Diem Infamia Chapter 10
Kaja Marco's heart was pounding as he fell back onto his cot, sweat coating his naked body as his chest heaved. He lay there, breathing fast as he tried to get his head to stop spinning and his nerves to stop jangling. Around him the drab confines of his billet loomed, all bare metal and cold floors, but at that moment he didn't care, nothing could have brought him down from this high.
He felt a soft touch brush his bicep, a light hand working its way up his pectoral to his neck. Marco had no energy left to protest as the hand touched his neck; he couldn't have stopped her if he wanted to. He lay there, looking up at his naked companion, waiting to see what she hand in mind, though he doubted he had the vigour for anything else. Unfortunately he was cruelly surprised when her hand jerked to the wires protruding from his neural shunt and yanked them out. Marco winced as the rush of sensation cut out and his hand slapped to his neck as he said, "Ow".
"Stop being a big baby," an amused reply came back from his companion. Marco rubbed his neck as she rolled off him, giving him a fine view as she walked over to the mirror. Marco's eye lingered on a tall, dark-skinned woman, one with hardened muscles and burn scars over her shoulders that weren't hidden by her cropped black hair. Her spine was like his, fitted with interface sockets for life support gear and she had the neural shunt of a Fury pilot behind her left ear. Her eyes were fine augmetic replacements, her organic ones having been lost in the same cockpit fire that had given her the scars. They dazzled like sapphires, though as his eyes wandered downwards he reflected he wasn't sleeping with her for her eyes. She was Wing Commander Belina Fakini, leader of the 289th 'Scoundrels'. She was a sound leader, a confident commander and with a career tally of seventy-seven kills one of the best pilots in the Sector.
Marco watched as Fakini reached up and pulled the other end of the wires out of her own neural shunt, then dumped them on the deck and disappeared into the tiny ablution chamber set in the corner of his billet. A few seconds later the sound of the shower erupted. He lay there for a moment, then rolled out of his cot and grabbed a towel from a drawer in his dresser. There wasn't much room between the cot and his desk, which was piled high with reports, but he managed to wipe the sweat off his body without too much difficulty.
Other than the bare essentials his billet was meagre, a Fury pilot learned to travel light, accruing few personal possessions and forming no ties to places or people. Their lives were short and violent, barely a handful living past their first few years. Even for those who survived there was no permanence, Wings were always on the move, shifting between postings and bases as duty and the casualties of war necessitated. So the crews learned to get by, taking pleasure in the moment and not thinking about tomorrow.
Marco pulled out some underpants and a flight suit and shrugged them on. Then he spied the dropped wires and stooped to pick them up, grinning to himself as he did so. A Fury pilot's life was harsh and short, but there were compensations. Their implants were not like the finely crafted interfaces of Titan crew, the God-Machines of the Mechanicus with their hallowed MIU manifolds. No, Fury pilots got cheap and nasty implants, inexpensive and utterly disposable, much like the crew themselves. A curious consequence of that was that they were easy to fool, taking all sorts of input they shouldn't. A long, long time ago pilots had discovered they could jack into each other's nervous systems, creating a feedback loop of sensation. It was exhilarating to feel someone else's nervous system enmeshed with their own, it made screwing almost as good as flying.
The shower snapped off and an arm extended out as Fakini called, "Towel."
Marco grabbed a fresh towel and chucked it over as he called, "We've got two hours before morning drills."
There was a snort of derision and Fakini said, "You should have said that before I got cleaned up."
Marco snorted out loud, he didn't have the stamina of a teenager anymore, and replied, "I meant we could go over our assignments."
Fakini stepped out of the shower, towel wrapped around her body, as she replied, "What's to say? The Scoundrels have got perimeter watch. We're posting to the Kanaris to fly circles around Greater Tectum. Intercepting cargo scows and passenger shuttles… boring."
Marco sadly confessed, "The Holies have got escort carrier duty."
Fakini's head snapped about and her lips split into a mocking grin as she chortled, "Escort carriers?! Who'd you piss off to get that duty?"
There was an irritating truth to that, in the Imperial Navy few assignments were considered more demeaning than escort carrier service. In the ever shifting web of prestige and pride between fighter wings that was a humiliating slap in the face. Marco knew why they had got the assignment and sighed, "The Holies have lost a lot of good pilots, we're rebuilding from scratch. Damn rookies can barely fly straight, let alone fight."
Fakini raised a delicate eyebrow and said, "So the brass decide to send you out on a rickety scow, with drunk peons and washed-out officers. Escort carriers and inexperienced rookies are an accident waiting to happen."
Marco shrugged, "It's not like we're going to see any fighting. There's a taskforce heading out to Lesser Tectum, to wave the flag and we're going along to provide strike craft cover."
Dismissively Fakini sniffed, "Is that really how you want to end your career? Flying herd on rookies?"
Marco stiffened at that, it was a reminder that he was almost forty, the time when pilots were phased out of front-line combat. He didn't like the idea of flying a desk, but he knew it was coming, his reflexes were slowing and his brash confidence was being replaced by the sagacity of experience. A starship Captain's career could last centuries but a Fury pilot needed the utter conviction of invincibility that only the young could enjoy. There was a saying in Battlefleet Karyl; if you asked a pilot who was the best flyer in the galaxy and the answer wasn't himself, then he wasn't worth spit.
Thoughts of old age made Marco look at Fakini and he mused, "Maybe when I get back we can talk about the future…"
The woman looked at him in surprise and exclaimed, "Kaja Marco, are you proposing? Thanks, but no."
Marco was surprised at her curt dismissal and spluttered, "But…"
"Stop," Fakini said sadly, "We knew the deal when we signed up, we don't get futures. Our life is fast, glorious and short. You're good in the cot, but that not the same as building a life together. Neither of us knows if we'll be here next week. Besides I'm not giving up my Fury anytime soon. If you want a future then turn in your wings, go find some nice fat girl looking to settle down and start popping out kids."
Marco lowered his eyes, knowing she was right. Throne, he was actually thinking about his prospects, maybe he was getting too old for the cockpit. He shook off the moment and stated, "You're right, I was being stupid. Come on we'd better get to the mess and grab some chow."
"You go first," Fakini said, "I want to get dressed in private."
Marco grinned as he observed, "You do know I've already seen everything you've got to see."
"Just go!" Fakini laughed, "And don't let anybody see you making googly eyes at me."
Marco nodded and stepped out of the billet, closing the door behind him. He stepped off with a confident step, trying not to look guilty. Fury crews were given a lot of leeway, by Navy standards, but two Wing commanders screwing would be too far even for them. Loyalties could become confused, decisions clouded and battles could be lost that way. If the Commissars knew what they were up to then he'd be shot on the spot, or worse stripped of his wings.
Marco put his thought aside as he made his way through the corridors of Salamis' base's fighter academy to the mess hall. It was only a couple of decks and he soon arrived and entered a huge dining area, filled with hundreds of bodies. Pilots from scores of wings were gathered here, ranging from the haughty 081st 'Bluebloods' to the dishevelled 103rd 'Gearheads'. Pilots from the wild 267th 'Cardsharks' rubbed shoulders with flyers from the 090th 'Yellowjackets' while in one corner sat the 051st 'Princesses', an all-female wing legendary for their hard-drinking, hard-fighting lifestyle. Many foolish crewmen had made snide comments about the 051st, only to be beaten to a bleeding pulp by the tetchy flyers. Even Marco reckoned they were picked not for their gender but for the fact that they were all Frakking crazy.
The noise in the mess was deafening, but Marco was used to that and grabbed a plastek tray as he got in line at the commissary and eyed the room. Pilots were divided into wings but also by role. FSO's sat together in perfect formations, mathematically perfect in their spacing. Their deep connection to the Machine Spirits did strange things to their minds, the crude implants leeching much of their personality. There was something eerie about watching them lift their forks in unison and chewing in synchronisation, utterly silent throughout. Across from them would sit turret gunners, heads down as they sullenly shovelled grub into their mouths. Turret gunners were mostly wash-outs from pilot training and those who never made the grade, and they resented their lot in life. Maybe a different selection method would be better but thousands of years of naval traditions weren't to be ignored.
Marco got a plateful of yellow and green mush, Navy personnel quickly learned not to ask what was in it, and a cup of azureberry juice and went to sit with a couple of his fellows from the Holies. He plonked himself down at a round table and said over the din, "How's it going?"
At his right Pious-2, Varce, sat, his grizzled face chewing on his mush as he replied, "Green1, how's you?"
"Not bad," Marco replied, "But I'm concerned about the maggots."
On his left sat Pastor-leader, Xeter, who replied, "They are improving."
Marco eyed him; he was a proud man, with a magnificent moustache and a strong jaw. Xeter was a haughty and prideful man but with fifty-nine kills, to Marco's forty-one, was the top ace of the Holies and he demanded respect. Together these three represented all that was left of the old wing, the rest dying under the guns of Fra'al strike craft. Marco drew in a breath and said, "I wish the Munitorum would have given us a few more veterans."
Varce snorted in amusement, "Try telling those quill-pushers, to them a pilot is a pilot. No matter if none of those rookies has ever seen real combat."
Marco swallowed a mouthful of mush and remarked, "We should get some real flying in on this mission, simulators just aren't the same."
Varce replied, "They are good kids, they will learn."
However Xeter muttered, "Don't get too close to the maggots, half of them won't live through their first combat. Some of them are already abusing privileges."
"Oh?" asked Marco in curiosity.
Xeter nodded as he explained, "I caught one of mine running erotic nerve stimulants through his neural shunt, must have got them from some back-street tech-adept. I tore the skin off his back for that."
"Damnation," Varce muttered, "That's an easy way to get addicted, once it gets its claws in reality holds no appeal. I knew a couple of guys back in flight school who ran battlefield simulations night and day. They thought it would give them an edge, but in the end they couldn't stop, they lay in their bunks, living in a dream world. They couldn't cope without the adrenaline rush of battle pounding through them."
Marco thought of his own indiscretion and covered by saying, "What happened to them?"
Varce shrugged as he said, "They got transferred to the Mechanicus' fleets. The Tech-Priests didn't care, the cogboys plugged them in like servitors and left them in their cockpits forever."
Marco shuddered at that and remarked, "I gave my squadron the speech about illicit materials and told them they had twenty hours before I inspected their kit. Low and behold overnight our trash chute became full of Gladstones, snuff-powder and porn."
"At least they were smart enough to dump the stuff," Varce commented.
However Xeter spat, "They should never have bought it in the first place, what are flight schools teaching these days?"
Marco sighed, "Our losses are catastrophic, endless war is chewing us apart and we can't replace pilots fast enough. A six-month basic training course has been compressed down to eight weeks and I hear the brass want that cut to seven."
Varce shook his head and said, "We're not the sodding Imperial Guard, you can't just shove a weapon into our hands and kick us out the door."
Marco nodded, "Hence the need for this mission, an easy run out to Lesser Tectum to iron out the Knicks."
Xeter sniffed dismissively, "Escort Carrier duty… it is humiliating. The Holies were an elite unit, now look at us."
"It is what it is," Marco sighed, "I want our rookies to have another day in the simulators before we fly out. But at least we can take comfort in knowing this will be an easy run."
