The Machinery of Light (7 page)

“What the hell are you doing here?” asks the engineer.

“Giving the orders,” says the major, drawing a gun.

“Works for us,” says the driver.

They clearly aren’t looking for trouble. They’ve managed to find it anyway. They’re obviously going to do whatever he tells them. Some things might cause them to hesitate. But not enough to try anybody’s patience.

“I need you to get us moving again.”

“The line’s blocked up ahead,” says the driver.

“Congestion,” says the engineer. “It’s sheer chaos. Everyone and their dog are trying to get the hell—”

“They’ll clear the line,” says the man.

“They will?”

“When you transmit these codes.”

S
armax activates his suit’s laser and starts burning his way through the wall.

“Are you nuts?” asks Spencer.

“What’s your problem?”

“They’ll be able to see we were here.”

“If they end up in this room, sure.”

“Look, Leo, there’s obviously a door here somewhere.”

“Sure, but we don’t have time to find it.”

“How about giving me a chance to look?”

“How about getting the hell out of my way?”

Sarmax intensifies the beam, lets metal liquefy as he traces an incandescent line along the wall. Spencer watches anxiously. He’s realized that the door out of here is actually the entire wall. If there’s a manual release, it’s on the other side anyway. Sarmax kicks in what’s left of the softened metal and peers through.

“Bingo,” he says.

Spencer takes a look.

“Shit,” he says.

They’re near the bottom of the elevator-shaft complex that runs up the spine. Below them’s only about fifty meters, but above
them he can see what must be at least half a klick of shaft before it’s lost in darkness. Other shafts are dimly visible through gaps in the interior walls.

“Our new bolthole,” says Sarmax. Spencer nods—and suddenly his mind reels as the ship’s zone comes to life—

“Damn,” he says.

Data pours across him, and he’s poring over it. And processing the implications—

“What?” says Sarmax. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“The external doors,” says Spencer.

All along the vast metal hull of this thing they’re in, all in one fell swoop in his mind—

“
Yeah?”

“They just opened.”

T
he tunnel up ahead is blocked by Eurasian commandos. She starts to hit the brakes, but it’s too late: they’re already firing a torrent of electromagnetic pulse straight at her. Her armor’s flaring out around her, crashing against the rails, skittering to a stop as she kicks and screams inside her shell. The Eurasians blast down the tunnel toward her. She wonders how the hell she’s going to get out of this—wonders for a moment if she should self-destruct. She ponders that for a moment too long—

Because now they reach her. Mongolian faces stare into her own. They pick her up, hustle her down the tunnel while more tremors shudder through the rock around them.

T
he Operative signals his team, gets them moving in new directions. They’re charging into a new set of tunnels, well beyond Congreve’s outskirts, dating from the end of the last century. The Operative can feel a whole sector of Congreve scrambling into action behind him. But he’s not waiting—just streaking forward into the areas where the sentinels have stopped reporting.

And all the while he’s thinking furiously. About what the fuck
Eurasians
are doing in the most important American base on the entire farside. Assuming they even
are
Eurasians. Assuming that Montrose isn’t fucking with him. He’s been expecting her to try—just not this early. So he has to assume he’s dealing with the East—has to assume, too, that if they’ve managed to get in, it’s due to either treason or a first-rate infiltration squad. Or both—

“Contact,” says a voice.

It’s one of the mechs on point. Data floods the Operative’s skull as he coordinates the assault on the enemy that’s blocking the corridors up ahead. It’s basically an exercise in firepower: Montrose is feeding him reserves as fast as she can—and as fast as he can get them, they’re being fed into the fray that’s raging up ahead. Walls are getting torn up by hi-ex; suits spray one another at point-blank range. The Operative is giving up trying to keep his original force intact. He’s just using it as the centerpiece of a club to break through the resistance as quickly as possible. He’s succeeding—rocketing into the heart of the combat now, firing with all his suit’s guns, getting in hand-to-hand with a Eurasian commando, dispatching him and gunning down the ones behind him.

Even though he knows he’s lost. This Eurasian raid is clearly over. What he’s facing is a rearguard, charged with buying the main force time while it retreats along tunnels that must have been dug awhile back. Tunnels that apparently link up with the U.S. deep-grid lines, hollowed out in preparation for this day. Meaning that presumably there are many others. The Operative’s guessing this particular operation’s based out of Tsiolkovskiy crater, the
closest Eurasian farside territory to Congreve. Though he can’t believe that place is still holding out.

Unless …

Even as he breaks through what’s left of the rearguard and hits his jets, the Operative’s working the hotline with Montrose’s HQ, accessing and downloading the latest data for this section of the farside front. Turns out Tsiolkovskiy’s the only place the East’s got that’s still intact on this side of rock. And there’s no sign of Eurasian forces attacking Congreve from any other direction. Meaning what could have been the war-winning move under other circumstances is just a last desperate gamble.

Which is precisely what the Operative’s dreading. He knows all about rearguards—knows, too, all about the word
expendable
. He’s flooring his motors now, hoping to get past what he knows damn well is about to happen. He can practically feel the blasts start to rip the tunnel apart. It seems his whole life is going up in smoke before him …

But he’s still breathing. Still moving—streaking out of the older tunnels and into newer ones. And as those all-too-recently hewn walls blur past him he starts to see something else. Something that’s inside him—surfacing right inside his fucking head, coming out of nowhere. It’s Haskell herself. Sounding as though she would rather say anything besides what she’s saying now:

Help me
.

The Eurasian charges start to detonate around him.

T
his place could go up any moment,” says Lynx.

Linehan stares at him. “And Szilard really isn’t here?”

“He left the
Montana
ten minutes ago.”

“Going where?”

“Great question.”

“And why the hell would he blow up his own flagship in the middle of the ultimate smackdown?”

“Because we’re kicking Eurasian ass. So he can afford to write it off.”

Linehan shakes his head. “Fuck,” he says.

“Textbook power play,” says Lynx. “Szilard’s luring everyone in his suspect file aboard this crate—all those other SpaceCom factions and anybody else who even
might
be trying to plot against him. All of them got assigned aboard the
Montana
. Seven out of nine of his generals, all the key prisoners, several of his less-reliable wet-ops squads: everyone’s gonna get it good. Gotta admit, Linehan, we really got outplayed by him. Though he still would have gotten fucked if—”

“—you and Carson had managed to stick together.”

“Yeah. Exactly. Look, we need to get off this ship.”

“There’s still a way?”

Lynx nods. “And it ain’t even by way of heaven.”

T
he codes get transferred; the authorization gets transmitted. The train starts up again, accelerating down the tunnels. Walls flick past as two men struggle to figure out how to deal with a third.

“So what happens to us?” asks the engineer.

“Nothing.”

“You’re going to kill us,” says the driver.

“Keep driving and you’ll keep living.”

“You’re an American agent,” says the engineer.

“What gives you that idea?”

“Why else would you have that gun out?”

“I could be Chinese.”

“He could be Chinese,” says the engineer.

“Doesn’t look it,” says the driver.

“Doesn’t matter,” says the man. “Not these days. Anyone could be anyone.”

The seismic tremors are starting up again, with renewed intensity. The major glances at the controls.

“And now I need you to ditch this train,” he adds.

“You mean get off it?” asks the driver.

“No,” says the man, “sever our link to the rest of it.”

The driver stares at him. “But it’ll stop—it’s not authorized—”

“I don’t feel like arguing.”

Neither does the driver. There’s a bump, then a lurch. The car accelerates markedly as the cars behind them go into automatic shutoff, disappearing in the rearview. The engineer pulls himself to his feet, stares at the major.

“We just dumped twenty fucking cars,”
he says.

“And I’ll dump you if you breathe another word,” says the major. “Now floor it.”

“That was our freight,” mutters the driver.

“I’m
your freight,” says the man.

The driver nods, doesn’t take his eye from the rail ahead of him. It lances out, not bending for at least the next twenty kilometers. The train builds speed toward the supersonic. The driver exhales slowly.

“So who are you?” he whispers.

“I’m here to make sure we win this war.”

“How?”

“The Americans are killing us,” says the driver.

“Just proceed along the following routes.” The major hands the driver a sheet of paper.

“This is paper.”

“Indeed. Now tell your engineer to sit the fuck down.”

“Sit the”—but the engineer already has.

“And don’t dwell on the baggage we just lost,” says the man. “Tunnel control has already been notified of a breakdown. And no one’s going to believe that the engine disappeared, so they’ll just leave that out of their reports.”

“Someone will think someone’s mainlining vodka,” says the engineer, laughing in a tone that’s just a little too shrill.