The Burning Skies (14 page)

“We have them,” says the Hand.

Even as she feels the zone writhe beneath her.

T
he cannons of the
Larissa V
unleash on maximum strafe. Puffs of explosions dot the cylinder—and now the Platform’s giving way to space as the ship turns at a sickening angle and rushes parallel to the main cylinder.

“This is it!” screams Linehan—and cuts out as the drop-ship he’s in launches. Spencer watches it go on the screens within his head, watches the other dropships launch, watches as the
Larissa V
blasts past the Platform and engages its rear-guns. The targeted areas light up—and then go dark.

Along with everything else.

W
hat the fuck,” says the Operative. His screens are showing static—within his helmet, but also within his head. He looks at Sarmax, who’s looking puzzled. The other Praetorians are clearly having the same problem. They’re communicating with hand signals. Those within this room are still holding their positions. But as to what’s happening to the Praetorian marines in the perimeter that defends this room, the Operative has no idea. He hears no sign of combat.

But the fighting in the cylinder has clearly stepped up several notches. The air’s ablaze with laser and tracer fire. Most of it’s concentrated some fifteen klicks out, but there’s plenty of it that’s a lot nearer. Two more fuel-air bombs have
detonated. New London is on fire in several places. The Operative gets glimpses of mobs in the streets—tens of thousands of terrified people in full stampede along the ramps. In the far distance, a giant jet of flame gouts out from the southern mountains. Whatever’s going on behind them in the Aerie isn’t pretty. The Operative moves to where Sarmax is standing, places his helmet against his.

“They’ve lost the whole fucking zone,” he yells.

“Can you reestablish one-on-one?” yells Sarmax.

“It’s gone, man!”

“What do you mean it’s gone?”

“I mean it’s fucking vanished! We could broadcast in the clear, but that’s suicide!”

“So what do we do?” says Sarmax.

“Purge the loose ends and get ready for the mother of all slug-outs.”

“Loose ends?”

“Lynx. Let’s execute him.”

“Works for me,” says Sarmax. The Operative turns away, fires his suit’s thrusters, glides over to one of the Praetorian officers, slams his helmet up against his.

“Kill the prisoner,” he says.

“Sir, I need the authority of the Hand for that.”

“The Hand’s a little fucking busy right now,” snarls the Operative.

“Those are my orders.”

“Your orders have changed,” says the voice of the Hand.

T
sunami’s surging out across the zone. Nothing left around her. Nothing—save the implications of what she carved upon herself. What she failed to recognize. The nature of the real trap. “Both zones,” she says out loud.

They let her make the first move. They drew her in, convinced her that they had nothing in reserve, forced her to become the one thing propping up the universe. But now there’s no more universe left to prop. The Eurasian and U.S. zones have just gone down. The Rain used the legacies to link them, leveraged the proximity of the executive nodes of East and West.

And set them against each other like opposite charges to neutralize each other.

“What the hell?” says Huselid.

“Every wireless conduit,” she says. “Chain reaction.”

Autumn Rain’s razors just rode their megahack in style, smashing against every exposed razor they could find on the way down. They couldn’t damage her, though—couldn’t touch the razors under her personal protection, within the Hand’s perimeter. All they could do was yank the zone from under her feet.

But not the one within her head. Haskell’s the one thing that’s not affected—the one thing capable of restoring what’s been lost. She’s doing her utmost to jury-rig a whole new zone around her. But it’s going to be pathetically small. Because all she can reach is the software of those in immediate line-of-sight. Though that’s a damn sight farther than anyone else can manage. She beams new codes to the Hand, beams them to his bodyguards—sends soldiers racing out toward the outer perimeter to try to restore some semblance of order. Other soldiers are turning to the outer window of the room, setting up Morse code to signal the ships out there via direct visual.

“Order them all directly onto the Aerie,” snarls the Hand.
“Tell them to hit that asteroid and deploy everything that’s left.”

But now the Rain make the move aimed at checkmate.

• • •

S
pencer opens his eyes. It’s not easy. His head hurts. It feels like his nose is bleeding. He looks around. The bridge is in chaos. Personnel are removing panels, pulling out wires. Trying to find a way to control this ship, which continues to hurtle out into space, away from the Platform. Spencer wanders through his own mind’s haze, wonders if there’s anything he can do about it. Because it doesn’t look like the prime razor’s going to do shit. He’s sprawled in his chair, eyes staring at nothing.

“He’s fucking had it,” shouts a voice. “Now get the fuck over here!”

The captain hasn’t deigned to speak to his secondary razor until now. But Spencer just got a battlefield promotion—he releases his straps, fires his suit’s thrusters, jets over to where the captain’s holding onto his own chair. The captain points at the exec-dashboard in front of him.

“Get the fuck in there and give me control.”

“Sir.” And Spencer does. He finds himself blocked—slides past that blockage, reaches down the redundant wires, bypasses the software to interface directly with the engines. It’s not much. Every wireless conduit that might lead to the larger zone beyond this ship is fucked. But it’ll have to do.

“I have it,” he says. “Give me orders, sir.”

“Back to the fucking Platform,” says the captain, giving him the vectors—and turning from there to the gunnery officers, starting to gesture at them to get their consoles’ wires extended to where Spencer is. But Spencer’s got eyes only for the fragment of the ship’s zone that’s still remaining, a glowing ember amidst scattered ash. The angle along which he’s turning the craft is almost insanely aggressive, in large part because he’s only got partial control of the steering. He feels G-forces building upon him. He watches people clinging to their straps and chairs. He watches panels that have been torn loose fly into the walls—watches the Platform swing back into
the windows and start to rush in toward them once more. Two other ships are out in front of them. They’ve managed to get back in the game as well. They’re running the same race, closing on the same target.

“Landfall on the asteroid,” says the captain. “Following coordinates.”

Spencer lines up the approaching Aerie. But now one of the ships that’s up ahead lights up in a sudden flash—a flash that intensifies as its armor crumbles and its engines detonate.

“Gone,” screams someone.

“What the hell’s going on?” yells the captain.

“We’re under fire, sir,” says Spencer.

“I can see that!
What the fuck’s shooting at us?”

“I’m trying to figure that out!” screams Spencer. “Give me a fucking moment!”

“We don’t
have
any moments! Evasive action!”

But Spencer’s already got that going. Everything that’s not tied down starts moving again. A huge bolt of energy just misses their ship, flashes past on the screens. Spencer runs subroutines on what’s left of the ship’s comps; he traces that energy’s strength and direction, looks back along its route, reaches its source.

And finds himself staring across a hundred kilometers at the Helios Station.

B
lasts keep on rocking the chamber. The Praetorians have switched back from hand signals to the one-on-one. And now Lynx sails on thrusters back into the room. Sarmax looks at the Operative. “Thought he was supposed to be dead.”

“Divine intervention,” says the Operative.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The Manilishi. Apparently she purged his skull’s software. He’s clean.”

“Not that it matters,” says Sarmax, gesturing at the window. Lynx reaches them, stares out at it—and whistles.

“Christ,” he says, “they’re going to
town.”

An understatement. The shelling of the Praetorian ships has penetrated the cylinder in several places. And somebody’s busy blowing airlocks. People are getting sucked by the thousands down tunnels and holes now laid open.

“Look on the bright side,” says Sarmax. “The vacuum’ll put out the fires.”

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” says Lynx.

About as bad as it gets,” says the Operative. “We could use you back in the game. How’s your hand?”

“Fucked,” says Lynx.

“He means can you fight,” says Sarmax.

“I know what he means, you prick. The answer’s yes.”

“It’s less a question of lost firepower,” says the Operative. “More one of—”

“Lost balance?” Lynx’s smile is pure ice. “Armor can compensate. Particularly with the download that bitch just gave me. So we’ve lost the broader zone?”

“Yup,” says Sarmax. “The Manilishi and the Hand seem to have managed to get a local connection going. And that’s it.”