Hero

by Robert J. Crane

  “Well,” he said, returning my embrace, strong arms wrapped around me, “I wish I could have been here sooner. And also that I could have brought the rest of the crew, because maybe we could have avoided, uh … making this level of mess with some help from the team.” He frowned. “Seriously. Remind me not to do … that …” he gestured in the direction of the oozing slurry of a camp, “… ever again, if possible.”

  I managed a weak laugh. “I solemnly swear that if possible I will not entice you to use your powers to turn my foes into villain-shakes.” I did a little frowning myself. “Mostly because that is super gross. Way more gross than anything I was doing with the grenade launcher.”

  He blinked. “You had a grenade launcher? Truly, this place is crazy, giving you a grenade launcher.”

  “Well, it wasn’t like they gave it to me. I had to take it over some dead merc bodies.”

  “You do everything over dead merc bodies these days. Pretty soon you’re going to be eating dinner on top of dead mercenaries, at the rate you’re going.”

  “What kind of wine goes with dead mercenaries?” I asked. “Rosé, you think? I mean, not that I’m gonna break sobriety, I’m just thinking theoretically—”

  A rumble interrupted our repartee and shut me up good and proper. I looked around, seeking the source.

  “Where’s that coming from?” Reed asked, already on guard.

  “Better question—where’s the team?” I asked, searching the skies myself.

  “Stuck at the border,” he said. “They’ve got a Magneto holding them back.”

  “Aleksy,” I muttered.

  “He blew up Greg’s SR-71. I had to leave them behind in the house, and he’s looking at bringing them across by land or something, but …” His eyes glimmered. “I figured you needed help ASAP.”

  The rumbling was just getting worse. “You figured right,” I said. “Now, figure out what the hell that noise is—oh.”

  Oh, indeed.

  We figured it out.

  A glow appeared in the southwestern sky, not far from where the castle loomed over Bredoccia from its mountaintop. This came from a field up in the high hills not far from the castle, nestled around it. It was a section of the countryside I hadn’t toured, and yet, I knew what it contained by the rumble, by the glow in the sky as they rose, some twelve of them by my quick count, on pillars of fire—

  “What … the hell are those?” Reed asked. In his heart, I think he already knew.

  “Well,” I said, swallowing the mother of all gulps, “I don’t think Hades has started a space program, and he definitely wouldn’t be launching twelve rockets into orbit all at once, so …” My hands shook, and not from the trauma of the battle I’d just been in, the peril I’d just experienced, but instead …

  It was fear.

  For what was to come.

  “He just launched his nuclear missiles,” I said in a voice of quiet awe. They were rising into the sky, a slow, steady climb, into the blue heavens. “Every last freaking one of them.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  Lethe

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?” Hades asked, watching the missiles climb on the monitor. “There is a sort of grace to them, yes? This technological descendant of the spear, the arrow? They have grown so far beyond their predecessors as to be nearly unrecognizable. Nearly … but still.”

  “Ugh,” Lethe said, fighting off a hell of a headache. She tested her hands. Bound to a steel chair by handcuffs, bolted to the ground. “So … it’s come to this.”

  Hades was standing a short distance away, looking at the screens in front of him. “I don’t think you quite realize what it has actually come to, daughter.” He half turned, and …

  He was smiling.

  “That’s … not a good look for you,” Lethe said, looking sideways at the figure that loomed out of the corner of her eye. Krall, of course, similarly smiling. “I take it the two of you have made plans of your own that you decided to exclude me from?”

  “Yes,” Krall said.

  “Not exactly,” Hades said. “The general and I are … close, shall we say.”

  “Ughhhh,” Lethe said.

  “Boffing, I think they call it?” Hades asked. “Hooking up?”

  “Stop,” Lethe said. “Just stop.” She shivered with disgust. “So this is why you’ve given her so much leeway. I should have seen it, I suppose, but I figured you were a little too old to be a starry-eyed schoolboy.”

  “I have never been to school,” Hades said, “I should like to try at some point, though I expect the near future to be somewhat too hectic. I doubt I will get a chance to enroll for a while, seeing as we are about to build a new world.” His eyes flashed, and he looked at the screen. “An entirely new world, a fresh start for all us all.”

  “… Really?” Lethe looked around. “You’re going full supervillain? Now?”

  “But you see, every supervillain has a reason for their villainy, and I am no exception,” Hades said. “I was God of Death in the old world, and it gave me an appreciation for death that so few ever get. My assigned role, my natural power, it forced me contemplate death more deeply than any philosopher.”

  “If you’re going to monologue, please have Krall choke me out first.”

  “You really are remarkably like her,” Hades said, his patience clearly exhausted. “No wonder you chose her over me.”

  “I didn’t choose her, idiot,” Lethe said. “I just watched as she proved herself stronger than your army. And unless you kill me, I’m going to watch her and her brother rip your kingdom apart brick by brick, all while you impotently scream that you can’t believe what she’s doing against impossible odds.”

  “Mmmm,” Hades said, pretending to think. “You know … I might agree with you, daughter, except I have given her much more pressing matters to think about.” He smiled. “The end of the world, for instance.”

  “What are you doing?” Lethe asked, rattling the chains, a cold feeling of dread seeping into her as she watched the missiles climb on the monitor.

  “Becoming Death once more,” Hades said simply. “For I have let it take its natural course for long enough.”

  “Why?” Lethe muttered, rattling her handcuff chains again. “I didn’t think you were this stupid.”

  “The Americans have their hands tied behind their backs,” Hades said, looking at the screen and smiling. “Where is my disadvantage?”

  “They’re not just going to sit back and take that lying down—” Lethe said.

  “What are they going to do?” Krall asked, and there was a maniacal light in her eyes. “Invade us? Try to bomb us? We will knock their planes and missiles out of the sky. We will annihilate their ground troops at the border.”

  “And we will vaporize their cities,” Hades finished. “Get ready to feel it, daughter. Get ready to feel … Death,” he whispered as the missiles launched, one by one, from their silos. “For Death … is, at last … again on his way.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  Passerini

  “We have launch!”

  Passerini’s legs felt numb, but he was standing.

  “Confirmed. We have launch. Twelve silos just outside Bredoccia, Revelen.”

  The voices around him did their jobs. Did the double-check, the triple-check. They’d be watching it out in Colorado at NORAD command, checking and checking again—

  But there wasn’t a lot of denying what he was seeing on the overhead shot. The flares at the silo locations—

  “Mr. President,” Passerini said in as firm a voice as he could muster, “Revelen has launched nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles at us. Looks like … twelve,” he did a quick count, didn’t wait for anyone else to confirm. Count the empty silos and you get the number.

  “What the hell,” Gondry whispered, strain creeping into his voice. “What are you—”

  There was a muffled hubbub on the other end of the line. One of the lieutenants looked sidelong at Passerini
.

  He held up his hand to stave off the man’s concern. “That’ll be the Secret Service, dragging the president to the bunker. I’m sure he’ll be back on line in a few minutes. Until then …” He looked around, prepared to invoke his people to get back to work, but they already were. “I need target vectors.”

  “Missiles are still heading straight up sir,” an operator called from across the room. “It’ll take a few minutes before we have a clear—”

  “Eastern seaboard,” Graves said, “the Midwest, DC, LA—they’re aiming for the big targets.”

  Passerini cocked an eyebrow. “Probably good guesses, Graves. But we’ll have to wait a few minutes to find out how right you are—”

  “Nossir,” Graves said, shaking his head. “We won’t.”

  Passerini frowned. The colonel was surprisingly calm considering he’d just watched the end of the world kick off. Oh, well. There wasn’t much to do now but wait—

  “Mr. Secretary,” the president’s voice broke back onto the line, harried and urgent.

  “Welcome back, Mr. President,” Passerini said.

  “Mr. Secretary—Bruno,” Gondry said, speaking directly into the line, coming out louder than he usually did when he wasn’t shouting. “You have to fix this. This—these missiles—they’re—we can’t let them—I mean—my God, man, these are—they’re coming to our cities and—” And he just stopped right there. “You have to do something,” he said, when he finally managed to string his words together.

  Passerini just looked at the screen. The rockets were in flight, but they’d yet to turn, to take their lazy arc west. There was a little hope in that, as they raced for the upper atmosphere and the lesser wind resistance they’d find there. There they’d make their turn, acquire their definite targets, and come homing in before releasing their MIRV payloads to seek and destroy the cities they were aimed at.

  And all Bruno Passerini could do was watch. “I’m sorry, sir …” he said, and truly, he was, “… but there’s not a damned thing we can do.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  Sienna

  “Oh my God.”

  Reed’s voice was quiet in the rising tide of oblivion, the missiles climbing up in the sky.

  “This … is not an afternoon of delight,” I said, watching them rise into the blue.

  Something squawked in Reed’s pocket and he reached for it, seemingly more out of annoyance at the noise than because he was consciously thinking. He came out with his phone, blinking at it in surprise.

  “What the hell are you waiting for?” Cassidy’s voice shrilled from the speaker. “An invitation? Get after them, idiot!”

  I blinked. Too stunned, maybe, I hadn’t even thought about—

  Reed looked at me. It was a ghostly look, stricken and sick all at once. “I came here to help you,” he said, almost a whisper.

  “The world needs you more,” I said, watching the pillars of fire rise into the sky. “Go. Go show the damned world what you are. Go!”

  With my last shout, he blew into the air, pocketing his phone and reaching out. The winds howled for a second around me, and then he was gone, chasing the missiles.

  And I was left alone, on the ground, in the middle of Revelen, with nothing but a shitload of anger.

  “Krall,” I said, almost growling, under my breath, as I retrieved my rifle and slung it over my shoulder. “Hades.”

  I used my elbow to break the window of the car I’d been covering behind not so long before. It only took a minute to hotwire it, and then I was off.

  Back on mission.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  Passerini

  “But why can’t you just knock them down?” Gondry asked. Clearly in the “bargaining” stage. “We have a—we have something for that, don’t we? Star Wars? Isn’t that what they called it?”

  Passerini cleared his throat, uncomfortably. “Sir … you helped cut the funding for that project back when you were in the Senate, and Harmon killed it shortly after taking the presidency. The residual assets—the missiles and launchers—aren’t even in Europe anymore because last year you traded away our deployment of them to the Russians in exchange for diplomatic considerations—”

  “Don’t you dare try and lay the blame for this fiasco on me!” Gondry shouted into the phone.

  “I’m not blaming you, sir,” Passerini said. He didn’t have much in the way of emotion left to add to his voice. “Just laying out what’s happened and letting you know why the cupboard is bare.”

  “Can’t you shoot them down with a plane? You have them right there at the border—”

  “Nossir,” Passerini said, and truly, he wished the president had been right about this. “That’s not how it works. Our planes do not possess that capability. No plane does.”

  “Mr. Secretary … you’re telling me those missiles are coming our way and there’s nothing you can do about it …?” There was a thread of desperation. “That all this money we’ve funneled your way all these years—”

  Which you cut at every opportunity, you prick. And that time Passerini did apportion some blame, at least in his head.

  “—That it’s all going to count for nothing? That it buys us nothing right now?”

  “Well, sir,” Passerini said, still calm, “you funded our troops, who have a specific mission. You funded our planes, our aircraft carriers … they have specific missions and abilities. You did not fund the anti-ballistic missile platforms. Too experimental. Too prone to failure. These were the arguments. And so we do not have those. Because you did not choose to spend the money on them. Because, I believe you said, not an hour ago, that we had not experienced a nuclear launch and no one would be foolish enough to change that fact. Well, I’m sorry to inform you that they have, sir, and this is how. Hades just launched nukes at us because he knows there’s not a damned thing we can do about it except watch—and pray they don’t hit anything too vital.”

  “Sir,” Graves said, “the trajectory of the missiles is changing.”

  “Are we getting final trajectory?” Passerini asked, turning his attention to the screen.

  “I don’t think so, sir,” Graves said, and he actually started to smile. “I think this … is something else entirely.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  Reed

  The wind blew by in all its fury, and I rode it wildly, high into the sky above the cloud layer that hung over Revelen like a white ceiling.

  I was rising, but even with the full power of the wind at my command, catching a rocket myself was a thing that was simply outside my reach. I couldn’t propel myself fast enough to catch them, not with wind.

  But I was about to grab the hell out of them nonetheless.

  “You need to get them soon!” Cassidy’s voice shouted, all tinny and faint, muffled from inside my pocket. “When they hit the upper atmosphere you’re not going to have much to work with!”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I muttered, figuring it’d be lost to the wind.

  “There are entire websites devoted to discussing how amazing your sister’s ass is.”

  “I … actually did not know that,” I said. “And I’m not sure I wanted to.”

  Focus. This was a game of catch, and my targets were ahead. Twelve missiles.

  No waiting.

  “If I snuff the flow of air to their engines, what happens?” I asked.

  “They fall and detonate upon impact with the earth,” Cassidy called back. “Probably don’t do that.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “No shit.”

  The roar of the wind was deafening, and I could feel the roll of the missiles cutting through the atmosphere ahead. They were rising by the moment, and I needed to buy time, so …

  I pushed down on them with everything I had.

  Wind roared against their flat surfaces, drag increasing by leaps and bounds as they tried to claw free of the atmosphere and the atmosphere fought back ten times as hard as it would have by default. They slowed,
got sluggish, and I flew closer—

  “You might not want to push too hard on the nuclear weapons,” Cassidy said. “Just a thought. Because they could light up right there, and I doubt you want to experience a detonation, especially an upper-atmospheric one, with all its attendant EMP effects. Which you would be dead and unable to appreciate, but … still. It’d suck for those of us left behind.”

  “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do here, Cassidy?” I shouted, looking down, trying to make myself clear by shouting at my pocket. “I can’t push down too hard, I can’t let them go, I can’t cut off their oxygen—what would you suggest? Riding them like Dr. Strangelove to their targets?”

  “Maybe pick a different target? But probably not ride them, because you wouldn’t survive it.”

  “I am not hooked into their targeting system, I cannot just choose another place for them to—oh.” I blinked a couple times.

  They were rockets. They had to steer, and it wasn’t via those big explodey engines spitting fire out the back.

  They had fins.

  Which meant …

  They used wind.

  “Did you figure it out yet?” she asked.

  “Well, for crying out loud, why didn’t you just say it to begin with?” I asked, using the fast flow of air running along the rocket bodies to find the place where it hit resistance and slewed. I found it for each of them and then … ever so subtly … and then not so subtly … started to change the flow.

  “Sorry,” Cassidy said. “Sometimes I forget everyone but me is an idiot.”

  The rockets changed direction, almost instantly, angling sideways.

  “Go northeast,” Cassidy said. “Toward the arctic circle. We’ll figure out what to do once you’re in uninhabited regions.”