Free Nova War by Gary Gibson Page A

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.
    The cavalry had arrived, and not a moment too soon.
    The Immortal Light dirigible was close enough now for him to hear its commander shouting orders to his underlings. It started to tack towards the Darkening Skies dirigible, but not before it had fired a second set of incendiaries at Remembrance. He took off again as the missiles wove lazy arcs through the thick air, before slamming into the blimp.
    Every beat of his wings now felt like it was tearing at their connective tissues, and he realized his time might well be numbered in seconds. He reached back and unsheathed his shotgun, taking aim at the figures in the enemy gondola that were so intent on killing him. But he was starting to lose focus, his vision suddenly blurring; and after a moment he couldn’t even see well enough to take aim.
    He shook his head and his sight cleared a little, then he swooped in a long arc towards the Immortal Light war-dirigible with the last of his strength, seeing the weapons mounted on the sides of its gondola track him even as he flew. He felt a flash of hot pain in one wing and knew he’d been hit once more, but didn’t bother to check how badly.
    Instead he reached into a harness pocket and pulled out a fresh round, fumbling it into his shotgun and taking wild aim at his would-be assassins.
    The shot might have found its target, or it might as easily have gone wildly astray. He was dimly aware that the battle was being closely observed from the tiers and platforms of nearby towers, even as he flew towards what was probably certain death. Or it might have all been a hallucination born of fatigue and blood-loss.
    He swooped upwards at the last moment, pulling himself on top of the Immortal Light war-dirigible. It was just a temporary plan, one that might buy him a moment or two. He was, after all, an easy target for any enemy sniper who cared to pick him off from any one of a hundred nearby platforms that bore witness to his struggles.
    The shotgun slipped from his hands and he fell face-first onto one of the gas cells, the breath rasping in his throat.
    A shadow floated across Remembrance’s face. I’ve been caught, he thought. Or perhaps it was the Queen of Queens come to collect him for his final journey to the shadow-world.
    Instead, heavy-winged shapes thumped onto the same hardened fabric and netting on which he lay exhausted, and he felt long, fur-covered hands reach down and lift him up. They bore him aloft, and the sound of their wings