Somehow, her own ship held together. She watched as others spiralled out of control, streaking to their doom like silver shooting stars plummeting through the clouds. Voices sang in Dakota’s mind, compelling her downwards, careless of the dangers.
Below lay a Freehold settlement called Port Gabriel, situated on one of the many tributaries of the mighty Ka River which bisected the continent. Her Ghost circuits reminded her that Cardinal Point still lay at least a thousand kilometres to the east. But that was no longer her destination.
The angel’s blazing sword pointed instead to Port Gabriel, beckoning like a divine general leading an army of holy warriors into battle. Around her, the dropship’s comms equipment buzzed and flashed as Orbital Command desperately tried to reassert their authority over the fleet.
Except the Consortium had now become the enemy-had always been the enemy, if only she’d been able to see it. The other surviving machine-heads in the fleet were reactivating their Ghost links via an ad hoc network that rerouted past Orbital Command and the Circus Ring.
Dakota was distantly aware of the tumult of Freehold troops trapped in the rear of her dropship, desperately trying to bypass the lock on the cockpit door. Barely coherent threats and pleas went unnoticed as she dived towards a range of mountains extending to the west of Port Gabriel.
The dropship attempted to engage automatic emergency descent protocols in response to her suicidal plummet. It thinks I’ve been injured or compromised, Dakota realized. Instead, she had never been happier.
The dropship faded away completely, and she was back in the same marketplace that had featured regularly in her dreams. Angels drifted past, some as lofty as the clouds, unseen by the oblivious human masses passing by them.
There was something she was supposed to know. It came to her now: Banville, the scientist, architect of Bellhaven’s machine-head development programme, had willingly and happily joined with the Uchidans.
This brief moment of revelation was followed by an equally brief stab of doubt. A spark of reason contradicted angelic command. What if the angel isn’t real? What if it’s some hallucination from my implants? What if Banville gave the Uchidans something they could use to compromise me, make me believe something I… something I wouldn’t…
That light of reason flickered and died. She was back in the dropship cockpit, the ground rushing towards her at a terrifying velocity.
She never recalled the impact.
Consciousness returned only slowly.
Dakota coughed, feeling dizzy and ill. A black weight built up in her lungs. Can’t breathe. Realizing the hull had been breached, she fumbled frantically for her respirator mask. She pulled it over her mouth and nose, inhaling in short, steady gasps.
Close. Very close. She couldn’t have been out for more than a few moments, but any longer and she might well have suffocated. That she was still alive was in itself a miracle of chance.
Dakota moved carefully, probing herself for broken bones or other injuries. The dropship was lying at an angle, so that she herself was tipped over, still locked into her seat, at an angle of about forty degrees. Her biomed monitors informed her she had a fracture in her ribs. Gel impact pads had blossomed out to cushion her body, but had now deflated, the soft fabric of the pads lying empty and forlorn across her lap and legs. They’d helped save her life.
Dakota unlocked her seat restraints and tumbled out. She could hear the sound of wind blowing. Her eyes were dazzled by a sliver of bright sunlight coming through an enormous rent in the side of the cockpit.
She found the manual switch for the emergency exit and watched as a panel slid away in the cockpit’s ceiling. Moving carefully, she lifted herself through it and saw the craft had gouged a hole in the frozen soil, thirty metres in length, a long black scar that intersected a narrow highway crossing a flat plain of snow and rock, but scattered with the vast plumes of canopy trees further away towards the horizon.
Frozen air assaulted Dakota’s lungs. She scanned the horizon, feeling the whip of frigid wind over her stubbled scalp. Black columns of smoke rose up towards the sky from downed dropships all around. In the distance she could see the tented buildings and ‘scrapers of Port Gabriel, and the winding curve of the river it stood next to.
The ad hoc Ghost network, of which she was now part, informed her how many serving God’s purpose had survived the impacts, reminding her that those who died would now be safe in God’s embrace. And before too long, Dakota would join them in eternity. The knowledge filled her heart with gladness.
In the meantime, she was in danger of freezing to death, as her suit might insulate her, but not indefinitely. She reached into pockets provided on the hips and shins of her suit and pulled out high-quality survival gear, composed of super-thin fabrics designed to keep her insulated and alive. Last of all, she pulled the hood over her head, and down over the top of her gee suit.
Next, she checked her weapon. She had heard voices coming from the rear of the dropship, so there were survivors among the Freeholders.
She noticed that her dropship, too, was sending its own thick, black contrail of death spiralling into the sky. She strode past the ruined command module, in which the cockpit was located, heading for the rear of the craft.
Pausing, she saw the command module had been largely torn away from the rest of the ship.
Hearing more voices, she kept going and, as she came aft, she saw several figures struggling out through another emergency exit. Shouting and calling to each other, they were intent on lowering bodies to the ground from inside the ship. She’d had two dozen Freehold assault troops on board, and it appeared the majority of them were now either dead or severely injured. Bodies lay everywhere, many without breather masks.
Soot-smudged faces looked towards her and gestured, calling out to her, anger clear in their voices. In the distance, far beyond, the angel strode the earth once more. It rose even higher than the mountains, gathering the souls of the fallen.
The Freeholders shouting to her appeared unaware of its presence, and Dakota felt sorry for them.
‘How many survivors?’ she called out, approaching at a brisk pace.
‘What the hell happened back there?’ one man screamed, his face contorted with fury. He rose from kneeling over one of the bodies, and came towards her, his hands bunched into fists. Blood streaked his face where it wasn’t hidden by the breather mask.
‘Some kind of systems error,’ she replied, trying to inject just the right tone of concern and despair into the words. ‘Orbital Command’s override systems must have been compromised in some way. How many survivors?’