Adrian Tchaikovsky - The Air War

She found Amnon kneeling by the still-burning wreck of the automotive. By then the surgeons had got all of Praeda that was left from the twisted metal, but no science of Collegium nor mystery of the Inapt could do anything for her.

‘Come on,’ Kymene urged more softly, a woman well acquainted with loss. ‘This is no time for grief, Amnon. Not when so many are looking to you. Not when there are Wasps to kill.’

He straightened up slowly. ‘Is that it, then? Is that all there is?’

‘Until my people are free, I will kill every Wasp and Spider and any other kinden that stands between me and my home. If you must grieve, let your enemy grieve with you. If you want vengeance then they now bring you all the opportunity you need. If you would lose yourself, then lose yourself in duty.’

Amnon glanced around and saw that the armed host of Collegium was finally on the move, assembling in proper battle order east of the camp, ready to advance. The far north-eastern horizon was already dim with the first dust of the Imperial forces.

With a great roar, he leapt for the next automotive to grumble past, swinging himself up beside its artillerist and the smallshotter mounted there.

The Esca Magni kicked into the air, that first beat of the orthopter’s wings hammering at the ground, throwing the craft straight up, clawing itself away from the yawning pull of the ground. All around Taki, and below her, the rest of Collegium’s air power was launching, their Stormreaders ungainly and impossible for that first moment, before transforming into things native to the sky.

She gave the Esca its head, let it find its path over the city, her eyes fixed on the eastern sky. The bright sunlight seemed alien to her after so many battles in darkness. Glancing left, she saw a flight of Mynan machines painted in their black and red, whilst a long string of Collegiate pilots trailed off on her far side. She spotted Corog’s machine powering ahead, the tip of a great broad arrow that was slowly forming behind him.

Contact! came the flash from one of the locals, and a moment later Taki revised her picture of the sky, for the enemy were far closer than the had anticipated, already diving out of the sun on their first attack run. She cursed herself for falling into useless patterns, for today’s fight would owe precious little to any of their previous engagements.

Her lamps stuttered and glowed as she tried to shove a mass of orders into the minds of her fellows, in a pitiful echoing of the interplay of thought amongst the enemy. On me; attack full forwards; break off; circle back; drawn them with us. Knowing, even as she made the attempt, that they would lose the thread of the message before getting halfway through it. In the end she just sent Follow my lead! three times, as she made her run.

Piercer bolts flashed and danced about her, the closest Farsphex spotting her — probably they even knew her by now, by her smaller, fleeter craft and her flying style. She jinked left, trusting to the skill of her fellows to adjust, opening up with her own rotaries and scoring a handful of glancing strikes before she and her opponent were past one another, just flashing blurs gleaming in the sun. Her enemy would have to deal with her allies, she with his.

She abandoned her line immediately, because the sky before her was being cut into pieces by shot from both sides. Instead she drove upwards, straight at one of the enemy, forcing him aside because she was feeling madder than he — then she slung the Esca right. She found the flank of a Farsphex before her just as she imagined she would, bobbing up ten feet to avoid the bolt the Fly-kinden bombardier loosed at her, then unleashing everything her weapons had to give.

She drew a line of punctures across the top of the enemy’s hull before tracking into its open side-hatch. Then she was close enough to discern the red ruin she had just made of the bombardier, a man of her own kinden torn apart by weapons meant to destroy machines. She pulled up hurriedly, sick in her stomach and desperately trying to unsee what she had just witnessed.

But it’s war. What did I think would happen? The thought did nothing to erase that bloody image.

Then bolts were falling on her like the patter of rain, and reflexes kicked sentiment aside and slung her, almost upside down, looping out of the way of the oncoming enemy and aside from his friend, who was trying to pinion her — and she was past the two of them, knowing that neither had the angle to get on her tail. Already she was looking for a new target.

Scain swore as the Farsphex rattled about, bouncing Pingge away from the ballista, forcing her to climb uphill towards it one moment, fall past it the next. She was only glad that she was not being ordered to bomb anything right then. The way her aim was being shaken about, the good people of Collegium wouldn’t know which was was up.

That thought stuck in her throat, suddenly not funny. Then Scain was cursing again, muttering reports from the other pilots, requests for assistance, attempts to bring their formation together and destroy the enemy. For a moment a Stormreader flashed past the open hatch and she dragged the ballista about, but the target was gone as soon as she had registered it.

Then they were in an abruptly deserted sky, coasting over the silent and seemingly empty city as if this was a dream, and they the only thing in it. Scain was still muttering, and she caught fragments of his constant stream of consciousness: ‘… massing over the centre…’ ‘refusing to engage…’ ‘Aarmon scores a hit…’ ‘Tarsic’s down…’ ‘why are they all…?’ The pilots were all on extra rations of Chneuma to make up for having had almost no sleep since the night’s bombing raid.

There was a rattle, and three points of sky opened up in the hull beside Pingge, making her scream more with shock than with fear. Instantly Scain was hauling the machine into a tight turn, and she expected more damage, the enemy right behind them, but it seemed the Collegiate flier had fled as soon as Scain reacted. A moment later — peering down the narrow neck of the craft and over Scain’s shoulder — she saw the sky full of duelling monsters. The entire strength of both sides, practically every orthopter Collegium and the Second Army could muster, was now engaged in a deadly, graceful sparring, vicious and brutal for the men and women within the cockpits, and yet, seeing it from her detached perspective, as they plunged towards it, it seemed a dance where everyone knew the steps, a beautiful interweaving such as the darting shuttles of the looms back in her factory could never have managed.

Scain roared something wordless, and she felt the hammering of the rotaries through the metal floor beneath her. Past his head, in that great populated skyscape, a Stormreader shuddered and lurched, twisting desperately to be rid of him, but he followed its evasions like a Rekef man scenting treason, and abruptly the target’s two wings were not beating — were shredding apart under the ferocity of his attack — and then Scain was breaking off and letting his victim make the long fall alone.

A single bolt struck somewhere behind, near the tail, and Scain was already slinging the Farsphex sideways hard enough to make every rivet groan. Another Collegiate machine flashed by, already clutching at the air for an equally tight turn, and Scain thrust their flier forward to put distance between them and their enemy, whilst in his mind he had already summoned help.

Pingge knew she should now be crouching behind her ballista, waiting for that absurd chance that would allow her a shot, but she could not tear her eyes away. Everywhere she looked, the aviators were coming towards the final engagement of their pure and private war, trying to kill each other with every scrap of skill and mechanical genius their respective sides possessed. Stormreaders whirled away with shattered hulls, dead hands still resting on the stick, Farsphex trailed smoke from burning engines or broke up as the convolutions of their pilots and the damage they had taken passed some critical tolerance. It was terrible, it was awe-inspiring. She could not look away.