Flight Seven Nine Three, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
The first thing Hamilton noticed when he entered the cockpit and stood beside the pilot was that Ling (he knew, at some level, that Ling was being teleoperated but still thought of the body as Ling's) was crying, tears coursing down her cheeks in an endless flood. Retief was sitting next to the pilot in the copilot's chair.
"I'm sorry if-"
– "I need you to set me down," Hamilton answered. "There's one of our team still on the ground, at an-Nessang."
"Not going to happen," the pilot answered. "I've lost so much lift that it's-no pun intended-up in the air as to whether I'll be able to make it across the lake to Switzerland. If I waste the altitude I've got I won't make it across."
"Fuck!" Hamilton exclaimed. "Parachutes?"
"Civilian airliners don't carry chutes," Retief answered. "Bad for passenger morale, don't you know."
"I've got to get on the ground," Hamilton insisted. "If things had gone according to plan I'd have driven away from the castle-"
"Things never do," the pilot said.
Retief thought about that for a moment, then said, "There is a way but-"
"What is it, man?"
"We've got the winches to hold the ship down when it's landed and the winds are high. But they don't have much cable to them."
"How much is 'not much'? Can they reach to the ground?"
"What's our altitude over ground?" Retief asked the pilot.
"About three hundred feet. It's staying pretty stable for now, since the ground is descending slightly."
"Not enough," Retief answered. "Can you make a thirty or forty foot jump?"
Shit, my knees.
"Not a lot of choice," Hamilton answered.
"Not a lot of time, either," The pilot commented, looking at the map on his navigation screen. "I'm having to balance lift from speed with loss of buoyancy from air pressure forcing lifting gas out. It's a bitch! Then again, I am the best. An-Nessang in… call it… oh, about five minutes… a little less."
"Fuck it," Hamilton said to Retief. "Let's do it."
"Any particular direction from the town you want to be dropped off?" the pilot asked, as Hamilton and Retief exited the cockpit.
"Right over it, if you can," Hamilton answered over his shoulder. "Maybe I'll luck out and find a soft roof about twenty feet below."
"Stand on the hook," Retief said.
Hamilton looked at the thing dubiously. Not that the hook didn't look strong; it was huge and solid. Rather, he was thinking of what it would do to his head if it ever connected on a free swing. Still, it was the only way down. Hamilton took off his armor-he was going to hit with more than enough kinetic energy as was; to allow that piece's weight to add to it was borderline suicidal-and passed it over to Retief. He then stepped off of the deck, placing one foot, and then another, on the hook. His hands wrapped around the cable. The cable was so thick that his fingers didn't touch his thumbs.
Hamilton threw his head back, then slammed his chin down to his chest, knocking the night vision goggles over his eyes.
"Let me down," he shouted to Retief, even as the latter opened the hatchway below to allow the hook to be lowered. Hamilton had to shout as the inrushing air drowned out normal sound.
The winch started with a squeal and a shudder. Fortunately, the Boer Republic of South Africa, whatever its other flaws, did maintain its equipment. After that initial shudder, the machine operated smoothly, lowering Hamilton into the blast. Unfortunately, however, the hook was free spinning to allow fixing at any angle on the ground. Hamilton spun and swayed without control. This was bad, very bad, as he needed to see ahead to mark his landing spot. The spin threatened to make him ill. It absolutely made him want to close his eyes but that would never do.
Fuckfuckfuckfuck. How do I control this?
Experimentally, and not without a certain feeling of terror, Hamilton took one hand off the cable-the hand opposite the direction of his spin-and thrust that arm outward. The spin reversed itself.
Oh, oh. Too much. He pulled the arm partway in, reducing the cross section. There; that's better. And there's the town and… ohhh, shit, we're moving faster than I thought.
Hamilton put both hands back on the cable and lifted his feet off of the hook. He began to scuttle his hands down the gable. After three such releases and regraspings, his left hand lost its hold and he fell.
"Ohhh… shshshiiittt!" an-Nessang, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
Petra was slowly freezing solid. She was, in fact, certain she would die of the cold. Yes, she had her burka and, true, she was under a blanket. Yet there are some colds, and Germany's cold in the early autumn morning was one such, that no practical amount of insulation alone would help.
Intellectually she knew that she could start the car and get some heat that way. The keys were, after all, under the driver's seat and she had seen the car started before. It was just a matter of putting in the key and turning it. But an idling automobile was a guaranteed attention gatherer. Too, she could get out of the car and try to exercise to put some warmth back in her limbs. But if an idling automobile in twenty-second-century Germany was an attention gatherer, how much more so would be a woman in a burka doing jumping jacks? It was a formidable problem that she settled by simply remaining in the car and shivering as her limbs slowly went numb. The steel of the bolt cutters clutched in her arms didn't help.
Hamilton felt a wrenching pain in his left knee as he hit the rooftop and rolled to his left side. Almost, he screamed of it. For a brief moment, even, he felt the urge to cry over it.
That urge passed, surpassed by the greater need to find Petra and bring her to safety. He arose to hands and- oh, my frigging God!knees, and then to both feet. His first steps were awkward. Very nearly he stumbled over. Still, by keeping his leg stiff he was able, if barely, to remain upright.
First thing is I've got to get off of the roof. Hmmm… no fire escape. There's that shedlike thing though; it may be stairs.
Hamilton walked over stiffly, wincing from pain, and determined that, yes, the shed covered some stairs. He descended one step at a time, careful to keep his left leg stiff. At the bottom, he discovered a latched gate. He opened and left, emerging onto a street he didn't recognize.
He had a fair innate sense of direction. Hauptstrasse's over there, he thought. And from there I can find the car and, I hope, Petra.
Flight Seven Nine Three, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
"I hope to fuck we can shake them," the pilot said to no one in particular.
"Shake who?" Retief, now returned to the cockpit, asked. He noticed that the pilot's cheeks were wet, but that no tears flowed for the moment.
"Shanghai informs me we've got four fighters inbound in a couple of minutes. There are more after that."
Retief shook his head. "Shaking them isn't going to happen. But they're going to have problems lining up on us without violating Swiss airspace." Sitting in the copilot's seat, he reached for a headset and put it on. Then he adjusted a dial on the control panel, flicked a switch, and began to broadcast.
"Swiss Airspace Control, Swiss Airspace controclass="underline" This is South African Airship Lines Flight Seven Nine Three. We are inbound to cross your borders bearing about three hundred escaped slaves, mostly children, from the Caliphate. We demand sanctuary under the laws of God and man. We are being pursued by jet fighters from the Caliphate. If you are still true Swiss, help us."
"Think it will work?" the pilot asked.
"Think it will hurt?"
"No, but those will."
As the pilot spoke a dual line of tracers crossed in front of the airship, to be followed by the sharklike image of a fighter.
A voice came over the cabin's loudspeaker. It was a woman's voice, throaty and, for some other man, inherently sexy. "Flight Seven Nine Three this is Swiss Airspace Control. We cannot cross the border to help you. But if you can make it halfway across Lake Constance we will escort. Moreover, if the Caliphate fires across that border we will engage them to defend Swiss sovereignty. Understand, you will be interned once you land… if you land."