Midknight held out a hand toward the alien diplomats. “I don’t want to speak for Ambassador Equa, but I have a hunch that right now he’s telling Prime that the variables in his decision matrix have changed.”
“Changed?” Noteworthy said. “Changed how?”
“By taking out just over half of his remote-controlled battleships, I swung the odds to the point where the Calculans can’t go it alone anymore. Now their best option is to fight with us.” Once Jack had finished explaining his actions, Prime nodded to the crowd, confirming everything he had just said.
“That’s brilliant,” Blue said. “How did you come up with that one?”
Jack shrugged. That’s what a ticket to the Theater of War will get you, he thought. It was an idea he never would have come up with if the Rüstov hadn’t paraded an endless loop of military campaigns before his eyes. They thought they could brainwash and break him. All they had done was turn him into a master strategist. A veteran of a hundred wars he never actually fought in.
“What’s next?” Jazen asked Jack. “Any other crazy plans up your sleeve that we need to know about?”
Jack shook his head. “The rest of this is as simple as it gets.” He looked at Skerren. “If you want to kill a snake, you have to cut off the head. That’s not me. That’s the Magus.”
Skerren stepped cautiously toward Jack. “The Magus is Stendeval.”
Jack nodded. “I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”
“What about you?” Skerren asked. “What about when your hour is up? What then?”
“Stendeval said I’d only become Revile if I chose to be. This is as far as that goes. Look here.” Jack pointed out the mark Skerren had carved into his power core. “You did that. Standing right over there, you took a slice out of me. Nothing else has even scuffed this thing. If my time runs out before I can halt this infection or anyone else’s . . . if I’m about to turn into Revile for real? You’ll see to it that I don’t.” Jack offered Skerren his hand. “Are you with me?”
Skerren paused to look at Jack’s iron fingers.
“I don’t like this,” Jazen told Jack.
“I don’t like it either,” Skerren said. “But I promise you, I won’t hesitate.” He took Jack’s hand in his. “I’m with you.”
A new wave of Rüstov ships broke through the clouds and dove toward Empire City. There were fighter planes and troop transports bringing in leagues of Para-Soldiers. The massive dreadnoughts were off in the distance, and it was plain to see that they were not phased. “This is it,” Jack said. “Time to end this war once and for all.”
CHAPTER
22
The Children’s Crusade
The fight was like nothing Jack had ever been involved in before. His greatest and most death-defying adventures had never approached anything even close to this scale—an entire city at war with an invading alien force. The Rüstov fighters, both on the ground and in the air, were too numerous to count. Not an inch of ground offered shelter from the storm.
Jack immediately went into attack mode. He flew around the square, using his powers to wreck Rüstov ships and disable enemy soldiers as they came in. Revile did the same, blasting Shardwings and troop transports in every direction. The air was alive with gunfire, and the ground was filled with Para-Soldiers. The Rüstov attacked with overwhelming force, but the people of Empire City fought back at every turn. Smart’s WarHawks and the people of Varagog charged into battle together with Virtua and the androids of Machina. Unmanned Calculan drones streaked through the sky alongside brave Valorians, and heroes fought side by side with their archenemies. The time for politics and infighting was over. The time for sitting on the sidelines and weighing the options was over. It was time for action.
As Jack continued his assault on the Rüstov Armada, he scanned the enemy fleet for the Magus’s ship, the Apocalypse. “He’s not here.”
“What?” Revile asked.
“The Magus isn’t here. We’re gonna have to go to him.” Jack looked around. “Zhi, where are you?”
“Way ahead of you,” Zhi called out. He swooped down to Jack’s level, riding one of his dragons. It was the same dragon Jack thought he had gotten killed two days earlier. The creature gave an angry snort in his direction. Zhi stroked the dragon’s mane. “Easy, girl, we’re all friends here.” He directed Jack’s attention to the other six dragons and their riders: Jazen, Skerren, Lorem Ipsum, and Trea’s three selves.
“Let’s take this fight to that metal monster’s door,” Jack said.
“I’m coming with you,” Revile said.
Jack shook off his future self. “No way. The city needs you here.” He motioned to the sky as Prime and the Valorians blasted away at Rüstov Shardwings. Down on the ground, Mechas, ninjas, WarHawks, heroes, and villains were all fighting for their home and their lives. “They’re outnumbered. They need your firepower.” He pointed up at Mount Nevertop. “Protect the SmarterNet and keep that ghost signal broadcasting. Protect the people. They need you more than we do.”
Revile raised his left hand and blew a Rüstov Shardwing out of the sky. “You can’t go up against the Magus with children. You need an army to take on that ship.”
“Actually, a small force like this has the best chance of slipping through the blockade,” one of the Treas said.
“And, hello? We’re not just children,” Lorem added.
“Thank you,” a second Trea said. “We’re in the School of Thought. We’re better than an army.” She held out her hand, and the third Trea slapped it.
Revile just shook his head and leaned in close to Jack. “You really think you can beat him? That you can break the bond between parasite and host?”
“It’s not impossible,” Jack said. “That’s just what they want us to think. That’s job one with them. Inspire fear. Think about it. All this time, they’ve been trying to make us give up. They’ve done everything they can to make sure we don’t put up a fight. They want us to make it easy for them. Stendeval told the Magus he wasn’t ready for us. I think he was right. That’s why he waited until dawn to invade. He was waiting for Stendeval to power up again. He wanted every advantage he could get, but the real advantage is us. Me and you, fighting together. Stay here. Save lives. It’s time for you to be a hero again, Revile.”
Revile thought a bit more, then finally nodded and reached out to the Rüstov ships in the air around him. Metal fragments flew off their exteriors and attached themselves to his body, bulking up his armor’s strength and size. Heavy artillery ripped off Shardwing hulls, drawn to him as if pulled by an electromagnet. Revile’s armor came alive, integrating the additional weaponry into his systems. New plasma cannons, rocket launchers, flamethrowers, and guns heaped themselves onto his shoulders and arms. He became a walking armory. When he was finished upgrading, he rested a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I was wrong about you. We’re not the same. I don’t remember ever being this strong.”
Jack went to touch Revile’s hand, but Revile broke away and flew off without another word. Jack watched his doppelgänger go. He hoped they would both still be alive when this was all over.
Jazen tapped his wrist. “The clock is ticking, Jack. Let’s go.”
Jack nodded. “Follow me.”
Jack led the way toward the Apocalypse. An string of explosions heated up the cool morning air as he ran interference for his friends on the dragons. The enemy invaders had brought out the heavy artillery to face Jack, and he was hit again and again by shots fired from large-caliber weapons. The Rüstov bombarded Jack with missile launchers and fusion cannons. The attacks came from both the city below and the skies above. Some bombs blew up right next to Jack, sending him hurtling through the clouds. Others scored direct hits and tore off whole pieces of his body. That was all fine by him. As long as he continued to draw the Rüstov’s fire, his friends were able to advance untouched. It took only a few moments for Jack to recover from each hit, regain his bearings, and dive back into the fight. Try as they m
ight, the Rüstov succeeded only in briefly disorienting Jack. He lost his focus on the battle each time he regenerated, which was an annoying side effect of his new healing abilities, but it was way better than the alternative.
Jack shook off the Rüstov’s latest assault and turned to find a trio of Shardwings closing in on his friends. He reached out his right hand and made a fist. As he tightened his grip, the ship in the middle crumpled up like a piece of scrap paper and dropped out of formation. Black smoke streaked across the sky as it fell crashing into the ocean. Jack swung his arm out in a dismissive wave, forcing the Shardwing on the left to ram into the one on the right. Stendeval had always said the Rüstov would rue the day they infected him. Jack’s powers were a silver bullet aimed at the heart of the Rüstov Armada, and thanks to the Revile process, he was now all but invulnerable while he used them.
As Jack’s friends cleared Empire City’s airspace and left the Imagine Nation behind, Jack held back. He had spotted Prime attacking an armored transport filled with Para-Soldiers. The Circleman of Galaxis had at least six Valorian Guardsmen with him as he tried to stop the ship from reaching Empire City. It took Jack only a single glance to find out everything he needed to know about the Rüstov vessel. He held out his hand like a traffic cop and halted the ship in place. Taking control of the transport’s forward thrusters, Jack forced it to turn upward, exposing its weakest point. Prime’s men all keyed on the ship’s thinly armored underbelly and fired. White-hot energies poured out of their hands, and another Rüstov ship burned a hole in the sky. No handshakes or fist pumps followed the explosion. The ship was just one target in a field of thousands. Prime gave a cordial nod in Jack’s direction and moved on. Five seconds later, he and his men had knocked five more Shardwings out of the sky. The falling ships shot Jack’s body to pieces on their way down, but it didn’t matter. Jack drew on them for spare parts as they fell and put himself back together at their expense. He turned back toward the clouds above and kept going up. There were still more Rüstov ships between Jack and the Magus, but he wasn’t worried. They couldn’t touch him. Everything they had was his for the taking. At least until Smart’s nullifier burned out.
“I wonder how the Rüstov like getting a taste of their own medicine,” Zhi said as the enemy ships that Jack had used to rebuild himself spiraled down into the sea.
Jazen trained a plasma cannon on a Shardwing fighter just over Zhi’s left shoulder and fired. “I’m guessing not very much.”
“Turnabout is fair play,” said Skerren, slicing wings off a few Rüstov gunships of his own. “The trouble is, Jack’s only one person.”
“Actually, he’s two,” one of the Treas said. “Revile’s still down there, remember?”
Skerren grunted. “Even the two of them can’t take out the whole Rüstov fleet at once. There’s too many ships.”
Jack pointed ahead as the Apocalypse came into view. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one ship that matters.”
Jack tried to sound confident, but Skerren’s point was well taken. Even with half the Rüstov fleet rendered useless, they seemed to have an endless amount of ships. The armada was far too vast for him to bring down in an hour, even with Revile’s help. That wasn’t how the Imagine Nation was going to win. For that, Jack needed to figure out how the Rüstov bonded with their host bodies. The war, and his own survival, depended on it. Jack used his powers to search out the roots of infection inside both himself and the Para-Soldiers attacking him. If Smart’s nullifier ran out before he unlocked the secrets of his Rüstov connection, it was over. Everything was over.
The Apocalypse’s escort of Shardwings fired on Jack and his friends as they approached. A volley of missiles closed in on Jack, and he morphed his arms into fusion cannons. Steam rose from the barrels as he fired on the missiles and the ships that had unleashed them. With every target that burst into flames, Jack felt a pang of guilt for the host body that died with each parasite. The more he investigated his bond with Khalix, the more he felt the presence of people who were still alive inside each Rüstov invader. Jack didn’t want to kill the enemy’s host bodies. They were innocent victims. He wanted to save them along with everybody else. His own constant blowing up and regeneration caused Jack no physical pain, but the battle itself was starting to take a mental toll.
Skerren seemed to pick up on Jack’s feelings of remorse as they reached the Magus’s ship. “Harden your heart,” he told Jack. “There’ll be time to mourn the dead later. This is war. Like it or not, we kill our enemies to survive. It’s the only way.”
Jack scrunched up his lips like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “I know.” He was about to blast a new door into the Apocalypse’s side, but Skerren grabbed him by the shoulder and made sure he had his full attention.
“It only gets worse from this point on, Jack. You better be ready for this. Tell me now if you’re not.”
Jack looked at Skerren. “I don’t have a choice. I have to be. If there’s any chance I can get Stendeval back, I have to do it. If there’s any way to save Allegra . . .” Jack shook his head. “She backed me up from the beginning. She never once thought about herself. It was always me. She was always right there protecting me. I can’t leave her like that.”
Skerren nodded. “You better be ready for what’s necessary in case you can’t save her. In case you can’t save yourself. I don’t want to hear about what choices you have or don’t have. I want an answer. What are you prepared to do?”
Jack took a breath. Everything he’d learned since he came to the Imagine Nation flashed before his eyes in an instant. He used to think a hero was a man in a cape who fought bad guys in a comic book and always won. Now he knew better. A hero was someone who tried to make a difference, even when everyone else thought all hope was lost. Being a hero meant putting the needs of others before your own. Being a hero meant sacrifice.
What am I prepared to do?
Jack raised a fist toward the hull of the Rüstov emperor’s flagship. “Whatever it takes.”
CHAPTER
23
The Hero’s Journey
The second Jack blasted his way into the Apocalypse, enemy laserfire blasted back out. Once again, he took point. Jack charged ahead and raced down a corridor, crashing into Rüstov Para-Soldiers as he went. He left a trail of broken bodies in his wake and cut a path for his friends to follow. The Magus was on board. Jack could feel his presence. He motioned to his friends. “Come on.”
The ship’s hallways were dark, with only a sporadic placement of bare bulbs to light the way. Jack led the others into a massive hangar bay filled with starfighters and other Rüstov aircraft. Bright fluorescent lights switched on as they entered. When Jack’s eyes adjusted, he saw a legion of Para-Soldiers lining the walls. There were hundreds of them inside the hangar, but one stood out from all the others.
“Is that Roka?” Jazen asked, pointing up at a figure on a balcony.
Jack pushed Jazen’s arm down. “Not right now, it’s not.”
Glave waved a hand and turned to exit the room. “Kill them.”
“Go! Find cover!” Jack yelled as he flew up into the air, shooting at the Rüstov before they had a chance to follow Glave’s orders. The rotating barrels of his plasma cannons spun like wheels as he unloaded on the Para-Soldiers and drew their fire. Jack jammed as many Rüstov weapons as he could while his friends took shelter behind a group of Shardwings.
“They’ve got us surrounded!” Zhi shouted.
Skerren scraped his swords together. “That’s their problem.” He shot out at the Rüstov like a boulder fired from a Varagog catapult. Skerren’s arms whirled like windmills as he sliced away at the horde of Para-Soldiers. Jazen, Zhi, Lorem, and Trea watched in wonder as he attacked without fear or hesitation.
Jazen pulled a pair of blasters out from his shoulder holsters. “Kid’s got a point. These punks surrounded the wrong people.” He reached over the top of the Shardwing and fired on a ship that was parked across the room. His
shots pierced the ship’s fuel tank, and the resulting explosion took out at least ten Para-Soldiers. He targeted more ships as Zhi, Lorem, and Trea ran out into the fray and took on the Rüstov directly. Jack watched them go as the Rüstov knocked him out of the sky. Their bullets had absolutely shredded his body.
Pieces of Jack scattered across the hangar as he fell. He just grunted and put himself back together. As his arms and legs rebuilt themselves, a Para-Soldier moved in to finish him off. Jack hit it with a faceful of lasers before it got close enough to do any damage. As soon as Jack was back in one piece, he sprang to his feet and charged into a Rüstov platoon. They went down like bowling pins. Another squad of Para-Soldiers shot him in the back, but he took it in stride and spun around to tag them with a laser blast of his own. This one he fired out of the power core in his chest. A thick beam of red energy poured out of Jack like a jet stream of water gushing forth from an open fire hydrant. The blast burned clean through the squad of Rüstov troops, taking them all out with a single shot.
Jack ripped machine parts off the nearest Shardwing and shoved them into his body wherever he was damaged. He didn’t wait until he was healed to find a new target. He didn’t have time. A swarm of Para-Soldiers had piled on Jazen and was trying to tear him apart. Jack quickly pulled two of them off and tossed them into the air. Skerren cut them in half before they landed. Jazen threw off his other attackers and emptied his blasters into them. Before Jazen could even blink, a fresh unit of Para-Soldiers rushed him from behind, hitting him like a freight train. Jack ran after him, but a new group of Para-Soldiers blocked his path. He took aim at them with his plasma guns, but they all jumped out of the way as their comrades rolled in with a large cannon. A plume of smoke shot out of the barrel as the Rüstov fired on Jack. He tried to use his powers on the missile they had shot at him, but nothing happened. It wasn’t until it hit him in the chest that he realized it was a cannonball.
The End of Infinity Page 19
