Nova War

The war-dirigible shuddered violently and he almost lost his grip. Simultaneously he heard a horrible screeching and scraping as the underside of the metal gondola hit the rim of the rocky ledge. The dirigible tipped over even more as it mashed itself up against the mountainside, and Remembrance held on for his life. But after a couple of seconds the craft floated away from direct contact with the ledge, and immediately began to level up.

There were still angry clicks and hisses from the gondola below, but fewer than before, since some of the crew had been tipped out.

Remembrance caught Honeydew's scent and realized belatedly that once the dirigible had sunk below the level of the ridge, he himself would present a much easier target. Peering over the side of one gas cell, he saw that Honeydew – along with his surviving security contingent – had ma

Not good. Not good at all.

The ledge itself hove more and more into view as the dirigible dropped lower and lower. He stared numbly as Honeydew gesticulated wildly at his officers. The artillery platform then began to rotate on its mount, the bulbous barrel of its force ca

He scrambled backwards, as far away out of sight of the turret as possible, as it looked like the gondola crew was dispensable after all.

A powerful blast of heat and light slammed into the side of the dirigible facing the mountain – almost exactly where he'd been only a moment before. A crunching sound from below was accompanied by screams, and suddenly the dirigible began to rise far more rapidly than it had been descending. There was the sound of something clanking and crashing about, growing rapidly fainter as the mountain fell away beneath him.

Half the gas cells were gone now. He looked over the side and caught a glimpse of the gondola tumbling down the side of the mountain.

He glanced quickly up at the clouds shrouding the mountain peaks, seeing faint wisps of cirrus that were suddenly looking a lot closer. He realized he had no choice now but to jump. He crawled to the side of what was left of the war-dirigible and threw himself far out into the cold, deep air.

At first Remembrance tumbled wildly, as the air was too thin to give his wings a grip. But he eventually managed to spread them wide enough so he could at least guide himself in the direction of the convoy of blimps he'd spotted a few minutes before, and simultaneously away from the mountain slopes.

The leading blimp, barely more than a dot at this height, was just passing between two of Darkwater's tallest Hive Towers. The rest of them – no doubt slaved to the first – followed it between the towers in a snake-like motion.

The freezing air tore at Remembrance as he dropped, and he fought the black numbness that was once again threatening to overwhelm him. The wound sliced between his wings had become a hot line of insistent pain.

He twisted around to look above him and felt little surprise when he spied a tiny dot far above, but growing rapidly closer. Another Bandati, using his wings not to slow his rate of descent -but to increase it.

It could only be Honeydew.

Remembrance recalled what the corrupt security agent had told him, how young Bandati – some young enough to have only just earned their reproductive rights by flying up to the platforms dotting the tower walls – liked to leap from the mountain's tallest escarpments. Assuming they didn't lose consciousness on the way down, they would try and brake their terrifying descent as close to the ground as possible.

The mortality rate was high and the sport was barely legal, yet what Honeydew had said made it clear he'd had some experience of it. In which case, the Immortal Light agent had a distinct advantage.

The blimps already looked a lot closer than only seconds before. Densely populated urban areas extended between the towers of the city, and he could see the low roofs of the alien quarter where the non-Bandati population had set up home. The river, fed by its tributaries, flowed through it all calmly on its way to the ocean.

He was still dropping too fast, but even if he did manage to brake himself, it would merely allow Honeydew to catch up sooner. The Immortal Light agent was getting closer and closer, swooping from side to side in a manoeuvre Remembrance had never witnessed before.

Remembrance spread his wings wide at the last moment before Honeydew reached him, angling into the air to drastically cut his velocity of descent. As he suddenly pulled up, Honeydew overshot him, wasting precious seconds before he managed to spread his wings wide and brake.

Ground and sky whirled around Remembrance as the air caught his wings sharply, agonizing pain flooding through his back and the roots of his wings.

By the time he stabilized his descent, the distance between himself and Honeydew had opened up considerably. But they were both still dropping too fast. Bandati wings were designed for short hops relatively close to the ground in a dense atmosphere, not for high-speed plummets through rarefied mountain air.

He saw the hollow peak of a Hive Tower far below, and could just make out the buildings sitting on the platforms protruding from its sides. He briefly entertained the notion of aiming for one of them, but at the rate he was moving, and given his injuries, there was a pretty good chance he'd just end up getting himself killed.

The cargo blimps still presented a marginally better target. Remembrance tensed as he dropped towards one of them, and he tried tacking from side to side in the same way he'd seen Honeydew do.

In the last few seconds of his descent he heard a soft percussive sound, faint with distance.

A flash of light dazzled him and he twisted around, panicking. Another war-dirigible – identical to the one he'd just escaped from – had appeared from around the far side of the Tower he'd thought of aiming for. More flashes of light erupted from the direction of its gondola, and heat and flame exploded around Remembrance.

He twisted as he hit the upper surface of a cargo blimp, hard, and rolled and bounced before he managed to grab onto some netting, half-blinded by the flash of the force ca

He pulled his head back up and saw Honeydew as the agent staggered upright on the next blimp along. Clearly, the Immortal Light agent's own landing had been far from easy, too. He started flexing and straightening his wings, while examining them over his shoulders, checking for damage. Remembrance did the same, testing his wings while favouring the one that had been wounded.

He then glanced towards the approaching war-dirigible, just as two puffs of smoke emerged from the side of its gondola.

Remembrance ran along the top of his blimp and took to the air again, lifting off just as the first of two incendiary rockets struck the point where he'd been standing. The blimp was transformed into a ball of blazing fire and began to come apart, dropping towards the city below with shocking speed. He flew as vigorously as he could towards another blimp, but heading away from Honeydew.

The air was now dense enough to support him in flight, yet the question remained whether he had enough strength even to glide down to the streets below. His body normally could only power itself in short bursts of flight, and he'd used up too much strength in the thin mountain air.

Then, at last, came the first sign of hope.

As he touched down on another blimp, he felt so utterly weary that he seriously doubted his chances of evading capture or death. A second war-dirigible suddenly appeared from between two Hive Towers about half a kilometre distant: patterns of light flickering along the rim of the new arrival's gondola – the familiar identification code of his own Darkening Skies hive.