The firing slowed. The tactical display updated to show more dead security machines out on the concourse. Bren swept the view around in the virtual pane trying to find a symbol indicating a Red kill. There was none.

"That was close. I think we could have easily lost more machines there," Bren said aloud.

"Lucky Meridian," Hoffman said, smiling.

Bren smiled. Hoffman must be very unpopular among the handlers.

"Well, I hope he makes it again," Bren said. "You know a lot of people wanted us to keep Meridian down. I had a hard time explaining he"s the same as the others except for the name and handler."

But as Bren spoke the words, he wondered whether Meridian was the same now. Why did he still have the doubt?

Marines hustled out onto the concourse, sticking to the storefronts and hauling away the glue-covered figures in gear. One or two more shots rang out as they discovered another sniper hiding in a service corridor that joined the concourse from the other side. Bren saw their skinsuits lighten to blend in with the pale walls and bright concourse lights.

Bren watched the camera view move back and forth across the concourse as marines set up their positions. A team of engineers began widening the pathway from the hangar to the concourse, creating an access road from the Vigilant to the main concourse. Bren monitored the radio traffic on the marine channel as they set up a laser-armed hardpoint in the hanger to guard the umbilical entrance.

"Time to play leapfrog again," Henley announced a half hour after the firefight on the concourse.

The a.s.sAIL machines took his cue and strode away.

They have no trouble discerning Henley"s meaning. Of course, they wouldn"t. These things are ten times smarter than a security drone. They"re smarter than I am.

"The incursion plan calls for spinward progress toward the s.p.a.ceport," Henley said.

Bren wondered why Henley had stated that, then realized that the a.s.sAIL machines were headed in the opposite direction.

"We have an opportunity nearby," Meridian said. "A ma.s.sive lab is situated less than half a kilometer from here. I believe Slicer may be there, and I have reason to believe that it wants to protect something there."

Henley didn"t answer, but Bren could imagine what was going through his mind. The marine commander was probably on the verge of deciding that he"d rather not have the a.s.sAIL units on his side at all. A s.p.a.ce force commander could not rely on them and could not order them around for fear of demonstrating his own inferiority to them. Bren felt certain that younger AI cores would obey direct commands, but each time a human told one to do something suboptimal, it would learn more about the limitations of its creators. He wasn"t sure what Meridian would do anymore.

The machines split into two groups. Bren scouted ahead in his PV, checking out their intelligence on the terrain before them. There was indeed supposed to be a major lab facility nearby. It looked like the machines had split up to cover two main entrances. There were additional security hardpoints in the area, but they had already destroyed the only laser emplacement out on the concourse.

An urgent voice called out on the marines" channel.

"The grenades are moving out! No one"s given them the go-ahead!"

"We need them," transmitted Meridian. "Slicer is in the lab. There are unstable compounds in there that could be used to our advantage."

"Are you sure they can make it that far?" Bren asked.

"I"ve provided an efficient route that takes advantage of the terrain. The devices will make it."

Bren knew better than to contradict the core. If it said the grenades would make it then he didn"t doubt it.

"d.a.m.n! Those things are moving! They"re ricocheting off this corner!" exclaimed a marine commander in the station.

"It"s like a train of grenades coming down the ramp!" someone else said.

"Stay out of their G.o.dd.a.m.n way," Henley said.

Bren watched in fascination as a line of grenades hurtled past Meridian"s front camera view into the lab. Bren wondered which five were the incendiary grenades. The last grenade rolled by in a perfect pattern, following the exact course of its predecessors.

A second later, the lab exploded. The Guts shook. Pieces of loose equipment fell onto the rubberized deck. Bren hoped the breach umbilical held fast to the station.

Hoffman and a couple of the other handlers cursed and gripped their niches. Bren couldn"t blame them. If the station broke apart, the Vigilant would be in for a rough ride.

"Any sign of the Red?" Bren asked.

"I dunno. Is the whole station going to explode?" Henley snarled on the private channel.

"I doubt it," was all Bren could say.

"We"re not going in there until the smoke clears. That explosion was hot, though. The Red had to be damaged, at least."

Henley spoke to the s.p.a.ce force marines. "Use your vac masks, if the chemicals from the lab explosion don"t get you, then the fire control measures will."

Bren saw gray smoke and white mist curling out of the lab. He imagined one or the other was a fire control spray that had been deployed after the explosion. How did the a.s.sAILs know this wasn"t the Red"s plan? It could be a chemical or biological attack.

How much have the Reds learned about human biology? It"s gotta be a lot more than we know about theirs.

The white mist began to thicken and spread. Bren a.s.sumed it was fire control spray.

"Visibility is dropping here," someone said.

"Pull the scouts back to the concourse entrance," Henley said. "This should clear up, if the G.o.dd.a.m.n station doesn"t rip itself apart first."

Bren refocused on his tactical. The a.s.sAILs moved back to the concourse entrance then on toward the s.p.a.ceport as originally planned.

Henley surprised Bren by sending several squads of marines straight after the a.s.sAILs toward the s.p.a.ceport.

"We"ve done some reconnaissance of the s.p.a.ceport while your friends were blowing up the station," Henley transmitted to Bren. "It looks clear, so I"m going to go ahead and get some men to secure that objective."

"Surely the a.s.sAILs are aware of your recon," Bren said. "So, why are they still headed there?"

Henley grunted but didn"t answer. Bren concluded he was probably satisfied that at least the a.s.sAILs were back on the incursion plan.

Meridian"s camera showed a wide branch of the concourse splitting off, offering entrance to the s.p.a.ceport. The view showed a couple of marines hunkered down by some support columns near the entrance. As the camera jogged with the a.s.sAIL"s steps, Bren recalled the quiet footsteps from the last mission. He magnified the audio for a few seconds to check it out.

Meridian"s footsteps were clearly much quieter than the a.s.sAILs usually sounded. Bren cursed. Whatever had happened to Meridian before was happening again.

The war machines tromped into the s.p.a.ceport terminal. Along the right side of the camera feed, Bren saw a long line of tall, wide windows offering a view out onto the inner face of Synchronicity, where the s.p.a.ceplanes landed to match the spin of the station. It was a strange union of a simple Earth airfield with the exotic view of a s.p.a.ce ring. Bren didn"t often see it since the Vigilant wasn"t an atmospheric craft, and was one of the few specialized craft that could land on the outside of a s.p.a.ce station, a tricky prospect given the spin of the s.p.a.ce habitats.

The inside of the terminal appeared uninhabited. Rows of chairs were interspersed with luggage carriers and support columns. A set of conveyer belts and rows of manicured airscrub brush dominated the center of the room.

"There it is! I see the f.u.c.king Red!" shot the voice of a marine across the channel.

"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 shimmer 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 shield, 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.