I'm Not A Hero!

by Mia Archer

  There was another shudder that moved through the airframe followed by the squeal of metal.

  “Was that the other wing?” I asked.

  “Aff…”

  CORVAC didn’t get a chance to tell me whether or not that was the other wing before it became very apparent that it was, in fact, the sound of the other wing being torn off. Because it tore off and flew right into the rear rudder thingy. Whatever the hell they called it.

  Again, I wasn’t exactly big on flying the friendly skies in anything with fixed wings, so I’d never bothered to learn the technical terms.

  The plane chose that moment to go tearing away from me. I stared at it as it plummeted down towards Starlight City. Because apparently the pilots in their infinite wisdom had decided to go on a glide path that took them right over downtown Starlight City.

  Of course they did. Everything interesting always happened right over downtown Starlight City. Which meant the plane was now a flaming missile heading straight down for the tallest buildings in the city at hundreds of miles an hour.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said. “I’m gonna need an assist on this one. How good are those new toys of yours at heavy lifting?”

  “I suppose we will find out, mistress,” CORVAC said.

  I dove for the plane. Another nice thing about relying on antigrav was I was able to move faster than your standard 9.8m/s which was a good thing considering I was chasing after something that was moving a hell of a lot faster than that.

  Fuck. I had no idea how I was going to do this. This was the sort of thing that was more a Fialux deal, but of course she wasn’t around because she’d been teleported to whatever the hell radioactive hellscape these alien worms came from and I had no way of figuring out where the fuck that was so I could mount a rescue.

  Another pang hit me. Remorse. Loss. Grief. The desire to scream and sob and over all of that was anger. Mostly at myself for letting that happen to her.

  I poured that anger into this. I would do what Fialux would do. I was going to save this plane, and then I was going to extricate each and every cat I could find from the fucker and make the worms living inside them wish they’d never been born.

  Assuming they were born. For all I knew they developed from spores or were grown in the shit their hosts excreted. Parasitic worms tended to have funky lifecycles.

  There was another explosion. I worried that the whole thing was going to go up. The thing was trailing fuel of some sort, and I figured the flight was probably loaded up with the stuff considering it had been departing Starlight City.

  So I improvised. I fired off a couple of anti-Newtonian bubbles at the spots where the fuel was leaking.

  That slowed the leak to a crawl. I had no idea how the anti-Newtonian field would work on jet fuel, but I had to hope it would be enough to keep it from blowing up with an earth-shattering kaboom while I was in its vicinity.

  A girl could hope. Knowing the way my luck had been running lately I wasn’t exactly holding my breath.

  “Come on,” I said. “There has to be some way to take care of this.”

  I looked down. We were getting awfully close to some major buildings. In fact the plane was going to slam into one of them pretty damn quick if I didn’t do something about it.

  So I moved down to the nose and punched it. Sure a normal person wouldn’t be able to punch through that metal, but I was anything but a normal person with the enhancements I was running.

  I pulled the plane up by the nose and it just barely cleared the building. That went well enough that I figured I would just try to lift the whole damn thing.

  After all. I had the power. If I could throw down with giant robots and giant monsters and a living goddess like Fialux and live to tell the tale then something as simple as lifting a jet doing its best impression of a guided missile should’ve been child’s play.

  I screamed as I pushed the antigrav as hard as it would go. I felt the plane nosing up and the momentum even helped me just a little. We skirted over the tops of a couple of buildings that would’ve been having a very bad day if I wasn’t there to keep this plane up, but then of course physics came into the equation and flipped me the bird.

  The problem wasn’t with anything I did. No, the problem was entirely on the plane’s design.

  It turns out an airframe designed for flight wasn’t all that great when it came to having a single super powered individual trying to lift it. The practical upshot being the point where I was holding onto the damn thing quickly became a point of failure as the stress of the plane’s fantastic speed coupled with my lifting became too much.

  That’s a fancy way of saying the plane broke apart in my hands. One moment I had my hands buried in the nose holding the damn thing up and the next moment the nose shattered around me and bits of plane shrapnel went flying down to the city below.

  I fired off a couple more shots from the old anti-Newtonian field in the hopes that might do something to stop the plane from hurtling through the air, but of course the anti-Newtonian bubbles I had attached to my wrist blaster were designed to work with objects that were a hell of a lot smaller than a plane.

  Otherwise we would’ve been gravy. If they could stop Fialux they could stop a plane. I’d just never envisioned having to create a bubble that big.

  Fuck. Fuckity fuck!

  I finally saw my opportunity in a great green open area. Starlight City Park. Not the best place to put a plane down under any circumstances, but I figured it was better than the plane crashing into a building.

  “I have a feeling this is going to be a bumpy landing,” I growled.

  “Affirmative, mistress,” CORVAC said.

  Still, I had no choice. I could hang out just below the plane and bitch all about how I shouldn’t have to do this kind of shit, or I could do something about it. So I moved under the plane, slammed into the belly, and lifted with all my might. Hopefully I’d be able to slow this down just enough that slamming into those trees wouldn’t do too much damage.

  I knew it was only a matter of time before the plane busted around this point of failure too. The people who designed the thing hadn’t conceived of a situation where the whole flight might be saved by a single individual trying to lift the whole damn plane from one spot.

  Though with the number of rescues along those lines that happened on the regular in Starlight City you’d think engineers would start building those stress tolerances into their damn plane. Was one handhold along the bottom of a plane too much to ask?

  I felt the metal buckle, and that’s when I saw another problem dead ahead. A bunch of people gathered for a festival or a parade of some sort. I couldn’t tell what it was at this distance, but I’d just pointed this damn plane at that gathering.

  I guess I could still take comfort in the knowledge that it was going to be a hell of a lot less populated than, say, slamming into the side of a building, but hitting that crowd would still suck big time.

  Damn it. So much for trying to save the day.

  13

  Rough Landing

  “I am not going to die this way damn it! The people on this plane are not going to die this way! I am not going to leave this world to be taken over by a bunch of fucking parasitic worms using house cats to travel around!”

  I found that screaming whatever was frustrating me was helpful in providing me the motivation to get off my ass and fix whatever the hell was bothering me.

  Though in this case I wasn’t sure how much good it was going to do me. It was like I was watching the future play out, and that future involved a large fireball as the plane I was guiding flew into that festival and all the jet fuel I’d kept in the plane with my anti-Newtonian bubbles ignited.

  “You could let go, mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “Not a chance,” I replied. “I’m not letting those cats go, and I’m not going to let all those idiots on that plane die in a fireball just because I wasn’t prepared when I came to do some fucking business out here today!”

/>   “As you wish mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “Thanks for the parting words,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure I could save the plane at this point, but I was pretty sure I could get it around all those people down there.

  “Hardly parting, mistress,” he said.

  That’s when I felt something very odd. I pushed and the whole plane seemed to lift. More than that, it seemed to slow down.

  I looked around in astonishment, and that’s when I saw what that beautiful mad asshole CORVAC had done.

  “You magnificent bastard,” I said.

  “I do try, mistress,” CORVAC said. “Although I was worried this wasn’t going to work as well as it seems to be.”

  “Glad to see you overengineer your toys as much as I do,” I said.

  CORVAC had taken the army of drones that’d been deployed in service of catching those cats and placed them all along the bottom of the airliner. Which meant the stress of trying to lift and slow the fucker down was spread out across the whole fuselage rather than being localized to one point where I was grabbing the thing.

  Not to mention all the antigrav units firing on those drones made the plane a hell of a lot lighter. It also made it look like I was lifting the whole thing all by me onesies.

  "Okay CORVAC. Let’s do this,” I said, gritting my teeth and grunting with the exertion.

  "Affirmative mistress," CORVAC said. "I believe we may be able to bring the plane in without any casualties."

  "That's the hope," I said.

  The crowd ahead of us was starting to disperse. I was tempted to do a quick zoom. See exactly what was going on down there. I didn't do that because pumping up the magnification also made the whole world start shaking and it always gave me a hell of a case of vertigo.

  Besides, it was obvious everybody at that festival was scrambling to get out of the way. It was equally obvious they weren't going to be able to scramble out of the way fast enough to avoid getting hit by this giant hunk of metal and jet fuel that was hurtling towards them.

  If anything I'd only done more damage by keeping this in the air. Not to mention using the anti-Newtonian field to keep the jet fuel inside the jet.

  It was one of those things where I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't. A real Kobayashi Maru situation where I didn't have any way to win.

  Unless I could pull this off.

  I screamed at the top of my lungs as I turned my antigrav into overdrive. I wasn't sure if this was going to work, but damn was I going to try.

  Everybody ahead of me at the festival had stopped. They turned to stare. I cursed the complacency of the average Starlight City citizen.

  Whenever they saw a figure underneath something that was obviously going to kill them they assumed the figure under the something that was going to kill them was going to somehow save the day. Damn it.

  It was the kind of complacency that killed, and it was entirely possible it was going to kill these idiots. That's what they would be. Charred idiots who deserved everything they got.

  I kept screaming right up to the moment the plane pulled up. My feet touched the ground, and for a wonder they weren’t slamming into that ground fast enough to break every bone in my body right before I was splashed with jet fuel and incinerated by the inevitable spark that happened in crashes like this.

  I stared at the crowd. Then I turned and stared behind me at all the drones that had been firing their antigravity at full tilt. Which wasn’t much with an individual drone, but with the whole swarm lifting I guess it’d been enough.

  "We're still alive," I said.

  "You are still alive," CORVAC said. "I was never in any particular danger. One of the benefits of having an off-site backup."

  "Yeah, well you should be glad I'm still among the living,” I said. "Because the only thing keeping you alive in the event of my untimely demise would be you having an off-site backup that I haven't found.”

  That was good for a pause from CORVAC. It was nice to know that I could still surprise him from time to time.

  "I will endeavor to keep that in mind in the future," he said.

  "Yeah, you do that," I said. “Still, you saved my ass there CORVAC. Good work.”

  “Thank you, mistress,” he said.

  I turned back to the crowd. It looked like it was some sort of German festival. Which I would've thought would be going on in October, but whatever. The point is there were a bunch of drunk people in lederhosen and scantily clad women dressed in traditional German garb.

  Or at least what had become the Americanized idea of traditional German clothes. It occurred to me that I had no fucking clue if that was based on reality or just another example of the Americanization of a culture that had come over here a century before.

  Although as I scanned the crowd it occurred to me that the whole scantily clad thing was why they were having this shindig in warm weather rather than waiting for October when they definitely couldn't wear those skimpy outfits. I’d found a compelling reason to use the zoom function on my mask.

  Everyone stared for another beat, and then they all started cheering at the top of their lungs. I looked at the plane above me and it struck me exactly what this looked like.

  A plane falling from the sky. Coming in hot. And here was Night Terror holding it up and slowing the fucker down so it didn't slam into that crowd and immolate a festival while killing everyone onboard.

  "Motherfucker," I said.

  "What is wrong mistress?" CORVAC asked.

  "This looks heroic," I said. "I'm not a hero!"

  “Tell that to the crowd in front of you," CORVAC said.

  I sighed. There was going to be no getting around this. People were cheering and holding up their beers saluting me. Basically it looked like I'd done a very heroic thing despite the fact that I was doing that very heroic thing in the service of stopping a bunch of aliens from taking over the world.

  Then again when I thought about it preventing aliens from taking over the world also seemed like the kind of thing that sounded heroic when you said it out of context. Damn it.

  "Do not worry mistress," CORVAC said. "I am sure that somebody on that plane got footage of you out on the wing and they will try to blame you for the crash eventually."

  "I'm not so sure about that," I said. "But we have work to do. Let's get to it."

  "You wish to apprehend the rest of the cats in the cargo hold?" he asked.

  "You’re damn skippy I do," I said. "Now let's get in there before those furry fuckers make an escape. I have a score to settle with those damn worms."

  I gingerly set down the plane. It was a touch and go operation because I had to make sure I didn’t crush myself under it.

  Not that I thought the thing would be able to truly crush me. My suit could compensate, but I had things to do and I didn't relish being stuck under a jet for however long it would take me to cut myself out.

  Once that was taken care of I floated over to the side. CORVAC already had drones at work on the side of the plane.

  "Keep it up," I said. "I'm going to go see if I can't do something about…"

  "I have already taken the liberty of teleporting the jet fuel to a secure location," CORVAC said. "No need to worry."

  "Oh," I said. "Well in that case…"

  This was awkward. I was left standing there tapping my fingers against my arm while I waited for CORVAC to finish opening the side of the plane. It was a little difficult to get at the cargo hold considering the hatch was currently resting against the ground.

  Apparently the pilots hadn't had time to deploy their landing gear. Not that landing gear would’ve done much good in the crazy landing we just pulled.

  Finally the thing opened like a can that’d been assaulted by the world's sloppiest can opener and the drones flew inside. Meanwhile I had to fend off people who’d started surrounding me.

  It looked like a combination of people who'd been saved from getting squashed under the jet and immolated as well as people wh
o'd been on the jet and made their way out of the emergency exits that were popped open all along the fuselage.

  It was very annoying dealing with people who were thanking you for saving their lives. I didn’t know how heroes did it, and it's not like I could stop to explain that saving them wasn’t exactly what I'd been trying to do. Or that I'd been slightly responsible for putting their lives in danger in the first place.

  Of course that was nothing compared to the oohs and ahs I got as the drones started pulling out cute fluffy cats and even a few kittens.

  Damn it. People were snapping away with their phones, but worse than that I saw a couple of people who had honest to God expensive looking DSLRs.

  Great. Professional photographers. I had a feeling those pictures were going to be everywhere very soon.

  "Motherfucker," I growled.

  "What is the problem mistress?" CORVAC asked. "You prevented the plane from crashing. You captured the remaining cats as well as the ones that tried to bail out mid air. What could possibly be wrong?"

  I looked at the gathered crowd snapping photos of me looking very heroic as my drones extricated cute little kitties from the cargo hold.

  "You have no idea how photogenic this looks," I said.

  "Enjoy the moment mistress," CORVAC said. "You certainly seemed to be eating it up after you initially defeated me, after all."

  "Damn it," I growled. "I'm not a hero!"

  That didn't stop the crowd from cheering as they raised mugs of beer and shouted about how Night Terror was the best for saving their lives.

  Damn it.

  14

  Improbable Escape

  "No surrender!"

  I held my hand up and slapped the cat out of the way. I had to pull my punch just a little, and even then I was worried. Until an anti-Newtonian field popped into place around the thing just before it hit the wall, and then disappeared in a split second.

  The cat still hit the wall, but not nearly as hard as it would have otherwise.