Double Eagle Page 7

  “On the mark… three, two, one… execute.”

  Unit fours flew in a line formation, with one machine forward and another two flanking to rear on either side. The fourth, or “hanger”, flanked one or other of the wingmen to rear, forming an asymmetrical V. It was an excellent pack formation, each pilot covered by his comrades, the hanger able to switch from side to side as needed. Currently, Jagdea was in point, with Van Tull to her port and Espere to her starboard, Marquall at Espere’s five as the hanger.

  On her mark, they shuffled the deck. Jagdea throttled down and slid back out of the point of the V. Van Tull rolled three-sixty high and Espere did the same, but in reverse and low, until the two wingmen had swapped places. Marquall peeled out low, then gunned forward under the V and pulled ahead before dropping to cruise speed and coming up gently. The two wingmen then matched speeds and flanked him sweetly to his five and seven. Jagdea throttled back again, just a touch, and came around onto Espere’s five.

  Textbook. The first thing that had gone right all day.

  “Nice work, flight. Very slick. Let’s stay put for another five.”

  The undercast was thinning. They had about six-tenths cloud now, and dark patches of the Lida’s arable valley appeared below them, distant patchworks of field-systems, irrigation webs and hydroponic rafts.

  “Flight Leader?” It was Van Tull. “Go, Three.”

  “Check your auspex. I’m tagging eight or nine contacts below us at twelve kilometres, south, inbound.”

  Sure enough, Jagdea’s scope showed seven pippers, moving north-east at under three thousand metres. Not eight or nine, but that could just be the conditions masking returns.

  “Umbra Four-One Leader to Operations. Come in, Operations.”

  “Receiving, Umbra Four-One Leader.”

  Jagdea reached forward with her heavily-gloved left hand and transmitted the auspex fix.

  “Four-One Lead. Should there be anything up?”

  “Plenty, Four-One Leader, but not there.”

  “Understood, Operations. We’ll check it out.” Jagdea shifted in her seat, and tweaked the air-mix a little richer. “Lead to flight. I’ll take a look.” That was the hanger’s job, to peel off for sweeps. “Hold it here and come around three points south.” There was no time to shuffle the deck again, which meant she was leaving Marquall at point. A good idea? No time even to worry about it. “Umbra Eight, you have point. Stand by to stoop if I need you.”

  “Read that, Leader. I’ve got it.”

  At last. A touch of excitement in the boy’s voice. Good. He could do with this. Besides, Van Tull was right there, solid and dependable. And Espere was a consummate wingman.

  Jagdea kicked the afterburners a touch and rolled out, feeling the delicious punch of G as she inverted and began to dive away, wide, to the left of the trio V. the long dive loaded power into her wings, and she was touching two thousand kph as she closed on the targets. Enough load to pull off beautifully if they were friendly. Enough punch to turn it into an intercept if they weren’t.

  Five kilometres and closing. Four.

  The sky was suddenly very clear, less than four-tenths cloud. The vast green rift of the Lida Valley stretched out beneath her, and for the first time she could see the hazy line of the Makanites.

  Three kilometres. There they were. Below her still, but closing at an alarming rate because they were travelling towards her, and adding her speed to their own. Nine machines. Clustered rather than in formation.

  At two kilometres, she identified their pattern. Cyclones. A flight of Cyclones, Enothian PDF. The delta-winged double props were painted in a grey and white dazzle, and running north hard, possibly at the top of their performance.

  What the hell were they doing here? Were they… running?

  Instinct made Jagdea flip off the red safety covers of her main guns.

  “Cyclone intruders, Cyclone intruders, this is Umbra Four-One Leader—” she started to say into her vox-mask.

  But she stopped. One of the tail-end Cyclones wobbled and exploded. The brief fireball was fuel-rich and sent streamers of white smoke twirling away into the clear air. The flaming debris dropped towards the field-system below.

  Something crimson and hooked ran in past it so fast it was climbing out of range again before Jagdea had realised what it was.

  “Bats! Bats! Bats!” she yelled into her vox.

  Theda seafront, 15.20

  They’d wanted to celebrate. Of course they had. First run in a new theatre, and a fine one at that. But Viltry hadn’t felt like celebrating. It had taken a lot to just get them home. The final half-hour, fuel low, belly-light, weapons all but empty. So exposed, so vulnerable. Operations insisted nothing in the enemy’s air force could reach the Littoral and the home-stretch, but Viltry had been sweating so much on the last section, he’d been able to pour moisture out of his flying gloves when he took them off.

  The field had come up, Theda North. Even closing in on the beacon lights, he’d still had the distinct feeling that something was going to come down out of nowhere and kill them hard.

  The field. The outer circuit. Blue flags all round. Power down to minimal, just kissing the edge of stall speed for Greta’s massive airframe.

  Then in over the cross, balancing the Marauder as he brought the vector nozzles around, switching from forward flight to vertical. A squeeze or two of viff, a hunkering, and then down. Intact, alive.

  The rest of Halo came back around them.

  Judd and the boys had already earmarked a tavern near the billets. They got out, loud and full of themselves, scattering flight kit onto the hardpan as they whooped and slapped hands.

  “I’ll join you later,” Viltry told them. “Paperwork.”

  He’d taken the longest shower in the history of the Imperium of Man, standing silent and naked under tepid water in the stinking rockcrete stalls behind dispersal, then changed into a spare uniform suit he’d had the presence of mind to bring in his kitsack. He put on his tan leather coat. His hands were still shaking.

  The crew was already gone. Viltry found a transport that was doing a run down into the centre of town to pick up a Navy crew, and hitched a ride. It dropped him off on a corner where the old temple road met the fish-market.

  There was no one around. Viltry walked north, away from the dark and boarded streets of the town towards the coast. He could smell the sea.

  He had no real idea where his billet was. Someone would know, when he was ready.

  The piers came as a real surprise. He turned a dank street corner and suddenly found himself on a bright and windswept esplanade. Ahead of him, beyond an iron railing, a reinforced seawall and a narrow curb of grey foreshore, was the sea itself. There was no one in sight, except a truck that groaned past. He crossed the wide roadway and came up to the railing. The sea fascinated him. There were no seas on Phantine, not liquid ones anyway. The sun was slipping down, into the lazy, low part of the afternoon, and the sky was yellow. The endless water seemed indolent and slow, hissing in a languid rhythm against the crusty beach. The water was making frothy breakers at the shore, but beyond that, it formed into a sinuous expanse of rolling gunmetal, stretching away to the vague horizon. It reminded him of the Scald.

  Three long piers, their ornate ironwork painted white, marched out from the esplanade over the water. Though faded and rundown, Viltry realised they had once been pleasure palaces. There were shuttered arcades, dance halls, flaking posters advertising weekly match-dances and cordial functions. He was utterly taken with the idea of stepping out on an iron-and-wood bridge that crossed to nowhere, the sea sucking beneath him.

  He walked down the strand a little way until he came to the entrance arch of the nearest pier. A chalkboard had been propped up against the ironwork gate. “Palace Refreshments. Table service, sea views,” it read.

  He liked that. That would do.

  Warily, he walked in under the iron arch and out along the pier. The sound of the sea was much louder now. He
could see the surge of it between the boards beneath his feet. It made him dizzy and excited, and those things helped to mask the kernel of fear he was carrying in his heart.

  The cafe was at the end of the pier. Everything else was shut up and derelict. As he approached, he was able to smell caffeine and spun sugar. Viltry had never been this far out from dry land. He’d never walked over an ocean.

  The cafe was huge, a testament, perhaps, to former glory days, when pleasure seekers had packed Theda’s seafront and come in search of sea views and refreshments. Tables formed rings inside the great circuit of lattice windows. Some of them were occupied: old men and women in mumbling groups, a couple of Commonwealth troopers looking tired and wan. Music was playing from the kitchen area. A handsome Thracian waltz.

  Viltry took a seat at a window table, and watched the sea some more. “What will you have?”

  He looked up. The girl in the blue-striped dress and apron had appeared from nowhere. He picked up the table-card hastily. “A… a pot of caffeine.”

  “Anything to eat?”

  He was still studying the card. Very few things made sense. “A smoked ham sa—”

  “No ham,” the girl said. “Sorry. No poultry, either.”

  “I am hungry,” Viltry realised.

  “The lorix is good. With bread.”

  “Then that’s what I’ll have.”

  She disappeared. He looked back at the sea. Grey, mobile, immense. He’d seen skies like that. The weather was turning.

  The girl returned with a tray. She unloaded the caffeine pot, cup, sugar-bowl, and a plate with bread slices and a dish of something. He poured the caffeine as she departed, then examined the food. It smelled savoury, quite nice, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Or how to eat it. He tried some, but found it was salty and far too meaty for his liking. He swallowed anyway, but left the rest. The bread was all right. He ate that instead.

  “There’s a funny bloke over at sixteen,” announced Letrice. “Offworlder, I’d say.”

  Beqa looked and stopped wiping the counter. “I’ll deal with him. You’re off now anyway, aren’t you?”

  “I got a date,” Letrice grinned. “Fancy flyboy from the PDF. His name’s Edry. He’s nicely handsome.”

  “Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “No thanks. That wouldn’t leave me much,” Letrice giggled, and began taking off her apron.

  Beqa cleared a few tables and then walked over to the window table.

  It was him. The sad-faced offworlder she’d seen at the templum the day before. The one who’d been talking to himself.

  She hoped he was stable now. Her shift was coming to an end, and that gave her just over an hour to nap before the night-shift.

  “Everything all right, sir?” she asked.

  “Yes, yes. Fine.” He didn’t look up. Throne, but his expression was so miserable.

  “The lorix? Not to your liking?” she asked, lifting the uneaten dish onto her tray.

  He looked up, then said, “Um? No, I’m sure it was fine. It was fish, wasn’t it?”

  “Shellfish.”

  He nodded. “I’m afraid I… I’ve never eaten fish before. Or shellfish, whatever that is. It’s a bit… funny tasting.”

  “You’ve never eaten fish?”

  “I… I mean, my world… No seas, you see…”

  “Oh. So, you must be hungry?”

  “No, I ate the bread. I’m fine.”

  “Well, okay,” she said and cleared his table.

  He still sat looking out at the sea when her shift ended and Pollya came on for the night. The sun had set. The sea was as dark as oil.

  He’d ordered another cup, and was sipping it while he stared at the rolling waters as they crashed against the shore.

  Over the Lida Valley, 15.29

  Guns live, Jagdea turned and rolled in on them, her Thunderbolt trembling with power. Six Locust-pattern bats, the lightest and most nimble of the Archenemy’s vector-planes, all painted crimson or mauve, were harrying the heels of the Cyclone pack.

  They were all over them. To her left, she saw another Cyclone explode, and another pitch left, trailing tarry smoke as it foundered down in a wide sweep towards the ground.

  Two Locusts slipped under her, but she had the third, braking back to trim over on another Cyclone. In the hairs, pipper blinking.

  Jagdea thumbed the gun-stud.

  Serial Zero-Two lurched as the twin-linked lascannons in the nose spat off.

  Brilliant daggers of light flew out of her machine, zagging down through the sky towards the bat. Struck, it rolled over and staggered sideways, then started to make white smoke as it curved away, falling, falling.

  “Bag one,” Jagdea snarled into her mask. “Four-One Leader to flight, I have engaged. I repeat, I have engaged.”

  She half-heard a response from Marquall, but the meaning of it was lost as she inverted again, viffing hard to increase her turn rate, her ears popping with hard-G as she sidestepped an incoming Locust. A glimpse. The blinking flashes of the gunports, the blur of mauve wings.

  As she came nose up, throttle out as far as it could go, she saw two Cyclones blunder past, followed by a banking Locust. All three were in view for less than a second.

  None of Umbra Flight were carrying rack weapons on this sortie, certainly nothing guided or air-to-air. Jagdea would have to rely entirely on boresight shooting.

  She pushed the nose over and kicked right rudder, heaving the heavy machine around. The horizon swung madly. A Cyclone went by under her, emitting sporadic brown smoke. The banking Locust had already pulled out of sight, but there was another, scarlet like blood, turning in towards the wounded Enothian machine.

  She made another deep dive, fans shrieking, G pressing the mask into her face and making her see spots. She had the Locust for a moment. Then it viffed sideways on its reactor jets, a non-ballistic wobble to the side, but instinct set her ready to do the same and compensate. It was purely a gut thing that she got it right: the Locust had gone the way she would have done.

  Jagdea punched las-shots at it and hit something, because the slipstream suddenly filled with black smoke and shreds of wing casing. The Locust vanished, then she made it out again as she rolled. It was heading away east. Was it going down or running? There was no way to confirm. The old, foremost rule: don’t stay on a target.

  She came around again and made a shallow climb that slid her between two of the racing Cyclones. Her auspex began bleating. Something had a lock on her. She rolled, craning her head back over her left shoulder, then her right. Where the hell was it? Las-shots scorched past her port side and her machine bucked hard. There were suddenly raking scorch marks on her port wing. She rolled and turned again. Still the lock held. More shots, stitching past on her right now. She dipped her wing and banked out, catching her speed and opening the reactor nozzles so she almost turned end on end.

  The Locust went right by her, overshooting. She saw the bone-white kill marks under its canopy sill.

  Three thousand metres above her, Marquall began his turn, standing on his port wing, gazing down at the spiralling machines through the cloud cover below. Van Tull and Espere matched his turn.

  “Stoop and sting,” Marquall instructed. God-Emperor, but he’d waited his whole life to say that for real.

  “On your lead, Eight,” Van Tull responded calmly.

  “Just say when,” added Espere.

  “My mark… three, two… mark!”

  The three Bolts curved away, speed climbing as they dropped. Intercept dive. Marquall could see Jagdea, and two of the bats. The other machines were local prop-drives. He was coming down on them so very fast…

  Guns! Throne of Earth, he’d almost forgotten to switch live in his excitement. He wrenched back the switch cover. There was a bat, snaking left under his wing. Surely, they’d seen the three Bolts coming down on them? Who cared?

  He had a lock, and he squeezed. His machine rocked as it unloaded. Marquall swore a
loud. He’d meant to select autocannon, but the toggle was across on las. He’d sprayed off almost half his battery load in one go and not even hit anything.

  Except… Over there, a Cyclone. Falling, coming apart, weeping flame. Marquall blinked hard, sweat drooling inside his mask. Shit, no! Please say he hadn’t done that! Please!

  “Eight! Have you got a malfunction? Marquall?” Van Tull’s voice exploded out of the speakers.

  Marquall snapped awake. He’d only been staring at the Cyclone for a second or two, but that was more than enough. His dive had punched him down through the fight layer. A miserable overshoot.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay!” he yelled, and instinctively pulled on the stick. It was a rookie mistake. He was coming up far too hard, bleeding off all the power he’d gained from the dive as his machine struggled to climb again. His airspeed dropped to a crawl.

  “You stupid fool!” he cried aloud.

  “Eight? Say again?”

  “I’m all right!” he snapped, swinging into a wide, curving turn to nurse some speed back into his wings. Almost at once, a Locust went past in front of him. With a jolt, he fired wildly, missed.

  Pearly las-shot dwindled away in front of him. A tone sounded. Weapons batteries out. He’d just done it again. He hadn’t deselected, and now his primary weapons were spent and dry. All thirty shots wasted in two futile bursts.

  Jagdea had looked up as her three wingmen came stooping into the fight. Van Tull’s machine went over across her two, and expertly splashed a banking Locust. The bat fire-balled, and Van Tull’s Thunderbolt rolled as it swept through the flame wash, its slipstream sucking fire and debris out behind it in a curious string. Espere made a fine pass, but his chosen target viffed at the last moment and went wide. Espere flattened neatly, dummied, and then rolled out left chasing another bat.

  Jagdea wasn’t quite sure what was going on with Marquall. The kid had come in like his arse was on fire, and unloaded a ridiculous quantity of las-power. Virgin nerves? Maybe. Maybe that explained why he’d also dropped long and then mushed off all his power in the worst dive recovery she’d seen outside of flight school.