He saw Spectral and the Lady Rage side by side.
Above, drones and spores dove at them like angry insects. On the ground, the Doctor-controlled city busses roared in at them from every direction.
The hive mind knew the Suns would go after the Aztech first and use Scarlett to do so.
It was defending the robot with everything it had.
The “Fionettes” had formed a circle again over one of their fallen members. It looked to Ward like one of the busses had struck her, but he couldn’t see for certain. One of them was whipping some kind of energy shield around the others that circled them at light speed.
There were only three girls left.
The android, by Scarlett’s side, was blasting away at the oncoming drones, spores, and vehicles with his optic lasers. His energy shield was extended over her, protecting Lady Rage at all costs.
That was good, but it was clear to Ward that without Spectral on offense, their plan would never work. The hive mind was simply throwing too much at Scarlett for her to disable the Aztech.
Ward’s mind went about diagnosing the situation, and he fell upon the only logical solution.
“Spectral, you have to get inside the Aztech’s energy field and distract it so that Scarlett can disable it. It’s the only way,” Ward said.
Spectral clearly had no intention of leaving her side.
More explosions rang out.
“Spectral’s right. If he leaves her, she’ll die and then no one can take down the Aztech”, Lantern said.
“Catch-22,” Rachel replied.
Another massive explosion shook the ground.
“And as long as we focus everything on the Aztech, the hive mind is going to keep focusing on us!” Ward shouted.
That elicited silence across the coms.
They really were fucked.
“Then we give it something else to focus on,” Reynolds said finally.
“Like what?” Ward asked.
Reynolds swooped down, landed next to Ward, and peered across the decimated ranks of his Minutemen. The Aztech fired calmly, methodically across the Mall.
Each death ray a blast of devastation for a new group of Minutemen.
There weren’t many left now.
Reynolds took a deep breath.
“Me,” Reynolds said. “When the time is right, you hit me with one of those darts. And you hit me good!”
“What are you talking about?” Ward grunted.
“Plan B,” Reynolds said.
“Plan B was a joke. I wasn’t being serious about Plan B. That’ll never work.”
“Just do it!”
“How the hell will I know when the time is right?”
Reynolds turned, stared off toward the Post Office Tower. “You’ll know.”
And blasted into the air toward it.
“Well, that’s a great plan! Why don’t we challenge it to a game of rock, paper, scissors?” he shouted.
To no response.
Ward sighed, his shoulders slumped. “Alright, then. Stealth, we’re working our way towards you. Just keep safe. And I want it on the record I said I was against this!”
“It’s your plan, bugboy,” Rachel shot back at him.
Ward shrugged. “I also want it on the record that I was drunk when I came up with this plan! I feel like that’s an important detail.”
CHAPTER 63
Reynolds goosed his bootjets as he closed in on the tower. He searched the balcony for the dangerous duo. This might be suicide—or worse—but if they attacked the Doctor and Von Cyprus, the hive mind would have to peel off some of its protection of the Aztech and redirect it toward protecting the duo.
That had been Ward’s point, but Reynolds was the one to figure out how to do it.
He hoped.
He saw them—just as the Doctor noticed his rocket trail.
With any luck Von Cyprus’s sleeves were still out of commission. If so, this would be easy.
If not...
Reynolds opened fire.
A tree of black, snaking lighting countered from Von Cyprus’s metal sleeves, shielding the duo from the laser shots.
Well, damn. So much for easy.
He had no choice but to zip by the duo and circle back for another run. Dodging black energy bolts the whole way.
“Stealth, are you in position?” Reynolds asked.
“Not yet. Two more floors to go.”
Reynolds took a deep breath. More black lightning cracked through the sky and screamed past him.
Maybe Ward had been right. Maybe this was just suicide.
He could see no other play for them to make.
“Okay, gonna give you more time.” Reynolds let his breath out hard and shot forward, the atoms in the suit hardening. “Knocking on the door!”
He lowered his head.
The tower door exploded—glass and steel and concrete rained down on the dangerous duo as they dove to the ground.
Reynolds made a clean pass through the luxury suite, exiting out of the open window Ward had shattered earlier.
“Again!” Reynolds yelled, circling back around the tower, firing laser blasts to keep the duo distracted.
“I’m in place!” Rachel breathed into the com.
Ward came in from above, out of the visual range of the Doctor and Von Cyprus, ready to fire on them. Cussing the whole way.
“This wasn’t part of my plan!” he shouted at Reynolds.
He dove straight down.
Reynolds was right below him and headed toward the blasted-out doors of the luxury suite.
But just before Reynolds made his second pass through the tower, the Ram stopped, floating in midair.
“I know!” Reynolds said with a chuckle. “That plan was shit! It would never work!”
Reynolds was still just floating in front of the deadly duo.
“Ram, what are you doing? Shoot them!” Ward shouted, diving toward Reynolds.
Reynolds was hovering only a few feet from the tower’s stone balcony.
He peered up at the descending Ward.
And launched toward him, firing his lasers. Accelerating for ramming speed.
“Hey!” Ward yelped.
“Now, Ward! Shoot me!”
Doctor Rage had Reynolds in his grasp.
Two laser blasts zipped at Ward’s face, and he had to spin and swerve to dodge them. Ward gunned his wings to full power and reversed direction.
Ward cut a hard arcing trail and soared up toward the clouds.
Reynolds was racing, hot on Ward’s tail.
Ward had no choice but to fly skyward, dodging and weaving as Reynolds fired his blasters at him.
“Stop screwing around. Shoot me!”
Ward peered back behind him, the ground shrinking below them. “We’re too high up!”
There was also no way to get a bead on Reynolds.
“Just do it!” Reynolds replied just as two laser blasts from below caught Ward full in the chest. The energy flung him across the sky and spun him around.
Ward heard himself cry out.
Pain surged through him.
He righted himself only to see he was now facing Reynolds—who was nearly upon him. The Ram lowered his head, readying for an impact Ward did not want to feel.
“Shoot me, damn it!” Reynolds was desperate and close enough for Ward to hear him without the com.
Ward lined him up in his sights and let two disabling darts fly.
They hit with precision.
Just as Reynolds zoomed past him, now out of power.
And out of the Doctor’s control.
Ward spun out of his path.
“You’re up!” Reynolds yelled, his voice trailing off as he shot past Ward.
Reynolds arced toward the clouds like a rocket and then sputtered, floated for a second—and plummeted.
“Go!”
Reynolds shouted again.
Ward wanted so badly to help him. He could catch him and fly him to safety, but he also knew Reynolds had given him an opening.
An opening he could not squander.
Ward turned back to the deadly duo. “Okay, Stealth, get ready.”
Ward fired the wings full throttle and zoomed toward the tower.
At supersonic speed.
Below him he saw Reynolds impact with the street. A great cracking crater spider-webbed in the pavement beneath his body.
“Damn it.”
But there was no time to think about how badly Reynolds might be hurt.
Ward dropped like a bird of prey.
Stalled the engines.
Righted his flight.
And zoomed straight in at the two of them before they knew what hit them.
He raised his arms. Lined up the wrist turrets. Took aim—
And felt Doctor Rage gain control of his suit.
The canisters powered down.
“Kill him!” Von Cyprus shouted.
The wings pivoted. Up he flew past the top of the tower.
Then he stalled, floating. His body turned.
He was suddenly facing downward toward the street below.
The wings revved with power.
Full power.
Supersonic speed.
What Ward saw next, he saw in the blink of an eye.
He shot down toward the street, passing the tower’s balcony—
Just as two paralysis darts sung out of the air behind the duo and sunk into their backs.
Ward zoomed past them as—
The two men fell to their knees.
He watched the Doctor and Von Cyprus shrink away from him—
Their eyes glazed.
And they collapsed.
Rachel materialized right behind them and stalked forward like a cat hunting her mouse.
Ward regained control of the wings and arced back up, landing on the balcony right next to her.
“Doctors Doom and Gloom are down,” he said into the com.
Ward flashed Rachel a broad grin and moved to kiss her, but the look she returned was somber.
“Tell me I didn’t just end the world.”
Just then, something silver glinting in the sky caught Ward’s attention.
Somewhere below them, the Aztech lurched free.
Fiona could not break the grip of the sun’s power. The eruption was blasting her into space, ripping at her, stretching her. Threatening to pull her body apart.
She tried to blast the energy, but there was no effect.
She tried to build an energy field to block the path of the eruption, but it tore through instantly.
She tried to teleport out of it, but the massive power of the coronal discharge held her tightly in its magnetic grip, as if fused to her very atoms.
A streak of black against the orange swirling star-fire zinged by her.
And then another. And another.
One of the black streaks ripped into her, and she screamed out in pain. These were remnants of the Photuris still swirling in the heart of the solar flare, all of it headed toward Earth.
There was no way to know what the antimatter-dark energy brew moving at hyper speed would do when it struck the planet.
One thing was for sure. She didn’t want to find out.
She assessed her options. There weren’t many.
She couldn’t stop it, destroy it, or block it. She couldn’t fly free of it and teleport ahead to warn Earth. And what good would that do anyway? In a matter of days it would strike and wipe out industrial civilization. Could humanity even survive such a radical step backwards?
By defeating the Photuris, Fiona realized, she might have ended human life.
There had to be another option.
She thought back to when she had been in a similar position before, trying to shed the Krill’s black spores. The sun itself had nearly killed her.
I’m made of light. Why not let it just pass through me? she had thought to herself. And that had worked.
But this was different. Then the sun was pulling her; now it was pushing her.
Her mind raced for a solution, and somehow, as her thoughts once again fell upon Becky, and as the glowing tears were ripped from her eyes by the massive power around her, the solution came to her.
She might not be able to stop it, but maybe she could direct it.
The thought gave her a strange comfort.
Fiona relaxed.
She let the energy pass through her. The black particles ripped into her, and she offered no resistance.
She tried to block out the enormous heat and focus only on the light.
Soon she could feel herself melding with the energy. Feeding off the energy. Her body began to glow—brighter than she had ever seen.
Now was the time.
She shot out a massive web of bioluminescent energy that wrapped around the surging cone of the eruption. In essence, she had caught it in a net.
It was like riding the largest whale in the solar system.
Now that she had the solar flare in her grasp, the next task was to push it off its course and send it into the recesses of space.
That should be easy!
She tried to budge it off its collision course with Earth. She pushed with everything she had, until she thought she might black out from the strain. And while it budged, there was no way she was going to have the strength to move it that far.
Earth was still squarely in its crosshairs.
Maybe pushing wasn’t the answer. Maybe she could pull it off course.
She leaned back, keeping the energy wrapped around the cone of the eruption, and pulled.
The effort was no more successful.
But it did have one unexpected result: the solar flare sped up.
A lot.
Nowhere near light speed, but much faster than before.
That gave her an idea.
Her full-spectrum eyes telescoped ahead to see where on Earth the flare was going to hit.
Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
She pulled on the cocoon of energy with all her might again. The speed increased further.
Next, she pushed with all her might, screaming out into the silent vacuum of space, attempting to alter the flare’s course ever so slightly. It took all she had. Pushing, pushing, pushing as she glared ahead, until finally, the flare was aimed squarely—
At Washington, D.C.
Fiona grinned. And then she thought of Becky as her sweet voice filled her mind again. She thought of the first time they had met. Fiona scared and alone and raging in pain. Becky had been a calm, soothing voice. Her touch the first human contact that hadn’t harmed her after her transformation. The world had been safe with Becky in it.
Fiona screamed out her anger and teleported.
Knowing that either she would take the flare with her or she would be ripped apart in its fantastic energy.
Freedom.
The Aztech spread its arms.
Without Kiernan Rage, the hive mind was simply an irritating distraction.
Set free, it opened fire on everyone.
Its core programming came back online, like emerging from a dream.
“Humanity...for your crimes against the planet...I condemn you to extermination,” it announced haltingly, still fighting the hive mind. “Your destruction is inevitable.... It shall now commence.”
The celestial blades were arcing back for another run. Spinning through the acrid, bomb-blasted air. Now they changed trajectory, aiming at all the humanity assembled below them.
The great machine lifted its arms straight out in front of it, palms open. Orange bioluminescent energy erupted from them as it swept both arms sideways, and the energy slammed into an entire front column of disabled tanks.
They disintegrated in an instant.
At the same time, thinner beams emitted from its eye sockets and wreaked havoc deeper into the line
s of troops advancing from all sides.
Council Guard and Minutemen fought side by side. They had no choice.
The Aztech now besieged them both. Each blast precisely targeted, taking out clumps of soldiers one group at a time.
Mushroom clouds rose up across the middle ranks. It was now the Aztech versus everyone else.
Every surviving human, soldier or hero, fired back in response.
And the machine raised an orange energy field.
The swarm of projectiles, energy rays, and bombs simply dissipated or exploded as they made contact.
When the flames cleared, the Aztech hadn’t even moved, completely unaffected by the assault.
The Aztech landed in the bombed-out grass of the Mall, facing a now unified human force of soldiers. Behind them, near the Capitol Building, Scarlett was locked in concentration. The neurological signals she was sending at the monster were slowly eating through its defenses, she knew, but in the meantime it had so many targets to destroy.
Spectral stood next to her still, his own energy field raised to protect her.
Another massive beam of energy raked though the troops, erasing them in screams of agony and the wrenching of metal as both flesh and steel were burned to oblivion in an instant.
ONE MILE ABOVE
WASHINGTON, D. C.
Inside the HeliSphere, Revolution opened his eyes. He rose groggily to his feet and peered over at the counter.
0:08, 0:07, 0:06.
There was no time to even breathe.
Revolution dove for the opening.
Slipping out through it, clipping the torn metal edge of the pod with his boot.
The impact with the metal flipped him around so that he was falling back first, away from the rising aircraft.
His cape wrapping around him like a parachute as he peered into the heavens.
BOOM!
The great silver pod exploded in rings of white-hot energy that quickly rolled red and orange in the bright-blue sky. The impact of the blast was so strong Revolution could literally see it coming as it rippled the air above him, surging toward him like a menacing wave.
It slammed into him with a force he had never even imagined. The cloak, snapping rigid to slow his fall, cracked in a loud snapping howl as it suddenly fluttered about him. Its glider ability was useless against the force of the blast.
The Suns of Liberty (Book 3): Republic Page 41