He opened the doors and looked into the chapel. It was quiet and very dark, save for the daylight falling in multi-coloured rays through the lancet windows at the far end. There was an odour of wood-wax and floor polish, and also fading flowers. Someone was sitting down at the front, at the end of the first pew. Darrow couldn’t make out who it was, and felt reluctant to disturb them.
Retreating back into the hall, Darrow noticed for the first time the printed posts tacked up on the wallboards outside the day office.
He started to read them.
Major Heckel came out of the chapel and walked over to him. “Darrow?”
“What… what is this?” Darrow murmured.
Heckel could hear the tinge of anger in the pilot cadet’s voice. “You just got back then?” he asked. “You’re checked out? You’re all right?”
“What does this mean?” Darrow snapped, pointing at the posts.
Heckel’s face was pinched and pale, and he seemed to shrink back timidly from Darrow’s bitterness. “It’s just the way things have worked out, Darrow.”
“Did Eads sign off on this?”
“It was his decision, he—”
“Is he here?”
“Yes. Yes, he is.”
“I want to see him.”
Heckel bit his lower lip and then nodded. “Come on.”
The major led the way up the front stairs to the main operations chambers. Their boots rang on the hard wood. Heckel seemed to have a need for small talk.
“Everyone’s been given day leave,” he said, almost cheerfully. “As of this morning. Everyone… Well, news like that, yesterday. Sort of knocked everybody back. And as we were about to go into turnaround and move out to make way for the Imperials, well, it seemed like the best thing, so Commander Eads issued passes and…”
Darrow wasn’t really listening. The door to the main operations room was open, and he saw unfamiliar personnel in Imperial Navy uniforms stare out at him as he went by.
They reached the commander’s outer office and Heckel ushered Darrow in. Darrow noticed how badly the major’s gesturing hand was shaking. Really shaking.
The outer office was empty. The desks there had been cleared, and transit cartons labelled with the aquila badge were stacked up in the middle of the well-worn floor. Heckel knocked gently at the inner door. He was answered by a grunt.
They went in. It was pitch-black inside.
“Sir…” Heckel began.
“What? Oh, my apologies.” There was a click, and the steel blast shutters over the windows retracted to let the daylight in.
“I forget, sometimes,” Eads said.
The entering daylight revealed Air Commander Gelwyn Eads behind his brass desk in the bay under the main window. The walls of the office were covered with hololiths—formal squadron group shots, individual pilot portraits, pictures of Wolfcubs and Cyclones, cheerful scenes from base formals and dinners, a picture of Eads with old man Belks. A tattered Commonwealth flag was suspended in pride of place over the fireplace.
Eads was sorting data-slates and charts into filing boxes around his desk. He was a short, wiry man in his sixties, his grey hair shaved so short it looked like metal filings coating his scalp. Little, round dark glasses covered his eyes.
“Make yourselves known,” he said. “It’s you, Heckel, am I right?”
Eads had been blind for nineteen years. He had refused augmetic optics. There was a dermal socket behind his left ear which allowed him to plug into operation systems and “see” tactical displays during sorties, but that was the only compensation he made for his disability. The plug was in now, permitting him to identify and sort the data-slates using the code-reader sitting on the desk.
“It is, sir,” said Heckel. “And Pilot Cadet Darrow.”
Both men saluted with special formality. Long ago, Eads had decided that men probably weren’t bothering to salute him properly because he couldn’t see, and had taken to saying “Call that a salute?” to anyone who visited him. As a consequence, everyone saluted him with more care and correctness than they did sighted officers.
“Call that a salute?” Eads said, and smiled. “Make yourselves easy. Hello, Darrow. Are you recovered?”
“Yes, commander.”
“Good to hear it. They want me to pack up and leave. The Navy. I suppose I should be thankful for their coming, but it sits uneasily.”
Eads rose, unplugging himself from the code-reader, and walked around the desk. He used a sensor cane, topped with the Enothian crest in worn silver, which trembled in his hand if he came too near to obstacles. He hardly needed it in his own office, he knew the layout perfectly. Eads walked over to the fireplace and touched the edge of the old flag. Then he pointed at some of the framed hololiths.
“Company dinner, wintertide 751. Wesner looks particularly pissed in that shot, doesn’t he? His cravat is terribly skewed. That’s… that’s Jahun Nockwist, standing next to his Magog, with his fitters. Old Greasy Barwel and his team, Emperor bless them. There, that’s Humming Bird, my first Cub. Bad old lady. Dropped me in the Sea of Ezra after a flame-out in ’42. I imagine she’s still down there, crusted into some reef.”
He turned to face them. “Am I correct?”
“Yes, commander,” said Heckel. “Every one.”
Eads nodded. “I only know because I remember where I hung them.” He took one of the pictures off the wall, weighed it in his hand, and then carried it over to the desk. It went into one of the boxes. “I don’t suppose I’ll hang them in my new office, wherever that ends up being. Barely any point. I won’t be able to see them. I mean, remember how they looked. Might as well nail empty frames up. Still, I should take them.”
Eads was still for a moment, deep in thought. Then he swung his dark lenses round at them again.
“I imagine this is about the re-assignment, Darrow.”
“Yes, sir. I’m disappointed to say the least—”
“I’m sure you are, cadet. I damn well would be. But I’m not going to change my mind. With the losses yesterday, we’ve scarcely got enough serviceable K4Ts to keep even twenty of the 34th flying, and that’s with pilots sharing Cubs between sorties. We’re scaling the wing down, we have to. Once we’ve shipped out to another field, we need to trim the numbers. Some pilots will remain active… pretty much Vector Flight and Quarry Flight. Others will be stood down for the time being. Experienced pilots get priority, Darrow. I’m sorry. Hunt Flight was a cadet section. And—forgive me for putting it so bluntly, Heckel—there are precious few of Hunt left. Darrow, you’ll be reassigned to ground duties, and probably moved back to Zophos Field or Enothopolis in reserve. It’s just the way it has to work.”
“Yes, sir.” Darrow’s teeth were gritted.
“Reserve isn’t so bad, Darrow,” Eads added. “You’ll be kept plenty busy, rewarding work. And if things come good, you could be flying again before the end of the year.”
Darrow nodded.
“Darrow?”
“Yes, sir. I… Yes. I nodded, sir.”
“Nodding doesn’t work for me, airman.”
“Sorry, sir.”
Eads walked back around his desk and resumed his seat. “Tell you what,” he said. “Just get it off your chest, Darrow.”
“Sir?”
“Speak your mind. Let’s get it done with.”
Darrow glanced at Heckel. The major’s face seemed even paler than before, and his hands were both clearly shaking. But he shrugged an okay to Darrow.
Darrow cleared his throat. “I know I’ve only been operational four weeks. I’m a cadet. All of that. And yesterday was a… a…”
He looked at Heckel. Heckel frowned and shook his head.
“Anyway, I believe I can fly, commander. I mean, I can fly well. I’ve hardly had the chance, and I hate to trumpet myself. But yesterday, I really felt I… There was this bat and…”
“Yes, Darrow?”
Darrow felt stupid even trying to say it. “It doesn’t matter, sir
.”
Eads sat forward and lifted a data-slate out of the pile to his left. He put it down in front of him. “Your modesty does you credit, cadet. I have Heckel’s report right here. It’s… How should I put it? Glowing, isn’t it, major?”
“It’s just an account, sir,” said Heckel.
“You took on that bat and flew your boots off. Instinctive, brilliant. The major praises you in no uncertain terms. Hell, If I’d seen you fly the way he said you did, I’d be calling for a commendation.”
“You said that?” Darrow murmured.
Heckel stared at the floor. “Just reporting what I saw, cadet.”
“So, well done,” Eads said.
Darrow blinked. “Sir… If I’ve earned such praise… If I’ve shown what I can do… why am I being sent to reserve?”
“My choice, Darrow. Don’t you go blaming Heckel for this. His recommendation was to get you a transfer to Quarry Flight. But there’s this little matter…”
“Sir?”
“It was your first combat. Your first fly-fight. You did well, but that’s the way first fly-fights go. Novices usually die in those situations. The ones that survive seem to punch above their weight. And almost always, that’s down to luck. You did gloriously in one sortie, Darrow, but that doesn’t make a career. I decided to send you to reserve for that reason.”
“Commander?”
“Luck, cadet. I think, yesterday, you used up an entire lifetime of luck. You used it all in one dogfight. If I keep you active, you’ll be dead the next time you go out.”
Darrow didn’t know what to say. He blinked. His mouth was dry.
“So, are we done?” asked Eads.
“Sir,” they both said, and left the office.
Heckel caught up with Darrow on the stairs. “I’m sorry!” he said.
Darrow looked back up at him. “God-Emperor, don’t be sorry, sir,” he said. “You didn’t have to make a report like that.”
“I only wrote what I saw, Darrow. That piece of airmanship was fantas—”
“You saved my life, sir. Gunning in like that. He had me. You saved my life.”
Heckel hesitated, caught in the sunlight of the stairwell. “I did what I could,” he said.
“You saved my life. He had me,” Darrow repeated.
“But—”
“Thank you,” Darrow said.
Darrow continued on down the stairs and strode along the hall past the chapel. Only then did he notice the smudge.
On the blackboard, the service of honour. The names of Hunt Flight. At the bottom of the list was a name that had been written up in chalk and then smudged off.
It was his own.
Theda MAB South, 13.01
The chainmail aviator’s glove thumped onto the desktop like a lead weight.
“I borrowed that from stores,” Bree Jagdea said. “So, do you want to explain or should I smash you round the face with it?”
Wing Leader Etz Seekan looked down at the glove for a moment. His manicured fingers drummed deftly on the edge of the desk.
“Let me see…” he said softly. He was a beautiful man, perfectly built, with twinkling blue eyes and a captivating grin. His dark hair was superbly groomed and oiled, and his manner was annoyingly relaxed and charming.
He looked up at Jagdea. “Part of me wants you to—what was it?—smash me round the face. Just to see Ornoff when it comes to filing charges. But I don’t think that will get us anywhere. Why don’t you sit down?”
He gestured to the armchair in front of his desk.
“I prefer to stand,” Jagdea snapped.
Seekan shrugged. “Around this time, I like to take a small glass of joiliq. Can I interest you in one?”
“I prefer to—no, you bloody can’t!”
Seekan shrugged and rose. He walked over to the cabinet and poured a very small measure of liquor into a tumbler. “I’ve heard about you,” he said.
Jagdea stiffened. What the hell did that mean? Part of her wanted to gush: I’ve heard about you too, all of you… all the Apostles. The finest fliers in the western Navy. Quint, ace of aces, Gettering, Suhr… and always Seekan. Wing Leader Seekan, master of the Apostles. Never a famously high score, but renowned for his leadership and tactics. Loved by his men. Seekan, the Imperial hero.
She chewed her lip instead.
“About me?” she said.
“Not you particularly,” Seekan said. He thought about that for a second and then frowned. “Throne, I didn’t mean to offend you. I meant the Phantine. The only founded Imperial Guard regiment who are fliers. Because of the nature of your home world, isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
Seekan nodded. He raised his glass and rolled the spirit around inside it. “All other air wings come under the command of the Imperial Navy, except yours. That makes us allies rather than kin.”
“I suppose.”
Seekan smiled. “And you value female pilots as much as men. Females are few in the Navy. This is a rare…”
“Pleasure?” asked Jagdea.
“‘Thing’. I was going to say, “thing’.”
“There is no viable land on Phantine,” Jagdea said. “Everyone learns to fly, men and women. Our ability is said to be intuitive and exceptional.”
“The same has been said of the Apostles.”
“You have no reason to celebrate your own virtues. The Apostles’ reputation is clear enough.”
“Thank you.”
“So… would you like to explain why your man struck my pilot with a glove like that?”
“Because he was angry.”
“Angry? Angry?”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit down, commander?”
“Answer the damn question!”
“Captain Guis Gettering… Sixty-two kills. His bird is called the Double Eagle. He was offended that your man would copy that name for his own plane.”
“That’s it?”
“What else can I say?” Seekan shrugged.
“My pilot will rename his plane. No offence was intended. In return, I suggest your Captain Gettering makes a written and formal apology to Pilot Officer Marquall. Then the matter may be concluded without higher attention.”
“My pleasure,” said Seekan. Jagdea turned and strode to the door.
“Commander?” Seekan called. She paused in the doorway and looked back. “Good flying,” he said.
Over the Lida Valley, 15.16
It wasn’t an auspicious start to their first official sortie. A bright, promising day had turned sour in the time it had taken to get their machines aloft. At ten thousand metres, with a lousy eight-tenths cloud, and an even more lousy side wind, they were running up the wide valley of the River Lida towards the mountains.
Jagdea’s normally sweet-running Thunderbolt, serial Zero-Two, was flying rough and heavy. Too long in the belly-hold of a Navy carrier, Jagdea supposed. The devoted maintenance crews had done their best to keep systems at optimum, but there was no substitute for regular flying time. Apart from the delivery run to Theda MAB South, all the Thunderbolts in Umbra Flight had been out of use for three and a half months.
Then again, she wondered, maybe it was her. Serial Zero-Two wasn’t the only thing not to have flown in three and a half months. Jagdea felt clumsy and inept. She’d even made a sloppy job of take-off. They’d had simulators on the carrier of course, regular sessions to keep them sharp, but it wasn’t the same, just like turning a bird’s turbofans over on the flight deck every morning wasn’t the same.
Good flying. Seekan’s presumably honestly meant remark now seemed like a jinx.
They were flying in unit teams of four machines. With her were Van Tull, Espere and Marquall. Blansher had the second unit four about forty kilometres behind them, and Asche the third, running a wide patrol over the Littoral. Essentially, Umbra Flight had split into three independent Interceptor units. That was optimum size for routine hunting or opportunist intercept work. If more than three or four Thunderbol
ts tried to share the same slice of sky, things tended to get a little crowded.
Anyway, this wasn’t a hunt. It was a shakedown. A little wind-in-the-hair run to get pilots and machines into the swing of things. Umbra Flight had traditionally been a Lightning wing, but after the liberation of Phantine, they’d switched to the heavier Thunderbolts, and come to love them during the air war on Urdesh Minor. Sometimes Jagdea missed the sprightly performance of the III-IX Lightning, the exhilarating rates of its climb and dive, the darting grace of its turns. The Thunderbolt was almost half as heavy again and, at lower speeds, particularly climbing, it felt as if it barely had the power to lift its massively armoured body. But it was heavy and robust, and could soak up the sort of punishment that would send a Lightning fluttering to its doom like a moth. It had longer legs too, and a snout-full of killware. Where the Lightning was a playful ambush-cat, the Thunderbolt was a full-grown carnodon. Blansher had once said that a pilot flew the Lightning for the joy of flying, and the Thunderbolt for the joy of killing. That seemed about right to Jagdea. She adored her Bolt. It was muscular, indomitable, responsive.
Except on days like today. The port fan was simply not running clean. There was nothing on the display, but she could feel it, something in the rhythm of the engine tone.
She checked the fuel. Roughly a third gone, and they hadn’t opted for reserve tanks. She keyed the vox.
“Umbra Four-One Leader to Four-One Flight. Let me hear you.”
“Umbra Three, Four-A.” Of course he was. Van Tull was always Four-A.
“Umbra Five, I’ll be fine once I’ve remembered what the controls do.”
“Roger that, Five. I know the feeling,” Jagdea returned.
“Umbra Eight. Okay here.”
Marquall sounded unhappy still. The stupid business with Gettering had knocked him back, the last thing a novice wanted on his first day out. He’d tried to make light of it, remarking that his Bolt was now called The Smear, because Racklae hadn’t had time to do any more than paint out his nose art with a wash of undercoat. But Jagdea knew he’d been hurt.
“Let’s refresh the pattern, flight,” she said. “Eight, you slip into point, Five and Three change over. I’ll take the hanger.”