The Burning Skies

by David J. Williams

  Tsunami’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.

  • • •

  Spencer 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.

  Blasts 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.”

  “Where’s the Throne?” asks Lynx.

  “In the asteroid,” says the Operative.

  “Still fighting?”

  “Who knows?”

  The three men amp their scopes, peer out into the cylinder’s vast hollow. Most of the lighting is gone now. Explosions flash out amidst the gathering dark. Half the Platform’s robots seem to be running programs set in motion by the Rain. Debris flies past the window. Tracer-fire cuts swathes everywhere.

  “Let’s prep tactics,” says the Operative.

  “Has the Hand given you scenarios?” asks Lynx.

  “He’s given me nothing,” says the Operative. “I think he and his new friend are trying to assess events.”

  “They’d better catch up quick,” says Sarmax.

  But now the Operative’s heads-up is giving him more data—directly from the Hand/Manilishi battle management node. Some of the Praetorians are pointing at the exterior window.

  “Someone’s lighting up the vacuum,” says the Operative

  “With what?” asks Lynx.

  “Oh Jesus Christ,” says Sarmax.

  They’ve already processed the implications. Ten klicks long and studded with microwave and laser projectors, the Helios has long served as a linchpin of power-generation for the L3 system. It can divid
e its energy among its dishes or channel it all through a single one. It seems to be firing through about fifteen of them right now, changing those fifteen up to allow it maximum field of fire upon the targets that it’s now engaging. It was never intended for anything but peaceful purposes.

  Though its new owners could give two shits.

  “We and the East had four special-ops teams apiece up there,” says the Hand.

  “Not anymore,” says Haskell.

  “Why the fuck didn’t you spot them up there?” he demands.

  “Presumably they were hiding in the East’s zone.”

  “Order all our ships onto the attack—”

  “Done it already. But—”

  “I know,” he says. “They don’t have a prayer.”

  “Neither do we,” she says. Her mind runs through the inventory. They’re pinned down. The Throne’s pinned down. The zone’s paralyzed, as are all forces throughout the Earth-Moon system. They’re confronted by the Rain’s elite. And they can only assume that whatever’s going on in the asteroid is even more of a nightmare than what’s going down in both windows.

  “I agree,” says the Hand. A scenario flits from his head to hers. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  She stares at what’s turning in her mind. “Are you sure?”

  “Only option we’ve got left.”

  The ship hurtles in. The bridge-crew can see the odds against them as certain as any number that’s left on their screens. That thing out there is basically a directed-energy machine gun. A hundred klicks is basically a turkey shoot.

  “Evasive action!” screams the captain.

  But Spencer’s already giving it all he’s got. The Platform veers crazily in the window. Spencer feeds in instructions from the gunnery officer, lets the ship’s batteries rip, peppering the Helios with fire while more shots streak in from the few remaining emplacements on the asteroids and the surviving ships.

  “Target remains eighty-five percent effective,” says the gunnery officer calmly.

  “Use the fucking Platform!” shouts the navigator. “Use the fucking Platform!”

  And Spencer’s trying—doing his utmost to keep the Platform between him and this monster—trying to pop out and fire and then dart back into cover. But those kinds of precision maneuvers are pretty much beyond the capacity of this ship now. He watches clouds of humans starting to billow from the northern end of the Platform. He realizes with sick finality that there’s no way out of this. He slams his visor. Just as a microwave spear impales them.

  The Praetorians aren’t moving. But the Operative can see they’re standing at attention anyway. He can see their eyes shifting in their visors as they cease their private conversations. He’s getting instructions now too.

  “Relay these to your men,” says the Hand.

  “Listen to this,” the Operative says to Sarmax and Lynx.

  The Hand is now moving away from the inner deck. The Manilishi is following him. The Hand’s bodyguards cluster about both of them. Soldiers start exiting the room as they receive specific tactical instructions. The Operative hears engines starting up at close range—from the sound of it, the mechanized units of the Praetorians on the outer perimeter. Beyond that he hears only the rumbling of explosions within the cylinder.

  But now that changes.

  Spencer’s aware of some kind of roaring noise. His brain feels like it’s been burned to a crisp. He can see nothing but white light. He wishes the afterlife was less painful.

  But now that white is fading into the black of space. He focuses, realizes the window’s gone, along with the rest of the bridge. Somehow he’s been blasted about twenty meters farther back into the ship. He’s wedged in beneath some debris, his suit somehow still intact. Dead bodies are everywhere. So are those of the living, clinging to what’s left of the walls. Vibration keeps on washing through him. The engines of the ship are going haywire. And now the Platform comes into sight, careening in toward them. Metal surface fills Spencer’s view. He braces himself as though it still mattered.

  THIS IS THE HAND. THIS IS BEING BROADCAST ON SECURE CHANNEL ENABLED BY THE MANILISHI, THE RAZOR NOW AT MY SIDE. YOU’RE TO PROTECT HER AS YOU PROTECT ME. THE DECISIVE BATTLE IS UNDER WAY. OUR THRONE IS TRAPPED BY RAIN COMMANDOS IN THE NEAREST OF THE AERIES. WE’RE GOING TO CROSS THE CYLINDER AND RESCUE OUR PRESIDENT. WE’RE GOING TO DESTROY THE ABOMINATION CALLED RAIN. DETAILED TACTICAL OVERLAYS TO FOLLOW.

  The Operative receives those overlays for his team, relays them to Lynx and Sarmax.

  “This is fucking it,” says Sarmax.

  “Straight shot to glory,” says Lynx.

  “Let’s move out,” says the Operative.

  But even as he says those words, the whole cylinder shakes—shakes still harder, shakes like it’s breaking apart. About ten klicks distant in that wilderness of dark and tracer lines, one of the valleys ruptures into flame. What’s left of a burning spaceship bursts through, pulling ground and metal with it, falling back onto what’s left of that ground, shredding itself and everything around it as what’s left of its engines keep on firing.

  “That’s a new one,” says Sarmax.

  Waking up. Pain washing against you. Vibration rumbling through you. Visor pressed up against your face, your back pressed up against some wall, your mind feeling like it’s coming apart: Where are you? How did you get here?

  And what the hell are you going to do next?

  Spencer opens his eyes. It doesn’t help. Everything’s still dark. Everything hurts. But at least he’s breathing. Vibration keeps on shaking the surface beneath him. He switches on his suit-lights—realizes they aren’t working. He turns on his comlinks, finds only static. He figures he’s somewhere in the remains of the Larissa V. Which, judging by the gravity, must have crashed onto the cylinder. He tries to access zone, but he can’t find a trace of it.

  So he starts crawling forward, tracing his way along the wall. He pushes his way through debris, stumbles into something that feels like a shattered suit. He slides through something slick—crawls past it, hits another wall: a corner. He starts tracing his way along the new wall, which ends suddenly, in some jagged edge. Somewhere past that edge is a flickering light. Spencer moves through the hole, crawls carefully toward that light. He’s got one hand out in front of him, probing to make sure there’s still a floor beneath him.

  He’s in luck. There is. The light keeps swelling. As he gets closer he can see it’s somewhere past the edge of yet another tear in yet another wall. He’s starting to see a bit more of the environment he’s in. It’s one of the ship’s interior hangars. The hole’s not that far ahead now, a glow framed by metal walls. Spencer crawls off at an angle, gets against that wall, makes his way along it. He reaches it, peers through.

  And wishes he hadn’t.

  He’s looking up through darkness toward the central axis of the cylinder—staring at thousands of burning bodies scattered about. Euro civilians caught in the crossfire that’s raged through this part of the cylinder—or who just got blasted into limbo from whatever surface they were trying to escape over. Apparently there’s still enough oxygen left up there to keep the fires going.

  For now at least. But as Spencer pulls himself out of the hole and onto the top of the spaceship’s hull, he can see all too clearly that’s not going to last very long. It’s the biggest fucking mess he’s ever seen. Artificial ground’s piled up all around where the Larissa V plowed through it. Twisted metal structures in the middle distance conceal all function they once had. Past them is more fire—or rather, images of those overhead flames flickering on the remains of some shattered, kilometer-long shard of mirror. Beyond that’s only darkness. Spencer’s pretty sure that’s the direction of the cylinder’s South Pole and the Aerie. He remembers the asteroid being on their right as they made their final run toward the Platform.

  Meaning New London should be on his left. But if it’s still there, there’s no sign of it. There’s every sign of combat, though. Mos
t of which looks to be several klicks away. It’s spread out on a broad front across the width of the cylinder: flashes of lasers and flaring explosions that cast shadows reaching all the way to the valleys far overhead. It’s like some giant elongated cloud, moving toward Spencer at speed. He ponders this.

  But then he sees movement that’s much closer.

  Terrain whipping by. Shots flying everywhere. Tactical overlays adjusting as data pours in from all sides. The view from the Operative’s visor is framed by at least a hundred screens. He’s moving at just under 200 klicks an hour, streaking through the suburbs of the city that’s now fading in the rearview. Above him’s a chaos of light.

  “Tighten up,” yells Sarmax.

  “No,” replies the Operative, “mind the fucking gap.”

  They’re responsible for a wide swathe of terrain. They’re charging through it at street level, dipping into the basements just often enough to stay unpredictable.

  “What’s past this?” says Lynx.

  “You don’t want to know,” mutters the Operative.

  Not that he has much of a clue himself. The usual battlefield intel is nonexistent. Zone’s just a function of what the Manilishi’s propping up. And he’s receiving her signals only intermittently—relayed in by tightbeam laser from what seems to be about a klick or so behind him and somewhere off to the right. But he’s not exactly sure. And that’s fine by him.

  “They’re pressing on the rear,” says Lynx.

  “Trying to get in behind our left wing,” says Sarmax.

  “They’re going to have to catch us first,” says the Operative.

  Which won’t be easy. The Praetorian formation is spread out along a triangular wedge almost two klicks across. The spearhead of that wedge is aimed straight at the far end of the cylinder. The Operative’s unit is well out on the left flank. A rearguard’s covering the wedge’s base. And the Manilishi and the Hand have their own inner perimeter somewhere in the center of it all …

  “Sniper,” says Sarmax.

  “Triangulate,” says Lynx.

  The Operative says nothing, just takes evasive action as shots streak past him. A micromissile unleashed by Lynx rockets past him off to his left, veers downward, disappears among the buildings. Next instant, the flash of a minitactical lights up everything; the Operative’s already firing his thrusters, the bombed-out buildings falling away from him as he rises to a vantage point where he can lay down covering fire as Sarmax streaks amidst the streets to where Lynx’s missile has just hit. There’s nothing there now, just a big gaping hole—and the Operative rains shots into that hole to forestall whatever might be lurking down there. He catches a quick glimpse of targets getting flayed by his suit’s minigun—sees very clearly off to his right some of the vehicles in the Praetorian spearhead—and then he’s plunging back toward the surface. He drops below the level of the buildings, his path curving as he rockets down those streets. Another explosion flares as Sarmax dumps a microtactical down that hole.