turning the Esca almost on a wingtip. The Farsphex she had gone after had simply run for it — no attempt to double back or engage — but two of its comrades were right on top of her. They had underestimated how nimble her little machine was, and for a moment the three of them shared an uncomfortably small patch of sky as she bolted back between them. Then she had negotiated another turn, feeling every stay and bolt of the Esca thrum with it, and she was behind them, opening up with her rotaries, scoring a few desultory hits as her target — the leftmost — slid sideways in the air out of her sights. The other Wasp craft lifted away, seeking height, but Taki knew she had time to pin its friend down before it could come back for her Except that its other friend, the one she had originally marked, was already returning to the fray, its line on her imperfect but enough to put her off her attack, the flashing hail of its bolts forcing her to abandon her own assault and pull away. Craning over her shoulder, peering past the sleek flank of her machine, she saw the three of them regroup into formation, not coming after her but seeking out their ground targets.
She swore. It was a display of coordination such as she had never seen, not in Solarno nor here, certainly not amongst Imperial pilots. She was struck painfully by the way they handled their machines: not superlative skill but a purely workmanlike ability, such as any Apt artisan or footsoldier could have learned, save that they worked together so well that Corog Breaker would weep to see it.
Taki cut a wide arc over the city, trying to take stock of the fluid situation. The field she had lifted off from was unbombed, and she saw that the Mynans — their red-painted Stormreaders identifiable even at this distance — were sallying out over the city. Some of the Collegiate machines were still circling, waiting to stave off the next bombing run, whilst others were heading across the rooftops, not looking to engage but finding other vulnerable points to defend. Somebody had slapped some sense of tactics into them: someone equipped with a heliograph and a good grasp of the flash-codes had disseminated some useful orders.
Taki threw the Esca across the city. She had lost the trio that had been sparring with her, but she saw another flight moving over Collegium’s centre, and for a moment she feared that they were going to drop their explosive cargo over the domes and spires of the Amphiophos. A moment’s reconsideration showed her that they were moving in on one of the other fields — their targets purely practical, with no thought for symbolism. Not yet. Six against one, but she gave the Esca its head, the fastest thing in the skies as far as she was concerned, climbing as she approached them so that she could make a perfect dive on them. They would see her too late, and probably the one she was stooping on would never see her at all. Except they did — they all did.
Just like before, they were scattering. Her target kept its wings fixed and used all the speed it had, not quite outpacing her even then, but she was only able to clip it a few times before its comrades were on her, transformed from swift fixed-wings to dancing orthopters in a moment. For a moment she seemed to be surrounded by their shot as she dodged and sidestepped in the sky, five of them fighting for the privilege of bringing her down, and surely they would touch wingtips at any moment, slap each other out of the sky in their eagerness.
She was worried now. She had not felt like this since… She had never felt like this before, not while in the seat of a good orthopter. She lived for flight. Even facing down Axrad over Solarno, she had not felt like this. This was all wrong: enemy fliers who came from nowhere, flying with such coordination. Breaker had been right about what would win an aerial war, but neither had guessed that the Empire had been so far ahead of them.
She bared her teeth. I am better than all of you! The Esca could do things that even the Stormreaders could not, let alone these big Farsphex machines. If she fought the controls with sufficient dogged determination and contrived to ignore the insistent demands of aeronautics for just a moment, backing her wings so that their joints squealed, she could even fly backwards.
It was an innovative theory, at the speed she was going, but she felt only confidence as she rammed the stick backwards and disengaged the wing gearing for a second — the vanes beating at ten times the usual speed, for a few crazed seconds, as their gears meshed with nothing — before trying to back them.
The manoeuvre was a qualified success. She dropped like a stone for a moment, seemingly having no control whatsoever, and the Farsphex pack must have assumed that she had been hit, abandoning her immediately to go in pursuit of their next target. A moment later she had her wings working — forwards still and not backwards at all, and almost went through someone’s roof as she struggled to regain the sky, coming up behind them and catching the trailing Farsphex with a solid handful of bolts that at least made it judder in the air.
Then she was not alone. Left and right there were Storm-readers with red-painted wings. They attacked as individuals, and she joined them by instinct, not even thinking it through. That saved them, she decided later. The air discipline of the Wasps was such that their flight would have outmatched an attack by a rigid formation, but Taki and her flanking allies each had different ideas as to what they were going to do, three entirely uncoordinated strikes by skilled pilots in top-class fighting orthopters.
They still failed to bring one down. The Farsphex were away again, splitting up and fixing their wings for extra speed if they were pursued. They refused to engage or to fight the aerial duels that Taki had been dreaming of ever since Solarno. Those not pursued were already wheeling back to come to the aid of their comrades. Taki could almost taste the frustration of the Mynans as they did everything they could to latch onto their enemy, only to be driven off again and again.
Then the Farsphex flight was abruptly coming together — all of them, flocking from every quarter of the city to rise in a dark column of machines, massing over the very centre of Collegium.
To strike where? But there was nothing in their disposition that hinted at their target. Taki skated her Esca across the face of their rising formation, pulling her orthopter round in as tight a turn as she could, because they were about to break and she wanted them in front of her and not behind. In mid-wheel she did her best to locate the other Collegiate fliers, flashing a quick signal for Form on me! and hoping that somebody would see it. She had company even before she had finished her turn, a full half-dozen Stormreaders converging on her, cutting a wider arc in the air so as to match her when she drove back at the Imperials. She noted four Mynans — Edmon and three others she couldn’t name. Keeping pace were two of Collegium’s own, and she knew them, from the way they flew, as the Goswell girl and the Fly-kinden, Haldri. It hardly counted as overwhelming odds, but the other local machines were scattered all about the sky, some hanging back to defend the airfields still, others just adrift over the city, losing the thread of the fight, lost over their own home.
The Imperial formation broke up, as she knew it would, and abruptly they were all moving as one, like fish shoaling, heading for the College district.
Attack. It was a pitiful signal to be sending, but she had already decided that, whatever the Wasps were after, she was committed to opposing it. She let the Esca race ahead, knowing that the others were still with her, left and right. She wanted to say a great deal more, to explain that the Farsphex pack would split once she attacked, some turning to meet her while the others pressed on with their mission. The Collegiate flash-codes were a language of few words, though. She had to trust that they would predict the future as well as she did.
She had the trigger pressed even before she was in range, seeing their pattern shift into carefully orchestrated chaos, orthopters peeling off and swinging back towards her from above and from either side. At least half their force was casting itself lightly over the College now, turning in unison to find their target.
Taki swore and dived after them, still shooting, trusting to her swift flying, to the Esca ’s nimbleness against the larger machines. A scatter of bolts sprayed past her, leaving a single finger’s-width hole in one wing. Around and behind her, the handful of Stormreaders engaged, fearless by necessity.
She was closing now, watching the craft ahead of her, seeing how their attack run forced them to become predictable, killable, if just for a moment. But then, so did hers as she tunnel-visioned in on them, desperate for a kill that might make them break off. Even as the silvery trail of her shot swept in towards a flier in the midst of their formation, piercer bolts were abruptly hammering into her fuselage, the physical impact rocking her, knocking the Esca ’s tail sideways, spoiling her aim and making her entire orthopter slew in the air. She cursed, wrestling to get back on target, close now, closer than she had wanted. She actually saw the first bombs drop.
Then another bolt cracked into the engine mounting behind her, the next shattered a pane of her cockpit window, skinning a line of pain down her shoulder as it vanished into her seat. She threw the Esca sideways instinctively, the city beneath her opening up in flames as the bombs struck. She had left it too long, made herself too much of a target. She was going to die.
But she lived. The Esca suffered a riddled wing, silk parting, wood slats fracturing as the bolts tore into it, but the expected lethal shock never came. Her machine dropped involuntarily towards the flames before she could catch it, and the Farsphex that had been after her coursed overhead, banking in the air to dodge the incoming shot of one of the Mynans, who was slinging his Stormreader through the air like a madman to keep another two Imperial machines off his tail.
