The Dark Imbalance by Sean Williams, Shane Dix

Thousands of innocent people died in the ensuing repression, including my family, and it achieved nothing for either side. It turned out that the enemy was responsible for the whole thing. The terrorists were just a tool—the means to an end. And that end was to cause as much destruction and misery as possible.”
    Nemeth looked at Roche, who sat watching him carefully. He remained outwardly relaxed, except for his hands: his knuckles were white where they gripped the armrest. When he realized this, he quickly loosened his grip and his smile returned.
    “So, do you have any family, Roche?” Nemeth asked.
    Roche felt a stab of pain. Never knowing her parents had been a constant regret throughout her childhood. As an adult, she had aspired to COE Intelligence in order to track them down. Upon reaching that goal, however, she had forgotten about her parents entirely, too busy with her own life to worry about the one she might have had.
    “No,” she said. Another part of her was glad that she could forestall his obvious gambit. While she could feel compassion for his loss, he would have to engage her intellect, not her emotions, in order to get what he wanted. Whatever that was.
    If he was disappointed by her reply, he made no sign. He simply nodded and changed the subject.
    “In a second we’ll be entering one of the main longitudinal ducts that run down the hull from minaret to crypt,” he said.
    Vischilglin leaned forward in the cab. “That’s fore to aft to us,” she said.
    “Even at the speeds we will be going,” Nemeth continued, “it will take us ten minutes or so. But please don’t be concerned by that,” he added in response to a look of alarm in Roche’s eyes: to travel any significant length along the giant ship so quickly would demand speeds greater than one or two thousand kilometers per hour. “We’ll be perfectly safe.”
    They raced toward what at first appeared to be nothing more than a wall, but as they flew closer, Roche saw it for what it actually was: a giant tube lying on its side across their path, suspended by invisible forces ten meters or more above the rolling hills. It was so thick that its top was obscured by the cloud cover, and for a moment Roche wondered how they were going to get past it—or into it, if this was in fact one of the ducts Nemeth had mentioned.
    A moment later the craft swept beneath the massive cylinder and into its shadow. Their speed eased slightly as the air-car rose toward an enormous portal on the underbelly of the tube, easily thirty meters across and hanging open like a slack and lipless mouth. From it issued a cold breeze; not strong, but enough to make Roche shiver.
    “An air duct?” she said, hearing a faint susurrus coming from within. “Seems a bit primitive on a ship like this.”
    “Believe me,” said Nemeth, “it’s purely for aesthetics.”
    Then they were inside—and caught by a tremendous, rushing wind. The air-car lurched violently as it began to accelerate along the tube. Roche gripped her armrests as she was pressed back into her seat and knocked from side to side with every buffeting motion. Beside her, Nemeth laughed at her obvious alarm.
    Another air-car—this one a single-passenger model shaped more like an egg with two limp, trailing spines—swept past them, barely missing by a meter. Startled, Roche looked around properly for the first time. Inside, the tube was easily wide enough to hold a hundred air-cars. Lines of lights trickled along the walls; every now and again, larger, brighter patches would rush by, too quick to take in. Other air-cars continued to pass theirs, less quickly than before, but thankfully none came as close as the first one.
    “Aesthetics, huh?” she said to Nemeth over the sound of the wind; some sort of field-effect was keeping the worst of the turbulence at bay; otherwise he would never have been able to hear her.
    He laughed out loud again. But this time it was with an almost childlike delight: he