crossed to nowhere, the sea sucking beneath him.
He walked down the strand a little way until he came to the entrance arch of the nearest pier. A
chalkboard had been propped up against the ironwork gate. “Palace Refreshments. Table service,
sea views,” it read.
He liked that. That would do.
Warily, he walked in under the iron arch and out along the pier. The sound of the sea was much
louder now. He could see the surge of it between the boards beneath his feet. It made him dizzy and
excited, and those things helped to mask the kernel of fear he was carrying in his heart.
The cafe was at the end of the pier. Everything else was shut up and derelict. As he approached,
he was able to smell caffeine and spun sugar. Viltry had never been this far out from dry land. He’d
never walked over an ocean.
38
The cafe was huge, a testament, perhaps, to former glory days, when pleasure seekers had
packed Theda’s seafront and come in search of sea views and refreshments. Tables formed rings
inside the great circuit of lattice windows. Some of them were occupied: old men and women in
mumbling groups, a couple of Commonwealth troopers looking tired and wan. Music was playing
from the kitchen area. A handsome Thracian waltz.
Viltry took a seat at a window table, and watched the sea some more. “What will you have?”
He looked up. The girl in the blue-striped dress and apron had appeared from nowhere. He
picked up the table-card hastily. “A… a pot of caffeine.”
“Anything to eat?”
He was still studying the card. Very few things made sense. “A smoked ham sa—”
“No ham,” the girl said. “Sorry. No poultry, either.”
“I am hungry,” Viltry realised.
“The lorix is good. With bread.”
“Then that’s what I’ll have.”
She disappeared. He looked back at the sea. Grey, mobile, immense. He’d seen skies like that.
The weather was turning.
The girl returned with a tray. She unloaded the caffeine pot, cup, sugar-bowl, and a plate with
bread slices and a dish of something. He poured the caffeine as she departed, then examined the
food. It smelled savoury, quite nice, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Or how to eat it. He tried some,
but found it was salty and far too meaty for his liking. He swallowed anyway, but left the rest. The
bread was all right. He ate that instead.
“There’s a funny bloke over at sixteen,” announced Letrice. “Offworlder, I’d say.”
Beqa looked and stopped wiping the counter. “I’ll deal with him. You’re off now anyway, aren’t
you?”
“I got a date,” Letrice grinned. “Fancy flyboy from the PDF. His name’s Edry. He’s nicely
handsome.”
“Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“No thanks. That wouldn’t leave me much,” Letrice giggled, and began taking off her apron.
Beqa cleared a few tables and then walked over to the window table.
It was him. The sad-faced offworlder she’d seen at the templum the day before. The one who’d
been talking to himself.
She hoped he was stable now. Her shift was coming to an end, and that gave her just over an
hour to nap before the night-shift.
“Everything all right, sir?” she asked.
“Yes, yes. Fine.” He didn’t look up. Throne, but his expression was so miserable.
“The lorix? Not to your liking?” she asked, lifting the uneaten dish onto her tray.
He looked up, then said, “Um? No, I’m sure it was fine. It was fish, wasn’t it?”
“Shellfish.”
He nodded. “I’m afraid I… I’ve never eaten fish before. Or shellfish, whatever that is. It’s a
bit… funny tasting.”
“You’ve never eaten fish?”
“I… I mean, my world… No seas, you see…”
“Oh. So, you must be hungry?”
“No, I ate the bread. I’m fine.”
“Well, okay,” she said and cleared his table.
He still sat looking out at the sea when her shift ended and Pollya came on for the night. The sun
had set. The sea was as dark as oil.
39
He’d ordered another cup, and was sipping it while he stared at the rolling waters as they
crashed against the shore.
Over the Lida Valley, 15.29
Guns live, Jagdea turned and rolled in on them, her Thunderbolt trembling with power. Six Locustpattern
bats, the lightest and most nimble of the Archenemy’s vector-planes, all painted crimson or
mauve, were harrying the heels of the Cyclone pack.
They were all over them. To her left, she saw another Cyclone explode, and another pitch left,
trailing tarry smoke as it foundered down in a wide sweep towards the ground.
Two Locusts slipped under her, but she had the third, braking back to trim over on another
Cyclone. In the hairs, pipper blinking.
Jagdea thumbed the gun-stud.
Serial Zero-Two lurched as the twin-linked lascannons in the nose spat off.
Brilliant daggers of light flew out of her machine, zagging down through the sky towards the
bat. Struck, it rolled over and staggered sideways, then started to make white smoke as it curved
away, falling, falling.
“Bag one,” Jagdea snarled into her mask. “Four-One Leader to flight, I have engaged. I repeat, I
have engaged.”
She half-heard a response from Marquall, but the meaning of it was lost as she inverted again,
viffing hard to increase her turn rate, her ears popping with hard-G as she sidestepped an incoming
Locust. A glimpse. The blinking flashes of the gunports, the blur of mauve wings.
As she came nose up, throttle out as far as it could go, she saw two Cyclones blunder past,
followed by a banking Locust. All three were in view for less than a second.
None of Umbra Flight were carrying rack weapons on this sortie, certainly nothing guided or airto-
air. Jagdea would have to rely entirely on boresight shooting.
She pushed the nose over and kicked right rudder, heaving the heavy machine around. The
horizon swung madly. A Cyclone went by under her, emitting sporadic brown smoke. The banking
Locust had already pulled out of sight, but there was another, scarlet like blood, turning in towards
the wounded Enothian machine.
She made another deep dive, fans shrieking, G pressing the mask into her face and making her
see spots. She had the Locust for a moment. Then it viffed sideways on its reactor jets, a nonballistic
wobble to the side, but instinct set her ready to do the same and compensate. It was purely a
gut thing that she got it right: the Locust had gone the way she would have done.
Jagdea punched las-shots at it and hit something, because the slipstream suddenly filled with
black smoke and shreds of wing casing. The Locust vanished, then she made it out again as she
rolled. It was heading away east. Was it going down or running? There was no way to confirm. The
old, foremost rule: don’t stay on a target.
She came around again and made a shallow climb that slid her between two of the racing
Cyclones. Her auspex began bleating. Something had a lock on her. She rolled, craning her head
back over her left shoulder, then her right. Where the hell was it? Las-shots scorched past her port
side and her machine bucked hard. There were suddenly raking scorch marks on her port wing. She
rolled and turned again. Still the lock held. More shots, stitching past on her right now. She dipped
her wing and banked out, catching her speed and opening the reactor nozzles so she almost turned
end on end.
The Locust went right by her, overshooting. She saw the bone-white kill marks under its canopy
sill.
Three thousand metres above her, Marquall began his turn, standing on his port wing, gazing
down at the spiralling machines through the cloud cover below. Van Tull and Espere matched his
turn.
40
“Stoop and sting,” Marquall instructed. God-Emperor, but he’d waited his whole life to say that
for real.
“On your lead, Eight,” Van Tull responded calmly.
“Just say when,” added Espere.
“My mark… three, two… mark!”
The three Bolts curved away, speed climbing as they dropped. Intercept dive. Marquall could
see Jagdea, and two of the bats. The other machines were local prop-drives. He was coming down
on them so very fast…
Guns! Throne of Earth, he’d almost forgotten to switch live in his excitement. He wrenched
back the switch cover. There was a bat, snaking left under his wing. Surely, they’d seen the three
Bolts coming down on them? Who cared?
He had a lock, and he squeezed. His machine rocked as it unloaded. Marquall swore aloud. He’d
meant to select autocannon, but the toggle was across on las. He’d sprayed off almost half his
battery load in one go and not even hit anything.
Except… Over there, a Cyclone. Falling, coming apart, weeping flame. Marquall blinked hard,
sweat drooling inside his mask. Shit, no! Please say he hadn’t done that! Please!
“Eight! Have you got a malfunction? Marquall?” Van Tull’s voice exploded out of the speakers.
Marquall snapped awake. He’d only been staring at the Cyclone for a second or two, but that
was more than enough. His dive had punched him down through the fight layer. A miserable
overshoot.
“I’m okay, I’m okay!” he yelled, and instinctively pulled on the stick. It was a rookie mistake.
He was coming up far too hard, bleeding off all the power he’d gained from the dive as his machine
struggled to climb again. His airspeed dropped to a crawl.
“You stupid fool!” he cried aloud.
“Eight? Say again?”
“I’m all right!” he snapped, swinging into a wide, curving turn to nurse some speed back into his
wings. Almost at once, a Locust went past in front of him. With a jolt, he fired wildly, missed.
Pearly las-shot dwindled away in front of him. A tone sounded. Weapons batteries out. He’d just
done it again. He hadn’t deselected, and now his primary weapons were spent and dry. All thirty
shots wasted in two futile bursts.
Jagdea had looked up as her three wingmen came stooping into the fight. Van Tull’s machine
went over across her two, and expertly splashed a banking Locust. The bat fire-balled, and Van
Tull’s Thunderbolt rolled as it swept through the flame wash, its slipstream sucking fire and debris
out behind it in a curious string. Espere made a fine pass, but his chosen target viffed at the last
moment and went wide. Espere flattened neatly, dummied, and then rolled out left chasing another
bat.
Jagdea wasn’t quite sure what was going on with Marquall. The kid had come in like his arse
was on fire, and unloaded a ridiculous quantity of las-power. Virgin nerves? Maybe. Maybe that
explained why he’d also dropped long and then mushed off all his power in the worst dive recovery
she’d seen outside of flight school.
She wanted to break off and go to cover him, but the Locust was back on her, getting
intermittent locks as she jinked and twisted.
“Four-One Leader to Umbra Five.”
“Go, Lead!”
“Espere. Cover the boy, for Throne’s sake!”
“On it!”
Espere turned his Bolt over and burned towards Umbra Eight. It was wallowing now, making
tentative jinks.
“Eight, this is Five. You okay?”
41
“Yeah, I’m… yeah.”
“Eight, do you have a weapons malfunction?”
“Negative, Eight.”
“You just nailed the sky with what looked like full batteries.”
“Negative, negative. I’m fine.”
Espere shook his head. He was tense himself. Very tense, and it wasn’t just the fly-fight. Alone
amongst the pilots of Umbra Flight, Pers Espere had not settled well with the Thunderbolts. He
missed his old Lightning more than he could explain. In dispersal, the others would sit around,
lauding their Bolts, and talking about them like they were lovers, wives, husbands. Espere just
didn’t feel that way. His machine, serial Nine-Nine, did not suit him. It was an old machine, a
veteran bird, lovingly maintained by the fitter teams. Espere didn’t know if it was Thunderbolts in
general that disagreed with him, or Nine-Nine in particular. He was fighting with it all the time,
wrestling to get it to do what he wanted. He had come to loathe the prospect of each sortie.
In an Imperium where diligently-maintained war machines were often ten, twelve, fifteen times
older than their pilots or drivers, there were plenty of tales of particular planes or tanks carrying a
jinx. Cursed machines, plaguing the lives of their users until they were themselves destroyed. Serial
Nine-Nine had a long and patchy record. Six pilots dead or maimed at the controls, two bad
landings, three major refits. Espere had once asked Hemmen, his chief fitter, if Nine-Nine was
jinxed. Hemmen had laughed, not altogether reassuringly, and said not. The following morning,
there’d been a refuelling mishap. A junior fitter had been torched so badly he’d left the skin of his
hands fused to Nine-Nine’s fuselage.
He tried not to think about it, even though he’d made four kills in his old Lightning, and none in
this machine. It was constantly coming home with shot-holes to patch.
Espere settled in beside Marquall’s machine. Espere was an expert wingman. He knew how to
fly cover and watch a fellow pilot’s back. That’s why Jagdea had called him to do this, and that’s
what he’d do. But he was tense. Marquall was alarming him with his antics. There was a gauge light
on for a drop in lube-pressure. What was that about? Had he taken a hit he didn’t know about?
Mind on the game, Pers. Mind on the game. The boy needed all his help.
“Come about, Eight. Let’s see if we can’t do some good here.”
He looked over at the machine alongside him, and saw Marquall’s red-helmeted head nod
eagerly, his thumb coming up. Sunlight glinted off the canopy.
Sunlight glinted off something else.
“Break! Break! Break!” Espere yelled. The two Bolts scissored up and away violently as the
mauve shape snapped by. Espere’s damage recorder started beeping.
“Eight? Where are you?” Espere rasped, struggling with the stick as he tried to right the plane.
“I can’t see it! I can’t see it!”
Espere could see him well enough. Marquall was above and to his right, turning really badly into
a terrible climb. Espere hit the juice and started to rise.
“Pull in, Eight! You’re going to stall if you turn that tight!”
Silence. The horrendous weight of high G was preventing the kid from answering.
Don’t black out… don’t black out… Espere willed. Shit! There was the bat again, stooping in
from the east, cannons blazing. Marquall’s Bolt shuddered as it was hit, but the impact seemed to
settle him out. Or snap him awake.
Espere hit reheat and came around hard in a port turn-and-roll, viffing gently to set himself up
on the Locust as it crossed. He’d be damned if he’d let the kid get killed on his virgin run.
