Che did not want, under any circumstances, to be out there with nothing but the strength of her grip to save her from a dive into infinity. The Wasp soldiers were coming, though, so her preferences seemed irrelevant.
‘You first,’ she said, and Salma simply dived straight through the hatch. As soon as he was clear of it, his Art-wings blurred into life about his shoulders, catching him in the air, where he hovered and spun while waiting for her.
She bundled herself through the hatch and hauled it closed behind her, balancing precariously. A moment’s extra thought showed her how to secure it, and by the time the Wasps had reached it, there was no obvious way for them to follow.
The wind tugged at her, seemed to get between her fingers and the slick chill of the metal rungs. She concentrated only on her hands, trying to make her descent as mechanical and unerring as an automaton’s. Salma kept pace with her, and she knew he would try to catch her if she slipped, but she was not altogether sure whether he could.
And then there came another hatch, at last. Totho was holding it open for them, practically hopping from foot to foot. She shouldered past him into the cramped walkway.
‘Where now?’
‘Tynisa’s waiting in the hangar.’ He bared his teeth nervously. ‘They’re after us and I’m not sure there’s anywhere we can safely hide. Maybe amongst the freight.’
Che closed the hatch after Salma, who said, ‘Run,’ remarkably quietly. The walkway stretched the length of the airship’s gondola, but at the far end they could see movement: black and yellow yet again. Wasp soldiers were now forcing their way along the narrow space with their hands outstretched before them.
Totho took off at once down the walkway, with an engineer’s practised hunch, and then almost immediately dropped through another hatchway. By the time Che had caught up, he was in the cavernous space of the hangar, where Tynisa was already coming out of hiding to greet them. As soon as Salma was clear of the hatch Che slammed it shut and threw the bar.
‘No time!’ she warned. ‘They’re coming!’
Salma looked about them. ‘Where do these other doors go?’ he asked.
‘Engine room, a dead end,’ Totho explained. ‘And the other leads to the freight holds.’
‘But we don’t need to run anywhere on board!’ Tynisa interrupted them. ‘If we stay here they’re bound to find us. So let’s use this thing and just go.’ She was pointing at the fixed-wing. ‘Totho, start it up, make it go.’
Totho goggled at her. ‘I can’t pilot a flier.’
‘But you’re Apt, you’re an artificer. You like machines.’
‘I could repair it, yes, if it was broken.’ He kept shaking his head at her, and Che saw a whole bucketful of hope drain from Tynisa’s expression.
‘But. . that was my plan,’ she said weakly.
‘I can fly it, maybe’ Che announced, to disbelieving stares. ‘I can try, at least,’ she amended. ‘I did a course on aviation at the College.’
‘Then let’s do it!’ Salma said. Totho was already running for the loading ramp wheel, unlocking it and spinning it so that the ramp descended into its full slope with a shriek of abused metal. The fixed-wing flier shifted a foot downwards against its rope restraints, pointing backwards down the ramp, about to re-enact its arrival in reverse.
The first impact by the Wasps on the door they had entered by almost splintered it out of its frame. There was a fraught second of looks anxiously exchanged and then Che made the decision. Half-sliding down the ramp, she clambered awkwardly across the fixed-wing’s hull to squeeze herself into the pilot’s seat. The controls were simple: levers to steer the vanes, a crank to start the propeller. She began cranking straight away, just as the hangar door flew off its hinges, tumbling the first Wasp soldier into the room.
‘In!’ Tynisa decided, and she sprang into the seat behind Che, with Salma following close behind. Totho rushed to join then, thudding down onto the ramp and skidding dangerously on its metal slope. He reached for the lever that would release the ropes to free the flier, but before he could even touch it there was a crackle of fire and something bright struck sparks from near his hand. Totho fell backwards and had a gut-wrenching understanding that he was about to fall between the ramp and the hatch and then slip out into space. Salma and Tynisa both snagged him at the same time, and hauled him into the flier.
‘I can’t get the engine going!’ Che said in a panic, and Totho was explaining that he had to release the snagging ropes or the flier would be going absolutely nowhere.
‘Simple,’ Tynisa said, and flicked out her rapier. Totho howled for her to stop, but a moment later she had severed the ropes just on one side. The fixed-wing pitched left and hung for a second as another bolt of energy burned into the deck above them. Then Tynisa had severed another two strands and the flier slid helplessly down the ramp and away into space.
But they were not flying. They were barely gliding, mostly falling, with Che repeating, ‘The engine won’t start! Someone look at the engine!’
That someone, Totho realized, would have to be him. He squirmed towards the aft end of the flier, where the dark bulk of the engine was set well back. He dived through the space between the upper and lower wings, dodged about the mounted ballista, and off the back of the craft.
His Art kept him there, clinging to the smooth side of the flier with feet and knees, whilst the air dashed past him and the world towards him. Totho had very little time in which to make a diagnosis. Perhaps less than he thought. There were figures above him, diving from the Sky Without with their Art-wings extended.
I can fly it. The words were rattling around in Che’s skull, faster and faster. She had the flaps all the way back, so that if the engine had been functioning then the fixed-wing would be looping the loop. Instead it was dropping straight out of the sky, its nose gently tilting lower. ‘Any time, Toth!’ she called out. By now she had the levers pulled so far back that they were creaking in her hands.
Energy crackled across one of the wings from a ranging shot of the Wasps. Hanging almost upside down by his Art and his knees, Totho’s hands searched frantically. He heard Che shout his name despairingly, but he could not be rushed now.
There. And just in time. There were clamps on the fuel lines intended to stop just this kind of theft. None of the Wasps had been an artificer or else something more sophisticated, harder to find, would have been used. Swiftly he plucked them off and shouted for Che to fire up the engine one more time.
There must have been quite a head of fuel waiting in the lines, because the engine seemed to explode, a flash of heat that scorched Totho’s face, and great clouds of smoke were falling away behind and above them. A moment later the engine was running, propeller turning at first slowly, then fast enough to blur. The fixed-wing struggled in the air, Che wrestling with the sticks. Clinging to the engine casing, which in a very short time was getting uncomfortably warm, Totho feared the little craft was going to slide sideways, slipping through the air and then simply plummeting into a mad spinning dive. Che put all her weight on the controls, though, and the flier swung level, pitched the other way and then righted, dashing through the air with the engine still coughing and smoking.
She glanced behind her, and was rewarded with the sight of Tynisa and Salma actually clinging together from pure fear, and she gave out a great whoop of glee, for in that moment she was suddenly enjoying herself.
Then out of the smoke the Wasp soldiers came arrowing down on them with swords and fire.