The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (18 page)

     Lantern banked the Sikorsky back toward Freedom Rise,
and at that very moment his jaw dropped. “God help us.” 

CHAPTER 19

S
warming
out of the top of Freedom Rise from a massive door that had been concealed near
the top of its majestic spire were dozens of the pterodactyl drones. Twenty-five,
fifty, one hundred—zoomed out from the spire. They circled the building,
creating a protective zone.

     “Uh Rev, what do you suggest we do about that?” Ward
said.

     “How many Disabling Darts do you have left?”
Revolution asked him.

     “Less than fifty,” Ward said.

     “How is your H3 supply?” he asked Sophia.

     “Running low.”

     “Save enough for the flight back, just in case,” he told
her. He gave Lantern a nod, and Lantern rose warily from his seat.

     Lantern stepped out of the cockpit. “I’m going to open
the bay doors. Get ready.” 

     Revolution, meanwhile, hit a speaker button from
within the bay that sent out a message to all within earshot: “We are the Suns
of Liberty. Please back away from the building and clear these streets. To
those of you in the building, free our compatriot and you will be spared. This
is your only warning.”

     On cue, a dozen or more drones cut away from the
protection zone and came flying straight at them.

     The drones opened fire.

     The Sikorsky rocked and shuddered. Flames roared
across the windows. The rotors on the copter exploded.

     The Sikorsky dropped and rolled and pitched onto its
side.

     “Next time, maybe don’t announce we’re coming?” Ward
shouted dryly over the roar.

     “They’re going to bring us down in the middle of the
city!” Revolution shouted.

     “No, they’re not!” Sophia yelled and sprang toward the
cockpit. She was the most experienced pilot. She could do more than just tweak
the auto-controls like Lantern had done. But the Sikorsky was in a spinning
dive. The Suns tossed and rolled in the belly of the bay. Revolution finally
magnetized himself to the side of the bay wall and grabbed Lantern as he flung
by in the chaotic spin—just as the bay door popped open and the wind rushed in.

     Sophia struggled to reach the cockpit and finally
managed to collapse into the seat. She wrestled with the straps against the
torque of the copter’s gyration and buckled herself in. She clutched the
throttle and grappled against the Sikorsky’s chaotic yaw with everything she
had.

     But it was no use. The rudder was gone. There was
nothing any pilot on Earth could do now.

     They were going down and they were going down
spinning.

     A death roll.

     Ahead she saw the empty green space of Bryant Park
spin toward her. She lay hard on the throttle, and the copter began to fall in
the direction of the park. If she couldn’t stop them from crashing, she could
at least
direct
the crash—and hopefully save the lives of countless innocents
on the ground.

     “Hang on,” she yelled. “This is gonna hurt!”

     In the park, people on lawn chairs, many watching live
web coverage of the attack on Freedom Rise only a few blocks away, fled and scattered
into the garden-lined periphery of the park.

     Just before...

     The Sikorsky ripped into the green grass of the lawn
in a violent explosion of mud, dirt, and plant matter that spewed high into the
air. The shredding rotors slung shrapnel in all directions. But the carefully
constructed Stealth Hawk had been designed to avoid exploding on impact. Of
course, that didn’t mean it couldn’t. Fortunately, this time the design worked
as planned.

    
Stealthhawk-1
skidded to a sudden stop with a
brutal
lurch
. Revolution looked about for Ward, but he was nowhere to be
found.

     Lying in a trench of mud, Ward peered back toward the
crushed Sikorsky. In the chaos of the spin, he’d managed to hit the bay door
release but had miscalculated his leap out of the bay and rammed into the side
of the door on his way out, meaning he mostly crash-landed into the ground,
much like the helicopter.

     Sophia was pulling herself out of the cockpit and fell
off the side of the craft onto the ground, moaning in pain. Revolution lifted
Lantern up and out of the bay door and then jumped down himself. The two of
them staggered toward Sophia and helped her over to where Ward was lying.

     “You okay?” Sophia asked him when she got to him.

     Ward just nodded

     They all collapsed next to him.

     Exhausted.

     “Well, that was embarrassing,” Ward said finally.

     “That was their only warning, huh?” Sophia said.

     Sirens began to blare, and the red lights of patrol
cars flashed on the outskirts of the park. The team just gazed at each other,
too tired to flee or fight or do much of anything but lie there.

     Minutes passed.

      A roar and crack startled them, and they raised their
heads to see a large police van crashing through the tree line onto the lawn of
the park and heading right for them.

     Revolution shot to his feet and stood on trembling
legs—were it not for his armor he wouldn’t have stood at all. For a moment he
contemplated charging, taking the van out before it could do whatever the boys
in blue had up their sleeves.

     “Stay here,” he told the others.

     He didn’t want to fight the NYPD. They weren’t like
the cops in Boston. He didn’t have a long history here. These guys really were
just following orders. And they’d patched things up for the most part with the BPD.
No need to complicate the situation back home over a brawl with some brothers
in blue down here.

     The van was still headed right for him. It was not
slowing down.

     He lifted his arms, readied his cylinder grenades. His
scarlet cape flapping lightly in the breeze. He could hear the others now
rising to their feet. And that made him reconsider. Maybe if Paul was up here,
he could take out the SWAT team without violence. He turned to motion for Ward
when—

     A strange sense of calm washed over him. The feeling
was uncanny. He held his hand back toward the others, warning them not to
attack, and they halted their advance. The four of them just seemed to be waiting.

     The van swung about, kicking up more grass and dirt
from the Great Lawn, so that its back doors were now facing them. Revolution expected
those doors to come flying open and a SWAT team to come bounding out at any
moment. Still, he felt surprisingly calm. The others still hadn’t moved either.
Maybe they were just all too tired to care anymore.

     Instead, heavy footsteps tromped through the bed of
the van.
One
set of footsteps.

     The doors finally swung open and a lone SWAT officer
in full riot gear came out, unarmed, waving them into the back of the van.

     “C’mon, get in. I can get you out of here.”

     This was no police van. It was the one thing that a
police van never is: empty. Every SWAT van Revolution had ever seen had a long
row of seats on either side for the crew, and weapons aplenty. Revolution
figured that the vehicle had been converted to look just like the real thing,
right down to the vehicle number.

     “No offense, pal, but we’re not going anywhere,” Ward
said.

     The SWAT officer grinned and pointed to his nametag
badge. It was on a loose flap that fell over the black of his flak jacket. He
lifted it and underneath was the old “Don’t Tread on Me” flag from the original
Sons of Liberty. The officer blazed a wide smile at the Revolution.

     “Name’s Neuro, and I’ve been waiting to meet you all
my life.”

     An exaggeration, given that the man standing before
the Revolution was at least in his midtwenties, though it was hard to tell
under the large facemask he was wearing. But he had a young, boyish face that
seemed to be three-quarters jaw with a wide, easy smile. He was thin and
animated.

     In fact, he seemed nervous, but not in a threatening
way. If this kid was a threat, he was hiding it better than anyone Revolution
had ever met. And he’d met a lot of nervous enemies in uniform during his life.

     The situation outside the park was growing worse by
the second. They needed a way out. Revolution peered around the edges of the
large park. Squad cars were everywhere. The New York City Library loomed behind
him—probably filling with snipers. They were low on firepower. It was going to
get ugly. Revolution was not designed for restraint, nor was Sophia, and Ward
was low on darts. That meant they’d have to brawl their way out, and that meant
the cops were going to get hurt.

     There was no way to rescue Rachel now, anyway. He
needed to get his team to safety and come up with a new plan to free her.

     “Drive us out of here, then.” Revolution said to the
young man. “And you know that if this is a trick, you won’t live to see how it
ends, right?”

     “No trick. I’m Neuro. I’m Neuro,” he said nervously.
“I can get us out of this. I already saved you once today,” Neuro said,
grinning apologetically.

     “What did you just say?” Sophia asked him, stunned.

     “Uh...never mind, later, later.”

     Whoever this kid was, he had balls, you had to give
him that. He was clearly scared shitless, and yet he had waded right into the
middle of all of this. And Revolution had the feeling they would discover he’d
done more than just crash his van through the police line today.

    
Already saved you once today.
Hmm.
Revolution thought about how he’d mysteriously woken up in free fall earlier.
He’d felt like his whole nervous system was being revved up. Could that have
been this Neuro guy?

     “The name’s Benjamin Drayger. Friends call me Ben. I’m
Neuro, though.”

     The kid stood off to the side and offered them
entrance in a grand gesture, pointing to the Suns with one hand and to his van
with the other. “Please,” he said. And there was that grin again. “Please.”

     Despite a little voice in back of their heads
screaming not to do it, they all independently decided it was a good idea and
stepped up into the van.

CHAPTER 20

D
rayger
stomped on the gas. Arrayed along the edge of the park was an armada of squad
cars. The officers were all probably wondering why they couldn’t get through to
the SWAT team in the park, or who’d given the order for them to go in.

     As the Suns drove closer it became apparent that, in
fact, they already knew why they couldn’t contact the SWAT team.  

     At least fifty officers, ducking behind their squad
cars, drew their pistols and aimed at the approaching van.

     “Quick, I need someone to take the wheel,” Drayger shouted.

     They stared at each other. Was this kid someone they
could trust or not?

     “Please!”

     Lantern, being the closest to the front, relented and climbed
into the passenger seat, grabbing the wheel.

     Drayger lifted his arms out in front of him and
squinted in concentration. They all peered out at the officers.

     No change. Nothing.

     “Uh, what are you trying to accomplish there, slick?”
Ward asked.

     “Dammit!” Drayger breathed. He jammed the brakes and
the van skidded to a halt, kicking up mud and grass. They lunged forward. And
suddenly Drayger was struggling to get the SWAT helmet off.

     Underneath it he wore a golden headpiece that wrapped
around the back of his head and came to two points across his forehead.   

     He tried again.

     Arms out in front of him, eyes nearly closed. And this
time the change was immediate. All across the crowd of officers, behavior
changed radically. Some ducked back in their squad cars, others grabbed up
their radio mics, a few actually just ran the other way.

     “Wow,” Ward said, watching it all.

     “Ms. Helius, I need you to cause a distraction for
us.”

     “Uh, yeah,” she said, glancing over at Revolution, who
shrugged and nodded. “Okay.”

     “Blast a tree or a bush or something. Just to show
your power!” He said it like an excited child ready to watch some fireworks.

     Which made Sophia give him a second-guessing glance.

     “Please, it’ll scare the crap out of them, just what
we need!”

     Under her cobalt-colored visor, she raised her
eyebrows. “Okay.” She and Lantern switched places. She rolled down the window
and blasted one of the large oak tree branches on the large tree at the opening
of the park where Drayger had burst through earlier.