the trajectory, cannons against her, rips the gun from her shoulder. She whips up her legs, kicks him in the chest, vaults backward, then raises her hands and starts firing with her wrist-guns. He does the same. They pour shots into each other. Neither’s trying to dodge. Neither’s trying to evade. They’re just soaking up each other’s munitions. The outer layers of their armor are getting shredded. Their visors are starting to crack.
• • •
The Operative’s helmet is pretty much at one with the rocket flame. He’s seeing stars for real now. He can’t budge his opponent. Can’t hack him either. At least not with his own mind—he reaches out, extends more razorwire; his assailant shifts slightly to dodge it and the Operative plunges the metal into the prone figure of Harrison. The president may be out of commission, but his software isn’t—and now the Operative’s running codes given him by the Manilishi, drawing on that software, sending the merest fraction of the executive node surging out and through his own suit and into the suit of another. And from there into his brain.
The man convulses. The Operative kicks him off into space—and then leaps up to see what’s hurtling toward him.
Any second now,” mutters the woman.
“We’ll hit Valhalla together,” says Sarmax. “Not if I can help it,” says Lynx, streaking past the ship and tossing a shape-charge through the gap in the wall and onto the woman’s back.
“Fuck,” she says.
The charge explodes, blasting clean through her back and chest, knocking her forward toward Sarmax. He grabs her in his arms. But she’s already dead. He shoves the body away, starts broadcasting how he’s going to kill Lynx and leave him to rot in vacuum. But now Carson is vaulting into the ship, grabbing him, remonstrating with him. Sarmax switches back into business mode.
“Where’s the Throne?” he snarls.
“Haskell’s on it. With Linehan and Spencer. She restarted their suits. Which the Rain fucked.”
“So that’s why that nut job was running around without one.”
“Apparently he’s pretty fucking enhanced.”
“I’ll say. What happened to the other Rain guy?”
“Dawson,” says the Operative. “It was Dawson. Though I didn’t know it till the end.”
“He’s dead?”
“For sure.”
“It’s finished,” says Lynx.
“But we aren’t.” Sarmax’s voice is dangerously calm. “And you’ll get it too, Carson. For stopping me from nailing him.”
“Jesus Christ,” says the Operative, “you seriously want to go head to head with us
“There’ll be another time,” says Sarmax.
It’s another time. An hour later. A very jury-rigged ship is starting its journey back toward the Earth. It consists of the remnants of two ships held together by bolts and wires.
“Precarious,” says the Operative.
“But functional,” says Sarmax.
The two men are sitting in the pilot seats of the Euro craft. The Operative is at the controls. He glances at Sarmax.
“It wasn’t her,” he says.
“What?”
“That wasn’t Indigo who Lynx killed.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” asks Sarmax softly.
“I did a DNA test on what was left.”
“Ah,
The Operative opens up a channel. “How’s it looking back there, Claire?”
“He’s still stable,” says Haskell. “He might even make it.” She’s sitting beside the president. His sightless eyes stare past her. Wires run from her to him.
“And Linehan?”
“He’ll be fine,” says Spencer. He and Linehan are sitting in their suits, in the remnants of the presidential cockpit. Spencer’s at the controls while Linehan siphons oxygen from the heaped-up Rain suits from which the bodies have been stripped.
“You know,” says the Operative, “if you hadn’t pulled that stunt we’d have been fucked.”
“Who the hell are you talking to?” asks Lynx.
“I’m talking to Linehan.”
“What was that?” asks Linehan.
“He said without you our asses would be grass,” says Spencer.
“Guess you could look at it that way,” says Linehan.
“You
“Maybe I’ll have to visit it again sometime,” says Linehan.
Up ahead that world draws closer.
PART IV
GRAVITY AND RAPTURE
My fellow Americans.”
It’s four days later. The U.S. president is on the screen. Short-cropped grey hair above grey eyes. Mouth set in that familiar, reassuring way. Words that say everything his people need to hear.
And nothing that they don’t.
“It is with a heavy heart that I address you tonight. But also with fresh hope. The paralysis of the worldwide nets by the terrorists who called themselves Autumn Rain is over. We have defeated them. In attacking the Europa Platform, they hoped to expand their war of terror to neutral targets—targets that lacked the defenses necessary to withstand the Rain’s assault. It is my duty to inform you that the Europa Platform has been entirely destroyed, along with the cities of New London and New Zurich. The loss of life was catastrophic. May God help me to tell you the death toll is numbered in the millions.
“But in striking at L3, the Rain overreached themselves. In the aftermath of that terrible crime, we were able to trace the routes of their hit-teams back to the bases from which they struck. We were able to penetrate their lairs and eliminate them wholesale. We have ended the menace of Autumn Rain. Their leaders have been destroyed in the bunkers from which they were planning the world’s demise. Their strike forces have been cut down while still en route to their targets. This war is over.
“Our nation has borne the primary role in ending this threat, but we were not alone. Eurasian forces cooperated with ours in bringing the Rain to justice. The East’s data was invaluable in building up a full picture of the Rain’s location, making our triumph all the swifter. They are our partners, and they should be honored as such. Let the rumors that they were in any way connected to the Rain be laid to rest, along with all talk of a return to the dark nights of cold war. Those days are gone forever.
“Even as I speak, our diplomats are meeting with those of the East in Geneva. Not out of some misplaced fear that the pact of Zurich is on the verge of becoming a dead letter. Nor out of some futile need to
