Adrian Tchaikovsky - The Air War

He gathered himself with all his strength and then he was running, a handful of swift steps towards the Sentinel and then a leap, even as its rotary piercers started spitting bolts.

The shots almost clipped his heels, then he was grappling with the smooth side of the machine, finding purchase between plates in the moments before those gaps clenched shut. He kept kicking and scrabbling until he was crouched atop the Sentinel, the one place that it could not attack him.

It spun left and right in search of him, then began bucking and lurching, somehow knowing where he was. Amnon clung on, though, hacking at its steel hide until the sword broke, and then slamming his hands down against the metal shell. The first snapbow bolt skipped off the hull nearby, Light Airborne wondering what he thought he could achieve.

Praeda was dead, and Amnon knew he would follow her soon enough, but he had one thing to accomplish first. Getting his fingers underneath one of the great articulated plates of the Sentinel’s casing, he planted his feet firmly and heaved. There had never been a beast so fierce that he could not kill it, nor so well armoured that he had not found its weak spot. He refused to give in, or admit that his life and skills were obsolete.

Another couple of bolts struck nearby, indicating that the Imperial soldiers were taking more of an interest. Amnon ignored them and continued to strain at the metal, the prodigious strength that had made him the wonder of the age in Khanaphes focusing in the single task of prising the machine’s armour up and exposing its innards.

In his mind was Praeda, and his city, and Collegium, all hovering over a solid core of effort, every sinew and every muscle pushed to its limit in seeking the impossible.

It gave an inch in his grip, bolts shearing, and he bellowed, a great anguished yell of loss and defiance, and ripped up the casing in a scream of tortured metal. Triumph flared within him: he was again the First Soldier of Khanaphes and, in that moment, he was the equal of anything this new world could throw at him.

He looked down, and almost laughed at feeling the hope drain out of him. Beneath the armour was just steel, more steel, as invulnerable as the rest.

Then the Wasp soldiers, who had suddenly begun taking him seriously, put a bolt through his leg and another through his shoulder, punching him off his perch atop the machine. He never saw the Stormreaders coming.

Speeding across the bright open sky felt like being in another world: no longer the ravaged city below them, but Collegium’s army forming a blurred host, and the enemy ahead.

Oh, now, here we go, Taki thought, because she could see some Farsphex already lurching into the air with unseemly haste, desperate to intercept the oncoming Collegiate fliers. She gritted her teeth, waiting to see whether the Empire had somehow mustered yet another great assembly of orthopters to stop them in their tracks. If they could not carry out their mission here, then the war was lost, despite every price they had paid so far.

A hard, savage smile came to her face. Five, I see just five.

Collegium had been able to put thirty-four Stormreaders in the air, twenty-seven of them modified to the latest specification, including this borrowed craft of Taki’s. The Esca Magni had been too abused to take to the air again with any certainty of it staying there.

Oh, they have heart, she acknowledged, because those five Imperial machines showed no hesitation: in for the kill, their rotaries ablaze with bolts, despite the odds. The modified Stormreaders were handling sluggishly too, due to all that extra weight clasped to their bellies by the modified landing legs. Still, seven of them were as nimble as they ever were, and for once, just this once, Collegium had overwhelming numbers in its favour.

She drew her craft to one side as the lead Farsphex came in, saw the enemy shift sideways, still trying for a kill as it evaded the first jabbing shots of the Collegiates. The Wasp cut up one of the laden Stormreaders badly, making it falter and lose height, before being picked off, a half-dozen different orthopters jockeying for the honour of the strike. The other enemy fared the same, giving a better account of themselves than anyone could have asked in the circumstances, and yet they accomplished nothing.

Then the Imperial army was spread below them, half-ensconced within their walls, and packed close together — just the wrong sort of security.

Some of the others were making their attack runs, but Taki took this chance to pass over and circle back, because they had a mission, and they had to get it right.

Colonel Mittoc looked up into the suddenly busy sky. All around him soldiers were lifting into the air, as though their Art wings or their little stings could make any difference at this point. Behind him were the greatshotters, mostly complete now thanks to the practised skill of his engineers, within range of the Collegiate walls, and ready to bring the city to its knees. He had been looking forward to using them.

The first bomb landed far to his left, tearing open a handful of tents and rather more soldiers. With an artificer’s appreciation he noted the way the Collegiates had adapted their vessels’ landing gear as a bomb cradle. He estimated that these charges were about half the power of the devices dropped on Collegium itself, the delivery system makeshift, and the small orthopters almost crippled by the weight.

It hardly mattered. The Collegiates had the sky. Not a Farsphex was to be seen.

The Imperial artillery commander knew that this was a time for discretion rather than valour, and that he himself was standing in exactly the wrong place, but Collegiate bombs were spiralling down all over the camp, the pilots still unfamiliar with their new toys, so where exactly was safe?

His men were shouting, and he turned to see a lone Stormreader coming on a direct line for the greatshotters from behind. Some of his engineers were still working on the siege engines, as though completing them would somehow give the huge weapons the ability to pluck those fleet little orthopters from the sky.

We were close, he thought, and he saw the bomb released even as his wings flared. But he was wearing the heavy armour designed to protect a valuable artificer from harm, and as a result he could barely manage a hop.

General Tynan noted that the Spider-kinden were already on the move, dispersing into individual groups and falling back eastwards — not exactly a rout but not an orderly retreat either. He needed to give the order, but it stuck in his throat. This was the Second Army, the Gears, and the Gears did not stop for anything. That was the point.

He could observe the walls of Collegium through a glass. For the second time, the city seemed just an inch from his grasp.

He had ordered the Airborne into the sky, to do what they could, but there had been no battle in recent history where flying men had been able to match themselves against flying machines. His own few orthopters had been destroyed within seconds of engaging the enemy.

‘Tynan!’

He spun round to see Mycella herself fighting her way through the panicking camp. She had the emaciated mercenary Morkaris and his Scorpions shouldering Wasps out of their way, and her chief of camp, the Melisandyr, strode alongside her in gleaming plate armour, holding a shield aloft as though it would protect anyone from anything.

‘What are you still doing here?’ Tynan demanded.

‘You have to get clear. You have to order a retreat, Tynan!’ she shouted to him. To his shock, he detected real concern in her eyes: not for his army, or their chances of winning the war, but solely for him.

And she was right, and he had known that truth for several minutes now, even as his men died.