midday sunlight.
“Sir, I—” Marquall began.
Gettering calmly removed one of his chainmail gauntlets and slapped Marquall across the face
with it so hard that the young man was knocked down onto one knee.
Dazed, stunned, his face grazed by the chain, Marquall looked up.
Guis Gettering was striding back to his hardstand.
“What…” gasped Marquall, rising with the assistance of his fitters. “What the bloody hell was
that about?”
Theda MAB North, 12.26
When Darrow finally got back to his station, it seemed like the place had been abandoned. He stood
for a few minutes on the sunlit assembly yard and looked out across the main field. A kilometre
away, along the western side of the area, he could see rows of big machines under nets. Imperial
birds, Marauders. Darrow could just make out fitter crews at work on the heavy fighter-bombers. To
his north, Munitorum crews were dismantling six of the twelve launching ramps used by the
Wolfcubs. Activity, but all of it remote.
The complex of operations and barrack buildings behind him felt deserted and empty. He
wandered up the main steps and into the cool gloom of the main hall. Darrow was wearing a
borrowed pair of old overalls. His clothing had been ruined in the crash. He’d managed to keep hold
of his aviator boots, and his heavy leather flying coat, though one sleeve of it had been badly torn.
He’d refused to let the medics toss it away.
They’d insisted on keeping him in Theda South’s infirmary overnight for observation, even
though it was clear to anybody that he was fine apart from a few scratches and bruises. In the
morning, he’d been forced to wait, twitchy with impatience, to fill out forms and incident
statements. Only then had he been written up cleared and allowed to snag the first available
transport back to North.
He just wanted to get back, get into the routine again and put the previous day, that terrible day,
behind him.
30
No one seemed to want to let him do that. The forms, the medical checks, the incident
statements. Even the transport driver who’d brought him back from Theda South seemed like a sick
jibe. The man’s face had been a mess of pink scar tissue.
The entry hall was empty. Nobody hurried past along the polished wood-tile floor. He walked
past the gilt-lettered rolls of honour on the panelled walls, one for each Commonwealth squadron,
including his own, the 34th General Intercept, and under the brooding hololith of the late Air
Commander Tenthis Belks. It was a time-honoured custom for all pilots to salute the old man’s
portrait as they went past. Darrow didn’t feel like such frippery today.
There was no one in the day office, or behind the desk at company and area. Darrow went down
to the dispersal room, but there was nobody there either. The air smelled of over-brewed caffeine
and stale smoke. A circular regicide board, its game unfinished, sat on one of the small tables,
Darrow went back out into the hall, and walked down to the station chapel. On the wall beside the
double doors hung a blackboard where the names of the dead and missing were written up prior to
the morning service. He stood for a moment and stared at the list written there now. The dead cadets
of Hunt Flight. Such a damnably long list. But for five names, it was a roll call for the entire wing.
He opened the doors and looked into the chapel. It was quiet and very dark, save for the daylight
falling in multi-coloured rays through the lancet windows at the far end. There was an odour of
wood-wax and floor polish, and also fading flowers. Someone was sitting down at the front, at the
end of the first pew. Darrow couldn’t make out who it was, and felt reluctant to disturb them.
Retreating back into the hall, Darrow noticed for the first time the printed posts tacked up on the
wallboards outside the day office.
He started to read them.
Major Heckel came out of the chapel and walked over to him. “Darrow?”
“What… what is this?” Darrow murmured.
Heckel could hear the tinge of anger in the pilot cadet’s voice. “You just got back then?” he
asked. “You’re checked out? You’re all right?”
“What does this mean?” Darrow snapped, pointing at the posts.
Heckel’s face was pinched and pale, and he seemed to shrink back timidly from Darrow’s
bitterness. “It’s just the way things have worked out, Darrow.”
“Did Eads sign off on this?”
“It was his decision, he—”
“Is he here?”
“Yes. Yes, he is.”
“I want to see him.”
Heckel bit his lower lip and then nodded. “Come on.”
The major led the way up the front stairs to the main operations chambers. Their boots rang on
the hard wood. Heckel seemed to have a need for small talk.
“Everyone’s been given day leave,” he said, almost cheerfully. “As of this morning. Everyone…
Well, news like that, yesterday. Sort of knocked everybody back. And as we were about to go into
turnaround and move out to make way for the Imperials, well, it seemed like the best thing, so
Commander Eads issued passes and…”
Darrow wasn’t really listening. The door to the main operations room was open, and he saw
unfamiliar personnel in Imperial Navy uniforms stare out at him as he went by.
They reached the commander’s outer office and Heckel ushered Darrow in. Darrow noticed how
badly the major’s gesturing hand was shaking. Really shaking.
The outer office was empty. The desks there had been cleared, and transit cartons labelled with
the aquila badge were stacked up in the middle of the well-worn floor. Heckel knocked gently at the
inner door. He was answered by a grunt.
They went in. It was pitch-black inside.
31
“Sir…” Heckel began.
“What? Oh, my apologies.” There was a click, and the steel blast shutters over the windows
retracted to let the daylight in.
“I forget, sometimes,” Eads said.
The entering daylight revealed Air Commander Gelwyn Eads behind his brass desk in the bay
under the main window. The walls of the office were covered with hololiths—formal squadron
group shots, individual pilot portraits, pictures of Wolfcubs and Cyclones, cheerful scenes from base
formals and dinners, a picture of Eads with old man Belks. A tattered Commonwealth flag was
suspended in pride of place over the fireplace.
Eads was sorting data-slates and charts into filing boxes around his desk. He was a short, wiry
man in his sixties, his grey hair shaved so short it looked like metal filings coating his scalp. Little,
round dark glasses covered his eyes.
“Make yourselves known,” he said. “It’s you, Heckel, am I right?”
Eads had been blind for nineteen years. He had refused augmetic optics. There was a dermal
socket behind his left ear which allowed him to plug into operation systems and “see” tactical
displays during sorties, but that was the only compensation he made for his disability. The plug was
in now, permitting him to identify and sort the data-slates using the code-reader sitting on the desk.
“It is, sir,” said Heckel. “And Pilot Cadet Darrow.”
Both men saluted with special formality. Long ago, Eads had decided that men probably weren’t
bothering to salute him properly because he couldn’t see, and had taken to saying “Call that a
salute?” to anyone who visited him. As a consequence, everyone saluted him with more care and
correctness than they did sighted officers.
“Call that a salute?” Eads said, and smiled. “Make yourselves easy. Hello, Darrow. Are you
recovered?”
“Yes, commander.”
“Good to hear it. They want me to pack up and leave. The Navy. I suppose I should be thankful
for their coming, but it sits uneasily.”
Eads rose, unplugging himself from the code-reader, and walked around the desk. He used a
sensor cane, topped with the Enothian crest in worn silver, which trembled in his hand if he came
too near to obstacles. He hardly needed it in his own office, he knew the layout perfectly. Eads
walked over to the fireplace and touched the edge of the old flag. Then he pointed at some of the
framed hololiths.
“Company dinner, wintertide 751. Wesner looks particularly pissed in that shot, doesn’t he? His
cravat is terribly skewed. That’s… that’s Jahun Nockwist, standing next to his Magog, with his
fitters. Old Greasy Barwel and his team, Emperor bless them. There, that’s Humming Bird, my first
Cub. Bad old lady. Dropped me in the Sea of Ezra after a flame-out in ’42. I imagine she’s still
down there, crusted into some reef.”
He turned to face them. “Am I correct?”
“Yes, commander,” said Heckel. “Every one.”
Eads nodded. “I only know because I remember where I hung them.” He took one of the pictures
off the wall, weighed it in his hand, and then carried it over to the desk. It went into one of the
boxes. “I don’t suppose I’ll hang them in my new office, wherever that ends up being. Barely any
point. I won’t be able to see them. I mean, remember how they looked. Might as well nail empty
frames up. Still, I should take them.”
Eads was still for a moment, deep in thought. Then he swung his dark lenses round at them
again.
“I imagine this is about the re-assignment, Darrow.”
“Yes, sir. I’m disappointed to say the least—”
32
“I’m sure you are, cadet. I damn well would be. But I’m not going to change my mind. With the
losses yesterday, we’ve scarcely got enough serviceable K4Ts to keep even twenty of the 34th
flying, and that’s with pilots sharing Cubs between sorties. We’re scaling the wing down, we have
to. Once we’ve shipped out to another field, we need to trim the numbers. Some pilots will remain
active… pretty much Vector Flight and Quarry Flight. Others will be stood down for the time being.
Experienced pilots get priority, Darrow. I’m sorry. Hunt Flight was a cadet section. And—forgive
me for putting it so bluntly, Heckel—there are precious few of Hunt left. Darrow, you’ll be
reassigned to ground duties, and probably moved back to Zophos Field or Enothopolis in reserve.
It’s just the way it has to work.”
“Yes, sir.” Darrow’s teeth were gritted.
“Reserve isn’t so bad, Darrow,” Eads added. “You’ll be kept plenty busy, rewarding work. And
if things come good, you could be flying again before the end of the year.”
Darrow nodded.
“Darrow?”
“Yes, sir. I… Yes. I nodded, sir.”
“Nodding doesn’t work for me, airman.”
“Sorry, sir.”
Eads walked back around his desk and resumed his seat. “Tell you what,” he said. “Just get it off
your chest, Darrow.”
“Sir?”
“Speak your mind. Let’s get it done with.”
Darrow glanced at Heckel. The major’s face seemed even paler than before, and his hands were
both clearly shaking. But he shrugged an okay to Darrow.
Darrow cleared his throat. “I know I’ve only been operational four weeks. I’m a cadet. All of
that. And yesterday was a… a…”
He looked at Heckel. Heckel frowned and shook his head.
“Anyway, I believe I can fly, commander. I mean, I can fly well. I’ve hardly had the chance, and
I hate to trumpet myself. But yesterday, I really felt I… There was this bat and…”
“Yes, Darrow?”
Darrow felt stupid even trying to say it. “It doesn’t matter, sir.”
Eads sat forward and lifted a data-slate out of the pile to his left. He put it down in front of him.
“Your modesty does you credit, cadet. I have Heckel’s report right here. It’s… How should I put it?
Glowing, isn’t it, major?”
“It’s just an account, sir,” said Heckel.
“You took on that bat and flew your boots off. Instinctive, brilliant. The major praises you in no
uncertain terms. Hell, If I’d seen you fly the way he said you did, I’d be calling for a
commendation.”
“You said that?” Darrow murmured.
Heckel stared at the floor. “Just reporting what I saw, cadet.”
“So, well done,” Eads said.
Darrow blinked. “Sir… If I’ve earned such praise… If I’ve shown what I can do… why am I
being sent to reserve?”
“My choice, Darrow. Don’t you go blaming Heckel for this. His recommendation was to get you
a transfer to Quarry Flight. But there’s this little matter…”
“Sir?”
“It was your first combat. Your first fly-fight. You did well, but that’s the way first fly-fights go.
Novices usually die in those situations. The ones that survive seem to punch above their weight.
And almost always, that’s down to luck. You did gloriously in one sortie, Darrow, but that doesn’t
make a career. I decided to send you to reserve for that reason.”
33
“Commander?”
“Luck, cadet. I think, yesterday, you used up an entire lifetime of luck. You used it all in one
dogfight. If I keep you active, you’ll be dead the next time you go out.”
Darrow didn’t know what to say. He blinked. His mouth was dry.
“So, are we done?” asked Eads.
“Sir,” they both said, and left the office.
Heckel caught up with Darrow on the stairs. “I’m sorry!” he said.
Darrow looked back up at him. “God-Emperor, don’t be sorry, sir,” he said. “You didn’t have to
make a report like that.”
“I only wrote what I saw, Darrow. That piece of airmanship was fantas—”
“You saved my life, sir. Gunning in like that. He had me. You saved my life.”
Heckel hesitated, caught in the sunlight of the stairwell. “I did what I could,” he said.
“You saved my life. He had me,” Darrow repeated.
“But—”
“Thank you,” Darrow said.
Darrow continued on down the stairs and strode along the hall past the chapel. Only then did he
notice the smudge.
On the blackboard, the service of honour. The names of Hunt Flight. At the bottom of the list
was a name that had been written up in chalk and then smudged off.
It was his own.
Theda MAB South, 13.01
The chainmail aviator’s glove thumped onto the desktop like a lead weight.
“I borrowed that from stores,” Bree Jagdea said. “So, do you want to explain or should I smash
you round the face with it?”
Wing Leader Etz Seekan looked down at the glove for a moment. His manicured fingers
drummed deftly on the edge of the desk.
“Let me see…” he said softly. He was a beautiful man, perfectly built, with twinkling blue eyes
and a captivating grin. His dark hair was superbly groomed and oiled, and his manner was
annoyingly relaxed and charming.
He looked up at Jagdea. “Part of me wants you to—what was it?—smash me round the face. Just
to see Ornoff when it comes to filing charges. But I don’t think that will get us anywhere. Why
don’t you sit down?”
He gestured to the armchair in front of his desk.
“I prefer to stand,” Jagdea snapped.
