Flying the Storm (39 page)

She came-to in a blur of hot pain all over her body.
It felt like every muscle and bone she had was on fire, and as she opened her eyes she saw she was floating again near the level of the captain’s seat. Below her, near the floor, Solomon’s body hovered in a shimmering cloud of crimson droplets.

She’d hit him. Somehow, she’d hit him. He wasn’t moving or even breathing. He was dead.

Somehow that numbed the pain a little.

Now she had nothing to kick off
from. She was floating almost perfectly still in the centre of the huge spherical room, and the closest thing to her was the captain’s chair, though it was still a long way out of reach. Stretching her arm out had the same painful result as before, so she drew it back and searched about for another solution.

Her pistol still had rounds in it. With the pistol pointed away from the chair, she squeezed the trigger.

The gunshot pushed her right into the seat. Grabbing it tightly and slowly moving herself around, she strapped in, though loosely to avoid hurting her ribs. She left a little trail of droplets from the long bullet graze on her leg, but it was much less blood than had been gushing from the holes in Solomon. She took some reassurance from that: she was losing less blood than the dead man.

“
Enkidu
, the Commodore is gone,” Vika announced. “I have command now.”

“Yes, Commander Naroyan. Welcome to the bridge.”

Suddenly all the images on the walls were thrown into staggering clarity and depth, as if she were sitting
on top
of the warship instead of deep inside it. It must have been how Solomon had seen it, when all it had appeared to Vika was a messy blur.

And the view took her breath away.

All around and above her was the blackest night Vika had ever seen. Countless stars shone from the great dome, and right above her was the sun. But beneath her... beneath her was the Earth. It filled much of the lower half of the bridge-sphere, and through the blue haze of atmosphere she could see white cloud and the faded green outlines of landmasses. She recognised the huge peninsula beneath her as Denmark. Somehow she was over Denmark already.

Suddenly the stories her father had told her of the satellites and rockets, falling endlessly through the void, were real. She was in space, she knew.
There was no other explanation.

“
Enkidu
, where are we going?”

“We are currently on a sub-orbital trajectory terminating in the vicinity of Beijing, China.
ETA twenty minutes.”

Vika thought for a moment.
“I need you to change course.”

“Certainly, Commander
,” said the
Enkidu
. “Where to?”

Each shield will overlap the next, and my shield will cover them all.

Aiden fired through a blurry haze of blood and tears. He could only see a
red glow where his tracers burned, and he fired indiscriminately at everything that moved outside his turret. The gunsight was gone. He couldn’t tell if he was hitting anything. He doubted he was.

Trying to protect the
Iolaire
was keeping his mind off of the burning sensation in his brow, but when the blood filled his vision and trickled into his mouth it became hard to ignore. He hadn’t even taken a hand from the control sticks to feel the wound: it didn’t matter right then. What mattered was getting the
Iolaire
and its passengers out of there alive.

An explosion somewhere above the
Iolaire
jolted Aiden in his seat. That was when he noticed the damage to his leg. The sudden stab of pain in his thigh was almost overwhelming. He groaned aloud.

“Aiden!
Are you okay?” shouted Fredrick.

It took him a moment to respond. “I’m hit in my leg, Fred. It hurts
bad.”

“Jesus. Hammit, go and check him.”

“No, I’m okay. I’m fine.”

“Aiden-”

“I said I’m fine.” He wasn’t sure he really was.

He
wiped the blood from his eyes as best he could.

That’s better
.

The gunsight was still gone, but at least now he could see. He could aim with the tracers
if he had to.

Outside, the scene was still chaos. Though there were fewer aircraft still flying, the survivors were fighting all the more fiercely. Aircraft spiralled and dived, rattling off bursts of tracer now and again. The mountains below were littere
d with the burning pyres of downed aircraft, belching out great columns of smoke that were carried east by the wind.

Fredrick had been unable to escape the melee. Every time he made a run, something would attack them and he would have to break and turn back towards the fight.

Fuel had to be getting low, too. All this time at maximum throttle would be draining the tanks fast. There probably wasn’t enough to reach a city any more. They’d need to settle for whatever options presented themselves, assuming they could get away from the bloody dogfight.

A little interceptor streaked diagonally across Aiden’s vision, followed closely by a drone.
He loosed a burst at them, unable to decide which he’d prefer to hit. He clipped the drone, tearing off the tip of one of its wings. It spun then, losing control and arcing back down towards the ground.

“Got one,” he said.

“Can you see anything following us, Aiden?”

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll try to make another run to the south. Hold on.”

The
Iolaire
banked sharply. Nothing seemed to follow it through the turn. It stayed low, undulating with the terrain.

Slowly the fighting seemed to fall behind them. The huge, burning form of the
Gilgamesh
hovered in the north, just beneath the black clouds. It was fading now too, behind curtains of rain.

The turret was getting very cold. The holes in the glass were letting in a violent little breeze that made Aiden shiver.
The sky was getting darker too.

It was so very dark and cold now. He let go of the control sticks and drew his arms across his chest for warmth.
The darkness filled his vision.

He was fading then, he realised
calmly. Fading away, burned and spent like the ‘nol in the tanks.

As his mind teetered on the brink, his last thoughts were of the
Iolaire
. She would keep flying. He’d done his duty. He’d done his best for her.

She was safe now.

She would forgive him, he knew. He could see her face, just, through the rain, and she smiled. Everything would be okay. Now she would carry him on. She would carry him home.

Something half-remembered whispered to
him from the edge of the dark, something she used to sing to him. He let himself fall.

Fhir a' bhàta,
na hóro eile,

Mo shoraidh slàn
leat 's gach àit' an déid thu.

Oh my boatman,
na hóro eile,

My farewell to you wherever you go
.

*

“What do you want to do, now?”

“I... I just want to fly.”

“You don’t want to go back? I mean, I’m not sure exactly how you would do that, but...”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Aye.
I can’t go back. Not now. Seen too much.”

“Well, I’m sure we can find space for you if you want to stay. You’ve been a real help.”

“...No, I was just... I was just doing what was needed. That’s all.”

“What
we
needed, yes. You went against the
Gilgamesh
, though. Why did you do that?”

“It... felt... like the right thing to do. No friends of mine on that thing.”

“None at all?”

“None.
Don’t think I ever proper fit there.”

Aiden’s eyes opened. He was in a bright,
very
bright white room. Hammit and Fredrick were sitting near him. Hammit was fidgeting uncomfortably, and Fredrick was sitting forwards with his elbows on his knees. Fredrick spotted him first.

“Aiden!” he said. “Welcome back.”

Aiden nodded groggily. He was lying on a bed - a hospital bed - with a blanket up to his chest. He didn’t try to move. Something told him he shouldn’t.

“We’ve just been discussing what to do next. It seems Hammit here is easy pleased, so long as we let him fly with us.”

Aiden nodded again.

“I just want to fly,” said Hammit then.

“I agree with the engineer,” tried Aiden, testing his voice. It was hoarse. It sounded like he hadn’t spoken in a long time. “Flying is good.”

“Well, you’ll be here for a few days yet,” said Fredrick. “
You were in a bad way. That drone really gave you a thumping.”

He started to remember then.
The battle. The little drones with the blue tracers. The
Gilgamesh
in flames, and the
Enkidu
running.

“Where are we?”

“Glasgow. We found a surgery that would take you.”

Glasgow. He was still in Scotland. Funny, it didn’t feel too bad.
Until he tried to move. Then it was all aches and deep throbbing pains in his left leg, chest and upper arm. It almost knocked the wind out of him.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “Did I get thrown through a prop?”

“Looked a bit like it. You lost a lot of blood.”

“That would explain the passing out.”
He carefully laid himself back down onto the pillows, but no matter which way he tried it just wasn’t as comfortable as before. He’d noticed the drip in his arm now, too, which started to itch.

“Since you’re awake now, it might be a good idea to show you this.” Fredrick picked from the bedside table what looked like a pair of chopsticks glued together. He carefully pulled them apart, and between them stretched a fine transparent membrane, like a thin plastic scroll. Then the membrane went rigid, and
he tapped at it a couple of times before passing the membrane monitor to Aiden. He took it with his apparently uninjured right arm.

Suddenly an image of a ‘play’ arrow
loaded up, and Aiden tapped it.

“Aiden and Fredrick of the
Iolaire
,” said Teimuraz’ voice, “this message is at once an apology, an explanation and... an invitation.”

Aiden looked over at Fredrick. His friend nodded at the monitor:
listen
.

“First, I apologise for what you have und
oubtedly been through. Solomon will have betrayed you and stolen the
Enkidu
for his own purposes, which, I am sorry to say, I saw coming. When he first approached me, I admit I was taken in by his professions of justice, and hatred for the
Gilgamesh
: the warship had been a thorn in my side for almost twenty years, and when Solomon offered a solution I jumped at it. However, I performed a little research of my own and slowly came to the realisation that he perhaps was not all he said he was... In fact, he was a great deal more.

“
He is no engineer; he is Commodore Solomon Archer of the North Atlantic Union Navy. Before the Armistice, he had been promised the command of a new aerial warship. The war ended days before the
NAUS Enkidu
was scheduled for launch. Solomon was left without his command, and he felt cheated. He dedicated the next twenty years of his life to tracking down the
Enkidu
.

“It was at Solomon’s request that I found a crewed aircraft to take him to the
Enkidu
. I chose you because I knew you would have no love for the
Gilgamesh
and would, given your natures, jump at the opportunity for justice. Initially I floundered, since I could see no easy way to prevent Solomon from taking possession of the
Enkidu
. I doubted that you would be able to convince him to take one of you on-board the warship... And so you see, when I first met Vika, I saw our chance.

“
I spoke to Vika in private. She told me of her father’s plans, and I was convinced by them. Patriotism had little to do with it, though we Georgians have always been friends of Armenia. Rather, I know from experience that peace and unity are good for the kind of business I run... and that a unified Caucasus, given its location, would be a mercantile powerhouse. Vika and Tovmas would have their peace and I would have my prosperity. Vika would take the
Enkidu
and bring it back to us.

“As for the matter of the
Gilgamesh
... I leaked the
Enkidu
’s possible location to it, several days before you arrived here in Tbilisi. Perhaps this was foolish, since it endangered your lives. In my defence, I had not met Vika at this point, so my best plan was to try and force Solomon to engage the
Gilgamesh
.

“
I am pleased to tell you that, so far, all has gone according to the new plan and she is coming to me. I invite you to do the same. You have truly proven your worth, and if you choose to help us, you will be rewarded richly. There will be plenty of work for you here.”

T
he recording rustled slightly. “I hope to see you soon. Teimuraz out.”

Aiden sat in silence for a moment, his mind reeling. The whole damned thing had been a set-up.
Vika’s betrayal, the
Gilgamesh
, everything. He had almost been killed for it. They had nearly unleashed a second
Gilgamesh
on the world, and everything had hung by a thread. So much more could have gone wrong.

He was furious. Giddy that he had survived, but
furious. And he didn’t think he liked the thought of the
Enkidu
being used to ‘unify’ the Caucasus, either. Not one bit.

“So,” said Fredrick, “What do you think?”

Aiden turned and considered his friend. His expression didn’t lean either way. Not that it mattered.

“We should go to Tbilisi just so I can punch him in his big, fat face
.”

Fredrick
let out a roar of laughter and slapped his knees.

“Not Denmark then?” he said.

Aiden smiled at that. Denmark did sound good. Fredrick’s father was an excellent cook.

“So we are decided,”
Fredrick continued. “We are going to Tbilisi to beat Teimuraz.”

Aiden’s smile widened
. He had a warm, fuzzy feeling that may or may not have been the morphine. Everything would be fine. They had work. They had the
Iolaire
. She would keep flying. That was all that mattered.

The three of them sat
in contented quiet for a few moments. Aiden wondered if Hammit had a clue what they had been talking about. Aiden himself was having trouble digesting Teimuraz’ message. A question boiled up out of the confusion.

“Will she take it to him?”
he asked then. “To Teimuraz?”

Fredrick shook his head slowly,
his smile disappearing. “If he really believes she will do as he says, he is as foolish as he is fat.” He breathed deeply through his nose and got to his feet. “That woman is loyal only to her father,” he said quietly.

There was st
ill pain there, clearly. Fredrick picked the monitor from Aiden’s lap and folded it away. As he leaned close, Aiden saw creases in his friend’s face: lines that hadn’t been there before. A toll had been taken on everybody.

“That airport Teimuraz loves so much?” Fredrick continued, a mirthless smile touching his lips. “I don’t think
it’s going to stay his for very long. I think Armenia is about to become much, much bigger.”