The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (35 page)

Miles ahead, Lantern's locator
device beeped to life. Without giving Bailey any warning, he screeched his
motorcycle to a halt. Bailey had to skid and swerve just to avoid killing him.

“The hell is that?” Lantern
yelped, peering down at his scope.

“Trying to be roadkill?” Bailey
yelled back at him.

Lantern ignored the complaint. His
attention completely focused on the scope. No one had read more RDSD readouts
then he, and he had no idea what he was looking at. “Something's wrong,
sir.”  

Far behind them, down the long
stretch of West Broadway, the Spores zoomed into view. Bailey knew them
immediately. Hell, he'd sent more than a few Spores to do his dirty work around
the globe. “Spores. Trouble! Ride!”

They took off, the Spores in hot
pursuit. Gaining on them. A Spore fired a laser. The concrete roadway beside
them ripped apart. Chunks of asphalt flew into the air. The blasts were like
small bombs, they carried so much punch. Lantern wondered how he'd never known
of such a weapon, but he kept signaling the Minutemen. Bailey dropped back
behind him—trying his best to do the only thing he could think of at the
moment: be a human shield.

The next shot zinged just over
their right shoulders and pulverized the road in front of them. Lantern swerved
the bike hard and Bailey followed. The 5000s leaned, almost horizontal, the two
men nearly dragging their legs across the concrete as they raced around the
gaping crater and under the falling debris. Bailey was impressed with Lantern's
skill on the bike. A lot of pros would have gone down on that move.

Lantern, for his part, kept trying
to send the signal to Revolution, but it was still blocked.

Bailey palmed a large pistol out
of his belt. Turning back, he aimed behind him and fired. The bullet was
glowing with heat. It split apart into four separate projectiles and slammed
into a Spore. The orb exploded in a starburst of light. One down. Nine to go.
The Spores returned fire, narrowly missing them. More concrete flew into the
air. The two riders increased their speed. Zipped down the street, one after
the other. The world blurred around them.

Bailey screamed into his com,
“Take a right on Dorchester!” Then Bailey hit a button on the angular console
of his bike. A scope needled out of the small dashboard. Small turrets near the
back wheel whirred to life.

Gun barrels. They fired at the
Spores. The side guns were less accurate, Bailey knew, but they could deliver a
hell of a lot more rounds. The men slowed the 5000s to take the turn onto
Dorchester and then opened up the throttle.

The two sped down the road so fast
Lantern could hardly keep up with the signals he needed to send. It went
through his mind that he should have built in an automated process for this.
And just as he had that thought, he missed one of his targets. “Damn it!” he
yelled. 

Another Spore exploded. Then another.
And another. But the world was coming at them too fast, and the Spores were
still gaining. The duo narrowly missed an oncoming car—just a blur that could
have minced them across the pavement. Lantern felt himself grunting from the
g-force. Bailey kept firing; another Spore exploded. But they were still
closing the distance, there was no losing them. Three Spores were left. And
then Bailey made the decision.

“Have you sent the signal to the
Suns?” he screamed at Lantern over the com.

“It's still not getting through!”

They were out of time and out of
options. The three remaining Spores had entered what the techs called their
terminal
range
. The Spores never missed from inside two hundred feet. Bailey saw the
Spores adjust their aim. He knew what that meant. He could read them like no
one else. They had scoped in on Lantern, and in a few more seconds they would
eliminate their main target. Bailey's job was to make sure that didn't
happen—no matter what.

CHAPTER
55

“A
head!
Bend in the road! Jump!” Bailey yelled.

“What?” Lantern thought maybe he
hadn't heard him right, but then he saw what Bailey meant. In front of them was
a large construction project. A sight seen less and less across the
cash-strapped nation. They were building a man-made lake. Moved a bunch of poor
people out to do it. There was supposed to be a big, fancy resort built on its
shores—an effort to revitalize South Boston and get the insurgency moving out.
It was a dumb plan, Lantern thought. But now it actually had a use, though he
cringed at the thought of what Bailey was about to have them use it for. The
drop off the road was eight hundred feet deep.

“Activate your safety gear!”
Bailey yelled, fumbling to grasp a pistol out of his vest with his free hand.

“I'm a little busy here, sir!”
Lantern snapped back, trying to keep up with the signals.

“Just do it, goddamn it!” Bailey
pulled the pistol free and glared down at his own activation button. His hands
were full. They were out of time. “No other way!” he said into his com, and
there was something different in his tone on these last words.

Lantern noticed it.

They reached the bend. The Spores
closed on them, aimed their guns at Lantern.

Bailey spun in his seat, no longer
driving the bike. Its wheels began to swerve. He had a pistol in each hand. He
fired. One Spore down.

“Send the signal!” he screamed at
Lantern.

Another shot, another Spore down.

Lantern was trying, but it was no
use. The signal was good and blocked. Lantern quickly crossed himself, said a
prayer, and pushed down on the throttle for all he was worth.

Lining the guardrail was a long
line of trees that jutted out from the side of the cliff. But straight off of
Dorchester, just before the bend in the road, it was clear—a wide-open, big-sky
view of the lake-to-be. Lantern’s bike smashed through the guardrail and flew
airborne. Bailey's did not.

While Bailey fired away, the
wheels on his 5000 began to swerve. His bike had changed directions just before
it left the road and smashed through the guardrail. It angled hard to the
right, and the Spore followed it with machine-precision accuracy, now trying to
eliminate him as a threat—which meant he had achieved his goal and drawn its
fire. Bailey locked onto the Spore and tried to pull the trigger.

He never got the chance.

In that clarion millisecond of
moment, he closed his eyes. Life had become so complicated for so long, he felt
relief to have such a simple, straightforward decision to make. To know exactly
whose side he was on. No more secrets, no more lies, no more waiting.

With a horrendous crash, he and
the Spore ripped into the tree line that jutted awkwardly out from the cliff
wall. The last Spore stabbed deep into his chest, but John Bailey was already
dead.

He crashed through the trees,
smashing down the rocky ledge like a rag doll. His body shredded apart in the
fall, and the Spore shattered beside him. Bailey had done what he did best, one
last time: protect those around him at all costs.

Lantern’s 5000 shot out into open
space. An 800-foot drop below into a man-made cavern of dirt awaiting him. He
glanced back and saw Bailey's bike explode in a fireball on the rocky ledge. He
didn't see his friend, but he didn't need to. There was no more signal coming
from Bailey's gear. There was no more Bailey. The Spores were gone too, but he
still had not warned the rest of the Suns about the attack force coming at them
from the harbor.

And in that same moment he too had
a clarion thought.

He would have smiled were it not for
the grief over Bailey. He punched a red button on his dash, and two missiles
launched from side bays on his bike into the black sky high above him. They
were supposed to be a last-resort defense mechanism, but Lantern put them to
another use. He deactivated their charges and diverted the digital data sign
into their heat-seeking signal just before he launched them.

It took him only seconds. Lantern
could do things like that. He did make one miscalculation, though: the force of
their launch separated him from the bike. And he was now alone in free fall, a
deadly 650-foot drop still to go, the earth below rising to meet him. He
punched a button on his chest. His suit inflated with air in a second flat.

A large ball of inflated fabric
enveloped him, and he plummeted to the ground. The ball bounced several times,
tossing Lantern about with each crash. The suit was intended to protect against
a collision and being thrown from the bike. Falling off an 800-foot cliff was
probably not what they had in mind when they came up with the design.

Another bounce and he felt his leg
snap. His stomach churned, and he tried hard not to vomit. His head bounced,
his neck seized. He saw stars. He felt his back wrench, and his leg snapped
again.

Finally, the ball came to rest in
the open field of the pit. It burst open as the air whooshed out. Lantern
crawled out of the suit's remains, shaky and bleeding—but alive. He peered up
at the rockets.

And blacked out.

Outside the complex in what now seemed like
refreshingly clear night air, Rachel grimaced at the RDSD. “Lantern's not
checked in. No word from Hunley. Something's wrong.”  Suddenly, the night
sky was lit up by two rockets streaking from over the horizon. They zoomed
overhead, and the signal on her RDSD went crazy. She read it and smiled. “Fuck
me,” she said, looking right at Ward—and he blushed. “That's the signal!” she
said.

“How do you mean?” Ward asked.

Rachel grinned at Revolution. “Two
if by sea.” Rachel read the device again, and her smile faded. “We've got to get
to State Street.”

“You two better hang on then,”
Ward said. Ward wrapped his arms around Revolution. Peered above him and jetted
into the air.

Sophia faced Rachel. “You ready?”
she asked, trying to smile. Rachel just nodded. Sophia stood behind her and
embraced her.

“I knew you couldn’t wait to get
your hands on me,” Rachel said in her usual vampish tone. Sophia gave the boots
an extra jolt as they fired the blue light, and the duo rocketed into the sky.
Rachel was caught off guard, and she screamed.

Under her blue visor, Sophia
beamed a wide, self-satisfied grin.

The beach line was quiet. Lazy waves slapped the
shore.

Without warning, the water rose
and sea foam sprayed. Lumbering out of the surf was a giant Amphibious Assault
Vehicle. Then another. And another.

Dozens of them roared out of the
sea. They rolled up onto the roadway and headed into the heart of the city.
Inside were troops, weapons, tanks, everything a modern army needed for a
full-scale invasion of a city.  

The Suns soared over the majestic cityscape. Past
the beautiful urban mountains, dotted with brightly lit windows. The only blot
on the serenity of the sight was the black pool of powerless South Boston that
lay behind them. At night, downtown Boston was just as beautiful as it had ever
been. The blinking, pulsating core of the city. They knew it was the calm
before the storm.

And then they found that storm at
State Street...

Council Guard had marched into a
formation at the far end of State Street Square. They had machine guns, were in
full riot gear, and wore bulletproof armor. An entire military battalion,
spread strategically throughout the area, waited in the wings to back them up.
And Lantern was nowhere to be found. No signal warning them of the army's
locations.

They were flying blind.

The Suns soared into the square
and touched down in the center of the street. They spread out for the
confrontation. Rachel disappeared. The three fighters marched forward.

And then...

The Council Guards scattered. Fleeing
the square in a rush. Revolution and Ward eyed each other in bewilderment. “It
was a good entrance. But it wasn't that good,” Ward said.

A few miles away, in Boston Harbor, the water had
calmed. The Spores were gone. So were the dozens of AAVs. Gentle waves lapped
against the shoreline once more.

A faint rumble.

Suddenly, the center of the harbor
began to bubble and boil. Water swirled like a whirlpool. A faint red glow
stained the ocean. The light beneath the waves grew brighter. The sea churned
with turbulence. A massive rush of water boiled up from the depths. A
thunderous roar. The sea sprayed, the ocean opened.

Rising from the waves was a
massive, glowing red dome. Giant crimson tentacles swarmed out of the black
water. They whipped the air. A giant machine glowing with red luminescent
energy. It rose from the water. Into the sky. Flew across the bay. It resembled
its name: The Man-O-War.

It glided over the dock. Water
cascaded off its sides in a torrential downpour that soaked everything beneath
it.

The machine let out a pounding
roar. The tentacles lifted horizontal, and the center section began to spin.
The angry red energy pulsed. The tentacles had become giant spinning blades.
They cut into the port buildings and sliced right through them.

CHAPTER
56

B
ack
in State Street, a low rumble was building. A loud crash sent a concussion
across the square. Rachel reappeared. They spun, searching for the source. The
noise echoed from every direction.

Then they saw it. Rising up behind
the skyline, an ominous red glow from beyond the buildings. A massive red dome
ballooning above the rooftops.

Its shadow covered the street in a
reddish darkness. Like a night from hell itself. The center section began to
spin again as it descended toward the Suns.

Ward turned to Revolution.
“Thought you said they weren't working on an ultimate weapon?”