Lt. Kalija, by now fully assimilated into her squadron on the Bellau Wood, comes off the excitement of the previous mission and gets thrown straight into another, where she finds her impulses both a help and a hindrance...

This is the penultimate chapter of The Mighty Wind Arises, and some Big Things Happen. Not to keep you hanging, I should post the final chapter soon. I divided this into two parts to keep it from running too long, and to give me more time to clean up the last errors in the final chapter. Thanks as always to :iconSpudz:, the alert five shepherd, and to the support of Readers Like You for keeping me honest.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

The Mighty Wind Arises, by Rob Baird — Ch. 6, "The oath of the brother-in-blood"

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They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault,
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt:
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod,
On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God.
The Colonel's son he rides the mare and Kamal's boy the dun,
And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where there went forth but one.
And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear—
There was not a man but carried his feud with the blood of the mountaineer.
"Ha' done! ha' done!" said the Colonel's son. "Put up the steel at your sides!
"Last night ye had struck at a Border thief—to-night 'tis a man of the Guides!"
— Rudyard Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West"

They were supposed to be up soon.

She tossed the briefing card onto the table and went to grab a cup of obnoxiously, chemically sweet fruit juice she leaned towards in lieu of caffeine. The mission didn't seem like it would be particularly difficult, at least; she could already envision the angles for any attack the marines were liable to require. 

The dog had been studying for perhaps ten minutes when Zippo and Roulez made an appearance. Lieutenant Commander Jovanovic indicated the far side of the table Kalija occupied. “Taken?"

“No." She shook her head. “Alamo is busy fighting with the maintenance department over the gripe that came up last mission. We weren't expecting Five-One-Oh to be up again so soon." 'Gripe' was, in any case, a fairly tame way to describe the complete failure of the SADIE computer system. 

“Should give us new puffins, already," Roulez said with a grunt. “I got the feeling these don't have so long. Now, back in —"

“Ah, we know." Zippo patted her bombardier's hand affectionately. “Back in VA-29, they'd all been upgraded to A-17Gs." 

Roulez sighed heavily. “That was the life."

“Stuck with us, now," the dog said; her suggestion netted another sigh, and the man's shoulders slumped.

Zippo ignored both. “You saw the layout of the AO, right? All that water out to the northeast..."

The lake sharply reduced the likelihood that any of the Guard would be present there — Fleet Intelligence said nothing about any possible boats or hovercraft. It also gave an attack aircraft nowhere to hide; no convenient cover to shield them from prying eyes and radar. “Use that for the IP, then."

“Mais, my lovelies, gon' get complicated," Roulez intoned. He borrowed Kalija's mission computer. “They gon' see that too. If we don't make to mix up when we leave..."

“We'll have to keep an eye out..."

The huge man kept staring at the computer. “Well, ain't just keepin' an eye out, puppy-dog. Friends down there, they'll be out for blood, comprends?"

“You know what the mission is?" the mutt asked.

Zippo had the greatest knowledge, and even hers was limited. Most of the cargo hoverdyne traffic from north to south ran along prepared highways — over flat ground, the big 'dynes could move faster, with a much greater safety margin. Zippo felt that the mission was aimed at taking control of the central checkpoint of one of the biggest highways, hampering Governor Korablin's ability to move troops and machinery around.

“Overall, it's still a stalemate," Kalija pointed out.

“That makes it a victory for the rebels. Without us, the Guard would've pushed them all the way back to Aurora. Maybe a few other cities, too. But holding the line?" Zippo whistled. “Who would've thought?"

Who would've thought that an orbital task force and two crack armor divisions would change the nature of a war between erstwhile civilians? “The power of air support, huh?"

Roulez gave the two pilots a crooked grin. “The air support we have or the air support they don't?"

“Yeah, they make up for it. I don't know what company sells anti-aircraft weapons, but they must have really good financing." Zippo leaned across the table, closer to Kalija. “Yesterday, it was me and Hobo and the little boss. Bucky calls in, 'oh, shit, I'm spiked' — like everybody wakes up all at once. How many were there, Roulez? Thirty?"

“Thirty-five."

“Fucking everything. Mid-alt, high-alt, those little tiny-ass MANPADs they started giving every man, woman and dog..."

“Think at one point we had fifty missiles in the air."

Kalija's muzzle puffed with an impressed, understanding snort. “Where were the Wild Weasels?" For the heavy Intruders, close to the ground, the 'Wild Weasel' suppression missions flown by the other attack squadrons were a true godsend.

“Hell if I know. Where do the Kestrels ever go? Probably got too scary for them. They have a hard life." 

The mutt chuckled. “We don't have SEAD on this mission at all, though."

“Nope." Much as the Intruder crews teased the Kestrel pilots, a mission with their protection was still infinitely better than one without. Zippo knew that as well as any of them. “But at least it shouldn't be too exciting, one way or the other."

“That's what they tell ya," her bombardier said, and Zippo patted his hand again. “Hey, now. You can't just pat me happy like that. I look like puppy-dog over there?"

“Try it," she dared the human pilot, flashing a playful — if heavily fanged — grin. “And we'll find out who has a hard life."

Jovanovic smirked, and pushed her chair back. “Uh huh. You want another coffee, Roulez?"

“Why not? Only live once," he drawled. Kalija waved away the offer; she still had most of her cup of juice left.

When she returned, Zippo took a sip and paused for a moment. “You know... this coffee isn't half bad. Am I drunk?"

“What did you put in it?" Roulez wanted to know. When he took his next drink, though, it was also more careful. “Naw, it's better."

Kalija found herself rather happy that they'd noticed in the first place. Happy enough that her tail wagged, though she kept it in the empty air behind the stool to avoid attracting attention. “It's new," she explained.

“New? You got it for us?"

“Sort of." 

“Thanks," Zippo said. Obligingly, her bombardier offered his own merci. They returned to the mission — briefly — but it wasn't more than a minute or two before the pilot's attention turned back to the coffee. “How did you get this?"

“Well... remember last time, I told you we were getting these really old beans from one of the storage depots?"

“Yeah? You said it was cheaper."

“It was," the dog agreed. “But I'm supposed to be the squadron budget officer, aren't I? So I found some places we were wasting money, or where somebody else owed us money and, well... actually if you add it all up there's enough to that to make up the difference."

“For decent coffee?"

Kalija couldn't help herself; she stuck out her tongue. “Operational efficiency, right? It's hard to be efficient when you aren't awake enough to fly."

“Huh." For one of the first times, the spirited pilot looked to be almost at a loss for words. “You know, a lot of people would've just pocketed that. I mean, sure, you aren't really allowed to — but I bet a lot of 'em find a way. Don't you suspect?"

“Maybe," Kalija admitted. “It wasn't something that crossed my mind."

Zippo nodded. She looked into her mug of coffee, and then took a final swallow. “You know, you're pretty alright."

The dog allowed herself another smile. “Thanks."

Alamo returned from his mission wearing a scowl, pouring a full mug of coffee and then, looking at it, pouring a second. “I don't understand how we ever get any work done here."

“Couldn't get it fixed?"

“They say they'll have it fixed. Just means pulling the whole computer and swapping it from one of the other birds."

Zippo's grin appeared to suggest painful knowledge of this process. “And then they'll want to send it all the way back to Fleet Maintenance for repairs, because clearly you can't keep the swapped unit. You need your original unit back, if it can be fixed."

“Clearly," Alamo said, and sighed. “Reckon we should learn to fix 'em ourselves. Somebody has to want a hobby..."

“Not your dog," the other pilot warned him. “She already has one."

Barton blew on his first mug of coffee impatiently. “Better hear one of you volunteer, then. Christ. You saw we have a TacInt flash?" Roulez groaned and slumped back in his chair. “I love bringing good news..."

The Tactical Intelligence Update Notifications came in at regular intervals between the mission briefing and the time the Intruders actually launched. Any new pieces of information had potential: updated radio codes, or unit positions, or weather reports.

Flash updates — they called them “FU notes," much of the time — took precedence, and they were generally bad news. Kalija took her computer back and called up the briefing again: sure enough, a red bar at the top blinked to summon her attention. 

“'New enemy positions suspected,'" Kalija read aloud. “Oh. Good, 'probable anti-air installations.' They got this from the last orbital?" The tactical intelligence was too imprecise to have come from someone on the ground.

“Reckon so."

“Fixed artillery and anti-air emplacements, grid november lima four-one-six by four-oh-five," the mutt continued, and looked for the spot on her map. They were talking about an area atop a relatively flat mesa; it commanded the valley through which the highway ran. “Oh, that's really not good..."

“Reckon it ain't."

“If we attack from that big lake, we're going to have to come off north every single time... head south and we're right in the kill zone for anything they've got there." Kalija's lips pursed and, as was her nervous habit, she tapped her right foot against the ground so that the claws clicked on the tile. “Zippo?" 

“Stay low and cut through this northern route. Can we ask for an orbital strike?"

“ROE, ma chèr," Roulez spoke up.

“'One target, one fire mission,' right?" Kalija rolled her eyes. “They wouldn't approve enough rounds to suppress this anyway. Too expensive." 

“You can't find the money for that?" Zippo smiled, although the humor was bitter.

“Just coffee."

“What I don't get," Jovanovic mused aloud, “is why can't we get a SEAD flight in for this? They have to cover the Strixes, too."

“Ain't got any spare."

“No spare Kestrels? At all?"

“Low-TC op." Barton Glenn's smile was even less mirthful. “According to squadron ATAQ, we're still good for it unsupported."

Zippo picked up her coffee mug, realized there was nothing left in it, and slammed it down sharply. “Fucking ATAQ. OpEff fucking bastards. Like those beancounters ever sat in a damned cockpit."

Kalija flattened her ears back. “But it's what we have to work with..."

“Yeah, yeah." Zippo looked down at her wrist communicator to check the time. “Guess we better suit up, what do you suppose? Before the efficiency fucks decide we ought to start flying naked."

Barton wanted to finish both of his coffees, and with her unique physiology it took Kalija a little longer to get into a suit anyway; she agreed to meet him at their Intruder. Spaceman English was putting the final touches on Wagon 510; she let him know not to abandon the work on her account.

“Yes, ma'am. Just getting the new computer hooked up."

Alamo was only a few minutes behind; by then English was done with his final checks, and turned the Intruder over to its crew. When they finished their checklists, Barton asked for enough time to run a special diagnostic on the computer and, of course, she agreed. 

Wouldn't do to find out too late that it hadn't been installed properly. Kalija stood under the wings and looked up at the weapons pylons while she waited. The mission called for their standard allotment: a dozen Krait missiles and four hundred and fifty unguided rockets in twenty-four separate pods.

A lot could be done with that. CODA entrusted an eleven-year-old dog and her rather checkered bombardier with far more power than either really merited. Too much responsibility. But then she heard Corinna reminding her that if she could do it, then she had no choice but to take the task on.

“Kinda neat, isn't it?" Spaceman English asked, from next to her.

“Neat?"

“All this technology. Getting to fly in space — beg pardon, ma'am, but it must be amazing. Even just this, here..." He trailed off, patting one of the rocket pods. Each rocket was fairly short; the pods worked by stacking two of them together, one behind the other. “Everything here needs to work with microsecond precision." 

“Or else it would blow the wing off," Kalija noted; it wasn't an academic topic.

“But I was reading about the figures on this just last week, ma'am. They've fired more than two million of these since their introduction without one single misfire. That's since their introduction. And these have to go through a catapult launch — plus reentry, and all your combat maneuvering." 

“Not bad." Reassuring, even.

English smiled shyly. “I didn't even qualify for flight school. This was the closest I get. Can I tell you something dumb, ma'am?"

The mutt cocked her head gently to signal that she was listening. “What's that?"

“When I think about Five-One-Oh here, I like to think that when you're out on a mission, it's not just you and Lieutenant Glenn. You're kind of flying with me, and with the ordnance crew, and the mechanics... you're flying with, like... like, a little bit of all the Intruder's designers, and the programmers and everything..."

She hadn't really thought of it that way; most of the time, the cockpit felt very alone, with just her and Barton. “Never heard that before..."

“Like I said, maybe it's dumb, ma'am. I just like to think I'm with you guys somehow." He patted the rocket pod lightly. “Good luck."

“Thanks," she told him, and meant it. In the cockpit, Alamo was just finishing up, and raised a thumb in her direction. “Yeah? You're happy for once?" 

“Oh, Elvis," he said, with an exaggerated sigh. “I'm always happy. But yeah, it's nice to have a computer that works."

“You can enjoy the cat this time?"

He finished the diagnostic and logged the results in his computer. “Is that what happened, lefty? You heard 'cat' and signed up?"

“Maybe." Spaceman English and his philosophizing had put her in an oddly good mood. “Let's get this started, then, huh?"

It was all routine by now; routine enough that they trusted it, because a break in the routine would be jarring enough to catch their attention at once. By the time they were settled on the catapult and the throttles were ramped up Kalija was all the way in the zone — savoring the tight, symbiotic connection to her machine. 

She howled with the thrill of a successful launch as though there were no barrier at all between her and the magnetic rails — and no barrier at all between her and the stars. It was a glorious feeling; the first hit of one of the rarest drugs in the universe.

Alamo stayed quiet. But then, bombardiers were strange animals.

“It's possible, you know," she said — later, when they were descending into bluer and bluer skies — “that nobody needs us down there at all." 

He glanced over, and raised an eyebrow behind his open visor. “Yeah?"

“I mean, not likely. But possible. Maybe we just get a nice scenic flight. Tonight's games night, isn't it? Throw down in RLU '02?"

Her bombardier dropped his visor again. “I am going to kick your ass so hard."

“Isn't me you have to worry about. Hobo's been practicing." 

“With what, the Mercury? Tell him he needs to get past rook rockets if he wants anyone to take him seriously."

She snickered at that, because there was nobody in the squadron who took the game as seriously as Barton did. “Fine. Let's hope nobody on the ground needs anything complicated."

“Combat ops are like skirts," he declared. “Gotta be short to be fun."

She rolled her eyes at the incorrigible Texan and looked over her readouts, which showed nothing out of the ordinary. “And if they're too long, it's because somebody's trying to hide something?" 

“That's the spirit. Ain't seen you in a skirt, have I?"

“You've seen me naked," Kalija countered. “That ought to count."

“Don't, though. Don't count when you just get out of the shower. You look pretty ridiculous."

In fairness, she did; soaking wet, the fur of her tail tended to become stringy and tangled; her pelt plastered itself against bare skin in a way to make her look more skinny and pathetic than anything else. It wasn't anything she could help: “I look like a wet dog."

“They don't make wet-dog swimsuit calendars for a reason."

Again, Kalija had to roll her eyes — but she was smiling, too. “Yeah? You want me on a calendar, Alamo? I should pick up some lingerie?" 

Barton glanced over and eyed her like he was sizing the dog up. “Mm. Reckon so. Get you one of those Piedmont bikinis? The color changing ones?"

“Is that so? Maybe, like, in the squadron colors?"

He went on raising the stakes. “Yeah. Leaning on the nose of poor ol' Five-One-Oh here. One hand up, strokin' the port-side ground-diagnostic mountpoint. Tongue out... got your 'come-hither' eyes on, sayin' —"

She laughed and gave up, cutting him off. “Fine. Yassuja, Alamo — you're such a perv." 

“Y'all never figured out how much of a burden it is, being me." 

Kalija's grin hadn't completely left twenty minutes later, when they reached the last safe waypoint before entering the combat zone. The cockpit went silent, save for the dull roar of the engines and the high-pitched whine from the climate control fan. Short. Interesting. Let's do this...

Zippo logged the flight in to the Uniform Datalink and let the attack controller know they were on station and the previous support flight could be relieved. “Royal Four-One, this is Tracker. Two-ship flight of Intruders. Four-five-zero unguided rockets, one-two missiles each. Anchored Chicago."

“They're having fun down there?"

Alamo scanned his readouts. “Two companies of marines on the ground. They've got... looks like eleven dropships active, but they must be unarmed because they're standing off. I'll tag 'em so you we don't have any unexpected meetings."

“Thanks." Kalija looked around until she could see the little markers — a good hundred kilometers off to their northeast, even further from hostile territory than the lake.

“Tracker, this is Jason. Stand by picture."

“Tracker Lead, ready to copy." 

“Jason Actual. Situation as follows." Their maps were filling in, but all that gave them was a sense of the current moment, with no accounting for context. “Alpha Company is in contact with enemy forces of unknown disposition to the east of our objective. Bravo Company is probing to the south to see if we can flank them but is so far out of contact. We've encountered infantry and light armor, nothing else. Our Strixes reported incoming fire and hostile radars at markpoints Golf-Two-Alpha, Golf-Two-Bravo and Golf-Two-Charlie but we have no confirmation on that. Over."

“How did we manage to come in so blind?" Kalija asked her bombardier. It was a rhetorical question — of sorts — but her surprise was genuine.

“Ain't got told something," he suggested.

The mutt was forced to agree. That didn't necessarily imply anything nefarious; more likely, it was that CODA had committed their espatier on a mission where time had been of the essence. Perhaps they were not just attacking the checkpoint, for example — perhaps they were trying to intercept an important convoy.

It still left everyone in a bit of a bind; unhelpful, too, was how Jason — the battalion commander — was forced to stand well off because of the anti-aircraft cover. What an Intruder could evade, avoid or destroy, the fat Strix dropships were completely vulnerable to.

Fifteen minutes went by, and Jason evidently decided that they'd waited long enough. The attack controller came back on the radio to politely ask for help: “Tracker, this is Royal Four-One. Type two in effect; call when ready for nine-line."

“This is Tracker Lead. Ready to copy."

Kalija and Barton ticked off the information as it was fed to them. “Sapphire, two-six-zero, ten kilometers. Two hundred meters. Scattered infantry and light vehicles hidden by rocks. November lima five-one-six-niner, four-seven-five-four. Marked as uniform spot. Friendlies north-east, two kilometers. Egress west. Advise when ready for remarks." 

Tricky; it would have to be tricky. However many of them there were, the Guard had taken cover somewhere along the north face of one of the hills. Royal Four-One, their controller, evidently could not actually see the enemy — he sounded a little frustrated, and Kalija wondered if he might have been dealing with conflicting, second-hand reports. Zippo waited for the information to finish loading on their computers. “Tracker Lead, ready to copy."

“Attack with rockets, east to west. Walk that entire rockline between Golf-Four-Foxtrot and Golf-Four-Golf. Over."

“Two-zero-zero, november lima five-one-six, four-seven-five." Zippo was confirming that the information her computer had received was accurate, and Kalija made a point of checking as well.

“Readback correct. Report IP inbound. Time on target, six-zero seconds."

“Switching to rockets," the dog told her partner in crime. “Weapons active."

“Stabilizing profile is green. Your NCEP is — oh, wow. Max two at five."

Kalija was suitably impressed. The rockets were cheap, unguided things, stabilized only by their fins. The pods, however, could move slightly to ensure that the rockets went where she wanted them to go when she finally pulled the trigger. Taking into account weather, her movement, and the detail of the terrain map, Alamo's targeting computer had a nominal “circular error" of under two meters: from five kilometers away, it thought it could place any given rocket inside of a two-meter circle.

This was, in any event, well under the blast radius of the warhead, and it was called “nominal" because, for covering the widest area it was often less than helpful to be completely accurate. Sticking to Zippo's wing as if bolted there, the dog looked over the attack request again and considered the most effective way to carry it out. The easiest thing would be to let the targeting computer do the hard work.

“Alamo. I'm thinking six pods, in semi-auto-release mode? Saturation, thirty meters?"

“Sure thing, Elvis." Ten seconds later, and a faint red strip appeared over the base of the slope when she looked at it in her visor. Now, when she pointed her steed's nose towards it and pressed the trigger, the targeting computer would pepper the area until they had gone through six pods worth of rockets. “Might even be overkill, but..."

“No such thing." 

“Yeah."

“Tracker One, IP inbound." When Zippo began her attack run, Kalija pulled back on the throttles to gain some distance and observe. The other pilot had the same idea, and roughly the same location — the dog watched the Intruder's wings disappear in a wash of rippling fire, and then two seconds later the rocky face of the hillside was doing the same thing. “One's off."

Kalija waited until their controller could decide what had happened. “Tracker One, that's the right general area but we need about twenty meters higher up. Tracker Two, advise when ready for talk-on." 

Let's do this. “Tracker Two, holding Sapphire, ready for talk-on."

“Tracker Two, continue. Just before the smoke from lead's attack, there's a sharp cliff, about five-zero meters long. From your perspective, it is the only part of the hillside with no vegetation. Call 'contact' when you have that." 

Kalija swept her eyes over the hillside — the scrubby brown-green tree cover wasn't particularly distinctive from the soil underneath. On the other hand, only one area fit the description she'd been given. “Alamo, can you lase what I'm looking at?"

“Lasing."

“Contact," she called over to the controller. “We're lasing the west part."

“Tracker Two, that's it. Your targets are along that elevation. Cleared hot."

Without needing to be told, Alamo adjusted the rocket program. “Cease laser," she told him, pushing the throttles forward and guiding the Intruder into a shallow dive. “Threat picture?"

“Naked."

'So far, so good'; that was the human expression. Kalija pointed their nose at the closest edge of the path in her augmented vision, and waited for the 'launch authorized' cue to come on. Her visor dimmed automatically when she pressed the trigger, keeping her from the worst of the rocket's glare. She was too focused anyway, carefully walking the A-17E's nose along the path. 

She reached the end just as the rockets ran out, and half a second before the first of them began to hit home. Not bad — not bad timing, Kara. The red shape in her visor quickly speckled green until the whole shape was solid with it. Easy as that. The hillside was an inferno again.

“Two's off." 

“Just letting you know," Alamo said quietly. “Might be getting some chatter from the ground. No search radars, but I'm getting unmatched EM signals off to the south. And that hill itself."

“Thanks." She banked the Intruder off to the north, and relative safety, following Zippo's example. Jovanovic was already climbing back towards their anchor point over the water, awaiting any further instructions from the controller. 

“Royal Four-One. Good hits on that last run, Tracker Two. I'll let you know if we need anything else." 

Several more attack runs followed, with nothing much to show for it. Alpha Company's progress remained completely stalled. The other marines had managed to move further — then a shouted call up to the local commander indicated that they, too, had encountered hostile forces.

The two Intruders waited impatiently for someone to find a use for them, but there was a clear tradeoff involved. The same missile installations that kept the Strixes at bay prevented the Intruders from orbiting closely enough to be of immediate use.

To the south, the mesa was commanded by the Territorial Guard in numbers that were clearly more than a few hoverdynes having made camp. It seemed to be one of the outposts Governor Korablin had been establishing — an impregnable chain of missiles and artillery intended to protect loyalist areas and keep the Aurora rebellion under siege.

This one might not have been finished, but it still made any approach hazardous, at best. Kalija ground her teeth, listening to the battle developing and unable to do anything to help. It was not what she wanted — not what a good shepherd should've been letting happen to their sheep. “Hey. Alamo?"

“Yes?" 

“That situation is decaying pretty quickly." The indicators on her map had largely merged together — everything was chaotic. Bravo Company was strung out along most of the western slope of the hill, pinned down under an intensifying assault. “Can you sort those?" 

“Not from this distance."

“Get closer?" 

Alamo grumbled. “This is not how you live a long and happy life."

“Elvis," Zippo came in over their radio. “I don't like how blind we are. You?"

“Roger that, Zippo. We can't really see... anything from out here." 

“In the interests of sanity," Alamo said — just to her — “might could point out that we know of at least a dozen light SAM systems down there."

Fair enough. “Zippo, thing is, even if we don't know exactly what they have down there..." 

Kalija didn't have to finish the sentence. Silence was her answer. Unfortunately they were only two aircraft, and neither had the sophisticated anti-radar weapons that the Kestrels were equipped with. The effect was to have been sent into a fight with one hand tied behind their back. “Agreed," Jovanovic finally answered. “But let's figure out how we're going to handle this when they do ask."

“Come in at high speed from the east. Gate on the way out."

“Alamo." Barton identified himself, speaking over the shared net between the two planes. “I'm not comfortable designating targets in a type two situation, with friendly units mixed in, at mach two." Privately, to Elvis, he continued. “Ain't comfortable with dodging SAMs either, mind you."

“Roulez says the same thing. We'll each stand off and let the other try to run suppression on those missile sites, I guess. Not a perfect solution."

“Roger," Kalija said, although she was thinking: this could get ugly. “How quickly can you lock, designate, and return fire on one of those things?"

Alamo shook his head. “If you want to satisfy ROE, five seconds a track. Get the JTAC to free up the targeting requirements and maybe we can be a bit more proactive." And, he didn't have to tell the dog, only twelve targets at most.

“Tracker, this is Royal Four-One. Priority support request. Type two in effect; call when ready for nine-line."

“This is it," Kalija said, turning to her bombardier; he was already looking at her, thinking the same thing.

“Tracker Lead. Ready to copy." 

The mutt set her jaw, pressing sharp teeth together while she watched the request begin to fill in her map. “Royal Four-One. Sapphire, three-five-zero, sixteen kilometers. One-five-zero meters. Infantry on the move. November lima four-seven-niner-zero, four-eight-two-niner. Marked as uniform spot. Friendlies east, two hundred meters. Egress east to Sorrel. Advise when ready for remarks."

The only appropriate remark was oh, fuck at the dangerous proximity of the marines to their attackers. Kalija was looking with abject dismay at the terrain map — none of the obvious attack vectors were anywhere close to 'safe' or 'sane.' As far as the dog could tell from her wingman's voice, though, Zippo remained calm. “Tracker Lead. Ready to copy."

Jovanovic definitely sounded calmer than the Joint Terminal Attack Controller, who had a lot on his plate. “Jason has a marine platoon pinned down by estimate eighty plus enemy infantry spread north and south of my markpoint Golf-Four-Romeo. We need precise, intense rocket fire to cover a withdrawal to the east. Friendly units are marked with UDL and IR strobes. Platoon charlie-sierra, callsign Buckeye Three-Seven, is in position to confirm and approve your targeting. Final attack heading three-five-five to zero-one-zero. Make no attacks west to east. Over."

“One-five-zero, november lima four-seven-niner-zero, four-eight-two-niner, attack heading three-five-five to zero-one-zero." 

“Readback correct. Immediate time on target. Out."

“Elvis, I'm going to need some cover," Zippo said, on the link shared between the two Intruders. It was an understatement, anyway: any possible way of getting at their target without risking the harried espatier meant being exposed to the full strength of the Guard's air defenses.

“Roger, Zippo. Visual," she added, to let Jovanovic know that she could see the other Intruder and was in a position to support. Attack south to north — put us right over those fucking missiles just when we need to be flying straight and level to get the rockets on target...

“Thanks. Gonna trust the big sky theorem here." The sky was big: Intruders and missiles were small. What were the odds they'd meet? “Buckeye Three-Seven, this is Tracker One. Overhead. Ready for talk-on."

If their JTAC sounded harried, the marine platoon's C&S specialist was even more frazzled — an effect bolstered by the obvious sounds of gunfire in the background behind her voice. “Buckeye Three-Seven. Continue."

“Mud spike, right three," Zippo coolly reported to Kalija, then switched back to the marine net. “IP Inbound."

“Two Type-55s," Alamo told her. “They're tagged."

“Switching to Kraits. Program a salvo for both, one missile each, please. Zippo, tally two mobile SAMs."

“Firing solutions," her bombardier confirmed; at the same time Buckeye 3-7 was trying to explain intricate geometry to an Intruder closing in a dive at six hundred knots. Kalija took it all in fluidly — waiting either for permission to engage or for the SAMs to fire of their own accord.

The C&S specialist — Collections and Synthesis; they were supposed to handle reconnaissance and targeting for the platoon in much the same way Alamo did for their Intruder — managed to convince Zippo that they were talking about the same laser marker at the last possible second. “Tracker One, cleared hot!"

Kalija's threat receiver squawked. The dog jolted. “SAM launch, SAM launch. Zippo, your six. Two missiles, looks like a good lock." 

“Marked tracks are confirmed hostile," Alamo said. By this he meant that they had been the ones to fire.

“Tracker Two. Rifle. Rifle." She pressed the trigger and two Kraits leapt from her wings at the same time, plunging towards the Guard IFVs. Zippo wasn't maneuvering — too busy aiming her rockets into the ridgeline. 

At the last possible second she executed a sharp break turn to the east. The missiles had radars of their own, but they relied primarily on the more sophisticated guidance systems of the launchers. The Type-55s had shut down, though — either destroyed by the Kraits or taking evasive action — and without their assistance both SAMs went wildly astray.

In an instant six more were aloft to replace them, and now even Kalija's brain was at its limits trying to process the incoming signals. “Spiked. Two inbound," Alamo said. “Notch, reference one-one-zero."

“Tracker Two, defending SAM site, bullseye, zero-six-five." She went ahead and stated the obvious, turning to the heading Alamo had recommended to buy them some time.

“Elvis, skip it. Get the hell out," Jovanovic ordered.

Kalija was more than happy to comply. She pushed the throttles to their stops and headed east for comparative safety. “Trashed both of them," Alamo let her know. “Good kills on those tracks, also. Killed two for... I think we picked up at least eight new tracking radars."

“Like a fucking hydra." Kalija sighed heavily, trying to hone frustration into something productive.

“Tracker Two," the JTAC radioed — expecting her to be in a position to support the attack. “Your target is two Type-44 IFVs, same coordinates. Contact Buckeye Three-Seven for remarks."

“I've got it, for what that's worth," Alamo said. That didn't mean that he thought it was a good idea — only that it was a possibility.

“Zippo, tally Royal's contact. What do you say?"

“Your call, Elvis. We can take position to cover you."

“Committing, then." She tried to give the dense Guard anti-aircraft nest a wide berth as she circled around to the initial point. “Buckeye Three-Seven, this is Tracker Two, IP inbound." 

Buckeye's C&S took a few seconds to answer — the sound of gunfire was loud, and close. “Buckeye Three-Seven. Continue."

“Kraits," Kalija instructed her bombardier, searching for an angle that would give them the clearest shot. “Salvo, one each. Let me know when you have a lock."

“Got it."

“Buckeye, tally your targets. Say the word." A warbling tone promised that the Guard would be sending a few missiles their way soon enough, and she didn't want to stick around.

“Tracker, you need to approach from further west. You have friendlies in the line of fire." This wasn't supposed to be an issue, with guided weapons, but Buckeye was evidently wary about the fact that any short round would land straight amongst the marines.

The warble broke into a wail. “SAM launch," she called out, and turned so that Alamo could try to destroy with their anti-missile pod. She heard Zippo claim to be attacking the launchers — but for the most part, Kalija was focused on her own run, and trying to see if it could be salvaged.

It didn't seem likely. “They're jamming us. Switching to lasers. Got a lock."

“Buckeye, laser on."

“Tracker. Your laser is about fifty meters too far east and downslope."

“I'm trying to adjust." The attack angle made it hard for Alamo to do his job, and they were quickly running out of time. Another missile forced the dog into a quick evasive maneuver that left her bombardier swearing. “I don't —"

They were too close now, anyway. They didn't have enough distance to fire the Kraits safely — and the ground fire was only becoming more threatening. “Tracker, this is Buckeye. Abort, abort, abort!" 

With a growl and a suitably angry curse, she firewalled the throttle. “Two's off." The threat receiver dimmed with the increasing distance, although Kalija was already beginning to circle back for another attack run. “Well, now what?"

“I have a new program that should beat the jamming. As long as the tanks don't move much."

“They haven't so far, have they?"

“Well, no."

“But we need another pass."

“If we want to hit it," her bombardier agreed. “And we'd need to come in from the south again."

“'If'? Those marines are still trapped, aren't they?"

“Yes."

“Then we haven't done our job." Kalija deployed the speedbrakes, tightening the turn as much as she could to line back up on the initial point of their attack. “Zippo, we have a firing solution, but it'll take another pass. I'm coming around."

“Careful," Jovanovic warned. 

But Kalija knew that. “Buckeye Three-Seven, in from the south." Mentally, she ticked down the seconds until they would come into range of the Guard's missiles. Ten seconds, at best. Five.

“Mud spike, twelve, low. Our jamming is very ineffective."

“The target?" 

“Got it."

“Laser on." As soon as she caught the marker in her display, she checked in with the marines. “Buckeye Three-Seven, laser on. Can you confirm we have your tank?"

“SAM launch," Alamo said.

“Tracker Two." The sound of a close explosion momentarily deafened their contact's voice on the radio. “Confirmed. You're cleared hot."

“Two, rifle." She turned to watch the incoming SAM, her brain already figuring out the trajectories for evading it. “Notching, right, zero-eight-zero or so." Easy does it.

“Trashed." 

See? There. That wasn't so bad, Shadla. “Two's off." From a quick look, the Krait seemed to be tracking fine. Could've wound up turning out a lot worse. “Assessment?"

“Looks —"

The 'g' in 'good' was out of his mouth, but he didn't have a chance to finish the rest of the word before the Intruder suddenly bucked, hard, and the cockpit was lit up with alarms. Half the lamps on her warning panel had suddenly activated. Right engine: failure. IMCS: failure. Fire. Fire. “Fucking —"

Alamo was shouting — the intercom had died. “Starboard engine! Fire warning!"

Kalija went to pull the throttle back and found that she'd already done so. In a quarter of a second, before she'd even become consciously aware of the warnings, she had killed the engine and activated the starboard fire extinguisher, just like the checklist said.

The fire warning annunciator went dark. Without the inertial compensators, she felt the jolt of every maneuver thud up her arms. The bitch wants to kill you, she thought darkly — and the Intruder intended to make it painful. “Systems?"

A light marked 'EMERGENCY POWER' lit up, and she heard her bombardier over the intercom again. “Looks like the main computer is toast, at least. Radios aren't responding either. I think we may have lost the antennas."

Carefully, mindful of the lack of any stabilization, Kalija tested the joystick. “She's controllable for now. The port engine still looks... alright." 'Alright' was a relative term. She had never even seen so many lights on the panel. Right engine. Right generator. Right battery. Right inverter. Coolant pressure. Coolant quantity. Flight sensors. Auxiliary flight sensors. Navigation gyro. Climate control. All of them broken. “What happened? Malfunction?"

Alamo shook his head. “Took a hit from something. Pretty sure I saw sparks."

The mutt thought back to her mission brief, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that she had in fact committed the map to memory. The lake ran roughly southwest to northeast; if she followed that track they'd wind up soon enough in solidly hostile territory. Due north, in the mountains, there were more loyalists. She glanced to the magnetic compass, realizing for the first time as she did so that her visor had stopped working. “I'm taking us towards the mountains while we try to figure this out."

“Sure." Barton fiddled with the radio, uncharacteristically optimistic. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Tracker Two. We have taken heavy damage and are egressing bearing three-five-seven; anyone who can hear me please acknowledge..."

Nothing. And was it just her imagination, or did her controls feel mushier than before? She didn't want to spend too much energy finding out — better to save it for when they'd really want it. “I don't suppose we're going to be able to make orbit."

“Reckon not."

“Find a nice place to put down, then."

“Oh, yeah. Little town somewhere. Raise some kids. Join the rotary..."

“That's right." She tried to reset her computer, but none of the screens even turned on.

“Better than buying a farm," Alamo admitted. “None of my advanced systems are working. We've got the low-level diagnostics, basic controls..." 

The hardwired, non-networked, basic functionality that kept them aloft, in other words. “Same." Worse, even; she was navigating by a magnetic compass, after all: technology that was millennia old. “There's a big separatist town called... Kutapa... something. That has a spaceport, doesn't it?"

“Kutjuparinyi," he said. His flat computer had a map of the continent installed, in as high a detail as the orbital surveys could make it. “If it doesn't have a proper spaceport, reckon it has to have a place we could land. Head... generally north, and I'll try to find landmarks. About eight hundred kilometers."

“Great."

“Could be worse. We'll do this." 

True. It could have been worse. But it was not; Kalija thanked the human gods she knew of for that blessing. They were following the rising mountains off to her left; already beneath them the thick forest cover just barely softened the outlines of the cliffs and hills.

She went to correct a slight dip to the wing and nothing happened. “Control failure."

Alamo looked over. “IMCS bypass?"

“Active." She didn't know when she'd done that either — instinct, evidently.

“Reset the control package."

She stabbed the red 'reset' button and held it for a second. Nothing. “No."

Alamo went to the next line on the checklist by rote. “ACS?"

At least the ship turned, when she switched them from the movable elevons of the Deflection Control System into the thrusters they were supposed to use for orbital maneuvering. “I guess. Unfortunately those don't work as well down here..."

Wagon 510 was getting sicker by the minute. A coughing lurch presaged the failure of half of the thruster ports, probably aggravated by the destruction of their starboard engine. “Might want to think about our other options..."

It hadn't been very long — by her dead reckoning, they had only traveled two hundred kilometers, at most, from the mission area. “I'd like to get some more distance..."

“I'd like to get a lot of things," Alamo countered. “A retirement party, f'r instance. You know who the first people at the site of a plane crash are?"

“No." Civilians? The Guard?

“The guys in the cockpit."

Oh. “Well..."

The remaining lights on her instrument panel flickered off, and the joystick no longer seemed to work at all. The intercom was dead. Alamo leaned down; she heard his slightly strained voice come back into her ears. “Better?" 

“Yeah." 

“Some bus is fucked. Breaker need —" He cut out as he straightened back up, and immediately bent down to the circuit breaker panel again. “Breaker needed to be reset. Ain't likin' stayin' put, though."

Fuck. “Can't hold it in."

“No?"

That was in the NATOPS, like so many other unpleasant ways to break the Intruder. “The insulation's susceptible to arc-tracking from short-circuit damage. It starts fires."

“Lovely."

Kalija looked forlornly at the scenery around and below them. She badly wanted a little more distance. Just a little bit — a few hundred kilometers. But good judgment argued otherwise. “Sit up and get ready to punch out. Give me the signal, and I'll do it on three."

“Alright. Been fun, Elvis." He sat up, checked his helmet, and raised his hand in a salute to her. 

The dog patted the canopy a final time and counted to three before pulling the two big levers to either side of her seat. Five hundred years earlier, primitive escape systems had attached rockets more or less directly to the crew, shoving them brutally away from their stricken craft. Such a thing would not do in space, where the impulse would've sent them careening off into the void.

Instead, a second later, explosive bolts disintegrated the cockpit to either side, sending pieces in a widening cloud. The Intruder's engines shut down automatically, and retrorockets slowed the fuselage enough to let the two crewmembers drift sedately away — or, in their case, to freefall down towards Pike's surface.

A combination of the rockets and the complete removal of her nose had ruined Wagon 510's aerodynamic grace. The airframe hung in place, and began to tumble. Kalija watched it with a rather unanticipated sadness: it had, after all, carried her quite far.

She could not, however, blame it: as it twisted, she saw that two holes had been punched clear through the starboard engine, and the wing was completely shredded. Half the tail was gone, too — along with the antennas, so Alamo had been right. Nobody would've picked up their distress call. 

That was just her luck.

The terrain below looked to be featureless green. They were in the foothills, but far enough below the treeline that thick pine cover obscured any sight of what lay below. While she had the chance — falling from three kilometers up — she glanced around for any landmarks and found herself disappointed. No distinctive lakes or rivers, no peaks, and certainly no sign of human settlement.

They'd have to wait, then. Her flight-suit, in proper working order, was sealed and rated to keep her alive in deep space for six hours, and indefinitely if they were in an atmosphere with any oxygen. The seat, formally not an ejection but a “personal egress and recovery unit," contained the oxygen recyclers as well as the parachutes that were intended to produce a smooth landing in a planetside ejection. In theory.

The mutt was about to find out in practice. She waited for the thump and deceleration of the chutes. Waited. Waited. She glanced down, and found a red alarm lamp flashing. FAILURE. There was no time to consider the way it was phrased almost as an indictment; she held the emergency override down with her thumb, and nothing happened. Combat damage must've compromised the parachute system.

This was itself not supposed to be a problem — the same rockets that would let the personal egress and recovery unit maneuver in space were also enough to brake them for a smooth landing on a planet's surface if the primary system failed. And now the ground was swelling ever-closer, putting them at the emergency line when they would detect the parachute malfunction and fire. 

She steeled herself for the deployment. According to the NATOPS, it was calculated to be as nondisruptive as possible, ensuring pilot safety while preventing needless injury. The PERU's final arresting stage will fire according to local parameters (see interactive diagram 21.2) and you should expect some minor inertial stresses.

When it activated, every Nakath-ruhkat curse she knew left the dog's muzzle at the same time — punched from between her lips, it felt, just like her internal organs and whatever remained of her spine. Her vision went completely dark. The sharp deceleration kept her from breathing for several agonizing seconds — then brief weightlessness — then she was dimly aware of a second thump in the blackness. Then nothing.