The Superhero's Son (Book 6): The Superhero's World Page 17

  “How dare you,” I said. “This is my mother we’re talking about. She’s the only parent I’ve got. And you’re talking about her like she’s some random person the street.”

  “I meant no disrespect to Ashley,” said Nicknacks. “I was just pointing out that if we let your emotional desire to save your mother dictate our actions, we will all suffer, including your mother.”

  “He’s right, Bolt,” said Blizzard, causing me to look down at her. “I know you really care about your mom, but we can’t waste time searching for her. We need to spend every moment we’ve got setting up the explosions and then leaving this world to let everyone know about our success, if possible.”

  My hands shook. I thought about just blowing both of them off and going to find Mom all by myself. My environ would keep me safe from the Mother World’s harsh environment and I had my powers that I could use to defend myself from the Pokacu if they found me. Blizzard and Nick didn’t need me to blow up the centers; they could do it just fine themselves.

  On the other hand, they both had a good point. Mom was just one person. How could I sacrifice the rest of the world for her? She was my mother, one of the most important people in my life, but at the same time, if she died, the world would still exist and still turn as it always had.

  And the ‘world’ wasn’t just some kind of abstract thought. Mecha Knight, Treehugger, Talon, Stinger, Shell, Strike and the New Heroes, the NHA and INJ, Malcolm and Tara, Triplet, even Cadmus and Shade to an extent … all of those people and much more were part of my world. Could I sacrifice them for Mom? Was it worth risking their lives just to save Mom’s?

  What would Dad do in this situation? He would try to find Mom, that’s what he’d do, but I wasn’t Dad. Would Dad understand it if I left Mom behind in order to save the whole world? I wondered if Dad had ever faced any sort of serious dilemma like this during his superhero years. Did he ever have to sacrifice someone he loved for the greater good? I wished Dad had told me at some point. It would make this decision easier.

  One thing I knew about Dad for sure, though: He always expected me to do the right thing, no matter what. And I knew what the right thing was, even though I didn’t like it at all.

  “All right,” I said. “We’ll go ahead with the mission. We have no time for anything else.”

  I hated saying that. I hated how the words came out of my mouth. I felt like an awful son, the worst son ever. I told myself that maybe Graleex had been lying, that maybe Mom was still on Earth in the custody of those Pokacu back there, but I knew that was bull.

  Nicknacks undid his fingers and said, “I am glad to hear that, Bolt. I understand your reluctance, but this is ultimately the right thing to do.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Now,” said Nicknacks, “let’s get started. The nearest Core energy center isn’t far, so we should be able to get to it quickly if we do not delay.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The ship soared through the sky, heading directly to the nearest energy center. According to the ship’s map, we should reach the center in ten minutes, which was awfully fast, but Nicknacks said we’d lucked out and managed to arrive near one and that we shouldn’t complain about our luck.

  Despite that, I couldn’t help but feel incredibly sad as I sat in my seat, waiting for Nick to announce that we’d arrived. I knew we were doing the right thing, that I’d made the right choice, but I still felt awful about it. Part of me hoped that Mom might perhaps be in the energy center, but since Nick said that the energy centers had no prisons or cells in which to keep prisoners, that seemed unlikely.

  I had tried to call Valerie a couple of seconds ago, but my earcom was unable to connect to anybody. That scared me at first until Blizzard explained that it was probably because we were no longer on Earth. Because Valerie’s AI was based on Earth, it was only logical that I could not communicate with her now. It made sense, but I still felt a little lonely, because Valerie had been by my side for almost as long as I’d been a superhero. With Blizzard and Nick, I supposed I didn’t really need her help, but I hadn’t realized just how good a friend I’d considered Val until just now. I hadn’t even realized that it was possible to be friends with an AI, but I guess that was a testament to Dad’s ability to create realistic AI.

  I also wondered about how everyone else was doing back on Earth. Given that Graleex and his mother ship had yet to follow us, I assumed that the plan must be going well and the teams were distracting the Pokacu on Earth too much for them to follow us. But I still worried about my team and the New Heroes, if only because I knew just how brutal the Pokacu could be. I just hoped they were all going to be fine.

  I looked over at Blizzard. She was playing with strands of her hair, but she looked distracted and stressed out. No wonder. There was a very good possibility that none of us would survive this mission. If we had to sacrifice our lives, it would be for the greater good, of course, but that didn’t change the fact that we were about to blow up a planet, possibly along with ourselves.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said to Blizzard.

  She looked at me. “What?”

  “I said, it’s going to be okay,” I said. “We’ll make it. I know we will.”

  Blizzard blinked. “Wait, did you think I was worried about our mission? No, I was thinking of something else.”

  “Well, what were you thinking of?” I said.

  “Home,” said Blizzard. She kept playing with her hair. “What everyone else is going through at the moment.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I’m worried about them, too, but the others will be fine, I’m sure.”

  “I hope so,” said Blizzard. “I’m just worried that the Pokacu might just go ahead and kill everyone. What if they start to attack Earth while we’re away? How could the nations of Earth stop them?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “The Pokacu were pretty distracted when we left. Graleex might even be dead and, because he was in charge of that fleet, they’re probably too disorganized to carry out their threats against humanity.”

  “True, but I still can’t help but worry about them,” said Blizzard. “And the NHA and the INJ, too, now that I think about it. They’re still powerless.”

  “They’ll probably be okay, too,” I said. “All our friends need to do is get rid of the powerless gas and Omega Man and the others will be back in action in no time.”

  “Yeah,” said Blizzard. “But what I don’t understand is why the Pokacu didn’t just outright kill them. All they did was render them powerless and held them prisoner. They clearly have the means to kill them and it would remove a huge obstacle to their plans to destroy Earth if they did it.”

  “Good point,” I said. I scratched my chin. “Maybe they’re treating them like hostages; you know, holding a gun to their heads so that the governments of Earth won’t just nuke the Pokacu army instead of surrendering.”

  “The Pokacu never take hostages,” said Nicknacks, causing me and Blizzard to look at him, though his back was to us due to the fact that he was sitting at the controls. “Generally speaking, the Pokacu simply kill anyone who they deem a threat. They’ve never held hostages, because the general Pokacu goal is to eliminate all life on a given planet.”

  “Then what do you think is their motive for holding the NHA and INJ hostage?” I said.

  “I cannot say,” said Nicknacks. “There has been something very strange about this entire invasion, starting with the Pokacu dropping that bomb that rendered everyone powerless. This invasion has been unlike any others I’ve participated in or that I know about.”

  “Maybe they’re trying out new tactics?” I said. “Maybe they’ve chosen Earth as the place where they’re going to experiment with some new strategies.”

  Nicknacks laughed. “The Pokacu are not creative enough to try new tactics. The Mother World would never allow it. They only try new things if they absolutely must, and even then, they’ll fall back on their old tactics once the threat requiring new tact
ics has been defeated. It makes them very rigid in their thinking, but also ruthlessly efficient and unable to be swayed or reasoned with.”

  “So you think something has happened that’s made the Pokacu—or at least the Mother World—rethink their old way of doing things?” I said.

  “Possibly,” said Nicknacks. “Whatever is going on, I dislike it. It is yet another reason why we should not hesitate to destroy the Mother World; if she’s planning something, it must be stopped, no matter what.”

  Although Nicknacks spoke confidently, I noticed a hint of trepidation in his voice, especially in the way he said ‘no matter what.’ I wondered if he was having any doubts about the mission, which would be a problem, because we needed him to be as confident about our mission as possible.

  “Nick, you sound a little doubtful,” I said. “Is there a problem?”

  I saw Nick’s hands tighten around the ship’s controls. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

  “Are you sure?” I said. “Are you thinking about the fact that the destruction of the Mother World would lead to the destruction of your own species?”

  Nick didn’t look at me. “I am aware of that, and have already accepted it.”

  “You have?” said Blizzard in shock. “But doesn’t that bother you? That your own people will die?”

  “At one point in time, it might have,” said Nicknacks. “But ever since I defected from my species, I cannot say it does anymore. I am uncertain my people even count as a people anymore. They gave themselves up to the Mother World’s control long ago. Bolt, you’ve no doubt seen Graleex’s attitude toward her.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Is that how all Pokacu think of the Mother World?”

  “Yes,” said Nicknacks. “Graleex is unusual in that he has more individuality than the average Pokacu soldier—probably developed due to his years of separation from the army—but he is still very much willing to die for the Mother World and do whatever she commands, no matter how despicable. If my people died, it wouldn’t be much of a loss to the universe.”

  “I guess, but you still seem awfully calm about it,” I said. “What are you going to do if we succeed and manage to survive this whole thing?”

  Nicknacks did not respond for a few seconds. Then he said, “What I’ve always done: Protect America and the Earth with the Neohero Alliance.”

  Nicknacks didn’t sound entirely sure about that to me, but I did not push it. Instead, I sat back in my seat, preparing myself for the coming attack on the energy center.

  About a minute later, Nicknacks said, “All right. We are rapidly closing in on the energy center. We should be able to land near it, because the center’s security systems will not sense anything unusual or out of the ordinary with our ship.”

  “What will we do after we land?” I said.

  “I will distract the soldiers defending the center while you and Blizzard place the bombs in the correct places,” said Nicknacks. “Once you have the bombs set and ready to blow, I will pick you two up and we will try to find a way to get off this world before it explodes.”

  “How much time will we have before it all blows up?” I said.

  “Probably thirty minutes,” said Nicknacks. “It will take the explosions some time to reach the Core; even so, we cannot waste any time escaping. We will probably need to try to hijack a mother ship.”

  “Will we be able to do that?” I said.

  “Hopefully,” said Nicknacks. “Anyway, we’re going to land soon, so you two should get ready to leave. We will need to do this quickly, before the Pokacu realize what is going on and stop us.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  -

  Five minutes later, Blizzard and I stood in the unloading bay of the ship. We carried our bomb staffs with us, but I felt nervous just holding mine. I knew the tip wouldn’t explode until I removed it from the rest of the staff, but I kept remembering what Mr. Apollo had said, about how these bombs were strong enough to blow up whole streets. That would be enough to cause the chain reaction to blow up the Mother World, hopefully, but I hoped that we didn’t accidentally blow ourselves up on our way to do it. That would suck.

  We were waiting for Nicknacks to land the ship. Once he did, Blizzard and I would sneak out of it and then head to the two locations that Nicknacks had given us. He had downloaded a map of the area to our environs’ helmets and had marked the spots on the map where we would place the bombs. Blizzard and I had thought about splitting up, but we instead decided to travel together for safety reasons, even if that would make it harder for us to travel unharmed.

  And according to Nicknacks, we didn’t need to worry about being crushed by the Mother World’s gravity. Apparently, the Mother World was similar in size to Earth, so its gravitational force was only slightly stronger than Earth’s. He said it would not be enough for it to slow us down and that our environs would keep us safe as long as we kept them on. Because neither of us had any plans to take off our environs—particularly on the Mother World—that was a no-brainer for us, especially because Nicknacks had mentioned that the Mother World did not have air suitable for humans to breathe.

  “Bolt, Blizzard,” came Nick’s voice from a nearby speaker. “We are heading in for a landing. Prepare to leave the ship on my signal.”

  “All right,” I said, nodding. I looked over at Blizzard. “Ready, Blizzard?”

  “Ready,” said Blizzard, although I caught a hint of worry in her voice. Still, I knew I could count on her to do the right thing when it counted, so I didn’t doubt that she’d have my back no matter what kind of situation we found ourselves in.

  A couple of minutes later, I felt the ship land on the ground, which was immediately followed by Nick’s voice coming over the speaker again. “I have landed the ship. Sensors indicate that the area we’ve landed in is devoid of Pokacu. Leave the ship now.”

  Blizzard and I stood on the platform that immediately started to rise toward the hole that had opened in the ceiling above us. We clutched our bomb staffs and readied our feet to run, because we knew we wouldn’t have much time to sneak around before the Pokacu came to inspect Nick’s ship.

  We rose slowly until soon we were standing on the top of the spaceship. But instead of running and jumping off the ship and going to the spots where we were supposed to place the bombs, we could only stand there and stare at the things that stood around us.

  Surrounding the ship on every side were dozens and dozens of armed Pokacu soldiers, plus at least half a dozen small mechas with Pokacu pilots. And they were aiming their weapons directly at us.

  Chapter Nineteen

  That’s right: We had landed directly in the middle of a trap. No matter where I looked, I only saw more soldiers and mechas, plus a ship hovering nearby that was aiming its cannons at us. Beyond the circle of soldiers, I saw a massive, spiral structure that appeared to be the energy center, with huge columns of smoke rising from its stacks and dozens of smaller ships carrying refined Core energy flying in and out of the thousands of holes built into it, no doubt delivering the energy to the rest of the army.

  But I didn’t care much about that right now, because at the moment we were completely and totally surrounded.

  Blizzard and I drew closer together, holding our bomb staffs defensively as the Pokacu’s weapons began to hum with charged energy.

  “Nick?” I said, speaking into my environ’s helmet speaker, which we’d managed to sync with the ship’s own speaker system so we could stay in contact with him. “Are you there? We’re surrounded. Nick?”

  “Surrounded?” said Nicknacks. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean we’re surrounded on every side by at least fifty armed Pokacu soldiers, plus about a dozen miniature mechas piloted by Pokacu soldiers,” I said. “And they’re all armed and don’t look particularly pleased to see us.”

  “Impossible,” said Nicknacks. “Sensors indicated that the area was devoid of Pokacu. Where did these ones come from?”

  “I have no idea,” I sa
id. “But you’d better get the ship’s engines started fast, because we’re going to have to run unless you want to get turned into Swiss cheese Pokacu-style.”

  “I’m trying,” said Nicknacks. “But for whatever reason, the ship’s engines are not activating. They seem to be refusing to activate, actually.”

  “What?” I said. “How the hell can a ship refuse to activate? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Pokacu spaceships are biomechanical,” Nicknacks said. “It could be that it was somehow given enough consciousness to resist unlawful attempts to activate it. It may have decided to shut itself off so we couldn’t escape the trap.”

  “Then it looks like we’ll have to fight,” I said. “You’d better get out here soon, because we’ll need all the help we can get.”

  Just as I said that, there was a sudden buzzing sound—like a giant wasp was flying somewhere nearby—that drowned out practically every other noise in the area. I didn’t see where it was coming from until Blizzard suddenly pointed up at the sky and said, “Bolt, look!”

  I followed her pointing finger and saw a giant wasp flying through the air toward us. At least, I thought it was a wasp, until I noticed that it was actually something else entirely. It looked like some kind of machine designed after a wasp, complete with metal-plated wings and a stinger that looked as sharp as a sword. It had a rider on its back, another Pokacu soldier, but it was too far away to tell what it looked like for sure.

  Then the giant wasp machine thing landed on the ship before us, forcing me and Blizzard to stagger backwards away from it. We raised our bomb staffs, even though we couldn’t use their true power yet.

  Up close, the thing looked even uglier. I could see bits of flesh visible between its armor plating, which told me that this was yet another biomechanical abomination created by the Pokacu. It towered a good ten feet above us, but lowered its head in order for its rider to face us.