Adrian Tchaikovsky - The Air War

Taki stared at that flying machine once again, trying to appreciate what she had been brought here to see, trying to reconcile what she had heard with what she now saw.

But of course. She started with the revelation, understanding coming to her at last. Perhaps it was not quite enough to justify Axrad’s manner, but still… the technical challenge alone was remarkable, but what could the Wasps hope to do with it?

Then they spotted Axrad. One of the ground crew challenged him, and the sound was all the more shocking because of the utter silence of the men up to that point. Taki saw the crippled pilot step forward.

‘Lieutenant Axrad,’ he threw back, ‘Aviation Corps.’

The two men who had gone over to the flier were storming towards him now, and Taki saw that they were also dressed as pilots. One of them growled something, but too low for her to hear what.

Time to go. But she stayed, nonetheless, watching.

For a moment Axrad was angrily dismissing them, pulling rank, facing them down, but then their eyes, both sets, both at once, were turned on Taki.

She could not understand how she had been detected. The two of them had not even been glancing around them.

Abruptly they were moving, and Axrad tried to get in their way, stumbling forward into their path, hands reaching out for them — to grab or to sting, she would never know. She saw a fierce flash of gold, fire leaping from one of their hands, and Axrad was down the next moment, just a crumpled dark heap.

In the next moment she was standing on the ridge of the fence, wings springing from her shoulders. She had a brief glimpse of the flying machine — of its pilot, his goggles turned her way, silent but with a palm directed at her.

She kicked into the air and flew, and knew for sure that they were behind her.

She was faster and smaller, and their night vision was not the equal of hers, but if she had needed to head for any of the usual airfields, she was sure they would have caught her. She spotted three of them in pursuit, but she had the feeling that the city was bristling with other eyes, that there were hordes of them converging on every likely spot. She concentrated on sheer speed, zipping across the city with no clear destination: just putting distance between her and them, then doubling back, reading the web of streets with a navigator’s eye, just as she would if she were piloting over the city, and getting her bearings by long-honed instinct.

There had been not a shout when they took off after her, not an alarm bell or warning cry.

She found the Esca and dropped straight onto it, throwing open the cockpit and almost falling into her seat. One lever disengaged the wing safeties, nudging gear trains in so that their teeth meshed. Another A sting blast crackled from the roof beside her craft, a long-range shot. She thought, They’ve found me, but she felt a horrible certainty that whoever was shooting at her was not one of the men from the airstrip, but some new enemy, brought down on her by.. what?

No time to ponder that. She threw another lever and all that stored power in her Esca ’s springs slammed the gears into motion, slapping the wings down, throwing the entire craft vertically up in the air. Then the oscillators were hammering with their comforting rhythm and the wings were ablur on either side of her, thrusting the flying machine forward between the buildings of Capitas and the stars.

It had been a short visit, she reflected, but instructive, and she had made sufficient impression that she guessed the locals did not want her to leave. She slung the Esca sideways in the air until her compass read south, and decided to play dodge over a swathe of the South-Empire, to lose any other machines, before turning east for Collegium and what these days counted as home.

Laszlo’s family had once performed a series of services for Stenwold Maker, ending in an arrangement which was continuing to this day and which had resulted in a number of technical advances in Collegium, including the feted New Clockwork. Having shared some remarkable adventures with Maker, and after his family hung up the trappings of their previous profession to become respectable merchants and members of Collegiate society, Laszlo had presented himself to Stenwold again, saying, Make use of me.

It was not patriotism that had driven him, for he had no strong attachments to anything aside from family. It was not a nose for profit either; his instincts in that direction had been telling him to run in the other direction. He and Stenwold Maker had gone through a great deal together, though: privation, fear and wonder that neither would forget. Laszlo was young, and a chancer by nature, not one to settle for the quiet life. Becoming an agent of Collegium when rumours of war were hanging heavy over every city in the Lowlands seemed a good way to keep his hand in, and Solarno a better place than most.

The early morning sun had set fire to the waters of the Exalsee, fierce as summer even on a spring day, so that the half-dozen ships out there were mere silhouettes, cruising in towards Solarno docks as they took in sail and prepared to weigh anchor. A few flying machines droned overhead: a decent-sized fixed-wing bringing in small-packet cargo, a smallish airship for heavier freight and a little spotter heliopter, off to pry into someone else’s business, no doubt.

As Laszlo watched, a new shape skittered across the sky, tracing a long arc out over the water and then banking into a ridiculously sharp turn that sent it scudding back over the city. The sun painted it a deep metallic red, even at this distance, its body resembling a hook balanced between two blurred wings. One of the famous Firebugs, Solarno’s new pride and joy.

Laszlo kicked off into the air himself, out of the window of his garret lodgings, down the tiered slope of the city towards the waterfront, lazily tacking to avoid other Fly-kinden or the occasional Dragonfly. It was a few hours after dawn, and the city was still sluggish, for sleeping late was a Solarnese tradition.

There was a cool breeze coming off the lake, and Laszlo leant into it, changing his course abruptly to hang out over the Exalsee and enjoy it, dipping almost low enough to reach down and trail his fingers in the water. Out further from the shoreline there were aquatic denizens that would have made him regret that, but they would never come so close to the city. The water was clear and inviting enough that he almost decided on an impromptu dip; only the reaction of the others, if he turned up drenched from head to foot, dissuaded him. Ridicule was a game they played constantly with one another here and he had no wish to hand out any free ammunition.

He changed bearings with a thought, angling back towards the land just as the Firebug had done. Even as he did so he spotted another three of the new fliers cutting across the sky, heading out over the lake in formation. Perhaps they were off pirate-hunting, or keeping an eye on one of the other city-states, but Laszlo suspected that it was all about nothing but showing off. That was another long-held Solarnese tradition.

He was still going at a fair rate as he nipped in through the open frontage of the Taverna te Remi, fast enough that he needed a tight circuit of the common room to burn off speed before he could drop down into his seat, as theatrical a piece of self-promotion as any native Solarnese could wish. The other three were already there, which was good because being the last to turn up was worth extra points. It showed that you didn’t need to work at the job; that you already had everything under control.

After the war, having taken advantage of the Empire’s commitments elsewhere to reclaim its pawned freedom, Solarno had been left in an odd position. For those very few families deeply involved in the city’s governance, this was mostly important because of the unbalancing effect it had on Solarno’s party system, with the formerly dominant Crystal Standard becoming almost an irrelevance, whilst the once-marginal Path of Jade — and several other minor parties — had gained a great deal of influence. To everyone else, and to anyone with a grain of common sense, the liberation of the city had set a clock in motion. How long now until the Empire took its revenge?