by Various
Larice adjusted her course, the stick feeling leaden in her grip and the plane responding like she imagined a tank would manoeuvre. They came down through a light dusting of clouds, and there it was, a down and dirty collection of air-defence vehicles, ad hoc runways, quick-fire launch racks and fuel bowsers clustered around a random scattering of landing mats strewn across the ice.
Rimfire was around three kilometres away, but at the rate she was shedding height it might as well have been three thousand. She wasn’t going to make it.
‘I’m short,’ she said. ‘I don’t have enough–’
A slamming wind hoisted her higher, the spiralling tunnel of warm air Laquell had promised her. Her descent slowed and she saw it might be enough. Her Thunderbolt could transition to vertical landing, but without fuel that wasn’t going to be possible.
‘Rimfire Tower, this is Apostle Five, requesting emergency landing clearance.’
‘Apostle Five, confirmed. You are clear to land on runway six-epsilon. Directing now,’ said an echoing voice that sounded like it was coming from inside a small metal box. Looking at the haphazard collection of vehicles gathered beneath arctic camo-netting at the edge of the runway, Larice decided that was exactly where it was coming from.
‘Emergency vehicles are standing by, Apostle Five,’ said the controller.
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, Rimfire,’ snapped Larice, wrestling with the stick as vicious crosswinds and random vector gusts bounced up from the ground. She lowered her claws at the last moment, and fought to bring the nose up before she ploughed straight into the runway.
Her wing claws bit and the nose slammed down a second later. Her speed bled off and the ice-crazed surface of the runway threw up a blinding flurry of ice and snow. She was pretty much blind. Larice threw up her arrestors and slammed on the brakes, feeling the Thunderbolt turn in a lazy skid. The plane slid around until it was pointed back the way it had come, and Larice let out a shuddering breath.
On a runway next to hers, she saw Laquell’s plane touch down and make a point-perfect rollout, managing the slipperiness of the runway with the aplomb of a veteran flyer. He taxied over the ice and parked up ten metres from her starboard wing.
Fitters and emergency ground crew ran over to her plane. One drew a finger over his throat, and she nodded, shutting off her armaments panel and disconnecting her fuel lines – not that there was any fuel left to ignite. She popped the canopy and the cold hit her like a blow. Her breath caught in her throat, the raw ice of it like a full-body slap. Fitters propped a ladder against her plane and she unsnapped herself from the cockpit and climbed down. Someone wrapped her in a foil-lined thermal blanket and she took an unsteady step away from her cream-coloured Thunderbolt.
Long and heavily winged, the Thunderbolt wasn’t an elegant flyer, but it had a robust beauty all of its own. The ivory paint scheme was scarred and smeared with oil and scorch marks where her fuel lines had ruptured. She waved away a medicae, watching as red and yellow-jacketed ground crew milled around her plane, eager to work on a plane belonging to one of the Apostles. She felt a stab of protectiveness towards her damaged bird as fitters began appraising the damage, wincing at the sound of whining power-wrenches and pneumo-hammers.
Armoured plating hung like scabbed skin from its underside, and dribbles of hydraulic fluid and lubricant spotted the ice beneath its belly. A tow rig rumbled towards the planes from a hangar buried beneath ten metres of snow and ice.
She heard footsteps and Laquell’s voice said, ‘Took a beating, but she’ll fly again.’
‘You talking about the plane or me?’ she said without turning.
‘The plane, of course,’ said Laquell. ‘You look just fine.’
She turned and saw him, like her, wrapped in a thermal blanket. He sipped a mug of something hot that steamed in the cold air. He was striking in an Imperial-recruiting-poster kind of way: angular chin, high cheekbones and eyes that radiated trust and courage. His dark hair was cut close to the skull, and he was smiling at her.
‘You want one?’
‘One what?’ she said.
‘Soup,’ said Laquell, holding up his mug and making it sound like a joke. ‘You don’t want a caffeine, you’ll get the jitters, even though the Munitorum actually make a pretty decent brew around here. Soup’ll warm you up and won’t have you bouncing off the flakboard.’
Larice nodded, feeling the strain of her sortie settle upon her. ‘Sure, soup sounds good.’
He handed her his mug and she took a grateful sip. It tasted of hot vegetables and game.
It was the best thing she’d drunk in months.
‘Come on,’ said Laquell, leading her towards the buried hangar. ‘The mess facilities here don’t look like much, but you can get a halfway decent meal and a hot shower.’
‘Now that sounds better,’ said Larice, disarmed by his easy manner and winning smile.
They passed his plane, and Larice saw the kill markings painted on the nose.
‘You have thirty-seven kills,’ she said.
‘Yeah, it’s been a busy day.’
‘You’re a frigging ace,’ she said.
‘So they tell me,’ said Laquell, as if it was nothing.
‘How long have you been flying?’
‘On Amedeo? Two weeks, but I bagged my first kill about six months ago.’
Larice found herself re-evaluating the cocky young flyer, now seeing a combination of skill and natural ability in his flying.
‘And you’ve thirty-seven kills to your name? Confirmed?’
‘Every one of them,’ he said. ‘One’s even on pict-loop in the officer’s quarters.’
‘Nice work,’ said Larice, impressed despite herself.
Laquell nodded, pleased with her compliment, but too much of an aviator to look too pleased. They stepped into the hangar. Out of the winds whipping across the isolated base, the temperature was at least bearable. Inside, a dozen Thunderbolts in the camo-green paint scheme of the 235th sat in a herringbone pattern, attended by an army of servitors and fitters in orange jumpsuits. Gurneys of missiles and heavy boxes of shells threaded their way between the planes, and a robed priest of the Mechanicus, together with his cybernetic entourage, attended to the guts of a partially disassembled aircraft. Its nose was wreathed in fragrant smoke and hot unguents dripped from an exposed turbofan.
As they walked between the aircraft towards the crew quarters, Larice knew she was attracting stares. Word that one of the Apostles had landed at Rimfire had circulated through the base with a speed normally reserved for the pox after a tour of shore leave. Her jet-black flight suit, compact form and girlish good looks didn’t hurt either.
They looked at her and she looked back, counting no fewer than seven aircraft with kill markings indicating that their pilots were aces. And the rest weren’t too far behind. None of them had thirty-seven kills, though. She saw Laquell notice her appraisal, but said nothing.
There was clear order and discipline to the work going on throughout the hangar, a sense of purpose that was common to most air wings, but which was even more focussed than usual. This far out from support, everyone’s survival depended on keeping these aircraft ready to fly and fight at a moment’s notice. Far from being the dumping ground for reckless or deficient pilots, Rimfire was a base where only the best survived.
‘That was a hell of a piece of flying you did up there,’ said Laquell. ‘You and that other Apostle really pulled us out of it.’
‘Quint’s a hell of a flyer,’ she said.
‘That was Quint?’ said Laquell. ‘The ace of aces? Maybe I shouldn’t have cheeked him.’
‘Maybe not,’ agreed Larice, already wondering what Seekan would make of this young, cocksure colt of a pilot. She looked at him and he returned her gaze with a frankness she found unsettling, like she was a target in the reticule of a quad gun sigh
t.
I remember that look, she thought, and that made her mind up.
‘So tell me about that kill, the one on pict-loop,’ she said.
‘Why?’ he said, faintly embarrassed. ‘It’s not that good, and it’s over too quick.’
‘Sounds like a lot of lovers I’ve had,’ said Larice.
‘Seriously, why do you want to see it?’
She smiled and said, ‘Because if I’m going to recommend you to Wing Leader Seekan, then I’ll need to know I’m not going to be making a damn idiot out of myself.’
They always pick the places that used to be magnificent.
The Aquilian had once been the toast of Coriana’s wealthy gadabouts apparently, a grand folly built in opposition to a rival’s hotel further down the city’s main thoroughfare. Which of the two had come out on top was a mystery now, for Archenemy shock troops had destroyed the other hotel in the opening stages of the war. High command had been using it as their lodgings and strategic planning centre, and only an accident of timing had seen them elsewhere when the blood-masked enemy troopers attacked.
Since then, the brass kept on the move.
Which meant the next grandest structure in Coriana was free for the taking.
Processional steps led up to its columned entrance, the space between each column draped with a gold and black flag of the Imperium. Larice led Laquell up the steps and through the cracked marble-floored vestibule, following the booming sounds of martial music. She recognised the tune, Imperitas Invictus, a rousing tune said to have been written for Lord Helican’s triumphal march through the Spatian Gate. It wasn’t a tune played much any more.
‘I can’t believe I’m going to meet the Apostles,’ said Laquell, and Larice was amused at the star-struck quality to his voice. His eyes were bright and his features eager.
‘Then be prepared to be disappointed,’ she said. ‘They’re just pilots.’
‘You don’t see it because you’re one of them,’ said Laquell. ‘They’re more than “just pilots”: they’re legends, warriors of the air, killers of enemy aces. They’re the best flyers in the Navy. And they want me. I think that’s pretty damn fine.’
‘Hold on there, pilot,’ warned Larice. ‘All I’m doing is putting you forward for consideration. It’ll be Seekan’s decision whether to take you or not.’
‘Come on,’ he said, puffing out his chest and tapping the service ribbons on his chest. ‘Look at me. How could they not want me? I expect they’ll offer me a place on the spot.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Larice as the music swelled as a door opened and shut.
‘Are we missing a party?’ asked Laquell, straightening his dress uniform jacket, a deep russet colour with tasteful silver frogging over the shoulders and a stiffened collar of lacquered leather.
Larice didn’t answer.
Her former commanding officer, Bree Jagdea, had told her about the habits of the Apostles, and she knew there was only one reason her new squadron mates would gather like this. She crossed the chequerboard floor and swept down a wide corridor towards a set of walnut-panelled doors. She pushed through them into what had once been a grand ballroom, but was now an echoing empty space hung with blast curtains. Almost every item of furniture was draped in dustsheets, cobwebs laced the spaces between the chandeliers and a faint smell of mildew lurked below the hot crackle of the fire and scent of burning sapwood.
A group of people clad in cream-coloured frock coats gathered around an enormous fireplace. Seven of them, the best and luckiest damn pilots in the Navy.
The Apostles.
They looked small; diminished and alone in a vast space that normally held grand revelries and magnificent dances. The ballroom echoed with unloved music and drunken debate.
Seekan was the first to notice them, turning and favouring her with a quizzical smile. His dark hair was swept back and oiled, his uniform crisp and gleaming with row upon row of medals.
‘Larice,’ he said, crisp like a cold morning. ‘We weren’t expecting you.’
‘Why not?’ she said, glaring at Quint, who perched on a stool opposite Jeric Suhr. A regicide board sat between them. ‘Did you think I was dead?’
‘Not at all,’ said Seekan. ‘We heard the chatter that an Apostle had landed at Rimfire. We knew you were alive.’
‘So why the drink and the dress uniforms?’
‘Because the Rosencranz is gone,’ said Ziner Krone, pushing away from the fire surround and making his way to an isolated drinks cabinet. His dark-skinned cheeks were flushed with amasec and heat. The scar on his cheek twitched and he poured a drink, which he promptly downed. He poured another and thrust it towards Larice with a lascivious grin.
‘Drink it,’ he ordered. ‘Drink to the lost souls of the Rosencranz.’
Larice didn’t want the amasec, but took it anyway. Krone watched her sip it, making no attempt to hide his lingering glance at her chest and hips. He’d propositioned her in the crew barracks aboard the Rosencranz, but Larice had told him where to get off in no uncertain terms. Those days were behind her.
‘The Rosencranz is gone?’ said Laquell. ‘How?’
Krone ignored his question and turned back to the drinks.
Larice had last seen the Munitorum mass carrier when she’d flown her Thunderbolt from its cavernous hold to the planet’s surface. Kilometres long, the mass conveyer was a city adrift in space, a landmass capable of interstellar flight. Bulky and ungainly, it seemed inconceivable that anything so colossal could possibly be destroyed.
‘Who gives a shit?’ snapped Jeric Suhr. He waved his balloon of liquor, spilling some on the board. Quint scowled at Suhr as his wiry opponent rose unsteadily to his feet. Suhr’s chest seemed too narrow to contain all the medals he’d won, and his sharp features were thrown into stark relief by the firelight. ‘Warp core failure, a plasma meltdown, fifth columnists in the dock crews, infiltrators? Who cares, it’s all the same in the end. We’re one carrier and a shitting load of planes and pilots down.’
‘And who the hell is this anyway?’ said Krone, finally acknowledging Laquell’s presence and pouring another drink. ‘This is a private party. For Apostles only. Get out before I throw you out.’
Larice felt Laquell bristle and said, ‘Krone, this is Flight Lieutenant Erzyn Laquell of the 235th Naval Attack Wing.’
‘Ah, the Navy flyboy who hauled your backside out of the fire,’ said Suhr, slumping back onto his stool, though he’d plainly abandoned interest in the regicide board.
‘Shut your mouth, Jeric,’ said Seekan.
‘Well he did, didn’t he?’
‘Flight Lieutenant Laquell came to my assistance, yes,’ said Larice. ‘He has thirty-seven confirmed kills in less than six months of flying time.’
‘Ah, I see,’ noted Seekan, turning away towards the fire. Saul Cirksen, the pilot he’d recruited on Enothis, stood there, nursing his drink. He’d been an Apostle for only slightly longer than Larice, but had already adopted the disaffected mannerisms of his adopted wing. He didn’t look at Laquell, as though he didn’t want to acknowledge his presence, like he was someone who’d go away if only they pretended he wasn’t there.
Likewise Owen Thule and Leena Sharto, the two pilots Seekan had recruited at the very end of the war on Enothis, ignored him. Thule was a big-boned flyer from the 43rd Angels, a pugnacious man with heavy jowls and bushy sideburns. Leena Sharto had been tagged from the 144th Typhoons, and affected an air of disinterest that she couldn’t quite pull off. Larice had tried to get to know them, seeking solace in the solidarity of their shared newness to the Apostles, but none of her overtures had been returned, and she had eventually given up.
‘Larice, am I given to understand that you have brought the Flight Lieutenant here as a potential candidate for elevation to the Apostles?’
‘Yeah, take a look at his jacket and you’ll s
ee what I mean.’
‘I am quite familiar with Flight Lieutenant Laquell’s record.’
‘You are?’
‘Of course he is,’ slurred Krone. ‘You think he’s not always on the lookout for flyers that’ve slipped beneath fate’s gaze? Some lucky bastard who’s fallen off death’s auspex?’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Larice. ‘If you know his jacket, you must know that–’
‘He has the highest flight to kill ratio on Amedeo, greater even that that of Quint here?’ said Seekan. ‘Yes, I am well aware of that.’
Quint looked up from the board at the mention of his name, but said nothing.
‘Then why wouldn’t you invite him to become an Apostle?’ asked Larice.
‘Because the Apostles are a unique group, Larice,’ said Seekan. ‘Even to those newly promoted to its ranks. And every new member dilutes that exclusivity, makes us less select. I know, I know, it makes no sense, of course.’
Seekan turned to his fellow flyers. ‘After all, of the Apostles that went to Enothis, only four of us survive, and by the end of this crusade, I do not expect any of us to be alive. Death is, at heart, a tallyman, and all the books must balance eventually.’
‘He’s a hell of a flyer,’ pressed Larice. ‘I’ve seen captures from his gun-picters.’
‘As have I, Larice, but I sense there is more to this than simply Flight Lieutenant Laquell’s skill in the cockpit.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘He means you like him,’ snapped Suhr. ‘And we don’t need anyone likeable in the Apostles. Only odious shits like me, lechers like Krone or misery magnets like Quint.’
Seekan sighed and said, ‘I’m thankful I was left off that list, but for all his boorishness, Jeric is right. I told Commander Jagdea this, and I’ll tell you too, Larice. It doesn’t do to have friends when you’ve flown as long as us and seen as much death through your canopy as we have. It’s a liability, a weakness that slows you down and clouds your judgement. And you know as well as I, that anything that keeps you from the top of your game in the air gets you killed.’
