Below her, she saw a man with a camera and a beard that had not grown in properly yet. He seemed familiar somehow. The man fired away with his camera, at the dead starship, at Val herself. She felt a flash of anger at the violation of having her image captured, but then a calmness washed over her.
She stared at the cameraman, who took a few photos of her while she hung in the air, thirty feet off the ground, rain still pouring down in sheets. Her eyes glowed with webs of lightning.
The little earpiece Jane had given her to wear buzzed. The Dancer's voice spoke up.
"Valerie, whatever you just did worked," she said. "We're going to face incoming fighters. Can you do that again?"
"As often as I need to," Valerie said, feeling the power of her sentient storm companion rushing into her limbs, making her heart beat faster.
"Then the sky is yours," Dancer said.
Valerie Snow smiled.
"Yes," she said, glancing up at the black and gray clouds she'd created, the sea of weather. "The sky is mine."
Chapter 64:
One way trip anyway
Kate pressed the button on her belt that would summon the hoverbike she'd ridden down from the Tower. Jane's situation sounded desperate; there wasn't time to go back and find the machine where she left it.
Then she saw the lightning strike and started running for the warship a few blocks away.
Kate turned into a wide avenue. "Where am I?" she asked herself—momentarily confused on the streets of her own city. The sudden tropical storm and associated downpour made everything look gray and blurry. Another one of the alien warriors confronted her. She marveled at the variety of them. Were they creatures the Nemesis found and collected as soldiers and slaves? Were they genetically engineered and redesigned like the Children of the Elder Star haltered humans to become hosts?
Its hippopotamus-like face, with four eyes instead of two, stared back at her. The parasite appeared undersized on its wide torso. With arms long like an ape's, the creature prepared to charge, clawed fingers digging into the pavement for traction.
Gotta be a thousand pounds, Kate thought, wondering about the Distribution suit's ability to handle the impact of something that large. I'll get broken if I don't handle this right. I can't let that happen.
The ground rumbled like a low-level earth-quake as the alien charged her. Kate prepared to dodge him when he got close enough, hoping to absorb some of the kinetic energy without actually getting trampled. Neither option sounded particularly appealing.
One hundred feet away. Seventy-five. Fifty. Twenty-five.
A bolt of green laser light arced out from over Kate's shoulder, striking the alien on the chest—or more specifically, on the parasite itself—and the huge creature tripped over its own massive, tree trunk-like feet, plummeted onto its face, displacing cars as it came to a stop.
Kate whipped around to see who fired the shot, only to find Sam Barren, standing on a car in a soaked hound's tooth suit. Rain dripped off the brim of his fedora. He held a cylindrical gun almost as long as the agent was tall.
"Looks like that stash Prevention sent us hunting for was worth it," Sam said, smiling at Kate. Rainwater ran through his mustache. Sam tried to brush it away.
Kate grunted, then wiped rain from her own eyes.
"That explosion over there," Kate said. "Your guys?"
"Nope," Sam said. He stepped carefully down from the hood of the car and started half-running, half-limping toward the smoking warship.
Kate ran ahead, leaving the old agent behind, knowing he'd catch up. She looked for the hoverbike but couldn't hear its approach yet. She hoped nothing had happened to it. She needed that bike.
Kate arrived at the burning corpse of the warship the same time as Bedlam, who'd been running so fast she slid several feet when she came to a stop.
They both glanced up when they realized what caused this. Valerie drifted slowly down from the sky, the rain catching and falling from her body like a dress.
"Can you do this more than once?" Kate asked.
Valerie nodded.
"Remarkably easy," Val said. "I knew I was powerful, but I had no idea I could pull off something like this."
"Some smaller ships may break through the atmosphere. Do you feel okay about getting up high, trying to take out as many as you can before they're able to get close enough to hit the City?" Kate asked.
"I can do this," Valerie said.
Huffing and wheezing, Sam caught up to them. Several of his agents, wearing suits and bullet-proof vests while carrying a bizarrely inconsistent array of guns like Sam's, each different from the other, joined him and began to secure the area around the ship.
Kate turned to Bedlam.
"I need to get up there," Kate said.
"Into space?" Bedlam said
"Jane thinks I can help," Kate said. "Can you keep things under control down here?"
Bedlam watched the agents patrolling the area. Sam overheard their conversation and shuffled over.
"Unless we get hit with another wave like this one, I think we can lock things down here," Sam said.
"I'll find the stragglers," Bedlam said. "I don't see how I'd be much use in space anyway."
"Nor I," Kate said. "But I'll try to figure that out when I get there. Where's Titus?"
The fur-soaked werewolf chose that moment to come bounding into the scene, covered in alien gore. He smelled like wet dog right now and Kate knew Titus probably felt bad about it.
"Titus!" she yelled. The werewolf cocked his head. "Change back, I need your brain."
He loped over, transforming as he moved. Titus returned to human form by the time he arrived, he shivered in the rain.
"Did we win?"
"We're going into space," Kate said. The soft hum of her hoverbike finally audible, she watched the little aircraft zip toward them.
"Space? We can't—you and me? We can't go into space."
"They need us."
"We're not getting there on your flying motorcycle."
"The Tower's a space ship," Kate said. "We're going to stop using it as a tree house and use it as it was originally intended."
Titus examined the carnage around him and gestured at the big carcass of the warship still smoking on the ground.
"We're not needed here?"
"You speak Neal better than anyone," Kate said. "I need you in the air with me."
"Okay," Titus said. He put a hand on Bedlam's shoulder. "You got things down here?"
"The old man and I will hold the fort," Bedlam said, smiling, that old crazy fighter look in her face, the one Titus remembered when they first met returned. "Besides, I absolutely don't want to go into outer space riding in a floating clubhouse."
"Neither do I."
The hoverbike came to rest a few meters away. Kate started for it. She turned back towards Bedlam and Sam.
"Luck," she said.
Sam nodded. Bedlam offered a playful salute.
Titus climbed on the back of the bike and wrapped his arm around Kate's waist, sighing. "I hate these things," he said.
"Don't worry," Kate said. "This is probably a one way trip anyway."
The duo buzzed into the sky, tearing through sheets of rain, and headed right for the Tower, where it hung in the sky just below the dark clouds of Valerie's storm. Kate felt Titus's grip on her midsection tighten as they tilted vertically to gain height faster. For just a split second, she let herself enjoy the feeling of a warm arm around her waist. But then anger bubbled up inside her—why is it only now, in the midst of disaster, I'm able to feel like this? If we don't die this time, she thought, I need to be better."
They banked into the Tower's landing bay, Kate parked the bike carelessly and hopped off.
"Neal, seal the bay," Titus said.
"Of course, Designation: Whispering," the artificial intelligence said. The doors, heavy, armored things, slid shut behind them.
Kate headed for the control center, leaving puddles of rainwater behi
nd her.
"Neal, what kind of weapons does this ship have?" she said.
There was an awkward, almost sheepish pause from the AI.
"Neal?" Kate said.
"This was a rescue vessel, Designation: Dancer," Neal said. "It was never intended for war. It has some light armaments but nothing that can be effective in full-fledged conflict."
"How's our maneuverability, Neal?" Titus said. "We're about to head into some rough waters. Air. Space. Rough space."
"Poor, Designation: Whispering," Neal said. "But our armor is very durable."
"So we can take some hits," Titus said. "We just can't strike back."
Titus and Kate exchanged a long, concerned glance.
"One way trip, huh?" Titus said.
"We'll figure it out when we get there," Kate said. "Our friends need us."
Titus smiled.
She saw by the light in his eyes, the confident stance, the calmness of his body language—once they got off the hoverbike he'd hated since the first time they rode one—that he seemed happy to be there. He's excited to save the world, Kate thought. Even if it meant a one way trip.
And at that moment, she felt the same way.
"Take us up, Neal," Titus said as they arrived in the control room. "And call up an inventory of anything we've got lying around we might use as a weapon."
"Done," Neal said.
They watched the monitors as the Earth grew smaller beneath them and the stars above became suddenly so much closer.
Chapter 65:
Light show
Billy and Seng worked in tandem, knocking enemy fighters out of the air as they took shot after shot at the seed ship. Billy's own blasts, tearing chunks out of the strange ship's armor, seemed to be far more effective than his teammate's.
He tried not to think about what he saw in the distance, as Jane's target went up in flames like a barn on fire. Or how Jane wasn't answering her communicator.
Where is she, Dude? Billy thought.
Focus on our target, Dude said. We need to stay focused. There will be time to help our friends later.
Billy wanted to get angry at the alien, to be furious at his ruthlessness, but he detected the worry in Dude's voice, and the very deliberate way he said "our friend," not "your." Jane would never be able to hear Dude's voice—not unless the alien traded host bodies—but the ancient Luminae still considered her a friend. And he worried about her.
The other seed ship, the one Jane destroyed, fell apart in smoldering clumps. She'd done her job, Billy thought. Now pay attention and do yours.
Meanwhile, Seng noticed just how different Straylight's powers were to his own.
"What happened to you," Seng said. "I've never seen a Luminae like you before."
Billy heard strain in the other host's voice. Seng struggled to keep up, lacking Billy's extra speed and power.
"We traveled into the future and accidentally absorbed most of the power of our future selves," Billy said in a hurried tone. He dragged one continuous light blast along the length of the seed ship, leaving a long, blistering scar. "That sounds extra weird when I say it out loud…"
"And you…" Seng started to speak but an incoming attack wing cut him off. Billy and Seng switched dance partners, with Straylight pouncing into the oncoming wing of fighters and scattering them as Seng turned his attention on cutting into the seed ship. "And you didn't burn out?"
Billy laughed despite everything going on around him. He wanted to tell Seng all about the surreal experience, of basically being the surrogate parent for the birth of Dude's mini-me they'd created in the future, but he couldn't keep the thoughts straight in his head.
"Long story," Billy said. "I'll tell you all about it if we don't die out here."
"Fair enough, Earthling," the alien said.
Another wave of fighters headed their way. Billy started toward them, but the flight of ships targeted Seng, his back to them.
And then Billy saw what the fighters had mounted on their hulls.
Null guns, Billy thought, yelling internally.
Go, Dude said.
Billy raced, trying to get between the fighters and Seng, who didn't seem to notice their approach, still too focused on his work searching for the guts of the seed ship to shut it down.
"Seng, look out!" Billy said, pouring on the speed.
They fired familiar, horrific, sickly red-yellow glow of the null guns, unafraid of hitting the seed ship. Lights splashed and bounced off its hull. Seng was trapped within the onslaught of blasts, not quite fast enough to break away. Billy raced in to join him. He watched one fighter take aim and shoot its gun right at Seng. Unthinking, Billy dove in, shielding the alien with his own body.
Well this was stupid, Billy thought, closing his eyes, gritting his teeth, and wondering what the vacuum of outer space would feel like. He'd seen Total Recall. He hoped it wouldn't go down like that.
The blast hit him, glanced off his body and ricocheted against the seed ship's hull. His back and shoulder burned. A sharp, bitter ache seeped deep down into his cells. Billy waited for the end.
It didn't happen.
Dude? He thought.
I… am still here, Billy Case, Dude said.
How did that happen?
I can only assume… I can only assume that the doubling of our powers has made our bond strong enough the null guns can't separate us involuntarily.
Does this happen often? Billy thought. He and Seng looked at each other, both equally confused. The expression on the alien's face was so close to normal human shock that Billy almost laughed at him.
I've never heard of one of us becoming immune to null guns, Dude said. That being said… I don't think we should complain.
It still hurt pretty bad, Billy said.
It certainly did.
But we can…?
Billy Case, Dude said. I think you should show these Nemesis ships what a Luminae without fear can do.
Billy smiled so broadly his cheeks hurt.
You ready, Dude? He thought.
Always, my friend, Dude said.
Billy lit up like a star, engulfing himself in the blue-white light of the Luminae. For the first time, really, he felt unafraid of anything. He wasn't a kid in a costume. He was Straylight, protector of his home world.
And he was about to put on a light show.
Leaving Seng to find cover near the seed ship, Billy flew headlong into the approaching fighters. Not simply scattering them, he disabled more than half on his first attack, blasting some, crashing into others, sending a light-covered fist through the armor of another and throwing it deep into space.
On the offensive, he ran off another set of fighters, emitting arcs of bluish energy from his hands, knocking them out from behind, from below, moving much faster than any of the Nemesis ships could fly. Somehow, Billy's own glee, his acceptance of his own powers, made him even faster, even stronger. The little fighters fled from him rather than attack and abandoned the seed ship.
And then he saw where the fighters were headed.
"Seng, we need to put this seed ship out of commission," Billy said. "They're headed for Earth."
"They want to draw you away," Seng said. "I'll pursue."
"I have an idea," Billy said, turning a wide arc away from the seed ship. "Stand back a bit."
This is going to hurt, Dude said.
A lot? Billy thought.
It not going to tickle.
Well… you only live once, Billy thought. He waited to make sure Seng had flown a safe distance away, and then Billy turned back toward the seed ship, his trajectory aimed at the nose of the vessel, dead center to the spear-like craft's body.
Billy picked up speed, pouring on the power. Dude shifted their protective energy shields up in front like a bumper. At least we're on the same page, Billy thought.
They crashed into the nose of the seed ship, and kept on going.
Later, Billy would only really remember the chaos of it all, broken pieces,
parts that looked bone and muscle, as if the ship itself were a living thing. He corkscrewed his way through the center of the terraforming device, spraying blasts of blue-white light in a spinning motion, causing cataclysmic damage to the entire ship, gutting it from within. He had no idea how long it took him to tear through from end to end, but eventually, he burst out of the bio-mechanical engines in the back, feeling their heat against his skin through his shielding. His explosive exit sent him spinning through space, out of control, covered in greasy ship's blood. He couldn't figure out which way was up or down and had no idea if his plan worked.
Then Billy felt a hand on his wrist, catching him, holding him tight.
Seng. The older alien steadied him and kept Billy from floating off into space. He pointed at the seed ship, smoking and crumbling, falling apart from within like wet cardboard. Billy shivered, the expenditure of energy hit him like an ice bath.
"Worked, huh?" Billy said.
"Impressive, my friend," Seng said.
"Yeah," Billy said. "Now let me just puke real quick and we can take on more of those ships before they destroy the planet."
When Billy took stock of what remained of the enemy fleet, his stomach sank. Still more ships than he could count—little fighters, big warships, that one, massive mother ship central to it all… Suddenly, he felt very small. There were just so many of them.
"You've got to be kidding me," he said.
Chapter 66:
Lunch in the park
While a near-hurricane raged over the City, while panic washed over the streets, while monsters from other planets stormed downtown, a well-dressed woman with eyes made of fire sat down in the park on a tidy gingham blanket and looked up at the sky.
The Lady Natasha Grey wasn't particularly happy to have left her sanctuary by the sea. But, she thought, we must all do our part.
A thousand years ago, a hundred years ago, maybe even as recently as a few decades ago in her long life, if asked, Natasha would have said she'd rather let this world burn. A grumpy little world, bereft of wonder, with scant magic—a gruff place absent of hope or joy. She was born here, yes, but she'd been to other places, storybook lands, heavens and hells. And Earth, she thought, was a drab little hole in the wall. Let it burn.
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