A Scorp on my tail – another coming at me from starboard. A Dove sliced past and got the starboard Scorp. The world tumbled as I barrel-rolled and came at the remaining one from behind. Damn. Another Scorp. New Manhattan swung back and forth as I tried to evade it and go for the bomber again.
The Scorp was still right behind me. “Bastard,” I muttered, my skin prickling with heat. I’d quickly learned how different it was, fighting someone I really thought of as an enemy. Peacefighter pilots had shared a mutual bond. In a strange sense, we’d all been on the same side: the fight for peace.
No more. I might respect these pilots for their skills, but I burned to bring them down. Even worse was the knowledge that some of them might have been Peacefighters.
Cloud cover. I dived into it and then banked sharp starboard, trying to lose the Scorp.
Risky, risky, my internal voice chanted as the mist howled past. Far too easy to have a full-on collision in these conditions. Somehow my fingers stayed light on the stick, though sweat slicked my spine.
I burst out of the cloud. No Scorp. The bomber glided below like a whale; further below still was the swirling mass of the dogfight. Yes! I dived straight at the bomber – concentrated on getting its fuselage in my crosshairs.
Before I could fire, the Scorp was back, and had brought a friend. I rolled sideways as bullets raked my port wing. Damn. I dived, tensely watching my engine. No flames erupted – good.
Black spirals as several planes went down, smoke curling darkly over the city. I winced as one of ours crashed on the streets below, hoping the pilot had managed to bail; that no civilians had been hurt. When those sirens went off, they were meant to take cover.
The thought flitted past. I saw a Scorp about to fire on a Dove and got in there first, scattering bullets over the Scorp, my thumb working overtime on the firing button. My weak leg twinged from jamming on the left rudder; I ignored it and screamed upwards after another bomber. Its Scorps were tardy, fending off other Doves.
“All alone? My, what a pity,” I muttered.
I chased it over the northern part of the city, ducking in and out of the clouds. I swore as I saw its hatches open – saw bombs tumble out in a terrible slow motion. Gritting my teeth, I dived right at the bomber. I got over it and let loose, then pulled out.
A fireball erupted, blowing a hole in its broad side. At the same instant, puffs of explosions began to scatter up from the streets below.
The damaged bomber was still flying – I could actually see the crew inside. One appeared to be injured; the others were clustered around him. The pilot was looking over her shoulder, shouting something. I hesitated, cruising beside them – glimpsed their panicked faces as they saw me.
I started to fire again…then set my jaw and abruptly peeled away.
Less than an hour after I’d taken off, I landed, out of ammo and low on fuel.
“Check the port wing,” I said hurriedly as the fitter – not Hal this time – helped me from the cockpit.
“Will do, Wildcat,” he said with a freckled grin.
They all called me Wildcat. I’d decided not to mind, though deep down the label given to me by the press would always sting.
As usual, the adrenalin had left me shaky, too abuzz to stand still. Above, the battle still raged. I paced as I watched it, longing to be back up there.
Several other pilots had landed. One came over – a young English guy with thick russet hair. Despite his obvious weariness, his eyes had laugh-crinkles at their corners.
He put his hand out. “Hello, I’m Percy Allen. I’m a friend of your brother’s.”
“Amity,” I said as we shook. I recalled then that I’d seen him with Hal sometimes this past month, occasionally just the two of them sitting talking at a table.
Percy seemed about to say something, then apparently changed his mind. “Tough up there today. How’d you do?”
“A bomber and a couple of Scorps.”
He whistled. “You got a bomber?”
I grimaced, remembering my hesitation. “I didn’t down it,” I admitted. “But it won’t be bothering us again anytime soon. You?”
“A Scorp. It got my fuel tank though. If I hadn’t been almost empty…” Percy shrugged.
The fitter brought us strong, hot coffee and toast. I gulped them down, still keeping an eye on the battle, and then the fitter pronounced my refuelled plane ready to go again – the port wing would hold.
“Good luck,” I said to Percy. “Don’t die.” It was the kind of not-quite-a-joke that we always said.
He grinned tiredly. “No, it’s too pretty a day to die. And I’ve got plans later that I’d rather like to keep.”
I swung myself back into the cockpit; at the all-clear I taxied into position and took off again. Moments later I’d caught up with the battle and plunged back into its swirling mass.
I fought and landed, fought and landed – four more times that day. Kay Pierce seemed to have a relentless supply of bombers; her Scorps were even worse. I’d learned to hate that spiky scorpion shape almost as much as the Harmony symbol that framed it.
By four o’clock that afternoon, I was in the small cafe near the airfield, resting with my head back against the booth. A meal that I was too jumpy to eat lay in front of me.
Harlan slid in across from me, looking at least ten years older than he was. Did I look like that too? I wondered.
“Pretty hot up there today,” he said. “Thought I was going to eat dirt once. You eating that?”
“Feel free.”
He drew my plate towards him and started to eat. “Only two bombing hits so far though,” he went on, his mouth full. “We held the rest of ’em off.”
Vera appeared with a tray and sat beside Harlan. She sagged briefly against him, then straightened with a sigh. “We’re going out tonight, if the bombing doesn’t start up again,” she said to me. “There’s a place in Midtown that I’ve heard about.”
“Oh no, not one of your terrible music places,” said Harlan with a good-natured groan. He shifted to put his arm around her and she nestled in.
“No. One of my good music places. Want to come, Amity?”
I nodded without lifting my head from the back of the booth. I’d learned quickly these past few weeks that after a day of full-on combat, sleep wouldn’t come until I’d done something, anything, to expend the pent-up energy.
“Anyway, it’s damn good to be flying again, even on days like this,” went on Harlan. “And, man, these new planes? They are the business.”
I smiled slightly. “Tell me you’re not an MK12 person.”
“Um, yes. Have you noticed how much faster they are than the 9s?”
“Twenty-two miles per hour, and have you noticed the lack of control on the turns?”
He smirked. “Only if you can’t handle the power, girlie.”
“Fuck. Off.”
Harlan laughed and scraped the fork across the plate, scooping up some baked beans. Outside, another Dove landed. They were coming in fast and furious now – the bombers had all departed or been brought down; the Scorps were heading home.
Where had they come from this time? Rhode Island? Boston? Pierce seemed to have airbases everywhere now.
We fell silent as the medics’ truck careered to a halt beside a just-landed plane. I didn’t want to watch, but found my gaze lingering anyway as the fitters got the cockpit open.
They lifted out a pilot. I could see her blood from here. I winced.
Vera sighed. When she spoke again her voice was bright, deliberate. “You know what planes I liked?”
She glanced at herself in a small compact, rearranged a curl, and then snapped it shut again. “The old Moths. Remember them? My mother took me up in one once, and I was hooked. Forget power. They were just…elegant.”
“Which Moth?” said Harlan.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “The Gossamer,” she and I said in unison. If you were talking elegant Moths, there was only one.
“
The Goss? Wait, you mean the biplane? With, like, sheets instead of wings?”
Vera flapped a hand at him. “Some people just don’t appreciate beauty.”
Harlan gave her a private smile. “Oh, I do.”
Tess stopped by our table. “Good work today, all of you.” She was tall and straight, a former Peacefighter for Alaska. Her slightly detached, no-nonsense manner was the opposite of Russ, my old team leader. I liked her though. Her blue eyes were very direct. You could trust her.
Tess studied me, her gaze suddenly narrowed. “When’s the last time you had a day off, Vancour?”
I shrugged tiredly. “A day off? What’s that, sir?” Like the Guns at Harmony Five, all female officers here were “sir”. By now, I’d almost stopped making the association every time I said it.
She smiled slightly. “Don’t be a smart-ass. Take tomorrow off unless I tell you otherwise. You two as well,” she added to Harlan and Vera. “I want you all flying a sortie on Wednesday. We’re going to go for one of Pierce’s little secrets.”
A smile grew across my face. So far, I’d only been defending this island. I’d been longing to go out on the offensive and start obliterating those munitions factories.
“Understood, sir,” I said gravely.
After Tess left our table, Harlan held up his water glass. Vera and I clinked ours against it. “Until we can toast with something stronger,” he said. “Because that is the best damn news I’ve heard all day.”
“All week,” I said fervently.
“Might even make up for whatever music you’re planning to subject me to,” Harlan added to Vera.
“You’ll like it,” said Vera.
“You always say that.”
“Well, Amity likes my taste in music, anyway,” said Vera.
I started to respond, and then stopped – Ingo had just walked into the canteen.
His eyes briefly met mine. He gave the faintest of nods. He went to the line and leaned over the counter. I saw the server’s expression stiffen at his scar as he spoke to her. A few moments later he carried a tray over to a table of EA pilots.
As I studied his dark, curly head, I felt empty. If Ingo were really the man I’d thought he was, he’d bite the bullet and ask me if I were pregnant. He wouldn’t just wait for me to tell him.
I wasn’t, as it happened. I’d found out two days before, after several weeks of tensely imagining what I might do if my period didn’t arrive. The relief when it had was tempered with an emotion I couldn’t quite express.
Regret, in a strange way, that the worry was over…and with it, the last connection I’d ever need to have with what had happened between Ingo and me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Vera took us to a non-blackout section up in the West Side. The streets pulsed with neon lights and noise.
I tipped my head back as we walked, drinking it in. There was a looseness, a giddiness in the air, even with the near-daily bombings and the rationing that controlled people’s lives now. The WU was shipping in supplies to the island as promised, but they weren’t inexhaustible, and things like sugar and butter were already in short supply.
No one seemed to care. People took pride in being inventive in their cooking and finding ways around it. Being free from Pierce’s rule made everything a lark. Who cared if you had to use lard instead of butter?
Ground troops were being shipped in too. I kept seeing WU uniforms on the streets. The rumour was that we were planning a big push soon, to start snatching back more eastern cities.
“This is it,” said Vera.
Carl’s Roadhouse, read a flashing blue sign up ahead.
Harlan brightened. “Roadhouse? You mean, cold beer and decent music?”
“Don’t say I never did anything for you,” said Vera with a grin.
Carl’s was smoky and loud inside, with red shades over the lights and a decadent air that suited me fine just then. Two hours later, I was jitterbugging on the crowded dance floor with an African soldier whose name I hadn’t caught – telio-star handsome, with melting brown eyes.
His palm was sweaty as he grabbed my hand and spun me, our legs working overtime to the drumming beat. I knew I’d pay for this in the morning with my weak thigh, but didn’t care.
Finally, laughing, I collapsed at the table where Harlan sat smoking. He grinned and slid a fresh beer towards me. I gulped down half of it at once.
Cold, sharp, delicious. I’d lost count how many I’d had. The adrenalin from dancing was keeping me from getting too drunk, though I’d reached that happy stage where everyone I looked at seemed as if they must be wonderful people. I wanted to go talk to all of them.
“There is nothing better than beer,” I said, leaning forward. “Nothing on the whole, wide planet. Did you know that, Harlan?”
“I always suspected, it must be said.”
Vera was still on the dance floor. Some guy was attempting that move with her where you spin the girl around your legs, stepping over her as you go. She was shrieking with laughter. Harlan shook his head, watching with a smile.
I nodded over to her. “You don’t mind?”
“What, her dancing with someone else?” Harlan blew a stream of smoke towards the ceiling. “Nah. I’m no dancer. But I like the music and I like watching her. If I tried it, I’d just drop her on her head.”
I’d have guessed he’d be jealous. I sat studying his blunt, handsome features, thinking of all those nights we’d played poker together – how little I apparently knew him, for all that.
It seemed to be a theme. I looked down, my good mood fading, and pushed the beer glass around its ring of condensation.
As if guessing what I was thinking, Harlan leaned back in his seat. His voice turned deliberately casual. “So come on, Wildcat, spill… What’s the story with you and Manfred?”
I shrugged, wondering what Vera had told him. “No story. We’re friends, that’s all.”
“He’s a hell of a pilot.”
“I know.”
“Be kind of crappy if he got himself killed.”
“What?”
At the alarm in my tone, Harlan glanced over. “You haven’t noticed? Vancour, the guy flies like he’s got a death wish. He saved my ass the other day, but I’m still in shock that he didn’t annihilate himself.”
“We all do that,” I said. “Take risks to try to save each other.”
“Not like this. He flew right at the Scorp that was on my tail like he wanted to crash into it. If the Scorp hadn’t gotten away, he would have. He just kept firing. He didn’t pull out.”
A chill swept me. When I didn’t answer, Harlan slowly stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. “I tried to thank him afterwards, in the locker room. You know what he said?”
“What?” I said faintly.
“He said, ‘Don’t bother. It’s not like it mattered to me.’”
“He was kidding.”
“No, he fucking was not.”
I started to answer and stopped. “That’s…not Ingo,” I said finally.
“Thin guy, face like it’s half-melting? About six-three?”
“Stop it. I mean, he can be acerbic, but—”
“Knock it off with the ten-dollar words. Give me the nickel version.”
“He can be sarcastic,” I said. “But he’s kind, Harlan. He’s a good guy.”
Harlan studied me in the dim, smoky light. “We thought Collie was a good guy too,” he said.
My voice shook. I hated that I was having to defend Ingo – hated it even more that I’d been having the same thoughts. “That’s unfair.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.” Despite everything, the answer came immediately.
I fell into a tangled silence, staring at the quickly shifting dancers. All I could see of Vera through the crowd was a flick of her green skirt. I thought of the weight of Ingo’s body on mine – the way he’d shivered afterwards and clutched me to him so tightly.
Confusion throbbed. I drained my beer. ??
?You know what? This evening isn’t helping to take my mind off things any more,” I said.
“Fine, I’ll shut up,” said Harlan.
He did, too. He started talking about the MK12 again. I fell into the argument gratefully.
We were just at the point where we were scrawling diagrams on paper napkins when Vera half-danced back to our table and dropped into Harlan’s lap.
She squealed as he stood up suddenly with her in his arms. He kissed her and put her down in the chair.
“More beer,” he said, and set off for the bar. He turned, pointing at me while he walked backwards. “You’re still wrong!” he called.
Vera smiled after him, then studied one of the drawings. She shook her head. “I have no idea which side of the debate this is meant to show. How much have you had?”
I started to say something joking. For some reason it died on my lips. I hesitated and looked down, rubbing at a faint spot on my dress.
The music changed from swing to boogie-woogie and the crowd whooped in approval. On the bandstand the pianist’s hands were pounding the keys.
“What is it?” asked Vera, watching me.
I gave up pretending that I cared about the spot and cleared my throat. “Vera, have you ever slept with someone, and then…everything changes?”
Comprehension flowered over her face. She touched my arm. “You and Ingo?” she whispered.
The words felt lodged in my chest, hard to get out. “Last month. I thought…I was so sure we both felt the same way. And then the next morning, he said it had been a mistake. We’ve hardly spoken since.”
“Oh, Amity…” Vera breathed.
I hated the pity in her eyes – hated that my own were suddenly prickling. I forced a shrug. “I’ll live. I just wish I hadn’t been such an idiot.”
“Some men are like that,” she said after a pause. “The second they get you in bed, forget it. But…” She trailed off.
“What?”
Vera traced a finger over the tablecloth. “Well, I hardly know him. But you two have been through so much together… I don’t know. It seems strange.” She studied me. “How was it?”