Lea smiled. She then jumped on the ladder and crawled into the hovercraft, followed by the crewman. He resealed the hatch as she joined the others, who had already strapped themselves in. Avalon sat at the aft end of the compartment, speaking to no one and barely acknowledging Lea’s presence. Lea responded in kind, moving past her and crossing in front of Tiernan on her way forward. He reached out and gently placed his hand on her arm. Lea, meanwhile, froze in her tracks and glared at him.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, this is just another mission, Lieutenant.”
“I know,” Tiernan replied. “I’m not asking for anything. I just want you to know, whatever it takes—I’ll get you through this.”
“I can take care of myself.”
She yanked her arm away, falling into the seat next to Nathan. As she buckled herself in, he acted none the wiser—though Lea could tell he was curious about the bad blood between her and Tiernan.
“It’s a long story,” she said.
“Hope I get to hear about it.”
The engines revved up again, flooding the compartment with a muffled rumble. Lea felt a swell of gravity as the roof dropped off beneath them, hot columns of jet exhaust pushing the hovercraft into the sky. She craned her neck to get a look through a nearby porthole, watching as the CSS building peeled away and revealed greater Manhattan—a city far different from the one she had known yesterday. The others had the same reaction when they saw it for themselves: a vacant, helpless shock magnified by the disaster that unfolded beyond the glass.
The pulser grid—once a constant, glistening web of laser light over the city—was gone, lost amid a maelstrom of pollution and smoke. Fires burned across the entire island, stratotowers venting flames from huge gashes torn by some massive impact. Pulsers, spiraling out of control after the grid failed, had probably slammed into the buildings on their way down—eventually tumbling to the street, where an inferno raged. Power seemed to be out all over the city, with only isolated pockets of light scattered throughout. Even at full reserve capacity, Manhattan would soon become a dark, primitive hole under the sway of orange firelight—the same as the whole East Coast, perhaps even the rest of the world.
The Axis didn’t exist anymore. Lyssa had killed it.
And Lea had made it possible.
She settled back into her chair for the short ride to Norfolk. As the city withdrew into the darkness of the Atlantic, Lea wondered how Trevor Bostic would explain their actions today. In the unlikely event that she survived to tell the tale, the corporate counsel would most certainly try to place the blame solely at her feet—and that was fine. Lea had enough on Bostic to take him down with her. She just hoped that she lived long enough to bear witness to his execution, right before the blade fell on her.
It would almost be worth it.
Almost.
The ground crews at Norfolk rolled a tiny ship from one of the enormous hangars that lined the airfield, swarming over its hull with frenetic purpose. They finished their final inspection of the LSRV as Lea’s hovercraft touched down a short distance away, her team scrambling outside and running across the tarmac. Lea kept pace with them, sticking close to Avalon, while Tiernan took the lead. At the same time, the ground crew chief ran out to meet them. He gave Lea a brief salute, then escorted her people the rest of the way.
“Who’s gonna be flying this bird?” he asked.
“I am,” Avalon said. “What’s her configuration?”
The chief noticed her sensuit and her eyes, and flashed Avalon an odd look—but he didn’t ask any more questions.
“The basic design is built on a T-62 spaceframe,” he explained, while Avalon scanned the ship with her sensors. “If you’ve ever flown a military trainer, it’s the same thing. We just removed the weapons to make room in the fuselage and fitted the ventral hull with a universal docking collar.”
“I’m familiar with the class.”
“Good. Then you should have no problem with the controls. It’s all hydraulic assist, but no fly-by-wire. If you want her to respond, start yanking and banking. Straight line, she’ll do most of the flying for you.”
Avalon nodded, then walked over to another crewman, who waited with an emergency EVA suit. The chief handed Lea one as well. Designed for limited exposure, the suits were less bulky than the full-sized outfit, and much easier to move around in.
“You got twenty minutes of oxygen on the main tank,” he explained while Lea put hers on, “five minutes on the reserve. After that you’re breathing CO2, so don’t push it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Chief.”
“I also stowed a few pulse pistols on board, underneath the passenger seats. They’re only good for a few shots at close range—so if you gotta use them, make each one count.”
“Got it,” Lea affirmed. “Anything else I should know?”
“Yeah,” the chief said, handing her a small device. A green LED flashed on its face, a single button protected by a flip cap. “That’s the hot switch for the explosives. We didn’t have time to override the safety locks, so you’ll need to get to a minimum distance of two klicks before you can activate the detonators. Pop the cap, hit the button once to arm. When the light turns red, hit it again to set off the charge.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” the chief told her, then hustled Lea into the ship. The LSRV was tiny compared to the hovercraft, the interior not much more than a narrow cylinder. A stack of packages labeled DANGER—HIGH EXPLOSIVES took up most of the space in back. Lea positioned herself between them and shuffled forward, stepping over the docking hatch on her way to the cockpit. There, Avalon was already in the pilot’s chair, affixing a minicom to her ear. Nathan and Tiernan sat behind her, leaving the copilot’s seat empty for Lea.
“Welcome aboard,” Nathan said.
The ground crew scattered as Lea strapped herself in. Avalon flipped a series of switches on the control panel, engaging the main engines. A surge of power reverberated through the deck as they came to life, which intensified to a dull roar—the boxes in back shaking under the increased stress. Nathan looked aft to make sure everything was tied down, obviously nervous.
“Relax,” Tiernan told him. “Covalent munitions are very stable.”
“Think I read that on a tombstone somewhere.”
Tiernan laughed.
“Norfolk tower, Norfolk tower,” Avalon hailed. “This is Special Air Mission, designation one. Request permission for liftoff.”
“Roger, SAM1,” came a weak and distorted reply. “Wish I could say we have you, but we’re all in the dark over here. Proceed at your discretion.”
“Copy that, tower.” Avalon eased the throttles forward, the tarmac rolling beneath them. “Heading toward runway two-niner.”
“Confirmed visual. You’re all clear.”
The LSRV bumped up and down, onto the runway, smoothing out as she gathered velocity. White stripes on pavement became a blur in the landing lights, air and space above beckoning.
“Godspeed, SAM1.”
Avalon pulled back on the stick and punched a hole in the night.
Twilight tapered off into a midnight blue, stars breaching the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere. Those wispy gases quickly receded into memory, unfurling a tapestry of deepest black outside the cockpit window. A blue afterglow crept along the surface of the glass, a reminder of Earth’s close presence behind—but for now, all Lea saw was the icy reaches of space. The beauty of that void struck her in a way she didn’t expect, like the euphoria that had entwined her the first time she projected her mind into the Axis: a feeling of complete solitude, standing on a precipice of limitless unknowns.
“Entering orbit,” Avalon said, reducing power.
Maneuvering jets nudged the LSRV to port, her main engines pushing her on a parallel course. The disc of Earth filled the window next to the pilot’s seat, blue fading to brown and finally to black, its edge ablaze with the fire of a
retreating sun. Normally, the East Coast metroplex would have carved a path along the Atlantic basin—brilliantly outlining the cities of New York, Boston, and Washington, all the way down to Miami. Now all of them were dark, with only sporadic flares of light to show they had ever existed. Lea could hardly fathom the change. It was like staring back through time.
“My God,” Nathan whispered, echoing her impression. “It’s all gone.”
“Anything directly tied to the Axis,” Lea said. “There might be a few isolated subnets that are still operational—but it’s only a matter of time before Lyssa gets around to them.”
Nathan placed his hand against the glass.
“Total singularity.”
“That was the idea,” she added, wondering if Cray was part of it. With Lyssa’s ports wide open, there was nothing to stop him from slipping into the Axis with her—if that was what he wanted. “Now we just have to find a way to contain her.”
“Is that even possible?”
Lea shook her head slowly.
“I wish I knew,” she said, her voice drifting on a soft beep from the navigation panel. Lea checked on the display, which showed a large contact at less than a hundred kilometers. She augmented the graphic, which re-formed into the ungainly dimensions of a commercial towing vessel. “Bearing zero-zero-nine,” she told Avalon, peering across the distance until she caught a glint of metal against the fabric of night.
Nathan leaned forward to see it for himself.
“There she is,” he said.
Almacantar loomed dead ahead, the surface of her hull gleaming in the moonlight. Nathan turned pale at the sight of her floating in the distance—a ghost ship ferrying the souls of his crewmates on an endless journey.
“Two-point-eight minutes to intercept,” Avalon said.
The oncoming vessel grew larger as they closed in, her bulky profile swelling to colossal proportions. Lea had no idea how big Almacantar really was—not until the ship hovered above the LSRV, blocking out almost everything around her. Avalon made a single pass, falling into Almacantar’s shadow as she headed for the engineering section. Lea searched the empty windows for signs of movement but found nothing. Even across the vacuum of space, the ship reeked of death.
“No visible activity,” Avalon said. “Does the vessel have any defensive capabilities?”
“No,” Nathan answered. “We had a few small arms on board, but nothing they could use to take a shot at us.”
“What’s the best spot to set down?”
“Right there,” Nathan said, pointing amidships just forward of the hybrid engine mounts. “If we can blow a big enough hole in main engineering, the reactors should trip into overload before the core can scram the system. They’ll incinerate the entire ship.”
“You make it sound easy,” Avalon said, swinging the LSRV around. She clicked on the landing lights, training the beams on Almacantar’s ventral hull and slowing to thruster speed. She lined herself up for final approach, easing the ship down—but suddenly halted when a proximity warning sounded off the navigation panel.
“I spoke too soon,” she intoned.
Lea pounced on the console, watching as a single blip appeared at the edge of the display. It immediately darted toward them, closing fast.
“Unknown contact, bearing two-seven-nine!” she snapped. “Range, three thousand meters!”
Tiernan pressed himself against the window, scouring the sky for the approaching object.
“I can’t see it,” he said. “It’s small, whatever it is.”
“Fifteen hundred meters,” Lea reported. She ran a detailed configuration through the computer, which generated a model of an unmanned, star-shaped vehicle. Lea recognized it from the video feeds back at JTOC.
“ASAT,” Avalon said, giving form to Lea’s fear. “Hang on.”
Avalon rammed the throttles full forward, banking the LSRV hard to starboard. The small ship dived behind the protection of Almacantar’s hull, just as the ASAT shot overhead and released a tight beam of focused energy in the LSRV’s wake. The blast fell close enough to graze them, searing the lower fuselage and rocking the ship. A cluster of sparks exploded by the cockpit window as Avalon dived away, the afterimage burned in Lea’s eyes before those cinders were consumed by the void. She grabbed the sides of her chair, the surface of Earth spinning into her view, gravity and vertigo playing havoc with her senses. Avalon, meanwhile, kept yanking the stick from side to side, putting the LSRV through maneuvers it was never designed to handle.
“Shit, that was close,” Tiernan said, the concussive roar of their encounter fading into the distance. At the same time, the LSRV started to shudder, her wings catching the outermost layers of Earth’s atmosphere. “He’s still hot on your six, Avalon. I don’t think he’s backing off.”
The display only proved Tiernan right. The ASAT flashed bright red, recovering from its near miss and following them straight down.
“Son of a bitch,” Lea seethed. “They still have localized control.”
“Has to be through hyperband,” Nathan said. “Any way we can jack his signal?”
“Not with this console.”
“Then we better do something,” Tiernan said. “We’re not going to last very long giving him our backs.”
At that moment, the ASAT turned another salvo loose. It missed by a wider margin, but bounced across the stray gases outside the ship. Bright discharges of ionized energy throttled the LSRV, forcing Avalon to break off. Earth peeled away from the window while a torrent of g forces whipped them in punishment, gradually dissipating into weightlessness as Almacantar reappeared on the horizon. With no better strategy available, Avalon made a beeline back toward her.
The ASAT maintained its deadly pursuit.
“This isn’t working,” Nathan said.
“They won’t risk firing on themselves,” Avalon replied. “If we can stay close enough to that ship, we might have a chance.”
The navigation panel beeped again, another urgent alarm.
“That just got a lot harder,” Lea said, reading the display. She looked directly at Avalon, who returned a grim expression of her own. “Second contact, bearing two-six-zero. Range, nine hundred meters.”
Another ASAT spiraled toward them, clearly visible through the window this time. Its honed edges glinted wickedly in the pale moonlight, tumbling on an intercept course.
“It’s flanking us,” Tiernan said.
Nathan stared across the void between them and Almacantar.
“We’re not going to make it,” he decided.
“No,” Avalon agreed, “but we’re not going to die, either.”
She pushed the engines wide open, turning to port. Lea watched the directional indicator until it settled on a direct-line vector.
Two hundred and sixty degrees.
Directly into the approaching ASAT.
“This could get ugly,” Avalon said.
And space caught fire around them.
Lea spotted the salvo before it hit, bracing herself for impact. A human pilot would have flown through the oncoming shot, but Avalon’s sensors picked up its trajectory in time to take evasive action. She pulled back into a hard climb, jumping over the beam as it exploded. The LSRV rode the edge of that concussive wave, flipping end over end as Avalon poured on the z-axis thrusters. Scorching plumes of incandescent fuel erupted from the nose of the small ship, knocking her back on course. By then the ASAT giving chase opened fire as well, a quick succession of pulse bursts tracking them from close behind.
“Incoming!” Lea shouted.
Avalon dived.
Straight down, the same pattern in reverse—but so blindingly fast that the ASAT’s targeting system couldn’t compensate. A series of blasts descended on them from above, shaking the LSRV so hard that Lea could feel the ship wrenching itself apart.
“She’s breaking up!”
“Just a little more,” Avalon said, holding steady.
Both ASATs fired simultaneously, while A
valon weaved in and out of the cross fire—dodging each shot on instinct, fed by the flood of data from her sensuit. Somehow the ship held together, even though the constant drone of alarms told Lea that it couldn’t last much longer. All the while, the menacing form of the ASAT tumbled to point-blank range—so close that it seemed bent on collision.
“Avalon!”
Spitting light, the ASAT pierced the starboard wing. The beam went clean through, missing the fuel tank but slapping the LSRV into a flat spin. Chunks of metal tore loose from the spaceframe, while Avalon forced the nose down and spiraled away from the ASAT. The weapon immediately tried to reacquire its target, but in all the confusion its onboard computer didn’t even realize that another ASAT was approaching—and by then, simple logic could dictate only one course of action.
The ASATs fired on each other.
The one in front missed. The ASAT in pursuit from behind scored a direct hit, slicing its counterpart in two before pummeling it into vapor with repeated blasts. A nova of orange light seared the LSRV, shrapnel raining down on the small ship. Avalon rolled the LSRV over as she jockeyed for control, trying to get the hell out of the way before the explosion did even more serious damage.
“Go!” Lea yelled.
Using the fire for cover, Avalon flew through the expanding cloud toward Almacantar. Jagged pieces of debris bounced off the skin of the ship, one smacking into the cockpit window before ripping itself away. With horror, Lea saw the glass begin to splinter before her eyes—an expanding crack that spidered outward under the stress of so much speed. So far it hadn’t breached the cabin, but it wouldn’t be long before the LSRV decompressed.
“Helmets!” she ordered.
Everyone except Avalon strapped their helmets on, starting the flow of oxygen to their suits. She kept both hands on the stick, riveted on the vessel in her sights. Tiernan, meanwhile, looked into the flotsam they left behind—searching for the last ASAT, to see if it had picked up their signature.
“We got trouble again,” he said.
Lea checked the scope and saw the weapon coming out of its stupor. Waves of active sensor energy pinged outward in all directions, so intense that it reverberated against the hull. The ASAT responded to that hard contact, heading after them like a shark smelling blood in the water.
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