Seconds later he heard the buzzing snarl of jets as bike formations began to appear, swirling into the disorganized knots of the pirates' own riders.

The roar of a bike sounded, very close. It might be one of the Rook's boys coming back, maybe wounded, or… He swung down and looked around the edge of the hangar door. Not thirty feet away, a black can trailed flame as it tried to match the rotation of the Rook. Its rider wore a lime-green jacket and burgundy trousers. He was straining to snag a passing porthole with a hook lashed to a grenade.

Chaison leaned way out, standing now on the very bottom of the open door with only a rope around his waist tying him to the Rook. He aimed and fired in one motion, and saw the rider convulse and the bike veer away. Before he swung back up he verified that the grenade had followed them into the dark.

Dangling there, vaguely aware of cheering coming from up above, he watched the battle progress. His forces had a clear advantage in weaponry, armor, and discipline, but they were outnumbered. The pirates—or expatriate Aerie airmen—kept swinging in and out of the cover of the cloudbanks. They had men on bikes tracking down the flares Slipstream's own bikes had laid down; as Chaison watched, the glows that marked the location of obstacles in those clouds were snuffed one by one. Having previously set the positions of those ice and rock chunks in their inertial navigation systems, the pirates themselves had no need of lamps to know where they were.

Another swing around and Severance and the Unseen Hand appeared, locked into a fierce rocket battle with three black cylinders. Their formation was broken and the two ships were drifting away at a quickening pace. As Chaison was about to ask why Sembry wasn't pursuing them, the Rook's rotation took them out of sight, and something huge cut off any further view of the sky.

It was the black hull of a pirate, and it was barely yards away. The bastard had somehow snuck up on Sembry. Looking to the side, Chaison realized that the pirate had already looped rope around the spinning Rook. If friction or snags didn't break them, the pirates could drag the Rook's hull into contact with the jagged rams that were even now being thrust out of its rocket ports.

"Sembry!" roared Chaison. He'd have the man towed for a day behind his own ship for this. The riflemen around him were gaping, so he yelled, "Fire on those ports!" and did so himself as an example.

Then he turned to his staffers. "Ready the ship for boarders. And find out why Sembry's not moving us!"

"It's mines," somebody said. "They've mined the air between us and the others."

Sure enough, as the ship spun around again he caught glimpses of green-lit star shapes tumbling in the space between the Rook and the receding Severance. "I need those cleared!" Even as he said this he realized that none of Slipstream's bikes were nearby. The bulk of them were caught up in a gigantic dogfight at the opposite end of the battle. Some drifted, dead or burning. The rest were missing.

He whirled and pointed at Venera's driver. "You! Get out there and clear those mines."

"W-what?" The young man blinked at him dumbly. Of course, he was just a civilian.

Chaison appealed to the riflemen. "Can anyone else here fly a bike?"

"No, wait, I'll do it." The driver was glaring at Chaison as though he'd received a mortal insult. "But…"The black-haired young man glanced to one side slyly. "I'll need help." He indicated the bike's two sidecars.

"Whatever," said Chaison with a negligent wave of the hand. "Take whoever you need."

"Bring me a saber and a pistol," he said. As he waited he watched the driver manhandle his bike toward the open hangar doors. Venera's not going to be happy if I wreck her nice little taxi, he thought. The idea made him smile.

"MARTOR!" HAYDEN WAVED frantically as he saw the boy pass the inside door to the hangar. "Get in here!"

"But I gotta go to—she's got nobody to—"

Hayden grabbed him by the arm and aimed him at the bike. "Are you talking about Aubri Mahallan?" he asked. Martor nodded quickly. "Well then go get her and bring her here. Fast!"

He did his best to be slow about winching the bike over the open doors. Every few seconds the scarred hull of the pirate would flash into view and the ships would exchange rifle fire. Bullets hummed past on all sides when that happened and Hayden hid behind the substantial metal of the bike.

When he poked his head out the third time he saw Martor literally dragging Aubri Mahallan into the hangar. "What's this all about?" she asked impatiently as the two came to land on the sidecars.

Hayden turned to Martor. "Martor, can you fetch us an extra set of stirrups?"

The boy looked suspicious. "But why—" Hayden turned away from him, to face Mahallan. In a low voice he said, "We're going to lose this battle. Come with me if you want to live."

Her eyes widened. She glanced at the opened doors below them just as black hull appeared there. "Down!" Hayden grabbed her shoulders and pushed her into the open mouth of the bike's jet as gunfire sounded all around them. Abstractly he noticed how fine-boned her shoulders were. Behind them, two of the Rook's riflemen convulsed and tumbled forward to hang at the end of their lines.

Aubri cried out and covered her eyes.

"We have to go," Hayden said to her, "and we have to go now! The Rook's about to be boarded. You have no idea what they're going to do with a woman if they catch you."

The gunfire subsided as the pirate swung out of sight again. Aubri Mahallan looked out at the bullet-scarred space, its air blue with gunsmoke, and bit her lip in obvious indecision. Then she pushed Hayden aside angrily. "Get out of my way," she hissed. "I'm needed here."

"What are you talking about?You'll be killed if you stay!"

"I can't go," she said, looking frantic. "Too much has happened:—is at stake now. It would be—"

"You have to choose your battles, Aubri."

She shook her head angrily. "Fine. I choose this one. You run away, if that's what you want."

Hayden was too astonished to stop her as she jumped back up to the inner door. Martor was coming back with the spare stirrups and gaped at her as she went by. "What did you say to her?" he yelled at Hayden. At the same time, another heavy body landed on the bike next to him, making it rock.

"Hey!" shouted the red-haired boatswain, who held a bundle of rope and rockets under his arm. "Cut us loose, errand boy!"

Hayden cursed and mounted the bike. "Come on, Martor! We need you!" He and the boatswain dragged the protesting boy onto the bike. Hayden glanced down to make sure the pirate wasn't below them, and then pulled the pin on the winch. The bike did its curving fall into the dark air, and he spun up the fan and lit the burner without thinking.

His two passengers were having a shouted conversation past his back."… Tied to the nets," said the boatswain as the jet lit and they surged forward just in time to avoid the approaching hull of the pirate. "Snag a mine with the net and light the rocket. Make sure you aim the rocket away from the Rook first. If you can aim it at a pirate, great!"

The boatswain spun in his seat and hit Hayden in the midriff. "Get us out there! The Rook's about to be boarded!"

Hayden complied silently. This bike was dangerously fast, even with sidecars on it, so he was compelled to approach the mined air in a series of short bursts. This drew more insults from the boatswain. Meanwhile the battle continued to rage around them, at near points such as the Rook, and far away in flashes like lightning on distant clouds. Grumbling and roaring noises echoed strangely off the ice field that made a half-visible wall beyond the mists.