The colonel swung quickly in towards them. — You all right, major? she signalled, stopping immediately outside, buffeted by the slipstream. She tipped to look at the device lying rolling on the clear curved floor of the box.
— Shit, she sent. — That looks like one of ours. There was a white flash, as though from everywhere at once, blinding Fassin for an instant. As the light faded Hatherence was already falling away, tumbling like a dropped stone through the gas. Something moved, faster than the GasClippers, across the StormWall face, carving in towards the Blimper.
When the colonel had fallen twenty metres below the private box, a line of searing yellow-white light flicked into existence between the incoming machine and Hatherence’s esuit, which erupted in fire and blew apart. The fast-moving device looked like a small gascraft or missile, sharp and finned. Its exhaust flared bright as it powered round.
Fassin looked down to see Hatherence. She was a dark, ragged manta shape falling, whirling downwards amongst the smoking debris of the destroyed esuit. She seemed to twist in the air, flicking round, something glinting in a stubby tentacle; a violet beam lanced towards the finned craft, missing by a metre. Another white line from the machine speared the colonel, obliterating her in a sun-bright burst of light.
Valseir had cleared the access tube. Fassin blasted up it like a shell up a gun barrel, letting the pulse of down draught tear the diamond bubble box out in a convulsive explosion of wreckage that whipped away from the Dzunda and followed the remains of the colonel and her esuit towards the storm’s concave base and the Depths beyond.
Valseir was waiting in the broad corridor above. “Fassin! What is going on?”
“How do we get off this thing?” he asked, taking the old Dweller by the hub-arm and leading him towards the next vertical access.
“Do we really need to?”
“Something’s attacking us, Valseir.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. So how do we get off?”
“What’s wrong with roting?”
“Bit vulnerable. I was thinking of a craft.”
“Well, I’m sure we can arrange a taxi. Or one of the Blimper’s own skiffs. I’ll ask Captain Xessife.”
“No,” Fassin said. “Not Captain Xessife.”
“Why not?”
“Somebody had to put that drug bowl there.”
They got to the vertical. “But…’ Valseir hesitated. “Wait, what’s that noise?”
Fassin could hear a deep warbling sound coming from various directions. “That could be an alarm.” He indicated the tube above. “After you. Let’s move.”
They were halfway up the vertical to the central corridor when the Dzunda lurched. “Oh-oh,” Valseir said.
“Keep going.”
When they got to the main concourse, the alarm noise was louder. Dwellers were shouting at each other, picking up dropped trays, food and drugs and staring at some of the wall-screens. Fassin looked too. “Oh fuck,” he said quietly.
The screens showed confused pictures of the surroundings, not all the cameras and screens now focusing on the still continuing GasClipper race. One camera seemed to be following a slim, finned craft, the one which had attacked Hatherence, as it circled the Blimper.
Other screens showed ships, dozens of dark ships, dropping from the sky.
They were gas-capable Mercatoria spacecraft, some as little as fifty metres long, others three or four times that size; soot-black ellipsoids with thick wings and sleek but rudimentary tailplanes and engine pods. They were diving towards the Blimper fleet, two or three peeling off every vertical klick or so to circle, guarding. Much higher above — another snatched camera angle, drifting out of focus then snapping clear more slick shapes gyrated above the high haze layer, like scavengers over carrion.
Another screen’s view spun, then settled, jerking, on the spec-tating fleet’s accompanying Dreadnought, the Puisiel, whose turrets were swinging, gun barrels elevating. A yellow white beam flicked on and off, boring straight through the war craft, making it shudder and sending shock waves running along its outer fabric. The beam hit the Storm Wall beyond at almost the same time, raising a dark puff of vapour like a bruise, quickly whipped away. The GasClippers seemed to have disappeared. “What in all the gods’ farts is going on?” Valseir asked. They had come to a stop, transfixed by the screens like most of the rest of the people in the concourse.
The Puisiel’s turrets and guns continued to swing round for a moment, then came to rest, seemingly pointing in random directions.
“Oh, don’t,” Fassin said.
The Dreadnought’s guns flashed, gouting fire and smoke. Smaller shapes dropped away from it at the same time, half obscured by the wreathing broadside smoke clouds, and then pulsed fire and smoke from their rears and started curving up and out towards the dropping spacecraft. Screens blinked. The dark, descending spacecraft glittered with light. Midway between the Puisiel and the scatter of black ships, piercing white lines ended in sudden detonations, filling the gas above and around the spectating fleet with black bursts of smoke.
A screen swung to show one turning spacecraft dropping, trailing smoke. Dwellers started yelling. Trays, food, drugs and pet-children were sent flying, carapace skins blazed naked signals of excitement and fury and whiffs of war-lust filled the air as though a series of tiny scent-grenades had gone off along the concourse. A black dot trailing a haze of exhaust sailed in towards the crippled spacecraft but was picked off from above in a blast of light. Then something still smaller and faster darted across the screen and hit the ship, detonating inside and tearing it entirely in half; the two torn sections flew down towards the Depths, dangled on elongating strings of smoke. The other missiles were picked off even more easily, swatted like slow insects.
Fassin started pulling Valseir away. Dwellers all around them howled and barked at the screens and started taking bets. Distant concussive thumps and longer roars sounded throughout the concourse, bringing the long-delayed battle sounds to accompany the near-instant visuals.
Dark glitterings, everywhere. The Dreadnought lit up all along its length, speckled with fire. The beams lanced it, plunging on into the Storm Wall, freckling bruises across the stir of dark gas. About a third of a last broadside, most of it aimed at where the fallen spaceship had been, punched out from the Puisiel a fraction of a second before the first beams hit. The great vessel shook like a leaf in a storm, then started to drop even as further rays riddled it. A final beam, less bright, much broader, punched through the whole central section, folding the craft about its middle and sending it flowing and spiralling downwards. A few tiny double discs drifted away from the stricken war craft and roted away or just fell, some trailing smoke. Some were hit by further beams of light, vanishing in miniature explosions.
“Valseir, move,” Fassin whispered in the sudden silence. “We have to get away. Just get to the outside.” They were almost level with a 45° up-access tube. Fassin nudged Valseir towards it. “This way.” He didn’t even know if they really should get away. Maybe they were still somehow safer here in the Blimper. At least closer to the outside they might have more choice.
Valseir allowed himself to be pushed towards the slope of the access tube. The lowest part of the fleet of dark ships was now almost level with the top of the spectating fleet. Howls started to fill the concourse. Fassin and Valseir were being held back from the tube entrance by a stream of Dwellers coming in the other direction.
Fassin continued to push the old Dweller, though they both kept looking back at the screens. One of the dark ships circled gradually closer to the Storm Wall. Near its closest approach, a GasClipper came hurtling out of the dark curtain of whirling gas, blade sails extended like a frozen gleaming explosion. It rammed the dark warship amidships, hammering into it and pushing the two craft across the sky in a single tangled flailing mass. Still locked in their terrible embrace, the two craft started to fall away with everything else, heading for the foot of the storm’s great dark well and the hot crush of gas beneath.