Unbreakable Arsenal (Full Metal Superhero Book 5) Read online

  Once the SCs show full, I start the pre-fire. Around my arm the animetal molds to form a large barrel. The actual diameter isn’t that wide, only point two inches. The rest is to help with the retort. Down my backside, a rigid line forms bracing me to the deck. The lights in the suit dim as the whine from the ZPFM increases to ear-splitting decibels. Epic cuts it off to protect my hearing because what comes next is truly loud.

  The tungsten ball bearing drops into the pocket rolls down my spine to where my foot is before shooting back up like a rocket. Once it hits the magnetic field the rail gun fires. Thirty-two megajoules fling the tungsten projectile down the hallway at Mach 10. The boom and fire are enough to dent steal and burn everything in the hallway black. Save me.

  The smoke clears after a moment and I stand there open mouthed and wide-eyed. No wonder the sword couldn’t cut through it. The door didn’t break… it shattered. The hardened crystalline form lay in pieces across what can only be the bridge.

  You did not die. Congratulations.

  “Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

  Because you are perceptive. Step through the doorway.

  I’ve only seen two bridges of alien ships. Lux’s tiny little scout vessel and the Th’un frigate we commandeered. This is nothing like either of those. Tiny to the point of cramped. One console, one chair, and a hundred and eighty-degree panoramic view of the ship. Like an Earth made cargo ship the alien bridge sits near the back, overlooking the main deck. We must have been in one of a hundred cargo holds.

  “Holy… Epic it’s—”

  Three miles long.

  “Well… crap. A ship this size, I doubt I’m the only living thing on it.”

  Sit in the chair and we can connect to the computer.

  I follow his instructions. The chair isn’t made for a human or a bipedal person at all. The right side is reinforced for a larger arm and the back creases inward sharply. I won’t be falling asleep anytime soon. Lights spring to life as Epic initializes our connection to the ship’s computer.

  This has only basic programming. It should not take me more than a few minutes to work it out.

  “While you do that, I’m going to look for a list of the ship’s cargo.”

  After cracking military codes and fighting soldiers, breaking into this cargo hauler seems simple by comparison. It only takes Epic twenty minutes to figure it out. Once he has complete control it’s easy enough to find the manifest.

  “There’s a lot of living things in cryopods, just like I was. Doesn’t look like anything sentient though. Animals, bacteria, that kind of thing. Whoever took me must have thought I was a robot or something.”

  I wonder what gave them that idea?

  “Quiet you.” With the manifest tucked away I look around for engineering specks… but with no translation, they are meaningless. “How’s the navigation systems coming?”

  Confusing. Give me a few more minutes.

  “Does the ship have a wireless receiver?”

  Yes.

  “Activate it so I can move my hand.”

  Done.

  I take my hand off the panel and stand up, stretching while I do so and letting out a low moan. A week in the armor is getting old. And I’m hungry. We used up all my food in Q-space. I need to locate some more, but I doubt this tug has what we need.

  Amelia, we have a problem.

  “Of course we do. What?”

  I walk over to the station and look down at the console. Epic switches the screen to what looks like two blips coming up fast on the freighter.

  “I’ll give you one guess what those are.”

  Pirates. And not the fun kind.

  I shake my head. Well, maybe this isn’t so bad after all. I don’t see any planets or stars nearby. I didn’t want to take this ship back to Earth anyway.

  “Hey. Let’s go commit some acts of irony. Battle stations.”

  I’m always at battle stations. I have nowhere else to go.

  “I know, I just wanted to say it.”

  Mega-Dinobot roared as it slammed Luke against the side of the formally five-star hotel. Leaving him dazed and in a Luke sized crater.

  “I don’t think our current plan of ‘get beat to death by a robot’ is working, boss,” TK said over the comms.

  Luke agreed. He’d managed to calm himself down enough to regain some control, but they simply lacked the power to stop this thing. He was no mathematician, but at this point, the property damage probably outweighed the six… no, seven vaults and two diamond stores the mega-Dinobot had swallowed. Luckily, probably maybe because of the diligence of TK and Fleet, no civilians had suffered injuries or death. He and Kate simply weren’t enough to stop this thing. They’d settled for slowing it down until Carlos could get free to come help.

  “Luke,” Kate’s voice called him over the comms a split second before she materialized in all her glory beside him. It never ceased to amaze him how he was a sweaty mess after fighting this thing for an hour… and Kate looked like she was ready for a night on the town. The fading sun glinted off the green jewel she wore around her neck, a gift from Amelia. Her best friend and Luke’s girlfriend.

  Don’t forget missing. Long time missing girlfriend. Amelia was going on a year and a half missing. Kate assured him she was still alive. Just too far away to be reached.

  Focus, Lancaster.

  “What’s the plan, Domino?” he asked in his overly serious voice. She flashed him a smirk.

  “Plan? Getting your butt kicked isn’t a plan?”

  He shook his head, “Not a good one.”

  “I think it’s leaving,” she said, pointing at the six-story-tall robot as it turned toward the setting sun and began its march to the sea.

  “Just like the last one. Cause havoc, rob a bunch of high-value targets, then retreat to the sea. If it gets to the ocean, we’ll never be able to follow it.”

  Kate nodded, sympathy plain on her face. She reached out with her remaining hand and touched Luke’s shoulder. A second later they were a mile away, watching the Dinobot lurch toward them.

  “Fleet, I know you’re tired man, but civilians,” Luke said over the comms.

  “I know, I know,” he replied in his Bostonian accent. “That’s my song, ‘civilians, civilians,” he said in a mock high pitch voice.

  “TK? Any chance you could lift enough water to drown it? Maybe short something out?”

  “It’s worth a shot. How long do I have to get to the—” the air buzzed over the radio for a second, “—Never mind, Fleet dropped me off. I’ll start filling a bucket.”

  He reached up and flicked the lens on his goggles, at least they were still intact, selecting magnification until he could see TK on the pier forming a huge ball of water.

  “Master Lancaster, sir, there is a call coming from the Pentagon. Major Nelson seems quite insistent,” Milton’s upper-class British accent never seemed out of place or worried. Amelia had really broken the mold with him. With Epic gone, he’d taken over managing the financials for the team and pretty much everything but the actual leading of the team. If Amelia had built him a robot body, then he could probably do that.

  “The Pentagon? What?” Luke glanced over at Kate who gave him an awkward shrug. With her left arm missing it made her movements seem unnatural, though she’d gotten better at it over the last year and a half. Not that he saw her as much as he would like to. She only came out in emergencies anymore.

  “Major Force? Nelson here. Listen, we have a situation.”

  “You think?” Luke replied with sarcasm. “I’m doing the best I can, Major, but this Dinobot is damned near indestructible. I have no idea what it’s made of, but we can’t stop it. The best I can—”

  “Dinobot? What? No, there’s a bogey inbound on your location. We just picked it up on our sensors. NASA thinks it’s a meteorite about the size of a destroyer. It’s going to come down right in your area. You need to evac—”

  Luke cut him off, “On it.” Closing the channel to th
e Pentagon, he switched to the team channel. “New plan, there’s a meteorite coming in and it’s going to smash this part of San Diego…”

  Milton put a graphic on his goggles, and everyone else’s too, showing the estimated damage the object would do when it hit.

  “Luke,” Fleets voice wavered over the radio. “I’m already exhausted man, I can’t evacuate six square miles of ocean side population.”

  The graphics updated with the estimated population of the area… eighteen thousand. There was no way.

  “Save everyone you can. Focus on kids and women,” he told Fleet.

  “What, are men not important?” TK asked.

  “If it was me, I’d want my wife saved before I was,” Luke replied.

  Kate touched him, nodding toward the Dinobot. “What about that?”

  “We let it go,” he said, taking off in a jog to leap to the next building. A countdown appeared on his goggles. Two minutes… that just wasn’t enough. The crushing weight of the moment forced him to one knee and before he knew it his breaths were coming in ragged gulps.

  “Luke, it’s okay,” Domino was there, hand on his shoulder whispering in his ear. He didn’t feel better, which meant she had her necklace on and wasn’t using her empathic powers. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he had seen her without it.

  “Is it? Ten thousand people are going to die, Kate, and we can’t do a damn thing about it,” he growled. “Just watch.”

  “We can never save everyone,” she whispered back. “Not even our own.”

  “You must clear the blast zone now, you’re out of time,” Milton’s voice came over the radio. Kate wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulders and in a blink… they were clear.

  “Everyone sound off,” he commanded.

  “Tess, here.”

  “Fleet…” he had to pause a second while sucking in huge volumes of air. “Present.”

  “Teddy here, I’m secure. I’ve alerted EMS, and other counties are mobilizing S&R to help.”

  “Thanks, Teddy, I wouldn’t have thought of that,” Luke replied.

  He forced himself to watch, looking toward the East as the fireball descended from the sky coming right at them. He caught a glimpse of the Dinobot as its foot hit the beach, making for the freedom of the ocean. Not only were people going to die today, the bad guys were going to get away.

  “Worst. Day. Ever.” He muttered under his breath.

  The fireball grew on the horizon like a strobe light of fire. Light flashed off of it while the outside burned up, bits and pieces exploding off of it, descending into the foothills outside the city.

  “Fleet, there’s going to be some brush fires, see what you can do, when you can do it.”

  “Roger, boss.”

  He watched it grow closer, even three miles away he could hear the roar and feel the heat of it.

  “You don’t have to watch,” Kate told him.

  “Yes, I do.”

  As the fireball streaked toward the city something became apparent. It was going to miss the town.

  “Milton?” Kate asked, “Wasn’t it going to hit the city?”

  “Yes, Ma’am, it was. Recalculating…”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Luke said, “It’s delicious irony.”

  As they watched, the fireball the size of a navy destroyer flew over the city, the heat from it passing, wilting trees and igniting small fires. The deafening roar grew louder as sound barriers broke.

  The Dinobot lumbered a long, knee high in ocean water, not paying attention behind it as the protocols to retreat had kicked in. As long as no one followed, or actively tried to stop it, its job was done, and it had to return to base.

  It paid no heed to the meteorite falling at over seven times the speed of sound.

  Luke watched the fireball collide with the Dinobot. The resulting explosion sent out a shock wave, pushing the ocean back and filling the air with fire and debris, as a mushroom cloud formed where it hit. Windows for two miles shattered, car alarms wailed, followed by the lights vanishing as the power died.

  “Damn!” Kate yelled.

  “Did that just happen?” Fleet asked in awe.

  Vaporized ocean water filled the area with a dense fog that drifted over several square miles in the breeze.

  “Let’s get down there, people, and make sure no one was hurt.”

  As Luke and Kate appeared on the beach the first thing they saw was money and diamonds… the beach shined like rhinestones from the thousands of diamonds the Dinobot had stolen. Hundred-dollar bills were strewn about like so much garbage, more coming in each second with the flotsam. Intermixed with the money and gems, parts of the Dinobot scattered about, a piece here and there. Luke reached down and picked up a small section that weighed far less than he expected.

  The black metal looked awfully familiar.

  “Kate,” he said, handing it to her.

  “Is this…?”

  “I think so, no wonder we couldn’t hurt it.”

  Fleet appeared a few seconds later, dropping TK off before falling on his butt and crashing to the beach. “I’m done. Call me a cab.”

  Tess let out a whistle. “A boss-man, you wouldn’t mind if—” she said, reaching out to a little mountain of one-carat diamonds.

  “Not a single one, Tess. Not one.” He said without looking at her. They got lucky. Or the bad guys got unlucky.

  Tess sniffed her disapproval before taking a seat in the sand next to Fleet. “At least Glacier missed out on all the fun. Finals suck,” she muttered while looking forlornly at the diamonds littering the beach.

  They all stood there, listening to the water wash against the shore and marveling at the destruction the meteorite had caused while not hurting anyone.

  “What was that?” Kate asked.

  “That was me sticking the landing,” Amelia said as she walked out of the artificial fog. “Nailed it,” she said with a grin.

  Time stands still as we embrace. It’s like a dream, his warm hands around my waist and our foreheads touching as I gaze into his crystal blue eyes and him back into mine. It’s only been a couple of days… or a week, I’m not actually sure. But it feels like forever. Even the smell of the sea can’t hide his wonderful scent.

  “Ahem,” Domino says politely.

  “Right, everyone, hugs.” As soon as I speak the gang rushes me, arms slapping my back and kisses on my cheek and a million questions all at once.

  Luke glances at Kate, worry flashes across his face. There’s something wrong here.

  “Amelia,” Kate starts—

  Everyone is in new costumes… Kate’s fully healed and… oh crap. Her hair. It’s down to her shoulders.

  “I think she figured it out already,” Luke says. The team backs off for a second as I stumble backward and take a knee. I need to breathe… it was just a couple of days I tell myself as I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “How long— and please don’t say more than a month…”

  “Maybe we should get you home hon? I’m sure your apartment would be more comfortable…” Kate says in her calming tone. The tone she uses to calm people who are freaking out. Like me.

  “Epic, how long?”

  Before he can answer, Luke does. “One year, seven months, three days, and this morning.” The look he gives me says he missed me every day. I reel at the information, putting one hand against the sand.

  It will be okay, Amelia.

  “Epic, what happened?”

  The pod we woke up in. It was a cryopod. The freezing process must have stopped us on the molecular level. When I booted back up I had detected only a few days had passed. I am sorry Amelia.

  “It’s okay, buddy. Not your fault… a whole year, though.”

  The team remains silent listening to one half the conversation I had with my AI companion. We’re not back in their com loop so they can’t see what he’s saying to me. My head swims with all of this and I really need to lie down. Of course, that isn’t going to happen.
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  “Luke,” I motion for him. He gathers me up in his arms like I never left and I rest my head against his chest. A feeling of safety descends on me like I haven’t had in forever. Or the last time I was in his arms.

  “Let’s get you home,” he whispers into my ear. “Kate?”

  “I’m so glad your home, Amelia.” She says as she places a hand on my shoulder. “Tess, take the Emjet and meet us back at the Spire.”

  “Will do, boss lady.”

  The next morning, after a pizza, Coke, and a good night’s sleep I feel like a million bucks. It’s almost like I never left. Wheeling through the Spire on an inspection tour turns out to be a ton of fun. Milton continued to improve the HQ while we were away. Epic vanished for a good hour when we got back, I think he sees Milton as a son. I can only imagine the feelings AIs might have for each other. Not that Milton would ever say. Epic really nailed the whole, “stiff upper lip” the Brits have going.

  In my absence, they built a second spire for the hangar and a sky bridge to attach it. The hangar now has three Emjets, and eight ZPFM hover bikes Milton designed based on the ones Cat7 used to provide the teams. Apparently, the AI decided that the twenty billion dollars I had was enough for Mars Tech Global to replace Cat7 as the premier technology adviser to the super teams. New rules and regulations passed by DMHA prohibit one company from being more than fifteen percent involved in the teams, a rule I wholeheartedly approve of. He secured technology rights; communications, transport, security, all provided by MTG. And, since Kate knew I was alive, they never declared me dead, just missing.

  I smile as I come to the Rec Room. It’s almost like I never left.

  “What’s an Xbox One X?” I ask upon seeing the shiny black box under the giant screen TV in the room.

  “That, my dear Amelia,” Carlos says from behind me, “Is the most advanced gaming system in the world. Even if they haven’t put out enough games for it yet.”