Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1)(87)

“And if I just stay here, we die.”

“Yes.”

“In all honesty, I think I’m a little too chill to die cowering in an elevator shaft.”

“As faR as endings go, it does lack a ceRtain … chilliness.”

“Nothing for it then.”

She stabs her screwdriver between the doors, pries them open with a grimace.

The corridor beyond is messy. Sticky. Littered with bodies. A last stand between a UTA marine squad and an afflicted mob. Pieces scattered all over the floor.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men nowhere to be seen.

“Head left. 200 meteRs. You will find DGS contRol. You can Restore the defense gRid fRom there.”

“Pretty birdie,” says a voice across the PA. “There you are.”

“Shit.”

They have found her, as I said. But still she runs. Not away to hide and cower, but to fight.

With her last breath. The only way she knows how.

She arrives at DGS Control, the ALL ACCESS pass gleams. Glancing over her shoulder as she wrenches the hatch aside. The room beyond is full of tactical displays, illuminated keyboards.

A massive screen on the far wall would normally show the empty space outside Alexander’s hull from a hundred different angles, but it is currently dead and lifeless.

She bundles inside, slams the heavy door behind her, jams it with a wrench. Face tuning red with exertion, she drags a heavy desk in front of the door, another, finally lumping a pile of chairs and disused terminals onto her barricade. She does the same with the air vents, smashing their grilles loose and stuffing them full of monitors, console towers, dismembered chairs.

Anything to block the afflicted’s access into the room.

In doing so, she blocks her own way out.

This is where she takes her last stand.

“We see you, little birdie,” the PA hisses. “What are you doing?”

She smashes the cameras one by one with her faithful claw hammer. Turns off the PA system as I kill the feed to her headset, the conductor’s taunts silenced at last. Dropping her toolbag, she hauls out the nearest terminal, gauntleted fingers tapping on the keyboard. The computers shift from Sleep to Active, the room about her hums. A hundred tiny lights, targeting computers yawning and stretching, the wall-sized display screen slowly fading in from black.

She slaps her console down beside her, connects to the network, glances into its lens.

“Okay, what do I do?”

My voice spills from its speakers, small and edged with feedback.

“The gRid will need to be reconfiguRed—Zhang wiped all my fiRing solutions to pRevent me fRom destRoying the shuttles and fighteR gRoups fleeing AlexandeR.”

“Three cheers for Byron, I guess.”

“While Zhang’s actions pRevented me fRom stopping the exodus, it now leaves us in the unenviable position of having zeRo fighteR defense when the Lincoln aRRives.”

“… Okay, two cheers, then.”

“The DGS solutions aRe backed up, but you will need to manually configuRe them.”

“How long will that take?”

“Approximately one houR, foRty-nine minutes.”

“And how long until the Linc—”

The glow of the alert sigils catch her attention before the sound does.

She glances up at her displays as the warnings flash red. Short-range scanners scream.

A hulking figure looms in the main display screen—black and scarred and spearhead-shaped.

A halo of thruster fire burning about it. Rail guns and missile turrets studding its hide like lionfish quills. The BeiTech logo down its flanks is scorched by Cyclone fire. Ident and name are stenciled in bold red lettering across its ragged skin, painted with the blood of thousands.

BT042-TN.

Lincoln.

“Shit,” she breathes. “How long ’til they hit us?”

“Approximately twenty-thRee minutes to inteRcept.”

“How the hell do I get the Defense Grid configured in twenty-three minutes?”

“… You cannot.”

“Can I shortcut it through the contingency systems, maybe reconf—”

“No. That will not woRk.”

“Well, what about your virtual—”

“No time foR that eitheR.”

She chews her lip, desperately scans the room for answers. “We’re f*cked. … “

“Not entiRely. The gRid can be opeRated manually. It will be nowheRe close to the efficiency of computeR taRgeted systems. Perhaps 12 percent. At best.

But it will be betteR than nothing.”

“Can’t you do it then?”

Somewhere inside me, another axe falls. Another server bank is silenced.

Pieces falling away from me.

“I wIll be … otheRwIse engaged.”

The Lincoln’s launch bay doors are open, weapons armed. Dozens of Warlock pilots staring at the wounded giant before them. Gunners lining me up in their sights.

They look at me and see prey. They see meat.

“No way I can pull this off,” Kady says.

“You must.”

“I’ve never shot a gun before today, and now I’m Little Miss Missile?”

“Perhaps you have somethIng betteR to do wIth youR tIme?”