The Burning Skies (44 page)

“She is.”

“You’re lying.”

“You’re stalling.”

“You’re her,” says Sarmax.

“So what—” The woman triggers the minigun, just as something hits the ship. Something that’s not small. Velasquez is hurled against the wall, her shots ripping through the ceiling. The other wall’s tearing to reveal space—and the cockpit of the president’s ship, jammed right alongside theirs. An unsuited man’s leaping though the tear, his face more burn than face.

T
he Operative’s letting rip with his flamer, but the other man turns his helmet to avoid the fire, letting it boil off into space, shoving against the Operative, and then firing augmented wrist-jets to suddenly pin him against the sled’s rear. The Operative fires his own jets, but to no avail. He’s being pushed against the sled’s engines—against the reaction-mass still churning from them. His suit’s temperature’s starting to rise. He lets razorwire extrude from his suit, plunge into his assailant’s, feels his mind slam up against the other’s even as he starts to smell smoke. But the other man’s got razor capabilities too. He’s holding his own, keeping the Operative at bay while he shoves him against the heat searing from the sled. In the distance the Operative thinks he can see spaceships colliding. Worlds imploding. His suit’s going critical. His failsafes are overloading.

• • •

S
armax hits the jets, knocks Linehan aside, crashes into the woman, knocks her into the rear of the ship. Haskell gestures at Linehan, pops the canopy, goes through it with Linehan hanging onto her foot—

–h
olding on for fucking life as cosmic rays lacerate him. Everything’s going black. But the hardware that augments his heart keeps chugging away even as his oxygen levels plunge—even as Haskell he’s just saved hauls him back into the ship he’s just left. His suit’s floating where he left it. His field of vision collapses in upon it. Everything spirals in upon a single point—

–a
s the woman shoves against Sarmax, pushes him away from her.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” says Sarmax.

“Oh yes it does,” she replies, and starts unloading the minigun at him. He fires his jets, roars under the trajectory, cannons against her, rips the gun from her shoulder. She whips up her legs, kicks him in the chest, vaults backward, then raises her hands and starts firing with her wrist-guns. He does the same. They pour shots into each other. Neither’s trying to dodge. Neither’s trying to evade. They’re just soaking up each other’s munitions. The outer layers of their armor are getting shredded. Their visors are starting to crack.

• • •

T
he Operative’s helmet is pretty much at one with the rocket flame. He’s seeing stars for real now. He can’t budge his opponent. Can’t hack him either. At least not with his own mind—he reaches out, extends more razorwire; his assailant shifts slightly to dodge it and the Operative plunges the metal into the prone figure of Harrison. The president may be out of commission, but his software isn’t—and now the Operative’s running codes given him by the Manilishi, drawing on that software, sending the merest fraction of the executive node surging out and through his own suit and into the suit of another. And from there into his brain.

The man convulses. The Operative kicks him off into space—and then leaps up to see what’s hurtling toward him.

A
ny second now,” mutters the woman.

“We’ll hit Valhalla together,” says Sarmax. “Not if I can help it,” says Lynx, streaking past the ship and tossing a shape-charge through the gap in the wall and onto the woman’s back.

“Fuck,” she says.

The charge explodes, blasting clean through her back and chest, knocking her forward toward Sarmax. He grabs her in his arms. But she’s already dead. He shoves the body away, starts broadcasting how he’s going to kill Lynx and leave him to rot in vacuum. But now Carson is vaulting into the ship, grabbing him, remonstrating with him. Sarmax switches back into business mode.

“Where’s the Throne?” he snarls.

“Haskell’s on it. With Linehan and Spencer. She restarted their suits. Which the Rain fucked.”

“So that’s why that nut job was running around without one.”

“Apparently he’s pretty fucking enhanced.”

“I’ll say. What happened to the other Rain guy?”

“Dawson,” says the Operative. “It was Dawson. Though I didn’t know it till the end.”

“He’s dead?”

“For sure.”

“It’s finished,” says Lynx.

“But we aren’t.” Sarmax’s voice is dangerously calm. “And you’ll get it too, Carson. For stopping me from nailing him.”

“Jesus Christ,” says the Operative, “you seriously want to go head to head with us
now?”

“There’ll be another time,” says Sarmax.

I
t’s another time. An hour later. A very jury-rigged ship is starting its journey back toward the Earth. It consists of the remnants of two ships held together by bolts and wires.

“Precarious,” says the Operative.

“But functional,” says Sarmax.

The two men are sitting in the pilot seats of the Euro craft. The Operative is at the controls. He glances at Sarmax.

“It wasn’t her,” he says.

“What?”

“That wasn’t Indigo who Lynx killed.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” asks Sarmax softly.

“I did a DNA test on what was left.”

“Ah,
fuck
,” says Sarmax.

The Operative opens up a channel. “How’s it looking back there, Claire?”

“He’s still stable,” says Haskell. “He might even make it.” She’s sitting beside the president. His sightless eyes stare past her. Wires run from her to him.

“And Linehan?”

“He’ll be fine,” says Spencer. He and Linehan are sitting in their suits, in the remnants of the presidential cockpit. Spencer’s at the controls while Linehan siphons oxygen from the heaped-up Rain suits from which the bodies have been stripped.

“You know,” says the Operative, “if you hadn’t pulled that stunt we’d have been fucked.”

“Who the hell are you talking to?” asks Lynx.

“I’m talking to Linehan.”

“What was that?” asks Linehan.

“He said without you our asses would be grass,” says Spencer.

“Guess you could look at it that way,” says Linehan.

“You
guess?”
The Operative laughs. “It’s a fact, man. A fundamental fucking truth. You saved us all. The whole fucking planet, maybe.”

“Maybe I’ll have to visit it again sometime,” says Linehan.

Up ahead that world draws closer.