“Hit that ship!” he yelled, and opened fire with his rifle. The men cheered and a satisfying volley erupted around him. Moments later the bright darts of rockets followed from the Rook and from somewhere behind it. That would be the Severance, he guessed, which should be in triad formation with the Rook and the Unseen Hand.
“Concentrate your fire on the engines!” He squeezed off several shots to demonstrate. In a battle like this, you kept moving, but you were also rolling the ship constantly to bring the rocket batteries to bear on the enemy. In order to do this, the ship had to stick its engine nacelles out and turn them ninety degrees; this made them vulnerable to rocket and small arms fire.
The Rook was rolling now and it made for a bit of gravity; Chaison had to turn himself around and cling to the hatch because out was now down, and he was firing past his own feet. This was why you lashed yourself to any handy ring during a battle. You could easily fall out of the ship.
As the hangar rotated out of sight of the corsair, Chaison caught a glimpse of one of his bikers plunging in from behind it. The man held a grenade over his head and as he passed the corsair at over a hundred miles an hour, he threw it. The green-lit ball disappeared into one of the corsair's engines and it blew up, just as the out-thrust hangar doors cut off Chaison's view.
But now the rest of the battle swung into sight again. Tormentor, Clarity and Arrest had good crews and had maintained their triad even though they were surrounded now by six ships. One of those ships was on fire and as Chaison watched, it veered away into the safety of the clouds. A coordinated volley of rockets from the triad enveloped another pirate and its sides buckled under the explosions. Silent and dark, it began to drift.
The ships and cloud-banks were lit flare-green, but now yellow and red lights also glowed inside the clouds. Those were locator flares his bikes had dropped where they'd found ice or other hazards inside the mist. The bikes should be returning now. He turned to his staffers. “All bikes: attack enemy at will. All ships: mine the clouds."
Seconds later he heard the satisfying “heave ho!” of the Rook's crew winching back the mine catapults. The buzzing snarl of jets grew louder as bike formations began to appear, swirling into the disorganized knots of the pirates’ own jets.
The roar of a bike sounded, very close. It might be one of the Rook's boys coming back, maybe wounded, or—He swung down and looked around the edge of the hangar door. Not thirty feet away, a black can trailed flame as it tried to match the rotation of the Rook. Its rider wore a lime-green jacket and burgundy trousers. He was straining to snag a passing porthole with a hook lashed to a grenade.
Chaison leaned way out, standing now on the very bottom of the open door with only a rope around his waist tying him to the Rook. He aimed and fired in one motion, and saw the rider convulse and the bike veer away. Before he swung back up he verified that the grenade had followed them into the dark.
Dangling there, vaguely aware of cheering coming from up above, he watched the battle progress. His forces had a clear advantage in weaponry, armor, and discipline, but they were outnumbered. The pirates—or expatriate Aerie airmen—kept swinging in and out of the cover of the cloud banks. They had men on bikes tracking down the flares Slipstream's own bikes had laid down; as Chaison watched, the glows that marked the location of obstacles in those clouds were snuffed one by one. Having previously set the positions of those ice- and rock-chunks in their inertial navigation systems, the pirates themselves had no need of lamps to know where they were.
Another swing around and the Severance and the Unseen Hand appeared, locked into a fierce rocket battle with three black cylinders. Their formation was broken and the two ships were drifting away at a quickening pace. As Chaison was about to ask why Sembry wasn't pursuing them, the Rook's rotation took them out of sight, and something huge cut off any further view of the sky.
It was the black hull of a pirate, and it was barely yards away. The bastard had somehow snuck up on Sembry. Looking to the side, Chaison realized that the pirate had already looped rope around the spinning Rook. If friction or snags didn't break them, the pirates could drag the Rook's hull into contact with the jagged rams that were even now being thrust out of its rocket ports.
“Sembry!” roared Chaison. He'd have the man towed for a day behind his own ship for this. The riflemen around him were gaping, so he yelled, “Fire on those ports!” and did so himself as an example.
Then he turned to his staffers. “Ready the ship for boarders. And find out why Sembry's not moving us!"
“It's mines,” somebody said. “They've mined the air between us and the others."
Sure enough, as the ship spun around again he caught glimpses of green-lit star shapes tumbling in the space between the Rook and the receding Severance. “I need those cleared!” Even as he said this, he realized that none of Slipstream's bikes were nearby. The bulk of them were caught up in a gigantic dogfight at the opposite end of the battle. Some drifted, dead or burning. The rest were missing.
He whirled and pointed at Venera's driver. “You! Get out there and clear those mines."
“W-what?” The young man blinked at him dumbly. Of course, he was just a civilian.
Chaison appealed to the riflemen. “Anyone else here can fly a bike?"
“No, wait, I'll do it.” The driver was glaring at Chaison as though he'd received a mortal insult. “But...” The black-haired young man glanced to one side, almost slyly. “I'll need help.” He indicated the bike's two sidecars.
“Whatever,” said Chaison with a negligent wave of the hand. “Take whoever you need.
“Bring me a saber and a pistol,” he said. As he waited, he watched the driver manhandle his bike towards the open hangar doors. Venera's not going to be happy if I wreck her nice little taxi, he thought. The idea made him smile.
8
“Martor!” Hayden waved frantically as he saw the boy pass the inside door to the hangar. “Get in here!"
As Martor swung into the hangar, Hayden grabbed him by the arm and aimed him at the bike. “Was the armorer with you?” he asked. Martor nodded. “Get her. Fast!"
He did his best to be slow about winching the bike over the open doors. Every few seconds, the scarred hull of the pirate would flash into view and the ships would exchange rifle fire. Bullets hummed past on all sides when that happened and Hayden hid behind the substantial metal of the bike.
When he poked his head out the third time, he saw Martor literally dragging Aubri Mahallan into the hangar. “What's this all about?” she asked impatiently as the two came to land on the sidecars.
Hayden turned to Martor. “Strap yourself in. We're going for a little ride.” The boy looked startled, but climbed into one of the sidecars without comment.
He turned back to Aubri. In a low voice he said, “We're going to lose this battle. Come with me if you want to live."
Her eyes widened. She glanced at the opened doors below them just as a black hull appeared there. “Down!” Hayden grabbed her shoulders and pushed her into the open mouth of the bike's jet as gunfire sounded all around them. Abstractly he noticed how fine-boned her shoulders were. Behind them, two of the Rook's riflemen convulsed and tumbled forward to hang at the end of their lines.
Aubri cried out and covered her eyes.
“We have to go,” Hayden said to her, “and we have to go now! The Rook's about to be boarded. You have no idea what they're going to do with a woman if they catch you."
The gunfire subsided as the pirate swung out of sight again. Aubri Mahallan looked out at the bullet-scarred space, its air blue with gunsmoke, and bit her lip in obvious indecision. Then she pushed Hayden aside angrily. “Get out of my way,” she hissed. “I'm needed here."
“What are you talking about? You'll be killed if you stay!"
“So,” she said coldly. “You really are just a driver, aren't you? Haven't the backbone for a real fight?"
“You have to choose your battles, Aubri."
“Fine. I cho
ose this one. You run away, if that's what you want."
Hayden was too astonished to stop her as she jumped back up to the inner door. At the same time, another heavy body landed on the bike next to him, making it rock. “Hey!” shouted the red-haired botswain, who held a bundle of rope and rockets under his arm. “Cut us loose, errand boy!"
Hayden cursed and mounted the bike. He glanced down to make sure the pirate wasn't below them, and then pulled the pin on the winch. The bike did its curving fall into the dark air, and he spun up the fan and lit the burner without thinking.
His two passengers were having a shouted conversation past his back. “—Tied to the nets,” said the boatswain as the jet lit and they surged forward just in time to avoid the approaching hull of the pirate. “Snag a mine with the net and light the rocket. Make sure you aim the rocket away from the Rook first. If you can aim it at a pirate, great!"
The boatswain spun in his seat and hit Hayden in the midriff. “Get us out there, you fucking coward! The Rook's about to be boarded!"
Hayden complied silently. This bike was dangerously fast, even with sidecars on it, so he was compelled to approach the mined air in a series of short bursts. This drew more insults from the boatswain. Meanwhile the battle continued to rage around them, at near points such as the Rook, and far away in flashes like lightning on distant clouds. Grumbling and roaring noises echoed strangely off the ice field that made a half-visible wall beyond the mists.
In the light of flares that Martor held over his head, the first mine hove into sight just yards ahead. Hayden puffed the engine a couple of times and the boatswain leaned out with his net to encircle the studded metal sphere. The net was tied to a rocket the length of his forearm; the boatswain lit it and the bike was showered with sparks. Hayden shielded his eyes for a second then watched as the rocket surged away, towing the mine into Winter.
“Next!” roared the boatswain. Hayden turned the bike, glancing back at the Rook as he did. It and the smaller pirate seemed locked together now and men were spilling into the air between them.
He looked in the opposite direction. Far out there, the glittering lights of the tourist station beckoned. There was life for Martor and Aubri, if only he could figure out a way to get her off the Rook.
It was too late for her, he realized with a pang. But not for Martor.
The boatswain fired off another rocket. “Next! We've got to clear a tunnel for the Rook to fly through!"
“All right, all right!"
Hayden's heart was pounding. It was happening again: start to know someone, and all you got was the chance to lose them. True, he barely knew Aubri Mahallan. And true, a month ago he'd been willing to sacrifice his own life just to strike a blow against Slipstream. His most hated enemy was fighting for his life in the Rook, and Hayden should fervently wish nothing but disaster for that ship and all aboard it.
But he'd flown out from Gavin Town with a rifle in his hand and shot at Slipstream's cruisers while his mother decided her own fate in Aerie's unlit sun. And as Hayden had tumbled helplessly away into Winter, she had died. Was he really going to let Aubri go in the same way?
He swore, twisting his grip on the bike's handlebars. “Next!” yelled the boatswain and he turned the bike to find another glint of green in the light of Martor's flares.
Momentarily, he had an audience's grand view of the battle. Slipstream's ships were giving better than they took and several pirates were now drifting hulks surrounded by clouds of debris and dead men. The superiority of Fanning's disciplined crews was beginning to tell. The problem was that the pirates were able to use the cover of the clouds; they emerged just far enough to fire off a salvo, then retreated into invisibility.
Now that he could see the whole vista, though, Hayden realized that the pirates were only hiding in the clouds on one side—the side where the icebergs lay hidden in mist. They could use those bergs safely because the things didn't move—they were really giant icicles hanging from the outer skin of Virga. He had seen one of them begin a slow majestic fall just before the battle.
That gave him an idea.
“Next!” He looked around. There were dozens of mines, and there was no way they were going to clear a path for them before the boarding action on the Rook was decided one way or another. He turned toward a nearby mine, but made sure that he brought it up to the bike on Martor's side. “You take it, rat,” said the boatswain as he handed Martor a rope and rocket. The boy grinned fiercely and leaned out to lasso the mine.
Hayden pulled out his knife and cut the strap tying the boatswain to his seat. The man was watching Martor and didn't notice. Then Hayden took a net and threw it over the boatswain's head.
“Hey! You bastard, watch what you're—"
Hayden lit the rocket tied to the net just as Martor was lighting his own. Sparks showered everywhere and they both ducked down covering their eyes. When Hayden looked up again, both the mine and the boatswain were gone.
Martor stared at the empty seat. “Where'd he go?"
“I don't know.” Hayden spread his hands, looking surprised. “One second he was here, then he was gone. Must have caught a stray bullet."
Far out there, if you knew where to look, the fading ember of a rocket poked into a cloud bank and disappeared. Hayden watched it go, then turned to Martor. “Listen,” he said, “this isn't going to save the Rook. I've got a better idea."
He took them over to the next mine and Martor netted it. “Don't light the rocket,” Hayden told him. “Just string it out behind us.” They did the same with the next mine, and the next. Soon they had five of them dangling in their way.
“Now we get out of here,” said Hayden.
“But the admiral told us to—” Martor hastily grabbed the sides of his car as Hayden put on the power. They shot up and away from the mined air—and the battle—heading straight for the mists that hid the bergs.
“Light more flares. We'll need to see where we're going.” He slid them into the clouds at an incautious speed, trusting to his own skill to avoid hitting anything. The flares made a sphere of leaf-green light around them, and only the occasional wisp of moisture fluttering past showed that they were moving at all.
It was freezing in here, and Hayden took inspiration from that: follow the chill. He slowed the bike and let it drift in the air currents until he felt it enter a river of cold. Then he cautiously nudged them forward.
Out of the darkness, a vast turquoise shape emerged—a long, sleek, fish-shaped mountain of ice covered with knobby protuberances. Hayden could make out its tip off to the right, a dangerous white spike intermittently lit by distant explosions. To the left, the shape wove off into blackness.
He wrestled the bike in that direction. Martor was silent now, puzzled but obviously intrigued. As Hayden circled the berg he saw what he was looking for: there was a spot where the giant icicle narrowed to a thickness of only a few yards. In the minuscule gravity created by Virga's collective air and water, this neck was enough to hold up the rest of the bulk.
“Martor, I want you to fire a mine at that crimp there.” He pointed. Now the boy's eyes widened with understanding and he hurried to obey.
Hayden ducked away from a cascade of sparks, then looked up to see that Martor's aim was good. The mine sailed silently at the ice, contacted it, and—
—A flash of orange lit the night and moments later the thunderous bang of the explosion made Hayden flinch. As the smoke cleared, he saw that the neck of ice had been severed. A white splinter shot past his head, barely a foot away, but he hardly noticed. He was watching the gap that now existed between the ice attached to Virga's skin, and the long berg that had hung down from it.
“It's widening,” he said after a few seconds. “Martor, do you see it? It's starting to fall."
The boy grinned. “Let's do another one."
* * * *
The ship was a madhouse full of screaming, gunshots, and the clash of swords. Chaison Fanning had his sword out, but his staffers wer
e in the way. One of them interposed himself between Fanning and the silhouetted form of a pirate whom he was about to attack.
Fanning had a savage moment in which he considered stabbing the man to get at the pirate. What he needed above all else was to take the heads off a few of those swine who were threatening his ship, his men, and his mission.
Fanning slipped past the well-meaning fool and his sword fight, and dove for the hangar. A knot of men was struggling unsuccessfully to prevent the pirates from gaining access to the ship proper. Fanning flew over to join them, being careful to look past the heads and struggling arms in his way and assess the enemy. The hangar was mostly full of low-lifes and bullies who were unused to an even fight, but they seemed to be led by a tight vanguard of ex-Aerie naval officers who had thrown themselves across the space between the ships with no regard for bullets or blades.
“Shoot the leaders!” He grabbed a rifle and aimed past a pair of men who were fighting a free-fall sword fight, blade in one hand, long curving belaying hook in the other.
“But sir!” The damned fly who'd buzzed around him earlier was back, panting but unscathed. “What about the fleet? Your orders?"
He whirled, murderous rage causing him to level the rifle at the man. To his credit, the officer paled, but stood his ground. “They need an order,” he said.
Fanning cursed and grabbed him by the throat. “Don't ever,” he hissed, “make the mistake of thinking I can't fight and plan at the same time.” Then Fanning dove past him, making for the bridge.
The way was blocked. He blinked in surprise at the staved-in beams and boards that filled the narrow passage beneath the centrifuge. That didn't look like rocket damage. A prow? Had they been rammed while he was looking the other way?
It hardly mattered. He pried some planks out of the way and stared out at the dark. The battle was going much as he'd expected; the pirates had the advantage of available cover and were using it shamelessly. But the five ships on the other side of the mined zone were making mincemeat out of them anyway. They don't need my help, he decided. Taking a moment to run down his list of priorities, he turned to the staffers and said, “Where's my wife?"
Analog SFF, December 2005 Page 5