around the Antspider were marked not with hatred, or even with simple shock, but with incomprehension: men and women and children who could not understand what the world had become.
Taki skipped her refitted Esca Magni through the dark air, straining her eyes for the swift movement that would indicate the Farsphex. Had someone told her a tenday ago that she would enter this battle then she would have been exultant. She was no Moth, but her eyes were far better than any Wasp’s at night. She would have vaulted into the darkness with the intention of picking every single enemy from the sky.
Now she knew what she knew, now she understood the secret of the Imperial discipline, she recognized that the conflict was going to be horribly uneven the other way. The Sarnesh had proved, in the last war, that a large army could manoeuvre swiftly and quietly in the dark to the fatal surprise of its enemies if it was only linked mind to mind. What one saw, all saw, each man aware of the next in a way that no outsider could appreciate; all at the same pace, nobody stepping on anyone else’s feet, perfect coordination making up for any lack of light. Now the Empire had that weapon, too, and it was deployed over the rooftops of Collegium. There would be no surprising any of them, unless Taki could somehow surprise all of them, and they would always know which way to turn, and where their allies were. They would find her, too, comparing their mental maps, triangulating, hunting her down.
She had no idea even how many Collegiate orthopters were in the air. The aviators were getting themselves off the ground the moment they could, scattering out across the city in the desperate hope of fending off some of the terror that was raining down.
She saw a trio of Farsphex pass before her, but their formation broke even as she accelerated towards them, and with a chill she guessed some other enemy had seen her, someone she had not spotted. She let off a brief spray of rotary shot and was already pulling out of her attack, reaching for height. The attacking Farsphex was a brief, blurred presence to her left, already levelling out in response, and she knew, from years of accrued instinct, that there would be at least one more moving in on her. She was hauling left, coming out on a wingtip and almost directly over the Wasp who had just passed her. The original three were long gone, turning into their next bombing run.
She broke off, scattering in the opposite direction, expecting the enemy to retreat and continue to cover the bombers, but they stayed with her, and she understood. The game had become something more familiar, but no more comforting. The Imperials had changed their tactics, as she knew they would. She was a priority now. She was the target.
Stripping Collegium of its air defences was a necessary preliminary for taking the city, and the Second Army was marching ever closer. It all made perfect tactical sense, textbook stuff. But, of course, Taki was the air defences, and abruptly it was all a great deal closer to home.
She spun and danced over Collegium, confident that she was faster and nimbler, but they were working in perfect tandem, driving her between them, taking turns to fix wings for a sudden burst of speed before reverting to orthopter flight when she tried to out-dance them.
Time for desperate measures. She released a chute, but unevenly, the sudden drag slewing her machine about in the air, moments from flipping end over end in a total loss of control, but then she had stabilized, momentarily flying backwards, cutting the chute free to billow off into the night, then letting the Esca ’s wings stabilize her, trigger down and raking the two oncoming Farsphex with her rotaries, close enough for her to see the sparks as her bolts hit home.
She saw one of the leftmost craft’s porthole windows shatter, the brief image of the pilot flinching away. Then she was passing between them, canted right so that their wingtips did not clash, intent on getting some clear air around her.
Even as the first hole was shot through her wing, she was pulling left and up, dragging the Esca into a tight turn as another Farsphex stooped towards her from the clouds. She could imagine the other two arcing back towards her, in their minds the precise and exacting picture of where she was relative to their comrade. She fled flat out, putting as much distance between her and them as possible, the new attacker right behind her, keeping up a steady stream of shot that flashed and glittered about her, whichever way she turned.
There was a flash of light ahead of her — a pattern of on and off, and then again. Her mind translated the code automatically: Evade! Evade!
Her stomach lurched horribly, taking a fraction of a second to appreciate just what that meant. She could not go up — that would cut a course right through the scythe of bolts the Farsphex was training on her. Instead she dropped for the streets, skimming roofs and then lower even than that, skittering along a street just above head height, then wrenching the Esca into a broad, burning city square, spinning the little orthopter on its wing in the firelight to see the sequel.
Two Stormreaders came blazing in at the Farsphex, their line already taking them through the same air that Taki would have been occupying if she had been a second slower in reacting to their signal, and still on a collision course with the Imperial flier, which was shooting right back at them. She registered Mynans — less by the livery than their flying style — and then the Wasp pilot’s nerve broke, or perhaps he had taken too many hits, for he was pulling away.
Taki was already speeding back, and she saw one of the Mynans’ nose lift, the Stormreader already seeking for height, looking for the inevitable reinforcements. That was Edmon, she was sure. The other..
The other was Franticze, the mad Bee-kinden the Mynans had brought with them, and she had clearly run out of patience with the war as it had been fought to date.
She never adjusted her line, and Taki shouted inside her cockpit, as if the Bee woman could hear, because Franticze was still ploughing straight for the Farsphex, even as it shuddered under her bolts.
At the last, the Bee changed her line — not pulling away, but tilting her orthopter so that, instead of tangling wings, she let the beating vanes of the Wasp vessel crack against her undercarriage and shatter.
There were more coming already, and Taki joined Edmon in raking the skies towards them, but a glance back down gave her more heart than she had known for some days. A second’s glimpse showed the Farsphex lurching from the air, its nose striking a roof, flipping the tail up and over, and then the explosion, the fuel tank cracking, catching, one more fire erupting over Collegium.
Then Taki was in the thick of it, and so were they all. Farsphex kept knifing out of the darkness, scattering bolts at her, trying to box her in but never getting in each other’s way. She spat and spun, dipping and dancing her Esca through the air, feeling the occasional stutter as a shot connected, bullying her way upwards again despite all they could do to pin her to the ground. She lost sight of the two Mynan pilots, then a moment later Franticze was cutting in front of her, rotaries blazing sparks as their firepowder charges ignited, forcing one of the Wasp pilots off — so impelling all of them to readjust their patterns and their plan. Taki could only hope that, between the darkness and the speed that everything over Collegium was moving, their mindlink would miss a few beats, leaving the individual pilots unable to keep track of who was where and what direction they were going.
And they were trying to kill her. The gentleman’s war of yesterday was well and truly gone. The Farsphex had new orders, and if abandoning their tight defence would put them at a greater risk, the same would go double for the local aviators.
At last she won free, spiralling up towards the clouds with the great skirmish still weaving its designs beneath her. The Wasps had brought a lot more to the fight this time, and she had no idea how many Stormreaders were even off the ground. As she reached her apex, poised for a dive, the city beneath her was picked out in flames, new eruptions flashing into life even as she watched. The Wasps were maintaining their bombing even as they fought off the city’s defenders.
She dropped, arrowing down in a search for targets and for friends. Her keen eyes picked out allies quickly: all over the city, they were fighting alone or in small groups, without reference to each other. Perhaps that was for the best, for it meant the composite enemy mind had to adjust to a dozen separate strategies at once, even if each was a minuscule pinprick.
She found her target, knowing that some Wasp somewhere would have surely spotted her. As she dived she switched suddenly, tailing a flier that crossed her path, the wings of the Esca straining at this shift in direction. Sparks flew from the enemy fuselage and it lurched in the air, and immediately she was off again, flashing Attack here! in case some other defender was close enough to follow up on her work. Again and again she struck, lightning raids against the larger craft, scattering hits across them, hoping for some narrow strike to hole the fuel tank, or the pilot, and then she was off, skittering across the sky before the enemy formation could close in on her. It was fierce, frustrating work, without a moment for thought, but her little stabs at them were working in other ways, or
