1.14 Endgame Part 5

“Hello everyone,” I say to the assembled groups in the main room of the base a couple hours later, “As you know, I have finally found the location of the person responsible for almost every major incident that has plagued our country since Vistorix showed up in early July.”

We got all of the new Leaguers in costume in addition to the combat ready Albion Defenders. Britannia, Warden, Dreadnought, Green Knight, Robyn Hood, Multitude, Spectre, Eternal, Controller and Werebeast. Only Merlin, Powerbeam and Restorer aren’t here.

In the corner we got Darrac and Mia, who Darrac brought along. The two space pirates, excuses me, space privateers both look ready for the up coming fight.

A total of twenty one superheroes and two space pirates against whatever the Machine’s creator has to bring against us.

If they weren’t responsible for the deaths of several people, directly or otherwise, I might feel sorry for them.

I let my announcement settle in before I continue. I’m sure they already know that as I doubt they would be here otherwise, but it still has an impact amongst the gathered people.

I’m able to continue when another couple of people join our group. A man in a black cloak obscures his body from sight and only his glowing white eyes can be seen while other is man in bulky gold and red power armour.

Shade and Spartan. Two acquaintances I made a while back.

Huh, never thought I would ever think that way. Sure Granddad spoke about old acquaintances he made over years as a superhero, but it is another thing for me to be doing it myself.

“I hope you don’t mind us helping out,” says Spartan, “We both have some unfinished business with the guy you’re going after.”

“Every hand helps,” I reply.

Strange how we’re talking about this when the first time we met was when Spartan was trying to collect the bounty on my head for the person we’re now working together to go after.

But that was before the Machine attacked his flying aircraft carrier and we fought together against it. And it isn’t healthy to hold grudges. Best to let bygones be bygones.

“The Machine’s creator, now codenamed Machinist, is operating out of a sunken Sektain warship about twenty miles off the coast of the Isle of Wight,” I continue from where I left off earlier before the new arrivals showed up, “Now if you’re wondering how we’re going to get down here since only a few of us can breathe underwater, we got a couple of things for that. First is a small breather that you put to your mouth and it also acts a communicator. The second is a magical charm that Narszara has come up with allows us to breath underwater. They’ll also keep you dry and unaffected by the water. We got thirty of them so there is enough for everybody here to have one each. If you do lose the charm, it has a residue effect so if you do lose it during battle, the effect won’t wear off until a few hours later.”

I, Mary and Narszara hand out the charms and breathers. While everybody takes a charm, those of us in power armour don’t take a breather. All of us already have an equivalent built into our armour.

“So here is the plan,” I say, “We’ll split into four groups, roughly six in each. The first group will be Shade, Spartan, Spectre, Controller and Werebeast with Britannia in charge. Warden will lead the second group, consisting of herself, Dreadnought, Green Knight, Eternal, Multitude and Robyn Hood. The next group will contain Lantern, Bolt, Night Beast, Multiform, Storm Knight, Gateway and Accelerate. The last group will be lead by myself and will consist of Narszara, Darrac, Mia, Commando and Vision. Is that clear?”

I get a series of agreements and we begin to split up into our groups.

I think I did pretty well in choosing the groups. Each one is led by an experienced leader and has good variation of abilities in each of them. In addition, they are split up between the two superhero teams we have on hand.

“Okay for transportation,” I say once we’re in our groups, “Teams One and Two will go in the two pairs of Albion Defender jets we got on hand. Team Three will take the Star Guardian while Team Four will be going in the Dusty Corsair.”

I wonder who will pilot the Star Guardian without me there. I suspect Janelle might fly herself, but Sam or Vance might end up in the cockpit.

“Hey Janelle,” I whisper into my communicator, “Were you the one to let Shade and Spartan in?”

“Yes, I assumed you wouldn’t mind the extra backup,” replies the AI.

“I don’t,” I tell her, “But I would like a heads up next time.”

“Understood,” says Janelle, “By the way, I don’t think I’ll be able to hack the ship’s computers. You’ll need internal access for that.”

“Good to know,” I reply, “I’ll need the prototype then for quick hacking then.”

“I believe so,” says Janelle and I end the call.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell the others in my group, “Just need to grab something from my lab for this mission.”

I dart off to my lab and quickly find the gray box containing what progress I have made so far in creating an AI. The box is about the size of a computer mouse, but barely a centimetre thick.

While the AI isn’t sentient like Janelle yet, it will be far better at hacking the ship’s systems then I would be.

“Ready,” I say as I return to the others as they wait around the bottom of the Dusty Corsair.

1.7 Bounty Hunters Part 4

Sam twists the Machine’s arm and I can hear the metal tearing and twisting. He grabs the Machine’s arm with his other hand and uses them both to yank off the Machine’s arm.

As Sam tosses it aside, the Machine punches Sam into the air with his other fist. I would have tried to help, but at this point, I have pretty much had it.

Not that the Machine gets a break either.

Darrac flies over the Machine again, this time with a trail of over twenty micro-missiles following him. Most of them slam into the Machine before it can react with only three going over the Machine’s head.

The Machine staggers backwards following the explosion, the armour and lasers on its chest a useless mess.

Then Sam zooms back down and grabs the Machine’s remaining arm with both hands. He gives it a good pull, yanking out and tossing it aside like he did with the other. Sam reaches down and rips away the remaining chest armour from the Machine.

Sensing it isn’t going to beat to Sam, the Machine uses its flight abilities to zoom along the deck and off the carrier.

Sam appears to be about to pursue, but takes one look at me and lands next to me. He puts a hand out for me and I grasp it with my left as my right arm is disabled.

“You’re in bad shape,” notes Sam.

“He had me on the ropes several times,” I say, “Without Spartan or Darrac, I would have been killed before you got here.”

“What were you doing here before the Machine came?” asks Sam with a glance at Spartan, who has landed not too far away.

I give Spartan a look and we lock eyes before I reply, “Nothing important.”

Darrac lands on the ground next to us. He’ is also pretty banged up.

“We should leave,” says Darrac matter of factly.

“I agree,” I reply, “Lantern, you need to carry me. The Machine took out my rocket pack early on.”

“Okay,” says Sam as he hooks his arms underneath my armpits.

***

I let Vance fly while I make some repairs to the armour in the Star Guardian. The ship doesn’t have the full resources of the lab back at base, but I can get the right arm of the Sentinel armour working again.

Mia got off at Sydney in Australia, her home city. We left her in the hands of the local heroes and authorities. Darrac took the Dust Corsair back to space while we headed home.

“What do you think will be waiting for us back home?” Sam asks me as we near the British Isles.

“Mary wanted to borrow Narszara for a mission and it’s pretty late so our parents might be worried.”

“Not mine,” says Sam, “Mum never married.”

“My mum knows, but my dad and sis don’t,” I say, “I’m going to be spending tomorrow getting the 

Sentinel armour back in working order.”

“I’m sure somebody will have an explanation for us to fall back on,” says Sam confidently, “Did you use your money to buy the stuff from Mia?”

I shake my head, “No. I used the Sentinel’s account. Using Daniel Griffin’s account would have been too traceable and just plain stupid.”

By the time we land, I have gotten both of the armour’s lasers working again in addition to the left arm’s sonics. The sonics of the right arm have been almost utterly destroyed and need to be rebuilt from scratch.

This means it’s going to be a while before Narszara’s suit is built.

I wonder what Narszara is doing now?

“Narszara,” I call her my comm.

“Yes milord?” comes the swift reply.

“How did your day go?” I ask her, “Because the Sentinel armour needs some serious repairs. We’re going to have to delay starting on your new armour.”

“I have aided the Defenders in repulsing an attempt by the Baglio Syndicate to gain a foothold in this nation,” replies Narszara, “What is the damage to the Sentinel armour?”

“Right sonic and rocket pack completely destroyed,” I answer, “The lasers and left sonic will need more serious repairs to be bought back to fully functioning. The helmet and HUD need fixing and entire outer armour needs replacing. The right arm also needs more extensive repairs as well.”

“Sounds like our upcoming days will be busy,” replies Narszara, “What happened?”

“The trip went well,” I reply, trying to make it sound like nothing major happened, “Then we got involved in fight between two groups of Sektain separatists. Next we made friends with some space pirates and I bought a good haul of Sektain equipment. I’m quite please with that. We went home with our new space pirate friends and investigated a couple of signals. An oil platform and Spartan’s aero-carrier.Spartan and his bounty hunters tried to capture me and my space pirate ally. It went poorly for them. Then the Machine showed up and beat up a few times. Darrac saved me a few times. Than Lantern showed up and save me and totally defeated the Machine again. We headed back home for proper after that.”

I pause for a moment.

“How was your mission?”

1.7 Bounty Hunters Part 3

“Another foe?” inquires Darrac.

“One of the worst,” I reply, “We fought once before. It took down the entire New League except for myself, Lantern and Narszara. I barely held my own and Lantern was the one who took it down. Do your best to destroy it.”

“Excellent,” says Darrac in a satisfied voice.

He flaps his wings and zooms at the Machine, flying close to deck. I grab one of the bounty hunters’ guns of the deck. Hopefully this will do some damage against the Machine.

Darrac turns at the last moment, dodging the Machine’s laser beams. He swipes one of the legs of the machine, leaving a light tears in the armour plating. The machine tries to swing a fist at Darrac, but he’s already out of range of any melee attacks.

I take that as my cue and pull the trigger on my borrowed gun. It turns out to be a semi-automatic that fires explosive rounds.

The shots dent the armour of the Machine, but do little beyond that. I’m not sure how to beat it with Sam or Narszara to help.

Perhaps if I-

Boom.

The world spins as I fly forward. A red warning message flashes up on my HUD.

Warning: Rocket Pack Disabled                                        

Warning: Severe Damage to Back Armour Plating

What the heck hit me?

I stagger upright. The loss of the rocket pack as removed a lot of my options as well as most of my ability to dodge.

Damn Machine.

I look towards the Machine as its lasers begin to hit me. It’ll take a couple of minutes, but if the Machine keeps this up, it’ll burn through the Sentinel armour and start hitting fleshy stuff beneath.

I try to shield by face and chest with my armours, but it won’t bring my anymore time

That’s when Darrac swoops back in and stabs both of his forearm spikes into the disco ball head of the machine. Bolts of electricity leap out of the machine, electrocuting Darrac. He barely gets his spikes out when the Machine grabs his injured leg.

He grunts in pain and the Machine tosses him off of the edge of the carrier.

“No!” I shout as I aim my lasers at the Machine.

I get off a few ineffective hits before the Machine fires four of its missiles at me. I get a couple of goes off, hitting one, two and three of the missiles before the fourth explodes into a dozen micro-missiles.

Without my rocket pack, I don’t have much chance of dodging the missiles, but I try anyway.

I fail miserably.

I maybe dodged two, maybe three, but the rest slam into me. The explosion sends me flying backwards. I can’t take much more of this, no matter how great the Sentinel armour is.

My HUD flickers and several flashing warnings pop up as I smash face up into the deck. Sonics are both offline, lasers are both offline, right arm is disabled and serious damage to pretty much every piece of outer armour plating.

Oh and the thermal vision is offline as well.

It occurs to me that this might be it. My final fight only a week and a half after becoming the Sentinel.

“Lantern!” I shout over my comm, “The Machine. I’m going to die if you don’t get over here.”

“Hold on buddy,” comes a firm and steady reply in a gratefully fast time, “I’m coming pal.”

I lean up expecting the Machine to finish me off. It fires another four missiles at me.

Help comes from an unexpected source.

A grenade flies into the path of the missile and explodes, prematurely detonating the missiles and the micro-missiles contained within.

“Come on you stinking piece of junk!” yells Spartan at the Machine with his gun in one hand, “Not on my aero-carrier!”

Oddly enough, my first thought is where did Spartan get his gun from. Probably picked it back up after I dropped it when my rocket pack was destroyed.

Spartan grips his gun with both hands and opens fire on the Machine. He quickly blasts its optic ball off since it was damaged by Darrac already. The Machine quickly responds by firing its lasers at Spartan.

I try to tell him to roll, but I’m still struggling after my beating. Several lasers destroy his gun while one hits his neck armour, barely missing his head. Another couple hit his cape.

Spartan stumbles backwards, coughing. As the Machine prepares to fire again, I spot a dark shape behind him.

With an unruly battle cry, Darrac swoops down and over the top of the Machine, slicing its shoulder lasers off as he goes.

“A Neriarr is harder than that to defeat,” calmly says Darrac as he throws a small, shiny device with glowing green lines at the Machine’s chest.

The device explodes in a green explosion, sending the Machine tumbling backwards into the deck. But with what appear to be anti-gravity packs built into its back, it quickly returns to standing up right.

Firing another set of four missiles, two at Darrac and two at Spartan, the Machine charges towards me. As the other two fly off to avoid the missiles, I sit upright. I look up to see the Machine pound me back into the deck. The Machine pulls back its fist for another strike, this time to finish me off.

As its fist comes down, a flash of light appears in front of me.

There is the Lantern in all his glory, the Machine’s fist caught in his hand.

“Pick on someone your own size,” snarls Sam.

1.7 Bounty Hunters Part 2

Spartan’s second mistake is leaving himself exposed to an attack when he was trying to lord over me.

I rush him before he can prepare for an attack. With one hand I rip his gun out of his grip and with the other, I punch him in the gut.

Let me tell you something, hitting someone in the gut is a lot more effective when they aren’t wearing power armour.

Spartan recovers quickly as he tries to kick the side of my knee. It is even less effective than my gut punch. I had the element of surprise and the superior suit of armour.

I react, leaning back to avoid a swipe from Spartan. I fly into the air to avoid further attacks.

Bad move.

I’ve gotten use to fighting weaker foes that lack the firepower to shot me out of the air. Spartan’s people have that sort of firepower.

I glance at Spartan’s people, wondering why they haven’t opened fire yet. They’re fight with Darrac is going poorly from them. The space pirate has already taken two of them down and disarmed most of the rest.

I finch as Spartan punches me in the head and sends me flying. I got distracted in a fight again. At least this time, armour has protected me from any harm beyond the shock of getting hit.

I stabilise myself near the edge of the carrier. Where’s Spartan?

I spot trying to flying into me and I dodge to the side. Spartan crashes into his own carrier deck.

That’s when I get hit when I’m not looking a second time.

I stagger away, spinning somewhat. In my daze, I raise my arms and get a lock on with my lasers. I fire them and attempt to regain my balance.

I don’t get a chance to see if I hit anything or anyone before Spartan grabs me.  He pins me to the ground and starts pounding my helmet.

What do? It’s hard to think when you got someone trying to pound your head in.

I hear a scream and something smashes into Spartan. I roll over as his grip breaks and fire my lasers. 

There’s no target for me to hit when I look a second later.

I need a better view and I can risk getting shot at.

I fire up my rocket pack and zoom into the air. A single look gives me all the information I need. Half of Spartan’s bounty hunters are down, a few severely injured while Darrac is easily taking out the rest. He even had time to throw one at Spartan, which was what broke his grip on me.

I focus on Spartan and aim and fire my lasers in rapid succession. They leave melted holes that don’t go all the way through in his armour. Spartan snarls and leaps at me. I ready a punch and smash faceplate in as soon as he comes in range.

Spartan falls and crashes into the deck again.

I fly higher as fast as I can when I hear a thundering boom. The carrier’s guns have decided to open fire.

I cut the fuel to my rocket pack and drop to the deck. I doubt the carrier’s gunners will risk damaging or destroyed the carrier itself.

I look at Darrac. He’s finishing off the last two of Spartan’s people. He slashes one across the chest with his spikes, tearing through the armour and into the flesh below with ease.

Even though I can tell the wound isn’t deep enough to do fatal damage, it still has to really hurt. Darrac kicks the man’s leg and the armour crunches. The man screams before fainting with pain.

I focus back on Spartan. He is still recovering from my last attack and has discarded his helmet. I’m surprised by this appearance. A firm, rugged face with a mane of long black hair.

And there is a minigun in his hands. I can’t believe I almost missed that.

“Surrender!” snarls Spartan, “Or die!”

When most people meet a crazy man in a suit of power armour holding a minigun tells you to surrender or die, you do as he says.

I am not most people.

I roll forward and fire off two electro-spyders at Spartan’s exposed flesh. He pulls the trigger, but barely gets few shots off. The spyders electrocute Spartan as the bullets pass over my head.

“Should have let us go,” I mutter at him, “How you are Darrac?”

“All down with no fatal injuries,” says Darrac, “I took a bad hit to my right leg.”

I turn around to face him and get a better look at his injury. The armour around his lower right leg is cracked and Darrac clearly has limp.

“You really ought to get that looked at,” I tell him.

“I’m a Neriarr,” says Darrac, “Injuries are fact of everyday life for us. Those that cannot cope do not make it.”

“What’s a Neriarr?” I ask him.

“That’s what my people call ourselves,” answers Darrac, “The human sub-breeds created by the Sektain that is. I’m unsure of what the Earth word is.”

“We don’t have one,” I tell him, “Like with Black Storm’s invasion, not many people seem to care about it afterward or place any value in the threat that was posed by the Sektain Invasion. Only those that were involved or had friends or family that were involved took them seriously.”

“A pity,” sighs Darrac, “Civilians never believe in danger until it is at their gates.”

I hear a thump on the other end of the carrier and spot an unwelcome sight.

The Machine.

1.7 Bounty Hunters Part 1

“We’re receiving another distress signal,” reports Janelle.

“Now what?” demands Sam.

“We’re got an oil platform malfunctioning,” says Janelle.

“Let’s go!” says Sam and he flies out of the ship.

I’m about to shout at him when Janelle starts speaking again.

“I just picked up another unusual signal not too far away,” says the AI, “It might what’s responsible for what’s happening to the oil platform.”

“Should we split up?” asks Vance.

I start to reply, but then we receive a call from the Dust Corsair.

“What’s going on?” asks Mia, “Lantern just flew out of your ship.”

“We’ve got two things to investigate,” I tell her, “A distress signal and an unknown signal. Lantern is already en route to the distress signal.”

“I’ll take the Dust Corsair and help him out,” says Mia.

“I’ll go out on my own and check out the other signal.”

“Take Darrac with you and Bolt and the Star Guardian can help with the distress signal,” says Mia, “The second signal might turn out to be nothing, but we know the first one is actually something.”

“True,” I muse, “Okay let’s do it.”

“Good,” says Mia and she cuts the signal.

“Janelle, you and Vance check out the distress signal,” I say as I get up and walk towards the open exit, “Darrac and I will check out the second signal.”

I jump out of the ship and activate the rocket pack. I’ve got 93% fuel left. Enough to last for at least two hours.

I turn to see Darrac exit his ship, a helmet now covering his face. He flies towards me using his wings.

“Follow me,” I tell him as the Dust Corsair and the Star Guardian begin to follow Sam.

I do a loop in the air and zoom off in the direction of the second signal. Darrac is barely keeping up.

Barely.

Still if he can keep up with the latest version of the Sentinel suit, I can see why granddad and the other old Leaguers had trouble in the Invasion and I haven’t even seen him in combat.

“Whoa,” I say as the source of the signal comes into view.

A flying aircraft carrier. You have a fair few flying around these days, some private and some government. Personally I dislike them as they’re too easy to be damaged or taken out of action. As granddad said, one seems to fall out of the sky every other Thursday.

I land on the topside of the carrier. Several men and woman in work clothes are running about. Several people in power armour are coming topside from the carrier’s below decks.

“Are we welcome?” asks Darrac as he lands next to me.

“Don’t count on it,” I say back to him as the people in their work clothes scurry out of sight. 

Fourteen, maybe fifteen people in power armour are coming towards us.

This power armour is different to the Sentinel armour or the Bulk armour. Whereas the Sentinel armour fits around the wearer and is self-reliant for extended use, these suits also fit around the wearer, but are bulky and have a semi-external power source on the back. I also doubt the suits are as hi-tech and well-built as the Sentinel and Bulk armours are.

The armours are black with the armour plating being grey while the helmets have a wide purple faceplate.

Then I spot their leader. He’s also wearing the same type of armour as the others, but is gold and red. His face plate is black and a crimson cloak is attached to his back.

An American bounty hunter called Spartan who owns his own private army. Makes his fortune by hunting down supervillains for assorted folk.

And I have a large bounty on my head and Spartan has been known to take down heroes or neutrals when he can get away with it.

It is only as Spartan starts speaking that I realise that they’re all holding guns, large sleek rifles of some kind, and they are aimed at Darrac and I.

“So what do we have here,” says Spartan in a deep baritone voice as he strides towards us.

“Sentinel and associate,” I reply, glancing at Darrac.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” says Spartan, his emotions concealed by his armour, “We’re out in international waters and you got a massive bounty on your head. And we’re the ones who are going to collect it.”

Normally I might have tried talking my way out or negotiating with him, but Spartan and his people don’t seem to be willing to be reasonable with such a prize at stake. And I don’t know if Darrac will avoid a fight if I ask him to.

Spartan laughs and waves a hand at his power armoured warriors.

“We out number you eight to one,” says Spartan loudly, “I don’t care how good your armour is, you’re just a kid going up against the pros. And your pal won’t stand a chance either.”

There’s his first mistake. I’m actually much more skilled than Spartan if I do say so myself and you never treat a Sektain soldier as if they're anything other than a deadly threat.

“So grand and mighty Sentinel,” sniggers Spartan in a snide tone, “What’s it going to be?”

“Non-lethal force,” I tell Darrac.