“Go for the engines!” He had to shout into each gunner’s ear to be heard over the boom of autocannons. Far below, he saw the twinkle of lasers as the infantry, or what was left of them, tried doing something, anything. “Knock them out before…!”
But the gunners were already firing, their muscles bulging against their tight, sweat-stained sleeves, their arms going in herky-jerky fits as the cannons pulsed.
PPC fire, its color a sick pea green in the sulfur-rich atmosphere, stabbed at the dome. Fox felt the jerk as it hit, then watched in horror as the top half of Beta Turret was sliced in two. The oxygen inside ignited, and the explosion haloed into a yellow-orange fireball.
It was over so quickly—one second there and the next gone—that Fox felt the surreal sensation of time slowing, and sounds—the autocannon fire, the grunts of his gunners, the creak of the swivel mounts—fading away to muffled pinpricks. As if through a fog, Fox saw two fiery spears leap from the nose of the DropShip—a Nagumo, huge motherfucker–and score the dome where Beta Turret had been, unzipping the titanium-injected duraglass the way a hot knife cuts a seam through frozen butter.
Beneath his feet, Fox felt the hard shell of the dome begin to shiver. He felt the dome begin to break. And time snapped back.
She’d keyed out the maglevs six minutes ago, but it felt to Priscila Recinto that six years had passed, maybe seven. The city was dark, and so she saw things much more clearly now: the mammoth hulks of the two DropShips, edged with green lights; the pencil-thin darts of fiery laser fire; the orange balls of autocannon. Each time one of the turrets fired, a sonic boom of thunder rolled through the dome, the windows shuddered under her fingertips and the building swayed.
Suddenly, there came a huge, ear-splitting ka-BOOM! Recinto blinked against a flare of yellow bright enough to hurt. The flash had come from above, and her eyes jerked to the dome just in time to catch a cluster of explosions, one right after the other as Beta Turret’s munitions ignited. “Oh, God!” she gasped. She and O’Mallory were standing side by side, and she grabbed for his arm with her left hand, found it, squeezed. “Oh, my God, oh, my…”
High overhead, the air split with a grating, squealing sound as the turret twisted upon the titanium latticework of the dome. Then, there was an audible snap, like the crack of a dry branch, and still Recinto thought: Maybe it’s not so bad; maybe all we need is a repair crew up there, yeah, yeah, seal off the breach because it’s so small, no way the air can leave the dome that fast…
And then she heard something else. Something new. A hiss; first faint, and then louder, like a warning from a hidden, monstrous serpent—or, maybe, a dragon.
Prefect Priscila Recinto let O’Mallory take her into the circle of his arms, and she clutched the lapel of his jacket, pressing her face into his chest. In another moment she felt his fingers massaging her scalp and cupping the back of her head the way her father did when she was very young and had a bad dream.
And then—she felt her ears pop. And she thought: That’s bad, it’s bad when your ears pop because that means there’s been a change in pressure, the dome’s depressurizing, the dome’s going to…!
She made a move to pull away, but O’Mallory’s hand was there, and she heard him say, “Don’t look, child. Don’t look.”
Phoenix Dome exploded.
27
Conqueror’s Pride, Proserpina
Prefecture III, Republic of the Sphere
25 June 3135
Crawford stopped talking, but Katana, face creased with grief, said nothing. He’d expected that, would’ve wondered if the news hadn’t hit her like a sledgehammer: Chinn and Sully dead, Ancha and Sadachbia gone; Magruder and her people probably dead, too.
Katana cleared her throat with a visible effort. “Any ideas about the traitor?”
“Well, I can think of one person.”
“Fusilli?”
“Yeah.”
After a moment, Katana shook her head. “The thing is, some of his information was right on the money. So maybe he was compromised.”
Crawford considered this, nodded. “I can buy that. He was with Magruder, and so far as we know, they’re all dead. But the stuff about the troops defecting… let’s just say that it was lucky McCain showed when he did.”
“Not pursuing that last Slayer helped more,” said Katana. This had helped Sagi see the light and “donate” his services, and those of his men, to Dragon’s Fury. With a DropShip or two as persuasion, and a cadre of yakuza to boot. Sighing, she pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Still don’t know if we should get involved, though.”
“Of course we should. Sakamoto killed our people.”
“We get involved, and he’s likely to kill a lot more.”
“For God’s sake, those are my people lying out there, and Magruder’s, and you’re telling me that…”
“Every single last soul out there is one of my people,” Katana said, quietly. “My soldiers—and Chinn.”
Chastened, Crawford said, “Forgive me, Tai-sho. I feel so …powerless.”
“I understand.” Katana let out a long breath then pushed up from her tatami and began to pace. The Old Master, at his usual post, held his peace. “You dispatched word to Hean?”
Crawford nodded. “Figured they would pass the word to Sirius and, if they can, Irian. Rusch’s on Irian, and he’ll need the most time to prepare to retake Ancha and…”
But Katana was already shaking her head. “That’s exactly what Sakamoto expects. No, we have to hit places that’ll surprise him.” She gave Crawford a tight-lipped smile. “His jugular and his ass. Strike at his rear for sure—Shinonoi, Halstead Station.” She paused. “Biham.”
“I remind you that Biham’s spitting distance from Ancha and Sadachbia.”
“I’m aware of that. But I have to know what happened to Sir Reginald.”
“You really think he’s alive?”
“A knight can be an asset, a damn good bargaining chip. If it was me? I’d keep him alive.”
“Okay,” said Crawford, not sure if it was. “Tell me again how we’re going to do this without getting our butts kicked.”
“Any butt that gets kicked will be Sakamoto’s. First off, I’ll want Drexel to lead the Shinonoi spur.”
“McCain won’t like it. I haven’t seen daylight between those two.”
Katana arched an eyebrow. “Chu-sa McCain will be pleased to hear that I’m assigning him to her unit.”
“Probably make her day. I’ll take Halstead Station… now what’s wrong?”
“Because you’re coming with me, and I’m going to Galatia. We don’t have enough JumpShips to tag team, but we do have those black boxes. We give some to Rhodes, and then have him pass them to our commanders on Ronel, Hean and Sirius.”
“To go for…?”
“Deneb Algedi for sure. Niradaki, probably. Sakamoto will be expecting resistance from Bannson’s Raiders, right?”
“So?”
“So, the Raiders control Saffel and Anthry. Even Sakamoto’s resources aren’t infinite. My guess is he won’t leave more than a token force behind on Niradaki, figuring his rear’s covered.”
“Okay, I can see it. And, yeah, Deneb Algedi makes sense, too, now that the Swordsworn are gone. Sakamoto’s invasion force ought to be correspondingly small. But why not take on Al Na’ir? Come in from the flank and the rear at once?”
“Because those domes are like the bull’s-eye on a target,” said Katana. “Can you imagine the manpower necessary to keep people in a bottle from going nuts? We skip it. If we take four or five worlds from Sakamoto, control some of his supply lines, we’re doing well. And we might get lucky again. Sagi’s come over. If we dial down when we engage Combine forces, we may get more converts.”