Night Witches (11 page)

I don’t know what to say apart from a general
sorry
that’s meant to cover a whole ton of disgraces. While Zoya complains –
Sorry isn’t good enough
 . . . 
Don’t ever pull a stunt like that again
 . . . 
I can’t believe you just brought me here we could be in so much danger and I promised your papi I’d look after you
– I pluck some thorn-vine leaves and make a bed for the baby bird in my jacket pocket.

Not long after we take off the sun dims, clouds gather and rain starts again. I realise I’ve left the spade. Too bad. It would be handy for digging us out of the trouble we’ll be in once we get back at base.

Y
ou only realise how comforting a crowd is when it squeezes you out.

From the moment our Storm lands back at Loren there’s only Roke and Reef waiting. An official un-Welcome Committee.

I shrivel up inside to see the cold expression on Reef’s face.

‘What were you
thinking
?’ he demands to know, while Roke is busy questioning Zoya. ‘You stole a plane!’

‘I brought it back.’

‘You took off without orders.’

‘To find Henke and Rill!’

‘They were already dead.’

‘We had to bury them.’

‘And who’d bury
you
when you got shot down, flying into the war zone in broad daylight?’

‘You don’t have to shout at me!’

‘I’m not shouting!’ he shouts, then he calms a bit, rubbing his eyes as if they’re sore. ‘You should’ve connected for ac-reqs from Aura. You wouldn’t have been permitted to go.’

‘Do we always have to do everything according to Aura?’

Reef stares at me, stunned. The question is too abnormal to need an answer. ‘Look, Rain, I didn’t . . . 
people
didn’t know where you’d gone or whether you’d even come back. No, don’t say anything else. I knew it was a mistake . . .’

‘What was a mistake?’

‘This . . . Everything . . . Us . . .’

He steps away and closes his eyes. The black
Eyes in the Dark
tattoos show on his lids.

Zoya is in tears once the Scrutiny is done and I feel like a monster because it’s all my fault. We’re given our keypads back and told to go and get breakfast.

‘You’re grounded until further notice,’ says Roke with a certain amount of unsmiling satisfaction.

‘We shouldn’t have gone,’ moans Zoya. ‘I shouldn’t’ve let you talk me into it. What’s everyone going to say? Marina Furey must think we’re awful. I want to
die
. They won’t tell my father, will they? He’ll kill me if I mess up here.’

For once she lets me go into the canteen first. I take a deep breath – nearly retching on the stink of the herbs Haze still insists on cooking with – and then, with my hands deep in my pockets and my gaze to the ground, I head over to our usual squadron table.

People – strangers – start to point, murmur and message. The Storm squadron go silent when they see us. What’s worse is the sight of the breakfast table still set with places for Henke and Rill, as if they’ll just come bustling in any moment to sit down to eat.

I link arms with Zoya, sensing she’s about to turn and run. She stuck with me in the Storm, I’ll stick with her now. This has got to be faced.

One by one the Storm crew scrape back their chairs and stand. I almost faint. Don’t tell me
they’re
going to cut and walk out on us!

At first no one speaks, then Mossie, red-eyed from crying, nods towards a seat. Petra pushes a plate of bread closer. Dee lines up two mugs. Yeldon pours tea.

Zoya gives a little sob. ‘You mean we can join you?’

‘Are you crazy?’ says Mossie.

‘Probably,’ mutters Dee to no one but herself. ‘They’d have to be to do what they did.’

‘Are you
crazy
?’ Mossie repeats. ‘
Of course
you can join us. You’re both one of us.
One of Many
.’

‘
One of Many
,’ they all echo.

‘What you did,’ says Lida in a pretend-not-to-be-tearful voice, ‘it was brave, as well as demented and disobedient.’

‘Yeah,’ says Ang. ‘And I wouldn’t worry about getting Scrutiny for it. I got detention my first week in school. Twice.’

A group of men comes to loom over us, each with an emblem of the People’s Number Nine Bomber Squadron on their uniform.

One says, ‘Hey, we’ve heard about you lot, buzzing around playing war games when the rest of us are trying to sleep. They say the Crux are calling you
night witches
.’ He prods my shoulder and says, ‘Aren’t you the kiddie who stole one of those wooden jokes this morning?’

The Storm squadron closes ranks.

‘No,’ says Lida firmly, arms crossed. ‘She’s one of the kids who kicked the Crux out of Sorrowdale because
your
planes weren’t up to the job.’

Grounded.

It’s like a prison sentence. Before I ever flew it didn’t bother me to keep both feet firmly on the ground, with maybe just my head in the clouds during a really boring class at school. Now I’m itchy, twitchy
aching
to be back in the air again. What use are we to the war if they don’t let us fight? All day we have to wait in the crew-room, watching Victory reports that can’t hide the fact the Crux are flattening resistance.

‘They shouldn’t be winning!’ says Fenlon, bursting in on us one day. ‘We absolutely outgun and out-tech them
and
they’re all just homicidal religious junkies. I’d feel sorry for them coming up against our armed forces if it wasn’t for the fact that they keep churning out more troops and traptions.’

‘Isn’t it our superior technology that’s the problem?’ I ask tentatively. ‘They’re using machines that aren’t affected by the Morass. If we had more Storms and some traptions of our own . . .’

‘Ha! Try telling that to the scientists! We’ve got the go-ahead for more Storms at least, but up in Corona City they’re waiting to develop some sort of super-weapon that’s going to turn the tide of war.’

‘Worse than Slick?’

‘Makes Slick look nice enough to pour on your porridge, I heard. In the meanwhile, keep your kit bags ready packed, kids. It’s only a matter of time before Loren is in range of Crux missiles.’

He’s right.

‘It’s not a retreat,’ everyone says as Loren Airbase is dismantled and boxed up.
Not a retreat
, as trucks are loaded floor to ceiling.
Not a retreat
, as Storms take off in search of a safer home for the night-bomber squadron. The official term from Aura is Strategic Withdrawal.

Otherwise known as
running away
.

Still grounded, Zoya and I have to travel by road, like techies. Zoya goes on ahead in a truck with more ground crew and Roke as guard. I’m to be watched by Reef.

‘See you there!’ Mossie waved as they set off. She tossed me a packet of cookies, somehow knowing I wouldn’t want the pack-up Haze made for everyone.

I crumble one cookie now and feed the baby bird in my pocket. I checked Aura and discovered you call a baby bird a fledgling. I’m going to name mine Eye Bright, because that’s what its eyes are like – alert and beady and full of life. I feel its feathers rustle against my hand. Aura says there’s a word from Old Nation days for animals you keep and look after –
pets
. Eye Bright is my pet bird. A life saved when others have been lost.

I was going to call it Lucky, but that would be stupid, because clearly that word would never stick with me. I’m unlucky, unhappy and under observation, here in the back of a convoy of trucks crammed with canisters labelled
Slick
. I’ve got Steen Verdessica on the seat next to me and Reef Starzak on guard opposite. Reef is sitting with his feet up so there’s more room for my legs but Steen isn’t as considerate. Our legs are so close I can feel the heat of his thigh even through the fabric of my trousers.

Worse than that, wedged between canisters just behind the driver is one person I’ve been hoping to avoid. The canteen cook, Haze. The girl they say has got my face.

How could anyone confuse
me
with her? Haze is big and stocky, like most foodlanders – bulked up on a stodgy diet and lots of muscle-based work. Her hair’s cropped round her ears and high across her forehead. She’s lumbered by a full-length skirt that divides and is bound round the ankles by embroidered bands, then at the waist with a decorated belt. Her sleeves are rolled up to show strong arms; her sun-browned skin is laced with fine scars.

Haze glowers at me, Steen looks under his lashes at me, Reef observes everyone and I look at the floor.

Where are we going? Nowhere fast, thanks to the mud.

Spring thaw is the worst possible time to be travelling, especially in foodlands, where biograss struggles to hold the ground together once the rain-storms have flooded down. Aura reports worse snow-melt than usual this year.

Questions are churning in my mind, like wheels in wet mud. I’m getting nowhere, answers-wise. I want to know why no one told me we used to live in Sorrowdale. Why’s this Lim girl, Haze, set on leaving witch-thing charms for my protection? What’s Steen’s interest in sticking with the squadron – something he wants so much he’s rumoured to be feeding Aura information about the Crux Air Force to keep himself out of prison?

As for Reef, I’m trying not to think about him at all, just in case Scrutiners can read your mind. Whatever tentative connection we had, I’ve utterly wrecked it. Like he said,
us
was a mistake
.

The truck skids through yet another bad patch, flinging me sideways on to Steen, who grins as I flinch.

Reef says, ‘The roads get better after the bridge.’

Which bridge? I try and remember what I can about the route we’ve taken so far from Loren. We’re heading south-east, so that means towards Sea-Ways, which means the bridge will be over the river that runs through the city to the ocean – River Seaward.

A sudden wave of nausea hits me and I have to put my head down to my knees.

‘Rain? Are you OK?’ I hear Reef but can’t answer. What’s wrong with me? The Slick stinks, but I thought I was used to that. This is worse – a definite
bad feeling
for no logical reason.

‘Travel-sick, bless,’ says Steen sarcastically. ‘And here I was assuming roads in Rodina would be so civilised – it claiming to be such a sophisticated Nation.’

‘Shut up,’ says Reef – not eloquent, but to the point.

‘She doesn’t want to cross the river,’ says Haze abruptly. Her voice is slow and thick, as if she’s not used to talking much. No one pays any attention to her, thank god . . . thank
whatever
.

With a great grinding of gears we come to a stop.

‘Mud!’ Reef pushes open the carry-go door and leaps down. ‘Crux – come out here and help.’

Steen’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘And be lynched by every Crux-hater within a ten-klick radius? No thank you!’

‘I’ll help,’ says Haze, bundling up her fat skirts. ‘It’s all I’m good for, after all. Do this, fetch that, cook this, clean that. Not like little softie city girls with mothers and fathers to work for them . . .’

Reef nods and starts to take off his pristine, white Scrutiner tunic. I try not to stare at the shape of his muscles.

‘I can help too . . .’

He raises an eyebrow and looks at me, shaking his head. ‘Stay in the truck.’

Do I really look so pathetic – such a pipsqueak – next to Haze? I twist round and peer through the mud-spattered windows. The roadside is thick with refugees – hundreds, perhaps even thousands of silent walkers slogging through the mud. Some are dragging carts loaded with boxes, some balance bulging suitcases on their heads, some have little children straddling their shoulders. On they trudge, round our convoy, not even bothering to stop and ask for a lift. Squinting forward I can see the bright paint of a school bus just ahead of us. I also spot the great arch of the upcoming bridge and the shapes of more military vehicles from Loren crossing over.

How did it happen, that one day there was peace, the next day war, and now this?

I flick a quick look at Steen. A Crux. Cause of all this misery in motion. He won’t meet my eyes.

Our engine whines with fresh effort until the truck is finally sucked free of the mud and we hear a faint cheer from outside. Then comes a stranger noise, quiet at first then louder and louder until it seems the sky must be shrieking in agony and we have to cover our ears.

Steen bangs into me, shoving me down to the floor. ‘Screamers!’ he shouts. ‘Take cover!’

Screamers!

The name doesn’t do the sound justice. I feel as if my ears are being shredded by poisonous blades; as if hot wires are slicing my brain. We know from Victory reports that Screamers are crude Crux dive-bombers, fitted with filters on their wings that literally screech as the planes hurtle down, unbelievably fast, to fire. How many are there coming our way? Two? More? An explosion rocks the truck. The door flies open.

‘Get out, get out!’ Reef shouts, dragging me from under Steen by my jacket sleeve and pulling me into the sludge of a roadside ditch, where Haze is already hiding. A second Screamer cuts the cold air and grey bombs fall between the rain of bullets. Reddened mud sprays out.

Refugees cower alongside us, arms wrapped round their children or just over their heads. I hear babies squalling . . . and the scary sound of
praying.
Reef flings his arm around my back and covers me with his body. I wish I could melt into him and feel all wrapped up for ever.

Nearby a large woman trembles and mutters, ‘We should never have pulled the bells down in the god-houses, after the last Long Night. I said no good would come of it, and no good’s come, see? Bells were our protection – look what happens without them!’