David Williams - Mirrored Heavens

And then they’re through. And into more tunnels. Lynx is screaming that they’ve got to shatter Autumn Rain. He’s screaming that they’re almost on top of them. They’re putting on one final burst of speed.

A huge explosion that sounds like it’s right outside: the floor beneath Haskell slants as the whole SeaMech gets smashed upon its side. She’s hurled on top of Marlowe’s body. The two of them tumble forward. Pieces of metal fall past her. She’s trying to use Marlowe as a shield. She’s trying not to think about what she’s just done. She figures any moment now the ocean will break in and drown her pain forever. She figures she’s reached the end.

But she hasn’t. Because eventually the SeaMech stops moving. Distant depth charges keep on detonating. But she’s still alive. Still breathing.

So she stands up and looks around. The place is finished. Water’s pouring in from somewhere. She starts walking along stairs that are sloped so badly they’re almost like a floor. She climbs out into what’s left of the rest of the control room and heads for a trapdoor that’s now more of a hatch in the wall.

“Going somewhere?” says a voice.

She turns. Morat is clambering up toward her. His movements are jerky. But he’s closer to the trapdoor than she is. His expression’s one she remembers from the spaceplane.

“I’m getting out,” she says.

“Looks like Jason got out too.”

“I had to do that,” she says. “It was the only way I could be sure.”

“Of beating anything we’d rigged him with? Impressive resolution. But in a few moments it won’t matter.”

“You’d kill the one you serve?”

“I only serve the ones who lead.”

He’s almost reached her. She tries to hit him on the zone. But he’s no longer a presence there. He laughs, stretches out his hands.

“If we can’t have you,” he says, “then no one will.”

He grabs her with one hand. His other hand swings in with the killing blow. But she’s swinging in the same direction—lunging in toward him, shoving her hand up against his face, extruding the wire from her finger even as she pierces his eyeball and runs the hack. He writhes. Smoke streams from him.

“You’re right,” she says. “No one ever will.”

She releases him, lets his body flop down toward the others. She manages to get the trapdoor open. The tunnel-tube to which it leads has been stretched to its breaking point but is still intact. She hopes it leads somewhere. But really she’s done with hoping. She’s just getting in, getting moving, getting busy putting all those memories behind her.

* * *

Flying on jets and ayahuasca: Spencer hacks the armor of the Jaguar leader and his bodyguards in a burst of light. It’s a glancing blow—they’re bunched tight, on a tactical mesh—but it leaves their reaction times fractionally slower and lets Spencer and Linehan get their shots off first. They fire everything they’ve got at the ceiling.

Which collapses with a massive roar. But Spencer and Linehan are already reversing their thrusters. Flame engulfs the room. Spencer gets a glimpse of rock burying the Jaguar leader. He gets a glimpse of rock about to bury him—and then that view’s cut off as he and Linehan blast down more corridors, rushing ever deeper, partly because they’re half-convinced they’ll find something else down there but mostly because they’re trying to get away from what’s turning the mountains into rubble. Warheads and lasers and slabs dropped from orbit: their own side has set about its work with relish. So Spencer and Linehan hit the Jaguars’ cellars. They find themselves in caves full of rushing water. For long moments they ride that water through the dark.

But at last they exit into light.

They’re riding whitewater down toward what’s left of jungle. It looks like everything behind them is one giant volcano. There’s that much smoke. Explosions and shots echo from that upcountry. Apparently World War Three is under way in style. But they just keep rushing downstream. Their suits are like boats that can’t be swamped. Their minds are like ships that long ago went under. Linehan starts laughing.

“What’s so funny?” asks Spencer.

“Check those coordinates,” says Linehan. “We’re on border’s farside. We made it.”

“No kidding.”

Yet even as he speaks noise crackles across the sky. Several jet-copters swoop in toward them. Linehan looks up at them. Starts laughing like he really means it.

“Busted,” says Spencer.

“By who?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“They’re more likely to be your side than mine.”

“I’m looking forward to finding out who the fuck my side is.”

Praetorian triad going full throttle: the three men race ever deeper, hot on the trail of Rain. Whom they’re going to exterminate. And who they’re figuring have a bomb shelter big enough to survive all that must be unfolding on the surface. It’s not that they don’t want to get involved in the final showdown with the East. It’s just that they’re hoping to sit out the first few rounds while the Moon gets raked with unholy amounts of firepower. So they keep on putting Nansen ever farther in the rearview. They roar through mines that were worked out in the last century. They plunge way off the map.

And pick up a massive seismic reading from right below them.

“They really didn’t want to be caught,” says the Operative.

“Back the other way,” screams Lynx.

Vibration shakes the walls. A terrible light appears from somewhere deep within the tunnels. But they’re not waiting for it. They’re using rock to slow themselves. They’re reversing direction, going full throttle back the way they’ve come. Flame gouts from somewhere far behind them. Lynx is shouting over the comlinks to the vanguard of the Praetorian shock troops above them—which now starts retreating at full speed. They’re following it while it wends its way upward. They do turns so sharp they almost hit the wall. They stay just ahead of tunnels closing like jaws, scant meters ahead of the fire.

And break the surface. And keep going. They blast upward with uniformed Praetorians while the whole surface balloons outward beneath them. They watch it drop away while they keep on climbing. They do sharp turns in the vacuum, start flying back toward Nansen.

Which is when they realize something.

“There’s no war,” says Sarmax.

“It didn’t happen,” breathes Lynx.

They keep rushing in on Nansen. Lights burn in the sky all around it. Craft sidle outward, dart inward like snakes. Pieces of moonrock keep on flying up into the vacuum.

“Not yet anyway,” says the Operative.

Some hours later a woman watches night fall upon a city. She’s well up in what’s left of mountain treeline. But the glow from the fires still flickers on her face. The superpowers have backed off. They’re letting the city burn. The only exceptions to the ten-kilometer cordon they’re enforcing are the rescue operations under way all across the area from which the United States has now withdrawn. It looks like at least ten percent of the surface fleet’s not there anymore. The damage was immense.

But it was the only such strike. There was no retaliation upon the Eurasian Coalition.

Claire Haskell turns away from the city. She’s seen things she never wanted to see. She’s seen, too, all the things she never knew she’d seen. She can barely keep up with her own world’s expansion. The wheels of zone turn like gears within her mind. They radiate out in endless circles. She turns in toward the ones that shine the brightest.