by Mike Sheriff
“Thank Sha you came along,” Cordelia said. “We’ve been tarrying here in the dark for ages.”
“Are you in need of assistance?” the driver asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Daoren said.
The driver whipped his head around. His Slavvic eyes widened.
Laoshi yanked open the driver’s door. “Forgive us our trespasses, but we need this levitran more than you.”
Daoren hauled the startled Slavv from his seat. The man offered a string of profane epithets—but no resistance—before scurrying to the side of the transway.
Laoshi and Cordelia climbed into the WhisperDart’s back seat. Heqet slid into the passenger seat. Daoren had one foot inside the levitran when two southbound vehicles rounded the curve to the north.
Two pairs of forelights rode high above the transway, spaced far apart. They belonged to bulky vehicles—the kind favored by the Jireni.
Daoren jumped aboard and shoved the mid-console throttle-control forward. The WhisperDart accelerated, pressing him into his seat. “Is that a Jireni patrol behind us?”
“I can see gun turrets!” Laoshi said.
Daoren cursed and inched the throttle forward. The WhisperDart reached the southern borough and raced up a ramp, streaking through one hundred miles an hour. Airstream sluiced over the windshield, its whine building to a ferocious howl.
“They’re accelerating!” Laoshi called out from the back seat.
Daoren kept his gaze fixed on the transway. He patted the dash, feeling for boost levers. He couldn’t locate any. “Heqet! Can you see any boost levers?”
Heqet leaned toward the dash. “There’s a bunch of levers for the hydrogen-infusion cells and ballast. There’s another four levers beside them that aren’t marked!”
“Try them!”
She flicked the levers in series. Four clunks rattled the hullform, confirming the activation of high-pressure reserve tanks. The WhisperDart discovered four new gears, surging through one hundred-fifty miles an hour in a heartbeat. Heqet white-knuckled the dash.
“They’re still closing!” Laoshi said. “Two levicarts, fifty feet behind us!”
“Faster, Daoren!” Cordelia said.
Daoren grimaced; they’d maxed out the WhisperDart’s speed. He nudged the control yoke, navigating a winding ramp on the thinnest threshold of control. Structures bracketing the transway streaked past, façades a smear of mirrored glass. The WhisperDart’s front quarter grazed a guardrail stanchion on the outside of the turn. Its grating screech prompted a wince. The errant contact also shaved ten-mile-an-hour off their speed.
“They’re training their turrets!” Laoshi said.
Daoren scanned for an off-ramp. Guardrails lined the transway, blocking access to the east-west transways fifty feet below. Helplessness seared his throat; there was no way to—
Compressed air blasted from the forward grill and streamed over the windshield. The WhisperDart nosed over and decelerated.
Daoren pitched forward. He glanced at the mid-console.
Heqet’s hand gripped the throttle, locking it in the rearmost position.
His stunned gaze found her. “What are you—”
The crunch of a collision cut him off.
Beyond Heqet, reflected in a mirrored façade, he glimpsed a levicart’s snubbed nose riding up onto the WhisperDart’s raised rear end. The nose fluttered in the airstream, flirting with the angle of attack needed to generate lift, and rotated skyward. The vehicle flipped end over end and cartwheeled along the transway, throwing off mangled armor panels and flailing Jireni. The trailing levicart careened into the wreckage. It slewed sideways and spun into the air, corkscrewing through the mirrored façade with a nerve-jangling crash.
Daoren blinked, unsure whether he’d imagined the carnage. Heqet’s quick-thinking had erased the threat in less than three seconds.
She rammed the throttle forward. The WhisperDart resumed its southbound flight.
Laoshi’s clapping cut through the wind noise. “Sapient Sha, that was a well-executed maneuver!”
Daoren glanced at Heqet. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Heqet shrugged and gave him a coy smile. “It seemed like the most logical thing to do.”
Daoren chucklebucked. He wished he’d thought of it.
AN HOUR AND fifteen minutes later, Daoren let go of the fence and dropped seven feet onto the grounds of the southern aerodrome. His quantum tile jostled free on the landing.
He caught it before it hit the ground, muttering under his breath. The smaller, non-malleable model kept working itself loose from his tunic’s interior pocket. He slipped the bothersome tile into a less roomy exterior pocket on his waist and looked up.
Heqet perched atop the fence, frozen against the star-filled sky. She teetered, gazing down at him with tremulous eyes.
“Let go,” he whispered. “I’ll catch you.”
She let go and fell into his arms with a jarring oomph.
He held her in an awkward embrace. The unblemished scent of her skin filled his nose—as rare and refreshing as a rain shower. The vivid patter of her heart resonated in his chest. He didn’t want to let go, but decorum dictated he must.
“My thanks,” she said upon her release. She cocked her head and squinted. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“You look like you want to say something.”
Daoren’s cheeks blazed. He had to turn away.
Laoshi and Cordelia tarried by the corner of a squat structure. They watched the interaction, their bemusement evident despite the shadow. “Whenever you two are ready,” Laoshi whispered.
Daoren welcomed the interruption. He still didn’t know how to broach the subject of Heqet’s kiss. Even if he did, its discussion would require free time and privacy, two elements that had been sorely lacking of late.
He led Heqet from the fence and kneeled beside Laoshi. The vantage point afforded an unhampered view of the aerodrome’s flight line.
Five hundred feet beyond the structure, ten aeroshrikes lined the west side of the field. Their spotlit gas envelopes hovered twenty feet above the ground. They bristled with triple-barreled turrets and multi-bladed airscrews, dwarfing the thirty-odd Jireni milling beneath them. Two hundred feet across the field, a dozen civilian aerostats fronted a line of hangars. The ambient lighting was more subdued, but adequate enough to pick out details.
Laoshi pointed. “That one’s perfect for our needs.”
His outstretched hand trained upon a shabby aerostat, no more than three hundred feet long. It bobbed in the night air, its bulbous gas envelope moored five feet off the ground. A bowl-shaped transmitter bulged from its belly, fifteen feet aft of a windowed control gondola.
“A geology aerostat?” Daoren asked, unable to filter the surprise from his voice.
“Isn’t there a cleaner vessel?” Cordelia asked.
Heqet groaned. “How old is that piece of—”
“Appearance and age aren’t important,” Laoshi said. “Function and destination are supreme. It departs for Egypt at daybreak with a crew of ten silica engineers, and with two Libraria whom I authorized to lead the expedition.”
“And with four additional stowaways?” Elation erased Daoren’s shock. “You arranged the flight a while ago, didn’t you?”
“Clever boy,” Laoshi said with a wink. “I was ready to make this trip on my own. I can’t tell you how delighted I am that the three of you will accompany me. Now we only have to steal ourselves on board and tarry for the crew.”
“And how do we do that?” Cordelia asked.
“By treading carefully,” Laoshi said.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Daoren peered around the corner of a hangar.
The geology aerostat’s stern bobbed fifty feet away—across open ground.
He grimaced. It was a challenging fifty feet to transit. Light that had seemed subdued from the fence-line proved glaring up close, its luminance compounded by the white-ceramic slab
s covering the aerodrome’s surface and the brightening eastern sky. Across the flight line, Jireni continued to wander beneath the aeroshrikes.
The longer Daoren studied them, the more his mood lifted. Their movements appeared random. The occasional conversation drifted over, specific words lost to the distance, but the men and women displayed no obvious interest in this side of the field.
He waved the others closer. “The Jireni aren’t especially alert. We should be fine so long as we’re quick and quiet. Laoshi will take the lead and lower the access ramp. I’ll bring up the rear. Any questions?”
There were none.
“Let’s go!”
Laoshi led the hunchbacked dash for the aerostat’s stern. At the rear, Daoren monitored the Jireni across the field, alert for signs of compromise. He was ten feet from the access ramp when his quantum tile jostled free from his waist pocket. He grabbed for it.
The tile bobbled from hand to hand like a shower-slick bar of pumiceglass. It squirted from his fingers and dropped to the slabbed surface. Its clatter rivaled a klaxon.
He winced and stooped to scoop the tile on the run. His sandal connected first. The tile skittered another ten feet, clicking and clacking all the way.
Shouts of alarm punched across the field. Daoren cursed and abandoned the tile. He dashed to the aerostat’s stern.
Laoshi typed the entry code into a panel. Heqet and Cordelia bunched behind him, panting down his neck. The access ramp lowered with a weary sigh.
More shouts carried over, louder this time. Heavy footfalls and rattling body armor accompanied them.
“Can you get us into the air?” Daoren asked.
“In one minute!” Laoshi said. He dashed up the ramp, followed by Heqet and Cordelia.
Daoren loitered at its base. He glanced across the field.
Thirty armed Jireni charged his way.
He leaned inside and yelled up the ramp. “Thirty seconds would be better!”
6
Taking Flight
LAOSHI POWERED UP the console in the center of the aerostat’s control gondola. He swiped his fingers over its main screen, activating two levels of ancillary screens on either side. They traced the console’s semi-circular surface like a set of blue-white teeth. Their iridescent glow illuminated a matte-gray, twenty-by-twenty-foot space.
He hadn’t been on a geology aerostat in over twenty years. The last silica-sourcing expedition he’d accompanied had ventured beyond the Great Eastern Regolith. It had been cut short by the arrival of three mongrel gunships. Evading them had taken six days, during which he’d logged more than twenty-four hours at the aerostat’s helm. The details of the pursuit were still etched in his memory. The same couldn’t be said for the vessel’s instruments.
Fortunately, the gondola’s layout demanded minimal familiarity. It boasted one centralized console for navigating the vessel, a smaller aft-mounted console for operating the echolocation transmitter, and a sprinkling of workstations along the port and starboard bulkheads for analyzing data. Its simplicity translated into rapid system activation.
Heqet and Cordelia rushed past him on their way to the forward windows. They thudded to a stop and gazed through the glass.
“They’re getting closer!” Cordelia said.
“How close?”
“One hundred feet!” Heqet said.
He opened the propulsion screen. After a moment’s searching, he activated the twin airscrews with a single tap. Their out-of-phase thrum induced harmonic vibrations in the deck. The airscrews automatically matched speed and synchronized blade pitch. The vibrations stopped. “How close?”
“Fifty feet!” Cordelia said.
Laoshi skimmed a multitude of tabs on the maneuvering screen. He selected the mooring tab and traced a finger down its array of commands. It wasn’t there. He opened the tab’s second screen and skimmed another interminable array. Where in the name of Sha was the command to retract the mooring cables?
“Grandfather! Hurry!”
He found the command and tapped the screen. A thunk echoed through the gondola.
DAOREN STEPPED ONTO the access ramp the instant the mooring cables retracted. He lifted a hand to the interior panel to raise the ramp. A cold flush stilled his finger.
He didn’t know the code.
He cursed the oversight. The aerostat edged forward at a walking pace, bobbing in the air, seeking equilibrium. Its twin airscrews throbbed and moaned as if protesting the effort. “Come on . . .” he said, willing the vessel to rise.
The aerostat picked up speed, but barely achieved a brisk jog. The ground receded, inch by agonizing inch. At this rate, they’d be lucky to clear the aeroshrikes on the far side of the flight line.
“Come on!”
A few feet to the left, a dusky blur caught his eye.
A Jiren jumped onto the ramp and stumbled to his knees. He raised a sonic rifle and trained its barrel on Daoren.
On instinct, Daoren raised his foot and drove the sole of his sandal into the Jiren’s face. The brute rolled backward off the ramp.
Two more Jireni clambered aboard. One aimed her dart gun.
Daoren dove for its barrel and wrenched it toward the ramp’s opening. The weapon recoiled, firing an extended volley.
Multiple darts impacted the aerodrome’s slabbed surface amid a cluster of Jireni, ten feet below. They scattered for their lives, fumbling their weapons.
Daoren yanked the gun barrel and jerked the Jiren closer. Their foreheads met with a sickening crack.
White spots exploded in Daoren’s field of vision. He staggered backward.
The Jiren tottered on the ramp’s lip, blood trickling from a split eyebrow. She tumbled into space, taking her dart gun with her.
Daoren wobbled, dazed from the blow. He reeled back from the ramp’s opening.
Ten feet away, the sole remaining Jiren leveled his dart gun. The Asianoid sneered, the viciousness heightened by an upper lip that must have been bitten off and reattached in haste. “Are you ready to meet Sha, the Sapient, Heuristic, and Adaptive, slag?”
Daoren tensed, anticipating the volley of darts that would soon penetrate his body.
“Not before you, Jiren!”
He whirled to the resolute shout.
Heqet barreled down the ramp, gripping a grappling hook. She thrust its pointed tip into the Jiren’s groin. He yowled like a teething infant.
Heqet leaned into the grappling hook. She drove forward, snarling and grunting, fueled by a seemingly limitless reservoir of rage.
The yowling Jiren backpedaled off the ramp. Four seconds later, an abrupt crump announced his meeting with the aerodrome’s ceramic slabs.
Heqet stuck her head out of the aerostat and called after him. “How does that taste, glasshole?”
She backed away from the ramp’s opening and gave Daoren a meek shrug.
He stared at her, dazed and awestruck. “I’ve never heard you swear before.”
THE UNUM STOOD by the rim of the sinkhole, staring into the murky abyss.
He could make out a crumpled yellow eave seventy-five feet below and little else. The chaotic rubble bolstered one definitive conclusion; a catastrophic event had occurred below the Temple. Whatever had taken place, it was violent enough to sever contact with the assault force sent into the subterranean site.
The loss of communications carried a small dose of comfort. Everyone caught below the collapse must be dead—the Jireni and their quarry. Not even the ever-resourceful Daoren could outsmart a million tons of falling rock, but the Unum had to be sure. Loose ends had the irksome habit of tightening around throats when least expected.
Nearby, Narses fidgeted beside Julinian, rummaging in his grooll pouch. He drew his hand out empty and extended it to his cousin. “I’m out of grooll. Give me some.”
Julinian rolled her eyes. She passed Narses a handful from her own pouch.
Narses gobbled the pieces. A moan of contentment accompanied each chomp.
The Unum s
avored the ill-mannered munching. At least with his mouth full, Narses couldn’t speak. For the past three hours, he’d groused without interruption about his boredom. Sha could damn the boy’s boredom; they weren’t leaving the Librarium until he confirmed that Daoren’s body lay beneath the rubble. They’d tarry the rest of the day if necessary.
Narses chomping and moaning ceased. “Can we go now?”
“For Sha’s sake, Narses,” Julinian said. “Can you let it rest?”
Narses’ lower lip jutted. He let his frustration be known with a long-winded whine.
“Heed your cousin,” the Unum said. “Patience is a quality you’ll need as ruler.”
Patience, foresight, cunning, courage, and force of will; all were necessary for survival as Unum. In time, Narses might discover the qualities in the depths of his character. Their absence, though painfully evident, wasn’t his fault. Not entirely, at least.
The boy had been sheltered his whole life. His mother’s doting demeanor and the edicts restricting prospects’ movements had stunted his development. Now that he enjoyed the full rights and privileges of denizenship, his shortcomings could be rectified. That was for another day, however. The Unum directed his immediate focus to the Libraria skulking in the shadows.
The Temple’s destruction had brought hundreds out of their living chambers. They surrounded the sinkhole, keeping their distance from the Jireni guard, but their grumblings communicated their discontent without distortion. The volume had steadily increased over the past hour.
Pyros and Commander Cang had been monitoring them with increasing concern before Pyros received a call on his quantum tile. His voice washed over from ten feet away.
“I understand your zeal to pursue them,” Pyros said into his tile, “but hold there until further ordered.”
Pyros leaned toward Cang and exchanged words, then marched over with her. Their taut jawlines implied worry.
A knot of concern tightened in the Unum’s gut. “What news?”
