Full Metal Superhero Box Set [Books 1-6]

by Haskell, Jeffery H.

  “You really won’t come out with me tonight? I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. It’s important to me, Amelia.”

  I should be looking at him but I can’t take my eyes off the elevator door. Just the thought of leaving breaks a cold sweat out on me and I suddenly very much want to hide.

  “Maybe you should just go,” I say between clenched teeth.

  His eyebrows shoot up and surprise flashes across his face. I don’t think I’ve ever asked him to leave before. But I’m so mad I can’t think straight.

  “If that’s what you want.” The hurt in his voice is unbearable but it’s like I’m frozen. I can’t say anything, can’t do anything. Instead, I just sit there, unmoving while he slips his jacket on and pockets his keys. He presses the call button and looks back. “You sure you want me to leave?”

  I don’t say anything, just jerk my head in an approximation of yes. Say something, Amelia! Say something! The doors close on him and the last thing I see on his face is a tear.

  “You’re frigging kidding me?” Tessa says after I drop the bomb. We’re in the Enterprise conference room. Epic has everything we know about the aliens and how we know about them on the big screen. Which is to say, he has very little up there.

  “Let me get this straight,” Teddy chimes in, “A mind-controlling, body swapping, supervillain told you aliens were coming and you believed him?” He’s dressed in a white cotton shirt and tan slacks, for some reason that just jives with my vision of the African immigrant doctor.

  “Don’t forget the prophetess of Apollo, the Greek god of myth. She said something about it, right?” Fleet asks. I decided if they were in, they needed to be all in. Including Pythia.

  I nod. I glance to Kate for support but she shrugs her shoulders. Either they believe me or they don’t. Kate, of course, has her business chic look rolling, minus the wig. She lets her black hair fall in natural waves around her shoulders.

  “Epic, show them the footage of the station.”

  Affirmative.

  The lights dim and my helmet cam footage comes to life on the far wall. The space station looms in the distance. I catch Luke looking at me and I try to offer a smile, instead, I get all stiff, though, and I’m not sure it comes out as such. He frowns before looking away.

  “Clearly this is far beyond the tech we have available. As is quantum teleportation, holograms, zero-point energy, the hoverbikes, and a half-dozen other pieces of tech Cat-7 produced.” I tell them.

  “You mean the stuff that all went dead the day after they collapsed?” Teddy asks.

  It was Ericsson’s parting shot. A virus hard-coded into all of Cat-7’s tech. All of it turned to slag. And the two scientists who supposedly came up with most of it vanished along with the company. Though, we know the truth now. It wasn’t two men but almost a hundred. Kidnapped scientists like my parents working tirelessly to reverse engineer alien tech.

  “Yep. As far as we’ve been able to piece together they found a ship and reversed engineered much of the tech. No one has located the ship yet and very few people outside of this room even know it exists. Just like the scout drone I took out over Seattle last week.”

  Kate and Teddy knew, but to everyone else, this is news. “That was an alien ship? Not a meteorite?” Tony asks.

  The lights flicker again and more footage from my helmet cam plays. I don’t need to watch, I was there. When it’s done playing the room is eerily quiet.

  “So… any questions?”

  Monica, who as usual isn’t sitting around the conference table but leaning against the wall, wrapped in her pink parka, raises her hand?”

  “Glacier?”

  “Are you out of your damn mind?” she asks matter-of-factually. When she speaks the cold air forms a mist in front of her almost as if she were a normal person on a cold day.

  I chuckle, “Yes. Next question?” That takes them by surprise and Glacier nods. “Listen, this isn’t going to be easy. We’re down one key member and no suitable candidates have come forth. I have no idea when the aliens are coming and no way of really defeating them when they get here. My mass driver…” I gesture to the devastation caused by the concussive force, “Isn’t a solution. I told Ericsson that I don’t believe in a ‘no-win’ scenario. And that’s the truth, I don’t. There’s no fate, no mystical energy field controlling my destiny,” Kate rolls her eyes at me. “There’s only the decisions we make and the consequences we have to live with. Help me. Help me win. Are you in?”

  I wait, holding my breath hoping they all say yes. It was one thing to get them here to join a team. But to find out the threat we’re up against, the enormity of what we’re facing—

  “I’m in, but you knew that already,” Fleet says with a grin.

  “Thank you, Tony.” He smiles at me.

  “Me too, it almost goes without saying,” Kate adds.

  “I can walk, right? Whenever I want and not go back to prison?” Tessa asks.

  “Yep. I told you, you’re a free woman. Stay or go, but not back to prison.” She looks miles better. Clean clothes, a shower, and some food really helped her. I’ve also got her lined up to have those tats removed.

  “Then I’m in… for now.”

  That just leaves the good doctor and Monica. I wait, looking from one to the other. While I’m sure we can succeed without them, it will be a hell of a lot easier with them.

  “As long as our deal stands, I’m in,” Teddy says. I have a medical team standing by to move his wife. I surreptitiously signal them with a press of a button on my smartphone.

  “Thank you, Teddy. Well, Monica, you’re all that’s left. Are you in?”

  She peers at me and as usual, I can’t tell what the living ice sculpture might be thinking. Her face is a perfect replica of ice, translucent and all.

  “What the hell. I’m in.”

  I smile. “Okay, thank you all. Let me introduce you to the staff and our training officer. Also, you’ll be getting new costumes and get acquainted with Epic and Milton…”

  71

  Particles of concrete and dust rain down on us. The team is hunkered behind an old firehouse, waiting for the giant tracked drone to pass by. Its T shaped chassis is covered in weapons hanging from rotating mounts. Even from behind, it’s nearly impossible to sneak up on. A hundred feet tall and rolling through the town at fifteen miles an hour, even the firetruck it pancaked didn’t slow it down. The perfectly sunny day would be fantastic for a picnic if it weren’t for the Terminator here shooting everything that moves.

  The Emjet dropped the team off a few miles away, and from there we’ve taken it easy. Fleet made sure the town evacuation caught everyone, which it didn’t. He managed to rescue almost a hundred people in just a few minutes. The Doctor is at our fall back point helping the wounded. His power set is incredible. Just being around him makes life flourish. Even though he’s using his hard-earned medical skills to save lives, his very presence aids in recovery too.

  That leaves the rest of us on front line duty. Every day this feels more like a war and less like a superhero job. This monstrosity wasn’t designed to take prisoners but decimate… which begs the question— “Epic, have you figured out why the hell it is attacking a town of a few thousand?”

  The city of Platteville is not the primary target. Based on course and speed it will come into range of the Fort St. Vrain Generating Station. It produces the majority of electricity for Colorado. Beyond environmental concerns, its destruction would hamper several key industries.

  “Are you saying it is going after infrastructure?”

  Affirmative.

  “Great, what’s next, the bridges?”

  I cannot foresee that with any degree of accuracy

  Ignoring him, I turn to the team huddled behind me. “Okay, this thing is big and mean but this is what we’ve spent the last three weeks training for. Glacier, focus on the tracks, freeze them, ice them, do whatever you can to slow this thing down. If it gets within a half mile of t
he power station Epic says it’s targeting, those plasma cannons will light it up. Got it?”

  She just smirks at me, like this is the easiest thing in the world for her.

  “TK,” Tessa chose a super original codename, but it has the blessing of being short. “Keep a shield around Glacier, those plasma guns will wreck her. Secondary to that, do what you can to gum up the works.”

  “Got it,” she says, rolling her shoulders. She looks considerably better than when we found her. Good food, time around the Doctor, and rest have done wonders for her.

  “Fleet, Domino, scout ahead, see what you can do to slow this thing down. Also, make sure no one is in the path.”

  “Got it,” Tony says and Domino just nods.

  “Okay, get to it.”

  Fleet vanishes in a blur of speed and hail of dust. Kate disappears with a pop. Glacier glances at TK, “You ready?”

  “Waiting on you, Frosty.”

  Glacier growls at the older girl, “I have a name and it isn’t Frosty.” Without waiting for a reply she charges out into the fight. Blue beams of light leap out from her hand, freezing everything they touch rock-solid. TK heads out after her, and I can see the distortion of light above Glacier that her shields create. She may have a bad attitude but she does the job. Not that I can begrudge her the bad attitude.

  Luke is calling.

  “Right now? Put him on,” I wait for the green light to indicate connections. “Kind of busy at the moment honey.”

  It’s now or never, I leap into the air at max acceleration. The air around me condenses into a cone as we break the sound barrier in ten seconds flat.

  “I thought you’d want to know. Three more of these things landed in Russia, Germany, and Japan. It looks like they’re going after power plants. The one in Russia already destroyed their largest Nuclear plant.”

  “Good to know, send updates to Epic. Thanks.” I cut the line to focus on the here and now. I can ponder what all this means later on.

  Four plasma weapons swivel, spewing out green balls of superheated death at me.

  “Epic… for the love, that looks an awful lot like the weapons Cat-7 developed.” I return fire, silicate particles won’t penetrate the main hull, but with the weapons, they blast through them after a few seconds of concentrated fire.

  That is because, other than the amount of power required to use them, they are identical. If I had to make a guess—

  “Please do.”

  I would say Cat-7 has an as yet undiscovered location with alien tech.

  “Where? We’ve scoured Shai-Hulud. Did we miss something?” More plasma flings my way as the drone’s onboard computer senses a threat. Epic counts twenty-nine plasma turrets. That is too much for me too—

  Launch detected. Maximum acceleration. The Emdrive kicks me in the butt as it blasts me straight up. Epic puts a pip on my HUD, showing me a cylindrical missile coming right up behind me.

  “Flares, hard over!” Hundreds of flares spit out of my hips, burning at a thousand degrees each. The missile blasts right through them as if they didn’t exist.

  “Radar?”

  Negative. I do not know how it is tracking us.

  “HE grenades!” Rolling over, I line up the targeting pip of the grenade launcher with the missile. “Fire!” I can’t hear the puff of the grenade, but I see it. Even if Epic misses, he’ll remote detonate it. Fire explodes around the missile and for a second I don’t think it worked, then the missile vanishes in green fire.

  Rolling back over toward the battle, I can see what progress we’ve made. Fleet has pilled a ton of debris in the way, it looks like a ramp more than a wall. Probably good since it would just crush a wall. Glacier’s blue ice beams encase the tracks but they break free as fast as she can ice them up. With the drone distracted, now is the time to use my mass driver.

  “Epic, prep the SDF-1.”

  Affirmative.

  I hit the ground a half mile in front of the drone. That should give me plenty of time to prepare. The plates on my shoulders slide around as the suit reconfigures to take the energy transfer. Energy builds up in the superconductors as the ZPFM whines with the strain.

  “Epic I want you to—”

  Alert! Alert! I can’t unlock the suit fast enough. Green balls of death zero in on me from every turret the thing has. The world slows down as I try to issue an order that will save my life. But nothing comes to mind. Plasma will rip right through my kinetic shields and cook me like an egg in the microwave. My vision waivers for a heartbeat and I hear the explosion a few hundred feet away. Kate’s smiling visage fills my faceplate, “You’re welcome!” Then she’s gone.

  “Epic reroute power, blast off!” I’m in the air seconds before another string of plasma rips a line from where I was to where I am. “How the heck is it tracking me?”

  There are no active sensors as far as I can detect. No radar, lidar, or sonar. Amelia, the last one was unmanned. We have to assume the possibility of an AI. An AI far more advanced than I, capable of adapting to the situation. The last one ignored you until you attacked. This one attacked the moment you made your presence known.

  “What are you saying? It knows who I am?”

  More probable it knows you are the threat. We cannot cycle the mass driver any faster than twenty seconds. Even if we land on the horizon, I do not think we will have time to fire before the drone can fire back.

  I dodge more incoming fire while the team continues to whittle away at the tracks. Most of the turrets track me, a few go after Glacier, but they completely ignore Fleet. Almost like they can’t see him. In fact, as far as I can tell, Fleet and Domino haven’t taken any fire…

  “Kate, you up for something crazy?”

  “Always. What do you have in mind?”

  “Port to me.” I no sooner finish the words then I feel her weight on my back. Epic shifts the main backplate aside and a handle locks into place for her to hold on. If she’s traveling on my back my speed is limited to two hundred. Which is more than enough for dodging.

  “Amelia, what are you doing?”

  “Epic, give her the sword.” The thunk of detaching metal vibrates through the suit. Kate is the only person, besides me, who can wield it. After our little infiltration of Cat-7, I realized she could use it better than me. I try not to let that bother me… at least too much. Kate’s one of those people who’s just naturally talented at virtually everything she does.

  “I’m gonna do a fly by, port to the right ‘T’ and hack away at it. Got it?”

  “Hack away? Is that the technical term?”

  “Everyone’s a critic,” I mutter. “Hang on!” Up we go, straight up at two hundred miles an hour. This is going to be tricky. “Cut thrust!” The suit isn’t aerodynamic in the least, it also weighs five hundred pounds (plus Kate’s one-sixty). My climb speed drops rapidly, reaching zero in seconds. Kate teleports away with a pop and I kick the thrusters back in as the turrets fire away at me. I hope those plasma guns are limited in range as the green balls of death flyby me. Kate carried her momentum with her when she ports, so I can’t exactly drop her off at a hundred miles an hour.

  Epic opens a screen for me, showing Kate’s progress. She’s hacking away for all its worth at the arm of the ‘T’. The sword cuts through the material like butter, thank God. I was starting to wonder if I had anything that could hurt it.

  “Epic, make a note, let’s make a pair of swords for Kate.”

  Note made.

  Piling on the G’s, I push the suit into tight, high speed turns in an effort to dodge attacks and keep it off balance. An idea hits me, “Epic, can you run the math on an Arrow strike?”

  I do not advise that course of action?

  “Why?”

  The drone is traveling along the transmission lines for the power plant. An Arrow strike would decimate the lines and cause the same kind of havoc destroying the plant would.

  “Dang-it. So much for my bright ideas. You have anything?”

  Ot
her than wearing it down, no. In seven minutes it will be in range of the plant. We do not have much time.

  I just don’t have another gun to throw at it. I thought for sure my mass driver would do the trick. I just need a little time to deploy it. Time the drone won’t give me.

  “Arsenal,” TK says over the comms, “Glacier is about spent and not doing a whole lot. Evac her and let me go on the offensive.”

  She’s not wrong. The drones speed has only dropped a half mile an hour since we attacked. But right now I can’t know what kind of effect TK’s powers will have on it. She’s not nearly strong enough to rend the metal or cause significant structural damage.

  “Negative, it’s about to hit Fleet’s barricade and—” I don’t finish the sentence as the drone suddenly grinds to a halt. All the weapons swivel toward the power stations.

  It appears we were wrong about the range.

  “Ah, crap.”

  A bright star of light falls from the sky, burning past us so fast I can only vaguely make out the feminine form within, and creates an afterimage in my vision I have to blink away.

  “What’s that?” Fleet asks.

  My mind kicks into gear as the drone fires its remaining twenty-nine plasma turrets on one concentrated point.

  “Kate, get off it!” I shout.

  The horizon lights up like a nuclear blast but just as quick vanishes. I’m as surprised as the drone when there are no secondary explosions. My mind catches up with what I’m seeing. “Was that Aeon?”

  A concentrated beam of fire a hundred times as bright as the plasma weapons and as hot as the sun cuts through the sky from the power station to the drone.

  “Fleet, evac!”

  The beam slices through the drone, cutting it neatly in half from base to top. Then it explodes.

  72

  I’m not sure what I feel first. Numb, or pain. Maybe both? “Epic?” No response. I can’t see anything, my HUD’s dark and the faceplate has polarized to the max.