Starfall Page 9

  From what I’d been told, the Legion took their genocides seriously. They would not withdraw their forces until all that remained was dust. Dust, and a handful of carefully-chosen mind-controlled puppet-slaves.

  Visibly, there was no hint that any resistance remained. I could, however, detect a few highly encrypted radio broadcasts, hints of chatter from the last remnants of what had once been a vibrant society. That there was even this much infrastructure remaining was a pleasant surprise. On the off chance that the data might be relevant, I started a program to decrypt the signals.

  The alien starship continued towards the horizon and, for a moment, I truly believed that luck had fallen in my favor. That no alarm had been raised by my sudden appearance. I should have known better; to others the fates might occasionally be kind, but not to me.

  A shuttlecraft spat from the starship’s belly and almost immediately banked towards my location. The Legion had sent a ship to investigate.

  My transport’s stealth capabilities were decent but imperfect. A thorough, careful scan would eventually notice discrepancies. And if the ship’s crew included one of the Legion’s telepathic officers, my mind would have been detected as soon as they approached within range. My neural implant would protect me against their mind-control abilities, and the tank could generate a psionic nullifier field similar to the one that I’d employed on my own Earth. But they would be able to sense my presence before either defense could be initiated.

  A soft sigh escaped my lips and the recently rebuilt warstaff appeared as though by magic in my hand. Twelve hours until I could safely continue my journey…

  It seemed likely that this was about to become a very hectic afternoon.

  The taste was familiar: bright flavors with a hint of caramel and smoke, with a citrus aftertaste. My murdered friend Starnyx—the truest friend I’d ever had—had introduced me to this particular beverage. The microbrewery that produced it had been near to a coffee shop he frequented.

  The establishment was also, apparently, on the route the Brooklyn Knights chose for their patrols. When they’d stumbled across me while I was beginning a break-in, they offered me a beer in lieu of a battle. Psion had clearly expected me to refuse, so I accepted out of sheer contrariness.

  “Thank you.” I said, grateful for my armor’s vocoder; in addition to altering my voice, the device also struck the mournful nostalgia from my tone. Rage had outweighed grief while I’d been working to wreak vengeance upon Starnyx’s murderers. With that battle won, grief had flooded back to the fore.

  I’d been thinking of Starnyx when I’d chosen tonight’s target; the facility was within line-of-sight of his old base of operations.

  “You’re welcome,” Shrike replied. He was the only member of the Brooklyn Knights who seemed calm and relaxed. The others had circled around me, drinking from bottles of their own with tense caution. If I’d moved too suddenly, I knew, they would likely leap to attack.

  After I’d averted an apocalyptic alien invasion, the Brooklyn Knights had publicly announced that they owed me a beer. The reality of sharing a drink with a villain was, however, apparently more stressful than most of them had expected. Shrike and I, on the other hand, had developed something of an understanding. Certainly, he didn’t seem to be holding a few broken bones against me.

  “Why were you robbing a clothing store?” Blizzard blurted, unable to withhold his curiosity any longer.

  (Independent superhero teams had a tendency to follow certain well-known tropes as they stabilized. There were logistical, sociological and strategic reasons for the trends, and the Brooklyn Knights were no exception: five plucky youths from all walks of life, gathered by fate and granted the power to make a difference in their community. Psion, the levelheaded and rigidly upright leader. Wildcard, the often-overlooked clever problem solver whose ability to alter his powerset often allowed him to find creative solutions to end a combat. White Tigress, their most physically strong and imposing member. Shrike, the heart of the team…the moral guide, the most empathic member. And Blizzard, the aggressive second-in-command who, in challenging their stalwart leader, often pushed the team forward. It was always a private source of amusement to me that the team’s requisite hot-head was the member with cryokinetic powers.)

  I stared at Blizzard for a long moment, then sighed and decided to answer. I didn’t want to leave mid-way through this beer. “That isn’t a clothing store. It’s a contracting company that makes protective gear for the military.”

  “Okay, yeah. Protective clothing.” He rolled his eyes expressively. “Your armor is better ’n anything the military makes. I watched you shrug off a punch from Valiant!”

  He pronounced the stronger hero’s name in a reverent tone, the way a devout believer might speak of a saint. There was reason for that admiration. Valiant’s might was legendary. While I wasn’t about to admit weakness before a potential foe, the truth was that Valiant’s blow had overwhelmed my shields and inertial displacement field; if not for the very many genetic and surgical alterations that I’d performed upon myself over the years, I likely would have died from the concussive shockwave alone.

  “They’ve hinted at intriguing innovations.” I replied simply. “There will be useful information to be extrapolated from their research notes.”

  “We’ll stop you,” the White Tigress growled, tail lashing.

  Actually, my microdrones had already infiltrated the factory and were compromising the facility’s network security as we spoke. It seemed impolitic to say so, so instead I used the straw-like appendage extended from my forearm to route another mouthful of beer from the bottle in my armored hand.

  “The D.M.A. is updating our information,” Shrike piped up, transparently attempting to change the conversation’s trajectory. “We’re not hiding anymore.”

  In an earlier investigation, I’d uncovered the Knights’ true status as undocumented immigrants from an alternate universe; I hadn’t probed further to discover the origin of their (manufactured) identities. Given that the team had gone through the process of being registered and licensed through the Department of Metahuman Affairs, the forgeries must have been excellent.

  That, or else the investigating official at the D.M.A. must have realized the truth and chosen not to intervene. Wildcard’s ability to take on a healing power made him tremendously valuable to the New York hero community. Many an agent might have been willing to overlook a ‘minor’ inconsistency in a background-check in order to keep a healer in their region.

  “I’m glad that the issue is resolved,” I replied. “I will admit that I’d been concerned that a poorly timed revelation would have imperiled any convictions that resulted from your actions as heroes.”

  From Blizzard’s sudden ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ expression, I inferred that he had somehow been responsible for gathering their identities, and that he hadn’t considered the possible consequence if his deception had been revealed. I laughed out loud, and the other Knights did a poor job of hiding their fond amusement at their teammate’s expense.

  The conversation continued on a lighter note, discussing recent events and the peculiarities of the legal system under which heroes operated. They relayed a humorous anecdote about the time they accidentally raided an exotic dance club in which the dancers portrayed well-known heroes and villains. I responded with the tale of an instance in which an aerospace company’s CEO had been indicted for knowingly submitting falsified data to the Federal Aviation Administration. I’d wasted weeks surveilling the business and been only minutes from stealing completely faked research when the news broke.

  And all too soon, our bottles were empty.

  “Thank you,” Psion said when I began to float upward to begin my flight home, “for saving this world. You have no idea what our Earth was like by the time we escaped.”

  I opened my modified tank’s hatch and shot into the air long before the approaching shuttle could detect the vehicle; the tank was a powerful tool, but it lacked the
mobility necessary for a battle against overwhelming numbers. Eventually, it would have been surrounded.

  Aloft, the Mk 39 suffered no such limitation. I hurtled a few miles east to draw attention away from my transport then disabled the armor’s stealth systems. The Legion craft would have barely had time to raise an alarm before I swung my warstaff forward.

  Lightning arced along the staff’s length and the end glowed like a star being born, lighting the grim sky and casting shadows into the clouds. An incandescent halo formed, followed by an indescribable roar as white-green ionized plasma poured from the weapon’s tip.

  It didn’t travel like a beam; it was a twisting, sinuous tentacle stretching towards its target, a chaos of raw energy eating through the atmosphere. And when the torrent splattered across the approaching Legion shuttle’s bow, the destruction was absolute.

  Debris rained from the heavens, raising thick plumes of ash; using my neural tap, I remotely piloted my stealthed tank through the concealing layer of floating dust towards a safer hiding place, using shaped forcefields to smooth the ground and hide evidence of the tracked-vehicle’s path.

  Hovering in place, I spun the staff in slow, practiced kata and waited.

  I didn’t need to wait for long; the massive Legion starship could not alter course quickly within an atmosphere, but my sensors could detect the moment that they began decelerating to turn about. Their weapons—fusion cannons and high-energy beam weapons, from what I could determine—swiveled towards me and I began to dodge through the sky, automatic systems plotting an erratic course that strained my inertial dampeners to their limits.

  The heavens erupted in light and sound as the alien vessel unleashed all of its fury upon me. Massive streams of violet energy, as thick around as my waist, boiled the air into plasma and left glowing and hissing trails in their wake. Shockwaves battered at the clouds as a wave of pulsed plasma beams tore past, and gale force winds battered the sky.

  Outrunning a laser would have been an impossible feat but moving faster than the Legion’s targeting systems was more easily managed. The barrage continued, and amplified mocking laughter was my only response.

  Eventually, the assault ceased. Again, I hovered…expectant.

  The part of me that was monstrous had been straining at its leash, slashing at my insides and howling its pain until I could feel rage swell with every heartbeat. From the moment I’d found the empty shell of Whisper’s body, I’d ached for this. A chance to cut loose without guilt, without repercussion, without restraint.

  A chance to carve my pain into a deserving target.

  In the distance, a dozen fast-assault craft were ejected from the slow-moving battlecarrier’s belly; they established three separate formations and screamed towards me, all aggressive angles and fearsome weapons and deadly intent.

  Behind Doctor Fid’s faceless mask, my grin was so broad that my face hurt from the effort.

  7

  Transcript from Bravo-Three radio tower

  KK6GZW:“CQ, CQ, calling CQ. This is KK6GZW, Kilo-Kilo-Six-Golf-Zulu-Whiskey.”

  AB2ETC:“KK6GZW, this is AB2ETC, Alpha-Bravo-Two-Echo-Tango-Charlie. Go ahead.”

  KK6GZW:“I’m at site Bravo-Three on Mount Diablo and I’ve been watching fireworks to the south. Looks like a hell of a show. Anyone know what’s going on?”

  AB2ETC:“Echo-Tango’s must have found Charlie-Two. God DAMN it!”

  KK6GZW:“Negative…Fireworks are at least forty clicks from Charlie-Two and heading east. They’re lighting up the sky, not aiming at the ground. It’s not one of yours?”

  AB2ETC:“Negative. Everyone here’s accounted for.”

  N1TKU:“Break, break, break.”

  KK6GZW:“Go ahead.”

  N1TKU: “This is November-One-Tango-Kilo-Uniform at Charlie-Two. Fireworks started in direct line of sight from one of our observation posts. Some crazy in black armor attacked the Echo-Tango carrier.”

  KK6GZW:“Damn. Another poor bastard on a suicide run…Anyone know why the ET’s are still firing?”

  N1TKU: “My contact says black armor is still fighting.”

  KK6GZW: “Holy crap. It’s been more than a half hour!”

  N1TKU:“Longer…a dozen ET fighter craft downed so far. Black armor’s tearing it up. I’m getting updates from Charlie-Three; we’re using the chaos to move some equipment.”

  AB2ETC:“Black armor…is it Apotheosis?”

  N1TKU:“Apotheosis is dead. We got confirmation.”

  AB2ETC:“Damn.”

  KK6GZW:“Hey, looks like the fireworks are coming my way. Whoever this guy is, he’s moving. Repeat, fireworks changed direction and are moving north-west from Charlie-Three.”

  AB2ETC:“Keep your head down. You don’t want to be in the open when this guy finally gets killed. ET’s ‘ll be looking for other targets.”

  N1TKU:“KK6GZW, quick question: my contact at Charlie-Three says she sent a family of four your way, wants to know if they arrived.”

  KK6GZW:“Safe and sound. The kid’s a wizard with a welding torch. Hold on I’m getting a camera set up…Gonna broadcast SSTV on one-forty-five five.”

  N1TKU: “Roger.”

  AB2ETC:“Roger.”

  KK6GZW:“Christ, there’s a lot of light in the sky. Starting footage.”

  N1TKU: “I’ve been reaching out to other regions on the 20M—no one’s missing a super who wears black armor. This guy must be a solo.”

  AB2ETC:“A solo who can take down twelve Echo Tango fighters? Damn. Coulda used him before he went suicide on us.”

  N1TKU:“Should we send reinforcements, see if we can get him back to base?”

  AB2ETC:“Hell no! Echo-Tangos are gonna want to see a body after this.”

  N1TKU:“But maybe black armor could win!”

  AB2ETC:“Nobody wins. Sooner or later they bring in the big man.”

  N1TKU:“ET’s keep the big man in Colorado; we could get black-armor out and hidden before he gets here.”

  AB2ETC:“Then it’d be the big man looking for your camp. You don’t want that kind of heat.”

  N1TKU:“Yeah, yeah. I guess. It just feels weird, watching someone fight ’n not jumping in to help.”

  AB2ETC:“Better to watch than throw your people away.”

  N1TKU:“…yeah.”

  KK6GZW:“I have a pretty good high-def, still-frame image…going to keep it on repeat for a while. Spread it on 20M, I wanna know who this guy is.”

  (Unknown):“My name is Doctor Fid.”

  My inertial displacement field was making audible chirps as I hurtled erratically through the sky, jerking and twisting at speeds no unshielded physical object could maintain. I’d never run the devices so hard for so prolonged a battle; it was possible that there was a mis-calibration to the Mk 39’s subframe such that the field was extended slightly outside my armor, creating erratic turbulence in the airstream and thus causing the unseemly noise.

  I wrote a quick program to monitor the disturbance for future analysis and pulsed my thrusters to maximum to curl out of the path of a particularly aggressive assault craft. My warstaff spun in a vicious arc, its surface surface thrumming with gathered power; the blow roared like thunder and my attacker was batted from the sky like an insect. The debris would crater the ground, but I was already moving to avoid the next stream of attackers before I could witness the impact. The dull-colored craft buzzed like angry bees, circling and tearing the sky asunder with their fiery weapons.

  It was possible that this would become boring sooner or later. For now, however, my mocking laughter echoed across the countryside.

  Giddy, I shot towards the massive Legion starship in the distance. It seemed unfair not to share my wrath with the source of the swarming gnats I’d been toying with; the alien crew-members must surely have felt left out. A backhand swipe of my staff let loose a massive cone of plasma to trail in my wake, engulfing the first two of the fighter craft that swerved to follow.

  The external layer of my forcefields were
frictionless and automatically shaped to minimize air resistance; I slithered through the sky like a coiling snake, a black and red blur that devoured miles in moments.

  And slammed face-first into a storm of neutron-cannon fire that tore away my shields in a heartbeat.

  My suit’s automated defense protocols reacted faster than I could think; contorting my body and exploding into a series of evasive maneuvers that—even with my inertial displacement fields functioning at their maximum level—crushed the air from my lungs. Alarms flooded through my neural tap and I instinctively negated pain sensitivity from my lower body; both legs had been baked to searing temperatures as I retreated. Medical telemetry indicated the possibility that everything from my left knee down might be completely unsalvageable.

  I darted back to the chasing fighter craft, flitting among them while I struggled to assess the damage and review sensor readings.

  So. The battlecarrier had short-range point-defenses with far more accurate targeting than their medium- and long-range weaponry. I’d only gotten a fraction of a second’s worth of data, but it appeared as though the alien vessel used its own anti-grav fields to curve the energy blasts and refine their aim. The gravitic distortions diffracted the blasts such that they would only remain focused at relatively short distances…but within that radius even my fastest maneuvers wouldn’t protect me.

  I could destroy every fighter they launched at me and dance out of the way of their long-distance weaponry indefinitely…but assaulting the Legion starship itself would be difficult. My exit strategy—returning to my transdimensional tank and making the leap to my next destination—would need to be altered if the massive craft could continue to follow after me for the rest of the afternoon.

  The warstaff was un-summoned, replaced in its subspace storage location, and I tagged two craft with relatively-underpowered kinetic-energy blasts directed from my own closed fists as I soared past; one spun dizzily out of control, but the other recovered and returned to the chase.