She heard Harlsson’s voice. Just a hint of confusion in the calm tone. “I’m locked. I—” Harlsson
began. “Seekan, where are y—”
The bat’s guns blew his tail assembly away. Harlsson tried to control his flailing machine. The
huge silver bulk of one of the transports suddenly filled his forward view.
The mangled Thunderbolt impacted into the side of the Onero at five hundred kph. The fire
wash lit up the valley.
Theda MAB South, 10.18
“Apostle down!” the flight controller on the far side of the chamber yelled out. There was a brisk
gasp from the personnel around them.
Darrow looked at Eads. Eads sighed. “Enemy has broken off. Bats retreating.”
Banzie nodded. There was some sporadic clapping.
Eads glanced round at Darrow. “A white bat. Pearl-white. Ring any bells?”
“Sounds like the one, sir,” Darrow nodded.
“He’s a devil of a pilot. A real devil. Summarise everything you remember from your encounter
and I’ll get the report copied out. The wings need to be aware of him. Everything you remember,
please, junior.”
“Yes, sir.”
65
DAY 256
Theda Old Town, 00.10
The address she’d been given was a merchantman’s house on the Gehnstal, one of a row of elderly
mansions on a broad pavement. Many were boarded up now, thanks to the war, but adjacent blocks
of cheap habs showed that the area’s fortunes had been in decline for some time.
Jagdea brought the staff car she’d borrowed to a halt, switched off the engine and got out. Lights
burned brightly around the shutter edges of the house she was looking for.
Nervously adjusting her uniform, she hurried up the front steps. Was that singing she could
hear? She found an iron bell-pull and yanked on it. Service bells tinkled faraway in the house.
After a moment, the door opened. The hallway inside was dimly lit. She found herself facing a
high-function domestic servitor, its silver form engraved with intricate chasework.
“Oh,” she said, surprised. “I was looking for… is this 133 Gehnstal?”
“Yes, commander,” it replied, digitising the gentle, mannered voice of an elderly male through
his voxponder. The servitor had recognised her rank.
“I’m looking for the billet used by the Apostles. The 101.”
“Please come in,” the servitor said.
It was definitely singing she could hear in the background. A recording of Frans Talfer’s
Gaudete Terra, with male voices booming along.
“Follow me,” the servitor said. “May I ask your name, commander?”
“Jagdea,” she replied.
The servitor’s exquisite silver hands reached out and smoothly opened a double set of panelled
doors, letting through a bright glow light and the full force of the music.
“Commander Jagdea,” it announced.
The singing stopped, but the music languished on, fizzing slightly through the speaker horn of
the recording player on a side table. Seekan rose out of an armchair to greet her. “Good evening,
commander.”
Around the room were the other six Apostles. All of them, Seekan included, were wearing full
dress uniforms, heavy with medals. They had glasses in their hands and had obviously been drinking
for a while. Faces were flushed, and jackets undone.
Seekan looked as fresh as night frost.
“I’m sorry,” Jagdea said. “I’m interrupting.”
“Not at all,” said Seekan. “Domo, a drink for the commander.” The servitor crossed immediately
to a lacquered drink stand.
“Is this the Phantine leader?” one of the Apostles asked. He was a big man, his eyes red and
hooded from too many amasecs.
“It is indeed, Ludo. Commander Jagdea, may I present Major Ludo Ramia.”
“Mamzel,” the big man nodded.
“Major Ziner Krone, Major Jeric Suhr.”
Suhr was a sharp-faced, skinny man. He nodded curtly. Krone was of noble build, a Glavian
perhaps, by the look of his gleaming black skin. His face was badly scarred on the left cheek. He too
nodded, then busied himself changing the recorder disk.
66
“Captain Guis Gettering.” Gettering was pugnacious and jowly, with short, sand-white hair. He
was standing by the hearth, a crystal balloon in his hand. “Mamzel commander,” he grunted.
“And Major Dario Quint.”
Quint. Ace of aces. Reclined in a battered tub chair in the far corner, he seemed more like an
observer than a participant. He was a surprisingly small man, well-proportioned, compact, his oval
face boyish, though his hair was zinc-grey. His hands were folded across the breast of his uniform
jacket. He stared directly at her and held her gaze, though he made no sound.
The servitor handed Jagdea a flute of joiliq, and she took it even though she didn’t want it.
“I—” she began, and cleared her throat. “I thought it was appropriate for me to come here in
person and express my wing’s appreciation for your assistance. Especially given the cost.”
“You lost a machine too, didn’t you?” Ramia asked.
“Yes, I did. But the loss of an Apostle—”
Ramia snorted. “Harlsson was an odious shit. He couldn’t fly worth a fart.”
Jagdea was startled. “I… what?”
“Detestable man,” Suhr agreed. “Don’t look so bloody shocked, mamzel. Harlsson was all luck
and flair. Not a gram of skill in his whole body. It’s a miracle he lasted as long as he did.”
Jagdea frowned. She put her drink down, untouched, and said, “I wanted to express my
appreciation and my sympathies. I’ve done that now, so I think I’ll go.”
“Saving the neck of that upstart boy, wasn’t he?” Gettering asked suddenly. Jagdea paused and
turned back.
“What?”
“Harlsson. Got stung getting a Razor off that boy of yours, mamzel. Isn’t that right? The boy
who thought naming his machine Double Eagle was a bright idea.”
“That matter is over and done, captain, though I believe Pilot Officer Marquall is still waiting on
your letter of apology. And no, you’re not right. Marquall had already shaken the Razor.”
“Had he now?” said Gettering.
“He used his rocket assist,” said Suhr.
“Did he?” Gettering laughed. Ramia chuckled too. “So the boy was your casualty?”
“No,” said Jagdea. “Marquall recovered control of his machine.”
There was a look on Gettering’s face that suggested he was about to accuse her of lying. Instead,
he just shook his head and looked away. The recorder started blaring again. Krone had put on
Nuncius’s Salve Beatus, loud and strident. Jagdea walked out of the room.
“Commander!” Seekan caught up with her in the hall. Behind him, the drunken singing had
resumed.
“You’ll have to forgive my men, Commander Jagdea. They’re dealing with their loss in their
own way.”
“By throwing a boorish party and defaming the dead man?”
“Pretty much,” said Seekan. “Sentiment does not figure largely in the souls of those men,
Jagdea. They’re steeped in death. Immune to its touch.”
“Clearly not immortal,” she snapped.
“No. That’s not what I meant. Your unit, now. I imagine there’s sadness. Low spirits. Mourning
the loss of a friend.”
Jagdea nodded. That was exactly the mood in the billet when she’d left. A few were raising a
glass to Clovin’s shade, but there was a general, numbing gloom.
“I remember that myself,” Seekan said. “In the early days. But we Apostles are war-weary.
When I said we are immune to the touch of death, I meant we just don’t feel its bite any more. No
sense of grief, no loss, no regret, no sadness. Just an inevitability. When an Apostle dies, we put on
our dress white and our ridiculous numbers of medals, and we get filthy drunk. We rage, we sing,
67
we drink some more. We do it to show fate, or fortune, or whatever else lurks out there in the dark,
that we don’t care.”
She had no reply. His voice dropped slightly. “We’re freaks, Jagdea. Do you know why we’re
Apostles? Not because we’re especially fine pilots. Not at all. We’re Apostles because we’ve had
unnatural luck. We should have died long ago, but there’s been some oversight and our souls have
not been claimed. So we go on flying, and killing. And eventually, the oversight is corrected. Today,
it was Harlsson’s turn.”
“That’s a very bleak view,” said Jagdea. “Was Harlsson really that disliked?”
“Who knows? Probably not. He was a reasonable pilot. But none of us are friends, you see.
There’s no point. By the time you become an Apostle, friends are a vulnerability none of us chooses
to afford.”
“I pity you,” Jagdea said.
Seekan shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t need pity, either.” He paused. “Do you know what I
have to do tomorrow morning?”
“No.”
“My driver’s taking me down the coast to Madenta MAB. There’s a pilot stationed there with
the 567th. His name’s Saul Cirksen. Seventy-two kills, superb service record. I will be inviting him
to fill Harlsson’s spot.”
“Will he accept?” she asked.
“If you are invited to become an Apostle, Jagdea, you’re not allowed to decline.”
She opened the front door. The night air was cold and smelled of rain. From the drawing room
behind them, the raucous singing swelled to a lusty chorus.
“Thank you for your pains, commander,” Seekan said. “They’re not as unappreciated as you
might think.”
Jagdea made a quick, clipped salute. “Good flying,” she said.
Coast Highway, 05.50
At first he thought it was a summer storm, glimmering the edges of the pre-dawn sky with sheet
lightning.
It took him a few moments to realise it wasn’t.
He brought his heavy transport to a full stop, and jumped out onto the rockcrete surface of the
hardtop, his scope in his hand. The other seven trucks in the convoy grumbled to a halt behind him.
The convoy was an overnight munitions delivery to Fetona MAB, already overdue. A couple of the
drivers sounded their horns, revved their stacks. Finally, they dismounted too.
They found Kaminsky on the far side of the highway, near to where the pelmet of the road track
shelved away into a dry creek-bed. This area of the Peninsula was barren. Straw grasses, fibreweed,
salt bars dotting the broken ground. Even in the cold half-light of dawn, there was nothing to spoil
the view all the way to the Lida Valley.
Kaminsky was winding his scope.
“What the hell’s going on?” asked Velligan.
“Kaminsky, what’s the problem?” said Anderchek from behind him.
“See that?” Kaminsky asked. “That glow? Fire patterns. Towns along the Lida are being
bombed.”
Theda MAB South, 06.17
There was something big going on. Darrow had slept badly, aware of a huge launch activity during
the small hours. He’d been working late on the report Eads had asked him to write up, and with an
hour and a half to go before his next shift at Operations, he went out to find Heckel, to get the
major’s comments on the tangle they’d had with the white bat.
68
A pall of exhaust fumes hung in the still air over the field. The majority of the base’s machines
were gone, on sorties. Darrow spoke to a Commonwealth fitter he knew, and the man told him
bombing raids had begun, north of the mountains. River towns had been hit, agro-centres, mills.
Someone reckoned the raiders had got as far as Ezraville.
Everyone he passed looked pinched and worried. Everyone was thinking the same thing. This
was the start of the end.
Even Commonwealth reserve units like Quarry Flight were on standby. Morose, in full flight
armour, they lurked in the dispersal areas, waiting for the call. Wolfcubs were being fitted to their
ramps. Cyclones were being wheeled out of the housing barns, attended by fuelling trucks and
munition trains.
“Heckel?” No one had seen him, and no one was in the mood to chat for long. According to the
posts, Heckel should have been amongst the standby pilots.
Darrow got a room number, and headed down to the blast-proof hab block at the west end of the
dispersal yards. By the light of the dingy corridor lamps, he found the right door and knocked.
“Major? Major Heckel? Are you there, sir?”
He knocked again. “Major Heckel? It’s Darrow. Have you got a minute, sir?”
He was about to turn away, but an ominous feeling made him try the door. It was unlocked.
In the narrow room, the cot was unmade. There was a clutter of papers and possessions on the
small desk, clothes laid out on top of the officer’s trunk. A camp chair lay on its side in the middle
of the room.
Major Heckel had hanged himself by a harness strap from the ceiling bracket.
“Oh God-Emperor!” Darrow cried. He rushed forward, seizing the major’s legs, struggling to lift
him down and ease the constriction. “Help me! Someone help me!” he shouted out. He couldn’t
unhook the body. Heckel was a lead weight. Darrow cried out in frustration. He let go, found
Heckel’s kit knife in the pile on the trunk, then righted the chair and climbed up, sawing at the
harness cord. It was aviation issue, tough, designed not to break. Darrow yelled out again, and cut
his fingers on the knife as he wrenched it back and forth against the thick fabric.
“Don’t you die! Don’t you die!” he bawled. “How dare you do this, Heckel! How bloody dare
you!”
Darrow was vaguely aware of two aviators coming in, drawn by his yells. He heard their
appalled cries. They grabbed Heckel’s legs and raised him.
“Cut it! Cut it!” one shouted.
“I’m trying… I…”
The harness parted. Heckel fell heavily into the arms of the other men, knocking Darrow off the
chair and onto the cot.
They wrestled the noose off his neck and started emergency resuscitation. Darrow got up, and
dropped the knife. He knew they were wasting their time. The lividity around the neck, the pallor of
the cheeks, the cyanotic blue of the lips.
“You poor bastard,” Darrow sighed. “You poor, stupid bastard.”
In his efforts to perform chest compressions, one of the men had dislodged an envelope from
Heckel’s flight jacket. Darrow picked it up. The envelope was blank, as if Heckel had been unable
to think of anyone to address it to. Inside was a single sheet of paper, inscribed with a single
handwritten sentence.
May the God-Emperor forgive me, I cannot do this any more.
69
DAY 257
Theda Old Town, 07.31
The service was over. There had been many more in attendance that morning, three times the usual
number for the daybreak blessing. Beqa had had to wait in line to light her candles. Everyone was
scared. You could almost smell it in the streets. Everyone had been scared for months now, of
course, but they’d got used to it, and got on with living through it. But over the last two nights, the
fear had intensified.
From the west of the city, it was possible to see the fires in Ezraville. Thousands had died in the
