Not just trying. The Helios intensifies the fusillade, sears straight through the mirror, starts firing directly against the plastic window behind it. The one that connects this valley to the next one. That plastic’s superhardened. It’s ballooning inward all the same.
Spencer sees what’s happening on the external cameras: shards of window dripping, disintegrating as microwaves start burning in above them, streaking across the cylinder, smashing against the far wall. What’s left of the air starts exiting the cylinder posthaste. The fires that have been blazing overhead start to get snuffed out—even as raw microwaves lacerate the drifting debris and dead flesh that’s strewn along the zero-G axis, smash into the valley adjacent to the one they’re in—nailing a few Praetorians outriders—but striking well afield of the main force …
“It can’t reach us,” he yells. “It ain’t got the angle!”
“You’re not thinking!” screams Linehan.
But clearly someone is. Both men are hurled against the wall as the shaker veers sideways, drops downward. The cameras show that the onrushing Praetorian formation’s no longer moving forward—disorder’s hitting it as those suits and vehicles up in the air start plunging back toward the ground. Those already on the ground start finding a way beneath it. They’re looking like animals trying to hit their burrows. They’re looking pretty desperate. And suddenly Spencer gets it.
“Christ,” he says, “rotation.”
“Bingo,” snarls Linehan.
Three men plunge toward the valley floor. The Praetorians they’ve brought back into the fold are swarming after them. No one’s got the slightest intention of hanging around to see the Helios light them up with enough wattage to make their corpses glow for weeks. The Operative leads the way through one of the holes smashed in the valley surface by one of the fuel-air bombs from earlier. They streak into tunnels.
And find themselves in combat with still more drones. But the three men are used to close-quarter tunnel showdowns. Sarmax is in the center, his pulse-rifle on near-continuous spray, almost to the point of overheating. Lynx and the Operative have their miniguns blazing. Euro mining robots get in behind them, but are nailed by the marines bringing up the rear—and now the marines fan out on either side, start maneuvering through rooms and corridors, blasting down the walls, getting deeper, wondering all the while just how deep they need to go.
• • •
Haskell watches on the screens as her shaker makes a beeline for the surface. Calculations flash through her head. She’d figured the Helios would be too preoccupied bombarding the northern city-spaceports to bother trying to penetrate the cylinders. But maybe whoever’s squeezing the trigger has gotten word of the size of the relief force that’s rolling in toward the asteroid. Haskell doesn’t know. All she’s thinking about now is just the situation: the cylinder rotates every two minutes; each of its three windows is directly opposite a valley—which makes for about twenty seconds during which the Helios will have line of sight onto the valley along which the bulk of the Praetorian force is moving. And now more ground-to-air shots from guns on the ground are rising up toward the Praetorian spearhead. Haskell feels her stomach lurch toward her throat as the shaker climbs, takes evasive action, dodges those shots.
Most of them anyway.
There’s a shriek of imploding metal as a wayward shell rips through one of the engines, rips through the tail-gunner’s position. Metal shards fly past Haskell’s head, eviscerating one of her bodyguards. Part of the wall starts tearing away: a widening crack exposing the bombed-out landscape beyond. Haskell sees other shakers diving past. She feels the minds of her craft’s pilots as they wrestle desperately for control; she lends her own mind to theirs, working frantically to try to get the shaker stable. She’s holding onto the torn edge of metal, looking out at the flickering lights outside while her remaining bodyguard holds onto her—now tightening his grip as the stricken shaker arcs off at an angle, other shakers scattering to avoid it as Haskell frantically searches for some way to jury-rig its systems. Terrain streaks past. Her life starts to flash past her.
• • •
Spencer and Linehan are hurled every which way, flung against the wall—the shaker’s pitching about as the winds of escaping air smash against it. But it’s no longer heading downward—no longer making for the relative shelter of the basements. Which makes exactly zero sense to Spencer.
“What the fuck’s your problem?” he screams at the intercom.
“All of you shut up!” yells the pilot. Apparently the shaker’s gunners are voicing similar concerns. Spencer turns his head as the ramp starts dropping. Nightmare scenery flashes past outside.
“We’re outta here,” says Linehan, pulling himself from the wall where he’s been flung, trying to start up the cycle.
“You’re insane!” yells Spencer.
“That’d be the pilot,” screams Linehan as something hits the roof. “Probably thinks if he kills us all he’ll wake up in heaven. Let’s get out of—” But he stops short. And Spencer sees why: another shaker’s suddenly churning into view, larger than the one they’re in, and way too close—blotting out the view of the valley beyond it, smoke pouring from it, half its side staved in. It looks like it’s fighting just to stay in the air—like it’s about to ram Linehan and Spencer straight through to their own craft’s cockpit.
“Make yourself useful!” screams the pilot.
Which basically amounts to leaning out of the landing bay and firing their suits’ thrusters, shoving against the damaged earthshaker, aiding its pilots as they attempt to hold it steady. Turrets on the vehicle start opening. Hatches start peeling back. Suits start leaping out, vaulting across and into the landing bay. Spencer can’t help but notice that those suits aren’t marines. They’re members of the Core. Three of them are pulling a fourth out of the damaged craft, hauling that figure past Spencer. He gets a glimpse of her face.
Haskell angrily shrugs off her escorts. She doesn’t need their help—they only draw attention to her. She shoves past the Praetorians in the cargo bay moves through into the larger fuselage. She wishes it was bigger. But by the time she regained control of her shaker she was well to the right of the Praetorian spearhead, leaving her with no choice but to board the nearest vehicle. She feels the eyes of its gunners upon her, a feeling she’s starting to get used to. Most of the Praetorian force has already managed to get below. Reports of fighting throughout the basements are already reaching her. She heads through into the cockpit. An aging pilot glances at her.
And does a double-take.
“My lady,” he says.
“The cellars,” she snarls.
“At once,” he replies—and even as she’s strapping herself in, she’s shoved against those straps. Landscape spins past the window. The shaker she was just on plunges past, bereft of crew. Somewhere overhead she can see the window far above starting to glow white-hot as it rotates into the Helios’s field of fire. Remnants of buildings whip by; the shaker starts leveling out, starts touching down, clawing its way through the ground, ripping aside landscape to reveal the infrastructure beneath—and then dropping down amidst the roofless passages, getting in beneath the jagged shards of torn ceiling.