If only I could slow this moment down. For of course she was flying into a chaos of vessels, bringing a wave-front of disorder that seemed to scatter the enemy ahead of her. There must be a point where the onrush of the Collegiate Stormreaders impacting into the widening Farsphex formation was like a stone shattering glass. Beautiful, it must be beautiful to witness, if only I could. But, being the stone, she had no such luxury.
She went after three targets, one after the other, loosing a brief burst of shot and then away, imagining the other Wasp pilots out of position — moving in to deflect an attack that was only a feint. Yes, yes, they were in each other’s minds, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t fool them all with an elegant enough deception, and they were still bound by the limits of speed and momentum and mechanical tolerance. Out of position was out of position, and all their mindlink would do was make them fully understand that they had got it wrong.
Now. She had her target, chasing and chasing, and the Farsphex fleeing before her, with a tyro clinging to her back-right quarter, gamely following each twist and turn, and one of the better Collegiate pilots — you know, that boy with the long hair and the smile — guarding from behind and above, waiting ready to fend off the inevitable counterstrike by the Imperials.
And yet she seemed to have out-skipped them for the moment, the reprisal never coming, as she nipped and nipped away at the enemy, and the Farsphex flinging itself about the sky to keep her off it, and it was almost like old times, in a duel over the Exalsee. As her hands threw the Esca Magni after her opponent, her mind could step back, admiring the nimbleness of the larger craft in the air, reaching for that brotherhood of flier against flier that she had lived on and thrived on.
She was alive and awake and fierce, and knew joy, because she had forgotten Collegium, the lives at stake, the fires and the fear. That was what she missed most from the old days. Back then she had nobody else she need care about. She never cared about her own life, and nobody else’s was at stake.
She realized that the pilot watching the skies above wasn’t that boy with the long hair, because he’d been killed three nights ago, a Wasp pilot’s bolt piercing his cockpit even as he tried to cut in front of Taki for a killing shot. She had seen a flash of darkness as his blood sprayed the inside of the glass.
She also realized that she was wide of where she reckoned the main fight must be, and that nobody was coming to save her elusive target. Further realizations followed.
She flashed, Break off, break off, to both sides, and then, fumbling with the toggle, Retreat, retreat, even before she had wheeled back and scanned a sky that was far too empty. What she could see of the enemy were scattered all over, and so few. Where were the reinforcements that always swooped in to save their fellows? Unless they were above the clouds, there were none to be seen.
No, no no. And she slung her Esca past the nearest Collegiate flight, flashing, Retreat, retreat! and knowing they must think her mad.
There was no code for ‘Gather other pilots’, and to spell it out would be too awkward and take too long. She plotted a course that might pass within sight of a few more, but that would see her turned back towards Collegium, in the vain hope she might do some good. Then she was forcing every inch of tension from her engine, flitting through the sky with the ground below a darkened blur.
The streets of Collegium were rushing below them sooner than Pingge had anticipated, lightless now, with even the windows blacked out, as if a single visible candle or lantern would call down a fiery oblivion on the incautious. And not too far from the truth. She settled herself by the reticule, glanced into its lens, looked again out of the gaping hatch beside her.
‘What the piss is that?’
She had a good look at it, in the moment before it opened up on them, for the Farsphex were coming in low to give the bombardiers the best run. Sitting on the roof of a building they were passing was something like a ballista with a big circular magazine positioned behind the arms, set within a frame of steam-pistons that were abruptly thudding into life. Pingge couldn’t have asked for a better demonstration of the device, and the only shame was that it was pointing at them.
Pull up, but the words died in her throat as the thing loosed, the magazine ratcheting round at a rate of knots, and the air was instantly full of big ten-foot bolts, falling upwards towards the Farsphex in a killing rain, then lighting the night sky with their explosions, a thunder and a roar all around them. Scain cursed and fought the controls, pitching violently right so that Pinggie slammed into the wall and almost ended up dangling out of the hatch.
‘Gain height! Gain height!’ She knew Scain was not talking to her, but recently his internal conferences with Aarmon and the others had become external ones, the increased Chneuma dose cracking the barriers between the spoken and what was merely thought. Pingge clung on, the reticule forgotten, and hoped and hoped, feeling the craft rock and shudder with each near-miss. From her viewpoint through the hatch she saw a sudden bonfire in the sky, the blazing shape of a Farsphex leaping out from the blackness for a second before the fuel tank erupted, the rear half of the stricken machine almost disintegrating, leaving the guttering cockpit and wings to plummet.
‘Get to work!’ Scain snapped, and this time he really was addressing her. They had a little height now, but still low enough for Pingge to pick her targets from the distorted, onrushing view the reticule gave her of the city ahead. There seemed to be quite a few of those repeating ballistae about, the bolts bursting in the air suddenly — crack-boom! — at isolated intervals, without pattern or warning.
She forced herself to concentrate on the reticule, trusting to Scain, blinding herself to the dangerous skies. From then on the work was grim and mechanical — spot a target, line up the reticule, release the bomb, all within the few seconds she had between seeing the image and it passing below them. There was never time to look back at the fire in their wake.
Bolts rattled across their hull, one punching a hole within a foot of her, coming in through the open hatch. The Collegiates had put some fresh orthopters in the air. She scrambled for her own little ballista, but Scain snapped at her to leave it alone.
‘Just get your job done,’ he told her. He sounded sick. For the next few passes, he was throwing their vessel jaggedly about so as to lose whatever was tracking them, or to give Aarmon or one of the others the chance to cut in. She lost her target over and over, and was on the point of shouting at him to hold a level course when she thought that through and decided she would rather he threw them all across the Collegiate sky, after all, and she’d just have to make do.
The minimal air resistance — pilots no doubt woken in a panic, hurling themselves desperately into the sky, in their ones and twos, against an overwhelming force — soon passed, leaving her to get on with her job. That would have been fine, except Scain was talking again.
‘It’s vile,’ he muttered, and she had no idea whether he was talking to her or not. But then: ‘When we fly against their machines, that’s war. What’s this?’ And she realized she was hearing his side of a mental conversation with the other pilots.
‘I know,’ he said, and ‘I know that, too. They say we’re saving lives for the Second, that we’re crushing their will to fight. Is that true? Have we seen any evidence that they’re losing will, as opposed to machines and pilots and civilian lives?’ And: ‘I know! But what are we, if this is all we’re for?’ His voice sounded raw, shouting without realizing he was making a sound.