Free Double Eagle by Dan Abnett Page A

Thunderbolts in Umbra Flight had been out of use for three and a half months.
    Then again, she wondered, maybe it was her. Serial Zero-Two wasn’t the only thing not to have flown in three and a half months. Jagdea felt clumsy and inept. She’d even made a sloppy job of take-off. They’d had simulators on the carrier of course, regular sessions to keep them sharp, but it wasn’t the same, just like turning a bird’s turbofans over on the flight deck every morning wasn’t the same.
    Good flying. Seekan’s presumably honestly meant remark now seemed like a jinx.
    They were flying in unit teams of four machines. With her were Van Tull, Espere and Marquall. Blansher had the second unit four about forty kilometres behind them, and Asche the third, running a wide patrol over the Littoral. Essentially, Umbra Flight had split into three independent Interceptor units. That was optimum size for routine hunting or opportunist intercept work. If more than three or four Thunderbolts tried to share the same slice of sky, things tended to get a little crowded.
    Anyway, this wasn’t a hunt. It was a shakedown. A little wind-in-the-hair run to get pilots and machines into the swing of things. Umbra Flight had traditionally been a Lightning wing, but after the liberation of Phantine, they’d switched to the heavier Thunderbolts, and come to love them during the air war on Urdesh Minor. Sometimes Jagdea missed the sprightly performance of the III-IX Lightning, the exhilarating rates of its climb and dive, the darting grace of its turns. The Thunderbolt was almost half as heavy again and, at lower speeds, particularly climbing, it felt as if it barely had the power to lift its massively armoured body. But it was heavy and robust, and could soak up the sort of punishment that would send a Lightning fluttering to its doom like a moth. It had longer legs too, and a snout-full of killware. Where the Lightning was a playful ambush-cat, the Thunderbolt was a full-grown carnodon. Blansher had once said that a pilot flew the Lightning for the joy of flying, and the Thunderbolt for the joy of killing. That seemed about right to Jagdea. She adored her Bolt. It was muscular, indomitable, responsive.
    Except on days like today. The port fan was simply not running clean. There was nothing on the display, but she could feel it, something in the rhythm of the engine tone.
    She checked the fuel. Roughly a third gone, and they hadn’t opted for reserve tanks. She keyed the vox.
    “Umbra Four-One Leader to Four-One Flight. Let me hear you.”
    “Umbra Three, Four-A.” Of course he was. Van Tull was always Four-A.
    “Umbra Five, I’ll be fine once I’ve remembered what the controls do.”
    “Roger that, Five. I know the feeling,” Jagdea returned.
    “Umbra Eight. Okay here.”
    Marquall sounded unhappy still. The stupid business with Gettering had knocked him back, the last thing a novice wanted on his first day out. He’d tried to make light of it, remarking that his Bolt was now called The Smear, because Racklae hadn’t had time to do any more than paint out his nose art with a wash of undercoat. But Jagdea knew he’d been hurt.
    “Let’s refresh the pattern, flight,” she said. “Eight, you slip into point, Five and Three change over. I’ll take the hanger.”
    They all responded, “Okay”. A nice little manoeuvre test to get them flexing their brains Jagdea reckoned, and getting Marquall up in what was technically lead position might do his confidence some good.
    “On the mark… three, two, one… execute.”
    Unit fours flew in a line formation, with one machine forward and another two flanking to rear on either side. The fourth, or “hanger”, flanked one or other of the wingmen to rear, forming an asymmetrical V. It was an excellent pack formation, each pilot covered by his comrades, the hanger able to switch from side to side as needed. Currently, Jagdea was in point, with Van Tull to her port and Espere to her starboard,