The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (47 page)

     Fiona was still blasting the Krill. Revolution could
see the machine was trying to push Fiona’s constant torrent of energy away,
focusing all its attention on building some kind of force field.

     But then the Krill’s head slowly turned toward him.
The unearthly voiced boomed out, directly at the Revolution. “I’ll connect it
to its heart,” Crustac said to Revolution.

     The Krill’s hand, trembling and shaking as man fought
machine for control, reached in and repositioned the i-hook. “There!” Crustac
yelled to them.

     Sophia stood between Revolution and Ward. She finished
re-wiring the bracelets and hoped she had successfully channeled all the power
the boot-jets still had into the blasters. “Well, here goes nothing.” And she
fired up the bracelets, which let loose a powerful propulsor blast.

     It was just enough.

     The Krill rocked from the blast, and it shifted colors
from yellow-green to red. One step closer to getting the Krill to overheat,
just like the Man-O-War.

     “It’s working! Fire them until they run out,”
Revolution told her.

     That’s when the first plane hit.

CHAPTER 49

F
rom
out of nowhere, one of the Cessnas came screaming in at top speed and rammed
the Krill, erupting in a massive fireball. The powerful impact, combined with
the steady torrents of energy from Fiona and Sophia, drove the Krill backward,
against the pull of the i-hook. Revolution could feel the “heart,” as Crustac
had called it, begin to rip.

     The pilot’s brash sacrifice shocked them all. Ward and
Sophia stared at each other, wide-eyed.

     A second plane slammed into the Krill, this one too exploding
on impact.

     Again Revolution felt the heart rip.

     The debris from the explosion blasted everywhere, and Ward
ducked for cover.

     “Who the hell are these guys?” Ward asked.

     “Retired. Air Force, mostly. They remember before
there was a Council. Before the depression,” Revolution said somberly.

     A roar bellowed up from the ranks of the Minutemen.
Admiration laced with sadness, rage, and shock.

     Ward felt a lump grow in his throat.

     But then Revolution turned to the Minutemen who were gathered
behind them, relegated to cheering spectators. And Ward’s stomach soured as he
heard the Revolution’s words.

     “Minutemen, now is your time! Attack!”

     Ward snapped back to reality. The order was equivalent
to mass murder. These men and women stood no chance against the Krill. Just getting
too close to it would kill them. The best they could do was provide some kid of
distraction, but it was just as likely the Krill would simply ignore them.

     Ward could not stand by and just watch this. “Are you
crazy?” he screamed at Revolution.

     Revolution said nothing.

     Ward glared back at the Minutemen, who were now
marching toward them. He could see the extreme fear in their eyes. What hope
had they against such a powerful foe?

     This was too much. They were already winning. They
didn’t need this sacrifice.

     Ward raced over and stood in front of the troops, and
seeing the famous Spider Wasp, they stopped. “You don’t have to do this! You
don’t have to go! This is suicide!” he implored.

     They shared nervous glances, the fear hanging on their
faces.

     A Minuteman stepped forward.

     He was older, his face grizzled. Old enough to
remember before the Freedom Council, before the depression, just like the
pilots. And in that face Ward could instantly sense the loss, the rage, the
deep, debilitating sadness from God knew what tragedies he had suffered—more
than would have crushed most. But the man stiffened. “Son, if you don’t get out
of our way, it’s gonna be you committing suicide.”

     And with that, the old man rushed forward, knocking
into Ward—who had little choice but to step aside and let them pass.

     The other Minutemen followed without hesitation. The
look of dread still hung on their faces, but not one hesitated. Not one turned
back.

     Thunderstruck, Ward felt the lump in his throat burn. Revolution
wasn’t forcing these men, these women. He was letting them play the role they
wanted to play. Not because he wanted to use them as a diversion or as cannon
fodder, but because he was honoring their choice. They were choosing to be
truly heroic.

     Ward felt a chill run down his spine.

     It was a choice the man in the metal had devoted his
entire life to preventing others from having to make.

     A tear streaked down his cheek. His knees weakened and
he fell to them. He reached toward the line of Minutemen, but it was far too
late. Too late to stop them, too late to help them, too late to take back the
words he’d said to Revolution these last few months.

     He peered over at his friend. The man in the metal.
The
Dark Patriot.

     What had he given up to become the Revolution? So that
others would not have to make such a sacrifice? So much. More than most would
ever dream. So much his friend never dared speak about it to anyone. So much
was his darkness.        

     And now, all of that, all of those dreams, all of the
things that had defined him these many years, that had given him his singular
purpose and drive, were being willingly surrendered by the man in the metal.

     Ward rose. He readied the darts. He strode back over
to stand next to his friend. He no longer knew what the hell it really meant to
be a hero. But he knew one thing:

     The man standing next to him was one.

     And as he peered up at him in admiration, that man, the
Revolution, who was still hanging onto the i-hook, was yanked straight through
the low brick wall, which shattered. 

     Even with all the power being directed at it, the
Krill still seemed to realize that the greatest threat came from the man
holding the i-hook around its mechanical heart.

     And it was fighting back.

     Revolution had another problem as well.  The charge
Fiona had given the i-hook was wearing out. The glow began to fade from the
gun-like end that Revolution held in his armored hands, dimming as it ran up
toward the hook itself.

     The Krill saw this, and instead of trying to merely
break the cord, its programming to “eliminate all threats” had focused in on
the man wielding the i-hook, rather than the i-hook itself.

     That was fortunate only in that it gave the Revolution
a bit more time. On the other hand, the Krill had managed to wrap the i-hook
cord around its arm and was pulling the Revolution ever closer to it. The arm
was no longer energized, allowing it to pull the cord without burning it into
oblivion. The rest of the Krill was pure energy. If the Revolution was pulled
into it, he too would be burned to nothing.

     But the exposed mechanical arm presented one clear
opportunity. Ward aimed at it and fired a constant barrage of Disabling Darts—that
hit home. The machine began to swoon.

     The Minutemen charged forward as hard as they could
when they realized Revolution’s predicament. But Fiona pushed them away with a
wave of her hand, the other still blasting away at the Krill. She began to step
closer to the Krill.

     At the same time, Revolution was still being yanked
in. The power was overwhelming to him now. Another ten feet and he would burn.

     Drayger yelled out at the Revolution, “I’m getting him
back! Now or never!”

     Inside the helmet, Crustac’s face appeared again out
of the swirling red energy. Revolution was only five feet away now.

     Drayger locked eyes with the Revolution and said, “Rip
its heart out!” The Krill’s exoskeleton, finally being overwhelmed by Ward’s
darts, fell to its knees. But as it did, it sent another blistering beam that slammed
into the group of charging Minutemen, bursting them apart in gory gouts of
bloody froth. “Do it now!”

     Revolution needed no further impetus. He yanked on the
i-hook as hard as he could.

     For a moment, there was silence.

     As if all the sound in the city had been sucked into a
giant vacuum.

     In that moment, time stood still for Fiona. She gazed
back at the Suns and, moving faster than they could see, sent a swell of energy
lancing out, hitting the Revolution first, lifting him high off his feet. And
as the wave caught up with the others it lifted them as well. They all slammed
to the ground hard—

     And at that very moment, the Krill exploded.

     A blinding flash of light. The accumulated energy of
the Krill pulsing out in one devastating ripple

     But Fiona was ready. She raised both of her arms and, pushing
with all her might, created a great field of energy that zoomed to life every
bit as big as the one she had created at Lake Tahoe to block the giant waves.

     The energy from the Krill hit the wall and simply
dissipated in a long violent swirl of red luminescent power.

     Many gasped as the other side of the great ellipse
rode forward and sliced the entirety of the vast compound in half. The enormous
smokestacks that had stood for a century tumbled into the imploding edifice of
the tavern in an ungodly roar. Debris spewed out across the expanse of the
river, raining down in a thousand spouts of frothy spray.

     But Ward noticed something else. He had been looking
right at the center of the Krill when it exploded. The black spots had blasted
out from the heart when it erupted, and Fiona had purposely stepped in front of
them, spreading her arms and body, just in time to intercept them.

     As the energy dissipated, Fiona crumpled and fell.

     The Krill was no more. Destroyed.

     But Fiona wasn’t moving. In the chaos of the moment,
no one seemed to notice but Ward.

     He picked himself up and made to sprint over to her
side, when something descended from the sky right in front of him.

    
Spectral and the Lady Rage.

    
Shit!
He’d forgotten about them.

     A strong hand grasped Ward’s shoulder. The Revolution
pushed him back and strode forward.

     The duo simply floated in the air, Spectral holding
Scarlett close. The android’s skin was dark, like a mixture of onyx and granite;
its cape was solid and extended, allowing it to fly.

     Behind the duo, Fiona rose to her feet, wincing from
pain. All over her glowing body, the black Shards had embedded themselves, sizzling
into her skin. Horrific ebony sinkholes. Still, she peered over at Rage and her
android with the searching yellow-green spotlights of her eyes.

     Fiona—the one person that this duo, despite all their
power, could do nothing to stop—straightened up, stared into the Revolution’s
eyes, smirked, and—

    
Flashed away.

     Scarlett had been watching her, and with Fiona now
gone, she turned back to Revolution and lowered her head like a cat about to
strike. Her eyes, barely visible below her furrowed brows, locked on his.

     “This fight appears to be over. But you’ve let Lithium
and X-Ray escape,” Scarlett said. “You did take a toll on the Legion, however.
Hardly seems fair to leave it like this.”

     Revolution stepped in front of his team, hoping to make
himself a human shield. “Leave them out of this. If you want someone, take me,”
he said.

     “A noble act,” Scarlett hissed, “but unnecessary. It’s
you
we want, no one else.”

     “No!” Ward screamed. He could see what was coming, and
he lunged forward despite his many injuries, Paralysis Darts ready—but Spectral’s
head turned with robotic speed and blasted him with an optic beam.

     Sophia lunged at them, firing the bracelet propulsors,
but her energy was blocked by Spectral’s force field. The android made quick
work of her as well.  

     Rachel readied two MagCharges and disappeared.

     The android fired at the others, and they dove for
cover. Dirt, rock, concrete, and everything else showered into the sky and rained
down all around them as if bombs were exploding.

     All they could do now was watch.

Scarlett’s unholy power gripped the Revolution. His armor
shut down first. Then he felt his body stiffen as every muscle cramped. He
dropped to his knees. The signal coursed through his body. Nothing the drugs
could do to reverse it. He fell, with no fanfare at all, and collapsed forward,
facedown.

Scarlett
gazed at the Revolution’s prone form and flashed a satisfied grin, and she and
Spectral lifted off into the air above the trees, her menacing laughter fading
into the night.