Blaze of Glory (18 page)

Swooping down, I grabbed Limox’s ankles and swung the terrified man around, his hands towards the oncoming earth and away from us. My gloved fingertips were almost touching. Almost. But that wasn’t going to be enough unless I slowed us down and fast.

I heard May talking to Limox, soft gentle words of consolation that seemed to make him relax a bit more in my grip. Hunter took a deep breath, pressing himself against me and wrapping his legs around mine to allow me to have a better grip on Limox. Or at least that’s what I was telling myself. More likely he was trying to get away in case Limox lashed out with his hands to grab him, melting through fabric and flesh in his panicky state.

Meanwhile, and much more important, we were still plummeting at an incredible rate. I forced myself to level out, push off the ground that wasn’t so far away and bring the situation under control. Maybe all those meditation sessions Mike had forced me into actually had something to them…

Suddenly we stopped. Still. As in not moving an inch.

Limox let out what could only be called a meep. “What did you do?”

“I…” The cool air threatened to steal my breath away. “I stopped us.”

“Yeah, I got that.” He whistled. “Okay, I’m good.” The overweight man squirmed in my arms, the dirty sneakers twisting to the left and to the right. “A little tight there, girl. And could you just drop Hunter and let me get into your arms instead?”

“Get used to being on the bottom,” I snapped. “Look to your left while you’re busy making my life more difficult.”

The alien ship was slowly moving up the Ohio River in the dawning light, sending an ominous shadow over the fleeing barges and boats racing away from the city. The roads beneath us were jammed far beyond capacity, many of the cars stopped and off to the shoulder as people took to the streets to walk as far as they could before the attack started. Families carried their life belongings in knapsacks, shopping carts, dumping heavy suitcases and bags along the way in a long eerie trail of colorful luggage.

The river was just as bad, if not worse. Coal barges that usually would be carrying the classic fossil fuel were now filled with refugees, a human cargo that went on for miles with the tugboats pushing them hopefully out of harm’s way. Smaller crafts dodged in and out of the slow tedious trail of barges, overloaded with fleeing residents looking to get out of the city before all hell broke loose.

“Jo…” Hunter nudged my neck with his chin. “Look down at the large blue ship. She’s in trouble.”

The mock paddleboat had probably been some sort of tourist attraction, chugging up and down the river with the garish paint job advertising a sweet cruise for the passengers. But now it lurched perilously back and forth, the mass of humanity standing on the upper decks twisting the center of gravity towards the water that was already lapping at the wood. People scrambled away from the cool water, causing an even more violent shift as the boat swung back.

“Crap.” A yellow bridge nearby was the best bet for solid ground. “Get ready to jump.”

“What?” Limox squeaked, twisting around in my grip.

“Stop. That.” The brightly colored girders were only a few feet away. “I don’t have time to land and set you all down. Go as soon as I get over solid ground. Tuck and roll, Limox.”

I felt Peter and May’s hands slip free of the harness. As if we had practiced this a thousand times the two supers dropped off my back. Hunter let go with a short mumble into my neck, too low for me to understand.

“Don’t let me go!” Limox screamed as I released his ankles and moved back towards the boat.

The boat rolled again to one side, now tipping people into the river. Hovering about ten feet over the water and not far from the upper decks, I reached out, focused on taking control of the craft’s waves and leveling it off.

About half the screaming refugees noticed me, pointing and waving, some even snapping photographs as they struggled to keep their balance. The other half were grabbing onto the railings in an effort to keep upright. The river water wasn’t that cold, but I sure wouldn’t relish taking a dip in it.

“Calm down.” My attempt to sound authoritative reminded me of a church mouse ordering a lion around. I missed Metal Mike’s amplified speakers. “Don’t keep moving around.” My fingers clutched the edges of the boat, pulling it upright. “Stop moving.”

A young woman dressed in a Pittsburgh Steelers football jersey let out a high-pitched scream as she flipped over the railing, narrowly missing the other people already treading water.

“Shit!” The swaying of the ferry was beginning to pick up momentum, dipping lower with each cycle, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to gain control before it tipped totally over. Smaller watercraft had already started zipping over to pluck the people from the water, making the scene even more chaotic.

The woman flailed around for a second, the panic clear on her face. Abruptly she began to rise out of the water on some sort of air mattress, which cradled her as it moved her out of danger.

Fish. She was floating on a small raft of fish.

Gasping, the blonde reached out to grab the hand of a uniformed man, glancing down wide-eyed at the aquatic life keeping her afloat just long enough to get aboard the rescue craft. Then they disappeared in a flash of silver tails and scales.

“Don’t think she’ll be eating sushi again.” Peter’s chuckle brought a smile to my face despite the situation. But the panicked mob could easily turn this from a bad situation to a disaster in only a few seconds…

A rush of emotion washed over me, caressing me from the inside out. It was like having a massage, an obscene amount of chocolate and an infinite number of orgasms. My hands stopped moving as I tried to process all the feelings and sensations, the urge to just wallow in the ecstasy almost overwhelming my goal to stabilize the boat.

“Everyone just calm down.” The whispered words came over my link. “Jo, they should be okay now.”

Sure enough the enraptured faces looked towards me with a sense of satisfaction and glee that I would have loved to bottle and sell. Even the ones in the water seemed content as they slowly climbed onto the waiting boats, lessening the strain on the boat.

It was easy for me to right the faux paddleboat and settle it back onto the water. “Everyone, please clear the upper decks. That’s why it’s tipping over.”

Obediently they climbed down, men helping women, and the children carefully lifted and carried down to waiting mothers’ arms, clutching stuffed animals and small knapsacks.

“May, what did you do?” I croaked.

“I just made everyone calm down.” Her words held an air of surprise. “Didn’t think it’d work so good, though.”

“It worked just fine.” I glanced up, spotting the quartet watching me from the neon yellow bridge. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

A little boy, no more than five, waved at me from the deck of a Coast Guard boat. I waved back before moving off, glancing behind me to make sure the boat was at least half-assed balanced now. The evacuation continued around us, the ferries persisting in their race down the river. God bless Pittsburghers, takes a lot to freak them out.

I landed beside the team, breathless from the experience. Hunter gave me a tight hug while Limox scowled from the sidelines.

“Nice landing,” he growled. I looked down at the melted handprints at his feet and couldn’t help smiling. “Not quite ready for prime-time, I guess.”

My mind was still spinning from actually doing something heroic.

“Next time turn your bloody hands off when I ask you to,” I replied sweetly, noting Peter’s wide grin. “Nice touch with the fish, Peter, and the mass hug, May. Really came in handy there.”

“Well, I thought it’d help.” She patted Peter on the shoulder. “Well done!”

“Thanks.” He kept smiling. “Nice to do something positive, you know? Sending dogs in to bite guys gets old.” The words trailed off as the dark shadow moved closer.

“Yeah. That was the warm-up, folks. Now it’s the main event.” I pointed at the ship, now easily within flying distance. “Okay, here’s the first stage. I’m going to take you up with me…” a tug on Meltdown’s shoulders, “…and drop you off on that thing. I want you to try and melt through the outer skin, if you can keep on going until you hit something vital, if you can’t, I’ll jet you back to dry land. Peter, can you get us some avian assistance?”

“The local birds are reporting a single warrior exiting the ship.” He stared over my shoulder, his gaze unfocused. “He’s not doing anything, just hovering there. Guess he’s waiting for us to make the first move.”

“Good. Keep on the link, I may need you to have them do some diversionary stuff. May, Hunter—stay here. May, if you can toss some of that soothing mojo around it may help make the evacuation go smoother. I’m still not happy with so many civilians in the battle area.” I grabbed Limox under his arms, and we moved towards the ship, gaining altitude as quickly as I could. “Now, let’s…”

A steel beam shot by us, missing us by about a hundred feet, and headed directly for the ship. Now that may seem like a lot of spare air at first glance, but trust me, that’s way too close for comfort when dealing with a twenty-foot long metal bar.

“What the fuck?” Limox cursed as he thrashed around in my arms.

“Stop it or I’ll drop you on your head,” I roared, jerking us to one side as I reacted to the attack. “It’s not aimed at us; it’s headed for the ship.”

We watched as the beam flew towards the alien craft, the unerring arc carrying it directly over and then down at the center of the fat green ship.

The steel needle jabbed at the side of the ship and then slid off with a metallic scream, skidding down and falling back towards the ground.

“Some sort of force field,” Limox muttered. “Something that’s not going to let you through. Not going to be able to burn through that.”

I saw it when I squinted, the faintest wobbling air around the avocado and the space disrupted ever so slightly. “Change of plans.” I dove towards the ground so quickly that I swear I heard my ears pop. “We’re going to have to take on the fellow first and then the ship. Peter, keep your avian friends seeking for some sort of weakness on that ship—there has to be something somewhere that’ll let us in. An open hatch, anything. I don’t care how big it is. The three of you head for where that slab came from.”

“Roger.” Hunter’s calm voice sent a shiver down my spine. He sounded confident, self-assured. Just like Mike.

“Where are we going?” Limox asked. I pointed towards the city, following the arc of the steel beam.

“Maybe I’m crazy but I’m figuring that a super tossed that thing at the ship. And hopefully he’ll still be there.”

Limox nodded, almost breaking my nose as we swooped down between deserted office buildings to the approximate location. “Sure can’t hurt to look.”

Suddenly a girder came into view, barreling towards us at way too close an angle for me to get out of the way in time.

“Hold on!” Limox thrust his hands out in front of him as I twisted to one side. The steel bar rocketed right at our heads.

Meltdown’s fingers scored along the heavy metal, digging into the steel as it clipped my left ear and spun away without doing more damage to us. I dropped us to the vertical and then to the ground much faster than I had planned, resulting in a rather disorganized and slightly embarrassing heap of supers atop each other in the middle of the street.

As I struggled to my feet I put one hand to my ear, coming away with only a trickle of blood from the wound. Limox lay on the ground gasping for air.

“Good catch.” I turned towards the unfamiliar voice. Static started at the back of my mind as May dashed around a corner of the deserted street, huffing with every step.

“Slammer?” Limox scrambled to his feet and brushed dirt from his turtleneck sweater. “Is that you?”

“Good grief, you hanging with this crowd?” The deep rolling voice came from a man who stood at least six feet tall, his muscle T-shirt giving a great display of his well-toned arms. His bald head matched Limox’s, but his skin was darker, tanned and muscular from hard manual labor. Denim coveralls covered the rest of his middle-aged frame, his hands stuck in the deep pockets.

The most striking thing about him was the way his arms glistened. Not with sweat but from a thousand small shining spots over his arms and face, even over his head. As I slowly approached him, I saw they were a silvery white and in no regular pattern.

“Stephen Nyre.” He extended a large meaty hand that dwarfed mine. “Slammer. You must be Surf.”

Limox chuckled, moving to stand beside me. “You’re lucky you never had to face Slammer. He’d have bumped you on your ass and then some.”

“Not likely.” Stephen laughed, a deep roar that would have knocked me off my feet if I hadn’t braced myself. Putting his two meaty hands together, he popped his knuckles in a rapid-fire sequence that had me wincing. “Wouldn’t have been a fair fight.” His attention turned to Limox. “So what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Same as you.” He jerked a thumb upwards. “Although your tosses aren’t doing much. Bouncing off a shield of some sort.”

“Damn.” The large man sighed. “I was hoping…” He grinned as Peter, Hunter and May caught up with us. “So, you guys ready to fight?”

“That’s what we came here for.” Peter smiled. “You ready to do more than just chuck steel?”

Stephen’s face split into a wide smile. “Oh, I like you.”

Suddenly all of our links went live, the chatter almost overwhelming. I recognized some voices, some supers I had worked with in the past. Hydro, JamJam…

“Can you fly?” I snapped at the large man. He shook his head.

“Not my gig.” He waggled his hand in the air. “And I get airsick, so don’t even think about it.”

“Okay. Look, you and Meltdown take May and try to get her close enough to see if she can fry the alien warrior’s mind, scramble his thoughts. Might as well give that a shot. Peter, send in the troops, anyone and anything you can think of.” I lifted off the ground slowly, hovering just a few feet above the street. “I’m going to charge up and see what a good blast gets me.”

Slammer looked at the man beside him. “She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?”