The Machinery of Light

dearly. They’ve got essentially zero chance against a full triad. And in a few more seconds, that triad’s about to pump this bomb-shaft full of grenades. Better to die meeting the enemy head on. Spencer adjusts his zone- shielding, takes in the Rain team’s zone-signature as it enters the room that he and Sarmax and Jarvin just left. He can see them all too clearly.

And then he hears a voice.

Spencer,” says Haskell.

“Jesus Christ,” says Spencer.

Though of course he’s not saying anything at all. It’s all telepathy—the reactivation of her previous link with Spencer, the one that Harrison configured to expedite the run on the Eurasian secret weapon and that got shorn when everything went awry. But that time she was on the zone. Apparently she’s come a long way in these last few hours. And she feels like she’s still picking up steam. She keeps on dropping through the shafts of the Moon while she springs from Spencer’s mind into the zone of the Righteous Fire-Dragon.

“Do exactly what I say,” she says.

Missile strike: an explosion rips through the hull of the colony ship Memphis. Metal tears away space—but it could have been a lot worse, since only one warhead detonated. Somebody went and tampered with the rest—and that same somebody’s now steering more missiles toward the just-created hole, dodging past the chunks of debris flying out it—

“The brakes,” hisses Lynx.

Five missiles do a 180-degree turn, use their engines as retrorockets as they decelerate through the new opening, powering down the whole while. The Operative gets a quick glimpse of a corridor streaking past. He figures he won’t feel much if the hi-ex aboard his missile ignites. He’s trying his best to make sure that doesn’t happen. An airlock door’s closing up ahead as the computers of the Memphis attempt to seal off this section of the ship. But the missiles slide through the doorway, skid along the walls, and slow to a stop—even as the five men fire their suit-jets.

The backup door to the bomb-chamber suddenly swings shut. Looks like they’re trapped in the shaft for real now—

“What the fuck?” says Jarvin.

“Back the other way,” yells Spencer.

“There’s no other way out of this—”

That’s when the trapdoor that leads to vacuum opens—

Deep within the Moon, working the gears of the Righteous Fire-Dragon as it puts L5 in the rearview … that’s easy. It’s dealing with the Rain that’s the problem. She sees them clearly on zone—even sees them for real now as she filters out the wavelengths on the bomb-bay’s camera-feeds to reveal them as they truly are: three figures in custom battlesuits, each one painted in a riot of different colors. She figures that’s their private joke. But the joke’s on them now—she cannons against them in zone, almost breaks through entirely. The razor and the razor-mech within that triad merge to fend her off, stopping their pursuit of Spencer’s team while they deal with a whole new enemy—

Something wrong here,” says Lynx.

“No shit,” says the Operative.

But as to what it is, he doesn’t know. There’s definitely something funky about this ship’s zone, though. Especially when it’s presenting to the rest of the L2 fleet as normal. Not that the L2 mainframes are looking too closely. All they care about right now is that the gunnery of the Memphis is working. But as for the crew—

“What the hell,” says the Operative.

“Doesn’t change a thing,” says Lynx.

Spencer hits his jets—feels the ship lurch as he hurtles back down that last shaft—Sarmax and Jarvin following him even though it’s plain suicide. Because out there is nothing but the ship’s bombs detonating—

But now there’s not even that—

Righteous Fire-Dragon’s acceleration slows ever so slightly as the bomb-feed halts and three men head out into space. She’s buying them time. It may be all she can give them. The Rain are resurging against her, forming a zone-shield that’s meeting her halfway, pressing back on her onslaught. She’s tempted to go for broke trying to finish them. But for all she knows, this is yet another of their traps. Nor can she rule out the possibility that there’s another triad in these tunnels with her. She has to play it safe, can’t overextend herself. Especially given what she’s now detecting—

What the hell’s going on?” says Linehan.

“Shut up,” says the Operative.

The five of them are streaking through one of the Memphis’s main conduits—part of the axis that runs from end to end. There are a lot of bodies. Dead SpaceCom personnel are floating everywhere. Nothing living. Nothing moving. But with his ayahuasca-soaked senses, Linehan’s somehow sensing something all around.

“This is fucked up,” says Maschler.

“This is the least of it,” says Lynx.

They’re right where they shouldn’t be—smack in the zone of maximum lethality. The surface of the pusher- plate stretches around them on all sides—a surface that could be shoved right up against the sun and still survive. The bombs that spit from the bays blast energy against it that sends the ship forward. But right now there aren’t any bombs. There’s just these three suits, making haste across a landscape no one’s ever seen under these conditions, clinging to it so as not to be left behind. The Eurasian fleet spreads out before them, churning in their wake. Another trapdoor on that pusher-plate opens—

—Like something sliding aside in her mind. There’s a new peril, close at hand. The SpaceCom dropships now plunging into the South Pole badlands are so real it’s as if she’s seeing them on camera-feeds. And she can’t even reach their zone—it may be switched off altogether. She sees them anyway, though, but that’s all she can do— other than increase her pace as she continues to duel with that Rain triad tens of thousands of kilometers away. They’re falling back now, deeper into the mega-ship, and she’s moving after them, springboarding off Spencer’s mind, increasing the pressure on theirs—

The Operative’s mind is racing. All this butchery just happened. It’s still fresh. The five men blast through what remains of it. Blood splatters against their visors. Most of the corpses have been torn from their suits, ripped apart.

“Those look like bite marks,” says Riley.

“One guess as to why,” says the Operative.

They head through the second trapdoor, back up a new shaft. Spencer feels like a herd of elephants are trampling on his grave. The Manilishi’s using his mind to battle the Rain, and it’s giving him one nasty headache. He’s struggling to focus. He’s half expecting more bombs to come flying down this new shaft at him. Instead, a hatch in the side of that shaft is opening—he leads the way through into a space that’s far wider—

She’s driving the Rain back on the ship’s zone while the SpaceCom forces close in on her for real beneath the Moon. She can see how they’re moving to cut her off. They’re coming in from all angles, ready to join forces just beneath her and catch her. She’s going to have to reckon against the possibility that she’s going to be cut off from Spencer, too, that the Rain are going to find a way to sever that connection. But right now they’re giving way before her—collapsing back into full defensive mode as she drives against them. She can see what their next move