A few bent and twisted remnants of the hatch stood up, like the lid of a badly opened tin can.
Two grenades arched into the gap. Three seconds later they exploded, and the Chosen commandos began dropping through the way the blasting charges had opened.
* * *
"Shit," Jeffrey Farr whispered again.
He ducked into the little Sherrinford and stamped repeatedly on the foot-pump, building pressure for the fuel and water feeds. When the bell rang, he flicked the switch for the spark-starter. A muted whump sounded as the flash boiler lit, sounding a bit breathy without the force-pump draft that ran off the flywheel. Red fluid began rising in the glass columns set into the dashboard that showed steam temperature, boiler pressure, water, fuel, battery condition, and air reservoir. Plenty of fuel and the battery was new, thank God. Thirty seconds later another bell rang and the steam temperature and pressure gauges rose over the operating minimum level. He eased the engine into reverse with the engaging lever beside the wheel, backed out cautiously into traffic and headed south.
There were dozens of big dirigibles coming in from the southwest, huge elongated teardrop shapes moving like clouds to a grating roar of engines. No attempt at disguise with these; they had the Land sunburst on their flanks. The first wave passed overhead at two thousand meters, heading east. The second slowed and began turning in formation over the harbor and defenses. Slots opened in the bottoms of the hulls. Dark objects tumbled out. Oblong shapes rained down, like torpedoes with fins.
aerial bombs, Center said. not aerodynamically optimum, but functional.
"I'll say," Jeffrey muttered.
A large dirigible could carry tons of cargo; some of the latest models had forty or fifty tons useful lift.
Crump. Crumpcrumpcrumpcrump-
They probably sailed empty from the Land, then took on their loads from ships over the horizon, Raj observed.
probability 76 %±4, Center said.
"Damn. I'd better get to the-"
A long whistling roar. Jeffrey jerked at the wheel, going up on the sidewalk with two wheels and scattering yelling pedestrians. Dust fountained over him through the open windows of the canvas-topped car, and the road seemed to drop out from under him for a second. Coughing, he saw the apartment block three buildings down fall into the street in a slow-motion avalanche. That was bad aiming, they were probably trying for the gasworks about a kilometer away, but he supposed it didn't matter if you had enough bombs. He spat dust-colored saliva and watched as the shark-shape of the dirigible slid away overhead, explosions following it like a trail of monstrous eggs. A dozen of them, and then a huge globe of fire rising over the rooftops; they had gotten the gas-storage tanks.
Time to go, lad.
"No argument."
He let the throttle out, up to fifty kilometers an hour-well over the speed limit, but that was purely theoretical in Corona at the best of times. There were a few people milling around, but not many. The crowds were standing and pointing, open-mouthed; a few were crowding towards the broken apartment building, but there was fire in the rubble-broken gas mains, and water spurting from severed pipes. A horse-drawn fire engine went by with clanking bells and sparks flying from its hooves. An Imperial officer with gold epaulets and a spiked wax mustache rode by in the other direction. He had his pistol in his hand and he was riding towards the harbor, although what he planned to do there was a mystery. The naval dockyards three kilometers away were a mass of fire and smoke, with columns of fire from the secondary explosions showing red through the black clouds.
One mother was holding her child up to see the explosions, apparently under the impression they were some kind of fireworks.
Not many seemed to be panicking as yet-which showed ignorance, not steady nerves. He could catch glances in between dodging trolley cars and pedestrians. Half a dozen Land merchantmen had beached themselves by the harbor forts on either side of the entrance from the Pada estuary. It was too far away to see men, but the hulls were darkened in a spiderweb pattern, boarding nets dropped over the side so that embarked troops could climb down to the corniche road. Sections of their hull sides dropped open, revealing pedestal-mounted guns. The flat whump of the cannon joined the rising chorus of small-arms fire.
Something else was firing, a little like a gatling gun but not much. Trotting out all the novelties for the party, he thought. But they'll have to do better than this.
The streets grew narrower as he got down onto the flats where there were older buildings, sometimes leaning out over the cobbles. The rough street hammered at the car's suspension, and he had to squeeze the bulb of the horn-and keep his speed up-to get through the crowds. When he stopped, it was beneath a leaning tenement where laundry flapped from lines strung across the street. The balconies were crowded with chattering tenants pointing southward.
Jeffrey leaned out the window and flourished a coin. "Eh, bambino!" he called.
A barefoot urchin with pants held up by a single suspender elbowed through to him. "Tell Lucretzia Collossi that Jeffrey is here to see her," he said. "And tell her to bring her jewels. Another one of these if she's here in five minutes."
The boy-he was about nine-grinned, showing gaps in his teeth, and disappeared in a flash of bare heels. Jeffrey got out of the car and waited tensely, one hand on the butt of his revolver. He didn't expect trouble; there were few Imperials his size, people in this neighborhood avoided uniforms, even unfamiliar ones, and it wasn't really all that rough anyway. Still, no sense in taking chances.
The spectators were disappearing from the balconies. Finally showing some sense, he thought. A trickle of traffic appeared, heading north and uphill away from the harbor. Then a woman hurried out of the tenement's front doors. She was a year or two younger than him, dressed much better than the neighborhood standard, and extremely pretty in a dark full-figured way. She smiled at him, but there was a nervous wariness in her eyes; she carried her jewel box, and a small suitcase, moving like a dancer even now. Of course, she was a dancer, and quite a good one. Nice girl, even if she wasn't a nice girl, so to speak. And very useful. To recruit agents, he had to have respect; and to an Imperial, if Jeffrey didn't have a woman, he wasn't manly enough to take seriously. It generally paid to talk to people in their own language, he'd found.
Jeffrey flicked another coin to the boy and slid behind the wheel. Lucretzia kissed him as she took the passenger's seat.
"Is it the war?" she said.
"It is," Jeffrey replied. "With a vengeance."
"Where are we going?" Her voice rose.
Jeffrey did a sharp right and headed south down the alleyway. "The corniche. It's likely to be the quickest way to the consulate, and short of getting out of town, that's the safest place right now."
The growing crowd parted before the bow of the Sherrinford. The bumper rapped sharply against the wheel of a pushcart full of fruit; it spun away, showering oranges and melons into the crowd, and the owner screamed curses after the car. Jeffrey slid his revolver free and held it in his lap.
"Why. ." Lucretzia licked her lips. "Why don't we do that, leave town?"