The Machinery of Light

letting the Rain finish these guys off. Three less players to contend with. Only—Spencer’s no player. Not now that she can reach inside his mind at will. She could reduce him to a drooling meat-puppet if she wanted. But she doesn’t need to. She senses he’s different from the rest of them anyway—that he’s really just trying to keep his head above water. She gets all this because she’s right inside him—can see the way he’s been used and manipulated by those above him. She empathizes with him even as she’s busy doing the same thing herself—even as her SpaceCom pursuers start to draw the noose.

A couple of cluster bombs, and they’re storming through into the front section of the ship. The mob’s doing its best to keep pace with them, but as the terrain narrows, so do their numbers. It’s close quarters now, and the five men are firing at point-blank range, running electricity through their suits to zap any flesh that touches them. Yet some of that flesh is clinging to them anyway. The danger of a pile-on is growing. The Operative and Lynx haul open the doors to the bridge, then turn in the doorway and start firing past the men behind them.

Doing the lady’s bidding: they head through blast-doors, exit the hull’s interior, and start maneuvering through the innards of the ship. Explosions reach their ears, along with gunfire—

“What the hell did you do to this ship?” Spencer asks.

“Fucked it,” says Haskell.

“And where the hell are we going?”

She tells him. He doesn’t seem that surprised.

And that’s just as well. Because she’s got other shit to worry about. She’s now more than ten klicks beneath the lunar surface. The tendrils of the SpaceCom vanguards are about to touch. She’s trying to pass straight between them—a margin way too narrow for comfort.

The bridge of the Memphis is in shambles. Linehan gets busy sliding the doors shut on manual while Riley and Maschler fire through the narrowing opening. The Operative and Lynx are working the controls. The L2 fleet is panorama in the windows …

“What do you think?” says Lynx.

“Doable,” says the Operative.

Especially because they don’t need to get complete control of the ship. Just—

“Bingo,” says the Operative.

The engines of the Memphis fire.

So what’s she got to say?” asks Sarmax.

“Who?”

“Don’t play dumb with us,” says Jarvin. “It’s not like you’re coming up with all this yourself.”

“You guys have been talking,” says Spencer.

“And you’ve been too busy to join in.”

“It’s keeping us alive, isn’t it?”

“But now the Manilishi’s calling the shots?”

“Shit,” says Spencer—he’s staring out into an elevator shaft. It’s total chaos. Elevator cars have rammed each other, collapsed down the shaft. Suits are strafing each other while other suits rip unarmored bodies apart. Spencer counts at least ten different fire-fights. Sarmax whistles.

“I like it,” he says.

She’s feeling the same way, looking out through Spencer’s eyes as he gazes down the shaft and starts moving toward an auxiliary one that promises safer passage. Back on the Moon, she lets her mental tendrils drape over the minds of the oncoming SpaceCom soldiers, gets ready to apply the pressure.

The Memphis picks up steam. Ships start sliding in the window. One ship in particular is drawing closer.

There’s a pounding on the door.

“Faster,” says the Operative.

“We’re powering up as quick as we can,” says Lynx.

“They’re trying to break in,” says Riley.

“More than just trying,” says Linehan. “Shall we blow all hatches and feed them to the vacuum?”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” says the Operative.

“They’re about to come in useful,” says Lynx.

They’re heading to their destination the less-traveled way. Certainly the less fought over. They head up ladders—hauling aside bodies—moving through rooms that have already been charred black with explosions.

“At least this ship’s still flying,” says Sarmax.

“For now,” mutters Jarvin.

She monitors the situation with bated breath. If she’s wrong about all this, then the Rain are going to be on them any moment. Just as the SpaceCom forces are now on her—she slams her mind forward—

The superdreadnaught Harrison is right in the path of the Memphis. Its gunnery officers are targeting the oncoming ship, only to find that their guns have been hacked.

“Nice one,” says Lynx.

“Just getting started,” says the Operative.

The rest of the fleet’s having the same problem. The Harrison’s engines fire. It starts hauling away. But momentum’s a bitch sometimes. The Memphis is coming on like a juggernaut. The Harrison fills the window …

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” says the Operative.

They’re moving cautiously past twisted machinery and sprawled bodies, half expecting to get jumped by that Rain triad. But Spencer sees no sign of it. There’s no sign of the zone either. Save for a very faint glimmer dead ahead.

—almost like the light of the minds that she’s now slamming against. As the impact of her blows resounds within her skull, she feels spirits just shatter. Minds writhe, wink out like stars extinguished. She’s charging right in between the reeling SpaceCom vanguards now. She thinks she gets a glimpse of driverless machinery crashing against tunnel walls—

They blast down the doors and into the seething mob, fighting their way back the way they came. It’s as if every wayward colonist is waiting for them, seeking to overwhelm them. The Operative can see they’re about to get buried. Which might have its silver lining. Especially with the collision alarms sounding in the cockpit they’ve just left.

They head through into a room they recognize: the cockpit access chamber. It looked a little more stately back on the other megaship, though. Now it’s an utter fucking mess. Bodies are everywhere. But the combat’s finished here. They haul open the elevator doors, enter the access shaft—

And she jets through them and nothing’s touching her. The SpaceCom forces are reeling in disarray. She’s dropping deeper into Moon, and they can’t stop her. But her intuition’s screaming ever louder—