The Machinery of Light

A terrible cracking noise as the Memphis slices into the Harrison. The walls start tearing away to reveal more walls—those of the Harrison itself. The Operative and his team fire their jets, blasting away from the colonists. The Memphis plows ever farther into the Harrison, bodies pouring into vacuum—

Through the shaft and into the cockpit of the Righteous Fire-Dragon. The three men move from room to room, looking for anything living. They can’t find anything worth the name.

“Now what?” says Sarmax.

“Now we make ourselves comfortable,” says Spencer.

She’s at full throttle, plunging headfirst, her jets adding to the speed of her descent down the shaft. She’s gotten past the SpaceCom forces. The nuke they’ve fired after her is a different story. It gets within half a klick before it detonates.

The Memphis has thoroughly embedded itself in the Harrison. And the ones who put it there are hitting the SpaceCom flagship in textbook fashion. The three mechs get out ahead, butchering everything in their path. The two razors trail in their wake, their minds leaping out ahead to fuck the defenses. The Harrison is plunging into chaos. The situation isn’t helped by the thousands of psychotic colonists pouring into the ship and attacking everything in sight. It’s total carnage. The Operative’s loving every moment. His zone-view shows Linehan cutting inside the bridge’s outer perimeter.

Something wrong?” asks Sarmax.

“I just lost Haskell,” says Spencer.

And he’s wondering how the hell they’re supposed to keep the Rain at bay now. They’re doing what they can. They’ve mined the elevator shaft and strewn it with sensors capable of detecting anything down to nano. They’ve found an escape shaft and mined that, too.

“There’s no other way in,” says Jarvin.

“Search this place again,” says Sarmax.

The nuke ignites apocalypse in her mind—fries her circuitry, leaves her with nothing but static. It’s not just her software that’s affected either—not just her view onto the zone. It’s also her access to the telepathy, the glimpses of other minds—all of it. It’s all gone, and she’s falling into herself as her body plunges ever farther—

God this is good,” says Lynx.

The Operative nods. He’s feeling it too. He’d almost forgotten how lethal Lynx and he are when they combine their minds like this. Subterfuge and stealth are one thing. Frontal assault’s another. There’s nothing like it. Especially when they’ve got three of the best mechs alive running point, smashing through all resistance, detonating barricades and—

“We’re in,” says Linehan.

They’re going through the cockpit again, searching every nook and cranny, pulling the covers off consoles, running scans, looking for false spaces and hollow walls. Spencer wanders into one of the adjacent rooms. There’s something about it he can’t quite place. It seems like a dead end.

But then he hears a voice.

In the absence of external stimuli the mind creates its own. Claire Haskell knows this. But that knowledge isn’t helping. The voices in her head are really coming out to play. Some are her own. Many aren’t. None are saying anything coherent. Most of them aren’t even speaking English. They’re babbling in languages she can’t even identify, and she’s trying not to listen. She wonders if they’ve been here all along—wonders if she’s going to die. Maybe she already has. The fact that she can see a staircase up ahead doesn’t clarify things in the slightest.

Check it out,” says Lynx.

The Operative says nothing—just follows Lynx as he strides onto the bridge of the Harrison, which is about as large as one would expect for the flagship of the L2 fleet. Stairs lead up to an enclosed inner bridge. The walls are alive with window-screens—dominated by the Moon, with the massed Eurasian fleets splayed out beyond. Several officers are dead on the floor. But most of the bridge’s crew are still alive—though they clearly aren’t expecting to stay that way. They’re staring at the three mechs who’ve just shot their colleagues who tried to resist. The Operative pats Linehan on the shoulder.

“Nice one,” he says.

Lyle Spencer,” says the voice.

Spencer whirls. It’s coming from one of the consoles. For a moment he thinks someone’s hiding in the damn thing. But then he gets with the program.

“How the fuck do you know my name?”

“Claire Haskell told me.”

She’s heading down those stairs. They look to be fairly recent in construction. Which might even be good news. It means she might be back on track. The vehicle that’s sitting at the bottom of the stairs is further indication.

The Operative scans the screens within his head. Everything’s checking out. The Harrison is in his hands. He and Lynx have already taken control of the flagship’s connections with the rest of the fleet, and have been broadcasting about how the rebel units from the Memphis are in custody and that the bridge is now secure. Linehan and Maschler and Riley are making it more so—sealing doors, getting emergency barricades up. The Operative and Lynx walk up the stairs to the inner bridge.

Spencer’s at a loss. He stares at the console from which the voice is being projected. “Haskell told you who I was?”

“For sure. Sarmax and Jarvin too—hi guys.” This last as the two men walk up behind Spencer.

“And who the fuck are you?” asks Sarmax.

“Was might be a better word.”

The vehicle’s a modified crawler—a long-range explorer, tailor-made for rough underground terrain, with short-use rockets to navigate the more vertical spaces. She opens up the vehicle’s door on manual, climbs in, and seals it. It feels good to get off her feet. It’s even better to be able to replenish her oxygen. She lets her suit drink its fill while she starts the crawler, then resumes the descent into lunar incognita.

The inner bridge of the SpaceCom flagship contains certain things. The rear admiral of the L2 fleet. Two flag officers. And—

“The codes,” says the Operative.

Rear Admiral Griffin looks up at him with an expression that’s one of near total disdain. “You expect me to give the executive codes for this fleet to a bandit?” he asks.

“I guess not,” says the Operative, and fires a shot into Griffin’s neck. The rear admiral pitches backward, starts dying noisily. The Operative looks at the flag officers.

“Your turn,” he says.