‘You can’t,’ he says. ‘There’ll be an equal and opposite.’
‘A what, sir?’
‘Newton’s Third Law,’ he says. ‘You must remember.’
God . . . Do I look like someone who knows Newton’s Third Law?
Turns out it’s not a problem. If firing a rocket will make us slam into the escape craft directly behind us, then surely all we have to do is fire our engines at the same time? One can cancel out the other.
Seems I have reduced Colonel Vijay to silence. But that’s OK, because the SIG is back up and chattering probabilities.
Our best choice is three rockets, apparently. That gives us a seventy-eight per cent chance of removing the wall, with only a thirty-eight per cent chance of killing ourselves. Four rockets would guarantee the wall but total our odds of surviving in one piece.
Two rockets, barely worth discussing.
‘Three,’ I say. ‘Fire the engines at the same time. And then hold us steady.’
The gun wants to tell me this can’t be done and then decides it can. Obviously, such a feat will take brilliance and inhuman levels of skill.
It’s disgustingly smug as it says this.
As I wait for the SIG, a helmet drops from the crewpit roof, so I slot it over my head. Flipping down the visor reduces the pit to a ghostly haze. I have schematics where the bulkheads are. And I’m looking at the hangar outside as if there’s no hull in the way.
‘Not meant to work like that,’ says Emil.
Flipping the visor up, I discover my helmet schematics are also on screen, and the ex-Ninth officer is looking around at the walls of the crewpit in shock.
‘Get used to it,’ says Neen.
Every fucking thing in the hangar not nailed down begins moving as the wall blows out and vacuum sucks away what it can. Firing retros, the B79 lurches forward and then reclaims its position.
The troopers closest to the blast are lucky. They die quickly. As do the ones standing behind our engines. It’s the rest who suffer. A roiling wall of flame swallows them for a second, before they’re sucked into space, their lungs rupturing as air is dragged from their bodies.
It is a bad way to go. We know it without needing to see it on screen.
‘Behind us,’ shouts Haze.
Slipping to the left, the B79 shudders as something glances off its side. Retros fire, and we stabilize again. ‘Neat,’ says the SIG. ‘Though I say so myself.’
The vessel it dodged tumbles once, slides sideways and blocks our exit. It’s bigger than we are, a lot bigger. We’re staring at the general’s launch.
Emergency routines are running in the hangar. If a whole hangar has to be sacrificed that’s what will happen. The troopers nearest the exits aren’t stupid, they know that. That is why they’re gripping on for dear life, while scrabbling over one another to get out.
A sergeant fails to make it through a door.
We get one half, from shoulder to knee, which is sucked towards the broken wall. The rest of him disappears inside the elevator. It’s not going anywhere because the lift shafts have already sealed themselves. ‘Clear our way,’ I tell the gun.
‘My pleasure.’
Launching a fourth missile, it fires a fifth just for the hell of it.
As the general’s little liner shatters, a lieutenant is sucked off his feet, his hands scrabbling for anything to grip. As we watch, he’s dragged across the deck and disappears. Just one of a hundred.
‘You know how to fly this?’ demands Colonel Vijay.
‘Of course.’
Haze looks surprised.
‘Flew a skimmer round the landing fields,’ I tell him. ‘At Bosworth. How different can it be?’
Opening his mouth to answer, Colonel Vijay realizes it’s a joke and shuts it again. Leaning across, he offers me his hand to shake. That is how I know he expects to die.
Chapter 52
Acceleration welds my combat arm to the chair and squeezes air from my lungs. As we roll, my ribs creak and my shoulders try to dislocate. Everything around me is turning black and white. Only there is no around me, because all I can see is directly ahead.
A shrinking circle going fuzzy at the edges.
‘Seven g,’ says the gun. ‘Twenty-five seconds.’
Colonel Vijay is unconscious. Other than me, only Haze is awake, and he looks terrified. Turning to forward again almost breaks my neck.
‘Nine g,’ the gun tells me. ‘Thirty-two seconds.’
It hesitates.
‘Say it . . .’
‘Going to kill them,’ the SIG says.
‘No, they’ll pull through.’
‘Not those two,’ the gun says. ‘That lot.’
A screen flickers to show me Rachel, Shil, Emil, Neen and Franc . . . They are twisted into the bulkhead. Far from helping, the curve of the crewpit seems to be forcing them into a single mass. One of the straps holding their net has snapped, another cuts so deep into Rachel’s arm it is bruising already.
‘Thirteen g,’ says the gun. ‘Thirty-seven seconds.’
‘What’s the tolerance . . . ?’
‘For them?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘For this ship.’
The SIG feeds me a figure so high we will be slop in a bucket long before I can shake the engines off this thing. As always, the limits are our own.
‘They’re human,’ says the SIG.
‘So am I.’
It laughs, darkly. ‘You really believe that?’
I’d nod, but g-force glues my skull to the seat. So I grunt, ease back a little and roll a turn. We just miss a Z7x fighter, which explodes as our rocket hits.
‘Five,’ says the SIG.
My gun is firing, the combat AI target-spots, and I fly. Should be Haze, but he’s away with who knows what. So far the combination works. Hekati is behind us. A bloody great ring hanging off the edge of a mined-out-
‘Concentrate,’ says my gun.
Another fighter explodes in front of us.
Out here, you don’t get sound; you don’t even get shock waves. You just get a burst of light and endless high-speed shrapnel. The trick is to outrun the shrapnel, or slide it off your force field like flat stones off water. Easier to describe than do.
My screen shows a fighter coming up behind. No way is it going to miss from this distance. As I roll the B79, the Silver Fist fighter fires, and the SIG burns each of its rockets in turn with a short pulse of cannon.
Rolling again, I loop my own path to take the Z7x from the rear. It goes up in a ball of flame, and enough shrapnel to make me twist viciously.
‘Sven,’ says the gun.
‘What?’
‘You’re killing the Aux.’
‘If I don’t do this,’ I say, ‘they’re going to be dead anyhow.’
‘Well,’ it says. ‘Perhaps they’d rather be killed by the enemy.’
‘How are they going to know?’ I ask, checking a screen. ‘They’re all unconscious anyway.’
The gun says nothing. Probably not a good sign.
Taking a slow curve, I see the edge of the asteroid belt.
It is that jumble of rocks, slashed like a broken line inside my screen. Should have thought of it before. 1500 klicks. We can do that.
‘Behind you,’ warns the SIG.
There are two of them, fighters in tight formation. And then, when I check again, I see it is three. One waits higher than the others, further back. That one intends to kill me. The others are just along for the hunt.
To unsettle me.
‘Incoming,’ the SIG says.
Yeah, I’ve seen them. The outriders sweep in behind me.
They intend to cross, which means they’re flying staggered. Although both open fire at the same time. Give me a knife, and I’ll take down anything. But this, slamming around inside some bloody machine, it’s not natural.
If I’m going to kill someone, I want to see their eyes.
Firing the retros makes Haze double over and lose the contents of his gut direct into his lap. Proves he’s still alive, at least. The SIG swears, but that’s only because it is flipping across the crewpit to hit a screen.