The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (24 page)

     The drone inched closer. It was within twenty feet now.

     Ward had a bead on the machine and was ready to fire.
He kept glancing back at the Revolution with his eyes. Firing a dart would
almost certainly announce their presence to the armada and jeopardize not only
the mission to rescue Rachel, but also their lives. He knew the only reason to
do it would be to save Drayger’s life.

     Ten feet to go now and Drayger could see the ant-like
antennae the drone was using to sweep in front of it. The sensor had to be sweeping
over him; it was just that Lantern’s digital shield was making the drone think
there was nothing there.

     But the closer it got to him, the greater the chance
something might register. Motion, his breathing, a displaced raindrop. Anything.

     Five feet to go.

     Ward locked onto the drone a final time and looked
back to the Revolution.

     Who gave the nod.

     Ward activated the canisters.

    
 A powerful wind gust.

     One of the drone’s back legs lost its grip on the
Delaware
’s
steel shell. The Suns fought it, too. But the drone’s small feet
had far less magnetic pull than any of their boots. It simply couldn’t hold on.
It had never been designed for this kind of wind blast.

     The drone skidded backward a good ten feet—past
Drayger, before its mechanical legs repositioned themselves securely on the
shell. It remained motionless for a moment, almost as if it were reassessing
the situation. Drayger’s eyes were wide. It was right next to him. Both Sophia
and Ward had clear shots now.

     It turned around and scurried back to the door, which
opened again, and the drone disappeared into the bowels of the ship.

     Ward let out a breath he didn’t even realize he was
holding and shut the canisters down before they could even start to spin.

     They scanned the large topside of the ship for any
more signs of the drones.

     But it was a horizon unto itself.

     So huge that the full curvature of the machine was not
fully visible to any of them. There was just no way to see all of the possible openings
for the drones.

     They waited and scanned and waited some more.

     Nothing.

     They were out of time.

    
“All right, people, we’ve got to move. Fan out to
the stress points that Lantern has marked and let’s get those charges set. Make
sure you put them on the exact spot or they won’t work,”
Revolution said in
their coms.

     They moved. As quickly as they could, easing up on the
magnetic hold of the boots. The winds were tremendous. The four of them fought
for every step. They each had four MagCharges. They set them in four rows of
four across the top of the ship at stress points Lantern had marked in digital
red in their visors. 

     At the halfway point, Ward glanced up and screamed.
“I
can see it!”
He pointed into the black, and there, in front of them, emerging
out of the dark, illuminated by the fingering flashes of lightning, was the
churning gray wall of the hurricane.

     This close, this high, it was simply massive. It
seemed to extend into the heavens forever and spread across their entire field
of vision. A giant wall of energy, roiling with magnificent power and headed
right for them. From the ground it would have just looked like a massive, grey,
wet mass. But up here they could actually see the storm’s rotation in the
brilliant flashes of lightning that snaked across its expanse.

    
“Hurry!”
Revolution yelled into his com, as if
any of them needed the prompting. He and Drayger unpacked their backpacks in a
hurry, strapped the vortex engines onto their hips, and in a flash were up and
running again.

     By the time they reached the front of the ship the
winds and rain had picked up to such an extent that every step was treacherous.
When the last charge was placed, Revolution yelled at the top of his lungs,
“To
the edge, now!”
The great ship was starting its turn. There was little time
left. The hurricane-force winds battered them, making them claw for every step.
It was a death struggle with the wind.

     And the wind was winning.

     Then Ward felt a wave of confidence sweep over him.
This
was a solid plan. They’d faced down worse than this; they would persevere even
in the face of...

     Ward spun toward Drayger. His face was set in concentration.
It was him! He was doing this, giving them the drive to pull through. Ward
smiled at him, and he grinned back.

     Revolution sent a thought-command, and the small
Vortex engines strapped to his titanium belt whirred to life. They spread out
and the inner mechanisms fired. Drayger followed suit. And without a word,
Revolution and Sophia glanced at each other, nodded, and dove into the fury of
the storm.

     Ward and Drayger did the same.

     The massive
USS Delaware
turned just in time.
Its great engines fired their afterburners into overdrive, and the aircraft
rocketed away from the hurricane, sending a trail of flame one hundred yards
behind it right into the heart of the storm. It made for an awesome sight.
Roaring fire and churning rain.

     The storm hit the four of them with a fury they
couldn’t even imagine. Had they not already closed off their faceplates the air
would have been sucked right out of their lungs. As it was, it felt like a
punch to the gut. Every muscle ached. Sophia’s healing broken ribs and hip
throbbed with a sting that made her weep. She couldn’t help it; the tears just
came.

     Ward was holding his head, the pain coursing through
it like an electric shock. For a moment all he could think about was red. The
giant glowing red tentacle of the Man-O-War spinning out from nowhere to strike
him in the head. And then waking up with the pain shooting through him, just as
it was now. He fought the horrible memory from Boston, but it wouldn’t relent.

    
“Spider! Fly right!”
Revolution screamed at him
over his com.

     Ward opened his eyes—unaware they’d even been closed,
the pain nearly shutting off his brain. Holding his head had made him plummet
from his flight plan. The red digital trail blazed above him in his HUD.
Why
did it have to be red?

    
“Pull up and turn!”
Sophia growled over the
com. She and Revolution glided next to Drayger, who was doing his best not to
pass out. They reached out and snagged his arms at almost the same time,
forming a human chain.
“We’ve got you now. Just relax. The hard part’s still
to come,”
Revolution told him.

    
“Oh good. Wouldn’t want my first day on the job to
be too easy!”

     Despite the pain raging through Ward’s body, he pushed
himself up. Up against the roaring madness of the storm. He turned his body
like the rest of them—right into the wind.

     It was the craziest idea Ward had ever heard of. The
idea was to ‘crab’ and use the power of the storm itself as the current that
would get them through the eye and to their target. He grabbed Revolution’s
arm. And waited to be torn to bits.

     It was working. The aerodynamic nature of the storm
and Lantern’s optimal flight pattern was working! Either that, or his entire
body was now numb and he could no longer feel himself being ripped apart!

     No, it was true, they were all virtually floating on
the air currents. A moment of blessed peace. The pain actually receded. Crabbing
was the strategy airplanes had always used to fly through hurricanes. Who would
have thought it would work for them, too? Ward glanced over at the Revolution
and smiled.

     And then
screamed...

     As they all dropped one thousand feet in just seconds.

     The human chain plummeted in an all-out free-fall. Nothing
their engines could do to stop it or slow it. Sophia could have burst out of it
on full power, but she would have left the others behind and driven them apart
in her wake.

     As suddenly as it had started, it stopped and they
were back into a floating pattern. But for Drayger, it was too late...

     He lost it.

     He was pulling and twitching, causing Sophia to fight
against him. A thought-command and his face shield rolled back up into his
helmet. His twisting and lurching even caught Revolution and Ward’s attention
and made them both turn when...

     He heaved a vile glob of fluid and food chunks that
immediately caught the wind and zipped toward Revolution and Ward.

     Missing them by centimeters. The two men just stared
at each other. Ward burst out laughing. The roar of the wind was blocking out
all sound, but even through his closed-off face mask Revolution could tell Ward’s
mouth were forming the words, “Oh Shit!”

     Even Sophia was grinning despite the soul-shattering
pain she felt. 

     Drayger was still as green as a Granny Smith apple. He
closed his face shield and saw the rest of them laughing at him. For an instant
he smiled too, but then the grin broke into a grimace and he ripped away from
them so fast it even caught Revolution off guard. He angled his body down
headfirst, folding his arms tight to his sides. A skydiver plummeting to the
Earth.

     “Neuro, stay in formation!” Revolution shouted over
the com, but the roar in all of their ears made it impossible to hear.

     Drayger blasted down into the storm ahead of them and
in an instant was lost in the great swirling clouds.

      All around them lightning strikes veined across the
sky in spidery fingers, close enough to raise the hair on their heads.

     “Lantern, find him for us!” Revolution yelled into the
com, unable to hear if Lantern replied. But soon, a digital overlay beamed to
life in their HUDs, showing Drayger in front of them. Revolution pointed to
Sophia, and she didn’t need to be able to hear him to understand the command.

     She rocketed into the heart of the tempest. Her blue
propulsors disappearing into the gray.

     She kept Drayger in her HUD, thanks to Lantern. The
storm sent shockwaves of pain shooting through her, but she adjusted her boot-jets
just enough to compensate for the wind gusts that were tearing at her already
battered body.

     And just then, she and Drayger flew into something that
hit them so hard it ripped the thoughts right out of their minds. They slammed
into the eyewall of the hurricane. The most brutal part of the storm.

     Drayger had been plummeting in a controlled headfirst
dive, but when the eyewall struck him it whirled him around and he began to
spin. His drop from formation had meant he was no longer crabbing into the wind,
and the current snatched him and began to pull his body apart. He teetered on
the edge of consciousness.

     That’s when it hit him.

     It felt like a comet had struck him in the kidneys. In
a way, it had.

    
Comet Sophia.

     He felt a crack run up his spine. Sophia had been
flung into him by the fury of the eyewall just as she had reached him. With no
other choice, she grabbed him and pushed her rockets to full. They jetted out
of the chaos in a matter of seconds.

     Ward and the Revolution were not as lucky.

     It took them another two minutes to get through, and
Ward’s raging migraine had returned. His vision turned black, and he was no
longer able to tell if the storm had simply gotten that dark or if he was
literally blacking out due to the razors of pain slicing across his skull. For
once, the Revolution flew
him
out of a crisis.

     He bear-hugged Ward, and they were flung about like
paper in a wind tunnel. Rolling and spinning, but still flying in the general
direction they needed to go, according to Lantern’s flight path still illuminated
in their HUDs. Still trying to crab through the chaos. Both men screamed out,
though neither could hear the other over the all-consuming roar of the wind.

     And then it was over.

     They emerged to find Sophia and Drayger circling back
up at them. But the duo was gazing past them. Directly above. Ward peered up
and immediately recognized what had them so captivated.

    
“It’s called the stadium effect,”
Sophia said.

    
“You’ve seen this before?”
Ward asked, now that
they could all hear each other again.

    
“No...,”
she said, gawking overhead.

     Above them, the sky was clear. Stars twinkled above
Ana’s eye. And all around them was a giant wall of dark-gray swirling clouds—lightning
sparking and snaking across them like a spectacular light show just for them.
For a moment, the majesty of it was simply breathtaking. They were seeing something
few humans had ever had the privilege to see this close up. To be able to reach
out and touch the very fabric of a monster storm.

     It was stunning.