Chapter 111: Etemenos Falling

  Otto Algreil's face hovered overhead on gigantic holographic screens meant to show presidential broadcasts and Etemenos Cup duels. The core was painted redder than the Oligarch's hair by the emergency lights touched off by his assault.

  Beneath Ellie's feet, the surface of the core buckled and rippled. She stumbled, only keeping her feet thanks to Milissa's hand on her arm.

  “What's happening, Ellie?” the Kyrillos girl asked as she helped Ellie back to her feet. The floor settled, but the walls still quivered, shaken silver gelatin.

  How should I know, Ellie thought. But she paused, forced herself to take a breath, and said, “Stray shells must be hitting the core. I suppose they're damaging the nanomachines they hit directly, so the rest have to flow into the gap to compensate so we don't lose atmosphere.”

  “Oh.” Milissa glanced nervously at the walls. “How much longer do you think...?”

  “Long enough,” Ellie said. Maybe if she said it with enough force, she could get them both to believe it.

  “I don't... think we're gonna be able to get back to Chloe,” Milissa said.

  Or, Ellie thought, be let in if we did somehow manage to cross the walkways between the outer core and the senate chamber that was Etemenos's true heart.

  Ellie wasn't sure how to proceed. She could call Jack. But if he was fighting, even if he was fighting for the wrong side – which she could hardly be sure of – she didn't dare break his concentration. She couldn't reach Chloe. She'd tried Avalon and Rudy to no avail.

  But, she realized, that was when they'd been jammed. If Otto's transmission and President Ferrill's response could get through...

  “Hang on a sec, Mili,” Ellie said. She closed her eyes and focused her com unit on Rudy Algreil's.

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  He blinked in surprise when he saw her.

  “Where are you?” Ellie asked.

  He texted his response: “Not the time, Mrs. Hughes.”

  “Is Chloe there? Is she safe?”

  “Safer than the rest of us, I think. Which isn't saying much. Are you okay?”

  “Milissa and I are... basically safe,” Ellie said. She ignored the Kyrillos girl's cocked head.

  “I'll tell Clo. Make her feel a lot better to know Mili's in good hands, since you obviously know what you're doing.” His expression didn't look terribly confident, though. For once, he looked, not cocky, not even worried, just... confused.

  That makes a whole lot of us, Ellie thought.

  She said, “Thank you, Rudy. And – bring her back safe.”

  “No worries,” he texted. The twinkle faded from his eye as fast as it flickered, though, and, quietly, he said, “It's a promise, Ma'am.”

  Before Ellie could respond, Milissa poked her face into hers; either the Kyrillos girl thought she could share the flight suit com or was too desperate not to try. “Is Rudolf with Chloe?”

  Ellie nodded.

  “Merciful Principle,” Milissa breathed. “Then everything will be all right.”

  “You really believe that, Mili?”

  “Of course!” She beamed.

  Then the wall exploded behind her.

  She tumbled into Ellie and they both fell halfway from the melting hall before it snapped back into semi-rigidity, vibrating like a tuning fork as the whole outer core shifted and shook from impact.

  For a second, Ellie found herself staring into the void of space. Tiny figures – bodies, she realized, spectators of the Cup – were sucked into the gaping hole in the outer core. The breach had to be more than a kilometer from where she and Mili lay, but it was so huge it looked like it could reach out and suck her in after the ant-sized figures.

  Slowly from her vantage point, but surely dozens of meters each second, the core rebuilt its shell and staunched the killing flow. Inert nanomachine particles drifted into the gap, useless and then vacuumed away.

  How many people had it failed to save?

  How much more could it patch before it ran out of functioning material?

  Ellie didn't know.

  She did know only luck had kept one of those shells from hitting the passage she and Milissa occupied. The whole core seemed to be blossoming with explosions and trying, and failing, to patch them all.

  Ellie realized the ringing in her ears wasn't just from the explosion. She was still in contact with Rudolph Algreil.

  And, through his shouts, she knew Chloe knew what was happening.