Flying the Storm

37.





Thunder

The black clouds were boiling in from the west. Beneath them the sea was whipped up into white horses, galloping towards the mouth of the loch and its stony shores. The Enkidu, itself a dark grey, was almost invisible in front of the storm, and the flashes of shell bursts and cannon fire flickered like the lightning beyond. The warship was further away now, having gradually spiralled back out to sea. It was still moving, only pausing now and again to fire its main guns. The shots were like blue-white meteors that streaked off to the east.

Aiden could see where they were hitting the Gilgamesh. Each pair of slugs would flash white and orange where they hit, and it was only seconds later that explosions would follow from within the hull. The shots must have been punching incredibly deep into the Gilgamesh. It was trailing smoke and fire from dozens of rents in its bow and sides, but still it powered on, charging towards the Enkidu. Even its command tower was wrecked. Small blue flashes and fiery streaks showed its own rail-fire, almost constant, but only the forward batteries could engage the threat ahead. If it could bring its broadside to the Enkidu, Aiden knew it would all be over.

The sky around and above the monstrous Gilgamesh had filled now with dozens of aircraft, forming into loose squadrons and edging ahead of their carrier. They were much, much slower than the fighters had been, and Aiden realised quickly that it was all of the other aircraft of the Gilgamesh: transports, interceptors, small battlefield aircraft. Anything and everything left in its hangars had been launched to attack the Enkidu. Even from the ground the desperation was clear.


“How’s it going?” he shouted to Hammit.

A thumb-up was all he got in reply. The boy-engineer was working hurriedly away at the Iolaire’s engine to fit the new valve. Fredrick paced nervously at Aiden’s side, trying not to look at the sky. Between the incoming storm and the intensifying aerial battle, this was not an ideal time to be a pilot. When, or rather if, they got airborne, they would have to hug the ground and try to sneak out to the south, keeping mountain ranges between them and the pair of warships that might just decide to swat them from the sky. They might or might not have had enough fuel to reach Glasgow, but the main objective at the present was just to escape. Once they were sure they weren’t dead they could worry about fuel.

Aiden did a double-take as a great slab of the mountainside seemed to slide open, like the mountain had just opened its mouth. From the dark tunnel beyond, tens upon tens of aircraft came streaming out. They were small but agile looking, and seemed to be moving incredibly quickly, engines buzzing like a swarm of angry hornets. The aircraft themselves seemed to swarm too, twitching and weaving with reflexes Aiden knew no human pilot had.

They were drones. The mountain-factory had launched drones. First rockets and autocannons, and now drones.

“Lort!” yelled Fredrick. Hammit had stopped to look too, gaping.

The drones sped away to head off the squadrons of auxiliary aircraft. Those airmen were about to get a hell of a fright.

The dogfight started with panicked bursts of tracer fire as the human airmen were attacked from below and ahead by the drones. The bright blue of the drones’ rounds flashed less often, but when it did it was controlled and deadly. By contrast, the reds and greens of the airmen’s bullets sprayed out in wild arcs, missing the little black drones that dove and twisted through their fast-disintegrating formations. Already a handful of aircraft were going down in trails of fire and smoke, but somehow, driven on by the powerful presence of the Gilgamesh, they were still making progress. Half a minute and they would be right overhead.

“Think you should get to your gun?” asked Fredrick, his voice straining over the rumbling explosions. He had given in and was watching the battle above.

“I think maybe I might,” Aiden answered. “I won’t shoot at anything unless I absolutely have to. We really don’t want the attention.”

Fredrick nodded. “We really don’t.”

Aiden clambered into his turret and went through the start-up procedures. It came to life beneath him with a gentle twitch and the green light of the HUD, and the first thing he checked was the ammunition counter. 2200. Thank you Teimuraz, he thought. Twelve-point-sevens were expensive, but the Georgian had paid for everything they’d needed with a couple of signatures and not even a grumble. For whatever reason, he very much wanted Solomon to reach the Enkidu. Aiden wondered now if the dock-master had been in on Solomon’s real scheme, or whether he’d been taken in just as much as they were by the carefully-crafted bullshit.

Soon the furball of fighting aircraft was overhead. The manned aircraft still seemed to outnumber the drones, but the difference was steadily slipping away in bursts of blue tracer and flaming orange trails. The sound of all the engines, even through the turret’s armoured glass, was overwhelming, and through it all cut the chatter and burp of automatic fire. It even drowned out the sounds of the two warships slugging it out only a few kilometres away; the Gilgamesh was now easily within ten kilometres of the Enkidu.

Suddenly Fredrick was running up the ramp beneath Aiden, Hammit close behind him. The ramp buzzed shut, and Aiden pulled on his headset.

“Let’s see if it worked,” said Fredrick’s voice on the intercom. Aiden waited as Fredrick went through his mental checklist of starting actions. Then with a whine and a throaty roar, both of the Iolaire’s engines came to life.

“You beauty,” Aiden said, punching the air.

“Thank you, erm...” said Fredrick.

“Hammit,” said the engineer’s voice. “I’m Hammit.”

“Thank you kindly, Hammit.”

They lifted off. Aiden watched as the mountain pass receded beneath him, the grass blasted by the prop wash. It had never felt so good to be airborne, he was sure.

Until he looked up again.

The dogfight was getting wilder. Blue anti-air fire leapt up from unseen sources on the mountain, hammering through the swirling mass of fighting aircraft. The dogfight seemed to have become centred above the mountain, no longer pushing forwards towards the Enkidu. Aiden brought the tailgun up and ready to fend off anything that came too close. There were so many aircraft, though. He didn’t even know if he’d notice a single one coming after them.

“Fred, this is bloody insane,” he muttered.

“Yep.”

The first outrunners of cloud from the coming storm had arrived too, blanketing the blue sky in feathery ribbons of white and grey. Aiden watched them above as the Iolaire accelerated to the west, lowering its engines and folding out its wings. The mountainsides hurtled by beneath them so very fast, seeming incredibly close. The Iolaire was heading for the sea loch.

And the Gilgamesh was turning.

It seemed so huge and ponderous, and yet it was turning about its centre with unbelievable speed. Smoke curled and twisted from its many wounds, and the red glow of its massive engines came into view as its stern turned towards the Iolaire. Then the engines darkened.

Its side lit up with a hundred flashes. It was giving the Enkidu its full broadside.

The huge volley crossed the kilometres with trails of vapour and light. Aiden followed them across, expecting this to be the end of the Enkidu.

But the Enkidu was no longer dodging. It was facing the Gilgamesh, rushing towards it at speed.

“Fred, you seeing this?”

“Yep.”

When the volley was a split-second away, bright thrusters fired all along the top of the Enkidu, pushing it down. Then it disappeared as a hundred huge explosions seemed to ripple across its top side. It was hit. The broadside had hit it. The entire combined firepower of the port side of the Gilgamesh had detonated on its dorsal armour.

It kept going. From where Aiden sat, it didn’t even seem damaged. The shots must have missed somehow, or only grazed it. Now it was accelerating towards the Gilgamesh, closing the distance rapidly.

“What the hell is he playing at?”

The bow of the Enkidu was rising. It was pulling up as if to ram the Gilgamesh. Surely that wasn’t Solomon’s plan?

Vika was on-board that warship. Aiden’s eyes widened in horror.

Then, when the little Enkidu was under a klick from the Gilgamesh, it fired its guns. The two blue-white slugs crossed the distance so fast they were just beams of light, spearing into the Gilgamesh and punching from its other side to streak off into the sky. The Enkidu pulled up further, climbing above the Gilgamesh.

The huge nozzle at the little warship’s stern, dark until now, suddenly lit up. A jet of red flame shot from it like the exhaust of a rocket, shimmering with shock cones. The Enkidu accelerated and accelerated, the shockwaves forming at its bow causing great cones of vapour to flicker in and out of being all along its length. It was going so fast, climbing up ahead of the clouds and into the blue sky beyond.

Before ten seconds had passed, it was just a bright red dot, appearing like a new star in the summer sky. And then the Enkidu was gone.

But the Gilgamesh still floated above the mountains and the aerial melee around the Iolaire still raged on.


The gigantic warship was rocked by a series of powerful explosions from deep within its hull. They blossomed out from the two glowing holes punched by the Enkidu’s guns. The ship itself seemed to flex and bend, and slowly it was falling to the ground. It had been shot down. The Gilgamesh had been shot down.

Just when it seemed like it would crash, it slowed and caught itself. It hovered then, not a kilometre from the ground, fire and smoke pouring from its many gashes and holes.

“What in all the hells just happened?” said Fredrick.

“It’s... gone. The Enkidu is gone. And the Gilgamesh is still airborne.”

“I see that... just... what?”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t bloody know.”

They were under the storm clouds then. Lightning flashed deep within the thunderheads. Fat drops of rain started to pelt the top and sides of Aiden’s turret, smearing off into the airstream. The Iolaire was a few hundred metres above the choppy surface of the sea loch, racing out towards its mouth.

“Uh-oh,” said Fredrick.

“What?”

“The passive is playing up. It says we have four somethings behind us. Can you see anything?”

Aiden swung his gun around, scanning. Nothing. “Nope,” he said, his teeth clenched.

“Shit,” replied Fredrick. “It still says four things are on our tail.”

It was astonishingly dark now that they were under the storm. The Iolaire was bouncing around in the turbulence and the streaking raindrops were obscuring Aiden’s peripheral vision. There very well could have been something out there, and he wouldn’t have been able to see it.

“Maybe the piece of shit is finally broken...” muttered Fredrick.

“No,” said Aiden. “There they are.”

Beneath and behind them, right above the dark surface of the sea, were four black drones. They were flying in perfect formation, not even buffeted by the winds.

And they were catching up.

“How far?”

Aiden flashed the laser at the lead drone. “Two klicks. A little bit far.”

“What should I do?”

“Keep flying straight and fast. If you turn, they’ll catch up with us. I’m going to force them to manoeuvre.”

Aiden heard the engines rise ever so slightly in pitch. Fredrick was giving everything the Iolaire had.

He took aim at the lead drone, carefully placing the ranged crosshair on it. If it hadn’t been for the turbulence it would have been too easy, since it was flying so straight and level. He squeezed the trigger. The gun roared out a short burst and a fiery red beam raced towards the drones.

At the last moment, the drone pulled up and the shots passed harmlessly underneath to shred the surface of the sea. Without hesitating, Aiden fired another longer burst, spraying it a little from side to side for good measure.

It almost had the desired effect. The formation split up, each drone flying a different direction. But they dodged his fire perfectly, flicking out of its way almost effortlessly.

The Iolaire probably couldn’t outrun them, not with the dribble of fuel they had left. He knew that he would have to let them get close.

“Fred, I need you to bank south.”

“Bank? But you said-”

“I know.”

Fredrick banked the Iolaire then, and Aiden’s world tipped to the left. They were no longer fleeing the middle of the dogfight. Now they were running alongside it, but Aiden did his best to ignore it and keep his gun trained on the four drones that had followed them through the turn. They were closing rapidly.

Aiden and the lead drone fired simultaneously. The blue and the red tracer passed each other so close it looked like they would collide.

“Break!” shouted Aiden.

The Iolaire pulled up hard, a moment too late. A handful of rounds impacted along the spine of the aircraft. Flashes of white light and horrendous bangs filled the air as the shells tore great holes in the fuselage behind Aiden. He swore and kept firing, desperately trying to track the drone as he was thrown against his straps by the g-forces.

The ammunition counter was dropping quickly and the gun temperature was climbing. The bullets were a great rope of fire that flicked and coiled as it chased the little black drone across the grey sky. And then he hit it. The red bullets ripped the compact little aircraft to shreds, but to Aiden’s disappointment there was no fire or even a satisfying explosion. It just pulled to pieces, flipped and tumbled to the rocky shore below. The Iolaire was over the land once more.

Aiden had lost the other three drones.

“Well I got one...” he said. He frantically threw the turret about, searching for the others. Shit.

This was worryingly like the flight from Azerbaijan. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he expected the Iolaire to be hit again at any second.

Like smoke from a campfire the battle seemed to have followed them. Without meaning to, they had somehow found themselves in the heart of the spiralling madness. Aircraft spun and howled through the air all around them, having fought all the way down to the Iolaire’s altitude, and the three drones could have been anywhere amongst the carnage. Maybe they’d choose new targets now and harass some other poor bastards.

Then the armoured glass of the turret opened in five thumb-sized holes. The gun-sight assembly disappeared before Aiden, and something hit him like a slap to the face. His eyes shut and wouldn’t open.

He was blind.