Interceptor City, page 7
Jagdea looked at Gumm. He shrugged, turned, and strolled away to his.
Strip K, Hymnal 41 Field, 09:56
Jagdea checked the tearsheets to make sure she had got the routing details correct, and marked them down on her thigh-slate. Then she folded the sheets and put them in her flightsuit pocket. It seemed she had been assigned as element leader. They would be escorting two Destrier tankers, and two replenishment Valks, both laden with munitions, spares and consumables. Due to the lower cruising max of the transports, they would lift first, and the fightbirds would follow on and catch up. That suited her. It was nearly 10:00 already, and transport elements were prepping for lift on an adjacent stripway. In the time it would take them to clear away, she could finish her slam-check properly.
She walked around her bird as the crews cleared their equipment and unlatched the fuel hoses. Alongside her, she could see Gumm doing the same. Down the end, Wilzar was already strapped in. Gumm was an odd little man. She didn’t know what to make of him. He didn’t seem like a smoke, or act like one, but that face. He looked prepubescent. Like an infant standing on the shoulders of another infant, wearing a grown-up’s big coat. Just another pool driver like her, she decided.
Wilzar… Well, she knew what to make of him. She was hoping he would fail to match her expectations. If he didn’t, she’d be garlanding him with something, all right.
‘Any quirks?’ she asked the ground crew bull.
He shrugged. ‘Checks Four-A,’ he replied. ‘Prime up and down. The throttle has a little give, so watch for the choke. Oh, and the hydraulics indicator keeps coming on red.’
‘Faulty ADF?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Faulty bulb. I haven’t got time to lift out the whole SM Pack and the CAD to replace it, so if it indicates red, give it a flick, or ignore it.’
‘Reassuring,’ she said.
She ran her slam. First, on herself. She checked, and where required, tightened, the straps on her boots and suit, zipped up and buttoned, and then settled her harness. She didn’t have a sidearm. There had been no time to draw one from the stores. She put on her cap, then her helmet, and rechecked the dangling leads – air, vox and data; re-plugged each one into the suit’s belly-box. Then she put on her gloves, and strapped down her suit cuffs over them so they wouldn’t ride up. At altitude, the interior metal in a fightbird cockpit could reach 120, or drop below freezing. Either way, brush a surface like that with a bare wrist or forearm, and you would be looking at serious burns.
She was set. One last circuit of the plane, checking the panel seals. The air reeked of prom. She got up on the wing-board, and side-stepped elegantly to the cockpit along the WALK ONLY strip. Then she swung in, feet-first.
It was as tight as she remembered it. A squeeze compared to a Bolt, and she hadn’t even been in one of those for a long time. She was used to the pit space of a multi, where there was room to put your feet up while people played cards behind you. The cockpit smelled of metal and oil. She pulled on the straps, and locked up the quick-release chest buckle with a satisfying metal clack.
The crew bull loomed above her, preparing to close the canopy.
‘Stand by,’ she said, raising a finger. He waited.
She flipped the voltaic master switch. Power on, the bird woke, and the instruments lit up. And there was the headache. She sighed. Why had anyone seen fit to pack this much instrumentation into a bird? The Cockpit Advisory Display alone looked like a floral arrangement. She made a quick pass, left to right. All gauges showed prime, except hydraulic pressure, which had stayed dark. She gave it a flick. It came on, red. She flicked it again. It stayed red.
‘Told you,’ said the crew bull.
‘You did,’ she agreed.
‘Canopy, then?’ he asked.
‘I want you to sight-check surfaces first,’ she said.
‘It does that for you. Look, it’s green right along.’
Jagdea didn’t trust logis-systems unless she had to. If there was an opportunity to manually or visually confirm at pre-flight, she always took it. And from inside the cockpit, she couldn’t visualise the brakes or tailerons.
‘I want you to sight-check surfaces, please,’ she repeated.
The crew bull looked baffled, and shrugged.
She cleared the stick and ran it: rudder response, flaps, tail, leading edge, speed brakes. Each operation in turn got a solemn nod from the waiting crew bull.
‘You can lid me up.’
The crew bull closed the canopy and set the latches. Then he jumped down.
Green everywhere, except for the frigging hydraulics. She flicked it again. No change. That was going to piss her off. She pressed on with her slam-check, nice and slow. Left to right. That practice had arisen from twin-engine birds. You worked your checks from cockpit left, then started the right engine and then worked back to start the left. Veterans called that walking the parish, and it was an efficient way of double checking everything. Even in single engines, it was still a good habit.
From the left, she checked and prepped the vector thrust secondaries, and preset the nozzles for lift. Then she activated the auspex and modar systems, and watched their warm-up diagnostic cycles flick on. She primed the starter system, engaged the fuel pump, and gently adjusted the ad-mix until it felt right to her. She followed that with both a manual and auto verification of the target acquisition system, and tweaked the settings to her preferences. She toggled the guns on, checked the indicators – full load, power available – and then off again. They were there if she needed them, which she wouldn’t. The starter compressor was now spinning up. She could hear the whining chug of it. She armed the countermeasure package. Hardpoint connection check was unnecessary, as she wasn’t loading anything, but she checked the connector indicators anyway. The auspex lit up, an amber glow, and the route-track, auto-loaded via data-link, drew out a little jagged line marked with rune tags. She checked that against the version written on her thigh-slate. Out in front of her, the stand marshal was cross-arming his luminous paddles. Yeah, yeah, keep your frigging hair on, she thought. I‘ll go when I’m set, and no one’s leaving without me. She tightened her harness, and connected her lines. Air, comms and visor-display data, plugging each one in neatly.
‘Vox check, Tail Four-Four,’ she said. ‘Vox check.’
The link crackled.
‘Vox check, Tail Four-Four, Tail Five-Four receiving.’
‘Copy that, Five-Four,’ she replied.
Another crackle, then she heard Wilzar.
‘Vox check, Tail Four-Four, Tail Three-Five receiving. Repeat, this is Tail Three-Five.’
‘Copy you, Three-Five.’
She armed her seat.
‘Four-One Control, this is Tail Four-Four. Flight elements are ready to lift, Strip K. Waiting on clearance, over.’
‘Tail Four-Four, this is Four-One Control. We read you ready, Strip K. Your transport elements are already away, heading for the turn. You are cleared for lift and ascent approach to Safe Lane Seven Six, repeat seven, six. Proceed when ready, over.’
‘Confirm seven, six instructed, Four-One Control. We are going to lift.’
All flight instrumentation showed prime and green, except hydraulics, which she was now ignoring. She raised her right hand, and hand-signed to the stand marshal through the canopy. He acknowledged, opened paddles wide in an almost theatrical flourish, and got the hell out of her way. Down the stand, the other paddle-boys were clearing away from her wingmen.
‘Tail Four-Four to elements,’ she said into the vox. ‘Gun-up when ready and follow me into a slow-roll lift. Three-Five, Five-Four trail. We are cleared by Control. Safe Lane Seven Six – seven, six – instructed. Request confirm, over.’
‘Five-Four, confirm, over.’
‘Three-Five confirming, over.’
She wasn’t sure why she’d ordered Gumm to the back. For all she knew, he could be as much of a smoke as Wilzar, or just a pool driver with no actual fightbird time. But she wanted Wilzar between them, where they could both watch him. Tilo Wilzar was not going to wing them out into hostile air.
Jagdea pressed her starter. There was a sudden, startling roar as the forced-plasma exciter lit the prom mix aspirating into her spinning turbine. The turboram howled into life. The Voss shook, as though straining at the leash, eager to break and sprint. She cooled it slightly, disconnecting the plasma to lift starting torque, checked she was still all-green, and then just enjoyed the roar. Throne, but it wanted to run. She made some fine adjustments, easing regulation, nudging back the red lines logis was showing on output. The ram was a bit too frigging eager. She was sitting on a lot of engine.
Above the howl of her own bird, she heard Gumm’s Voss light up beside her. A swirl of flame spat from its jet exhausts, but it was quickly tamed into a tighter, steadier, regulated tongue. Yeah, Gumm knew what he was doing. He’d sweet-talked his Voss as swiftly as she’d soothed hers.
Then she heard a series of loud bangs, like a heavy bolter being fired on rapid. For a second, she actually thought they were under fire. In that second, the shred, which had been bubbling low-key since the moment she walked out onto the stand, began to boil up in her chest and throat, and tighten her arms.
Black, sooty smoke whipped past her screen.
‘Four-Four, instruct!’ Jagdea shouted.
‘This is Five-Four,’ Gumm’s voice said, flowing over the vox like silk. ‘Power down, Four-Four. Repeat, power down. Start-fail reported, over.’
‘Copy that,’ she replied.
No. It wasn’t possible. Had he choked? Had he actually choked out on the frigging ground? The bangs hadn’t been a bolter. They had been the hacking death-cough of an over-aspirated ram. For frig’s sake.
Jagdea powered down, quickly but methodically. Her engine roar died away and the Voss stopped trembling. Red CANCEL indicators came on to keep hydraulics company. As the bird’s systems died back into dormancy, muttering, complaining, whining, sighing, she hit her quick-release, yanked out her plugs, and popped the canopy.
Gumm was climbing out onto his WALK ONLY too.
Wilzar’s bird was dead, canopy closed, black fumes boiling out of both the pipes and the front intake.
Jagdea jumped down off her wing.
‘Smoke by name…’ Gumm called out to her as she marched past him.
‘Frigging looks like it,’ she replied.
Ground crew were running up. Wilzar had opened his cockpit, yelling something to the crew bull and two hooded enginseers. He looked like he was registering a complaint, or trying to explain something. He didn’t have to explain anything to her, except perhaps why he dared to wear an Aeronautica patch. Wilzar had underestimated the power of the ram and over-throttled, choking the engine out.
No, it was worse. He also hadn’t shut off the fuel when the engine first cut, and fuel flooding had occurred. A wet start. Wilzar should have shut down everything except the compressor, and windmilled the engine to empty excess fuel back into the tanks or evaporate it. But no, he’d just kept going, and torching had occurred. She could tell just from the quality of the smoke.
A wet start itself was no big deal. It happened. You retarded the throttle, made damn sure the exciter was off, and applied air to clear the flood. Then you repeated the start sequence. Wilzar hadn’t waited or cleared, and as a result, he had ignited the excess fuel in the combustion chamber. He should have been able to read from his instruments that he was in a wet start condition. As the compressor showed a positive rise, there should have been a commensurate rise in engine efflux temp. Not only that, logis sensors would have told him he was emitting fuel vapour from the pipe. It wasn’t as if the Voss wasn’t comprehensively instrumented. There was probably a gauge for flatulence pressure, and a meter to measure testicle circumference.
But, no, he’d torched it, igniting the fuel soak residue.
‘Wet start,’ the crew bull said to her as she came up.
‘Coughed out, wet start, and torching,’ she snapped.
‘The trifecta,’ he agreed.
Wilzar had got out of his cockpit and was staring down at them. He looked like he was angry with them. With them. He seemed about to say something. That wasn’t going to happen.
‘Get back in!’ she yelled at him.
He gazed at her, with a look on his face like she’d slapped him. Again, he started to say something, as though it was still a good idea.
‘Get. Back. In,’ Jagdea shouted. ‘Shut everything down and prep to start over! And don’t do it until the chief’s cleared you and I say so, you frigging arsehole!’
Wilzar glared at her. His jaw tightened. Was he gonna? Was he going to go for it? Go on, she thought.
No. No bite back. Wilzar nodded, and climbed back inside.
‘Probably just a lot of noise and burn,’ said the crew bull.
‘You mean the driver?’ she asked.
‘No… I meant…’
‘I know what you meant,’ said Jagdea. ‘Let’s hope. But can you run a diagnostic? Hot box damage?’
Given the ferocity of the Voss’ output, Wilzar’s over-gun might have spooled the ram up far too fast and shredded the stator blades.
The crew bull nodded.
‘Won’t happen again,’ Jagdea told him.
‘Wanna bet?’ the bull asked. ‘Things I’ve seen out here–’
‘It won’t,’ she declared, ‘because I’m going to switch guns hot and splash the little shit the moment we’re clear of the field.’
The bull liked that. It made him laugh.
She turned on her heels and marched back to her bird. Gumm was still standing on his WALK ONLY.
‘Looks like rain,’ he remarked as she strode past.
‘Shut up,’ she snapped, without looking up.
Jagdea got back into her bird and re-plugged. She switched the electrics back on, and watched the voltaic needle bounce up. The headache relit in all its elaborate glory. Hydraulics remained red. A fitter began to re-close her canopy.
She buckled her mask back on and pressed vox.
‘Four-One Control, this is Tail Four-Four. Reporting start failure, Strip K. Resetting for lift. Request standby, over.’
‘Copy that, Four-Four. We show you at standby, Strip K. Do you require additional tech assist, over?’
I need a different frigging– ‘Negative, Four-One Control. It’s in hand. Appreciate your patience, over.’
‘Not a problem, Tail Four-Four. Everyone here enjoyed the performance, over.’
‘Frig you very much, Four-One Control, hope you all die in a fire, over,’ she replied, but only after she’d switched vox off.
She sat back and closed her eyes. She made her breathing deep and slow, and began to quell her temper and the queasy, bubbling slosh of the shred. She’d had half a cup of caff that morning, but she felt like she’d drunk five. No wonder a lot of aviators took to stimulant fixes and performance enhancers.
She took another deep breath, and let it ooze out of her slowly.
Then she began to repeat her slam-check from the start. Every last item, from the top.
Safe Lane 76, Orison Hive-Plex airspace, 10:58
They’d been in the air for thirty minutes, having finally made the lift on the second attempt.
They’d come off the field into overcast, a dense layer of low cloud that was virtually zero-zero. Flying instruments only, and following autotrack, they had headed west to the turn, then begun the gradual ascent towards the low flight bands of Safe Lane 76. Visibility outside was just a dull, luminous fog, like trying to peer through a dirty sheet. The swaddling cloud seemed to muffle everything, even the growl of the bird’s ram. There was just an annoyed throb, as though the Voss was sulking and displeased. Jagdea kept one eye on the track, and the other on the auspex, watching the little yellow cross-runes that indicated 054 and 035. Wilzar and Gumm were in long-line formation behind her. Their spacing was decent. Wilzar kept closing the gap on her a little, but she’d edge out slightly to drop him a hint. Gumm, at the back of the line, maintained precise distance on Wilzar’s six.
A little higher. The cloud was noxiously thick and yellow, top-lit by hazy sunlight. Jagdea took the time to refamiliarise herself with the Voss-pattern, running practice drills around the systems, as though she was in an active simulator. With the bird in actual motion, the instruments performed differently, meshing together better, complementing each other, making more synergistic sense. You could spend hours sitting in a sim cockpit, or studying the book, but Jagdea believed that nothing taught you more about a bird than the actual experience of flying it.
Except, perhaps, for the actual experience of trying to kill something with it.
After thirty minutes, they climbed again, rising to the approved cruising level as Safe Lane 76 angled from a southward bearing and started to run south-east. That brought them up out of the top of the overcast.
And that was a moment. She enjoyed it. They broke the top of the cloud deck like surfacing submersibles, and rose into hard sunlight. Clear air, immediate long-range visibility. They could suddenly see for hundreds of miles in all directions.
It was almost serene. The light was golden, as if her canopy glass was running with honey. Below them was an endless plateau of cloud-top, like a soft carpet of filthy yellow wool. It was silent, and seemed almost motionless. It reminded Jagdea of the Lotun snowfields, the endless wastes, stained by chemical ash after the fall of Litzon. The three birds ran the top of the cloud like they were riding a long, straight nap-of-the-earth sprint over the snow cover, hugging in at a hundred feet. The actual ground was six thousand feet below them, below the overcast, but it felt like they were bombing along over snow on a belly-scrape approach vector.
High above them, a dome of dark cloud, a second, high altitude layer, the roof of a world-cave, purple fading to black. This had become their kindom: an endless plain of dirty snow, an eternal ceiling of thick smoke-darkness. Between the two, a sandwiched realm of golden light, three thousand deep, and endless in its lateral dimensions.
