Tracer

I must stay low, Tracer thought, Las Vegas dwindling behind him. No matter how advanced these aliens were, it'd be harder to spot him if he were hugging the ground than if he were flying high in the air. The curvature of the Earth's surface might help too, but not much — there were less than 350 kilometers between Tracer and Los Angeles.

He descended until he was less than fifty meters above the ground. Over flat desert, a fast pace would be easy to maintain. He stretched his arms out in front, and concentrated entirely on accelerating to his very limit. Then, imperceptibly at first, but soon with mounting visibility, his speed increased to flickering proportions. The rumble of the air around him steadily loudened until he was plowing through the air just below the speed of sound.

After a few minutes, the sandy, level ground of the desert gave way to the mountain range near the Mojave desert. Now, unlike the smooth acceleration he put himself through before, his flight would be fraught with rocky obstacles; he'd have to dodge the mountains at angles and speeds he preferred not to think about.

The first mountain-obstacle leapt into his path. He jogged to the left just barely in time to miss the mountain, putting him on a head-on course with a second hill. Side-slipping to the right, he slalomed around that rock as well. Each swerve brought with it an instantaneous roaring of air, as the energy-armor field surrounding him cut past what little resistance the air gave.

Flying less than fifty meters above the ground was too dangerous in the mountains, he realized. Tracer gave himself a little leeway and ascended to a hundred meters, still too low to avoid hitting the hills without swerving, but not quite as lethal as fifty meters. As soon as he completed the climb, another hill popped into being that was so close he had to call on the super-human agility of the alien armor to move him to one side. His determination began to falter, not so much from the immediate danger as from a twinge, a tiny twinge, of doubt in the back of his subconscious. He quickly banished this, though, as he weaved ever-farther through the mountains.

He was amazed that his high school and college dance training was actually coming in handy. The lessons, and the workouts that accompanied them, had done one crucial thing to him: they'd molded his muscles into lean, agile, well-trained coordinators of his whole body, giving him a degree of physical control he'd never before posessed. Now, those rusty dance moves and seldom-used muscles were helping him dodge mountaintops.

He jerked left around another obstacle, then right, then came to a bulge so large he couldn't move to one side of it. Ignoring the risk of being spotted, Tracer angled upward and soared over the summit. The solitary hiker on the peak below experienced something like a jet fighter flying low and fast overhead, leaving behind an eerie, glowing contrail. The hiker waved a vain hello to the armored superhuman, even though there was no chance that Tracer would actually notice it.

Within a minute, he'd passed by the tiny town of Baker, and all but the low hills girding the mountains were behind him. A rocky plateau at the edge of a cliff lay below. The only thing between himself and the space ship now was about a hundred and fifty miles of sand and cities. He dove downward, getting within fifty meters of the plateau . . . and the doubts surfaced again in his conscious mind. But this time, he accepted them. Slowly, he wafted down to the rocky ground.

His body lost the smeared nature that meant he was flying and gave way to the calm swirling of energies. He was between two large, rust colored rocks that reflected the midday sun with a kind of late-afternoon light. Staring at the ground, he briefly went over all that had happened to him recently. He'd gone from running a domestic violence shelter to being a super-powered hero because a rebel alien and its technology had been in the right place at the right time. Now, he had to stop a space empire he'd never even seen before. And even though only one space ship from this empire was currently man's enemy, how could he hope to destroy a warship hundreds of times his own size?

And there was one more problem. Tracer's fame. That trans-human armored wonder who saves the world and flies off into the sunset. The personality he presented to reporters and cameras had been molded more by what he thought the public expected than by his real self, and the limelight had taken its toll on Jeff Boeing's life. He hardly talked with his old friends anymore. His relationship with Julia was strained to the breaking point; the slivers of time when he managed to see her had grow fewer and farther between.

Still . . . he'd always liked humanity, and had always liked helping humanity as best he could. That was why he'd run that shelter. That was why he'd decided to keep the energy armor, to help out far more than he could have otherwise. Without it, he could only hope to be one voice out of billions trying to make the world a slightly better place. With it, he could stop crime, stop nuclear terrorists, and even save the world from an empire bent on humanity's annihilation.

Or at least, Tracer could. If stopping that space ship was even possible.

His two-way radio broke the silence. The FBI was calling him. He took a deep breath, keyed the mike, and said, "Tracer here."

"Patch in to 104.1 FM," the voice on the other end said. "It's a news broadcast. The intruder's stopped over Barstow, and they're giving live updates."

"Will do," Jeff said, then switched over to FM without waiting for acknowledgement.

A reporter's voice replaced the FBI agent's. ". . . still doesn't appear to be moving." There was a low rumbling in the background underneath the voice. "Once again, this is AP news radio reporting live from Barstow, California, where a mysterious airborne craft that originally appeared over Las Vegas has flown to and is now hovering in the sky. It's altitude is about a thousand feet overhead, maybe less. It's, uh, quite enormous up this close. We estimate it to be approximately a thousand feet long, maybe eight hundred feet wide, and close to two hundred feet thick. It arrived here about ten minutes ago, and has simply been hovering in place ever since."

Just hovering? Jeff puzzled. What were they up to? Whatever it was, they couldn't be up to any good. He couldn't afford to stand here and reminisce any longer. With determination on his face, hidden partly behind the swirling light curtain that armored his body, he called the flight power of the box back into action. The yellow energy patterns smeared, his weight became meaningless, and with a shove from his right leg he took off.

Barstow. To the southwest. Almost in a direct line between there and Los Angeles. Just follow Interstate 15. The sands of the California desert scrolled by beneath him, faster and faster. He'd kept his radio on, but it was hard to hear the news reporter over the roar of the wind. He could tell the reporter was still talking, he just couldn't make out the words. The miles melted away behind him, until he could just make out a town on the horizon. It had to be Barstow. He squinted, looking for the space ship in the air above it, but from this distance —

The city erupted in a brillant flash of light, temporarily blinding him.

It took a second or two to register with him. What just happened? His vision started to clear, but the afterimage was still too strong to be able to see sharply. He put the radio closer to his ear. The reporter's voice was gone. There was dead quiet for a few seconds, then a new voice said "We appear to be having technical difficulties, please stand by." He kept flying toward Barstow. At last he could make out the town again, but it looked . . . different. Darker.

A bit over a minute later later, he heard a "pop." Or perhaps it was a crack of thunder. Whatever it was, it was dull, like a sound muted by great distance. And the timing was just about right for it to have been from . . .

Oh no. It was the sound made by whatever that bright flash had been, delayed like the thunder after a lightning flash. It had reached his ears at the leisurely speed of five seconds per mile.

Tracer picked up the pace in alarm, and soon was upon Barstow. What he saw sickened him. The entire city — every building, every car, every street — lay burned to cinders, or smashed from above, or melted. Here and there, be could make out a charred heap that might have once been a person. Some places still glowed with heat, but no fires were burning; whatever had happened had completely burned up everything that could be burned. There were no survivors, no hint that there could be survivors. It was like an atomic bomb had gone off, except . . . there was no epicenter. No ground zero. Nothing had been toppled sideways. Whatever had done this had acted from directly above, spread out uniformly over the entire city.

In a single, blinding instant, the aliens had erased a city of nearly twenty thousand people.

And those aliens were already gone. They'd continued their flight toward Los Angeles, as though this act of mass destruction had been nothing more than a casual side trip. Or a warm-up for what they were going to do to L.A.. . . . And then, the rest of the world?

Was he Jeff Boeing? Was he Tracer? It didn't matter any more. If that ship of the 27 Empire didn't get stopped, there wouldn't be a humanity for him to help. He narrowed his gaze. It wasn't going to happen, he wouldn't let it. Not so long as he still drew breath. Onward! To the southwest!

But still, stay low.

The desert passed all too quickly, and after following I-15 through a mountain pass he was upon the outskirts of San Bernardino. He was unnerved a bit when he saw the high buildings approaching at just below the speed of sound, but he pushed that fear aside. He had an all-too-dire mission to meet.

He skimmed above the building tops until he found a major east-west thoroughfare, then followed it for ten seconds until he was completely across the town. Everyone present watched the yellow and listened to the roar and hiss as his energy field cut through the atmosphere. These people knew his intent, for just ten minutes earlier the 27 Empire's flagship had passed swiftly and silently above their heads. Hundreds of strangers waved their greeting, and hundreds more worried because they knew what was soon to happen. And although the backgrounds of those present differed immensely from individual to individual, nearly all of them had the same thought: "Go get 'em!"

He was well beyond the one city, past another, and through a third before he knew it. He weaved ever-closer to the California coast, and as the L.A. basin came into view, at last Jeff glimpsed it. It first appeared as a black speck against a blue-gray sky, like a distant airliner, but airliners didn't look like that. Nor did they cruise that low. He altered his course, still hugging the ground at fifty meters, and threaded among the boulevards toward the 27 Empire's ship. Keeping low kept up his hope that his presence had not yet been detected. Still, these aliens had singled him out over the entire planet, from space; surely their tech should be able to pick him up at this close range?

As he approached, Jeff could finally see what the ship was doing. Just like the reporter had described in Barstow, it simply . . . hovered there, a thousand or so feet off the ground. Perhaps their city-killing weapon needed time to charge up, or maybe it consisted of several pieces that all needed to be moved into place. Tracer hoped that he could, at the very least, distract them.

Soon, very soon, the hovering space craft was so close he could make out its contours. It was time to strike. Without slowing, he tensed his entire body and angled straight toward the ominous rectangular slab, charging his fists with the might of his energy field.

The next instant, Tracer rammed into the ship with the full force of his near-sonic momentum and his armor's channeled energy. He rebounded from the hull and careened backward. His armor would have absorbed most of the impact, but some of his "blast touch" got reflected right back at him. Jeff drifted in the air, dazed. He shook it off after a couple of seconds, then looked at his handiwork.

His blow had done considerable damage, but not as much as he'd hoped for. Where he'd struck, he'd left a crater that plowed through nearly a meter of hardened and reinforced metal; but it wasn't deep enough to penetrate this armored hull and breach the delicate interior of the ship.

Deep inside its command center, the High Mandarin watched his tactical display with detached calm. "It appears that our first little blast back at the other city didn't finish him. That's not surprising. And now he's had a taste of our hull." He turned to his second-in-command. "Is the city killer close to ready?"

The second-in-command said, "No sir. This metro area's a lot bigger than the last one we sterilized. The city killer's less than half way charged."

The High Mandarin sighed. "Looks like we'll have to swat this annoying mosquito, then. He shouldn't be much of a problem. Don't bother interrupting the charging process, just take him out with the standards."

Three or four of the guns on the ship pivoted and began firing red bolts at Tracer's yellow form. Startled, Tracer began dodging, evading most of the shots that came near him as he edged his way closer to the big ship. Once, a single shot hit him, but that only hammered him back a few meters and reflected off his armor with a yellow flash and a loud "Ktang!"

The High Mandarin stared at his display in disbelief. "Only one out of the last twelve blasts hit him? What's wrong with our targeting?!"

The second-in-command replied, "Nothing, sir. It's tracking perfectly. This target's moving much quicker and much more randomly than any armored warrior we've fought before."

"Impossible!" the High Mandarin stammered. "Nobody can be agile enough to evade an on-target blast, even with the aid of one of the homeworld's charge boxes!"

"Or at least," interjected his second-in-command, "None of us can move like that. The inhabitants of this planet are amazingly quick compared to us."

"Are you suggesting that this isn't the last armored warrior?"

"Let's find out," the second-in-command replied as he smoothly punched a string of commands into a computer terminal. When the display returned a fraction of a second later, it revealed that the glowing armor was covering something with two arms, two long legs, and a bulbous head atop a slender neck. The creature was shaped like a human. "It's confirmed — that's one of the locals. It can't be the same individual that Armor Attack Ship 2875 engaged. The last armored warrior must be gone. I thought the fall must have killed him!"

A dull thud sounded against the hull of the ship, the effect of Tracer whacking one of the main battery turrets while channeling energy into the blow. The High Mandarin took casual note of it, then turned back to his second-in-command.

"So all that's fighting us," the High Mandarin said, "Is a local life form who found the box and figured out how it worked. The last armored warrior died before he could spread any of his technological know-how to these bipeds."

"That's right. And that means . . ." A look of happiness swept over his form. His six tentacle arms almost seemed to celebrate. ". . . That means we have nothing to fear from these people! We don't have to destroy them!"

The High Mandarin hesitated, but then his voice boomed back: "NO! These people already know about the armor, and if we leave them alone they'll probably discover how to duplicate it!"

"But sir —"

"And with any luck, the armored warrior's weapon and stargate-key probably survived the impact too. But most importantly, we've already begun the attack on these people. We can't back out now; the Emperor would never hear the end of it! He'd strip me of my station in an instant for such a miscalculation! Stop that armored biped, I command you!"

Silently, the second-in-command turned and instructed the tactical computer to concentrate all the ship's firepower on the human armored warrior. Besides being a petty gesture to keep the High Mandarin in power, he feared that by continuing this attack his leader was slowly approaching insanity. He was wasting an entire planetful of potential slave labor. No one in the 27 Empire would want that. There was even the possibility of mutiny if the crew ever found out. Should he stick by the High Mandarin's side, no matter how unstable he'd become? As second-in-command, he'd been sworn to serve his High Mandarin to the death, but . . .

Tracer zoomed in on another of the turrets and disabled it with a half-strength punch-blast. Backing off, he inspected his opponent. The armor on the outside was impenetrable; the only real damage he could do was against the the ship's weaponry. Yet the ship bristled with gunning turrets everywhere, all of which looked approximately equal in strength and several of which were still firing at him. A few of the turrets, though, looked . . . different from the others.

A distant whistling noise caught his attention. He looked to its origin, and saw a squadron of four F-15 Eagles fast approaching. He cheered, raising one fist in triumph. The F-15 was the most advanced fighter plane the Air Force had; if they couldn't stop the 27 Empire, then presumably nothing could.

The fighters broke formation and almost immediately fired missiles at the ship. Tracer's smile grew as the missiles rocketed from their under-the-wing housings toward the motionless rectangular craft . . . then, bright red jolts flew out from the ship's turrets and destroyed every last missile in mid-air, as though swatting mosquitos. And once the turrets had finished off the missiles, they began hurling bolts of destruction toward the fighters.

Only one fighter managed to get off a couple seconds of vulcan cannon fire, and these bullets merely bounced off the ship's stubborn armor casing. All four of the fighters were blown apart in the span of a few seconds. Two were still in good enough shape that their pilots were able to eject, but the other two were nothing but a flaming rain of cinders. Jeff froze for a few seconds, both from shock and despair. If that floating hulk wiped out the best aerial fighters that human technology could produce, without so much as getting scratched, how could he hope to do better?

He looked down at the swirling yellow-white energy surrounding him, and renewed his confidence. This was the product of a technology far more advanced than humans'. He could take hits from their guns without any personal injury, and could incur real damage on their ship without being stopped. "Now," he told himself, "I'm going to knock out every bit of firepower this thing has, piece by piece!"

Accelerating to a higher battle speed, he closed in on the ship and downed his third turret. Three seconds later, he downed his fourth. He slowed to study his foe for one lethal moment, and glimpsed some motion off to one side. He turned just in time to see a spotlight-shaped object on the bottom of the ship's hull aim directly at him and activate.

A greenish shaft of gravitation struck him, freezing him in place.

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