The Matsumoto is different from the cops, though not as much I would like. The flight group is a stretched to its limit defending the ship and gate site as well as trying to patrol the Unyo Cloud route. They think this whole project is stupid and expect it to all go up in flames shortly. They fret about their losses and failing their duty. The oldest and most deadly enemies of the Kusari state are all around them, seeking their deaths.

And...it's hard to explain, but these pilots burn brightly. You can see it talking to them, watching them move. They firmly believe they are the best the Kusari Naval Forces have to offer, and they can point to the fact of their survival to prove it. Even the ship's crew moves with this spring in their step, flight line support staff, gunners, the quartermasters. They are warriors. They have enemies all about them. Their duties are clear, their comrades skilled and honorable. They have no regrets, no questions about their place. Nothing could be simpler. Nothing could be finer.

I admit I envy them in a way.

Because of the degree to which the flight group is stretched, Hiei flight is expected to handle more of the normal duties than freelancers usually are. We have a place in the patrol rotations and in the alert-flight rotation. We have an escort on the gunboat KNFS Tanagawa, along the route of the trade lane. Hiei-1 is the corporal, Sachiko Kondo. Hiei-2 is a man in his sixties who introduced himself as Kazuo Endo. He has the manners of a Buddhist monk and the even tone to match that impression, to the point that the flight line people address him as "Monk". I'm Hiei-3, and Tsukinoyo is Hiei-4. We're exploring alternate routes for the Kyofu Run on the other side of the system from the usual.

We had a scuffle with some GC Hawks in the Kayo Cloud. They retreated when one of their number was damaged. Sachiko strongly recommended to the gunboat captain that we withdraw, as the Golden Chrysanthemums were doubtless telling all their friends about our course and speed. Which was probably sound advice, as it turned out, but the Tanagawa's captain didn't take it.

We crossed the Gap and were a couple of kilometers into the Shiden Cloud, about to turn towards Sapporo Station, when the wheels came off. I remember very distinctly picking up the transmission that started it. It was very faint, but we were all silent and on edge so I heard it pretty clearly. "All forces in the vicinity, this is Ainu. We have incoming hostiles. Prepare to engage."

The Ainu Depot is what the Golden Chrysanthemum base in the Shiden Cloud is called.

Sachiko must have heard it too, a rare thing for a military pilot to tap all comms like that, and ordered us out of cruise. We didn't realize how close we were until Tsukinoyo saw it through the nebula because of an electrical discharge. She also gave us just enough warning to avoid all being blown to bits when a dozen mixed Blood Dragon and Golden Chrysanthemum fighters roared in at us. The Tanagawa couldn't dodge the way the rest of us could and took a torpedo despite a truly heroic effort by Kazuo that knocked down three others, but somehow kept fighting.

What followed was a classic fighting withdrawal. I lobbed a torpedo in the Ainu Depot's general direction, which distracted a few of Chrysanthemum Hawks, while Tsukinoyo and Kazuo shepherded the Tanagawa and Sachiko kept anyone from blowing me up. And then I kept two very determined Blood Dragons from blowing her up while she lit up the comm with her curses that her shield battery system wasn't working right. She finally got it to trigger and we had to go together to save Tsukinoyo from a trio of Golden Chrysanthemums. Kazuo was seemingly everywhere at once, fighting off a half-dozen Blood Dragons with only meager help from the Tanagawa's turrets. He took a bad hit at the end, but the other three of us were able to chase off most of the Blood Dragons.

I found myself following a Blood Dragon. He dumped a mine at me, but I dodged it with a tap of the burners, and hit him again with a volley. His right wing and tailplane came off and he broke hard, but my guns tracked his maneuver and fired once more, and he came apart. I swung back towards the Tanagawa and spotted another one on a vector that looked like a torpedo run, and hit the burners to rush him, firing. The Blood Dragons have encrypted comms, unlike most, so I don't hear them talking. But they took that first hit, and jinked, and it was obvious to me that they didn't know where I was. He made this classic, gentle, flying school slow left turn looking for me, and he might as well have had a giant question mark hanging over his cockpit to illustrate his confusion. That turn killed him, because it let me glue myself firmly to his tail and by the time he spotted me his right wing had just torn off. A feeble jink was all he managed before the next shot blew his fighter to bits.

I got one more kill, a high-deflection shot. There was nothing special about it; I was throwing a lot of garbage-quality shots at a damaged Blood Dragon and he flew into one of them rather than managing to pick his way through. Pure luck; good for me, bad for him. The Dragons disappeared back into the mists. The Chrysanthemums took a moment longer, losing another Hawk to the combined fire of Sachiko and Tsukinoyo. The two had an oddly good-natured disagreement about who got the killshot.

Sakura Flight off the Matsumoto met us before we recrossed the Gap and shepherded us and the gunboat home. Sachiko told them, with relish, how I had gotten three Blood Dragon kills. Kazuo confirmed it to them. Apparently this is a deal; three is the most Blood Dragons anyone has ever downed in a single sortie, something only two of the Matsumoto's pilots have achieved before.

I was modest. That didn't seem to help.

Working out of the Essex there was a vague sense of comradery among the pilots. Working out of the Matsumoto, flying with these Kusari Naval Forces pilots, it's not vague. It's a physical force; something that hit me like a supertransport at cruise as I dismounted on landing. A dozen flight line crew swarmed over my ship the moment I was engines-off, checking for damage and starting rearm and refuel. The other ships of Hiei Flight were undergoing similar treatment. I got an equal dozen well-wishes in both Kusari and English. Before I made it six steps away from the ship, some Kusari Naval Forces pilot I didn't recognize grabbed my right hand and held it aloft. "Gaishou isshoku! Trent!"

And god strike me dead, they all started chanting. Tsukinoyo was giving me this big grin at my obvious confusion, but...you're in a crowd, chanting your name. It's impossible not to get swept up. I defy any human to be unmoved by this situation.

A couple of hours later, in the bar, things had wound down. Kazuo was nowhere to be seen now, he apparently wasn't a drinker. I'd started my stay in Kusari pretty diffident about sake, but by now I was wondering if anyplace in Leeds or Manhattan stocked it. I didn't think I was actually drunk, but I can't swear to it. I was flirting with Tsuki, as she insisted I call her now, and she was flirting back. Sachiko looked mildly jealous and started flirting as well, and rather than a catfight I ended up seeing Tsuki practically invite her to join us.

It was at that point I decided I probably was drunk and made my excuses to retire for the evening.

I scrambled six hours later with a minor hangover. The Matsumoto was under attack. A proper hot launch from a Kusari battleship is impossible because of where the landing bay is positioned; this protects a weak point against damage but requires a launching fighter to immediately reorient exiting the bay before going to full power and hitting burners. This makes scrambling dangerous, because you can get blasted hanging there.

I very nearly did, though not in the way I expected. An errant torpedo nearly hit me; there were two wings of Navy Dragons in the air trying to stop upwards of two dozen Golden Chrysanthemum Hawks. It wasn't going well; the Hawks were dodging the Navy pilots and seemed more focused on trying to put torpedoes into the Matsumoto's thick hide. Putting a torpedo launcher a Hawk is a bitch of work, since it's a light fighter, but it can be done. I went after the one that launched the torpedo and managed to blast them, then came about to cover Tsuki as she launched. She went straight into it with a pair of Hawks, leaving me to cover Sachiko and Kazuo. Kazuo actually thanked me for it, and then went roaring into a cloud of Golden Chrysanthemum reinforcements followed by Sachiko, so I went to help out Tsuki. We got four or five kills; another good-natured argument with a pair of Navy pilots from Nagara Flight about that last one. The Chrysanthemums retreated after losing a dozen and a half ships, and hit the Matsumoto only once; a torpedo forward stopped by the ship's armor.

This time Tsuki didn't really give me much choice about accepting the kiss after the flight. Not that I'm exactly trying to hold her off with a stick; she's pretty enough and I like her as a person, even as a friend. There's something about her, though, something...maybe a little manic? A little desperate? Not about sex or relationships. She's one of the most confident women I've met there. But she has something to prove in the cockpit and some desperation to be there, even with her ship and her skills. The Stiletto she owns isn't just because she was able to get a Stiletto a.k.a. death on thrusters, like it would be for most people. She owns a Stiletto because of the way people look at someone who owns a Stiletto: as dangerous.

...is she coming on to me because she feels threatened by me now? Not the most dangerous freelancer in the building? Shit, that's a terrible thought. I wish I hadn't had it. I want to like Tsuki.

Juni wasn't happy to hear where I was. "Trent, that's a deathtrap, the radiation..."

"Fully dosed up. It's manageable, Juni, the KNF isn't like Bretonia Mining and Metals. These people are too good to throw away and so's this ship." I chuckled softly. "Besides, the company's excellent."

"You meet a girl you like or something?" Juni squinted a moment and then laughed. "You did. Don't get her in our trouble, Trent."

"She flies a Series Y. I'm pretty sure she's got enough trouble to bury me in without my ever getting a chance." I replied. "Besides, we haven't gotten in anywhere and she's far from the only good company around here. One question though, about Kusari language." I told her about the chant in the hangar, and Juni's eyebrows went up.

"One touch of the armored gauntlet." She considered for a moment. "Literally, anyways. Colloquially, it's something like 'we'll wipe them out'. I might need you back soon, by the way. Lord Hakkera's run into a problem. The item's come under the direct control of Governor Tekagi."

"That guy on the news? What's up?" Tekagi looked like he could stand a diet and seemed to be making some level of progress with Rheinland in negotiations to defuse the tensions between them and Kusari. On the other hand, a search of Bretonia and Liberty newsfeeds suggested that even by the standards of Kusari aristocrats he was capricious. Also possibly corrupt, and possibly high on the Blood Dragons' hit list after Honshu was hit with a famine and he was rather ruthless in suppressing dissent.

I would like to some day sit down and talk with a Blood Dragon. I suspect I'd find them far more sympathetic than I have most of the Samura reps I've run into.

"Hakkera can only push so far before he oversteps his bounds; he has power as prefect, but the governor has more. He's hit his limit. But I have another option for us to get it, I think." Juni replied. She was being coy about what and why, not that she shouldn't. "I'll be in touch."

"So who is she, Trent?" Tsuki asked from behind me.

I shook my head. "You know, privacy is a thing. She's a business partner, a good friend, and I owe her my life several times over."

Tsuki smirked. "Competition." Say what you want, she's confident when it comes to her sex appeal.

"For all I know Juni's not even into guys." I reply, amused.

"Well, she can join us then. Come on, Sachiko's wanting us for a briefing."