“Don’t you die! Don’t you die!” he bawled. “How dare you do this, Heckel! How bloody dare you!”
Darrow was vaguely aware of two aviators coming in, drawn by his yells. He heard their appalled cries. They grabbed Heckel’s legs and raised him.
“Cut it! Cut it!” one shouted.
“I’m trying… I…”
The harness parted. Heckel fell heavily into the arms of the other men, knocking Darrow off the chair and onto the cot.
They wrestled the noose off his neck and started emergency resuscitation. Darrow got up, and dropped the knife. He knew they were wasting their time. The lividity around the neck, the pallor of the cheeks, the cyanotic blue of the lips.
“You poor bastard,” Darrow sighed. “You poor, stupid bastard.”
In his efforts to perform chest compressions, one of the men had dislodged an envelope from Heckel’s flight jacket. Darrow picked it up. The envelope was blank, as if Heckel had been unable to think of anyone to address it to. Inside was a single sheet of paper, inscribed with a single handwritten sentence.
May the God-Emperor forgive me, I cannot do this any more.
DAY 257
Theda Old Town, 07.31
The service was over. There had been many more in attendance that morning, three times the usual number for the daybreak blessing. Beqa had had to wait in line to light her candles. Everyone was scared. You could almost smell it in the streets. Everyone had been scared for months now, of course, but they’d got used to it, and got on with living through it. But over the last two nights, the fear had intensified.
From the west of the city, it was possible to see the fires in Ezraville. Thousands had died in the Lida bombings, and the raids were ongoing. How long before the bombs started falling on Theda as well? How long before the entire coast was on fire? How long? How long? How long did Enothis have left?
The one shred of good news had come in the hierarchy homily. It had been officially confirmed that the first elements of the retreating land armada had cleared the mountains and were returning to the coast. There were soldiers coming home. She lit her three votive candles. One for Gart, one for Eido. One for whoever—
No. One for Viltry.
Over the Interior Desert, 09.07
“If I’d just retreated from the Trinity Hives, marched all the way back across the desert, not to mention those mountains, I reckon I wouldn’t feel much like fighting any more after that.”
“You have a point, Judd,” Viltry said to his bombardier over the internal comm. Halo Flight had just passed over a shelf of desert upland across which a ten kilometre-long convoy of Imperial armour and weapons-carriers was slowly toiling.
“I mean,” Judd went on. “We’re meant to be holding the Archenemy off until the ground forces get home and regroup. Regroup? That’s a laugh. They’ll be fit for nothing.”
“Maybe,” Viltry said lightly. “Let’s just get on with our job and hope appearances are deceiving.”
Greta was leading a flight of six Marauders. They were travelling low, skimming the dust seas, striving to remain under the modar and auspex cones of any land carriers hidden in the wastes. Meanwhile, recon Lightnings were flying somewhere above at their maximum operational ceiling, scoping for the elusive carriers. At any moment, Halo could be called in.
The desert formed an eerie, almost grey landscape below them. The shadows of the low-flying machines flickered and danced over the hard-lipped dunes, and the breaks of rock and scree.
Viltry felt remarkably composed. He wondered to himself if Beqa Mayer might have anything to do with his improved demeanour.
“Contact!” Lacombe suddenly said. Viltry stiffened slightly.
“Eight marks at seven thousand, bearing zero-seven-five.”
Viltry looked at the scope. Enemy machines, definitely, heading south-west, twelve or more kilometres away. Not a patrol sweep. Their course was too true, too determined.
“Lacombe—get on the vox and see if Operations can give us a back-plot for them.”
Over the engine roar, Viltry could hear his navigator talking on the main vox. The internal cut back in again.
“They had them on modar about fifteen minutes ago, turning south over the Makanite Ridge.”
“They’re going home,” Viltry said. “They’re going home, and they’re in a hurry because they’re right at the limit of their fuel. Halo Flight, Halo Flight, this is Lead. Maintain level, but come about on my mark, bearing zero-seven-five.”
The six laden machines banked around, still hugging the sand. Greta first, then Hello Hellstorm, Widowmaker, Throne of Terra, Consider Yourself Dead and Miss Adventure. Viltry ordered all birds to go weapons-live, arm payloads, and keep scanning.
Even if they couldn’t keep the bats in visual, they had to keep them on the scopes.
Because they were going to lead them straight to a carrier.
Over Ezraville, 09.18
“Attacking!” Jagdea sang out, and rolled serial Zero-Two into a scream dive, with Ranfre, Waldon and Del Ruth at her heels. Four thousand metres below them, partly obscured by wispy thread-clouds, the air was full of planes, darting and swooping like shoals of reef fish in a tropical sea. Another nine thousand metres below the huge air battle lay the vast, dark sprawl of Ezraville, a collage of blacks and greys beside the mirror-white expanse of the estuary mouth.
Behind Jagdea’s pack, Larice Asche led the second half of Umbra in: Cordiale, Van Tull and Marquall. Only two-thirds of the squadron were airworthy. Clovin was gone, Espere out, probably forever, and both Blansher and Zemmic were grounded while their machines underwent repairs.
The power dive was ferocious. Negative G glued them to their seats, and pulled their faces into rictus masks. Jagdea’s vision was spotty, but she tried to stay fixed, tried to make sense of the brawl they were coming in on.
They’d been called up to meet a huge wave of enemy bombers heading for the coast. Nearly two hundred machines, mainly Hell Talons and Tormentors, with fighter cover. Poor weather had delayed the auspex plot, so the raiders were already closing on Ezraville before the warning had gone up. By now, they were shedding their payloads on the city.
Other wings had already intercepted. Thunderbolts 2665 and 44, 138 Lightning, and a squadron of late-model Commonwealth Cyclones. With Umbra, that made about sixty Imperial machines committed. Others were inbound. More still, the majority, were engaged against two other equally massive raid forces over the Lida.
The enemy bombers, hooked, brightly coloured and menacing, were ranged out in long, straggling Vs, like migrating waterfowl, holding pattern while they let their payloads go. The Imperials were milling around those ranks, trying to pick them off—whilst fending off the fierce scatter of Locusts that were flying escort.
As soon as their bombs were gone, the big Tormentors tended to pull out and head for home, but the Hell Talons, vastly powerful fighter-bombers, stayed on station. Freed from the weight of their primary loads, they began peeling down to execute rocket or cannon attacks on the city, or even pulled up to provide additional top cover for the rest of the raid.
The air was full of swarming machines, flickering fire and puffs of smoke. Sections of the city below were ablaze.
Jagdea felt the hate fan in her heart. Her dive was bringing her right down on a Talon. She tracked the nose, keeping in her sights, right at the centre of her reticule, and squeezed her thumb.
The Talon detonated in mid-air with huge force. Jagdea had already swept down past it at mach one, banking round under the raid formation and coming up on a Tormentor from below. Her twin-las pumped, and the machine trembled as its belly opened like a gutted fish, spilling out tatters of debris, machine parts and lubricants in fine sprays. Trailing white smoke, it began to tilt and founder. It was dead, but she stayed on it, switching to the quad cannons and raking it end to end. The Tormentor combusted and vaporised. Burning debris showered down towards the benighted city, but better for it to blow up in the air than come down o
n a hab block with a full payload.
Tight on her heels in the dive, Ranfre and Waldon both destroyed Tormentors with fine intercepts and wheeled off, hunting. In less than thirty seconds, Waldon had lined up on a Talon that was in the process of unloading its bombs, and shredded its cockpit section with quad-fire. As the crimson machine spiralled away, coming apart, Waldon whooped. He’d just made his fourth and fifth confirmed career kills. He was now an ace.
Del Ruth, rearmost of the four, overshot her chosen target, which saw her coming down on it at the last moment and rolled a desperate evade. But she levelled out, and immediately picked up a Locust chasing one of the Commonwealth planes. Tone locked, she stung it hard, and as it began to judder, stung it again and blew it to fragments.
Asche’s four came in moments later moving, if anything, at an even higher rate. Asche got a Talon squarely and cleanly. Van Tull took a shot at a Tormentor, damaged it, looped around and finished the kill.
Cordiale, his timing just out, mis-hit a Talon, and then found he had a Talon and a Locust on him. He tried to jink out, but nearly collided with a Lightning coming head on. He screwed over to evade, almost stalling. The Lightning banked hard and its port-wing tip clipped the Talon behind Cordiale. The Lightning lost stability and began to spin, corrected, and then was blown apart by two other Locusts. Trailing debris, the Talon it had clipped came wide, right into Asche’s gun cone. She showed it little mercy.
Cordiale swung about and started to chase down a Tormentor. It had shed its load, and was turning for the home run. But it was still a viable target. If it died here, it couldn’t come back with another clutch of bombs.
Marquall, the last in, was sure he had a kill. He fired two bursts, but the Hell Talon was still intact as he rocketed down past it.
He tucked in and began to climb again, bleeding off some power so his controls weren’t quite so stiff with speed. In a flash, he realised he’d gone up between two Tormentors, both spilling out bombs like egg cases. He cursed his own luck. His haste to correct had made him miss a chance on two easy targets.
Marquall was almost insensible with rage. He was seething with desire to make a kill, to open his account. Bad enough he was the youngest, the most inexperienced, bad enough that Pers Espere had been maimed wet-nursing him. Marquall had no score. No kills to his name. Now his confidence had returned after that disastrous virgin sortie, he was determined to prove his worth in combat.
Hell, the sky was crawling with enemy machines! Surely he could hit one of them?
“Umbra Eight! Umbra Eight! Break left now!”
That was Van Tull’s voice. Marquall didn’t question it. He stomped the rudder bar and leaned on the stick, inverting as he pulled out to port. A flame yellow Hell Talon rushed over and by him.
“Thanks, Three,” he voxed, coming true and climbing again.
“You okay, Eight?” Van Tull voxed.
“Four-A,” replied Marquall. They were still babysitting him. That rankled. Then again, but for Van Tull’s warning, he’d like as not be dead now.
He turned in. Almost immediately, he picked up a Cyclone, running for its life from a Talon. The Commonwealth prop-plane was weeping smoke. Marquall wondered why Operations kept the Cyclones and Wolfcubs in the air. It was suicide, flying machines like that against the enemy’s vector-thrust predators.
He cranked the throttle, banked wide, clipped off a wasted but satisfying burst at a Tormentor as he went long over its back, and lined up on the Talon.
This time…
The port engine was dead, and so was Artone. Frans Scalter fought with the Cyclone’s leaden stick and called plaintively to his co-pilot and long-time friend. Hard rounds had torn through the machine’s cockpit, shattering the glass nose and ripping Artone’s torso in half. Wind screamed in through the shattered bubble. There was blood everywhere, and the instruments were plastered with sticky flecks of human tissue.
“I’ll get you home! I’ll get you home!” Scalter wailed, denying the scene around him, and imagining some miraculous future where he brought the ruptured Cyclone down, and the crews rushed in, and Artone was patched up and made alive again.
Scalter knew he had to keep evading. The Hell Talon was right on his tail now.
“Seeker One! Seeker One! Someone! Please—”
The Talon’s guns lit up.
Like a feline playing with a mouse, the bastard wasn’t going to let the Cyclone go. It swung from side to side with muscular power, correcting for every frantic jink and twist the Commonwealth pilot tried to make.
It had got the blood scent. It wanted the kill. It was greedy. It was staying on the target.
The first and oldest mistake.
Marquall came around on its five, calculating the deflection angle with almost leisurely brio.
Then he opened up with his quad cannons, feeling the heavy slap of them retard his motion, hearing the breech blocks bang and the autoloaders rattle to feed ammo from the whirring drums.
Somehow, Marquall had expected the enemy machine to explode, or catch fire, or do something equally spectacular.
It simply quivered. Part of one blade-wing deformed, like foil, and a gulp of brown smoke belched out of its engines.
Then it fell out of the air. All lift lost in one shocking instant, it dropped away, turning end over end, like a toy that had been thrown aside by a petulant child.
It spun away below him, smaller, smaller.
Throne, he’d got it. He’d killed it stone dead.
“S-seeker One, Seeker One,” he stammered, rousing from a brief fugue. “This is Umbra Eight. You’re clear, friend. Clear. Get your machine home and down.”
“Umbra Eight, this is Seeker One. Understood.”
Not even a thank you? Marquall didn’t care. He had a fire in his belly, a coal of excitement and satisfaction. He was no longer the kid who needed babysitting.
Something threw him into his seat like a kick in the face. The Smear inverted, every alarm screaming. In terror, mystified, Marquall dragged on the stick, but it was slack and dead. He saw flame on his port side, sections of metal plating slipping off like fish scales.
Fire licked into the cockpit.
“No!” he yelled. “Oh no, no, no!”
He fumbled with his harness, trying to reach the eject handle. Half-heard voices blasted out of the vox.
Huge negative G. He was already greying out. He couldn’t lift his hand, let alone reach the lever.
In front of him, like a rapidly-spinning kaleidoscope image, the city was rushing up.
Over the Interior Desert, 09.22
They kissed over the top of a dune headland and there it was. The size of it took their breath away. Judd voiced a particularly florid oath.
A mass carrier. It was almost a kilometre long, a huge slab of burnished decking and raised ramps, bronze in the desert light. Vast wheel assemblies rolled it across the dust. Viltry had been told the enemy called these behemoths aeries, as if they were home roosts for the murderous bats. It was a feat of mechanical genius, a juggernaut, a giant amongst machines.
Nothing could kill something that big. Nothing could—
He caught himself. They would have to try. That was the job the God-Emperor had decreed for them.
“No hesitation, Halo,” he cried. “We’re committed. Line up and shed, then come around with wing-loads for the second pass. The Emperor protects.”
He could see the Talons they had been following sweeping in to the fluted arrestor runs on the carrier’s top side. They looked tiny by comparison, little gaudy specks.
The carrier had seen the inbound Marauders, coming down onto it at zero height. Hundreds of anti aircraft batteries tracked round, alert, like the alarmed tails of scorpions, and the air was filled with bursting flak and zipping tracers. A hailstorm of fire.
“Stay on it, stay on it…” Viltry ordered.
A siren screeched. Amongst the blizzard of flak bursts, Viltry glimpsed the trail smoke of missiles banging off from the
carrier.
Wordlessly, he hit the chaff switch, and clouds of glittering, distorting material puffed out of Greta’s launchers. Then heat-flares too. Near-miss explosions shook the airframe. The space between the onrushing planes and the vast carrier was muddy with flash flowers and blooms of black and white smoke.
A rocket struck Miss Adventure and killed her dead. The torn wreckage and hull sections, moving at close to mach one, cartwheeled over the desert floor, raking the sand, spitting flame like a firework.
“Nose and top. Anytime you like,” Viltry said.
The turrets opened up, playing fire along the carrier’s starboard hull. Viltry, concentrating as hard as he could, saw bats trying to launch from the lower chutes. Naxol had seen them too. A Locust came off its ion catapult and burst like a flare.
Ten seconds. Five. Flak damage to the port wing. Ignore it, hold her true. Two seconds. One.
Release.
Halo pulled off over the giant carrier. Every single bombardier had placed his drop perfectly. Vast eruptions lit up the deck, puncturing the armoured ramps, blasting flak mounts out of their sockets, toppling lifter assemblies and crane gantries. Someone—Viltry’s guess was Widowmaker—dropped their clutch into the command spire that rose over the top deck section. A massive fireball spread out, felling the spire in ragged chunks.
Four Marauders pulled clear of the blazing carrier. Throne of Terra, bombs gone, had been hit by flak. In his rear-picter, Viltry saw it flip onto its back and crash into the sands.
The four remaining planes arced round in formation, turning high, and began their second pass. Monumental palls of smoke rose from the stricken carrier.
They came in with rockets now, turrets blasting again. The wing-loads loosed, and snaked off on spiralling trails of smoke. There was nothing like the same weight of flak on them now.