Seven Wonders (51 page)

  He called in another check of the roster. From two hundred superheroes, eighty were alive, sixty-two uninjured and able to fight. Thirty of these were in waiting on the raiding platforms, unable to fight or survive in space unaided. That brought it down to thirty-two. A dozen were assisting the injured, ferrying them back to the moon or to the raiding platforms, and tending their wounds, some of which were terrible. Bluebell was with them, injured herself but able to use her psychic powers as a sort of metaphysical anesthetic for those who needed it.

  Eighteen superheroes floated in space behind Aurora and the Thuban. The glowing, blurry mass of the warship itself cruised forward sedately, now no longer concerned with the inconvenient heroes buzzing around it.

  "There must be a weak point, a line of fracture," said the Dragon Star. He was at Aurora's shoulder, suit jacket flapping in the solar wind that streamed off Aurora's back.

  Aurora focused himself. It was not the Dragon Star's fault. The Thuban were a vast complex, a gestalt beyond human understanding. They were not to know what form their attack on the Earth would take. But right now, the Dragon Star was perhaps their best hope. The powerstaff had been able, at one point, to penetrate the shield that surrounded the warship, and do damage, however minimal. Aurora had read the spectrum reflected off the object's surface with each attack that found the target. Only energy blasts from the powerstaff showed anything different − traces of elements heavier than hydrogen. Material from the surface, sloughed off into space. Just a little.

  "Can you breach the object with your staff, Dragon Star?"

  There was a pause as the Dragon Star considered. "I do not know. A sustained strike on a single weak point, perhaps. But I fear the process would take too long, and the Thuban would have time to retaliate before the structure of the warship was breached."

  "What if… Can the staff be overloaded? If the warship is susceptible to its energy signature, could we fly it in close and detonate it, somehow?"

  Another pause. "This is possible. However, I am tied to the staff. I would not be able to reconstitute an existence again."

  "You mean you would die?"

  "Yes."

  "OK…" There was a glint of light at the edge of Aurora's vision. At the same moment, his comm popped and twenty voices spoke all at once. Linear darted into his view, between Aurora and the warship, and pointed back over Aurora's shoulder. Aurora turned.

  At the center of the black disk of the moon was a white light. It grew larger very quickly, and in a few seconds it streaked over Aurora's head and towards the enemy. It was a figure, another hero. Not Sam again? Aurora touched the comm link on his belt.

  "Aurora to Apollo Fortress, come in please! Do you read me, over?"

  The channel was still heavy with static. Aurora blinked the comm on and off a few times to try to improve the signal. Finally, he got a voice through that was clear enough to understand. The voice belonged to Sam. Aurora listened as he watched the burning figure streak towards the warship.

  "Aurora! It's Tony."

  "It's Tony what? Detective, explain!"

  "Tony used the power core. He says it's the only way to stop the Thuban. He said the heroes will all die with the Earth if he didn't stop it himself."

  As he watched, the warship was suddenly surrounded by flashes of violet light. The object seemed to slow and turn slightly as the flashes increased in frequency and intensity.

  "Aurora!" Another voice now. He heard half of a muffled argument and then Jeannie came on. "He's brought us into space as well. We're almost there."

  He turned and saw a purple globe approach, untethered and drifting. Linear nodded and flew towards it, gingerly nudging the surface and pushing it towards Aurora. As soon as it was close enough, the Dragon Star hitched it with a thread of energy from the powerstaff. The globe sparked as the two energies met, then the globe stabilized. Sam and Jeannie stood impatiently inside, sharing a single communicator taken from the moonbase. Jeannie held the MIC-N loosely at her side.

  Aurora drew as close to the support bubble as possible, his aura flaring red in anger and licking the smooth purple membrane that separated Sam and Jeannie from cold space. But before he could say anything, Sam grabbed the communicator from Jeannie.

  "Aurora, it wasn't us. He grabbed the core and used it on himself."

  Jeannie snatched at the comm, but Sam held her grip. Jeannie instead tugged Sam's arm up in front of her face so she could talk. "You can put the angry eyes away, dude. He said it was the only way to stop the… whatever it is. He said you'd all die and the Earth would be eaten. So go stick that in your pipe and smoke it. Look. Seems he was right."

  She pointed, and Aurora turned. Around him, the superheroes floated into a tight pack, drawn by the spectacle of the one-man assault on the Thuban. The blackness of space flickered with violet light that made Sam and Jeannie cover their eyes. Even some of the superheroes with regular or unshielded vision were forced to look away, or peer as best they could from behind raised arms.

  The Thuban creation was darker now, losing the bright yellow glow to become a dull orange. Surface features and shapes could be seen, the whole structure appearing to be a rotating complex of polyhedrons, similar in design to the power core shell. From this distance, Tony was a brilliant purple streak, spinning around the superstructure, diving in and around, each orbit coinciding with a flash of light.

  "Get those who cannot fight back to the moon, now." It was Tony. Linear and Supercharger looked at each other, then at Aurora. All around, the superheroes murmured to each other, then looked at their leader. Tony had patched into the comm link somehow. Everyone had heard him. Then he spoke again.

  "The rest will attack the Thuban on my mark. Aurora, gather the force and lead them in when I'm ready. Please confirm."

  Aurora flicked his communicator. If this was humanity's last stand, it was best not to delay with argument or discussion. The Thuban were weakening. Tony had been right.

  "Confirmed. Awaiting further instruction." He snapped the comm off, but it buzzed with static again almost instantly.

  "You sure about this?" Bluebell, aboard one of the raiding platforms. Aurora looked for them and found the yellow domes floating some distance below.

  "Affirmative. Helix, Doctor Mandragora, move the platforms back to the moon. Secure the base and await further orders."

  Doctor Mandragora's hiss was difficult to discern through the constant static of the comm link, but Aurora recognized the snake-man's tone at least as one of protest. Aurora's corona snapped out angry tendrils of energy that flickered into space. He snapped the comm on quickly again.

  "You have injured personnel. Bluebell and Sand Cat will assist in the infirmary. Move!"

  Aurora watched as Helix and then, after a pause, Doctor Mandragora flew back towards the moon, pulling the slightly elastic energy tethers of the two support platforms behind them.

  "What about us?"

  Aurora turned back to Sam and Jeannie. He pointed at the MIC-N hanging from Jeannie's hand. "We need some insurance." He glanced around the superheroes who were staying, keeping in steady threedimensional formation in space around him. Some were slightly too far off to be identified by sight. He opened the channel on his comm again.

  "Are there any magical superheroes present?"

  A single voice popped through the interference. "The Malice Dawn reporting, Aurora." Her accent was European. Aurora couldn't resist smiling − the Transylvanian sorceress was another supervillain turned good. He was glad that she was on their side, and also glad that she had survived the Thuban death ray.

  "Teleport Paragon into the Dragon Star's support bubble, please."

  From somewhere above, he saw a superhero break out of formation and fly towards the departing platforms. The sunrise icon on the front of the Malice Dawn's cloak glowed brightly as she accelerated towards them.

  "Those present in each bubble, hold hands, please. Effecting teleport in three, two, one." She raised both arms as her voice increased in volume. "
Shala-tyr karr'kara-cho!"

  Two sequential flashes, so fast as to be almost instantaneous, and Conroy stood between Sam and Jeannie, clasping their hands in his own.

  "Impressive," he said. The corner of Aurora's mouth raised in a smirk.

  Tony's voice, remarkably clear, cut through the comm link. Aurora noted that the link wasn't even on, Tony was merely channeling his thoughts through it. A surprisingly powerful trick, done so easily.

  "You may commence your attack, Aurora. There is no specific target other than the substance of the Thuban itself."

  Aurora clicked the comm on. "Confirmed. Superheroes, when you're ready."

  Linear and Supercharger buzzed nearby.

  "Light 'em up!"

  Two dozen shouts followed the superheroes as they charged through space towards the Thuban, Aurora at the head. As soon as he was within range, he focused his magnetic field into a narrow cone in front of him and summoned the full power of the Earth's sun. His aura shook, then exploded outwards in a yellow-red nova of energy, striking the Thuban with such force that the massive warship shifted in space, tilting upwards as it was pushed by the energy cone. The dull glowing orange of the surface darkened until nearly the whole side of the object turned as black as the space behind it, then it shattered like glass, throwing a billion shards in every direction. Aurora pulled his aura back again and projected it as a spherical shield around himself, vaporizing the debris that was blasted towards him. The other superheroes did the same, those capable of producing shields protecting themselves and others, while a few sped onwards, blasting the glassy rubble with lasers and energy bolts.

  The success of Aurora's attack was all the others needed. As the battlefield cleared, the carcass of the Thuban ship could be seen as it spun, end over end. Tony appeared from the far side and flew to Aurora. His body was featureless, violet-glowing black, his smile the same empty white gash as when he had been the Thuban's avatar. He gestured towards the falling enemy with an expansive arm, and the superheroes flew in, opening their superpowered arsenal at it.

  The warship was rocked by explosions as the surface was bombarded. As the shattered side rolled into view again, the superheroes retargeted, firing deep into the heart of the thing. Finally it sheared in half, and the heroes spun around each section, dividing it further and further. In a final effort, the last remaining large pieces were destroyed, until nothing was left but glass splinters a few inches in length.

  Aurora called the superheroes back as the splinters drifted towards the Earth's upper atmosphere, some already beginning to trail red and white as the friction of re-entry atomized them. Below, the West Coast of the United States was again in night. California – and San Ventura – would have a second meteor shower.

CHAPTER SIXTY

There was something about Tony, something wrong. Sam watched him talk to Aurora, unable to hear them as they didn't seem to be using the comm links, and unable to lip read anything useful. Tony kept glancing at them − or at Jeannie, anyway − whenever Aurora spoke, almost as though he wasn't giving the leader of the Seven Wonders his full attention. There was also something about the look, something not quite right. Sam could see it clearly, despite the black and purple of his skin and, like Aurora, the emptiness of his eyes. Tony looked like he was treading water, unconsciously moving his arms and legs in empty space as he kept level with Aurora, who hung in the vacuum without movement.

  And then he looked again, and Sam shivered. It was unnerving, inhuman somehow, and it had nothing to do with his bizarre appearance. She nudged Jeannie and whispered, unsure of what Tony would be able to somehow hear.

  "Something's not right."

  Jeannie joined the conspiratorial tone. "Something's not right in your head, correct."

  Sam sighed and nudged her in the ribs again, harder this time. "Can it, will you? When Tony was sent back to the Earth by the Thuban, he wasn't Tony anymore, he was something else."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, when I was… SuperSam, or whatever − that wasn't me either. Neither I nor Tony can remember anything about when we were powered. It was us, our bodies, but our minds were locked somewhere deep inside while the 'power', or whatever it was, took over, feeding only on our basic instincts and behaviors to create… something else."

  Jeannie looked at Sam, then at Tony. Tony looked in their direction again, but this time the smile was different. Jeannie flinched. She clearly saw it too this time. Could he hear what they were saying, or read their minds?

  "You mean that's…?"

  "That's not Tony."

  "You are correct." The purple barrier shimmered in front of them. Sam and Jeannie turned around to find the Dragon Star inside the support bubble. He held the powerstaff vertically, the ceiling of the support bubble dimpling inwards to connect with its tip, like a balloon.

  Sam automatically took a step backward, but hit the wall of the support bubble. It fizzed noticeably at the contact, and Sam's eyes flicked downwards in apology. Talking to the body of her dead partner was going to take some getting used to.

  "So that's
not
Tony?" Jeannie asked. The Dragon Star nodded.

  "Tony is somewhere within, but the power core is part of the Thuban, and is alive. That would have been part of the original plan, not only to grant the Cowl enough power to capture me, but to also control him themselves. He would have been nothing more than a puppet."

  Conroy laughed. The unexpected reaction caught Sam and Jeannie by surprise, but the Dragon Star seemed to ignore it.

  "Something funny, Cowlboy?" Sam's question wiped the amusement from his face.

  "Far from it. I'm starting to think I got off lightly when Jeannie here pulled the trigger on that thing." He knocked the side of the MIC-N with the toe of his boot.