‘Four minutes, fifty-eight seconds.’
The SIG keeps with the updates until I tell it to stop.
We now have three minutes left before the cruiser passes overhead. Enough time for Neen to pack the nose of the B79 bomber with explosives. When he’s done, there is still room for more. So Shil, Haze and Rachel race back for extra boxes, and Neen stacks these inside the nose-cone as well.
The detonators go everywhere.
He could use only one, but why bother? We have a hundred, and they’re all set to the same frequency.
‘Two minutes ten,’ says the gun.
Colonel Vijay is watching. Well, half of him is. The other half focuses on Neen, who is bundling out of the B79’s hatch, looking pleased with himself.
‘Two exactly,’ the gun says.
Above us, a shadow can be seen. Our own little eclipse.
The cruiser already hangs between the sun and the mirrors. And now its shadow begins to creep down the inside wall of the mirror hub. Soon we’ll be able to look up and see the cruiser itself.
‘One fifty.’
‘Sir,’ says Neen. ‘We need to get it launched.’
‘How long do we have?’
‘Now is optimum,’ says the gun. It likes fancy words. ‘But we’ve got a four-minute window.’
The colonel is staring at the B79. He’s obviously making his mind up about something, and his decision is to stay silent. When someone like Vijay Jaxx remains silent it’s because he believes events have moved beyond what his words can change.
Marching up to him, I salute.
‘Sven?’ he says.
‘What am I missing, sir?’
Glancing at the Aux, he shakes his head. His look says, let this go . . . Only I’m not good at that.
‘Sir?’ I say.
‘Found a glitch,’ he says. ‘You’re not going to like it.’
‘No, sir. Probably not.’
The Silver Fist are going to scan our bomber for signs of life, and they won’t find any. That’s what he tells me, keeping his voice low. The moment their braid realizes there’s nothing alive on board he will either jam every channel we might use to trigger a bomb. Or he’ll spam a fire command, and blow the B79 to bits before it can get close enough to do damage.
To make it work, we need a voice link between us and the bomber to make it sound as if we are on board. And we need to find a way to stop the bomber from showing up as empty when scanned for signs of life.
‘Half a dozen goats would do,’ says Colonel Vijay. That’s a joke, apparently.
‘Cruiser coming into sight,’ says the SIG.
And my gun’s right. The Silver Fist cruiser is that bloody great shadow above us blocking out the sun. As we watch, its nose creeps over the edge of the hub.
‘No time,’ I say. ‘We launch now.’
‘And then?’ asks Colonel Vijay.
‘We take the tug and head in the other direction-’
‘As fast as we can,’ he finishes for me.
It is not much of a plan, but it’s what we’ve got. And would remain so, except for Franc, who has suddenly reappeared on the edge of our discussion. ‘Permission to speak, sir?’
I nod.
‘To Haze, sir.’
‘Make it quick.’
Franc’s lip twitches. ‘Yes, sir,’ she says.
When she speaks to Haze her voice is a whisper, her words swift, and I can almost feel the tension burning off her. Just once, he tries to interrupt her, and she shakes her head. ‘My life,’ she says, loudly enough for the rest of us to hear.
‘Franc . . .’
‘You said so.’
Reaching for his hand, she opens his fingers and touches his palm to her lips. Then he puts his hand on her head and says something so softly that I doubt even Franc can hear.
‘Sven,’ says my gun. ‘We’re running out of-’
I slap it into silence.
Keeping her shoulders back and her chin up, she marches briskly towards me and stamps to attention. Should be Colonel Vijay she asks, but he is too busy looking appalled. As I return her salute, I already know what she intends to say.
‘Please, sir,’ she says.
And proves me wrong.
‘Take this,’ I say, ripping off my arm again. ‘It’s chipped,’ I add, when she looks puzzled. Genotype human equivalent. Status DH class 2 . . .
Reaching up, she kisses my cheek.
‘Thank you.’
For letting you kill yourself? I think. She must see that thought in my eyes, because she smiles. ‘For trying to give me back my scars.’
‘Trying?’
‘Already fading,’ she says. ‘The U/Free really fucked me over.’
Sweeping her gaze across the Aux, she goes for a smile. Most of them are playing catch-up, and Iona and Ajac don’t realize what is happening until Franc is inside the B79 and its hatch is hissing shut. And even then, they’re not sure they believe it.
Bolts blow, grapples release. The B79 shivers, and drops away.
A few seconds later, it lurches through the mirror hub to stop a mile or so above us, and away to one side.
‘Piggyback her calls,’ I tell the SIG.
Only it’s doing that already, and we hear Franc’s first contact. Most people would try for a hailing frequency. Franc punches the emergency button and relies on it to override everything else.
‘Three-braid Carson,’ says a man. ‘Who is this?’
‘Trooper Franc,’ she says. ‘I’m flying the bomber . . .’ Franc hesitates. ‘Well, it’s flying itself . . . No,’ she says. ‘It’s not flying at all. But when it does, it flies itself. Mostly . . .’
Never underestimate metalhead contempt for the un-Enlightened.
And don’t forget, she is female and militia, talking to a Silver Fist officer. He’s probably surprised she can talk at all. We wait, as he says something off screen, and then he is back.
‘Let me talk to your senior officer.’
‘You can’t,’ says Franc.
‘Why not?’
‘He’s unconscious.’
Anyone running software will know she is frightened. Assuming they’re too stupid to pick that up just by listening.
‘Everyone’s unconscious.’ She sobs, stops herself. ‘No,’ says Franc. ‘Not true. Mostly they’re dead, I think.’
‘You think? Can’t you run scans?’
‘No,’ says Franc, sounding young. ‘Don’t know how.’
The three-braid sighs.
‘I want to surrender,’ she says.
‘And your officer is alive?’
‘Yes. Only his mouth’s turning blue.’
‘Oxygen starvation,’ someone mutters almost out of range.
The three-braid hisses him into silence. The Enlightened is thinking. Unless he is scanning her. So we wait where we stand in the corridor, and Franc waits inside her bomber. Anything said between us will be overheard, so we say nothing. Three-braid Carson finally comes back on air.
‘Your weapons are active,’ he says. ‘Shut them down.’
Franc says nothing.
‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Only I don’t know how.’
Overdoing it, I think. And then I realize she’s not overdoing it at all. Franc means it. She’s not sure how to shut the cannon down. We leave her being talked through the control panel by a pilot from their end.
He’s good, and we’ve just got to, See the third touch-pad on the right, the orange one, well tap the bottom right corner twice . . . when I decide it is time for us to get out of there.
Chapter 55
Setting our boosters to slow burn, Haze keeps in the B79’s comms shadow as our tug drops away from the hub and leaves Hekati’s mirror ring high overhead. We’re going to be a small blip below a bigger blip.
Also, that hub contains Hekati’s AI, which should throw up enough electronic chatter to mask us from the braid in the cruiser above. At least, that is the theory.
‘Don’t need to know the detail,’ Colonel Vijay tells Haze. ‘Just need to know it’s going to work. It is going to work, isn’t it . . . ?’