David Williams - The Machinery of Light

“Do your worst.”

He does.

The Operative watches on his rear screens as the tunnel behind him collapses. So much for the rest of his force. He’s on his own now. At this point, it’s the way he prefers it. Because there’s nothing left to fight him. The Eurasian rearguard is shattered. Their main force has bugged out, leaving cameras and sensors in their wake. But the Operative’s all over them, hacking them with abandon, snipping off the sensors, getting in there and replacing his image with shots of still more tunnel. He sets course toward Tsiolkovskiy. The tunnel that he’s in merges with others tunnels; those tunnels contain more rails. The Operative knows that if the Eurasians have tossed Haskell onto a train, he’s never going to catch her. But hacking into maglev is the work of a moment: his suit’s insulation protects him as he extends a tendril onto the rail, his view telescoping all the way to Tsiolkovskiy base.

But he can’t see any trains.

The Operative runs the sequence again. Nothing doing. There’s nothing on that line. His mind races, considering all the angles. He’s scanning the last battle management reports he received from Montrose. His side has probably already overrun Tsiolkovskiy. Meaning the East would have been idiots to take Haskell there.

And maybe they have been. People do stupid things in war. But none of what the Operative has seen so far looks stupid. The Operative’s guessing the original idea in digging all these tunnels was simply to disrupt Congreve in the event of conflict. But presumably the Eurasians received intel that gave them a far more specific target. And they must have received that intel recently, because this war’s less than an hour old. Meaning Montrose’s operation has at least one leak. Probably more.

But that’s not the Operative’s main concern right now. The Eurasians will be planning to break Haskell, and they’ll need to break her quickly. The Operative traces along that line again—his mind flashes back and forth to Tsiolkovskiy several thousand times. He starts hacking at the codes that control the line—the data that might reveal what’s happened along it in the last several minutes. He starts feeding in all the other data he’s got on this section of the moon—triangulates from all sides, makes the only connection he can.

His thrusters flare, and he’s closing on a point several klicks ahead, where a number of old mining veins come suspiciously close to this tunnel—veins that are neither American nor Eurasian, that were mined out when the Moon was just another venue for prospectors and cash-hungry combines. The Operative’s noticed that the area where those veins converge is the same place where he’s detecting traces of what might be a zone-bubble designed to maximize stealth. Rendering whatever’s inside almost invisible to detection.

But not quite. Because now the Operative’s hacking into a special set of sensors that have clearly been set up to keep an eye on this part of the tunnel. Their presence confirms what he’s suspecting. By the time he rounds the bend in the tunnel and sees the opening in the wall a short distance ahead, he’s already got a good idea of what he’s going to be facing. No rails lead into that opening. Had he hurtled past at full speed he would have missed it. But it’s positioned in such a way that a railcar equipped with rockets could easily move within.

So the Operative does, too: turns off his motors and steps inside, straight through beams that are intended to act as tripwires—but his suit’s already got the drop on them as he maneuvers through and into a cave beyond. The tripwires are convinced nothing’s tripping them. There seems to be activity up ahead. He’s in full-stealth mode now. Nothing can see him. And—as his sensors adjust—he can see all he needs to …

The razor locks in the mech, and they’re off, traversing the maintenance shafts of the Montana once again. Only now they’ve got a different objective.

“The forward docks,” says Lynx.

“What about them?”

“That’s where the cleanup crew’s basing.”

“Cleanup crew?”

“Can’t put all your enemies in a box and leave no one minding the store, can you? Wouldn’t be very prudent, would it? Someone’s got to make sure it’s all going to go to hell the way the master chef wants it, and—”

“Speak English, for fuck’s sake.”

Lynx laughs. “Szilard sent in some picked marines to ferry in the last of the riff-raff. Not to mention making sure the charges are rigged and that no one else gets off.”

“And we’re heading to where they’ve docked.”

“Sounds almost simple, doesn’t it?”

There’s some sort of barrier up ahead,” says the driver.

“That’s why I’ve been having you slow down,” says the major.

And now they’re coming to a stop. Eurasian soldiers stand in front of the blast-barrier that’s blocking the tunnel. They’ve got their weapons out. The major looks at the driver.

“Open this train’s door,” he says.

The driver’s complying. The door slides open as the train comes to a halt. A power-suited officer looks up into the cab.

“You’re a long way off course,” he says on the one-on-one, his words crackling in the major’s head.

“I need admittance,” says the major.

“I’m sure.”

“Careful how you speak to me.”

“Because you’re under arrest?”

“Because I’m an agent of the Praesidium.”

The officer stares as the major transmits codes. Even though everything seems to be falling apart for the rulers of the Eurasian Coalition, the Praesidium is still the most feared thing this continent’s seen since Mao and Stalin. The special agents who report directly to them are the stuff of legend. No one wants to meet one. Nor does anyone want to prolong any such encounter they might have.

“Sir, a thousand apologies. You’re cleared. But the two men you’ve got with you aren’t autho—”

“I’ll take care of them,” says the man.

“Sir,” says the officer—switches off the one-on-one. The blast-barrier starts to slide open.

The elevators are in motion now, and so are they. They’re hanging onto the cables, moving up the shafts, then shifting onto other cables, descending. They’re camouflaged acrobats, busy doing the one thing all good performers know how to do.

Buy time.

“Got it,” says Spencer.

“Let’s have it,” says Sarmax.

Spencer beams the data over. He hasn’t totally cracked the vehicle’s microzone, but he’s made some serious inroads. He’s figured out where all the places worth cracking are . There’s one in particular that’s looming large on all his screens, more than a kilometer above them.

“That’s it,” he says. “The cockpit.”

“How well defended?”

“So well I can’t even see how to get in.”

“I don’t think we want to get in yet anyway.”

Spencer nods. Sarmax is right. There’s no reason to fuck with the flow. This thing’s taking off, and they’re going with it. Intervention can come later. Spencer takes in the position of the craft’s cockpit and its defenses—marvels at how suspicious the Russians and the Chinese are of each other. The multileveled cockpit’s nestled in just above the forward vehicle-hangars, all approaches scrupulously divided between the soldiers of the two nations. Same with the cockpit personnel. There are two captains, both of them strapped down, along with everybody else. Spencer turns to Sarmax.