New Olympus Saga (Book 3): Apocalypse Dance by C.J. Carella Page B

godlike powers for a brief few days.
    Fuchida looked at the ship’s doctor. “The damage will prove to be fatal in less than six hours,” the physician reported. “I tried overdosing him with morphine to spare him any further suffering, but, perversely enough, his enhanced physique was able to withstand the drugs easily. I don’t know what else to do.”
    “You have done your duty, as has he. That is enough,” Fuchida told the physician. He stepped out of the room, leaving Kuo to die. It was a pity, but there were many things to do.
    Fuchida had flown from the fateful meeting in Washington D.C. as quickly as the new orbital transports could convey him back to Asia, where he’d had to oversee the aftermath of the Hong Kong incident. Thankfully, all the pieces had fallen into place almost flawlessly. A carefully-rehearsed imperial defector’s report had led the Legion to Kuo, and Kuo had left behind mountains of evidence linking the Empire to the attack on the Legion. Fuchida’s hand-picked team, armed with wonderful new weapons that could strip a Neolympian of his powers, had helped Kuo escape and in the process had killed another Legionnaire, one of their leaders as a matter of fact. If only such devices could be mass-produced, they could rid the world of all Abominations without having to resort to the extreme measures Twist had outlined. Unfortunately, the devices were Neolympian artifacts, hand-crafted creations that required a powerful Abomination’s powers to be built.
    It was God’s will. Fuchida’s revelation a lifetime ago had shown him the path to salvation would be arduous and drenched in blood. God’s grace had kept him alive and hale for a long time, but his work was almost done. Twist’s plan was audacious, but it would work. The Legion and many more of the Earth’s mightiest beings would be lured to China to do battle with the Empire, and, on the other side of the world, the source of their powers would be destroyed, rendering them helpless, vulnerable, merely human once again. Humanity would regain control of its destiny, and Fuchida would be able to move on to his greater reward. He had done terrible things in the name of the Cause, but he was confident God would forgive him. In any case, he was willing to accept His judgment.
    He looked out of one of the portholes and watched the sea extending out into the horizon. Being on a maritime vessel on a fateful mission brought him back to his younger, heroic days as an officer in the mighty aircraft carrier Akagi , where he had fought for the glory of Nippon. He and his comrades had performed great deeds, until the Abominations had ruined everything. The memories turned sour; his mind’s eye showed him the burning deck of the Akagi after the black American Janus had delivered a bolt of fiery energy that had turned the powerful vessel into a gigantic funeral pyre. Fuchida had been one of the handful who survived; the rest, over sixteen hundred men, had gone down with the ship.
    This time, there would be no fleeing, no survivors. He would die at the end of this trip on the Kamahashi Maru . It was a humble vessel, a merchant freighter of no great lineage, but it would soon pass into history as the deliverer of the weapon that struck a decisive blow against Parahumanity.
    Hidden inside the bowels of the ship lay a bomb, a very special bomb, a thermonuclear device with a yield in excess of two hundred megatons. It was more than a mere explosive, however. A cunningly designed set of electro-magnetic shields would channel much of the bomb’s energy into a concentrated burst of x-ray and gamma waves, aimed directly at the heart of the Source, the alien construct that had granted the Abominations their blasphemous powers. The incredible power of the burst would tear apart the Source, likely releasing even more energy as the alien construct was destroyed.
    The human costs would be both regrettable and enormous. Even if the destruction of the Source did not