Blood began to seep out of the drill holes, running down the outside of the dark armour. It mingled with hydraulic fluid, slicking the ladder.
The tekmerc below the leader lost his grip, dropping down a metre. He was halted momentarily by three waldos that had punctured the armour, but the force of the jolt ripped their drills free. He fell, rebounding off the fuselage framework, arms and legs flailing madly. Then he hit a clear section of the solar cell envelope head on, tearing straight through.
External camera, aft fuselage keel. The tekmerc was a black pinwheeling doll against the calm blue ocean. Shrinking rapidly. He must have tried to activate his jetpack. Whatever damage the maintenance drones had inflicted, it was drastic. The jetpack erupted into a shower of minute slivers, dismembering the rest of the muscle armour suit.
Tekmerc squad inter-suit radio communication.
Tekmerc seven: Continuous unintelligible shout.
Frank: "Leol—the drones, the fucking drones. They've gone mad."
Leol Reiger: "What's happening?"
Frank: Screams. Shouting, "Help us for Christ's sake. It's the drones. They're killing us. Blind. They've blinded me. Can't hold. Oh God, my hands—" Screams.
Tekmerc five: "Holy shit, listen to them, it's likely they're being eaten alive."
Leol Reiger: "Shut up. Everybody, drones are hazards, shoot on sight. That goes for any other piece of mobile hardware. Ian, Keith, Denny, get up to that MHD chamber. Someone doesn't want us there. Help Frank if you can."
Tekmerc eight: "Jesus, Leol."
Leol Reiger: "Just flicking do it. Right? Snuff anything and everybody in your way, but do it. Now move."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Charlotte Fielder really was astonishingly pretty. She was the first thing Greg saw when he came into the MHD chamber after Suzi, all dark-gold skin and tight white cotton. Nothing else registered at the same level, it was as though the background had suddenly become monochrome.
She and Fabian Whitehurst were clinging to each other. Greg reckoned a muscle armour suit would be hard pushed to prise them apart. They both stared at Suzi in trepidation.
"Don't piss yourselves," Suzi told them, lowering her Browning. "I'm one of the good guys. Right, Julia?"
"Yes," Julia said, her voice booming out of speaker stacks. "Greg and Suzi won't hurt you, Charlotte, nor you, Fabian, they work for me."
Greg looked down at Nia Korovilla's body. She looked so tranquil in her prim maid's uniform. Hard to imagine her as any kind of hazard. Maybe Suzi had been right, after all. It irked him to think that she knew him better than he knew himself. But she certainly hadn't hesitated to shoot.
Nia Korovilla's presence kicked off a whole cascade of trepidation in his mind. Julia had squirted her data profile into his cybofax; according to that she had served on the Colonel Maitland for eight years. It meant she was a sleeper, a watcher keeping tabs on Jason Whitehurst. Which made no sense to Greg; if she'd been feeding someone with snatched bytes of Jason Whitehurst's trading deals for eight solid years, then the old boy would have known. So if she hadn't been doing that, what was she on board for?
"Leol Reiger has dispatched three more tekmercs up here," Julia said. Her face was replicated in six flatscreens, dominating one wall of the den. "I won't be able to delay them, not now they have been warned about the drones being under my command."
Greg glanced hurriedly round the MHD chamber. It reminded him of home, the kind of grotesque merger of gear and pets that the kids slapped together as various interests went through nova bursts of intense devotion, only to be abandoned a week or month later. It was an archaeological record of a boy's development. So much for his intuition telling him there was something out of phase about Fabian Whitehurst.
He tried to look at the MHD chamber from a tactical point of view. There was only the one door, and the walls behind the panels were solid alolithum. The tekmercs' rip guns could break through that easily enough. Suzi was prowling along the line of gear consoles below the flatscreens.
"Tell you, we can't stay in here," Greg said. "You got us a hidey-hole ready, Julia?"
"Not exactly, but I think I can keep you and the tekmercs apart until my crash team arrives. There's a lot of volume in this airship."
Greg glanced at Suzi, who gave him a shrug.
"Sure thing," she said. "This is all so fluid."
"Come on, Charlotte," Greg said. "We'll get you out of here."
Charlotte and Fabian actually managed to hold each other even tighter.
"No," Charlotte said. She was sweating profusely.
Greg noticed the discoloration on her hand. The skin around two fingers was swelling, puffy with blood.
"Charlotte, please, the tekmercs that are coming for you make Nia here look tame."
She stroked Fabian's hair with her good hand. The boy's eye had swollen shut, blood was drying on his lips and chin. "What's happening?" she asked. "Please, I don't understand any of this."
"Julia," Greg called.
Julia's face vanished from the largest flatscreen, replaced by a view of the Colonel Maitland's landing pad with the gutted wreck of the Pegasus still smoking. Charlotte gasped.
"That's the plane we came in," Greg said. "There were four people on board when it was hit by the tekmercs. That's your alternative. Now will you please come with us."
"I'm not leaving Fabian. Not if tekmercs are on their way here."
Fabian looked up at her with complete adoration. Greg realized they weren't going to be separated. And he had promised Jason Whitehurst exactly that. Bloody wonderful.
"We're not asking you to leave him, Charlotte," Julia said gently. "One moment."
There was a burst of static.
Jason Whitehurst's voice came out of the music deck speakers. "Fabian?"
"Yes, Father?"
Greg's cybofax bleeped. He looked down at it.
"You stay with Charlotte and Mr. Mandel," Jason Whitehurst said. "It'll be a lot safer for you. These damn tekmercs are all over the old Colonel. Bloody trigger happy brutes, they are. I'll catch up with you later, I must see the crew is all right first, noblesse oblige, and all that. You understand that, don't you?"
"Yes, Father."
Greg showed the cybofax to Suzi. Her face remained impassive as she read the screen's message.
"Splendid chap; bit of an adventure for you. Charlotte, my dear girl, what can one say? I'm most dreadfully sorry about all this trouble. Julia will explain later. You take care of Fabian in the mean time for me, yes?"
"Yes, sir."
"Jolly good."
Greg pulled a first aid box off the wall, and found a local anaesthetic infuser. Charlotte didn't resist when he took her hand. He pressed the infuser tube to her wrist.
She gave a tremulous little sigh as the anaesthetic took effect.
"Careful you don't knock the hand against anything," he warned her.
She nodded meekly.
Suzi was wiping Fabian's chin with a disinfectant tissue.
"OK," Greg said. "Let's move. Julia, which way?"
"Turn right outside, down to the hull, then head up towards the prow. I've loaded your route."
He glanced at the cybofax, memorizing the Colonel Maitland's blueprint with its superimposed red line.
It was cool outside the MHD chamber. The engineering bay heat exchangers constantly circulated the air in the gap between the hull and the gasbags, preventing the helium from becoming superheated and losing lift capacity. Greg thought it smelt vaguely of chlorine. It left an unpleasant tang at the back of his throat.
He led them along the walkway, the opposite direction to the way he and Suzi had come. Charlotte and Fabian followed him, holding hands; Suzi brought up the rear. The worst of his neurohormone hangover was lifting, but he wouldn't be able to use the gland again today, not after two psi effusions like that.
"Greg, a little faster, please," Julia said out of his cybofax. There was an edge in her voice.
"Right." He began to
step out.
A rip gun was fired behind them, the sound of its shot rumbling round the engineering bay. It was the signal for a whole barrage to begin.
"What's that?" Charlotte asked, raising her voice above the clamour.
"Rip guns."
"Crikey," said Fabian, he squinted at Greg with his one good eye. "You mean a neutral-beam weapon?"
"No messing."
They reached the hull. A silent rank of drones was drawn up beside the transverse frame ladder. Greg didn't have time to question their presence. He turned on to the walkway that led towards the prow, sandwiched between the gasbag and the solar cell envelope. It curved away ahead of him, fading to grey.
The rip guns had stopped firing.
"Get going," Julia said. The drones began to move out on to the engineering bay girders.
Fabian watched them go curiously. "Do you have hotrods working for Event Horizon?" he asked.
"One or two," Julia answered.
"Fabian, not now," Charlotte said.
"Sorry."
The walkway made Greg think of the eidolonic loop he'd left Chad in. The engineering bay had disappeared from sight behind, and more walkway kept unfolding in front, seemingly endless. They were moving at a jog now. Charlotte's panting was loud in his ears. His own breathing wasn't too good either.
There were five rip-gun shots fired in rapid succession. The sound barely audible.
"Last of the drones gone," Julia said. The cybofax wafer was in his top pocket again, banging on his chest. "The three tekmercs are covering all the options. One has gone down the transverse frame ladder, another is climbing up."
"And the third's coming after us," Suzi finished.
"Right," said Julia.
"Run faster?" Greg asked.
"He'll still be able to catch you. You're only a hundred and eighty metres ahead of him."
"The next transverse ladder?"
"No, you'd be sitting ducks on that."
"Stand and fight. The Tokarev might penetrate the armour."
"No," Julia said. "I've got your escape route mapped out. Keep going, twenty metres. Stop by the next doughnut gasbag."
The only way Greg found it was because of the deep concave fold in the plastic where the two bags pressed together. He came to a halt, breathing hard. Charlotte stopped behind him, her face drained.
"Are you all right?" she asked Fabian.
The boy flipped some of his ragged hair off his face. "Yes." They still hadn't let go of each other's hands.
"What now?" Greg asked. He kept his nerves alert for the sound of the tekmerc, wondering if he should order another gland secretion after all.
"Start hyperventilating," Julia said.
"What's this bollocks, you hustle us along here for exercise classes?" Suzi snapped. "Have you glitched?" She was the only one who wasn't breathing heavily.
"No, listen," Julia said. "I want Greg to slice open the doughnut gasbag with his Tokarev. Then you hold your breath, and slide down the inside. You will stop right above the keel walkway. Greg cuts the plastic again, and you drop out.,
Suzi gave Greg an imploring look. "If both of us fire at once, we can snuff that tekmerc."
Greg wasn't so sure. Suzi's idea was all down to chance. Julia's had logic behind it. Machine logic, admittedly. And of course, she didn't have to do it herself.
"The tekmerc can just follow us down the doughnut," he said.
"No," Julia said. "It'll tear like paper under the weight of the armour. He'd fall straight out of the airship."
"All right, we'll try it."
"Shit," Suzi said. "Fluid."
Greg looked at Charlotte and Fabian. "Do you two understand?"
They both nodded, both looked scared.
"Whatever you do, don't breathe in while you're inside the doughnut," Julia said. "Helium isn't toxic, but there's no oxygen. You'll asphyxiate."
Greg got his breathing back under control, and drew the Tokarev. "Everybody ready?"
"Do it," Suzi said.
He aimed at a point level with his own head. "Breathe in now, and follow me straight away." He hoped to hell the two kids would do as they were told, Suzi would have trouble bullying both of them. Or maybe not.
The vivid red beam pierced the plastic, and Greg swung it down to the walkway, opening up a two-metre slit. With the Tokarev held in his right hand, he sat on the walkway grid, pushing his feet into the open gash. The blackness inside the doughnut was impenetrable, it almost seemed to slop out on to the walkway. He ducked his head under the hand rail, and pushed off.
The Messerschmitt exploded without warning. Julia had to replay the external camera memories to understand the sequence of events.
Two Typhoon air-superiority fighters arrowed in from the north, silver-grey needles with wings retracted, using the airship as a radar shield. Not that the Messerschmitt would have had many options even if it had detected them, not when they travelled at Mach eleven. One went over the Colonel Maitland, the second went under. Three Kinetic Energy Kill missiles slammed into the Messerschmitt at Mach seventeen. Then the fighters were gone.
A fireball enveloped the Messerschmitt, billowing out. It was slapped by the supersonic backwash from the two fighters; invisible hands compressing it back into a lenticular shape. Chunks of flaming wreckage spewed out from the ragged edges, spinning through the air, arching down towards the distant ocean.
The Colonel Maitland was shaken violently by the Typhoons' passage. Julia monitored the buffeting they inflicted on the already damaged fuselage framework. Stress sensors reported a dangerous amount of weakening in the midsection.
She sounded the evacuation alarm before the bridge crew had a chance to evaluate the situation; klaxons blaring out all through the airship. The hatches on the survival pods popped open.
The Messerschmitt's halo of ionized flame contracted, wrapping itself around the broken fuselage. The plane rolled lazily, then began the long fall towards the water.
External camera, starboard fuselage. Two Event Horizon transports were decelerating fast; big XCV-77 Titan stealth hypersonics with a cranked delta planform. They were virtually standing on their tails to aerobrake, underbellies glowing cerise; airflow vortices created spiral vapour trails that streamed off each wingtip, as if they were stretching out giant white springs behind them.
With the jamming blanket lifted, Julia opened a communication link to the lead Titan. Her living self was plugged into the transport plane's sensors, anxious for information. She compiled a summary of events since the Messerschmitt's attack, and squirted it over.
Get Greg and company back into the gondola, her living self said, I'll brief the crash team to lift them.
OK.
Tekmerc squad inter-suit radio communication.
Tekmerc eight, female: "Oh, Jesus wept. The deal's been burnt. Event Horizon planes, big buggers."
Leol Reiger: "Ian, Keith, Danny, get back to the gondola. Move!"
Tekmerc five: "Coming, Leol."
Julia: "Last chance, Leol Reiger. Put down your weapons, deactivate your armour. It's all over."
Leol Reiger: "Screw you. Everybody, Charlotte Fielder is to be snuffed. If you see her, kill her. How do you like that, rich bitch? You tell your people to stand off, I'll let her live."
Julia: "No deal."
External cameras, overview. Both Titans were slowly circling the Colonel Maitland like prowling wolves, disgorging the security crash team from their open loading ramps. The hovering armour-suited figures formed an encircling necklace around the airship, electronic senses sweeping it for signs of tekmerc activity. When their deployment manoeuvre was complete, they began to close on the gondola.
Survival pods were dropping out of the bottom of the gondola, small white spheres with strobes flashing urgently. Two hundred metres below the airship their red and white striped parachutes bloomed, lowering them gently towards the ocean.
A rip-gun bolt, fired from inside the gondola, speared one of the approaching
armour suits. The security hardliner disappeared in a plume of blue-white flame. Another bolt stabbed out.
The crash team let off a fusillade of plasma bolts at the gondola window where the rip-gun bolts had come from.
Internal camera, gondola lower-deck cabin. Leol Reiger was running from the bedroom, barging through the open doorway out into the central corridor. Plasma bolts smashed into the cabin behind him, igniting the furniture and fittings. An inferno was raging inside within seconds.
The armour suit's speaker emitted a demented peal of laughter as Reiger ran towards the stern.
Suzi wanted to scream. She was in freefall, hurtling through black eternity. The plastic surface of the doughnut gasbag had disappeared as soon as she jumped, the fissure of weak light from the gash drying up almost at once. There was nothing she could orientate on, no reference point. Time seemed to be expanding. It was like being plunged into sensory deprivation. Leol Reiger would be laughing his flicking head off if he could see her now, all panicky like this.
Standing and fighting would have made a fucking site more sense than this. They could have shot the walkway out from under the tekmerc, no need to penetrate the muscle armour, just flush him out of the airship. Too late now. And what the hell did some warped 'ware package know about tactics anyway?
A thunderclap penetrated the closed universe of the doughnut gasbag. The sound rumbled around her, a drawn out tortured roar. Explosion. Then came the multiple sonic booms, the grating sound of the airship's fuselage bending and flexing. Definitely some snaps of breaking frames. Christ!
Something flicked up her back. She began to spin. Then she was skittering and sliding down the curving plastic wall of the gasbag, totally out of control. Her injured knee twisted viciously as she reeled round, nearly making her cry out loud. It was all she could do to keep her mouth clamped shut.
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