The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel by Michael Ivan Lowell Page B

them.
         “Uh...okay, now. We can talk about this. I’m not
threatening you, now. You know that, right? We just want to talk, that’s all.”
         “Something’s wrong,” Fiona said finally, looking past
Elders, past the troopers.
         “Oh, no,” Becky said. “I hate it when she says that.”
     
    Lieutenant
Commander Veronica Soto was locked on.
         “I have missile lock and am preparing to fire on
target...now.” She said over her throat mike.
         Her B-12 Stealth fighter was blasting across the
California Central Valley.
         She flipped up the cover on the launch console and
pressed the red button.
         “Roger that, Commander,” came back the reply
from Edwards AFB.
         Below her, the missile bay doors opened and the GBU-65/B
dropped from its holders. The weapon ignited and shot through the sky, seeking
out its target ahead.
         Veronica checked her lipstick in the small mirror she
had attached to her dashboard instrument panel and smiled. Perfect. “Bird’s away.”
         The missile zoomed ahead at breathtaking speed. It
disappeared over the horizon. Veronica watched it on her radar.
         “Two minutes to impact,” she told the boys at Edwards.
                                            
    Fiona
flashed away.
         She reappeared a quarter of a mile away and a thousand
feet above the encampment. She still wasn’t sure what she was looking for. But
the feel of it was wrong, threatening. She scanned the sky. Nothing.
         She scanned the lake. Calm and normal.
         Her awareness of the luminescent spectrum wasn’t all knowing.
She could sense things, feel them. But on a broad scale. The details were elusive.
She wondered if she would get better over time, or if like sight and hearing, it
simply was what it was.
         Her eyes probed skyward again. Then she saw it. Moving
fast, unmistakable. The missile had to be as long as a city bus. Impossibly
long for something moving so fast. As it got closer, Fiona could see it was as
long as two city buses.
         The Council was trying to kill her!
         As if.
         Her mind flashed to Becky. A lump burned in her throat
as she thought of her hurt. No, that was not going to happen.
         She teleported right in front of the missile. The bomb
itself was only about the size of a person. Its vicious fire trail was what had
made it appear to be so long. Fiona had never seen such a weapon up close and
in action.
         She lifted both arms, brought her hands together, and
blasted the missile with the most powerful beam of energy she could muster. She
would take no chances. She wanted to incinerate the thing, midair.
         She didn’t.
         Below, Becky, Arcadia, Elders, and the others had run
out to see what the commotion was. When Fiona had teleported, some in the
throng had spotted her floating far above them in the clear California sky.
That started a rumble in the crowd as everyone looked up. Then they saw the
smoke trail of the missile. The rumble of the crowd grew into a roar.
         The brilliant beam of light shot out from Fiona’s
hands. From the ground, the beam’s flash was like a long mirror reflecting
sunlight for split second, high above.         
         The flash came first.
         It was like the sun exploding across the sky. 
         Then sound. A deep, ominous BOOM. They could feel it
in the pits of their chests.
         For Fiona, it consumed her world. Fire, heat, and
unbridled energy swirled around her. For the first time in her life as the Fire
Fly she had met a conventional weapon that could hurt her. 
         The shockwave blasted her across the sky. The bomb hadn’t
burned up like she’d expected. It had exploded right in her face. The fire and
heat was but a mere irritation, but the shockwave hit her full force She had
not been prepared for it, and as she reeled, she knew