Interceptor City, page 8
And there were islands. The huge, silent atolls and outcrops of Orison’s main hive-rise towers, standing waist-deep in the snow, hazed and soft, tinged pink, orange and yellow. Specks of light twinkled on them, revealing their scale. Some were so vast they continued up into the blackness, their summits obscured by the darkness.
Jagdea dropped the glare visor of her helmet. Emerging from the cloud cover, the sudden dazzle had been almost blinding. Now she could see, she practised her visibility regimes and her situational awareness: the stray wisps and tufts of white cloud passing her by; the distant black masts of lower hive spires poking up out of the cloud like half-buried fence posts in a snowy acre, each one slowly flashing a red marker light; the pencil-thin line of white vapour running back off her nose and past her canopy left; the winking lights of four aircraft fifty miles east, crossing at a higher level in the opposite direction, following High Lane 80, leaving stripes of white trail behind them that slowly vanished in the glare.
An hour in, and burning south-east, they began to overhaul the other elements. The transports had departed well ahead of them, and were gunning at the top of their cruising limits, but they didn’t have the long stride of the Lightnings. The three fightbirds began to catch them up at last: the two big Destriers, Hydraphur-pattern tankers, fat and heavy, blinking their running lights, following the two transport Valkyries, specks a fraction of their size. The auspex and modar picked them up first, then Jagdea eyeballed them. She lined up on their contrails, and followed them as though she was following footprints in winter.
At six and a quarter thousand feet, the transports were at the upper range of their operational ceiling. They were running in formation, as per the routing track instructions, above the cloud deck, just rattling along at a steady rate. Jagdea opened the vox and made contact, informing the transports that her escort wing was bearing in at their six, though she knew they already knew that. A brief exchange, pleasant, matter-of-fact. No recrimination or complaint, no, ‘Where were you?’ Just professionals making the necessary routine acknowledgements.
Because that’s all any of them were. Just drivers, delivering freight and machines. Just drivers, not pilots.
Cruising speed for the formation was determined by the comfortable max of the slowest elements, in this case, the Valks. So, in these conditions and at this altitude, they would be moving at a touch under nine hundred miles an hour. That felt like a slogging crawl to the lusty fightbirds. The Voss-patterns had to drop speed once they’d caught up, and Jagdea knew her bird didn’t think much of that. It had been free and clear briefly, up where it belonged, running without a care. It wanted to horse around the sky. Now it was forced to match step with sluggish creatures that couldn’t do any better. It resented it. As she gently eased back to match pace, 044 seemed to fidget. It didn’t cough or buck, but she distinctly felt like it wanted to clear its throat. It wanted to run. It didn’t understand why it was being forced to wait for anyone or anything.
She brought them in alongside the thundering transports, dipped her wingtip slightly as a courtesy nod to the lead Destrier driver, and then pulled ahead. She dropped into the lead spot, out ahead of the Valks. At her instruction, Gumm and Wilzar sank back, adopting trailing positions to the left and right of the rear transport, flying as wide escort cover.
Jagdea signalled to OTC that the formation had joined up, that all elements were Four-A, that they were en route and on schedule. She checked the track instruction again to be sure. Hymnal 41 to Intercept 66 could not be safely achieved in a straight line because direct would take them out over Area Five and into war space. They were obliged to go the long way round, well out of their way, south along the gulf coast over the ’plex, then south-east, then east, and then north-east for the final stretch. They would stay over the hive-plex for most of the way, sticking to approved safe lanes, entirely skirting disputed airspace or any actual war sky. The roundabout route would add a full third again to flight time and distance. But that was fine. That was how it had been instructed.
She compared the data on the autotrack to the details on her thigh-slate. One last waypoint in two hours’ time over Gahlborn, then they would turn north-east, and run the Vesperus Corridor, Combat Lane 90, all the way to the hive-grave.
Done and done.
The sky was clear, a golden heaven. As Klay Menomar had wished for her, it was good flying, straight and true. Jagdea was glad she had said yes to Kaminsky. It was good to be back in a bird, just for old times’ sake. It soothed the lingering pangs of withdrawal. Her addiction was sated, for another year or two.
She edged ahead, and watched her pace and spacing. The Voss still wanted to let go and run.
To be fair, so did she.
Combat Lane 90, disputed airspace, 15:20
The landscape had changed. The day had grown darker and colder. They had long since left behind the sprawling, sunlit coral reefs and stacks of the vast hive-plex, and even the vast outer ’bergs and sub-cities that fringed the ’plex territories. They were cruising above endless tracts of industrial territory, the heartland of the continent, an almost flat patchwork of treatment plants, silos, vapour mills and refineries. Dirty smokestacks and venting pipes exhaled stained vapour that trailed in toxic palls. Vast manufactory complexes, like cancerous, rusted circuit boards, passed slowly below them. Jagdea saw the pale arterial threads of highways and the coils of polluted rivers, the etching of canals, and the undulating vistas of waste ground and spoil heaps. Occasionally, they would track slowly over a titanic open-cast mine, a vivid wound in the ground thirty miles across, garishly red or pink like an open sore or an infected boil. Lakes of chemical waste striped the countryside with bright greens and purples, colours that did not exist in nature.
They were heading north-east along the Vesperus Corridor, on the edge of war sky. Compass-south of them lay the coastal agri-plains, chequered tiles of hydroponic farms, livestock farms, cities of poly-plastek grow-tents and artificial irrigation grids. Auto-harvester units, big enough to land a Destrier on, were tiny red or yellow dots in the geometric pattern. Stands of giant wind turbines ran along the horizon, slowly turning as though they were trying to screw the white sky to a backboard. Beyond them, a blue smudge, was the defensive seawall that framed the wide Bay of Cadmus.
Compass-north was the warzone itself, a grey nothing blurred by distant rain storms and banks of low smoke. It seemed endless and empty, but Jagdea knew that down there in the distant murk, armies were grinding and churning and digging in.
They flew in silence, transponders on. Now the fightbirds were formed up with the transport elements, they had become one entity, designated Carry 74. Jagdea made sure she made her regular vox checks with Control, and watched their route. Deviation from the Combat Lane, even with transponders transmitting, would make them viable targets. They ran scopes up, auspex and modar set on wide-gain, watching for any other movement in the air. One missed identifier, and they could find themselves targets for an overzealous combat patrol group.
And it wasn’t beyond the bounds of belief that the Archenemy could have opportunist poachers in the area.
She watched the auspex carefully. It sang a few times: some low-level transport craft; a recon bird moving high and fast; a lumbering flight of Marauders returning from a bombing mission, crossing their track eight miles behind them. Once, a pair of Bolts, racing north-west under them at very high speed. Someone, somewhere, was about to have a problem.
Then Carry 74 had a problem of its own.
Her vox crackled.
‘Four-Four Lead, this is Three-Five, over.’
‘Read you, Three-Five, over,’ she responded.
‘Three-Five, reporting fuel load warning, over.’
‘Say again, Three-Five, over.’
‘Three-Five, fuel load warning, over,’ Wilzar said.
Jagdea clenched her jaw. It was cold in the cockpit and her hands were numb, but she felt a sudden spark of heat inside her.
‘Three-Five, what range are you showing, over?’
There was a long pause.
‘Four-Four Lead, I am indicating three hundred on gauge estimate, over.’
Wilzar’s tanks were almost dry. He must have been running on reserve for a good half an hour without speaking up. Out of shame, probably. Jagdea knew what it was as well as Wilzar did. There was very little chance he had holed his tanks or fuel line and drained them in flight. No, his wet start had burned far more fuel than anybody had realised. He must’ve flamed two-thirds of his fuel allocation when he torched on the strip. Why the frig hadn’t he said anything sooner? Vesperus was still several hours and several thousand miles away. He had nothing like enough to get there.
There was no point tearing him yet another new arsehole over the vox. She half-considered ordering him to drop out and find a friendly deck, and then catch them up, but she was element lead, and Wilzar was as much her responsibility as the transports.
‘Three-Five, stand by,’ she said. She checked her auspex and her mapping. There was very little out this way at all, just a handful of combat fields all well off the assigned route. The closest was Psalter 96.
She had no choice. She opened the vox.
‘Control, Control, this is Carry Seven-Four, over.’
‘Go ahead, Carry Seven-Four, over.’
‘We have a fuel deficiency issue with one flight element, Control. Request permission to deviate from assigned route soonest. Request permission to set down at Psalter Nine-Six for refuel, over.’
There was a long pause, in which the static spat and clicked like insects at dusk.
‘Copy that, Carry Seven-Four Lead. Are you requesting your whole group divert, over?’
‘Confirm whole group, seven elements, Control, over.’
‘Stand by, Seven-Four Lead, over.’
The wait made her fidgety. She could imagine the control centre thrown into urgent activity as it tried to accommodate the routing change request. They would have to run a confirm by Psalter as well. What if Psalter 96 was flight blocked by hostile action? What if it didn’t have the prom surplus to handle them? The next deck was Hymnal 131, and Jagdea was pretty sure Wilzar didn’t have the juice to get there. He’d clearly been over-optimistic about everything so far, perhaps idiotically hoping for the best, and had only spoken up when it became apparent he was in shit. If he’d been estimating generously, what did he really have? One-fifty left? Less?
It was his frigging mess but, as element lead, it would go on her transcript.
‘Carry Seven-Four Lead, this is Control. Permission given. Immediate reroute authorised. Descend to one-two-five-oh and redirect. Psalter Nine-Six is advised, over.’
‘Instruct confirmed, Control,’ she replied. ‘Seven-Four descending to one-two-five-oh and onto approach, over.’
Quickly, she informed the other flight elements, and then led the turning descent north.
They came in, low and slow, over tracts of grey wasteland and the scabby remains of derelict agri-factories. Jagdea had wanted to let the transports go in first, but ten miles out it was clear that Wilzar was flying on frig all. His Voss had dropped back, as though it was out of breath, and lost height. It was pluming a thin cord of grey vapour from his tail pipes, the dirty burn of a ram gagging on residual. Jagdea advised Psalter deck control to keep Gumm and her transports in a steady holding pattern and allow 035 first approach. She went in with him on his wing, circling out in a wide burn-and-bank to settle in beside him.
His Voss was unsteady, and showing signs of choke. Throttling back and trying to match his step, she got in close. She could see Wilzar in the cockpit, mask on, goggles down, anonymous. But still she seemed to sense breathless terror in him. She knew she was probably projecting.
Still, what was he afraid of? Crashing? Dying? Being forced to eject from a starved bird that would no longer fly? Trying to land a brick like the Voss on glide?
Facing her afterwards?
They saw the deck ahead, a dirty cluster of modulars, modar masts, armoured barns, bunkers and perimeter emplacements. It had three stripways, rough rockcrete decks that the pioneers had expected to be temporary when they laid them down five years earlier.
She was forced to fly so slow to match Wilzar that her own bird was growling, closing on its high stall limit, threatening to choke. She prepped her vector secondaries, ready for the inevitable stumble. A little burst of throttle and she could bring herself in easily and safely, but she wasn’t going to leave him alone.
‘Three-Five, keep it level,’ she voxed. ‘Switch three per cent thrust via your forward vectors, over.’
‘Can’t spare the fuel. I need all the lift I can get, Lead,’ he replied. There was a twitch of agitation in his voice, the tell-tale fingerprints of the shred.
‘Three-Five, do as I say,’ she replied. ‘Wilzar, you have to keep the nose up. Switch three per cent vector front to maintain flight stability before you drop like a stone.’
She glanced sideways, saw him in his cockpit. He didn’t appear to be moving. He was terrified of burning fuel on anything except forward thrust. Dammit, Wilzar.
Then she saw the front ducts of his Voss reset. He was taking her advice. Tail 035 lost a little speed immediately, but its uneasy wobble corrected and it ran a little truer.
‘Three-Five, keep it there,’ she voxed. ‘Nice and steady. You’ve got all the time you need, over.’
He said something in response, but it was indecipherable.
The assigned stripway came up fast, a small and forlorn target after so much open sky. Wilzar’s bird was limping dangerously low, almost low enough to clip the top of fence lines. He was choking hard, his bird vibrating with each bang, leaving donuts of greasy black smoke in his wake like pops of flak.
But he brought it in. A fair landing, a little awkward, a little heavy, but down. As soon as she saw he was deck-side and properly grounded, she opened her throttle, burned hard, and ran out what was left of the stripway at zero height. She nosed up, climbed hard, turned out east, and circled into her own approach, bringing her Voss in for a book-perfect vector landing about sixty yards from Wilzar’s bird.
Ground crew teams rushed out to clear them both off the strip. Jagdea popped her canopy and watched the rest of her flight, low and heavy, begin their approach.
Psalter 96, 16:52
‘Are you going to talk to him?’ asked Gumm.
He’d been in a huddle with the crews from the transport flights outside the deck’s ready station. He turned when Jagdea walked up.
They both looked over at Wilzar. He was some distance away, sitting on a munition trolley, his helmet at his feet, gazing at the perimeter fence. It was getting dark early, an indigo gloom, and rain had started to come down. Sheet lightning, at ground level, wandered around the horizon rim below a heavy sky like strobing searchlights.
‘No,’ said Jagdea. ‘I can’t tell him anything he’s not telling himself.’
Gumm nodded.
‘Yes, let him be,’ he agreed. ‘A little self-evaluation never did anyone any harm.’
‘I never learned much when people shouted at me,’ said Jagdea. ‘Knowing that they wanted to was enough. It made me dwell on why.’
‘It’s ironic,’ said Gumm.
‘What?’
‘Intercept Six-Six is keenly awaiting three new birds and a new combat pilot,’ Gumm replied, ‘and when we get there…’ He shrugged. ‘The two combat pilots with any experience will be on immediate turn around and leaving again,’ he said, ‘and they’ll be left with a smoke who’s had the confidence kicked out of him. It won’t seem like a great result for them.’
‘Wilzar will learn,’ Jagdea said. ‘Pretty frigging fast at Six-Six, I should think. It’s not our problem.’
‘I guess we won’t be making it back tonight now,’ said Gumm.
Tail 035 was being refuelled and given a thorough check. Psalter Control had also agreed to fuel the rest of Carry 74’s elements back to capacity for the last leg. It would be another two hours at least.
‘We’ll be late in,’ said Jagdea. ‘Early morning return run, I should think.’
Draden, the commander of the lead Destrier, wandered up beside them, clutching a steaming mug of recaff.
‘Any word, Lead?’ he asked.
‘Couple of hours at least,’ said Jagdea. She gestured at Draden’s drink. ‘Where did that come from and is there any left?’
Draden tipped his head in the direction of the ready station. ‘Should be,’ he said.
Jagdea went inside. She felt leaden and earthbound in her thick flightsuit. The station hall, a long and low shelter, was warm and well lit. It was also virtually empty apart from eight combat pilots in full gear who were sitting in silence, drinking recaff. Call-ready, no doubt, mentally preparing. Jagdea nodded to them courteously as she came in, but none of them responded.
She went to a sideboard and poured a cup from one of the brass urns. A battered servitor was refilling the other, whirring quietly. Jagdea saw the wall behind the sideboard was covered in names, scrawled on the flakboard or scratched in. The names of pilots and crews, people leaving their mark, an informal honour roll. Some were dated, and were two or three years old. Some had little comments like ‘good flying’ and ‘always a hot stick’. Jagdea wondered how many of the names were still at the deck, or had long since moved to other postings. She wondered how many of them still even existed.
She took her cup to a table at the far end, away from the combat pilots. She’d half considered joining them, maybe making a little small talk, but they were clearly getting their mental game ready. Besides, she was nothing to them. A nobody pool driver, and not part of their breed at all. Approaching them would have been an unwelcome intrusion.
