by Brent Reilly
CHAPTER 75
Grandma and the surviving Americans looked relieved to see Billy. The Indians were all either in India or taking the caravan there.
“The Khan put his treasury in big steel boxes too heavy to fly off with, but the survivors broke one open and took all that they could carry. Plus a lot of bombs. So the good news is that the enemy is weighted down. The bad news is they have twelve thousand quads and over one hundred thousand two-wanders. They disappeared west before we could get more eyes on them.”
“Then let’s fly a thousand kilometers southwest tomorrow morning, and start a systematic search for them.”
Except the first day of their search yielded nothing, and Prince did not return. Nor the next day, which really bothered them. Finally, Prince flew in after midnight on the third day and woke Billy up.
"I wondered if you got tired of all the gold, glory, and women," Billy said in greeting while handing the dehydrated quad a leather bag of cold water. "Thought maybe you took up fishing."
"I did," Prince said. "And I caught a whale. I found them near Herat."
Billy blinked like he was spit on. "Herat? But that's way the hell to the south. Our last report had them far to the west, so... oh right!"
"They're gonna intercept the wagon train full of gold as it returns to India," Prince finished his thought.
"They chose to avoid undefeated super-quads and instead snatch tons of gold? But of course they’d do that. Why would they do anything else? Now why didn't I think of that?" He eyed his brother-in-law. "But you did, didn't you? Otherwise, why fly so far to the south?"
"I actually caught one of their outer patrols and followed them back to the main force. The bad news is that pro-Mongolian Indians fleeing northern India have doubled their quad force.”
"This is why I surround myself with those smarter than me," Billy said. "You just saved ten thousand lives."
"Don't bother flattering me. I can't give you children."
"Grandma is gonna flip. She didn't think of it, either. Now go wake up your sister so she knows you’re okay, but don't tell her she snores. It only happens when I’m sleepy.”
Prince looked enormously pleased.
And that’s how a leader turns a rival into a friend, Billy told himself, hoping Prince never learned that Billy had already warned the Indian near-marathoners that he was using them as golden bait.
Knowing where they were and where they needed to go told Billy where to intercept them. He hoped to find them on the ground, preferably at night, but instead Team Red ran into them at high altitude.
Billy found it strange that the enemy made themselves so visible when they had so much cloud cover to hide in, so he looked around and saw movements within clouds on either side of him suggesting two other enemy units. The Mongols obviously wanted to use their superior numbers to negate Team Red’s superior ability by engaging them from three sides. Which was smart. Much smarter than letting Team Red ambush them on the ground.
The problem with flying really high is suddenly flying much higher -- just one heavy breath could leave a quad gasping. But Team Red was used to high altitudes, while the enemy hopefully was not.
So Billy signaled "line formation" while slowing down and climbing higher. The companies behind him quickly lined up on either side of him as the Mongols rose, five hundred meters away.
Each Red company flew in a 10 X 10 box-shaped formation. Slowly rising at a thirty degree angle exposed the enemy to the entire company. All one hundred could now fire instead of just the ten in the front line. Or, rather, all four thousand quads.
The Mongols closed as fast as possible, so Billy signaled to rise backwards at a thirty degree angle. Given the power of their wands, they could fly backwards while firing down almost as fast as the enemy quads could rise using all four wands. Billy's textbook aerial broadside devastated the Mongols. And the higher they rose, the worst the devastation, because Billy's troopers were already acclimated to very thin air, while the Mongols were not. Like rising from deep underwater, the faster they rose, the more it hurt.
The Mongols had four times as many quads, but their front broke under the withering fire before they could get within blasting range. The few survivors dived straight down while they could.
Billy then turned into the Mongols on his left flank who had wind at their back, and therefore would close faster. His formations rotated so everyone had a clear shot, and the turn evened out the distance between the two lines. Still, the Mongols were closer, higher, and approached faster. Billy was unable to have his people fly backwards because of the third Mongol force rising behind him.
So he flashed all four wands to unnerve the enemy and climbed higher to buy his team more time. Their wands had the benefit of higher altitude, but the disadvantage of firing into the wind.
From that angle, only the Mongols in the front line could fire. Billy's fliers could therefore unleash several times the volume while firing from beyond the enemy's range, and were better positioned to dodge blasts without bumping into their neighbors. The enemy broke like cheap pottery.
Having destroyed the Mongols hoping to out-flank them, Billy led his team forward to put distance between the Mongols behind them. Billy turned his fliers to face the remaining Mongols, while leading them gradually higher, suspecting this would leave the Mongols literally breathless. The Mongols had two bad choices: attack or expose their backs flying away. They chose to die fighting. With the wind behind them, Billy's super-quads had no problem shooting them up.
Later, nobody could believe it: what many considered the war’s last battle was a perfect score. This fight would soon became popular at video libraries across the world as an example of the effectiveness of formation maneuvers.
And solidified the Red Baron's legend.
