Project Solaris 2: Hero Rising

by Chris Fox

  A familiar, young Latino in the back seat unbuckled his seatbelt and turned to face the ship. He aimed both hands upward, unloosing a torrent of green energy brighter than the sun. It struck the underbelly of the craft, knocking us several feet off course. While piloting, I could feel about a hundred metrics, including the strength of the shield the ship used. That blast had taken it down to about 70%. Jesus. That kid's power was scary, even more so than the last time we'd faced him. It appeared we weren't the only ones getting stronger.

  The floor of the craft rippled, and Janaki appeared on the floor near Marcus and Jillian. Her eyes were wide, and she gasped out a series of ragged breaths as she peered from person to person. Marcus knelt next to her, then looked up at me. "Target secured. Let's get the hell out of here."

  I willed the craft upward, but hadn't gone more than about thirty feet when something hit us from above. The shield dropped into the red zone, and we began to lose altitude. I struggled to control the craft, making the entire thing transparent so I could see what had attacked us. A shuttle identical to ours hovered above, and it was already disgorging another shot of green energy.

  I became one with the craft, dodging left. I avoided the grey men's second shot, but the move was so sudden, it sent Jillian and Marcus tumbling to the stone floor. "Hold on. I'm going to try to get some distance from our new friends."

  Another shot came from the car, and this one pierced the shield. The entire craft shook like a metal roof in a hurricane, and we lost power for a split second. During that eternal interval, we were in free fall. When power came back, I continued our descent, whipping under an overpass as the grey men craft fired on us again. Their shot vaporized the overpass, but thankfully didn't hit our ship.

  I seized the control obelisk, willing the craft to greater speed. The shield was already recharging, but I wasn't sure how much more punishment we could take. Our only hope was running, and even that was a slim one.

  "What's the plan, David?" Jillian asked, frantically. She was staring through the transparent roof at the pursuing shuttle.

  "Uhh," was all I could muster, juking sharply to the left to dodge another blast. "I'm going to take us out across the desert while I try to think of something."

  Going overland meant we'd left Dick and his supers behind, but it did nothing to slow the pursuing shuttle. The next few minutes were tense, and a sheen of sweat leaked down my forehead. I dodged shot after shot, but occasionally one found us. The shield protected us, barely. I knew it was only a matter of time before we took a direct hit.

  "So, uh, what the hell is going on? Where are you taking me, and who the hell is shooting at us?" Janaki finally asked. I darted a glance her way. She was a mousey looking Indian kid a year or two younger than I was. She brushed a mop of dark hair from her face, shooting a scared glance from me to Marcus, then finally to Jillian.

  "The guys who kidnapped you?" Jillian said, resting a hand on Janaki's shoulder. "They were going to turn you over to the grey men. You have abilities, so I know you've dealt with the grey men. We're here to keep them from getting their hands on you."

  The craft shook as another blast found us. I guided us even closer to the ground, trying to use the surrounding hills for cover. So much for that. We burst out over relatively flat desert, empty except for a small airstrip in the distance. I poured on the speed while I considered a plan.

  "So you guys have powers too? That guy spoke in my mind," Janak said, pointing at me.

  "Later!" I barked, guiding the craft so low, it kicked up a spray of sand.

  Something shimmered into existence ahead of us. It was another shuttle, and it was blocking our path. I spun the craft to the right, juking toward a small, private airport. Thankfully the place looked deserted, just a few smaller craft near a trio of hangars. I tried to increased speed again, but the craft shuddered its refusal. The engine, which none of us really understood, had apparently been damaged.

  Then a flurry of bolts from both our pursuers rained down, catching us in a crossfire. The shield failed entirely, and sparks sprayed up from the forest of obelisks around us. The lights failed as our craft lost power. There was a moment of weightlessness, and we began to fall from the sky.

  "Hang on!" I yelled, seizing the control obelisk to avoid being thrown from my feet.

  The rain of fire continued, and a giant hole melted in the south slope of the shuttle. We tumbled end over end, and I knew there was exactly zero chance of survival.

  Chapter 4- Back to the ship

  "Hang on, I've got you," Marcus roared.

  Something seized me, lifting me into the air. A moment later, a flashlight flared to life in the darkness. I found that Jillian, Marcus, and Janaki were all levitating near me. We hovered above the shuttle's floor, insulated from the crash we were about to experience. Marcus wore a look of intense concentration, his power the only thing keeping us from being flung about the dying ship.

  "Gather us a little closer," Jillian called, extending her arms. A cool pulse washed over us, and we become insubstantial. The ship rippled through us, leaving us hovering in midair as it plummeted from the sky. It continued its doomed flight, crashing into the ground in a spray of black stone, sparks, and crushed airplane parts. The smell of gas and ozone pervaded everything.

  Marcus quickly levitated us to the ground. He turned to me the instant our feet touched the ground. "Now what?"

  I glanced up to find both grey men shuttles approaching. We were all but defenseless, and all they needed to do was use their tractor beams to pull us into the craft. We'd be imprisoned, and just like that both Project Solaris and the resistance would be over. Unless I could find a way to stop it.

  "Janaki, how strong are you?" I asked, eyeing the terrified Indian girl.

  "Uh, I can lift a car. I think." She'd gone pale, and her gaze was fixed on the approaching shuttles. I knew that expression. She'd been taken, and feared it happening again more than anything else in the world.

  "Marcus, I want you to stabilize that Cessna," I ordered, pointing at a nearby white plane. It was small as far as planes went, but one worked with the tools at hand. "Janaki, you're going to pick that up and fling it at the closest shuttle."

  I didn't wait for a response, instead closing my eyes and generating a signal. It came easily now, as this was a skill I'd been practicing. I sent that signal into orbit, where I knew the mothership I'd confiscated would be waiting. It would take the craft time to respond, but it was our only hope.

  "Get down!" Jillian screamed, tackling me from behind. A moment later, something impossibly hot sizzled past me, and the tarmac behind us was obliterated in a spray of green light. It had come from one of the attacking shuttles.

  "Guess they're not trying to capture us this time," I panted, scrambling into a run. I made sure it was away from Marcus and Janaki, as I was hoping that the fire from the shuttles would follow.

  It did, and much more accurately this time. Another gout of green passed through the area I was standing, and I would have been incinerated if Jillian hadn't used her ability to make me intangible. She was panting too, but took a moment to smile in my direction. "That's two more you owe me and the day isn't even over."

  Before I had a chance to respond, something white and plane-shaped sailed over my head. I tracked it's flight, gaping as the Cessna sailed into the closer of the two shuttles. There was a deafening explosion that littered my vision with spots. When it cleared, the grey man shuttle was still there, apparently unharmed. At least it had stopped firing.

  The other shuttle moved to flank us, but another plane sailed skyward over the tarmac, flying in the shuttle's direction. The shuttle fired a trio of green bolts, incinerating the plane before it could hit.

  "Better figure something out quick, David. We're out of planes to throw," Marcus yelled from a few dozen feet away. I glanced around, desperately trying to come up with anything that would save us.

  Then I felt it. The mothership had arrived. I couldn't help but grin as I
transmitted the order to the vessel. A gigantic, black stone pyramid appeared overhead, and it began firing before it had even finished shimmering into view. A steady stream of green pulses lanced into the first shuttle, knocking it from the sky. By the time it hit the tarmac, it was nothing more than a pile of smoking rubble.

  The second shuttle tried to cloak, but the mothership was faster. It fired a second stream of green, vaporizing the second shuttle. I heaved a huge sigh of relief.

  "Looks like we're safe, for now." I turned to face Marcus and Janaki, then wrapped an arm around Jillian's waist.

  "That thing is with you?" Janaki asked, blinking up at the mothership. "How the hell did you get one of their ships?"

  "Long story," I said, shooting the kid a grin. "We'll get you on board, then we can explain everything."

  Chapter 5- Summers

  I breathed easier when we passed up through the floor of the mothership and into the forest of obelisks lining the base of the massive craft. The ceiling vaulted into darkness above us, with little floating black stone islands orbiting around an invisible point. The place was less alien than it had been, and instead of fear I felt safety. We'd made it back to our mobile fortress, and for the first time we'd beaten Dick to a super.

  Kali was there waiting for us, a big grin on her face as she rushed up to hug Jillian. Janaki was completely useless from the very instant she met Kali. Kali shot one of those lopsided smiles, and Janaki just melted. She'd survived the crash of the shuttle, abduction first by grey men, then by Dick, then by us. She'd even kept it together when we'd entered the mothership, full of obelisks that no doubt haunted her nightmares in the same way they did mine. Yet the sight of a pretty eighteen-year-old girl smiling at her transformed Janaki from a star running back into a slack-jawed geek. I loved it.

  "What are we going to do about the shuttle?" Jillian asked, drawing my attention away from Janaki and Kali.

  I gave a slight frown, considering. "Well, it's more or less in once piece, though I doubt it will fly again any time soon. Let me see what I can do."

  I closed my eyes, communing with the mothership. A brief shudder passed through the craft as I commanded it to lift the shuttle from the ground, levitating it back into one of the four bays that had been designed to hold them. The other three were still occupied, thank god. We could mess up three more times before we were out of shuttles.

  "Good work out there. I'm going to check on Summers," Marcus said, hurrying off without waiting for a reply. He ran through the obelisks, toward a small structure I'd created to serve as a makeshift hospice.

  The ship was entirely malleable, and I could command the black stone to flow into nearly any structure. Doing so took power, of course, but creating a few simple houses to serve as crew quarters had been worth the expenditure.

  "I'm going to check on Summers as well," I told the others. "Kali, will you show Janaki around and answer any questions she might have?"

  "Of course," Kali said, threading an arm through Janaki's. "Come on, we'll start with the kitchen. You can tell me about your powers. I hear you're a running back for SDSU. I didn't know girls could play football."

  Janaki's grin widened, and she trailed after Kali as they headed for the makeshift mess. I glanced at Jillian, noting her pleased smile. I couldn't tell if it was due to Janaki's reaction, or because she was happy that Kali had a playmate.

  "You coming?" I asked.

  "Yeah," she said, turning the smile to me. She gave my forearm a squeeze. "You did good work out there. That was quick thinking with the mothership."

  "So was chucking Cessnas at the grey men." I started up the path, offering her my arm. She took it. "It's the first time we worked together as a team. Gives me some hope that we might become a real force."

  "We will," Jillian said. We headed toward the hospice, though more slowly than Marcus had. "But you've got more than leadership to think about if you want that to happen. I want you to make more time for daily training. Marcus and Kali both show real aptitude. You would too, if you'd actually showed up to practice sessions."

  "Yeah, yeah," I said, knowing she was right. "I like getting tossed around by you as much as the next guy, but coordinating Project Solaris is a hell of a lot harder than I expected. There's so much to do, and never enough time to do it."

  "I know. It's okay to ask for help, and it's also okay that not everything gets done," Jillian said, tone softening. "We'll get there, but if you die in a firefight, we're all hosed. You're still the only one who can control the ship."

  "That might not be true any more," I said, nodding at the doorway to the hospice. "Not if Summers has really recovered."

  "Summers can only control their tech when you're around and awake. If we lose you we're back to square one. So my point stands. We can't lose you." She gave me a severe frown.

  "Okay, I'll be there starting tomorrow. As long as you're wearing one of those cute gi's. Or lingerie. I'm not picky." I gave her my best smile.

  "I'll be wearing sweats, like always. So will you." She punched my arm. "These skills may save your life sooner than you think."

  I winked at her, stepping into the hospice. It was nothing more than bare black walls, with an air mattress and a couple beanbag chairs. Summers was sitting up on the air mattress and sipping water from a cup it looked like Marcus had given her.

  The big man sat in the beanbag closest to the mattress, hovering protectively over Summers. "I still can't believe you just woke up. I was so worried."

  It was more emotion than Marcus had ever shown, though I wasn't terribly surprised. Marcus loved Summers, that much was clear. Losing her during the climactic battle with the grey men had devastated him.

  "I don't know where I was, it was like being trapped in a fog." Summers said, her voice hoarse from disuse. "I wandered around for what felt like forever, and I can't remember what happened at the end. Everything after Usir scrambled my brain is a blur."

  That drew a deep scowl from Marcus. "What do you mean, scrambled your brain?"

  "It was right before the final battle. Usir ordered Kali to use a detonate, and I protested because I was worried it might catch you in the blast." Her eyes softened, and she gave him a tentative smile. It was completely uncharacteristic for Summers, who wore were stiff professionalism like armor. "I'm glad you're okay."

  "David? What the fuck is she talking about?" Marcus asked, shifting his smoldering gaze my way. "You never mentioned Osiris doing anything to Summers."

  "She's telling the truth," I said, wincing inwardly. I was hoping I wouldn't have to tell Marcus, as the last thing I needed was the telekinetic haring off after our shady benefactor. "Osiris--that's what we're calling him now, Summers--said she was a liability, and stunned her just before the final fight."

  "Yeah well she was right," Marcus snapped, raising a hand to his bald head. "I was caught in the blast, and if it had been a few feet closer to the center, I'd be dead. I was the only super to survive, and that was nothing more than luck."

  "Osiris is a bastard, I know. What he did was wrong. We couldn't stop it at the time, and we still need him now." I met his gaze unflinchingly. "Summers is okay. Focus on that, and on getting her back on her feet. You don't have to deal with Osiris, I do. None of us like him, and the second we no longer need him, we'll either put him out of his misery, or terminate all contact. For now, though, we have bigger problems."

  "It's all right, Marcus," Summers said, reaching out to take his hand. His dark-skinned hand all but engulfed hers.

  I blinked. Summers was hotheaded to the point of being suicidal. She seemed like an entirely different person. Apparently her experience had changed her.

  "Summers, I can fill in some of what you don't remember," I said, drawing her attention. She brushed a lock of blonde hair from her face as she watched me. "You woke up, and used my power to enter the ship's computer. We fought a grey man intelligence, the leader I guess. It was old, and really powerful. We drove it from the ship, and managed to detonate
the beacons, but we thought it had destroyed your mind in the process. You've been unconscious for almost seven weeks."

  "That's--that's a lot to take in," Summers said, blinking rapidly. Her eyes shone, touching the edge of tears.

  "Why don't we give her some space?" Marcus said, rising to his feet and ushering us from the room.

  My phone began vibrating in my jeans pocket. I fished it out, cursing silently when I saw it was Osiris. I walked hurriedly away from Marcus, who thankfully was returning to the hospice. I waited until I was out of earshot before answering.

  Osiris's voice began the instant I picked up. "We need to meet. Tomorrow."

  Chapter 6- Vision

  "What is it?" Jillian asked as I hung up the phone. I ducked into the squat quarters I'd created, and Jillian followed. We shared a single, queen-sized mattress, though given how active we'd been recently, the only activity it saw was sleep.

  "Osiris wants us to meet in San Francisco tomorrow. He didn't give me much in the way of details," I said, sinking heavily onto one side of the air mattress. It crinkled under me, and I adjusted my posture until I got comfortable. I pulled the sleeping bag over my legs, and laid my head down. Sleep beckoned, but I didn't give in immediately.

  "Lovely," Jillian said, removing her shoes. She slipped onto the other side of the air mattress, pulling her sleeping bag up to cover her. "You want to talk about it?"

  "Nah," I said, yawning. "We'll deal with it in the morning."

  "Okay," Jillian said. She closed her eyes, and within moments, her breathing deepened. I seriously envied her ability to fall instantly to sleep. I didn't know how she did it.

  Despite being tired, I lay awake for a while before I began to drift off. The moment my eyes closed, the world changed. I knew instantly it was a dream, or a vision maybe. I stood on the top of an unfamiliar mountain, and I was surrounded by other peaks. I sensed that it was cold, but I had that sort of dream insulation that keeps you from really feeling things while you're asleep.