And blacked out.
Outside the complex in what now seemed like refreshingly clear night air, Rachel grimaced at the RDSD. “Lantern's not checked in. No word from Hunley. Something's wrong.” Suddenly, the night sky was lit up by two rockets streaking from over the horizon. They zoomed overhead, and the signal on her RDSD went crazy. She read it and smiled. “Fuck me,” she said, looking right at Ward—and he blushed. “That's the signal!” she said.
“How do you mean?” Ward asked.
Rachel grinned at Revolution. “Two if by sea.” Rachel read the device again, and her smile faded. “We've got to get to State Street.”
“You two better hang on then,” Ward said. Ward wrapped his arms around Revolution. Peered above him and jetted into the air.
Sophia faced Rachel. “You ready?” she asked, trying to smile. Rachel just nodded. Sophia stood behind her and embraced her.
“I knew you couldn’t wait to get your hands on me,” Rachel said in her usual vampish tone. Sophia gave the boots an extra jolt as they fired the blue light, and the duo rocketed into the sky. Rachel was caught off guard, and she screamed.
Under her blue visor, Sophia beamed a wide, self-satisfied grin.
The beach line was quiet. Lazy waves slapped the shore.
Without warning, the water rose and sea foam sprayed. Lumbering out of the surf was a giant Amphibious Assault Vehicle. Then another. And another.
Dozens of them roared out of the sea. They rolled up onto the roadway and headed into the heart of the city. Inside were troops, weapons, tanks, everything a modern army needed for a full-scale invasion of a city.
The Suns soared over the majestic cityscape. Past the beautiful urban mountains, dotted with brightly lit windows. The only blot on the serenity of the sight was the black pool of powerless South Boston that lay behind them. At night, downtown Boston was just as beautiful as it had ever been. The blinking, pulsating core of the city. They knew it was the calm before the storm.
And then they found that storm at State Street...
Council Guard had marched into a formation at the far end of State Street Square. They had machine guns, were in full riot gear, and wore bulletproof armor. An entire military battalion, spread strategically throughout the area, waited in the wings to back them up. And Lantern was nowhere to be found. No signal warning them of the army's locations.
They were flying blind.
The Suns soared into the square and touched down in the center of the street. They spread out for the confrontation. Rachel disappeared. The three fighters marched forward.
And then...
The Council Guards scattered. Fleeing the square in a rush. Revolution and Ward eyed each other in bewilderment. “It was a good entrance. But it wasn't that good,” Ward said.
A few miles away, in Boston Harbor, the water had calmed. The Spores were gone. So were the dozens of AAVs. Gentle waves lapped against the shoreline once more.
A faint rumble.
Suddenly, the center of the harbor began to bubble and boil. Water swirled like a whirlpool. A faint red glow stained the ocean. The light beneath the waves grew brighter. The sea churned with turbulence. A massive rush of water boiled up from the depths. A thunderous roar. The sea sprayed, the ocean opened.
Rising from the waves was a massive, glowing red dome. Giant crimson tentacles swarmed out of the black water. They whipped the air. A giant machine glowing with red luminescent energy. It rose from the water. Into the sky. Flew across the bay. It resembled its name: The Man-O-War.
It glided over the dock. Water cascaded off its sides in a torrential downpour that soaked everything beneath it.
The machine let out a pounding roar. The tentacles lifted horizontal, and the center section began to spin. The angry red energy pulsed. The tentacles had become giant spinning blades. They cut into the port buildings and sliced right through them.
CHAPTER 56
Back in State Street, a low rumble was building. A loud crash sent a concussion across the square. Rachel reappeared. They spun, searching for the source. The noise echoed from every direction.
Then they saw it. Rising up behind the skyline, an ominous red glow from beyond the buildings. A massive red dome ballooning above the rooftops.
Its shadow covered the street in a reddish darkness. Like a night from hell itself. The center section began to spin again as it descended toward the Suns.
Ward turned to Revolution. “Thought you said they weren't working on an ultimate weapon?”
Across the street, Clay Arbor stepped from the shadows. It was the first Revolution knew for certain he had escaped the mêlée at the War Zone. “We call it the Man-O-War. You don't want to know why.” Arbor grinned maliciously.
“We don't have a choice,” Revolution said, peering back up at the massive machine dominating the heavens above him. A flying skyscraper.
“You've always got a choice, sweetheart.” Arbor glanced up. “Better make it now.”
The Man-O-War dropped on them in a flash. It was like a small city attacking. It barely fit between the buildings on either side of the Square. There was no use in fleeing. Its monstrous size made escape impossible. Sophia charged her bracelets and grimaced up at the behemoth. “I've got this!” she said as she launched herself at the massive machine.
Ward just watched her with incredulity. “Shit!” he said as he watched her go. All he wanted to do was run, but he was too afraid to even do that. And yet she had just launched herself right into the heart of the fury. It seemed like certain death to him.
But somehow, it also made him stronger.
Ward turned to Revolution. “What can I do?”
Even the Revolution was in awe. It took him a second to register the question. Then Revolution reached into his belt. Yanked out a handful of throwing stars. Charged with energy, they were the last the Resistance had.
“You want me to throw cutlery at it?”
Revolution just cocked his head.
Ward took them, swallowed hard, peered up, and zipped into the air. “Oh my Gaaaaaaaawd!” he screamed as his thrusters sent him hurtling toward the massive monster.
Sophia pointed her bracelets at the machine and fired her blasters into the heart of the dome. The energy slammed into Man-O-War and fingered across its expanse in blue lightning. A purple “bruise” spread over its face. She smiled.
Ward was circling the giant robot. A tentacle the size of a city light pole whipped at him with blinding speed. It would take the best flying of his life to avoid being cut in half. A sharp sting in his side caused him to grunt, and he knew his stitches had ripped. The warm, sticky flow of blood trickled down his side. Ward tried to ignore it and flung a shuriken at the dome; it glowed with the luminescence and sliced into the machine, leaving a small cut in the radiant metallic surface.
Revolution watched as a cluster of tentacles lowered to the street; they swung toward him, and he ducked their powerful blow. Another tentacle swung low across the boulevard, ripping out the glass and concrete of a skyscraper's lobby and flinging the debris at Revolution, who ducked again and watched it all zoom over his head. It shattered into the street behind him. He charged the machine. Glowing spikes jutted out from his wrists as he sprinted full force.
A tentacle whipped toward him. Just what he wanted. He timed a swing perfectly, striking the metal just as it slammed him. Sparks and steel blasted off the machine as a burst of light haloed at the point of impact. The tentacle sliced off, and immediately the light faded and sparked away. The dissipating energy left what looked like a solid steel snake in the street, flexible struts running up and down its length. It was as thick as a tree trunk.
Revolution was sent careening into a brick wall, hard. A large crack veined up the building. He fell and rolled in pain. Even through the painkillers that activated immediately, his body burned from an impact that should have crushed his brain, pulverized his spine.
Clay Arbor winced. “Well, that was quick,” he said. But Revol
ution rose to his feet. Stumbled, steadied himself. Arbor gasped, “I'll be damned.”
Revolution charged again and drew its attention once more. A giant tendril swept across the plaza. Revolution calculated the great arm's speed as it swung to kill him. Blazing titanium clanged together in a thunderous crash that sent starbursts of metal and light high into the air.
Revolution's spike cut straight through, and another tentacle fell. But the impact slammed him though a concourse lined of steel and glass and into a concrete wall, closer to Arbor this time. Chunks of the stuff rained down on Revolution, and he moaned in pain. Rolling in agony, his cape wrapped around him, covered in glass and concrete.
Meanwhile, Sophia jammed the bracelets together, and a field of energy began to grow around her. She and Ward had retreated skyward, away from the monster. She gaped at Ward as she strained against the power of her own energy. “Give me as much cover as you can. Go!”
Ward shot back down at the great machine. Sophia let the H3 power cover her entire form. Her flight suit might not stop everything, but it was uniquely built to block H3. Yet this was straining its limits. Ward fired the shurikens, drawing the metal beast to him but being careful to stay out of the range of its tentacles. Sophia blasted down at the monster. A glowing blue comet at supersonic speed.
Man-O-War's sensors picked her up, and its tentacles swarmed up in defense. They looked like a high-tech bamboo jungle in a hurricane. And she entered them without a moment's hesitation. Ward was sure she would die.
Instead, she sliced straight through them as they swung to cut her in half. Each great arm sang a metallic roar and sent blinding flashes of lightning into the night air as they splintered. It was the bravest thing Ward had ever seen.
As she reached the monster's middle, she brought her arms forward, clasped her hands together, and fired the most powerful blast the bracelets could muster. Man-O-War jolted and heaved from the blow. The entire floating city was wrenched backwards, and a long, low, thunderous bellow emitted from deep inside the bowels of the machine. And then Ward prepared to watch Helius die.
She was about to smash right into the monster's midsection like a bug on windshield. He seized up, dreading the impact. Instead, she cut the hardest, fastest arc Ward had ever seen, flying straight up across the expanse of the globe-like center section. This close up, Sophia could see the struts and bolts and girder sections of its design. It was generating red luminescent energy from inside itself somehow. She could see it pulse, feel it.
“Paul, cover me again. I'm going to make another—” Her words were cut off as a tentacle swung around from beyond the curvature of the machine and blindsided her. Her speed helped her avoid the worst of it, but the giant arm sideswiped her and she cracked through the air like a home run at Fenway Park. She hurtled across the sky and smashed through the windowed top floors of the First National Bank Building.
And was silent.
“Helius, come in.” There was no reply. “Helius, can you hear—” Ward was cut off as a giant snaking tendril whooshed toward him. As he was now the only thing left in the sky, it focused all its fury on him and zoomed straight at him, its deadly arms slithering through the heavens, stretching and expanding just like the whip had done in the Fire Fly chamber. That’s when he realized there was no safe distance from this thing.
“Fucking hell!” He zipped down and arced back away from it. He flew for what seemed blocks until even the glow of the machine was gone from view. Finally, he turned.
Still nothing from Sophia.
Ward felt his face flush with anger, and a knot stuck in his throat. At first he hadn't been sure how much he was going to like Sophia. She was brilliant to be sure, but she was also caustic. Just the kind of egotistic intellectual he disliked. But her unwavering bravery and commitment to the team had won him over.
As he floated there in the cold night chill of the New England winter, he knew he had to give this all he had. His teammate lay bleeding or dead. Revolution was alone below him. It was time for Paul Ward to be resurrected one way or another. All the pain he had hidden all these years. All the misdirected anger. He drew on it now. Visions of little David played in his mind. The torture he’d endured from his captors. The warmth of Lori in bed, by his side. The hazy heat of mornings, waking in her arms. He bundled all of it up in his heart and prepared to die.
Full blast on the thrusters, he rocketed back down State Street at Man-O-War. Angrily, a man possessed, he flung the shurikens into the beast. They charged with luminescent power and haloed into the glowing red dome of the machine. The tentacles swiped at him like an annoying fly. He took aim with the final star.
He flew over the center of the robot, in full range of all its remaining metal arms, drew back with all his might, and pitched the last shuriken as hard as he could straight down into the center of its dome, his body nearly spinning from the momentum.
He watched as the throwing star ignited and sliced through Man-O-War. A brilliant starburst of energy erupted out of it; a low mechanical whine roared from deep inside. “Gotcha!” he yelled triumphantly.
SMACK!
A tentacle sideswiped him hard across the square. The auto thrusters on his wings tried to compensate, but without his conscious guidance they failed. He hit hard and skidded across the low roof of the old BNY Mellon Building and slammed into the steel wall that jutted out of its center. Ward lay there, blood trickling from his mask. He was still.
Man-O-War was unfazed.
CHAPTER 57
Revolution could barely stand. He wobbled to his feet, dusting the glass and steel and concrete fragments off his armor. He stumbled backwards and braced himself against the wall.
Arbor watched him with an annoying respect. He hated to admit it, but the freak was showing a lot of courage. But now it was time for him to regroup. Rethink. Revolution needed a new tactic, that was clear. Clay Arbor stood there trying to think for his old rival—what would he do in this situation? And then his mouth fell open. Revolution was charging again. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said to no one. “Just stay down.”
Revolution hit his stride, the drugs clearing his mind, firing his tendons. The machine he was wrapped in responded in kind. He bounded up to Man-O-War and leaped into the air with all the muscle he had, reaching back and swinging with all his might. But his glowing spike had run its course.
As he swung, he could feel the luminescent charge dying—the final charge his armor had and no way to renew it without the chamber. With every ounce of remaining strength, he plunged the spike into an oncoming tentacle and felt it rip off. A shooting pain stung him at the same time. What he didn't know was that the severed tentacle also ripped the spike straight out of his armor, taking an enormous chunk of his own flesh with it.
He screamed in pain as a second great arm crushed into his chest and hurtled him across State Street. Revolution's armor tried to absorb the charge. He wondered if it would be able to hold it or have to release it like Fiona's power.
He would never find out.
The Revolution's world went black as he crunched into a concrete wall fifty feet off the ground and plummeted straight down, cracking into the pavement in a thunderous crash. Windows rattled up and down the block, and Man-O-War's power released from him in a roaring red ripple.
Arbor flinched and turned away. Revolution wasn't moving. He just lay there in a pool of his own blood. Arbor shook his head. The freak had given it all he had, his whole team had. But now they were done. Arbor couldn't help but feel respect for their efforts. Even a hated enemy can fight with distinction—even for all the wrong reasons. He watched the Revolution for movement, but there was nothing. He'd never seen the guy fall before. Not like this.
“You had courage, sweetheart. No brains. But courage.”
Just then a commotion grabbed his attention. Across the street, a group of Minutemen approached, weapons in hand. Hudson led the way. Donald and Cynthia Capers, from Lantern's ride, were there. Ready.
Hundreds of Minutemen lined State Street.
Fiona and Becky sat watching the events on TV.
A reporter shouted the action blow by blow. “And now these protesters have entered the street. This is the group we are being told has adopted the name Minutemen. And one has to wonder if that's about how long they'll last against such unfathomable odds...”
They met each other’s eyes. Fiona felt a lump grow in her throat.
Hudson flung his arm like he was throwing the Hail Mary of his life. “Open fire!” They raised their rifles, and a hailstorm of bullets rained down on the Man-O-War. Round after round unloaded. But the bullets were simply absorbed by the machine. They burned up in the luminescent energy.
Hudson raised his arm again, and the firing ceased. The guns fell silent. Hudson peered out over the scene. Revolution was down. So were the others. It was up to him now. He swallowed back the pounding, roaring fear that had invaded his skull. He heard the words of that announcer from so long ago echo in his mind once more: “Well, that kid's got a heck of an arm, but he's just got to learn to be more patient. Sometimes you have to just stand in there and take the hit.”
Hudson saw the giant machine starting to move. If it wanted to, it could take down every building on State Street. Not on my watch, he thought. He was ready to take the hit. Hudson turned toward his troops. He raised his arm for one more Hail Mary.
A menacing mechanical roar erupted from the machine, and its tentacles swept across the void, slashing the Minutemen into the air, sending them flying to their deaths. Parker Hudson never saw it. His head turned, he never got the chance.
A shadow spread over the Revolution’s prone form. Something about the loss of the light made him open his eyes. He squinted to see Lithium staring down at him. The big man yanked Revolution to his feet, slammed him against the wall, and jammed a wrist-flame-turret into a slit in Revolution's mouth grill.
The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution Page 28
