Skinner leaned towards Kay. He spoke deliberately. “Well, he paid for it. His next fight wasn’t broadcast and we had him shot down over the water. He drowned.”
Kay’s hands were clenched in her lap, her mind spinning with all she’d been told. “I understand,” she said again, her voice faint. “I won’t say a word.”
“Good.” Without further ado, Skinner shoved a batch of astrology charts towards her. “There’s a vital rematch tomorrow between the European Alliance and the Western Seaboard. Which Western Seaboard pilot should fight it?”
From the way he said it, this pilot might not live to tell the tale, either.
Kay sifted through the charts and wondered fervently what the right answer was. How exactly were they planning to ensure the Western Seaboard’s loss? Did Skinner have a particular pilot in mind?
She came to an unusual chart and paused. At its centre, a square with an “x” through it showed that four planets formed a “Grand Cross” – an uncommon aspect.
Suddenly Kay noticed how still Skinner had become, how intent his gaze.
“A Grand Cross,” she commented. “Rare.”
Skinner didn’t respond, though she thought his nostrils flared slightly. Kay looked through the other charts. None provoked as strong a reaction. She steeled herself and slid the Grand Cross forward.
“This one,” she said.
“You’re certain?”
“Positive. The Grand Cross signals difficulties. With Saturn entering Aries this month, the pilot won’t stand a chance.”
Skinner gave a small, satisfied smile. He traced the “x” at the chart’s centre.
“Very fitting,” he said softly. “After our misguided Western Seaboard pilot made his fatal decision, we had to take him off a crucial fight with the European Alliance. This pilot fought it instead. She was unaware; she actually won. It’s because of her that we have to have the rematch. Well, I hope she enjoys her next fight.”
Kay’s muscles sagged. She’d guessed right…for now.
Skinner gathered all the charts and tapped them together. His tone turned curt. “All right, you’re free to go.”
“Go?”
“Yes. Go home. Don’t see any more clients. In fact, don’t do anything at all until we’re in touch with you again.” His gaze raked over her. “You will be watched. If you try to leave the city you’ll regret it.”
Kay rose, her knees suddenly weak. “I won’t,” she said.
As she reached the door, Skinner said, “Oh, and you’ll give us your client list, of course.”
“I didn’t keep one,” Kay said truthfully. “But I’ll tell you everyone I can remember.” A thought came. In a steady tone, she added, “Mrs Lloyd, my neighbour, was one.”
She left the jail. No one tried to stop her. She went up the stairs and found the main door out of the Libra building. When she stepped outside the sunlight dazzled her eyes. She lifted her face to the sky and savoured the cool breeze that stroked her skin.
She wasn’t safe yet. She knew that. Skinner had been very clear how important this rematch was to the Central States, and to what lengths they’d already gone to ensure their desired result. If the European Alliance didn’t win tomorrow, Kay was dead.
As she started the long, weary walk home, she tried not to think about the grisly mess that might be awaiting her. Her lie about Mrs Lloyd concerned her not at all. It’d serve the old hag right if she’d been the one to turn Kay in. She wondered briefly, though, which Western Seaboard pilot the Grand Cross chart belonged to and to what fate she’d submitted them.
Better them than her.
Chapter Six
My boots crunched on the gravel as I walked towards the airstrip. Against the sunset the palm trees were dark, fringed outlines; I could smell oranges on the breeze. It was the day after Collie had arrived. I’d been relieved to learn I had another fight against the European Alliance – a night battle this time. I felt too edgy to sit around doing nothing.
I reached a plain white building and opened the door quietly, feeling the smoothness of its worn wood. Inside, candles cast a gentle glow. A few other pilots were present, some with heads bowed, others looking deep in thought.
I slid onto one of the benches. I came here often; it was a place where you could breathe. My father must have come here, too. Maybe he’d sat on this very bench.
On the wall was a tapestry of the World for Peace flag, with rich embroidery outlining its figures. Its laurel leaf threads gradated from palest green to rich emerald. A white-draped table sat beneath. On it was a bronze statuette of a Firedove.
I touched my ID tags, running my thumb over the raised letters of my father’s name. I shut my eyes and pressed the tags against my lips.
Let me fight fairly.
Let me defend my country to the best of my ability.
Let me honour the sanctity of life.
And deep down, I added another plea: Don’t let me be distracted by the thought of Collie.
When I took off the night was overcast. Then I emerged up through the cloud cover and found a glittering sea of stars. Below my plane, moonlight stroked across the cloud tops, transforming them into a weird, silvery landscape.
In the distance a shadowy shape appeared from a cloud, then ducked away into it again.
It was time.
From the European Alliance plane’s tight control, I knew already it was the same pilot I’d shot down a few days before. Perfect – I was in the mood for a good fight. I eased my stick forward and dropped into the clouds, speeding towards him with the roar of the engine in my ears. Ghostly scraps of mist whipped past.
When I burst out into the starry night the other Dove was directly ahead; the pilot hadn’t spotted me. Yes! I fired. Gunfire juddered as eight streams of tracer shot through the sky.
Too late, I saw my plane’s moonlit shadow cross the other cockpit. He reacted instantly, banking sharply away into the clouds, unscathed. I swore and plummeted after him; he flickered in and out of view as we howled through the greyness together.
He was gone. Jaw tight, I came up through the clouds again, craning down through my goggles for the gleam of moonlight on his wings.
A wall of cloud towered to my right; suddenly he came roaring from a tunnel, firing. Damn. The Dove and I half-rolled and plunged into a dive; seven tracer passed harmlessly over my starboard wing. A single cartridge clawed a furrow in the metal.
Stars and clouds shrieked past as I dived; pressure plastered me against my seat. At four hundred miles per hour I eased back – a wave of darkness tugged, but I was out of the dive now and didn’t pass out. As I soared from the clouds they turned gracefully upside down, meeting my plane’s nose. Stick forward, left, and I’d rolled out right way up.
My rival was still right on my tail. Despite myself, I felt a bolt of admiration.
“Nice try, but not enough,” I muttered to him. I circled quickly, then came straight at him from above and fired.
My wings barely trembled this time – only one tracer snaked out. What? I tried again, jamming down hard on the button. Nothing. Heart suddenly pounding, I checked the air gauge. Eighty. Way too low. He must have hit me a second time, got my air bottle without my even seeing.
Had he, though? You could usually feel a hit. Had I had a malfunction?
My attention snapped back to the fight. My opponent had swung into firing position; tracer streaked towards me. Before I could move, a hail of machine-gun fire shook right across my fuselage.
My engine sputtered once, coughed…and died.
The only sound was the hum of my enemy’s aircraft. Across my plane’s nose, the propeller’s four blades went still. Flames flickered from the engine, bright orange against the stars. Smoke billowed past my cockpit.
I knew I should bail. I didn’t move. It’d be a clean win for the EA: five years until we could challenge. Five years. Remembering the magnitude of the stakes last time, I went cold.
My rival’s plane drew close. I gl
anced up sharply – if he shot again now, it would be against every rule. As his Dove flew alongside mine, I glimpsed the pilot’s face through the smoke for the first time. A few dark curls had escaped from the edge of his leather helmet; from behind his goggles his eyes looked just as dark. His mouth was shouting silently at me.
Bail!
He jabbed a finger at his parachute, then pointed at my own, still shouting, his meaning clear: What’s wrong with you? Get the hell out of there!
I decided. Ignoring the other pilot, I checked the hydraulics, flicking the lever a few times. No response. I glared at the dancing flames. All right, don’t worry, Amity. You can still get the wheels down when you land.
With luck.
I glanced at the other pilot, shrugged – then banked into a screeching dive. The world turned misty, lit by eerie glimpses of snapping flames through the smoke. I kept one eye on the altimeter, tracking my descent. The flames kept sputtering down with the wind, then rearing up again, higher than before.
Come on, go out! Struggling against the pressure, I raised my seat to the full up position in case I had to bail; my eyes darted to the lever I’d pull to jettison the hood. If you’re on fire, don’t open the hood until the last moment; it’ll draw flames into the cockpit. Useful sentence from my training.
Don’t think about the fact that the gas tank is sitting right between you and the flames. Do. Not. Think about it.
Finally the fire gave a last defeated flicker and vanished from sight. Was it really dead, though? Smoke still curled around the edges of the control panel. The cockpit was an oven – sweat streamed down my face.
“Let’s go with the idea that it’s out; I like that one best,” I muttered. Now the wheels.
Dark fields came racing towards me as I burst out of cloud cover at two thousand feet. I took the dive as low as I dared; before I could pass out I pulled up sharply, making the angle as vicious as possible. A tumbled glimpse of lights from the Heat and the underside of clouds again, and then the world righted itself as I went into a glide.
“Please,” I gasped, glancing at the smoky controls. But pulling out like a lunatic hadn’t worked – the landing wheels hadn’t budged.
All right, I could handle this; the Western Seaboard’s base was only a mile away. I kept gliding, keeping the nose level, my gaze locked on the lit runway just visible in the distance.
Still one thing left to try. I worked the rudder pedals like I was trying to stamp my feet through the floor. The plane rocked wildly, the airfield lurching in my view.
“Come on, come on,” I chanted through gritted teeth. Suddenly the green indicator light flicked on: my wheels were down. I slumped back against the seat…and saw a tongue of flame flicker up from the hood. And then another. In a second the engine was merrily on fire again.
“Oh, you just couldn’t stay out, could you?” I breathed. The runway was still too far ahead – I wasn’t going to make it before the plane blew.
No. I have to.
The moonlit fields were rushing towards me. Ignoring the flames, I went into the usual drill: UMP and Flaps. My undercarriage was already down. Mixture control to rich. Propeller speed – what propeller speed? I didn’t even have an engine. Flaps down.
The plane slowed – her nose dropped slightly. The fire raged, surging up over the hood.
Now the part that might get me burned to a cinder. I set the emergency exit door at half-cock position, careful not to get my arm in the airflow…and then I shoved back the cockpit hood.
Smoke hit me in a solid wall. Flames came whipping back into the cockpit; heat crackled at my leather jacket. I couldn’t see the air speed indicator – couldn’t see anything. I closed the throttle, bringing the stick back. The tail bounced and I was down – and I’d just made the edge of the runway after all, rumbling and jouncing over the asphalt.
Yes! Now I could get out of here. I fumbled with my straps. For a second they didn’t budge and my heartbeat trebled; I gave a panicked tug and they fell away. I scrambled from the cockpit.
The port wing raced along below me, the pavement a blur underneath. I slid down onto the wing and didn’t let myself think about it: with a rush of wind I dropped over its edge.
Pain – a blur of asphalt and then grass. I staggered to my feet, clutching at my ribs. With one hand I shoved back my goggles; I stared after my plane.
It trundled to a stop, lit by orange flames and the runway lights, the painted circles on its wings like bloodshot eyes. Sirens howled, growing closer. Shadowy figures ran across the landing strip towards the blaze.
I sprinted to meet them. “Get the fire out!” I shouted. “The air bottle! There may have been a malfunction; we’ve got to—”
The plane exploded with a rumble that shook the night. With a cry I dropped to the ground. I covered my head as scraps of metal and burning shrapnel pattered around me.
When it ended I stumbled to my feet, eyes streaming with smoke. What was left of my plane was still on fire, in a defeated kind of way. The fire engines arrived and screeched to a halt. The hose came rattling off its cylinder.
Edwards was there. I grabbed his arm and quickly explained. “I’ll tell them, and see if we can salvage it,” he gasped, and raced towards the fire crew.
After that there was nothing else I could do. I stood watching my plane burn. I almost didn’t make it out, I realized blankly. Just a few more seconds…
The roar of another Firedove. Distracted, I glanced up. It was my European Alliance opponent, cruising low over the burning plane. I stared. He was breaking at least a dozen rules coming here. But remembering how he’d told me to bail, I suddenly understood. There were probably too many lockers with the names torn off them in his changing room, too.
I stepped into the circle of the plane’s burning glow and waved, showing him I was down and safe. The other Dove waggled its wings. It banked gracefully, then headed off towards the EA base.
I stood very still, studying the shape of his plane as it grew smaller against the stars. Then I saw Russ jogging up. He paused, staring at my burning Firedove, then broke into a run. I forgot everything else as I pounded towards him. When I reached him he grasped my shoulders.
“Vancour, what happened?” he barked.
“I lost,” I panted. My rib was kicking me now. I hardly cared. “But I got it down, Russ! We can appeal the wait-time!”
I told him what had happened, the words tumbling over each other. Across the airstrip, the black, burned-out shadow of my plane looked skeletal as the firemen withdrew. Water dripped from its charred carcass.
Russ gazed at me as if he couldn’t believe his ears. For a long moment he didn’t speak.
“Russ?”
On the grass nearby a small, still-burning piece of plane sputtered. Slowly, a lopsided smile spread across Russ’s face. “Holy hell, kiddo – you are one amazing pilot.” Still seeming stunned, he ran a hand over his head. “Okay… so we can appeal the wait-time now,” he said. “Good job, Wildcat.”
“What was the dispute?” I asked urgently.
He grimaced. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do! I have to!”
“That fight of yours the other day,” Russ said at last. “The one that retained twenty-seven per cent of our oil rights. The European Alliance managed to challenge on a technicality – you just fought the rematch.”
The world dropped away. “What?”
“I’m sorry, kiddo.”
“They can’t do that!”
But I knew they could. Rematches happened. Fact of life.
I spun to face Edwards as he appeared, his face smudged with grime. “Miss Vancour, it looks like the air bottle wasn’t destroyed, but we can’t check it out here. We’ll take the plane into one of the hangars – give it a thorough going-over.”
“Yes, please!” I gasped.
“Your air bottle?” Russ said sharply.
As Edwards jogged off, I explained about the possible malfunction – how I hadn’t be
en able to fire. I tried not to sound desperate with hope and failed. If I was right, we could get a whole new fight – we could obliterate what had just happened.
Russ frowned over at my plane. “I doubt there was any malfunction, Vancour. You know how carefully these crates are checked out. You were probably just hit and didn’t realize it.”
“It’s a possibility, isn’t it?”
He seemed to rouse himself and glanced back at me. “Sure, it’s a possibility. I’ll let you know what they find out.”
“You won’t have to. I’m going to go along while they check.”
“Forget it,” Russ said flatly. “The only place you’re going is Medical.”
I’d forgotten my rib. I still had one hand over it. “It’s only a cracked rib; I’ll be fine!”
A cluster of trucks was parked nearby. Russ signalled to them and a driver came hurrying up. “Get her to Medical,” he said, jerking his head towards me.
“I’ve got to know!”
“You’ll know. I’ll come and tell you.” Russ clapped my arm, his eyes intense. “Listen, that was excellent flying, kiddo. First rate – I mean it. At the very least, we’ll get an appeal to challenge the wait-time. Now go get fixed up and write your report.”
The driver helped me into the truck. My rib throbbed. Please let me have been right about the air bottle, I thought. Please. I’d won that fight for my father. I couldn’t let it be taken away from me now.
As we drove away, I looked back. Russ’s shadowy form was striding towards what was left of my plane, its shape black against the stars.
Chapter Seven
“Amity!” called my mother as I stepped off the train in Sacrament.
At first I couldn’t see her on the crowded platform; then I spotted a frenzied handkerchief waving at me above the fedoras and styled, upswept curls. I struggled over and we hugged. It hurt my rib, but I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t told her I’d cracked it.
“It is so good to see you,” Ma murmured. She drew back, holding onto my upper arms and beaming. “And looking so well! What a pretty dress! Isn’t she beautiful?” she demanded of my little brother Hal.