The Air War (Shadows of the Apt 8)

by Tchaikovsky, Adrian

  The damaged Farsphex turned across the city, and if it had simply flown straight she might have fallen behind, her motor already flagging, but it was turning back towards its allies, for a moment a slave to its own tactics. Taki opened up.

  For the third time she nearly killed Taxus, but this time he held himself back from her line of shot, and then the two of them enjoyed a few seconds of filling the sky around the wounded craft with bolts.

  She saw their target lurch and shudder, and suddenly there was a thin line of smoke coming from somewhere around the midsection. Then Taxus peeled off abruptly, again plainly assuming she would simply follow him, and putting himself maddeningly in the wrong place because of it.

  Because it’s what he’s used to—

  The sensation was like being punched repeatedly in the back. Three – four – five solid strikes into her Esca by the avenging enemy, then her target, though smoking, was getting away—

  From the sun, from nowhere, Franticze fell on it, a dive so steep that it was doubtful whether she could even pull out of it before making yet another hole in the city she was supposed to be defending. Taki had a brief sense of her swift descent, and then the damaged Farsphex was at last beyond any help its comrades could give it, virtually breaking in half in the air, with the rear segment exploding savagely before it could reach the ground.

  Then the Esca’s own engine stuttered, and abruptly she had to focus merely on staying in the air, a task that was increasingly difficult. Taki dragged on the stick again for height, and this time the orthopter could not oblige her, dropping her to street level unexpectedly, so that her left wing clipped some magnate’s roof garden and the far half of it disintegrated. Then the cobbles themselves were coming right at her, and she could only back with what wings she had left, and release the landing gear, and hope.

  Stenwold stared around the table a little blearily. Nobody had got much sleep since yesterday’s attack, and the Collegium War Assembly was looking more like exhumed corpses than the great and the good, just then. To his left was Corog Breaker, ready to report on their aviators. He was pushing them too hard, Stenwold knew, but it was hard to tell him that because Corog was pushing himself hardest of all. He looked ten years more than his real age: a man whose job had been teaching fencing to children, now trying to rise to the challenge of coordinating Collegium’s air defence.

  Jodry Drillen sat at the table’s far end, out of bed with the dawn after a late night with the paperwork. Although the war dominated, the business of the Assembly was more important than ever. Even with everyone nominally pulling in the same direction the paperwork proliferated. He had at least thought ahead about this meeting, if only for his own comfort. He had dragged most of his household staff along to this close, high-windowed room at the Amphiophos, where they circulated with honeybread and spiced tea.

  There was a scattering of other Assemblers there, a piecemeal selection of those who were responsible for the logistics of the war: merchants, clerks, academics. No doubt all the questions of the day would be answerable only by those who had not made it to the meeting. Two of the War Assembly were dead, killed in the bombing, and neither had left adequate notes.

  Filling out the table were all three commanders of the Merchant Companies: Marteus the Ant sat pale and still as a statue. Elder Padstock sipped at her tea left-handed, her right still bandaged from the burns she had sustained trying to get people out of the wreckage of their homes. Janos Outwright, a plump, moustached Beetle who had never looked this far ahead when setting himself up as a chief officer, gripped the table just to stop his hands trembling. On Outwright’s left there was a stocky Beetle College Master named Bola Stormall, one of the two to donate a name to the Collegiate orthopter model, and a leading aviation engineer; next to her was a newcomer, a dun-skinned Ant who had arrived with messages from their allies in Sarn.

  Stenwold realized that they had all been sitting here staring dully at one another for far too long, each one willing someone else to speak. ‘Corog, tell us about yesterday,’ he managed to intervene.

  Breaker grunted. ‘We lost seven orthopters, four pilots. The chutes are lifesavers, literally, given that most of ours have no Art for flying. If the Empire comes tomorrow, then we’re that many craft down. If they leave the same sort of gap then we can repair and replace in order to keep our numbers high – we can have another five or ten maybe, over and above yesterday’s numbers, if we call up the next class of pilots – and we’ve more being trained.’ Untried machines, untried aviators, were the words he did not say.

  ‘That doesn’t sound too bad,’ Jodry murmured.

  ‘Because of them and their tactics,’ Corog Breaker spat bitterly. ‘Jodry, they’re not trying to shoot us down. Given the number of armed orthopters up there, it’s nothing more than a slapping war for our pilots so far. The enemy . . . their priority is keeping themselves alive. They organize in the air, but it’s to defend each other, rallying against any attack so that our people have to break off or else commit suicide. All of our losses have been people caught by surprise or people pushing their luck. The Wasps are prioritizing targets on the ground, and they’re being cursed successful with it, too, but they’re playing very safe against our fliers. It won’t last.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jodry himself probably understood, Stenwold reckoned, but he asked the question so that everyone was clear.

  ‘They’re on the defensive so far. If they turn that discipline into an attack, they’ll cut a bloody swathe through us. We’ll take more of them than we have so far, for certain, but, if they come three or four days on the trot with the idea of smashing us in the air, they could strip us of every orthopter we’ve got, for a loss of perhaps half as many of their own, maybe less. They’ll do it, too, because if it makes sense to me, it makes sense to them.’

  ‘Assuming they hold their own lives so cheap,’ Outwright put in, desperately. Nobody could be bothered to answer him.

  ‘What about Taki?’ Stenwold asked softly.

  ‘Conscious now,’ Corog said curtly. ‘Possibly concussed. Confined to bed under protest while our engineers patch up her machine.’

  ‘Ah, well, then,’ Jodry said, with false heartiness. ‘To happier matters: what about our prize? Stormall?’

  Bola Stormall started on hearing her name. ‘Still on fire,’ she got out, and took a swallow of tea. ‘Willem had it brought to the workshop, but he’s letting it burn.’

  ‘A little, ah, wasteful?’ Jodry pressed.

  ‘We put most of it out, and I’ve got a lot of broken pieces to pick over – but Willem has a pack of artificers and chemists who reckon they can get something out of the rest, so we’ve left it to burn,’ Stormall visibly sagged even as she spoke. ‘We already know their big trick, the fixed-to-mobile-wing business, from that Taki woman. Which, of course, gives them enough range that we’ve still not found their airfield, I understand.’

  ‘We’re still looking,’ Corog growled. ‘We think they must move it around.’

  ‘Nobody’s criticizing you, Corog,’ Jodry said, raising his hands placatingly. ‘Next?’

  ‘My men are still holding Banjacs Gripshod under house arrest, which is starting to get tiresome,’ Janos Outwright thrust in, before Jodry could continue. ‘He says he wants to fight the Wasps, too. Why not let him, rather that than waste people keeping him indoors, especially given the death machine or whatever that takes up half his house?’

  Jodry made placating gestures. ‘I’ll deal with it,’ he said. ‘I’ll speak to him myself. Whatever. Now, next on the agenda – by which I mean the list I have inside my head – news from Sarn.’

  Nobody had been given the opportunity to sound out the Sarnesh messenger before the meeting. The young Ant had turned up at the gate only moments before and been ushered into this august company without introductions. It was a misstep that Jodry would not have made under normal circumstances.

  The Ant-kinden looked as weary as they all felt, but he stood up stiffly to
deliver his report. ‘Sarn sends to its allies in Collegium the news that the fortress at Malkan’s Folly has fallen to the Imperial Eighth Army, which has now continued its advance towards Sarn. The Empire has deployed various new weapons, the nature of which are not wholly understood. Sarn is not in a position to tender any substantial aid to Collegium in its time of trouble.’

  The Collegiates absorbed this.

  ‘New weapons?’ Stenwold prompted. ‘You mean their orthopters? The artillery and the automotives we saw at Myna?’

  ‘No, Master Maker, we do not,’ the Sarnesh told him, and for a moment there was a slight uncertainty in the Ant’s level tone. ‘Some weapon was used to clear the survivors of the fortress garrison from the underground bunkers. Those that escaped make a . . . disturbing report. A new weapon, its nature unknown.’ The Ant spoke the words with his eyes fixed straight ahead, and Stenwold wondered what mental images he had inherited from those who had escaped the doomed fortress.

  ‘Well, the upshot of that is clear enough, anyway,’ Jodry rumbled. ‘We’re on our own. What else? Other business?’

  ‘Yes,’ Stenwold said flatly, as the Ant sat down. ‘Corog, may we take it that the ground damage from yesterday’s attack was similarly precise?’

  ‘They knew what they were doing,’ Breaker confirmed. ‘Several workshops were damaged, all of them contributing to our war preparations in some way. The packing plant on Stoner Street that was turning out rations is gutted entirely. Plus a number of private residences, probably simply bad luck, for the most part. The worst blow was the fuel depot. We’re lucky that our fliers are all clockwork, but we were relying on the fuel for our automotives, for when the Second get closer. Nobody knows if we can refine more in time.’

  Stenwold nodded because all this was preamble, and he had already put plans in motion to deal with the problem. ‘I have sent to certain . . . allies of mine who may be able to procure a supply,’ he said carefully, catching Jodry’s eye. ‘I’m not sure if it’s possible, but they have a sample of what we lack and, if they can produce it, they will.’ The Sea-kinden, his little secret, had some remarkable Art to produce both raw materials and finished goods, but mineral oil fuels might yet be beyond them.

  There were plenty of questions about that, of course, but he waved them away. ‘Meanwhile we have a more pressing problem. It’s plain the Empire has spies aplenty in Collegium, despite all we’ve done in the past to thin their ranks. They’re feeding the Imperial air force information, telling them where to strike. So we need to take action.’

  ‘You’ve identified these spies?’ Stormall asked him hopefully.

  Stenwold shook his head. ‘We are the victims of our own open society, and the industry that they prey on can hardly be kept a secret. We need to take a sterner line. I want every Wasp-kinden in the city under lock and key by tomorrow evening, first for questioning and then exile.’

  There was a pause as the others considered this. Raking the table, Stenwold caught as many eyes as possible. You know I’m right, he thought, as though he was an Ant and could place the words in their minds.

  ‘Stenwold, you do know that most of their people will just be Beetle-kinden, or Flies – no shortage of either in the Empire,’ Jodry remarked mildly.

  Stenwold shrugged. ‘The Wasps don’t trust “lesser races” as much as you think. Somewhere there will be a Wasp holding their leashes. We can cut the head off the Rekef operation in Collegium by this single step. We need to deny them every advantage we can.’

  His gaze was fixed on Jodry now, but the Speaker for the Assembly was not discomfited.

  ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so,’ the fat Beetle replied, and then managed a wan smile. ‘That’s not the Collegiate way, Sten.’ He looked brightly about the table. ‘Any other business?’

  ‘I want a vote,’ Stenwold demanded flatly.

  Jodry went quite still. ‘Now, come on, Sten.’

  ‘We are Collegium, and we are ruled by the vote, so let us vote, those of us here.’ Stenwold looked about the table, judging and measuring. ‘I say that our city will be safer if we rid it of Wasp-kinden. I say that questioning those same Wasps may even lead us to this cursed airfield. We can’t afford to ignore the opportunity. Put it to the vote.’

  ‘Stenwold, we cannot simply have people arrested – some of them citizens, even – without cause.’

  ‘We have cause,’ Stenwold retorted more sharply. ‘The Empire has given us that cause.’ He tried to make a sort of ghastly joke of it. ‘Are you worried this will cost you at the next Lots?’

  ‘No, Stenwold, I am not,’ Jodry snapped. Abruptly he heaved himself to his feet, jowls quivering. ‘I do, however, refuse to be the Speaker who opens that door.’

  ‘Then we can take it that you vote against.’ Stenwold was standing too, and the rest of the table just stared, seeing these two gears of state, which had run smoothly together for so long, abruptly clashing teeth. ‘I vote for.’ He turned to Corog Breaker. ‘You?’

  ‘For,’ Breaker said bluntly.

  The merchant beside him looked from Stenwold to Jodry. ‘I abstain.’

  Several others followed his lead, with one for and one against before the matter came to Bola Stormall, the aviation artificer.

  ‘War Master, I have followed your lead for a long time,’ she said, although there was no warmth in her voice. ‘I flew against Vek. I crewed on the Triumph when the Wasps came here last. I’ve worked to your plan now and, between me and Willem and Taki, we’ve got our orthopters off the ground. I will not be part of this.’

  ‘Bola—’ Stenwold started, but she held him off with a single gesture.

  ‘Do not, Stenwold,’ she warned. ‘I have relatives in Helleron who told me what life was like there under the Empire, during the last war, the imprisonment and disappearances.’

  ‘Yes,’ retorted Stenwold. ‘The Wasps torture people and impale them on spears. I’m talking only about arrest and exile. You can’t compare—’

  ‘The rule of just law makes us who we are, and I am not the only one who has been wondering if we might have made more ground with the Wasps had we not painted them as irredeemable villains.’

  Makerist, Stenwold heard the word, from his memories. ‘You’ve been listening to students too much,’ he told her.

  ‘Well, perhaps they’re actually learning something useful for a change,’ she retorted. ‘Besides, you’ve heard yourself that half the army marching along the coast is Spider-kinden. There are perhaps two dozen Wasps at most within the city, but there are hundreds of Spiders, entire generations of them. Will you round them up as well, adults and old women and children, when the spying doesn’t stop? And what then?’

  Stenwold stared at her, feeling his will strike hers, hammer to hammer. ‘That’s not what I’m proposing—’

  ‘—today,’ she finished for him. ‘Against, Stenwold.’

  He took a deep breath. It doesn’t matter, he told himself, because now there were the three Merchant Company officers. ‘Elder?’

  ‘For.’ Elder Padstock of the Maker’s Own Company, her vote never in question.

  ‘Janos?’

  The squat little Assembler looked from Maker to Jodry, his moustache quivering. ‘I, in all conscience . . .’ He had taken on his current mantle as one of a line of stunts intended to garner the popularity of the masses, and to ensure his own continuing good fortune. Now he looked as though he bitterly regretted it. ‘Abstain, I abstain.’

  Stenwold nodded equably, because that didn’t matter either. ‘Marteus?’ he asked, with finality.

  ‘There is a Wasp-kinden in my Company,’ the renegade Tarkesh said quietly.

  Stenwold blinked at him.

  ‘He has lived here for more than ten years. He’s a mason,’ Marteus continued, ‘and he wants to fight the Empire more than anyone. Of course, I can understand that. If those sanctimonious turds from Tark were at the gates, well, I’d be first in line to throw them back, as you can imagine.’ He met Stenwold’s eyes r
eadily. ‘Of course, by these lights, you’d have locked me up by that point. A man’s not his kinden, and a man’s not his city-state.’

  A delicate span of silence held the room for a few seconds, before Jodry said, quietly and without acrimony, ‘Even for and against: the vote is not carried. Stenwold, I’m sure that you will continue to use all conventional measures to deal with the spies we undoubtedly have, spotting who’s being too nosy, working out how they’re exporting this intelligence of theirs. We have all faith in you. Any other business?’

  Nobody had any more to say.

  That night, Taki woke abruptly out of a dream in which she was being chased through the streets of Collegium by the Tarkesh halfbreed Taxus and, no matter where she flew, he always appeared ahead of her, as preternaturally knowledgeable as the Imperial pilots.

  Waking, she gasped, clutching for the sudden understanding that had shocked her out of sleep. One of the medical orderlies, some Beetle-kinden student volunteer, was hurrying over, and she realized that she most have shouted aloud.

  She swung her legs out of bed before the Beetle got to her, but a sudden wave of dizziness prevented her making a quick escape.

  ‘Back into bed, please, Mistress Taki,’ the young man insisted. ‘Not until Doctor Findwell gives you the nod.’

  ‘Get off me!’ she snapped. ‘I need to speak to Stenwold.’ She made to kick off and take to the air, but a moment later realized that she really wasn’t ready for that after all, as the world swam and shuddered before her eyes. ‘Get me the War Master,’ she insisted. ‘Or get a message to him. Get me pen and paper, anything. I’ve worked it out. I know how they’re doing it. I know the secret of the Empire’s pilots.’

  She was already staggering determinedly away, ready to rouse the whole Assembly if need be. ‘And get me Taxus!’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘I need to shake his cursed hand!’