The Machinery of Light

Yet Spencer can see that he hasn’t been thinking big enough all the same …

“Fuck,” he says.

“Hello,” says Sarmax.

Off to the north: Hammer of the Skies has a twin. With its own fleet spread out around it. Combined, the carpet of Eurasian ships extends for several hundred klicks in all directions. An armada the likes of which the world has never seen—and Spencer can only imagine what it must look like from the American positions in low-orbit.

Blotting out the fucking planet,” she mutters.

“I see it,” he says.

The camera-feeds they’re hacking into go out. Haskell can’t tell whether they got destroyed or whether she’s just lost zone-contact with what’s going on closer to the Earth. There’s enough shit going down that the answer could be both. Though the lunar portion of it still seems to be holding up. Congreve sprawls on the horizon, drifting ever closer. It looks almost serene from up here.

Haskell’s mind is anything but. She turns toward Carson—is surprised to find she can move her neck far enough to do so. He glances at her while he works the craft’s controls.

“Don’t say it,” he says.

“How do you know what I’m about to say?”

“Because you never could fool me.”

“You’re saying you can read minds too?”

“I’m saying we have a connection.”

She almost smiles at that, shakes her head.

“Why did you join with Sinclair?”

“You asked me that already.”

“He’s going to eat you alive.”

“He’ll choke if he tries that.”

The corvette veers and yaws, partially the result of the struggle for control within its systems, but also a function of the evasive maneuvers that Lynx is putting it through. But the colony ship is almost on them; Lynx reaches out, commandeering that ship’s emergency docking procedures. Hangar doors open on the colony ship as the corvette streaks into the outer hangars—plowing through into the inner hangars—

They’re way out over ocean now, gaining height on a trajectory that will cross the coast of North America within the minute. Spencer feels himself shaken ever harder as the Hammer accelerates, spitting out incrementally larger bombs that send it streaking over the eastern Pacific. Directed energy is striking the hull from every direction, though it doesn’t stand much chance of getting through several layers of tungsten hull.

“They can’t touch this,” says Sarmax.

Not by a long shot. Spencer can see that the Hammer’s twin is keeping pace, a hundred klicks north and slightly higher. He zeroes in on it while Sarmax watches over his virtual shoulder.

“We got a name on that thing?”

“Righteous Fire-Dragon,” says Spencer.

“What kind of a name is that?”

“I’m guessing it sounds better in Chinese.”

“Wonder if it’s exclusively theirs.”

“Probably divvied up the same as this one.”

“Doesn’t matter as long as they get to beat up on the Yanks.”

“Speaking of—”

Sarmax nods. The coast of California sweeps toward them.

Two people in a room that comprises their whole ship. There’s so much history between them it threatens to swamp the here and now. But that just seems to amuse Carson. Which pisses off Haskell even more. Especially when they’re talking about the one man who no one’s seen for far too long.

“Sinclair had me train you for a reason,” says Carson.

“Did he arrange for you to fuck me too?”

“Who’s to say I can’t have ideas of my own?”

“Don’t start that again,” she snaps. “I was in love with Jason.”

“Only because you could no longer have me.”

Haskell turns to look back out the window. Congreve’s filling most of it now. Most of the dome’s dark. But lights blink throughout the spaceport that sits atop it. She turns back toward Carson.

“If I wanted you, it was only because I was rigged that way.”

“But what about now?”

“Why does it matter?”

“For me, it was the only thing that did.”

“You are such a fucking liar.”

He looks at her for a moment like she’s never seen him look. “That’d make all this a lot easier.”

“You’re even more cold-blooded than Sinclair.”

“Not so cold as to not see that we’re two of a kind.”

“You and Sinclair?”

“You and me.”

“Give me a break.”

“Already did.”

“What?”

“I trained you for ten years. Watched you grow up. C’mon, Claire. How could I not have fallen for you just a little along the way?”

“This is bullshit.”

“Fine. It’s bullshit.”

“You murdered Andrew Harrison.”

“I’ve murdered a lot of people.”

She raises an eyebrow. He laughs, but it’s not really laughter. “And I had to make it look like I was being played by Montrose. Had to say what she needed to hear.”

“You were about to deliver me into her hands.”

“I was going to break you out later.”

“That is so much shit.”

“Is it? How can I afford to let anyone else possess—”

“Exactly. That word.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“You’ve fucking injected me with a paralyzing—”

“It’s worn off.”

“What?”

“Try it.”

And she does. She’s moving. In the zone as well: the shackles are starting to fall from her mind. She runs sequences as Carson brings the craft down toward a landing.

“I could crush you now,” she says.

“I’m betting you won’t.”

Or has he rigged her to preclude that? Is this all part of his latest game? She starts checking over her systems as the craft touches down—which is when the InfoCom special-ops team that has been staking out this area of the spaceport switches on its lights. Blinding glare pervades the cockpit. The ping of sonic targeting echoes through the ship.