New Olympus Saga (Book 3): Apocalypse Dance Read Online Free Page B

allied forces in-theater were much better armed and equipped than the hapless human soldiers from the First Asian War. The Vietnamese contingent was equipped with blaster rifles purchased from the Dominion, for example. The Chinese Republican Guard regiment’s TOE included laser weapon platoons and multi-stage heavy rocket batteries most Neolympians couldn’t withstand. Humanity had grown more dangerous in the ensuing years.
    It still wasn’t enough.
    Olivia knew just how quickly a band of Celestial Warriors could rampage through an encampment such as this. A tumen of ten Imperial Neos could kill most people in the base before the defenders even realized they were under attack. Even now, the best defense against Neos was to send other Neos against them.
    Which was where she and her fellow Legionnaires came in.
    “They’d have to be crazy to attack,” Larry Graham, code name Swift, said. Her husband and fellow superhero looked just like comic books and magazines portrayed him, his boyish good looks still as sharp and fresh as they’d been when he started, seventy years and half a dozen wars ago. His smile grew a little less certain as she silently looked at him. “Well, they’d have to be. Crazy, I mean. We have thirteen clairvoyants, precogs and telepaths covering this sector. No amount of stealth is going to get through that. We have enough conventional firepower to fry entire Celestial tumens as soon as they peek over the Wall. Not even the Imps are deranged enough to go through this gauntlet. And even if they do, we’ve got three full Neo teams ready to welcome them.”
    “You’re right, Larry,” Olivia said, and his smile firmed up. They’d both been working hard at keeping their marriage together, even as they dealt with the international crisis. While she lay in her hospital bed, after the disastrous raid in Hong Kong, Larry had finally confessed everything: the infidelities, the cover-ups, everything. Olivia had confessed her own complicity; she’d known for a good while, suspected long before then, and done nothing about it. Honesty had been a good first step, just as the massive force deployment along the border had been a good first step in dealing with the crisis.
    Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure either step was going to be enough.
    “They’d have to be crazy to attack, even now, when most of the reinforcements from the US and our allies are still in transit. We have deployed enough force to contain any kind of attack they can conceivably launch, although the casualties would be horrendous on both sides. But this whole situation has been insane from the beginning! Why start a conflict when they know they can’t win it?”
    “You’re still thinking it’s a setup,” Larry replied. “Even with all the evidence piling up against the Imps.”
    “Either it’s a setup, or the Emperor knows something we don’t. Maybe they have stockpiles of disruptors like the ones used to kill Chasca in Hong Kong.”
    “They almost killed you, too,” Larry said. “Even so, now that we know about them, they aren’t exactly decisive weapons. Their range is limited, for one, and Neos have a lot of trouble wielding them, for another, so their operators are human, which makes them pretty vulnerable.”
    “That is true, if those small arms are all they’ve got. What if they have the equivalent of artillery or heavy bombs?”
    “You’re a ray of sunshine tonight, sweetheart,” Larry said. “Daedalus has studied the weapons; he even used a copy of them to take down John, and he’s assured us the devices are almost impossible to scale up. So is that the only thing bothering you?”
    “What do you mean??”
    “You know that Dawn Zhang is being redeployed to the Pacific theater, right?”
    Olivia nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Dawn had been Larry’s last lover, and their relationship had become far more serious than his previous flings.
    “I ended it,” Larry said. “I ended it before I spoke to