“What?”
“You heard me,” says the Operative.
“Where?”
“Closing.”
“So what are you waiting for?”
It’s off the zone,” says Spencer.
“The target?”
“The hunters, too.”
“Because something’s hunting them.”
“Starting to look that way.”
“More than just starting,” says Linehan. “Textbook setup, man. We’re the reserves. Out in space. We’re flying cover while our forward operatives—whoever the fuck they are—cover the area through which we know hostiles have to pass.”
“You’ve got me, Linehan. How do you know hostiles have to enter the cylinder?”
“I don’t. Can you get me a readout of the shipping activity across the whole Platform across the last four days?”
“Define shipping activity” says Spencer.
“Times and locations on the Platform at which ships have landed or departed. Normalized against historical activity across the last three months.”
“Easy enough.” Spencer pulls it up. “Here.” But as he’s sending the file over to Linehan he’s taking a look himself.
And drawing some quick conclusions.
“Fuck,” he says.
“Fasten your seat belts,” says Linehan.
Greenery’s everywhere. Haskell’s standing on the stairs one level above the floor of a much larger chamber. She can barely discern its contours. A translucent roof stops just short of the cylinder’s hollow interior above her. Light’s dribbling dimly through. Greenhouse structures are stacked along its edges. The floor’s partitioned into giant squares, given over to different types of crops.
Haskell leaps from the stairs, dropping into the plants beneath her. The tall grasses close in over her head. She brushes through them, finds the closest irrigation channel, and starts running along it in a crouch.
Which is when someone steps from the grass farther up ahead.
Someone in a suit of armor that’s completely beaten her own suit’s camo. A nasty-looking minigun’s mounted on its shoulder. The gun’s barrel swivels toward her, even as she springs back onto the zone and finds that whoever’s in the armor has isolated himself from all nets—presumably to deal with the likes of her. She stares into that barrel, and it’s as though it’s already fired. As though she’s already gone.
But she’s not. She’s still frozen in that moment, still watching existence freeze about her. The suit holds up a hand, gestures at the side of its helmet. As though it wants to talk. She obliges, activating a tightbeam channel, and a voice crackles in her head.
The habbed asteroids,” says Spencer.
“The Aeries. Yeah.”
“Nothing’s landed there since this whole thing started.”
“And nothing’s going to either. Like I said, targets have to pass through the cylinder.”
“But why would targets even come to the Platform in the first place?”
“It’s not like either of us is a stranger to this type of drill, Spencer. There are only two ways to bag a target, right? Either you go get it or—”
“You make it come to you.”
“Yeah.”
“So what’s the bait?”
“I’ll take a wild guess: something impossible to resist.”
Going somewhere?” the voice says.
Haskell doesn’t reply. Time spirals slowly sideways. Cosmic background static pours through her. She feels herself drowning in it. She feels herself rising past it. She hears the voice continue.
“Take off your helmet. I want to see you.”
Her body’s so full of adrenaline she can barely move her hands from where she’s got them above her head. But she does: lowers those hands against infinite resistance, unclasps the helmet’s seals, lifts the helmet off, tosses it aside. The suited figure moves forward with all the purpose of a predatory insect—so close now she can see ebony skin through the visor. She can even see what looks like silver hair.
But she can also see that gun—adjusting minutely on its axis as it aims directly between her eyes.
Flame and motion in the windows of the bridge: two of the other Praetorian ships are firing their motors. They’re dropping out of orbit, toward the cylinder.
“They’re sending a couple of ships in,” says Spencer.
“Drop ships?” asks Linehan.
“No, entire fucking ships. Decked out as medium-grade freighters, American, same as this one. Guess the rest of us are providing cover. Along with whatever they’ve got mounted on the Helios power station.”
“That Helios is quite a structure. Ten klicks of lasers and microwave—”
“I’ll say. Talk about directed-energy capability—”
“How soon till the ships hit the Platform?”
“About a minute.”
“Which end are they heading toward?”
“North Pole. The spaceport end. You called it.”
“Damn right I did,” says Linehan.
“So what the fuck’s in those asteroids? The Euro Magnates?”
“I think they’ve been taken off the board, Spencer. I think the thing that’s in that cylinder’s Aerie is the same thing that’s directing this whole operation.”
“While simultaneously doing everything it can to convince its prey that it’s ripe for the taking?”
“I see you see where I’m going with this.”
You’re a woman,” says the man within the suit.
“And you’re Stefan Lynx.” A momentary pause. “What the hell makes you say that?”
“I’ve seen your file. I recognize your face. You dye your hair silver. You’re not that hard to pick out of a crowd.”
“You’ve hacked through to the heart of our systems.”
“I’d hardly say your file is at the heart of the Praetorian systems, Stefan.”
“Shut up,” he snaps. “All your zone tricks can’t save you now. Because I’m the one who’s got the gun—don’t move your hands. Keep them right where they are.”
“I’m not moving.”
“Good.”
“What do you want?”
“To gaze upon the face of Rain before I obliterate your face.”
“I’m here to fight the Rain, Stefan.”
“You are the Rain, bitch.”
“You’d better check your orders. Your Throne wouldn’t want me killed. Your Throne would have ordered me taken alive. And I can assure you right now he’d be pretty fucking livid if—”
“Shut up!” She stops talking. “Don’t try to twist my mind!” But she realizes there’s some doubt in his head. That he’s trying to psyche himself up to kill her.
Or else he’s just savoring the moment.
“Start begging for your life.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Rain whore. Let’s see you fucking plead.”
“You’ll kill me anyway,” she says.
Near-instantaneous swivel: the gun fires. A shot streaks past her head. “Not good enough,” he says.
“Strom Carson,” she says. “Where is he?”
“Who?”
“The leader of your triad.”
“Say that name again,” he says.
“He’s got different orders, doesn’t he?”
“What the fuck makes you say that?”
“Your team’s been fucked with, Stefan. Where’s Carson?”
And for a moment she thinks she’s gone too far. Lynx takes aim at her chest—and then suddenly leaps toward her, grabs her by the neck as he pulls out a pistol, and shoves it up against her temple. And now he’s switched to audio piped from his suit’s speakers. “He’s right behind you. Come out asshole! Right fucking now!”
She’s staring in the same direction he is, across the fields at the nearest wall. She still can’t see it. But then they switch off their camo and she does: two figures in two doorways. One of them is advancing. The other is staying put. Haskell
notices that they’ve got their camo patterns adjusted so that they’re only visible along the line of vision in which she and Lynx are standing. The figure that’s still standing in a doorway is covering the whole area with a pulse-rifle. The other figure’s still closing.
“That’s far enough,” says Lynx.
“Deactivate your weapons.”
Lynx laughs. “I got a better idea, Carson. You deactivate yours. Before I do your Rain girlfriend.”
“That’s not the Rain. That’s the Manilishi. Which belongs to the president.”
“Don’t think you can make up words and impress me, Carson. She’s Rain. She’s pulling your strings.”
“No,” snarls the third man—whom Haskell figures to be Leo Sarmax. “The Rain’s pulling yours.”
“Shut up, Leo,” says Lynx. “You don’t know shit.”
“None of you do!” screams Haskell. Lynx’s arm tightens around her, but she keeps talking anyway. “We don’t have time for this! The Rain are closing on us even now!”
“Don’t think I don’t know that,” says Carson.
This could kick off at any moment,” says Spencer. “It may already have,” says Linehan. “Are you armed?”
“Just sidearms. Nothing as fancy as you’ve got.”
“If the shit hits the fan on this ship—”
“It’s more likely to hit it down there.”
“It’s definitely about to fucking hit it down there. The Rain are in that cylinder for sure. They’re betting they can beat whatever trap’s been set.”
“And reach the asteroid in which the Throne’s sitting.”
“The Aerie where he’s waiting for them. Daring them to come and fucking get him.”
“It’s a magnet,” says Linehan. “A fucking magnet.”
“Look at the size of those Aeries.” Spencer transmits the dimensions of the rock that’s attached to the cylinder in which the action’s going down, lighting up the sphere in 3-D false-color. “The Praetorian Core comprises an entire division. Every last one of them could be packed in there with him, with this fleet that we’re a part of just waiting to swoop down at the first sign of trouble—”
“And the East’s ships, too.”
“Who’ve got that other cylinder covered.”
“But if he’s involved then that means the Eurasian leadership—”
“It might,” says Spencer.
“Might? It must.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s no way he would allow Eurasian troops to be a part of this under any other set of conditions.”
“Double or nothing?”
“Anything you want to bet, Spencer. It’s everything. It’s the only way any of this makes any sense. He’s in one of the Aeries; the Eurasian leadership’s in the other. Along with their own Praetorian equivalents.”
“Maybe.”
“Jesus man, think about it. Both sides know Autumn Rain has been playing them off each other. That they’ve gone to ground within the East’s zone to escape ours, and vice versa. The leaderships intend to squeeze the Rain between them, and if they can achieve enough integration between the two executive nodes—”
“They’d stand a good chance of bagging Rain,” says Spencer.
“Which means the Rain has to strike them first.”
“At a place of the leaderships’ own choosing.”
“That place being here.”
“And here we are right in the middle.”
You have to take me to the Throne,” says Haskell.
“Yeah,” says Lynx, “fucking right.”
“Lynx,” says Carson, “this is your last chance—” but as he says this, a tiny hatch in Sarmax’s knee opens and fires two quick shots. Haskell feels heat on her face as the blast sears past her, feels debris pepper her suit as the barrel of Lynx’s minigun disintegrates, along with his pistol—and his hand. He’s knocked sprawling on the ground screaming as Carson and Sarmax fire their suit-thrusters. In an instant, Carson’s crashing into Haskell, knocking the wind from her, shielding her with his body.
For a moment all’s still. Haskell clears her throat.
“Mind if I get up?” she asks.
Carson says nothing—just stands up and hauls her to her feet. Lynx is sitting on the ground, cradling his arm. His visor’s up. Sarmax has landed halfway between her and the door, covering Lynx with his pulse-rifle—covering the rest of the ag-complex, too. She sees Carson shake his head within his suit, realizes that Sarmax was probably asking Carson on a private channel if he should finish Lynx off. But apparently Carson has declined. Though it seems he’s not done yet.
“Lynx,” he says aloud. “You’re under arrest.”
“Just shoot me now,” mutters Lynx.
“I would shoot you now, you stupid fuck, except for the fact that you thought you were serving the Throne. But believe me, if you had killed her, this would have been your grave.”
“And if you try broadcasting anything, it still might,” says Sarmax. “How’s your arm?”
“Cauterized,” says Lynx. “Suit sealed. Fucking bas—”
“Shut up,” says Carson. “Claire Haskell: we’re Praetorian special ops. We’re here to protect you. Get your helmet back on. We have to get—”
“Save the speech,” says Haskell. “If you’re Praetorian, take me to the Throne. Fucking now.”
“Actually” says Carson, “I have orders not to.”
Haskell stares. Lynx laughs.
“Orders from the Rain, huh?” he says.
“Orders from the Throne,” replies Carson.
“I guess I can’t blame him,” says Haskell.
“You really can’t,” says Carson. “Let’s move.”
• • •
We’re caught up in the fucking day of judgement.”
“Calm down,” says Spencer.
“I am calm.”
“You probably shouldn’t be.”
“It all depends on how far the Rain have infiltrated. Whether they’ve managed to get into the Aerie.”
“Whether the Throne has been successful in confining any infiltration to the cylinder.”
“The Rain might just nuke that asteroid.”
“And that asteroid could probably take it. Besides, it’s not enough to just obliterate the Throne. The executive node switches in that eventuality.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” asks Linehan.
“I’ve no idea.”
“That makes me nervous.”
“Yeah,” says Spencer. “Me, too.”
“You could be the Rain.”
“We both might be.”
“Christ, this is fucked up,” says Linehan.
“I noticed.”
“So what else do you know about the executive node?”
“That it’s transferred to the president’s successor in the event of his physical destruction.”
“And who’s the successor?”
“I’d guess Montrose.”
“I’d guess that too. And I’m thinking she’s nowhere near here.”
“Not much is.”
“Which is why the Throne picked this place,” says Linehan. “L3’s out of sight of the Moon and all the infrastructure around it. Only about twenty percent of our strategic weaponry has the angle and range, and—”
“Right. More than enough backup to bail the president out of whatever goes down here at the same time minimizing the assets he has to keep track of. This dump’s perfect.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Best among some shit options?”
“The logic’s clear enough,” says Linehan. “The two leaderships have to be in direct contact. But they had to pick neutral territory since neither leadership is about to send its executive node into the other’s terrain. And it has to be in space, because this way they can control every last approach. And then, when the Rain moves in, they can hit them in that cylinder from all sides, with overwhelming force.”
And e
merge and declare that they’ve destroyed the Rain and forged a new treaty while they were at it—a second Zurich to divide the world anew.” Spencer shakes his head. “They can absorb what’s left of the neutrals and then get on with whatever the fuck they like.”
But now something’s happening on that nearer asteroid. Nothing that’s visible physically. In space the Aerie remains the same as it’s been this whole time: partially occluded by that cylinder, partially glinting in the sun, a metal-studded rock that keeps its own counsel.
In the zone, though, it’s a different story. Something’s happening on the asteroid’s firewall. On the part of the sphere that’s blocked by the cylinder.
“On the rock,” says Spencer.
“Yeah?”
“A door’s opening.”
They’re going lights out and hell for leather. No zone presence now, and they’re hoping nothing can see them on board the special train of the Euro Magnates. They’ve traveled three levels up—into a corridor that isn’t supposed to exist—through a door and into the transit-tube where the train was sitting. No sooner were they aboard than it took off at full speed—back toward the city-end of the cylinder. Sarmax is keeping an eye on Lynx, whose armor’s sensors and weaponry have been deactivated. The Operative’s keeping an eye on Haskell. Both men keep an eye on everything else as well. As far as they know, this train’s empty. But there are nine other cars beside theirs. And they’re not about to make any assumptions.
“So where exactly are we going?” asks Haskell.
The basements of New London,” replies Carson.
“For the greater glory of the Rain,” says Lynx. “Shut up,” snarls Sarmax, but Lynx just laughs. And keeps on talking. “Can’t you think for yourself, Leo? Don’t you see what’s happening? Carson and this—this thing here—have got this all worked out. We’re heading straight into the hands of Rain.”
“I don’t think so,” says Sarmax.
“How do you fucking know?”
“Enough with the mind games,” snaps Carson. “The Rain could be on us any moment. Here’s how it’s going to work. In about ten seconds, this train is going to stop. When it does, Lynx is on point. Leo’s next. Then the Manil—I mean Claire. I’ll be covering her and guarding the rear. Got it?”
“So that’s why I’m still alive,” says Lynx. Another target.”
The Burning Skies Page 6