The Suns of Liberty (Book 3): Republic

by Michael Ivan Lowell

  The trio had made almost no progress at all.

  She deactivated her invisibility and leaned down in front of the three of them, even rolled one of them over, so they could all get a good look at her. “A good man is so hard to find,” she snorted at them in a little girl voice. She stood and gave them a slow, seductive model’s turn on the catwalk in her skin-tight alabaster get-up, giving them all a good eyeful of everything she had. It was evil she knew, but what the hell, it was fun. She smirked at the three and strutted back up the tunnel to find the others.

  In her RDSD, she typed Leslie an update and told her to stay put for now until they could secure the area. That seemed to be a foregone conclusion, a mere formality now. This was all going much easier than they’d expected.

  That was all about to change.

  CHAPTER 51

  Revolution heard it a nanosecond before Lantern’s scans picked it up.

  The sun was breaking across the horizon. The night’s short battle had taken its toll on the Mall. Trees were burning and shattered across the edges, and the normally deep-green center section was scarred and trampled. Great gouts of black earth were splattered everywhere. Smoke billowed into the sky from a dozen large impact craters.

  Revolution could see the hordes of protestors creeping back into the Mall. As they witnessed the Council Guardsmen being taken into custody they began to cheer. This, too, stole Revolution’s attention.

  On top of everything, he’d been barking orders to the Minutemen who were organizing the prisoner round-up, and he needed to make sure Rachel was good to go inside the Capitol. Otherwise, he’d probably have heard it earlier. “We’re secure out here, Stealth,” he told her. “Get the VIPs ready for evac. Tell Leslie to—”

  A rustle skittered in his parabolic hearing...

  It sounded like marching feet.

  It was coming from his left, the direction of the American Indian Museum.

  He spun left.

  There was the same scuffle from his right.

  His onboard detection system scoped in and identified the sounds as having originated from inside the National Gallery of Art. The buildings on and around the Mall were supposed to be deserted.

  “Spectral, check those build—”

  The doors to the museum and the gallery flung open, and a long, steady stream of heavily armed Council Guard troops came streaming out. M16s drawn, commando style, lining up in formation.

  A second later, every door of every building along the Mall did the same. More sounds reverberated from their right. Another thick column of Council Guard marched up Third Street, turning onto Pennsylvania Avenue—no doubt emptying from the buildings along Third.

  From every direction Council forces flooded in. They surrounded the Suns and the Minutemen. And more were coming.

  An equally large force marched up Constitution Avenue, headed for the parked Caracara.

  An army approached.

  They’d been ambushed, set up, surrounded. All these troops just waiting, biding their time, even giving up their comrades to defeat in order to achieve the element of surprise.

  It was a bold move.

  And it had worked.

  The seven members of the Suns of Liberty stood, lined up across the steps of the Capitol Building, staring out at the onrushing forces.

  The Minutemen, only moments ago an overwhelming force, were now outnumbered and surrounded on every side. They were trapped in one giant kill zone.

  “I thought you said we were the only ones hiding a horde of troops in the shadows, boss,” Ward said.

  Reynolds cursed inside his armor. “That must be the entire Council Guard, all in one place!”

  “Looks like it,” Lantern agreed.

  “Thousands,” breathed Rachel.

  “How could they conceal all of these troops from us?” Revolution asked Lantern, barely constrained irritation dripping from his voice.

  “X-Ray has to be with them, sir.”

  Scarlet’s eyes went wide. “So are the rest of the Legion here, too?” she asked, searching the perimeter.

  The fear they all saw shimmering in the eyes of “the woman who can kill with a thought” was unsettling, to say the least.

  Lantern didn’t reply, busy scanning the area.

  Revolution knew he was right. And if X-Ray was here, so were the others.

  But where?

  Ward blanched. “Uh, Rev, didn’t someone say the last thing we wanted was have to face the Legion in the middle of a firefight?”

  There would be no time to answer.

  The Guard opened fire.

  Orange tracers filled the air.

  The Minutemen, caught off guard, fired back.

  A thunderous roar rumbled out of the Minutemen, who surged ahead. The Council Guard did the same and charged straight for them.

  They rushed forward like two massive waves.

  The Minutemen were from NYC, Boston, D.C., and Philly, fighting as one. Five hundred strong.

  But the Council Guard had them outnumbered. There seemed to be thousands of them, and their superior firepower added to their advantage.

  The Minutemen rushed outwards from the center of the Mall.

  The Guard sprinted inward to meet them.

  They crashed together in a surge of bodies and gunfire.

  Red and orange tracer fire erupted from everywhere at once.

  Bodies fell. Puffs of pink mist rose in every direction.

  The front line of Minutemen fell all across the Mall.

  Grenades lobbed into the ranks on both sides sent bodies and body parts flying.

  Chaos.

  “Spectral, get Scarlett and Lantern inside!” Revolution turned to Ward and Reynolds. “Flyers, go!”

  Revolution leaped from the steps of the Capitol, servos at full power, his cape snapping rigid. He sailed over the surging Minutemen and crashed feet first into the thick of the frontline of the Guard, pulverizing bodies in his wake. Swinging his augmented titanium fists, crushing armor, helmets, skulls, necks, chests, anything he hit.

  Across the Mall, the two sides fought. Even splashing across the Capitol Reflecting Pool, firing at will at close range. Already, bodies floated in the reddening waters.

  Scarlett gasped as Spectral flew her and Lantern into the Capitol, grasping them tightly to his side with synthetically muscled arms. The glowing, swirling patterns of his internal energy danced on their clothing.

  They zoomed up through the center of the dome, and the android planted them on the visitor’s observation deck, which was located just inside the small windows of the famous dome.

  Above them, the world-renowned frescos depicting, among other things, George Washington ascending into heaven framed the dome’s ornate ceiling.

 

  The android blinked away, teleporting out into the heart of the battle.

  Scarlett scanned the Mall. From here she could see the whole thing.

  Tracer fire crisscrossed everywhere, but she noticed that something was missing. Where were all the weapons firing luminescent bullets?

  “We might have caught a break,” she said into the com.

  “Not many luminized weapons,” Rev said.

  Scarlett smiled. “Exactly.”

  “That makes no sense,” Rachel opined.

  Spectral said.

  “One is too many. I’ve got this,” Scarlett said.

  She glanced over at Lantern. “Luminescent weapons give off a very distinctive signature.” She closed her eyes.

  She aimed her thoughts out at the Guard. Her brainwaves moving over each of their weapons, seeking, searching for luminescence. When she found one, she locked it into her brain.

  And when she had them all, she sent the disabling signal. One by one the lumi
nized weapons began to quiet.

  “Only about fifty in the entire Guard,” she said into the com.

  “Nice work, Scarlett,” Rev said.

  Next, she focused on the rest of the Guard’s weapons and began disabling every one she could find.

  They were all microchipped.

  Everywhere she passed over, the guns fell silent, and the Minutemen surged through confused Guardsmen, passing over their ranks like waves on a beach.

  Lantern stayed by her side, desperately searching for Kendrick Ray. Scarlett remembered the psychotic little man well. She had disliked him immediately the first time she met him.

  “Where are you, Ray?” Lantern muttered, clearly frustrated at his lack of progress.

  “You have a history with Ray?”

  Lantern’s jaw tightened under the helmet. “You could say that.”

  “The little time I was around him I thought he was a creep,” she said.

  But there was no denying his skills. If he could conceal this entire force, what else could X-Ray hide from them?

  They wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.

  Up top, Ward swung low over the Guard, firing fast. The automatic targeting system once again doing its magic. He was careful to stay ahead of the Minutemen, firing into the thick of the Guards just before they reached the frontline.

  Scarlett’s disabling beam was moving fast across the span of the Guards, and Ward tried to follow it.

  As soon as their guns jammed he hit them with the paralysis darts.

  Then, the Minutemen would reach them without resistance.

  “Where the hell are the drones?” Ward shouted into his com.

  No one had the answer.

  Spectral, for his part, was showing less constraint than before. There were just too many Council Guardsmen down there for him to hold back. Every shot had to count. He fired his energy weapons into their throng, which impacted like grenades, flinging the bodies of Guardsman here and there.

  Despite his own reluctance to use violence, Ward found himself relieved to see it.

  After all, Spectral had used the same level of force against the Minutemen at the Hall of Chambers. If the android really was on their side he ought to show at least the same willingness to chance injury or death to the Guard as he had to the Minutemen.

  Tracer fire zoomed past his head, and he banked left to avoid it. He didn’t wish death on anyone, not even these creeps who were trying to kill him. He was just glad Spectral was proving his words with his actions.

  Reynolds showed no such compulsion for restraint. He was at war and it showed. He blasted his energy weapons on full power into the thick of the Guardsmen. The beams ripped right though them, burning gory holes. Ward wondered what kind of energy those weapons were made of. He was going to have to inquire about that when all this was over.

  That might not be as long as he’d feared. Thanks to Scarlett’s disabling powers, this new troop of Guards was proving to be just as easy to take down as the previous. There were just a lot more of them.

  Ward grinned at the thought.

  And that’s when something inside his head exploded.

  At least that’s what it felt like.

  A sonic blast of sound screamed across the sky, and Ward found himself grasping his ears.

  The helmet did nothing to stop it.

  He could no longer guide himself.

  He wobbled in the air, and then he was spinning, out of control.

  The sound was overwhelming.

  He couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t control the suit.

  The earth shot past like a merry-go-round. The god-awful screech was ripping his brain apart.

  He knew he was falling.

  Ward somersaulted through the buzzing nest of tracer fire, smashed through the trees on the Mall, and dug a deep gouge of dirt into the ground.

  His head throbbing and his body aching, he squinted up and spied a squadron of pterodactyl drones sweeping over the Mall, opening fire with red laser blasts. He watched Spectral and Reynolds engage them like Vipers in a dogfight. He still couldn’t wrench the ultrasonic noise out of his brain.

  All around him, the Minutemen were falling to their knees, too.

  The drones and the Guardsmen were just picking them off. The Council Guard were completely unaffected by the sonic weapon.

  Scarlett was no longer disabling their weapons. She and Lantern were probably both down.

  The tables had turned.

  Ward gathered all the strength he had and rose to his feet—just in time to see a squadron of giant Spores and X-1 Apache helicopters zoom above him, letting loose a devastating volley of laser blasts and tracers bullets into the crowd of Minutemen.

  The air was full of metal and energy.

  Ward felt himself spin as a volley of bullets stitched across his suit—right before Reynolds blasted straight though the X-1 that had fired them in a starburst of flame, steel, and propellers.

  The large spores—silver orbs encircled by dozens of long spikes capable of firing deadly laser blasts that could impact with the force of a small bomb—zoomed through the sky like a flock of birds. Turning in formation, using strategy to attack. Clearly being controlled by the hive mind.

  Reynolds lowered his head and smashed through one of those as well, and it exploded in a fireball.

  He yelled something over the com that Ward couldn’t hear, and zipped by on the way to his next target. That guy might as well have still been on the football field taking out defenders with the monster blocks he had been known for.

  And Ward noticed that Reynolds and Spectral were unaffected by the sound. It was taking everything Ward had to keep standing.

  To keep his eyes open.

  To keep from puking his guts out.

  Note to self: add a sonic shield to the helmet!

  CHAPTER 52

  THE NATIONAL MALL

  WASHINGTON, D. C.

  The sonic blast had hit Revolution, but its effect had been muted. Any sound coming in at a decibel level high enough to damage his hearing was automatically reduced by the suit’s self-defense array. Reynolds must have had a similar defense in his armor, Revolution surmised, as the Ram was still engaging drones, unlike Ward, who had fallen from the sky. Using the digi-sphere application Lantern had downloaded into Revolution’s helmet, he scanned the sky searching for the source of the sonic weapon. To his dismay, the entire front row of drones had been outfitted with them.

  “If anyone can hear me, it’s the front row of drones. The signal is coming from the front row of drones.”

  Only one voice responded.

 

  Spectral had already phased to light form. Now he halted in the middle of the sky, his cloak rippling on waves of light invisible to the human eye, letting tracer bullets and Spore blasts zip right through him. He scanned the drones and identified those outfitted with the sonic blasters.

  What he did next required millions of cybernetic calculations, adjustments, and procedures. He performed them in microseconds.

  He teleported inside the first drone, linked into the UAV’s CPU, and adjusted his flight speed to match that of the drone. Next, he shifted the atoms of his right hand from wave to particle, light to substance, and ripped out the control mechanism of the sonic weapon like weeds from a field.

  The drone fell silent.

  Five more to go. In the next thirty seconds, Spectral bounded across the sky, from drone to drone, performing the same action. There was nothing the drones could do to stop him. Even with their hive mind activated, Spectral was a virus they could not control.

  Reynolds threw him an assist, blasting right through the middle of a pterodactyl like a missile, and Spectral took out the rest.

  The sound mercifully stopped.

  So, the aerial assault shifted to phase two...

  Bombs exploded all around—grenades lobbed by soldiers into each other’s lines; hellfire missiles sh
ot out from X-1s buzzing above. The drones, focused initially on taking down Minutemen who were incapacitated by the sonic cannons, redoubled their swarming strategies. Attacking like a flock of birds.

  For Reynolds it was like they’d all just been toying with them. “They’ve just been playing with us!” The sky had become a solid field of orange tracers and scarlet lasers. The hailstorm ripped into Reynolds.

  Spectral said calmly over the com.

  “No kidding!” Reynolds barked. He held his arms out to his sides, firing the golden energy beams into anything flying in from the sides and ramming through everything in front of him.

  Even that had a cost to it. He exploded though a streaking Spore, which erupted in a mushroom cloud, sending one half of the giant burning sphere smashing through the top of the Smithsonian Castle, which collapsed in on itself. The other half hit the ground and exploded—right in the heart of a mass of Minutemen.

  “Damn, it!” He scanned the horizon. There was one more trump card they had to play: the massive army of Minutemen Randolph Jenkins had hiding in the shadows. Why wasn’t Jenkins playing it? Why had Rev not ordered him into action yet? It had been COR’s great mistake to replace Reynolds with a gutless bureaucratic stooge like Jenkins, and now they were all about to pay for the lapse in judgment, Reynolds feared.

  Rev couldn’t see the whole situation. He didn’t have an eagle’s eye view like Reynolds had. It was Jenkins’s job to decide when to come to aid. If Reynolds had been in command he would have already attacked. In fact, he would have ordered his guys into the battle right after the Council had sprung their trap

  So what the hell was Jenkins waiting for?

  Reynolds keyed his com again. “Jenkins, where the hell are you? We could use some backup. We’re getting our asses kicked out here!”

  Jenkins’s nasally voice answered back in that same tone that drove Reynolds nuts. The man perpetually sounded bored. “Commander Reynolds, the Suns of liberty are the tip of the spear. These troops are backup only. I won’t commit them until I have to.”

  “Meanwhile you stay nice and safe, huh?”