Project Legion (Nemesis Saga Book 5) Read online

  Woodstock peeled his Red Sox cap off his pulled-back graying hair and looked at Hudson over his aviator glasses. “Don’t worry about the missus while you’re gone, Hud. I’ll take care of her.”

  The old pilot nudged Hudson aside and put his arm around Collins. In reality, he was more like a grandfather to Collins, not to mention Lilly and Maigo, but he was also, in Lilly’s words, ‘a bigger perv than a chimera of Ron Jeremy and a rabbit.’ “This mustache ain’t just decoration,” he said to Collins. “Adds a little tickle to the—”

  “And I’m going to stop you there,” Collins said, “before my commitment to feminism demands I give you a good slap.”

  Woodstock chuckled and headed for the lockers. “Now yer just teasin’ me.”

  In the silence that followed, Collins watched Hudson’s happiness to see her snuffed out. His mind was returning to the job. “Want to take a vacation?”

  “What? Now?” Hudson seemed honestly confused.

  She smiled. “When it’s over. All of it. Just the two of us.”

  “You mean like Disney World?”

  “I was thinking more like a deserted island and an endless supply of Mai Tais and backrubs.”

  “Can we have a little Asian woman walk on my back?”

  “If we save the world, you can have two little Asian women walk on your back.” She pointed a finger at him. “And if you get any ideas beyond that, your romantic future is going to look like Woodstock’s.”

  From across the hangar, Woodstock raised a finger and shouted, “Hey! I resemble that remark!”

  During the following ten minutes, Collins filled Hudson in on the damage done to Portsmouth. The billions of dollars of structural damage seemed paltry compared to the number of lives lost. Three thousand people. Drowned or crushed. Bodies were still being pulled from the ruins and the surrounding waters. Lovecraft had been tracked for several miles, but disappeared in the deep. They’d been on the lookout for Nemesis, but the Goddess of Vengeance had not yet stirred. Some believed she never would.

  “They’ll come,” Hudson said.

  He had rocky relationships with both Nemesis and the man who was now her Voice, Katsu Endo. While the pair had caused a lot of damage and taken more than a few lives, they’d also worked together with the FC-P to save just as many. And Hudson believed, more than anyone else with the exception of Maigo, that Nemesis and Endo would defend the planet when the time came. Collins wasn’t so sure, but then, no one knew Nemesis as well as her psychically-bonded husband and daughter.

  Hudson slipped into his tactical vest and strapped it tight. “And if they don’t, we’re going to bring home some heavy-hitters of our own.”

  “Right,” Collins said, also feeling doubtful of that plan. “A king with magical powers.”

  “Supernatural,” Hudson corrected. “Some would say, paranormal.”

  “Point taken,” Collins said. “A girl who can animate the inanimate. A man who has lived nearly three thousand years. A time traveler. And a cyborg. That doesn’t sound possible.”

  “We already have a cat-woman, super-powered kaiju girl, a space bending cowboy, a fearless man who can shift between frequencies of reality, a giant robot and a kaiju. Not to mention a freaking UFO that can cloak better than a Klingon Bird of Prey and an army of shapeshifting aliens.”

  Collins twisted her lips.

  “I believe the words you’re looking for are: ‘two for two.’”

  Cowboy’s head leaned out of the locker room. “Is time.” Then he was gone.

  “You heard him,” Hudson said. “Is time.” He kissed her, letting their lips mingle for ten long seconds. Then he pulled away and headed back for the hangar.

  They approached the Rift Engine, walking hand in hand, the contact between them saying more than words could.

  Hudson stopped ten feet short of the Bell, where Cowboy waited. “Where’s Maigo?”

  “Here!” Maigo hurried across the hangar. Lilly was with her, but the cat-woman hung back, scaling a stack of crates and watching from a distance. Maigo said nothing, but wrapped her arms around Hudson and buried her head in his shoulder. Biologically, she was twentysomething, but this version of the girl had only been alive for five years. While so much of her was adult, the part of her that saw Hudson as her father, was still young, and fragile.

  Collins’s heart nearly broke when she saw tears in Maigo’s eyes.

  “If you die,” she said, “I won’t forgive you.”

  Hudson kissed her head. “Then I won’t die.”

  “You nearly did.”

  “Pssh,” Hudson waved his hand. “We had that totally under control.” He leaned back and wiped her tears away. “We’re just going to ask a few neighbors for help and be back in a jiff. Then, we’re going to kick some alien ass. Okay?”

  Maigo grinned. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  “Me, too,” Collins added.

  He quickly hugged both women again, and gave a wave to Lilly, who offered a casual salute back. Then he stepped up to the Bell and placed his hand against its smooth surface. “All right, let’s power up Yinshishkabob and rustle up some help.”

  “It’s Jindřiška,” Cowboy said, placing his hand against the alien machine. A building hum shook the air, and then, in a blink, the two men disappeared.

  8

  HUDSON

  On a scale of one to ten, shifting through frequencies with Crazy gets whatever numerical equation works out to, ‘fuck that shit’. In comparison, using the Rift Engine to move between dimensions is a solid ten. It’s no more disorienting than using virtual reality, slipping out of one reality and into another. One moment, we’re standing in the Mountain hangar, the next we’re in Arizona, standing outside a country club, the Bell taking up two spaces between two parked cars. It’s a bright, sunny day. Hot and dry. Given the number of vehicles in the parking lot, the limo waiting out front and the distant thumping beat of the Electric Slide, I’d say we’re just in time for a wedding reception.

  “This doesn’t look like a thawed out and regrown Antarctica,” I say.

  “Changed mind,” Cowboy says. “The king will need...convincing.”

  “You think that David guy will help?”

  “Might.”

  I point at the entrance. There’s a sign by the door, sitting atop a tripod. The swirly gold lettering reads: Johnson-McField Wedding. “We’re crashing a wedding?”

  Cowboy nods.

  “Not his...”

  “His sister-in-law,” Cowboy says. “The man we’re looking for—David—has been married for eight years.”

  Feeling relieved that we’re not going to be dragging a man away from his first dance, I take a deep breath and let it out. “You know, I kind of expected other worlds to smell different.”

  “Is same world.”

  “What? We? Huh?”

  “David Goodman resides in your dimension of reality.” Cowboy heads for the door.

  “Ahem,” I cough, drawing his attention. I point at the six shooters hanging from his hips. “If your goal is to make everyone panic and have a showdown with the police, by all means, keep on walking. If you want to let the happy couple enjoy the rest of the day, you should probably leave those here.”

  I remove my weapon belt and tactical vest. I still look a little off in my all black attire and boots, but in a sea of black tuxes, I won’t stand out too much.

  “I will not leave guns behind,” Cowboy says. “They are, how you say? Extension of my body. And trouble is never far away.”

  “It’s a wedding,” I say. “The only danger here is getting slapped by a drunk person overdoing YMCA. But why don’t you keep an eye out, and I’ll go get our man.”

  “Is good plan,” Cowboy says, scouring the parking lot for enemy combatants. Part of me wants to mock his paranoia, but he came from a world where neo-Nazis had infiltrated every facet of the government, military and civilian world. Every white person on his Earth, save for him and his buddy, Survivor, became a
suspect. So I’m not really surprised that he sees danger lurking in every shadow, and in broad daylight. And as overachieving as Cowboy seems, his kind of paranoia will probably serve us well.

  I enter the reception hall and get a few odd looks from guests, dressed to the nines, but no one stops me. When some of them start whispering and pointing, I realize my mistake. “Not on another Earth,” I remind myself. I’m one of the most recognizable people on the planet, thanks to my involvement with Nemesis and the FC-P. Walking into this wedding unarmed is going to draw as much attention as Cowboy with his Dirty Harry guns. At least, I think, people won’t run away screaming. But the attention could complicate things.

  The Electric Slide blares out at me when I open the reception hall’s door. Like most American weddings, this one must have cost more than a new car. Separating me from the wedding party table on the far side of the room are twenty tables, each seating ten people, and the jam-packed dance floor. Since Mr. Goodman is the bride’s brother-in-law, he’s got to be seated at one of the tables near the wedding table. Unless he’s a groomsman.

  I stretch up onto my tippy-toes, scouring faces until I realize I have no idea what Goodman looks like. While Cowboy and I identified some of the people we’re after together, Goodman was one of Vesely’s solo finds. Still, nothing a little sleuthing can’t handle. I step onto the dance floor prepared to make a beeline across it.

  Then the chicken dance comes on.

  “Oh sure,” I mutter, “Play my jam while I’m in a rush.”

  I keep moving, staying on task, but I can’t help flapping my chicken wings on my way across. I get a few smiles from the people I pass, and a leering smile from a chubby bridesmaid, but no one hinders my progress.

  That is, until the flapping ends and people start linking arms and spinning in circles. The bridesmaid with the dodgy intentions hooks my arm, and propels me in a circle like Mercury around the Sun. Resisting would mean tossing her on her ass and making a scene, so I go with the flow, but I’m snagged by a second person before I can make my escape.

  I turn expecting to find another woman, but am surprised to find a smiling, bearded man looking at me through a pair of glasses.

  “Are you here for me?” he shouts over the music.

  “I didn’t realize it was that kind of a wedding,” I reply, and then I realize my mistake. “Are you David Goodman?”

  “You’re here because of the Aeros?”

  His question stymies me. “How do you know about the Aeros?”

  The bridesmaid attempts to steal me back, but David and I spin off the dance floor and into a pair of chairs beside a now empty table. “Eddy Moore.”

  Eddy Moore was the scientist who stumbled across the Aeros and Ferox eleven years ago. While most of his crew died at the hands of both alien species, a few of them survived to tell the tale. “You know Eddy?”

  “He and I are old friends. Over the years, we’ve swapped stories, and I knew that if Jon Hudson ever came looking for me, it would be because you believed aliens were invading and that I could help you solve that problem.”

  “Uhh, something like that. Yeah.”

  “The problem is, time cannot be changed. We know no one went back in time to kill Hitler, because if they had succeeded, it would already be history and that would be our current reality. Therefore, we can’t go back and change the events of Eddy’s encounter with the Aeros, because we already know that any such attempt would fail.”

  “Right. Gotcha. We can’t change the past, but we can travel through it, yes?”

  Goodman glances down at the watch on his wrist. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, both modern and classic at the same time, all hidden by an ancient looking twine band that might help conceal it in times past, when watches hadn’t yet been invented. He pulls his sleeve over the watch.

  “Is that how you do it? With the watch?”

  My barrage of questions seems to make him nervous, but his face lights up when a woman approaches. She’s pretty, with straight black hair, and like Cooper, she has that strict ‘woman in charge’ thing going. “David,” she says, but then sees me. Her smile becomes a scowl, and I wonder which of my foibles, caught on camera and revealed to the world, have offended her in the past. As popular as I am for saving the world on multiple occasions, I also tend to say things that one demographic or another finds offensive.

  But then she turns the frown toward David and says, “Really? Today?”

  “Traveling through time doesn’t mean controlling it,” he replies.

  The tone of the conversation helps me identify the woman. I stand and offer my hand. “You must be Mrs. Goodman?”

  She glances at my hand and then at my outfit. “Sally. And you could have at least dressed the part.”

  “Uh, I didn’t know...”

  David stands beside me. “I was just explaining to Mr. Hudson that I couldn’t help him with—”

  And this is where my patience runs out. I hold up both hands. “You both know who I am. That’s obvious. And that means you both know I wouldn’t be here, looking for help, if it wasn’t important. The human race is about to have holy hell from outer space rained down on us, and I need your help.” I poke David’s chest. “And before either of you explain to me again that time cannot be changed, fine. I don’t give a rip about the past. I’m more concerned about what happens next.”

  David raises a finger to make a point, but I don’t let him get a word in.

  “And I don’t want you to take me into the future, either. Well, not our future.”

  “Hold on,” Sally says, gripping my arm and revealing a similar watch around her own wrist. “Whose future?”

  Ahh, damn. She’s a quick one, too.

  “Okay, I’m going to give this to you quick, and it’s going to sound ridiculous, so bear with me, and keep in mind who is talking, what I’ve dealt with and what you already are capable of.”

  “You can travel to parallel Earths?” David says.

  I open my hands in a way that says, ‘You totally just stole my thunder, dude,’ but I’m also relieved that he did. That he came to that conclusion—that fast—probably means that he’s not only thought about the subject, but as a scientist brilliant enough to invent time travel, he believes interdimensional travel is also possible.

  “Tell me, are you moving through special dimensions, or frequencies?”

  My mouth hangs open for a moment.

  His eyes light up. “Both?” He turns to his wife. “You see, it is possible.” Back to me. “I’ve been telling her for years, but she—”

  “Ma’am,” I say to Sally, “I’m truly sorry for stealing him from your sister’s wedding, and it’s lovely, but if your husband—” I glance at the watch around her wrist. “—or you, don’t help us, the bride and groom might not live long enough to consummate their union.”

  “That little time?” Sally asks, her anger fading.

  “You two haven’t...you know, gone into the future?”

  David shakes his head. “Knowing the outcome of your own life, the moment of your own death, would kind of take the fun out of living.”

  “And since you can’t change anything...” I see his point. I could have him jump me into the future, but if I found a bleak wasteland ruled by the Aeros, knowing there was no way to change the outcome… Screw that. I’d rather go out fighting and hoping, rather than curled up in a depressed fetal ball. Win or lose, the Aeros can’t take away my determination. “We need to travel forward in time, in another dimension.”

  “Where the Earth isn’t under threat?” David asks.

  “All Earths are under threat, but with an infinite number of them, and each world’s destruction taking time, it will be a war the Aeros wage on humanity for countless eons. Some Earths will survive longer than others. Unfortunately for us, we’re second in line, and the Earth before us has gone the way of Alderaan.”

  “Alderaan?” Sally asks.

  “Star Wars reference,” David explains,
and then he turns to me. “I’ll help. Of course, I’ll help.”

  I’m about to thank him, and Sally, when the distant pop of gunshots mingles with the music’s beat. “We need to go,” I say. “Now.”

  David kisses his wife, and says, “He doesn’t want us to die like this. I’m sure of it.”

  I’m not sure who he’s talking about, but the words have a profound effect on Sally, chiseling away her hard shell. “Go,” she says. “Be careful.”

  I run for the exit, plowing through the dancefloor with David on my heels. I reach the parking lot at a sprint, reaching for my sidearm and cursing myself for leaving it behind. Cowboy waits for me by the Bell, waving us on.

  “Was that you?” I ask him. Both his weapons are holstered, but the faint scent of gunpowder lingers in the air.

  He motions to my equipment laying on the ground by the Bell. “You left radio comm out here.”

  “Oh, my,” David says, stopping next to me. He’s breathing hard, but not really heaving. Seems to be in pretty good shape for a man ten years older than me. “Is this Die Glocke?”

  “You know it?” Cowboy asks.

  “Only rumors and conjecture. It was a grim source of fascination for me once upon a time.”

  “You two can talk Nazi wunderwaffen another time.” I say to David and turn to Cowboy. “What was so important that you needed to fire your gun?”

  He points casually to the sky behind me.

  I turn around and feel like I’m in one of those movies where the scene zooms in and widens at the same time. A massive circular shadow hovers in the atmosphere. It’s at least a mile across.

  “Is that a spacecraft?” David asks.

  At first glance, I think the same thing. Our brains are preprogrammed to call anything weird and round in the sky a UFO. But that’s not what this is. It’s more like a giant hot air balloon attached to an open umbrella with a gross, fleshy upside-down Christmas tree dangling underneath. When the umbrella sweeps down like a gargantuan jellyfish, moving the thing through the sky, I’m even more sure of my assessment. “It’s a kaiju.”

  “What can we do?” David asks, eyes wide behind his glasses.