of the dying.
A/N: Morelli will later become GDI's air commander in the First Tiberium War. Her current 'Mojo' call-sign is a Yuri's Revenge reference. Nod's cyborg commando who has been hunting Thrax was first introduced during 'Rain in the Night.'
Sergeant Chen previously appeared during the attack on Beijing, where he lost an eye to Jarmen Kell. Chang'an Avenue was the location of the Beijing attack in Chapter 5: 'Our Day Has Come.'
Thank you very much for reading and for following the story this far, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Next time, we'll discover the consequences of Thrax's death for Echo Nine and the world, as Nod and GDI forces battle face-to-face for the first time!