The Burning Skies

by David J. Williams

  “That the East has hidden reserves? Absolutely.”

  “But they don’t know the extent of this.”

  “If you send word back to the U.S. zone, you risk compromising our position.”

  “It’s worth the risk.”

  “Not if there’s something else in here we haven’t found.”

  “Maybe this is what we’re looking for,” says Spencer.

  “And maybe it’s not.”

  “You know something, Leo.”

  “I know a lot of things.”

  “Including what was in the book you found at Jarvin’s safe house?”

  Sarmax stares at him. Says nothing. Just smiles.

  “So you do have it,” says Spencer softly.

  “Of course I have it.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “That’s why we’re having this conversation,” says Sarmax.

  “But where the fuck did you hide it?”

  “I didn’t. I burned it.”

  “But not before you scanned it.”

  “Can’t afford to be as risk-averse as Jarvin was.”

  “Christ, Leo. Not filling me in is a risk in itself.”

  “Not at all. If you were going to be of any help, you’d have been able to figure out the file’s existence from the rest of what you’ve got. Which apparently you’ve done.”

  “Which was easy enough once I knew I was looking for what wasn’t there. Jarvin’s files are littered with coded references to an overall master file. One that was written down on paper. Making it impossible to hack.”

  “He was the last CICom handler in HK. Every intelligence organization on the planet was hunting him. He had good reason to be paranoid.”

  “Said the guy who killed him. So where was it?”

  “Under his floor.”

  “And how’d you know it was there?”

  “I didn’t, Spencer. I just tore the place apart while you were ransacking his data.”

  “You got a tip.”

  “So what if I did?”

  “You were going to let me know eventually, right?”

  “Depended how frustrated I got with it.”

  “How much progress have you made?”

  “Nowhere near enough. All I can make out is the first section. It talks about the Eurasian secret weapon being an ultimate one, Spencer. It leads straight into several layers of cyphers. It’s—”

  “Something you need to give me right now.”

  And Sarmax does. Spencer stares as the data clicks through.

  “Jesus Christ,” he says.

  “Yeah,” replies Sarmax.

  “This is more than a thousand pages.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What the hell are all these symbols?”

  “I don’t fucking know.”

  “And where the hell did he have this?”

  “On a microfiche. He must have burned the original paper.”

  “And you burned the microfiche.”

  “And something’s getting ready to burn us. We’re not looking for a bunch of tunnels, Spencer. We’re looking for something specific. Something that’s down here. I should have given you this earlier. I admit it. But I need you to start figuring this thing out.”

  “While I simultaneously hack this place.”

  “You think you’re so good, now’s your chance to prove it. How much access have you managed to get to what else is going on within this labyrinth?”

  “A lot.”

  “But not enough.”

  “It’s too cauterized.”

  “Deliberately so,” says Sarmax. “We need to get deeper.”

  “That’s where this train’s going.”

  “So we ride it.”

  He leans back. The train keeps on rushing into the root of the mountain.

  This time she comes awake in a single instant. Carson’s still floating cross-legged before her. The ghost of a smile flickers on his face. “How do you feel?” he asks. “Like shit.”

  “But better than you did previously?”

  “That wouldn’t take much, you prick.”

  “I apologize.”

  “It’s a little late for that.”

  “Indeed,” he replies. “I found the back doors.”

  “Who put them there?”

  “We’re still figuring that out. Maybe the Rain. Maybe Szilard. Maybe Sinclair. Maybe all of them.”

  “Maybe none of them.”

  “Who else would have done it?”

  “You.”

  He smiles. “You’re not making sense, Claire.”

  “I’m making far too much sense, Carson. Since it wasn’t the back doors that you were after.”

  “I never said they were our only motive.”

  “So let’s talk about the most important one.”

  “You have a hypothesis?”

  “I’m on more solid ground than that.”

  “Go on.”

  “You were searching for a way to figure out how the Rain almost fucked the president at the Europa Platform.”

  “We already know how they did that.”

  “Do you?”

  “Sure. They took out the zone by sabotaging the legacy world nets and—”

  “No,” she says, “not enough. It wasn’t enough for them to do that. What really almost nailed us was that they were preventing him from transferring the executive node as well.”

  “Precisely. Because they’d taken out the zone.”

  “Don’t play the fool,” she says. “I know what happened. The Rain collapsed the zone, sure. But they also had a little something in reserve, in case the zone didn’t go down. In which case they knew they’d have to jam the executive node itself, to prevent it from being transferred to the Throne’s successor.”

  “They did prevent it from being transferred. They were jamming the whole fucking Platform, Claire. Getting a signal off that place was virtually an exercise in impossibility—”

  “That’s not the kind of jamming I’m talking about, and you know it. That kind of jamming wouldn’t have worked. The president could have just sent the code in a laser, and even if he hadn’t had the chance, the zone’s structured so that the successor’s software activates the backup executive node in the event of the destruction of the Throne’s—”

  “Right, but—”

  “But the Rain deployed a far more specialized hack in advance of their grand slam, didn’t they? One that undermined the executive node itself, and prevented it from being transferred to Montrose under any circumstances—”

  “What makes you think she’s his successor?”

  “I know she’s his successor, Carson. That was the price she exacted for InfoCom’s support of the Throne back when SpaceCom made its big move after the Elevator. In fact—”

  “You’re assuming a lot.”

  “I’m assuming nothing. I was practically in the Hand’s head—in the president’s head—all that time. And we both saw the node-freezing hack hit just before the zone collapsed. Once the zone went down it no longer mattered—but if the Rain’s universal ass fuck hadn’t worked, they had plan B already activated. As the Throne knows all too well. And he knows I know it too. I showed him how the Rain pulled the rug out from under the zones of East and West. But I never showed him how the exec node paralysis worked.”

  “You told him you didn’t know.”

  “And he didn’t believe me.”

  “And he was right not to. Why did you withhold it from him?”

  “I wanted some kind of counterlever if the Throne tried to turn on me.”

  “Which is why he sent me here,” he says.

  “But he didn’t have to send you very far.” He says nothing. Just looks at her and smiles. “So now we get to the heart of the matter,” she adds. “Was wondering when you would.”

  Outside again: they’ve crossed the entirety of the colony ship and reached the docking facilities
that occupy the space where the ship’s nose has yet to be built. Several small shuttles hang like bats around them. The doors of the nearest one are open. Lynx and Linehan enter.

  The pilot within is sprawled in his chair. The expression behind his visor’s one of intense boredom. It doesn’t change as he regards them.

  “Yeah?” he asks.

  “We need to get to Redoubt G16,” says Lynx.

  “What do you think this is, a fucking taxi service?”

  “Pretty much,” says Linehan.

  “My orders are to sit tight until—”

  “You got new orders,” says Lynx. He beams code to the pilot, who grimaces in annoyance—and turns, starts up the engines.

  “You guys ain’t even officers,” he mutters.

  “No,” says Lynx, “we’re engineers. Who do what the officers tell us. So back the fuck off.”

  “Relax pal,” says the pilot. “We’re all in this shit together.”

  “You can say that again,” says Linehan.

  He’s staring out the window at a wilderness of lights and shapes. Craft of every description are strewn against the crescent Moon that dominates the sky beyond. But one of those lights is swelling by the moment—fragmenting into several smaller lights, set against a larger shape. The shuttle vectors in toward it. Linehan watches as it wafts in.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says.

  “At least it’s a lot smaller than that Eurotrash rock,” replies Lynx.

  It may be nowhere near as large as what was once the pride of the Europa Platform, but it’s still an asteroid, about fifty meters long, studded with guns and mirrors and the occasional shaft opening. The shuttle drifts in toward one such opening that’s been drilled along the axis. The pilot’s hands fly across the controls as he lines the ship up with the rotating rock.

  “Fucking redoubt,” he says. “What the hell’re you guys doing here anyway?”

  “Telling you to land this bitch,” says Lynx.

  The pilot mutters something inaudible. Rock walls replace space as the ship glides into the shaft. They emerge a few moments later into a cave that’s been carved within.

  “Here we go,” says the pilot.

  But Lynx and Linehan are already hopping out, firing their thrusters as the pilot starts reversing back the way he’s come. The cave itself is empty save for mechanics working over another shuttle. They ignore the two newcomers, who continue along the shaft and into the labyrinth that honeycombs the asteroid. They encounter no one else. Linehan feels like he’s walking into a tomb.

  “Don’t tell me there’s no one else in here,” he says.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” says Lynx.

  Linehan knows he’s not kidding—that there’s got to be enough of a crew on this rock to make Lynx’s scheme work. No shuttle runs from the ships in the outer perimeter directly to anything that’s even near the Montana. Shuttles reach the flagship only from places that are almost as secure. Meaning that the plan to infiltrate L2 depends on seeing SpaceCom’s fleet as an archipelago. Linehan knows that Lynx is playing the game called island-hopping: moving from ship to ship toward the heart of it all. But each locale he selects has to be big enough to allow him to lose himself amongst its garrison. Linehan follows Lynx off the axis and into the domain of gravity.

  And now they’ve got company. Workers squeeze past. They reach an intersection, turn down one of the tunnels. A power-suited soldier blocks the way.

  “This is a restricted area,” he says.

  “I know,” says Lynx. “Here’s our clearance.”

  The soldier’s expression doesn’t change. “Clearance for what?”

  “Sorry?”

  “So you’ve got the codes. So what? I can’t just let you through here without you telling me where you’re going.”

  “Oh,” says Lynx. “Sorry. We’re going to the armory.”

  “To do what?”

  “Got a report that some of the suit-batteries were on the fritz.”

  “How come I didn’t hear about this?”

  “Feel free to check,” says Lynx. “But we’re behind on our schedule and really need to hurry it—”

  “Cool your jets,” says the soldier. His eyes seem to lose their focus as he transmits via zone. And gets his answer.

  “Fine,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  “Great.”

  “But I’m coming with you.”

  “Then who’ll stand watch?”

  “They’re sending down a replacement.”

  “I’m telling you we’re running late already—”

  “You don’t have to wait. Let’s go.”

  “You’re leaving this place unguarded?” Lynx looks nervous. “Is that standard procedure?”

  “Shut up,” says the soldier, and turns, leading the way down more tunnels. In short order they reach a dead end. The soldier shifts against the rock, swivels a piece of it aside. They proceed through into the armory as the door closes behind them.

  The place looks like it’s been wallpapered with weapons of every description, from suits to small arms and everything in between. Chances are if this place sees combat they won’t get used. But that’s what war is these days—a question of contingencies. This asteroid is mainly intended as a KE strongpoint. And yet there’s more than one scenario in which it might need to shelter soldiers who have been moved from more vulnerable nearby ships. Soldiers whose own battle capabilities might have been degraded. Soldiers who might need the things this room contains …

  “So get on with it,” says the soldier.

  “So we will,” says Lynx. He heads toward the diagnostic panels set beside the door. Checks it out. The door slides shut.

  “And hurry it—” The soldier’s voice suddenly cuts out. Along with the power in his suit. Lynx turns back toward the now-drifting figure.

  “What was that? I didn’t quite catch that.”

  The soldier’s yelling at him. It doesn’t take an expert in sign language to get the gist of what he’s saying.

  “Yeah,” says Lynx, “sorry about that. Linehan, can you help out?”

  “With pleasure,” says Linehan as he extends a drill from his suit and plunges it into the soldier’s back. The man’s defenses aren’t up. He can’t dodge. It’s over pretty quick. Linehan basks amidst the rush.

  “Enjoyed that, did you?” Lynx looks at Linehan, hits buttons, starts pressurizing the armory. “Well, don’t let your sadism cloud your grasp of the big picture. This just became a clusterfuck now that there’s no one at that guard post.”

  “I thought they told him there’s another sentry coming along—”

  “That was me he was talking to, you dipshit!” Lynx is pulling off his suit. Linehan starts doing the same. “He was too curious. Too great a risk. He would have done some extra checking. So he had to come with us. But we haven’t got long before they figure out a sentry’s gone missing. We gotta get off this fucking rock and fast.”

  “In what?”

  “Well, as luck would have it another shuttle’s departing in three minutes. And by a strange coincidence, it’s en route to our next stop. So you’ve got thirty seconds to get that on.” He points. Linehan follows his gaze to two suits. He stares at the insignia on them.

  “I like it,” he says.

  “Thought you might,” replies Lynx.

  Tunnel walls surge past as the train charges ever deeper into the world beneath the mountains. On the zone, Spencer’s watching grids dance within his head. He’s pulling strings across the Eurasian zone, closing in on the moves that will take him and Sarmax to the next level within this place.

  But he’s also trying to make sense of a whole new factor. He’s realizing just how out there the man who called himself Alek Jarvin was. The handler’s book consists of hundreds upon hundreds of pages of symbols, grids, numbers. And letters, of course: Spencer reckons he’s dealing with at least six different alphabets. None of which are even remotely discernible. The only thing he can make o
ut is the initial section that Sarmax spoke of. Which seems to serve as a preface. Written in a low-rent cypher that was easy enough to crack, probably because all it does is make promises.

  Though threats might be a better word. It goes on and on about a Eurasian weapon that will change the face of war. A device so revolutionary that nothing the Americans can put into the field will stand against it. Spencer wonders whether it’s for real—wonders if Jarvin transcribed what he’s reading from Eurasian propaganda. He wonders why he didn’t sell the details to the Americans if he really had them. Was CICom’s rogue handler killed by Sarmax before he could? Or was he playing his own game? Did he give up on America because he’d been declared a traitor? Did he send his nation’s agents on a wild-goose chase? Spencer knows there’s only one way to find out. He sets his own software upon the cyphers—even as the software continues to run patterns on the place around him too—and on the train that’s now moving in on parallel rails behind the one he’s on. It’s a lot shorter, gaining steadily on the flatcar and the jet-copter that sits upon it. Within the jet-copter, one of the officers starts giving orders. Spencer and Sarmax get to their feet, open the copter door, and hop out.

  As they steady themselves upon the flatcar, more freight cars haul alongside theirs. The door of one of the cars is open. Suited soldiers are standing there, extending some kind of makeshift bridge. Spencer and Sarmax grab it as it reaches them and secure it to the flatcar. More soldiers are leaping from the door of the jet-copter, pulling prisoners along with them—past Spencer and Sarmax, onto the bridge and into the arms of the soldiers who wait on the other side.

  Fifteen prisoners later, and the bridge retracts. The freight car’s doors slide shut, and the train beside them accelerates. Cars stream past Spencer’s visor, leaving tunnel wall flashing in their wake.

  “Any idea where they’re going?” says Sarmax.

  “Probably where we want to be.”

  “But you don’t know where.”

  “When I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “You’re saying we’re high and dry?”

  “Actually I think we’re under arrest.”

  “What?”

  Looks that way. The other soldiers on the flatcar are pointing guns at them. One of the officers steps forward. The sergeant flanks him.

  “Spies,” he says in Russian.

  “That’s a lie,” says Spencer in the same tongue. But he and Sarmax are getting worked over now by their fellow soldiers, who start stripping ammo from their suits, disengaging their guns, detaching and then removing their helmets.