The Suns of Liberty (Book 1): Legion

by Michael Ivan Lowell

  Catch-22.

  The drone crept closer.

  Drayger was directly in front of it, nothing he could do but watch it, and none of them dared to move to assist or the drone’s motion sensors might pick up on them—alerting its robotic companions.

  The drone inched closer. It was within twenty feet now.

  Ward had a bead on the machine and was ready to fire. He kept glancing back at the Revolution with his eyes. Firing a dart would almost certainly announce their presence to the armada and jeopardize not only the mission to rescue Rachel, but also their lives. He knew the only reason to do it would be to save Drayger’s life.

  Ten feet to go now and Drayger could see the ant-like antennae the drone was using to sweep in front of it. The sensor had to be sweeping over him; it was just that Lantern’s digital shield was making the drone think there was nothing there.

  But the closer it got to him, the greater the chance something might register. Motion, his breathing, a displaced raindrop. Anything.

  Five feet to go.

  Ward locked onto the drone a final time and looked back to the Revolution.

  Who gave the nod.

  Ward activated the canisters.

  A powerful wind gust.

  One of the drone’s back legs lost its grip on the Delaware’s steel shell. The Suns fought it, too. But the drone’s small feet had far less magnetic pull than any of their boots. It simply couldn’t hold on. It had never been designed for this kind of wind blast.

  The drone skidded backward a good ten feet—past Drayger, before its mechanical legs repositioned themselves securely on the shell. It remained motionless for a moment, almost as if it were reassessing the situation. Drayger’s eyes were wide. It was right next to him. Both Sophia and Ward had clear shots now.

  It turned around and scurried back to the door, which opened again, and the drone disappeared into the bowels of the ship.

  Ward let out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding and shut the canisters down before they could even start to spin.

  They scanned the large topside of the ship for any more signs of the drones.

  But it was a horizon unto itself.

  So huge that the full curvature of the machine was not fully visible to any of them. There was just no way to see all of the possible openings for the drones.

  They waited and scanned and waited some more.

  Nothing.

  They were out of time.

  “All right, people, we’ve got to move. Fan out to the stress points that Lantern has marked and let’s get those charges set. Make sure you put them on the exact spot or they won’t work,” Revolution said in their coms.

  They moved. As quickly as they could, easing up on the magnetic hold of the boots. The winds were tremendous. The four of them fought for every step. They each had four MagCharges. They set them in four rows of four across the top of the ship at stress points Lantern had marked in digital red in their visors.

  At the halfway point, Ward glanced up and screamed. “I can see it!” He pointed into the black, and there, in front of them, emerging out of the dark, illuminated by the fingering flashes of lightning, was the churning gray wall of the hurricane.

  This close, this high, it was simply massive. It seemed to extend into the heavens forever and spread across their entire field of vision. A giant wall of energy, roiling with magnificent power and headed right for them. From the ground it would have just looked like a massive, grey, wet mass. But up here they could actually see the storm’s rotation in the brilliant flashes of lightning that snaked across its expanse.

  “Hurry!” Revolution yelled into his com, as if any of them needed the prompting. He and Drayger unpacked their backpacks in a hurry, strapped the vortex engines onto their hips, and in a flash were up and running again.

  By the time they reached the front of the ship the winds and rain had picked up to such an extent that every step was treacherous. When the last charge was placed, Revolution yelled at the top of his lungs, “To the edge, now!” The great ship was starting its turn. There was little time left. The hurricane-force winds battered them, making them claw for every step. It was a death struggle with the wind.

  And the wind was winning.

  Then Ward felt a wave of confidence sweep over him. This was a solid plan. They’d faced down worse than this; they would persevere even in the face of...

  Ward spun toward Drayger. His face was set in concentration. It was him! He was doing this, giving them the drive to pull through. Ward smiled at him, and he grinned back.

  Revolution sent a thought-command, and the small Vortex engines strapped to his titanium belt whirred to life. They spread out and the inner mechanisms fired. Drayger followed suit. And without a word, Revolution and Sophia glanced at each other, nodded, and dove into the fury of the storm.

  Ward and Drayger did the same.

  The massive USS Delaware turned just in time. Its great engines fired their afterburners into overdrive, and the aircraft rocketed away from the hurricane, sending a trail of flame one hundred yards behind it right into the heart of the storm. It made for an awesome sight. Roaring fire and churning rain.

  The storm hit the four of them with a fury they couldn’t even imagine. Had they not already closed off their faceplates the air would have been sucked right out of their lungs. As it was, it felt like a punch to the gut. Every muscle ached. Sophia’s healing broken ribs and hip throbbed with a sting that made her weep. She couldn’t help it; the tears just came.

  Ward was holding his head, the pain coursing through it like an electric shock. For a moment all he could think about was red. The giant glowing red tentacle of the Man-O-War spinning out from nowhere to strike him in the head. And then waking up with the pain shooting through him, just as it was now. He fought the horrible memory from Boston, but it wouldn’t relent.

  “Spider! Fly right!” Revolution screamed at him over his com.

  Ward opened his eyes—unaware they’d even been closed, the pain nearly shutting off his brain. Holding his head had made him plummet from his flight plan. The red digital trail blazed above him in his HUD. Why did it have to be red?

  “Pull up and turn!” Sophia growled over the com. She and Revolution glided next to Drayger, who was doing his best not to pass out. They reached out and snagged his arms at almost the same time, forming a human chain. “We’ve got you now. Just relax. The hard part’s still to come,” Revolution told him.

  “Oh good. Wouldn’t want my first day on the job to be too easy!”

  Despite the pain raging through Ward’s body, he pushed himself up. Up against the roaring madness of the storm. He turned his body like the rest of them—right into the wind.

  It was the craziest idea Ward had ever heard of. The idea was to ‘crab’ and use the power of the storm itself as the current that would get them through the eye and to their target. He grabbed Revolution’s arm. And waited to be torn to bits.

  It was working. The aerodynamic nature of the storm and Lantern’s optimal flight pattern was working! Either that, or his entire body was now numb and he could no longer feel himself being ripped apart!

  No, it was true, they were all virtually floating on the air currents. A moment of blessed peace. The pain actually receded. Crabbing was the strategy airplanes had always used to fly through hurricanes. Who would have thought it would work for them, too? Ward glanced over at the Revolution and smiled.

  And then screamed...

  As they all dropped one thousand feet in just seconds.

  The human chain plummeted in an all-out free-fall. Nothing their engines could do to stop it or slow it. Sophia could have burst out of it on full power, but she would have left the others behind and driven them apart in her wake.

  As suddenly as it had started, it stopped and they were back into a floating pattern. But for Drayger, it was too late...

  He lost it.

  He was pulling and twitching, causing Sophia to fight against him. A tho
ught-command and his face shield rolled back up into his helmet. His twisting and lurching even caught Revolution and Ward’s attention and made them both turn when...

  He heaved a vile glob of fluid and food chunks that immediately caught the wind and zipped toward Revolution and Ward.

  Missing them by centimeters. The two men just stared at each other. Ward burst out laughing. The roar of the wind was blocking out all sound, but even through his closed-off face mask Revolution could tell Ward’s mouth were forming the words, “Oh Shit!”

  Even Sophia was grinning despite the soul-shattering pain she felt.

  Drayger was still as green as a Granny Smith apple. He closed his face shield and saw the rest of them laughing at him. For an instant he smiled too, but then the grin broke into a grimace and he ripped away from them so fast it even caught Revolution off guard. He angled his body down headfirst, folding his arms tight to his sides. A skydiver plummeting to the Earth.

  “Neuro, stay in formation!” Revolution shouted over the com, but the roar in all of their ears made it impossible to hear.

  Drayger blasted down into the storm ahead of them and in an instant was lost in the great swirling clouds.

  All around them lightning strikes veined across the sky in spidery fingers, close enough to raise the hair on their heads.

  “Lantern, find him for us!” Revolution yelled into the com, unable to hear if Lantern replied. But soon, a digital overlay beamed to life in their HUDs, showing Drayger in front of them. Revolution pointed to Sophia, and she didn’t need to be able to hear him to understand the command.

  She rocketed into the heart of the tempest. Her blue propulsors disappearing into the gray.

  She kept Drayger in her HUD, thanks to Lantern. The storm sent shockwaves of pain shooting through her, but she adjusted her boot-jets just enough to compensate for the wind gusts that were tearing at her already battered body.

  And just then, she and Drayger flew into something that hit them so hard it ripped the thoughts right out of their minds. They slammed into the eyewall of the hurricane. The most brutal part of the storm.

  Drayger had been plummeting in a controlled headfirst dive, but when the eyewall struck him it whirled him around and he began to spin. His drop from formation had meant he was no longer crabbing into the wind, and the current snatched him and began to pull his body apart. He teetered on the edge of consciousness.

  That’s when it hit him.

  It felt like a comet had struck him in the kidneys. In a way, it had.

  Comet Sophia.

  He felt a crack run up his spine. Sophia had been flung into him by the fury of the eyewall just as she had reached him. With no other choice, she grabbed him and pushed her rockets to full. They jetted out of the chaos in a matter of seconds.

  Ward and the Revolution were not as lucky.

  It took them another two minutes to get through, and Ward’s raging migraine had returned. His vision turned black, and he was no longer able to tell if the storm had simply gotten that dark or if he was literally blacking out due to the razors of pain slicing across his skull. For once, the Revolution flew him out of a crisis.

  He bear-hugged Ward, and they were flung about like paper in a wind tunnel. Rolling and spinning, but still flying in the general direction they needed to go, according to Lantern’s flight path still illuminated in their HUDs. Still trying to crab through the chaos. Both men screamed out, though neither could hear the other over the all-consuming roar of the wind.

  And then it was over.

  They emerged to find Sophia and Drayger circling back up at them. But the duo was gazing past them. Directly above. Ward peered up and immediately recognized what had them so captivated.

  “It’s called the stadium effect,” Sophia said.

  “You’ve seen this before?” Ward asked, now that they could all hear each other again.

  “No...,” she said, gawking overhead.

  Above them, the sky was clear. Stars twinkled above Ana’s eye. And all around them was a giant wall of dark-gray swirling clouds—lightning sparking and snaking across them like a spectacular light show just for them. For a moment, the majesty of it was simply breathtaking. They were seeing something few humans had ever had the privilege to see this close up. To be able to reach out and touch the very fabric of a monster storm.

  It was stunning.

  “Suns, we’re on a schedule,” Revolution reminded them, still looking up at the awesome sight.

  “Right. Let’s get to it,” Sophia said.

  She dove.

  They followed her down to the target, now lit up in digital red. They could not see inside the facility, but the basic area of Rachel’s location glowed in their HUDs. They couldn’t tell what floor she was on, only that she was in the center of the building.

  Sophia blasted a hole in the roof and rocketed inside.

  The facility was clearly on lockdown. Most of the crew was gone. They flew into an empty office floor complete with cubicles and desks and computers. Revolution could feel his vortex engines starting to lose the charge they had gotten from the storm. He and Drayger would not be able to fly much longer. So he told Sophia to keep going, and she incinerated the floor and down they went.

  The next floor was filled with spare parts for drones, vehicles, and other kinds of weapons, some of which were not identifiable, but it was clear they were weapons. They had firing mechanisms for missiles, lasers, bullets, bombs…you name it. The area was big. Much bigger than the top floor with the offices. The ceiling was as tall as a hangar bay’s. Rachel’s signature was still in the center of the building and getting clearer, but unlike at Freedom Rise, Lantern could not map out any of this building.

  The Revolution wondered what kind of tech it would take to completely block out his digi-sphere scan? And why would this building have more protection than Freedom Rise itself?

  As they burned into the third floor they found out why.

  This level was as big as the previous but spread throughout were half-finished pterodactyl drones, each perched on large black workstations that were elevated off the floor. The stations were spread across the room in exact rows, making the whole thing look a bit like a giant chess board.

  At the end of the room were a dozen deactivated rover-bots. They looked like the classic robots from an auto assembly line—long steel arms attached to a cylindrical body—but were mobile and could drive themselves around the room at will to work on the various drone stations and assist their human counterparts in production.

  On the large wall just in front of them was a sight that made their blood run as cold as ice.

  The Man-O-War.

  Its red glowing dome and massive tentacles spread out around it.

  They froze in midair. Which meant Revolution and Drayger simply slammed to the floor, their Vortex engines out of propellant and momentum. Revolution’s armor cracked the concrete floor with a sound that could wake the dead.

  “Nice, guys. They probably couldn’t hear that down in Florida,” Sophia hissed.

  CHAPTER 25

  Von Cyprus heard the ceiling rumble and felt the vibration.

  At that exact moment, the alarm on his motion detector registered an impact. It was one floor above him. His first thought was that the storm had caved in the upper floors and that now his life depended upon the exoskeleton around the main lab holding exactly as it was designed and withstanding the entire top of the facility collapsing on top of it. He was on his com immediately. “Commander,” he said to the Guard in charge, “sounds like the roof may have blown in. Get a team up there and check it out. We can’t lose any of the equipment.”

  He tried to check the video feed, but the storm was playing havoc with the reception. He could see movement, but everything was blurry. He was afraid the wind had blown in the walls and what he was looking at were a bunch of drones being tossed about and destroyed.

  “Doctor, I think we are in the eye. We shouldn’t be taking any wind damage rig
ht now,” one of the Guardsmen said after a moment.

  The Commander spoke back, “I’ve got a team on its way, should be getting there any second. We’ll find out.”

  “It’s just a replica,” Ward breathed. Revolution wasn’t worried about the Man-O-War. His parabolic hearing was catching the thudding steps of the troops coming up from the floor below them.

  “We’ve got company.” He spun to Ward, “You ready?”

  Ward fired up the canisters.

  It was a turkey shoot. The room had not been made for defense. There was only one way up, and the Guardsmen came out two and three at a time in three consecutive waves before they caught on. Ward hit them all. And just like that, nearly half their numbers were down. The comatose bodies of the men blocked the doors for the others, but they had also wisened up.

  “Spread out and take cover,” Revolution said. They each scrambled behind a drone station. The bulky machinery provided perfect cover. They spread out, each taking one section of the large room. Revolution could hear the Guards whispering to each other. They were talking about removing the men at the door so they could have a clean entrance. Revolution texted the info to Ward—who got ready. Soon they could see them reaching out and dragging the prone Guards at the door back into the hallway with them.

  Ward took careful aim.

  The next hand that snuck out from behind the doorway moved quick, but—

  Thunk!

  A dart stabbed into it, and the man it belonged to slumped forward into the doorway. His partner reacted—reached down to pick him up and Ward nailed him too. That was ten in total.

  Then nothing. Revolution heard no noise, no talking. They were just waiting. Probably on reinforcements. “Let’s flush them out,” Revolution said to the others over his com. “Helius, take out some drones.”

  Sophia took aim and blasted a drone near the door. It exploded in fire and metal and shattered across the concrete. She took out another. And another. And another.