Free Ascent by Jed Mercurio by Ascent (com v4.0) Page A

scattered. MiGs and Sabres divided into elements and then it became a free-for-all. He isolated a Sabre and his cannons ripped into its tailplane. The hits went on until smoke burst from its engine, then it stuttered and fell.
    He was an ace.
    As he thought of medals, a Sabre locked onto his tail. Gunfire peppered his wing. As he pulled round hard he glimpsed splinters leaping off and vanishing into his slipstream. The turn tightened to the buffet. The stick was quaking but the needles held still on their marks as he sucked in short breaths and strained out long ones. Grayness encroached on the rim of his vision and he had to quicken his respiration. He was going at thirty a minute and beginning to feel light-headed. Then the Sabre swam into his gun-sight. He’d outturned it. His finger hammered the trigger and in seconds the American was smoking. Three MiGs were lost but the Sabres had been cut apart and now Yefgenii was climbing up to a B-29. His guns nailed its starboard engines. It was trying to turn but it was big and clumsy and the pilot must’ve been calling for fighter support but those who were left were down among the MiGs fighting for their own lives. Yefgenii’s cannons began to rip the bomber’s port engines. The big gun stuttered out of ammunition so he continued with the 23 mm guns. The B-29’s cowling splintered. Blades and the shaft of the propeller spiraled apart. The bomber plunged and one by one the men began bailing out.
    The widow stenciled the new red stars on his cockpit. She’d started without even asking his permission. She felt a share in his success.
    From the Ops hut Kiriya watched her paint on the stars: he had eight. Skomorokhov watched: he had twelve. Pilipenko watched: he had nine. The hunger drove all three. Each man nurtured a dream of becoming Ace of Aces. Behind the camaraderie, dark thoughts poisoned the brotherhood.
    Glinka didn’t look. He couldn’t bear even to meet Yefgenii’s eyes. Resentment ate away at him.
    The following week Yefgenii claimed two more and overtook Kiriya. Kiriya offered his congratulations but inside it was agony. The boy stood a realistic chance of making the kind of reputation in this war that would crown him a king among kings. The line of stars after his name on the scoreboard in Ops got a little longer. Now only Pilipenko and Skomorokhov had more. They were going up at least twice a day to get kills, to stay ahead. In secret Skomorokhov had started aligning a pair of mirrors to help him comb over his bald patch.
    The land was turning brown. Only the pines remained green. In the mornings frost glistened on the bare trees. The snow line was creeping down from the mountains; a soup of cold air seeped onto the plain. Even at lower altitude, the MiGs laid white trails that lasted half the day, and, below them, the Yalu River appeared no longer steel but darker, like the gray of slate.
    Stars sparkled overhead as Yefgenii stood under the black sky. He was the youngest ace in the VVS, the youngest jet ace in history, yet in his chest remained a space to be filled. He’d set himself on the long journey to the heavens, to become celestial himself, but he feared no number of kills would be enough. His eyes drifted over the patterns of the stars. Already it felt too late to learn their names. The race against death would be too swift.
    He heard footsteps crunch over the hard ground. They approached from the barrack shacks and stopped at the perimeter where he stood.
    “I knew it would be you,” she said.
    “How?”
    “You want to be alone. I get that from you, when you come back from flying.”
    “Now I’m not alone.”
    “No.” Her breath formed a thin vapor. It gave her evanescent tusks. “D’you want me to go?”
    “I’m not inclined to tell you what to do.”
    “What would you say, if you were?”
    He appeared not to understand. She smiled at him. She felt so much more experienced than him, and, of course, she was. She had to take his hand to