Ashes of Candesce: Book Five of Virga

machine guns to herd the beast through the dense skies of the principalities.

It wasn't fast, but it was unstoppable. The bug plowed into the First Line ships surrounding the alliance fleet, scattering them like startled fish. A few battleships tried to shoot out the horns, but they were too far away to be accurate; one that held fast also fell ominously quiet once it got close enough to take its shot. It drifted, touched the skin of the bug, and tore through it like a pen through paper.

The First Line concentrated their fire on the bug, but its Slipstream herders had put enough volleys into its back that it was maddened now. It would not turn away.

Keir caught glimpses of this carnage as the Surgeon maneuvered. The bug was running tangent to the alliance fleet, so the noise stabilized after a few minutes, then began to fall. He was able to listen as Hayden described his one encounter with a bug, years before, on the first occasion when he'd traveled with Chaison Fanning. 'But it was finding out that the key to Candesce had been hidden in a bug that reminded us of this one,' he explained. 'The boy who found it was with a group of treasure hunters who'd figured out how to enter a bug. They shot off half its horns, and it repaired them but not fast enough to keep them from getting in and out. But it could repair them. So why not bring this one back and let it heal in the warm air? Fanning sent Travis to try. I guess it worked.'

A heavy cruiser thundered past, less than a hundred feet away. Keir coughed in its choking wake and shouted, 'Now if he would only give the flocking order...'

Leal was wide-eyed, and her hair coiled and writhed around her in medusoid tangles. She clung to Griffin's generator, but was clearly paying attention. 'What order?'

'That paper I brought the admiral. It--' He blinked at the suddenly changing sky. 'I think he gave it.'

Far down the bullet-pocked hull of the Surgeon, the great engine nacelles swiveled on their arms and roared into full power. A ripple of stress raced up the skin of the ship and Hayden yelled 'Hang on!' as the whole vessel wrenched itself onto a new heading.

With a metallic shriek the generator and his device fell into the shrapnel-ridden sky.

Keir dove after it.

* * *

'SOMETHING'S GONE WRONG.' Inshiri had poked her head out the hatch, and as she came back in she had a puzzled expression on her face. 'Where's the goddamn First Line?'

She slammed the hatch and turned her best glower on the semaphore team. 'Aren't you getting anything?'

The semaphore captain shook his head. 'There's too much clutter, sir. It's not just the smoke and wreckage-- there's signaling flags floating everywhere. They're pretty much the first thing to get shot off a ship in a firefight.'

'What about flares?'

The officer shrugged. 'Same problem. The enemy's look just like ours.'

Antaea was listening from the aft chamber. Now she felt Jacoby cough weakly and try to sit forward. He was pale, but he was awake, and she and Venera had at least stopped the bleeding. 'What's happening?' he asked.

Through the porthole behind her, Antaea could see tracer fire stitching the air from behind. 'Another one's on our tail,' she pointed out. 'Where's the rear guns?'

They all listened for the clatter of the machine gun, but there was only silence. Inshiri also noticed, and came back to point at Antaea. 'You, you're a good shot, aren't you? Get back there and take over.'

'I don't take orders from you,' Antaea replied coolly.

Something pinged through the cabin, making the guardsmen jump in surprise. Jacoby pushed at her weakly. 'Probably a good idea,' he muttered.

'Oh, hell.' Rear gunners always died first. But if somebody didn't go back there, they would get their engines shot off. Then they'd be picked off by whoever happened by.

She clambered back through the hold, cursing the ineptitude of their escort ships. They'd lost more than half already, and the rest were distracted by some heavy Last Line cruisers that had noticed them and fallen into pursuit. It was probably one fanatic on a bike chasing the Thistle now--but if he had a machine gun in his hands, one would be enough.

'Need a hand?' Venera said from right behind her. Antaea jerked and bit off a sharp retort. She shook her head and opened the tail blister.

'Eh, maybe I do after all.' Venera looked over her shoulder and whistled softly. It was going to take them a few minutes to get that man out of there.

He'd been good-looking, and he'd had a nice laugh. Antaea felt heartsick as she and Venera hauled his body into the hold. She took the last of their bandages and began wiping down the grips on the machine gun, then the supposedly bulletproof glass of the blister. It stank of sweat and iron in here, but hot air from outside was whistling through the three holes that starred her view.

She swiveled the blister about and squeezed the gun's trigger experimentally. One bullet discharged, then the mechanism froze. 'What the--'

'You've got a jam in the feeder,' said Venera. 'I'll get it.' The former princess of Hale kicked the lid off the ammo mechanism under Antaea's feet and began rummaging around in it with bloody fingers. All the while, the Thistle was weaving back and forth in a sickening way, dodging the intermittent stutter of tracers that chased them.

While she waited, Antaea stared at the fading purple backdrop to all the local carnage. 'Where's the First Line? And what the hell is that?' A black silhouette, impossibly big, was cutting off the light from one of the principalities' suns. And those sparkles and speckles around it: Could they be ships?

Venera glanced up. 'Sometimes, when night falls, Candesce goes walking,' she said.