by Gary Gibson
The dirigible rocked beneath him, and he heard screams and angry shouts from below. Then, suddenly, the craft jerked hard and started to drift away from the mountainside.
It took Remembrance a moment to realize that the maul-worm had knocked the war-dirigible loose from its moorings. He raised himself carefully to try and catch a glimpse of what was happening back on the mountainside. What he saw was the maul-worm writhing across the wide ridge, as shells, bullets and beams of directed energy slammed into it, tearing it gradually apart. Part of its enormous bulk lifted, slamming into one of the mounted gun platforms, pushing it over the rim of the ledge to tumble down the cliffs below in a furious avalanche of metal and sheared rock. The two Immortal Light agents who had been manning it went with it, caught up in the debris.
The bombardment had worked, albeit at enormous cost to Honeydew’s agents. The worm grew still, and Remembrance saw that it was finally dead.
He scrambled back along the top of the war-dirigible and away from the ledge, hopping from gas cell to netted gas cell, wondering how long he had before Honeydew sent the gondola’s crew up to kill or capture him.
The war-dirigible was beginning to tack around now, as it was steered back towards the mountainside. Remembrance hoped the crew was sufficiently indispensable that Honeydew wouldn’t focus his remaining fire on the veering craft. He started to work his way down the vessel’s side that was facing away from the mountain, gripping tightly onto the tough netting as he edged slowly down towards the gondola suspended beneath.
He had deactivated Moss’s knife and slid it through one of the spare loops of his harness. He next unsheathed his shotgun and swung down and onto the lip of the gondola itself.
He saw now there were six Immortal Light agents manning the dirigible, whereas he’d been hoping there wouldn’t be more than one or two. All six of them turned at once, clicking in surprise, and began to unsheathe their weapons from their harnesses. As one of them came rushing towards him, Remembrance took him out with a single shot.
A bullet spanged off the gondola, right next to one of Remembrance’s feet. He re-sheathed his shotgun and grabbed hold of a gondola cable, swinging himself out over the drop below and then rapidly pulling himself back up on top of the dirigible, to the sound of loud and angry chittering from the spot where he’d been a moment before.
He glanced down in time to see one of the remaining crew-members aim a shotgun up at him. The shot went wide, but it spurred him to ignore the numbness spreading out across his body from the wound between his wings, and climb quickly out of range.
By the time he’d pulled himself back up on top of the dirigible, a flickering blackness was manifesting at the edge of his vision. The frozen mountain air was too thin for him and that, combined with his injury, put him in serious danger of passing out soon.
He looked back over the side of the craft and spied a train of robot cargo blimps far below. They were moving in a steady line along the valley floor, following the contour of the river as they made their way towards the heart of Darkwater.
The valley slipped out of view as the dirigible swung back around, bringing the ledge – and Honeydew – closer and closer.
One of the gondola crew tried climbing up on top of the gas cells, clinging onto the netting with one hand while reaching for a gun with the other. Remembrance responded by unsheathing his own shotgun and getting off a shot first. Though he missed, it was enough to make the crew-member change his mind, and he quickly disappeared back out of sight, but not before letting out a series of foul-mouthed clicks.
Remembrance replaced his shotgun and pulled Moss’s knife loose from his harness, turning it in his hands for closer inspection. It was a vicious-looking thing, and hard to keep a grip on, having been designed with a larger-handed species in mind. He tested it cautiously, holding it in different ways until he felt he had some kind of reasonably firm grip. He then switched it on, holding it out from his body. The weapon jerked in his hand as he activated it, vibrating with a low buzz.
He leaned down, touching the blade to the skin of the gas cell he crouched on.
The effect was dramatic. A great rent opened up beneath him and he quickly moved back along the length of the cell, slicing as he went, the knife hardly jerking at all as he cut. The fabric the cells were made of was extremely tough, and designed to withstand high-impact rounds without tearing or breaking, but Moss’s blade slipped through it and the surrounding netting with astonishing ease.
Remembrance hopped over the gap between neighbouring cells and did the same to the next one along. It didn’t take long at all before the dirigible began to list to one side, swinging away from the ledge yet again.
As he kept cutting, the war-dirigible started to turn at an increasing rate, while dropping fast. After a minute’s work, he’d cut four bags open out of a total of twelve, since there were two parallel rows of five gas cells, with two more placed at either end.
The more he cut, the more the dirigible began to tip at one end, making it harder and harder for Remembrance to maintain his grip. He soon found himself clutching one-handed at an uneven slope that was threatening to tip him into the empty air high above the valley.
He realized his mistake. He should have cut first one balloon at one end of the craft and then another at the far end to balance them out and keep the dirigible relatively level. But that was the kind of thing that only became clear with hindsight. All he could do now was cling to the tough netting surrounding the gas cells and hope for the best.
The war-dirigible shuddered violently and he almost lost his grip. Simultaneously he heard a horrible screeching and scraping as the underside of the metal gondola hit the rim of the rocky ledge. The dirigible tipped over even more as it mashed itself up against the mountainside, and Remembrance held on for his life. But after a couple of seconds the craft floated away from direct contact with the ledge, and immediately began to level up.
There were still angry clicks and hisses from the gondola below, but fewer than before, since some of the crew had been tipped out.
Remembrance caught Honeydew’s scent and realized belatedly that once the dirigible had sunk below the level of the ridge, he himself would present a much easier target. Peering over the side of one gas cell, he saw that Honeydew – along with his surviving security contingent – had manned the remaining gun platform.
Not good. Not good at all.
The ledge itself hove more and more into view as the dirigible dropped lower and lower. He stared numbly as Honeydew gesticulated wildly at his officers. The artillery platform then began to rotate on its mount, the bulbous barrel of its force cannon swivelling directly towards Remembrance.
He scrambled backwards, as far away out of sight of the turret as possible, as it looked like the gondola crew was dispensable after all.
A powerful blast of heat and light slammed into the side of the dirigible facing the mountain – almost exactly where he’d been only a moment before. A crunching sound from below was accompanied by screams, and suddenly the dirigible began to rise far more rapidly than it had been descending. There was the sound of something clanking and crashing about, growing rapidly fainter as the mountain fell away beneath him.
Half the gas cells were gone now. He looked over the side and caught a glimpse of the gondola tumbling down the side of the mountain.
He glanced quickly up at the clouds shrouding the mountain peaks, seeing faint wisps of cirrus that were suddenly looking a lot closer. He realized he had no choice now but to jump. He crawled to the side of what was left of the war-dirigible and threw himself far out into the cold, deep air.
At first Remembrance tumbled wildly, as the air was too thin to give his wings a grip. But he eventually managed to spread them wide enough so he could at least guide himself in the direction of the convoy of blimps he’d spotted a few minutes before, and simultaneously away from the mountain slopes.
The leading blimp, barely more than a dot at this height, was just passing
between two of Darkwater’s tallest Hive Towers. The rest of them – no doubt slaved to the first – followed it between the towers in a snake-like motion.
The freezing air tore at Remembrance as he dropped, and he fought the black numbness that was once again threatening to overwhelm him. The wound sliced between his wings had become a hot line of insistent pain.
He twisted around to look above him and felt little surprise when he spied a tiny dot far above, but growing rapidly closer. Another Bandati, using his wings not to slow his rate of descent -but to increase it.
It could only be Honeydew.
Remembrance recalled what the corrupt security agent had told him, how young Bandati – some young enough to have only just earned their reproductive rights by flying up to the platforms dotting the tower walls – liked to leap from the mountain’s tallest escarpments. Assuming they didn’t lose consciousness on the way down, they would try and brake their terrifying descent as close to the ground as possible.
The mortality rate was high and the sport was barely legal, yet what Honeydew had said made it clear he’d had some experience of it. In which case, the Immortal Light agent had a distinct advantage.
The blimps already looked a lot closer than only seconds before. Densely populated urban areas extended between the towers of the city, and he could see the low roofs of the alien quarter where the non-Bandati population had set up home. The river, fed by its tributaries, flowed through it all calmly on its way to the ocean.
He was still dropping too fast, but even if he did manage to brake himself, it would merely allow Honeydew to catch up sooner. The Immortal Light agent was getting closer and closer, swooping from side to side in a manoeuvre Remembrance had never witnessed before.
Remembrance spread his wings wide at the last moment before Honeydew reached him, angling into the air to drastically cut his velocity of descent. As he suddenly pulled up, Honeydew overshot him, wasting precious seconds before he managed to spread his wings wide and brake.
Ground and sky whirled around Remembrance as the air caught his wings sharply, agonizing pain flooding through his back and the roots of his wings.
By the time he stabilized his descent, the distance between himself and Honeydew had opened up considerably. But they were both still dropping too fast. Bandati wings were designed for short hops relatively close to the ground in a dense atmosphere, not for high-speed plummets through rarefied mountain air.
He saw the hollow peak of a Hive Tower far below, and could just make out the buildings sitting on the platforms protruding from its sides. He briefly entertained the notion of aiming for one of them, but at the rate he was moving, and given his injuries, there was a pretty good chance he’d just end up getting himself killed.
The cargo blimps still presented a marginally better target. Remembrance tensed as he dropped towards one of them, and he tried tacking from side to side in the same way he’d seen Honeydew do.
In the last few seconds of his descent he heard a soft percussive sound, faint with distance.
A flash of light dazzled him and he twisted around, panicking. Another war-dirigible – identical to the one he’d just escaped from – had appeared from around the far side of the Tower he’d thought of aiming for. More flashes of light erupted from the direction of its gondola, and heat and flame exploded around Remembrance.
He twisted as he hit the upper surface of a cargo blimp, hard, and rolled and bounced before he managed to grab onto some netting, half-blinded by the flash of the force cannon. He crouched there, head pressed against the gas cells beneath the netting, waiting for the powerful throb in his veins to pass. If he wasn’t careful he was going to pass out, and then all his effort at staying alive would be in vain.
He pulled his head back up and saw Honeydew as the agent staggered upright on the next blimp along. Clearly, the Immortal Light agent’s own landing had been far from easy, too. He started flexing and straightening his wings, while examining them over his shoulders, checking for damage. Remembrance did the same, testing his wings while favouring the one that had been wounded.
He then glanced towards the approaching war-dirigible, just as two puffs of smoke emerged from the side of its gondola.
Remembrance ran along the top of his blimp and took to the air again, lifting off just as the first of two incendiary rockets struck the point where he’d been standing. The blimp was transformed into a ball of blazing fire and began to come apart, dropping towards the city below with shocking speed. He flew as vigorously as he could towards another blimp, but heading away from Honeydew.
The air was now dense enough to support him in flight, yet the question remained whether he had enough strength even to glide down to the streets below. His body normally could only power itself in short bursts of flight, and he’d used up too much strength in the thin mountain air.
Then, at last, came the first sign of hope.
As he touched down on another blimp, he felt so utterly weary that he seriously doubted his chances of evading capture or death. A second war-dirigible suddenly appeared from between two Hive Towers about half a kilometre distant: patterns of light flickering along the rim of the new arrival’s gondola – the familiar identification code of his own Darkening Skies hive.
The cavalry had arrived, and not a moment too soon.
The Immortal Light dirigible was close enough now for him to hear its commander shouting orders to his underlings. It started to tack towards the Darkening Skies dirigible, but not before it had fired a second set of incendiaries at Remembrance. He took off again as the missiles wove lazy arcs through the thick air, before slamming into the blimp.
Every beat of his wings now felt like it was tearing at their connective tissues, and he realized his time might well be numbered in seconds. He reached back and unsheathed his shotgun, taking aim at the figures in the enemy gondola that were so intent on killing him. But he was starting to lose focus, his vision suddenly blurring; and after a moment he couldn’t even see well enough to take aim.
He shook his head and his sight cleared a little, then he swooped in a long arc towards the Immortal Light war-dirigible with the last of his strength, seeing the weapons mounted on the sides of its gondola track him even as he flew. He felt a flash of hot pain in one wing and knew he’d been hit once more, but didn’t bother to check how badly.
Instead he reached into a harness pocket and pulled out a fresh round, fumbling it into his shotgun and taking wild aim at his would-be assassins.
The shot might have found its target, or it might as easily have gone wildly astray. He was dimly aware that the battle was being closely observed from the tiers and platforms of nearby towers, even as he flew towards what was probably certain death. Or it might have all been a hallucination born of fatigue and blood-loss.
He swooped upwards at the last moment, pulling himself on top of the Immortal Light war-dirigible. It was just a temporary plan, one that might buy him a moment or two. He was, after all, an easy target for any enemy sniper who cared to pick him off from any one of a hundred nearby platforms that bore witness to his struggles.
The shotgun slipped from his hands and he fell face-first onto one of the gas cells, the breath rasping in his throat.
A shadow floated across Remembrance’s face. I’ve been caught, he thought. Or perhaps it was the Queen of Queens come to collect him for his final journey to the shadow-world.
Instead, heavy-winged shapes thumped onto the same hardened fabric and netting on which he lay exhausted, and he felt long, fur-covered hands reach down and lift him up. They bore him aloft, and the sound of their wings beating in the thick, honeyed air was strangely comforting.
In his last moments of consciousness, he recognized the scent of his fellow Darkening Skies Hive-members, who had come for him at last.
Three
The next time Dakota woke was to find herself bound to a rusted gurney, her ankles and wrists held in place by tight straps.
For the first time in w
eeks, her mind felt clear and she remembered everything in appalling, grisly detail: Nova Arctis, Corso, and the escape from the exploding supernova against impossible odds.
Everything.
She had lashed the Piri Reis to a derelict alien starship and carried out a superluminal jump, trusting to fate as to where they would emerge. In fact, they had dropped back into normal space near a Bandati colony world occupied for longer than human civilization had existed.
Dakota stared up into a vast shaft filled with light and air, a circle of sky visible far, far overhead. An airship constructed of bulbous gas bags, with a gondola suspended beneath, ponderously made its way upwards from the floor of the shaft towards that distant circle of sky.
Balconies were placed around the shaft’s interior, seeming to blur together the further up she looked. There was plant-life everywhere, a riot of red and green in more or less equal measures, virtually a vertical forest growing out of the shaft’s walls; and buzzing through it all, hundreds upon hundreds of Bandati making short hops from balcony to balcony.
But more importantly – much, much more importantly – she sensed the thoughts of the derelict starship they had recovered from Nova Arctis for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, like a whisper barely heard through the wall of an adjoining room. Her machine-head implants were still inextricably linked to this ancient craft, and it was clear to her how severely it had been damaged.
The gurney was angled so that her head was raised higher than her feet, and she twisted her head around to try and see her more immediate surroundings. She took in the details through a panic-stricken haze, her heart hammering and adrenalin flooding her brain.
A variety of robot arms tipped with sensors, along with one or two sharp-looking blades, sprouted from a machine attached to one side of the gurney. The skin of her naked belly tightened with terror at the thought of what might be intended for her.