Just Cause: Revised & Expanded Edition (39 page)

Estella set Faith down about thirty yards away from the crash site. “I can’t carry you any further,” she said, panting with the exertion, “but you should be safe enough here. Are you all right?”

Faith nodded. She felt a sharp twinge in her abdomen that might have been a contraction.
Where was Bobby
?

Estella’s body became consumed in flames as she activated all her powers and truly became Sunstorm. She flew off like a phoenix, heading for the burning wreckage with a vengeance. She drew the flames away from the plane, pulling them through the air into her own fire.

Faith gasped as another contraction rocked her.
No, it’s too soon
! In a few seconds it was over, and then Grace Devereaux was kneeling down next to her, holding her hand and calming her. Faith could see Lane towering above, standing protectively over them. Unwilling to leave his daughter, he dug in his pocket, considering, then handed his keys to Jean-Michel.

“
Apportez l’auto
,” he said.

“
Mais, Grand-père…
” the boy began nervously.

Lane smiled at the boy, sadness in his eyes from the events that had transpired. “
Je vous fais confiance
.”
I trust you
. Jean-Michel gulped and ran toward the distant car, keys held in front of him like a holy talisman.

The other heroes tore apart the plane with frantic intensity as they searched for the missing. Danger was obviously dead. “I can’t find a pulse!” Crackerjack shouted. He was crouching by Lionheart. Imp was shrinking pieces of the plane while Juice tossed them aside.

Faith suffered through another contraction, squeezing Grace’s hand. She tried to remember her breathing techniques, but she and Bobby weren’t due to go to Lamaze classes until next month.
Where was Bobby
?

Sunstorm gave a roar of dismay, the sound of a plasma jet slicing through sheet metal, as she found her sister amid the wreckage. She gathered up the body in arms aflame and lifted her as easily as if she were a child. Sundancer’s arms and legs dangled in a way that would be impossible if she were still living.

“
There
!” Imp cried, and pointed at a piece of wreckage, shrinking it to the size of a postage stamp. Juice pushed another piece aside and came upon the remains of poor Fast Break, who had tried to knock Bobby clear of the plane only to be crushed by one of the engines. Somehow, though, he was still alive. He gasped in agony through the shattered remains of his crash helmet.

Juice shouted, “Timekeeper, get him into stasis!”

The Timekeeper stepped up and created a bubble of frozen time around Fast Break.

Where was Bobby
?

They found him underneath the tail. Fast Break had nearly succeeded in saving Faith’s husband. He was alive, but only barely with a critical head wound.

“Bag him up, Timekeeper,” said Juice.

“Already on it.” Another bubble of frozen time formed around Bobby. There was still hope.

Faith heard sirens faintly, and her next contraction wasn’t so severe. “Help’s on its way,” said Grace, as the Timekeeper put another stasis bubble around Bobby.

“Where the hell is the pilot?” Juice shouted. He’d torn open the remains of the canopy. “There’s nobody in here!”

A high-pitched whistling sound rose over the confusion. Foxfire was the first to get it. “It’s a trap!
Incoming
!” An object was diving from on high, and it was moving fast, a pair of contrails streaking in its wake.

Steel Soldier’s eye lenses whirred as it focused on the intruder. “
B
ATTLESUIT.
U
NKNOWN CONFIGURATION.
H
OSTILE INTENT ASSUMED.
I
NTERCEPTING.
”
The Soldier snapped on its wings and blue alcohol flames shot out, incinerating a hedge. The robotic hero blasted into the sky like a missile. Half a second later, Sunstorm and Javelin followed suit.

Imp shrank Bobby and Fast Break down to doll size within their stasis bubbles, then she and the Timekeeper hurried to get them to safety inside a nearby mausoleum.

Foxfire had no obvious powers. Like the original Dr. Danger, she depended largely on athletic prowess and technological assistance to battle for Just Cause. Instead of arrows, her specialty was explosives and demolition. She followed the others into the mausoleum, pulling her first aid kit out.

Another contraction hit Faith, and she winced with the pain.
Not yet
, she told her unborn daughter.
You’re not finished
. She faintly heard the sound of an engine and a car braked uncertainly behind her. She craned her head around to see Jean-Michel peeking over the rim of the steering wheel of a Cadillac. Lane ordered him to help Grace with Faith, then slid behind the wheel.

Between the wiry ten-year-old and his mother, they managed to get the ungainly Faith into the passenger seat of the Caddy. Grace and her son climbed into the back and Lane put the car in gear.

“No,” said Faith, choking on her own tears. “We can’t leave. The others might need us.”

“We’ve got to get you to a hospital,” said Grace. “I don’t have anything with me to get your contractions stopped.”

“Absolutely not!” Faith clenched her teeth, willing her body to obey her. “I won’t leave without Bobby.”

“All right,” Grace said. “But I’m timing your contractions. If they get any closer together, I don’t care what you want, we’re leaving.”

The armored figure dropping from the sky fired braking rockets and slowed. Sunstorm, Javelin, and the Steel Soldier surrounded it. The angular armor was a uniform dark blue and looked like something out of an imported Japanese cartoon show. The head turned slightly, examining the Just Cause heroes surrounding it.

“
D
O NOT MOVE
,”
the Steel Soldier said. “
W
E HAVE YOU SURROUNDED.
S
TATE YOUR BUSINESS
.”
The fifteen-foot-high battlesuit raised a hand and spat a bright globule of energy at the Soldier. The Soldier attempted to dodge but the globule expanded and enveloped the robot in a nimbus of sparks. “
S
KZZRRT …
” The Steel Soldier’s voice failed as the halo of energy condensed into an actinic point in its torso.

Then the Soldier exploded. Pieces of arms and legs flew in all directions. Irreplaceable components burned and shattered.

“
Stupid machine,
” said a digitized voice from the battlesuit. “
I never should have fixed it in the first place.
”

It was Harlan Washington, the Destroyer.

“Oh, no!” Faith groaned, forgetting her pain for a moment.

Javelin shouted, “Cook him!” He and Sunstorm cut loose with full power. A curved shield unfolded from each of Destroyer’s arms. Sunstorm’s flame splashed across one, harmlessly deflected into the sky. The other shield blocked Javelin’s energy bolts, simply trapping them in whatever material from which it was made.

There was a flash of smoke and flame from a unit mounted on Destroyer’s shoulder. Twelve miniature missiles, each no longer than a foot, arced out, zeroing in on Javelin. He yelped in surprise and dove for the ground as the missiles turned to follow like a horde of angry bees. He bounced off a heavy gravestone, sparks flying from his burnished armor. The missiles struck the gravestone and exploded, sending granite splinters flying in all directions.

Destroyer trained his hand-cannon on Sunstorm. “I
’ve got nothing against you. This is personal between me and them. Leave now
.”

Sunstorm growled and sent a bright stream of plasma hotter than the sun at Destroyer’s weapon hand. “Personal? I’ll show you personal!” Metal bubbled and ran like melting butter. “You killed my sister, you son of a bitch!”

“
Your problem, hero. Here’s another.
” Something sharp and shining lanced out from Destroyer’s damaged arm, struck Sunstorm in her chest, and poked out of her back. It was a wickedly barbed spear.

Sunstorm looked down at it in surprise. She raised her head slowly, red flames flashing in her eyes. “You stupid asshole. You might as well try to spear a campfire.” To illustrate her point, she simply moved aside, letting the spear slide out of her flaming side.

It gave Destroyer pause, and he dropped out of the sky like a stone before she could light him up with another plasma stream. Powerful shock absorbers took the impact of the heavy battlesuit striking the ground. The suit’s feet sank a few inches into the dirt.

Juice crouched down by one of the lampposts along the path, tore open the electrical access plate, and grabbed hold of the wiring. The lights flashed and then burned out in a tinkling of broken glass as he drained electricity from the surrounding grid to fuel his own abilities.

Javelin picked himself up from amid a pile of granite pieces. He stood gingerly, bleeding from several deep gouges. His left arm hung useless and broken.

Imp flew in front of Destroyer, scolding him like an angry hummingbird. “Harlan, just what do you think you’re doing?”

Destroyer batted a hand at her that would have turned her into paste if it had connected. “Just a little payback, dear sister. I spent five years in hell because of you people.”

“Juvie hall,” called Javelin. “And you earned it, you little bastard. They shoulda locked you up for good.”

A multi-barreled gun lifted out of Destroyer’s undamaged arm and fired, barrels spinning in a blur. Jack leaped in front of Javelin, who was caught unawares. The stream of bullets drove him back and both men went tumbling over the rubble. Javelin hollered as his broken arm twisted.

Juice came crashing in, wrenching the gun loose in a shriek of overstressed metal. “I’m going to tear your ass right out of there,” he shouted. “And when I’m done with you, you’ll wish you were back in juvie!” He sank his fingers into the armor plating and tore a piece free.

“Watch it, Juice, he’s clever,” Imp warned, but not in time. A puff of white gas shot out of a hidden nozzle into Juice’s face. The dark-skinned man coughed once, then his eyes rolled up and he dropped heavily to the ground.

“Get clear, Irlene!” Sunstorm opened up, raining flames down on Destroyer as if she had opened the very gates of Hell.

Destroyer staggered under the onslaught, trying to hold the shield up. With his other hand, he yanked a gravestone out of the ground and hurled it at Sunstorm. The heavy missile splashed right through her and melted into slag. Her body reformed once again. “I’m coming after you next time, you bitch!”

“There won’t be any next time. You’ll burn before I’m done with you.” Sunstorm’s flame was so bright it was actually painful to look at, casting new shadows in the daylight. Jack dragged Juice clear, clothes smoking from the nearness to the inferno Sunstorm had unleashed.

Something exploded in the battlesuit, causing everyone to look away. Faith saw something rising very fast out of the torso, riding a pillar of flame that paled in comparison to Sunstorm’s. As she watched, stubby wings snapped out of it and it accelerated at an unbelievable pace. Sunstorm made a half-hearted attempt to pursue, but it was much faster than her and she was exhausted from the amount of energy she’d expended. She sank to the grass, shaking and spent.

In the distance, Faith heard all the sirens in the world approaching. She felt faint and realized she’d been holding her breath. Unable to take a deep breath because of her daughter pressing against her diaphragm, she panted a little and spots appeared in her vision. It occurred to her faintly that she hadn’t had any more contractions. Grace was massaging her wrists.

Bobby
.

“It’ll be all right,” Grace kept saying, like a soothing litany. “Bobby’s in stasis.”

“Eight years,” Faith murmured, watching numbly as emergency vehicles began pouring into the cemetery.

Grace asked, “What did you say?”

“Eight years,” said Faith. “He’s been nursing that grudge against us for eight years. We can’t fight that kind of hatred. We can only hope to survive it.”

Roll Call: the Teams of the Just Cause Universe

Project Circus

Project Circus, known colloquially as
The Freakshow
, was formed in the summer of 1940 by the U.S. Army in conjunction with a French researcher, Dr. Georges Devereaux. It was a team of special operatives designed to exploit the first documented American parahumans. In 1941, the four
exceptional talents—
Strongman, Flicker, Meteor, and Sounder—were sent to operate in the European theater and were instrumental in helping the French Resistance.

Meteor and Sounder were killed in action in 1942 with the destruction of Aufstein Castle, and Strongman and Flicker were seriously injured. Project Circus was officially disbanded later that same year.

Project Shetland

Project Shetland, also known as
The Dog and Pony Show
, was formed in late 1941 by Georges Devereaux after he discovered additional American parahumans: Colt, Gray, and Flashpoint. If Project Circus was a low-profile operation, Project Shetland was practically invisible. With a membership that included a woman, a black man, and an American Indian, the team was very unpopular and was given missions of little consequence in the Pacific Theater. Despite the lack of support, Project Shetland functioned very well and succeeded brilliantly in every assigned mission.

Project Shetland was officially disbanded in 1943.

American Justice

American Justice was founded in 1946 by the surviving members of Projects Circus and Shetland. Having served their country across two oceans, the heroes turned their attention to America’s growing crime problems. In 1949, Flicker and Gray were killed battling Nazi agents and mobsters in New York. Later that year, Dr. Danger joined American Justice. Strongman was seriously injured in 1951 and later died from his injuries.