Queen's Move (Lilith's Shadow Book 3)
Page 30
“If I could, I would. This is about twice as far as the longest teleport I’ve managed, though, and that took a lot out of me. If I hadn’t been holding up those shields I’d give it a shot, but even if I managed it, I’d be useless when I arrived,” Warden replied, glancing at her HUD, where Circe had helpfully added the distance to Hill, a good fifty miles away.
“Ah,” Archon said, and Warden barely saw the heroine nod. A tiny part of Warden really wished that Lilith was as tough as the angel, but she couldn’t have everything.
Morgan didn’t say anything initially, then her friend opened the com and spoke. “Lil? Where are you?”
“Ah, you’re done? Circe didn’t say,” Lilith replied, her voice oddly bright and cheerful. “I’m almost to Layton, and I can see—oof, that was a big explosion. Lots of fire ahead of me.”
“Oh, crap,” Warden said, a sinking sensation in her stomach, and she redoubled her efforts, trying to fly even faster than she had been. Still, she could barely manage a hundred and forty miles an hour, which meant she was going to take a bit over twenty minutes to get there, according to her suit. “Lil, you’d better be careful, you hear me? The alien—”
“Has power armor, Dreamer, and is a psychic. I’m quite aware of that, Gina,” Lilith interrupted, her voice patient. “I’m also not going to sit here while it wreaks havoc, even if it’s in a military base. There’re lots of civilians that work there.”
“I… just be careful, Lil? We’re almost half an hour out,” Morgan said, glancing over at Warden, though Warden couldn’t see enough of her friend through the mask to tell what she was thinking. She could imagine Rachel’s worry, though.
“I will. Love you both, but I need to go,” Lilith said, affection in her voice. “Chat with you later!”
The line went dead, and Warden hesitated, biting her lip gently as she seriously considered whether she should risk trying to teleport to Lilith. Her control wasn’t very good, though, which made it iffy at best. If she could take Morgan with her, maybe, but she doubted she could take them both under the circumstances. She just didn’t have enough energy.
“I can go faster. Maybe not enough to get there much ahead of you, but somewhat,” Archon said, jarring Warden out of her distraction.
“Really?” Warden said, glancing back hopefully.
“Yes, really. I was just waiting to see if you could do more, and I didn’t want you getting ambushed,” Archon said, glancing to either side as they ascended, starting over the mountain in their path.
“Go, then!” Morgan urged. “We’ll be fine, and you have a score to settle with Dreamer, don’t you?”
“Just a little one,” Archon said, her expression darkening slightly, then the woman’s wings beat harder, and she shot past them as she sped up.
Warden watched her go, then asked, “Circe, how fast is she?”
“Archon’s top speed in flight that has been registered is approximately three hundred miles per hour,” Circe replied. “Over long distances, she normally achieves no more than two hundred. I estimate that she will arrive at the base in approximately fourteen minutes. Possibly less, if she exceeds my estimates.”
“I hope it’s fast enough,” Morgan said, and Warden nodded in agreement.
“Yeah. Once we get closer… well, maybe I can teleport the two of us there. I just hope Lilith is safe,” Warden said, swallowing hard.
Chapter 38
Wednesday, May 14th, 2031
Hill Air Force Base
A bolt of blue light flashed across the sky and slammed into a gunship, tearing through two of the aircraft’s engines and sending it spiraling downward. The pilot managed to guide it to the ground safely, but the landing was heavy enough to make Lilith wince in sympathy.
The rest of the base held most of her attention, though. It was hard to make out much, but most of the fire was focused around a large hangar, while flames enveloped several buildings along the route from the southern entrance to the hangar. What surprised her more than anything was the sheer volume of weapons fire going back and forth. She could barely see the figure of the alien without zooming in, plus there was an odd white figure that reminded her uncomfortably of Archon, which meant Dreamer was in the area, but that didn’t explain why a hovertank was firing at other military personnel.
“Circe, analysis?” Lilith asked, rocketing forward, her suit alerting her that she’d been detected.
“The alien is controlling various high-value military personnel in order to even the odds. They are not capable of resisting unless they have exceptionally strong mental shields,” Circe reported, and the hangar was highlighted as the AI continued. “The LANCE starjet is in this hangar. I do not see the truck which initially intruded, nor Dreamer.”
“Drat,” Lilith replied, her tone deceptively mild. She briefly considered asking Circe for weak points on the tank and dismissed the thought an instant later. While Circe would almost certainly tell her, she didn’t want to rely on the AI for combat. Not when her life might rely on her own decisions in the future. Instead she continued. “I’m going in. Where’s Spark?”
“One minute, sixteen seconds out,” Circe said, just as Lilith triggered her thrusters and rushed toward the base.
Her threat detectors began wailing an instant later, and Lilith silenced them with a glare and a harsh thought. It silenced the alarms, but that didn’t help when one of the tanks pivoted, its cannon turning toward her as four missiles launched from pods on the sides of its turret.
Lilith’s point-defense system began firing almost instantly, blasting the missiles out of the air before they could get up to full speed, and she jinked from one side to the other hard and fast, thankful for the inertial sump. She had to keep the tank from getting a good lock, or it was going to ruin her—
The muzzle flashed, and it was Lilith’s only warning. Fortunately, the weapon wasn’t a laser, but some sort of slower energy projectile. That gave Lilith just enough time to dodge before the blast ripped through the air she’d occupied an instant before. Once again, Lilith was thankful that her reflexes didn’t rely on slow chemical reactions and wondered why it felt like her heart was in her throat.
The tank’s machine gun opened up a second later, and Lilith continued weaving, though it wasn’t nearly as effective as she’d prefer. Energy bolts glanced off her shield, chipping away at its integrity… and then she didn’t have to dodge anymore.
Lilith pulled up short just before she slammed into the tank, some of the inertia from the abrupt stop seeping through, and her hands rose as firing ports in her armor popped open. Bright beams of energy slammed into the barrel of the tank and one of the missile pods, punching through both almost effortlessly, then Lilith was blasted backward as the side pod exploded, staggering her. Still, the tank was all but disabled, and she fired into the other missile pod before the hairs on the back of her neck rose suddenly, and she launched herself backward.
Zot!
The beam of energy slammed through the spot she’d occupied a moment before, melting the front corner of the tank, and Lilith spun to face the alien, her heart pounding, even as she smiled. There was something exhilarating about someone shooting at her and missing, she had to admit.
“Savage? I’m not the one killing people out of hand,” Lilith muttered, jumping to the side as she activated all of her weapons, unloading into the alien as it turned, pointing the glowing tip of its weapon at her. Her energy weapons hit its shield dead-on, creating ripples in the glow where they struck, and just as the creature fired, Lilith ducked.
She didn’t quite manage to dodge, though it only clipped her shield, and her suit wailed alarms as the shield integrity dropped by half in an instant. Still, it wasn’t as though that would be enough to—
With all the other alarms, Lilith didn’t regis
ter the warning from behind until it was too late, and the rocket which slammed into her from behind detonated violently, hammering her shield still further and prompted Lilith to flinch.
“Shields below twenty-five percent integrity. I recommend evasive action,” Circe said dryly, though her suggestion was a little late, as Lilith changed plans and activated her thrusters.
Lilith slammed into the alien’s shield hard enough to almost deplete her shields entirely, and a bullet whined off her armor after punching through one of the weakened points. More importantly, in Lilith’s opinion, she… felt something, when she slammed into the shield. It was like a soft alien voice was whispering in her head. No, not a voice. There were two of them, which confused her.
That didn’t slow down Lilith when the alien turned its cannon toward her, though. Nor did it prompt her to lose track of the soldiers, now that she was reminded that it was adjusting with their aim. She lunged to the side, circling the alien as it tried to shoot her, and she put it between her and the soldiers. It was trying to keep her from succeeding, but its reactions were slower than hers, as if it were distracted. It likely was, if it was focusing on controlling others and fighting her.
For several seconds it almost seemed like the alien’s shield was invulnerable, even as Lilith ‘heard’ the same odd buzz of voices. Not ones she could comprehend, they were too different, but the tone of each was quite distinct. Part of Lilith was trying to figure out what was going on, but she didn’t have the luxury of taking her time. Not when the shield in front of Lilith rippled, then failed so abruptly that it startled her.
One of her shots slammed into the alien’s armor, staggering it and leaving a scorch mark on the iridescent shell, but little more than that. Of course, the instant that she started forward, Lilith’s instincts screamed at her and she triggered her thrusters to bounce herself back, slamming into the outside of the hangar as she did so.
Dreamer’s copy of Archon flashed through the spot Lilith had been about to go through, the figure’s sword brilliant with white flames as it cut through the air and slammed into the ground, cutting deep into the concrete and creating a web of cracks all around the impact point. Lilith jumped away from the hangar, her weapons tracking both opponents, and she resisted the urge to swear. That really was a bad habit to be picking up from Gina and Rachel, and not one she wanted to have.
Her weapons fired, while her armor was giving the soft beeps that indicated her shield was at critical levels. It could only block about half the fire she’d taken in the last several seconds, and Lilith’s lips thinned as her shots barely left a mark on the alien, while the doppelganger seemed to ignore them.
“This isn’t good,” Lilith murmured, her thoughts racing, and she dodged as another machine gun changed targets from the alien to her, only for the soldier to be tackled by his allies. At least the soldiers had an idea of what was going on, and were doing their best to help.
A flash of blue lightning to the side distracted Lilith, almost long enough for the alien to get a bead on her with its cannon, and she barely dodged in time as the beam punched a hole in the hangar. Two voices spoke essentially simultaneously.
“Hey, Lilith! Need some help?” Spark asked, her words coming so quickly that it was difficult to tell where one ended and the next began.
“Dreamer sighted. She’s loading something into the starjet,” Circe said, her voice calm, and she paused, then added, “Penetrating the alien’s armor will require concentrated fire from multiple weapons, Mistress Lilith. I recommend upgrading them at your next opportunity.”
“Thanks, Circe. I’ll keep that in mind,” Lilith said, and when the copy of Archon moved again, this time she couldn’t dodge fast enough, no matter how fast her reflexes were.
Lilith raised her right arm to block a blow aimed to behead her, bracing herself. The next instant pain blasted through her body, along with the echoing shriek of tearing metal. The hangar wall burst as she slammed through it, sparks flying as she bounced across the ground, then skidded to a halt, her HUD flickering.
“Hi, Spark. I think I do,” Lilith said, cringing as she dragged herself to her feet and Circe read off the damage report.
“Thrusters offline. Right arm disabled, servos heavily damaged. Right arm energy weapons offline,” Circe said, and Lilith glanced around, then rolled to the right as the alien shot at her again, ripping a deep hole into the ground. “Shields offline, inertial sump ninety-four percent charged. Recommend disengaging, Mistress Lilith.”
The hangar was wide, and there were multiple aircraft around the room, none of which Lilith recognized, except for one that was behind her and to her right. Next to the sleek aircraft that was almost a hundred feet from prow to tail was a ratty-looking truck with multiple bullet holes in it, and a dozen people were splayed out around it while Dreamer was laboriously pulling a pallet with a large device on it toward the ramp into the back of the aircraft. She wasn’t making much progress, Lilith noticed.
“Oof, that looked like it hurt. I don’t know what I can do to stop these jerks, but I’ll do what I can,” Spark replied, and as Archon punched a hole through the hangar wall, the heroine lunged through the open door and her pistols whipped out, faster than Lilith could quite follow them.
Electricity blasted into the white figure, which spasmed slightly, but only spun to lash out at Spark, bright white flames blasting across the room at the heroine. The woman dodged under the blast, then Lilith had problems of her own as the alien came in, accompanied by a man in a flame-red outfit and with burning globes of fire in either hand.
A blast from Lilith’s left arm knocked the alien’s weapon to the side just as it fired at her, and Lilith tried to move her right arm, only to flinch as pain washed through her body.
“Your right arm appears to be dislocated, Mistress Lilith,” Circe said helpfully, prompting a sigh from Lilith.
“Thank you, Circe,” Lilith said, dodging as bolts of fire began to fly from the mind-controlled hero at her, and she reflected that at least her thermal sump wasn’t almost maxed out.
It was a cold comfort, even if the thought brought a terrible pun to mind.
Chapter 39
Wednesday, May 14th, 2031
Hill Air Force Base
It had tried to mind-control the woman despite its misgivings from the previous time it’d encountered her, and that had been a terrible mistake. It had been like reaching into a plasma furnace, and the psychic burns that had resulted when the savage slammed her mental barriers shut had sent Okris reeling, as it’d never felt something like that before, not in a mind that had no psychic potential of its own.
Worse, the very presence of the savage was making it harder to control every minion Okris possessed, including its host, as laughable as it would have found that before. Its host hadn’t put up a struggle in over thirty cycles, so the idea of it fighting back now… it was practically unheard of in the entire Multitude. Yet fight it did, as it focused on the savage in black and silver, and Okris’s powers were getting uncomfortably stretched as it commanded all its servants to focus on the offending savage.
The emotions it was feeling were impossible. It refused to admit that a pathetic savage could make it feel fear. Okris did wish it had time to investigate the thoughts in the mind of Dreamer, as the savage seemed to know something about the one which it wanted to kill, but it didn’t have time.
More frustrating than anything else was how well things had been going before the savage had arrived. The savages had only been able to slow Okris down slightly, and turning their weapons against others had been incredibly satisfying. Even better, some of the local ‘heroes’ had arrived to fight Okris, and it had been able to use them
to fight the others. Okris wasn’t entirely certain what the fast, flexible one or the strong one were doing that moment, but it caught hints of combat through their minds. If they would simply stop struggling, that would be—
The other savage chose that moment to fire her electric gun at Okris, and it hastily dodged rather than continuing to aim its cannon, flinching as the electricity arced past its head. Its armor should block the attack, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t concerned. Electricity was something the Multitude had to be careful with.
The distraction proved something of a mistake, though.
It took a second after the alien recoiled for Lilith to register the fact, since she was barely able to dodge the attacks now coming from multiple directions, and still more warnings from her armor were flashing.
Fortunately, her training proved it’d been worthwhile as she automatically saw and took the opening, her left arm tracking, then fired a beam at the alien’s cannon. The blast hit just behind the bulging tip of the weapon, and Lilith saw it smoking for an instant before her vision was obscured by a ball of fire.
“Circe, did the alien recoil away from the electricity?” Lilith asked, bouncing back and glancing at her suit’s readings unhappily. Then she yelped as a bullet bounced off her helmet, and her inertial sump monitor began beeping loudly, indicating that it couldn’t absorb anything more without losing integrity.
“It did. I would recommend retreating, Mistress Lilith,” Circe said, but Lilith ignored the suggestion, instead glancing at Spark, who was darting all around the copy of Archon, which just couldn’t catch the heroine.
“Spark! Dreamer’s the source!” Lilith called out, and grunted as she stopped suddenly and was reminded very abruptly that the inertial sump kept her from suffering the full effects of rapid movement. Still, she ignored that as she kicked a gun out of the hands of a woman, wincing as she saw the woman’s fingers break, then jumped at the man with the fire orbs.