Ashes of Candesce: Book Five of Virga

'Shut up.'

'It's true. It curls its way through the blackness until it finds some sleeping town or farm. And then it feeds...'

'I'd believe anything at this point,' Antaea conceded.

'Try now.'

She aimed the guns at the source of the tracer rounds and opened fire. The blast of the weapon was a physical shock, numbing her hands as it leaped about, and deafening her.

She gave Venera the thumbs-up signal and turned her attention to killing their pursuer.

* * *

ADMIRAL FANNING'S SIGNAL had gone out, and for a few minutes, chaos had reigned among the alliance fleet. The ships had been settling into uneasy patterns, barely avoiding one another while dodging missiles from the circling First Line. In the bedlam caused by the capital bug's arrival the bombardment had eased up a bit, and in clean, daylit air, this might have given the alliance a chance to regroup. But it was dark, the air was full of smoke; nobody could see more than half a mile in any direction.

Yet suddenly the ships surrounding Keir and his machine were accelerating, turning--blindly, at first, then in increasingly coordinated patterns. He couldn't see the full fleet, but he could hear the change. Somehow, even with the failure of the semaphore, hundreds of ships' headlamps were beginning to turn as one thing.

'Hey!' He turned and saw two figures, black on black in this light, kicking slowly toward him. 'You forgot your fins!' shouted Leal.

He laughed crazily. Keir had never been stranded like this, weightless, yet in hot air and surrounded by infinite possibility in all directions. It was terrifying and intoxicating, yet as they slowly flapped their way up to his machine, Leal Maspeth and Hayden Griffin looked quite at home.

Stretching out, he touched Leal's fingertips, then drew her to him. They kissed, and then she reached to hold one of the loose straps attached to the machine. 'Look at them go!' she said in awe. 'It reminds me of the fleet leaving Abyss.'

'I guess this is just like home for you?' he asked.

'Yes, except for the smoke and heat and the burning ships and all those suns out there like monsters' eyes. Just like home.' The fleet's lamps suddenly turned as one, as though from some silent signal. Then they surged into life, pouring intense fire into one flank of the encircling First Line. Cruisers, battleships, bikes, and catamarans surged past the three people clinging to their little island, and for a while they couldn't speak for the thud of explosions and whine of passing jets.

Then, astonishingly, the fleet was accelerating out of the trap the First Line had held them in. A giant hole full of drifting hulks was all that was left of the enemy's inner divisions.

It wasn't exactly silent. The capital bug still screamed its discordant song, but many miles away; and the sound of explosions no longer came with a body-blow of shocked air as emphasis. Compared to what they'd endured for hours now, this air seemed peaceful to Leal.

'Do you think they'll stop them from getting in?' Hayden asked after a while. Keir shrugged.

'If they don't, it's going to be up to us.'

Leal watched the retreating flashes and silhouetted gray of the fleet's headlamps. 'How did they do that?' she mused.

'The oaks' gift,' said Keir. 'A set of flocking rules for the fleet. All you have to do is watch what your neighbors are doing, and follow this or that rule depending on the situation. It's an emergent system--creates ordered behavior on the macro scale.'

'They're acting like they're all controlled by one mind.'

'In a way, they are. But there's nothing magical about it--nothing technological, either, which is the point. Those rules will work here, where all the machineries of the virtuals won't.'

'So you're saying we have a chance.'

He shrugged, and then, realizing she couldn't see the gesture in the dark, said, 'We wait now. If it's all been for nothing, I'll feel it.'

'How?' asked Hayden.

He wondered how to describe the sensation of scry turning itself on.

'I'll wake up,' he said.

* * *

WHETHER SHE'D KILLED its pilot or disabled its engines, Antaea didn't know; but whatever had been firing on them was gone. It was small comfort to her, because right now it looked like the entire universe was collapsing in on their exact spot.

Venera had crammed herself in next to Antaea and, companionably, they were pointing out this or that feature of the approaching apocalypse. 'Those ones look like a hawk's head,' said Venera, indicating a formation of carriers visible only as glittering running lights.

The sky was full of such constellations, some superimposed on purple-, orange-, or green-colored cloudscapes backlit by distant suns. Most were maneuvering in darkness, and they were drawing closer, both to each other and to the Thistle. The little sloop was running flat-out now, its two remaining escorts straining to keep up. All the while, four fleets whirled and coalesced behind them, like flotsam in their wake.

'Haven't seen any trash for a while now,' Antaea said. Venera nodded.

'We're nearly there. Anything that fell this far in during the day would have been incinerated.'