The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (46 page)

     Revolution lifted his head as if in thought.

     For Ward, there was nothing to think about. “No, I’m afraid
that’s out of the question. You need to go now.”

     Revolution turned to Ward. “Neuro’s right. We may
still need him. Keep him comfortable, but alert.”

     Ward shadowed the Revolution as he strode toward
Sophia. “Look, I understand what you’re saying, but he really needs to go now.
The likelihood of a good reaction with any kind of robotic appendage is often dependent
on the speed with which it’s introduced to the host’s system after injury.” 

     Revolution did not stop. “I’m aware of that. But he
wants to stay, and we need him. He isn’t the only person who’s made a great
sacrifice today. It’s his choice.”

     Ward was about to respond when Sophia saw them heading
her way.

     “Boot-jets are toast,” she declared, “but I think I
can get the bracelets up and running. Just going to take a little more ti—

     Suddenly a tremendous flash of light blinded them from
the direction of the compound.

     They all spun.

     And there, floating fifty feet above the ground, was
the Krill.

     “Arbor said they had their own Fire Fly. I hoped he
was bluffing,” Revolution said.

     Lantern scanned the thing’s readings, and his eyes snapped
up from his RDSD. “He wasn’t.”

     Suddenly the Krill’s huge insect-like eyes, once the
visors for Michael Crustac, now essentially the video screens of the Krill’s
controllers in Freedom Rise, swiveled toward the fresh crop of Minutemen, who
had all drawn their weapons.

     With a single sweep of its hand it shot out a beam of
energy that hit the group of Minutemen like a terrible blade. It cut them in
two. Blood and gore spewed into the air.

     And everyone else dove for cover.

     Everyone except Revolution. His eyes instantly darted
over to his most powerful asset.

     Sophia. The Krill’s robotic eyes shifted to her at the
same time.        And why wouldn’t they?

     She would be the first target to eliminate. She was
still on the ground, a sitting duck in her condition.

     Revolution charged in her direction. “Helius! Get your
ass up and get to cov—”

     The Krill sent a blast in her direction, and the
Revolution leaped in front of it with all his might. The blast hit him full
force in the chest, and he was launched above all their heads and slammed into
the ground a hundred feet behind them. He just lay there.

     But it gave Sophia time. She scrambled for cover, but
there was no real cover to find. She dove behind one of the now hollowed-out,
charred cars along Beach Street, just as the Krill’s helmet beam blasted it to
hell. Sophia was sent careening through the air. When she hit the dirt, she
stayed down.

     Lantern gasped. Just like that, their two biggest guns
were down. He watched in frustration as the Minutemen tried to fire back, but
their bullets were simply absorbed by the glowing machine. What they needed
were laser rifles. Then he thought about the slain Council Guardsmen whose
bodies were on the south side of the compound. Each of them had been carrying a
laser rifle. He peered over the wall again, waited until the Krill was firing
the other direction, and shot up, sprinting toward the south side.

     He didn’t make it.

     A huge explosion shook the ground. Lantern lost his
footing and fell. It had come from behind him, and when he looked back, what he
saw was truly horrific. The Krill had targeted the planes on the interstate, sending
a long beam of light all the way to I-95 that had taken out six aircraft that
were in the process of landing. They exploded in one long succession. A tremendous
fireball that seemed to stretch across the entire horizon. Falling on the
already landed planes and their unloading occupants.

     Ward saw the fireball, and his throat tightened. All
those people. Led like lambs to the slaughter by the Suns themselves. Revolution
made it all look so glamorous—he knew so very well. And none of them knew what
they were getting into.

     One minute they were there, the next, they were
obliterated. That is not what they’d meant by Minutemen, Ward mused darkly.

     The next thought Ward had was blasted out of his brain
as the very air around him exploded in blinding light. The last sensation he
felt was being hurtled through the air—and he swore he saw the black of space.
Then he saw nothing.

CHAPTER 48

“K
rill, take out those landing aircraft on I-95,”
said the command voice in the robot’s
head. The machine aimed and sent another bolt of energy toward the planes.

     But the bolt was ripped out of the sky by an equally
powerful beam of chartreuse energy.

     The Krill and its handlers were startled. The machine scanned
the area and then found the source of the beam:

     The Fire Fly had arrived.

     Flashing to life so near Paul Ward that he had been
blasted across the pavement.

     And the Krill knocked her out of the sky in response.
A brutal blast from the helmet beam sent her rocketing across the open air.

     She regained control right above the Revolution, who
was just blinking awake.

     He gawked up at her and swallowed. “Fiona!”

     “I’m not here for you,” she said. “I’m here to make
sure no one else gets hurt by what you started.” And with that, she zoomed back
toward the Krill—

     —only to have a virtual blade of energy come rushing
right at her face.

     Thinking fast, Fiona moved by reflex and formed a
large field of energy around herself. The Krill’s energy blade haloed off the
force field, and a loud boom thudded across the field of battle as the two
energies dissipated loudly.

     She’d blocked the shot, but she’d left herself open,
and the Krill’s AI, now having pegged her as enemy number one, went to work.

     It lunged at her and extended its clawed gloves,
ramming them deep into her luminescent skin as only another entity made of the
same energy could.

     Fiona screamed in pain, and countered with one her own
bolts of light.

     They traded blows back and forth, their power shaking
the foundations of every structure within a five-mile radius.

     Below, Ward opened his eyes. His head was pounding
again. He sat up and just tried to breathe. Calm. Calm was what he needed.
Fiddler’s
dead. Fiona’s here. Things are coming together
, he told himself. The
pounding in his skull eased.

     He had to think. What could he do? The Krill was
luminescent. He had nothing that would affect that. But it was also a machine.

    
The Disabling Darts!

     Could they even get through the energy to impact the machine,
though? Ward glanced over the wall and watched the Krill. After a moment, he
noticed that the machine’s luminescent energy would fade anytime it wasn’t
directly engaged with Fiona or firing an energy blast. It was like the Krill needed
to charge itself and was conserving energy.

     That might give him an opening!

     Ward raised his arm and aimed the darts. He felt the Disabling
Darts slither into place. He waited.

     Saw the shot.

     And fired!

     The dart zinged toward the Krill—and was promptly burnt
up as the energy again surged over the machine as it and Fiona traded another
blow.

     He tried again.

     Same result.

     “Good idea,” came a voice from behind him. He spun.

     It was the Revolution. Back up, fresh blood oozing out
of the two bullet holes.

Fiona
blasted the Krill again.

     A massive sphere of luminescent fire exploded across
its body, engulfing the Krill as it shot through the sky. She was clearly more
powerful than the machine, but no matter how many times she pounded it, the Krill
seemed to regenerate. Somehow it was using Fiona’s own power to restore itself.
The Krill’s engine-heart was the key. But she had no desire to reach back in
there and encounter those Shard-things that surrounded it again, whatever the
hell they were. Dark energy, anti-matter, who knew?

     She tried a different tactic.

     “Michael, can you hear me? Are you still in there?”

     The Krill paused for a moment. Everyone saw it—Fiona,
the Revolution, Ward, Drayger, Lantern. Everyone.

     “Michael, don’t let this thing control you. Don’t let
it destroy you.”

     It was like a voice from hell itself, but bubbling out
of the monster machine came a human response. Pained, garbled, but audible.
“It’s too late for that,” the voice said.

     “No, it’s not too late!” Fiona shouted. “Concentrate!
Like you did when you came to save me!”

Below,
Revolution slammed his fist down onto the low concrete wall, and a piece of it
chunked away. He didn’t even notice. “There’s a man inside that thing!” he
said. “It’s a suit, not a robot!”

     He spun toward Drayger. “Neuro, hit that thing with
everything you’ve got. Make it feel good. Make...
Michael,
whoever he is,
want to show himself.”

     Drayger’s mind raced. Though he usually employed fear
as his main weapon, he could actually manipulate any of the eight basic human
emotions: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and
joy.

     Drayger shifted his body, and Lantern helped him so
that he was pointing his arm over the wall. He focused on trust and joy. His
eyes squinted.

     Revolution spun back to Ward. “Keep hitting him with
the disablers. Man or machine, we’ll take him down either way!”

     “I can feel him!” Drayger yelled. “He’s in there!”

     The machine began to quake. The energy was no longer
just fading when the Krill disengaged from Fiona. Now it was flashing back and
forth from energy to machine, constantly—like the strangest strobe light any of
them had ever seen.

     Revolution telescoped his visor in on the helmet of
the Krill, and remarkably, he could see a human face strobing inside it as
well, almost as if the very flesh of the man inside was regenerating and
disintegrating every few seconds. He was sure that was impossible, but that’s
what it looked like. 

The
spectacle took Fiona by surprise as well, and as she gawked at the machine, the
Krill programming took over for a split second and ripped her across the sky
with an energy-blade backhand.

     A prize fight in three dimensions.

     “You have to tear this thing’s heart out, Fiona! It’s
the only way,” Michael Crustac’s distorted voice boomed out at her. “Blast me!
Make it resist!”

     She did. She braced herself in midair, one leg
extended out behind her, the other bent at the knee as if she were leaning on
something—and screamed out as she let loose one long constant burst of her
energy. No stopping until the Krill was no more.

Below,
to those on the ground, it felt like the Earth itself was going to open all
around them. The roar of Fiona’s blast was all consuming. The feel of the power
charging the air and molecules around them was exhilarating at the same time it
was suffocating.

     Revolution saw what was happening. The Krill began to
glow transparent. The inner workings of the suit/machine/man displayed
themselves for all to see. And at the center, the heart, was a rough copy of
one of Leslie’s luminescent Orbs. The Council, most likely Von Cyprus, had copied the design as best they could and put one squarely in the center of
their latest death machine.

     But surrounding the Orb was a secondary sphere made up
of what looked to be, for lack of a better term,
sun spots
. They were
small, coal black, and floating, suspended all around the Orb. He wondered if
they were some kind of defense. Only one way to find out.

     He pulled out his i-hook. “Fiona!” he yelled to her.
“When I fire this, energize it!”

     She nodded.

     He fired the hook. It zipped at speed toward the
Krill’s luminescent body. It was too fast for the human eye to follow, but for
Fiona, when she concentrated like she was doing now, it moved in slow motion. While
still blasting away at the Krill with her left hand, she sent a blazing-fast
wave of energy with her right that showered the i-hook in luminescence. A
millisecond before it impacted the Krill, the i-hook started to glow.

     It shot through the black spots, hit the Krill, and stuck.

     Despite the energy swirling around it, the i-hook had
found enough steel left over to allow it to magnetize to a part of the machine.
Fiona’s energy just prevented it from burning up.