Marvel Iron Age:
War Machine- War Crimes
Part 3 of 4
New Germany,
En route to Hamburg:
{I’ve broken into comm satellites and running them in a loop. I wouldn’t expect any calls for a few hours.} War Machine’s artificial intelligence announced.
“A few hours is all we need.” Carol Danvers said as she flew next to Weapon Twenty. “Lodestone how’s that electromagnetic field?”
“Up and running captain! Now stop… talking to me til we… land!” Lodestone replied.
“Understood.” Carol said. War Machine looked over at Carol. She was still disguised as a Shield agent going on this mission. In actuality she was leading this mission herself. How she managed to wrest control from other eager or qualified agents he could guess. “It must be hard maintaining a mag field around a dozen transports and not short out our equipment at the same time.”
“Why are you here ma’am. A dozen other agents could do this job. You don’t have to put yourself at risk.” Weapon Twenty said.
“Yes I do.” Carol said as she kept pace with the War Machine and ahead of the transports. “The last time Wide Awake threatened New Latveria I couldn’t do a thing about it.”
War Machine nodded. “Sounds personal.”
“It is.” Carol said.
{Energy spike detected. We’re here.}
Hamburg:
A pillar of light had shot up into the air. S.H.I.E.L.D had set up a perimeter around the city. Transports flew in a grid like pattern away from the beam. Agents on the ground worked their way to the beam in the center of the city. They hadn’t yet run into any resistance. “What can we expect to run into?” Carol asked looking at War Machine as if he might have some insight into what everyone was looking at.
“You remember the reports. Robotic zombies, space elevators and rounding civilians up like cattle.” Weapon Twenty said.
War Machine scanned the roof for heat signatures, energy readings besides the huge distracting one ahead and any sign of the enemy. He was looking in the wrong direction. The ground crumbled and enemies shot into the air. They had metal protrusions sticking from their blackened skin, up close they smelled like decay and the cybernetics grafted into them were weaponized. “Contacts!” An agent shouted as the creatures opened fire.
Carol shot into the air and laid down covering fire with blasts of energy from her hands. War Machine’s armor fabricated a set of swivel mounted turrets on his shoulders that fired at the enemy as repulsor fire ripped them apart. “We’re surrounded!”
The Shield agents accompanying them took cover behind a scorched truck and returned fire. Then something happened. The agents were being shot down. One by one their bodies slumped over each other into bloody mush. War Machine and Carol were the only ones left. “We’ve got agents down!”
War Machine rocketed toward one of the cyborgs and crushed his head with a punch as he dove into a crowd of them. “Scan area for snipers!”
{On it! … Three blocks up. Away from the beam!}
“Danvers take out that sniper!” War Machine screamed as his force shield deployed to give him cover against the energy fire around him. “Up the block!”
Carol shot higher into the air and scanned the area. Before she saw it a flash of light from one of the buildings and shortly after she felt something like a punch to her chest. Then her whole body was being peppered by them. She was being shot. Carol Sped for the building she saw the flash coming from. “What the hell?” She muttered as she fired a blast of energy at the snipers spotter and using her superior speed to close the distance.
Carol held him by the throat and was instantly angered by his appearence. The sniper was wearing a Shield uniform. He glared hard at the disguised queen of New Latveria. But even wearing a mask and her hair a different color he seemed to recognize her. “Damn agent of that usurper!” He gasped. “Get it over with!”
“What?” Carol asked even though he had heard all too clearly what he’d called her. It was more of a surprised reaction. Using her molecular control Carol’s mask disappeared and her hair returned to blond.
The supposed Shield agent looked on with rage filled eyes. “Die false queen!” He yelled as he ran toward Carol and launched his shoulder into her belly in an attempt to tackle her. Only she didn’t budge an inch.
“Super strength idiot!” Carol said as she drove a knee into his face. “Now I want…”
Carol stopped. The sky turned black. She looked over to the beam. It pulsated and made a wailing sound that ripped through the air. The pulses were becoming larger. It covered whole city blocks. Then it covered everything and for a moment Hamburg was bathed in light.
“We’re surrounded!”
“This is Lodestone! Anyone alive! Lodestone calling to any remain—“
{Shields at 27 percent and falling! We need to retrea—}
Castle Doom:
General Kurske was in the Throne room, rounded up with the guards and other officials. A few nobles were tied up or simply executed. The queen was nowhere to be seen. He sighed. He tried to decide if her absence was a good or bad thing. Though he decided he only cared about the two claws hovering dangerously near his eyes. “Where is Danvers?”
A woman with claws popping from her knuckles was Laura Kinney. Kurske remembered. Major in the Iron Army. She was leader of their Reaver Division. She was last seen during the Wide Awake invasion. “I don’t know!”
Kurske looked around nervously. He noted a few Shield agents were helping her. As were a hundred or so men and woman he didn’t recognize. Laura sheathed her claws back into her forearms and knocked the general to the floor with a kick to the side of his head. “I believe you.”
“Until she shows up, then everyone in this castle is going to make a good hostage.” Laura observed as her men were shuttling people into the Throne room. They were important people. Advisors. Ministers. Heads of city councils. Anyone that Carol needed to run the country.
She looked back at Kurske who was rubbing his jaw and glared at the mutant woman. Laura said in a monotone, “Most of the people here you tried to kill General. A month ago in Oymyakon you detonated a nuclear device to eradicate that prison city. Luckily I managed to bring a few of them to safety and on to my side. I’ve ordered them to be gentle with the prisoners unless I order different.”
Kurske noticed a few of them giving him dirty looks or making obscene hand gestures. Some just stared at him with broad smiles as if they were day dreaming what they had in mind for him. “I can and will not promise your safety General Kurske.”
To be continued in the upcoming last part of War Crimes and issues of Lady Deathstrike!
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