Floor 21- Dark Angel

by Jason Luthor

  Not enough to hold back the Creep.

  The whole sky is going dark, even while I’m standing there and looking at everything happening. Flyer after flyer. Or, what they technically call Rocs. The sky’s going dark with them at the same time that waves of explosive blooms are erupting through the skies, knocking hundreds out of the air and sending their corpses plummeting into the city. There are so many that there have to be . . . tens of thousands. They’re countless, like you’re seeing a never ending mosquito swarm. Overhead, some go swooping by in formation, their four wings beating the air and carrying their long, slick bodies through the sky. As they fly overhead, one tenses its body and launches rows of hardened spines the size of my leg. I go rolling away as a dozen of them hit the ground behind me, a few bouncing off the hull but a lot of them digging deep into the metal. “What the hell,” I whisper. “What am I supposed to do against this many?”

  “The Dynamis is carrying special ordnance designed to deal with the crowds,” Yousef says into my ear. “A special heavy payload meant to deal with them once they’re in closer. That’s not your target.”

  “Then what is—” I don’t even have time to finish asking before my body shakes and my ears start filling up with a roar that’s louder than any I’ve heard before. My whole visor starts lighting up, warning me about incoming, just as a huge shadow passes overhead. I look up at the last second, just in time to see this massive flying Creeper. It’s the biggest I’ve ever seen, probably the length of a few tanks lined up end to end and with a wingspan that’s just huge. You could climb up on its back and it’d barely notice you’re there. Its face has this huge, distended mandible that juts forward and a half dozen arms and legs. For a long second, it takes a drifting turning, soaking up gun fire and immediately regenerating, its muscles ripping apart and reforming before its neck angles back down at the ship. When its mouth widens, I see a green light shining from deep in its throat just seconds before balls of burning green liquid go raining through the air. They crash against the ship and detonate with explosive force, orange and red blooms of fire bursting into the air and my legs wobbling as I try to maintain my balance. “What the hell is that thing?”

  “A new category of flyer. We only recently identified any. We’re coded it as a Zilant for the moment.”

  “And nobody thought to tell me about this?”

  “Just tell me if you can take it out.”

  The creature completes its circle, doubling back around and rushing at the ship. It plunges down, its legs bracing it as it comes to a stop and sending another shudder through the Dynamis. Then, it’s staring at me, half a dozen red, glowing eyes staring my way from either side of its face. It opens its mouth and screams again, and I have to brace myself as the force of its voice actually pushes me back. Still, once I get a second, I take a breath and relax. “Keep those flyers off my back.”

  Tommy’s Recording 29

  Everyone in the room looks nervous, but there’s a visible feeling of relief when we hear Jackie’s voice come back through the comms. “Keep those flyers off my back,” she says. Her sounding confident is what we need right then. I take a look around the master control room. We never use this place. It’s really only for when both the War Council and the Advisory Council meet together, which is never. Today, every standing position is filled. Lining the edge of the room, a heavily armed security team’s in place, which I guess is in case we need to evacuate the building. They’re carrying assault rifles and strapped to the brim with body armor. It’d be a little intimidating if they weren’t on our side, although I’ve never seen that type of armor before. Looking more around the room, I spot every general from Fort Silence and Central Freedom, plus every representative from throughout the city. Tasha Bouley even bothers giving me a mocking wave as my eyes meet hers from across the table.

  Everyone’s got a small slide up computer monitor in front of them at the massive, round table we’re standing around. At the center of it all, four massive screens in a square formation are displaying everything happening on the field. Right at that second, it means we’re tracking Jackie through the eye of the Baby Boy we’ve got following her.

  General Yousef is tapping furiously at the computer in front of him, his eyes going back and forth between different areas of his screen while also checking up on Jackie. “Dark Angel, are you sure you have the firepower to take it down?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? I got in touch with home so I could restock. Precautions.”

  The general looks my way. “Home?”

  “What can I say?” I tell him with a shrug. “She’s got this, ah, this home base, I think. Where she keeps all her equipment.”

  His eye cocks upward. “Nobody’s ever thought to find out where this place is exactly?”

  “Maybe because she doesn’t want anyone going there? It’s not like she’s ever told me where it is, either.”

  Doc Watson, standing just a little further past the general, smiles. “If my assumptions are correct, then she has undoubtedly found Highpoint Waystation. Good. Good.”

  The general turns to look at him. “You knew about this?”

  “Of course. I’m the one who gave her the armor in the first place, after all. Did you think I wouldn’t give her some way of upgrading it when the time was right?”

  The general doesn’t look happy. President Branagh looks over at him with a smile. “What’s wrong there, Yousef? Don’t like a little surprise in your life?”

  “I just appreciate knowing what assets we have on the table,” he growls back. “Not that this is the time to complain.”

  “You got that right,” the president says with a nod at the screen. We both watch as the Zilant swipes at Jackie, its huge forearm missing as she goes rolling underneath it. She’s barely passed beneath its claws before she rises upward, her sword going straight through the creature’s arm and sending green blood flying. The blood sizzles in the air, steam pouring off of it as it goes spattering back to the ground. I can see Jackie recoil as she realizes her armor’s burning, her rockets lifting her up and back from the monster.

  “Acid blood?”

  Doc Watson leans forward into his mic. “Um, yes. The creature’s regenerative abilities are quite extraordinary, and its blood is quite potent.”

  “So that’s how it’s—” Her voice cuts out as she suddenly darts sideways, a huge ball of green acid rocketing out of the monster’s mouth and through the air. “Highpoint, I need high dynamic flight accelerators.”

  Yousef squints. “What . . . ?” We don’t wait for it long. Blue light forms behind Jackie, like four arms stretching out from her back. All of them are black metal, just like her armor, forming an “X” behind her. At the end of each arm, blue light is shimmering from a repulsor pad. “Repulsor thrusters?”

  Watson leans back and chuckles. “Well, it seems she wasn’t lying. She truly has brought everything out to show today.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “General, the suit is modular. Its capacity for upgrading and modification is unparalleled. The high dynamic flight accelerator allows Jackie to make movements in midair that would be impossible using her standard thrusters alone.”

  As if to prove the doc’s point, Jackie’s whole body turns at an angle as another ball of acid flies her way. She doesn’t have to fly to the side or up and over it. Her whole body just turns sideways 180 degrees in a second, the blue repulsors pushing her out of harm’s way. I rub at my jaw when it happens. “She doesn’t have to accelerate to make quick, short moves with that module on.”

  “Precisely,” the doc says, his smile still wide. “Oh, do look. Here she goes.”

  Our attention goes back to the screen as Jackie goes rocketing sideways, a rifle appearing in her hands as she sweeps to the side of the Zilant, which is already starting to regrow its lost arm. As she moves, her rifle’s firing at full automatic, a whole magazine of ammo emptying in seconds. Half a second later, a new magazine materializes in her hand,
and she jams it back into her rifle without a second of hesitation. She’s still strafing the monster, and we can all see it roaring as it turns, its long neck whipping through the air and firing off one glob of acid after another. One goes flying right at her, but Jackie whips back, the acid passing inches from her chin. She does a full 360-degree rotation, going head over heels before the rifle in her hand vanishes, replaced with those sticky grenades of hers that she tosses at the creature. Small explosions tear into its wings and eat into its muscle, but we all watch as the lost muscle and bone just regrow in seconds.

  The president looks concerned. “I hope she’s got some more tricks up her sleeves.”

  “I heard that,” she says back across the comm channel. A second later, we see her dodge backwards again, this time as streams of boney projectiles go flying past her. “Command, I told you to keep these flyers off my back!”

  Yousef nods, speaking into the mic as he switches channels for a second. “Commanded Petrovic, divert your weapons fire to focus above you. Clear the air for the Dark Angel.” We get the affirmative back from the Dynamis and for a second, I just hold my breath. Yousef stands back, arms folded across his chest and looking smug. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine anything being able to clear out as many of those flyers as we can see out there, but that’s when I catch sight of a new gun extending from the top of the ship. At least, I think that’s what it is at first, but after a second, I realize it’s just a huge missile launcher of some kind. Standing there, I can only watch as it rotates, its massive barrels turning toward the cloud of flyers that are blacking out the skies by this point. The barrel’s enormous, but all it does is point straight up for a second, aiming directly into the heart of those Rocs swarming the Dynamis. I can feel my breath stick in my chest as we wait, everyone holding onto the edges of the table as a single missile finally rockets upward into the skies. I can’t tell its size or really see it at all, but when I hear Petrovic’s voice over the comms, I know something big’s about to happen: “All hands, brace for impact.”

  There’s one second where the Baby Boy tracking Jackie captures a perfect view of the skies behind her. From one end of the screen to another, the air is choked with flyers. There’s so many, you might even think the day’s turning into night. And that’s when I see the streaking trail of that single missile, flying into the heart of them. It just keeps rising and rising, vanishing into the cloud of Rocs that start swirling around it, swarming and creating a vortex around it as it punctures the crowd. Then, after a long moment when it looks like nothing’s going to happen, the whole screen erupts in light for one, brilliant second. The sound of it is intense, like this deep, bassy pulse that shudders through the table. Over the comms, we can hear the sounds of warning sirens going off and people shouting, the screens in front of us flickering in and out as the Baby Boy struggles to stay active. Then the light clears, and we’re all staring at empty skies. Sure, there are scattered groups of flyers still here and there, but it’s like, with one missile, we just cleared the board of any Creepers in the air. The only thing else left in the skies are the tons of Creeper body parts falling toward the earth. Yousef sucks in a deep breath. “That will only work once. We’ve bought ourselves some time, but we don’t have another missile like that. They either take down the Panzer now or die at the hands of the next wave of flyers.” He taps into the comms channel again. “Jackie? Are you still there?”

  “Holy hell, Primary. Are you trying to kill me out here?” We watch on screen as she comes back into view, back on the top of the Dynamis. “I had about five seconds to ground myself or I would’ve been knocked right out of the air.”

  “What is the condition of the Zilant?”

  “Pretty angry!” she screams as we see her go rocketing upward again, this time getting out of the way as the creature spins a wide circle, its tail swiping at where she’d just been standing. The Zilant’s neck immediately angles upward and fires one of those huge globs of acid, the burning steam coming off it filling the screen. There’s one instant where we almost think Jackie’s not going to get out of the way in time, but then we see her back thrusters fire off in a cape of fire. She goes swinging up and back downward before flipping onto her stomach, the repulsors around her firing off and bringing her body shuddering from a hundred miles an hour to an instant stop.

  Branagh cringes. “That’s a lot of G-Forces.”

  Watson nods. “That’s why only she can use the suit.”

  ”Dark Angel,” Yousef calls into his mic, “We’re five minutes out from Zero Point. When that happens, the Dynamis won’t be able to defend against a creature of that size while absorbing point blank fire from the Panzer.”

  “Don’t worry. I brought something for this.” All of us go quiet as the air around Jackie’s hands start to turn blue. It takes a second longer than normal as this massive gun forms in her arms. She drifts slowly around the Zilant as this gigantic, six barreled minigun monstrosity materializes, one of her hands holding it from a bar that stretches across its top and her other hand lingering over the trigger. It’s so big, the thing’s got to weigh at least a hundred pounds, but she’s holding it like it’s a toy. Then we see her squeeze down on the trigger and, for a second, almost nothing happens. The barrels on the gun slowly start to turn, whirring louder and louder as the spinning picks up, but there’s a long moment between when she holds that trigger and when the minigun finally starts to fire off.

  But when it does? The air fills up with the sound of countless rounds of gunfire going off. The barrels keep turning and turning, hundreds or thousands of rounds punching away at that giant Creeper. Everyone watches as the Zilant screams, rearing back up on its legs and pushing off, its huge body going skyward. The screen’s filled with green blood dripping down along the Dynamis, steam trailing through the air as the metal hull starts to burn. The creature doesn’t stop though. It arcs away from Jackie for just one second before pulling back toward her, its massive body making a direct plunge for her. It’s screaming as the minigun keeps chewing into it, and at this point, it’s impossible to tell whether it’s still healing or if Jackie’s winning the fight.

  All any of us know is that it opens its jaws wide, a pulse of green energy flowing down its throat and radiating through its belly. I hold my breath as I see it line up with her, its mouth gaping open and ready to launch one of those huge acid bombs. For a second, we actually see a green glow coming from inside its throat, it’s neck convulsing as the Zilant gets ready to fire directly on her. Then, just when I think it’s about to open fire, Jackie catches my attention again. The minigun’s still firing full force, but one small Pocket Space window after another starts opening up around her, a dozen of them at least, and out of every one of them we see rockets flying. Each one of them’s about the length of a man’s arm and loaded with an armor puncturing tip. It’s like she’s firing one rocket propelled grenade after another right from out of pocket space. Suddenly, the sky’s a flurry of explosions. The whole screen lights up as blooms of orange and red fire tear into the Zilant, its wings splitting apart under the assault and its body exploding in green acid. Its neck dips away from Jackie as the last of the rockets rip into its body, one final bomb of acidic force firing from its throat and down toward the city as the whole creature detonates in green light. All of us hear an echoing bass before the force of the explosion sends Jackie flying backward, her body slamming onto the roof of the Dynamis and tumbling in spirals, legs flailing over her head before she goes rolling to a violent stop. For a second, she doesn’t move, and Yousef can only ask, “Dark Angel. Report in.”

  There’s a long second after he asks when nothing happens, but we finally start to see her move, her hand planting onto the ground before she pushes herself up to a knee. “Sorry, Primary. Had the wind knocked out of me.”

  “Can you continue? We’re less than two minutes out from Zero Point.”

  “It doesn’t really matter whether I think I can continue or not, does it?”

&
nbsp; Yousef frowns as he leans back, not saying anything else as we all watch Jackie get onto her feet. She’s wobbly for a second, but soon she’s running back down to the side of the ship and getting back into the Dynamis. When she’s finally back inside, Yousef just shakes his head as he looks back over at the doc. “How does she do that?”

  “Do . . . what, exactly?”

  “She called up guns and missiles without having to activate anything in her suit. She didn’t even use vocal commands.”

  “Oh, that’s quite simple. It’s a highly advanced neural interface that connects her with Highpoint Waystation via Pocket Space. She can choose her loadouts and have them dropped in to her without the hassle of storing them in Pocket Space.”

  “Then why doesn’t she always carry that kind of firepower around with her?”

  Doc Watson almost looks like he thinks Yousef’s stupid. “Most likely because Highpoint is exactly what it is: a waystation. It was never meant to help supply an army, and it lacks the equipment to create more weaponry. I suspect she’s burning through most of her resources for this one battle. Albeit, it has been 500 hundred years since Highpoint was stocked, so my memory of the supply levels for her suit may be lacking.”

  The general sighs as he looks back toward the screen. “It doesn’t really matter. None of it will matter after today.”

  Jackie’s Recording 23

  When the door opens, I stumble back onto the flight deck. When I do, the deck chief’s burning a hole into me with his eyes. “I run this deck, Angel. Not you.”