FALLEN DRAGON (81 page)

The autosentinels' rate of fire slowed considerably after me first couple of hours, but Lawrence was convinced the new-natives would try to infiltrate the spaceport. It gave him a brittle edge that his Skin pharmacy couldn't dampen. Standing by himself on the edge of the spaceport facing the unknowable threats creeping through the tigergrass was using up a lot of his resolve. The area directly outside had been seeded with hundreds of remote sensors that had secure links to his display grid. He didn't entirely trust them: his droughts were bent toward Calandrinia and how she had quietly mocked them.

Two hours before their scheduled departure time he learned why she had been so confident. Everything she'd said had been true. To start with he thought another Xianti was on its way down and dispensing countermeasures. Several streaks of flame shot across the sky, fading almost immediately. He scanned around, but couldn't locate the intense thermal signature of a spaceplane. More streaks blossomed, stretching out across the stars. As far as the flightpath was concerned, they were in the wrong section of sky. He realized it was a meteor shower and grinned briefly. Before they died away a third batch had begun to fizzle their way down. These Were slightly larger particles, with a bulbous head stretching out a sparkling tail as they tore down through the upper atmosphere. There seemed no end to them streaking out of one section of sky. Lawrence's grin faded. The patch was elongated, extending north-south and still growing.

"Oh, bloody Fate," Lawrence groaned. He understood then.
We will seal the sky.

A Skin was running toward him from the hangar.

"Lawrence?" It was Ntoko, using his Skin's speaker on low volume.

"Yeah," Lawrence replied, using his own speaker.

"They've done it, haven't they? This is what Calandrinia was talking about."

"Yeah. They must have nuked the polar-orbit asteroid, pulverized the fucker. This shower's just the edge of the debris swarm."

"Goddamn it! You know all about this orbital-mechanics shit. Can the starships get away through it?"

"Yeah, but they'll have to leave soon, if they haven't already. The debris won't have started to cascade yet. All we have for the moment is just an expanding cloud of rock in polar orbit."

"What's a cascade?"

"Look, the nukes will have shattered the asteroid into a million pieces, okay? Some of them will just fly straight down and burn up in the atmo-sphere. We're seeing that start now. But if the new-natives set the charges right, then there's a shitload of mountains and boulders and pebbles still in orbit. Right now they're separating, flying apart into their own irregular orbit, but once they've spread out enough, then they're going to start colliding. Each boulder that crashes another releases another cascade of smaller rocks, which are going to smash into another batch of rocks and so on. It's a chain reaction that is never going to stop. In a year's time, this planet is going to be surrounded by a shield of rock splinters ten thousand kilometers thick. It'll be like Saturn's rings, only spherical. She was right, that Calandrinia. Nothing will be able to get through this. They have sealed themselves away from the universe. It will take millennia for the shield particles to decay and burn up in the atmosphere. Maybe they never will. Fate, I don't know. Nobody's ever seen a cascade before."

"Okay, grab the guys. Head for that spaceplane." He pointed. "It's fueled."

"But—"

"You said it, man, the starships have got to leave. There aren't going to be any more spaceplane flights after these. Now get your ass in gear, Corporal."

Lawrence pumped his speaker volume up. "To me, people, come on, let's go." He started jogging, then broke into a sprint. Ntoko was shouting as well. The survivors of 435NK9 began running toward them.

High above them, larger debris particles had reached the atmosphere. They screamed down in a sheath of plasma until the pressure shock detonated them into a dazzling halo shoal that expanded and brightened as it sank ever downward. Sometimes the shoal particles would explode again and again as the rocks were broken into smaller and smaller fragments by the superheated ions, sending pyrotechnic shock waves radiating outward. A hundred conical plumes of incandescence flowered against the night, flaring through the spectrum as they slowly withered away to violet specters.

Half of the continent was drenched in a light greater than that of the sun. Lawrence could see the entire spaceport on the move. Skins were running about in chaos, not knowing what was happening. There was no chain of command. No orders. No information. No discipline. Not even new-natives with their hyperoxygenated muscles could match the turbo-charged speed of the Skins. Everything was happening in accelerated time.

A hundred meters ahead of Lawrence the Xianti was parked in its flight preparation bay. Its turbofans were already starting up. Fueling arms had disengaged. They began to sink back down into the concrete.

The airstairs were still in place. Skins were surging up them, desperate for a place. Lawrence had no idea how many were already inside. He reached the bottom of the airstairs in five seconds. Twenty Skins were clustered there, funneling onto the aluminum steps. More Skins were heading their way.

Out on the runway a Xianti began its takeoff run.

"Lawrence," Ntoko called. "Give me your rack."

Lawrence handed over the weapon as he shoved and wriggled his way toward the bottom of the stairs. Apart from Ntoko, who already held an identical rack, he couldn't tell who was who. His AS wasn't tagging individual suits. The entire communications band had crashed.

"What do you want it for?"

"You take care, Lawrence. You look after my guys for me."

"Sarge? Ntoko!"

"I'll be watching." Ntoko was already slipping free from the throng of Skins. He opened the bottom of the rack that Lawrence had given him and pulled out a data cable, which he plugged into his Skin's interface port. The tubes at the top of the rack spat hazy orange flames that pulsed for several seconds.

Explosions bloomed across the taxiway. The swarm of Skins sprinting for the remaining spaceplanes dived for cover. More explosions rippled down the side of a hangar as Ntoko tried to deflect the onrush that threatened to overwhelm the last two spaceplanes. Composite panels and steel girders crashed over the tarmac. Smoke and dust billowed out. Skins started firing. Armor-piercing rounds pummeled the control tower. Carbines opened up.

"Ntoko! For fuck's sake, you can't!" Lawrence was at the foot of the stairs. His sensors showed him Ntoko walking calmly away from the rear of the melee, a rack held in each arm. Flames stabbed out as more smart missiles leaped from their tubes. The sergeant raised one of the racks in salute and kept on walking.

For an instant, Lawrence hesitated. But the Skins behind were pressing him on. And his own sense of self-preservation was just too strong. He clambered up the airstairs and into the cabin. The spaceplane began to move, pulling free from the airstairs. Lawrence grabbed at the Skin on top, helping to drag him in. Another Skin leaped across the widening gap, crashing into everyone crammed into the airlock. Another jumped and just managed to grab the rim of the hatch. He hung there, dangling as the spaceplane accelerated onto the taxiway. Lawrence was looking at the abandoned airstair as it wobbled about The Skins on it were using their speakers at full volume, shouting at the Xianti to come back. One of them deployed his carbine and started firing. A couple of bullets ricocheted inside the airlock. Lawrence ducked automatically. Then an explosion went off at the base of the airstair. The whole structure collapsed, taking the Skins with it "Thanks, Sarge," Lawrence whispered.

He moved back into the Xianti as the hatch swung shut. The cabin was badly overcrowded, with Skins crammed along the aisle. He didn't even consider the extra weight. The sarge was out there, covering their asses like he always did. They'd make it.

Inside the sealed cabin, his Skin could link into the space-plane's internal network. He called up the external cameras.

Outside, the asteroid fragments were still sleeting down in a blaze of light. On the ground, Skins were racing about in their distinct fast motion. All of them seemed to be shooting at something. Explosions erupted from the shattered buildings. Wild clouds of smoke writhed across the ground as vig
o
rous blue-white flames swirled out of wrecked equipment blocks. The Xianti turned sharply onto the runway. The pilot didn't waste any time; Lawrence could feel the vibration building as the turbojets wound up to full power before the nose was lined up. Then they were racing forward, lifting from the ground.

They flew up steeply, the giant turbojets pushed to their redline. The spaceplane's cameras showed the calm upper cloud bands fluorescing a lambent silver in the lurid radiance thrown out from hundreds of descending fireballs. As they passed through the thin layer the perspective shifted until it looked as if they'd climbed above a frosted desert gleaming in winter moonlight.

Their scramjet ignited, thrusting them higher. The swaths of cloud shrank away to a shimmering haze that veiled the world. Scintillating rose-gold contrails scored their way through the empty darkness toward it, plunging underneath to dwindle and vanish.

Ahead of the spaceplane's nose, stars glittered coldly in welcome.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

There were a number of medical modules attached to
Hal's torso, clustered around the red-weal wounds and surgical scars. Some of them were integral with patches of artificial skin that were busy melding with his spoiled dermal layers, infusing regeneration virals into the plexus of capil
l
aries. Others were more complex systems, sprouting slim tubes that penetrated the scars, pumping specialist fluids in and out of damaged organs, supporting them until he could be given replacements and proper treatments. He wore a baggy white shirt to cover them, but the modules were too bulky to hide completely. It was as though his torso was busy growing plastic tumors.

He sat in his high-backed leather seat, head lolling against the side cushions as if his neck didn't have quite enough strength to hold it upright. Every time one of his friends came into the hotel's small private staff lounge that they'd taken over to care for him he grinned at them and made a happy grunting sound. Edmond went over and gave him a high five. Just watching Hal's hand wavering unsteadily through the air as he concentrated hard to make contact made Lawrence chill deep inside. The others were looking away, their expressions grim as they were reminded of Hal's state.

Only Dennis stared unflinchingly. And Lawrence knew he'd been taking too many of his own sedatives lately.

Amersy was the last in. He closed the door and gave Hal a quick thumbs-up, the way anyone would to a longtime pal. It was his eyes, flicking away quickly, that betrayed what he must be thinking.

What was left of Platoon 435NK9 turned to Lawrence.

"First off," Lawrence said. "Don't worry about getting Hal back up to the
Koribu.
I have a contact at Durrell spaceport."

Hal let out a long wheezy groan. His jaw started to move, chewing on air. When Hal had come round after Lawrence's ragtag medical team installed the biomech heart he'd lost all sensation and movement down his right side. Since then, feeling had been returning slowly, as with a recovering stroke victim. If that was his only complication Lawrence would have been happy. But despite the superoxygenated blood in his brain, there had been some starvation damage. The kid's thoughts were slow and muddled, coupled with memory lapses. With the paralyzed muscles and the difficulty he had putting words together, watching him try to speak was painful. Most of the time he knew what he wanted to say, but grew angry with himself when the words refused to form. Sometimes the anger would cause him to punch the arm of the chair with his good arm, tears of frustration leaking down his cheeks.

"Thank. You. Sarge," he grunted out. Tendons stood proud from his throat with the effort of forming three words.

"That's what I'm here for, Hal." Lawrence glanced around at the other faces in the room, trying to judge the collective mood. They were all quietly expectant, curious what he'd brought them together for. Since the court-martial and the firing squad they'd been directing their shock and anger at Z-B in the form of Captain Bryant and Ebrey Zhang. Resentment and the sense of betrayal hadn't manifested in any coherent form, but they'd become difficult to command. Not that the rest of the platoons in Memu Bay were any more disciplined right now. But with a ruined Hal to rally round and help, 435NK9 retained a degree of internal cohesion. They did what Lawrence told them, not because they were orders from Bryant, but because Lawrence wanted them carried out.

He couldn't have asked for a group of men more suited to help achieve his personal goal.

Funny how things work out.

"The reason I have a contact at Durrell is something I was going to share with you at some time anyway. Might as well be now. I think there's a big asset out in the hinterland that Z-B doesn't know about. I want to collect that asset."

"For Z-B?" Karl asked quickly.

Lawrence smiled without humor. "Not a chance."

Lewis clapped his hands together. "Fucking-a."

"More like it."