Haskell’s head is really starting to spin. The constant play of light within her mind is less a function of the explosions flaring in the window and more a matter of the surrogate microzone she’s midwifed and that she’s just trying to prop up somehow, some way. Any way. It’s that much more difficult now that the most powerful weapon remaining in the Earth-Moon system has managed to extend its reach inside this cylinder, forcing everybody to hit the basements at regular intervals. Haskell’s compensating as best she can. She’s sending out commands regarding the new criteria: draw in the flanks, blow down as many walls as possible, clear out space insofar as can be achieved, choose warehouses over corridors, galleries over tunnels, large spaces over small … and above all, keep the comlinks open—keep the transmissions coming so that everyone’s connected to some piece of the formation, and all the pieces ultimately link back to her. No one gets cut off. No one gets left alone. Save for those who have to be.
The Operative’s on a mission to get his team to that rock ASAP. He’s guessing he’s not the only one who’s received orders to get out ahead of the main formation, which can only move as fast as its heaviest vehicles. Grids of the approaching mountains crystallize within his head. He beams them into the skulls of his colleagues, focuses on the conduits that connect mountains to the Aerie. There are fifteen in all. Nine are intended for personnel. And some of those that aren’t look a little narrow …
“No way are we fitting through one of those,” snarls Lynx.
“Wanna bet?” says the Operative.
Ain’t what you think we can do, Lynx,” says Sarmax. “It’s what the Rain think that counts.”
And the Operative knows all too well that they might run into them at any moment. Maybe the Manilishi is counting on him to do just that, to weaken the Rain a bit before he gets taken out. But somehow he doubts it. He’s guessing they’re deep in the Aerie, busy with the Throne.
“They’re counting on their proxy forces in the cylinder to hold us off,” says the Operative.
“Not to mention blowing every bridge to that rock and then some,” says Sarmax.
“Now why do you have to go and say a thing like that?” mutters the Operative.
Mountains loom in the distance. Stars gleam between blackened valleys. They’re moving out ahead of the main formation, well in front of the right flank, which seems to have drawn level with the center as it overhauls it. Linehan’s singing to himself. He seems to be having a blast.
Spencer isn’t.
“Will you shut the fuck up,” he says. But Linehan just laughs. “We’re both going to shut up forever in a few more minutes,” he says.
“The sooner the better,” grumbles Spencer. “Says the guy who’s already missed all the fucking fun. You should have seen this place when it all got going, man. We got fucking fried.” Shots streak past from somewhere far above them. Linehan doesn’t alter course. “Ain’t never been part of any outfit that got fucked so hard. I think I’m the only one from my dropship left.”
“How’d you make it through?”
“You know how, man. By being a chickenshit. We were right on top of one of those Rain triads. We had it pinned down every which way. But when the zone went, I didn’t wait. Got the fuck out of there while drones carved everybody up; ended up in that valley while it went from green to black. Sat in a park while the world went to shit: put my legs up on a goddamn bench and watched New London burn like a fucking roman candle. Figured that’d be it. It nearly was. Until the Hand showed up with his bitch-queen razor.”
“And bailed you out.”
“If that’s what you’d call this.”
Spencer nods. The Manilishi’s ordered him to head south as quickly as possible, outpacing the main force. The center vehicles that are aboveground are visible a little farther back, down near the floor of the valley. They’ve got about forty seconds before the Helios gets the angle on them again.
“Check that out!” yells Linehan.
Spencer turns, sees it: several klicks farther south of them, though not as far on the right flank as they are—flames of thrusters darting in and out of valley forest.
“More of our cycles,” he says.
“More meat,” says Linehan. “The Throne’s fucked. The Rain turned his trap inside out. They’re butt-fucking him in that asteroid. We get close enough, we might even hear the squeals.”
“You sound like you’re getting turned on.”
“Only thing that turns me on is the idea of getting out of this fucking shooting gallery.”
“We’re almost at the rock.”
“Hate to break it to you, but we’ll never make it.”
“You don’t think—shit!” Suddenly Linehan turns the bike so sharply that Spencer’s almost thrown off, despite the magnetic clamps. It’s like the whole of the approaching mountains have come alive with lights. Shots start searing past them. Explosions blast nearby bikes to hell. Debris flies everywhere. Linehan accelerates, dives groundward. “Guess that answers that question,” he snarls.
It looks like the Euro guns situated throughout the southern mountains are still operational. Apparently they’d been holding back. But now they’re opening up on the onrushing Praetorians and the foremost units are getting hammered. Everybody’s forced to hit the deck, get back into those cellars. Haskell watches as the pilot works the controls and the shaker descends below the curtain of shots, drops down into a riverbed that’s been stripped of its river by the vacuum—and from there into subterranean waterways now bereft of any liquid. Other shakers roar in after her: other cycles, other suits. Basement combat starts up again, even as microwaves and lasers surge through the spaces overhead, unleashing fury that’s becoming almost reassuring to Haskell. Almost familiar. And why not? The universe has shrunk to nothing save the Europa Platform and the thing that’s orbiting it, controlling it, pinning down all those who exist within it. The Helios has attained the status of some kind of inscrutable god.
But its reign is coming to an end. Because once the force gets past the windows and in amidst the mountains it’ll just have to gnash its teeth in the vacuum. Haskell’s concentrating on those mountains now. They’re frozen in her mind’s eye even as tunnel walls flash by, even as some kind of awareness builds within her. She feels herself giving way before it.
• • •
Taking corners and roaring past turns and it’s all the Operative can do to keep on breaking through. He’s changed up the formation a little. He’s got the marines out in front of him now. The odds keep on getting steeper: walls that suddenly collapse inward, floors that blast themselves into the ceiling, mines and drones and droids that keep on springing in from out of nowhere …
“The terrain’s narrowing,” says Sarmax.
“I realize that,” says the Operative.
But he still hasn’t figured out how to handle the implications. They’ve left the valley behind. The exterior wall of the cylinder is curving in toward the southern pole—letting the defense stack itself up pretty thick, depriving the Operative of room to maneuver. Which is the one thing he can’t afford to lose.