Free Cenotaxis by Sean Williams Page B

shouting from my right. The whiz of gunfire gets me moving properly. Adrenaline-fuelled blood surges through my veins. Being a trooper is something you never unlearn, and for me my last gun battle was only days ago.
    There's no time to grab a weapon and fire back. The frags are determined to get me aboard the airship and away. Rifle fire pings and tings against the hull, but the hatch closes before the invaders can approach. My stomach lurches as powerful engines roar into life. The hull changes to a more aerodynamic shape, forcing the chamber around me to become narrower, more claustrophobic. My guts tell me that we are accelerating fast.
    "Where are we going?" I call to Alice-Angeles over the engines. "Won't they be able to track us?"
    "We want them to," she says, peeling off her armor like a crab slipping out of its shell. The pieces curl up when they hit the floor. "In two minutes, you and I are jumping out wearing these." She indicates two limp skinsuits in nonreflective gray that one of the frags is holding. "They're radar-absorbent and will deploy foils to bring us down on the target safely."
    "What's at the target?"
    "I'll explain if there's time. You'll want to undress now."
    Under the combined emotionless gaze of the frags, I strip out of my gray prison garb and slip into the skinsuit. It hugs me like a lover, and I am conscious of a strange and inappropriate arousal. Is it the thought of freedom that excites me, or Alice-Angeles' slim body in its own gray sheath? I am not normally a sexual person; relationships are difficult to maintain in an achronistic framework, and frags emote very differently than Primes. It has been easier to leave that corner of my being fallow. Now, though, it has stirred. Why?
    I can't disentangle the cause from the effect. So much novelty in so short a time is leaving me mentally and emotionally off balance. I don't know where to look.
    The frags don't even notice. One of them opens a smaller hatch in the side of the airship, and desperately cold wind dispels any absurd illusions I might have entertained.
    "After you," Alice-Angeles says with her strong hand gripping my shoulder. "The suit will take control as soon as you're falling."
    I nod and move into position. The wind snatches at me with increased strength, and I resist only so long as it takes to brace myself. Then I fling myself forward into darkness, certain that anything Alice-Angeles has prepared will work perfectly.
    As promised, the suit leaves me little to do. Deceptively strong aerofoils instantly unfurl from my arms and legs, stabilizing my fall. A moment later I sense the fabric changing shape in order to alter my orientation. My heart rises into my throat, making it difficult to breathe, as the forest below rushes up to meet me. I see nothing but leaves and branches, any one of which could take my head clean off. I fight the urge to close my eyes.
    I penetrate a hole in the canopy, invisible until the very last second, and the suit puffs up like a parachute. Its all-over grip on my body spreads the sudden deceleration, but still I feel shaken by the jolt. I twist and hit the ground on my side, and roll several times across a bed of soft undergrowth. When I come to a halt, I can see faint neuronal ghosts firing in my eyes, but nothing else. The parachute retracts.
    With a whistle and a protracted, crackling thud, Alice-Angeles follows, landing almost close enough to touch. The fabric of her suit briefly covers my face, and I brush it away with shaking hands. I can hear her breathing—heavy but regular—and am not surprised that she finds her feet before I do.
    "Wait here," she says. I hear her moving through the undergrowth. Her hands find something other than vegetation. Plastic clasps unsnap. "I have a torch," she says, "but I'll wait a moment in case they see us."
    Only then do I consciously note the whining of aircraft above. Landing lights glimmer through the foliage, but no searchlights. Our descent has gone