Emily reached out with a bubble of float and took hold of the robot's arm. She thought about it in the same way she would think about moving her own and rotated the shoulder, bent at the elbow. Suddenly, one huge metal hand was held out in front of both of them. She wriggled the fingers.
"Can you do that with two arms at once?" Winter asked.
Emily repeated the endeavor with the other arm. She waved them back and forth like she was putting on a puppet show.
"Emily, I'm so disappointed in how much you've held back with your powers until now I almost want to throw you out of the cockpit," Winter said.
"I just need proper motivation," Emily said. "Trick me into working to my potential."
She made one of the hands wave coyly at Winter. He couldn't help laughing.
"You're not getting into the cockpit with me, are you?" Emily said, looking around at the cramped space, even for her.
"No, there's an engineer's chamber in the chest," Winter said. "So try not to get me killed."
"I make no promises," Emily said.
"I heard that about you," Winter said. "So here's the deal. Bohr will be here in the lab, trouble shooting. He'll look for indications the suit is in the red, or if either of us is in distress. He'll help me if we run into any mechanical problems that I can fix when we're in battle."
"This is nuts," Emily said. "Are we staying on Earth or going up into space?"
"I wanted the suit environmentally sealed for undersea duties or outer space," Winter said, tapping the armor on the head of the vehicle. "And we've said all along if we can keep the fleet from reaching the planet, we stand a better chance of winning, so…"
"I'm going to be flying a giant mech in space against an alien invasion," Emily said. "This, Henry Winter, is the greatest day of my life."
"Let's hope it's not your last," he said. "How about a test drive?"
Emily turned her helmeted head at Winter and pounded her little fist against the console.
"Get thee to engineering, Scotty! We have a world to save."
* * *
Emily had done a lot of fun things in her life. But none of those involved a giant robot, so she would put 'learning to drive a mech' into her top three life experiences.
She and Winter took the vehicle out, via an underground tunnel beneath the Labyrinth, and traveled to an unused and abandoned industrial park located outside the City. Emily knew someone, somewhere, had to have seen them. But the Department blocked off the area quietly to keep gawkers away, and three stories was not too enormous, so walking between old mill buildings didn't leave them overly exposed.
But still. I'm piloting a giant robot, Emily thought. I'm a Gundam. Battletech. Mechwarrior. Best day of my life.
Also, Winter explained, he and Bohr had rigged the hands of the robot to let her use her walls of slam like the gloves they'd loaned her earlier. Though definitely not precise, they helped her focus her powers while she used bubbles of float to control the vehicle's limbs.
She wasn't crazy about needing to concentrate to keep the suit balanced, but a benefit of controlling gravity was that when she fell, a quick bubble of float would catch her and put her right back on her feet again. Henry told her it would be easier in outer space, when her self-created artificial gravity would be used strictly to move, not to maintain equilibrium.
"Does she have a name?" Emily said.
"What?" Winter said from his unseen compartment inside the robot.
"The suit?" Emily said. "Gipsy Danger? Blue Destiny? Hellbringer? Something?"
"You're the pilot, you pick."
"Can we call it Hideaki?" she said.
"I… guess?" Winter said. "Why?"
"He's one of the creators of Neon Genesis Evangelion—y'know. Oh, never mind. Trust me. Hideaki is a good name."
Winter laughed.
"We'll call the robot Hideaki," he said.
Emily was almost disappointed when their communicators beeped at the same time with an incoming call from the Tower. They both understood what the call could mean. Emily wasn't ready to stop playing yet. Although, she thought, if it was time for action…
"Go for Emily," she said, activating her headset. "I'm listening."
* * *
And now, in the present moment, Emily moved with shocking grace through outer space, controlling Hideaki like an expert. She realized what she was doing—mimicking with her bubbles of float the sort of movements she'd watched Kate perform thousands of times, sweeping kicks, powerful punches, forever in motion, causing destruction with each swing and step.
Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, Emily thought. She wished Kate could be here to witness her giant robot impersonation of the dancer.
But listening to Billy yell "Are you kidding me!" into her headset was reward enough.
Emily saw him—a bright white streak tearing through enemy ships in the distance.
"This is what you get for taunting me in the future, Billy Case," Emily said, knocking another fighter out of the sky.
"Listen up," Jane said, cutting them both off. "The seed ships are on the move."
Emily turned the giant robot's head to scan the center of the fleet as the seed ships—strange terraforming vehicles designed to tear into the planet like a spade into a garden—started breaking away from the brain ship.
"Three of them, three of us," Emily said. "Sounds like a party."
Without waiting for her orders, she picked one of the missile-like seed ships and used a bubble of float to throw herself at it.
"Cowabunga, dude," she said, having more fun than she'd ever experienced in her entire life.
Chapter 62:
Child of the sun
Jane dodged another enemy fighter, punching it as they crossed paths and sending it spiraling out of control. Another flew directly at her, laser-like energy blasts fired away, but she backed up and kicked the nose of the craft when they met, shattering its bug-like armor.
She stole a look at Emily and her giant robot, hoping they'd all survive this just so she could ask her where on Earth that machine came from. The robot moved in a hilarious parody of Kate's martial arts, and at one point awkwardly kicked a warship like a football. The more it moved, the more it seemed to imitate Emily, her loose shoulders, her restless legs.
Another alien ship shook Jane out of her thoughts and she dowsed it in flames shot from her hands.
She felt powerful here above the Earth's atmosphere. Jane had flown close to the edge before, had sensed the power of the sun's rays sink into her cells even more aggressively than they did when she was closer to the ground. But here, without the stratosphere to filter light, the solar energy hit her like a direct feed as though plugged right into the outlet.
She was grateful for the extra burst though because Jane needed to utilize every trick, every power, every ability she possessed simply to keep ahead of the fleet.
She ploughed through another ship, let herself glow red-hot and cut through its armor. She exploded out the other side, her flame-powers melting the blackish gunk that came with her, turning it into ash. Jane looked towards the brain-ship situated in the middle of the fleet. Shaped like a whale shark in the front, but more squid-like in the back, it appeared to be a nightmarish spectacle out of a horror movie.
Worse, though, was watching the seed ships, the things that would turn Earth into a dead zone, breaking away from that lead starship and pick up speed, heading for the planet.
"We've got to get those seed ships," Jane said.
"I shall destroy them all! For Aramaias!" Korthos yelled so loudly Jane almost tossed her earpiece aside.
"Hang on, big guy," Jane said. She attempted to assess the size of the ships—difficult with nothing to reference for scale—and unsure of the best course of action. Emily, still nearest the planet, swatted fighters out of the sky before they could break atmosphere. Billy and Seng flew in tandem mid-battlefield, turning space into a dogfight. Korthos, furthest out, made a mess everywhere he venture
d, raining destruction down on the fleet in a whirlwind of magic and axe blows.
Doc was still nowhere to be found.
Jane would have to deal with that later.
"New plan," Jane said, aiming at the lead seed ship when it pulled ahead of the pack. "Emily, hit the seed ship to your left."
At another time, the sight of Emily's giant robot arm pointing at something with one metal finger would have been hilarious, but Jane, too worried to be amused, added it to the list of things she'd like to laugh about later.
"That one?" Emily said.
"You got it," Jane said. "How durable is that suit?"
Henry Winter chimed in unexpectedly. Jane hadn't realized he shared the same frequency.
"It'll hold up even if we're forced to ram it," Winter said. "Emily, you'll want to use a bubble of float to launch us."
"Good to hear your voice, Henry," Jane said, relieved that Emily was not alone in the mechanized suit.
"You too," Winter said. The giant robot sped toward its target, arms whacking little wasp-like fighters out of the way as it flew.
"Billy, you and Seng take the one furthest away? You've got the best chance to reach it in time," Jane said.
"On it," Billy said, his tone uncharacteristically focused. Jane watched the two bright white streaks lance across space in the direction of the falling seed ship.
And that leaves me, Jane thought.
Ignoring the smaller ships running interference to her approach, she weaved her way with increasing speed toward the seed ship, her focus entirely on the big craft. A larger warship got in the way, but Jane's momentum allowed her to shoot through the ship like an arrow. The collision split the organic spaceship into pieces.
She tried this same method on the seed ship, but the armor, she discovered, was harder—she did crack the surface, but her whole body became rattled by the impact. The strike shook in her bones and teeth.
New approach, she thought.
Spines and bubbles covered the surface of the vessel. The spines appeared to be some sort of hook or drilling mechanism, allowing the ship to dig into the planet's surface when it hit. Chemicals and spores filled the bubbles. Jane presumed these would change the Earth's atmosphere to be more in line with what the Nemesis fleet required to survive. Jane's fists burst into flames and punched one of the glassy bubbles, sending greenish fluid drifting out into the vacuum of space.
She surveyed the surface of the ship. Hundreds of bubbles, maybe thousands. Too many to destroy by hand, with no guarantee doing so would stop the terraforming device from working. Perhaps the surface bubbles represented just the first of its planet-changing weaponry.
Jane turned her attention down—is it down? she thought, disoriented by the dimensions of space—and saw the rapidly approaching glow of her blue planet. She struck the ship's armor again, both hands on fire, and watched it crumble like charred meat off the grill.
She realized what she had to do and hoped she was strong enough to pull it off.
"Neal, patch me into Kate, private line," Jane said.
"Right away, Designation: Dancer," Neal said.
"Kate?" Jane said, picking up speed to reach the nose of the seed ship.
"Little busy right now." Kate's voice sounded strained. Jane heard her breathing, the sounds of combat rattling the microphone. "What's wrong?"
"I've got a plan to take out one of the seed ships," she said. "The others might need you up here soon."
Kate grunted and punched something on the other end of the line.
"Not sure how much help I can be up there," Kate said. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Just in case," Jane said. "They're going to need your strategic brain to finish this."
"They? Not we? What are you going to do, Jane?"
"Hopefully stop this ship from breaking atmosphere," she said. "Be safe, Kate."
All Jane heard was Kate's breathing.
"I'll be there soon," Kate said. "Don't do anything stupid."
"When do I ever do anything stupid?" Jane said, smiling. She reached the nose of the seed ship and positioned herself so that her hands were pushing back against it, her feet aimed at the planet below.
"There's a first time for everything. Luck, Solar."
The sounds of Kate's battles below went silent in Jane's ear. Now or never, she thought, feeling the Earth getting closer and closer. The space around her glowed from the reflection of the sun off the planet's surface.
Jane dug her fingers into the insect-like armor of the seed ship's nose and split the hard but brittle surface. As soon as she got a good grip, she let her hands burn.
The ship's armor crumbled, but as it changed consistency, Jane kept altering her grip, causing the fire—fire she knew shouldn't exist in space, flames that only could happen this close to the sun, where Jane was most powerful—consume the ship's hull. She pushed with more intensity, her whole body igniting, a candlewick in the darkness.
The ship moved forward, and Jane fought right back. She felt every inch of her skin burst into flames, her hair becoming a campfire. Soon all she saw was golden light and the crumbling surface of the ship. Above her, the ship began to glow internally, overheated by Jane's powers, engulfed from the inside out. Jane gritted her teeth, every cell in her body burned hot, emptying out the solar batteries that made up her body. She continued to pour all that heat, all that energy, into setting the seed ship on fire.
The ship broke apart. Blackened ashes glowed red-hot and sputtered, the aftermath of a huge fire. The long vessel splintered and crumbled to inert dust, deteriorating into a dead thing, useless and benign.
Jane drifted in the emptiness of space, feeling empty. Suddenly too weak to move, almost too spent to think, she gazed out at the stars and watched her friends in battle, wondering if she'd have the strength to join them.
Chapter 63:
The Valkyrie
In the months since her transformation, Valerie Snow struggled to understand her place in the world. Was she a human being imprisoned and sharing a body with a storm? Was she a storm trapped in the body of a human? Was she dangerous? Was she a monster?
And so, at first, she hid. She wandered the skies over the ocean, retreating from humanity, avoiding the sight of people, terrified that one move might end a ship full of lives, one lapse in judgment could flood a coastline.
The storm inside her, the other, the living, breathing hurricane that had taken up residence in her body during that horrible experiment performed by the Children of the Elder Star, raged for a long time. Like a feral animal, it slammed against the cages of Valerie's body, feeling cornered and alone.
But as time went on, they came to understand each other. The storm needed freedom. It—she, the storm was a she, Val knew instinctually—wanted to be huge, to pour rain down on vast, open spaces, to stretch its arms in spiraling clouds. And so they did, finding places where the storm would do less harm, unleashing an elemental fury to satiate the needs of the caged sentient hurricane.
And when those rages subsided, Val would be more in control, would bring their shared consciousness more into itself, to contain the storm in the altered body that had once been simply a girl, like any other.
But Valerie Snow still didn't understand her place in the world. Should she be among people? She could not bring herself to speak with her parents, though she visited them, watching from afar. They sensed she lived somehow, though they still had not spoken. Valerie feared what they'd think of her. The Indestructibles would meet with her, to keep her company from time to time, but they were not ordinary people, and Val did not fear being near them—because of their powers, she couldn't harm them, not really, not in the same way she could hurt an ordinary person.
And so she lived outside the world, the girl in the sky, looking down with sad eyes the color of a cloudless day.
She'd learned to control her powers—it used to be that everywhere she went was a stormy day, but she knew now how to pull that energy inward, to the point wh
ere she could actually enter a building sometimes. But when she watched the alien warship working its way through the City like a giant slug, she felt her control slipping. The skies, just moments ago so blue—she was always proud of blue skies, because they hinted at her control, they were a sign that she was in charge and not the storm—turned dark gray, thunderclouds rolled in, rumbling and angry.
This wasn't her city, she knew. She grew up in Florida, with sunnier days and stronger storms. But this was her world. And these aliens came to destroy it. The storm inside her raged as well. Elemental, intrinsically part of that world, a function, a moving apparatus of change, the storm could live nowhere else. Only in this world, this place, could the sentient storm exist, and the storm seemed to fully grasp everything Valerie observed. A threat to their world. Monsters here to take their playground away from them. The end of all things.
The skies opened up, heavy rain like a cascading waterfall poured down from above. Winds kicked up, whistled between the buildings and scattered debris on the ground. The clouds nearly black, flashed with blue and purple lightning.
Valerie Snow, Project Valkyrie, discovered her purpose. She found her anger and her moment to be a hero. She flew in closer, locking in on that alien ship. She raised her hand in the air and lightning struck her palm. All around her, windows and street lights exploded and shattered. Valerie, Valkyrie, suddenly transformed as well, her skin became the roiling black and gray of the clouds above, matching them in tone and color, her insides flashing and glowing with lighting.
She pointed at the warship with one finger.
A single, massive bolt of lightning struck the hand she still held above her, and poured back out through the fingertip she aimed at the ship. The electrical bolt exploded into the ship's skin, sparking, splintering it. Smoke and ozone filled the air, and the ship's armor squealed and split like melting plastic.
The spaceship tipped forward, groaning as it banked drunkenly off-course, tearing the façade off an office building and tumbling to the ground. When it landed, digging up pavement with its weight, it crushed a half-dozen cars, but its guns fell silent, the entire ship becoming inert, empty, quiet, dead.
Like A Comet: The Indestructibles Book 4 Page 29