Blaze (The High-Born Epic) (58 page)

             
...It was a single glint of light at first...

             
...and then another...

             
...and then a third one...

             
...then... almost all at once, the entire horizon behind the fighter jets filled with sparkling points of white and blue light.

             
Stone leaped out of his sight, but Harold saw the direction he had went, and he turned just in time to see him land on another hover tank.  Harold could feel the noise in his chest as Stone’s fists slammed into it, denting and warping the hull with each strike.  Stone yanked on its main cannon and the vehicle spun wildly into a building as he jumped off it, landing in the street.  The tank began righting itself, but the ground rumbled as Stone stomped again, and the section of the building above the tank collapsed on it.

             
Harold looked across the burning city at the High-Born.  All of them had finished training their weaponry on the sky, and he looked back toward the incoming fighter jets.  The glimmering points of white light overtook the jets and sped by them, and he realized that they were actually dozens of missiles scalding the sky as they stormed toward the High-Born battle group.

             
High-Born rockets and friction trails streaked at the incoming air strike.  Dozens of explosions covered the air space above the High-Born, and it looked as if they had destroyed the large missiles. 

             
But the missiles had not been demolished at all. 

             
They had suddenly become more than a hundred smaller missiles that screeched about like a nest of angry hornets seeking High-Born blood.  Detonations and shockwaves roused clouds of dust and ash as the entire city rattled.  Harold saw another volley of large missiles, and they too began exploding one after another as friction trails sped toward them.  Smaller missiles spread all throughout the battlefield, and he saw dozens of more High-Born take hits as multiple explosions resounded.  The fighter jets fired several rail spikes that scored hits, and then banked off erratically, twisting and rolling in between High-Born rail spikes.

             
Then, it was as if the sky itself fell.

             
Hundreds of friction trails began streaking in from above, plastering the ground, tearing through buildings, and shredding High-Born tanks and gunships as the sky filled with man-like things.  As the reports of their guns echoed over Harold, he looked at the things that began covering the sky.  They resembled the armor that Colonel Foxx had worn in their last battle, and they reminded him of the High-Born mechanoids.  They had forearm-mounted rail guns, and they attacked in waves, guns blazing.  Their blue thrusters roared across the battlefield and dozens released miniature missiles that hit many of the High-Born as the first waves of them began banking around for another pass. 

             
On the far side of the city, he could see the fighter jets circling on the city skyline coming back towards them, and starting another attack run.  Harold’s heart dropped to his stomach when he saw the jets had the head of a white eagle painted on each of their noses.

             
Stone ducked as a rail spike flew above him.  He stomped the ground, and a wave of earth rattled a jagged formation out of the ground that impaled and destroyed another tank.  Two more rail spikes flew in from behind him, and one narrowly missed, but the other struck him in the back with a massive pop.  Stone staggered again, catching himself with his hands as he turned to face the other two tanks that had maneuvered behind their position.

             
The rush of rocket engines blared, and two near-simultaneous explosions sent shockwaves around them.  He was surprised by how quiet the two fighter jets were when they streaked just above him.  But as they sped into the city skyline, Harold heard the air splitting behind him, and then a deafening, rolling thunder washed over him, Gabby, and Stone.  He watched the fighters’ whitish-blue thrusters burn as they banked in different directions, spinning and dashing in between incoming rail spikes.  The eyes of the white eagles appeared to glow as their own rail guns striped the orange sky and tore apart two High-Born gunships. 

             
As Stone stomped the ground again, Harold turned to Gabby.

             
Her eyes were still closed, but she had started moving, and the look on her face told him that she was in severe pain.  He looked at the burns now.  They were worse than he expected, but at least the bleeding from her leg had stopped where he had tied it.  He stroked her face, and though she did not open her eyes, she grabbed his hand.  Harold could feel himself coming back to awareness, and he noticed that he could hear better now.

             
Rocket engines blasted from above, and he looked up.  Two of the man-like things were just overhead, hovering, rail guns thundering as their bluish thrusters screamed in a circle around him.  Their heads darted from side to side and several missiles flew from them, streaking off into the city while their jet engines whipped air around Harold.  Explosions sounded out of his field of vision, and Harold felt a thump in the ground around him as they landed. 

             
They were made completely of a dark-colored metal, and were slightly larger than Stone, and they had what looked like large backpacks from which two small wings protruded.  They also had two thrusters on the backpack piece, and two more rocket engines seemingly attached to their lower legs, and they had small air fins on the back of their lower legs.

             
As these two things formed a triangle along with Stone around him and Gabby, Harold looked at their heads.  They had two small antennae on either side of their headpiece, and the dark-tinted visors reminded him of the ones that High-Born soldiers wore, and were where their faces should have been.  Suddenly, the visor of the thing closest to him began rising...

             
...to reveal the face of a smiling man... 

             
Then, Harold realized that they were not man-like things at all, nor were they AI robots either.  They were normal people piloting some sort of large mechanical suit.  Harold recognized a strange emblem on the shoulder of the one nearest him.  It was the one that he and Sarah had seen in Scott’s secret base that day.  It was a rectangle that had red and white stripes with a square patch of blue in its left corner, and stars inside of the blue.

             
The man inside said, “Archangel, this is Rat-Trap!  We have the two Elementals, sir!  They’re injured, but they’re alive, and they’re on my location!  Stone, D-Con, and I have set up a defensive perimeter, sir!”

             
“Roger that, Rat-Trap,” another voice within the suit called.  “Hold the line!”

             
“Yes, sir!” the man said and gave Harold a reassuring smile, and then spoke to him directly.  “Sit tight, Blaze!  You take care of Aireon because you’re not alone in this fight anymore!  We’ve hidden for long enough!  I’m Major David Young with the United States ATLAS Corps, and we’re here to extract you!”

             
While his visor slid back into place, a powerful humming came from his guns and his suit’s gears and motors whirred as he turned to face the High-Born.  Harold looked at a symbol below his emblem.  There was the picture of a bearded giant stepping out of a sparkling ocean.  His hands were stretched above him, and he appeared to be holding the red, white, and blue symbol aloft in a fiery sky, and pieces of the sky seemed to be falling all around him.  Around the outline of the man were the words:

             
    
 
                    U. S. A. C.

             
                 We Hold The Sky

             
On his other shoulder, Harold noticed a painting of a large eagle with an open beak, and its outstretched talons were reaching for a scurrying white rat with red eyes.  Above the eagle it read:

             
      
 
All-Terrain Land Air Sea

             
                            
 
Armored Corps

             
              And below the rat were the words:

             
               
 
                   Rat-Trap
 

             
       
 
Screaming Eagles Squadron

Chapter 49

              “All right, you two!” Rat-Trap’s voice came through speakers on the sides of his helmet.  “It’s time to dust these lab rats!” he motioned toward the High-Born as he looked at Stone and D-Con.  “Hold the line!  Stone, give us some cover!”

             
“With pleasure!” Stone smiled.

             
Stone turned his attention to the ground and slightly squatted while lowering his hands, and then stood as if lifting something heavy.  As he raised his hands, the ground rumbled and jagged formations of the dark-colored, glittering rock rose from the earth in front of him, Rat-Trap, and D-Con.  The two armored soldiers clanked as they ran and took up position at either end of the newly-formed barrier.

             
They were right on the edge of the massive crater that Blaze and Aireon had created and Stone’s first wall was just behind them, and beyond that was an open space full of fighting. And just in front of them was the burning cityscape full of advancing High-Born.

             
“Sir!” D-Con called.  “I’ve got two tanks rounding the corner, and four or five more attempting to flank.”

             
“I’ve got a column about 150 meters out, and it looks like about a half-dozen attempting to flank!” Rat-Trap answered.

             
Both of them used the edge to cover themselves, and fired on a separate tank.  They scored direct hits, but the tanks actually survived the blasts despite being clearly damaged.  They returned fire and Rat-Trap and D-Con snapped their arms back as rail spikes hit their cover.

             
“Uh, oh,” Rat-Trap said.

             
“I see them too, sir,” D-Con answered.

             
Several gunships were flying down the city streets using the natural corridor that the buildings created for cover from the roaring fighter jets.  As they went through the shadows cast by the buildings, they would all but disappear, but when they re-entered the light shining from above, they once again came into full view.  Ground troops and mechanoids were jumping out of them, firing as they advanced. 

             
Harold could hardly believe that they were sending them in, but then he realized that they knew that he and Gabby were badly hurt and could not stop them.  They obviously did not know about Stone because Harold had already recognized that he was many times stronger than both him and Gabby, and was apparently nearly bullet proof.  Ground troops, not even High-Born grunts and their mechanoids, would stand a chance against him.

             
Rat-Trap and D-Con leaned around their cover and opened up with their rail guns.  Explosions sounded and the cloaks on several gunships failed, but they returned fire, and several of the tanks did also.  It amazed Harold at how stout the rocks Stone could raise actually were.  Rail guns could tear through steel and concrete as easily as they could wood, but the spikes just ricocheted or imbedded in the rock.  Harold could see pieces of the rocks shearing off, so they wouldn’t last forever, but their resiliency was incredible.

             
Several missiles darted above them, and slammed into the gunships.  Debris and fire showered down into the city beyond as one of the fighter jets passed above them, rail cannons ripping into several more gunships as the burning buildings rattled in the wake of its trailing thunder.  As it streaked back off into the orange sky, Rat-Trap and D-Con peeked out again and popped off several more shots, then ducked back behind the wall as more rail spikes slammed into it.

             
The ground began rumbling and Harold looked at Stone.  He was yelling at the top of his lungs and stomping the ground furiously in the direction of one of the larger buildings.  The remains of the building that had not been blown away or already shot up were still about eight to ten stories tall.  Tanks were on the backside of it and had begun shooting through it, and rail spikes were impacting part of Stone’s outer barrier.  Harold noticed that the building was starting to crumble as Rat-Trap and D-Con darted in and out of cover, constantly firing.  Then, missile blasts impacted the barriers and a momentary fire whipped through their central area as part of the explosion got over Stone’s walls.  Harold covered Gabby, and quickly looked back up.  Stone apparently had not been affected, and was now raising his hands like he was lifting something.  Rat-Trap and D-Con seemed fine as well, and he gave them a thumb’s up.

             
The building that Stone was trying to fell finally began collapsing.  And with a massive, but sudden upsurge of the ground in front of it, Stone sent waves of falling steel and concrete crashing down onto at least a half-dozen tanks on the backside of the building.  A wave of smoke, dust, and ash shot out from the building as it became rubble.

             
“What is their problem?” D-Con shouted above the cacophony.  “We’re lighting them up!  They should’ve already retreated!”

             
“They know how important these two are!” Rat-Trap answered as he pointed at Harold and Gabby.  “They know they’ll likely not get another chance at them if we can extract them.  The Angry Angels report that sat-intel shows lab rat reinforcements are inbound.  A whole bunch of them, in fact.  It looks like they’ve even dispatched bats, too.  The bats’ ETA is about fifteen minutes, and the main battle group is about fifteen minutes behind them.  I doubt the bats will engage without the battle group though, even they couldn’t handle the firepower we have here right now.  The Angry Angels also report that about 85 percent of the enemy force has been eliminated, but the remainder seems to be rallying to push on our position while these guys keep us pinned.”

             
“They really want these two dead, huh?” D-Con said as he pointed toward Harold and Gabby.  “They’re keepin’ it too hot for a clean extract.”

             
D-Con turned around to face them, and a panel on his chest suddenly opened.  A mechanical ball floated out from the housing.  It rose slightly above the barrier, and two panels on his shoulders opened, and four missiles shot straight up into the air, and suddenly streaked back down and explosions sounded from the other side of the barrier.

             
“That got two of those tanks,” D-Con shouted as the ball returned to his chest piece.

             
Harold looked behind them, toward the open space.  No High-Born could get them that way.  The explosions had slowed down considerably, but hundreds of soldiers like Rat-Trap and D-Con were literally swarming the sky above the battlefield, rapidly destroying what remained of the High-Born that had been caught in the open space. 

             
Beyond all of that fighting, he could see three of the fighter jets circling the city, just below the tops of the skyscrapers, disappearing and reappearing as they passed behind the burning buildings.  The white eagles’ eyes glowed as their rail guns blistered the ground and air while they twisted in between incoming friction trails.  There was also some kind of bright pieces of light that resembled sparks coming out of them that destroyed missiles that were being launched at them.

             
In the city in front of them, many High-Born grunts were firing from the corners of the buildings now, making their customary amazing leaps across points of cover.  Tanks and mechanoids were zigzagging back and forth, firing as they moved ever forward.  Several gunships buzzed toward them with their cannons blazing, but friction trails and missiles streaked above the buildings, and three of the fighter jets screamed overhead as more explosions echoed from within the city. 

             
As the thunder from the jets’ most recent attack run passed over Harold, he felt that he had nearly regained all of his faculties.  Movement to his right caught his attention, and in between some buildings he saw another gunship firing at them.  Its rail spikes pelted Stone’s barriers, and it looked like it was about to launch rockets.  A massive rush of water erupted from the ground beneath it and hit its wing with such force that it began flipping and twisting and then crashed into a building before tumbling to the ground in a heap.  Another gunship turned to face something just out of his field of vision, and he saw a surge of water splash over it, and the water froze almost instantly.  It too, crashed to the ground, but it was encased in a craggy piece of ice.

             
Harold saw Stone cast a glance in that direction and smile.

             
Then, something that looked like massive spikes of ice slammed into a tank so hard that it toppled over.  He noticed something swirling in the air.  At first, he couldn’t tell what it was, just that it was beautiful.  Several tentacles of silvery water were spiraling through the air toward them.  They grew in number and size quickly, and then seemed to meld together to become a wall of water that was somehow suspended by an invisible power.  Suddenly, it all flash froze, and a girl with olive skin and dark hair flowing behind her dashed around the corner of a building sprinting towards them.  Harold was amazed at how fast she could run, and he immediately knew that she was like him, Gabby, and Stone, but somehow different too.

             
Rail spikes slammed into the wall of ice, and though it cracked, it stopped a few rounds.  Harold could see the girl’s palm facing the ground as she ran, and water droplets were appearing in the air and falling to the ground, flash freezing into something that resembled a slide.  The ice wall shattered, and Harold thought she was about to be pulverized by rail spikes, but she dove feet first on the ground and slid the rest of the way to them, rail spikes streaking above her.  She nimbly popped up to her feet when she was behind Stone’s wall.

             
Stone pointed toward Harold and Gabby, and Harold could see that the girl was nearly crying with happiness.

             
“I was afraid we wouldn’t make it in time,” she said to Harold and smiled widely.  “I’m River, and we’re going to get you two out of here!”

             
She turned toward the besieging High-Born force, and twirled her hands around, spiraling and twisting them as if she were sculpting a piece of art.  Water droplets began collecting and quickly became silvery runnels that formed themselves into a ball of water in between her hands.  Harold noticed that she moved and looked exactly like he did when he was learning to form fireballs from nothingness.  She released the water toward the High-Born and it instantly became icicles that shot out into the city.  But they were not ordinary icicles because they actually penetrated the armor of the grunts, but the tanks weathered her blasts better.

             
Harold heard something zipping above his head, and he looked up.  A couple of friction trails were passing above him, and he followed them back to the open space.  The shots were coming from a soldier like Rat-Trap and D-Con who was standing atop a pile of rubble about 150 yards away.  Harold looked at the various piles of wreckage and could see other soldiers climbing and landing on top of them and training their weapons on the city beyond.  One by one, they also began firing into the High-Born force, and in just a few moments the air above Harold was full of friction trails.

             
Movement caught his attention and Harold looked at the ground below and in front of those soldiers.  They were covering the advance of dozens of more armored warriors who were storming towards him.  Wakes of dust and ash kicked up behind them as the sun reflected in their dark-tinted visors.

             
About twenty yards to his left, two more like Rat-Trap and D-Con landed behind some tank rubble, both firing into the city.  Just over thirty yards to his right, three more landed and used some building rubble for cover.  Two opened up with their rail cannons and one released some missiles.  Several sprinted up behind them, all taking up position behind Stone’s barriers, and began firing.  Then, the sky began raining with the warriors, armor clanking and the ground thudding as they landed. 

             
Harold felt something around his neck. 

             
He looked down to see Gabby hugging him and weeping with joy and relief as she buried her head in his chest.  He returned her hug as he kissed her on top of her head, and he felt her squeeze him tighter. 

             
Harold looked around.

             
Stone’s eyes were glowing fiercely as he raised rock formation after rock formation for the eagle-wearing soldiers to take cover behind.  River’s eyes were flashing blue as she stood defiantly, slinging ice spikes into the city.  And there was a solid line of the armored warriors who all wore the same red, white, and blue symbol, blasting away.  The intensity of the bombardment they were unleashing was as powerful as anything he had ever seen the High-Born bring to battle.

             
The barrage continued for several seconds, and then the soldiers began ceasing fire, and some squatted while others sat with their back against their cover.  Stone and River looked at each other, confused, and Harold noticed Rat-Trap and D-Con motioning for everyone to get down while pointing to the open space behind them.

             
Harold followed his finger tips to the northwestern part of the city.  At first, he did not see anything.  Then, he saw movement just below the building tops.  The fighter jets were disappearing and reappearing in between the buildings of the city skyline, and they almost seemed to be flying on their sides.  As they came into full view, Harold felt and heard the thunder coming from where they had just been.  They banked and sped towards the fighting, then leveled off and Harold noticed that they were flying in a V formation.  One was leading, and three were down either side.