Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 226
"Can’t we just run for it?" He stood swaying slightly,
staring at it.
"Come on!" Abandoning care, she hauled him inside.
The foyer of the manor was a chaos of screaming people. One
staircase had collapsed; a weeping woman dug frantically at
the wreckage, screaming "Hold on! I’m coming!" Some
soldiers with their swords in their hands stood in a knot, staring
hectically at the shadowed ceiling. Men were hauling injured
people and corpses in from one of the side corridors.
"There’s nowhere else to go," said Axel.
"What’s happening?" She pulled Axel to face her; his
expression was lost in darkness, since the only light came from
a couple of oil lamps, and from fires burning outside.
"Turcaret says they’re after Jordan," said Axel. "I guess
his implants set them off somehow. The bastard did this to
me," he said, raising his arms then wincing. "Tried to set me
up for the murder of Yuri."
She shrugged angrily. "Yes, I saw the result. Where’s
Jordan?"
"No idea." One of the front doors fell off its hinges.
With everything else that was happening, this didn’t seem
momentous. But harsh cones of electric light pierced the dust
from outside. Calandria heard a loud whirring sound,
accompanied by undulating movements in the doorway.
"What do we do now?" she said.
"Nothing," he said, staring into the light.
"Not nothing!" She let her breath out in a rush, coughed
on dust, and said, "We shoot down the aerostat."
Axel’s eyes widened. "With what?"
"Call the Desert Voice. Land her here. Have her take out
the aerostat on the way."
"But Jordan--"