‘Friendly sort, isn’t he?’ said Laquell.
‘He’s earned the right to choose his friends with care,’ said Larice.
‘I guess he has.’
‘Okay, Laquell. Lead on,’ said Larice. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed I’m losing fuel.’
‘Sure thing. Make your bearing one-six-five and start climbing.’
‘I know how to extend,’ she snapped, pulling around and aiming her Thunderbolt towards Rimfire. She pulled her stick back, putting her plane into a fuel-efficient climb. When her tanks ran dry she’d be able to glide some of the way in if she had enough altitude.
‘Just trying to help,’ said Laquell. ‘Listen, you know my name, but what do I call you?’
‘Apostle Five,’ said Larice.
‘Yeah, I got that, but what’s your real name? You know, what your friends call you?’
‘Asche,’ she sighed. ‘Call me Larice Asche.’
‘Pleased to meet you Larice Asche,’ said Laquell. ‘Follow my wing and I’ll get you down in one piece. I promise.’
Laquell was as good as his word, and they crossed the Breakers high and with a favourable tailwind that gifted Larice a thousand metres of altitude. There was a nasty squall of ice crystals swelling out over the ocean ice, a skin-shredding storm of frozen blades that would do no end of damage to an aircraft, but the luck of the Emperor was with them and it blew west before reaching the mountains.
Though she tried to keep her flight smooth and level, Larice watched her fuel reserves dwindle like she was in the midst of the most furious engagement imaginable, viffing, pulling high-g turns, escape climbs and power dives. The shear Quint had mentioned clawed up from the wind-sculpted cliffs, buffeting her plane as though an invisible leash tethered to her fuselage was being pulled and tugged.
Then they were over, and the landscape fell away from them, tumbling to the flatlands of Amedeo, a bleak tundra of browns and muted greens. It wasn’t the most welcoming world, but then what she’d seen of Enothis had been mostly desert and swamp, so at least it offered a different view from the canopy.
Located in the trailing arc of the crusade to liberate the Sabbat Worlds, Amedeo had been largely ignored by both the Imperium and the Archenemy, but then the forces of Magister Innokenti had fallen on Herodor. Though the tactical significance of Herodor was, at best, debatable, the soldiers’ rumour mill had it that Innokenti himself had descended to that world’s surface.
And that made Amedeo important. Perfectly positioned to allow a flanking thrust to hamstring the Imperial defence, the planners of the crusade were swift to recognise the danger to Herodor. Naval wings and Guard regiments were deployed with unaccustomed swiftness, alongside, so the rumour-spinners went on to claim, a detachment of Adeptus Astartes.
Larice had seen nothing of any Space Marines, but Amedeo was a big theatre of operations, and entire campaigns were being fought out of sight of the aerial duellists.
Her fuel warning light, which had been hypnotically blinking throughout the crossing of the Breakers, now assumed a more constant aspect. Her engines flamed out and the rpms of her twin turbofans spiralled south.
‘I’m dry,’ she voxed to Laquell. ‘I’m flying fourteen tonnes of scrap metal unless we’re close to Rimfire.’
‘Yeah, we’re not far,’ replied Laquell, his voice calm and reassuring. ‘Switch on your transponder and key it to this frequency or else the base defences will tag you as hostile and shoot you down.’
A data squirt appeared on her slate and she keyed in the corresponding frequency, thumbing the activation switch. An answering light appeared on her tactical plot, thirty kilometres out. Rimfire. But was it close enough? Her altimeter was unwinding fast, and she did a quick mental calculation. It was just within reach.
‘Stay on my wing,’ said Laquell. ‘Keep the nose up and fly steady.’
Larice nodded to herself, holding the stick tight and trying to keep any unnecessary movement from her path. Every second she spent in the air was a few hundred metres closer to safety.
‘You’re doing great, Larice. That’s it, steady and smooth. Gradually ease around to two-seven-seven.’
‘I don’t have time for manoeuvre,’ she said.
‘I know, but there’s some crazy thermals that come up from the southern rift plains. They’ll give you some extra lift. Trust me, I’ve used them before when I’m coming back with a tank of vapour.’
Larice adjusted her course, the stick feeling leaden in her grip and the plane responding like she imagined a tank would manoeuvre. They came down through a light dusting of clouds, and there it was, a down and dirty collection of air-defence vehicles, ad hoc runways, quick-fire launch racks and fuel bowsers clustered around a random scattering of landing mats strewn across the ice.
Rimfire was around three kilometres away, but at the rate she was shedding height it might as well have been three thousand. She wasn’t going to make it.
‘I’m short,’ she said. ‘I don’t have enough–’
A slamming wind hoisted her higher, the spiralling tunnel of warm air Laquell had promised her. Her descent slowed and she saw it might be enough. Her Thunderbolt could transition to vertical landing, but without fuel that wasn’t going to be possible.
‘Rimfire Tower, this is Apostle Five, requesting emergency landing clearance.’
‘Apostle Five, confirmed. You are clear to land on runway six-epsilon. Directing now,’ said an echoing voice that sounded like it was coming from inside a small metal box. Looking at the haphazard collection of vehicles gathered beneath arctic camo-netting at the edge of the runway, Larice decided that was exactly where it was coming from.
‘Emergency vehicles are standing by, Apostle Five,’ said the controller.
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, Rimfire,’ snapped Larice, wrestling with the stick as vicious crosswinds and random vector gusts bounced up from the ground. She lowered her claws at the last moment, and fought to bring the nose up before she ploughed straight into the runway.
Her wing claws bit and the nose slammed down a second later. Her speed bled off and the ice-crazed surface of the runway threw up a blinding flurry of ice and snow. She was pretty much blind. Larice threw up her arrestors and slammed on the brakes, feeling the Thunderbolt turn in a lazy skid. The plane slid around until it was pointed back the way it had come, and Larice let out a shuddering breath.
On a runway next to hers, she saw Laquell’s plane touch down and make a point-perfect rollout, managing the slipperiness of the runway with the aplomb of a veteran flyer. He taxied over the ice and parked up ten metres from her starboard wing.
Fitters and emergency ground crew ran over to her plane. One drew a finger over his throat, and she nodded, shutting off her armaments panel and disconnecting her fuel lines – not that there was any fuel left to ignite. She popped the canopy and the cold hit her like a blow. Her breath caught in her throat, the raw ice of it like a full-body slap. Fitters propped a ladder against her plane and she unsnapped herself from the cockpit and climbed down. Someone wrapped her in a foil-lined thermal blanket and she took an unsteady step away from her cream-coloured Thunderbolt.
Long and heavily winged, the Thunderbolt wasn’t an elegant flyer, but it had a robust beauty all of its own. The ivory paint scheme was scarred and smeared with oil and scorch marks where her fuel lines had ruptured. She waved away a medicae, watching as red- and yellow-jacketed ground crew milled around her plane, eager to work on a plane belonging to one of the Apostles. She felt a stab of protectiveness towards her damaged bird as fitters began appraising the damage, wincing at the sound of whining power-wrenches and pneumo-hammers.