Free Double Eagle by Dan Abnett Page B

Marquall at Espere’s five as the hanger.
    On her mark, they shuffled the deck. Jagdea throttled down and slid back out of the point of the V. Van Tull rolled three-sixty high and Espere did the same, but in reverse and low, until the two wingmen had swapped places. Marquall peeled out low, then gunned forward under the V and pulled ahead before dropping to cruise speed and coming up gently. The two wingmen then matched speeds and flanked him sweetly to his five and seven. Jagdea throttled back again, just a touch, and came around onto Espere’s five.
    Textbook. The first thing that had gone right all day.
    “Nice work, flight. Very slick. Let’s stay put for another five.”
    The undercast was thinning. They had about six-tenths cloud now, and dark patches of the Lida’s arable valley appeared below them, distant patchworks of field-systems, irrigation webs and hydroponic rafts.
    “Flight Leader?” It was Van Tull. “Go, Three.”
    “Check your auspex. I’m tagging eight or nine contacts below us at twelve kilometres, south, inbound.”
    Sure enough, Jagdea’s scope showed seven pippers, moving north-east at under three thousand metres. Not eight or nine, but that could just be the conditions masking returns.
    “Umbra Four-One Leader to Operations. Come in, Operations.”
    “Receiving, Umbra Four-One Leader.”
    Jagdea reached forward with her heavily-gloved left hand and transmitted the auspex fix.
    “Four-One Lead. Should there be anything up?”
    “Plenty, Four-One Leader, but not there.”
    “Understood, Operations. We’ll check it out.” Jagdea shifted in her seat, and tweaked the air-mix a little richer. “Lead to flight. I’ll take a look.” That was the hanger’s job, to peel off for sweeps. “Hold it here and come around three points south.” There was no time to shuffle the deck again, which meant she was leaving Marquall at point. A good idea? No time even to worry about it. “Umbra Eight, you have point. Stand by to stoop if I need you.”
    “Read that, Leader. I’ve got it.”
    At last. A touch of excitement in the boy’s voice. Good. He could do with this. Besides, Van Tull was right there, solid and dependable. And Espere was a consummate wingman.
    Jagdea kicked the afterburners a touch and rolled out, feeling the delicious punch of G as she inverted and began to dive away, wide, to the left of the trio V. the long dive loaded power into her wings, and she was touching two thousand kph as she closed on the targets. Enough load to pull off beautifully if they were friendly. Enough punch to turn it into an intercept if they weren’t.
    Five kilometres and closing. Four.
    The sky was suddenly very clear, less than four-tenths cloud. The vast green rift of the Lida Valley stretched out beneath her, and for the first time she could see the hazy line of the Makanites.
    Three kilometres. There they were. Below her still, but closing at an alarming rate because they were travelling towards her, and adding her speed to their own. Nine machines. Clustered rather than in formation.
    At two kilometres, she identified their pattern. Cyclones. A flight of Cyclones, Enothian PDF. The delta-winged double props were painted in a grey and white dazzle, and running north hard, possibly at the top of their performance.
    What the hell were they doing here? Were they… running?
    Instinct made Jagdea flip off the red safety covers of her main guns.
    “Cyclone intruders, Cyclone intruders, this is Umbra Four-One Leader—” she started to say into her vox-mask.
    But she stopped. One of the tail-end Cyclones wobbled and exploded. The brief fireball was fuel-rich and sent streamers of white smoke twirling away into the clear air. The flaming debris dropped towards the field-system below.
    Something crimson and hooked ran in past it so fast it was climbing out of range again before Jagdea had realised what it was.
    “Bats! Bats! Bats!” she yelled into her vox.
     
    Theda seafront, 15.20
    They’d wanted