Nicole followed at a walk. Not to prove a point, but because that was the rhythm called for by the song. She never looked back, because some moments aren’t meant to be witnessed in that way, as great cracks appeared in the brow of the headland. The weight of the Old One combined with the resonance of the song to finish the work begun by the blaster shot. There was another tremendous noise—that should have drowned out the song, but didn’t even come close—the sound of rock tearing, and monstrous chunks of stone tumbled away, so large that anyone watching would have to swear they were moving in slow motion. It was impossible to conceive of anything so big possessing speed.
The tocsin remained, but where its dais ended, so too did the land, in a vertical wall so sheer it might have been carved by a stone mason. The cliff bottomed out in a jumbled scree of slabs, some of whom would be considered fair-sized mountains in their own right. The entire face of the headland was changed and Nicole knew that over succeeding generations—which for the Old Ones could well be measured in geological terms—it would be shaped further, into a fitting memorial for their fallen Elder.
“Something to see,” she told herself.
She found Hana waiting at the ramp, with a flight suit and her leather jacket. Her friend was wearing the pendant earring Nicole had made her.
“Nobody ever listens to me,” Nicole sighed, with a shake of the head.
“And miss all this fun? Perish the thought. Like the look, though.”
“You’re welcome to it, anytime.”
Hana turned serious, while Nicole struggled to pull pants over shoes. “Jenny’s aboard Constitution. We seem to be locked out of their transceiver net, I’m not even getting an acknowledgment of our carrier pattern.”
“They lit the Runway yet?”
“Working on it. And we got the bogies to contend with.”
“We’ll run wavetop underneath ’em. Even if they spot our signature against the ground clutter, the angle will be too extreme to come after us. If they’re Hal, they won’t shoot over water, that’s blasphemy. We’ll cut behind ’em, and initiate our climb. They’ll wait to complete their orbit to stage the intercept.”
“You sound pretty sure, Ace.”
“Hey, if I’m wrong, we’ll adapt.”
Hana held out the fireheart pendant. Nicole hung it from her earlobe, then donned her jacket. Both elements felt right. Hana led the way up the ramp, Nicole right on her heels as the farside engines cycled to speed.
“Ben didn’t cut it, did he?” Hana asked, at the top.
“He was alone. I had help.”
Hana sat right seat on the flight deck, but both knew that when all this was over, it would be Kymri’s place if he wanted it. Hana’s was the chair behind Nicole, where she could cover her back. And Jenny’s a row behind, where she could look after them all, in her own way. Ciari was already plugged into the weapons console. He’d always be welcome, it would always be for a visit. As for the kids, Raqella and Amy had decisions of their own to make, paths a’plenty to choose. For the moment, they were stuck following Nicole’s. What came after was up to them.
She didn’t look back as Sundowner rotated, clearing the cliff line mere seconds after leaving the ground. Nicole eased the yoke forward and pressed gently on the rudder pedals to send the spaceplane into a looping dive out to sea. She stabilized at a hundred meters, ready to drop to thirty if she had to, and cranked the revs until she was a hair below Mach.
“No turb,” she commented, “I’m impressed.”
“The ground is where we live, the sky is our home.” Raqella weakly offered the oldest Hal proverb, from the seat he’d been securely buckled into, right beside Amy.
“Well, kids,” Nicole said, and the pronoun applied to their species as much as themselves. “Past time, I say. we made us a home of our own.”
She opened the throttles to their stops and with a madcap laugh started climbing, the ship responding as if this were the cue it had been waiting for.
Above them, the sky was clear, all the way to the stars.
* * *
Chris Claremont was born in England, but his family emigrated to the United States when he was a small child. He grew up in different parts of the country, living first in Florida and then Colorado, and ultimately going to high school in Long Island, New York. He has a degree in acting from Bard College, in upstate New York, and worked as an actor before turning his full attention to writing. Mad Magazine’s Al Jaffe, who was a friend of the family, got Chris his first internship at Marvel Comics, which opened the door for his career He’s never regretted the decision to leave acting in favor of writing. He is most noted in the comics field as the writer of Marvel’s UncannyX-Men. One of his last issues on that title is currently the best-selling single issue in modern comics history, with sales of nearly eight million copies. At present, he and his wife live in Brooklyn, New York, where they share a brownstone with three cats.
Sundowner Page 40
