A chorus of understanding crammed the coms.
‘Do you understand, Hal-X?’
‘I’m hurt, Flight Com. Do I have the cap?’
‘Confirmed, Hal-X. Flight Com out.’
‘Inferno-X, Hal-X flying skipper for the inbound cortege escort mission. Yes, kids, I have the honour cap. Orders, orders. Triple height staggered chevron. Val-X and ChevronOne at a thousand; Step-X and C-Three at fifteen hundred; HalX and C-Two at two thousand. Form up, IX, let’s show them what the best drake squad in the world looks like.’
Max rose to two thousand and watched Inferno-X form up. Valera and C-One peeled off left, diving in a long shallow circle. C-Three mirrored the move, climbing right and up. Both chevrons moved into perfect position simultaneously. It was simple and beautiful; not a wing beat was wasted. White scales glittered in the bright sun, drake roars and calls filled the sky and Martha returned the cry. His private com clicked open.
‘Good work, Hal-X. Keep it tight. I’m here if you need me.’
‘Copy, Skipper.’
Max relaxed into the flight, feeling the rush of air as Martha powered forwards, and the vibrations of her wing beats massaging his body through the modulations in the pouch. Martha’s mind-touch was like a comfort blanket, reading and reacting to his micro-movements. Using her senses meant opening his mind to her a fraction, and it was seductive: she was always there wanting more, tempting him with images of freedom and power. One day she’d get what she wanted, and he’d Fall. Martha grumbled, sensing his briefly sombre mood.
Max used Martha’s eyes to glance left and right at his eight- strong chevron, using his mind to suggest the movement and seeing what she saw projected in his visor. He remembered the first time he’d done that, back in the training days. He’d been so confused by what he was seeing that he’d all but flown the poor drake into the ground. Now it was easy, filtering Martha’s view and adding his own to give him all-round vision.
‘Inferno-X, HalX. We’re in the cruise. Maintain formation and course. You all look beautiful.’
‘Aw, shucks, Max,’ said Borini. ‘Makes me go all gooey inside.’
‘“Shucks”, Bor-X? Really? Holy Mother, where did you dredge that up?’ asked Jes-X.
‘I have depths of linguistic skill others only dream about, Jessy,’ said Borini.
‘Keep it well hidden, don’t you?’ said Nuge-X.
‘All right, all right,’ said Max. ‘Let’s focus.’
Max relaxed further, letting Martha ride the thermals and keeping her dead-on north. The next battlefront, where the behemoths of United Europa and Mid-Af would clash, was a hundred and fifty klicks south, just a couple of days’ standard march for a behemoth. More land to slash, burn, and then own – and turn into vast, fertile croplands – if you cared about that. Max supposed he did, but mostly he cared about the next fight: lighting up enemy drakes, toasting enemy grunts and later, leading the celebrations at the victory party.
Ahead it was all blown sand, dust and scorched earth. But there was brightness on the northern horizon; water glittering under the sun. It was probably still dyed red from the blood washing off the Mediterranean beaches. That had been some battle.
Max and Martha looked around; Inferno-X was still alone in the sky. He had half-expected them to be shadowed by now, most likely by forces from the Samba bloc. They had the impressive Águila and Relámpago squadrons but there was no evidence of them so far.
‘Inferno-X is approaching the target zone,’ said Max.’ Orders, orders. C-Three, three-sixty sky-watch for enemy specks. CTwo, we’re on friendly drake watch. C-One, eyes open for vortices in the dust. HalX out.’
Max was enjoying the minimal stresses on the pouch, just the gentle push from the wings. This was as close to weightless as a drake pilot could get. Martha cruised above the sand and dust, and the relative quiet, for a moment, was wonderful. Then his earpiece, set into the hood of his suit, crackled.
‘Vortices ahead, bearing three-five-five,’ said Valera. ‘Big enough to be our target. Anything from Flight Com, HalX?’
Max couldn’t see anything in the dust from his height, but on the horizon he could just see three black dots: the LumièreCs. They were flying a wide holding pattern, definitely a guard formation.
‘Nothing yet, Skipper. I’ve got spots ahead.’ Max opened his squad com. ‘Inferno-X, we have vortices ahead at three-five-five and closing, specks in guard formation above them. Val-X, stay in formation and descend into the cloud; confirm target by sight.. HalX out.’
‘Copy, Hal-X,’ said Valera. ‘Leading descent.’
Max watched C-One disappear into the murk, following the vortices in the cloud formed by sprinting ground lizards, and the more confused eddies associated with the lumbering pace of larger, multi-legged constructs.
‘Step-X, maintain course, eyes open for incoming targets.’
‘Copy, HalX,’ said Stepanek.
CTwo, follow my lead and keep the chevron tight. We’re going to relieve Lumière-C the way only IX can.’
Max angled Martha into a climb to get himself and C-Three two hundred metres above the Lumières. Martha’s senses confirmed his chevron were in perfect form behind him. He cruised in a wider circle directly above the three dull brown Lumières who were flying a standard sentry formation, a hundred metres above the sand cloud. No doubt they’d seen the incoming Infernos and were off-guard. They really should have known better.
‘C-Three, we’re going straight through their formation, pull a loop and settle in their wake. Easy stuff. On me, let’s go in three.’
Max imagined noise and Martha bellowed, her jaws dripping saliva, some of which blew back across his visor and was whipped away by the wind. Max leaned forward, his arms tight, and straightened his body head to toe. Martha dived, her form arrow-straight and her wings tight to her sides. Her speed was incredible and the air screamed past, whistling through her furled wings and singing along her tail.
Max trimmed his direction as he closed on the Lumière drakes, his smile broadening with every heartbeat. He’d calculated it perfectly, of course. Martha was on collision course with his target and the Lumière would be unable to evade him. Max laughed, pulse racing.
‘You’re coming in too close, Max,’ said Kullani. ‘Ease down.’
‘I’ve got this, Kul-X. You’ve all got clear air, that’s what matters.’
‘It’s gonna cost you if you hit.’
‘I’m not hitting anyone.’
With the Lumière’s scales large in his vision, Max twisted his body and Martha barrel-rolled past, missing the brown drake by a hair. Max and Martha roared with delight.
C-Three screamed through in his wake and he led them into a tight loop that finished with them right on station.
‘Oh, we are on rails today,’ purred Max. He opened his com. ‘Lumière-C, you are officially relieved. Inferno-X has the reins.’
The coms lit up with furious shouts and threats.
‘Hey, that’s how the greatest squadron in the world flies. Lessons offered. Spaces still available.’
The Lumière drakes peeled away, heading west towards the Steelback. Max could still hear them muttering their threats, their drakes taut in the glide.
‘Holy Mother, Max,’ said Losano.
‘I know. Perfect, weren’t we? Orders, orders. Mont-X, Nuge-X, RedX, take sentry. The rest of you with me.’
Max dove through the dust cloud, levelling out sharply at fifty. Ahead he could see the Marshal Gen’s cortege and it was properly impressive; a Komodo One, surrounded by Iguanas, Geckos and Basilisks. The chatter on the waves was still hot and his earpiece crackled insistently.
For the moment, he ignored it, choosing to bring his chevron in close to the Komodo One.
‘C-Three is sky-high on lookout, C-Two on mid-sentry, COne on close quarters patrol. InfernoX has arrived,’ said Max. ‘Skipper, I think we’ve introduced ourselves.’
‘You’re an idiot, Max. I’ve got Moeller in one ear an
d the Marshal Gen in the other and neither is impressed.’
Max sighed. ‘Copy, ValX. My holy arse but there’s no sense of humour or style any more, is there?’
‘You do remember who we’re guarding here? Val-X out.’
Martha’s warmth filled his mind. At least she’d enjoyed it. Below Max, the cortege spread across two kilometres of NorAf desert. It looked more like a relief force than a guard. Perhaps it was.
Max stared at it, trying to work out where Marshal General Solomon would be riding. Right in the centre was the Komodo Class One. It was about a quarter the size of a behemoth like the Heart of Granite and was designed as a troop carrier, or as a stupidly slow and vulnerable mobile hospital. It was lumbering along on its twelve pairs of legs, leaving Max wondering why any patient in their right mind would take a bed there. Better to die in the sand than puke your last in that thing.
The chances of the Marshal Gen being on it were minimal. It was escorted by half a dozen Geckos, the standard ground assault lizard. It was probably full of her luggage or something.
Four iguana support carriers were travelling at the major compass points around the komodo. They looked like miniature behemoths with their similar shape, and ability to carry two hundred people in their spine and bone pods either side of the gut. The Marshal Gen was most likely in one of them – unless she was riding a Basilisk. He had to suppress a chuckle at the thought. There were about fifty of the supremely fast runners though, unlike their mythological namesake, they couldn’t turn anything to stone. Max felt that was a genuine omission. Tweakers always missed out the really important stuff.
Nope, it had to be an Iguana. His money was on the one to the north.
Max brought C-Two into a low pass across the Geckos, each of which was carrying around thirty elite fighters. Max shuddered seeing the pilot’s pouch. The poor slime-suckers who drove them were face-down in lubricant, breathing through tubes and with their eyes wired into the lizard’s via a sensory mask. They lay at the base of the neck, the pouch protected by thick, armoured scales.
‘Inferno-X, Hal-X. Maintain your chevrons. C-One, maintain proximity to the cortege. C-Three, remain sky-high at a thousand. Give me a four-klick diameter, I want early warnings of any incoming Sambas and Mafs. CTwo, we’re reforming on point above the dust cloud, sweeping east and west. We’re the eyes, nothing gets past us. Let’s fly.’
Max brought his chevron in a tight circle above the cortege, and then shot high and steep back through the cloud and into clear air.
‘Hal-X, Flight Com.’
‘Go ahead, Flight Com.’
‘Patching the Marshal General through. Flight Com out.’
Max had time to blow out his cheeks and feel his nerves echoed in the tremor that ran through Martha’s body.
‘Hal-X, this is Solomon.’
‘Ma’am. It is an honour to fly your guard.’
‘We are aware of your talents without the need for demonstrations. A word of warning: arrogance in pilots is only tolerable because your lives are short and violent. Foolishness is absolutely unacceptable when it risks expensive equipment. Do anything like that again and I’ll ground you.’
‘With respect, Marshal General, I was in total control of my drake at all times.’
There was an icy silence that shredded Max’s good humour. He bit his lip harder with every passing moment.
‘You may be in control of your drake. Do not assume everyone else is.’
‘Understood, ma’am.’
‘Report to me when we reach the Granite.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Before or after I see the Flight Commander?’
‘Even you can work out the chain of command, Hal-X. Solomon out.’
It was a huge honour to have the cap, recognising his talent and standing in the kill tables, and he had a brief moment of worry he might have blown it with his stunt. He quashed it though because no matter what she’d said, Solomon was impressed and you don’t bench your best pilots.
‘Inferno-X, this is Hal-X. We have the honour. Maintain your altitudes and circle on station. The cortege is making best speed to the HoG, let’s try to be patient.’
Max heard some muttering.
‘Come again, Kul-X?’
‘Nothing,’ said Kullani. ‘Pots, kettles, that sort of thing.’
‘Stay focused,’ said Max.
It took every scrap of willpower Max possessed to take his own advice. The cortege was so slow he wondered how the squadron stayed in the air. Fighting the twin enemies of boredom and stalling was no easy task.
Max shrugged his shoulders and Martha rippled her wings. ‘Sorry, Martha, didn’t mean that one.’
Martha’s warmth suffused him as if she understood and they turned a lazy circle to bring the chevron back into position, his movements echoed by C-One and C-Three. Time and again they repeated the manoeuvre while the ground lizards crept along beneath the cloud.
Max took C-Two on another sweep west where the dust was even denser than over the cortege, caught in a trap of thermal activity. Martha’s neck tautened but Max had already seen what she was stretching towards. Away to the west, perhaps three klicks distant, there were vortices in the dust cloud. They were violent and spread over an area of some four hundred metres, approaching at pace: incoming drakes.
‘Flight Com, Hal-X. Confirm position of LumièreC.’
‘Lumière-C is south east of your position, HalX.’
‘Well we’ve got vortices approaching fast from the west. ValX, do you copy?’
‘Copy that. I have the cap, Hal-X. C-Two, angle down and intercept. Let’s see what we’ve got. C-One, C-Three, maintain formation.’
‘Copy, Val-X,’ said Max. ‘Chevron Two on my tail. Eyes open.’
Max tipped his body forwards and Martha swept into a dive.
Chapter 3
At its height in 2247, the global conflict consumed the combined resources of seven power blocs on no less than fifteen different battlefronts. Where the majority fought themselves to a total standstill or negotiated local land split deals, the fronts in the mountains of Eastern UE and Mid-Af went on burning.
Janeth Karupu, Greed, Pride and Global Conflict
Vortices in the dust: an angry storm borne of beating drake wings and the swift passage of sleek reptilian bodies. There were at least thirty drakes approaching; their signatures boiling together, creating a confusing mass of false images and trails in the dust.
‘Dense down there,’ said Schmidt -X.
‘Copy that, Schmiddy,’ said Max. ‘Break in pairs. Let’s drive them down into COne’s flames. Close coms, shout your problems and don’t Fall. Let’s take them out.’
Max switched to personal com ‘You with me, buddy?’
‘In your slipstream, Max,’ replied Kullani, her tone as hard and cold as her drake.
‘I’ll go high. Feel me in there. Vision’s going to be awful.’
‘I hear you.’
They dropped into the dust cloud and with it came their only moment of vulnerability. Martha’s senses dulled while she adjusted to the atmosphere. Max concentrated on focus and calm, and Martha’s wings didn’t miss a beat as they ploughed deeper.
Visibility was down to a handful of metres with dust and sand rattlingon Max’s visor and hissing against Martha’s scales. Max could barely see anything beyond a confusion of eddies and pools in the sunlit grey. Luckily Martha wasn’t reliant on her vision; she could smell her prey too.
Max felt her testing and sampling the air as they powered through the dust, searching for enemies. He saw her head twitch and steady just to her left and Max turned with her.
‘We’ve got a lock,’ he said.
‘I’m with you,’ said Kullani.
The dust was lit up by a bright yellow flare below them to the left. Max could feel the warmth and he heard the scream of an injured drake. He smiled; one enemy down.
In the after-glare, smeared silhouettes of drakes were stamped on the dust like charcoal on paper and
gone the next instant. Max’s mind-link fed him data via Martha’s keen senses, allowing him to assess each drake’s attitude, trim, distance and speed. Flare after flare shattered the gloom around them, their after-glows ricocheting across the dust cloud.
‘One at twenty metres and closing hard on our twelve,’ said Max.
‘Copy,’ said Kullani.
Max let his mind drift fractionally further into Martha’s. He felt her primal urge to hunt and felt her strength of will too, just tamed, just under control. The enemy drake was fifty metres away now. Through Martha he could sense its shape. It was an Águila. Good skills.
‘Split,’ ordered Max.
He drove for the enemy’s neck and suggested fine fire. Martha blew twin beams of tight blue flame. The Águila saw it coming and plunged downwards, where Kullani was waiting. Her drake, flying belly up, grabbed the Águila in its huge hind claws, the great jaws biting down hard on the back of its neck, just below the skull. Its tail fouled an enemy wing, the sharp tip jabbing and tearing.
The Águila shrieked with pain, its pilot losing control and the extra weight of Kullani dragging it down. Flame shot from its jaws, singeing dust and air in a spiral as Kullani pulled it around and around while Max got into position.
‘Now, Kul-X.’
‘Copy that.’
Kullani powered her drake upwards, dragging the helpless Águila with her. As soon as she achieved vertical, she let go, rolling away to the left, leaving Martha right in front of the Águila. Her head was level with the pilot’s pouch and Max was so close he could see his enemy’s eyes widen.
Max suggested wide-angle fire and a wash of deep orange flame enveloped the pilot’s head, the pouch and the base of the Águila’s neck. The enemy drake dropped screeching from the sky, fire raging in its chest cavity.
Max swept past Kullani, who was already hunting for a new target. Flare after flare, blue and yellow and red, added to the confusion in the dust cloud.
Heart of Granite Page 2
