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  In the driving mirror, he saw the fliers in the back do the same.

  Theda Old Town, 07.35

  The service had finished, and the faithful were filing out, most stopping to light candles at the votary shrine. Candles for the lost, or those who might soon be.

  As usual, as she did every morning, Beqa Meyer lit three: one for Gait, one for her brother, Eido, and one for whoever might need it.

  She was tired. Night shift at the manufactory had really taken it out of her. It had been a struggle not to sleep through the hierarch’s reading. If she’d been any warmer, she surely would have dozed off. But her coat was too thin: a second-hand summer coat, not even lined. Perhaps next month, with her next wages and what she had put aside, she’d be able to pick up a thermal jacket or better from the Munitorum almshouse.

  As she turned from the candle-stand, she knocked against someone waiting their turn to light an offering. It was the man she’d seen by the church door on her way in for the service. Tall, dark-haired, an offworlder. He had a sad face. He was dressed like a soldier, and had that scent of machine oil and fyceline about him.

  “My pardon, mamzel,” he said at once. She nodded “no harm”, but kept a distance as she went by. He’d been talking to himself when she’d first seen him. A stranger, maybe with battle-psychosis. That was the sort of trouble she didn’t need.

  In fact, the only thing she needed was her rest. She could be home by a quarter to the hour, and that would give her three hours’ sleep before she’d have to rise and dress for her day job at the pier. When that was over, at evening bell, she’d have an hour to nap before the night shift at the manufactory began.

  She hurried out through the templum doors into a cold street where full daylight now shone, and made her weary way back towards her hab.

  Over the Thedan Peninsula, 07.37

  “Hunt Two, you’re making oily smoke.”

  The flight leader’s anxious voice cut over the vox. There was no immediate response from Hunt Two. Darrow sat up in his seat and scanned around in the morning light. The scrub plains and grass breaks of the Peninsula swept by, two thousand metres under him, a wide expanse of greys, dull whites and speckled greens.

  Down at his four were Hunt Eight and Hunt Eleven, with Hunt Leader running to starboard on the same deck as Darrow himself. Hunt Two and Hunt Sixteen were off and low at Darrow’s port.

  Six planes. Six planes were all that was left from the engagement. They’d left all the others as flaming pyres littering the snowcaps of the Makanite Mountains.

  And it might only have been five. Darrow knew he surely would have been chalked by that white killer had not Hunt Leader, sweeping back in a desperate effort to rally his few remaining machines, run in at the last moment, cannons blazing, and driven it off.

  Major Heckel—Hunt Leader—kept asking Darrow if he was okay as they pulled what remained of the formation back together. Heckel sounded extraordinarily worried, as if he felt Darrow might have simply scared himself to death in the frantic chase. But it was probably shock and the ache of responsibility. So many cadets dead. One of the squadron’s black days.

  And there had been so many in the last few months. Darrow wondered how officers like the major coped.

  But then Heckel was only three years Darrow’s senior, and had gained his rank through the accelerated promotion caused by severe losses.

  “Hunt Two. Respond.” Even over the distorting vox, that tone in Heckel’s voice was clear as day.

  “Hunt Leader, I’m all right.”

  He wasn’t. Darrow had a good angle down at Hunt Two. Not only was he cooking out a steady stream of grubby smoke, he was losing altitude and speed.

  What was it? Coolant? Smouldering electrics? Some other lethal eventuality Darrow hadn’t even thought of?

  How long had they got? By his own map and bearing they were forty-six minutes out from Theda MAB North, longer if Hunt Two maintained its rate of deceleration. Darrow’s fuel gauge still showed full, but by Heckel’s calculation, none of them were likely to have more than about fifty minutes in them. Especially not Darrow, given his excessive aerobatics.

  “Hunt Flight…” Heckel’s voice came over the comm. He paused, as if frantically trying to make up his mind. “Hunt Flight, we’re going to divert to Theda South. That should shave fifteen, maybe twenty minutes off the flying time. Confirm and line up on me.”

  Darrow confirmed and heard the others do so too. It was a good decision. Flight command would rather get six Wolfcubs back at the wrong MAB than none back at all.

  Darrow switched channels and heard Heckel banter back and forth with Operations as the reroute was authorised.

  Then he heard the knocking again.

  He was about to call it in when Hunt Eight began screeching over the vox.

  “Hunt Two! Look at Hunt Two!”

  Darrow craned his neck around. The wounded Cub was gently arcing down away from the formation. Its smoke trail was thicker and darker now. It looked heavy and sluggish, as if much more gravity was weighing down on it than on the other planes.

  “Hunt Two! Respond!” Darrow heard Hunt Leader call. “Hunt Two! Respond!”

  A faint crackle, “—think I can hold the—”

  “Hunt Two! Bail, for Throne’s sake, Edry! Cadet Edry… Clear your plane now before you lose too much height!”

  Nothing. The Wolfcub was just a dot at the end of a line of smoke far behind and below them now. “Edry! Cadet Edry!”

  Come on, Edry. Get out of there. Darrow strained to see. With their fuel loads so low, none of them could risk turning back. Come on, Edry. Come on! Let us see a “chute! Let us see a “chute, Edry, before—

  A small flash, far away in the grey-green quilt of the landscape. A small flash of fire and no “chute at all.

  Theda MAB South, 07.40

  By the time the transport turned off the highway onto the field approach way, it had been joined in convoy by three others. They waited in turn to be checked off by weary-looking PDF sentries at the west gate and then rumbled on down a steep cutting onto the field basin.

  Commander Bree Jagdea raised herself up on the hard bench of the jolting transport and looked around. Theda Military Air-Base South covered over twenty square kilometres of low land south-west of the city itself. She could smell the coast a few kilometres north, and the sea air had layered a light morning haze across the field that the sun was just beginning to cook off.

  Vast defences ringed the field. Ditches and dykes, blast fences and stake lines, armoured nests for Hydra batteries, pillbox emplacements for raised missile cylinders. There was a patched perimeter track, busy at this hour with military trucks and weapons carriers moving both ways, and a leaner inner ring of anti-air batteries. To the south end of the field stood the great housing hangars and rockcrete armouries, to the north Operations control and the stark derricks and pylons of the vox, auspex and modar systems.

  A hash-shape of crossed airstrips covered the main inner area, the primary runways large enough to manage the big reciprocating-engined bombers the locals flew. Jagdea saw a few of them parked on a hardstand in the distance. Magogs, big and old and ugly. They’d used them back home on Phantine during the final offensive, desperate to get aloft anything that could fly and fight. Here they were a standard bombing mainstay. No wonder Enothis had been punished so hard.

  But most of the local machines had been shipped out to clear the field for the newcomers.

  Jagdea and her flight had arrived in darkness the night before. This was their first proper look at the base. It would serve; it would have to.

  Work gangs from the Munitorum were already busy making field conversions. Labourers were proofing up more hard-wall silos for the arriving machines, and in one place were beginning to dozer up one of the old runways to make additional parking bunkers. The newcomers’ aircraft, over seventy of them already, were dark shapes under netting in the clusters of anti-blast revetments to the east. There was a muddle of activity—chugg
ing generators, clunking excavators, bare-chested rock-drill operators, growing heaps of spoil—all across the inner landscape of the field.

  Jagdea glanced at the chronograph strapped around the thick cuff of her flightsuit. They were right on time. Their transport had left the perimeter track and was bumping towards the nearest of the huge drome hangars.

  “Up and ready. Umbra Flight,” she ordered. The eleven aviators under her command gathered up their kits as the transport rolled to a stop.

  Jagdea jumped down and took a deep breath. “Here we go,” she muttered to Milan Blansher, her number two. Blansher was a grizzled veteran in his forties, his career tally of twenty-two kills the finest in Umbra Flight. He said little, but she trusted him with her life. He had unusually pale, distant eyes for a Phantine and sported a thick grey moustache, partly to lend himself an air of avuncular seniority, mostly to help conceal the ridge of white scar tissue where a piece of shell casing had split his face from his right nostril, down across both lips, to the point of his chin.

  “Here we go indeed,” he murmured, and hoisted his kit onto his shoulder. The others clambered down. Van Tull, Espere, Larice Asche with her hair up in a non-regulation bun, Del Ruth, Clovin, the boy Marquall, Waldon, forever whistling a melody-less tune, Zemmic, jangling with his cluster of lucky charms, Cordiale, Ranfre. Almost all of them made the superstitious bob down to touch the ground.

  Vander Marquall didn’t. He was gazing across the field, watching three machines of the Enothian Commonwealth Air Force crank up for launch. They were powerful, twin-engine delta-form planes, an Interceptor pattern known as Cyclones. Started from trolley-mounted primer coils, their massive piston engines sucked and thundered into life, kicking out plumes of blue smoke from the exhaust vents as the heavy props began to turn to a flickering blur. They rocked impatiently at their blocks as the ground crews rolled the carts aside. Marquall could see the two-man crews in the glass nose cockpits making final checks. Though most Commonwealth wings had been withdrawn to make way for the offworlders, a flight of these Cyclones had been left on station to fly top-cover tours while the Imperials bedded in.

  “Coming, Marquall?” Jagdea asked. He turned and nodded.

  “Yes, commander.” Marquall was the youngest aviator in Umbra by four years, and the only one with no operational combat experience. Everyone else had seen at least some action during the Phantine liberation. Marquall had still been in the accelerated program at Hessenville when hostilities ended. He was eager and, Jagdea believed, reasonably gifted, but only time would really tell his worth. He had the classic saturnine good looks of a Phantine male, and a white, toothy grin that people either found winningly charming or unpleasantly cocky.

  Umbra Flight strode off across the apron towards the hangar, followed by another flight of aviators spilling down from a second transport. Jagdea took a glance back at their own ride. In the cab, the Munitorum driver nodded briefly to her. She could clearly see how one half of his face was lost in burn scarring, as if soft, pink rose petals had been plastered across his skin.

  They walked into the vast drome hangar. The air inside smelled cold and damp, with a tang of promethium. The interior space had been cleared, except for a lone Shrike under tarps in a corner, and a stage of flak-boards supported by empty munition crates had been raised along the west wall. A chart stand and a hololithic displayer had been set up on the staging.

  A group of more than twenty aviators was already waiting inside. They stood near the stage, their kit bags at their feet. Like the men who had come off the second truck, they were Navy pilots, wearing grey flight armour and black coats. Some of them sported augmetic eyes. They greeted their colleagues from the second truck, but both groups looked dubiously at the Phantine as they came in, and stayed apart from them in segregated groups. Jagdea regarded them casually as Umbra Flight dropped their bags and made a huddle. The Navy fliers kept glancing their way. Jagdea knew the Phantine Corps was unusual, and that set them apart from the regular Imperial aviators. It undoubtedly would mean rivalry and a pecking order, she accepted.

  They were tough-looking brutes, sturdy and thickset, with pale skins and cropped hair. Most of their flight-suits were reinforced with plating sections or coats of chainmail, and their heavy leather coats were often fur-trimmed. Many had ugly facial scars. Several displayed medal ribbons and other honour sashes.

  “Sixty-Third Imperial Fighter Wing,” Blansher whispered discreetly in her ear. “The Sundogs, as they like to be styled. I believe that one there, the big fellow with the flight commander pins, is Leksander Godel. Forty kills last count.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of him,” she answered lightly.

  “The other bunch are the 409 Raptors, I believe,” Blansher went on, “which would make that unassuming fellow there Wing Leader Ortho Blaguer.”

  “The same?”

  “The very same. One hundred and ten kills. See, he’s looking at us.”

  “Then let’s look somewhere else,” Jagdea said and turned away.

  “Orbis at your six!” Pilot Officer Zemmic suddenly cried out loudly, his voice echoing round the drome. Dismounting from another transport just now drawn up outside, a dozen more Phantine fliers were marching into the hangar. Jagdea felt instant relief at the sight of familiar faces. Orbis Flight, comrades and friends. At the head of them strolled their commander, Wilhem Hayyes.

  The two wings clustered together and greeted each other.

  “Nice of you to join us,” Jagdea grinned as she shook Hayyes by the hand.

  “Nice of you to wait for us,” Hayyes replied. “I trust there are still some bats flying for us to hunt.”

  A hush suddenly fell. A final group of aviators, all Navy men, had just entered the hangar, making a late entrance that seemed to Jagdea calculatedly theatrical. There were only eight of them. Their armoured flight-suits were matt black and their suede jackets cloud-white. They wore no insignia or rank markings whatsoever, except silver Imperial aquilae at their collars.

  “Holy crap!” Jagdea heard Del Ruth whisper. “The Apostles!”

  The Apostles, indeed. The celebrated wing of aces, the very elite. Jagdea wondered which one was Quint, ace of aces, which one Gettering. The tall one, was that Seekan or Harlsson? Which one was Suhr?

  There was no time to ask Blansher. Escorted by a dozen aides and tactical officers, an imposing figure in the uniform of a fleet admiral came in and took the stage. It was Ornoff himself.

  All eyes turned to him.

  “Aviators,” he began, his voice soft but carrying. “At 18.00 yesterday evening, I met with Lord Militant Humel in the War Ministry at Enothopolis. The lord militant, as you must be aware, has been prosecuting the war here on Enothis for the last nine months, in the name of Warmaster Macaroth and the God-Emperor of us all.”

  “The Emperor protects!” one of the Apostles said smartly, and everyone eagerly echoed the words.

  Ornoff nodded appreciatively. “I hope he does, Captain Gettering. In the meantime, we will have to do. I presented the formal orders sent to me by the Warmaster to Lord Militant Humel, and at 18.30 hours precisely, the Lord Militant formally handed command of the Enothis theatre to me.”

  Spontaneous applause broke out across the hangar floor.

  “For now, the land war on Enothis is done. Now the air war begins.”

  Theda MAB South, 07.46

  Major Frans Scalter glanced at the co-pilot alongside him in the cramped bubble canopy of the thundering Cyclone, got a thumbs-up, then turned to wave the ground crew off.

  He adjusted his mask. “Operations, Operations. This is Seeker One. Seeker Flight is ready for departure. Awaiting permission.”

  Scalter had his hand on the wheel-brake lever.

  “Seeker One, Operations. Roll them out. Main is open. Fly true and may the Emperor protect you.”

  “Thank you, Operations. Seeker Flight, on my lead.”

  Scalter released the brake, and opened the throttle gently. Bucking, the twin-engined
plane began to creep out off the hardstand towards the main runway. Its wingmen followed. The combined roar of the six engines resounded across the field.

  Scalter rolled to the start position, and made a final adjustment to the trim. At his side, Artone opened the radiators and made the fuel mix a little richer for a lusty take-off.

  “Seeker Flight—” Scalter began.

  Artone suddenly held up a hand.

  “What?”

  “Red flag!” said Artone urgently, pointing down the field.

  “Throne! What now?” snarled Scalter. “Operations, this is Seeker One. We’ve got a red flag. Please confirm our clearance.”

  There was a pause. Then the vox fizzled. “Negative clearance, negative clearance, Seeker Flight. Abort now and clear main. Roll off to revetments fifteen through seventeen and stand down. Repeat—Negative clearance, abort and clear main.”

  “What the hell’s going on?” Scalter demanded.

  “Wounded birds,” the vox replied. “Wounded birds inbound.”

  Twenty kilometres short of Theda MAB South, 07.46

  They could see the spread of the field, slightly hazy in the morning light. Guide paths were popping off. The knocking from behind Darrow was now constant.

  Major Heckel called in the fuel load from each Cub in turn. All were miserably low. Darrow could only answer full as he had no other reading. Hunt Sixteen had begun to dribble smoke in the last ten minutes, and its pilot reported rapidly dropping hydraulic pressure. Hunt Sixteen had taken at least two hits to the belly during the brawl over the mountains.

  “Hunt Flight, this is Hunt Leader. Sixteen and Four have landing priority. Let them go in first and we’ll follow as soon as they’re down. Confirm.”

  Darrow stretched his shoulders against the harness. Heckel wanted Sixteen down before it died, and he wanted Darrow down as quickly because he was most likely flying on empty.

  “After you, Hunt Sixteen,” Darrow voxed, allowing the Wolfcub to come around ahead of him. The Cub’s streamer of smoke pulsed clear then white, clear then white, like a ticker tape.