Scratch One Gasbag

Belle continues her work, but keeps a little of her attention listening to those around her, in case anyone has additional suggestions.

And as she does so, she fades to a translucent gray. And just in time, because a bullet whacks through the space she occupies a moment later! It whines off a rock with a Hollywood ricochet noise.


Janet asks Ronald Richter: "Do you want me to sneak around the soldiers and try and get close enough to stick a few rocks in them, or fade some of them into the ground?"

Richter says, "Right. But there's a ton of them, so don't let the survivors see you!"

Kaze is looking for the tattooed man--or anyone else she might recognize from the Shadow Guard or the Iron Guard.

As it happens, most of the six Actives dropped into this fight are the same age as Kaze, give or take a year, and were therefore in the School for Gifted Young Wizards at the same time she was!

From her posture, the young woman who dropped out of the airship is Yurasu Yoma, the strongest Brute ever recorded. She had to wear heavy weights on her limbs in order to walk without leaping into the ceiling with every step; they also help her exert leverage. She is wearing her gold bracelets now, but they're lead underneath. Yurasu is only average at karate, but excellent in slipping or dodging blows. Her Brute strength gives her extra toughness, as we just saw.

Next to her is Kujiju-san ("Rock"), a Massive from Hokkaido. He's the tallest Japanese anyone's ever seen, but he has Ainu blood, so he's paler and curlier-haired than most Japanese. Sometimes foreigners don't see it. Rock, when his Power is active, cannot be hurt by anything the Imperium has available.

Kaze also recognizes Kasai, the motor-mouth wisecracking Torch. He's one of the Actives pinned to the cliff by the winds. One of the others in that group of four must be a Heavy, but Kaze doesn't recognize him. She can't see faces, of course, but Kasai's fidgety hand movements, Yurasu's focused crouch, and Rock's height give them away.

The resistance Belle feels to her Power abruptly lets go. The airship is pulled down over the cliff, its keel broken like a stick over her knee. Bullets abruptly stop spattering the hillside as the soldiers all run away from the ship, because it's about to

WHOOMP

explode. Hydrogen flames boil skyward and tear at the belly of the clouds. The crowns, but not the trunks, of all the trees on the clifftop catch fire. It's still technically night, but everyone can see perfectly well.

Including some Imperial sharpshooters. A fusilade of rifle shots cracks apart the tree behind which Voinovich is hiding. Then someone runs to the edge of the cliff, hurling a small grenade like a discus. The grenade falls just short of Belle and Kaze's position behind some rocks, and the grenade then bursts into dazzling white light and gouts out streamers of white smoke.

The officer in charge on the cliff top gives a shouted order.

Kaze can translate for Belle: "Fire! Fire at the smoke!"

The four Actives pinned to the cliff resume falling in dreamlike slow motion. The wind that the enemy Weatherman was using to hold up the airship has ended, and gravity is reasserting a bit of its influence.