The sound of the blast rolled around the airship's flanks and hammered against the study's windows a couple of seconds later.
This time the Colonel Maitland shuddered perceptibly. There was a long drawn out series of agonizing creaks and groans reverberating through the geodetic framework.
"Leol flicking Reiger," Suzi said. She flinched at a loud metallic twang. "Gotta be."
"I think you might be right," Greg said. He turned from the flatscreen to see Jason Whitehurst slumped nervelessly in his chair, a vein throbbing on his temple. "Apart from the landing pad, how do you get on board?" he asked.
"There are access hatches on the top of the fuselage," Jason Whitehurst said. "I suppose they could break in there. The plane would have to hover, though. It would be difficult."
"Not to tekmercs," Greg said. He thought fast, no question that they were here for Charlotte Fielder, so there would be no indiscriminate shooting. Not until after they snatched her, anyway. "What about escape systems? Lifeboats? Parachutes? Something to bail out in?"
"There's an emergency survival pod in every lower deck cabin."
"It shouldn't come to that," Julia's image said. "My security crash team will be on the way."
"You sure?" Greg asked.
"The Pegasus was in constant contact with Event Horizon's security division. As soon as that jammer cut the satellite link the crash team launched. I promised I'd back you up."
"How long till they get here?"
"Twenty minutes, maybe a little less."
"You hear that, Suzi? Twenty minutes' evasion and decoy."
"Yeah. If these security people of Victor's are any use. So what do you wanna do about the girl, meantime?"
"Where is she?" Greg asked Jason Whitehurst.
"On board somewhere, with Fabian. Probably in his cabin. Get her away from him, Mr. Mandel, get her well away."
"Are you coming with us?"
Jason Whitehurst glanced round the study, blinking leadenly. His thought currents had slowed drastically; the attack had shaken him badly, fissures of insecurity were opening in his mind, allowing subconscious fears to rise and clog his thoughts. "Go where?"
"Shit. OK, order your crew into the emergency pods. That plane might try to puncture the gasbags, force everyone out so they can pick up Fielder."
Jason Whitehurst debated with himself for a moment, then acquiesced. "Yes, all right." He stretched a hand out over his desk, stirring the light patterns. "Fabian must get into a pod by himself; he'll be safe then. That's all that matters now."
"Greg!" Suzi yelled frantically. She was pointing out of the window.
The plane was descending into view about two hundred metres away, a delta planform with a long bullet nose. Not easy to see, an elusive light-grey stealth coating seemed to slither when he tried to focus on it, pulling the uniform blueness of sea and sky around the flat fuselage like a cloak.
"That's a Messerschmitt CTV-663," Suzi said grimly. "Armed hypersonic military transport. Bollocks; Leol could be carrying up to twenty-five troops in that bastard."
Greg watched it halt level with the gondola, then turn ponderously until its tail was pointing at him. The rear loading ramp lowered. Indistinct shapes moved inside. Something dropped off the end of the ramp, falling for a few metres then slowing, bobbing in midair. It began to rise. Human shaped, but bulky, dark. A second one fell from the ramp.
"Holy shitfire," Suzi gasped. "They're wearing jetpacks. Jet-packs and muscle-armour suits. The fuckers are gonna storm us."
"Greg, I can't see what's going on," Julia's image said. "You must squirt me into the Colonel Maitland's 'ware. I can help you from there."
"Against them?" Suzi shouted.
"Where's a key?" Greg demanded.
Jason Whitehurst stared at him uncomprehendingly, shocked into stupefaction by the aerial assault.
"A bloody interface key!"
Five dark figures were hanging in the air between the Messerschmitt and the Colonel Maitland, wobbling slightly as they approached, picking up speed. Another two jumped from the plane's loading ramp.
The two hardliners in the study were fingering their carbines nervously.
"Don't shoot, for Christ's sake," Greg told them. "Lasers aren't going to puncture muscle-armour suits at this distance; all you'll do is pinpoint us for them." He ran round the settee to the desk, and held up his cybofax. "Try a squirt now," he told Julia. The tiny lenticular key on the top of the cybofax winked with ruby light. There was an answering pulse from the middle of the desk. When he looked at the wafer's screen her face had gone.
Suzi had the tight-jawed expression he'd seen on squaddies in Turkey, the one put on just before combat, the one which said it wasn't going to be me, no way. Her nostrils flared.
"The girl?"
"Yeah. Find her and steer clear of the tekmercs. Twenty minutes, that's all, and this is a big ship." He took a deep breath, psychological more than anything, and ordered up a full secretion.
The cold reptilian gland vibrated away, rattling his brain from the inside. His espersense swept outwards; a spectral silhouette of the airship filling his perception, a cobweb of struts enfolded by bottomless shadow. Minds glowed within, pure thought turning to light, fluctuating with emotion. He was bathed in an exodus of fear, and confusion, and hurt from the crew; their silent unbosoming. Soiling him; he hated people for their failings, he was always so careful to filter it out, pretend it didn't exist. The only way he could move through life.
He examined each of them, and found the mind he knew must be hers. It had the brightness of youth, tight thought currents that spoke of strong self-control, an underlying theme of resentment and longing. The silver-white study rushed back in on him. "Got her."
"Thank Christ for that," Suzi said.
"Let's move."
The two hardliners didn't try and stop them. He turned back when he reached the door, and saw ten armour-clad figures in the air. Jason Whitehurst's face was profiled against the window. "Keep her away from my son, Mandel. Please. None of this is his doing."
"You got it."
The door slid shut.
"This way," he said, and began to jog towards the stern. "Fielder's up inside the fuselage, some sort of room near the tail. We need to be up. Look for some stairs, an inspection hatch, something."
"Got it," Suzi barked.
He nearly smiled. She was fighting off fear with action, needing orders, a goal. It wasn't such a bad idea. He began to scan the names printed on the doors.
They ran into an espersense sweep. It registered like a curtain of cold air brushing against his body. Goose bumps rose on his arms.
"Shit!"
"What?" Suzi's Browning came up in reflex.
"Chad." Greg pulled the old Mindstar-training memories from his brain, looking for something he could use. This time Chad would be ready, and he was strong; Greg couldn't afford a straight trial of strength. He let loose the neurohormones, and—
— reality flickered—
— and Chad felt two familiar minds impinge on his expanded sphere of consciousness. He recoiled in alarm. Then, furious with himself, opened up the sacs' extravasation rate.
The neurohormone boost was almost a physical jolt, sacs acting like electrical terminals, hot and bright, charging his brain with energy, leaving his body buzzing inside the unyielding formfit grip of the muscle armour. His espersense pushed through the airship's hull like an eldritch radar, and closed around the two minds again. Contact made the skin in his palms itch.
He concentrated on the squirming thought currents, relating his espersense perception with his visual field. His view of the outside world was being relayed from the muscle armour's integral photon amp. The airship and its gondola had taken on a bluish-grey tint, overlaid with a tactical display—distance, speed, power reserves—the lower-deck target window was outlined in red. Numbers constantly changing.