Ramez Naam - Nexus

Nichols gave the order.

Banshee Two turned nose down. It fired missiles as it lost altitude to come in low to the monastery again. The AGM-101s zoomed down at the black Opal at ten gees.

Shu felt the missiles fire. They were aimed at the car. She couldn't penetrate the security of the second helicopter, but these missiles were a different matter. They depended on an external source to inform them of their targets. She twisted their primitive minds, sent them spiraling back up at the craft that had fired them.

"Missiles way off course," Williams reported. "Coming back around at Banshee Two. Countermeasures."

Banshee Two fired decoys port and starboard and the missiles went after them, bracketing the stealth chopper in explosions. It flew through the flames, a black shape emerging from a roiling cloud of red and orange, dropping altitude fast for a shot at the car.

"Switch to guns," Nichols said. "Nothing with guidance."

Jane Kim nodded, relayed the orders.

"Roger that," Williams said as Banshee Two spiraled down down down. "Firing." Flames burst from the muzzle of the Banshee in a meters-long gout.

Foot-long, spent uranium-cored shells streaked out from its one-inch chain gun in rapid-fire, rained down on the Opal sedan, ripped it to shreds. The vehicle slumped as its suspension failed. The antenna disintegrated in the first half second. The shells found the engine and the fuel tanks and punished them, tearing sparks from the metal of the car into the escaping fumes, detonating the gasoline, sending up a fifty-foot fireball that tore the car in two.

"Target killed," Williams announced.

Shu almost had the helicopter back. She could see it now, just a few hundred meters away. She would get them back, then she would turn this helicopter on its mate.

Bullets rained down on the car, tearing it to shreds. The connection to the helicopter dropped in the first instants. The car nearly disintegrated, then exploded. Shu watched from the shadow of the meditation hall, angry. They'd tried to kill her. Again.

She reached out with her own mind for Banshee One. It was at the extreme end of her unaided range. She just barely had her mental fingertips on it. There, she had it. It responded to her thoughts. She would bring it home, extract her people, and then show these arrogant Americans who they were fighting.

Oh yes, she would show them.

Then Banshee One's masters started fighting her.

• • • •

"Banshee One is starting to respond," Kim said.

Then she grunted in frustration. "It's still fighting me. Someone else is still in there working against me."

Williams tapped to triangulate. Banshee Two collected data points as it circled above the compound.

"Signal's weaker but still there," Williams said. "Originating from near one of the buildings. If it's Shu, she's still alive."

"Take her out," Nichols ordered.

"Missile launch! Missile launch!" Williams called out. "RTAF fighters are back. Four darts in the air."

"Fuck," Nichols said. "Evasive maneuvers. And activate the spiders. Weapons free. Shoot to kill on primary targets."

"Roger that. Weapons free."

Shu pulled the Banshee towards her. Signals from the Americans fought her, tried to turn it back. She ordered it to lose altitude. The Americans ordered it to climb. The chopper did a crazy dance in the air as they struggled over it.

Shu couldn't win this, she knew. The car had been a powerful tool, now lost to her. Fighting this hard without its aid was killing her. Nexus nodes were broadcasting at emergency strength, using every watt of power they had available, exceeding their specs. Waste heat from the wattage was overheating her brain. The physical drain of the energy expenditure was draining glucose from her bloodstream, sapping her, starving this body's neurons.

She dropped to one knee in the doorway. A monk saw her, came to support her. She had to end this now.

Shu put everything she had into a final surge of thought, pushed the chopper down down down, drained power from its rotors. She had one last chance to get them out. She reached out to the limit of her strength, yelled into their minds.

• • • •

Sam grabbed the stick as the chopper started to turn. No good. Nothing she did had any impact on the craft.

A fireball burst up from the monastery ahead. Something had exploded. The chopper shuddered, started behaving erratically. They were almost there, up above the lake at the foot of the monastery now. They started to turn to the right, jerked back to the left, dropped, climbed, spun in the air, tilted and canted crazily. Sam hit controls frantically, with her hands, with the pilot's, tried to get the chopper to respond to her. Nothing she did changed anything. This was crazy.

JUMP INTO THE LAKE. IT'S YOUR ONLY CHANCE.

Shu. The controls were still unresponsive. The chopper was diving now, still doing its mad drunken dance, jerking this way and that, losing altitude. The lake at the foot of the monastery was just thirty feet below them now. The chopper leveled out, spun, stabilized. Sam heard something beeping from the cockpit. Saw the light.

MISSILE WARNING – NO LOCK.

Time to go!

Feng had cut Kade free of the plasticuffs and had his arm around him. Feng hit the emergency door release button and the door blasted outwards on explosive bolts. The night air welcomed them. There were two dots glowing in the sky out there. Exhaust flames from the missiles. Sam heard the missile warning tone change to the LOCK sound.

MISSILE WARNING – RADAR LOCK.

Oh, fuck.

Blowing the door had just blown their stealth and lit them up on radar. Feng jumped with Kade. Sam reached back on instinct, grabbed the belt of the SEAL whose elbow she'd stabbed, and jumped, dragging him with her.

For a moment there was stillness. She swam in cool night air. Everything receded.

Then the missiles slammed into the chopper above her, explosions filled the night with the tortured screams of metal and the deafening whoosh of superheated air. A giant force shoved her down and the water rose up to slam into her.

"Fuck!" Jane Kim swore.

Nichols had never heard her swear before.

"Banshee One is hit. Repeat, Banshee One is hit. Total loss."

Nichols glanced at the other screen. Banshee Two had dodged its two missiles. The two Rudras would be out of missiles now. All they had left were guns.

"Get them back into the clouds," Nichols yelled.

"They're hauling ass, boss," Williams said. "Climbing… climbing. Four hundred meters to the clouds."

On the screen the RTAF fighters were coming back around for another pass. It was a race. And it was clear the fighters had the advantage.

"Visual contact with the Rudras," Williams said, voice tense. "They're opening up with guns."

Onscreen, muzzle flames burst out from the nose guns of the two RTAF fighters, still half a click away. Two hundred meters to the clouds.

Nichols watched on screen as shells pounded Banshee Two, ripped off half the tail, tearing into the main rotors. The Banshee spun madly, tipped over into a forty-five-degree angle, rolled as it lost altitude at a sickening pace. It fell from the sky, spinning end over end, struck the mountainside at a hundred and fifty miles an hour. The rotor tore into the mountain and snapped, driving metal fragments into the chopper at high speed, igniting the fuel, sending up a huge fireball as Banshee Two tumbled in a flaming wreck down the side of the mountain.

"I think we've seen enough," came the voice of the ship's captain. "I'm taking us under."

No one disagreed.

In a monastery dormitory building, in a recently used cell, under a hard narrow bed, a slate's screen came back to life.

CONNECTION RESTORED.

14 MINUTES REMAINING.