There was a grinding noise as glassite and metal twisted around the hairline cracks in the clear panels.
Grimacing, Colmuir punched a locking code into the boat-bay panel on the wall, then ducked around the corner, pistols raised. The deck under his feet shuddered as the lock door began to descend, squealing on long-unused tracks.
The tunnel was empty, but against the thudding backbeat of the now-distant liturgy he could hear the clatter of running feet. Crouched, guns low, Lorne sprinted up the corridor. A steadily brightening light swelled ahead – another boat bay? A lift core?
Almost too late he heard a rush of air behind him and the mosquito whine of an aeropack. The Skawt threw himself down, trying to roll round and bring his guns to bear. Something smashed into his left hand, wrenching the Nambu out of his grasp. The gun ricocheted from the wall of the tunnel with a clang. The other automatic blazed, lighting the corridor with a flare of venting propellant. Tracers stitched across the roof, then rebounded crazily. In the brief illumination, Lorne caught a glimpse of a sleek, seemingly naked woman zipping past.
He rolled up onto his knees, steadying the automatic with both hands for a chase shot, but the flying woman hadn't fled. His chin slammed back, caught by a spinning heel-kick, and he sprawled backwards, skidding across the wet, rusty floor. Gasping, face spattered with blood, Colmuir groped for the automatic.
The woman crossed her arms, grasped something with a metallic clicking sound, and lunged. Lorne blocked sharply, bared hands blurring into an X against her expected punch. A coiled-metal rod lashed against his forearm and the Eagle Knight choked out a gasp as a massive electrical shock flared across his leather-clad arms.
"Uuuuh!" He braced, letting the insulated layer in the armored coat bleed away the current.
In a blur, the shockrod slashed at his head, but by then Colmuir had recovered from the kick. He countered vigorously, smashing aside the blow, off hand clenching to seize a twenty-centimeter combat knife slapped into his palm by the spring-loader strapped to his arm.
He slashed up, trying to catch the underside of her chin with the point, but she was fast – very fast – and sprang back. The aeropack whined again and she was gone, zipping off down the tunnel. "Dosvidanya," she laughed, the sound rolling hollow in the metal corridor.
The master sergeant charged off in pursuit, leading with the knife, right hand scrambling to draw a gun from the small of his back. Behind him, the pressure door made a squeaking sound as the boat bay collapsed, sending hundreds of tons of water smashing against the metal.
Tezozуmoc was still giddy, skin burning, member painfully stiff in his loincloth, when the silver-painted girls dragged him onto a lift-core platform. The drug paste smeared across his chest and face pierced him like needles. He collapsed to his knees, heaving violently, both arms bound tight behind him. A stomach filled with oliohuiqui and too much octli-beer did not mix with the tranquilizers and readysetgo seeping into his bloodstream.
The girls holding him cursed – a guttural, barbarous language – and he felt a sharp blow to the side of his head.
"You dare…I'm a member of the Imperial…urk!" An elbow jammed into his stomach, making him heave again, and four sets of slim golden hands grasped him by arms and legs and pitched him unceremoniously into the basket of a balloon tethered to the lift platform. The prince's head struck the wicker wall on the far side, leaving him stunned. He tried to sit up, but a petite foot, as bare as any of the silver girls seemed to be, came down on his neck, driving his head into the basket floor. Cool plastic chilled against his flesh.
"Get rid of them," someone said, and Tezozуmoc realized there were two slumped figures also in the basket with him. The foot lifted from his neck and the whole gondola shivered as the girl above him leapt lightly onto the platform. "We can't spare the weight…"
Gunshots rang out. The prince felt the gondola shake and he twitched violently, thinking the balloon had been hit. A furious hiss answered his movement and he lay still, fearing another blow to the head or stomach.
"Ware!" Someone shouted. The entire gondola shook again and Tezozуmoc felt his stomach drop away. A sustained ripping sound roared not too far away and something hot smashed through the base of the basket, stinging the prince's face.
Eyes screwed tight shut, Tezozуmoc curled into a ball, knees against his forehead.
A whoomp! sound – right on top of him – startled the prince into a fit of crying and harsh metallic smoke stung his nostrils. Distantly, there was a violent crashing sound followed by screams.
"Mi'lord?" Someone touched his shoulder. Tezozуmoc opened his eyes. The fuzzy image of his shorter bodyguard – what was his name? – slowly came into view, ringed by a shimmering halo of white light. "Are you able to speak?"
"Do…" The prince struggled with swollen lips. His throat was terribly dry and tasted awful. He peered desperately at the man. "Do you have anything to drink? Champagne? Beer? Even water will do!"
Running flat out, his entire attention focused solely on the speeding back of the Russian woman, Colmuir burst out onto the lift platform too late to realize that there was no railing, no gondola and only a yawning shaft twenty meters wide before him.
"Ayyyy!" He tried to slide to a stop, but a messy pool of water and rust betrayed the noskid on his boots. The Eagle Knight realized – in an instant of unremitting clarity – there was no possible way to stop and flung himself forward, combat knife discarded, fingers grasping for the woman's feet as she soared heavenward.
By nothing less than a miracle his right hand seized hold of her ankle, slipping a little on her strangely stiff skin, before they both plunged into the shaft. The aeropack whined in protest, trying to counter the unexpected weight. Another lighted lift platform flashed past and Lorne's coat billowed up in the rushing wind.
The woman twisted, kicking at his head as they fell, and the Eagle Knight wrenched his shoulder trying to get his other hand around her ankle.
"Chudak!" Eyes flashing in the lights blurring past, hair now unbound in a flying cloud around her head, she sharply clenched her left fist twice. The skinsuit gelled to her lithe frame flared with a ripple of violet lightning and Colmuir screamed, nerves savaged, and his grip flew loose.
The aeropack squealed and the woman flashed away and up into the darkness overhead. The master sergeant plunged, tumbling wildly, nearly unconscious from shock. He tried to scream, but his throat had contorted – like every other muscle in his body – into an agonizing cramp.
"Status!" Van Belane hissed into the comm thread pasted beside her plush lips. "Where is the prince?"
"Gone," came the furious answer. "We had him in the backup vehicle, but the other Eagle cut the mooring ropes and they escaped."
"My father's beard…Like a cockroach, that one!" The Russian craned her neck upwards and thumbed the aeropack on full boost. Far above she could make out the half-moon shape of a lift rising up the shaft. Strings of colored lights lining the ancient atmosphere vent cast a rippling gleam on the balloon. "I see them – scatter to the tertiary rendezvous. I will take care of this business myself."
Arching her back, Van Belane reached behind her, slim fingers searching through the combat pack clinging to her spine under a huge mane of black hair. Fingertips found the casing for a Norsk-make Mistletoe HL-SAM and slid the rocket from its holder. Strands of hair tangled, and – cursing again – she ripped the wig away.
She closed in swiftly with the balloon as the gondola bumped past another platform. Van Belane swung wide, trying to see past the lift, and realized she'd run out of time. The mouth of the shaft was only a hundred meters away, shining darkness speckled with stars and thin clouds gleaming with the lights of the city ringing the wide bowl of the Lagoon.