Blood of the Mantis

She could see Che making swift headway in the Stormcry, but two of the Wasp orthopters were stooping on her fast. Even in that moment of crisis, Taki had to admire the steepness of their approach. It looked as though the Empire could muster a few decent aviators, and that would make this contest more interesting. If Che had not been caught in the middle of it she would be enjoying herself already, but Che was no fighting pilot, not one ready to perform the dance of the dragonflies over the waters of the Exalsee. Even now she was dropping lower and lower, casting the Stormcry towards the nearest island in the hope of some kind of cover, but Taki was well aware that she would not be able to win out that way. This was not like land-fighting, and cover was good only for moments at a time during a dragon-fight.

She saw a minute glitter as the lead Wasp orthopter loosed its weapons, and she prepared to dive in on him. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she put two and two together and came up with four. Four imperial orthopters had dropped from the airship’s mountings, which meant that the other two were…

She flung the Esca sideways in the air, virtually spinning on a wingtip. One orthopter rushed past her and a bolt of energy flashed from its pilot’s hand, scorching a smouldering line across the wood and canvas of the Esca’s wing. Then the long darts of ballista bolts were slanting past her, and she danced her craft back and forth, ducking the other orthopter’s shots. In her mind a clock was running, calculating just how long Che could hope to last without Taki’s intervention.

The orthopter stayed right behind her, its missiles going wide. The flier had twin repeating ballistae bulking out its bow, alternate-strung so that the release of the one fed into the loading of the other. She got a good look at this arrangement as she backed the Esca’s wings without warning, hanging and then falling out of the air so that the Wasp flier surged above her, and then throwing her wings into a blur to catch up with him. Repeating ballistae: the idea of it amused her. It was heavier and less efficient than her own weapon, but it was getting there. These Wasps were obviously worth watching.

She opened up with the rotary piercer, the firepowder-charged bolts whipping through the air far faster than the torsion-powered shafts of the ballistae, so that, just when he thought he had room to dodge, she punched through his hull with half a dozen separate shots. She had no idea whether the damage she had done was to the pilot or to the craft, but the Wasp orthopter abruptly faltered in the air and then dived dizzyingly out of the sky towards the unforgiving waters below.

Taki looked about wildly, trying to pinpoint Che again.

There! Almost skimming the water, just what her instructor had always told Taki never to do. When you’re that low, where can you go next? But they had forced her down and, though her fixed-wing should have been faster, the two of them kept shooting and shooting, forcing Che to bank and turn in a desperate attempt to throw them off, squandering her speed for the fickle privilege of staying alive.

There was still one more orthopter pursuing Taki, and she felt the Esca shake all about her as she saw a hole ripped through the fabric of one wing. She swung her own craft around but the Wasp pulled out of his dive quickly, still keeping above her. She threw her machine at him and the two of them spiralled higher and higher, neither of them getting a shot in, each of them urging their machine to get above its rival. All this time they were getting further and further away from Che.

Another bolt lashed close past Che, gouging a furrow in the Stormcry’s side and throwing her into an involuntary yaw that nearly put one wingtip into the water. The Exalsee was dashing past so fast beneath her that she could only hope that any waiting monster-fish would be unable to take advantage of this swiftly fleeing meal.

Che craned backwards, trying to see her pursuers, but the rear of her cockpit blotted them out of view. The Stormcry groaned again, and she knew another bolt had slammed into some part of it behind her. She hoped it was nothing too important.

There was a little chain of islands ahead, most of them just jagged rocks jutting bare and grey from the water. Taki, where are you? She hurled the Stormcry forwards, because she presented an open target here, over the water, and one that the Wasps were gleefully making use of.

Past the first island, just a barren spur of stone, and she sent the Stormcry sideways, trying to take advantage of its shadow. The bolts slanted down to her left, though, and she realized that one of the Wasps had gone high to continue lancing down at her, while the other was grimly following whatever paces she flung her machine through.