Interceptor city, p.6
Interceptor City, page 6
Menomar shrugged. ‘All right,’ he said.
‘All right?’ she asked.
‘I said so, didn’t I?’ He smiled. ‘I know the bag’s just an excuse. You think we’re a team. You don’t want to break up the team. Because you’d miss me. You just won’t say it.’
Jagdea sighed. ‘Just look after my frigging belongings, Menomar.’
He sat back, smirking. ‘See?’ he said. ‘That wasn’t so hard.’
‘Please will you look after my bag as a favour to me?’ she asked quietly, her expression fierce. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Sure,’ he said casually.
‘Good. I’ve got to go.’
She rose to her feet, grabbed her helmet, and put her bag on the table in front of him, planted directly across the open spread of the glory story.
‘Voss?’ he asked again.
‘Yes.’
‘You hate those,’ he said.
‘It’s just a job,’ she replied.
‘But that’s not what’s pissing you off, is it?’ Menomar said.
‘No,’ she admitted.
‘What, then? Jags?’
‘The destination,’ she replied. ‘It’s the destination.’
‘Where have you got to go?’ he asked.
‘Frigging Vesperus,’ she replied, and walked away.
‘Jags!’ he called after her. Everyone in the ready station turned to look.
She stopped, and glanced back at him. ‘What?’
‘Good flying,’ he said.
Strip K, Hymnal 41 Field, 09:14
The Lightning was waiting for her on the hardstand.
Jagdea walked out towards it, helmet swinging from her hand. Light rain spattered across the field at an angle. Low cloud veiled the vast, drab hive-rise beyond the wire.
There were three Lightnings on the pad, the ground crews still milling around them, pumping fuel and running the check lists. The birds sat with their canopies open. Two of them had magazine panels raised, like miniature speed brakes, while the fitters locked in new powercell blocks.
The Voss-pattern (Primaris) was a handsome creature, with aggressive lines, wide, forward-raked wings, and a snarling intake under the snout. It looked like it was yawning wide, about to pounce and chew you up. Given its performance dynamics, that wasn’t far from the truth. The Voss was a fine bird, but you had to know what you were doing, or it would bite your arse and eat you.
Jagdea had enjoyed a lifelong love affair with the Cypra-M-pattern, the smaller, lighter, twin-engine machine from which the Voss had been derived. She had flown them, especially the III-IX, in the early years at Cirenholm and many times since. The Cypra possessed a near perfect mass-to-power ratio. Its twin F100-XB thrust tunnels gave it neck-cracking speed, and its generous wing surface made it a superb manoeuvring fighter. It could race faster and turn tighter than almost anything in the sky. On top of that, it always forgave you. It was constantly lenient with a pilot’s excesses, and supple enough to cushion mistakes. You could bend it through insane multi-gs without it folding up, it seldom flamed out, and you had to actively try to stall it. When a smoke came to a Cypra Light, the Cypra was the veteran, absolving all novice errors and youthful indiscretions, teaching the pilot how to please it, making the pilot a better fight-driver. The functional, fit-for-purpose simplicity of a Cypra extended outwards from the cockpit layout. The instrumentation was stripped back, just the essentials. You didn’t need to rote-learn a fist-thick book to understand the board. Jagdea’s friend, the long-departed Milan Blansher, had once said that you flew a Lightning for the joy of flying.
He’d also said, in the same breath, that you flew a Thunderbolt for the joy of killing. After Cirenholm, in the Urdesh Minor scrap, Jagdea and her flight had switched to Bolts. She’d found them cumbersome at first – bigger, slower, heavier, and plated like ground armour. They were harder to drive well, and much less forgiving, but she’d quickly come to adore them. They were robust and long-limbed, and they shook off the kind of beating that would total a Cypra. What they lacked in speed and agility, they more than made up for in muscle power and heft. By the end of the Urdesh Minor tour, the Thunderbolt had become her weapon of choice. It was an unparalleled multi-role, the quintessential bat-killer, the fightbird of a true gunfighter. Once you learned its ways and its foibles, you could even throw it around like a Cypra. They weren’t quite as nimble, but Jagdea had trusted them, and gained the confidence to bend them way past the book-recommended dynamic envelope. Bolts had been her mainstays ever since. She’d flown them in the Zoph, on Lotun, on Khan IV, and ultimately right smack into the ground on Lyubov.
In the forges of Voss, the Mechanicus adepts had taken the Lightning basic and, using rediscovered STC patterns, bred their surly variant. Like its Cypra cousin, it was agile and fast, capable of outdancing a Bolt, but it packed armour plate like the multi-role, plating so heavy it would make a Cypra whimper and wonder why it was being punished. The Voss-pattern used the same basic air frame, but that’s where the similarities ended. Gone were the twin turbofans, replaced by a single, centre-line Gladius-XV-pattern afterburning turboram. The ram developed almost as much power as the twin fans combined, but the weight differential of one engine rather than two meant that its effective max was higher. It was dangerously fast, with no subtle register. The throttle went from nothing to a sledgehammer-in-the-face unless you were ready and excessively light of touch. The lithe, and perfectly generous, wings of the Cypra had been supplanted by massive forward-rakes, downswept and belligerent. The turning ability of those wings was undeniable, but between them and the mid-mount engine, the centre of balance was too far forward. The Voss was alarmingly nose-heavy. The most common, and almost always terminal, pilot-forced accidents were the results of over-gunning and going arse-up.
That, or the frustratingly high stall speed. Or the ram’s habit of flaming out without warning and for no apparent frigging reason. Or the excruciating lag between the stall limit and vector uptake, an agonising hiccup of thrust-and-lift loss that those in the know referred to as ‘the stumble’. Or the turboram’s low-speed cough, the shuddering bang!-bang!-bang! of an airbreathing engine gasping for breath and aspirating its own fuel. That was known as ‘the choke’. Or the basic dynamic instability of the front-ended platform. Or the fact that Voss Forge had laden the monster with a full suite of logis-systems, which gave it the most over-specced and overwhelming cockpit in the Aeronautica. There was a logis-system or automation for just about everything, which denied the driver a vast range of nuanced manual control, but you couldn’t switch those systems off, because they were essential cogitator management processes, and without them, the pilot could never perform every simultaneous thing necessary to keep the bird stable or, indeed, in the air. It was impossible to fly a Voss manual only. The logis-engines moderated trim and thrust ratios in real time faster than a pilot could do it, and without their constant oversight backing the pilot up, the bird would go into an uncontrollable spin, or a terminal stall, or a choking fit, or drop arse-up, or flame out dead, or any number of other non-ballistic outcomes that didn’t end well for anybody involved.
Voss drivers called the instrument display ‘the headache’ or ‘the seizure’ because of its bewildering complexity and array of indicator lights. Jagdea couldn’t think of another machine that had acquired so many slang terms for so many things that could turn to shit.
Plus, there was a book, and it was two fists thick, and it was essential reading, unless you wanted to forget coming home.
The Voss was a brute. It was a pig to fly, a bastard to handle, a nightmare to learn, and it had a personality, simultaneously snooty and feral, to match. You could take your Bolt home to meet your mother. The frigging Voss would never, ever be your friend.
Still, it looked mean. Jagdea liked that. The Voss had lost the Cypra’s peppy wide-eyed ‘face’. It had an intimidating stance, a threat posture that felt like it was trying to out-menace a Thunderbolt in a display ritual. The Voss wanted to be pack leader, it wanted to be alpha beast, and Old Man Bolt was in its way.
The ground crew bull, a big man in dungarees with arms like hams, walked over to her, wiping the lubricant off his hands on a rag so he could fish out his data-slate.
‘Gumm?’ he asked her.
‘What?’
‘Are you Gumm? Sagittarius Gumm?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Jagdea.’
‘Ah,’ he said. He took her paperwork, read it over, and noted the hand-off on his data-slate.
‘Zero Four-Four,’ he said.
Tail number 044 was her assignment. She walked over to it, smelled the oily stink of it, and looked it in the eyes. Tail number 054, sitting beside her bird, was drab-washed in pale grey undercoat from head to toe, new out of the fitting shop. There clearly hadn’t been time to dress it in the colours of Intercept 66. She presumed that would have to happen on site. Tail 044 and Tail 035, however, were a matched pair, their undersides egg-shell blue, their topsides a deep forest green. Basic intercept two-tone, dark from above, light from below. Both had scarlet stripes across the wingtips. They mounted heavy lascannons either side of the snout, twin-linked Urdesh-pattern K68s, serious firepower that matched a Bolt’s punch and could splash even big prey. But that was all. No hard guns, and nothing on the hardpoint rails, not even drop tanks. The Voss was a heavy drinker, and Intercept 66 was nigh on five thousand miles away, allowing for the indirect routing, which would push the edge of the Lightning’s operational range. Unless there was a stopover, they would be flying in on fumes.
She checked her paperwork. No stopover.
So, no joy-riding, no showboating, no tricks and gimmicks, and definitely nothing in reserve for a tangle. Fair enough. She was just the valet. Done and done.
The lack of hard guns always disappointed her. Bolts had twin lascannons and quad autoguns, all stacked in the nose, and the Cypra M had wingtip las mounts, which afforded a glorious arc of fire, and a hefty ventral autocannon that could ruin anyone’s day. The Voss, with its six hardpoints, was intended as a missile platform, with its heavy twins as backup in case there were any follow-up questions. Jagdea wondered how many canisters of Skystrikes were reaching somewhere as remote as Intercept 66, and how often. Surely not enough to keep these animals in the manner to which they had become accustomed, especially if they were out hunting on a daily basis? A scramble-intercept flight with a regular stream of game would burn through missile stocks. And a scramble-intercept flight had to be light on its feet anyway, with rapid turnarounds. You could replace a powercell or a shell drum pretty fast. Missiles took far longer to hook up.
Somebody, somewhere, hadn’t thought things through. Wrong tool, wrong job. More likely the case, Jagdea decided, was that somebody, somewhere, probably high in the chain, had ordered that something got done, and somebody, somewhere else and lower down, had thrown together whatever was available, without thought to (or, perhaps, actual knowledge of) appropriate warfare application. And someone else, somewhere else, in this case right down the bottom of the chain at Intercept 66, would have to make do, and try to fulfil the top-level demands with whatever they had been given. Inter-urban, fast-response intercept out of a remote and undoubtedly under-resourced deck? Here, have some over-teched missile platforms that are pigs to fly, way too hasty for ultra-tight conditions, and require the highest levels of thorough and specialised technical know-how to maintain. Perfect.
‘I’m frigging glad it’s not my fight,’ she told the bird.
‘Did you speak?’ asked a voice behind her.
Jagdea turned. There was an aviator standing nearby. He was compact, almost stocky, and clad in a grey flightsuit and white pressure vest. The Ryza-pattern helmet under his arm was gloss-black. His face, framed by the leather inner helmet, was odd: bland and flawlessly white, like porcelain. Not a hint of stubble, or scar, or blemish. His expression was entirely neutral, like a doll. Only his eyes, small and blue, had any life. Jagdea was taken aback. His frame and eyes seemed to belong to a middle-aged adult, but his face was that of a child.
‘I…’ she said. ‘I was just talking to myself.’
‘You know what they say about that,’ he replied. His voice was as soft as fur.
‘The first sign, I know.’ She smiled, trying to make it look authentic.
‘Better that than talking to your machine,’ he added.
‘Throne, yes.’ She laughed. Her cheeks burned. When was the last time she’d felt remotely embarrassed?
‘You Jagdea?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Pilot Officer S. Gumm,’ he said.
‘S for Sagittarius,’ she responded.
He frowned. In fact, his face didn’t move at all. Zero expression, except for a slight narrowing of his eyes.
‘How did you know that?’
‘The crew-chief mentioned it.’
‘I tend to avoid using the name,’ he replied. ‘A moment of parental madness. Gumm is fine. Preferred, actually.’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve got Four-Four,’ she said.
‘Five-Four,’ he replied. ‘Mine’s the naked one.’
‘Delivery?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Me too,’ she said. ‘We’ll be coming back together.’
‘You flown a Voss before?’ he asked.
‘A few times,’ she said.
‘Brutes,’ he said, ‘unless you know what you’re doing.’
‘Let’s assume I do,’ she replied.
Gumm crouched down and stared under the wing at the undercart of her bird. ‘You notice that?’ he asked her.
She crouched next to him. There were brand new gear nacelles attached either side of the landing struts. She hadn’t spotted them.
‘I’ve only just started my walk-around,’ she said.
‘Landing claws,’ he remarked. ‘A requested fit-out by Intercept Six-Six. You ever use them?’
‘Ice landings,’ she said. ‘Lotun.’
He nodded. ‘These are the dendritic variant,’ he said. ‘They must be out of their minds up there.’
Jagdea looked at him. She realised what he meant.
‘Dead drops?’ she asked, frowning.
‘That would be my guess.’
‘Shit,’ she said.
‘Very much, and very deep,’ he agreed.
‘Well, not our problem, Gumm,’ said Jagdea.
He shrugged. ‘No, but that might be,’ he said.
The third pilot had just jumped off a cargo-4 and was ambling towards them. He was tall, and he was young, striding the cocky walk of the too-confident-to-know-better in his black suit and flame-yellow helmet. The helmet had a black stripe, front to back.
‘Smoke?’ Jagdea murmured to Gumm.
‘Worse,’ he whispered back. ‘Ace and a smoke.’
‘Is that a thing these days?’
‘It happens here,’ said Gumm. ‘Miracles, born in a bat-rich sky.’
The pilot strode up to them.
‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Good to know you. Tilo Wilzar, pilot officer. Three-Oh-Three Skyknifers… Well, I was, until yesterday. Transferring to Six-Six. Probably my record, they need hot sticks. I’ve been out at Hymnal Eight-One-Eight all summer. Out east, you know? Area Four, right in the brunt. Seen some shit, I can tell you. The swarms. Eight kills, though, so can’t complain.’
He stuck out his hand.
‘Jagdea,’ said Jagdea.
‘Gumm,’ said Gumm.
Wilzar shook with them both. Firm and brisk, and just a hint of assertive power grip.
‘Jagdea, eh? And Gumm, was it? Good to know you.’
His voice was plummy and refined, and he was much taller than either of them. He was also very handsome, with high cheekbones and a strong brow. He reminded Jagdea of someone. As Wilzar began, without invitation, to describe a ‘particularly balls-out tangle’ he’d been in to the deadpan Gumm, she racked her brains to remember who he put her in mind of.
When it came to her, she had to turn away and cover her mouth to disguise her laughter. Wilzar looked like a character on the cover of one of Menomar’s wretched glory stories. Heroic Dogfight Escapades, some shit like that.
‘You all right there, Jagdea?’ Wilzar called.
‘Something in my eye,’ she replied.
‘Well, we’d better get on,’ said Wilzar. ‘Which one’s mine?’
‘Tail Three-Five,’ said Gumm.
‘The one on the end,’ said Jagdea.
‘Bloody beautiful,’ Wilzar replied, and rubbed his hands.
‘Eight kills, then?’ said Jagdea, her composure recovered.
‘That’s right,’ Wilzar replied proudly.
‘But surely… your first tour?’ she asked. ‘You seem very young.’
‘It’s been a busy summer,’ he said. ‘Baptism of fire. The Emperor has blessed me. First tour, garlanded with glory.’
‘How many hours?’ Gumm inquired quietly.
‘All told, Gumm? Three hundred and some.’
‘On the Voss?’ asked Jagdea.
‘No, Jagdea. In the Knifers, we flew Bolts.’
He kept using their names. It seemed like familiarity, but she knew it was a power thing.
‘But you’ve put in time on the Voss?’ she pressed.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Wilzar. ‘Twenty hours. I got myself fully rated.’
‘Twenty hours… upstairs?’ she asked.
‘No, simulator, Jagdea. But I made them set it to high dynamics, the full shake. Didn’t want to get caught napping.’
‘No one wants that to happen,’ said Gumm, without any inflection at all.
‘Well, shall we get lifted?’ Wilzar asked. ‘Our slot’s coming up.’
‘Oh, let’s,’ said Jagdea.
‘Yes, let’s,’ agreed Gumm.
Wilzar shot them a smile and snatch-away salute, and marched off towards his bird.
