Free Flying the Storm by C. S. Arnot

in long arcs, burning out and disappearing far across the valley. The aircraft accelerated, climbing and diving in short bursts as it brought the fortress into its tail gunner’s arc of fire.
    Accelerating further, the Iolaire howled past the fortress crag, tail gun roaring and rotors lowering for conventional flight once more.
    “ We aren’t being paid enough to get shot down!” barked Tovmas’ earphone. “We’ll bank wide and make some high-speed passes, but we aren’t landing ‘till you clear them out!”
    Flyboys always were precious about their aircraft . Tovmas turned to his men. They were tired, but seemed to be in good spirits. A few were watching the slavers out by the landing pad, wary of the lack of shots coming their way.
    “I don’t see any point in charging them yet,” said Tovmas finally. His men looked at him, relieved. “I think we can pick a few of them off, and then move in. Let the westerners soften them up a bit. Who knows, maybe the bastards will want to surrender!” A couple of men laughed nervously. The rest were silent.
    Magar and the support gunners clambered over th e summit rocks to join the rest of the men. Tovmas took Magar by the shoulder.
    “Do you think you could hit them from here?” he asked, pointing at the slavers at the landing pad.
    “Maybe,” replied Magar, breathing heavily from the climb. “I’m a little out of practice.” He sat down cross-legged and rested his rifle on the lip of the broken little wall that most of the militia were sheltering behind. He fiddled with the rear sight on his weapon, setting the range, before shouldering it tightly and taking aim. Tovmas took out his binoculars.
    Magar’s judgement was good. Through the binoculars, Tovmas saw that his first shot blew open the skull of a submachine-gun wielding slaver, whose body slumped against the crate he was leaning on. Tovmas left Magar to it and returned his attention to his men.
    “How is everybody’s ammo?” he asked. The men began rummaging in pockets and pouches, and Tovmas was not surprised to find that most were running low. Around half of them had ex-NAU six-point-five millimetre assault rifles; the rest had an assortment of pump-shotguns, hunting rifles and pistols. Tovmas had assigned the one eager crossbowman to his rocket team. The dead slavers probably had some six-point-fives, but the rest were going to have to improvise. Magar’s rifle barked.
    Just as he was telling the men to search the slavers’ bodies for ammo, shots began cracking over from the landing pa d. Magar had drawn a response.
    “Save your ammunition !” Tovmas shouted to his men, who had begun to return fire. “Let Magar piss them off a bit more!”
    The men tucked themselves low and continued searching the bodies, while rounds whined and snapped above their heads.
    “I think I’ll re-locate, if you don’t mind!” shouted Magar, ducking behind the wall as a bullet split one of the stones near his head. Tovmas nodded, and Magar slid along to the far end of the wall, sitting up and taking aim once more.
    The Iolaire howled overhead again, banking around above the crag, a stream of fire spitting from its tail gun. The slavers’ positions were hammered with rounds; great plumes of dust and soil leapt into the air once more.
    Tovmas’ men had finished searching the dead. He shouted to them, “We are going to attack them now!” He pointed at three of them. “You co ver us, keep their heads down!”
    Switching to English, he yelled into the radio, “Give us cover! We’re attacking them now!” Then he stood up with a cry of “With me!” and clambered over the ruined wall. Once again, he was running in the open, quietly this time, with his men following a few metres behind. His long shadow ran before him, undulating with the ground.
    Tovmas’ blood was up, and he did not fear the slavers’ guns. Shots cracked by on his right, but from friend or foe he couldn’t tell. He crossed the lip of a depression