The Burning Skies (12 page)

Carson returns the salute. “What’s the situation, Lieutenant?”

“Under control, sir.”

“And his ETA?”

“Within the minute, sir. Via max-speed maglev.”

“See this lady?” says Carson.

“Yes, sir,” says the lieutenant.

“Her life is more important than yours. You’ll die for her without hesitation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Inform your soldiers of this. Prepare this room’s defenses.”

“Sir.”

“Dismissed.”

The lieutenant turns. Carson lets go of Haskell. She doesn’t move though—just glances over to where Lynx is being neural-locked by two soldiers. His helmet’s off. His back’s to her. She notices Sarmax drifting over to where she and Carson are.

H
ow’s Lynx taking it?” asks the Operative on the one-on-one. “How do you think?” replies Sarmax.

“The Rain almost fucked us.”

“You really think they got to him?”

“No question.”

“So now we space him?”

“Probably. But for now they’ve taken him to where the marines from the ships are setting up the outer perimeter.”

“Those guys have brought in some heavy equipment, huh?”

“Nothing that doesn’t suit the occasion. Lynx really got strapped to the railroad tracks this time.”

“With the Hand driving the shit-train to end all shit-trains.”

“And that guy breaks for nothing.”

Sarmax looks amused. “If you’re pressed for conversation when he gets here, you might consider asking him to go easy on Lynx.”

“Are you nuts?”

“It’d look good—you know, plead his case, show some concern and all that.”

“Tell you what, man, why don’t you start shooting into the ceiling or something just so it’s totally obvious to everybody that I have no ability to lead a fucking team whatsoever.”

“Maybe they’ll even give me back the job,” says Sarmax.

“Like you’d want it.”

“I’m starting to think I might.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What are you guys talking about?” asks Haskell.

They look at her.

“She’s quick,” says Sarmax.

“She is,” says Carson. “We were just talking about the situation.”

“Which is?”

“Precarious.”

W
hat do you know about him?” asks Linehan. “Just the usual stuff you hear around the campfire,” says Spencer. “The Hand’s second only to the president in the Praetorian hierarchy—”

“And responsible for one thing.”

“The security of the Throne.”

“Meaning the Throne’s taking one hell of a risk if he’s really sending him in.”

Spencer mulls this over—and then sees the captain suddenly signal to the gunnery officers on the left of the bridge. He watches numbers race one another across his screens as the ship’s batteries start responding.

“Hey,” he says. “They’re priming the DE cannon.”

“Which ones?”

“That’d be all of them.”

• • •

T
he Praetorians have set up heavy weapons pointed at both windows—two-person gatlings that take about fifteen seconds to configure—and are also boring holes in the ceiling and floor, shoving wires through them to communicate via direct transmission with their brethren who apparently have occupied the adjacent floors. Haskell’s assuming it’s all still off the zone—that it’s all been worked out in advance. She floats near the inner deck with Carson and Sarmax hovering nearby. She counts at least thirty soldiers. She wonders how many are in the structure around her—wonders if the millions who dwell in the city all around have any idea what’s taking place within their midst.

More Praetorians enter the room. They’re bunched tightly around a single figure who wears the same uniform as they do—but who now separates from them, rockets in toward her and Carson and Sarmax accompanied only by two other Praetorians. Haskell notices that the approaching suit has no rank. It seems like he’s moving toward her over some infinite distance; like she’s seen him so many times before. Carson and Sarmax come to attention as the man brakes in front of them.

“Sir,” says Carson.

“At ease,” says the man.

“This is the woman, sir,” says the Operative.

“Good,” says the man. The face behind his visor is much older than she was expecting. His hair’s as grey as his eyes. “Claire, my name’s Huselid.”

“The Throne’s own Hand.”

“I need you to remove your helmet.”

She complies wordlessly. Brown hair spills out as she breathes in the air around her. The Praetorians standing to either side of Huselid begin pulling material out of their suits, begin to erect what looks for all the world like a tent around them. Walls quickly cut them off. What seemed to be fabric at first is now hardening into something that’s more like plastic.

They’re in a room within a room. She feels everything closing in around her. She feels the universe billowing out beyond her. Huselid doesn’t take his eyes off her.

“Claire, there are a couple of scans we have to run. I need you to remove your suit.”

“Don’t you fucking get it?” she says, but though it sounds like protest it’s really not. It’s more like ritual. “There’s no time. They might hit us at any moment.”

“Precisely why you need to hurry.” The Praetorians pull themselves out of the structure, affix its plastic to the larger chamber’s walls. One of them steps back in, stands with her weapons trained on Haskell as Huselid continues: “I apologize, but prudence dictates precautions. Gentlemen, if you’d be so kind.”

Carson and Sarmax salute and leave, pulling the door-flap shut behind them. Haskell shrugs, opens up her suit, steps out, strips off her shirt and pants. She stands there, noticing that Huselid’s noticing the bloody scars wreathed upon her.

“What are those?” he asks.

“Schematics that depict how the Rain might be taking the ground out from under our feet while we sit here chatting.”

“I’m going as fast as I can,” he says—gazes at her, and she realizes he’s scanning on multiple spectrums. She takes him in—soldier of the Throne, playing the hand he’s been dealt. Though apparently he’s still fully capable of multitasking:

“It wouldn’t have worked,” he says.

“What wouldn’t have?”

“Breaking into the Aerie to confront the Throne.”

“Only way to be sure the Rain weren’t listening in. Only way he could be sure
I
wasn’t Rain.”

“But they were trying to follow you in. You almost fell into their trap.”

“They almost fell into mine. Once I’d combined with the Throne directly, we could have destroyed them at point-blank range.”

“We’ll give you the next best thing.”

“Remote-junction’s too great a risk.”

“It’s the only risk the Throne will take,” he replies.

“Then he’s a fool.”

Huselid says nothing. But his eyes say everything. She doesn’t even know why she’s arguing. She’s just following the script. Because how she gets to the impending moment doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s about to be unleashed. And now a door in the enclosure folds up and two more Praetorians float a small cart into the room. It contains an object: a cube about a meter on each side, covered in a metallic paperlike substance peeling all around its edges. A screen’s attached to one end. What looks like a small radar dish exudes from the other. One of the soldiers takes her clothes and pulls her suit from the enclosure. The other adjusts the dish. Looks at her.

“Hold still,” he says, and points that dish at her. She feels nothing. She counts the seconds, watches herself reflected in the dish’s hazy mirror, watches the scar-maps on her skin distorted by its curves. She feels like she’s on the verge of seeing something new within those patterns. She feels as though she’s on a river drifting toward the roar of falling water….

“Turn around,” says the Praetorian. She does. More seconds pass. “Face me again.” She does. “We need a DNA scan,” he says. “Hold out your hand.” She holds it out. He peels off some of the metal-paper from the cube, touches it to her hand. “Your tongue,” he says. She sticks out her tongue. He repeats the procedure with more of the metal-paper. Huselid takes all of this in without expression.

“Are you finished?” she asks.

“Yes,” he says. Another Praetorian pulls another suit into the room. It’s heavy armor. It’s obviously packed with weapons. “This is your new suit,” says Huselid.

“What’s it do?” she asks.

“What doesn’t it,” he replies.

The Praetorian salutes, leaves. She looks at the armor. Garments hang off the back of it: light pants and shirt. She puts them on, climbs into the suit, hits the ignition. Lights flare out around her. She feels time starting to quicken.

“Now what?” she says.

“Now we do what I was sent for,” Huselid replies. The enclosure suddenly opens up, drapes inward as it reverts back to cloth. A Praetorian holds up one corner. Huselid ducks beneath, gesturing at her to follow. He fires his thrusters, floats down into the basin of the inner room, lands at an alcove set within one side—an alcove cut off from the line-of-sight of both the windows. Wires protrude from its wall, their ends grasped by Praetorians. She scans the alcove, scans those wires, puts her suit through its paces as she does so. It’s working like clockwork. She instinctively moves toward the zone for the rest of the routine checks she’d usually run.

And stops.

And waits. She’s bracing herself for what’s about to happen. She’s resigned to it. She’s just a tool of the future now, even if it wasn’t precisely what she was planning. Because now that the Throne’s calling the shots there’s no way he’s going to let her near him. Not until she’s been tested, via a hidden line rigged across the whole of the cylinder, all the way to the Aerie. And Haskell figures what the hell. She’s ready to take to the zone to merge with the Throne itself—to integrate her capabilities with his and put her sword at his service. Though she swears to God she won’t hand him her mind.

She stops near Huselid. Two other soldiers move in, scan the walls around them. Huselid takes a wire from one of his soldiers, extends it toward her. She feels herself teeter on the brink. He looks straight at her and she struggles to meet his gaze through the contingency pouring in upon her.

“Claire Haskell. President Andrew Harrison asks for your forgiveness for all that you’ve suffered at the hands of his servants. He asks that you work with him now to save our
people from the thing that assails us. When that’s done, he’ll grant you anything you wish. Anything at all. He asks that you join with him to triangulate the locations of the Rain hit teams throughout the Earth-Moon system.”

“What about the back door to my own systems?”

“We’ll give you the key.”

“Which the Rain already has.”

“We know the nature of the game we’re playing.”

“Do the Eurasians?”

He pauses. She laughs, but only just. “They really sent their leadership?”

“They really did,” he says. “But we’re talking about two separate zones here. Meaning that the triangulation the Throne’s attempting with what we believe to be the Eurasian executive node—in the other asteroid—won’t yield results for hours. With you, it’ll take a minute to clean out the U.S. zone. Then we can worry about helping the East out.”