Festum Gladius Chapter 19
The unknown Lightnings rose in a staggered V-formation. Twin turbofan intakes sucked in air greedily and spewed out flaming jetwash. Their wings were heavy with missiles and lascannons and the central fuselage mounted a rapid-fire autocannon. Inside cockpits pilots wore black bodygloves, gripping their controls tightly as tinted visors hid any hint of identity. They were nameless killers, seeking their quarry with lethal power and unerring focus.
Hawkwing dove to meet them. The range shrank terrifyingly fast and Novak's genhanced eyesight scoured their frames. He noted there were no identity markings, no personal glyphs or serial numbers, they were shorn of all trace of origin and their allegiance was well hidden. It didn't matter for Novak was sure he knew already, few indeed could have prearranged this ambush. His certainty hardened and his resolve to hunt down the mind that directed these assassins grew, but first he had to survive the next few minutes.
His thumb slid to the firing rune and along the flanks of the Xiphon lascannons opened up, spitting bolts of coherent energy at the oncoming foe. They staggered firing so to create a series of bolts, filling the air with deadly power. His shot was sure and his aim true but he was startled as the rising Lightnings corkscrewed wildly, flinging themselves into evasive patterns. That was fast, too fast. Response times were beyond human norms, bordering on Transhuman reflexes. Whatever these pilot's origins, they were augmented in some fashion; that was bad news.
The black Lightnings began to return fire, spitting their own lascannons at him. Now it was Novak who was forced to corkscrew, flinging Hawkwing over and down as bolts of energy punched through the space he had occupied. The world spun in his vision and his guts were pressed to the edges of his armour but he evaded with consummate skill as they barrelled at each other, trading shots all the while.
Flying head to head the confrontation lasted seconds, then the planes flashed past each other. Novak saw black wings and red exhausts hurtle past and he heaved the stick back and over as he opened up the throttle. The Xiphon turned hard, pulling fifteen G's in a fast turn. His eyeballs pressed into the back of his skull and his tongue tried to crawl down his throat as inertia slammed into him but he persisted, forcing his aircraft about to come upon their six.
Seconds crawled by as gravity tried to kill him but in the corner of his vision he saw the Lightnings banking, matching his turn with consummate ease. Novak's stomach clenched. The Lightning pattern was famed across the galaxy for its grace and manoeuvrability, said to be the embodiment of the love of flying, but this was something else. The average human could withstand nine G's before blacking out, hardened veterans could push that to eleven or twelve, but these pilots were holding fifteen G's without a qualm. Augmented, it was the only possible answer, mechanical hearts to pump blood, plastek lungs filled with oxygenated fluid, brains fitted with cybernetic implants to ensure neural function. Altogether these pilots were the match of a Space Marine in the air.
"You've got some tricks, but let's see you do this," Novak snarled. He rolled the Xiphon over and dove, pointing his nose at the sea below and plummeting at top speed. Free-fall came and went as he accelerated, pushing his plane for the surface at breakneck speed. The Lightnings followed, trailing his wake. The dive was perfectly judged, just steep enough to prevent them from targeting him but shallow enough so the engines didn't stall and leave him in a powerless tumble. Novak saw the ocean surging to greet him and the urge to pull out gnawed into his hands and feet. They tried to break off on their own merit, but Novak's will was steel and he held firm, forcing his hands to stay still.
Death loomed but at the last possible instant Novak heaved the stick back and pulled up. The Xiphon screamed as its nose rose, engines howling as they fought for thrust. The wings bowed low and the airframe creaked as the stress tried to break it apart. Novak felt the G's piling on, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty. Even his genhanced body had its limits and he felt his vision greying and his head swimming as he pulled up, unconsciousness trying to steal him away. He gritted his teeth and fought back the dark clouds of doom as his nose rose and the ocean was replaced with sky. Barely three metres above the frothing sea he levelled off, his wake kicking up sprays of water in his aft. Behind him the Lightnings tried to match his turn and three of them managed to avoid death. The fourth was not so skilled, a hair too late pulling up saw the pilot clip a wavetop and spin out. His left wing shot back, sending him into a deadly spin that lasted for all of one second before he plunged into the sea and exploded, scattering wreckage over a wide area.
One down, Novak thought, but the other three were locked on his six and began firing. Las and autocannon fire shot past his cockpit as he weaved to and fro, unable to climb and so lose speed. Teeth clenched he wrenched his stick to and fro, dodging bolts as best he could. He was flying with every ounce of his skill but the enemy matched him, breathing in his jetwash and chewing off his tail. Suddenly the auspex screamed as a target lock latched onto him and one of the pursuers let loose a missile. Instantly Novak hit the chaff launchers, spraying glittering reflective threads and burning flares into a cloud behind him. The missile flew straight into that cloud and detonated, its simple machine spirit thinking it had hit something. The blast wave jolted Novak in his seat and the Xiphon lurched as shrapnel peppered its rear.
"Subitis, Subitis, Subitis!" Novak yelped into the vox as the realisation crept over him that he was outmatched. Nothing came back but static, the harsh blare of jamming. The enemy was blocking all long-range comms, leaving him unable to summon aid or alert anyone. If he died here no one would know what had happened, they would think him lost or crashed. Probably assuming he had been dashed asunder in the Emperor's Storm and lost to the cruel ocean below. A perfect trap and Novak saw no way out of it.
"I am under attack by unknown forces!" Novak yelled in desperation, "Can anyone hear me?!"
Suddenly a harsh voice cut through the jamming, "I hear you, coming in fast on your three!"
Novak's eyes darted to the auspex and he saw three more contacts closing at top speed. His eyes lifted and he beheld two more Lightnings, racing forward with guns blazing, but ahead of them soared a steel and black Stormhawk. The armoured cockpit was gouged deeply and the wings shot full of holes but somehow it was still in the air. Janus' plane, battered and bleeding, but flying towards Novak at wavetop height.
Janus cut across his wake as the Stormhawk's weapons let fly. A nose-mounted las-talon spat deadly energy while wing-tip assault cannons roared, lashing tracers across the path of Novak's hunters. One Lightning was riddled from end to end and came apart in mid-air, fiery debris strewn across the waters to leave smoky puddles. The other two broke off as Janus hurtled by, leaving Novak blessedly free of hunters.
Instantly he banked right and came to follow Janus' lead as he cried, "I can't believe it but I'm glad to see you!"
"Stow it," Janus snarled, "We're still outnumbered four to two and we're not getting any more help. We need to… argh! I'm hit, I'm hit!"
Novak saw it was true the Lightnings chasing Janus had landed a punishing blow to his rear. Smoke spewed out of his plane as fire spread through delicate systems and the Stormhawk lurched drunkenly. Novak was almost in position and pushed himself harder as he snarled, "Hold on, I'm coming!"
Inexorably the targets slid into his sight and Novak's soul pleaded for a few more seconds, just one more instant to get a target lock. He felt the passing of every nanosecond as an eternity, his vision filled with the las and autocannon fire they were pouring into Janus' smoking wake. One more shot would finish the Steel Confessor and Novak thought he was too late, then suddenly his ears filled with the sweet noise of a target lock and he barked, "I've got a lock… firing!"
There was a clunk below his seat and then a missile dropped from the Xiphon and flew away on a wake of exhaust. Novak saw the missile sail straight up the tail of a Lightning and explode, blowing a wing clean off. The enemy fell from the sky like a dropped stone, plunging into the ocean in a spray of fuel, flames and sea spray. The other broke high and Novak pulled alongside Janus, seeing the hurts piled upon his machine.
"Are you airworthy?" Novak called.
"I'm not dead yet," Janus snarled, "Who are these curs?"
"Not sure," Novak lied, "But it looks like they're not done."
Coming over the island were the two Lightnings Janus had chased away. They had run wide and looped about to reengage. No thought of breaking off and running, these pilots cared not for their own lives, only that their mission was completed. Only that the Space Marines were dead. They tore over the rocky bluffs, sending seabirds flapping into the air in a panic as they dove upon the struggling Astartes.
"Take them head to head!" Novak barked.
"Just the way I like it," Janus hissed with relish.
Across the sky four planes closed, weapons flashing. Lascannons blazed, autocannons barked and assault cannons whined as the space between the planes was filled with deadly power. Novak saw his lasbolts stabbing out, trying to bracket a Lightning, even as it spewed rounds in his direction. This was the ultimate test of nerves, courage against murderous intent and resolve against perfidy. For all their treachery the hostile pilots were no cowards and held true, but it availed them not as one of Novak's lascannon bolts went straight through a cockpit window and killed the pilot. Dead already the Lightning spun out and dove for the sea, leaving the Xiphon untouched.
To his left Janus' firing also tore a Lightning apart, shredding its wings off with assault cannon rounds but he did not escape damage himself. Autocannon rounds smote his armoured cockpit and a lasbolt stabbed into a wing, making his Stormhawk droop like it was lame. The enemy tumbled from the sky but Janus was hardly any better off, his plane stumbling and creaking at the seams as he flew.
"Janus!" Novak hastily called, "Are you alive?!"
"Rusty cog!" Janus spat, "I'm hurt bad, weapons are off-line, auspex is dead, I've got no avionics. I'm flying without instruments here."
Novak breathed out, "Very well, here's what we do…"
Suddenly a lasbolt stabbed through Novak's wing. The Xiphon screamed as it rolled over in a wounded tumble and Novak fought to see what had happened as he wrenched the stick left. He steadied his roll only to see the final black Lightning diving from on high, weapons blazing. Novak threw his plane into an evasive pattern, trying to shake the hunter but the foe slipped onto his six with consummate ease, trying to blow him out of the sky. Novak had no angle to return fire, all he could do was run as the hunter blazed away at his rear.
"Frak!" Janus roared, "He's on you and I've got no weapons."
"I know, I know!" Novak yelled frantically, "I can't shake him, he's all over me!"
Another lasbolt kissed his left wing, leaving a furrow in the surface and Novak knew he wouldn't be able to break off. The foe had him dead in their sights; all the flying tricks in the galaxy wouldn't be enough to escape contact. This enemy would chase him to the bitter end, following him anywhere. There would be no relenting until Novak was dead. He knew it was true, so he determined to make that work for him.
As a lasbolt shot past his cockpit Novak banked toward the island, that barren collection of bluffs and crags. The foe followed, unwavering in the hunt but Novak was counting on that. He dropped his altitude as he aimed for a crag, hurtling towards it at top speed. His aim was perfect and he passed over the bluff by a few metres, engines howling like the shrieks of the damned. As he did so the noise panicked the nesting seabirds clinging to the rocky cliffs and they leapt into the air in sheer terror. Scores of them, hundreds, filling the air with flapping grey wings and soft bodies.
The pursuing Lightning had no time to break off and flew straight into that cloud, sucking dozens of small bodies into howling air intakes. Bones and feathers and blood painted the insides of jet engines, breaking delicate mechanisms and jamming turbines with broken bodies. The Lightning's engines exploded in mid-air, spewing flames in all directions as the plane tumbled head over heels. The pilot was still screaming as his plane arced over the cliff and he lived long enough to strike the ocean beyond, sinking below the waves to leave no trace he was ever there.
Novak sagged back in his seat as he saw the auspex was clear. He gently tested his controls and felt the Xiphon was wounded but flyable, he had survived. Gently he coasted over to Janus and fell into formation with him as he called, "How is your bird?"
"Bad," Janus spat, "I'm flying on mark I eyeball here."
Novak replied, "Follow my lead, I'll steer your course to the end of the race."
"Charity?" Janus hissed, "Forget it, I'll die first."
"Don't be a prig," Novak snapped, "There's no honour in pointless martyrdom."
"Not my point, I've burned way too much fuel in this engagement. I don't have enough range left to reach the finish line. I'm going to die in his ocean, you can't change that."
Novak looked at his own fuel gauge and gulped as he saw how much he had spent in the fight. Reaching the finish line would be a close call, too close. He glanced at the rocky island, wondering if they could eject and wait for rescue on the barren cliffs, but instantly rejected the notion. They were Space Marines, if they could not win then they would die trying, before admitting defeat.
His resolve set Novak voxed, "Ride my slipstream and you can reduce fuel consumption significantly."
Janus sounded offended as he growled, "You want to help me?! Why?"
"We may be from different Chapters but we all share the Brotherhood of Space Marines. You saved my life and now I'm saving yours."
"You're a frakking idiot," Janus hissed, "But thank you."
With that the pair of wounded birds turned east, soaring over the ocean. Their long journey yet remained to be travelled and only time would tell if they had the fuel to reach their goal. If not they would plunge into the ocean and die. It was all in the hands of fate.