The Burning Skies

by David J. Williams

  “Both sides have orders to keep the peace.”

  “But the rank-and-file’s straining at the leash,” says Spencer.

  “Yeah. These guys seem to think the day of reckoning is right around the corner.”

  “Maybe they’re right.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  The crawler rounds a corner. HK’s new border comes into sight. Barbed wire’s everywhere. Tops of buildings have been torn off, used to erect walls that block the roads. Soldiers on either side watch their counterparts warily. The crawlers roar parallel to the barricades.

  They enter a complex that was obviously a school until very recently. Now it’s been turned into some kind of strong-point. The vehicles come to a halt in a courtyard. An officer barks orders; soldiers start to bring out captives in electrocuffs and eyeless helmets.

  “You called it,” says Sarmax.

  “Nice to know I haven’t lost my touch.”

  He and Spencer watch from atop the crawler as the captives are shoved through a door in the vehicle’s side. Spencer runs through the dossiers in his head: arrested HK scientists, with a special destination. The engines start back up. The crawlers get moving again, away from the border and the checkpoints and back toward the center of the brave new city. He and Sarmax are on escort duty now, charged with carrying out the one rule of such assignments: stick close to what you’re trying to protect.

  “We’ve got company,” says Sarmax.

  “I noticed,” says Spencer.

  There’s no way he could have missed it. The vehicles now swerving in behind theirs are accompanied by new developments on the grids of the Eastern zone. Developments that underscore all too clearly the tensions within it. Spencer extrapolates along those tensions—follows them as they branch out along the fault lines so cunningly concealed from low-grade razors. Fault lines that are all too obvious to him. Because, in reality, the Eastern zone isn’t just one zone.

  It’s two.

  “The fucking Chinks,” says someone.

  “Stow it,” says the officer.

  But the point’s been made. The sentiment’s been voiced. The vehicles behind this one are Chinese, as are the soldiers atop them. Spencer can’t see what those soldiers are saying to one another. For all he knows it’s something nasty about Russians.

  Not that it really matters. The Eurasian alliance isn’t built on mutual love. It’s built upon a common foe. Standing up against the Americans will call for sacrifice. Thus the integration of the zones and the merging of the war machines. Thus a partnership that has endured for decades—a partnership whose watchword is joint ownership. And whose golden rule is keeping your ally apprised.

  As far as anyone can tell.

  “Makes sense,” says Spencer. “We’re riding shotgun on some big-time shit.”

  “So now they are too,” says Sarmax.

  That’s just the way it works round here. But it’s useful confirmation for Spencer as to the value of the cargo he’s snagged. Even though he was never really in doubt. The custom hacks furnished him by the Throne were just too good. If they’re going to get caught it’s unlikely to be here. It’ll be somewhere deeper.

  “Here we go,” he says.

  The crawlers are emerging from between buildings, rolling through a cleared area carved out of mountain slope. One of HK’s airports is up ahead. The civilian craft have been shunted aside. The vehicles of the new order are everywhere. Some are lifting off from runways. Some are landing. Some are disgorging equipment.

  Some are waiting.

  “That’s the one,” says Sarmax.

  “Looks that way,” says Spencer.

  “And we’ve got tickets?”

  “Christ I hope so.”

  They roll toward the waiting jet-copter.

  • • •

  Two people in a room bereft of windows. The man seems far too calm. The woman’s struggling to remain so.

  “Is this about the Rain?” asks Haskell.

  “The Rain are finished,” replies the Operative.

  “We can’t be sure of that.”

  “They’re finished,” he repeats.

  “How do you know that?”

  “You destroyed them.”

  “I destroyed all the ones I could find. I need the president to link with the East to—”

  “He can’t do that, Claire.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the East can’t be trusted.”

  “It’s not a matter of trust. I can monitor—”

  “But who monitors you?”

  She looks at him like she’s just been slapped. She starts to speak. Stops. Starts again.

  “So it’s me the Throne fears.”

  “Why else would you be his prisoner?”

  “His prisoner? Or his property?”

  “Do I look like a lawyer, Claire?”

  “I’ve been naïve,” she mutters.

  “There are worse crimes,” he replies.

  “Such as?”

  “Treason.”

  “Is that what you’re accusing me of?”

  “Technically, you’re already guilty of it.”

  “For what?”

  “Aiding and abetting the traitor Matthew Sinclair.”

  “Jesus Christ,” she says. “I was a CICom agent. I was acting under his orders!”

  “Are you still?”

  “If you’re serious about that question, the last thing you deserve is a fucking answer.”

  “What about what you did before it all started up at the Europa Platform?”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “Isn’t it true that you spoke with Sinclair?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I’m not just saying it. I know it. You hacked into the L5 fortress. That alone could get you tossed out an airlock.”

  “So go ahead and toss me.”

  “I’d rather you told me why you made the call.”

  “I wanted to talk to him.”

  “And what did you discuss?”

  “I needed to find out if he was guilty.”

  “But you already knew he was.”

  “Oh?”

  “Why else would the Throne arrest him?”

  She stares at him. He laughs. “That’s a joke,” he says.

  “You’re really funny.”

  “But Sinclair really was guilty.”

  “But I had to put that question to him. I had to see how he’d respond.”

  “And did he admit it?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  “Then?”

  “I guess it was what I needed to hear.”

  “But not what you wanted.”

  “I don’t know what I want.”

  “Then let me help you,” he says. “What you want is to see things from the Throne’s perspective. You must realize how it looks if you converse with an enemy of the state. You can hardly blame the Throne for being slow to attribute your actions to some inner need of yours.”

  “If I really was a traitor, why in God’s name would I have saved the Throne’s ass?”

  The Operative doesn’t reply.

  “Because that’s what’s really going on here, isn’t it? Why I’ve been chained up. Why he won’t face me. Why don’t you just admit it, Carson: Harrison can’t forgive me because I remind him of just how close to the edge he came.”

  “The Throne’s above such petty rationales,” says the Operative.

  This time she laughs. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because of what’s afoot outside this room. Within the next few hours all will be decided, Claire. The Throne has set in motion the final strike against his enemies.”

  “So now we come to the real reason you’re here.”

  “We do.”

  “And are you my executioner?”

  “Would you like that?”

  “Just shut up and do me if that’s what you’re here for.”

  “I’m just trying to remind you t
hat you’re not beyond reproach. That you’ve got to understand the Throne’s fear that his enemies might use you against him.”

  “How can they do that when I’m here—”

  “In this room? Exactly. No one can touch you now. You’re off-limits. Offline.”

  “So what’s the hell is going on?”

  “We’re on the brink of war.”

  “With the East?”

  “Who else would be worth the fight?”

  She laughs again. But only just. Shakes her head.

  “Haven’t we been down this road before?”

  “We haven’t. This isn’t like the last time, Claire. That was fleets being mobilized and threats being exchanged. That was out in the open. This isn’t. It’s behind the scenes. As far as the population is concerned, everything’s fine. But in reality—”

  “How did things get so bad so quickly?”

  “Because things were never good to begin with.”

  “But the peace summit—”

  “Got crashed by the Rain.”

  “But we beat the Rain.”

  “We being the U.S., sure. The Eurasians didn’t fare so well, did they? They lost key leaders. They’ve passed the torch in Moscow and Beijing, Claire. The hardliners are taking control. The moderates are on the verge of being purged. Those who wanted to join Harrison’s alliance have been utterly discredited.”

  “Utterly?”

  “Sufficiently. Enough to render anyone advocating détente suspect. After all, look where it got the East. Almost fucked by the Rain on the edge of the Earth-Moon system. Almost made into a slave-state overnight. The Coalition’s generals are gaining power by the minute. The war machine could slip the leash at any moment.”

  “The Rain must be in the mix somewhere.”

  “Must they?” The Operative laughs. “Do you really think we need the Rain to fuck up our world? We did it so well for so long before they hit the scene. Why should everything be so rosy now they’re gone?”

  “The two sides aren’t even talking?”

  “Oh, they’re talking all right. One more reason why the public’s in the dark. Officially everything’s going like clockwork. The neutrals are being dissected wholesale. The joint infrastructure keeps getting built. The committees in Zurich and Geneva keep on working. But higher up it’s a different story. The hot line’s off the hook. The president can’t get anyone to call him back. We don’t even know who’s in charge. If anyone’s in charge.”

  “So let me find out, Carson. Let me jack in and recon the East and—”

  “You told the Throne you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Maybe now I would.”

  “Relax, Claire. You’ve made your choice. Besides, we’re already on it.”

  “You’re going to find out who’s running the place?”

  “Sure, but that’s not the main focus. Not now. We’re assuming the worst at this point. It’s all we can do. What matters is their ability to win a war. We can’t leave anything to chance. So we’ve sent agents in search of the thing we most fear.”

  She looks at him. “The thing we most fear?”

  “Think about it, Claire.”

  “What the hell are you—oh.”

  “Exactly.”

  “If you’re going to look at your opponent’s cards—”

  “—what you’re interested in are the aces.”

  “The secret weapons,” she says.

  “More than one of them, perhaps. Maybe none at all. We don’t know. What we do know is that reports from our agents behind the Eastern wall—and Lord knows there’s precious few of them these days—all point to the Eurasians feeling like they’re in much better shape now than during the height of the crisis that followed the Elevator’s downing. Which could just be symptomatic of a shift in ideological currents. Or it could be the result of material factors.”

  “And our evidence regarding the latter?”

  “We’ve got a whole industry devoted to studying what we can glean about their black budgets. We’ve believed for a while that something big started its way down the R&D pipelines about a year before Zurich.”

  “Which doesn’t mean that—”

  “Two days ago one of our sources in Moscow got a hold of a fragment of a Praesidium memorandum waxing poetic about a breakthrough that would ensure victory in a showdown with the West. And in the wake of your restarting of the zone, we bought information from a rogue CICom handler in HK—”

  “Who I met,” she says suddenly. “Alek Jarvin. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “What’s he up to?”

  “Busy being dead. We eliminated him once we had the goods. Which we’re inclined to regard as genuine. Particularly with all the other signs pointing the same way. Jarvin had been doing a lot of digging, in some very specific directions. He believed there to be a black base beneath the Himalayas that’s been cauterized from the rest of the Eurasian zone to prevent net incursions from breaching it. A black base that’s only just been upgraded from R&D status to active operations. It’s too specific a lead to ignore. Spencer and Sarmax took out Jarvin and now they’re going to check this out and destroy whatever they can find without leaving evidence that points back to us.”

  “That’s a one-way trip if ever there was one.”

  “That’s how we intend it. Sarmax has a death wish anyway. And Spencer—”

  “I thought Sarmax was your friend.”

  “—has gotten out of so many no-win situations he can’t recognize his luck’s finally hit empty. The divvying up of HK is giving us the leverage we need. The Eurasians are seizing all key assets in their sector and pulling them out of the city with a particular emphasis on top scientists. Spencer and Sarmax have managed to pull escort duty on some physicists who are being sent to some sort of base beneath the Tibetan plateau where they’re going to be put to work. We don’t think that base is the one we’re looking for. But we’re pretty sure it’s not far off. The hope is that the two of them can take it from here.”

  “And if they can’t?”

  “Then we continue to live with uncertainty. War might be averted anyway. War might occur regardless. We don’t know. But we have to do everything we can to prevent the Eurasians from bringing disruptive technology to bear against us. And we have to keep the knowledge of such technology from our own hardliners. Who—”

  “They still exist?”

  “Of course they still exist. And they’re all the more dangerous now that the president’s lost the lion’s share of his Praetorians.”

  “But the SpaceCom plot to trigger war between the superpowers—”

  “Was destroyed before it could strike. But the puppet-masters escaped.”

  “The puppet masters were Autumn Rain!”

  The Operative grins mirthlessly. “As you’ll recollect, there were two sets of puppet masters. Autumn Rain was pulling everyone’s strings. But even at the time it seemed pretty clear that the SpaceCom general Matthias was reporting to someone else within Space Command. Someone we’ve been working to identify this whole time. And it turns out the Rain weren’t the only ones to crash the Europa Platform. SpaceCom sent a team in, too. With orders to waste the president.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “I never saw them.”

  “You’re giving them too much credit, Claire. They went out early. The Rain got wind of them first and you know how the Rain feels about competition for the executive node. We found what was left of SpaceCom’s finest in a New London sewer. They weren’t a factor in what happened subsequently. But someone in SpaceCom is still trying to take down the Throne.”

  “And we finally know who that someone is?”

  “We do. The rot goes straight to the top.”

  She mulls this over. “He dies tonight?”

  “That’s the idea,” says the Operative.

  “That won’t be simple.”

  “Neither is our plan.”

  • • • />
  Congreve drops away as moonscape expands out on all sides. Linehan checks out the view. It’s been a long time since he’s seen it. Yet somehow it’s been with him all along.

  “How many you think we’re carrying?” he asks.

  “Those holds are equipped for a hundred,” replies Lynx.

  “There’s more than that in there.”

  “I doubt we’re going to hear any complaints.”

  The men and women on this ship have done their time in every mine from here to Imbrium and back. But they’ve all acquired enough clearance to get assigned to more sensitive tasks. Which doesn’t mean they’re unmonitored. There are cameras all over the cargo holds in which they’re sitting. Supervisors too—not that there’s much for them to do during the transit. As long as they’ve got access to the camera feeds from which they can monitor the rest of the ship, they’re free to just find a room.

  And wait.

  “What happened to the two we replaced?” asks Linehan.

  “We didn’t replace anybody,” says Lynx. “There are just a few more supes on this ship than usual.”

  “But nothing outside the norm.”

  “Not according to the zone.”

  On a large transport shuttle a lot can pass unnoticed. A lot can go unseen. Though the view outside shows everything a man could ask for. The curve of the Moon is getting ever more distinct. Stars are starting to fill the window. There’s a rumble as the ship’s main engines engage.

  “How long’s the haul?” asks Linehan.

  “A few hours. You may as well get some sleep.”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Suit yourself, as long as you’re not planning on talking.”

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  “I’ve got a lot of shit to prep before we reach L2. How about you back off and leave me to it?”

  “At least tell me whether we even know where in the fleet he is.”

  “I’ll know more when we get there.”

  “You can’t hack it from here?”

  “Hardly. We’re sixty thousand klicks out. We’ve got to get a lot closer before I can start doing that.”

  “So you think we’ve got a chance?”

  Lynx sighs, stares out the window. “Sure we’ve got a chance,” he says.

  “Of taking Szilard out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But not of living through it,” says Linehan.

  “Can’t have everything.”