Night Witches (8 page)

‘Fantastic, isn’t it?’ Steen calls. ‘Shall we try a few tricks?’

Performing manoeuvres for real is nothing like the artificial judders and dips of the simulator. It scares the skin off me at first, knowing my actions are responsible for this wooden wonder’s diving, turning, climbing and rolling. Soon, though, I wish I could jettison the plane and fly like the sun-sleek corvils suddenly streaming alongside our wings.

Zoya was right. It is really cold, but I like the way the air whips away my worries. Up here the only gaze is the sun’s golden glory. If we just went high enough, far enough, there’d be no more war, no more eyes watching, just us, just me, free . . .

‘Rain!’ Steen sounds alarmed. ‘Not so high.’

War is clearly visible from above. The Lim lands of West Rodina are patterned with puffs of smoke and explosive flashes. Up here my eyes seem sharper than ever before because I swear I spy out the nasty, scrabbling shapes of traptions on the move, and specks of black that could be platoons of soldiers marching. Convoys of military trucks crawl to the border . . . or where the border used to be. Transnation trains rush along their tracks with hospital markings on the carriage roofs.

South-east is the awesome spread of Sea-Ways City, shrunk now to a blur of toy buildings edged by the endless blue-grey of the ocean. South-west the sun skims over the thick mist of the Morass. I’m shocked to see how much of the forest has been scabbed by the brown, Slicked bioground of normalisation.

‘Shall we go closer?’ Steen calls. ‘Legend has it the greatest god-house ever built was near the shores of a lake in the forest. I’d like to see it.’

That makes me think of the stone blocks I saw at the edge of the rift, and the snow-flaked picture of a god or saynt with blazing hair.

I shout, ‘Why waste time looking for god when there’s no proof god even exists?’

‘Faith doesn’t need proof,’ he replies. ‘I
know
there’s a Light Bringer. People in Rodina will soon know it too, once we’ve converted them.’

‘Or killed them.’

Needles on dials tell me it’s time to descend. It takes a couple of circuits to line up with the runway to land. I panic and throw up the air brakes too hard. We descend quickly and the plane’s wheels hit the ground in an uncontrolled rush. We jolt repeatedly. The Storm shudders a bit then stops. I kill the engine. The propeller slowly spins to a halt. I sit there, motionless, sad there’s now ground beneath our wheels.

‘You did it,’ Steen murmurs softly.

‘Why pick me to fly?’ I ask quickly, while no one is listening. ‘I’m just
One of Many
.’

He gives a funny laugh. ‘You really have no idea, do you? Let’s just say, I’ve seen what you can do in a storm.’

‘You did it!’ scream the squadron, running up to meet us.

Fenlon trots over, frowning. ‘It worked. It actually flew.’

‘How was it?’ shouts Zoya, climbing up on the wing.

How was it? I take a deep breath. A smile so big it could be sunshine breaks out. I actually laugh out loud, and there are even tears in my eyes. How was it? Forget all that business of sprouting weeds getting yanked out, I can’t keep my enthusiasm hidden.

‘It was brilliant!’

Furey slaps me on the back as I jump down. ‘What did I say? You’re a natural! You made that look easy.’

Did Reef watch how well I did? He’s nowhere to be seen. No, wait – there he is, at the edge of the airstrip. I almost stop breathing when I realise that the man next to him is the Scrutiner who came to my home in Sea-Ways – the white-clad, nail-nibbled Clint Roke. Both just stand there watching.

Clouds cover my smile. Furey turns sombre too as she addresses the whole Storm squadron.

‘Make no mistake, this is only the beginning. Aranoza has shown that Fenlon’s designs are, contrary to all expectation, sound. Now we know it
can
be done we have to work day and night so it
will
be done in time for Aura’s deadline. Flying is a wonderful experience, my friends – the best in the world, I’d say – but we are not here for the fun of it. Tens of thousands of Crux soldiers are pushing across the west foodlands. Untold numbers are creeping through the Morass. Our Nation is in terrible danger. Fifteen days, that’s all we have before our first mission. Make every hour count!’

G
oing up by day is one thing. We all get good practice buzzing about in Storms while the sun’s out, no matter how much the ‘real’ bomber crews point and laugh. But night-flying is a whole new world of worry. We’ve hardly had a handful of starlit sorties before orders come through to muster for the first mission.

It’s just not natural, waking up at twilight and deliberately waiting for the sky to darken. Usually the sight of Umbra above the horizon is our signal to go indoors and tell the lights to go up . . . not to switch them off. The whole of Loren Airbase is under new blackout orders, so all the other personnel are stuck inside where it’s nice and bright.

I wonder if this sort of dread is how it’ll be when the Long Night comes. I’m too young to remember the last Eclipse. I was only a baby then and Zoya just a toddler. We know all about it though, thanks to things we hear from older kids, and sometimes our parents, when they don’t know we’re listening. It’s
bad
– that’s the simple summing up. When I was little I had nightmares about it, about being snatched up by a shrieking wind and tossed around in a storm of black feathers. I told Mama once and she said I was to stop making things up, so I told Pedla Rue instead and she said Long Night is when witches come out to fly.

‘They’re the most repulsive monsters,’ she elaborated, enjoying the absolute horror of the description. ‘The hideous opposite of everything normal. They steal babies and make them slaves or
eat
them.’

I scan the skies over Loren for flying monsters, and see only clouds and the occasional corvil.

‘You OK, Pip? Nervous?’ Zoya asks. ‘I’m not. Much.’ Her fingers go tap tap tap against the side of her thigh.

‘You should be petrified,’ says Fenlon, slapping her on the shoulder as he walks past. ‘I know I would be if I was young enough and dumb enough to fly a Storm at night. All right, people, gather round. Time for some last-minute advice on light. Light is, perversely, going to be one of your greatest enemies from now on. Once your eyes have adjusted to darkness it’s important they stay that way. Keep the cockpit dim – just bright enough for the navigators to map-read. Navs, you’ve had your training on how to plot a route via stars or ground illumination.’

Zoya has her map all ready, folded into a waterproof, transparent pocket on the knee of her flying suit. It’s made of paper, like the god-book I found near Steen Verdessica.

Fenlon continues. ‘You’ve got a green light on your port wing and a red one to starboard. If you get lost, the trick is to keep flying between them . . .’ Only Rill laughs at the joke. ‘So . . . if the worst happens and your engine fails – despite my brilliant team of technicians – then you’ll have to glide to an emergency landing.’

‘How will we know where it’s safe to land?’ asks Dee.

‘Look out for the floodlights of a sports stadium, or a lit road that’s not too busy. Keep clear of dark patches if you can, unless you’re certain it’s a nice flat field. Chances are, dark spots mean water or trees. In either case, if you land there you’ll be dead and I’ll be short of a Storm, which are harder to replace than crew right now.’

‘And if we have to land somewhere dark, how can we see if it’s safe or not?’

With a twisted smile Fenlon replies, ‘Put your landing lights on. If you like what you see, marvellous. If you don’t, switch the lights off again.’

It takes a while for Dee to figure out what he means. When she does her face goes pale.

‘One final thing . . .’ Fenlon squints at each of us in turn. ‘You’re all at a funny age. Young enough to see in the dark . . . but your night-sight could go just like
that
.’ He snaps his fingers. ‘We’ll test you every evening before you fly. First sign of hazy vision, you’re off the squadron – is that clear?’

We all blink, suddenly desperate to prove we can stay airborne.

Fenlon hauls open the hangar doors so we can all see the Storms lined up in rows by the runway, slowly being swallowed by shadows. Planet Umbra is streaked with clouds – not enough to alter plans, Aura assures us. While we wait Henke plays a song on his balika, about the ending of winter and the hope spring brings; about the chill of the Long Night being followed by the warmth of the sun’s reappearance. It makes me imagine flowers in the forest unfolding fat petals, and trees sticky with new sap. My skin tightens and my heart thuds.

Suddenly Rill says, ‘How does a night-blind pilot know when to take off?’

‘I don’t know,’ we all reply. ‘How does a night-blind pilot know when to take off?’

‘He keeps going along the runway until all the passengers start screaming.’

We groan. It doesn’t deter her.

‘How does a night-blind pilot know when to land?’

‘We don’t know, Rill, how does a night-blind pilot know when to land?’

‘When the guide dog’s leash goes slack!’

Henke mimes cracking Rill over the head with his balika then carries on with his tunes.

Yeldon drops to the hangar floor and does a few speedy press-ups, right where Zoya can see and admire him.

‘I’m ready for whatever the night brings,’ he says, back on his feet and punching the air.

‘
You
don’t have to fly,’ sniffs Zoya. ‘Everybody else is in much more danger.’

‘Hey – it’ll be nothing spectacular, just a series of quick fly-and-bomb runs, that’s all. Absolutely zero to be worried about. You’ve all trained non-stop and read maps and things. You got on OK with your first night-flights. I can’t see why everyone’s so tense.’

‘
I’m
not tense,’ snaps Lida.

‘Me neither,’ says Ang quickly. ‘I’m relaxation incarnate.’

‘Why are you digging your fingernails into your palms then?’ asks Dee.

‘Shut up!’

Ang is paired to fly with Dee as her pilot. They’re both finding it quite torturous, particularly since Ang thinks pilots get too much respect compared to navigators. Henke is nav to his sister Rill. Lida has Petra as her navigator, but right now Petra’s squinting through the twilight to keep tabs on Mossie, who’s over by the Storms with Yeldon and Fenlon, doing last-minute checks. Being night-blind, Fenlon has to use a head-torch. He forgets he’s wearing it, and keeps dazzling people when he looks at them.

‘I never thought I’d say this, but I wish the sun would hurry up and finish setting!’ Zoya sighs, shoving her hands in her armpits. ‘Pip, you look toasty. Can I borrow your flying jacket just till we’re ready to go? It’s big enough for two of you, so it should fit.’

I do feel hot. Feverish even. Taking off my jacket is a huge relief. The nausea fades.

Zoya rootles around in my jacket pockets. ‘Have you got any spare gloves? Ugh, what’s this? Is this actual
animal
wool? Na – is this a
bone
stuck in it? Pip . . . ?’

I back away. ‘It’s not mine, I swear – no, don’t give me it,
I
don’t want it! Someone must’ve hidden it in my jacket when it was hanging in the crew-room. There was something like it on the Storm the day of the test flight, too. Reef – the Scrutiner – took it.’

‘Seriously? Did he say what it was?’

I shake my head. ‘Furey said it might be a good-luck charm.’

‘It’s like those gross artefacts they have on display in the People’s Number Ninety-four Museum back home – Old Nation stuff that’s banned now.’

‘Let me look,’ comes a quiet voice. Rill pushes past Zoya to examine the object. We expect a bad joke, but she’s serious when she speaks. ‘My brother knows songs about people using amulets and prayers and herbs. There are fey-tales too. I don’t know exactly what this exact charm means, but I do know it’s a witch thing.’

‘No such thing as witches,’ is our chorus, with me chanting extra loudly.

‘I’m not saying witches exist,’ Rill adds quickly. ‘But my mama said you have to do whatever you can to guard yourself against them, even if it means using protection that’s called Old Nation now.’

It all sounds a bit like Papi’s attitude when I caught the train at Sea-Ways –
No such thing as witches but guard yourself against them anyway
.

Zoya splutters, ‘I can’t believe you’d even say something like that, Rill. We should absolutely report this to
Eyes in the Dark
.’

‘Report what?’ comes a voice from behind our huddled circle. Reef is right beside me.

‘It’s not mine,’ says Zoya anxiously. ‘I just found it.’

‘Where?’

She hesitates, not wanting to get me into trouble.

Dee answers for her, honest as ever. ‘It was in the pocket of Rain’s flying jacket.’

Reef’s eyes are focused only on me now. ‘Is this true?’

I nod and colour up. ‘I don’t know how it got there.’

‘The wool is like that embroidered belt Haze in the canteen kitchen wears – sort of a Lim design,’ says Lida. She suddenly looks taller, as if she’ll be responsible for the group. I like that about her, even if she does keep calling me Pipsqueak.

Zoya frowns. ‘Why would Haze make something like this? You shouldn’t accuse people without proof.’

Lida says, ‘I’m not
accusing
, I’m just making an observation . . .’

Reef holds up his hand. ‘Enough talk. We have the Lim girl under Scrutiny. We have you all under Scrutiny. Forget about this now and focus on your flying.’

‘Forget what?’ comes Marina Furey’s voice.

I look up at Reef with a mute
please don’t tell
in my eyes.

Reef hesitates for a moment . . . then he slips the bone-wool thing away. ‘They’re to forget their fears,’ he tells Furey calmly. ‘Their Nation needs them.’

‘Absolutely,’ she replies.

I breathe out slowly and wonder if I dare message
thank you
to Reef.

Furey looks more dishevelled than usual, and angry too.

‘Updates just came through,’ she begins. ‘It’s not good. Crux have captured Sorrowdale. Yes, yes, it’s impossible. But they have. I don’t need to tell you that Sorrowdale is an important gateway from West Rodina across the foodlands to Rimm, Loren and eventually Sea-Ways itself. If Sea-Ways falls that leaves Corona vulnerable and it’ll only be a matter of time before Crux are marching through our beautiful capital city . . . and right to the doors of Aura’s laboratories. Which is
not
going to happen. You’re going to stop them.’

‘Why have they even got that far?’ Lida asks, speaking for all of us. ‘The Crux are just superstitious fanatics. Rodina has superior technology and more disciplined ground forces.’

‘When our technology
works
,’ answers Fenlon gruffly.

Marina shrugs. ‘Normalisation squads are spraying Slick as fast as factories can produce it, but obviously it’s not enough to guarantee bioweave won’t unravel. Which is where our Storm squadron comes in. Now is the time to show the Nation what you’re capable of. In a moment you can connect for coordinates and flight plans, but I’ll tell you straight out, your first mission is to wipe out every last Crux in Sorrowdale, even if it means flattening the town.’

We all start clapping, while Ang mutters, ‘If only we could start with that smug streak, Steen Verdessica . . .’

No one will argue with that.

‘You’re acting tough, but I’m guessing you’re all afraid of what tonight will bring,’ Furey says starkly, looking at each one of us individually . . . pausing for a moment longer when she comes to me. ‘I don’t blame you. You’re going up into a night without lights, your wings weighted with bombs. Don’t give in to your fear! Your Nation takes great pride in your efforts tonight. You’re not just one person, you’re
One of Many
.’

‘
One of Many!
’ we chant in response.

I look around. I still don’t know the names of everyone on the squadron, and those I am getting to know well – my new friends – they’re always bickering or bragging. Can we even pull ourselves together to work as a team?

Furey continues.

‘I knew from the moment I first got airborne it was in my blood. If I could fly blind with you tonight I would. Instead, being stupidly too old for night-vision I pass my ambitions on to you. You have all taken an oath of loyalty to defend the Nation, so let’s vow once more, together, to fight to our last breath in defence of our beloved homeland. The Crux come here to force us to return to Old Nation ways. They’ve stolen our territory, our peace, the lives of our people. Now the time has come to fight for harsh retribution. Rodina is the greatest Nation to fly the flag of civilisation! Stand in the ranks of the warriors for freedom! Success to you and combat glory!’

Forgetting our shabby outfits, our squabbles, our fears, we all draw taller and shout as one, ‘To combat glory!’

At Furey’s signal we break rank. We sprint from the hangar, feet flying. First to the plane will be first away. Lida’s long legs have her in the lead. Her propeller spins to life. Petra leaps into place behind her. Henke and Rill are fast too, if not quite first in the line to take revenge.

‘Wait for me, Pip!’ pants Zoya in her oversized boots, so I slow . . . long enough to catch sight of Marina Furey lighting up a choke to smoke with trembling fingers. I hear her swear and mutter to Reef, ‘They’re only
kids
!’