The contrast between the opulent floors above and the mundane working space was jarring. Worse still the corridors that lead between maintenance and storage areas were of the same decorated marble as the rest of the palace. Doors of ornately carved wood opened onto greasy fabrication shops and warehouse shelving. Presumably the arrangement meant that a noble who had business here wouldn’t have to see the unsightliness necessary to run an establishment of this size. Sayeeda found the experience unpleasant in the extreme as though the hall way were a magical conduit with doors opening to alternate reality.

With Taya’s directions they raced down the hall and through several bays. Workmen in palace smocks watched them run past with shocked expressions, doubtlessly wondering what to make of the strange ensembles of battle gear and formal wear. Junebug as glad of their shock because she didn’t have her less lethal riot rifle anymore and she didn’t want to blast a half dozen civilians to paste if she could avoid it.

The roar of aircar fans filled the air as they opened the door to the hangar bay. It was an odd mix of stylish and practical, with expensive limousines and sporty compact air cars lined up in twin rows of glistening paint and sparkling chrome. High vaulting pillars supported a high ceiling which allowed even amateur pilots, as many of the nobles no doubt were, to land safely. The support pillars hung with vast silk banners twenty or thirty meters long, displaying the sigils and heraldry of Dar’mond’s noble houses, Aiden’s own sigil foremost amongst them.

At the end of the chamber a knot of armed men were climbing into a pair of air cars, their fans already running up to speed. Some of the men, not yet aboard, spotted the pair and opened fire. Plasma bolts burst on the doorframe and sprayed shards of jagged stone and flaming timber in all directions. Neil and Sayeeda both dived forward into the hangar, skidding on the slick marble flooring to land behind one of the pillars. 

“Ok…” she began, ready to outline a plan but Neil was already on his feet. Yelling at the top of his lungs he took off along the right hand row of cars. The pilot had no weapons but made his hands into imitation pistols as he had when they landed and mock firing them at the gunmen. Junebug could only watch in horror as the fire shifted to him. Plasma bolts ravened through the air, one struck the hood of a red sports car igniting the paint and windscreen in a fireball of burning plastic.

“Make a distraction he said…” she muttered to herself, but it was too late to worry about strategy now. With the attention on Neil and the ongoing destruction of property he was causing, she jumped to her feet and bolted down the left hand side, keeping low to keep out of the sight of the gun men. Her formal shoes pounded on the marble and she was really glad she hadn’t worn heels for the opera this evening. None of the shooters even looked at her, their whole attention focused on the capering Neil as he doded and rolled from car to burning car.

By the time she reached the end of the chamber the big limousine was already lifting on air pressure. Throwing caution to the wind she lifted the shotgun to her shoulder and pulled the trigger. The big weapon thumped hard against her shoulder and the windscreen starred in a thousand crazed stress lines. The glass had to be bulletproof and though the pilot was in no danger, no civilian reacts well to a point blank shotgun blast. The unseen pilot hauled back on the flight yoke and the big aircar lifted and tilted towards Sayeeda the back blast of its fans blowing her hair out in a short snapping banner and forcing her to narrow her eyes. It was an understandable mistake. If the pilot had kept his head, he could have slid out of the hanar on his air cushion and slipped away. As it as his panicked maneuver liftd the bottom of th car towards Sayeeda, exposing the micron precise fan arrays which powered it. She squeezed the trigger and held it in a long thumping, shoulder bruising burst, walking it down the length of the car. Thousands of pellets smashed into the fans, air intakes and control rigs. Several of the fans seized on the spot. The shafts, rotating at thousands or RPM, bound in their housings, cooking the bearings in a shower of sparks more brilliant than any firework. The imbalance in thrust flipped the aircar like a childs toy, smashing the top of it into a pillar that starred all of the bullet proof windows and smashed the chassis into mangled scrap. A hydralic line blew in a fireball that seemed boring amid the fountaining sparks. Either a saftey cut off finally kicked in or, less likely, the pilot was able to cut the power and the wrecked limousine slid down the pillar with a groan of rending metal and hit the ground, coming to rest nose to the ground and rear to the pillar at something like seventy degrees. 

Sayeeda sucked in a throat flaying breath of air filled with the stink of a dozen different combustibles, and swung the shot gun onto the four gunman standing in open mouth horror. She dropped one with a  shot to the chest and the others threw their weapons aside and ran for one of the service exits. Taya was shouting something in her ear but Sayeeda couldn’t hear anything over the thundering adrenaline, Whatever the girl needed would wait. Junebug staggered towards the wrecked car, making it nearly to the vehicle before the door cracked open and Alexander flopped out onto the stone floor. His handsome face was bloodied and the general’s uniform he wore as torn and disheveled. Smoke poured from the interior of the car.

“Sayeeda stop!” a voice yelled in her ear. She looked left and saw no one before she realised it was Aiden talking through her implant.

“Do NOT shoot him!” the Prince commanded. Alexander was on his hands and knees looking up at the shotgun wielding figure in her bizzare mix of evening gown and combat gear. Blood ran from both nostrils and one of his ears and a row of medals had gashed his chest during the crash. She leveled the gun at his face and pulled it in snug to her shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Neil getting up from behind a wrecked air bike.

“THAT IS AN ORDER!” Aiden roared. The barrel of the gun wavered for a moment as the adrenaline began to drain from her system.

“Yeah,” she replied and then pulled the trigger. Alexander screamed in horror as the weapon clicked empty, its magazine expended. For a moment there was silence except for the crackle of fires and the differential pings of cooling metal.

“Yeah, no sweat,” she repeated, her voice weary.
[@POOHEAD189]