The Burning Skies

by David J. Williams

  “Basically,” says Sarmax.

  “You must be enjoying this, Leo.”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  The train slides to a halt. The doors open—but Sarmax is already shoving Lynx through them, stumbling onto a narrow platform. Everybody follows. There aren’t many ways out of here. Just a stairwell and an—

  “Elevator,” says Carson.

  They press inside. It’s a tight fit. Haskell feels Carson’s suit press against hers. She feels as though she’s in a dream. It’s like she’s seen all this before—she feels the floor press up beneath her, level after level, they flick upward into the rafters of the Euro city. Gravity starts to subside. When they finally stop, there’s not much of it left.

  “Ready?” says Carson.

  “Let’s do it,” says Sarmax.

  They hit their suits’ thrusters as the door opens, heading out into an empty corridor, then through what seems to be some kind of antechamber. Beyond it is a door so thick it looks like it was pried out of some bank vault.

  “You got the key?” asks Haskell.

  “I’d better,” replies Carson.

  He triggers the necessary codes. The massive door starts to swing open. As the door gets past forty-five degrees open, Sarmax shoves Lynx forward, through that doorway and to the left, while he hits his own thrusters and heads to the right. Carson and Haskell wait.

  But only for a moment.

  “Clear,” shouts Sarmax.

  Carson gestures at Haskell. She shoves off the floor, floats into the room alongside him as the door swings shut behind them.

  “Not too far,” he says. She fires compressed air, stops—looks around to see that the room’s on two levels. She and Carson and Lynx are on the deck that constitutes the outer level, a circle around the sunken inner one, where Sarmax hovers, scanning surfaces. The walls curve between two windows situated opposite each other, each one cutting across the outer level. Space flickers in one of those windows—lights of ships and stars set against an all-consuming black.

  The other window shows the interior of the cylinder. The lights of twilit city stretch away on all sides, descending to three valleys that look like the sides of some vast equilateral triangle whose segments have been thrust apart. One of the gaps between two of the valleys shows a sun on the point of setting. The other gaps contain largely darkened mirrors. Night’s almost fallen on the land.

  “It’s almost here,” says Haskell.

  “What?” asks Carson.

  He looks at her, and she knows she can’t explain. How could she? Everything’s turned around her. She was going south and now she’s been slung back north, back into the heart of the city. Sixth-sense pivots within her head; the maps upon her skin take on new meaning. All this time she thought she was looking out through the lens of intuition and all the while it was looking in at her. Everything was leading here. She tries to speak, muttering something about how the view’s not cheap.

  “It wasn’t money that bought it for us,” says Carson. He floats near the door, closer now to Lynx than to Haskell. He nods in the direction of Sarmax—more one-on-one coordination, Haskell presumes. Sarmax makes a return gesture.

  “Shouldn’t I get away from these windows?” she asks.

  “They’re one-way,” says Carson.

  “So now we wait for your masters?” asks Lynx.

  “Yours too,” says Carson. “Have a seat.”

  He shoves Lynx into one of the chairs that ring the outer level of the room. Lynx sits there, stares at what’s left of his wrist. Haskell feels his amputation as though it’s her own. She doesn’t know why. But he has the demeanor of someone who owned the universe only to lose it. She senses much history among these three men. History it seems the files only hint at.

  “It embarrasses me for you to see us like this,” says Carson, as though he’s read her mind.

  “Why?”

  “We’ve seen better days.”

  “It gets better than this?”

  He laughs. She realizes that he doesn’t do that often. That he has no idea what to make of her. Then suddenly his head snaps to regard an instrument panel next to the door. He shouts down to Sarmax that they’ve got company. Sarmax hits his thrusters, vaults up to the outer platform.

  “Approaching the door?” asks Carson.

  “Yeah. Camera’s out, of course.”

  “Who took it out?” asks Haskell.

  “We did,” says Sarmax.

  “We hope,” says Carson. “All we’ve got is heat and motion coming toward that door.”

  But Haskell can sense far more than that. This room she’s never seen before is aglow in every vision. She can see all too clearly the logic that led to its selection: any team that bagged her or Rain would come here without any footprints on the zone, on an unmonitored route that’s not on any chart. This is the ideal point for rendezvous, with escape routes in both directions. The fleet’s outside. The interior’s covered by snipers. If whoever’s outside the door isn’t who they’re supposed to be …

  “So which is it going to be?” she asks.

  “For me, space was always the place.” He gestures. They fire their suits’ thrusters, move toward the window facing out into vacuum. Sarmax remains where he is, covering Lynx and the doorway. Carson tosses something onto that window, then pulls Haskell back from it.

  “They’ve got the right access codes so far,” says Carson. He grasps one of her arms, turning her around so that both of them are facing the door. “I’ve placed a charge on the window. Explosive decompression will give us a good start in the vacuum. You’ll have to excuse me, but I don’t intend to let go of you.”

  “It’s what you’re paid for,” she says.

  The door starts to open.

  • • •

  The guns on this ship are tracking on something,” says Spencer. “Where?” says Linehan.

  “Looks like they’re reorientating some of the KE gatlings onto the New London spaceport,” says Spencer. Right where the two Praetorian ships just landed—he stares at the surrounding topography, but it looks normal enough. Just more ships lining up for approach and pushing back from the Platform. He shifts his focus back to the far end—

  “We might be about to see some shit,” says Linehan. “If the Throne’s starting to feed reinforcements into the cylinder from his Aerie—”

  “He’s not,” says Spencer.

  “You seem really sure of that.”

  “C’mon, man. Those ships that just landed on the cylinder’s other end, at New London—they were the reinforcements. Along with the rest of us still out here. The Throne needs a better reason than that to open up a door in his citadel.”

  “So then they took something inside the asteroid—”

  “No way.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I’m sure of nothing. But logic seems to preclude it.”

  “Go on,” says Linehan.

  “The operatives we were tracking in the cylinder went lights out. So did the target. Here’s my hypothesis: they got whatever they were chasing. They either captured it or they killed it. Now they need to do something with it.”

  “If they killed it, what the fuck else can they do to it?”

  “Inspect it. Dissect it. Use its codes to triangulate on the live ones. Rain corpses don’t come cheap.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “I’m just speculating here, Linehan. It’s all I can do. But I’m wondering whether that thing’s now driving the timing of the whole operation. We got put on alert when it got detected. And the tension’s still getting cranked. Hostiles are still out there.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “To the logical place one ends up if one assumes that this thing or its carcass can be used against the rest of the Rain. Whether or not it’s some Rain witch—whether or not that’s all bullshit—the point is that if it’s something the Throne needs—what happens then?”

  “H
e brings it inside the Aerie—oh. No.”

  “No,” says Spencer. “The Throne can’t bring it inside.”

  “Because it could be trojan.”

  “Yeah. Exactly. On the zone or physically—doesn’t matter. The whole point might be to use this to get to him.”

  “Which puts him in a tight box.”

  “Yeah,” says Spencer.

  “Because he can’t go to it either.”

  “No way. If he leaves that asteroid, he forfeits his whole fucking strategy.”

  “So what does he do?” asks Linehan.

  “Sends something in his place.”

  “Got something in mind?”

  “All depends on how important this asset they’ve bagged is.”

  “And if it’s critically important—”

  “—then the Throne has to send in something he trusts totally.”

  Static. Then: “I didn’t realize there was such a thing.”

  “That’s all there is,” says Spencer. “A single thing.”

  The far edge of the door passes the near the edge of the wall.

  “Stop right there,” yells Sarmax, his voice blasting through the room on amplification.

  The door stops moving.

  “Stand by to receive primary code,” says an amplified voice on the door’s far side.

  “Standing by” says Sarmax. She realizes he’s beaming the code to Carson. Who nods.

  “Get in here,” yells Sarmax.

  The door gets moving again. Suited figures start to sail into the room. Haskell notices that Carson continues to wait where he is, one hand on her arm, his back to the window, poised to blow that window and blast them both into space. Though once he sees their uniforms he relaxes almost imperceptibly.

  And once he sees how many of them there are, he relaxes visibly—but still at the ready, facing the first of the suited figures, who’s now almost reached him.

  That figure wears Praetorian colors. She wonders at that but decides that somebody probably figures that if these troops see combat, it no longer matters what makes the news. But the colors they wear aren’t the usual Praetorian ones the news-channels feature: slashes of dark blue set against a darker grey. The ones she’s looking at have replaced that blue with an almost reddish purple. But everything else about these suits—the shape of the helmets, the weapons configurations sported by the armor, the way in which insignia are displayed, all of it—is classic Praetorian. Haskell realizes that she’s looking at something she’s never seen—the uniform of the Praetorian Core. And now the soldier in front of her is saluting Carson.

  “Sir,” he says.

  Carson returns the salute. “What’s the situation, Lieutenant?”

  “Under control, sir.”

  “And his ETA?”

  “Within the minute, sir. Via max-speed maglev.”

  “See this lady?” says Carson.

  “Yes, sir,” says the lieutenant.

  “Her life is more important than yours. You’ll die for her without hesitation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Inform your soldiers of this. Prepare this room’s defenses.”

  “Sir.”

  “Dismissed.”

  The lieutenant turns. Carson lets go of Haskell. She doesn’t move though—just glances over to where Lynx is being neural-locked by two soldiers. His helmet’s off. His back’s to her. She notices Sarmax drifting over to where she and Carson are.

  How’s Lynx taking it?” asks the Operative on the one-on-one. “How do you think?” replies Sarmax.

  “The Rain almost fucked us.”

  “You really think they got to him?”

  “No question.”

  “So now we space him?”

  “Probably. But for now they’ve taken him to where the marines from the ships are setting up the outer perimeter.”

  “Those guys have brought in some heavy equipment, huh?”

  “Nothing that doesn’t suit the occasion. Lynx really got strapped to the railroad tracks this time.”

  “With the Hand driving the shit-train to end all shit-trains.”

  “And that guy breaks for nothing.”

  Sarmax looks amused. “If you’re pressed for conversation when he gets here, you might consider asking him to go easy on Lynx.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “It’d look good—you know, plead his case, show some concern and all that.”

  “Tell you what, man, why don’t you start shooting into the ceiling or something just so it’s totally obvious to everybody that I have no ability to lead a fucking team whatsoever.”

  “Maybe they’ll even give me back the job,” says Sarmax.

  “Like you’d want it.”

  “I’m starting to think I might.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What are you guys talking about?” asks Haskell.

  They look at her.

  “She’s quick,” says Sarmax.

  “She is,” says Carson. “We were just talking about the situation.”

  “Which is?”

  “Precarious.”

  What do you know about him?” asks Linehan. “Just the usual stuff you hear around the campfire,” says Spencer. “The Hand’s second only to the president in the Praetorian hierarchy—”

  “And responsible for one thing.”

  “The security of the Throne.”

  “Meaning the Throne’s taking one hell of a risk if he’s really sending him in.”

  Spencer mulls this over—and then sees the captain suddenly signal to the gunnery officers on the left of the bridge. He watches numbers race one another across his screens as the ship’s batteries start responding.

  “Hey,” he says. “They’re priming the DE cannon.”

  “Which ones?”

  “That’d be all of them.”

  • • •

  The Praetorians have set up heavy weapons pointed at both windows—two-person gatlings that take about fifteen seconds to configure—and are also boring holes in the ceiling and floor, shoving wires through them to communicate via direct transmission with their brethren who apparently have occupied the adjacent floors. Haskell’s assuming it’s all still off the zone—that it’s all been worked out in advance. She floats near the inner deck with Carson and Sarmax hovering nearby. She counts at least thirty soldiers. She wonders how many are in the structure around her—wonders if the millions who dwell in the city all around have any idea what’s taking place within their midst.

  More Praetorians enter the room. They’re bunched tightly around a single figure who wears the same uniform as they do—but who now separates from them, rockets in toward her and Carson and Sarmax accompanied only by two other Praetorians. Haskell notices that the approaching suit has no rank. It seems like he’s moving toward her over some infinite distance; like she’s seen him so many times before. Carson and Sarmax come to attention as the man brakes in front of them.

  “Sir,” says Carson.

  “At ease,” says the man.

  “This is the woman, sir,” says the Operative.

  “Good,” says the man. The face behind his visor is much older than she was expecting. His hair’s as grey as his eyes. “Claire, my name’s Huselid.”

  “The Throne’s own Hand.”

  “I need you to remove your helmet.”

  She complies wordlessly. Brown hair spills out as she breathes in the air around her. The Praetorians standing to either side of Huselid begin pulling material out of their suits, begin to erect what looks for all the world like a tent around them. Walls quickly cut them off. What seemed to be fabric at first is now hardening into something that’s more like plastic.

  They’re in a room within a room. She feels everything closing in around her. She feels the universe billowing out beyond her. Huselid doesn’t take his eyes off her.

  “Claire, there are a couple of scans we have to run. I need you to remove your suit.”

  “Don’t you f
ucking get it?” she says, but though it sounds like protest it’s really not. It’s more like ritual. “There’s no time. They might hit us at any moment.”

  “Precisely why you need to hurry.” The Praetorians pull themselves out of the structure, affix its plastic to the larger chamber’s walls. One of them steps back in, stands with her weapons trained on Haskell as Huselid continues: “I apologize, but prudence dictates precautions. Gentlemen, if you’d be so kind.”

  Carson and Sarmax salute and leave, pulling the door-flap shut behind them. Haskell shrugs, opens up her suit, steps out, strips off her shirt and pants. She stands there, noticing that Huselid’s noticing the bloody scars wreathed upon her.

  “What are those?” he asks.

  “Schematics that depict how the Rain might be taking the ground out from under our feet while we sit here chatting.”

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” he says—gazes at her, and she realizes he’s scanning on multiple spectrums. She takes him in—soldier of the Throne, playing the hand he’s been dealt. Though apparently he’s still fully capable of multitasking:

  “It wouldn’t have worked,” he says.

  “What wouldn’t have?”

  “Breaking into the Aerie to confront the Throne.”

  “Only way to be sure the Rain weren’t listening in. Only way he could be sure I wasn’t Rain.”

  “But they were trying to follow you in. You almost fell into their trap.”

  “They almost fell into mine. Once I’d combined with the Throne directly, we could have destroyed them at point-blank range.”

  “We’ll give you the next best thing.”

  “Remote-junction’s too great a risk.”

  “It’s the only risk the Throne will take,” he replies.

  “Then he’s a fool.”

  Huselid says nothing. But his eyes say everything. She doesn’t even know why she’s arguing. She’s just following the script. Because how she gets to the impending moment doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s about to be unleashed. And now a door in the enclosure folds up and two more Praetorians float a small cart into the room. It contains an object: a cube about a meter on each side, covered in a metallic paperlike substance peeling all around its edges. A screen’s attached to one end. What looks like a small radar dish exudes from the other. One of the soldiers takes her clothes and pulls her suit from the enclosure. The other adjusts the dish. Looks at her.