The Burning Skies

klicks an hour, streaking through the suburbs of the city that’s now fading in the rearview. Above him’s a chaos of light.

“Tighten up,” yells Sarmax.

“No,” replies the Operative, “mind the fucking gap.”

They’re responsible for a wide swathe of terrain. They’re charging through it at street level, dipping into the basements just often enough to stay unpredictable.

“What’s past this?” says Lynx.

“You don’t want to know,” mutters the Operative.

Not that he has much of a clue himself. The usual battlefield intel is nonexistent. Zone’s just a function of what the Manilishi’s propping up. And he’s receiving her signals only intermittently—relayed in by tightbeam laser from what seems to be about a klick or so behind him and somewhere off to the right. But he’s not exactly sure. And that’s fine by him.

“They’re pressing on the rear,” says Lynx.

“Trying to get in behind our left wing,” says Sarmax.

“They’re going to have to catch us first,” says the Operative.

Which won’t be easy. The Praetorian formation is spread out along a triangular wedge almost two klicks across. The spearhead of that wedge is aimed straight at the far end of the cylinder. The Operative’s unit is well out on the left flank. A rearguard’s covering the wedge’s base. And the Manilishi and the Hand have their own inner perimeter somewhere in the center of it all …

“Sniper,” says Sarmax.

“Triangulate,” says Lynx.

The Operative says nothing, just takes evasive action as shots streak past him. A micromissile unleashed by Lynx rockets past him off to his left, veers downward, disappears among the buildings. Next instant, the flash of a minitactical lights up everything; the Operative’s already firing his thrusters, the bombed-out buildings falling away from him as he rises to a vantage point where he can lay down covering fire as Sarmax streaks amidst the streets to where Lynx’s missile has just hit. There’s nothing there now, just a big gaping hole —and the Operative rains shots into that hole to forestall whatever might be lurking down there. He catches a quick glimpse of targets getting flayed by his suit’s minigun—sees very clearly off to his right some of the vehicles in the Praetorian spearhead—and then he’s plunging back toward the surface. He drops below the level of the buildings, his path curving as he rockets down those streets. Another explosion flares as Sarmax dumps a microtactical down that hole.

“Drones,” confirms Sarmax.

“What else?” yells Lynx.

A lot else, thinks the Operative. As always, Autumn Rain has rigged proxies to do the dirty work. Thousands of miniature drones, hundreds of Euro police robots, scores of heavy-equipment droids—all of it making for one big problem for anyone trying to cross the cylinder as fast as possible. How many of these things were brought in by the hit teams, how many of them were rigged in advance by remote artifice, the Operative doesn’t know. He scarcely cares.

“They hacked everything,” says Sarmax on the one-on-one.

“So kill everything that’s not us,” snarls the Operative.

“This is getting hot!” yells Lynx.

“So let’s get lower!” screams Sarmax.

Sarmax on the right, Lynx on the left, the Operative in the center, scores of meters separating them—they streak forward over those fields, descend into a grove of trees, start roaring up depressions in the ground within them. The whole Platform shakes—and shakes again as microwave bolts smash against it. As long as the Helios is out there, nothing can get off the Europa Platform.

“That fucking thing,” says Sarmax.

“Reminding us who’s boss,” says the Operative.

“That’d be the devil,” says Lynx.

Flames erupt through the dark, shapes dimly visible through smoke as the Praetorian formation steams forward, keeping low, crushing everything in its path. What’s visible through her vehicle’s camera feeds is like nothing Haskell’s ever seen. Fire lights up the valleys overhead. She can see bodies burning all along the center axis.

But the real data’s on the screens within her mind; she’s obtaining that data in the most judicious way possible, routing most of the traffic through a neighboring vehicle in order to keep the Rain guessing the same way she’s guessing—trying to work out the nature of whatever zone they’ve got going, trying to work out the location of their triads. Which would be tough enough given Autumn Rain’s megahack. But it’s even tougher as the electrical systems in the cylinder collapse, along with everything else. Haskell estimates the place is down to about 30 percent oxygen. Millions of civilians are dead. All she can do is write them off as collateral. Because the only casualties that mean anything now are those of the Praetorians in her formation. A percentage that’s already well on its way into the double digits.

“Unacceptable,” says a voice.

The man who’s calling the shots. Huselid’s taken up position in the cockpit. He’s scarcely a few meters from where she’s crouching with her bodyguards, just aft of the forward gunners, as far away from all the windows as possible. They’ve already argued about that. She felt she should be in another vehicle altogether—that putting them both together was too great a risk. He pointed out that if one of them got hit the other would be pretty much fucked anyway. And that they were too likely to lose contact with each other in the maelstrom now unfolding. Looking at what’s going on outside, she’s starting to think he’s probably right.

“We’ve got no choice but to accept it,” she says. “We’re taking fire from every direction.”

“I can see that!”

“Then you can also see there’s no way out of this save forward.”

“Which we’re going to lose the ability to do unless we make good our losses.”

“With reinforcements,” she says.

“Of course.”

“Can’t go fishing for those without taking a risk.”

He laughs. “What the hell would you call this?”

Movement close at hand. Spencer sees figures climbing up what’s left of the spaceship hull. They’ve clearly seen him and are making straight for him. All he’s got is a sidearm.

They’ve got a lot more than that. They’re Praetorian marines in full armor, their guns pointing right at him.

They’re almost on him. Spencer’s comlink buzzes. He activates the receiver. Uncoded transmission echoes in his head.

“Give us one good reason why we should let you live.”

“I suck a mean dick,” replies Spencer.

The suit jams a weapon right up against Spencer’s visor. “How’d you survive the crash?”

“You’re Autumn Rain,” says someone else.

Spencer laughs. “If I was, think that I’d be sitting around waiting for you assholes?”

The suit pauses for a moment. The others gesture. It looks like they’re arguing among themselves. Spencer can understand their dilemma. They don’t know what’s going on. Everything’s gone wrong. They need information. They suspect everybody who might have it. Spencer decides not to wait for them to make up their minds.