Part 30 (2/2)

”We have the Red, it's out on the runway,” someone confirmed. ”d.a.m.n! It's fast. It slipped around that pa.s.senger shuttle.”

Meridian's camera swept back toward the waiting area by the windows. Bren caught sight of the Red dot at last, out on the runway in the vacuum of s.p.a.ce.

Captain looked to be about three hundred meters away, maybe farther. The alien stopped and sat motionless out on the runway for a moment, as if to taunt the a.s.sAILs. Then a wavering distortion of the light made Bren blink. It looked as if the spinner stood on a hot desert highway with the heat s.h.i.+mmer engulfing it.

A hundred meters of the giant plate windows in the waiting area cracked from left to right in about a second. Bren imagined what must have happened: hundreds or even thousands of invisible cutter molecules sprayed out to fracture the gla.s.s.

”Masks! Masks!” yelled Henley.

Bren felt it wasn't necessary. It was clear to everyone in that waiting area what was about to happen. He saw a marine dive for a stairwell out of the corner of Meridian's camera view. The windows exploded outward onto the inner surface of the station. Bren saw debris flying. The air must have left the atrium in a few seconds. The tactical view showed doors closing throughout the area to contain the atmosphere in the station.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The a.s.sAIL units pursued Captain out onto the runway, shooting as they went. The alien spun away, almost too fast to spot. The creature seemed to move even faster in an airless environment. But there wasn't much cover out on the inside face of the station. Only three s.p.a.ceplanes and a few maintenance vehicles lay between the observation windows and the spinner.

”If they're headed out there, then they're going it alone,” Henley said. ”My men are pulling back to a pressurized zone.”

That didn't surprise Bren. The vac masks the marines had would save their lives when an area became depressurized, but the men wouldn't last long in such a cold, dangerous environment. They had to retreat.

Boom. Brrrooom.

Captain evaded the fire. Craters started to pock the runway as the 12mm rounds dug into it. Bren could imagine what Henley would be saying. He hoped the structure of Synchronicity was so ma.s.sive that it could absorb a great deal of such punishment without flying apart.

”Oblivion is dead,” a handler said. ”I don't know how.”

Bren checked Oblivion's last status. The machine had fractures.

Could have been Captain or a lucky shot by someone else. Or a cutter molecule may have hit its core in the right place to knock it out.

Bren heard Henley cursing on the marine channel. The safety measures on the local airlock doors weren't working. Apparently, Captain had disabled them. Some marines were out in the vacuum and couldn't get back in.

”Fractures on Plato,” a handler said.

”Fractures on Meridian,” Hoffman said. Bren detected strain in Hoffman's voice.

Boom. Boom.

The 12mm sounded different now between Meridian and the other machines. The lack of atmosphere blocked out the audio sensor's pickup, but the cannons still caused vibrations that were loud in Meridian's cha.s.sis.

”Plato's lost the left magazine,” a handler said. ”But I think it may have clipped Captain. It put a hole through-”

Bren kept watching Meridian's feed. It moved rapidly up behind Plato. The a.s.sAIL in view jerked and then sprawled onto the runway.

”Plato's out. Plato's out,” someone announced. ”s.h.i.+t. It put some holes through the s.p.a.ceplane the spinner was hiding behind.”

”Sonofab.i.t.c.h,” Henley said. Bren didn't know why Henley cursed. Bren saw Patton and Panzer walking side by side to the left of Meridian on the tactical display. Bren couldn't keep track of everything. Captain was somewhere out there flitting around the planes. Or what was left of the planes. Some of them had been reduced to debris littering the inner surface of the station.

Boom. Boom.

Meridian's view faltered. Escaping gas and debris obscured the camera view. Bren watched the gray runway surface grow closer to the camera.

”More fractures ... no!” Hoffman said.

”Is he ...?”

”He's fallen to the ground,” Hoffman said.

Maybe the leg was. .h.i.t? Bren thought aloud.

The camera angle changed again, but Bren still saw only the runway surface as if the camera looked sharply down. He checked Meridian's diagnostics in his PV. Everything appeared normal.

”He's faking it!” Bren said.

”That's it. He's faking it,” agreed Hoffman urgently.

Brrrooom. Brrrooom.

Bren heard more salvoes from either Patton or Panzer. Bren felt the Guts shudder slightly.

”We're freezing out here!” someone said on the marine channel.

Several others echoed the same urgent announcement. The marine's equipment wasn't enough to protect them for long.

Meridian's view righted itself. Bren saw Plato's cha.s.sis sitting on the runway. The spinner whirled out from behind it for a split second, its spherical shape imprinted on his mind in an instant.

Brrrooom.

The orb exploded. Plato's torso hurtled into view then smashed into the forward camera bubble. Bren's view became marred by white streaks of stress damage in the plastic lens s.h.i.+eld, but the camera feed was intact.

Bren felt another tremor.

Please hold together awhile longer.

”Captain's dead!” Hoffman exclaimed. ”Meridian is invincible!”

Bren smiled, but said, ”So he is. Should I be happy or worried?”

Seventeen.

”The cores have been up for over twelve hours,” Bren said aloud in the Guts. ”We need to get them back and shut down.”

”Major Henley wants at least one machine to crack the hangar with the ... whatever the h.e.l.l it is,” Hoffman noted.

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