Jym and Mortimor lined up facing aft, and Penny formed the head of the triangle, watching the cockpit. Another bang rang out, and then Penny heard the dull pounding of footsteps on the roof of the ship. Someone whistled in the distance—the only warning they got before a dozen Luddites began cutting their way down through the ceiling. There was a horrible din of clanging metal as cut circles of steel clattered within the mechanical spaces over their heads. And then came the shrill fury of Luddite war-cries, paced by the stomping of their approaching boots from all directions—
Cole skirted the tower’s base, partly because of the small group guarding its perimeter, but mostly out of fear of its effects on time. The grav chute on his back made jogging uncomfortable; Cole cinched it tighter and steadied it with one hand while he held his blade in the other. He entered a small clearing he remembered from his last desperate run through the village. The only difference now was the looming hulk of a massive spaceship sprawled in the distance.
As Cole neared, he thought he could see figures running across the wings of the ship, far above the deck. He stopped near one of the sheds and watched more dark blobs scurry up what looked like steel beams dropped onto the fuselage, giving the Luddites a way up. He reached down and turned his chute to full lift but left the power off. He wondered if his idea would work or if he’d have to scurry up the beams after them.
Putting his blade away, Cole took a few deep breaths as he picked out the first building. Visualizing each step—virtually running his muscles though the entire process—he dug one boot into the deck and pressed the other against the wall of the building behind him. Grimacing, Cole shoved off, running as fast as he could for the low structure he’d chosen.
The distances were complete guesswork, made on intuition and a feel for the chute’s power on the way down. Cole jumped up about ten meters before reaching the wall and jammed the chute on. His stomach dropped, his throat constricting at the odd sensation of going up through the air higher than his legs had sent him. Even so, he’d been overly optimistic—he reached the top of his augmented leap and drifted back down much too far away, his forward momentum from the sprint taking him directly toward the building’s steel wall.
Cole braced for impact and brought one hand up to protect his face, the other reaching for the roof’s edge. He hit so hard, he nearly bounced off, but his right hand clutched the top of the wall with an iron grip, leaving him dangling.
Tensing his new arm, and with the aid of the grav chute set to max, Cole vaulted to the top of the roof with an eerie ease. The combined might of the two devices, chute and arm, made him feel giddy.
He shut the chute back down so his feet would have enough traction to run and lined himself up with a taller building across a wide alley. Cole took off, planning in advance the next sequence of jumps on his way up to the Bern craft’s cockpit.
The Luddite battle cries came from all directions, nearly masking the thunder of rushing boots. Ceiling panels rained down, cut in rough circles, one of them nearly crashing on top of the defensive trio.
The clanging of so much steel just added to the confusion. Penny almost left one nearby attacker to Mortimor, then realized the Lud was in her zone. She feinted high, and he brought his blade up to counter. Penny changed levels in a blur, swooping for his ankles. The Lud’s boots stayed planted in an expert attack base, even as the rest of him collapsed to the deck, screaming. Penny finished him off with a slice across the torso, then turned to fend off a blow from a second Lud who had jumped down from above. In her peripheral, she saw Mortimor and Jym parrying their own attacks from behind.
The war cries mixed with agony wails as several Luds bled out. Penny checked over her shoulder after sending an attacker’s arm flying and saw that Jym was among the screaming. He writhed on the deck, one of his legs off, but he continued lashing madly at the ankles of the men aft of him. Penny turned around as two more Luds jumped down. She dispatched one, but left herself open to the second. She saw the attack while still following through with her own, but it came too fast. Her non-sword arm was left hanging out in space from the twisting momentum of her torso. It came off clean, just below her elbow, and a deep nick opened along her thigh as well.
She ducked the next blow rather than block it and went for the knees with an angle two, taking away the fur-clad man’s mobility.
“Cockpit!” she yelled to Mortimor. She dispatched the wounded attacker who had taken her arm and ran forward as more of the hoard rained in around them. Penny turned to see if Mortimor was still with her. She ground her teeth when she saw blood streaming down one of his hands and running off in a tight rivulet. It splattered the deck as he performed unorthodox, desperate swings with his other hand.
There were at least a dozen Luds in the cargo bay. One of them silenced Jym as the group pressed forward, forcing her and Mortimor toward the cockpit. More banging rang out above, letting Penny know there was no safe exit. They were surrounded and critically outnumbered.
One began barking orders to the others, planning the last surge, when Penny realized the encirclement was complete. With a loud bang, a large portion of the cockpit canopy fell in just as she and Mortimor were squeezing through the passageway. She barely had room to defend herself as two Luds crashed through the opening, their swords held on opposite sides and poised for a deadly pincer attack.
Penny picked one of them to counter, the other side of her body bracing for a killing blow. Tensing up, she swung her blade into position, when both men froze. Their arms went slack, the pincer attack falling into limp impotence. Both their torsos opened with an avalanche of intestines, bright joints of spine sticking up through the mess as the tops of the men fell away.
As the lifeless, gory heaps crashed to the deck, they revealed behind them the hazy outline of someone in white—someone framed fuzzily against the torrent of snow. Penny couldn’t make out much of their savior, but she did note the barest hint of a classical fencer’s stance—a stance normally guaranteed to get buckbladers killed.
Cole put his blade away. He held on to the edge of the canopy with one hand and fumbled inside a combat pouch with the other. He pulled out one of two blast grenades and clipped the pin to a snap on the front of his suit. Ahead of him, Penny and Mortimor were backing into the tight cockpit, slipping on the mess he’d created on the floor. Without adequate room for defensive posturing, their repelling blades threatened themselves and each other as much as they promised to protect them. Beyond his two wounded friends, Cole saw a file of attackers lining up for their chance at a killing blow.
“Grab on!” Cole yelled into the cockpit. His boots tenuously gripped the ship’s icy hull as he held out a hand toward Penny.
Penny screamed over her shoulder at Mortimor, who relented, turned, and put away his blade. He stepped onto the pilot’s seat and reached for Cole.
With a loud cry, Penny lunged and swung at the first Luddite to enter the cockpit. Their blades flew away from each other and did damage to the ship. Mortimor scampered up onto the dash and out into the snow-streaked air, yelling for Penny to follow. Her attacker pressed forward, threatening them all with any rebound from Penny’s blade.
Instead of blocking, however, Cole watched as she dove forward, below the attack, swinging upward at her foe’s elbow as she flew inside his range.
Both of them crashed to the ground, slipping in the guts on the decking. Penny pushed herself up as the next guy came storming in. She turned, sliding, and scampered toward the others as an invisible blade whisked back and forth behind her, eager to cut her in two.
Cole let go of the jagged canopy and ripped the grenade from his suit. He tossed it over Penny’s head and yelled: “Jump!”
One of Cole’s arms held Mortimor with an iron grip—the other reached out for her.
Penny came through the hole in the canopy, crashing into both men. They all clutched at one another, falling backwards onto the icy nose of the great Bern ship. Cole fumbled along the side of the grav chute, struggling to find the damned power button and trying not to lose his grip on the others as they slid across the slick steel.
He was still fumbling for the switch when they reached the edge of the gracefully curved nose, and then all three went tumbling over and out into the great quiet and snow-filled air.
