Razors swept overhead, dropping submunitions. One of the transporters at the lakeshore went up in a haze of flames. Blansher launched clear. So did Van Tull and Del Ruth, then Cordiale. Ortho Blaguer’s rising Thunderbolt collided with a Razor on a strafing run. The blast lit the sky. Two of the fleeing Lightnings, one of them Oberlitz’s, were stung hard as they attempted to climb. Oberlitz went down in the lake, the other into the trees on the far shore.
Asche pulled away. Then two of the Raptors. A Lightning. Another Raptor launched, and was blown apart. Zemmic got away. Ranfre. Then Jagdea, her Bolt struck twice by heavy passing fire.
Marquall ran to Nine-Nine. The sky was on fire. He found Racklae and the chief fitter’s number two waiting for him.
“Go! Leave now!” Marquall yelled.
“Not before we see you safe, sir!” said Racklae.
“Your transport is about to leave, mister!” Marquall shouted.
Las-rounds ripped out of the trees. Racklae’s number two dropped, his head fused into a misshapen blob.
“Racklae, go! Now, for Throne’s sake!”
Marquall fired his pistol into the tree-line.
“Cables are disconnected, sir. You’re clean!” Racklae bellowed.
“Go, Racklae! Go! Go!” yelled Marquall.
“Give that to me, for Throne’s sake,” Kautas shouted, appearing from nowhere and snatching the pistol out of Marquall’s hand.
“Run now, Mister Racklae,” Kautas said. Racklae turned and began to sprint for the shore. The air was full of hard rounds and las-streaks.
Kautas started to fire the pistol. “And you, Vander Marquall,” he said.
“Father…”
“Close your bloody lid, boy.”
Marquall slammed his canopy home. He lit the engines, and kicked over the vector thrusters, ripping up through the remains of the shimmer tents into the smoke-filled air.
He managed one last, frantic look down.
Far below, amongst me trees and flames, Marquall saw a figure with its arms spread wide, as if in benediction. Ayatani Kautas, his robes tugged by Nine-Nine’s down-draft, turned and ran towards the red-armoured soldiers pouring in along the pathways.
The last time Marquall saw him, Kautas was a distant shape, sinking to his knees. Bright las-shots flickered in all directions. Kautas held Marquall’s pistol out before him, firing over and over again.
Theda MAB South, 08.30
Even to someone unfamiliar with the arcane sigils of Navy plotting symbols, it would have been obvious that a huge fight was going on over the Littoral. Nine of the flight controllers were now involved, Eads included. Darrow stood by and watched with mounting concern.
It had become ceaseless, day and night. They came in on shift, and took the reins of some ongoing brawl from a controller almost dead on his feet from fatigue. Weary and strung out, they handed fights off to replacements at shift rotation. The enemy attacks—mass bombing operations, lightning raids, opportunistic intercepts—were happening all the time.
Currently, the rotunda had four points of focus. Two controllers on the far side of the chamber were negotiating interceptions on a wave of bombers over Ezraville. Another had a fighter-on-fighter clash in progress above the Lida Valley. A fourth had control of a Marauder formation heading south. The nine on Darrow’s half of the room were handling the big battle: close on four hundred and fifty enemy bombers, a hundred escorts and fourteen Imperial wings.
The chatter and roll of voices was incessant. Reports, plot statements, corrections, vox transmissions and updates volleyed back and forth. At their screens, the placement officers were inscribing hideously complex tactical maps, constantly adding, deleting, rewriting, reassigning.
The controllers were locked in worlds of their own, fixed on their own tracks while trying to accommodate the overall situation. Most were head-down over their cogitators, but Eads sat like an orchestra conductor, sightless gaze fixed directly ahead as his hands danced over the display. Darrow knew the commander was dog-tired. His face was pale, and he hadn’t been eating or sleeping properly.
“Forty-Four, call off. Nine-One, rise to ten, bearing five-eight-five. Rimfire, make your track eleven-two. Say again, Quarry Leader. You’re breaking up. Switch to channel four. Understood, contacts west of you at nine kilometres. Brass Flight, correct and descend to two thousand. Bat group under you, turning east, three kilometres. Sixteen contacts, you should have visual. Confirmed, Lancer, I show you as attacking.”
The klaxons started to ring, and the deck officer cancelled them at once. Raid warnings had been going off regularly, but no one in Operations ever quit for the bunkers. There was too much at stake. Twice, Darrow had felt the great chamber shudder as bombs quaked the Thedan ground.
His days with Eads had taught Darrow a lot. Once he’d picked up the basics, he’d been able to do more than merely stand by and run simple tasks. They’d evolved a good working pattern. Eads now expected Darrow to monitor peripheral tracks, and pass them over if they impinged on primary activity.
The displays on Darrow’s substation were alive now. But he wouldn’t just cut in and interrupt his chief. Darrow had developed a habit of touching Eads on the left shoulder to let him know he wanted his attention.
“Speak,” Eads said.
“Counter track, Flight. South-east, two hundred kilometres, closing. Formation of forty. Modar reads heat-wash patterns as Locusts.”
“Heading?”
“Four-one-six.”
Eads’s hands drifted. “That’ll fall into catchment twelve. Run it to Scalter.”
“Yes, Flight.”
Darrow noted the details down carefully on a data-slate, took off his headset, and hurried along the busy companionway behind the controller stations to the third one down from Eads.
Major Frans Scalter had been section leader of Seeker Flight up to the moment it had been decimated in a dogfight over Ezraville on the morning of the 257th. Scalter had lost his co-pilot and his bird had been crippled beyond hope of repair. It was a miracle Scalter had got home at all. His hands and face were still scabbed with healing cuts.
He was an experienced aviator and, in Eads’s opinion, a level-headed pilot officer. With no available machine or unit to transfer to, Scalter had been drafted to Operations, to help out with the increasing pressure. Shifts were back to back, round the clock. Operations needed all the clear-thinking and experienced flight personnel it could rope in to work the stations.
Scalter was good at Operations work. His fine service record stood him in good stead. Like all of the Commonwealth fliers who had been switched to Operations duty—Darrow included—Scalter thought of it as a demotion. But it was vital work, and he took it seriously.
“Make your height five thousand, Ransack,” Scalter was saying tersely as Darrow came up to his station. “Turn eighteen north. I repeat, north. If you pull west, you’ll be over them and dead. Do as you’re told.”
“Flight?”
Scalter held up a hand without looking round. “I don’t care what you can see, Ransack. I can see more. Five thousand, eighteen north. There’s a block of bats under you, out of your visual, that will mince you if you commit west. Copy? Thank you. Lamplight, as you were. Clear for eight kilometres. Be advised, hostiles west sixteen.”
Scalter looked round at Darrow. “Junior?”
Darrow held out the slate. “Coming into your catchment. Eads wants you advised.”
“Express my thanks,” Scalter said. Darrow noticed the man’s hands were shaking as he took the slate. He thought of Heckel. Should he say something?
“Anything else, junior?” Scalter asked. Like all of them, Scalter looked monstrously tired. Darrow knew why. It wasn’t just the stress. All the Commonwealth pilots pulled from active duty had been spending time in the simulators when they should have been sleeping, keeping their skills honed. Darrow had certainly been doing that, and he’d seen Scalter several times in one of the rigs. The Navy had brought in new training programs, simulation routines for Thunderbolts and Marauders. They’d all been eager to try them. To experience what they were missing.
“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.