The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (34 page)

“Jesus Christ, this is insane!
We're all sitting ducks!” Ward whispered.

Revolution positioned himself in
front of his team. Ward could take a rifle blast unless it hit him in the face,
Sophia could take a few too, but her neck was exposed, and Rachel had no
protection. “Just stay calm—Helius, don't!” Sophia put her arms down. One more
second and she would have ignited her bracelets. “No provocations,” he
said.  

Above and below, the Minutemen,
missing years of training, spun and aimed at phantoms in the dark. At
laser-scope lights lancing through the black. At any and everything, because it
all felt like a threat. It all felt like it could kill you right now. The only
way to see the enemy was to look at an RDSD, but that meant taking your eyes
off of the scope lights and where they were aiming. The fear-drenched Minutemen
raised and lowered their weapons in panic, not knowing where to aim, who might
shoot, from which direction death might burst.

It was madness.

“If you don’t want a war, you’d
better turn back now!” Arbor said.

Revolution’s mind was reeling.
Arbor was right about one thing. A firefight at this close of range, in this
small of a space, with all these guns, would be a bloodbath. He needed to find
a way out of this. Otherwise, death awaited them all.

And then it happened. From
somewhere among the ranks of the nerve-addled Minutemen...

A single shot.

It came up from the lower levels.
The scariest place to be. The red-hot metal zinged off the steel of the
banister one level below the Suns and ricocheted its way up. It all happened so
fast and with so many distractions that no one, other than the shooter, knew
who had fired. The only thing anyone knew was the only thing they all felt in
common:

They were all under attack.

The black was engulfed in daylight
as all forty-plus rifles opened fire.

“Hudson, get your men out!”
Revolution said into his com. There was no response. Cutting through the black
like a meteor shower, the volley of gunfire consumed the open space. Bullets
rained from everywhere, up and down, below, behind. Everywhere.

Arbor and X-Ray watched the mêlée.
Arbor motioned to his companions, and they backed out toward the door on their
side. Arbor fired his flamethrower into the level above him as Minutemen took
aim at his chest. Bullets clanged off everything they touched that wasn’t
flesh. And then the unthinkable happened...

A glowing bullet fired from the
rifle of a Council Guardsman zipped past Revolution’s head. It had come from
below and to his right. He spun to see it rip through a Minuteman a floor above
him. A huge hole, illuminated by the impact, opened up in the man’s chest, and
he fell. Somersaulting over the banister into the black.

A wave of laser projectiles
blasted at the Suns from two floors below them and to their right. The
luminescent bullets sliced through everything: concrete, steel, flesh. The
Revolution watched them zing past him in horror. Even his suit would be little
protection. For now, at least, the Guards seemed focused on taking out the
Minutemen. This gave them a small chance to escape, but only at the expense of
the lives of the Minutemen. Instinctively, he moved back toward the hallway
from which they had entered the cell house, but Sophia balked.

“We have to go forward! The
chamber is forward!” she yelled.

Revolution knew she was right.
Getting to the chamber was more important than ever now that the Council had
these weapons. The problem was that the door on the other end was still twice
as far away from them as the door they had come through.

“How the hell did they get
those
?”
Ward yelled, meaning the bullets. None of them knew the answer.

“All right. We go forward,”
Revolution said. Just as the body of another Minuteman plummeted past them from
an upper floor. Revolution looked at Rachel. “Stay behind me,” he told her. “Helius,”
he said, turning to Sophia, “give us cover from the left!”

“Hell yes,” she said, and let
loose a blistering barrage of energy blasts at the Council Guard to their left.

“Stay between us,” Revolution said
to Ward and Rachel. They stepped behind him just as a hail of bullets rained
down. Revolution could feel bullets pinging off his armor. Every impact sent a
familiar jolt of pain through him. They were high-powered rounds, like those
from the X-1s. The painkillers began swimming in his bloodstream. And then one
of the luminescent shells zinged past his face. Illuminating his armor in the
dark. Too close.

Arbor got to the door. Just as he
stepped though to safety he yelled down at the Guardsmen with luminescent
rifles, “Aim for the legs! Take them down and take them out!”

With Arbor’s words, Revolution
watched in horror as the Guardsmen firing the luminescence turned their rifle
scopes at him and the other Suns. They lowered their aim, ready to fire at
their legs and cut them down. Revolution knew that “taken out” meant taken out
of here. Taken alive. That’s what Sage always wanted. They would cripple the
Suns, and then soon enough they would be captives again. No way was he letting
that happen.

But they were all sitting ducks.
He had to think fast. They were taking aim now. None of the Suns had protection
against those guns.

No, that wasn’t true. They had one
way to stop them. Revolution drew out his whip. At one time he’d had dozens of
these. Now this was the last whip still charged with luminescence. Once this
whip’s charge was used up there would be no more unless they could get to the
Fire Fly chamber. It was all he could think of. He was out of time.

The glowing bullets flew from the
Guards’ barrels as they opened fire. He spun the whip like a propeller, and it
lit up the night in chartreuse power.

This had two effects. It created a
virtual force field that, at least initially, disintegrated the oncoming
bullets. And it also drew all their fire.

The Council Guards unloaded on
him. Bullets of all types were firing in from everywhere out of the black.
Above, below. How could he stop them all? His arm felt like it would rip out of
the socket. Sweat rolled down inside the armor. He couldn't hold it off
forever—like steel shrapnel blasting against a metal wall, both bullets and
whip were battered by the force of the contact. The whip began to shred against
the supercharged artillery.

The makeshift force field was
shrinking rapidly. He tried to keep the span of the whip low to the floor as it
rotated, protecting their legs. But as its radius shortened, the shielding it
provided up top began to shrink away. It was going to be a choice: protect his
team from a life-ending headshot or a freedom-ending blast to the legs.

No way to win that one.

Revolution pointed forward. “We’ve
got to move!” he growled at the other Suns. They moved together. They made for
an awkward machine. A glowing propeller in the front, sapphire blasts of energy
from the rear, and Ward and Rachel cowering in between, just trying to stay
alive.

Sophia fired into the levels below
and above. She incinerated two Guardsmen instantly, causing the Guards around
them to scatter. She lowered her head so the glider helmet’s bulletproof visor
shielded her throat from the onslaught.

Ward kept Rachel close. At least
he had some protection. She had none. At least that’s why he told himself he
was doing it. He bear-hugged her as best he could, keeping his hands over her
head. He just prayed they would get to the door in time.

A terrifying thought raced through
Revolution’s mind: what if Arbor was waiting in ambush on the other side of the
door?  What if, any second from now, he kicked it in and opened fire with
the flamethrower? Or he was just sitting in wait until they got there? No choice
but to take that chance. “Helius, you’re through that door first!” he yelled.
She’d have to handle Arbor. He had to keep the force field going.

“Got it!” she replied.

The Minutemen either saw the Suns
trying to escape, or Hudson had ordered them to provide more cover. Either way,
they gave up any safety for themselves and charged to the railings, leaning
over, opening fire on the Guardsmen in furious fashion. The barrage of gun
blasts caught the Guardsmen by surprise, but the move took its toll on the Minutemen.
Several took direct hits and somersaulted past the Suns.

Ward and Rachel could do nothing
but watch them fall to their deaths. Just trying to give the Suns a few more
seconds to flee. Below them, on the ground floor, Council Guards were aiming all
their fury at the Revolution and his bright whip. They two-stepped it across
the walkway, and finally they arrived at the door. Revolution spun around so
that he was in front of the door, the others all behind him. They all moved
together, Ward and Rachel staying low between them as Sophia reached for the
door. She swung it open and stepped through, arms out in front of her. She was
ready to kill anything she saw. What she saw was...

Nothing.

Ward was right behind her, still
hugging Rachel. When he saw Sophia step through unharmed, he shoved Rachel
forward —and they all slipped through untouched. Revolution backed through and
slammed the door shut. They took off down the hall as fast as they could, well
aware that luminescent bullets could pass easily through concrete walls.

Inside the cell block, the dark
turned to daylight in constant, seizure-inducing spurts. The wounded and the
dead fell, more bodies somersaulting off the walkways from both sides.

A mutual disaster.

“General!” It was Parker Hudson’s voice.
“I'm still here. We're backing out. We'll keep them occupied here as long as we
can. Get to the Cookie Jar, sir.” Inside his armor, Revolution smiled. That guy
had guts. The
Cookie Jar
was the code name for the Fire Fly chamber.

Rachel looked up from the RDSD.

“It's this way,” she said. And
they all thought about where Lithium might be waiting in ambush. Which corner
was he going to come bounding around to kill them? He could be anywhere.

CHAPTER
54

H
ollis
grimaced at the locator. An image on the screen was fading in and out. A large
bogie, changing shape and size. The density reading for the bogie kept
fluctuating, but it had stabilized for the dozens of smaller signals, the one’s
he had identified as AAVs.

There was something weird about that
big one. Something he’d never seen before.

He zoomed deeper.

Finally, he stopped, pulled out
the gun-like device he’d used on the bottom of the destroyers. Flicked it to a
different setting and pointed it into the darkness. A bright red beam pulsed into
the fathoms. Something glimmered in the red light far down in the black. The
gun illuminated and magnified a field of vision for the user. Hollis squinted
to see it.

From a distance, Hunley's small
figure was dwarfed by the massive outline of glimmers popping in the far
distance. The bogie was massive...

Suddenly, a large metal tentacle,
cast in bright scarlet, snaked out of the darkness at blinding speed,
whipsawing through the water. Hollis tried to jet away, but the thing was too
fast even for him.

It whipped at him and then seemed
to pass right by him. It should have hit him, but there was nothing. Like a
beam of light had passed right through him.

And then he felt the strangest
sensation. Just a tug, a knot in his midsection. It could have been a stomach
cramp.

He dropped the scanner.

He didn't know why. His hand just
opened. The gun spiraled into the darkness. Instinctively, he clutched his gut.
But instead of his wet suit, he felt a warm flow of current and a rubbery substance
swish between his fingers.

Hollis swooned.

He felt the dull nub of bone and
sinew. He felt the jelly of the human body. He peered down to see he was
holding a chunk of his own intestines. The machine had severed his body at the
waist. His brain had gone into shock and he had yet to feel the pain, and as
his world went black, at least he would die with the comfort of knowing he
never would.

The lifeless body of Ramsey Hollis
spun into the depths in two pieces.

Sophia charged the bracelets. Bright blue rings of
energy radiated power. She fired them at the door, and it was incinerated in an
instant. The Suns of Liberty spilled into a cavernous room only to find it
empty.

“The hell? The whole Fire Fly
chamber was right here. Right here,” Sophia said.

Revolution peered about the room,
searching for clues, finding nothing. The room was spotless. Too clean. He
thought about how they just been set up. Thought about the luminescent bullets.
The answer was terrifyingly clear. “Council's got it. Explains the bullets,”
Revolution said.

Ward glanced back at the doorway,
heard the continued gunfire in the background. “Let's get the hell outta here.”

Revolution turned to the Suns and
spoke into his com so that everyone could hear him. “We can't leave Hudson.
Commander, we're coming to get you. Hold on.”

Static clipped over their coms,
and Hudson's energized voice bounced back, “Don't worry about us. We're beating
it back and so are they.” Then his voice turned somber. “We're leaving a lot
behind.”

On the banks of Boston Harbor, the water began to
glow white. A long line of alabaster spread across the waves. And then shiny
steel orbs with bright spotlights built into their faces, called
Spores—basketball-sized, covered in spikes—launched out of the waves. The
Spores flew into the streets. Robotic, precise, and built to intimidate and
kill, their only two purposes. They passed by The Old North Church. They
tracked ahead at high speed and located their digital target: Lantern's
activation signal for the Minutemen. A burst of velocity and they were on his
trail. Even the Harley Vision 5000s were no match for the speed of an
intercontinental Spore, designed to fly across the world in a matter of hours.