~Insect-plausible device ahead reports person of interest passed this way, up steps ahead, into tank, earlier, Arbite One sent.
There were hundreds there; the steps were packed with people dressed in white.
~Deploy there, he sent. ~Make some noise now; get those people out of the way. Laser area denial bursts too, civilian warning grade.
The two lead arbites deployed tiny blast grenades, producing sudden flickers of light twenty metres in front of the crowd of people. The noise was very loud indeed. More light strobed, turning the whole scene ahead into a bright flare. People dropped, covered their ears, their eyes.
~Make for the aperture, he sent, spotting the large triangular piercing in the ceiling where the steps led.
The two leading arbites zoomed, disappeared. More flashes of light. ~Weapon aimed, action taken, he heard again as he curved up and through to land on the deck above.
It was generally dark. People were scattering. Two guards lay dead, faces gone, stun guns at their sides. This was a dark, very large space, almost entirely filled with a vast tank that looked like water; lights pointed inwards from every side around the enormous space. His enhanced senses mapped out what could be mapped out. One of the insect-plausible devices registered as nearby.
~olonel? somebody sent. The signal protocols were missing. ~Colonel Agansu? It was the marine operations officer.
~Here, beneath this large tank, Agansu replied.
~We’re having some problems with the Culture ship supporting… The voice crackled, disappeared, came back on another crackle. ~ersons of interest would appear to be up inside… It was gone again.
~Units present undergoing effector attack, internal, airship own, Arbite One reported. ~Defending actions deployed.
Agansu was experiencing some problems of his own: the view was hazing over.
~Insect-plau— Arbite Three began.
~Hostile insect-plausible device attached to Arbite Three, Arbite One sent.
Something was glowing brightly on the upper surface of the arbite nearest the triangular hole in the floor.
~Hostile insect-plausible device attached to Arbite Three, Arbite Two confirmed.
~Our insect-plausible device immediately external reports hostile device app— There was a flash outside, where the stairs led down. ~Our insect-plausible device destroyed, Arbite One reported. ~Hostile device approaching registering as knife missile or similar.
~Marine operations officer! Agansu sent. ~Reinforcements, immediately! Use any means—
Something punched through the floor, beneath Arbite One, spearing it and throwing it upwards to impact against the underside of the giant transparent tank. The glowing thing on the top surface of Arbite Three detonated at the same moment, blinding.
~Destroy the tank! Agansu sent, raising the kin-ex gun. He was able to fire once before he was blown off his feet by the blast from the erupted arbite.
~Destroy tank.
~Destroy tank, the two remaining arbites replied, and began firing upwards and around the walls, filling the darkness with insane, stuttering, flares of light.
She was treading water, revolving slowly and looking down between her slow, weed-waving legs, trying to see Berdle, when he said, “On second thoughts, just get to the surface. I’ll join you shortly.”
“Mmm,” she said, and, after a quick look round, struck out.
“Wrong way, turn about,” the suit told her in Berdle’s voice.
She stopped. This was the way she’d been heading, wasn’t it? Could the suit have got it wrong?
“Wrong way, turn about,” the suit repeated.
“Hnnh,” she said, then realised she had been twisting round while she’d been looking down to see the avatar. That was why she’d taken the wrong direction initially.
“You’re heading the wrong way,” Berdle told her. “There’s some sort of emergency down there; just turn round, get out as quickly as you can. I’ll be there very shortly.”
She did a forward roll, started back the way she’d come. “Mmm,” she said again, swimming hard now. Suddenly she felt very vulnerable, suit or no suit.
Something flickered deep below, as though from right at the bottom of the tank. Something very bright. She knew she had seen light that white and intense recently. Her stomach lurched like she’d been punched. She got to where she’d been treading water moments earlier. The light flickered again, brighter still, seeming to reflect off the distant sides of the vast tank.
“Swim up fast now!” Berdle shouted.
She was already kicking out as hard as she could when it felt like the whole tank shuddered.
The first kin-ex round from his pistol had hit the lower surface of the great transparent tank and caused a single great torus of white to flash away from the point of impact. Then he’d been knocked off his feet despite the best efforts of the android body to stay upright. Further blindingly bright flashes filled the space as he struggled to kneel, firing upwards. The air shook like jelly around him.
~… onel! the marine operations officer was screaming at him.
~Unit Four destroyed by enemy action, Arbite Two sent.
The tank burst. It burst raggedly, in many different places; parts and levels of it seeming to stay where they were while other sections tore and fell and the released waters came crashing, hurtling down onto the space beneath. He threw himself to the floor. ~Hold where you are! he was able to send to the remaining arbite before the waters slammed into his back.
Light burst out everywhere below. A series of pulses shivered through the water and through her as Cossont kicked for the silvery, light-flecked surface above.
She had grasped the lowest step of a small ladder extending from the surface-level walkway above and was just starting to pull herself up when the water began to fall away around her. She spat the breather away and yelled, “Berdle?” as she hauled herself up and out, needing all four arms to pull her own weight and resist the sucking drag of the descending water. A great roaring noise seemed to come partly from below and partly from above, sounding more like a powerful wind than water. The sound from above rose swiftly to a shriek.
Somebody — small, female, wearing a plain dark tunic — was running along the walkway towards her. The water beneath the dripping walkway, no longer lit by the bright pulses of light from below, was five metres down now, swirling in different directions, thrashing like something alive, and lowering everywhere, leaving behind an entire dripping web of walkways a hundred metres across, suspended on swaying chains from a dark ceiling just a couple of metres above, where panels were being torn away and sent spinning, whirling downwards.
“Still making upward progress,” Berdle said calmly through the suit’s earbuds. “Relatively and… now absolutely.”
The girl running towards Cossont looked shocked, her mouth hanging open as she glanced over the side. “You all right?” she asked as she knelt by Cossont, having to raise her voice over the screaming wind.
Something burst from the surface of the waters, ten metres beneath, and rose towards them. It was vaguely human-shaped, but too big to be Berdle.
“What the fuck?” the girl said.
The whole airship seemed to shudder; the girl reached out to grab hold of a stanchion. The figure rising from the still falling waters — fifteen metres down now - rotated a little. It was Berdle, holding a naked man, supporting him with his own feet and an arm under his chest.
“Reckoned the time for a stealthy approach was gone,” Cossont heard the avatar say as he landed beside her and the girl. “Barely had the AG to rescue this poor fellow.” The man he was holding had wide, terrified-looking eyes. He didn’t have a breather device in his mouth; he was coughing a lot. Berdle lowered him to the deck and the man clung to it, coughing up water. The girl patted his back.