The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (44 page)

     The task was considerably easier than Lantern had imagined.
The river was wide, so the Hollow backed the subs out, turned them in the opposite
direction that the COR subs would take in their escape, and grounded them in the
muddy sediment at the bottom of the river.

    
Easy.
“It’s done, sir. COR has an open road.”

    
“Good work, my friend,”
Revolution said.

     Suddenly, Lantern caught a bogie out of the corner of
his eye, coming in from the city. He spun to get a better look, ready to take
on whatever it was—and saw Ward and Sophia. Ward was flying for both of them.
They landed, and Lantern could see that Sophia was clearly hurt. Ward’s face
was ashen and contorted as well. They’d been through hell.

     “What’s left?” Sophia asked, wincing from her injuries.

     “The General’s getting COR away, but we’ve still got
the Legion to deal with,” Lantern said. Explosions rang out on either side of
the compound, and Lantern felt no need to explain that the Minutemen were still
in a firefight on both sides. 

     “Where’s Rage? Why isn’t she hitting us yet?” Ward
asked.

     Lantern shrugged. “Must be Bailey’s weapon.”

     “Well,” Sophia said, “we can’t be sure COR is safe
unless we deal with the Legionaries. So, let’s get to it.”

     Just then, from across the way, they saw the front
door of the compound open up and out strolled Arbor, Veronica, Fiddler, and
Fang.

     “Well, speak of the devil and his spawn,” Ward mused
darkly.

Anger
welled in Drayger’s eyes, and without pause or patience—he attacked. Sending a
wave of fear their way, bounding toward them, firing the laser pistol. He
targeted the one he wanted most.

     Lithium.

     Arbor tried to dodge the streaking bullet, but the
aching idea that Fiona Fletcher might attack at any moment had again pervaded
his thoughts. He broke the spell with a surge of willpower. But it had taken
him half a second too long.

     The laser bullet ripped through his chest, and he
screamed in pain. The big man fell to the turf, blood squirting from a hole on
the right side of his torso.

     Drayger kept coming.

Meanwhile,
Veronica recalled Arbor’s orders to take the Suns out in order of power. Helius
was just across the road.

     In a flash, Veronica closed the distance and slammed
into Sophia with a full-body punch. The small but normally lethal Helius
offered no resistance. Instead, she was rocketed off her feet and slammed into
the dirt fifty feet away. She rolled on the ground, her breath gone, ribs
cracked, blood seeping from her lips where a robotic fist had just barely caught
her under the visor before the face shield could close off.

     Veronica grinned. She was watching to see if the woman
would rise again, and if she did—she’d hit her with no mercy again. But then
she heard Arbor cry out again behind her. And at the very moment, something
grabbed her. It was unlike anything she had ever felt. Someone was playing in
her brain! She began to feel her systems shutting down.

    
The Saratoga Virus!

     “Rage! The virus, it’s hitting me! Can you help me
stop it?” she called desperately into the com.

    
“I’m sorry, Commander, it’s hit me too. I’m afraid
my powers are useless. Spectral is down as well,”
Scarlett said back.

     Veronica felt something press into her back. She spun.

     Or tried to.

     The virus had affected her legs as well, so it was
only her muscles trying to move her heavy, titanium limbs. She could feel something
on her back, just sitting there. She wanted to reach around and find out what
it was, but her arms were frozen in place, just like her legs.

     And then, Veronica Soto exploded.

     Gore and guts and her four robotic limbs blasted in
every direction. Everyone hit the dirt.

     Rachel Dodge materialized just outside the blast zone.

     “Fucking bitch! How do you like those MagCharges?” She
turned to the others.

     It was the first time any of them except Ward had seen
her new suit—the skintight white jumpsuit that left nothing to the imagination.
She’d worn a cloak that everyone had assumed was her normal invisibility cloak
over the suit during the trip and preflight meeting.

     Drayger just stared, mouth open. Maybe he was staring
at the remains of Velocity, but his gaze followed her as she approached. Rachel,
undaunted by such a caveman reaction, simply winked at him and continued to
strut up to the others.

     Ward was not so unaffected. He felt a wave of jealousy
wash over him. Which was stupid. He had no claim on Rachel. In fact, if there
really was anything to their constant flirting, he’d put the kibosh to it many
times himself. He wasn’t ready to move on from Alison. He didn’t want to. Maybe
it was just the disrespect Drayger was showing.

    
Yeah, that was it.

     But a familiar voice broke through his sulking. “Paul
Ward. I’m gonna rip your skull open with these daggers of mine, and then I’m
gonna piss on your brain and pretend it’s the bloody corpse of your little
fuck-wad kid that I shot through his little fuck-wad face. How does that sound,
Spider Wasp
?”

     Ward’s hatred spun him around. To face Fiddler. The
pain from his cracked ribs and strained back screamed at him. But so did the hatred
of the man he saw before him. The hate was winning.

     Fiddler was poised, aiming both harpoon guns that
jutted out of his armor right at Ward’s face.

     Drayger, Lantern, pretty much everyone, moved toward
him when Fiddler uttered those words, but Ward stopped them cold. “No!” he
yelled. “This one is mine.” Ward stalked toward him.

     So Drayger turned back to Arbor. Marched toward him, pistol
raised, aimed at the big man’s head. He stood just above Arbor, who was trying
to stay conscious, his world fading in and out.

     Arbor was on his side, staring at Drayger as he
approached. “Pretty impressive, sweetheart,” Arbor grunted. “You should come
work for me. We’re the real heroes. I could use a man like you. Fierce as shit,
talented. And we have...” Arbor’s vision blurred. Darkness swept over him for a
second. “We have a budget, too.”

     Drayger’s eyes waivered. He lowered the gun an inch.

     He was fierce. That was true.

     Drayger re-aimed the gun between Arbor’s eyes. And
grinning like a kid with a new puppy, he cocked his head and pulled the—

    
ROAR!
A Spore zoomed over the rooftop of the compound
and headed right for him. Drayger spun and fired at the thing. Everyone turned
toward the menacing machine.

Everyone
but Ward. All he saw was his hate for Fiddler.

     What he didn’t see was Fang creeping up behind him.

     The Spore returned fire as Drayger and Lantern dove
out of the way. Arbor just rolled over on his back, hand over the chest wound
in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.

     Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a very welcome
sight. A small group of Council Guards jogging toward him. That meant two
things to Arbor. One, they’d finished off the Minutemen. Two, they were coming
to rescue him. “Move, move, move!” their commander yelled.

     Ward ignored it all. So did Fiddler. They approached
each other, arms up, like two Old West gunslingers.

     “It just has to burn your bloody ass that not only am
I still walking around, I’m a hero to the people now!” Fiddler spat.

     Ward said nothing, but he was searching for a seam in
Fiddler’s hideous armor. There was a small joint at the elbow. A tiny space for
a dart to get into that only opened up when Fiddler moved his arm at just the
right angle. It would take enormous concentration and focus for Ward to hit it.

     “Oh, c’mon! Bloody well indulge me! Say something heroic!
Tell me how you’re going to avenge your little snot eater.” Then Fiddler
feigned a thoughtful moment. “You know, I wished I’d had the chance to rape
your wife before she offed herself. Now that would have been fun! Too bad,” he
sighed. “I guess living with you was just so much harder than I’d realized. You
never gave me the chance. You did my work better than I ever could have!”

     “Shut up!” Ward growled. He knew Fiddler was just
trying to provoke him, to make him lose his cool. Fiddler hadn’t even meant to
kill David. It was an accident. David had simply been a casualty of a failed
drive-by shooting. Wrong place, wrong time. That was all. The creep had never
known his wife. He knew this. He refused to be goaded. He refused to lose his
focus on Fiddler.

     Which was exactly what Fang was counting on. As the
big man reached out to grab Ward from behind, Fiddler yelled, “Now!” Then Fiddler
aimed the harpoons at Ward and fired.

     And when he did, he moved into Ward’s tiny strike
zone. The shot opened up. The shot he’d been waiting to take for three long,
wretched years.

      Ward fired his dart.

     The shot was perfect.

     It would hit home.

     But so would Fiddler’s.

     Ward blinked and saw the acid dart headed right for
his chest. Again, Fiddler had been full of shit. He’d not taken the head shot
like he’d boasted. He’d taken the safe route. A torso shot.

    
Typical.
Ward closed his eyes, waited for the
impact. But regardless, he felt at peace. If he had to die, he was ready.

“No,”
Leslie insisted. “Get everyone else on board, then I go.”

     Revolution nodded, and he watched as Leslie returned
to the conversation she was having on her cell phone. Although he had the
capability to do so at this close range, he never snooped in on her calls.
Technically, she was his superior, after all. And the office she held, along
with her own personal prowess as a scientist and a politician, had long since
garnered his utmost respect.

     Revolution was helping the last of the members of COR
onto the fifth and final escape sub when Leslie at along last finished her
call. “That was the European president,” she said.

     This got the Revolution’s attention. She knew very
well that he had long hoped for military assistance from the E.U. in the long
struggle against the Council.

     “She thinks she can convince the parliament to support
us,” Leslie added, “but they’re looking very closely at what happens here. We
need to win this fight. We need to show them some kind of concrete evidence
that we can win this war.”   

Out
front, Drayger saw the small group of Guardsmen approaching, focused—for 
now—on the fallen Arbor. He spun back to the Spore, which had swooped back up
into the sky.

     It seemed to be waiting.

     Drayger didn’t want to wait. “C’mon!” he yelled at
Lantern and took off after the Guardsmen, arm raised, pistol ready.

      The Guardsmen stopped. They felt the wave of nausea
hit them and then the fear. Drayger just cackled as they began to search the
sky. Worked every time. He’d have to thank the Fletcher girl someday. Best fear
image he’d ever projected.

     Then he opened fire. A full clip. Fifteen rounds.
Fifteen kills—before the Guardsmen got their wits together and began to return
fire. By that time, Drayger had reached the small brick wall that lined Beach Street and dove behind it for cover.

     Drayger fumbled to reload the pistol. But he couldn’t
find his ammo. Where the hell was it? He searched his pockets, his vest, everywhere.
And then he realized. He’d used it all up.

     Another realization hit him. Why the hell weren’t the
Guardsmen firing? In fact, why weren’t they overrunning the wall now and just
shooting him in the head?

     He winced, waiting for the end as he peered over the
wall—and saw them all checking their weapons. They looked like a bunch of
campers whose flashlights had just died.

    
The Saratoga Virus
!

     Drayger scanned around. There was Lantern. Crouched behind
the wall not twenty feet from him. He must have made the run to the wall with
him and Drayger hadn’t even realized it. “Hey,” he yelled to Lantern, “throw me
your other gun!” Let’s—”

    
BOOM!

     A laser shot from the Spore zoomed out of nowhere and hit
Drayger completely unawares. The power of the beam lifted him off the ground,
pulverizing the wall, and spun him in midair, thudding him back to the ground
with a
splat
!

     The world was still spinning. He knew he had slammed
into the dusty soil. He tried to breathe, but there was no air in his lungs.
Finally, oxygen broke through. Drayger coughed up a glob of blood. He spit it
into the dirt.

     The remaining Guardsmen, about ten in all, had backed
up, and as Drayger tried to size them up, he realized that they were just standing
there, gaping at him. He must have hit them with fear without even realizing
it!