Beacon
The hidden hovercity belonging to Rebeke and Zeal's people, run impressively dark in the rain and mist of the dark zone under the cloud cover. Smaller than the city Nomad left, with only sparse soft-red hand-lanterns visible and the engines masked by the low hills and rain. Buildings on the deck are entered through a 'lightlock' antechamber so interior light does not leak out into the dark. STD:TSM:Ch 7
Known facts
- fading-in-the-darkContemplation tells the council bluntly that the city is dying in the dark zone — no soil to farm, ships and people lost each time they venture into the dawnlands — and that today's surprise victory against the Cinder King is also the day his guard will close on them for good. Returning to their old corridor is impossible; staying here will kill them.STD:TSM:Ch 8
- not-warriorsNomad notes — and Contemplation all but confirms in council — that this is not a people practised in warfare; they have not been graced, in her phrasing, with the brutal instincts the Cinder King takes for granted.STD:TSM:Ch 8
- no-tyrants-only-familyGoverns by consensus, not edict — Contemplation insists there are no tyrants in Beacon, only family. The Greater Good will not commit the city to the Refuge plan without putting the question to all its people.STD:TSM:Ch 11
- population-and-fleetNumbers about one hundred and fifty people across roughly thirty ships — bumblebee-shaped craft of the kind seen at Union, all able to fly and the city built to disassemble and reassemble around them on command.STD:TSM:Ch 12
- not-enough-power-for-another-rotationBy Contemplation's own count, if they do not find the Refuge door this rotation, they will not have enough power for another. The decision to skip a sunheart harvest for the Refuge venture has used up the margin.STD:TSM:Ch 15
- forced-south-of-its-corridorSurvives the ambush at the cloud rim, but is harried south out of its accustomed corridor — into latitudes it does not normally fly — with fifteen captured and roughly ten percent of its population dragged off to be left in the sun.STD:TSM:Ch 18
- casualties-after-ambushThe official count after the cloud-rim ambush is fifteen captured — about ten percent of the city's population — dragged off to be left for the sun.STD:TSM:Ch 19
- hub-ship-architectureIs configured loosely around a single largest cylindrical hub ship that holds the Reliquary at its centre. The rest of the city assembles around the hub by docking — larger ships in the middle, smaller and faster ones on the outside — with metal plates patched over the gaps to give the whole the appearance of a single craft.STD:TSM:Ch 22
- ten-ship-ascentWill cross the mountains as ten of its largest ships only, chosen by interior air volume, sealed for vacuum, locked together around the hub bearing the Reliquary, and piloted by Nomad from the main deck. The rest of Beacon — farming gear, the prospector fleet, every vessel not needed to carry the surviving hundred and thirty-five people — will be left behind to the sun.STD:TSM:Ch 23
- plans-ship-mounted-gunsNomad sketches up a set of ship-mounted guns to be fabricated by the Chorus from sunheart power and bolted to the chosen ten ships: once Beacon crests the mountains and emerges into the Cinder King's sight near the Refuge, the bulky transport ships will be easy prey unless they can hit him back with something his forces have not seen before. He has more experience with weapons than with boilers, he tells Zeal.STD:TSM:Ch 25
- ascent-design-must-shed-heat-not-coldNomad corrects Solemnity Divine's engineering team on a fundamental point: in true vacuum there is no convection, so the redesigned Beacon will lose heat only by ejected matter or by infrared radiation, both of them slow. Far from needing insulation against cold, the ships' boiler piping needs heat sinks and exposed fins to dump the excess; the engine itself is built around shedding heat, and that is the entire point of the conversion.STD:TSM:Ch 26
- boilers-bolted-beneath-the-shipsFinal engine layout for the ascent: rather than cut new shafts through ship interiors that are full of evacuees, the boilers hang off the underside of each chosen ship near the conventional engine. Water lines run down from the existing water-tower vessels at the top, superheat over a sunheart, and inject as steam through the modified engine, which spits the heat downward as thrust. A variable inhibitor on each water line is wired to the cab controls so the pilot can throttle each engine. Nomad also has the engineers fit lateral thrust capacity, not just vertical.STD:TSM:Ch 27
- final-ascent-compositionFlies the climb as a flat barge of twelve ships — the central hub one story taller than the rest, eight engines spaced equidistantly around it, three giant water-carrier vessels at the outer edge, and the Dawnchaser perched on the very top above the hub as Nomad's control cab. One engine is reserved for lateral motion, its jet tilted toward the horizon; the rest fire downward. All windows except Nomad's are welded over with steel against the pressure differential, and the intakes are left open until the pilot calls for them to seal.STD:TSM:Ch 29
- crests-the-southern-summitBeacon grinds her right side along the stone and barely crests the top of the pass into the dawn light beyond — pushed over the last yards by Nomad's last-minute jettison of the jammed water-carrier ship. Seconds later, the engines cut out: the water is gone. With no propellant to slow her, the city begins to fall down the back side of the mountains.STD:TSM:Ch 30
- mounts-sunheart-cannons-on-five-shipsFor the assault on the Cinder King, Beacon welds heavy sunheart-fed cannons onto five of its nine ships, including Elegy's flagship — leaving the other four as overloaded transports. The opening barrage rips through the tyrant's line, but the gunships have no proper turrets, the welded mounts are crude, and Solemnity Divine warns the firing has already drained the sunhearts dangerously low.STD:TSM:Ch 41
- loses-two-of-four-gunships-en-route-to-refugeTwo of Beacon's four gunships are destroyed by cinderheart bombs during the run to the Refuge — the first ship taken with its pilot pair inside, the fourth (piloted by Jeffrey Jeffrey) crippled and abandoned after Zellion cuts its cab open and hauls the pilot clear.STD:TSM:Ch 42
Events
- STD:TSM:Ch 17 Pulls back from its search of the supposed door region and turns toward the dark — and meets the Cinder King's forces coming out of it the other way.
- STD:TSM:Ch 23 Flies on through the dark while the experimental engine flares overhead; preparations begin to strip the city to its ten largest ships and dump the rest.
- STD:TSM:Ch 25 Sounds a call-to-gather horn pattern — unusual, since the city normally keeps itself silent and invisible — to warn its surviving population that this is their last chance to bring a single bag of essentials before the surplus ships are dumped.
- STD:TSM:Ch 26 Dismembered in real time around Nomad — outer ships dropped off one by one once their sunhearts are stripped, the dead hulks smashing on the slopes below and interrupting the waterfalls. The population is being herded into the central hub and the chosen vessels for the climb. Contemplation's own home on the city is among the buildings that fall away.
- STD:TSM:Ch 27 Continues stripping itself as the chapter unfolds. The engineering team works out of a tent on the deck because no interior space is available; the new boilers are installed on the underside of the chosen ships in the time it takes Nomad to fly to the mountain and back.
- STD:TSM:Ch 28 Waits while Nomad is gone; by the time he returns from the summit the chosen ships are stripped of excess weight, the boilers are in place, and the city — now a hundred and thirty-five people on twelve ships — is ready for him to fly it.
- STD:TSM:Ch 29 Lifts off the slopes for the climb as a ghost town of twelve ships, lit only by emergency lamps, populated only by the silent and the dead. Nomad takes her up on conventional thrust at near-full power, then engages the steam engines and the entire city jolts as if it has been struck by a hammer. She climbs — slower than projections demand — until Nomad realises she is not going to make the summit on the remaining water.
- STD:TSM:Ch 30 Hauled the last yards over the pass by Nomad's under-hull work, scraping her right edge along stone and then breaking free into ringlit sky — only to lose her engines on the far side as the water runs out, and begin to fall down the back slope of the southern mountains.
- STD:TSM:Ch 31 Plunges down the lee face of the mountain range after cresting the summit on dying engines, then crashes to the ground with only four of ten engines fired to slow her.
- STD:TSM:Ch 46 Fewer than one hundred and thirty-five survivors of Beacon huddle in a single knot in the grass beneath Union, waiting for the sunline to reach them. They do not run; they choose to die together rather than scattered.
- STD:TSM:Ch 47 The surviving population of Beacon huddles in the grass under the descending dome and is sealed inside it. Contemplation and Solemnity Divine act for them; everyone else is the mass of frightened people Zellion strides past on his way to the edge.
- STD:TSM:Epilogue The remaining Beaconites — adults wading in the mud, the young perched on top of their now-powerless ships in the bottom of the pit — are pulled out alive.
Backreferences
- factRebeke Salvage
- factRebeke Salvage
- factZeal
- factElegy
- factElegy
- factThomos
- factAdonalsium-Will-Remember-Our-Plight-Eventually
- factthe Greater Good
- factThrenodites
- factlightlock
- factConfidence
- factCompassion
- factContemplation
- factthe access disc
- factthe Refuge
- factthe great maelstrom
- factSunlit Man
- factSigzil
- factAuxiliary
- factYolen
- factSunlit Man
- factLodestar
- factGlowing Eyes
- factthe Sky Tyrant
- factthe Chorus
- factprospector ship
- factthe southern range
- factRebeke Salvage
- factthe Greater Good
- factthe Chorus
- factthe iron fields
- factSigzil
- factSigzil
- factRebeke Salvage
- factZeal
- factAdonalsium
- factthe Beacon engineer
- factSigzil
- factElegy
- factThrenodites
- factElegy's workshop
- factHeat prayers
- factSigzil
- factthe Chorus
- factthe Chorus
- factthe Chorus
- factthe Reliquary
- factthe Reliquary
- factBeacon
- factConfidence
- factsunheart
- factSolemnity Divine
- factNight Brigade
- factBeacon
- factthe Dawnchaser
- factthe Tagarut
- factDeborah-James
- factSigzil
- factthe Chorus
- factthis world
- factBeacon
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 31
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 32
- factthe great maelstrom
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 33
- factthis world
- factHardy
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 34
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 35
- factAuxiliary
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 36
- factSigzil
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 38
- factElegy
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 39
- factAuxiliary
- factthis world
- factLodestar
- factarmor fragment
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 40
- factthe Refuge
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 41
- factGlowing Eyes
- factBeacon
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 42
- factBeacon
- factcinderheart bomb
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 44
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 45
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 46
- factGlowing Eyes
- factRebeke Salvage
- factElegy
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 47
- factAuxiliary
- factThrenodites
- factsunheart recharge
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 48
- factthe Reliquary
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 49
- factSunlit Man
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 50
- factRebeke Salvage
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 52
- factAuxiliary
- summarySTD:TSM:Epilogue
- factRebeke Salvage
- factSigzil