“Here we go,” he said as they reached the turning for Arischal Lane. It led to Bazely Square, which on ordinary days was a busy intersection, with a big grassed-over roundabout in the middle. It had wide pedestrian subways running underneath, which were their designated shelter point during the bomb run.
He turned to go, then halted. Lightning flashed again. One of the blimpbots was sliding over the government district at the far end of Mantana Avenue, its black bulk materializing silently out of the gray rain as it headed toward them. Olwen followed his gaze. “Dreaming heavens, that’s low,” she gasped. The keel was barely ten meters above the roofs of the various government office buildings. Given the size of the blimpbot, such a separation distance was insignificant. Water poured from its flanks to drench the red pan tiles and solar paneling.
Stig watched it tack around slightly, and begin to fly along the broad thoroughfare. On its final approach, the main ducted fans fore and aft spun up to full thrust. It moved fast, a lot faster than he’d anticipated. The tips of the lofty old maple fur poplars scraped along the blimpbot’s fuselage. Cargo doors swung open all the way along its belly.
“Move,” Stig yelled. His overlay graphics told him it wasn’t carrying a bomb, but it was going to draw the Institute’s attention in a big way. He’d been a fool to stop and gawp like a tourist. Adam would be cursing him.
They sprinted down Arischal Lane as the blimpbot slid gracefully along the avenue behind them. It was audible now, the ducted fans whirring urgently, their pitch shifting as they swiveled constantly to maintain the craft’s course against the wind and rain lashing against it. The engine sound was twinned with a coarse ripping noise as the soaking trees along the avenue grated their way along the fuselage.
It eclipsed the entrance to Arischal Lane, a disturbing dark presence dominating the sky. In Stig’s virtual vision, it was one of nine that made up the first attack wave. They were closing on 3F Plaza in a loose circle, set to arrive within a four-minute window. Three of them already had cherry-red damage warning symbols blinking bright; they’d all struck something on their flight over the city: chimney stacks, rotundas, trees, masts slicing through the fuselage fabric to buckle and snap the geodesic stress structure. The holes made little noticeable difference to their aerodynamics or speed as they droned onward relentlessly.
The communications array at the aerodrome reported a burst of calls from the government district and the Governor’s House. It replied with a standard reply of we are forwarding your message for action. More advanced software began to probe the aerodrome’s network, searching out current flight files. The routines that the Guardians had installed were deflecting them, and attempting to Trojan their own disruptor virals into the Institute systems.
Stig reached the end of Arischal Lane, where there was a subway entrance on the corner of the road. He took the stone steps three at a time, before leaping down to the bottom. Olwen followed with a more nimble jump. They both sped forward through the lighted concrete passage to the central junction in the middle of the roundabout. It was set out like a small concrete crater, with polyphoto strips high on the walls. Rain poured down from the dismal sky to gurgle away slowly through drain grilles partially blocked by litter and dirt.
Images from the sneekbots showed Stig the Institute troops in 3F Plaza had finally been alerted to the massive airborne invaders heading toward them. Four Land Rover Cruisers drove into a protective arrangement around the MANN truck and its valuable load, their medium-caliber mounted weaponry ready, small sensor stalks swishing back and forth. The remaining Cruisers were fanning out across 3F Plaza, guns pivoting up to the thick rain clouds, tracking around in search of a target. Troops in flexarmor suits were bounding up the steps on the inside of Market Wall, their long hurdling movements agile in the low gravity. Sneekbots reported an ether thick with encrypted traffic. Scarlet targeting lasers stabbed out, foreshortened in the rain.
“They’re strengthening the force field over the gateway,” Keely reported.
“Good. I want it intact. Adam might still get through.” Stig sat down with his back to a wall, pants in the water trickling along the floor. Olwen knelt down beside him, and gripped his hand. He was glad of the contact. Everything they were dealing with was so remote, his virtual vision display reducing it to the level of some training exercise. “It’s about to begin,” he told everyone over the general band.
