Seven Wonders (50 page)

  Both heroes affirmed the order, and Aurora swept upwards and forwards, the Thuban vessel looming suddenly in his vision. The Dragon Star hitched his support platform to Mr Carnay's beside him, and together with Bluebell joined Aurora.

  "Assessment, Dragon Star."

  The former detective floated in space in his blue suit, powerstaff raised outwards, bright colors shimmering over its entire length.

  "I fear the nature of the Thuban makes them invulnerable to us."

  Bluebell swore, uncharacteristically. "Why couldn't you have told us this to start with?"

  The Dragon Star shook his head. "I am sorry, I did not know. The Thuban have many forms. When I knew them, conventional technology was used as well as energy forms such as this. The communications I received were transmitted with technology."

  "You mean you assumed?" Aurora's question was put plainly, but Bluebell could detect anger underneath it.

  "Assumed, no," said the Dragon Star. "The inference was logical. But I have not seen a craft like this before."

  The ship seemed to move so slowly through space, but Bluebell knew it was deceptive. The vastness of space and the size of the object offered no point of reference. She noticed the assault lull as the superheroes re-gathered, awaiting further commands.

  "Are we safe?"

  The Dragon Star nodded. "The warship is pure energy, configured to consume the Earth. That is its sole purpose. We cannot stop it, but it cannot attack us."

  There was no sound in space, but Aurora's head exploded with noise. He cried out, clutching the sides of his head. He spun out of control, and saw Bluebell and the Dragon Star likewise writhing in torment before they were all caught in a ray projected from the Thuban, sweeping like a searchlight across the battlefield. The psychic cries of the superheroes pummeled Aurora's mind. Aurora shook his head and focused, realizing that if the psychic trauma of the assembled heroes had managed to penetrate his mind, Bluebell must have been in serious pain. He turned again, and reached out to his wife.

  Aurora held Bluebell, and they tumbled through space, free now from the Thuban beam as it passed over them. Bluebell lost consciousness. Aurora gritted his teeth as his sun powers burnt out the alien attack from within him. He realized his eyes were shut. Opening them, he saw nothing but carnage.

  Bodies, floating in space. At least half of the superheroes, if not more. Those that had survived the blast, or had been beyond its reach, swooped in, collecting the incapacitated and wounded. As the static in Aurora's comm finally cleared, and the ringing in his ears started to subside, he began to hear the reports. Many, many, many dead. Many not responding. Some checking in injured, some reporting as they flew in to assist. Looking back towards the Earth, Aurora could only count two out of the four support platforms for the raiding parties. Farther below, black shapes drifted down towards the Earth's atmosphere. Aurora searched and saw that Paragon was safe, for now, in the support bubble held by Helix, Sand Cat running in her spirit form beside them. The feeling of relief was mixed with one of guilt as he recounted the names of the heroes who had died in the vacuum of space as their supportive environments collapsed. Just a small handful were saved by the quick action of Helix and Doctor Mandragora, who both shot out capturing energy streams to collect those they could reach.

  Bluebell's eyes fluttered open. She was alive, but her fight was over. She needed to be taken back to the moonbase, quickly. Aurora patched in Linear and a second later Bluebell was taken from his arms in a silver flash.

  Aurora's comm began filling with static again, and he realized that this was the "ship" charging the weapon again. He made the call. They had no alternative.

  "Retreat. All superheroes, retreat. Move behind it, back to the moon."

  Responses came, a mix of protest and agreement, but were soon drowned out by the rush of white noise. A point on the glowing, amorphous form of the Thuban warship flashed brighter, and the cone of death swept outwards again. The heroes were ready for it, and as Aurora watched the beam cross the battlefield he saw the remaining heroes fly up or down, out of its path. Numerous bodies were caught in the ray again, thrown twisting and turning through the vacuum. They'd be able to recover most, but some heroes were doomed to a grave in space – perhaps all of them, himself included. The thought caused Aurora's aura to flicker and cool. Hanging in space, the leader of the Seven Wonders faded from a bright red to a dark blue.

  The Thuban death ray snapped off, and the ship continued on its inexorable journey to the Earth.

Tony staggered into the armory. The chamber was buried at the center of the moonbase to protect against meteor strike and supervillain attack, but was unlocked. The only people who ever entered the moonbase were superheroes, so there was no need for internal security. If any supervillain could penetrate the heart of the base − and none ever had, and there were no supervillains left, so it was academic anyway − then stealing some small arms and laser blasters wouldn't have done the bad guys any good, not when faced with the solar explosion that was Aurora, or the alien power of the Dragon Star.

  Currently, the armory was empty anyway. Tony leaned heavily on Jeannie. The room was a pointed ellipse, like an eye, the curved walls concealing the weapons racks. At the far end, in the opposite point of the ellipse, was a floor-to-ceiling steel column with a square door set at head height. A safe of some kind, designed to hold the most dangerous of weapons. Aurora had been quick to place the supercharged power core in it.

  As the trio approached, Jeannie went on about quantum stasis fields and the reversal of entropy, but Sam just tuned her out. She didn't care whether it worked, only if Jeannie could open the safe.

  "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Sam asked. When she'd wielded the power − which she had no memory of − she'd killed Joe and the Living Dark. The fact that Tony had somehow survived and even been brought back to life was another issue. The power had been too much for Sam to bear. If she hadn't been stopped by Jeannie's box of tricks she had no idea what she might have done.

  Tony was looking at the floor. He seemed to be getting weaker. "There's nothing else for it. The superheroes can't stop the Thuban. The only chance is to use the power core."

  "Fine, whatever," said Jeannie. She was impatient, unwilling to make important decisions, and clearly wanting to hand the responsibility to someone else. She looked up at Sam.

  "Think you can handle it this time?"

  Sam's eyes widened.

  "Ah… what?" She looked at Jeannie, then pointed to the stillclosed safe. "Last time I played Supercop I killed my partner and whatever the thing was that possessed your boyfriend here."

  "You're the only one who has used it. You're our best chance."

  Sam folded her arms. She felt defensive and scared. Like Jeannie, she feared the responsibility. Unlike Jeannie, she had some idea of the corrupting power of the alien device. No matter how much she tried to convince herself, she wouldn't be able to handle it. She knew now that a superhero was more than just a fancy costume, a firm bust and being able to shoot whizz-bang laser beams out of your eyes. Being a superhero required a quality within, some indefinable facet of character that she now knew she didn't have. She was a cop, a detective, and a good one at that. She could help San Ventura and work for the citizens in her own way, but that was it. There were too many flaws, too many impulses both buried in her mind and quite openly bubbling on the surface. She was no superhero. She couldn't use the power core. Power corrupts, and absolute power…

  "No," she said at last. "It can't be me."

  Jeannie looked at Tony. His eyes were closed now, and he crouched on the floor. He was breathing normally, but very slowly.

  "It'll have to be me then." Jeannie stood and took a step toward the safe. Sam grabbed her arm.

  "Excuse my French, but no
fucking
way." Her face was set, eyes hard. Jeannie met the stare and didn't back away. "You're a criminal and a supervillain. You were the Cowl's sidekick. Hell, you're still technically under arrest."

  "Oh, come on, detective." Jeannie shook her head, moving a step closer to Sam. Sam still did not move. "We really don't have time for this bullshit. I don't know if you noticed, but I seem to be on your side."

  Sam raised an eyebrow. "For now."

  "Yes, for now!" Jeannie said. "And the Earth now has two hundred dead superheroes for new satellites. Until the Thuban eat it for brunch, that is." She pulled her arm out of Sam's grip and gave her a look that suggested she was about ten seconds away from cracking the detective's skull on the wall opposite.

  "No," said Sam. "Wait. We'll call a superhero, get one of them to take the core."

  "What do you think will happen if Lawmaker got his hands on it? He's fucking nuts. And Monolith? What do you know about him? Anyone else in space is too far away. In fact, for all we know they're all dead out there now and the Earth is getting munched on." Jeannie waved her arm behind her, in a vague approximation of the direction of the planet they orbited.

  "We have no option, Blackbird. I know I can't handle it, and you can't be trusted with it."

  "Oh, fuck this, detective…"

  Tony stood quickly, the gray infirmary blanket dropping off his shoulders. He wobbled a little on his feet, black eyes blinking at the arguing women. Sam and Jeannie stopped and watched him.

  "Jeannie's right, there's no time for this. And you're both right, neither of you can be trusted. It must be me."

  He pushed past the two women and opened the safe hatch without difficulty, somehow negating the locking mechanism with a residual superpower. The power core sat in a yellow box of light, gently rotating in free space as it was held in stasis. Jeannie and Sam both spoke at once and made a grab for him, but it was too late. His hands were already around the core. The stasis field blinked green twice to indicate deactivation, and the safe went dark.

  Tony pulled the object out and clutched it to his chest, arms folded over it and body hunched forward. From behind, Sam and Jeannie could see him backlit in purple. The room filled with a peppery smell, and Sam felt her ears pop. She and Jeannie exchanged a look.

  Tony turned around. His featureless black eyes had become deep wells, purple sparkling spirals twisting in each. He smiled as his skin darkened, taking on a shiny, purple hue, and as he pressed the split shell of the core to his chest it dissolved into him, becoming part of his skin. He then flexed his arms in front of him, watching his own transformation.

  "Come," he said. Waving a hand, Jeannie and Sam were enveloped in a thin, violet light, and the moonbase armory faded from view.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Sand Cat paced back and forth, her steps alternating between the soft pad of her animal form and the hard tack of her human boots against the transparent, glassy floor of the platform. Conroy wished she'd stop, but knew that starting an argument now was a bad idea. Instead he stepped closer to the wall of the bubble projected by Helix and watched the ineffectual attack of the superheroes.

  Just how powerful were the Thuban? His original calculations when he'd called himself the Cowl were well, well off. If the Thuban were an amorphous, gestalt energy intelligence, how could they be stopped before they got to the Earth? And even if this "warship" was somehow destroyed, would that save the Earth, or just anger the aggressor? The warship was merely one projection of the Thuban. Size, shape, mass, number − these were irrelevant to them. They could send another, and another, and another. And that was if the superheroes managed to defeat this single "ship". Which, from where he stood, on a hard energy platform one hundred thousand miles above the surface of the Earth, surrounded by a life-supporting force field, didn't look likely.

  The others sharing his platform had been shaken by the collapse of two other bubbles, but were trying to remain stoic. Only quick flying by Helix had moved them out of the path of the death-ray-thing, followed by a second quick movement that had thrown them all into a tangled heap in one corner as the superhero grabbed a few comrades from their collapsing bubbles and brought them into his own. Terra Nova, Armistice, the Man With The Gun In His Hand, and another that Conroy didn't recognize… Pangolin, perhaps, a small man in an armored tortoise shell and, bizarrely, top hat. Helix had also managed to capture two others, although one (Warhog or War-something) was already dead, and the other, Miss Magic, was injured. Conroy's team was fortunate to have a magical hero, the All-Star, who had used a spell to anesthetize Miss Magic and an incantation to repair the thirddegree burns that covered nearly all of her body.

  The heroes were lit by a rapid-fire burst of red flashes. Looking up, Conroy could see that Aurora had gathered the remaining heroes behind the Thuban, and they were concentrating their fire on a single spot. If it had any effect, Conroy couldn't see. The Thuban ship still moved, although it hadn't brought the ray to bear to the rear. Perhaps Aurora had found a weakness in its structure. Or perhaps he was just trying to keep the superheroes alive.

  "We are impotent against the enemy!" Sand Cat spat, ceasing her constant pacing to address no one in particular, although she was facing Conroy at the time. She waved a hand dismissively at the scene before them. "We can do nothing!"

  "Steady, sister," Conroy said. Sand Cat was jumpy in a corner. He knew that from his previous life. It was exactly the kind of thing that had made him laugh when they'd been sworn enemies. Now it was just annoying and impractical. He turned back to watch the other superheroes. "I'm sure Aurora has a plan."

Aurora didn't have a plan.

  Moving behind the Thuban seemed to be a safe spot, but the attack was having no effect. They'd seriously underestimated their power, and now the alien force was going to absorb the Earth as punishment for harboring their fugitive, the Dragon Star. This was not what Aurora intended.