The Burning Skies (28 page)

“Hey, Leo,” he says.

“Yeah,” says Sarmax.

“Remember me?” asks Murray.

Sarmax laughs. “Moving up in the world, huh?”

“More like the world’s crumbling down around us,” says Hartnett.

“So what’s up?”

“What’s up is that you’re back.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know that,” says Sarmax.

“Thought it was just a rumor.”

“Maybe we should keep it that way.”

“Not when you’re a living legend,” says Murray.

“Or when you kicked so much ass for so long,” adds Hartnett. “And I guess the one-handed wonder is Lynx.”

“What about these other two?” asks Murray.

“Some cannon fodder we picked up,” says the Operative.

“That managed to remain alive?”

“Sometimes it happens.”

“So how about you upload their IDs?”

“Sure.” The Operative complies. “Steroid-casualty named Linehan, razor calls himself Spencer. They were InfoCom before the Throne overwrote their asses. Linehan used to soldier for SpaceCom back in the day.”

“And the Throne gave him a ticket to
this
show?”

“Didn’t exactly give him the best seat in the house.”

“Ain’t getting it here either. You guys ready to get back in it?”

“Open this goddamn door,” says the Operative.

T
he door slides open to reveal a gigantic chamber. Spencer watches Carson and Sarmax move through the doorway, apparently deep in some conversation. Lynx shoves his way after them. Linehan follows him with his eyes, before turning toward Spencer and grinning mockingly.

“After you,” he says.

Spencer steps out onto a catwalk that stretches away in both directions. The Hangar is as big as it gets. It’s a hub of activity too. Praetorians are everywhere: crawling over the jagged ceiling like ants, moving along catwalks higher up and lower down, tending to the ships positioned along the gridded floor. Spencer can see three smaller gunships and one ship that’s much larger—the same model as the freighter he was riding back when it all began. Soldiers stand upon it, float around it.

“Only one they got left,” says Linehan on the one-on-one.

“The Throne’s getaway vehicle.”

“Too bad he ain’t around to use it.”

“They’ll just have to get a new Throne, huh.”

“Or work out what they did with the old one,” replies Linehan.

They exchange glances.

“Funny,” says Spencer. “Been thinking along the same lines myself.”

W
e move,” says the Operative, and fires his motors, letting the others trail him toward the ceiling. One of the hatches in the overhead opens. “You going to tell them now or later?” asks Sarmax on the one-on-one.

“Tell them what.”

“Carson. Everyone in this place thinks the Throne’s still alive. If the punks we got with us start ranting on about how he’s dead, then—”

“Then what?”

“Bad for morale.”

“No one’s going to rant about anything, Leo. Not if they value their hides.”

They shoot through the hatch and along a chute into a smaller cave carved adjacent to a portion of the Hangar’s ceiling. Vaultlike doors close behind them. The walls are covered with cables. Heavy guns are mounted in multiple places along the floor. Each gun is tended by a full complement of Praetorians and pointed at a tunnel mouth on the ceiling. The Operative heads toward one of the tunnels, and the others follow him.

“But surely you owe them the truth?” asks Sarmax.

“Namely?”

“What really happened to the Throne.”

“You saw it for yourself.”

“Did I?”

The Operative laughs. “What are you trying to say?”

“That you can’t fool me.”

“Did I ever claim I could?”

The five men roar out into a larger space—a full quarter the size of the hangar that all these defenses protect. The machinery that packed this place has been dismantled to allow for wider fields of fire. Heavy guns are lined along the near walls. The blast-doors on the far wall are at least ten meters a side. Praetorians cling to the walls, point their guns toward the doors.

“I sat at his feet once, Carson. I thought up half the tricks he knows. I’m not fooled by them. And you know what? I’ll bet you the Rain weren’t either.”

“Let’s pray they were for long enough.”

“How long is that?”

They swoop across the room, swerve past the blast-door gate, perch upon the wall nearby. That gate’s starting to shake. Dust floats up around it. Distant vibrations roll in from somewhere beyond it.

“Until a few minutes ago.”

“But now they’re going to hit this Hangar like they’ve never hit anything before,” says Sarmax.

“I think they’ve got their sights set on something else first.”

More Praetorians hurry into the room, heading out of the tunnels or moving in toward the leftmost of the gates. The rumbling outside is intensifying, resolving into blasts that are drawing ever nearer. Or getting steadily more powerful.

Or both.

“The Manilishi,” says Sarmax.

“And the Hand,” says the Operative.

“You mean the Throne.”

Another vibration churns the room. It’s coming from the direction of the Hangar. A whole section of the wall is sliding away; one of the gunships is emerging from the space revealed, turrets extended, Praetorians holding onto its sides. The ship adjusts for Coriolis spin, swans in slowly toward the gate opposite it, which is already opening.

“And he expects you to do your utmost,” says the Operative.

S
he couldn’t ask for anything else. They’re well into the mining areas that ring the Hangar. They’re almost there. But she can feel the Rain closing in from both flanks now. She glances at the man beside her.

“The cat’s out of the bag,” she says.

“Of course it is,” he replies.

“And Huselid?”

“A role I play.”

A necessary fiction for the man who’s really Andrew Harrison. She wants to ask him who the unknown soldier was. That man in the Window, giving orders in the Throne’s name: Did he even know the game he was in on? Was he an actor, or just a puppet? It doesn’t matter now. The point is he played his part. Now the ones he died for have to do the same.

“They’re pressing,” she says.

“Might have thought that chip would have led them on more of a wild-goose chase,” he says.

“Not if the Rain’s razors activated it immediately.”

Which they almost certainly did—tried to run the whole U.S. zone through the fragment they’d pulled from a shattered skull … only to find it wasn’t capable of switching on a washing machine. That, as complex as it looked, it was really just a maze of dead-ends whose only functionality was pretending to be something it wasn’t, creating a zone-node that looked like all the wires led back to it. Even she was fooled at first. Back on the other side of the cylinder—back to what seems like years ago—she’d thought she was gazing at the executive node, and in reality all she was doing was dealing with its reflection, while the vessel of the real one stood beside her.

Just like he’s doing now.

“How much strength is left at the Hangar?” she asks.

“We’re about to find out,” says the president.

S
pencer watches as the gunship fires its motors, moves through the opening blast-doors. As it passes beneath, Carson floats onto it. Spencer and the rest follow him, alight on the hull, crouching just behind the forward turret. Walls slide past. Praetorians swarm after them. Carson’s words sound in Spencer’s head.

“I’ll keep this brief. The Throne’s still alive. Our victory up to this point has depended on fooling the Rain as to his real location, and on keeping them too distracted to launch an all-out assault on the Hangar. The Throne and the Manilishi are still out there, and hopefully making straight for this gate. We’re going to get out beyond the perimeter and bring ’em in. It all comes down to us. Fight like you’ve never fought before. Over and out.”

The gunship comes out into a cave. Its lights splash around the chamber, illuminating the tunnel-mouths dotting the walls. There’s no way the ship’s fitting through any of them. The walls are trembling with the force of nearby explosions. The craft fires auxiliary motors to keep pace with the rotation of the asteroid—and starts firing bolts of plasma down one of the tunnels. Praetorians start scrambling into the openings adjacent to that one.

“Fucking bait and switch,” says Spencer.

“So the Hand was the Throne?” asks Linehan.

“Or the Throne was one of the soldiers with the Hand. Fucking Praetorians. Nothing’s ever what it seems.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Heads up.”

“Shit.”

S
martdust is swarming from several of the tunnels, billowing into the cave. Everyone on the ship’s hull starts firing. The ship opens up with all five turrets: one in front, one in back, one on each side, one set within its belly. The walls are a frenzy of light and shadow.

“So did you know all along?” asks Lynx on the one-on-one.

“Been unfolding in my mind as we went,” replies the Operative as he unleashes his minigun. “The Throne plays his cards pretty close to his chest.”

The nano is getting lacerated. More Praetorians enter the room via the main tunnel. Several are riding cycles, towing other suits behind them. They swoop past the ship, head into tunnels, while the soldiers remaining keep firing.