The Burning Skies

head. She brushes through them, finds the closest irrigation channel, and starts running along it in a crouch.

Which is when someone steps from the grass farther up ahead.

Someone in a suit of armor that’s completely beaten her own suit’s camo. A nasty-looking minigun’s mounted on its shoulder. The gun’s barrel swivels toward her, even as she springs back onto the zone and finds that whoever’s in the armor has isolated himself from all nets—presumably to deal with the likes of her. She stares into that barrel, and it’s as though it’s already fired. As though she’s already gone.

But she’s not. She’s still frozen in that moment, still watching existence freeze about her. The suit holds up a hand, gestures at the side of its helmet. As though it wants to talk. She obliges, activating a tightbeam channel, and a voice crackles in her head.

The habbed asteroids,” says Spencer.

“The Aeries. Yeah.”

“Nothing’s landed there since this whole thing started.”

“And nothing’s going to either. Like I said, targets have to pass through the cylinder.”

“But why would targets even come to the Platform in the first place?”

“It’s not like either of us is a stranger to this type of drill, Spencer. There are only two ways to bag a target, right? Either you go get it or—”

“You make it come to you.”

“Yeah.”

“So what’s the bait?”

“I’ll take a wild guess: something impossible to resist.”

Going somewhere?” the voice says.

Haskell doesn’t reply. Time spirals slowly sideways. Cosmic background static pours through her. She feels herself drowning in it. She feels herself rising past it. She hears the voice continue.

“Take off your helmet. I want to see you.”

Her body’s so full of adrenaline she can barely move her hands from where she’s got them above her head. But she does: lowers those hands against infinite resistance, unclasps the helmet’s seals, lifts the helmet off, tosses it aside. The suited figure moves forward with all the purpose of a predatory insect—so close now she can see ebony skin through the visor. She can even see what looks like silver hair.

But she can also see that gun—adjusting minutely on its axis as it aims directly between her eyes.

Flame and motion in the windows of the bridge: two of the other Praetorian ships are firing their motors. They’re dropping out of orbit, toward the cylinder.

“They’re sending a couple of ships in,” says Spencer.

“Drop ships?” asks Linehan.

“No, entire fucking ships. Decked out as medium-grade freighters, American, same as this one. Guess the rest of us are providing cover. Along with whatever they’ve got mounted on the Helios power station.”

“That Helios is quite a structure. Ten klicks of lasers and microwave—”

“I’ll say. Talk about directed-energy capability—”

“How soon till the ships hit the Platform?”

“About a minute.”

“Which end are they heading toward?”

“North Pole. The spaceport end. You called it.”

“Damn right I did,” says Linehan.

“So what the fuck’s in those asteroids? The Euro Magnates?”

“I think they’ve been taken off the board, Spencer. I think the thing that’s in that cylinder’s Aerie is the same thing that’s directing this whole operation.”

“While simultaneously doing everything it can to convince its prey that it’s ripe for the taking?”

“I see you see where I’m going with this.”

You’re a woman,” says the man within the suit.

“And you’re Stefan Lynx.” A momentary pause. “What the hell makes you say that?”

“I’ve seen your file. I recognize your face. You dye your hair silver. You’re not that hard to pick out of a crowd.”

“You’ve hacked through to the heart of our systems.”

“I’d hardly say your file is at the heart of the Praetorian systems, Stefan.”

“Shut up,” he snaps. “All your zone tricks can’t save you now. Because I’m the one who’s got the gun—don’t move your hands. Keep them right where they are.”

“I’m not moving.”

“Good.”

“What do you want?”

“To gaze upon the face of Rain before I obliterate your face.”

“I’m here to fight the Rain, Stefan.”

“You are the Rain, bitch.”

“You’d better check your orders. Your Throne wouldn’t want me killed. Your Throne would have ordered me taken alive. And I can assure you right now he’d be pretty fucking livid if—”

“Shut up!” She stops talking. “Don’t try to twist my mind!” But she realizes there’s some doubt in his head. That he’s trying to psyche himself up to kill her.

Or else he’s just savoring the moment.

“Start begging for your life.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Rain whore. Let’s see you fucking plead.”

“You’ll kill me anyway,” she says.

Near-instantaneous swivel: the gun fires. A shot streaks past her head. “Not good enough,” he says.

“Strom Carson,” she says. “Where is he?”

“Who?”

“The leader of your triad.”

“Say that name again,” he says.

“He’s got different orders, doesn’t he?”

“What the fuck makes you say that?”

“Your team’s been fucked with, Stefan. Where’s Carson?”

And for a moment she thinks she’s gone too far. Lynx takes aim at her chest—and then suddenly leaps toward her, grabs her by the neck as he pulls out a pistol, and shoves it up against her temple. And now he’s switched to audio piped from his suit’s speakers. “He’s right behind you. Come out asshole! Right fucking now!”

She’s staring in the same direction he is, across the fields at the nearest wall. She still can’t see it. But then they switch off their camo and she does: two figures in two doorways. One of them is advancing. The