The Scorpion landed on three legs and two arms, one of which buckled. Kit’s curled form was still held protectively close. Then, even as Solace dropped down to join them, Olli was tilting the frame to avoid a scatter of magnetic shot that drilled holes into the frame’s body. Solace ducked behind her, seeing a couple of Aklu’s people running past. They were rushing down a much broader thoroughfare, heading elsewhere. And in their wake came . . .
Aklu itself. The Unspeakable Aklu, the Razor and the Hook. The Essiel glided into view, still perched on its a-grav couch as though part of a procession and just wondering where the cheering crowds had got to. Its gilded Hiver major-domo marched to one side, two holes punched in their tragedic face but otherwise none the worse for wear. On the other side was Heremon, the Tothiat woman. She called for her boss to hurry and began shooting at the Scorpion. Olli cried out, hunched as low as she could get in the horribly exposed cockpit. With a bizarre feeling of sacrilege, Solace returned fire. She emptied the gun at the whole pack of them, knocking Heremon back with a hole in her chest, for all the good it would do.
Then she saw what was coming and yelled at Olli to get back, get down . . . except there was no back nor down to be had. The four-legged Hiver with the rotary cannon stalked into view and levelled their entire body at the Scorpion. Solace wasn’t sure what ordnance it was packing, but surely enough to turn the frame into scrap – and her, Olli and Kit into bloody shreds.
‘Shoot it!’ the specialist shouted at Solace.
‘No ammo!’
‘Some fucking soldier!’ And then a line of accelerator shot tore the Hiver apart, even as the cannon spun up. It clipped off the Hiver’s leg and a slick of frantic metal insects spilled out like living intestines. Another lashing barrage came, almost invisible save for its effects. It tore away one of the gilded major-domo’s arms before shearing through Aklu’s couch. With a scream of overstressed machinery and failing gravity engines, the whole stately conveyance sagged to one side and ploughed into the corridor wall, tearing up the mother-of-pearl inlay and leaving a blackened gouge of fried circuitry.
A pair of Partheni in full armour ran into view, trying to shoot past the downed couch at Heremon, who they’d obviously identified as the real threat. Olli ran the Scorpion forwards, tail high, to serve the woman the same way as she had Mesmon. The Unspeakable didn’t look as though it would be razoring or hooking anyone in the immediate future. Or perhaps forever, if the Partheni finished the creature off.
Then Aklu began to move.
Olli skidded to a sudden halt and began backing away. Her eyes were wide as plates, and perhaps some smidgeon of that was respect – from one enthusiast of the mechanical arts to another.
The bulk of the broken couch was left behind, as Aklu unfolded a body out of it like a deep sea monster forcing itself from a crevice. It rose up on a frame that was mostly segmented metal tentacles, black ringed with gold at the annular joints. In moments, the Essiel was borne aloft once more, the shimmer of a gravitic shield about its body. One limb lashed out like a whip and slapped down a Partheni myrmidon, hard enough to send cracks crazing across the plates of her armour.
‘We go, now,’ Solace told Olli. She’d been told her sisters would hold here and draw the enemy off. She was to get herself and any other civilians out. ‘Do you know where they attached the Vulture to this ship? Your sonar good for that?’
‘On it.’ Olli closed her eyes to prioritize the frame’s artificial senses. ‘Fuck me, though, did you see that?’ She sounded more impressed than Solace would have liked.
‘I’m still seeing it.’ Aklu was retreating down the broader tunnel, with Heremon and the major-domo running interference. The mass of tentacles undulated beneath and around it, finding purchase on walls and ceiling. It carried the whole assemblage along faster than Solace could have run.
‘Got to get me one of those someday,’ Olli said. For her part, Solace was remembering the odd respect the Essiel had shown the specialist, and now perhaps she understood. And is that what made it a renegade? The desire to move under its own power? Does that count as incurable insanity, amongst a species that’s supposed to just take root? Some weird part of her was trying to feel sympathy towards the alien gangster. A convenient anthropomorphic narrative that likely didn’t get anywhere near a truth the Essiel would recognize.
Then they dropped another level into a smaller corridor, mercifully away from where Aklu had been heading, and Olli had found a hatch.