Cyber Rogues (41 page)

“They went after Kim,” Jassic told him. “I tried to talk to them but things were too hectic. They figured you’d be tied up for too long up there and said there wasn’t time to wait.”

“Don’t they know there’s a war on at the Hub?” Dyer stormed.

“They said you’d understand. Chris said they were heading for the Maintenance & Spares Unit in Section 17D. They seemed sure that’s where Kim would be.”

“Get me a connection to somebody there,” Dyer said.

“I already tried to. Comms there are out. The backup station got bombed.”

Dyer swore in exasperation and drove a fist into his palm. He turned around to look back at the dais and saw Linsay and Krantz still debating hotly. Linsay was in favor of launching another thrust into the Spindle to follow up on the blow dealt by the cab bombs while the advantage lasted; Krantz wanted to disperse the lower shield and plan for an evacuation through the Rim. Dyer swore again. Even if he told them about Kim and the Spin Decoupler now, they’d do nothing but talk until it was too late. There wasn’t time. He swung back toward Jassic, who was watching him expectantly.

“If anybody wants me I’ve gone to the Hub,” Dyer said. “There’s nothing left to do down here anyhow. It’s all soldiers’ work now.”

He left the Command Room, stopped in the lobby outside to put on his helmet and combat overjacket and pick up an M25, and walked through from the Data Executive Sector into the concourse to catch an elevator for the Hub.

Minutes after Dyer left the Command Room, news of fresh activity on the outside of Detroit came through from the two remaining ISA ships. For some time
Spartacus
had been enlarging one of the holes it had cut in a position south of Detroit’s equator and thus invisible from the Hub and the observation points at the intersections of the spokes with the Rim. Something was coming out.

Roughly cylindrical, over twenty-five feet long and thin for much of its length, the construction was adorned with a profusion of disks and flat cylinders mounted around and perpendicular to its main axis, with tangles of cables and what appeared to be dense electrical windings at places in between. Seemingly haphazard jumbles of unidentifiable equipment clung around both ends in heaps with the back end, assuming that that was the part that came out last, considerably more heavily loaded than the front. It lifted away from Detroit and began sailing outward on a course that would bring it around the Rim. Three more followed in rapid succession and spread out to space themselves equally about the main axis of Janus.

Then the two hippos detached themselves from Southport, reversed, and began swinging outward to traverse the length of the Spindle.

Krantz was well beyond curiosity by now and called for an immediate missile strike by the two remaining ISA ships. Six missiles were fired within seconds. Four went out of control and careered off into space, and the other two exploded prematurely, far short of effective range from their targets. The salvo of twelve missiles that followed claimed one of the mysterious devices, with seven attacks going off course and four detonating early. Krantz promptly called for another strike.

Command Stalley, senior officer aboard the remaining “Watchdog” ships, looked gravely back at him from one of the screens.

“We’ve only got fifteen missiles left. We didn’t come here expecting to have to fight a full-scale war. On top of that we’re a ship short because one’s gone to take care of the shuttle.”

“What’s going wrong with the ones you’re firing?” Krantz demanded.

“We don’t know yet. We’re still analyzing the data from the tracking instruments.”

“When is Miller due to arrive with Z Squadron?” Krantz asked, referring to the five fast ISA ships that had been dispatched from Earth as soon as the situation on Janus began getting out of hand.

“Three and a half hours. Until then we’re down to fifteen. You want us to risk all of them now?” A short pause ensued while Krantz wrestled with the question. The two hippos from Southport were now abreast of Pittsburgh and still moving outward from the axis. Then Stalley spoke again.

“Tracker analysis report’s just come in. Every one of the missiles exhibited high X-ray emission immediately before it went haywire. Those things that
Spartacus
has launched must be something like flying linear bevatrons—high-power electron guns. It’s using our missiles as targets for an enormous X-ray tube and knocking them out with their own emitted radiation!”

At that moment a third hippo came out of Southport and formed up with two more electron guns and a swarm of space drones into a second fleet that began moving in the same direction as the first, which was now opposite Detroit and almost out as far as the inner reflector ring.

“We may not have three and a half hours,” Krantz shouted at the screen. “Fire everything you’ve got now.”

“Okay. As soon as we’ve reloaded and armed.”

“How long?” Krantz implored.

“A minute maybe, but those hippos are slow.”

Krantz nodded resignedly and turned away from the screen to find Linsay stooping to unlock the door in the plinth supporting his own console. When Linsay stood up he was buckling a pair of Patton-style pearl-handled revolvers around his waist; then he stooped again and took out a brilliantly polished white helmet that bore his general’s insignia. There was a strange light in his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Krantz asked.

“Can’t you see what’s happening?” Linsay replied. “It’s about to mount an all-out attack on Northport. If it gets in, we lose the Hub. If we lose the Hub, our only chance of getting back in to Detroit will be gone. Detroit must be attacked while we still have a chance. This time it mustn’t fail. I intend going there and leading it personally.”

“We still hold the Rim,” Krantz pointed out. “Even without the Hub there would—”

“For how long?” Linsay asked. “Is that how you want it to end . . . with us cooped up in the Rim like rabbits chased down a hole by a ferret? If we get pushed back to the Rim there will be no way out.”

“We can disperse the shield,” Krantz said.

“Not anymore. Can’t you see . . . it’s only a matter of time now before
Spartacus
turns those beams onto the outer skin! The shield would absorb the X-rays but without the shield we’d all be fried like germs—
sterilized
,
like bacteria! We
can’t
disperse the shield now. Our only way out is to Detroit. That way we might win or we might die. Here we can only die.”

Linsay stepped down from the dais and walked over to his staff officers to detail his second-in-command to take over and to select a handful of aides to go with him to the Hub. They departed a few minutes later.

Up on the dais Krantz found that his mouth was dry and his hands were trembling. He looked at the notepad in front of him and realized that he had been scrawling on the paper unconsciously. Scattered across the top sheet were copies of the same symbol repeated over and over again. It was the symbol of the final letter of the Greek alphabet—
Omega
.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The arrivals concourse at the Hub end of the Berlin spoke was a scene of bustling activity when Kim emerged from one of the elevators. Busy medical orderlies were fussing over rows of stretchers waiting their turn to be moved down to the Rim while behind them the walking wounded were sitting and standing in weary, battle-stained groups, smoking cigarettes and watching the companies of freshly arrived troops and ammunition parties passing through on their way to the fronts.

She had been informed at the departure point in Berlin that standing orders required everybody bound for the Hub to be kitted out in suits, but that face visors could be left open in the areas that were still pressurized. When she arrived, therefore, there was nothing in particular to single her out from anybody else; besides that, everybody was too busy to take much notice of her. Carrying the conspicuous aluminum sighter case concealed inside a standard-issue plasticized storage bag intended to hold a laser range-finder, she worked her way through the confusion toward the south exit.

The soldiers preparing fallback positions at the lower end of the corridor that rose away toward the Spindle followed her with a few curious looks as she passed, but made no attempt to stop her. Farther on, a hole blown through the floor was being improvised into a fortified destroyer-control position and a sandbagged machine gun was covering the stretch ahead from behind a bulkhead door. At the far end of the corridor, where it transformed into a staircase to complete its steepest part, a squad of marines was positioned to cover the closed door that led onward. One of them moved into the center of the corridor and beckoned Kim to a halt as she approached.

“It’s depressurized beyond this point, ma’am,” he told her. “You sure you’re going the right way?”

“What’s the situation in 17D?” she inquired.

“We’ve got some forward units stationed there, that’s all. Forward observation.”

“It’s still ours then,” Kim said with a quick surge of inward relief. “How do I get through? I need to get in there.”

The marine looked at her curiously. “Do you know it’s right on the outside? What do you need to go there for?”

Kim made a vague gesture with the range-finder bag that she was holding.

“Somebody wants a special reconnaissance done of a couple of parts of Detroit. 17D’s the best place to get the details they need. I was with a team but we got split up back there somewhere. I have to use the chance now, while I’ve still got it.”

The marine waved a couple of men forward to open the bulkhead while Kim closed and secured her visor. She adjusted the suit’s life-support and moved on into the space between the double doors of the bulkhead. The door behind her closed and a few moments later the indicators by the door in front changed to show that the lock had emptied. A slight nudge came through her gauntlet as the handle’s interlock disengaged. She turned the handle to the “Free” position, and pushed the door outward.

The scene beyond was eerie—a tortured jungle of torn pipes and jagged twisted-metal sculptures rearing up out of nightmare chasms of shadow being cast by a few emergency lamps glowing dull red to preserve night vision. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she made out several shadowy helmeted figures crouching over weapons in the darker recesses and behind makeshift parapets of smashed machines and crumpled wreckage. A couple of the helmets turned toward her as the shaft of light stabbed briefly from the doorway, but apart from that the figures remained motionless. Kim clutched the handle of the bag more tightly, drew the handlamp from her belt and began picking her way slowly and carefully toward the pitch blackness ahead.

She used the lamp to guide her as far as the maze of collapsed debris that had once been the offices of the Maintenance & Spares Unit and through to the door that led to the storeroom beyond. There she doused the lamp and carried on by feel and memory until she could make out the faint rectangle that marked where the door led through to the catwalk overlooking the bug parking bay.

By now her eyes had grown more used to the dark and vague outlines of the metal ribbing hanging from above and heaped and broken storage racking began resolving themselves around her. She had reached the door and was about to go through when she saw the two spacesuited figures lying behind a low barricade at the edge of the catwalk, keeping a watch out over the floor below. She had almost walked straight into them, but their backs were toward her and because of the airlessness they had heard nothing. She backed slowly into the storeroom and forced herself to stay calm and think.

She remembered seeing a door somewhere to the left when she had come here with Chris and Ron. There was a chance that whatever place it led through to might open out onto the catwalk farther along. If it did, it would open out somewhere between where the two soldiers were positioned and the curving platform that ran below the window and above the airlocks used by the bugs, which was the direction she wanted to go. It was worth a try.

She felt her way through the wreckage until she found the wall. Then she began tracing it back with her hands, not daring to risk attracting attention by using her lamp. At last she came to a vertical break. It was jagged and pitted in places but felt like the edge of a doorway. The panel beyond it had to be the door. She pushed against it and the panel fell away noiselessly into the blackness. Doorway or not, there was an opening in front of her through the wall. She bit her lip and moved into it.

Blotches of faint light revealed a series of large jagged holes in the far end of whatever she was in—the end where the catwalk was. So, even if it hadn’t been built to open out onto the catwalk, it did now. Kim picked her way across to the far side, away from where the two soldiers were stationed, went down low on the floor, and brought her head cautiously up near the edge of the gaping hole in front of her to study whatever lay beyond.

Where the large viewing window had been, above the two airlocks on the opposite side of the bay, there was now nothing but a huge irregular gash blown in the side of Janus. The menacing bulge of Detroit visible outside was in shadow and there was nothing but the faint glow of starlight from the part of the sky that wasn’t obscured by Detroit, to raise scattered highlights among the almost total darkness that enveloped the chamber she was looking out into, and the parking area for the bugs below.

Immediately in front of her the catwalk was blocked by a mass of tangled wreckage that appeared to have fallen from somewhere above. If she kept low on the floor, she could probably use it as cover and get out onto the catwalk without being noticed by the soldiers, who were now farther along to her right. She moved her head closer to the hole and followed the line of the catwalk with her eyes as far as she could trace it into the gloom. It seemed to be twisted and buckled, offering plenty of shadow to conceal somebody worming along toward the platform. But what if there were more soldiers in the shadows than the two she had seen? What if they were using infrared viewers or image intensifiers? She’d stand out like an iceberg on the ocean. She felt clammy but at the same time cold inside her suit. Lying here and wondering about it wouldn’t change anything. She drew a long, unsteady breath and turned to prop her back against the wall while she unfastened the range-finder bag and peeled it away from the aluminum case. She turned back onto her stomach, drew the case up alongside her, and slowly inched her way over the lip of jagged metal at the bottom of the hole and out onto the catwalk.