Free The Machinery of Light by David J. Williams Page A

barely listening. He’s just probing on the zone, pressing in at the entryways to the ship’s cockpit, calibrating the communications going on all around. He’s gaining more room to maneuver as the weaponry systems come online—all too many bomb-racks, far too many guns. But the real weapon is the ship itself, the name of which rises into view on its own zone like something glimmering within oceanic depths …
    “Hammer of the Skies,”
says Spencer.
    “Catchy,” says Sarmax.
    The last door swings open above them.
    T hey rise through a series of ventilation shafts, coming out into one of the auxiliary hangars. It’s just been overrun by American forces. But Carson and Haskell are no longer trying to talk to them. They’re hacking them instead, splicing additional orders into the ones that the soldiers have just received, establishing the two of them as high-value assets that need to be removed from the premises immediately. The hangar doors open as an unmanned SpaceCom drop-pod descends into the chamber. Hatches on the pod slide back. The Operative shoves Haskell in, following right behind her. Engines roar as the hangar drops away, followed by all of Tsiolkovskiy base. Haskell gets a glimpse of American assault troops and ships pressing in upon it from every side. She feels the drop-pod accelerate. Moon streaks by below.
    But she’s detecting something else above.
    “The hinge of fate,” says Carson softly.
    “Is that all?” she replies.
    S nipping off the loose ends. It’s what Jharek Szilard is good at. It’s why he’s now second-in-command to the president herself. And why a lot of people aboard the surviving corvette are suddenly realizing they’ve just become something they never planned on being.
    Expendable.
    Lynx is doing all he can to salvage the situation. He knows the whole thing was a longshot to begin with. He knew all along that should the charges aboard the corvettes not go off, Szilard would have backup guns ready to take out those ships, along with announcements to the rest of the fleet about how the corvettes contained the Eurasian saboteurs who just blew the
Montana
. Lynx has managed to hack the wireless conduits on the hi-ex, not to mention fucking with the guns that the nearby dreadnaughts have trained on them. He thought he’d done it in such a way that everyonewould think the orders were to let the corvettes land—that he could run interference on Szilard’s personal supervision. But now more guns are swinging onto the corvette. He’s giving contrary instructions; his mind races out into the L2 fleet—out in too many directions. He’s getting overextended. He can’t keep up. He knows he’s dead. The screens around him start to flare.
    P ressurized armor offers only so much protection. Spencer’s getting knocked black and blue. Yet even with all the specs in his head, he’s having difficulty processing what he’s seeing on the screens.
Hammer of the Skies
is more than two klicks high, more than half a klick wide. It shits out one nuclear bomb every second, channeling that detonation against the massive pusher plate layered up against its foundation as the ship climbs a column of atomic fire out of the Himalayas. Nuclear contamination rains down beneath it. But when you’re fighting the war to end all wars the last thing you’re worried about is environmental impact statements.
    “Holy
shit,”
says Spencer.
    “For sure,” says Sarmax.
    The screens show it plainly—that the thing they’re in is merely the pride of the massive fleet it’s leading. The Eurasian Coalition has committed its main reserves from bases hidden deep beneath the Earth. The scale of the force now entering the fray beggars description. The sky above western China is turning black with ships and flame. And now those ships open fire on everything above them.
    I t’s unmistakable. A new factor’s entered the equation. Something’s bringing long-range fire to bear upon the L2 fleet above them. And