First Flight
Compendium 2020 – Story 26
By Andrew Hawnt
The whole team had been mobilised. The worst-case scenario had come to pass.
Chimera had revealed themselves to the world. At their lead was Doctor Nexus, his legions of skeletal automatons marching out of their underground bunker and into the streets of Sheffield. Mayhem erupted as thousands tried to escape the relentless march of the Doctor's armies. Energy bolts brought down anyone who stood in their way, their searing light blasting from the wrists of each inhuman soldier.
Of all places, The Squad hadn't expected the former steel city in the North of England to house the heart of a criminal network capable of toppling the world. Nevertheless, they had got there in record time. Electron, Crossfire, Marauder, KTX and Shadowspear hurtled into battle as one well-oiled machine, broadcast across the globe via security drones that recorded their every mission.
One hundred and thirty miles away, Chloe watched on the huge monitor that filled one whole wall of the Squad's base of operations, the huge silo known as the Cube. She clenched her teeth as she watched her teachers risk their lives. She watched as her costumed mentors battled valiantly against the terrifying invaders. Stood there in jeans, Converse and a black vest top, she craved a team uniform and the chance to be out there with them.
Electron took down several soldiers at once, flying over them like a royal blue blur, hitting them with twin blasts of raw energy from his hands. Crossfire used the targeting systems of his sophisticated power armour to fire upon twenty of the robots at once. The huge blades that emerged from the grotesquely muscular arms of Marauder beheaded yet more.
KTX rampaged through the oncoming horde, her powered left fist smashing robots to pieces while the sleek blaster that was built into her cybernetic right arm generated its own ammo from a small reactor in her shoulder, pouring molten plasma charges at the machines. The elegant form of Shadowspear wound through the army, twirling with the grace of a dancer as she called forth psychic energy weapons of every kid to dismember the slaves of Doctor Nexus.
“I should be out there with them,” Chloe shouted to the empty Cube. “Not here as though I'm watching someone on Twitch!”
“You will remain here,” came the voice of Henry, the Cube's AI. “Your training is far from complete. Your powers are raw, untested, unrefined. Your energy manipulation and transformation abilities are still unpredictable.”
“I'm not going to learn how to do this stuff by sitting on my backside watching it like an old Saturday morning cartoon,” Chloe said in a huff. “I should be out in costume, taking down Nexus with them. Otherwise why am I even wasting my time here?”
“And what would happen then? There is a high probability that your inexperience in the field would lead to a compromised mission, perhaps even your untimely death.”
“That's a bit dramatic, Henry.”
The gentle voice of the Cube's digital mind sounded for all the world like it was smirking. “We live a dramatic life, Chloe.”
She watched the screen, nervous, her fingers intertwined, fidgeting. “I don't like this. An army big enough to get the whole Squad out there against it. It feels like this isn't the main event.”
“Please elaborate, Chloe,” said Henry from the wall speakers. “As far as we are aware, this is the culmination of years of work from Doc Nexus. This is his endgame.”
“What if it isn't?”
Chloe brought up Nexus' file via the Cube's main array. Facts and figures regarding the fallen military commander's background flashed past her. Photos of him before he donned the purple mask and the black cape of Doctor Nexus.
“You are accessing classified files, Chloe,” Henry warned her. “I will have to lock the system and report this.”
Chloe smirked. “Man, don't you think I'm ahead of you? I shut off the lockout protocols. I'm good with systems like this. That's how I wound up in trouble with the law before the Squad took me in.”
“This is highly irregular, Chloe. What are you looking for that the Squad couldn't find?”
Her eyes widened. “This.”
She brought up selected files pertaining to early work on the frequencies Nexus used to control his armies. “Look. This was the seeds of his army, okay? And we know he's collected DNA samples of the Squad members. Now, look here. Two years later, he was involved in experiments to make human soldiers susceptible to conditioning through transmitted data. If he'd succeeded, he would have been able to -”
Alarms sounded. The Cube's lighting went completely red.
“Alert,” Henry bellowed. “Electron has been compromised.”
He was right. The display showing the battle in the city now showed Electron had sided with the robot army of Doctor Nexus. Atop the floating armoured skiff that oversaw all, Nexus himself was visible, directing the army via the neural transmitter helmet he wore. More skeletal soldiers surrounded him like oversized tin soldiers protecting his black iron throne.
The shared comm link was going crazy in Chloe's Squad earpiece. This had taken them by surprise.
Electron raised his fists and unleashed a salvo of energy blasts at his Squad colleagues. Crossfire dodged them easily, blasting away into the air as wings emerged from his silver and red armour. He stared back in disbelief at Electron through the blank chrome front of his helmet. Marauder took one to the chest, which staggered him a moment before he roared with deafening volume at his blue-costumed friend. He held back from swiping at him with the massive blades that extended from each hand. Electron was one of their own.
KTX took a huge blast from Electron, but her cybernetic arm acted like a conductor. She absorbed the attack and fired it back at Electron. It wouldn't kill him, but as she yelled over the comm, it may knock him out. Her blast sailed past him and exploded in the air. Electron knew their moves, even in his trance.
Shadowspear had called forth a psychic bow and was unloading glowing arrows at the bolts of light that had been directed at her. She caught them all except one, which sent her sprawling on the ground, lost in the silken crimson mass of her hooded cloak.
Nexus raised a hand and the helmet he wore visibly crackled with power as he directed the army's next move. As he did, all members of the Squad stopped defending themselves and turned to march with his army instead of against it. Whatever he had cooked up, this time it had worked.
“Henry? What's going on with them? Can you read their vitals?” Chloe paced around before the terminal, light crackling from her fingers and dancing up her bare arms.
“They... are enslaved,” Henry said. “I cannot bring them out of it.”
Chloe clenched her fists. “I can though.”
“Chloe, if you can stop this, then perhaps breaking a few rules wouldn't be so bad.”
She smiled. “I could grow to like you, Henry.”
The Cube's security doors began to open. With one look back at the screen, Chloe saw the Squad begin to fire upon and attack civilians.
She ran to the exit, through the ground floor of the business that served as a front, and onto the street.
“You there, Henry?”
The voice of the AI was clear in her earpiece. “I am, Chloe. How can I help?”
Chloe was forcing a huge electrical charge into her fists. “I'm about to do something very careless, really dangerous and potentially useless. That okay with you?”
“Yes, Chloe. That's generally how each member starts out.”
“Set up a direct channel between my comm and Electron's. I'm going to home in on it and go right to them.”
“Done,” said Henry. “But do enlighten me – how do you plan on travelling one hundred and thirty miles?”
Several onlookers watched in shock as Chloe raised her crackling fists and aimed them at a mobile phone mast that stood proudly atop a nearby building. The bystanders took photos and video as the girl in the black vest top vanished into a stream of energy that was then absorbed by the mast. It hummed and crackled, then burst into a searing column of lightning as the girl was transmitted. The air reeked of ozone as the lightning faded, and the girl was gone.
One hundred and thirty miles north, Electron screamed as his comm earpiece crackled. He yanked it out and flung it away before turning his attention back to the screaming civilians.
“Kill them all,” came the voice of Doctor Nexus in the minds of the Squad. “Murder them and show the world that even heroes can be turned.”
Lightning burst forth from the fallen earpiece, its casing exploding, swallowed in a burst of light that grew and morphed into the form of a young woman flying in a circle. She hit the ground awkwardly.
Chloe clutched her head and fell to her knees as she became solid in a city she'd never been to before. Her mind swam, her skin tingled, her limbs felt like jelly. As she saw the mayhem surrounding her and felt so helpless, she understood the danger of the life she had found herself in.
She fought to stand and gasped in fear as she saw the Squad converging on her, flanked on all sides by the robotic slaves of Doctor Nexus. Beyond them all, she saw his flying skiff. Saw the regal throne atop it. Saw the neural transmission helmet.
“I hope you have a plan,” Henry said in her ear, snapping her to her senses a bit more.
“Yeah,” Chloe said, charging up her hands again. “I'm not on the team yet. I have an advantage.”
Nexus gestured atop his skiff, and the amassed Squad and robot soldiers converged on Chloe. Kill the newcomer, they all heard in their minds. She is your enemy.
Her mentors, their minds lost to the control of their arch-nemesis, attacked.
Chloe set her bursts free. They sailed past the Squad, missing them completely. The combined force of those who hurtled at her would kill her without a doubt. She screwed her eyes up tightly. If she was going to die, she didn't want to see it coming.
Just like Nexus hadn't.
Chloe's bursts struck the neural helmet, overloading it, but not before the massive charge was sent over the network that controlled the enslaved heroes and the endless machines.
The Squad fell as one as the enormous shock from Chloe jolted their hearts, each missing a beat, each severing the control the Doctor had over them. They hit the ground like rocks.
For a moment, Chloe stood alone, surrounded by the unconscious forms of her teachers. She had no mask, no armour, no costume, no weapons, yet she raised her fists to the chilling sight of the heavy weapons pointing at her from the flying skiff.
“Come on then, big man, come and have a go.”
Nexus laughed and gestured to a gunner droid. It fired, and the ground shook with the sheer force of the blast and subsequent explosion. Civilians and emergency services crowded at the edges of the square where the battle had raged staggered back as the fireball engulfed the Squad.
The blast cleared, and within a second there were cheers.
Marauder stood before Chloe, towering over her like a giant. The chest of his deep green costume smouldered from the blast. He roared at Nexus, then turned to check on Chloe.
“You good?”
Chloe nodded, finally exhaling. She gasped as Electron, Crossfire, KTX and Shadowspear pulled themselves up around her.
Electron stepped up beside Chloe, tapped her on the shoulder, nodded towards the skiff.
“Think you're unpredictable enough to bring it down and earn yourself a codename?”
Chloe smiled as her mentors stood around her as equals.
“Let's find out,” she grinned, charging up her fists one more time.
The Squad flung themselves into battle as one.
(C) Andrew Hawnt 2020
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About Compendium 2020:
Compendium 2020 is a project which sees author, comic book writer and screenwriter Andrew Hawnt release 52 new pieces of fiction throughout 2020. With a mix of science fiction, fantasy and horror short stories, flash fiction and vignettes, it is an epic journey through the strangest, darkest recesses of his mind.
The stories can also be found on YouTube, narrated by Andrew, and in quarterly Ebook collections on Amazon. A collected omnibus edition will be released in paperback at the end of the year.
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