Dateline: Gondwana, Chapter 6

Chapter 6: All Squads, Move Out!

General Nikolai Sobakov woke up seeing stars. He had slipped and fallen during the journey back, and was wondering what he was doing away from the Sugar Factory, where he was supposed to meet with the Vladivostok Worker’s Committee Supervisor. The trip was a rush of pain for him, and his body couldn’t take much more abuse. He was fifty five years old – not the young and powerful SpetsNaz operative he used to be. He sat up, feeling his head. He wasn’t bleeding, at least, but he felt like he had been hit by a truck, or a battering ram – or maybe even a truck with a battering ram for a hood ornament.
Kazansky’s voice came to him as a faint echo. “Glorious Comrade Chairman! Glorious Comrade Chairman! Are you all right?”
“Gemmeouttahere…” was all he could mumble. Chem troopers and medics had surrounded the Chairman, and were now trying to get him safely to a hospital or a medical bay – despite reports from security that a big, orange rock-like thing had escaped from the facility. None of the Army’s “glorious and heroic” defense groups had mobilized yet, partly because the Chairman wasn’t around to issue orders to his Chiefs of Staff. The other reason was because the entire Red Army was SNAFU.
When Sobakov awoke, he found himself in a medical bay inside the facility, with soldiers standing guard outside his room and medics checking on his vitals. Major Kazansky walked up to him, saluted the highest holder of power in all Krasnorussia, and said, “Permission to speak, Glorious Comrade Chairman.” The Chairman raised a hand and said, “Enough with the ‘glorious’. It’s enough torture that I have to hear that everyday. Comrade Chairman will do for now – or better yet, Comrade General.” The Chairman of the Armed Forces of Krasnorussia was feeling a little more than a slight headache today, and the reduction in the formalities helped ease the pain. He didn’t want to think that he was still in his office – with all the paperwork and the jittery officers telling him what went wrong – it was a psychologist’s textbook definition of a “stressful environment.”
“Alright, Comrade General – as you wish. We hate to bother you in your present condition, but I’m afraid this is a matter of national security.” Kazansky said, in his most formal tone. “Captain Doctor Voronov here will explain.”
Voronov looked up from a clipboard he was reading and said, “Comrade General, you were about to be the victim of an assassination, and we pulled you out of the hostile zone just before the assassin’s bullet struck, but in doing so, we have brought others back with you.”
“Spare me the details, captain.” said the Chairman. “Get down to business – what’s the real problem?”
“We may have a thirty-foot-high monster loose on Vladivostok.”
A long pause followed.
"A thirty-foot-high monster? What is this, some sort of joke?" the Chairman said in a half-jovial tone.
"This is no joke, Comrade General. It broke out of the wormhole, and it's coming through the Pervaya Reshka area."
"If this is no joke then... Do we have anything that can stop it?
"Nothing that's guaranteed to work. Most of our men are fighting the White Russians - several hundreds of miles from here."
"Then we must use our last resort..."
"You mean the SSRMa-05 ICBM's, Comrade General? With all due respect, we'll be blowing ourselves to hell..."
“We have no other choice, major. We can move the civilians into the old bomb shelters downtown. These men here will find a shelter for. Major Kazansky – you’re in charge of the operation. Godspeed, major.”
“It will be an honor to serve you, sir.” Kazansky said with a salute.

Meanwhile, Murad al’Khefar lay sprawled amidst the rubble on the cement floor of the test chamber. No one had come to give him medical aid, as they were more concerned over the health of General Sobakov – the ‘glorious and heroic leader’ of their country. But now, as he awoke, he found himself completely healed and feeling only but a slight pain in his forehead. He opened his eyes to see the blurry figure of a desert woman, much like himself, wearing a black cloak resembling those worn by the Bedouin. “Nur?” He said, slightly dazed. Nur was the name of his bride-to-be, but she was taken away from him “most violently”, according to his opinion, by an Irish crusader.
The cloaked woman turned away from Murad and spoke to a man in a red cassock nearby. “He is hallucinating, your Majesty. I may apply an anti-hallucinogen, but it may damage his senses.
“It’s worth the risk, Valeri.” said Charnaiz.
Valeri took a tiny vial from her belt and held it under his nose. He coughed violently and shook his head. He then scrambled to his feet, seeing all these faces around him, and grabbed his twin scimitars. The event was startling for him. Charnaiz raised his right hand, making the old Latin peace symbol, and said to him in Turkish, “biz burada -e doğru el uzatmak sen. biz sokulgan. -si olmak sen büyük portakal hayvan gelmek yanında burada?” (We are here to aid you. We are friends. Have you seen a great orange beast come by here?)
Murad sneered, “I assume you have only treated me to extract information from me.” But then he relaxed, “However, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
“Good to hear that.” Charnaiz said, smiling. “Lead us to him, friend.”
With that, Murad rose and coaxed them to follow him through the vehicle exit, where Aquilifon had trampled through the tanks in the garage.

“All right, gentlemen, listen up.” said Kazansky to a band of weary chem troopers, “We have a whopping pain in the ass that is probably en route to the capital building. The Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff himself has given me orders to lead all of you to the nuclear storage facility to launch a miniature nuclear missile. It’ll be my job to activate and launch the device, so try to lay down some cover for me if we ever get there.” The chem troopers responded with stiff salutes and headed for vehicle bay 2, where the BTR-102 APCs lay in the garage.

It was foggy outside, but one could still see that Aquilifon was wreaking indescribable havoc throughout the streets of Vladivostok. Bodies littered the streets, and the sidewalks were pink with blood on the snow. The great Destroyer kept moving onwards towards the city’s new nuclear power plant, hoping to draw some sort of energy from it – why? It was a mystery.
Suddenly, four BTR-102s pulled up dangerously close to the feet of Aquilifon. The people who were left alive rejoiced – the Red Army had finally come to their aid; but their rejoicing was cut short. Aquilifon stopped where he was and crouched to face them. “Please, gentlemen,” he said, “You are wasting your time here. You cannot stop me or interfere with my progress. It is not humanly possible.”
The soldiers responded with gunfire to Aquilifon’s head. The Destroyer furrowed his rocky brow and swept them all away with a great swing of his arm.
Just then, out of the mist, a blast of blue energy came from a rooftop. A man in a red cassock and an orange stole was firing energy beams from the palms of his hands! He was accompanied by a blonde woman who shouted at the top of her lungs, which shattered stone; a Japanese warrior who took hit-and-run slashes at the beast; a mysterious cloaked figure who stood praying over them in the background; and Murad al’Khefar.
“Hey, Voronov.” Kazansky said through his radio.
“Yes, Comrade Major?” replied the captain, who was doing some repairs back at the facility.
“I think I know what happened to that Turkish guy.”
“Yes, sir, I see it too – through your video feed.”
“Wasn’t he supposed to be dead?”
“Badly beaten, sir.”
“Never mind, we might need his assistance anyway.”

Charnaiz, seeing the APCs, flew downwards towards the large green vehicles to greet them. He stopped in front of Major Kazansky’s APC and said, “Major Alexei Mikhailovich! Zdravstvuyitye!”
Kazansky was somewhat confused, and asked the strangely dressed individual, “Who are you – and how do you know my name?”
“We fought together in Gondwana! Ah! The wormhole Aquilifon created must have brought you back to your time! Have you suffered memory loss during your ordeal?”
“What the hell is he talking about?” Kazansky mumbled.
“Never mind, no time for this now – we must vanquish the Destroyer for the safety of this world and all the others!” With that, he flew up once more to Aquilifon.
Kazansky shook his head, “All squads, provide cover for the new arrivals. I think they’re old friends.”
“Roger that sir.” a chem trooper responded, “But uh, please be advised that the target is moving towards the new nuclear power plant. We’re trying our best to hinder his progress, but nothing seems to be working as planned… SNAFU, sir.”
Kazansky groaned and said to himself, “If I hear that word one more time today, I’m gonna explode.”
As Aquilifon ripped through the power lines and kicked around automobiles on his way to the power plant, the sound of a chopper could be heard overhead. It was a Nighthawk-class US Air Force helicopter, and it was firing its machineguns relentlessly at Aquilifon’s face. Several dark figures could be seen rappelling out of the chopper just before Aquilifon swatted it down with an energy blast.
“Attention, members of the glorious and heroic Red Army!” a tinny voice came over the APC radio. It had a heavy Chinese accent.
“Turn on visuals, driver. I wanna get a look at this guy.” Kazansky said. As the monitor was displayed, the face of a Chinese PLA officer appeared on it. “This is Colonel Wu Chou Fang of the glorious and heroic People’s Liberation Army! China is under threat from the animal that you have released from your facility! We are sending in a mercenary group to keep it in check, as our regular army has no jurisdiction here! We will assess your loyalty as an ally after we quell this quandary! Chou Fang out.”
“Well how about that.” Kazansky said, “The Chinese are sending in reinforcements, but they’re gonna kick our butts in the People’s Court later. I hate bureaucracy.”
Another transmission followed. Chou Fang’s face was replaced by that of a Caucasian female in a white French officer’s cap, “Bonjour, major.” She spoke with a slight French accent, “Je suis Lieutenant Nicolette Blanchefleur, former French foreign legion. They call me, “Le Scorpion”, major. I will be leading my strike team according to your orders.”
“Welcome aboard, lieutenant. I believe you can see the problem we have here. Your objective is to prevent the target – the large, orange golem, from reaching the nuclear power plant. Do you understand?”
There was no response. The Scorpion and her men were already on their way towards Aquilifon.
Kazansky shook his head and said over the radio, “Okay people – we’ve received additional reinforcements. Pummel it with everything we’ve got!”
But suddenly, before anyone could respond, the fog became thicker, so thick nobody could see anything! It was smoke – smoke being expelled from seemingly nowhere was covering the streets and brought visibility to zero.
“This is Gefreitor Koshkov to anyone – if you can read me, then please be informed that we have a prob—auughh!” The transmission was caught short by the sound of gunfire.
“What’s going on? Can anyone see anything out there? Anyone?” No answers. The display screen was static, and only more gunfire and a little sword activity could be heard from outside. Then, from the static, a face emerged on the display screen. It had a beard and long, unkempt hair. “Greetings, members of the Red Army.” said the raspy voice. “You have all heard of me on the news – the leader of the Black Army… and now, I am once again in your hair.”
“Arkady Krovin…” Kazansky said. “You’re interfering with an affair of national security. Remove whatever forces you have hidden around here, or prepare to be fired upon.”
“Major Kazansky. It’s good to see you again – so you are the leader of this rag-tag group of fighters?”
“You have twenty seconds before we – “
“Before you what, major? It seems to me that you are not the ones who are capable of calling the shots here. Look around you, major. You can see nothing. My men, however, can see all of you. My snipers can pick your chem troopers off one by one as you hear their screams over the radio. I suggest that you stand down while we relieve this… problem of yours…”
“What, you’re helping us?”
“Goodbye, major.”
As he said this, the display screen went back to static, and the smoke cleared. Aquilifon was gone, though. The chem troopers on the ground and the warriors and mercenaries on the roof stood there, more or less unscathed.
“What the hell was that?” Kazansky said through the radio as he climbed outside to examine the damage.
“We don’t know, sir. Visibility was zero through all that smoke.”
Charnaiz jumped down once again from a rooftop, followed by Valeri, Primrose and Shruiken. “I saw what happened.” He said.
“Yeah right, that’s impossible. Visibility was zero and all our equipment was chaffed. How’d you see anything?”
“The Eye of Balthazar, major. It’s a jewel embedded in my sword, Char Milvian. It can see anything clearly, albeit for a brief period of time.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The Gondwanan king held up the jewel on the sword to his face, and images swirled through it. The jewel depicted Krovin talking with Aquilifon amidst the smoke, and then running off together, after which the image faded away.
“That’s amazing! How’d you do that?”
“Through the magic of the blue iris, major.”
The Scorpion rappelled down from another building together with her men, and reported to Kazansky, “We couldn’t catch him. We could see nothing in the smoke and fog.”
“These guys apparently could.” Kazansky replied, gesturing over to Charnaiz.
“Who are they? They look like a group of circus performers.”
“How dare you talk like that to the king?” Primrose said, unnaturally angry.
“King? I see no king – only a man without a crown in a clown costume!”
“Let her go, my love.” Charnaiz said to Primrose, trying to calm her down.
The Scorpion laughed, saying, “S'il est le roi, alors qui êtes-vous? Sa chienne royale?”
Charnaiz, being a linguist, understood this, and he knew that the Scorpion had just called Primrose the “royal bitch”. He put his hand on the hilt of Char Milvian and prepared to strike, but was stopped by Kazansky.
“That woman is a PLA mercenary. If you touch her, we will regard you as an enemy and will then be required by Krasnorussian law to attack and kill you.”
Charnaiz moved his hand away and glared at Nicolette.
The Frenchwoman put her hand to her mouth and laughed, “Ha ha ha! Clown de cirque.”
Charnaiz’s eye twitched, but he tried to take no more notice of the annoying woman. “I suggest we follow them. They may be planning to aid each other. It is a known fact that when one’s enemies unite, it spells almost certain doom.” He said as he turned to Kazansky.
“We can do that after we formulate a plan on how to do it. But remember that my boys will be keeping an eye on you. I don’t know who you are – but I have a pretty good idea where you came from. You just had to enter that wormhole, didn’t you.”
“I follow my quarry – it’s a rule of the hunt.”
“Uh huh. Yeah, whatever, your majesty.” said the Russian with an air of revulsion. He then climbed back inside the APC and suggested that everyone else come with them back to base for medical treatment and rest. Thinking that this apparent expert had a better idea, he called off the nuke armament.