several grenades and a phosphorus charge that someone apparently was about to detonate to prevent this room from falling into Jaguar hands. Marlowe hooks his newfound possessions onto his belt. He hears a noise outside, looks up.
Just in time to see something roar past the window.
He screams at the razor to stop firing. She does. They hear something land on the roof.
“They must have come up from the basement,” Marlowe shouts.
“We’ve got no armor,” whispers the razor.
Marlowe looks around the control room. The suit he glimpsed outside had light armor: not a match for what he was wearing earlier but far superior to what he’s got now. Marlowe steps back into the jumble of debris and bodies on the floor, kicks a shattered suit aside, grabs the assault-cannon that suit’s still clutching, rushes back up the staircase. He’s shouting at the razor to get out of his way. He rushes out onto the roof, starts firing at the suited Jaguar who’s just alighted upon it: and who now gets drilled through the visor by hi-ex armor-piercing rounds from Marlowe’s weapon. The Jaguar goes down, smoke pouring from his helmet. Marlowe hears suit thrusters below the level of the roof: he hears the razor scream. He races to the edge of the roof, leaps.
For a moment he’s plunging. As he does he catches a glimpse of another suit, hovering in front of a nearby tower that’s been turned into more of an inverted melting icicle through the pounding of the now-silent space-to- grounders. Marlowe fires more hi-ex rounds, blows that suit backward into the tower even as he plunges past the hole in the wall of the control room—and sticks his feet out, finds purchase, twists into the control room itself. His head just misses torn metal. The Jaguar who’s just entered the control room through that hole is advancing on the staircase where the razor’s ensconced. Marlowe opens up: the suit whirls, burning—and then exploding as its motors ignite. Marlowe fires several more rounds for good measure, steps past what’s left of that suit.
And hits the floor. Because every window’s being shattered. The room’s filling up with fire. Marlowe crawls along the floor to the staircase, steps into its shelter. The razor’s standing there, her gaze flicking between the sky and a still-intact computer monitor set into the wall.
“Bought us maybe thirty seconds,” he tells her.
But the woman doesn’t answer save to gesture at the sky. Marlowe glances at it—sees some kind of signal light flashing up there. “They’re responding,” the razor says.
“What are they saying?”
“They’re not sending ships.”
“Then we’re fucked.”
“Not quite,” she says. She starts to explain but stops as the room beneath comes under heavy fire. A barrage of explosive shells starts tearing away what’s left of those walls. The stairway they’re in shakes. It keeps on shaking.
And stops. The firing cuts out.
“What the fuck,” mutters Marlowe.
“Beats me.”
But then they hear it from somewhere down below. It’s some kind of distant rumbling. Some kind of far-flung echo. It seems to be coming from within this building rather than outside. It’s not just one thing either. It’s many things. It’s the same thing. It’s many voices.
Shouting.
“The militia.”
“The suits are whistling up the dogs.” Marlowe eyes the stairs.
“We’ve got to move.”
“Where?” Marlowe leans into the doorway, hurls frag grenades across the room and down that stairwell. But when the explosions die away, the shouting’s still there.
Only louder.
“How long do you think we have?” asks the razor.
“Maybe about another thirty seconds,” replies Marlowe. “How long do we need?”
They hear something else through the shouting. Something’s scraping along the roof, closing on the trapdoor. It’s dropping through.
A tether.
“Grab it,” says Marlowe.
She does. And as he follows suit, he primes the phosphorus charge, tosses it at the foot of the stairs. The tether’s going taut. They’re being hauled at a run up what’s left of the stairway. They lift their feet, loop their legs around the tether. They soar through the trapdoor, leave the roof behind.
And rise into the burning heavens.
Riley and the Operative make their way back through the chamber in which the latter rode out the initial climb. They trail cable out behind them.
“Careful,” says Riley.
But the Operative says nothing. It’s noticeably colder back here. The light from the glowsticks they’ve triggered plays fitfully upon the walls.
“Look familiar?” asks Riley.
“Not anymore,” says the Operative.
Riley shrugs. He moves to the door that leads to the cargo. He works the manual, slides the door open. The two men float like undersea divers into the bay. Which—since it’s nearly full—is really just a narrow passage.
“What’s in here anyway?” asks the Operative.
“Seed,” replies Riley.
“Plant or animal?”
“I think it’s both.”
“I hope it’s shielded.”
“Do you think that radiation’s killed us?”
“It will if we don’t start this fucker soon.”
“I’m not talking about our machines. I’m talking about our bodies.”
“Oh,” says the Operative, “those. Who knows? These ships are hardened against background. But a nuke in close proximity—that’s something else again. My guess, we should be okay. But”—he gestures at the cargo around him—“I hope you weren’t planning on having kids.”
“Never planned on anything,” mutters Riley.
They reach the door at the rear of the compartment. The Operative opens it. The room thus revealed is mere airlock. The Operative climbs in. He opens a locker, starts putting on a spacesuit, slotting equipment onto that suit while Riley slots the cord he’s been trailing through the airlock door’s cable-grooves. He locks them into place, hands the terminus to the Operative. The Operative inspects his helmet. He stares at Riley.
“One rule,” he says. “When I knock on that door, you open it. Got it?”
“Got it,” says Riley tonelessly.
“Then
He lowers his helmet—seals it as Riley seals the door. He turns to the next door: even thicker than the previous one. He unlocks the seals, winches the hatch open.
And stares straight out into planet.
It fills the view, a massive sphere half in shadow. The Operative crawls out toward it: edges through the airlock, deploys magnetic clamps, moves out onto the strait. He feels like an insect scurrying into infinity. He watches infinity spread before him, scattered through with stars. And the occasional explosion: flaring, dying away. They’re the casualties. They’re getting closer. The Operative keeps on crawling. The hull’s curve is sharpening. The planet’s curving away.
Finally the engines are silhouetted before him. The Operative doesn’t break pace. He clambers out into a wilderness of pipes and wires. He’s as careful with the cable he’s trailing as he is with his own suit: ensuring that nothing snags as he makes his way past the main turbines, out onto the side of one of the engine nozzles. He reaches the nozzle’s edge, climbs inside.
Metal closes about him. Space outside gets cut off. He worms his way deeper. It gets narrow fast. He crawls
