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They passed over the front gate like thunder, low and hard, flying subsonic, and left twin gouts of flame blossoming behind them. Melanchthon twisted right and they flew over the marshaling yards, dropping hellfire and elf-blight.
Dragons screamed behind them, twisting in agony, burning, raging for vengeance over every frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum even as they died. One somehow managed to lift up into the air before a fuel tank ruptured and exploded, sending him tumbling end over end into the side of the orange smithy.
Melanchthon was laughing and Jane was too, cheering and whooping as they swung around tight for a second run. Black specks were pouring from all the buildings. Flames shot up from the orange smithy. Staticky voices welled up on the radio between the dragons' mad cries, demanding that they identify themselves, calling for help, warning them away, ordering pursuit craft into the air.
Turbulence bounced the ca
Jane started to loop the dragon around for a third run. Most of the wall was down. "They're coming!" shouted Melanchthon. Radar showed three blips lifting up over the horizon.
"Once more."
The final time over, Jane held the weaponry off-line. She strained to make out Building 5, where her dormitory had been. She fancied she could, but by the time she had picked it out it was gone behind her. It was like something seen by lightning flashes. Run, she commanded the children silently. Don't look back. If Thistle and Dimity were still alive, they'd make it out, she was sure of that. They were opportunists. But some of the others…
"I've kept my part of the bargain," Melanchthon said. "See that you keep yours. Hold steady and bank right when I tell you. At their speed they've got a monster turning radius. We can use it to eat up some of their edge."
"Gotcha."
Their pursuers were visible behind her as amazingly fine miniatures, no larger than grains of sand. Jane could hear their voices over the radio, the cool and arrogant young technocrats and their angry machines.
"We have visual. Hawk, keep steady. Anybody got a positive ID?"
"Roger. Adjusting a point. That's our rogue, all right."
"Rip their fucking guts out!"
"Spitfire, you're too wide."
"Lemme shove one up the bastard's rectum!"
"Hawk, Spitfire, ready your AAM. Bring 'em on-line."
Jane felt her face freeze. She knew that voice! It was Rocket! For a giddy instant it seemed impossible—she had left him sleeping, miles away from any interceptor base. Still, he had access to House Incolore, whose many doors, Lesya had said, opened everywhere. How long would it take him to reach his base if he were summoned? Not long at all.
"Now!" Melanchthon shouted. Jane brought them around hard and tight. The interceptors overshot wildly, air brakes out, dwindling with distance. Melanchthon was headed due north now. Jane opened up the throttle.
"Full power," the dragon commanded as he reconfigured for maximum speed. "No more dicking around. We're going straight for Hell Gate."
"Where is it?" The navigational systems were no help. "It's not marked! I can't find it anywhere."
"Where is it? Fool! Hell Gate is not a place—it's a condition."
At his direction, Jane lifted Melanchthon's nose straight up. Before he could stall out, she cut in the afterburners. G forces slammed her back into the couch. They flattened her face and narrowed her vision—everything was jumping; she dared only look straight ahead. The dragon seized control of her autonomous functions and pumped blood back into her head to keep her from blacking out.
The pillars of smoke towering above them shrank to nothing.
"Moving into position. Look at them climb."
"Hold back, Spitfire."
"I think I can squeeze off a shot."
"Hold back."
Flyspeck alphanumerics flicked off and on as the dragons spoke, tagging them with their public IDs. 2928: "C'mon down, sweetheart. We want to teach you a little lesson in experimental entelechy."
6613: "Hah!"
8607: "Is your pilot listening? I got a message for him: Spread your cheeks, dipshit, and brace yourself for a shot of ontology in action."
Disgusted, she slapped a masking function on them, leaving only the calm chatter of their pilots.
"Hawk, can you lock on radar?"
"Ah, negatory, Rocket."
"Craziest damn tactics I ever saw. What do you make of it?"
"Looks like a DG maneuver to me."
"That's my reading too. Spitfire, set up your point of intercept. Hawk, ditto on the left. I'll sit on his tail and drive him straight at you."
"Roger."
"Double affirmative."
Their pursuers had altitude. Climbing above them used up half the distance Jane had over them. "Cocky bastards," Melanchthon said. "They think they've got us pegged. Bring up the rear guns. If they come anywhere near range, give 'em a burst. Just to dust 'em back."
"O-okay." Jane was being battered and rattled like a die in a giant's gambling cup. It was all she could do to follow his instructions. The instrumentation lights flickered as Melanchthon fired up the two barrel-sized banks of superconductors located just beneath the ventral hatches of his thorax. "I never did understand what those things are for."
"Watch and learn."
Melanchthon threw 350 degrees of enhanced exteriors onto the wraparound screens. Jane saw electromagnetic fields warping out from his iron body like vast invisible wings. Actinic blue light flared where the fields interacted with air ionized by the dragon's passage.
"There it goes, right on schedule. It's a DG maneuver for damnsure."
"Can't see why they'd want to hit Dream Gate, but nothing else makes any sense at all. Hold position, Spitfire. We'll do this by the book."
"Your call, Rocket."
They shot entirely out of the atmosphere and Melanchthon cut the burners. The blue flares of energy dimmed, became ripples in the structure of space. Briefly, they went ballistic. After the crushing forces of acceleration, the sudden weightlessness almost made Jane empty her stomach. She swallowed back the sudden upsurge and ran a quick check of all systems. Everything came up green. "Can you engage our pursuit on an electronic level? I want to have a private word with their flight leader."
"I've been engaged in electronic countermeasures since they came over the horizon," Melanchthon said disdainfully. "Here. You and your paramour can trade endearments on virtual."
Rocket's face appeared on the wraparound. "Jayne!" he cried in astonishment. "What are you doing here?"
She couldn't answer.
"You've been abducted," he said flatly.
Rankled, she said, "Fuck that noise! I know what I'm doing." In the background she could hear the indistinct mutter of dragons inadequately squelched, their anger carrying a conviction stronger than any words could express. She couldn't ignore it. It was as if her bones and viscera, her organs and i