Interceptor City, page 24
‘Tantrum,’ said Tantrum, stiffening slightly as she looked at him.
‘No, your name.’
‘Glick,’ he said cautiously. ‘Arvi Glick.’
‘What you said right there, Glick,’ she told him, ‘that was exactly it. You took the piss. Just for a second, you remembered I was simply another arsehole like you, shooting my mouth off. You don’t need me to tell you about confidence. But now I’ve put you on the spot, look at you. Tensed up, eyes averted. Look at me.’
Tantrum slowly raised his head, and made eye contact.
‘I can’t teach you confidence, Glick,’ she said. ‘But I can point out you’ve got some.’
Jagdea took a few steps, and looked around.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked the girl.
‘Kinny Inthimal,’ she replied. She was slight, and good-looking, her blonde hair wrenched back in a bun. She was wearing round, pink-tinted sun shades. She regarded Jagdea with a curious intensity. ‘Call sign Camo.’
‘How’d you earn that?’
‘I transferred in from the Fifty-Third Tropic,’ the girl said. ‘Day I arrived, I was wearing puzzle-pattern kit, because that was Fifty-Third issue. Someone called me Camo, and that was it. After three days, I burned the kit and went to the stores.’
She glanced down at the worn, hand-me-down crew gear she was wearing.
‘They still called me Camo,’ she said.
‘Sucks,’ said Jagdea. ‘So wear it.’
‘The… camo?’
‘The name,’ Jagdea replied. ‘You’re here tonight with Driver, Dollface, Tantrum and Smoke. I think you got off light. You know what’s worse than a nickname? No nickname, which means they haven’t even registered you.’
‘Well…’ Camo shrugged. ‘It does rhyme with “Ammo”.’
‘Yes, it frigging does,’ said Jagdea. ‘What about you?’
The other smoke was a young, solemn man with very dark skin. He was wearing a red flightsuit and a black flying coat. He had sat furthest away, the most suspicious and dubious of the four.
‘Maksim Steeley,’ he said. ‘Call sign Nosedive.’
‘Let me guess… bad drop on your first day?’
‘And every day afterwards,’ said Steeley.
‘Why did you come here tonight?’
‘I wanted to hear about the turn,’ he said. ‘Tantrum… I mean, Glick… he told me about the turn.’
‘Then let’s talk about that,’ said Jagdea. ‘You all fly Strikes?’
Wilzar nodded. Camo, Tantrum and Nosedive all chorused, ‘Yes, mam.’
‘Oh, frig that,’ said Jagdea. ‘I don’t work here. Call sign, or Jagdea. Again, you all fly the Voss?’
The group answered, ‘Yes, Driver.’
‘The Voss is a grox,’ said Jagdea. She looked over at her own bird. Tarr and her adepts had finished work, but they were leaning on the airframe, watching, with amused looks on their faces. ‘It’s a grox to fly at the best of times, but it gives back plenty if you learn its quirks. However, it’s the wrong plane for this war sky. It’s way over-specced, and too fast. We can thank the Munitorum for supplying us with the wrong tool.’
‘Is there a right plane?’ asked Tantrum.
‘No,’ said Gumm, arms folded.
‘Vesperus is a unique environment,’ said Jagdea. ‘It’s determined to kill us. The Voss wants to run fast and high. The hive makes us fly low and tight. The Voss is battling you at every step. Choke. Stumble. Logis-correction. You’re all flying it too slow.’
‘I don’t want to die,’ said Nosedive.
‘That’s reasonable,’ said Jagdea. ‘But I bet every time you drop, you get left behind, no matter what the vets in your flight are sticking. Yes, we’re back on confidence, Glick. I’ve said this to Wilzar, and I’ll say it to you – a miss is as good as a mile. Everywhere you go in this hive, you’ll be fitting through gaps, dodging obstruction, avoiding collision. Everywhere. So ignore clearance regs. Ignore proximity alarms. Mute them. Get your fitters to strip them out, even. If your bird’s going to fit through a gap, it’s going to fit, whether you have ten feet clearance all around, or you skin the damn paint. You know what your birds will fit through. You’re hesitant because it seems unnatural, and it seems unnatural because it is. Flying cautiously, at a low rate, will get you killed, because there’s no power in your wings for tight turning. Up that rate, you move quicker so you’re more agile. And there’s less time to think, and therefore overthink, and force an error. If you’re going to fit, you’re going to fit.’
‘And if you don’t?’ asked Nosedive.
‘Then it’s over,’ said Gumm, ‘and you died trying, rather than failing.’
‘The real killer is timidity,’ said Jagdea. ‘This turn Tantrum’s so excited about–’
‘It was frigging mad,’ said Tantrum. ‘Driver muscled her bird in, like, an “L”-shaped turn.’ He gestured, using his hands to try to describe the motion and angle. ‘No decel. Just hard over. Thought she was going to stall.’
‘So did I,’ said Jagdea. ‘And I did. Hard. Trust me, I didn’t mean to do it the first time it happened. I was scared out of my mind. A turn that tight is not in the spec-book, because the magi knew it would trigger the Voss’ basic propensity to choke-up and stumble. A complete loss of pilot control.’
‘So how did you come out of it?’ asked Camo.
‘I didn’t,’ said Jagdea.
‘What–?’
‘I didn’t,’ Jagdea repeated. ‘The Voss did.’
‘Wait…’ said Tantrum, frowning.
‘Every time I’ve done it, I’ve lost all dynamic control,’ said Jagdea. ‘If I’d done it in a Twin or a Bolt, there would have been more stability, and the stick would have stayed live for longer. But even a Twin or a Bolt would have stacked in. That L-shaped turn is unrecoverable.’
‘But–’ Tantrum began.
‘For a pilot. Any pilot.’ Jagdea paused. She sniffed. ‘I’m not that good,’ she said. ‘But unlike a Twin or a Bolt, the Strike is logis-heavy. You all know that. It auto-corrects everything. Trim, lift, balance, power. The logis-engines are running constantly, compensating in ways that we don’t even notice. And you cannot turn them off or shut them down, because the Voss would become an unflyable anvil, even fast and straight. So I didn’t come out of that turn. The logis-engines compensated for a gross pilot error.’
‘So… you crashed it, and it saved you?’ asked Wilzar.
‘Yeah, basically. I lost control, and bent the Voss into a stumble, its primary design flaw. Logis read that, read the critical loss of ballistic stability, and shunted power to the ducts faster than I ever could. Because the logis-engines are well aware of the Voss’ primary design flaw too. They are templated to predict it and respond. Even in an extreme case.’
‘I’d say particularly in an extreme case,’ Gumm said, and stood up. His voice was, as ever, deceptively soft and silky. ‘Jagdea accidentally learned that the Voss can do something its builders never realised. The Voss is oversensitive, but if you really bend it, way beyond the book, it bites back hard.’
‘You’re saying this turn,’ Tantrum asked, in disbelief, ‘you’re saying we have to lose control?’
‘You have to commit and turn into it hard, knowing that there will be a total control departure,’ said Jagdea. ‘Total. You have to submit. And that seems counter-intuitive. It seems insanely unnatural, like punching through a gap with zero clearance, because, once again, it absolutely is. You have to voluntarily give up the one thing we are trained to maintain. Pilot control.’
‘Just give in?’ asked Tantrum.
‘There’s more to it than that,’ said Jagdea, ‘as I will explain. You have to fight coming out of it. Fight to support the logis-driven efforts. But yes, in essence, you’ve got to give in. Relinquish control.’
‘I imagine praying helps too,’ said Nosedive.
‘Doesn’t hurt,’ agreed Jagdea.
‘So this L-shaped turn…’ Wilzar began.
‘J-turn,’ said Camo with a smile. ‘It’s a hard jag. Should call it the J-turn. Because Bree Jagdea…’
Jagdea looked at her. Camo was grinning. What was that? Kissing instructor’s backside? Or something else? What had the girl heard?
She ignored the lingering unease, and quickly ran through the basic combination of stick, rudder and thrust required to regain control from a logis-corrected turn.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘That’s enough. Go away and think about what I’ve said, especially the confidence part. Rest. If you haven’t eaten, eat. If you haven’t hydrated, hydrate. Sleep, food and water are the best tips I can give you. If you’re still interested, come back tomorrow night and I’ll tell you what I know about hose tape.’
‘Hose tape?’ Gumm asked, walking over to her as the smokes left.
‘You’ll love it.’ She looked at him. ‘I don’t know if I’ve just done more harm than good.’
‘We’ll see,’ he replied.
‘I was disappointed there were only four of them.’
‘There will be more tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’d put money on it.’
‘Are you going to Sorrentine’s farewell?’
He shook his head. ‘Not my kind of thing,’ Gumm replied. ‘See you tomorrow.’
He strolled out of the hangar. Jagdea turned and saw Tarr grinning at her.
‘That was some crazy shit,’ said the chief.
‘You don’t approve?’
‘Not my place to say,’ Tarr replied. ‘But I’ll tell you one thing. It’s the first time I’ve seen any of those frigging smokes look more than plain terrified. You’ve just made them think. That’s gotta count.’
‘You finished with my bird?’ asked Jagdea.
‘Yeah,’ said Tarr. ‘I’m clocking off. You’ve got company, by the way.’
She pointed with a jerk of her chin. Down at the far end of the hangar, Exec Badler was standing beside a Twin.
‘He’s been here the last ten minutes,’ said Tarr.
‘Great,’ said Jagdea.
Badler strolled towards her as Tarr stepped away to pack her tools.
‘Interesting huddle,’ Badler remarked.
‘You have a problem with it?’ Jagdea asked.
He made no comment.
‘Garrant sent me down,’ he said, instead. ‘Sister Meredith filed a complaint. Said you went up without loading your rails today. Garrant said you’d done the same thing earlier.’
‘This an official write-up?’
Badler shook his head. ‘No, or he’d have sent Dampier, not me.’
‘I had an issue with the stores,’ said Jagdea. She gestured towards her Voss. The heavy autocannons were hooked up under the raked wings, their muzzles extended proud of the nose guns. ‘Chief Tarr found me some hard guns. I’ll be lifting with rails loaded tomorrow.’
Badler frowned.
‘The standard order-out is missiles,’ he said.
‘These will do,’ said Jagdea.
‘Was there an issue with munition connective, Chief?’ Badler called out to Tarr. The chief was hooking spanners into a cart tray. She looked back, uncomfortable.
‘Don’t make her lie for me,’ Jagdea said to Badler. ‘The heaters we stock are shit, and you know it. I don’t want them on my wings.’
‘That’s not your damn call, Driver,’ he said.
‘Well, I made it mine,’ she replied. ‘If Garrant has a problem with that, he can come and tell me so himself.’
‘This isn’t a circus, Driver,’ said Badler.
‘All evidence to the contrary,’ Jagdea replied.
The exec glared at her for a moment, then turned and walked away.
‘They’ve changed tactics,’ she called out after him.
He stopped and looked back at her.
‘The bats,’ she said. ‘Not just one or two bomb-carriers trying to run the hive. They’ve observed our hunting habits. Now it’s bait and switch. Chasers out front to lead us in, then hunters in a pack behind to come at our six. Staggered trailing formation. Not all of the bats are bomb-heavy, so they are knife-fight ready.’
‘We are aware,’ said Badler. ‘That seems to have been the case several times.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’ she asked.
‘With the fuel we have left, and the birds and pilots available?’ Badler replied. ‘There’s not a hell of a lot we can do.’
DAY 92
Dead zone chantry, Intercept 66, Vesperus, 00:25
Jagdea could hear and smell the wake before she reached it.
Past midnight, the rain still hammering. The dirty halls leading to the dead zone hatch Lopard had shown her smelled damp, and water trailed down the cracked walls.
She could hear music. The crates disguising the rusted hatch had been moved out of the way, and the hatch itself was ajar. A sallow, wiry man, a fitter Jagdea believed went by the name Fari, was slouching against the frame, smoking a lho-stick. A lookout. He watched her approach.
‘Driver,’ he muttered, then stood up straight to haul the hatch open for her.
There were still no voltaics in the large chamber beyond, but this time she could see more of it. Light – from lamps and flames – was shafting in through the door on the far side. With it came the noise of voices, laughter, and music. The golden half-light revealed that the chamber’s floor of ashlar tile was inlaid with Ecclesiarchy emblems. It gleamed off the high, gilded ceiling, and warmed the faces of the cherubs and saints gazing from the walls. It also glinted off the broken bottles littering the floor. She could smell alcohol, woodsmoke and pungent narcotics.
She went through to the chantry. The glow-globes had been lit, and hundreds of candles burned in empty bottles and jars around the dirty floor. The bonfire in the massive grate had also been lit, and was burning savagely, creating an infernal atmosphere of flickering yellow and orange. The heat hit her like a wall as she came in. The bonfire had been banked too deep, and the chimney was not in good order. The air was sweaty, and thick with smoke.
The party was in full swing: men and women laughing, drinking, talking, clowning. A few were dancing, with careless and intoxicated abandon, to the loud music blaring from a portable audiocaster. The light of the bonfire threw the shadows of all present up the frescoed walls and across the ceiling.
Jagdea looked around. The smoke was getting in her throat, along with the scent of more prohibited substances. She imagined many of Lopard’s customers were present, and partaking without discretion. She coughed the scratch of smoke away. She wasn’t staying long. Just long enough to pay her respects.
A body stumbled into her. It was Rockcrete. He was sweating heavily, and his eyes somehow managed to be both bleary and dilated.
‘Driver!’ he bellowed, and handed her his bottle. Then he just stumbled away.
She sniffed the bottle. Cheap joiliq. She took a swig.
Most of the squadron’s veterans were present, with the notable exception of Sister Meredith and any of the black-garbed, zealot persuasion. Jagdea saw Blindside and Jongleur, a trim, bearded man she hadn’t spoken to yet. He had a decent reputation. There was Reaper, a compact woman with short, black hair and an apparently permanent sneer, and Longlas, a red-headed man with augmetic legs. With them, three others that Jagdea had not so far attached names or call signs to. Nearby, Slumbag, a heavy ape of a man who looked too big for a cockpit, was clapping wildly and whooping. Jagdea had heard he was another Verghastite, like Gangster.
Gangster was the cause of Slumbag’s applause. She was standing on an upturned ammo box, dressed in combat pants and her tight vest, dancing a particularly rapturous version of her snake-hipped shimmy. Her skin was flushed and her eyes were closed. She had a bottle in one hand and a stimm-tube in the other.
The rest of the jostling crowd seemed to be ground crew, adepts and fitters, who had turned out in force. She saw Tarr, and Voris, and Boa, who was engaged in a contest of ‘how many people can he pick up at once’. The answer, it seemed, was six. The ground crew seemed to be the real animals present. The number of broken bottles and used dispensers on the floor had increased significantly since her last visit. There were a few drivers from the service birds and Medivalks, and a few of the more experienced yet junior sticks. Jagdea couldn’t see any smokes at all. They either hadn’t been invited, or they were too timid to come.
Then she spotted Camo. The girl saw Jagdea through the crowd, and raised her bottle in a toast. A few things made sense. Camo was a smoke, but she was female and attractive. Someone would have invited her along. Someone who, perhaps in a private moment, had taken her into their confidence with regard to Jagdea’s past.
Screw them. It didn’t matter. Jagdea took another swig, and pushed through the crowd. Gangster jumped down from the crate, and lurched into Jagdea’s path.
‘Driver!’ she announced.
‘Gangster.’
Gangster thrust out her bottle, and Jagdea clinked it.
‘You were with him,’ said Gangster, slurring.
‘Yeah?’
‘With Bloodspot,’ Gangster said, swimming her arms as if to improve coherence. ‘At the end.’
‘I was.’
‘He was my friend!’ Gangster barked, and drew a deep breath.
‘I know that.’
‘I hear… I hear you tried to get him down alive,’ said Gangster, swaying, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘All the way. All the way down. S’what Blindside said. You winged him all the way down.’
Jagdea nodded.
‘Yeah,’ said Gangster. ‘All the way down. It was good you did that.’
She thrust out her bottle a second time, and they clinked again.
‘Four-A,’ said Gangster, and knocked back some joiliq. ‘He was my friend.’
Slumbag and Rockcrete called Gangster’s name, and she turned to stagger away, yelling.
