She’s starting to suspect that the Rain triads are nowhere near the onrushing Praetorian wedge, and that all these drones have been prepped to operate without a zone, deliberately dumbed-down and programmed to just get in there and do as much damage as possible to anything that looks like organized opposition. Haskell knows damn well that by now the force that bears the Hand’s standard is the only thing that’s even capable of looking the part.
Which is why he’s ordered her to take such a chance with the Praetorian stragglers. Integrating their rewritten nodes into the zone she’s bootstrapped requires that she make herself vulnerable to hacks from Rain units wearing false colors. And that she risk exposing her physical location. So she’s working through proxies insofar as possible. The few razors under her command are now well out in front of the main formation, taking heavy casualties. But she’s hoping that the influx of reinforcements they’re bringing in is worth the trade- off.
“As long as we keep them on the formation’s edges,” he says.
“I’ve cleared them,” she replies.
“I don’t care.”
And she can’t blame him. Not when every calculation has fallen short. Not when the Rain has proven the equal of every contingency. Not when God only knows what the next twenty kilometers have in store.
They’re hugging the ground, well into the area where the main drops went down. They’re broadcasting the codes they’ve been given—the codes that override the Praetorians’ blocked systems, tell them to rally to the Hand. And from the remnants of buildings in which they’d taken shelter, from basements where they’d destroyed the droids within, from armored drop-pods they’d never left: Praetorians are returning the signals.
Not that they need that much convincing. Most of their razors are dead. Their world’s been torn apart. They can see the size of the force that’s bearing down upon them. They’re swarming in toward the Operative.
“Because now they’ve got a reason to live,” he says.
“You mean a reason to die,” says Lynx.
It’ll have to do. Because there’s plenty of fighting to be done. Most of which now seems to be occurring in the center: behind them, far to the right—distant flashes denoting fresh fighting at the spearhead of the main formation.
“Must be a whole mess of the fuckers still in front of us,” says Lynx.
“Not to mention the Rain’s hit teams,” says Sarmax.
“Who are inside the Aerie working out on the Throne,” says the Operative. “That fucking asteroid is where it’s at. These fucks are just trying to delay us.”
“And the Manilishi wants you to send
“She gave me discretion.”
“So use it.”
“I intend to.”
Spencer watches as the earthshakers sweep in toward him. Each is several meters long, covered with guns and turrets. One’s churning past the ship on treads. Another’s running on legs that are a blur. Another roars past on its jets. Another suddenly leaps; Spencer ducks involuntarily along with the soldiers standing next to him as it sails past them, hits the ground running on the other side of the ship. Another stops close to one of the fissures from which the ship is protruding. Its forward cockpit swivels, tilts upward like some misshapen head. Sensor-clumps that look disconcertingly like eyes regard Spencer.
“You the razor?” says a voice.
“I’m
“Then get in.”
A hatch opens just behind that forward cockpit. Spencer stares at it.
“Better do what he says,” says one of the Praetorians standing next to Spencer.
“What about you guys?”
“Never mind those guys,” says the voice. “Get down here.”
Spencer clambers down from the ruined ship—slides along panels, using ripped cables to steady himself—and grabs onto the edges of holes torn in the ship’s side. He soon reaches the level of the shaker, which edges carefully forward until he can step over to it. He reaches out, grabs the hatch, pulls himself inside. The hatch swings shut behind him.
“Hold on,” says a voice—and in the next moment Spencer’s thrown to the floor as the shaker reverses at speed. He rolls against the wall, activates magnetic clamps as the vehicle starts to race forward. The space he’s in looks like the interior of a fuselage. A hatch leads rearward. Most of what’s further forward is cockpit. Windows are slits amidst instruments. A man’s working the controls. His hands are a blur as they play across the dials. He glances back at Spencer. His hair’s white. His eyes are hollow.
“One-way ticket to Ragnarok,” he says. “Sit back. Enjoy.” Lights flash outside the window. Something crashes against the shaker’s left side, bounces off with a dull clang. Spencer’s audio feed howls as one of the turrets farther back discharges on full auto. A rumbling rolls through his bones as the earth-shaker’s gears shift.
“Protected my Throne against the East for years,” mutters the pilot. “Now we fight to save him from demons.”
“You mean the Rain,” says Spencer.
“I mean the false Christ,” says the pilot. Lights streak past the window. Off to the right there’s an explosion that lights up torn terrain and shattered mirrors. Several other shakers are visible in the near distance. Those that are flying are keeping low. One’s on fire—still surging forward all the same. “God’s own messenger leads us through the gates of hell tonight. She’s Joan of Arc. She’s beautiful. I saw her face, you know.”
“So did I.”
“So rejoice.”
Spencer’s not so sure about that. But the pilot keeps on talking, keeps going on and on about the hinge of the cosmos and the fate of the universe and the final judgment. Spencer suspects that he’d be carrying on just as eloquently even if he didn’t have an audience. He realizes this man’s mind is processing a situation he can’t understand as best he can. But Spencer knows he wasn’t picked up by this craft to get up to speed on its pilot’s metaphysics. So he cuts in as tactfully as he can manage:
“So what’d she want you to do with me?”
“She?”
“Uh, Joan of Arc.”
The man curses under his breath, swings his body leftward in his chair. The shaker swerves crazily sideways. Something big slides past the window: massive piles of debris that look to be all that’s left of some maglev train that piled up along the valley floor. The shaker roars past, fires jets, gains height. Ground drops away. Tracer rounds curve overhead. The man laughs.
“She told me to take you to limbo’s driver.”
A grid appears on a screen above him. It shows the Praetorian formation—a wide blue arrowhead slicing forward. A light situated almost at that arrowhead’s point—“That’s where we started,” says the pilot—has almost totally traced a line over to its right. And now that line’s drifting out ahead of the right flank, into the ranks of the forward skirmishers.
“That’s where we rendezvous,” the pilot adds.
“With what?” asks Spencer.
Something flies past the window. It looks like a motorbike, only it’s more fins than wheels. Spencer gets a quick glimpse of a figure hunched on its back—and then the vehicle loops backward, just missing the
