Captain Marvel

by Tess Sharpe

  In free-fall, a sickening race where your stomach can’t quite catch up with the rest of you, Rhi screamed. Carol kept hold of her and Scott, pinning them to the floor, protecting them with her body as the computer counted down:

  “Impact in five hundred feet… Impact in four hundred—”

  Suddenly, the ship trembled, bucked, slowed, and then— boom! It landed, in a bone-rattling—but not breaking—crash, metal crumpling on soil, glass shattering on rock as it bounced and skidded to a stop, smoke and red dust obscuring the view out the windows.

  Rhi whimpered softly beneath her, and Carol stood up. “You two okay?”

  Scott gave her a thumbs-up and rose to his feet, holding out his other hand to help Rhi up.

  “Yes, I think so,” the girl said quietly.

  Scott peered into her eyes, checking her pupils, flashed her a smile, and shot Carol another thumbs-up.

  “Check the perimeter while I find Mantis?” she asked him, turning away.

  “On it,” he replied. “Rhi, stay right here, all right?”

  She nodded, looking dazed, but steady on her feet. Scott went for the ladder, going up it, unsealing the escape hatch and pulling himself out of the ship.

  “Mantis!” Carol shouted, spinning around. Where was she? “Amadeus!”

  “I’m okay,” Amadeus called. “Just a little dizzy.”

  Carol shot him a grateful look and loped off to continue the hunt. “Mantis! Report! ” She could hear panic rising in her voice. Had the empath been knocked out when the first ring broke free? She’d be damned if she was going to lose a team member, especially when their mission had barely started. She wasn’t going to lose anyone this time.

  But what if she did?

  That damn voice nagging at her. So tricky. So hard to silence.

  “Mantis, where are you?” Carol pulled apart the half-smashed doors leading to the kitchens, her muscles barely straining, and pushed through the gap she’d created. The mess was terrible. One of the pantry cabinets had broken off the wall and lay in pieces on the other side of the room, food strewn across the floor. Furniture was scattered and overturned, and… there! Carol caught a glimpse of a hand from beneath the table.

  “Mantis! ” She hurried over and hoisted it off the empath, who coughed as the pressure was released from her chest. Then she rolled to her side, curling into a fetal position as she moaned.

  “Are you hurt? Where?”

  “No,” Mantis whispered. “I’ll be okay… It’s just all the emotions here… this planet…” Her eyelids fluttered and then squinched tight, trying to gain control.

  Carol stared down at her. Rhi had told her the Damarian weapon increased some people’s powers while diminishing others’, so she’d worried about Amadeus getting stuck in his Brawn form, but hadn’t anticipated what problems the empath might encounter.

  “Go tend to your command, Captain,” Mantis said, slowly sitting up, her eyes still half shut. “I can get a hold of this… I just need to sit here a few moments to adjust.” She winced. “I can feel them.”

  “The girls?” Carol asked. “The computers are down, I’m not sure where we landed. Are we near the Maiden House?”

  Mantis shook her head. “We’re near a city,” she said. “We have to be. There are so many people. So many women. So much hurt. So much pain from the men who understand and fight for better. And the cruelty…” Her horrified eyes, wet and wide, lifted to meet Carol’s. “This planet is hell.”

  Carol swallowed, her throat dry. She wanted so badly to reach out and comfort Mantis, but touch intensified an empath’s sensations. So instead she just said softly, “That’s why we’re here.”

  Mantis gave a short nod and leaned back against the wall, flooding her senses. Reluctantly, Carol turned, strode across the mess, and pushed through the crumpled doors to rejoin the rest of her team on the deck.

  “That was smart, losing the second ring,” Carol told Amadeus, squeezing his shoulder gently. “If you hadn’t come up with it, I’m not sure we’d all be here at all.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Where’s Mantis?” Rhi asked.

  “In the back. She’s okay—just needs a few minutes alone. Whatever weapon the Damarians have, it’s enhancing her powers instead of suppressing them.”

  “Oh no.” Rhi’s hand closed over the spot on her arm where the implant had gone, a compulsive stress habit Carol had noticed. “I didn’t think—I’d hoped it wouldn’t—is she all right?”

  “Well—how bad did it get, with the Inhumans whose powers were enhanced by the weapon, instead of suppressed?” Carol asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rhi said. “They were the first ones the Damarians slaughtered.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Mantis’s voice rang out across the room and they all turned to the hall, where she was standing. “Especially if you all stop worrying so much—I can feel you clear across the ship.” Mantis walked gingerly onto the deck, and Rhi and Amadeus hurried over to help her.

  “Guys!”

  Carol’s head whipped upward, where Scott’s worried voice emanated from the escape hatch. Then her fingers tingled and her feet itched for air beneath them, confirming her suspicions even before she heard him shout, “We’ve got incoming!”

  16

  CAROL SCRAMBLED up the escape-hatch ladder, with Amadeus and Rhi bringing up the rear. Rhi had to help Mantis, who was still sweating and flinching from the onslaught of emotions.

  They had landed in a ravine, a narrow crack between two tall, jagged cliffs the color of rubies. The rock glowed and pulsed as if it were alive deep inside, and red dust from the cliffs swirled in the air, dimming the light of the twin suns. The rest of the team scrambled off the ship and onto the ground, kicking up dirt. Carol stood on top of the dented, smoking hull, staring down the end of the ravine that branched into wide-open land. There were dark specks on the horizon—human-sized specks… Damarians, heading right toward them.

  She swiveled, catching sight of more troops approaching to their left as she slid down the curved hull and onto the ground in a smooth movement, positioning herself in front of Rhi and Mantis.

  “Above you,” Rhi whispered.

  Carol looked up and saw two more men on the ridge—plus a ship, a smaller version of theirs, in the air just nearby. She estimated maybe three minutes before the seven men on the ground were close enough for combat. Who knew what the two on the ridge could do.

  “We’re boxed in,” Scott said, clenching his fists. “We’re gonna have a fight on our hands.”

  “How’s everyone doing power-wise?” Carol asked. She felt a weight in the air… and a low-grade buzz in her head that she couldn’t shake. When she wiggled her fingers, energy ran like trickles of water through them. Her head pounded at the simple act, but at least it worked. And her strength… she could feel it, always, rushing through her. She jumped, waiting for the familiar rise within—that giddy, spinning sensation that never failed to hype her up.

  Nothing. Her eyes widened. No! Not her flight!

  She jumped again, putting her strength into it, but she fell so fast and hard that dust shot ten feet in the air and her heels sank six inches into the ground.

  Her stomach wrenched with a kind of fear she hadn’t felt since she was a child, thinking she’d never get to soar through the stars where she knew she belonged. The Damarians on the ground were drawing closer. “Amadeus, how about you? We need Brawn—now.”

  “I’m trying,” Amadeus said, the muscles in his neck straining, his eyes shut tight. “He wants to come out,” he gasped, his whole body starting to shake under the strain. “But something’s stopping him… God, what is that humming?”

  “It must be the weapon,” Carol said. “I hear it, too. Scott, is it affecting you or the suit?”

  “Let’s see.” Scott tapped his wrist and suddenly disappeared. Relieved, Carol had to strain to see the red-and-black dot moving on the hull, no larger than the specks of red dirt their landing had scattered everywhe
re.

  The miniature version of Scott jumped off the hull onto Amadeus’s foot and began to tug. Carol watched, her heart sinking, as Ant-Man, trying his hardest, finally moved Amadeus’s foot—one whole inch.

  Scott popped back to normal size, breathing hard.

  “My strength’s all screwy,” he gasped. “Shrinking was like wading through wet cement.”

  Rhi shot him a worried look. “The longer you’re exposed to the weapon’s effects, the easier it gets to fight it,” she offered.

  “How long did it take you to be able to tear a proper rip?” Scott asked.

  She flushed. “A few years.”

  “So not soon enough,” Carol said, her eyes fixed on the ridge where a light had just appeared.

  “Incoming!” Carol shouted as the fireball was launched, hurtling toward them in a graceful, deadly arc. They scattered, Scott heading left, toward a cluster of boulders, Amadeus following with Mantis. Carol grabbed Rhi by the shoulders and leaped behind the ship, twisting in midair, curling herself around Rhi just before they slammed onto the ground, the ship shielding them. They tumbled in the dust, acrid red puffs swirling into Carol’s nose and mouth, just as the spot where they’d been exploded into flame. For a second they lay motionless in the dirt, panting, staring at the line of flame the fireball had ignited in its path, the smoke rising from it.

  Carol staggered to her feet, her ears ringing from the fireball’s impact. Then she spotted it: the squad of four guards on foot, blocking their way out of the ravine.

  “I’ve got the guys headed toward us on the right—you take the left,” she yelled over her shoulder at Scott and Amadeus. “Mantis, stay down.”

  The guards picked up their speed and began running full-tilt right at them. Carol smiled. She might not have her flight, but she had her speed, her endurance, her invulnerability. The ache increased every time she reached inside herself for one of those powers that made her special, but energy still crackled along her fingers, with heat that made the fire behind her feel like tepid water.

  She had the power of the stars and their beloved suns inside her. The photonic energy she could blast from her body was going to beat their fireworks, every time. And it was time to show them who they were messing with.

  “You’ve got my back?” she asked Rhi, holding out a dusty hand.

  Rhi took it, letting Carol pull her to her feet. “I’ve got your back,” she promised.

  Carol nodded her head in approval, the woman within making room for the soldier that formed her steady, eternal core: Protect your people. Fulfill your mission. For your unit. For your country. For your planet.

  For the innocents. For the victims of Damaria.

  Her sash whipped around her legs as she pelted toward the guards, a warrior cry wrenching from her throat. They were kitted out like riot-control security, with high-necked armor that sparked every few steps like miniature force fields. Her fingers itched to get ahold of one of those vests, pull the energy from it, and use it against them—she just needed to get near enough. Twenty feet away… now fifteen. They were closing in on ten when one of the guards unhooked something from his belt and lobbed it at her.

  “Ember bombs!” Rhi yelled. “Watch out!”

  But before it could explode on impact, Carol caught it in her hand—a transparent sphere full of a gelatinous blue material that wobbled back and forth. It was burning hot, singeing her palm. She was close enough to see the terror in the guard’s sweaty face as she tossed the bomb from hand to hand. His eyes darted back and forth as Carol gazed into it, as if it were a crystal ball holding her fortune.

  His companions froze, unsure what to do now that the enemy was armed with their own weapon. Whatever was inside, they’d counted on it hurting her. But now it might help.

  “What are you?” the guard gasped out.

  She smiled—a condescending tilt of the mouth that he’d likely never seen on a woman’s lips before. “I thought you people had a myth you scare children with about me. Don’t you know a star woman when you see her?”

  Her words sparked an ancient fear. Like a Neanderthal who’d just discovered the sting of flame, the guard stumbled backward and crumpled before the legendary terror, the fulfillment of a horror story he’d heard all his life: a woman with untrammeled power, sent to destroy everything he knew.

  She threw the bomb at his feet as the rest of the squad dove for cover. It exploded as soon as it hit the ground, the sphere shattering and spraying the blue gel over the guard’s legs and chest. She watched as it burned its way through his armor and then his flesh, the force field flickering as the toxic gel fried its circuitry. He screamed, clawing at it, getting it stuck on his hands, and then he screamed some more.

  “On your right!” Rhi dashed past her, pointing at a guard hiding behind a boulder just twenty feet away. At first aimed at Carol, he swiveled toward Rhi as she ran, both arms moving in a strange circular dance, fingers pulling apart time and space, ripping them as if they were fabric.

  Then he took a shot, but Rhi dodged, turned, and flung both arms out in a wide gesture.

  “Captain, help me!” she shouted, as the gap between then and now stretched nearer to the man. Carol hurtled forward, lashing out in a precise kick to the abdomen that sent him flying… right into the sparkling hole Rhi had just spun into existence. He didn’t even have time to yell—or if he did, they couldn’t hear it. The sound—and its source—had vanished, like all things snared in the in-between. And then the rip snapped shut, like a predator’s mouth on a particularly tasty treat.

  “Is he—?” Carol asked.

  Rhi shook her head, her eyes wide with shock. “I sent him backwards in time. He’s here still. Just… three days ago.” She let out a laugh. “I’ve never done that before. I was worried it wouldn’t work.”

  “First try’s always the roughest,” Carol said, yanking her out of range as gunfire rained along the ground. The two remaining guards on the ground had taken cover and started shooting. The two above had held off, letting their friends on the ground take charge. She and Rhi needed to get over to the rest of the team.

  Just as she was thinking it out, another fireball—this one spitting flames—hurtled toward them from the top of the ridge, driving them back toward the ship for shelter.

  “Go, go, go!” Carol shoved Rhi ahead of her just as the ball crashed on the ground inches behind them, the flames spreading faster than the girl could run. Heat nipped at Carol’s feet as she snatched up and half carried her, ducking behind the smoking hull, where Scott, Mantis, and Amadeus had fashioned a fragile barrier out of some shards of sheets from the damaged shell—and Scott was still his regular size.

  Carol released her, and the girl sank down on the ground next to them.

  “That was great, Rhi!” Scott tossed her a thumbs-up and Rhi smiled shakily, still breathing hard.

  Carol looked at Scott expectantly. “I can’t get the suit to hold for more than a few minutes,” he answered her silent question with a grimace. “I took out two guards before it fritzed. And Amadeus got that one with his funky electro-net gun.” He pointed to a guard on the ground down the ravine, still thrashing in the glowing net. “So we’re clear on the left side. But those guys on the ridge aren’t letting up.”

  “There’s still two on the right. I don’t think they have powers, though. They keep shooting at us and lobbing bombs, instead of hurling fireballs.”

  “So we get rid of the two on the ridge, we get rid of the fireballs,” Rhi said.

  “Easier said than done,” Amadeus groaned. Mantis was leaning heavily against him, like he was the only thing keeping her upright.

  “Amadeus, anything going on with Brawn?” Carol asked.

  He sighed, with a tight, frustrated shake of the head.

  “Mantis?”

  She barely nodded her head. Carol’s heart twisted at the sight, but she couldn’t take the time to do more than squeeze the empath’s shoulder.

  Searching her mind for a sol
ution, she crowded closer to her team as the heat climbed to sizzling heights around them. Sweat trickled down her cheeks as anger twined inside her like rusty barbed wire.

  The ground shook as another ball landed right behind them, the impact shoving the ship sideways, its crumpled hull groaning at the movement. New flames leaped closer.

  They were exposed. Vulnerable. Outgunned.

  Protect them.

  Carol whirled into action, her hands thrusting out, but it felt like walking through mud. The humming in her head increased as energy crackled up her arms, gathering, poised to blast. The heat of the fire bore down on her, and she plunged her hands into the whirling flames as the ache in her body popped like a cap off a bottle and the flame’s energy surged through her, sputtering down to a manageable height. The searing heat and power raced along the meridians of her body and mind gleefully, and suddenly she was drowning in a deluge of power feeding into her essence: part Kree, part human, all Carol. It rose within her cells, heat and flame and fury, swirling and spitting, building to a volcanic eruption.

  Through the field of dimming fire, she could see them: the two remaining guards on the ground. Take care of them, and they just had the powered ones on the ridge to deal with. Her hands clenched and then opened. Her breathing slowed, even as that damn buzzing increased. She could do this.

  But before she had a chance to start, a fearsome, high-pitched battle cry echoed through the ravine, and its source, a white-and-black figure, launched from the opposite ridge in a perfect swan dive. Landing in a blur of lightning-fast limbs, she dealt out precise kicks and punches that the guards never saw coming. She was a deadly whirl, with no grace spared to her movements. Her laughter filled the smoky air as she charged through the flames as if she didn’t feel the burn, leaping from boulder to boulder as if they were lily pads spread across a lake of fire, before disarming the last guard and then clubbing him on the back of the head with his own gun.