The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (45 page)

     Drayger knew he needed to get back to Lantern. Needed
to get that pistol and finish these guys before they finished him. He snapped
to his feet.

     Except nothing happened.

     Pain hit Ben Drayger like a locomotive.

     He peered down and realized…

     His leg was gone.

CHAPTER 47

W
ard
felt the stabbing pain that would end his life.

     It jolted him off his feet and slammed him to the
turf. He’d gotten his perfect shot off, though. But instead of hearing Fiddler,
he heard a woman scream. He skidded in the dirt and waited for the pain to hit.

     And there was pain, but it was coming from his aching
ribs, not his chest.

     He felt his torso, but there was no dart sticking in
it. No acid eating up his heart. The impact hadn’t been from Fiddler’s
mini-harpoon dart at all. Something or someone had knocked him out of the way.

     He looked up, saw Fiddler and Fang, both prone,
sprawled on the ground, both lying across from one another. Saw Fiddler, eyes
wide, Ward’s dart jutting out of Fiddler’s elbow joint. It
had
been a
perfect shot. But much more shockingly, one of Fang’s large white spikes was sticking
grotesquely out of Fiddler’s chest.

     Ward strolled over to him, and he could see it in his
eyes. Fiddler knew Ward hadn’t even tried to dodge his harpoon. He was willing
to die in order to make sure Fiddler went down. In that moment, Fiddler knew whose
will was stronger. Who was the more courageous man.

     And Ward’s dart had done more than immobilize Fiddler;
the dart had ensured he could not escape Fang’s attempt to stab Ward in the
back.

     Ward smiled.
Puts a new meaning to the term
backfire
.

     Fiddler glared back at him and wheezed. “I thought you
didn’t believe in killing,” he said through his pain.

     “I don’t. Not human beings, anyway. Not sure you
qualify. Besides, I didn’t do this. You did.”

     Fiddler tried to laugh, but a gurgle of blood spewed
out of his lips. He coughed. His eyes went wide. Ward watched them grow dim as
the life oozed out of the former leader of the Brown Recluse.

     Fang grunted behind him.

    
Shit, Fang!
He’d forgotten about him. Ward
spun, ready to fight, and what he saw made him stop short.

     The big man was still on the ground, grunting. And
then he howled in an ungodly wail of agony. And Ward saw why. One of Fiddler’s
darts was stabbed into his chest—which was bubbling and boiling with blood and
gore. And as he watched, Fang’s wailing mercifully ceased. The big man died
right in front of him.

     Truly, the Brown Recluse were a gang no more.

     Ward blinked. How had this happened? Why hadn’t he
been the one to take the harpoon to the chest and the spike to the back?

     Then he heard her voice. A soft sob. He recognized it
instantly. “Rachel?” he asked, spinning, searching around him for any sign of
her.

     She appeared in front of him. Her suit was torn across
the right arm, the acid from the harpoon boiling into her, blood and tissue
seeping down her white suit. It was she who had pushed him out of the way.  Ward
whipped over to her and grabbed her arm to inspect the wound. Rachel howled in
pain when he touched her.

     Ward spun, searched around him.

     And saw it. Twenty yards ahead, somehow undamaged by
the mêlée.  “Hang on!” he said and bear hugged her. She was staring into his
eyes as they flew the short distance, the pain setting her nerve endings afire.
Her lips open in shock.

     Ward landed and let go of her gently, and she
collapsed to her knees. Then he swiveled and, as hard he could, kicked the top
off of the street hydrant that stood unscathed among the rubble. 

     Water spewed out in a powerful torrent. Rachel’s wide
eyes darted his way, and, understanding, she rose to her feet and Ward helped
her reach the powerful stream that washed the acid out of the wound.

     “Fuck, that hurts!” she yelled.

     Ward sighed with relief as he could tell she was
coming back around. “I know,” he said.

     “And dammit!” she exclaimed, a trace of a smile
curling on her full ruby lips. “Another trip to my plastic surgeon!” she said.
“What is it with this mission?”

     “That should be good,” Ward said, pulling her out of
the torrent. He inspected the gash. “It looks clean now.”

     “Well, it still feels dirty,” she said, wincing. “And
not in the good way.”

     “You’re going to have to fix that suit too,” Ward said,
noting the long tear in the fabric.

     She peered down at it and nodded. “Yep, that too.”

     “That’s okay,” Ward said. “I like it better that way.”

     She scrunched her face. “Torn?”

     “Visible.”

     She grinned a genuine flirty Rachel-type grin that,
under the circumstances, warmed his heart. “And by the way, thanks for saving
my life,” he said.

     She reached out and ran her hand across his cheek,
winked at him, and said, “Let’s get back over there.”

Drayger
lay in the dirt, grasping his gory stump of a leg. The laser blast had
cauterized the wound, so he would not bleed to death, but the pain was overwhelming.

     And the Spore was on its way back for another round.

     Lantern sprinted over to Drayger, hooked his hands
under his shoulders, and pulled him back across the street, hoping that the
Spore would not engage them if they were backing away.

     But the Spore did not cooperate. And why not? The
Minutemen were nearly all dead. He and Drayger were the best targets it had.

     Suddenly a strange buzzing sound caught Lantern’s
attention, and the Spore seemed to hear it too, halting in midflight.

     As Lantern peered back toward I-95 he could see a
whole squadron of small planes landing on the roadway. Lots of Cessnas and
Pipers. Each of them filled with the Minutemen that had gathered at Boston—and had
not been expected to arrive for another four hours at least. Flash bulbs lit
the night sky as the gathered reporters burst from their various hiding spots
all across the area, making it all look a bit like the Fourth of July.

     The first plane landed, and those aboard bounded out
and came running to him.

     He started to warn them off, fearing the Spore would
target them—just as he heard the machine reengage and it began to fly toward
the interstate. The good news was it was no longer targeting him and Drayger.
The bad news was that the Minutemen would be sitting ducks.

     But no sooner had the Spore zoomed over him than its power
suddenly clicked off and the great orb crashed to the ground.

    
Saratoga
.

“My
God.”

     Ward just stared at Drayger’s mutilated stump. “Hang
on, Ben.”

     The young man was delirious with pain. Ward had seen
some horrific injuries of the extremities, but this one was right up there with
the worst of them. He knelt down by Drayger.

     Drayger’s eyes were wild. “I’m gonna kill ‘em! I’m
gonna fuckin’ kill ‘em!” Drayger was whisper-shouting through his agony.

     Ward eyed his wrist turrets. He pressed his fingers
down onto his sleeve canisters, and the end of a dart popped up. He pried it
out. “This will take the edge off. I need you to stay very still for just a
second, okay?”

     Drayger understood and complied—just long enough. Ward
gently pricked the skin and then pulled the dart back. A small dose of the
serenity serum hit the capillary and, in a single heartbeat, shot through Drayger’s
system.

     His wild eyes calmed.             

     Ward breathed a sigh of relief. His serums had always
contained accelerators, but in the past, they’d needed the force of the impact
to trigger the rapid movement through the bloodstream. Great when everything
worked like it was supposed to. But if the wrist-turrets ever malfunctioned,
he’d be left with no way to instantly immobilize an attacker.

     He’d been working on solving that problem.
Reconfiguring the chemical mixture of the serum itself by adding an automatic
accelerator. They’d worked in the lab and in his apartment. But he’d not tested
them in the field…until now.

     Ward peered back over at Sophia, on her back in the
dirt, fifty feet away. She was breathing, thank God. 

     He jogged over to her. She was awake, but badly
injured. Ward couldn’t examine her through the armor, but he figured broken
ribs like himself, sprained joints, hairline fractures, at the very least. He
gave her a miniscule injection of the serum, and in a few minutes she was up on
her feet and, with his help, she limped over to be with the others. Minutemen
from the planes were now gathering around. 

      Ward heard his com crackle, and Revolution’s voice
blared out to everyone.
“COR and Crown are on their way, and I’ve
neutralized the Guard on this side. I’m coming to you.”

     “Roger that, sir. Rage and Spectral remain at large. Same
with Ray,” Lantern responded.

    
“And Lantern, what’s the buzzing?”

    
“Airplanes, sir. Lots and lots of airplanes.”

     Ward looked back and smiled. They were still coming in,
a long line of them like a highway in the heavens, backed up across the Philadelphia skyline. 

Spectral
rose into the air, nothing more than a beam of light. The last remaining Spore
had sent a blast that had just sliced through Spectral’s force field and taken
Scarlett off her feet. Spectral had made a quick scan of her vitals. She was
stunned but healthy. So the android rose to face the machine before it could
circle back for another strike.

     The Spore was headed right for them, its blasters
poised and aimed. But Spectral had already precisely calculated the best preemptive
tactic to employ. The android teleported into the heart of the Spore.    

     The Spore stopped in midair, trying to deduce where
its target had gone. Unable to contemplate that the target would be
inside
itself.

     And as Scarlett recovered, peered up, searched the sky,
and finally found them, the android’s molecules changed from light to matter.

     The Spore exploded in a flash of light as Spectral’s
mechanical body filled up its space. What was left of the Spore trickled to the
ground like so many silver snowflakes.

     Spectral followed them down. He knelt beside Scarlett
and helped her to her feet.
we proceed with the fourth?>

     “Not yet. The Council still has a card to play. Let’s
let them play it first.” Scarlett rested her hand on the roof’s concrete ledge,
and when she did so Spectral saw her fingers tremble. The android placed his
warm hand over hers.

     She peered up at him and smiled. “Thank you.”

    

he
said.

     She nodded. “Our master stroke may have to wait,” she
said, scanning the arriving aircraft on the interstate.

     Spectral took her in his arms, and they rose into the
night sky together.

Revolution
had joined them. He peered out at the massive numbers of Minutemen disembarking
from the planes.

     Ward was examining his wounds as best he could, but
Revolution’s armor made it nearly impossible. He made a mental note to ask
Leslie to work up some kind of medical scanner that could see through battle
armor.

     The Revolution turned toward Drayger, who was now propped
up against the small brick wall. He leaned down and put his hand on the young
man’s shoulder. “Hang in there, son. We’ll get you some help. We’ve got a state-of-the-art
medical facility at our safe house in Norristown.” Revolution motioned to the
planes on the interstate. “We’ll have one of those boys take you there, get you
patched up. They can do great things with robotic limbs these days. Make you
better than new. Right, Paul?” Revolution said.

     “No doubt about it, buddy,” Ward said to Drayger,
having forgotten all about his prior animosity toward their newest member.

     Drayger actually grinned. “No offense, but I’m not in
any danger of bleeding out, right?”

     Ward shook his head.

     “If it’s all the same then...I’d like to stay,”
Drayger grunted. The drugs were good, but to keep him conscious, Ward had needed
to give him a small enough dose that his body was still registering pain on
some level. His speech was choppy and slightly slurred. “We haven’t taken down
Rage... You might still...need me.”