The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (27 page)

     “No job too big, no job too small for the Legion!” he proclaimed
and handed the cat to the little grandma and her tearful pre-teen granddaughter.

     He and Ray turned back from the photographers. “Let’s
get the fuck out of here,” Arbor said. 

     A tremendous whistling noise screeched from the sky.

     Everyone looked up.

     An out-of-control, on-fire drone zipped over their
heads, zoomed over the horizon, and crashed with a tremendous boom into the
adjacent neighborhood.

     “Shit!” Ray said.

     The two men stared at each other. Both thinking the
same thing.

     ‘C’mon, let’s get over there!” Arbor yelled.

     The horizon glowed orange.
The houses.

     Arbor and Ray sprinted toward the glow, and the mob of
photographers parted to let them through.

     In full sprint, Arbor spoke into his com, “Soto, did
you see that? Meet us over there.”

    
“On our way now,”
she said.

The
fire roared and spread quickly.

     The Legion members gather just outside of it. The
homes were flooded, up to their porches, and yet on fire. Arbor considered his
options.

     Ray was useless. Arbor knew that his own abilities
were not much better. He and the big brute Fang could do little more than try
to destroy some structures, maybe redirect where the fire went, but they could
do little to actually stop it. Fiddler more of the same, even less effectively.

     And then he considered Veronica. She had speed and
strength. “Velocity,” he said to her, and she trotted over. “Want to give those
new legs of yours the ultimate test?”

     “Sure. What do you have in mind?”

     Arbor thought back to when she had first gotten her
new appendages. They’d been in the break room just outside the physical therapy
center. She’d developed little control at that point and her sessions were not
going well. Von Cyprus had promised immediate results, but that was not
happening. And Veronica knew that if she didn’t make fast progress, the chances
were her body would reject her new arms and legs altogether.

     She’d poured creamer in her coffee and had gone to
stir it. A surge of power had run through her arms, and the spoon had moved so
fast, Arbor had only seen a blur.

     By the time she regained control, half the coffee was
puddled on the floor at her feet.

     A tear had streaked down her face.

     Arbor smiled at her now. He peered around at the
flooded streets. “I’m thinking stirring the coffee a little too fast is exactly
what we need.”

     Veronica looked at him, confused. But then followed
his gaze to the flooded streets and she got his meaning. She nodded and a wide
smile crossed her face.

The
power of the storm had abated slightly since their first trip through. Maybe it
was that, or the fact that they’d done it before, but whatever it was, the Suns
of Liberty found that the pain and chaos were not as intense this time.

     Ward still thought he might black out but was putting
on a brave face for Rachel, who was clinging to him for dear life and thankful
her mutilated wrist had gone completely numb. Drayger had only thought he might
puke once and that had passed. And Sophia could ignore the hot wires of pain
arcing through her ribs and hip by dreaming about how she was going to come
back one day and blast Eric Von Cyprus into oblivion for inventing that damn
Man-O-War. For the  Revolution, he had some excellent painkillers swimming
through his bloodstream.

     Best of all, the drones had stopped crashing through
the cloud bank. When at long last they exited back through the storm, they saw
why. Ana had taken a more northerly turn, and as they exited its blanket of
churning rain and blasting wind, they saw the ruin of the
USS Delaware
. The
massive ship had crashed into the heavily forested, unpopulated area just
outside of Trenton, setting the pine-dotted hills ablaze. Fire crews rushed in
from every direction.

     Ward breathed a sigh of relief and felt Rachel touch
his shoulder.

     “That was easy,” she said.

     And he knew from her still-wild eyes and ragged tone
she meant the opposite.  

     And at that exact moment, the alarm claxon in
Revolution’s helmet screamed to life. Bogies coming in directly behind them. On
a collision course.

     He turned and tried to scream a warning, but there was
no time.       Lantern did it for him.

     But it was too late.

     A dozen fully functional drones.

    
They’d been obscured from Lantern by the storm and now they
were upon the Suns in a heartbeat.

     This was going to hurt. For Rachel and Drayger, a
direct hit could do more than hurt, it could kill.

     Revolution’s thoughts were disrupted by an explosion
of luminescent bullets that shot past his head and slammed into the squadron of
drones. Two went down immediately; all of them were forced to divert their
course. They dove below and away from the group and, most importantly, aborted
their first attack.

    
Drayger.

     Breaking from their line, clutching his pistol, ready
to fire again, flying the vortex engines expertly, Drayger engaged.

     Below them, the drones regrouped and glided into a new
formation, flying like a flock of birds. As they arced skyward they let loose a
withering assault of red laser blasts.

     The Suns scattered.

     Not Drayger.

     Again he dove straight for them, firing the luminescent
pistol into the heart of the drones—just a man and a gun. No armor, no protection—using
some shots to block the incoming laser blasts, others to take out the drones
themselves. This time, he took out three more. He was damn lucky to have even
lived through it.

     By now, Sophia and Revolution had joined in. Sophia blasted
three more out of the sky and Revolution destroyed one with a cylinder grenade.

     Three more were left.

     Inexplicably, they turned and headed back into the
storm, probably back to the Trenton facility, Revolution mused.

     That was close. He turned to thank Drayger.

     But the young man was nowhere to be found.

    
Drayger had followed them.

     “Neuro, no!” Revolution shouted.

     But he was gone, diving into the storm like a man
possessed, swallowed up by its blanket of grey fury.

     “Should we go after him?” Sophia asked.

     Explosions ripped through the churning cloud bank.
Three of them.

     “I’d say there’s no need.”

     Thirty seconds later, Drayger emerged from the storm,
grinning from ear to ear.

     In the distance, they could see the Sikorsky. It was
lit up in Lantern’s digi-sphere—which was now fully operational again—and they
headed toward the Stealth Hawk wanting to get there before their vortex engines
gave out.

     Into the Sikorsky’s bay they flew. But just before
Lantern could close the bay doors, Ward blanched. “Oh my god.”

     They all turned toward him.

     He was gawking out at Trenton proper, where the first
drone had crashed into a flooded residential area and sparked a roaring fire
among the swamped homes. They all crowded around the bay door and watched as three
more burning drones spun into the same neighborhood and exploded, spreading the
fires.

     “We’ve got to get down there,” Ward said. He knew Trenton was probably overflowing with Council Guard by now. “How do we handle this?”

     “We don’t,” Revolution said.

     “What do mean?” Ward said, confused.

     “We can’t go down there.”

     “We risk all those people’s lives if we don’t get down
there.”

     “We risk much more than that if we do,” Revolution
said.

     The other Suns took that as their cue to step away.
Ward locked eyes with Sophia and then with Drayger. Both looked like they
wanted to say something, but didn’t.

     Ward watched them walk away, waiting for one of them
to take up the cause with him.

     None did.

     It was only Ward and Revolution standing at the bay
door.

     “People
will
die if we run,” Ward said.

     Revolution peered out at the fires now spreading
across four square blocks. “I know,” he said.

     And closed the bay door.

“What
can I do?” Fiddler asked.

     “Stay with me and don’t kill anybody,” Ray told him.

     “Perfect,” Fiddler growled.

     Arbor grinned at Ray and motioned to the others.
“Let’s go.”

     He led them to the boundaries of the fire, which was
now burning in a three-block area. The flood waters prevented any firefighters
from getting in and giving them a hand.

     So the first order of business was to get any victims
out. Fortunately, there were very few. A few elderly couples and some kids who
had been left home alone when the storm hit. More than one of these rescues was
captured by a Media Corp camera and instantly broadcasted in real time.

     Arbor and Fang lifted debris out of the way, put out
fires with their armored hands, and generally used brute strength to redirect
some of the floodwaters where they could.

     But the main show was reserved for Veronica, who
charged into the water full speed, running a route around the fires as fast as
her legs and her suit would take her. Even for her, the waist-high water made
for a slow start, but soon enough, her momentum built to full speed. She was a
black blur on a black night. She didn’t even show up on the Media Corp cameras,
which seemed like a significant problem until the water began to slosh.

     Just like the liquid in her coffee cup, the water formed
a giant circular wall and leaped over the lip—the barriers of porches or bushes—and
began to splash against the burning structures. The fires began to be doused.
In only a few minutes, she had gone where no fire crew could go and put them
all out.

The
Suns watched the coverage in silence on the flight back to Boston. Ward
wondered again why he was with them if they were just going to turn tail and
run in the face of catastrophe. What was the point?

     But Revolution viewed it as a balance. They’d saved
their teammate and destroyed
the
major Council research facility,
judging by the presence of Eric Von Cyprus. He and the Suns would take a hit in
public opinion, but COR would understand.

     He sat alone at one end of the bay while the others—Ward,
Rachel, and Drayger—sat at the other. Sophia piloted the chopper, and Lantern
rode shotgun. Sophia leaned toward Lantern at one point, nodded to the TV
coverage, and grinned. “The more they act like heroes, the worse it’s going to
be for them when we expose them.” 

     “Yep,” Lantern said.

     Despite Ward’s cynicism over the operation, Leslie
called in to say she had informed COR of the mission’s success and that several
members had sent their congratulations, including New York’s Livingston
Roosevelt. They still had their detractors, but the brashness of the attack had
breathed new life into what had been a dispirited group. The same response was
being reported across the fifty states’ HQs. The spirit of the victory in Boston was being rekindled by this sneak attack on Trenton.

     For now, it seemed, Revolution’s gamble had paid off.

     Far more troubling to him was the Legion’s power. With
his team down in numbers and injured, the Legion had already handed them their
butts in New York. What was their next move? An attack on the Boston HQ made
the most sense. But were the Legion formed to be an actual threat to the Suns,
or were they merely a publicity stunt? They could have taken everyone but
Lantern prisoner at Freedom Rise. What were they playing at, and would his team
be ready?

     Revolution gazed over at Drayger, who he noted was gazing
over at Rachel as she wrung out her long, silky brunette hair. Would the
addition of Drayger be enough to right the balance with the Legion? And could
he count on the youngster in a crunch? The kid had almost gotten himself killed
out there tonight.

     Revolution sat there musing on the line between
bravery and madness as the Sikorsky banked right and crossed the state line
into Connecticut. 

CHAPTER 28

T
he
fire roared.                                                            

     It raced down the pine-dotted hill. Licking the boot
heels of the eight fleeing firefighters. A small group of soldiers decked out
in light-blue and gray riot armor dashed ahead, desperate for cover. They were
members of the elite Guard of the Freedom Council. The best of the best,
toughest of the tough, the meanest of the mean.