StormWatch: Team Achilles (StormWatch: Team Achilles #6)

"Fire from Above"

On top of a building near where the fights are going on, Golovin and Pinckney chat about life and why they're in Stormwatch. Golovin thinks that Pinckney is too cultured and educated to be in the organization and he tells her that he was sort of forced into it. His parents pushed him into the military and he did incredibly well. Then he went and shot his commanding officer (who was being controlled by an SPB) and that got him into Stormwatch. Just then, the Russians start moving in.

Back in Stormwatch's UN Headquarters, the Russian ambassador is holding a gun to Tefibi's face. He tries to force Tefibi to shut down Stormwatch's teleporter but Tefibi refuses, and says that he couldn't even if he wanted to. The ambassador says he'll kill Tefibi. While Tefibi uses his brains and mouth to stall for time Santini, who had been lying on the floor, suddenly stands up and shoots the ambassador in the back. Santini had been wearing a bulletproof vest. With the traitorous ambassador dead, he goes back to the screens to check on his team. He decides to pull them out but sees that when he shot the ambassador his bullet had gone on to destroy the machinery that runs to the teleporter. He orders Tefibi to fix it and rings up Coleman to tell him to hang on a little longer. Coleman replies that there are now enemies everywhere and that the rest of The Authority has come too.

The Authority makes short work of the remaining terrorists and then start to take care of their own, like Jack who is still down. The Doctor takes Hawksmoor back to the Carrier and Midnighter gets info about Dhul Fiqar's location and heads after him. When he's out of the area Coleman and Weiss take down Apollo, The Engineer, and Swift with specialized weapons. Coleman warns Jukko, who has already reached Dhul Fiqar, that Midnighter's on his way. Midnighter finds Fiqar as Jukko is asking him if he can remove his (Jukko's) powers. Midnighter laughs, calling Jukko a "closet-case superphobic cape-basher" for hating SPBs while he is one himself. Then Jukko challenges him to a fight but gives him an out, saying he can leave if he wants to. Midnighter sees something in his hands and Jukko explains what it is by using it. It's a device modeled off of Henry Bendix's designs that allows him to shut off all of Midnighter's upgrades. Once that's done, he closes in on Midnighter and beats him senseless. Jukko beats Midnighter so badly that he can't even move, let alone stand and then he tells him what his own power is. He's "uber-empathic", meaning he feels the pain of every living thing within a four mile radius, including what he just did to Midnighter. He then goes on to kill Fiqar so no more SPBs can be activated by him.

With their job done, Team Achilles releases the other members of The Authority and begins to head home. However, the snipers are cut off though and can't get out. They phone Santini about their situation and he goes to see Tefibi's status on repairing their teleporter. Tefibi says the device won't be working for at least another two weeks but they still have the old Stormwatch teleporter which was good for sending things to low Earth orbit, but not for ground to ground teleportation. Santini comes up with a plan and calls the Russian president and orders him to remove his men. The president refuses so Santini has Tefibi has The Authority's Carrier to teleport some steel beams from a nearby construction site into low orbit and sends it crashing down onto the Russian troops once his own men are out of danger. The terrorists are dead, the superhuman activator is dead, the Russian/Chechnyan problem is dealt with and even Midnighter has decided not to retaliate against Team Achilles.