The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (41 page)

     As he did so, Revolution spun his body and reached out
with his hands, latching onto Arbor’s neck in a sudden stranglehold. He let the
big man’s own momentum and strength work for him as Lithium’s legs shot out
from under him and his head snapped backwards. Revolution drove Arbor’s head
into the ground.

     Hard.

     The big man roared with pain. Revolution grasped
Arbor’s head and slammed it into the ground with all his might. Again and again
and again. Arbor’s eyes rolled back in his head. One more slam ought to do it…

     And a sudden flash of orange and the feeling of a
blowtorch erupting in his stomach sent Revolution launching up into the air off
of Arbor’s prone form.

    
The flamethrower.

     Revolution landed on his feet, used the momentum to
drop backwards and roll upright again. Stinging from the blow, but very much
alert, he fired the absorbed energy of the blast back at Arbor, who was rising
from his knees…

     When a black blur whizzed by, and in a blink of his
eyes, Arbor was
gone
. The blast of energy just dissipated harmlessly
into the air.

     “Velocity,” Revolution breathed.

     At that very moment, his 360-degree helmet cams caught
the flash of something above him, approaching fast, and he spun—just as one of
Fiddler’s acid-filled mini-harpoons zinged past him. It stabbed into the concrete
with a
shrump!

     The concrete bubbled.

     Revolution peered up just in time to dodge another. He
bolted for the safety of the compound’s wall where he would be out of their
range, and just before he could make it, Fang appeared at the edge of the roof
and fired a long white spike out of his wrist.

    
That’s new.

     The white spear was fast and accurate. Revolution spun
again, this time using his onboard tracking system to help the armor automate a
response. Moving at incredible speed, he ducked the projectile’s sharp point
and smacked the thing out the air with the back of his forearm as it sailed by.

     And then he lunged forward, smashing into the concrete
slab of the wall, and he felt it crumble and crack from the impact. But he was
under the cover of the building’s edge now.

     Lithium’s team obviously still had a few surprises up
their sleeves, surprises that made them even more dangerous.            

     “Helius! Any sign of the others?” he asked her over
the com.

     “Aw, you just can’t live without us, can you, big guy?”
came a disembodied voice that Revolution recognized as Rachel’s.

     “Stealth?”

     Sophia’s voice crackled over the com.
“They’ve
landed and are on the ground. Should be to your location anytime.”

     “Yeah, just a few feet away, so try not to hurl
anything at the wall,” an invisible Rachel said.

     “Be careful, it’s going to get chaotic around here.”

     “You mean it isn’t already? A girl could break a nail,
what with all these bullets, bombs, and projectiles flying around. Swear to
God, boys and their flying phalluses!”

     Revolution scanned for Ward, Drayger, and the other Minutemen.
“Are the others in place?” he asked her.

     “Spider was in no shape to fly. Otherwise, we’re
good.”

     “All right then, we go in without him,” Revolution
said. “You get clear until we get this under control.”

     ‘That could be never,” Rachel said. “I need to get in
there and get to Crown.” Crown was Leslie’s agreed upon codename for the
mission.

     Revolution balked. He knew she was right, but sending
Rachel into the thick of the Hall when a firefight was likely to break out
inside was risky—and even if it didn’t break out, bullets would be flying
somewhere, and invisibility wouldn’t protect her from gunfire.

     “If I don’t try, what’s the point of me being here?”
she said finally.

     “Okay, but be careful. We’re going to need you for
later,” he said.

     “Well, I didn’t think you were keeping me around just
for my ta-tas,” she said, her voice trailing away, making Revolution know she
was on the move. Inside his armor, he smiled, despite himself.

“I
didn’t need help!” Arbor roared at Veronica.

     “I know,” she said defensively. “I’m just following
the plan.”

     “Right,” Arbor admitted. “The plan. Let’s get up
there.”

     Veronica zipped him through the building and up a back
stairwell that led to the roof. In a matter of seconds they were up there,
Veronica slowing only so she wouldn’t kill anyone on the way up.

     “Rage, where the hell are you?” Arbor shouted over the
com after they had settled near one of the giant smokestacks.

    
“Just coming up now. Tarleton is away.”

     “About goddamn time! Get to the roof. The whole
fuckin’ air force landed on I-95!”

     Moments later, the Legion had assembled on the roof—parts
still smoking and charred from Sophia’s previous assault. Below them, at ground
level, a sniper waited at every window. Inside, one hundred heavily armed
Guardsmen itched to belch forth from the building’s exits. They filled the
expansive tavern from wall to wall.

     On the roof, Arbor nodded toward the sunset. “All right,
we’ve got four fronts,” Arbor said. “The side flanks will be open and easy
pickings. On the street, they’ve got those walls and the cars to hide behind.
And of course, Helius and Paul Ward will come from the air.”

     “I wanna put a fucking dart though his bloody face,”
Fiddler hissed.

     “You’ll get your chance, but we focus on taking down
their numbers. We thin the ranks of those Minutemen, and as for the Suns themselves,
we go power first. Helius, Revolution, in that order.”

     “They’re on the move,” Ray said, peering down at his
RDSD.

    

the android added.   

     Arbor spun toward Veronica. “Soto, get into position.
Ray, get below.”

     Veronica bolted from the roof and in a mere matter of
seconds was outside mingling among the Council Guard.

     “The rest of us, we’ll stay up here for now and let
the Guards and Soto soften them up.” Arbor winced from the pain in his ribs,
pulled out a cigarette, and lit it. “The mouse has smelled the cheese. Time to
spring the trap.”

CHAPTER 44

W
hen
the last Sikorsky had touched down on the roadway. Lantern, Rachel, and Drayger
had watched as the Minutemen piled out. Each Super Stallion had been crammed to
over capacity with Minutemen.

     Some 275 of them altogether. The first wave of the
largest fighting force the Resistance had ever assembled. The men and women who
had come in the first wave were the best of the best.

     The plan was to lead this elite force into battle and
do as much damage as possible, hopefully concentrating most of the fighting
here at COR and drawing in the Council forces that were causing havoc at the mayor’s
office. Eventually, ninety percent of the Minutemen volunteers from Boston, New
York, and Philadelphia would join them—if they lasted that long.

     It would be just a mass of human beings. A ragtag
force to be sure, but in sheer numbers, it gave them an edge. If everyone
showed up, the fighting force could be well over 10,000 souls.

     But that could still be hours away. In the meantime,
they had to stay alive. Rachel had gone on ahead to sneak into the Green
Dragon, while Lantern and Drayger had stayed behind to help launch the assault.

Presently,
Lantern and Drayger were in the middle of a group of about one hundred
Minutemen marching straight ahead toward the compound. Another squad had split
off to their left and would attack the open northern wall of the building while
a third squad would do that same for the tree-shrouded southern side. Rachel,
by now inside the Green Dragon, had maintained radio silence.

     Without Ward, they knew their air support, never
exactly strong, was now halved. 

     “General, the troops are ready,” Lantern called out to
him over the universal com so that everyone could hear. “What’s the word?”

     Revolution was creeping up to the first window from
the edge of the building, hoping Rachel had managed to slip off to somewhere
safe. But he couldn’t worry about that now. His eyes were fixed on the barrel
of what he recognized as an M110 semi-automatic sniper rifle jutting out of the
open glass pane. As he crept forward, he realized that rifles were poking out
of every window that ran along the front of the building. Fortunately, the old
power plant had consisted of only one story with an enormous ceiling, so the
snipers would only be on the ground floor and probably the roof.

     “For God and country,” he said into the general
com—and the sniper rifle trembled as the Guard wielding it heard him speak.
“The word is freedom. Freedom or death!”

     And with that, he grasped the barrel of the rifle and
yanked the would-be sniper clean out of the window, taking part of the wall
with him in an explosion of glass, wood, and concrete—just as an enormous cheer
erupted from the fields as the Minutemen on all three sides charged the compound.

     The front doors of the Green Dragon Tavern burst open,
and two tight lines of Council Guard came streaming out, weapons up, ready to
fire.

     Nearly three hundred Minutemen, Lantern, and Drayger,
all sprinting, weapons drawn—even Lantern, a pistol in each hand. Drayger, with
his stolen laser pistol reloaded and ready in his right hand, his left ready to
help him focus the neurolyzer, ran alongside him.

     Sophia, meanwhile had arced high into the sky and came
zooming in from behind them at supersonic speed. She zipped over their heads,
her engines roaring, leaving a long cobalt trail across the twilight sky.
“This
is it! We’ve all lost someone at the hands of these bastards. Think of them!  
Sophia
shouted over the com.
“Attack!”

Revolution
leaped into the void of the shattered wall, and three more Guardsmen engaged
him. But he was in no mood for mercy. He could hear the gunfire erupt outside
and he knew that at that very moment good men and women were dying. And it was
he who had drawn up the plans that would lead to their deaths. It was he who
had given the order that would take them to their graves.

     No, he was not in the mood for mercy.

     The first man he encountered was too close to him to
discharge his own M110. Revolution more or less landed on him and in one
brutally swift move jammed his fist
through
the man’s skull. It
exploded.      

     Two more to go. One to the right, one to the left.

     They opened fire, and one of the ricocheting bullets
embedded itself into the man on the right’s skull, killing him instantly. The
other turned to run, but the Revolution charged him and in one swift blow to
the center of his back severed the man’s spine with a single punch through his
light infantry armor.

Outside,
at that exact moment, the Council Guard assembled around the compound dropped
to one knee and aimed their rifles. Behind them, the second row aimed handheld
pistols.

     “Ready...fire!” came the order from the Guard commander.

     The bullets zinged into the ranks of the sprinting Minutemen,
and puffs of pink mist rose immediately. Running full force, those who were
struck looked as if they had hit an invisible wall, the might of the rounds was
so violent. They were flung to the ground in a shower of gore.

     Undaunted, the northern squad crossed Beach Street and began advancing on the exposed north wall of the compound, all the while
returning fire.

     The southern squad did the same, tromping through the
earthen gullies ripped open by the Revolution and Sophia only moments before,
shooting through the tree line.

Arbor
could see that bullets alone would not slow the Minutemen’s advance. “Velocity,”
Arbor commanded from the roof, “thin the ranks.”

     “Yes, sir,” she said, peering out at the oncoming
Minutemen on the northern side.

     And then she was a blur. Speeding straight at them.
Robotic limbs and titanium armor. When she hit them it was just a haze of
black, pink, and red. The fluid of the human body spewed into the air.

The
Revolution hit the large open floor of the tavern like an unstoppable force of
nature. He sprinted forward, pulverizing the first two Guardsman he met, bringing
his fists down on the tops of their heads before they even knew he was there.

     The sound of gunfire muffled his attack. Council Guard
were running in tight lines toward the back exit of the tavern, just as
Revolution had expected. They hadn’t even noticed him. He’d seen that line of
Guards come up from around the back of the compound and put two and two
together. This attack came from the Aquifer.