The Indestructibles (Book 4): Like A Comet (35 page)

Chapter
64:

One
way trip anyway

Kate pressed the button on her belt that
would summon the hoverbike she'd ridden down from the Tower. Jane's situation
sounded desperate; there wasn't time to go back and find the machine where she
left it.

      Then she saw the lightning strike
and started running for the warship a few blocks away.

      Kate turned into a wide avenue. "Where
am I?" she asked herself—momentarily confused on the streets of her own
city. The sudden tropical storm and associated downpour made everything look
gray and blurry. Another one of the alien warriors confronted her. She marveled
at the variety of them. Were they creatures the Nemesis found and collected as
soldiers and slaves? Were they genetically engineered and redesigned like the
Children of the Elder Star haltered humans to become hosts?

      Its hippopotamus-like face, with
four eyes instead of two, stared back at her. The parasite appeared undersized
on its wide torso. With arms long like an ape's, the creature prepared to
charge, clawed fingers digging into the pavement for traction.

      Gotta be a thousand pounds, Kate
thought, wondering about the Distribution suit's ability to handle the impact
of something that large. I'll get broken if I don't handle this right. I can't let
that happen.

      The ground rumbled like a
low-level earth-quake as the alien charged her. Kate prepared to dodge him when
he got close enough, hoping to absorb some of the kinetic energy without
actually getting trampled. Neither option sounded particularly appealing.

      One hundred feet away.
Seventy-five. Fifty. Twenty-five.

      A bolt of green laser light arced
out from over Kate's shoulder, striking the alien on the chest—or more
specifically, on the parasite itself—and the huge creature tripped over its own
massive, tree trunk-like feet, plummeted onto its face, displacing cars as it
came to a stop.

      Kate whipped around to see who
fired the shot, only to find Sam Barren, standing on a car in a soaked hound's
tooth suit. Rain dripped off the brim of his fedora. He held a cylindrical gun
almost as long as the agent was tall.

      "Looks like that stash
Prevention sent us hunting for was worth it," Sam said, smiling at Kate.
Rainwater ran through his mustache. Sam tried to brush it away.

      Kate grunted, then wiped rain from
her own eyes.

      "That explosion over there,"
Kate said. "Your guys?"

      "Nope," Sam said. He
stepped carefully down from the hood of the car and started half-running,
half-limping toward the smoking warship.

      Kate ran ahead, leaving the old
agent behind, knowing he'd catch up. She looked for the hoverbike but couldn't
hear its approach yet. She hoped nothing had happened to it. She needed that
bike.

      Kate arrived at the burning corpse
of the warship the same time as Bedlam, who'd been running so fast she slid
several feet when she came to a stop.

      They both glanced up when they
realized what caused this. Valerie drifted slowly down from the sky, the rain
catching and falling from her body like a dress.

      "Can you do this more than
once?" Kate asked.

      Valerie nodded.

      "Remarkably easy," Val
said. "I knew I was powerful, but I had no idea I could pull off something
like this."

      "Some smaller ships may break
through the atmosphere. Do you feel okay about getting up high, trying to take
out as many as you can before they're able to get close enough to hit the City?"
Kate asked.

      "I can do this," Valerie
said.

      Huffing and wheezing, Sam caught
up to them. Several of his agents, wearing suits and bullet-proof vests while
carrying a bizarrely inconsistent array of guns like Sam's, each different from
the other, joined him and began to secure the area around the ship.

      Kate turned to Bedlam.

      "I need to get up there,"
Kate said.

      "Into space?" Bedlam
said

      "Jane thinks I can help,"
Kate said. "Can you keep things under control down here?"

      Bedlam watched the agents
patrolling the area. Sam overheard their conversation and shuffled over.

      "Unless we get hit with
another wave like this one, I think we can lock things down here," Sam
said.

      "I'll find the stragglers,"
Bedlam said. "I don't see how I'd be much use in space anyway."

      "Nor I," Kate said. "But
I'll try to figure that out when I get there. Where's Titus?"

      The fur-soaked werewolf chose that
moment to come bounding into the scene, covered in alien gore. He smelled like
wet dog right now and Kate knew Titus probably felt bad about it.

      "Titus!" she yelled. The
werewolf cocked his head. "Change back, I need your brain."

      He loped over, transforming as he
moved. Titus returned to human form by the time he arrived, he shivered in the
rain.

      "Did we win?"

      "We're going into space,"
Kate said. The soft hum of her hoverbike finally audible, she watched the
little aircraft zip toward them.

      "Space? We can't—you and me?
We can't go into
space
."  

      "They need us."

      "We're not getting there on
your flying motorcycle."

      "The Tower's a space ship,"
Kate said. "We're going to stop using it as a tree house and use it as it
was originally intended."

      Titus examined the carnage around him
and gestured at the big carcass of the warship still smoking on the ground.

      "We're not needed here?"

      "You speak Neal better than
anyone," Kate said. "I need you in the air with me."  

      "Okay," Titus said. He
put a hand on Bedlam's shoulder. "You got things down here?"

      "The old man and I will hold
the fort," Bedlam said, smiling, that old crazy fighter look in her face,
the one Titus remembered when they first met returned. "Besides, I
absolutely don't want to go into outer space riding in a floating clubhouse."

      "Neither do I."

      The hoverbike came to rest a few meters
away. Kate started for it. She turned back towards Bedlam and Sam.

      "Luck," she said.

      Sam nodded. Bedlam offered a
playful salute.

      Titus climbed on the back of the
bike and wrapped his arm around Kate's waist, sighing. "I hate these
things," he said.

      "Don't worry," Kate
said. "This is probably a one way trip anyway."

      The duo buzzed into the sky, tearing
through sheets of rain, and headed right for the Tower, where it hung in the
sky just below the dark clouds of Valerie's storm. Kate felt Titus's grip on
her midsection tighten as they tilted vertically to gain height faster. For
just a split second, she let herself enjoy the feeling of a warm arm around her
waist. But then anger bubbled up inside her—why is it only now, in the midst of
disaster, I'm able to feel like this? If we don't die this time, she thought, I
need to be better."

      They banked into the Tower's
landing bay, Kate parked the bike carelessly and hopped off.

      "Neal, seal the bay,"
Titus said.

      "Of course, Designation:
Whispering," the artificial intelligence said. The doors, heavy, armored
things, slid shut behind them.

      Kate headed for the control
center, leaving puddles of rainwater behind her.

      "Neal, what kind of weapons
does this ship have?" she said.

      There was an awkward, almost
sheepish pause from the AI.

      "Neal?" Kate said.

      "This was a rescue vessel,
Designation: Dancer," Neal said. "It was never intended for war. It
has some light armaments but nothing that can be effective in full-fledged
conflict."

      "How's our maneuverability,
Neal?" Titus said. "We're about to head into some rough waters. Air.
Space. Rough space."

      "Poor, Designation:
Whispering," Neal said. "But our armor is very durable."

      "So we can take some hits,"
Titus said. "We just can't strike back."

      Titus and Kate exchanged a long,
concerned glance.

      "One way trip, huh?"
Titus said.

      "We'll figure it out when we
get there," Kate said. "Our friends need us."

      Titus smiled.

      She saw by the light in his eyes,
the confident stance, the calmness of his body language—once they got off the
hoverbike he'd hated since the first time they rode one—that he seemed happy to
be there. He's excited to save the world, Kate thought. Even if it meant a one
way trip.

      And at that moment, she felt the
same way.

      "Take us up, Neal,"
Titus said as they arrived in the control room. "And call up an inventory
of anything we've got lying around we might use as a weapon."

      "Done," Neal said.

      They watched the monitors as the
Earth grew smaller beneath them and the stars above became suddenly so much
closer.

Chapter
65:

Light
show

Billy and Seng worked in tandem,
knocking enemy fighters out of the air as they took shot after shot at the seed
ship. Billy's own blasts, tearing chunks out of the strange ship's armor, seemed
to be far more effective than his teammate's.

      He tried not to think about what
he saw in the distance, as Jane's target went up in flames like a barn on fire.
Or how Jane wasn't answering her communicator.

      Where is she, Dude? Billy thought.

     
Focus on our target,
Dude
said.
We need to stay focused. There will be time to help our friends later.

      Billy wanted to get angry at the
alien, to be furious at his ruthlessness, but he detected the worry in Dude's voice,
and the very deliberate way he said "
our
friend," not "your."
Jane would never be able to hear Dude's voice—not unless the alien traded host
bodies—but the ancient Luminae still considered her a friend. And he worried
about her.

      The other seed ship, the one Jane
destroyed, fell apart in smoldering clumps. She'd done her job, Billy thought.
Now pay attention and do yours.

      Meanwhile, Seng noticed just how
different Straylight's powers were to his own.

      "What happened to you,"
Seng said. "I've never seen a Luminae like you before."

      Billy heard strain in the other
host's voice. Seng struggled to keep up, lacking Billy's extra speed and power.

      "We traveled into the future
and accidentally absorbed most of the power of our future selves," Billy
said in a hurried tone. He dragged one continuous light blast along the length
of the seed ship, leaving a long, blistering scar. "That sounds extra
weird when I say it out loud…"

      "And you…" Seng started
to speak but an incoming attack wing cut him off. Billy and Seng switched dance
partners, with Straylight pouncing into the oncoming wing of fighters and
scattering them as Seng turned his attention on cutting into the seed ship. "And
you didn't burn out?"

      Billy laughed despite everything
going on around him. He wanted to tell Seng all about the surreal experience,
of basically being the surrogate parent for the birth of Dude's mini-me they'd
created in the future, but he couldn't keep the thoughts straight in his head.

      "Long story," Billy
said. "I'll tell you all about it if we don't die out here."  

      "Fair enough, Earthling,"
the alien said.

      Another wave of fighters headed
their way. Billy started toward them, but the flight of ships targeted Seng, his
back to them.

      And then Billy saw what the fighters
had mounted on their hulls.

      Null guns, Billy thought, yelling
internally.

     
Go
, Dude said.

      Billy raced, trying to get between
the fighters and Seng, who didn't seem to notice their approach, still too
focused on his work searching for the guts of the seed ship to shut it down.

      "Seng, look out!" Billy
said, pouring on the speed.

      They fired familiar, horrific,
sickly red-yellow glow of the null guns, unafraid of hitting the seed ship. Lights
splashed and bounced off its hull. Seng was trapped within the onslaught of
blasts, not quite fast enough to break away. Billy raced in to join him. He
watched one fighter take aim and shoot its gun right at Seng. Unthinking, Billy
dove in, shielding the alien with his own body.

      Well this was stupid, Billy thought,
closing his eyes, gritting his teeth, and wondering what the vacuum of outer
space would feel like. He'd seen
Total Recall
. He hoped it wouldn't go
down like that.

      The blast hit him, glanced off his
body and ricocheted against the seed ship's hull. His back and shoulder burned.
A sharp, bitter ache seeped deep down into his cells. Billy waited for the end.

      It didn't happen.

      Dude? He thought.

     
I… am still here, Billy Case,
Dude said.

      How did that happen?

     
I can only assume… I can only
assume that the doubling of our powers has made our bond strong enough the null
guns can't separate us involuntarily.

      Does this happen often? Billy
thought. He and Seng looked at each other, both equally confused. The
expression on the alien's face was so close to normal human shock that Billy
almost laughed at him.

     
I've never heard of one of us
becoming immune to null guns,
Dude said.
That being said… I don't think
we should complain.

      It still hurt pretty bad, Billy
said.

     
It certainly did.

      But we can…?  

     
Billy Case,
Dude said.
I
think you should show these Nemesis ships what a Luminae without fear can do.

      Billy smiled so broadly his cheeks
hurt.

      You ready, Dude? He thought.

     
Always, my friend,
Dude
said.

      Billy lit up like a star,
engulfing himself in the blue-white light of the Luminae. For the first time,
really, he felt unafraid of anything. He wasn't a kid in a costume. He was Straylight,
protector of his home world.

      And he was about to put on a light
show.

      Leaving Seng to find cover near
the seed ship, Billy flew headlong into the approaching fighters. Not simply scattering
them, he disabled more than half on his first attack, blasting some, crashing
into others, sending a light-covered fist through the armor of another and
throwing it deep into space.

      On the offensive, he ran off
another set of fighters, emitting arcs of bluish energy from his hands,
knocking them out from behind, from below, moving much faster than any of the
Nemesis ships could fly. Somehow, Billy's own glee, his acceptance of his own powers,
made him even faster, even stronger. The little fighters fled from him rather
than attack and abandoned the seed ship.

      And then he saw where the fighters
were headed.

      "Seng, we need to put this
seed ship out of commission," Billy said. "They're headed for Earth."   

      "They want to draw you away,"
Seng said. "I'll pursue."   

      "I have an idea," Billy
said, turning a wide arc away from the seed ship. "Stand back a bit."

     
This is going to hurt,
Dude
said.

      A lot? Billy thought.

     
It not going to tickl
e.

      Well… you only live once, Billy
thought. He waited to make sure Seng had flown a safe distance away, and then
Billy turned back toward the seed ship, his trajectory aimed at the nose of the
vessel, dead center to the spear-like craft's body.

      Billy picked up speed, pouring on
the power. Dude shifted their protective energy shields up in front like a
bumper. At least we're on the same page, Billy thought.

      They crashed into the nose of the
seed ship, and kept on going.

      Later, Billy would only really
remember the chaos of it all, broken pieces, parts that looked bone and muscle,
as if the ship itself were a living thing. He corkscrewed his way through the
center of the terraforming device, spraying blasts of blue-white light in a
spinning motion, causing cataclysmic damage to the entire ship, gutting it from
within. He had no idea how long it took him to tear through from end to end,
but eventually, he burst out of the bio-mechanical engines in the back, feeling
their heat against his skin through his shielding. His explosive exit sent him
spinning through space, out of control, covered in greasy ship's blood. He
couldn't figure out which way was up or down and had no idea if his plan
worked.

      Then Billy felt a hand on his
wrist, catching him, holding him tight.

      Seng. The older alien steadied him
and kept Billy from floating off into space. He pointed at the seed ship,
smoking and crumbling, falling apart from within like wet cardboard. Billy
shivered, the expenditure of energy hit him like an ice bath.

      "Worked, huh?" Billy
said.

      "Impressive, my friend,"
Seng said.

      "Yeah," Billy said. "Now
let me just puke real quick and we can take on more of those ships before they
destroy the planet."

      When Billy took stock of what
remained of the enemy fleet, his stomach sank. Still more ships than he could
count—little fighters, big warships, that one, massive mother ship central to
it all… Suddenly, he felt very small. There were just so many of them.

      "You've got to be kidding me,"
he said.