“Nothing, Flight.”
“Hang on, Darrow,” Scalter said. “While you’re here.” He turned back to his station, snapped off a few commands over the air, then scribed some details on a slate. “Eads will need this. I was going to get my junior to run it over, but I’m damned if I know where he is.”
Darrow took the slate. “Thanks, sir.”
That tremble in the hand. The first symptoms of a self-destructive fall? Or just fatigue? “Off you go,” said Scalter.
Darrow turned. As he moved away, he heard Scalter bark, “Ransack, that is not, repeat not, eighteen north! Correct, you blasted dunce!”
Darrow dodged back through the tide of hurrying deck juniors, aides and Navy staffers. He reached Eads.
“Come about point three-five, Orbis. Rise and climb, for Throne’s sake.” A pause. Darrow waited. “Orbis Flight, Orbis Flight,” Eads said. “Your plot is merging with Ganymede Seven-Seven. Correct and come about. Yes, I have bats confirmed, extending at eight thousand. Take your fix on my beacon mark and turn out, climbing, point three-five. Be advised, hostiles at eight, breaking.”
Darrow placed his hand on Eads’s arm.
“Harp Flight, proceed north by ten. Hostiles now at two and closing. Yes, Darrow?”
“Plot from Scalter, sir.”
“Out loud, junior.”
“Inbound, broken formation, six thousand variable, heading north-east four-two. Units from Gocel FSB. They’re thirty minutes out, requesting touchdown instructions.”
“How many?”
“Estimates at twenty fighters, mixed, plus extraction transports, heavy.”
“You’ll have to deal with it, Darrow. I’ve got a major scenario here. Send the transports to us, priority. Discover the operational status of the fighters. If any can still manage combat, we could use them. Get fuel and ammo from them.”
“Yes, Flight.”
Darrow put on his headphones and adjusted his dial. Eads was already back on the line to his formations. Darrow tried to settle his nerves.
“Gocel inbound, Gocel inbound, this is Theda Operations. Do you copy?”
A crackle. “Operations, this is Umbra Lead, we have you clear.”
“Report your situation, Umbra Leader.”
“We’ve quit in a hurry, Operations. Enemy overrun. Umbra is nine, repeat nine machines. 409 Raptors are now eight, repeat eight. Spyglass 786, three, repeat three machines. We have five transports, heavy. Flying protective cover on those. Be advised, hostiles behind us, possible pursuit.”
“Time on Theda, Umbra Leader?”
“Twenty-six minutes.”
“Transports are cleared for MAB south, priority. Any of you combat ready?”
“Umbra and Raptors show willingness, Operations. We came up fuelled and loaded. Spyglass were half-tanked, so I’d advise no to them.”
“We could use you, Umbra Lead. Skirmish bearing nine-two west.”
“Copy that.”
Darrow took a deep breath. He was making control decisions now.
“Gocel inbound, let the Lightnings cover the transports home. All other elements break and rise, nine-two west.”
“Received and executing.”
Over the Littoral, 08.34
Four-tenths cloud and southerly cross-wind. A pale blanket of sky sneaked with grey.
Jagdea led the turn west, watching as the massive transport ships sailed away north with their Lightning escort, lost into the cloud.
“Raptor Flight, this is Umbra Lead. Blaguer is gone, Throne rest him. Operations has just called the play, as I’m sure you heard. I’m leading now, so nuzzle up and make nice. We can argue on the ground later. Any objections?”
“Umbra Leader, this is Raptor Two. Lead us well, and we’ll follow you to hell and back.”
Jagdea smiled. She’d met Blaguer’s deputy a number of times during their brief stay at Lake Gocel. His name was Rapmund; a decent sort, broad-faced, quietly professional. His confident response pleased her.
“Four diamonds, I’ll fly sprint,” she ordered. “Nice and slow, no clipping. We’ve got enemies enough out here without killing each other.”
With a burst of throttle, she ran forward then watched her rear pict-screens as the other machines settled into formation. Four diamond shapes, each containing four Bolts. They settled in with extraordinary simplicity, Raptors and Umbra mixed. Cooperation at last. No grandstanding, no pecking order. Just air warriors, uniting without argument for a common good.
“Lead to wing, compliments to all. This is how the Imperium conquers its foes.”
Jagdea’s Thunderbolt was flying ahead of the four diamonds, directly in front of the second formation, creating an asymmetrical structure. Diamond Two was at her tail, Diamond One at her four o’clock, Diamond Three at her seven, and Diamond Four seven o’clock of Diamond Three. She was flying what the Navy called sprint, and what the Phantine knew as pointer, the sharp end of a medium, ranged fighter shoal. She got the Raptor pilots to vox in their numbers and positions, marking the details on the data-slate fixed to her thigh. Then she flicked channel.
“Operations, this is Umbra Leader. Umbra and Raptor elements now under me as one flight. Do you have us?”
“On the modar, Umbra. Good and clear. Adjust heading three points and climb to eight thousand. Skirmish is four kilometres and closing.”
“Copy that.”
They flew on through a cloud bank, billowing like fog, and then came clear. The skirmish was ahead of them.
Skirmish. What an inadequate word. The voice of Operations sounded like a boy, a child.
This was war.
Hundreds of machines whirled and danced in the sky across ninety cubic kilometres of space. There were planes everywhere… some loners, some in formations, some in tight, complex patterns of combat. Most of them were hostiles, as far as Jagdea could see. A lot of bombers, a large number of gaudy Interceptors and fighters. Imperial birds flashed and mobbed amongst them, struggling. The air was full of shot and smoke. She could see at least six machines burning towards the ground.
The ground. Down through the clouds, she could see the broad expanse of the Littoral and the outskirts of Theda City. Hundreds of fire points lit it up. That was the bombers’ target.
“Umbra has visual,” she voxed.
“Okay, Umbra.” Operations suddenly had a different, older voice now. “High to your eleven, hostiles wide. Can you engage?”
Jagdea peered up into the sky, and checked her glance against the auspex track.
“I see them, Operations.” A flight of Razors, twenty-plus, storming in towards the mobbing Navy machines a thousand metres below.
“This is Umbra, we will commit.”
“The Emperor protects,” said the older voice from Operations.
“Track up and round,” Jagdea ordered. “Full burn. Hit those bastards!”
Umbra’s enlarged formation peeled upwards and accelerated, coming in head-on to the Razor flight. Some were already firing.
The Razors, surprised, fired back and started to break.
“And here we go…” Jagdea said to herself.
Light-flash bursts. Streamers of hard rounds. Puffs of smoke. Two of the Razors sawed out of line, issuing trails, dropping. A third exploded in a haze of flame. One of the Raptors, four, lost its port wing and spilled over like a falling weight.
Cordiale was hit.
A large piece of his fin blew off, and then sections of flank plating. Shots had punched through his wing.
His Bolt started to plunge away, but to Jagdea’s relief, he leveled, holding the machine steady with what little trim he had left.
Jagdea arced round behind a hard-running Razor and started to dive.
“Umbra Eleven,” she yelled. “Are you stable?”
“Just a flesh wound, mamzel,” Cordiale replied, as if merely passing the time of day. The damage to his bird was nothing like a flesh wound.
“Pull round and descend,” Jagdea ordered. “Theda Operat
ions, Theda Operations, we have a crippled bird inbound.”
“Copy that, Lead. Strips are open.”
Jagdea glanced to port. Two Razors had dropped low on vectors to chase Cordiale.
“Cordiale! Break!”
“Break? I can barely stay level!” Cordiale replied.
Jagdea gunned the throttle. “Blansher? Take over. I’m following Eleven in. Umbra Flight, Two has command as of now.”
“Read that, Jagdea,” Blansher voxed.
Jagdea brought Zero-Two down in a rapid pass. Cordiale’s Bolt was now spewing smoke.
She got a tone lock on one of the Razors and just grazed it with her cannon-fire. It broke away. The other bent in, intent on Cordiale’s stricken craft.
Jagdea banked hard and adjusted. The Razor was slipping through her gunsight.
She lined up, with about forty degrees of deflection and hammered it. The Razor belched black smoke, rose nose-up as if to flee, and then exploded in a flurry of burning chunks.
Something as hard as a wrecking ball smashed into the left side of Jagdea’s cockpit. Part of the canopy shattered, her instruments blew out, and buckled armour plating tore in, slashing across her left arm.
She screamed in pain. The Razor went past her, turning for a second strike.
Shaking, she tried to level.
“Theda Operations,” she gasped. “Two, repeat two cripples coming in.” The field lay before her.
She saw the spread of the city, the firestorms, the battered air-base.
Wind sucked and whistled through the split cabin. Smoke gushed from under the instrument display. Jagdea could see nothing through the left hand side ports of the canopy because they were painted with blood… her blood. She glanced down. She could see torn flight armour, blood, flesh. A glimpse of white bone.
Her port engine flamed out.
She dropped harder, woozing in and out of shock.
She heard an odd sound, and finally realised it was the target lock warning. She’d been locked up.
The Razor dropped towards her, its guns opening up, then it detonated like a triggered mine, fluttering scrap out in a broad circle.
“Get down safe, Bree,” Blansher called as he ripped over. “In the name of the God-Emperor, get down safe.”
The cratered strip-way came up. Jagdea fought with her thrusters, trying to correct. At the last moment, she distantly remembered her cart, and dropped it. Cordiale was already down, the crews around his smoking bird.
Jagdea passed out. Then she snapped awake, smacked by the juddering impact, and heaved on the stick.
Zero-Two slid twenty metres on its claws and came to rest.
Cordiale was first to reach her. He punched off the hood using the emergency release, and reached in to kill the screaming jets before the Bolt lifted off again.
Jagdea looked up at him. Her helmet visor was speckled with drops of blood. She wiped it, but that simply smeared it.
Using her right hand, she pulled off the helmet and threw it out. “You’re going to be okay,” Cordiale said. It was the last thing she heard.
The Peninsula, 11.21
The roads were blocked, as far as the eye could see. LeGuin stood on the top of the Line’s turret and stared. It was a dismal sight. Thousands of vehicles, most of them military, nose to tail through the town, and out beyond it onto the northbound highways.
Many of the machines had turned off their engines to conserve fuel, but the air was still rich with exhaust fumes. Men milled about, and LeGuin heard more than one angry outburst.
“See anything?” Viltry asked. He was sitting on the edge of one of the top hatches.
“Nothing that’s moving.”
The town was called Nivelle, a market burg on the broad flood plains of the Lida some sixty kilometres south of Ezraville. Like so many of the places they had travelled through, it had suffered bombing damage, and seemed empty of civilians.
Once the column had passed down onto the decent hard roads along the Lida, the going had been good, despite cratering and the constant threat of air attack. They’d met with relief units along the route, which brought them much needed food, medicae supplies and fuel. It had begun to feel like they were rolling back into civilisation after the weeks of hardship and struggle.
But the war had somehow overtaken them. The Littoral and the Peninsula had taken a pasting. From Nivelle, the skies of Ezraville formed one vast storm-cloud of black smoke. Aircraft, often too high to identify, went over all the time. They had grandstand seats for several huge air battles over the valley: specks moving and circling, spiralling and turning, leaving brief, intricate filigrees of contrails, darting sparks and flashes. Burning machines, like meteors on re-entry, had fallen out of the heavens into distant pastures.
Operating at rooftop height, Munitorum lifters and Valkyrie carriers passed overhead regularly, zipping back and forth along the column. Many were extracting the more seriously wounded for treatment at the coastal hospitals.
Munitorum directives had ordered the columns to Ezraville where mass-barges and VTRPs were waiting to evacuate them to the northern shores. That was the plan, at least.
In reality, the roads had become increasingly full as the column caught up with other convoys, or met more elements moving in from other directions. And the mass exodus wasn’t all military. They’d driven past long processions of civilian refugees, families with children, walking by the roadsides, pushing their abbreviated lives on hand barrows.
Matredes rejoined them. LeGuin had sent him off looking for any Munitorum seniors working the file.
“There’s some good news,” Matredes said as he clambered up. “We’re jammed here because the evacuation is almost overwhelmed.”
“That’s good news?” said LeGuin.
“According to the senior I spoke to, yes, sir. About thirty per cent more of us have made it home than they were expecting. They’ve been scrambling to organise more VTRPs from the northern shores to help with the demand. Lord Militant Flumel didn’t manage to kill quite as many of us as they’d feared.”
“Not like a lord militant not to do his job properly,” sniped LeGuin.
Viltry smiled, but he knew that it was good news in the long run. If more of the land force was making it home, then a stronger host could be regrouped for the phase of war to come. It made his efforts, and the labours of all the pilots, seem much more worthwhile.
“The other problem appears to the people,” said Matredes. “Civilians are leaving Ezraville in droves, and refugees are pouring in from the Littoral. Whole highways are shut down with refugee traffic.”
“So we’re stuck here?”
“The Munitorum are advising any units with decent fuel and fair running to divert east. Evacuation centres are being established at several of the coast towns along from Ezraville to ease the pressure there. It means cross country, that way—” Matredes pointed. “Then we should hit some decent roads.” He pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket. “I wrote down the names: Fetona, St Chryze, Langersville. I can find them on the chart.”
LeGuin shrugged. “We’ve got fuel and traction. What do we think?”
“Better than sitting here,” Matredes ventured.
“What’s another few kilometres?” said Emdeen.
“East suits me,” Viltry said.
“Let’s do it,” said LeGuin.
It took them another hour to spread the word and recruit about forty machines to come with them. LeGuin made sure they were all in decent repair. He didn’t want stragglers. The damaged, the struggling, they could stay with the main tide of traffic.
After that, once he’d voxed numbers and details into Munitorum despatch and got an all-clear, it took another two hours to manoeuvre out of the line. It was hard work, like a stalemated round of regicide, with nowhere to back up or turn. Arguments flared. LeGuin and Viltry had to jump down and break up a brawl between the crew of a Gerzon regiment halftrack and the men from a 44th Light Chimera that had accidentally rammed it.
Finally, the commander of a Pardus Conqueror, The Stuff of Legend, managed to find a turning space in the gateway of a canning plant, and lanced the pressure by creating a new exit route with his dozer blade. He leveled a line of stone privies and yards behind a terrace of habs, then churned forward through a blighted orchard and a series of fenced-off market gardens, boisterously cheered on by the onlookers.
Vehicles began to edge out and follow him. Roaring smoke, the Line of Death was the sixth vehicle clear. They clattered across the ruin of the market gardens and out onto pastureland, where they rolled up and waited as the others trickled out and joined them. Nine Pardus tanks, eleven from the Gerzon Heavy, six from the 2nd Balchinor Tracked Company, three Hydra platforms, and sixteen assorted troop carriers and half-tracks laden with Guardsmen. By common consent, LeGuin had command. This was due in part to the fact it had been his idea, but also because the Line had earned itself a reputation by bringing down the bat on the previous afternoon.
LeGuin gave the command, and they rolled out, kicking up mud as they crossed the pasture onto uncultivated land.
It was a rough ride. Viltry sat in the turret and clung on.
But they were moving at last.
Theda MAB South, 14.02
“Handing off,” said Eads.
“Thank you, Flight,” said his shift replacement. “I have control.”
As the replacement controller took position, Darrow helped Eads remove, clean and stow his augmetic links. Both of them were light-headed, frazzled. The demands of their work had not slackened one bit for the duration of their shift.
“Good luck,” Eads said to the new flight, but the man was already too busy coming to terms with the pandemonium in his catchment to respond.