Karen McVee sat in the belly of Interceptor Three with her eyes closed. Fear burned in her gut and dried out her throat. Her palms were sweating so badly that her alloy gauntlets wanted to slip off her hands.

She hated to fight.

They were only thirty minutes away from Rangoon. The Interceptor had kicked in the scramjets, skimmed the top of the atmosphere, and now descended upon Southeast Asia at Mach three. Travel time from Union Ultra HQ: two hours, twelve minutes. They had left Nevada at dusk, but it was dawn the next day on this side of the world.

“Are you okay?” Danny Holt put his hand on Karen’s armored shoulder. She opened her eyes and looked at him. He was in his corporate uniform with the Fizzy Pop logo on the chest and back. She hated that thing.

She started to give him a thumbs-up and say “sure,” but she went with the truth instead.

“No.”

He sat beside her and pulled her closer under his arm.

“Look, it’s going to be all right. A walk in the park,” Danny said. Karen had a bond with him that she shared with no other Ultra. They had contracted the syndrome within a month of each other and subsequently went through orientation together. Their backgrounds were so different that a wonderful and mysterious chemical reaction had occurred between them. At least for Karen.

In truth she was in love with Danny Holt. Had been since the first time they’d met. She hadn’t acted on her feelings because of her mother. What would she say if Karen brought home a black guy as a boyfriend? Her, the freckle-faced strawberry blond from rural Iowa. Him, the rough street kid from south Chicago. By the time she realized their differences didn’t matter, Danny had moved on to super models and movie starlets. Karen just couldn’t compete. She had let him go, but her feelings had stayed.

“This is it for me, Danny,” she said. “After this I’m moving over to Disaster and Rescue. I’m done with fighting.”

He smiled at her. She loved to see him smile.

“But you’re so damn good at it.”

She returned the smile dismissively, but the fear still felt like fire in her stomach.

Karen was the fourth most powerful being on the planet. On the Tokugawa Scale she hit a solid eleven in sheer strength, meaning she could tear a tank to pieces with her bare hands. She knew that to be a fact because she’d done it before.

But her other stats were asymmetric to her strength. She only achieved a T-eight for invulnerability. That was tough of hell, but not as tough as many of the renegades and Super Heroes she had to go up against. A lot of them could kick her ass just because they could take more punishment. In fact, the imbalance between her strength and damage resistance meant she could actually hurt herself. She’d done that before, too.

To push up her defenses, the scientists at Union Ultra had given her high-density ceramic and steel body armor. Stuff could stop a tank shell. All together, the chest plate, helmet, gauntlets and boots weighed more than four hundred pounds, light as a feather to Karen.

They had also armed her with a tungsten-alloy sword, which she could swing at nearly a thousand miles an hour. The small sonic booms it produced when she really went to town sounded like a string of dynamite.

In over twenty full-blown battles, she had only killed with the weapon once. Allison Four, three years ago.

“My heart just isn’t in it anymore,” she said.

When she first contracted the Ultra Syndrome, Karen had dutifully reported to the authorities. She wanted to do what was right for her country and the world. If God had given her this gift, she was going to make good use of it. She had no problem facing off with renegades who were known psychotics. The media still talked about her battle with the Freak. She’d shown real guts in that one. The only thing she’d done to top it was to chop off Allison Four’s head with her scientifically designed sword.

“Just get through today and worry about all this tomorrow. Everything’s going to be cool.” Danny was the team leader and the only flyer on board. She and Bandog, who sat alone toward the front of the jet, like he always did, were the muscle. Once they were over Rangoon, Danny would carry the two strongpoints to the ground with special harnesses attached to their backs. After that, Danny was recon and back up. He spotted for them from the sky and Karen and Bandog took it from there. “Between you, me and grumpy up there, nobody’s gonna take us out.”

Karen looked down the darkened interior of the Interceptor. Bandog sat in a swivel leather chair, his massive tree trunk arms crossed and resting on his potbelly. The half-mask he wore hid the top of his his face but left his bald head sticking out like a golf ball. He noticed she was looking at him and made an expressionthat was either a smile or a sneer. His crazy blue eyes sparkled within the eyeholes of the mask.

She smiled back uncertainly. Bandog gave her the creeps. He was one of the most vicious Ultras to ever live. He wasn’t the strongest, the quickest or toughest, but he’d earned a place in the history books anyway. Years ago, a younger, leaner Bandog discovered the best way to kill an Ultra. It didn’t matter if they could take a tank shell in the face or survive the gaze of a sustained laser beam, Bandog learned that if you squeeze them around the neck long enough, they die.

And he was good at that trick. He had more Ultra blood on his hands than anyone but the Freak. That’s why he was with them today. Nelson wasn’t messing around.

She turned back to Danny.

“I’ll be okay.”

About then the co-pilot opened the cockpit door and motioned for Danny. The flyer patted Karen on the shoulder and headed down the aisle past Bandog. The Fizzy Pop logo -- a green bottle with cartoon foam exploding from its popped top -- on his back looked ridiculous.

Since Danny had officially left full time status, he’d done at least three television commercials and come out with a horrible rap album. His salary from the UA government wasn’t near what he could make as a spokesman for Fizzy Pop. He was still officially “on call” at Union Ultra, of course. Fizzy Pop insisted he mix it up now and then. It was good for their image.

The co-pilot removed his headset and began talking to Danny. He made a few gestures and looked very grave. Karen could hear nothing over the roar of the engines.

After a few moments, Danny came back and sat down beside her.

“Listen, the situation’s escalated a bit,” he said. “Viceroy just radioed in. One of the Super Heroes has already shown up. He’s going to engage them before we arrive.”

Karen knew that Viceroy had been planted in Rangoon weeks ago. Like herself and her first-response teammates, Viceroy was a logical choice for the mission. All of them were immune to electrical attacks.

“Yeah?” Karen said, asking for more information. Viceroy’s decision to lock horns before back-up arrived reeked of trouble.

Danny looked at her and she didn’t like it.

“It’s the new Allison. Allison Five. She’s on the ground in Rangoon.”

Karen swallowed hard and another jolt of fear flip-flopped her stomach. Her last fight with Allison had left three people dead, including the metal woman. Karen had managed to escape with a broken jaw, three broken ribs and fifty surgical-titanium staples down the length of her thigh.

“They say each version is stronger than the last,” she said, mainly to herself.

Danny said nothing.

“For Christ's sakes, quit your whining.” Bandog now stood a few feet behind Danny. His hypersensitive hearing had probably taken in everything. “You’re the toughest bitch on the planet and you’re pissing and moaning about going to R and D?”

“Easy, Dog,” Danny said. Bandog ignored him and kept his eyes locked with Karen’s.

“Suck it up, lady. We’re fifteen minutes from splash down. Get your head together or we’ll all be eating steel.”

It worked. Karen got pissed off.

“Fuck you, ass hole. I’m fine,” she said. The thing that made her mad was that Bandog was right. She couldn’t walk into a fight jittery. In a battle that moved at supersonic speed, a moments hesitation was death.

Nothing was said between the three for the rest of the flight. After a while, Karen stood and checked her drop harness, gauntlets and sword. Despite Bandog’s “pep talk,” the fear still burned strong, only now there was an edge of anger to it.

An electronic voice came over the intercom. “We’re over Burma. One minute to drop.”

Karen and Bandog took position at the drop door. Danny came up behind them and grabbed the harness handles on their backs. Toward the cockpit, a steel partition closed automatically, sealing off the rest of the aircraft.

The drop door opened, admitting a screaming torrent of wind into the Interceptor. Wispy clouds rushed past the square frame of the open door, and Burma spread below them, a green carpet of jungle carved with arteries of brown rivers.

“Ten seconds…” the pilot’s voice was barely audible over the roar. Karen felt Danny’s grip tighten on the harness.

“Go!” The intercom barked.

With that, they jumped. Karen’s stomach dropped and the feeling mixed with the fear still residing there. For a long second, she thought she might puke. The Interceptor banked hard, kicked in its afterburners and sped out of sight, leaving them freefalling toward the target. Danny extended his arms perpendicularly to his body and took charge of the fall, leveling them off into a controlled flight. He was not as strong as Karen and Bandog, but he could still carry the two Ultras easily in this fashion. He redirected their descent and they moved toward the target.

As the trio fell below the cloud cover, the sprawling city of Rangoon appeared below, a grid of gray streets nested in the joining of two wide rivers. Danny increased his speed and soon they were closing on the city at better than three hundred miles per hour.

“Do we know where Viceroy is?” Karen shouted to Danny.

“I’m going to guess somewhere near that column of smoke,” Danny answered.

Karen looked and saw a rising plume of black smoke blooming above the center of the city. As they got closer, Danny dropped altitude to a few hundred feet, keeping their profile low. Karen could now see the signs of battle: overturned cars, snapped streetlights, cratered streets. She could just about visualize the entire fight from the wreckage.

“There they are,” Danny said. But before he got the first word out, she’d already seen the glint of metal skin on the street below. The figures were small, but she could still make them out.

Allison Five had Viceroy by the ankle and was bashing him into the concrete street like a rag doll. Over and over and over with ferocity that was plain even from a mile away.

Danny clicked it up a notch. As they closed, Karen now saw that Viceroy had lost his mask and was completely covered in blood. He was unconscious and his arms flailed about crazily. Each time Allison smashed him into the ground, huge chucks of gray pavement exploded into the air.

She had never seen Viceroy bleed before. His invulnerability was T-ten.

“Drop me right on the bitch’s head,” Bandog said.

Now they were moving at about four hundred miles an hour. At the city limits, Danny dropped to almost street level, making a direct line to Allison and Viceroy.

“Now!” Bandog shouted.

Danny hit the release switch and Bandog was freed from his harness.

Allison had her back toward them, absorbed with pummeling Viceroy. She turned around just in time to catch Bandog right in the face. A great clanging sound filled the air upon their impact. She released Viceroy flinging his limp body wildly through the air. Allison and Bandog cart-wheeled fifty meters until they both collided with a colonial building, disappearing in a waterfall of red bricks.

Danny flew past and banked for a second approach, holding Karen with both hands.

Below them, hundreds of people filled the streets, rippling away from the combating Ultras. Abandoned cars choked every avenue. Mothers clung to their crying children. Men climbed over each other to get away. A battle between Ultras could level a city. To them, this was no less a disaster than an earthquake or tsunami. The only humans sticking around were a couple of Burmese TV crews with cameras, crouching in doorways and behind cars, trying to get the best shot without getting killed.

“Wait for Bandog to get on her back then take out her legs with your sword,” Danny said. “I don’t think we’re going to get any help from Viceroy.”

Karen was silent.

“Karen?” Danny said.

“Yeah, got it. Go for the legs.” She unsheathed her sword. Aside from its shape, the weapon bore little resemblance to the swords of medieval times. It was cast from a variety of hardened alloys and held a laser-cut edge that was literally as sharp as a razor. Its no-slip rubber handle was specially formed to Karen’s grip. It was one meter long and weighed one hundred and fifty pounds. Karen could strike a target with it six hundred times in a minute. It sounded like a machine gun.

“Did you see her face?” Karen asked.

“Yeah. She looks like the evil queen from Snow White.”

They turned around and headed for the second release. Karen saw Bandog and Allison struggling. Bandog was on top of her head and shoulders, trying to get a grip around her neck. Now would have been a perfect time to nail her legs.

“Hurry!” Karen said. She could feel her heart pound in her chest, arms and head.

“I’m bringing you in low and slow,” Danny said. “And keep an eye out for Aung San. He’s going to show up sooner or later.”

A few seconds passed like hours. Danny abruptly dropped his speed to zero and released Karen thirty meters from the fight. Karen’s feet hit the ground and she charged, screaming a single, unintelligible note of attack, sword raised high.

Allison saw her. With one push of titanic strength, she peeled Bandog from her head and held the muscle-bound lug above the ground at arm’s length with one hand.

“Get off me!” Allison snarled, cocking back her free arm. Karen watched as Allison Five struck Bandog. The piston-blow was so fast that Karen didn’t actually see it. Bandog just suddenly shot into the air like a cannonball. He arced into the sky and disappeared from sight somewhere on the other side of Rangoon.

Allison turned to face Karen just as her sword fell. The steel woman side-stepped the strike and the sword bit into the pavement. Karen launched into a series of continuous strikes that made her blade whir. She closed on Allison Five like an angry lawn mover.

The metal woman backed off from the attack, keeping her guard high. This was the same sword that had killed her three years ago. It was obvious she held it in respect.

“I was hoping you’d come,” Allison said to Karen as she moved backward. “I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

Fear, adrenaline and rage sent Karen into a near frenzy. She caught herself and channeled the fury through her training and practice. The speed and accuracy of her blows increased. Allison was too busy defending herself to counterattack. Karen swung so fast that, to an outside observer, it would seem her right arm had disappeared.

Then Allison did something unexpected. She stepped right into Karen’s strike and caught the blow full force with her forearm. The blade sunk an inch into her metal arm and stuck. A mercury-like fluid leaked from the wound. Karen had seen the stuff before. The battle froze in time.

"Ouch." Allison locked her silver eyes with Karen’s and smiled a sinister smile.

The metal woman struck the blade just below the hilt with the edge of her other hand. The sword snapped and Karen staggered back several paces. Allison pulled the embedded section from her forearm and tossed it aside.

“Now let’s try that again,” she said. Then Danny dropped from the sky right onto Allison's shoulders and started pounding her in the face.

“Get her, Karen!” He shouted and Karen heard the fear in his voice. Still holding the broken hilt Karen dived for Allison’s legs. She plunged the jagged end of the broken sword into Allison’s thigh. More mercury stuff appeared.

Allison stumbled and then went airborne with Danny and Karen clinging to her. The cluster of struggling Ultras shot above the buildings, and Danny reversed their direction, using his own power of flight against Allison’s, driving them back to the ground. They landed on a parked car, smashing it flat in an explosion of glass and metal. The impact knocked the wind out of Karen, and she released her grip on Allison and her broken sword. The three Ultras rolled off the crushed car onto the street. Allison was first to stand.

With Danny still clinging to her arm, Allison screamed and kicked Karen in the face, knocking off her helmet and sending her flying end-over-end for five city blocks. She bounced off the street like a skipped stone then skidded on her back until colliding with a high curb. Her head rung and she could not focus her eyes. She coughed and a spray of blood flecked the ground.

As she gathered her senses, she looked up the street and saw that Allison had Danny in a bear hug around the waist. She was squeezing very hard. Danny pushed against her, but he was not strong enough to get free. Suddenly he went limp. Allison kept one arm around his waist and placed the other upon his chest. She then folded him in half backwards, with the back of his head touching the back of his heels. Karen saw his eyes roll up in his head.

“No!” She stood and began to run toward them. My god, my god, my god.

Allison Five tossed Danny Holt’s lifeless body aside and faced Karen’s attack head-on.

Her sword was gone, but Karen had a new weapon: berserk rage. All of her fear, all of her pain was now lost in a torrent of fury and grief. She forgot her endless hours of training and flew into Allison with nothing but hate. Now the only thing she could see was Danny.

She was going to kill Allison.

Again.

In a blur, Allison countered Karen’s attack, grabbing her around the wrists before she could get a grip. A steel kneecap found Karen’s solar plexus, and her armor cracked like an eggshell, falling from her body in pieces.

The pain brought her back to her senses and she grabbed Allison’s wrists. Pivoting her hips and keeping her arms rigid, she swung the metal woman over her head and smashed her face into the brick sidewalk behind them. She then jumped on Allison and wrapped her legs around her waist, trying to position herself into a continuous striking position. If two strongpoints battled and were not somehow interlocked, they knocked each other miles away with each blow. The only way to keep an opponent close was the dangerous strategy of entanglement. Hold onto them with a free hand, or wrap your legs around them, then start pounding.

And that’s just what Karen did.

When Allison felt Karen’s legs clinch around her waist, she shot straight up into the sky like a missile, trying to shake her. With her legs locked, Karen began to strike with lightening-fast, jackhammer rights and lefts. Her steel alloy gauntlets shattered from her hands against Allison’s flesh but she kept the blows coming. Allison was dazed and tried to protect herself by raising her arms, but Karen redirected her fists with every defense. Karen looked down. They were many thousands of feet in the air. Rangoon was nothing but a smudge against the miles of green jungle below.

Her knuckles were bleeding so she dropped a tight hammer fist to Allison’s temple. Sharp, electric pain shot through her hand, and she knew it was broken.

But the blow scored. Stunned, Allison Five lost consciousness and they began to fall. Karen clung to Allison’s body moving herself into position to get a grip around her neck, to get that metal stalk nestled right in the crook of her elbow, so she could squeeze and keep squeezing. Then she saw Allison’s eye flutter.

“It won’t be that easy, little girl!” Allison barked and again grabbed her around the wrists, this time she following with a solid head butt. It was Karen’s turn to lose consciousness. With the leg lock broken, Allison rolled their positions and headed straight for the ground, holding Karen in front of her like a battering ram. Four hundred miles per hour. Five hundred.

Karen shook it off and woke up. Rangoon was getting very detailed below them. She pretended to be unconscious as the ground grew closer and the wind screamed in her ears. Closer. At the last half second, she spun Allison around beneath her where the towering silver woman would take the brunt of the impact…

Blackness.

When Karen awoke, she was deaf. The world whirled around her in numb silence. She couldn’t remember why she was looking at the sky. Where was she? She sat up and saw Allison imbedded in a crater five feet deep and thirty-feet in diameter. It all came back to her. They had hit somewhere on the edge of town and several nearby buildings had crumbled to rubble when they struck.

Allison moved her legs. Karen tried to stand, but she was badly wounded. Ribs crushed, hand broken, shoulder broken, she guessed a concussion. Her only hope was that Allison was hurt worse.

But the metal woman pulled herself from the hole, stood to her full height and shook the dirt from her shoulders. Then she turned to face Karen. There wasn’t a ding in her.

“Let’s wrap this up.” Allison flew at her at full speed. Karen dodged the attack, but Allison was too quick.

She changed direction, dropped on Karen and again they grappled. Allison lorded over Karen’s five-foot six-inch frame. Karen’s wounds sent savage waves of pain through her body.

Allison was stronger than her. As strong as Peacehammer. Maybe even as strong as the Freak.

Karen went down on one knee. Their faces were inches apart.

“Soon, my dear,” Allison said to her.

Her arms began to quiver and images of her home in Iowa flooded her mind: Her mom calling from the front porch; riding her bicycle down a country road; Saturday morning cartoons; her first kiss. Right now that’s where she wanted to be. Not locked in a death match with a psychotic metal woman. She thought of Danny. She remembered watching Allison kill him in the Burmese street. Folding him in half like a cardboard cutout.

Then something happened. Her pain melted away and she felt her wounds healing themselves. A new strength filled her arms and her ears stopped ringing. Suddenly everything seemed clear to her. A fog lifted from her mind and she knew just what needed to be done.

Her foot dug into the asphalt street, crumbling it beneath her heavy boot, giving her leverage. New strength infused her arms. She pushed and the metal woman gave ground.

As Karen stood, forcing her backwards, Allison’s expression changed from an arrogant sneer to a look of concern.

“Yes,” Karen said. “Soon.”

Now that the pain had lifted, a strange clarity of mind came upon her. Karen’s plan was crystalline. At this range, Ultras had a weakness that could be exploited. Their eyes. Eyes were their weakest point, even the armored ones.

Allison backed away from Karen’s brute advance but still held her grip around her wrists. Slowly, Karen’s hand began to close the distance to Allison’s silver eyes.

“What happened? Your strength…” Allison said through clinched teeth.

“Will,” Karen said, her left thumb now hovered over Allison’s right eye. As Karen had moments before, Allison Five now dropped to one knee.

At that moment, Allison did something surprising. Her resistance gave and she whipped back her head, letting Karen’s attack slip past her face. Then, in one jarring movement, she bit through Karen’s wrist with the strength of an industrial press.

With one snap of her metal teeth, she took Karen’s hand off. A fountain of blood sprayed from the stump in unison with Karen’s heartbeat and painted the side of Allison’s face. The red liquid slid from her cheek and dripped from her shiny chin.

Karen fell backwards. The pain overloaded her mind.

Allison began to laugh.

Karen felt Allison’s metal hands close around her neck and throat until she could not breathe. Blood pumped from the stump where her hand had been, leaving her body like air from a balloon. From the corner of her eye, Karen saw her clenched hand lying on the dirty street a few feet away.

Allison was laughing hysterically. She had a tight grip now and Karen could do nothing. She felt her consciousness slipping, and the world began to dissolve into thousands of tiny blue dots.

She looked up at Allison’s cackling face and noticed that even the tiny ridges on the roof of her mouth were metal.

That was the last thing she saw in this world.

***

Bandog was lost. Allison had knocked him at least four miles away from the fight and the twisting streets of Rangoon had him turned around in circles. He hadn’t been paying attention at the drop and couldn’t exactly remember where the battle was taking place.

“Goddamn it,” he cursed as he found himself standing at the mouth of another dead end street. Earlier, he had taken to the rooftops to get a bearing on his location, but the leaps and jumps it took to move from building to building had worn him out, and he really didn’t want to face Allison Five tired.

About two miles away he saw a column of black smoke rising into the sky and decided to head in that direction. Halfway there, someone called his name.

“Bandog!”

He turned, ready to get dirty, and saw Viceroy floating in the air above the street. Dried blood was all over his face and chest, and he held his left arm limply against his body.

“Viceroy. Geez, you scared the hell out of me. I thought you’d bought it.”

“I just about did. Listen we’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

“Not until we take out Tin Lizzie. I owe her one.”

Viceroy shook his head. He was one of Nelson’s toughest flying strongpoints. He’d been around with Bandog since the 1970s, and had earned his stripes against both renegade and Super Hero. Bandog had never seen him torn up like this.

“Too late for that. She’s already won.”

Bandog looked at him. The implications of what Viceroy said were unmistakable.

“Both of them?”

Viceroy nodded. “And it gets worse. Look,” he pointed to the sky with his good arm. Bandog looked up to see several specks emerging from the fluffy white clouds. Super Heroes. A lot of them. Even from this distance, he recognized some them in their fancy, frilly, “look at me” costumes. Spartan, Airwar, Uberheld, Justice Flyer, Ajax Jones. Any one of them could take him out in a minute.

“Hell, Ramsey sent the whole armada,” Bandog said, half to himself.

“And there.” This time Viceroy nodded to a point down the street. Bandog turned around and saw about a dozen of Aung San’s guerillas armed with rocket launchers and assault rifles strolling fearlessly down the street. In the far distance he heard the chatter of machine guns as the Burmese army clashed with the advancing guerrillas.

“It’s over. Time for us the leave,” Viceroy said.

Bandog had never run from a fight he might have a chance of winning. But this wasn’t one of them. The battle was quite over.

“I hear ya,” he said. “Let’s shag out of here.”

Viceroy leveled himself off and Bandog climbed on his back, legs around his waist, arms wrapped around his chest. Viceroy winced in pain.

“Hold on tight, Dog,” Viceroy said, catching his breath. Keeping low he agilely flew through the twisted streets of Rangoon. “We’re taking a direct route out of here.”

They zigzagged past the clusters of city buildings, eventually crossing the southern river out of the city. Although guerilla troops spotted them several times, the two Ultras were moving too fast for the troops to do anything about it. As long as one of the Super Heroes didn’t see them, they were safe.

Viceroy picked up speed and Burma rolled beneath them until it stopped at the Andaman Sea and was left behind. They headed east, toward Thailand.

“Nelson is going to crap his cosmic suit,” Bandog said. “ He’s going to ACK! —“

“Are you all right?” Viceroy asked.

“Yeah,” Bandog coughed. “ Just swallowed a bug.”

***

Danny Holt awoke and did not know where he was. As his eyes focused he saw a ceiling fan lazily stirring the air above him. He realized he was lying in a bed with white sheets covering him to his chest. The cinder block walls of the room were painted in flat institutional grays. He was obviously in a hospital of some kind.

And he was not alone.

In a chair on the other side of the room, partially concealed in shadows, somebody moved. Danny tried to sit up and realized he could not feel his legs.

“Good morning Mr. Holt,” the man said. Danny raised his head to see who spoke. The man was Burmese and seemed to be in his early forties. He wore a khaki shirt with epaulettes on the shoulders and a pair of dark green military fatigues. He smiled politely.

“I am Aung San,” the man said.

Next chapter: The Conclusion of Incident in Burma