“I appreciate that, Paul,” she said, not sounding at all appreciative. “But I have to get back out there. No one else can take down the Aztech.”
“Lady, they’re going to kill you. There’s got to be another way. What about the android?”
Scarlet lowered her eyes. She seemed angry and deadly. Her words were clipped and precise. “Spectral can destroy it, but only I can stop it.”
Ward got the feeling she was sizing him up for that ‘kill with a thought’ thing, so he said, “Okay. Hold on tight, then.”
They blasted toward the front of the Capitol Building.
Revolution’s voice broke through at long last in response to Ward. “Get her to the upper hall of the House, Paul. That’s the wing on the northern side. There’s a lower balcony. She’ll be fairly hidden there.”
Moments later, Scarlet was settling into the balcony, crouched down behind the ornate concrete railing, aiming her hands at the Aztech. She hit the machine with everything she had.
Across the Mall Minutemen guns began to reboot, and they opened fire. Scarlett’s efforts against the Aztech drew her father’s attention away. But the greatly thinned numbers of the Minutemen had nowhere to hide. The trees had been obliterated. Only charred stumps stood in their place. The kill zone the Guardsmen had trapped them in was wide open as the Council Guard closed in from all sides. Picking off their hapless enemy a little at a time.
And from somewhere outside the Mall, Von Cyprus’s black energy came slicing through the air, burning holes into anything it touched. The Aztech kept firing its bioluminescent rays into the mass of troops with impunity.
In the air, drones, Spores, and X-1s sprayed the kill zone with fire. Spectral and Reynolds, now released from the Doctor’s neurological hold, battled back, but they were outnumbered. They could rip through the machines with ease, but there were simply too many of them. Ward joined them after dropping Scarlett off, evening up the odds a bit, but the aerial war would take time to finish. Time they did not have.
And scouring the aerial theater were the Aztech’s celestials. They spun death wherever they flew, shooting out destructive lasers in all directions. They were crude, indiscriminate weapons that fired into the ranks of the Council Guard almost as commonly as did their Minutemen targets. Fortunately, they only fired conventional laser weapons, not the luminescence their host employed. Reynolds tried to ram one, but the collision only served to knock him and the disk out of the sky for a few moments. Spectral phased inside one and disabled it, but there were a half dozen others to go.
Revolution continued his brutal march into the line of Guardsmen and sighed in relief that the Doctor’s grip had loosened elsewhere. Minutemen were firing back all around him as their weapons were released from the Doctor’s hold.
For the first time since it had appeared in the sky, the Aztech finally began to sputter and slow in its constant barrage of luminescent beams of energy. They had to strike at the source now or they would be worn down by all the weaponry allied against them.
“Suns, concentrate fire on the Aztech. All other targets are secondary.” He knew it was now or never. All Spectral would need was the briefest moment and he could reach inside its unbreakable shell and rip out the robot’s internal circuitry, effectively killing it.
“Sir, my HUD is back,” Lantern’s voiced beeped over the com. “And I’ve got Lithium’s energy signature on the roof of the Capitol.”
Revolution stopped short as a whole unit of Guardsmen high-tailed it away from him. “On the roof, are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Revolution stole a trailing glance back toward the Aztech—now clearly fighting the effects of Scarlett’s disabling powers—then turned and gazed up at the regal structure of the Capitol dome. “What the hell are you doing, Arbor?” So far neither the Legion nor the Guard had come in from behind them—from behind the Capitol—which made little sense. Maybe this was the first phase of their flank attack. Still, why would Arbor come alone, and why give Lantern a chance to see him?
“What’s your assessment?”
Lantern sounded perplexed. “Not sure. Can’t be good. Painting the target for a missile strike?”
That seemed unlikely. The location of the Capitol building was one of the best known set of coordinates on the planet. Even if they were using an automatic targeting system, why would Arbor need to paint the target? That was usually reserved for more remote, hard-to-pinpoint, or moving enemies. Unless, Revolution reasoned, Arbor and X-Ray were afraid Lantern would be able to scramble the standard numerical targeting system and were taking no chances.
“Whatever Tarleton’s big play is, Arbor’s probably leading it.”
“And VIPs are in the building.”
“Plan could be to decapitate the government. The rest of this could be a diversion.”
Lantern was right. As bad as all this was, the Capitol was being left alone. And that meant they had something special planned for it. Lithium was the military genius of the bunch. If anyone was going to lead their big play it would be him. Revolution knew he had to stop him, no matter the cost.
“Understood,” Revolution finally said.
If the missiles were coming from the north, Arbor would know to keep his troops away from that side. Keep the fight focused on the south and then come in with their master play from the north and take it all out. Revolution glanced back to the Aztech again.
At that moment, the giant robot fell from the sky.
The Aztech smashed to the pavement with a thunderous clang.
“Got him!” shouted Scarlett.
Revolution sighed in relief. “Spectral, you’re up. I’m going after Lithium to stop whatever this big play is they’re planning. If this whole thing is a diversion for a missile strike, Arbor’s going tell me. Or I’m going to kill him.”
Revolution peered around and caught sight of Reynolds’s navy blue and gold zooming by above, still engaged in aerial dogfights.
“Ram,” Revolution said, “give me a lift?”
Moments earlier, Eric Von Cyprus had swung the gold-encrusted glass doors open and stepped out onto the balcony of the Romanesque-styled Old Post Office Clock Tower. Kiernan Rage followed him. Behind the duo was a luxury suite owned and operated by the Chairman of the Freedom Council. It had been renovated and converted while Thomas Sage was chairman, and the former Council head had used it liberally for every trip he had to make to the Capitol. Tarleton, by contrast, had little use for it.
Tarleton did not slow down to enjoy the finer things in life.
Across the skyline Von Cyprus could see the entire expanse of the Mall in the distance—impact craters smoking everywhere. Spores and drones swirled overhead, battling the airborne Suns. X-1 helos dove at the kill zone, showering automatic fire into the mass of traitors.
The drones had unleashed the sonic weapons, which worked to rebalance the fight in the Guards’ favor, but then the android Spectral had taken them out.
Von Cyprus leaned against the metal railing and peered out toward the Capitol Building. “Where is the machine, Kiernan?”
The Doctor had been quiet for a long time. A sign to Von Cyprus that he was concentrating on keeping the Aztech in check. He peered over at the Doctor and noticed the man’s eyes were closed.
“The slave emerges now.”
The Aztech floated down above the Mall and began to fire its energy into the crowd of Minutemen. Its celestials buzzed the Mall, killing everything they touched. Von Cyprus watched it all with analytical fervor.
“That’s enough. Kill your daughter,” he told the elder Rage.
And so the Doctor gained control of Spectral and the new Suns member called the Ram.
When the first battle with Scarlett came they did not speak to each other. The Doctor required enormous concentration to control the Aztech, Spectral, and the Ram at the same time. Not to mention fighting off his daughter while rebooting any systems inside the Aztech that she compromised.
After tha
t battle had ceased, the elder Rage finally spoke.
“I will loosen these chains, Eric. And when I do you will feel my wrath.”
“So you’ve been saying. In the meantime, find that bitch daughter of yours again and finish her.” Von Cyprus wanted her out of the picture, fast.
“The child is not to be trusted.”
“Uh-huh. So kill her.”
“She is a symbol of the vile decline of man.”
“Whatever, she needs to go. I think she’s over there.” Von Cyprus pointed at the Capitol steps.
“Sexuality has perverted humanity, made it untrustworthy. The feminine is a curse.”
Von Cyprus closed his eyes, and the creases around them deepened. “The fact that the inhibitor chip can’t inhibit your tongue is the curse.” He pointed at Scarlett on the steps. “The snipers can’t get her, so drop a drone on her and let’s be done with it.”
“Like all women, she is resourceful, deceitful, temptuous—”
“Temptuous is not a word.”
Suddenly, the Aztech fell from the sky.
“You mad fool, you’re too late!” Von Cyprus, the blood rushing to his face, spun on the Doctor and raised his sleeves—which hummed with the unearthly black power.
The Doctor merely smiled and lifted his chin, as if inviting death “Proceed. I will be reborn after the slave”—the Doctor pointed out at the fallen Aztech—“has defeated you.”
Von Cyprus’s ruby face ran pale as he gained control of his anger. He stumbled backwards, reeling from what he’d nearly done. To kill Kiernan Rage was to end the world. “You’re sick with madness,” he breathed. And then, slowly, he turned his head toward the Capitol. “If you won’t do it, I will.” He aimed the sleeves at Scarlett Rage. They sang with power once again. And he fired.
CHAPTER 55
Two thousand Minutemen marched toward the fight.
The George H. W. Bush Tunnel reverberated with the thudding, pounding drum of the explosions above them. The small, evenly spaced lights running along the ceiling flickered with each impact, and dust spiraled from small cracks in the tunnel’s roof. Still, the Minutemen tromped forward, their fear a heavy knapsack strapped onto their backs.
Commander Jenkins stayed back, letting his volunteers surge ahead of him. Beside him he kept his two assistants, loaded down as they were with a big bulky com unit that Jenkins was counting on to save his ass if this whole operation went south—which he was pretty sure would be any minute now. They were so badly outgunned it defied logic why the Revolution would even attempt this siege. The com unit was also the hub that helped Lantern keep their movements invisible to all but the naked eye. The longer they stayed invisible the better, Jenkins thought.
Jenkins glared over at the radioman lugging the big unit and told him to stay close. The radioman’s assistant was equally saddled with spare parts, weapons, and a general assortment of on-the-fly technical patches in case the com unit were to get damaged in battle.
The infantry troops moved on ahead of them. Two thousand strong, they emerged from the dim passage into the fresh sun of morning made grey by the smoke of the battle, and sprinted up Seventeenth Street. The smoke-choked breeze made lungs gasp, throats cough, and eyes water. The air had been cleaner down in the dank tunnel. Still, they charged on.
The Eisenhower Executive Office Building passed by on their left. The smoking peak of the Washington Monument loomed on the horizon, cresting through the fog. As soon as they reached the Corcoran Gallery of Art building on the right and the expansive green space of the Ellipse on their left, the back flank of the Council Guard turned.
Saw them.
And charged.
The two sides crashed together in a spasm of arms, tracers, and explosive hand grenades. The surging numbers of the Minutemen pushed the Guard back. In their eyes could be seen the shock and surprise that such a large force could have stayed hidden from them only blocks from their own position. A major win for Lantern.
As the troops sprinted forward, forcing the Guard to retreat further into the Mall, giant holographic video screens burned into the air on all sides. Static clipped across them, in sight of every Minuteman in the field.
A disembodied voice bellowed over the din of battle at enormous decibels as the text scrolled across the screens.
“Lance Baker, 2732 Mockingbird Lane, Bethesda, Maryland.”
In the throng of Minutemen, Lance Baker saw his house fade into view on the giant screen, and he stopped in his tracks as those behind him dodged to keep from mowing over him.
“What the hell?” he breathed.
In the next instant, the grey streak of a hellfire missile zipped by the screen and his home was incinerated in a mushroom cloud of flame right before his eyes. Baker let loose a guttural cry of agony.
“Sara Jackson, 200 Limelight Drive, Albany, New York.”
Sara saw her home appear on the giant screen. The same horrific result followed. Name after name was read. A cold, unending litany of names and addresses, and then the sounds of a home exploding.
Commander Jenkins had turned pasty pale. If the Council had the home addresses of his troops, what were the odds they had the commander’s home address as well.
Good. Damn good.
“Retreat!” he wailed into the com. “Retreat! Full retreat!”
The troops in front of him stopped. The front line continued fighting—they had no choice—but those at the back, near the commander, turned, confusion mapped across their features.
“Retreat!” Jenkins shouted again.
The troops seemed frozen. Not wanting to defy their commander, but also not wanting to abandon the fight. Some nodded in grim realization; others broke ranks and strode forward in stubborn determination to face the enemy.
“Retreat! For God’s sake, retreat!” he screamed at them.
Spectral teleported to the airspace just above the Aztech’s prone metal body and lowered himself to the ground. Time was of the essence. The Aztech would not stay disabled for long. The robot never did. Phasing to light form, he ghosted his hand into the great machine’s torso, finding the main power source that ran the robot.
The Suns of Liberty (Book 3): Republic Page 36