The dirigibles were coming in fast, seventy miles an hour or better; the lead craft seemed to be aimed straight at him. The bomb bay doors were open, but nothing was coming out. John looked out of the corners of his eyes; the Marines looked a little tense, but not visibly upset. They kept their eyes on the buildings around them, only occasionally flicking to the approaching bombers.
“Smith, pull in here. We’ll wait it out and then continue.”
Here was a nook between two walls, both solid. Bad if the buildings come down, good otherwise. You paid your money and you took your chances. . . .
“Anyone who wants to can get out and take cover,” John said in a conversational tone.
Nobody did, although they squatted down. The dirigibles were over the river now, moving into the railyards and the residential sections of Ciano. Their shadows ghosted ahead of them, black whale-shapes over the whitewashed buildings and tile roofs.
“Hey,” one of the Marines said. “Why aren’t they bombing south? That’s where the factories and stuff are.”
Smiths hands were tight on the wheel. “Because, asshole, they don’t want to damage their own stuff—they’ll have it all in couple of days. Shit!”
Crump. Crump. Crump . . .
The bombs were falling in steady streams from the airships; the massive craft bounced higher as the weight was removed.
“Fifty tons load,” John whispered, bracing his hand on the roof-strut of the car and looking up. “Fifty tons each, thirty-five ships . . . seventeen hundred tons all up.”
“Mother,” someone said.
“Won’t kill y’any deader here than back at the embassy.”
“They wouldn’t bomb the embassy.”
“Yeah, sure. They’re gonna be real careful about that.”
“Can it,” the corporal said. “For what we are about to receive . . .”
The sound grew louder, the drone of the engines rasping down through the air. John could see the Land sunburst flag painted on their sides, and then the horseshoe-shaped glass windows of the control gondolas. A few black puffs of smoke appeared beneath and around the airships; some Imperial gunners were still sticking to their improvised antiairship weapons, showing more courage than sense. The pavement beneath the car shook with the impact of the explosions. Dust began to smoke out of the trembling walls of the tenements on either side. The crashing continued, an endless roar of impacts and falling masonry.
“Here—” someone began.
The shadow of a dirigible passed over them, throwing a chill that rippled down his spine. There was a moment of white light—
—and someone was screaming.
John tried to turn, and realized he was lying prone. Prone on rubble that was digging into his chest and belly and face. He pushed at the stone with his hands, spitting out dust and blood in a thick reddish-brown clot; more blood was running into his left eye from a cut on his forehead, but everything else seemed to be functional. And someone was still shouting.
One of the Marines, lying and clutching his arm. John came erect and staggered over to the car, which was lying canted at a three-quarter angle. The intersecting walls of the nook they’d stopped in still stood, but the buildings they’d been attached to were gone, spread in a pile of broken blocks across what had been the street.
the angle of the walls acted to deflect the blast, Center said. chaotic effect, and not predictable.
Good thing for the plan it did what it did, John thought as he rummaged for the first-aid kit.
your death at this point would decrease the probability of an optimum outcome from 57% ±3 to 41% ±4, Center said obligingly.
“Nice to know you’re needed,” John said.
The ringing in his ears was less, and he could see properly. Good, no severe concussion; he squatted beside the wounded Marine.
“Hold him,” he said to the others. “Let’s take a look at this.”
Two men held the shoulders down. The arm was not broken, but it was bleeding freely, a steady drip rather than an arterial pulse. He slipped the punch-dagger out of his collar and used it to cut off the sleeve of the uniform jacket; not the ideal tool—it was designed as a weapon—but it would do. The flesh of the man’s forearm was torn, and something was sticking out if it. John closed his fingers on it. A splinter of wood, probably oak, from a structural beam. Longer than a handspan, and driven in deep.