“Lyd,” Brennan said, his voice and mind going cold. “Hold on.”
“What?”
The military skimmer had sails three times the size of theirs, but with weapons and armor it probably massed five times more at least. Bren jerked twin sticks in opposing directions, and his skimmer keeled over and banked to the right as he climbed for the first wind layer, trying to eke out as much speed as he could.
The military skimmer followed suit in short order, but its maneuvers were not quite as sharp as his had been.
Both craft clawed for altitude, shortening their sail lines and drawing themselves up into the lee of their own sails. That cut down on air resistance, and in short order the two were flashing through the skies at just over a hundred miles per hour.
“Not going to lose anyone here,” Brennan mumbled to himself, his head moving on a swivel as he tried to keep the military skimmer in sight.
So far it wasn’t shooting, so he figured that they’d gotten orders to force him down.
That’s good. Getting shot down would suck.
“Bren, there’s another one.”
Brennan looked back, then up to where she was pointing. He let out a curse as he spotted it.
“What?”
“They’re in the median layer, Lyd,” he said. “I can’t lose them.”
“What do we do?”
Brennan looked around and then down as he considered the situation. Military flyers could go a lot higher than his skimmer could. They carried bottled air and stronger sails, which would allow them to breathe in the upper atmo and deploy sails into winds that would tear his baby apart.
“Sorry, sis,” Brennan said, wincing as he reached for the controls. “Have to do it.”
“Have to do whaaa—?” Lydia’s question turned into a wail as he killed the sail projectors and wound them back in, the skimmer suddenly nosing forward and dropping like a stone.
“Burning skies!” the coflyer of the skimmer swore. “He just killed his sails.”
“He what?” the flyer demanded, looking down. “Where?”
“Overwatch just lost him. They’re moving too fast and overshot the dive point. They’ll come around, but it’ll be a couple minutes.”
The pilot killed speed as fast as he could, letting out the sail line. The drag of the line and the weight of the skimmer against the air would eventually pull them out of the sky, but there wasn’t much else he could do.
“Did you see where he went?”
“Down into the skyline on the north sector of the city,” the coflyer answered. “He’s in an unpowered dive. We’ll never be able to follow.”
“Not in these buckets,” the flyer agreed. “I’ll circle around, try and keep overwatch. Maybe we can spot him when he comes out of the dive.”
The military skimmers were heavily armed and armored, which made them great in a fight but gave them a distinct disadvantage if their prey was willing to go unpowered. Civilian skimmers could glide, after a fashion, being built with lightweight composites and projectors. A sky fighter, however, was designed to take—and dish out—a beating.
They curled back around, keeping an eye out as they tried to locate the missing skimmer, but nothing came to sight after several long minutes.
“Damn. Those were the Imperials too. The general is not going to be happy.”
CHAPTER 7
“We’re losing ground, Everett!”
William nodded. The fighting wasn’t going well. The invaders had greater numbers than they should have, and the initial strikes had destroyed the coordination of the palace forces. Even knowing something was brewing hadn’t prepared him, or anyone, for what had actually happened. It was all so unthinkable.
“Hold the line,” he ordered grimly, shifting his grip on the Armati he’d lived with for the last forty-odd years of his life. “We’ll do our duty to the end.”
“The end might be closer than you think, Everett.”
William half turned to see General Aleksander approaching. “Sir! What?”
“We just got confirmation. The emperor is dead.”
William felt like he’d been struck by a skimmer. “Are you sure?”
“I said we got confirmation. He’s gone.”
William shook his head, trying to wrap his brain around that bit of information, “The heirs, we have to …”
“The squad you sent after Kayle just reported back,” the general said, shaking his head.
“Brennan, then, or Lydia …”
“Reports suggest they escaped by skimmer.”
“Brennan is a natural flyer,” William confirmed.
“Well, we can only hope that they got out clean. For now we have a larger problem,” the general said grimly. “We’ll try to track them down, but it’s clear that the invasion had far more support than anyone thought possible. There are currently three legions outside the capital sector. They’re not doing anything yet, but we didn’t call them in.”
William closed his eyes for a moment, considering that.
Three legions would be enough to lay siege to the capital, but he doubted that was the plan. They already had enough forces inside to break a siege defense if they wanted to, which meant that the legions were a threat, a message to the Cadre.
It was a good threat too.
Fight us, and we’ll level the capital.
“We can’t give up that easy, sir.”
“We’re not,” the general said darkly. “But we can’t win here. I’m going to signal a withdrawal, but Everett … I have one more operation for you.”
Brennan pulled up hard on both sticks, leveling out the skimmer within a couple hundred feet of the ground. Buildings rose up on either side of them as they flashed through the fabricated canyons, heading for the great walls at the city’s edge.
“Bren!” Lydia yelled. “I’m going to kill you!”
“Sorry, Lyd, I know I promised, but it was the only way.”
He jammed the left stick forward as a building came too close to one side, throwing the skimmer into a sharp bank even as he fought the motion with the foot pedals, trying to keep the trajectory straight. Before they could lose too much altitude, he threw the stick back and leveled the skimmer out as the building flashed by them.
The walls of the capital were manned, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. In fact, the patrols there seemed a little light. Brennan hoped that meant that these were the normal guards and some had been called away due to the fighting at the palace or the destruction of the initial strikes. If they were, then they’d probably just flag his skimmer ID and send him a fine.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
If they were part of the invasion of the capital, though, they might just shoot them down.
Brennan was praying as he hit the inner perimeter of the wall and then as the wall flashed under them. They were well past the wall before he took another breath and started to relax.
“I think we made it out,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m going to get as much distance as I can before I launch the light sails again.”
Lydia nodded quietly behind him, but her eyes were focused elsewhere.
“Bren, look out to your right.”
Brennan did, and his eyes widened at what he saw.
“There shouldn’t be a legion this close to the capital, Lyd. We’d know if they’d been called in for any reason.”