Impact (32 page)

The voice comes from a long way away. “Hang in there.”

It takes Prakesh a full minute to work out what's happening. He's lying in one of the boats, propped up against the prow. The boat is full of people and equipment, and Prakesh can see that they're speeding across the water. He can hear the roar of the boat's engine, feel it buck as it climbs the waves. There are three other boats, moving alongside, all of them packed with workers.

Another sound explodes across the water–a guttural roar, ripping through the frigid air. One of the boats tears in two, its surface shredding before Prakesh's eyes. Its crew spill into the water, the surface churning with froth and blood.

Prakesh's boat reacts instantly, veering to one side. Someone collapses on top of him, and that's when the pain in his chest
really
wakes up. He tries to scream, but can't get enough air into his lungs. There is something very, very wrong down there.

The boat changes direction again, digging into the water. The roar is coming in bursts now, seconds apart.

“Hold on!”

“Goddamn Phalanx gun—”

“It's gonna cut us apart.”

“Turn.
Turn!
”

Prakesh hears the motor throttle up another octave, its pilot pushing it to the limit. But it's not going to be enough. They won't be able to outrun bullets.

He opens his eyes, and sees one of the other boats running straight towards them. Its pilot is panicking, turning the boat hard, desperately trying to get away from the hailstorm of bullets. Pain explodes through Prakesh as the boat collides with theirs. He feels the floor tilt underneath him, then it slams back down onto the water.

The bullets are sending up spikes of white froth, getting closer by the second. Prakesh can't look away.

The
Ramona
has been torn apart from the inside out.

The screens on the bridge are still displaying camera views, and each one shows nothing but fire and smoke and spitting sparks. The bridge itself is locked down tight–its doors barred, the men and women inside all armed with rifles. But that doesn't stop worry from churning at Okwembu's gut. It's all slipping away from her, all of it.

The people on the
Ramona
should have planned for this. Their setup–spacing their people, never letting the workers get hold of weapons–was clever. But they didn't think it through. They didn't think about what would happen if things went wrong. They were stupid. Sloppy. She won't let that happen again.

Prophet is still standing over the control panel, still in a mute trance. Okwembu looks across the screens, hunting for something she can use. She can't even tell if there are any workers left on board, and there's no way to see if the Phalanx gun is hitting its targets. She's already thinking ahead–should they give chase? Round up any stragglers?

“How many boats do we have left?” she says, not looking away from the screens.

She hears the guards shifting behind her, and lowers her voice to a growl. “How many?”

“One or two,” says a voice. “There should still be some left on the C deck ramp.”

“Go and secure them.”

There's no movement behind her, and she doesn't have to turn around to picture the guards–to picture the lazy, slow expressions on their faces. She closes her eyes for a moment, then turns to Prophet. If she can just get him to—

But as she does so, she gets a look out of the window.

There's a figure on the deck, sprinting across it, running between the line of disused planes. It's heading right for the Phalanx gun. Okwembu stops, her eyes narrowing. In an instant, the figure is gone, covered by the wing of a plane. But Okwembu saw the dark hair, recognised the body shape.

“Hale,” she whispers.

And then raw terror floods through her.

She doesn't waste another second. She walks over to Prophet, grabbing him by both shoulders and turning him towards her. “You have to talk to the gun operator.”

He stares at her as if he doesn't know who she is. “Curtis?” he says, after a long moment.

Okwembu has to work very hard to keep her voice level. She desperately wants Hale alive, but she doesn't have a choice now. “Yes. Curtis. We need to talk to him.”

Moving slowly, way too slowly, Prophet bends over a bank of screens. There's a radio, attached to the edge of one of the screens on a coiled cable, and he unhooks it and pulls it towards him.

“Curtis, are you there?” he says.

Okwembu snatches it away from him, hammering the transmit button. “You've got a runner heading towards you on the deck. Take her out.
Take her out now.
”

I can feel my body starting to rebel. The muscles in my shoulders and upper back are roaring in pain, and my arms hurt from my climb up the side of the ship. But I have to keep going. I
have
to get to that gun.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realise that it's stopped firing. Has it run out of ammo? Are Prakesh and Carver out of range? I sneak a glance to my left, off the edge of the deck, but I can't see any boats from where I am.

I keep running. The body of the planes are too low for me to move between the wheel struts, but there's just enough room for me under the wings. I'll need to stay in cover–I'll be too exposed out on the open deck.

Ahead of me, one of the planes is tilted sideways. One of its wheel struts is missing, and the tip of its wing scrapes the surface of the deck. I tilt my body, leaning into the turn, already plotting my angle of attack.

There's a roar of gunfire, and the plane in front of me rips apart.

Great gouges appear in the body. The cockpit glass shatters, raining down on me, and one of the wings almost shears off. If I hadn't started to turn, if I wasn't in the process of running around it, I would have gone right into the bullets.

I switch direction, adjusting my angle, sprinting away from the planes–onto the open deck.

There's no choice. Behind me, the line of planes is being ripped apart. The noise is unbelievable. Something explodes–a missile, a fuel tank, no way to tell. I keep my head down, my feet hammering the deck.

The gun stops firing, just for a second. Under the ringing in my ears, there's a thin mechanical whine. The barrel is tracking me, turning in my direction, trying to aim ahead of me.

I can't outrun bullets. But I can outrun that barrel.

The gun starts firing again. Bullets dig divots out of the deck behind me, so close that metal shrapnel bites through the leg of my pants. The fragments are tiny, nothing like the one that buried itself in my leg when we crashed the escape pod, so I ignore them. Acrid smoke stings my throat, but I ignore that, too. I couldn't stop, even if I wanted to.

The bridge tower is on my right. For an instant, the bullets stop coming, the person inside the gun not wanting to shoot the tower itself. I seize the advantage, pushing myself harder, hurdling a chevron-striped ramp. But the gun is still tracking me, and, a moment later, whoever is inside hits the trigger. Bullets split the air behind me. Gods, how many does he
have
?

I'm ahead of the barrel's targeting line–no more than a few feet, but it's enough. I'm getting closer, leaning into the turn, coming up on the gun. A cry bursts out of me as I sprint the final few feet, and then I'm out of the line of fire, under the barrel itself. The bullets stop coming, the barrel shuttling left and right, hunting for a target.

The gun looks even more menacing up close. It's foundation is a metal box with rivets on it as big as the ones on the side of the ship. There's a mess of machinery above the box: a rotating platform, with two wings bracketing a curving chain of bullets, each one the size of my ring finger. The gun barrel itself is like something out of hell, blacker than space itself, longer than I am tall.

I move to the seaward side of the gun. At first, I think I've made a mistake–that the gun is controlled from the bridge. But then I see the door, set into the side of the platform, its surface caked with rust. There's lettering across the door, in stencilled capital letters: PHALANX CLOSE-IN WEAPONS SYSTEM AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

There's no valve lock–just a simple handle. The door is slightly open, and as I move towards it I see movement. Someone behind the door, trying to close it, lock me out.

Not today.

I sprint to the door, dropping my shoulder, driving hard. It slams backwards–whoever is behind it shouts in surprise, almost knocked off balance. They recover quickly, try to close it again, but they're not fast enough. My follow-up kick almost knocks the door off its hinges.

A man lunges at me. He's pale from lack of sunlight, his lank hair hanging down his face in thick, gungy strands. He throws a clumsy punch, aiming for my face. It's the work of half a second to grab his arm, turn the strike against him. I shove him backwards, then come in after him.

I see screens leaking green light into the gun's interior. There's the most awful smell–stale sweat and rotting food, mixed into a horrible miasma. I try to ignore it, dodging another of the man's punches. He's off balance, and I take the gap, grabbing the back of his head and smashing it into the wall.

He mewls in pain, but his hand keeps moving. I look to the side, and see a rifle on a nearby chair–one he's hunting for, feeling his way towards it. I stop him, gripping his arm, turning him around in one move and twisting it behind his back. The mewling noise becomes a yell, deafening in the tiny space. I make a fist with my other hand, then slam it into the pressure point on the back of his neck.

I give him a shove. His body sprawls across the floor, his head thumping off it. He's twitching slightly, his eyes rolled back in his head, but I barely notice. All my attention switches to the screens.

Some of them are radar displays, others internal readings from the gun. One of them shows the deck, where the gun is currently pointing, and there's a complicated target reticle overlaid on top.

I slide into the chair. The seat underneath me is still warm. My hands slide over the control panel, stopping when I find a small joystick with a prominent button on it. I give it an experimental push. The body of the gun vibrates around me as the motor kicks in, and the view on the screen changes, moving to the left. Slowly, the bridge slides into view.

“OK,” I say to myself. “Here we go.”

Okwembu can't see Hale any more. The tracer vanished when her path took her along the wall of the bridge tower. It doesn't help that the deck is shrouded in drifting smoke, obscuring the Phalanx gun. Half of the planes are on fire, their fuselages hanging in shreds.

The bridge behind her is silent. No one speaks. They're all staring out of the windows, their faces illuminated by flickering screens.

Okwembu tries to control her breathing.
There's no way Hale survived that. Nobody could. Not even a tracer would be able to outrun—

The gun starts to move again.

The barrel raises itself in short jerks, as if the operator isn't quite sure of the equipment, still trying to get the hang of it. Prophet is muttering under his breath. “Engine's gonna save us,” he says, more to himself than to anyone else. “The Engine will keep us safe.”

Okwembu reaches out, gripping his arm. “You have to shut the gun down. Right now.”

He stares at her blankly, as if he doesn't know who she is.

“The Phalanx gun,” she says. “
How do we shut it off?
”

He shakes his head. “It's manual control,” he says. “Only Curtis can do that.”

Okwembu looks back out of the window. The Phalanx gun is turning in a slow circle, the barrel moving upwards.

Aiming for the bridge.

“Get out!” Okwembu shouts. She throws Prophet to the side, launching herself towards the doors. “We have to get out now!”

And Riley Hale opens up.

The bridge
implodes
.

That's the only word for it. The structure folds inwards, its struts bending and snapping under the barrage. Part of the roof caves in. In seconds, the entire bridge is wreathed in smoke, glitchy and pixelated on my screen. It's like the bullets brought a black hole to the bridge.

The whole gun shakes around me, the vibrations travelling up through my chair. I laugh, and my laughter vanishes under the roar of the gunfire.

I keep my finger on the trigger until the ammo counter on the screen blinks a big fat zero.

The only sound is my breathing, close in the cramped space. There's a water canteen off to one side, balanced on the control panel. It's half full. I drain most of it in one go, then tip the rest over my head, soaking my hair and neck. I take one last look at the smoking, sputtering wreck of the bridge, then step over the unconscious gunner and push my way out of the door.

The harsh daylight makes me blink, the smoke worming its way into my lungs. My body chooses that moment to really wake up, my muscles burning, protesting against everything I put them through. A sudden wave of nausea rolls through me, and I drop to one knee on the deck, retching.

My shoulder blades are twisted rods of red-hot steel, and there's something wrong with the muscles on my right side. Every movement sends a sharp arc of pain up into my armpit. It's like a stitch that's got out of control, taking on a life of its own. I'm pushing my body to a level it hasn't gone to before, and if I'm not careful I won't make it out the other side.

You're not done yet
, says the voice.

I look over my shoulder at the bridge. It's a smoking ruin. There's no way anybody survived that. But I can't walk away, not until I see Janice Okwembu's body, not until I know she's paid for everything she's done.

It's hard to get moving again, but I do it. Each step hurts, and I have to grit my teeth to keep going, gripping my right side as if I can massage the pain away. I hear a bang, and look up. Something on the bridge has exploded, gushing even more fire and smoke.

There's a buzzing sound, growing by the second, and a shape explodes out of the smoke. No–not out of it.
Above it.
It takes me a moment to realise what I'm seeing.

The seaplane.

I stare at it, open-mouthed, as it soars above me. I can just see Harlan through the blown-off door, hanging on for dear life. The plane's body is damaged in a hundred places, bullet holes standing out like acne scars. It banks, descending towards the sea, vanishing past the edge of the deck.

How did they survive? Did they land somewhere? No way to tell–and they don't dare land on the deck, not without wheels. It doesn't matter. They're alive.
They made it.

The knowledge makes me want to punch the air and throw up, all at once. I hadn't realised how much it was weighing on me. Ever since I saw Finkler, lying broken on the rocks of Fire Island, I thought they were gone. I told myself that I didn't know for sure, but I never really believed it.

If I can get to them afterwards, we can get back to Whitehorse. Carver and Prakesh and I can…

Prakesh.
My good feeling vanishes. My stomach gives another sickening lurch, and I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them again, the buzz of the seaplane has faded, and I'm looking back up at the bridge.

Later. That can all come later. You've got a job to do first.

It takes me a few minutes to find an entrance. I have to go nearly all the way round the bridge structure, to the far side of the ship. I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to enter the pitch darkness of the interior again.

But there's no choice. Not this time. I take a deep breath of cold ocean air, then step inside.