“Lux, Glacier’s clear. Do it!”
Lux zooms past me, blazing a trail brighter than I’ve ever seen her do. She hovers over the island just above Multiplex’s mob.
“Tia, close your eyes!” Lux yells.
I want to look away… I really should... but I can’t. Lux lights up. Energy builds up within her and then it’s shining like a star. My polarization goes full black to protect me. Epic puts a lumens meter on my HUD and I gasp from the power display. The meter hits 40,000! That’s twice as bright as magnesium and four times as bright as the sun.
After a few seconds the light goes out and Lux falls to the ground. I punch it, coming to a landing next to her. A quick scan shows her vitals are healthy for her.
The Multiplexes are gone—all but one. I imagine he’s the original, unconscious and made of flesh. “Epic, pod him.” The puff-puff of the grenade launcher goes off, sending him floating up into the air. Once he’s high enough, if he tries to spawn any duplicates they’ll just fall to their death.
“Tia, you okay?” She has her face buried in the ground with her hands over her eyes.
“That was really frigging bright,” she says.
“Yeah. Lux is out. Epic, what’s the status of that satellite—”
The roar of the rocket fills the air as fire shoot ups out of the open hatch. “Crap!” I grab Lux and Tia and punch the jets a second ahead of the blast wave. The rocket roars for a few more seconds before the thrust catches up and it shoots into the sky.
The boat looms before me and I slow down just enough to drop Lux and Tia on the bow before I turn and burn back the way I came. Epic tags the rocket at twenty-thousand feet and climbing at a stupid velocity of Mach 3. Well, nothing I can’t match!
Amelia, you must stop that rocket.
“What has he done?”
The payload is an experimental satellite of Strungel’s own design. While I cannot be sure, I see traces of your tech from Monica’s belt in it. I hypothesize that if it reaches orbit... he may be able to strip every single person of their superpowers. Forever.
The ramifications of what Epic says rattle around in my brain. No more superheroes? No more supervillains? That’s an appealing thought.
I don’t have time to navel-gaze about it. The decision will be taken out of my hands if I don’t punch it. I trigger the Emdrive, flooring it—
A man in a suit collides with me, his Emdrives whine as he drives me down onto the surface of the island. We slam into the ground with a clang and roll several feet. I regain my footing only to have him open fire with a barrage of rockets. They come to a halt a foot in front of me as my kinetic shields absorb their momentum, then they explode. Fire and debris rattle over me. I put up my arms, expecting an overhead attack; he doesn’t disappoint. He slams down on me, breezing through my shields to crash his mallet into my forearms. I scream in pain as the dense metal dents my armor and sends me flying back.
He is using his own kinetic shields to counter yours. I had not thought of that as a possibility.
“Isn’t that what the Armory did?”
They used the frequency of the shields as a back door, bypassing them. We changed the fluctuations of the shields. He has found a way to counter that.
More rockets explode around me. “Epic, tank missile!”
I spin around and come up to my knees, giving Epic a clear shot. The double barrel launcher reconfigures in a heartbeat. The whole suit vibrates as the tungsten Arrow clicks into place before firing.
Amelia...
“I see it, fire anyway!”
Firing.
The Arrow blasts out. Strungel doesn’t even try to dodge. The weapon impacts his kinetic shields and glances off to shoot up into the sky.
“Dammit!” I leap up into the sky, forcing him to follow me. He’s in the same suit he used to kill the PNW team. If it really is a version of my MK III suit, then I am certainly faster.
Amelia, we only have six minutes until the rocket reaches optimal orbital range for the satellite to deploy.
“No, you don’t,” he yells, speaking for the first time since he engaged me.
Alarms blare as local gravity goes crazy. Sensors I usually only use in space start leaping off the scale. We slow to a halt before plummeting back down to the island. As soon as we’re hurtling back to Earth, or metal as the case may be, the alarms clear.
“What the hell is that?”I ask out loud.
“You’re smart, for a kid. But I’ve spent my life developing weapons for the Government. It was child’s play to take your AG pod and redesign it as a shield.
I run a hundred ideas through my brain at once. There’s just no way to do what he says he’s done.
“Strungel. Superheroes do a lot of good, if we didn’t have them when the Th’un attacked, we’d all be dead right now.” I regain control of my fall and reverse my flight, coming to a hover. Maybe, just maybe, I can talk him out of this nonsense.
He slows to hover fifty feet in front of me. We’re a hundred feet above the island. I sure could use some help.
“You have no idea what you people have cost me. The pain and suffering you’ve cost everyone. The world will be a better place without superpowers. And you, Amelia Lockheart, are the reason I was able to build my masterpiece. Don’t worry, though, I’ll make sure you have posthumous credit.”
Great. No talking him out of this. “Particle beam!” I kick in the jets, flying away from him. He dodges hard, his own jets whining as I try and pin him down with the blue beams of death. He’s fast though, and he returns fire with his own particle beams— massive force slams down on me, sending me hurtling to the ground in a lump as I hit the metal deck, bounce, and slide to a halt.
“What the hell was that?”
Kinetic Lance. Our shields absorbed most of the energy.
Damn, if that was most of the energy, I’d hate to see all of it. I have a lot more sympathy for people I’ve hit with it.
“Someone want to get up here and help me?” I ask.
“He’s activated some kind of lockdown, flooded the area with EMI. I can’t teleport, and the doors are reinforced. Carlos is trying to force them open but it’s slow going. Sorry, hon. We’re coming.”
Strungel flies past me, peppering the area with more rockets. The explosions roll me over and I grunt from the sudden pressure.
“Waiting for your friends? I’m smarter than you, Full Metal Superhero. I’ve anticipated this moment since I planned this little fiat against the world’s super people. Nothing is going to stop me. Nothing!”
That’s it, I don’t care anymore. I’m taking him out. “Epic, where’s my rifle?”
Scanning.
While Epic searches, I lift off, firing a barrage of IP cannons at him, filling the air with the sandpaper staccato. They hit him, but as I expected they just slide right off.
“I have a counter to every weapon you possess. I’ve been in your computers, your tech, I know it all. How do you think I called down an Artemis strike on your own base? There isn’t anything you can do that I can’t do better. And the best part is? I don’t even have to beat you. Just keep you here for another five minutes.”
Damned if he isn’t right. Epic has a clock and a map showing me the rocket’s location. His confidence must be from knowing that the satellite will do whatever it is going to do within seconds of attaining orbit.
I wish I could call him crazy, but he doesn’t sound crazy—just wrong.
“Epic, could we overload his shields with our own?”
Theoretically, but it could burn out our systems. There would be massive feedback.
“Sauce for the Goose, Epic. The odds will be equal. Do it.”
Configuring. Try not to get hit for the next ten seconds; shields will be down while I switch over.
“Easy for you to say.” I leap up, full burn, grunting as the G’s push against me. With the shields down, I’m really feeling the thrust, limiting me to a few hundred mph.
Incoming fire!
Hard over and I cry out as the pressure in my chest pushes me down at four times my own weight. I’m gonna be covered in bruises as soon as I get out of this.
“Did I break something, Amelia? You’re turning like a drunk turkey!” Strungel’s cry of joy annoys the crap out of me.
“Are you ready yet?” I ask Epic.
Rockets fly right by me as I turn hard again, back over, and clench my jaw and do my best to tighten my stomach, keeping the blood in my torso.
Yes. Ramming speed.
“Hey! That’s my line.” Regardless, I throw everything in reverse, letting out a sigh as the shields return absorbing the G’s. I fly right at him, faster than he can turn and I put everything into it. At the last second he flips over into a barrel roll and we miss each other by a hairsbreadth. “Dammit.”
I flip back over, fire off a half-dozen HE grenades at him. “Epic, pop smoke.” Panels in my shoulders slide open, canisters of potassium chlorate, aluminum filings, and purple paint eject. A second later they explode, filling the area around me with vision and thermal obscuring smoke.
He will not come in here. He does not have to.
“I know, I know, but he won’t see me when I come to him. Punch it.” We shoot out of the smoke, aiming for his last trajectory, and sure enough, he circled back around to hover. Just like he’s done the last two times there was a lull in our fight. Even if he knew I was coming, at six-hundred miles an hour, I cross the measly three hundred feet in less time than it takes to blink— twice.
Our armors collide in a horrendous bang of metal and exploding circuitry. All the alarms in my suit go crazy and the HUD blinks out as we crash into the ground a hundred feet from where we collided.
There’s no way for my suit to catch on fire from the inside, but the smell of burning plastic is bad enough that I have to trigger the faceplate not to gag.
“You bitch! What did you do?” He shouts as he rolls up to his hands and knees. He’s sluggish, not moving nearly as fast.
“Necessity is the mother of invention, Strungel.” I put a hand on my knee and lift myself to a standing position, taking a deep breath. Epic should reboot any second.
Any second...
Strungel manages to stand, reaching behind his shoulder he wraps his metal fist around the mallet magnetically attached to his back. “I’ve improved your design in every way. Even without my shields, I can still keep you here long enough to win.” He runs at me—the mallet crackles with electricity as he swings it at me. I leap back, stumbling over debris and barely escaping being squashed.
I reach behind my own shoulder and unlatch the Sword O’ Doom, bringing it up in front of me in a two-handed grip to defend myself. I still have power, and the suit’s autonomous functions still work, like strength.
“Ha. You don’t even know how to use that thing properly.” He charges forward, screaming as he brings the hammer up to swing it down on me. I dive sideways and bring my sword up. I aim for his arm, but miss, hitting the haft instead. The Sword does exactly what it’s supposed to do; its mono-molecular blade cuts right through the haft, sending Strungel falling forward as his momentum is untethered by the mallet head flying through the air.
I spin around and pounce on him, slamming my foot into his chest and holding the blade to his throat. “Don’t think for a second this won’t slice through your armor, because it will,” I growl at him. I hear a beep, notifying me Epic is in the process of rebooting. Just a few more seconds and I can close the faceplate.
“Ha!” His suit whines, a plate slide up over his chest and light explodes in front of me, sending me rocking back in a desperate attempt to cover my eyes and clear my head.
“Epic, I can’t see!” No response. “Epic?”
“He can’t help you now, Amelia. Say goodbye.”
My vision clears and he’s holding my BFG... Oh no. “Strungel, no!”
Too late. He pulls the trigger. My self-destruct on the weapon doesn’t account for Epic being offline. We’re screwed. The weapon whines as the ZPFM powers up. I can’t see his face through the helmet, but I can imagine he’s confused. I turn and throw myself to the ground. My faceplate slams shut.
White hot fire covers me as the ZPFM ignites like a small nova. I’m moving as Epic blasts us forward, trying to escape the shockwave.
Oh God. Kate? Carlos? I clear my head. “Epic, how much damage did that do?”
Considerable. However, we have more pressing concerns.
“Kate could be hurt, turn us around and—”
Amelia, you have two minutes to intercept a rocket with a two-hundred and fifty-mile head start. If we stay to save them, then all superpowers on Earth will be gone.
“I... would that be so bad? No more supervillains? Kate could live a normal life...”
Or it could kill all of them. We do not know the ramifications of stripping them of their powers. It would also be a net sum of zero. If the Th’un, or a race like them, were ever to come to Earth again, we would be defenseless.
“Right, of course, your right. It’s just... Kate...”
I know. Plotting course, brace for acceleration. The kinetic shields are at 20% I am afraid this is going to hurt.
Locking armor. I am afraid you will black out; hold on. The G’s slamming into me pile up quick and my vision fades to a tunnel as swatches of darkness encroach on it from the outside. I tighten my stomach and grit my teeth as best as I can but it’s a losing battle. As the airspeed indicator shoots past four-thousand miles per hour, I pass out.
Amelia!
Epic calls my name but the darkness and the fog that cover my brain makes it hard to respond. I try, but my mouth won’t move.
Amelia, wake up!
Right. Orbit. Killer satellite. Things come back in bits and pieces. Adrenaline hits my system as the urgency of the moment catches up with me. I am wide awake.
“W— where, I mean, how long do we have?” My voice sounds weak, even to my ears. My entire body aches like I’ve been beaten with a stick for half an hour.
Less than fifteen seconds to deployment; follow the yellow brick road.
Three-dimensional triangles pop up on the HUD, showing me the path. I can make out a glimmer in the distance that Epic puts a circle around—that must be the satellite... but it’s so far away! I kick in the Emdrive and floor it, navigating the triangles to line us up. The distance drops like a rock, from fifty miles... thirty... twenty...
Only five seconds left. “Epic, Tank Missile!” I can add three thousand miles an hour to my speed.
Armed. In the pipe. Locked on.
The plates on my back shift locking the launcher into place just as the counter hits one. “Fire!”
The suit shakes as the electromagnetic weapon fires. There’s no trail of fire here, nothing to see, even if I had high-speed cameras recording I doubt I would catch more than a shadow of it.
The rocket carrying the satellite explodes in a million pieces, the kinetic energy of the Tank Missile decimating its relatively fragile frame. Debris impacts the suit with a dull thud as the vibrations transfer to me...
Wait. Nothing should be hitting the suit. I check the shields, they’re down to ten percent. Oh no.
“Epic, did we get it?” I ask, worry and fear creep into my voice; I can’t help it.
Scanning. There does appear to be the right amount of debris. I do not see any large objects, rocket thrust, or anything else that would indicate a satellite. I think we did.
To be on the safe side, I jink around the debris field for a moment, letting our momentum carry us around the Earth.
“You better notify NASA and the DoD about this. I can’t imagine it’s going to miss everything. Also, let’s tap into the news feeds and make sure it didn’t go off. If it did, the reports would be instantaneous.”
Kate... She and the rest of the team are still stuck down there on the island. A laundry list of damaged components appear on my flickering HUD. With the shields down and the suit’s power so low,
there’s no way I’d survive re-entry. I’m stuck up here and there isn’t anything I can do to help them. I hope they’re all right. I pray they are.
There is no news of lost superpowers. Nothing to indicate the satellite worked. I have notified NASA and the DoD. They are not happy about the path of the debris.
“Boohoo. I’m not happy about being stuck up here. How long is our life support good for?” I ask him.
Twelve hours. However, if the team survived the island we should not need that long.
“I’m sure they’re okay… right Epic? I mean, with the damage to his island they should have gotten out easily, right?”
While I do not have all the variables, past experience indicates they will have escaped.
I glance down at Earth. From orbit, she’s as beautiful as can be. Big, blue, peaceful. We’re coming up on Africa and I can see the dark continent. It stretches on forever.
“How long until we’re back around in radio communications?”
Thirty minutes.
Thirty minutes until I find out of my friends are alive. Awesome. I can’t sit here and do nothing for that long, but I can’t go home, and I certainly don’t want to go farther out. That leaves only one thing to do...
“Awesome. Okay, put on a movie, break out the popcorn, and hope they don’t have blasters.”
Your sense of humor remains intact, I see.
“If a girl can’t laugh while marooned in orbit... when can she laugh?”
In the movies, people exposed to the vacuum of space explode, or instantly freeze, or any number of horrid things. The truth isn’t as dramatic or as immediately deadly. Of course, the human body is filled with gasses, and without pressure to hold those gasses in, they start to expand. Our skin holds it all in, though.
If a person could leave vacuum within a few seconds of entering it, they probably wouldn’t feel any ill effect at all.
Probably.
Kate appears in front of me. Eyes closed, hands on my armor and then the world goes white and my stomach hurries to catch up.
Full Metal Superhero (Book 6): Explosive Arsenal Page 13