Myke Cole - Shadow Ops - Control Point

He dropped the ATTD in front of the stainless-steel surface of the industrial chiller. He swept his eyes past the Goblin corpses in their various states of dissection and his eyes alighted on a rack of winter parkas bolted to one of the tent-support rods that held up the cold chamber. He snatched three and pushed himself back through the gate, collapsing beside Therese again.

He managed to lift his head and shut the gate.

But not before the flash of orange shocked his eyes and the low growl of the explosive shock wave whispered faintly in his ears, the tremors sending him off into peaceful blackness.

He gave up the fight and surrendered to it.

Because he had escaped FOB Frontier.

Because, at long last, he was free.

You can dress it up any way you like, cover it with laws and fancy proclamations. None of it can change the truth, which is simply this: you’re terrified. Humans are in the presence of creatures that look just like them but are to them as humans are to insects. This is why the SOC is so utterly disgusting. Why the hell would you work for cockroaches? They should be working for us. Hell, they should be slaving for us. And, in time, they will.

—“Render,” Houston St. Selfers

Recorded “Message for SOC Sorcerers” distributed

on the Internet and the streets of New York City

They lay in silence for a few minutes before Britton shook himself and stumbled to his feet. He shrugged the parka over his shoulders and tossed one to Therese. She helped Marty into his, draping it over his oversized head so he looked like a small child bundled up for the cold. He winced at the touch of the ground, lifting the splayed toes of his thickly callused feet, but there was nothing to be done.

Therese placed her hand on Britton’s chest and he could feel the magic beginning to do its work again. “Just let me double-check…” she said.

After a moment, she raised her hands to his shoulders. “Oscar, you’ve got to send me back.”

He shrugged off his exhaustion, pushed through the pain. “What? I just got us out of there.”

Therese shook her head. “There are sick people, hurt people. I have to help. You’re safe now, but I’m not going to run with you. They need me there, Oscar.”

You have no idea, Britton thought. The sounds of explosions and gunfire echoed through his head. He could picture the Goblins swarming through the collapsed perimeter. They are going to need you more than ever now.

“Therese, you can’t. They’ll kill you. How long do you think it’s going to take them to figure out how I got the ATTD out? Do you honestly think they’ll turn a blind eye to that?”

Therese nodded. “Maybe they won’t figure it out,” she whispered. “Maybe I can explain.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. What do you think they’re going to do?”

She shook her head. “Oscar, what the hell was going on there? Something was happening, something started this all off.”

Britton was silent. He looked at his lap. She shook his shoulders. “Tell me, damn it.

“There’s a problem, isn’t there? People are being hurt.”

He nodded.

“Send me back,” she said firmly. “I have to help.”

His heart caught in his throat as the image of the intact Quonset huts flooded his brain. They stood, untouched, in the middle of the devastated SASS. The occupants were still inside, Britton knew. Swift, Pyre, Peapod. Tsunami. Wavesign. The Goblins would be pouring over that ground first.

And that wasn’t even counting the other Goblins, Marty’s tribesmen who worked on the FOB. Would they be punished for helping Marty escape? Maybe. But there were hundreds of them spread all over the FOB. Britton knew he couldn’t save them all.

But the SASS enrollees were all in one place, and that was a start.

“You want to help?” Britton asked. “Help me.”

He stood up, shaking slightly, exhaustion gripping him.

“Where are we going? What are we doing?” she asked.

“Marty”—Britton looked down at the little Goblin—“I need you to stay here.” He shuddered to think of what would become of the creature, stranded on the Home Plane, if they didn’t return for him.

Marty shook his head. “Come with you,” he said.

“Oscar, what’s this about?” Therese asked.

“Marty,” Britton said. “Please. Just sit tight and don’t move. You won’t be able to help us where we’re going, and I can’t stand having gotten you out of there only to get you killed. I promise I’ll be back.” What if you’re not? “I promise.” He unclipped his pocketknife and handed it to the Goblin. It looked larger in his small hands, but still woefully inadequate.

“I’ll be back.” He turned to Therese. “I freed Scylla,” he said. “I thought I had to. I was a fool. She gutted the FOB like a piece of rotten fruit. I don’t know how bad it is, but I assume the neighboring Goblin tribes are hitting it hard right now. That’s what all that noise was. She left the SASS enrollees alive, but they’re right in the path of the advance. If there’s any chance of helping anyone, Therese, it should be them. I’m not happy that the SOC has a fight on its hands, or that people are going to be hurt, but I’ll be damned if I’m going back to them again. You want to help someone? Help me help Wavesign and the rest of them. I put them in this position, but the SOC put us all in it first. I can’t undo what I’ve done, but I can try to fix some of it, and I can do it better with your help.”

She stared at him, mouth gaping. “Please, Therese,” he said. “There’s no time. We need to go right now. I don’t even know if they’re still alive, but we’ve got to try.”

“Goddamn it, Oscar.”

“You want to chew me out? Fine. Do it later.” He opened a gate just outside the scattered remains of Scylla’s pillbox. “Now or never,” he said. He jumped through without looking back.

But when he looked up, Therese was behind him.

And the Quonset huts were still standing, awash in a sea of Goblins.

The battle had pushed on beyond the SASS’s borders. Britton could make out army fire teams in the distance, firing from behind the cover of a few armored personnel carriers. Apaches wheeled overhead. Aeromancers danced in between them. The sky was clouded with Rocs, circling over the fray, their backs loaded with Goblin crews discharging clouds of javelins on the battle below them. Squadrons of wolf-borne Goblins charged among the soldiers, swinging halberds. White-chalked sorcerers ran in their midst, their flowing currents sensible to Britton even from that distance. As Britton watched, one armored personnel carrier was engulfed in magical fire. The ball turret gunner leapt screaming from it, beating at the flames. A dull thud heralded the arrival of a mortar round, bursting in the midst of the advancing Goblins, sending a few spiraling into the air. Britton crouched as the shrapnel tore in his direction, but he was too far away to be harmed.

A helicopter flew low over the fight, miniguns blazing. A white-painted Goblin sorcerer spread his arms and the earth erupted into a lurching spike that clipped the spinning rotors, sending the helo spinning erratically into the line of APCs, exploding in a bright ball of flame.

He heard Therese suck in her breath beside him. Later, he thought. For now, do what you can.

Swift floated above the Quonset huts. A few of the enrollees had gathered around the No-No Crew on the roof. A big, bearded man in cargo pants lifted a Goblin over his head and threw him down into the crowd below. Swift spread his arms, and lightning cracked among them, sending them scattering. Wavesign knelt on the curved dome, his perennial rain cloud gone. He managed short bursts of carefully controlled magic, sharp tendrils of ice that spread to scattering storms as they buffeted the Goblins below, driving them back. The stress of the conflict had again focused the young Hydromancer’s magic, and Britton marveled as the shards of deadly ice rained down on the throng. The havoc seemed to have had the opposite effect on Tsunami. She crouched behind Wavesign, hugging her arms around herself, crying. Pyre swept his arms over his head, sending balls of fire arcing down into the mass. A few met targets among the Goblins that gripped the Quonset hut’s superstructure, trying to scale it. Peapod gestured, and earth exploded in the midst of the Goblins, a gaping crater that sucked dozens of them in, burying them as the ground coiled on itself and closed back up, chomping like hungry teeth. A javelin burst from the throng and caught another enrollee in the chest. He fell screaming off the roof, disappearing into the surging mass below.