Trainee Superhero (Book One) by C. H. Aalberry Page A

beep-beep
rings in my ears.
    “You should be at 10%,” explains Brat .
    He sounds mildly impressed. I check my arm;
he’s right, I still have 10% of my shields left. The ground around
me is burnt and battered. Some of the rocks are glowing red, and
others have melted into pools of lava. A shadow of undamaged ground
stretches out behind me. I fall forwards but roll over so that I’m
face up. I may be dying again, but at least I’m looking at the
blue, blue sky. Small Talk leans over me, eclipsing my
view.
    “Good,” he says, “this one is tough.”
     
    Maybe I’ll be a superhero after all.
     

Back Story
One
     
    I was the first superhero.
    The saucers had been attacking the Earth for
well over a year by then, and it seemed like there was nothing we
could do to stop them ripping the world apart.
    People started making desperate decisions.
The captain of a US destroyer caught in the path of a small saucer
emptied his arsenal of missiles and brought it down. We don’t know
why he succeeded where so many others had failed, but that was the
beginning. The technology found in the downed saucer was used to
build two very different experimental weapons.
    The first was a suit built of stolen
technology and a mishmash of fighter jet equipment. The U.N. could
only find eight people who had the ability to interface with the
saucer’s technology. The suit gave each of us incredible and unique
powers, so we called it the superhero suit and hoped it would keep
us alive.
    The second weapon was a bomb. We weren’t even
sure that it could pierce the saucer’s shields.
    One temperamental suit, and one bomb that
might not work. They were crude and ungainly things to carry the
Earth’s future, but they were all we had.
    We only had a week to practice in the suit.
There were two of us who were best. I was one, and the other was an
older Japanese man, a good friend and a fine leader. He was better
than me, in my estimation, but I was younger and I think my
superiors valued that. I was also alone in the world, having lost
my parents and siblings two years before. That probably played a
part, too. They knew I wanted to kill saucers.
    Whatever the reasons, I was chosen to carry
the bomb.
    The most powerful people in the world
gathered to see me off. It was strange to see such unity; I could
still remember the wars and arguments that had dominated the world
before the saucers had arrived.
    I was introduced to a lot of people, a sea of
faces awash with hope and fear. The only one I remember was Marshal
Smith’s young son. I had heard that the boy had taken a lot of
interest in the superhero suits, but so had everyone. I remember
him because he was the only calm face I met, and he had intense
eyes that seemed to pierce right into my soul.
    He was shorter than I expected; a lot of
people were dismissive of him because of his stature, but I thought
he had more fire in his heart than most.
    “I believe in you,” he said, “you’ve got
this. Set?”
    I didn’t want to let him down.
    They filmed me in my suit. It was a live
transmission to all parts of the world still capable of receiving
it. Think about that: the whole world, every person, was depending
on me. I could only think of my dead family, and how surprised they
would have been to see their rebellious daughter saluted by the
president. I was given flowers and medals and then I was loaded
into a modified stealth bomber.
    It was a relief to be away, really.
    I was in the bomber for an hour. I sat in
silence with the bomb across my knees and the whole world resting
on my shoulders. I was set.
    It wasn’t a graceful exit; the bomber was hit
hard before it reached the saucer. The pilots only managed to keep
it together long enough for me to escape before they spiraled out
of control. The crew died, but their courage meant I survived. I
dropped through the clouds and right onto the biggest saucer I have
ever seen.
    It was big, too big for the bomb.
    I could see helicopters in the