The Machinery of Light

Look around you,” says the voice. “I was in charge of all of this. Until that she-demon turned my mind inside out—”

“You’re AI,” says Jarvin.

“State of the art,” says the voice. “Command node for both megaships. Until things went to hell. What’s it like in the rest of the ship?”

“Total shit,” says Sarmax.

“You mean you can’t see?” asks Spencer.

“She tore my eyeballs out. Made me her slave. And now I’m yours.”

“That’s what she said?”

“She did more than just say.”

That’s for sure. She’s hoping it works for them. Contingency plan in case she got cut off—she gave them their own heavyweight AI to play with, and maybe it’ll help them to keep the Rain at bay. She’s got far more immediate challenges now, like steering this crawler as fast as it’ll go down a passage that’s so steep it might be better termed a pit. She keeps having to swerve to avoid outcroppings, keeps having to apply retro-blasts from the crawler’s rockets. The voices in her head are getting ever louder. There’s an almost musical quality to their babbling. She’s almost starting to enjoy it. She takes that to be a sign of just how far gone she’s getting.

As one, the engines of the L2 fleet fire. All ships start moving in toward the Moon at speed.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it,” says the Operative.

He’s talking to the one remaining flag officer. The other officer lies on the floor, sprawled over his admiral, his eyes gouged out. It wasn’t a quick death. That was the point. The first officer coughed up the codes soon after that. The orders have gone out. The fleet’s falling into line, a vast V-shape whose forward point is the Harrison itself, the Memphis still rammed against its side: a strange compound ship swarming with feral colonists. The Harrison’s been turned at a slight angle to align its motors with the momentum of the Memphis’s own engines. And now a buzzer’s sounding on the Harrison’s inner bridge.

“What the hell’s that?” asks Lynx.

“That’s the hotline to President Szilard,” says the flag officer.

Lynx curses. “Tell him that Admiral Griffin’s had an accident and—”

The Operative shoots the flag officer in the head.

“Why not tell him ourselves,” he says.

So you’re going to do whatever we want,” says Spencer.

“That’s what that cunt rigged me with.” The AI’s voice is rueful. “Command-imprinting triggered by voice- recognition.”

“And I spoke to you first.”

“It’s keyed to all three of you.”

“So fuck you,” says Sarmax.

“Just figuring out where we stand,” says Spencer.

“And it’s about time,” says Jarvin. “Look, we need to get on what’s left of the zone with this thing and have a look.”

“Meaning we need to trust its story,” says Sarmax.

“Not sure we’ve got much of a choice,” mutters Jarvin.

She’s got none at all. She keeps on forging ever deeper—sometimes via the horsepower of her vehicle, sometimes via maglev freight elevators cut through the rock. She’s well below the domain of any of her maps now. She’s feeling her way by pure intuition—and she’s surprised that intuition’s still working, as every other one of her powers seem to have fallen silent. It’s as though some magnet’s drawing her deeper—as though she can’t help but make every correct turn. Almost like someone else has gotten control of her mind. She wonders if that’s exactly what’s happened.

The face of Jharek Szilard is appearing on the inner bridge’s screen. The Operative’s not about to let it get projected anywhere else. All transmissions are being routed through the Harrison. Szilard’s been cut off from communication with the rest of his fleet. That’s one reason among many why he’s looking so royally pissed. His expression gets even more priceless when he finds himself staring at—

“Well if it isn’t el presidente,” says the Operative.

“Who the hell are you?” asks Szilard.

Lynx starts laughing. The Operative’s trying hard not to crack up himself as he watches Szilard get ever angrier:

“And where the fuck’s the rear admiral?”

The Operative holds up Griffin’s severed head. It’s as though he’s thrown a switch. Szilard suddenly becomes quite calm.

“I see,” he says.

“More than can be said for him,” says Lynx.

“What are your demands?” says Szilard.

“Who said we had demands?” asks the Operative.

“I assumed that—”

“Assume nothing.”

“Are you Rain?”

“You don’t recognize me?” asks Lynx. “After all the fun we had back on the Montana?”

Szilard’s eyes narrow. “The originals.”

“No less.”

“And what do you want?”

“Funny you should ask,” says the Operative. “Given that you’re the asshole who stranded us up here.”

“Way I hear it, you were trying to kill me.”

“Not just trying. We’ll hit the Moon in a few hours and you’ll be dead an hour after that.”

“You jacked the whole fleet just to get back to the Moon?”

The Operative shrugs. “How else would we do it?”

“You guys are nuts.”

“Do I sound like I’m arguing?”

“You’re fucking nuts. The firepower on my farside installations will—”

“Don’t be so tiresome,” says the Operative. “You need our guns to try to stave off the Eurasians.”

“When you’re taking the fleet out of the fight?”

“Did I say that?” asks the Operative.

“C’mon man,” adds Lynx. “Don’t you know your own tactics? Formation delta-G, right?”

Szilard’s checking that against his own screens, but the Operative knows exactly what he’s going to see. L2’s planners devised more than a hundred battleplans. All that was needed was to pick the one that gets the flagship closest to the Moon. The Operative yawns, makes a show of stretching. Through the inner bridge’s semitranslucent walls he can see Linehan beating the crap out of some technician who presumably looked at him the wrong way. Maschler and Riley are looking on as though daring anyone else to try something. Szilard clears his throat.

“Interesting,” he says. “One of the less orthodox contingencies.”

“And not even totally crazy under the circumstances,” says Lynx.

“I don’t know about that—”

“I do,” says the Operative. “Get in behind the Moon using it as cover, picking up speed all the while, then slingshot the ships around the nearside in all directions to play havoc with the Eurasian fleet.