Snap!
...sliced straight through the cable with razor-sharp pinchers. She and the spider fell at speed. The now de-energized steel cage of the grid rising up below them. It was a fifty-foot fall. She’d either die or be badly hurt.
“Paul, I’m falling!” she screamed as she turned visible again.
“I’ve got you!” he said back, very close, and instantly Ward exploded out of the darkness right in front of her, grabbing her up and dodging the plummeting spider in the process. It smashed into the steel grid below them half a second later, and Rachel let the i-hook gun fall with it.
Using Lantern’s night vision app for his HUD, Ward flew them back into the tunnel, across the underground room, up the vertical shaft, and out into the open sky. “If I had a nickel for every beautiful woman who said they were falling for me...”
“You’d have a nickel?”
Ward smiled at her. “I would now.”
Rachel, still facing him, leaned up and kissed his cheek. Which instantly flushed bright red.
CHAPTER 38
HUB 2
RURAL EVERGREEN, FLORIDA
Lantern was grinning.
“It’s not that funny,” Revolution sulked, sprawled out on his back.
But Lantern was barely listening. “No, it’s not that, sir. The hub, I’ve located it.” Lantern pointed above them, to the top of the antenna. “It’s up there.”
Lantern nodded, and his Hollow flew up to the top of the antenna. The Hollow’s HUD burned to life in Revolution’s visors so that he could see everything it could see. On screen was a black box built into the very top of the giant steel antenna. The Hollow scanned it multiple times, but each effort was unsuccessful at seeing inside.
“It’s going to take some time to work through these settings, sir.”
“Well, I’m not sure climbing this thing is really the best plan. That was a hell of a lot of energy to catch. My absorption units are a little fried from the Fire Fly. You have a MagCharge in that jacket of yours?”
Lantern took a moment to scan up and down the antenna again. He was following what Revolution was thinking. Finally, he said, “A MagCharge at the base won’t do it. It’s got an energy field covering it. Probably acts as a shield.”
“I don’t see an energy field.”
“It’s there. Very weak on the visible spectrum, but there. If we try and fail, it may warn the Council.”
“Let’s test that theory.” Revolution pointed his arms at the base of the antenna. “You might want to back up, just in case.” He could tell Lantern wanted to protest, but he kept quiet. Revolution fired the stored-up energy (that had just blasted him to the ground) out of his hands. It sparkled around the base and disappeared. The tree was unharmed.
“Yes, a shield,” Lantern said.
“Plan B, then. We’ve got to get to the top of this thing.”
“We’ve got to do it fast,” Lantern said urgently. “There’s a squadron of X-1s that just launched. Twelve miles out, closing fast.”
“Great. Probably sent them a warning the second I hit the tree.”
Revolution’s mind raced. How could they do this quickly?
“i-hooks!” he said. “You get on one side, I’ll get on the other.”
Lantern did as he was told.
“Aim high, but not too high. About a quarter of the way up.”
They both stood on either side of the antenna. Revolution said, “Fire it gently. We don’t want to make those branches sway.”
Lantern shot him a glance. “How do you know it was the sway? Maybe it’s just the contact?”
Revolution conceded the point. “We’re about to find out.” There was only one way to know for sure. “Three. Two. One...”
They fired.
The i-hooks lanced into the air and wrapped gently around branches about fifty feet above them. Revolution’s was a bit higher than Lantern’s, who had taken a safer shot.
The branches didn’t sway.
No energy burst forth.
They peered over at each other and both released a breath. “Now what?” Lantern asked.
“Retract your hook and get ready to climb. Get to that hub. Go!”
Lantern said nothing and his expression was unreadable under his helmet, but Revolution knew he did not like this plan at all. As always, he did not let that stop him.
Lantern let the hook retract, pulling him off his feet and hurtling him toward the limbs of the giant steel antenna. He knew he could land feet first on the tree limb just below his i-hook and steady himself by grabbing the limb where his i-hook was attached.
His feet met steel.
The limb swayed under his weight.
The terrible sound of a train approaching thrummed across their ears just as Revolution launched himself. He landed just above Lantern but on the other side of the trunk. “Climb!” he told Lantern—who did so as fast as he could, each limb bending as he grabbed it.
The blast of red energy zoomed up the antenna. Revolution lowered himself, passing Lantern, who kept climbing, just as the massive blast of energy thundered into his armor—which absorbed it.
Revolution was once again flung off the structure. But this time he shot out his i-hook and it wrapped around the “tree trunk.” Then he retracted the hook as fast as he could, sending himself crashing right back into the antenna with a hard thump!
His T-O4 armor ripped off some of the branches as he did so. They clanged to the concrete floor. Another energy burst zipped up the tree toward him, and he fired the stored-up blast out of his palm—just in time to absorb the second blast.
As this second wave of energy hit him, his i-hook kept him from being ripped from the trunk of the antenna. His armor’s absorption units needed to be replaced. Energy was leaking through. He glanced upwards, hoping Lantern could get the job done before he lost consciousness.
Above him, Lantern kept climbing. But with each new limb he pulled himself up onto he activated another blast of the energy. Revolution was keeping him alive by absorbing and releasing each wave, but how many could he take?
He climbed as fast as he could.
Finally, he could see the router box on the very tip of the tree. Below him, Revolution was taking another hit of the massive blast. He was swaying now, reeling from each blow. For a moment, it looked like Revolution was going to forget to release the last stored-up blast, which meant the energy from the next one would not be absorbed and would reach Lantern. He knew he could not survive a direct hit. The Locator swallowed hard, but at the last second the Revolution blasted the floor again and let yet another wave crash into him. This time Revolution’s feet slipped off the limb he was standing on.
He was losing it.
Lantern charged on. He reached the AI hub router box. The box had no hinges, no buttons, no obvious way to open it. In fact, it looked like it was built to never be opened. How would he access it? He scanned the device to try and see inside of it.
And that’s when he heard the scream.
CHAPTER 39
Lantern snapped his head down to see Revolution, now completely unconscious, being ripped from the antenna, his i-hook having finally given way under the assault of the energy beam. Its burnt and tattered end waving after him as he fell. Tree limbs shattered as he smashed through them on his way to the concrete. The Revolution thudded into the floor with a colossal bang.
There was nothing to block the next wave of energy.
Lantern was fried.
If Lantern were a man who swore, now would have been the time for him to cuss, as the next wave of red energy zoomed up the tree toward him. Only one thought came to his mind, and it wasn’t a four-letter word.
He snatched one of the MagCharges out of his brown leather coat, placed it on the router box, mentally keyed it for two seconds, pressed the detonation button, and leaped from the top of the two hundred-foot-tall antenna.
The box exploded.
The entire top of the massive antenna was pulverized in a
starburst of fire. The blast ripped through the top of the ceiling. Chunks of concrete rained down onto the still-standing lower half of the antenna, while others cracked across the concrete floor, partially burying Revolution’s prone body.
Fire, steel, and plastic shrapnel from the explosion slammed into Lantern at supersonic speed.
But he felt none of it.
A millisecond after hitting the detonation button and leaping from the antenna he had mentally activated the hidden trigger under his shirt. His suit filled with air instantly, and a large ball of inflated fabric enveloped him. The shrapnel ripped through layers of the fabric but stopped short of reaching his skin, and the entire thing was flame resistant. The ball bounced onto the concrete and rolled. Inside, Lantern hit the chest button manually, and the balloon deflated around him like a parachute.
He dashed over to the Revolution, who was just coming around. Lantern peered down into his metal-covered face. His eyes were squinting through the armor’s eye-guards. “That was a blast. Let’s not do it again, though,” he wheezed.
The two of them beat it out of the facility as quickly as they could. They were now no more than two minutes ahead of the X-1s. The StealthHawk-2 picked them up and chopped north across the Florida sky toward safety.
As the facility shrank behind the speeding copter, Revolution enabled his com and received the news about Ward and Rachel. Two hubs down, one to go.
They still had not heard from Sophia and Drayger.
CHAPTER 40
HUB 3
LANDOVER, MARYLAND
Sophia hovered, her back to the field below her. Thousands of civilians scrambled for cover inside the lobby or in the uppermost sections of seating. But there were just too many people and too little time as the drones spilled through the ripped-open, still-burning roof like a waterfall of metal. All thirty-five drones that remained descended on the field at once. She needed to draw their fire. They’d already realized as long as she had her energy shield on they could not harm her.
In her HUD her power was down to twenty-three percent.
She dropped the glowing blue shield that enveloped her body.
Instantly, the drones reacted. Altering their flight path like a school of fish, from targeting the civilians to targeting their main threat.
Her.
They opened fire.
So did she.
Each drone could fire two laser blasts out of its pterodactyl eyes. Sophia, likewise, could fire from both bracelets. Swarming as they were it meant seventy shots for every two of hers. She blocked as many as she could, at the same time trying to take out any drone that came within her strike zone.
The laser blasts slashed into her from all directions as the drones settled into a multi-layered circle around her. She could feel the armor giving. The heat seared her flesh. Before long the armor ripped. A blast made contact with skin. It was her right side. Near her hip. It opened up a hole in her skin that felt like it went straight to the bone.
This wasn’t going to work. She launched upward, firing straight into the swarm as it circled around her. To an observer, it would have looked like Sophia was flying through the eye of a cyclone of metal and lasers. She lost count of how many direct hits she took. Her mind and vision were swimming from the pain.
When she moved, her suit was squeaky and wet with blood.
She burst out of the top of the swarm. Full power, straight for the clouds. The drones followed. She weaved and dodged as drone blasts zinged past her on both sides. Occasionally, a round of heat would rip across her back. Still, keeping them behind her was good. Most of the shots that were on target were being disintegrated by the boot-jets.
She wasn’t going to take many drones out this way, though. She’d gotten five more of them, best she could count, but that still left thirty more.
Her power was down to twenty-one percent.
She was also easily outrunning the drones. H3 rocket systems, like those that were in her suit, could power spacecraft. The drones only had small aircraft engines. And that risked them deciding to stop giving chase and going back down to target the civilians.
That would not do.
So, an idea hit her.
She turned in midair. Brought her legs up toward her chest, sent a mental command to adjust the thrusters on the boot-jets so that they spread out, pivoting inside the cavities of the boots. Normally they did this to help her hover. Now they would help her slowly fall toward the Earth—and the army of drones.
She fell.
Firing her blasters the whole time, using the boot-jets to block as many incoming laser blasts as she could.
They were still getting through, some even slashing directly into her helmet and visor, sending her vision and mind reeling. But it was working. She just had to hold on a little longer, she told herself.
Ten drones fell. Then ten more.
She dove toward the final ten—which turned and fled from her down into the open roof of the stadium. She chased them, picking them off one by one.
Finally, the last straggler zinged and zagged right in front of her. Desperate to avoid her fury. They zoomed over the seats of an empty section of the stadium. And then she had the drone lined up in her crosshairs.
She fired.
It exploded in a shower of metal, sparks, and flame. A thunderous roar rose up from the five thousand strong.
She’d done it. The drones were no more.
She rose into the sky, hovering near the edge of the smoldering top, and keyed her com. “Hey, Drayger, how’s it going?” The pain was palpable in her voice. She glanced down at her suit and saw what must have been thirty or more open rips in the armor, blood seeping from each of them.
Her vision was darkening. She grunted, “I’m gonna need some down time soon. I really hope you’ve gotten somewhere, kid.”
She brought up Drayger’s digisphere position in her HUD. But it loaded slowly. The damn drone strikes must have half fried the fucking thing, she thought.
Her visor’s HUD wavered. Static clipped across it, and then it went dark. She felt her boot-jet thrusters power down. What the hell was happening?
At that exact moment she realized that the crowd had quieted to a whisper. Movement in her peripheral vision made her spin just in time to see a silver comet smash into her with such force she was sure her ribs had cracked.
She flipped and flopped head over heels, falling, diving, slamming into the turf of the field, ripping through green grass, white yard marks, and smoldering wreckage from the roof.
She was sure she lost consciousness, at least for a few seconds.
Shaking from her head the earthquake that was stubbornly continuing its rampage across her cranium, she glanced above her and saw...
The Aztech.
There was no mistaking it. Glowering down at her with its blazing orange eyes. Ready to strike her again should it need to.
She pulled herself up and strode forward, stumbling, eyeing the robot carefully. Her bracelets aimed upward. She still had no power, but the robot didn’t need to know that. Of course, aiming at it might provoke it, she worried, but she had no good option.
It stayed put. Just floating above her, watching.
And that’s when she felt it.
Her entire body stiffened.
The suit froze.
A sound like a giant fan clipped her ears, and she peered past the Aztech to see a large, silver, circular craft float over the smoldering edge of the stadium and drop down above her.
This was a brand-new experimental Pod-like craft they were now calling a HeliSphere. She’d heard of them, but until now had never seen one. The odd aircraft had a clear glass window for its occupants to see out of, but it was still too high up for her to glimpse the pilots. It settled into a hover some fifty feet over her head.
Finally, the occupants of the HeliSphere stood, and her jaw dropped. Instantly, she recognized several of them: Eric Von Cyprus, Kiernan Rage, and standing in the center of everything, Banniste
r Tarleton himself.
What the hell?
She could see a small squad of Council Guard in the back of the HeliSphere, and there was one more person seated next to Tarleton. But since that person had yet to stand she could not make out who it was.
Tarleton raised his arms out toward the whole stadium and grinned. His voice boomed out of a speaker from the HeliSphere. “I like what you’ve done to the place. Decorated in early traitor!”
Inside her suit she was desperately trying to get the system to reboot. But nothing would come back online. Nothing responded. And then she realized what it was.
Of course! Doctor Rage had control of it.
Tarleton’s voice boomed again.
“You know, they say you’re fearless. That you laugh in the face of death. I think that’s true. So, I won’t kill you, Helius. I know you have no fear of death. But that doesn’t mean you have no fear. Your fears are less primal than that. You fear what you’re feeling right now: weakness, loss of control, helplessness.”
The Aztech settled into a hover high above and fifty feet in front of her. Its orange eyes still blazing.
“It terrifies you to know that Kiernan Rage can take your power. Even worse, control it.”
Her suit powered back up, and one of the bracelets began to glow. The arm of her suit lifted against her will, powered by the new servos Leslie’s team had installed, aimed into a crowd of people—and fired. She could do nothing but watch as terrified onlookers tried to dive for cover.
Unable to find it.
“No!” she screamed.
The suit fired again.
And again.
Finally, the armor powered down.
Moans of pain drifted over the stadium. Blackened, charred holes where the Doctor had fired her propulsors into the stands glared like sinkholes to hell in front of her.
Tears rolled down her face, under the blue reflective visor, and dripped from her chin.
Two of the Aztech’s spinning blades zoomed over the roof and dropped into a hover beside the giant robot.
The Suns of Liberty (Book 3): Republic Page 26