“Which means that nothing sane’s getting near us!”
“Because we’re going to fucking crash!”
“It’s still a damn sight safer than that,” says Linehan, gesturing at a rear-facing screen. The ravaged Praetorian bunkers look like some pockmarked lunar landscape. Drones of all description are waging a full-on assault. Praetorian shakers and crawlers are emerging from hatches farther back in what looks to be some desperate counterattack. But it’s clear that the inner perimeter’s about to get overrun.
“See what I mean?” says Linehan, turning back to Spencer. “Yeah? Well, what about that?”
And gestures at the same screen. Linehan turns back toward it.
“Shit,” he says.
The Rain’s machinery is in hot pursuit of the Praetorians who just blew their ace card. Lasers and bullets streak out in search of targets that keep on making turns that leave them one step ahead of the hunters. Carson and his team are coming back into the domain of gravity. But they’re not letting that slow them.
“We need some fucking margin,” mutters Sarmax.
The Operative says nothing as he leads them down corridors that have seen more than their share of firefight already. Looks like a battle went down here between the Euro cops and their out-of-control droids. Looks like the cops got busted for keeps.
“Nasty,” says Lynx.
They shoot through housing levels where ceilings and floors have been carved out with what looks to be an industrial-strength laser. They surge through what might have been a park, come back into more housing levels. The drones are catching up.
“Now!” yells the Operative.
Their bomb racks start spewing out disruptor grenades while their helmets discharge smoke. They toss hi-ex over their shoulders for good measure, swivel their jets, turning and surging out into what’s left of a school. Explosions start going off behind them. They hit the ventilator shafts, start searing through them.
“I think we lost ’em,” says Lynx.
“Not for long,” says Sarmax.
“All we need’s ten more seconds,” says the Operative.
• • •
The carnage on the screens has to be seen to be grasped. But the onslaught of machinery hasn’t reached the Hangar yet. At least not on the surface. It’s getting held up by the last stand of the inner perimeter. And back at the Hangar itself … “The fucking doors—”
“They’re opening!”
And something’s becoming evident on top of the shaking of the machine they’re riding. Something that’s reverberating through the vibration that’s all around.
“Damn,” says Linehan, “they’re going for it.”
They’re through into a tube about five meters wide. There are rails running through it. It looks familiar.
“The Magnates’ private railway” says Lynx.
“We’ve been here before,” says Sarmax.
“Not this section.” The Operative hits his jets, blasts up the tunnel. It bends along a gentle curve. The curve grows sharper, and then dead-ends.
“We should be going the other way,” says Lynx.
“I don’t think so,” says the Operative. He touches the wall, applies pressure, works a manual release—watches as the wall swings back to reveal more rail.
“Nifty,” says Sarmax.
“And off every fucking map,” says the Operative. He hits the jets.
“Let’s hope so,” says Lynx.
They cannon down that tunnel. Five seconds, and they reach another dead end.
“End of the line,” says the Operative.
He turns to a fusebox, starts throwing switches in a sequence. A wall starts folding away. The men stare at what’s behind it.
“Shit,” says Sarmax.
“Now we’re talking,” says Lynx.
They’re in a control room, but they’re controlling nothing. The off-the-leash war machine they’re riding is rolling away from all the fighting. All the men within it can do is check out the latest thing to hit their screens.
“The Throne’s fucking launching!”
“I realize that, dipshit!”
It’s hard to miss. It’s fifty meters long, the last ship remaining to the man who’s desperate to avoid becoming the last president of the United States. It’s powering out upon jets of flame, rising above the Hangar and the fighting, lashing out with its gunnery in all directions.
In the cockpit Haskell’s presiding over all of it. Grey of walls giving way to black of space; vast doors quivering as the blast of engine hits them; rockscape beginning to recede; Praetorians trying to buy the ship some margin…. Myriad images swirl through her head as she monitors the moments after main engine start. The hands of the pilots fly over the controls. Her two bodyguards are staring straight ahead, at the windows past which the Earth is reeling. The ship’s accelerating.
And then shuddering as something smashes into it.
• • •
M ove,” hisses the Operative.
But Sarmax and Lynx are already leaping onto the ship that’s their ticket off this dump. It’s small. No larger than a jet-copter, it was intended by the Euro Magnates as an escape craft, though they probably never figured on a getaway under these circumstances. The wall beyond starts folding away to reveal the glimmering of space. Sarmax and Lynx vault into the two pilot seats. The cockpit canopy hisses shut, though there’s neither time nor need to pressurize the ship. The Operative grabs onto straps at the back, shoves aside the spare Euro suits that take up most of the space remaining. Sarmax powers up the craft.
He’s hit!” yells Linehan.
By a KE hurler mounted by the Rain upon the cylinder: a laser aboard the president’s ship takes it out even as it fires, but the damage is already done. The ship’s gyros just got nailed, locking the craft into an arc that’s way too tight. It’s veering crazily back toward a point on the asteroid about half a klick from most of the fighting, coming in virtually on top of a certain wayward vehicle …
“We’re gonna get tagged!” yells Spencer.
“So don’t just stand there!” screams Linehan, who fires his thrusters and rockets along the rungs that lead through the hatchway in the control room’s ceiling.
• • •
Haskell’s just sitting there, visor down and suit sealed. Fear’s some sensation far away. She sees rock coming in toward the window, sees the lips of one of her bodyguards moving in silent prayer. She knows she’s the only one worth praying to. Her mind’s surging out through wires throughout the ship as she runs end-arounds, bulldozes a secondary route to prop up what’s left of the rudders. It wouldn’t mean a thing if the pilots weren’t so good. But the deep-spacer flight crew strapped in before her possess intuition of their own. Born of life-or-death moments way past Mars. Moments like this one now. Pilot and copilot and navigator: she gathers their minds into hers as the ship staggers toward the asteroid.