by Jack Conner
“We must take Lord Uthua back to the zeppelin,” the high priest was telling Lasucciv. Something exploded from down a corridor, and more debris was being shaken loose from the ceiling, almost like metal rain. The occupants of the chamber leapt and dodged, eyes wide. “It’s the only way,” the priest added.
Lasucciv frowned. Perhaps she was considering somehow using the station’s defenses against the pirates or even trying to stabilize it, but Avery knew that could only end in disaster.
“When we were crossing the last tube,” he said, having to strain to speak under Uthua’s weight, “I saw a dirigible docking bay through a crack in the wall—that way.” He pointed. “It wasn’t far.”
“That’s completely on the opposite side of the station from the Valanca,” the high priest said. “And Lord Uthua needs the remedies available aboard the zeppelin.”
“You’re right, of course, Father,” Lasucciv said. To her people, she said, “Let’s get back to the ship.”
“What about us?” said one of the survivors.
“There’s room for up to forty of you,” Lasucciv said, then cast a nasty look at Avery. “Thanks to him.” Avery remained silent. The weight of Uthua was becoming difficult to bear. “The rest of you will have to find other ways out,” Lasucciv said. Then, to her people: “Let’s go!”
Gun drawn, she led the group down a corridor. The station rattled around them, and the sound of the pirates’ bombs was more than just a sound; Avery could feel it in the air, a shock against his eardrums, feel the vibration of the blasts course up through his toes, and soon he could taste the soot on his tongue. Sheridan, still holding the Codex, dropped beside him.
“Can you manage?” she said.
“I’m—fine,” he said, grunting. “But—this is—a mistake. The zeppelin—is too far—away.”
Her eyes flicked to Lasucciv at the head of the procession, or at least in her direction; there were too many people between here and there to pick her out. The station shuddered violently, and they were all flung against the nearest bulkhead, or most of them. Uthua cushioned Avery’s fall. The priest on the other side was not so lucky, and Uthua crushed him against the bulkhead. He didn’t even have time to cry out but lay dazed and bleeding. Another priest took his place, and with his help Avery managed to get Uthua back up.
The group moved on, but the pirates’ bombs had done their damage. Avery heard the roar of flames not far away, and the smell of smoke grew stronger. He could see it in the air, growing thicker and blacker. Soon it would choke the whole place. Sparks leapt from consoles and electrical fixtures all around. Things shook loose from ceilings and walls, and rents were torn in floor and ceiling. Rain blasted them. Lightning lit them. At one point debris fell just behind Avery, and he heard screams and smelled scorched flesh. Turning awkwardly, he saw that wreckage blocked the corridor they had been traveling through, stranding half the group on the other side.
“Go around!” Lasucciv shouted to them from the front of the procession, though it was doubtful they heard her. “Meet up with us further on!”
She didn’t pause but kept the group moving, or at least its front half. There were only about fifteen of them left. They passed through offices and labs, sometimes having to navigate around obstructions and choose alternate routes. They made slow going, and the station was only growing more unstable. The smell of smoke had grown thicker, and Avery choked and wheezed, having to strain just to walk with the weight of Uthua grinding him down, let alone think clearly, and with the air so thick ...
Through portholes he and the others caught glimpses of the pirates’ zeppelins firing on the station, and through ruptures overhead they saw more zeppelins scrolling by overhead, bomb bay doors opening.
“Bastards!” someone said. “How could they?”
“They will be damned to the Outer Abyss!” said the high priest.
Avery heard, just barely, Uthua mumble something, sounding half asleep: “‘... and the one who opens it shall be the Pocked One, and the Sleeper shall Awaken to ...’” He mumbled on, something about a Chosen One, but little of it made sense. But ... the Pocked One ...
Surely he doesn’t mean ... that’s impossible!
“Fuck!” Lasucciv shouted. They had reached a medium-sized chamber filled with desks and chalkboards—some sort of lecture room, evidently. They had passed this way before, and Avery remembered it connected to the tube that would lead them to the next wing.
Wind gusted through the hatchway that the tube had linked to, and empty space occupied the place where the tube had been.
“Fuck,” Lasucciv said again. “It’s gone. Fucking shitting fuck, it’s gone.” The group had fanned out, and Avery could see her now. Smoke stained her face—it stained all of them—and her hair dripped with sweat and rain.
“What shall we do?” said the high priest. He’d been walking in front of Avery this whole time, as if shepherding the god, but he had not offered to help carry the sonofabitch.
“There’s no way around,” someone said. “This is the only tube that connects from this wing to that.”
“To get there we’ll have to find a way to an adjacent wing,” someone else said, “then around ... all the way back to that wing ... or else ... even further around ...”
The faces of the group, what Avery could see of them through the soot that caked them, looked drawn and hopeless.
“The docking bay,” he said. It came out as a rasp, and he had to repeat himself. “It’s further away now, but I think we can still get to it before this whole place goes down.”
“We must get back to the Valanca,” Lasucciv said, firmly. “It’s our only hope. This station’s lost.”
“So is the Valanca. Don’t you think that’s the first thing the pirates would have hit?”
Angry murmuring met this, some siding with Avery, some against. When the murmuring threatened to grow out of control, Sheridan shouted, silencing them.
“The doctor is right,” she said.
“He is not,” Lasucciv said. There was a raggedness to her tone that had more to it than simple exhaustion and fear; she was almost about to lose it, Avery realized. She had been pushed to her limit.
Sheridan narrowed her eyes at the Commander. Though the Colonel looked just as sweaty and soot-covered as the rest of them, there was purpose in her eyes. Clarity. The sound of a bomb echoed up a hall, and the floor shook under her feet, but she didn’t waver.
“The way is blocked,” she said, her words simple and to the point. “There is no other way.”
“There is,” said the high priest. “It may be longer, but we can still reach the zeppelin. There we have healing salves, special elixirs that can restore Lord Uthua, and sacrifices—”
“Fuck Uthua,” one of the soldiers said. He was a younger man, perhaps a new recruit, and though he was infected like all of them he had apparently only taken the Sacrament because his society demanded it. “He’s slowing us down, and if—”
Lasucciv shot him through the throat. He fell, gagging and twitching, to the deck. The gun smoked in Lasucciv’s hand.
“Anyone else?”
The gathering stared at her, then to the still-twitching man. Blood pooled under him, soaking his hair and sticking his clothes to the deck.
Avery hesitated. Sweat stung his eyes. There was a wildness in Lasucciv’s face, and her gun looked very large.
“Please,” he said, trying to keep his voice as reasonable-sounding as he could, “the way around is too long, much longer than from here to the dirigible docking bay. Surely you see that—”
Lasucciv pointed her gun at him. “Yes?” The word came out almost as a hiss. “Keep going.” By the gleam in her eye Avery could tell she wanted him to say something else, to invite his own destruction. But what choice was there? If she led them the long way around, they were all doomed, and there was nothing waiting for them besides. The Valanca was gone.
“The zeppelin—” he started.
Lasucciv’s finger tig
htened on the trigger. She was pulling it when Sheridan pressed the point of her own pistol to the Commander’s temple.
“Easy,” Sheridan said, but her voice sounded anything but. It was as tense and conflicted as Avery had ever heard it. “Easy, Commander.”
“What are you doing?” Lasucciv said. Spittle sprayed from her lips. Her gun still pointed at Avery’s face, the barrel a gaping pit in the center of his vision. It threatened to swallow all reality.
Some of the soldiers’ hands leapt to their own weapons, but none drew them, perhaps recognizing instinctively that to escalate this any further could only end in massacre. A bomb exploded in the near distance, the station shook, and the thickness of the smoke began to increase. Many coughed. Avery felt tears stream from his eyes; smoke stained his glasses. Even through it, he could see that blackness of that gun barrel, and Lasucciv’s rigor mortis snarl above it.
“Lower your weapon,” Sheridan said.
“You’re insane,” Lasucciv said. Then, surprisingly, she lowered her gun, just a bit.
Sheridan did not relax. “Drop it.”
“Think about what you’re doing, Colonel. You’re throwing your career away. I can forget this ever happened, though. Just give me your sidearm and I can make all this go away.” Avery could see she meant it, too. If Sheridan gave the Commander her weapon, Lasucciv would not simply shoot her in return. Hells, Sheridan was a hero of Octung, and it was very likely that Lasucciv looked up to her.
“We don’t have time for this,” Sheridan said. “This is about survival. The docking bay—”
“Yes yes, the docking bay,” Lasucciv said. “But then what? The dirigibles are on the other side of the station from the Valanca. How could you pilot a dirigible through a hostile armada to reach it? It’s impossible. And a dirigible can only go so far. Without the zeppelin you would run out of fuel soon and fall into the sea. No. The only way is the Valanca.”
Sheridan hesitated.
“Yes!” Lasucciv said. “You see it, too. Please, Colonel, hand your weapon over, and all this will be forgotten.”
Another bomb shook the chamber. Sheridan started to lower her gun.
“No!” Avery said. “There is a way.”
She met his eyes, and he nodded, once, significantly.
“There is,” he repeated.
Her grip firmed on the pistol, and she did not lower it.
Rage filled Lasucciv’s eyes. “Why, you little—” She raised her gun again to point at Avery. Sheridan fired, spreading the Commander’s brains against the far bulkhead.
Half a dozen Octunggen troops drew their weapons, but Sheridan swept her gun at them, and they didn’t raise them all the way.
Avery stepped out from under Uthua, who wilted. The high priest leapt and shoved his own shoulder under the god, at last helping bear his weight. Coughing in the thickening smoke, Avery moved to a hatch and opened it, then turned back to Sheridan. Still training her gun, first on one trooper, then another, she backed up to Avery’s side.
Uthua lifted his head. Breathing raggedly, he said, “Do not ... do this. You’re a … good soldier, Colonel. Leave the ... Codex with us.”
Sheridan examined the redly-winking jewel in her left hand. “I’m sorry, Lord Uthua, but it comes with me.”
His face twisted in wrath, but there was also a hint of hurt in it, as well, and confusion. “Traitor,” he hissed. “You’ve served the Collossum well for years, and we have made you a hero to your people. This is how you would repay us?” When she didn’t answer, he said, sounding weaker with every breath, “You’re finished, Colonel. Finished. Even if you survive this, I’ll make sure you never set foot in Octung again, that you’re forever hunted by those you used to serve. If you do this thing, a hero will become a villain.”
She glared at him, and Avery could see the conflict in her eyes. At last she said, “We’re wasting time.”
She and Avery slipped through the hatchway and were gone. He slammed the hatch closed and spun the wheel, sealing it, then ripped off his belt and tied the wheel in a fixed position, hopefully locking it. The Octunggen would be able to break through in time, but with any luck it wouldn’t be soon enough to do them any good. He had trapped Uthua’s group on the other side. The Collossum roared in fury, audible even through the metal, then stopped, too weak to go on. Uthua had probably passed out again.
Avery stared at Sheridan in amazement. Her eyes blazed out of her soot-covered face, and sweat had plastered her hair to her scalp, but she had never looked more beautiful.
Hardly believing it, he said, “You ... you chose me over Octung.”
As if not giving herself time to think about the implications of what she’d done, she kissed him once, urgently, then stepped back.
“You’d better be right about this, Doctor.”
Yes, I suppose I had. “This way.”
He showed the way through various rooms and corridors, making toward where he believed the docking bay to be. He thought he remembered the map accurately, but just to be sure he stopped once and analyzed a diagram mounted near a hatchway. Adjusting his route slightly, he continued on. Several times they encountered Vathe wandering around, bumping into things and looking lost, but they didn’t interfere with Avery or Sheridan, though he wondered how long that would last. Soon the control room that neutered these things would be hit and they would be enemies once more.
The noise of the bombs slowed down, then died away.
“They’re leaving,” Sheridan said. “The pirates are drawing back. They must have realized Gehulia failed to return. They think their bombs may have dropped on her. They’ll be sending in another team.”
He knew what she must be thinking. “The zeppelin has to be destroyed,” he said.
She nodded, but he wasn’t sure if she believed it.
They encountered a few blockages, but none that proved fatal, and at last reached the docking bay. It had been hit, and a dozen of the dirigibles were in flames or wrecked, the bays themselves damaged, but a handful of both were operable, and though it took them longer with only the two of them, Avery and Sheridan managed to ready a dirigible, open a bay and take off, even as the station shuddered and fell apart around them.
The ship shot away from the Flying Fortress, out into the storm, and Avery winced at the fresh spray of rain. He breathed easier in the fresh air, and even easier when he didn’t see any pirate ships, at least along this arc of the station; the bastards had drawn back to consider further options.
Avery turned when he heard a great roar behind him, and with Sheridan beside him they watched the Flying Fortress succumb to its injuries. It broke apart in stages, one castle-like wing after another, but when the central hubs fell the rest of it soon broke up, plummeting to the sea far below, and before long there was nothing left, only smoke, and then that too was swallowed by the clouds. There was no sign of the Valanca. Nor was there any sign of a pirate airship that might have dropped off a larger wave of attackers; if there had been one, it had gone down with the station.
My god-killing knife is gone, Avery thought, imagining the lost Valanca. Unless, of course ... His gaze moved to Sheridan.
“At least we have the Codex,” she said, clutching the jewel tight.
“Yes, but ...”
“What?”
He grimaced. “Before Uthua made his announcement about where the Sleeper was, I thought I saw the mystery party. They were present before they attacked and might have heard what he said.”
“Shit.”
He nodded. “They could have made it to a ship. We must assume they know where the Sleeper is, too.”
“It’s a race to get there first, then.”
“So it seems.”
They turned back to manning the craft, wind and rain lashing them as they went.
Chapter 3
“Do you think any of my—any of the Octunggen made it?” Sheridan said. “Uthua and those with him?”
They’d brought the dirigible lower, toward the s
ea, and the ocean heaved and foamed not far below. Lightning crackled up, gas bubbles erupting in furious displays through the toxic vapor that wreathed the water. The two hoped that the interference caused by the ocean would rob the pirates’ ability to track them by radar—if they were looking.
“I don’t see how,” Avery said. “Maybe Uthua could’ve survived, but the rest?”
“There were other bays. Other dirigibles.”
“Yes. Perhaps.” He turned to her. The frenzy of rigging and sailing had passed. They were just trying to keep the craft steady now. Sheridan looked strange, and he didn’t have to wonder why. She had sacrificed a great deal—spiritually, at any rate—to side with Octung over her home country, and now she had thrown all that aside for Avery.
“Do you ... do you hope they survived?” he asked.
Her face was impossible to read. “What do you mean?”
She was cagey, even now. Patiently, knowing her urge to dissemble was deeply ingrained, he said, “If Uthua and his group don’t make it back, there’s no one to inform against you. You could still resume your place amongst them.”
Rain had cleansed the soot from her face, and for a moment it glowed orange with the fires of an exploding gas pocket. Her eyes shone red.
“My place ... is here.”
He tried to suppress a shudder. Am I her new cause now? He thought about it as he manned the steering wheel, aiming west and south.
She reclined against the gunwale and lit a cigarette, having to cup it against the rain. The dirigible had come equipped with some basic foodstuffs, cigarettes, pollution pills and a first aid kit.
“I didn’t do it just for you, you know, or this.” She tapped the Codex, which stuck out of her breast pocket. Her voice came quietly, hardly discernible over the sound of rain and sea.
“Oh?”
“You have a plan. No, don’t deny it, I know you too well for that. You blame me for being deceitful, but when have you ever told me the complete truth? Well, now I think we can safely say that we’re on the same side. We can both be open and honest with each other. The time for false faces is past, Francis. So, what is it—your plan?”