STRIKE WITCHES: FULL THROTTLE

You are a fighter pilot of the 442nd Night Fighter Squadron, recent ace-in-a-day, and about to take an untested prototype fighter with experimental engines into a full-performance, cylinder-melting drag race with the fastest Strike Witch in the skies.

At this point you're a cross-breed of Hunter S. Thompson and a Great White Shark: if you don't keep moving at top-speed into more crazy shit, the laws of probability will get over their collective, fascinated shock and kill your sorry ass.

With Charlotte flying on your wing, eyeing your new ride appreciatively, you wheel in a lazy up-wind circle around the island of Castle Barin as you climb to best altitude. On one side you can see a huge hole where the ancient curtain wall was slagged by a Martian maser, allowing them to swarm out of that nasty submersible ship of theirs. You look away abruptly. You're not ready to reminisce about that just yet.

"Is this about good?" Charlotte asks you when the altimeter hits 15,00 feet. It's a bit low, which will favor your big, air-hungry radials and not Charlotte's sleeker Striker. Then again, you're in a goddamn double-engined night fighter, not a Mosquito or a Mustang. And the race is more about testing your new toy, not winning.

Right?

"This is good," you say. "Go ahead and call it, and we'll punch it."

How are you going about this?

Pilot skillz

Max performance

WAR EMERGENCY POWER!

You eye the big, red button.

THE BIG.

RED.

BUTTON.

It whispers to you. Promises of power unimaginable, the mighty double-wasp radials shaking with the combined power of thirty-six smoking-hot cylinders gorged on all the air the turbo-supercharger setup can feed them...

... and then you imagine screaming as both flaming engines leave a pretty double-helix smoke trail in the sky as you slam into the Channel in an unpowered, unrecoverable spin. Despite that Fate Of The Fighter Pilot bullshit you fed Gertrude earlier, you're pretty keen on the whole living thing. There's stupid and then there's utterly damaged. You shut the Big Red Button out of your thoughts.

That doesn't mean you're not going to make this bitch walk and talk, though. You listen intently to the radio.

"GO!" Charlotte shouts, and you ram the throttles forward against the stops.

The engines bellow like sodomized lions, and you see the manifold pressure gauges leap swiftly. The frame of your new Black Widow trembles with power as the engines hit their stride, greedily gulping air and fuel. The plane is fitted with Curtiss constant-speed airscrews, but you've already adjusted the prop pitch manually. The mighty radials dig into the atmosphere hard, roaring magnificently as they enter their power-band.

Shirley is already several hundred yards ahead of you, but you don't worry about that - she'll accelerate faster, for sure, but the long haul will be a different story. And besides -

"We're accelerating like a bat out of hell!" Ian whoops. Compared to what you managed before, he's right. Turbochargers are more efficient, superchargers give instant power - and your new ship has both.

You take your hands off the controls and slam the engine cowling flaps closed, eyeing the oil temp gauges with worry, but the extra speed is already cooling the big Wasps better then usual.

"This. Is. AWESOME," you manage, trying not to sound like an idiot child with his first Red Ryder gun.

You close your eyes and feel the engines through the airframe, devote your ears to their voice. You advance the mixture control till you hear the Double Wasps' fearsome cacophony settle into a strong, throaty roar - they've more then enough air to gobble up a lot more fuel, now. At this altitude, the XP-61 eats it rather too fast, but that's not an issue now.

Shirley is closer now, only about three hundred yards ahead. You check the gauges: you've hit 362 MPH actual airspeed, which is about where a Widow tops off.

You watch the speed creep past that without much surprise.

The oil temp is creeping towards critical levels, but you hold the radiator flaps shut just a little longer, eager to see how fast the ship can go. Shirley seems to be pacing you now, not looking back at you. You suspect she's as interested in the new engines as you are.

"FOUR-HUNDRED FUCKING MILES PER HOUR!" you howl ecstatically into the intercom. It's an amazing speed for a Widow - and about what she was expected to make, with turbos installed. But despite the rising oil temps, you keep her at military power for a minute more. Shirley has drifted even closer, and from the heat shimmer around her Striker Unit, you can tell she's putting some real power in it now to keep abreast of you.

So to speak.

At long last, you see the airspeed indicator's needle finally grind to a halt, quivering around 395 MPH. Feverishly, you paw for your E6B, but Ian finishes the calculations before you do.

"Four-hundred eighteen MPH!" he crows. "Holy shit, but this bitch can MOVE!"

You agree. Looking at the gauges, you also know you're about to burn her up. You ease off the throttle a bit and begin wheeling the cowling flaps open.

And that's when #2 engine decides to pitch a fit.

With a great banging and coughing, the starboard engine misfires on half its cylinders, and abruptly chokes out. You immediately slam your foot on the left rudder pedal and yank the stick into your belly even before the big radial finishes sputtering, and the big fighter is hauled into a dizzying snap roll. The big fighter has inertia, and it spins around three times before you're able to reverse the controls - more gently then normal, minding the dead engine - and fight the Widow out of the horizontal spin in a moderate left-handed bank. You've barely stopped spinning when you tip the nose into a steep dive, starting a gentle left-handed spin.

"Come on cocksucker, LIGHT UP!" you hiss into your oxygen mask, ramming your finger on the starter button. To your surprise, she does. You pull out of the dive gently, putting the radiator cowling flaps at half-open. The throttles are at half power already - you don't remember hauling them back. You take a deep breath, extremely satisfied.

"God damn I'm good."

That's when you notice half the world is screaming at you at the same time.

Sean was promising to rape your ghost in Hell, and is now sputtering as he contemplates the fact he's still alive. Ian is muttering something that includes "insane" and "glorious" and "fuck you forever" and Charlotte is asking if you're airworthy.

It slowly dawns on you that they all thought you'd entered a fatal spin, not an intentional one. You feel you should mollify their concerns.

Words?

"... what?"

A stunned silence greets you.

"... where the hell did YOU scrubs go to flight school? That ain't shit."

"I promise you," Sean says from the back in a weak, reedy voice, "I will shit. In. Your. Dreams." Sean doesn't like snap rolls. He doesn't like them at-fucking-all. Naturally, you've become quite adept at them through constant practice.

Charlotte is flying close enough to reach out and touch your wingtip. She drifts up, then over, flying over your starboard wing and scrutinizing the engine carefully.

"Nothing looks or sounds off, but you should probably bring her in."

You think that's a pretty good idea, even without Sean promising to crawl overwing to your cockpit and cock-punch you. Keeping the XP-51 on half-throttle, you slowly spiral down towards Castle Barin, letting the big bird sink onto the runway gently. It's almost a perfect three-point landing, and you feel pretty damn pleased with yourself - it was a stellar performance, all around. Your crew is still high on the triumph that follows momentary terror.

You taxi the big fighter into the huge courtyard that lies in front of the cavernous hangar, and hop out while the props are still windmilling to a stop. Charlotte is already on the ground, stalking towards you from the hangar. Striker Units need a stand, they can't be parked just anywhere.

"What the hell happened up there?" Charlotte asks.

"The engine quit."

Ian slaps you upside the head from behind. "You're a font of comedic wit. I should let Sean kick your ass."

Sean limps forward, still looking rather green. "Just knock him down so I can puke on him."

"Well I... uh," you say awkwardly, surprised that you actually *don't* know what happened, besides you flying like a boss (a given.) You think about it for a second or two. "Well... the engine sputtered like she was having trouble turning over, and I'd just adjusted power and the radiator cowling, and she wasn't overheated or anything, so..." you realize you're getting ahead of yourself, and backtrack, trying to organize what you know in chronological order. "The engine was going to quit, so I snap-rolled in the opposite direction before the drag could pull us into a bad snap-roll or a spin. The drag made it easier to come out of the snap-roll, but harder to do it without throwing her into a flat spin or something nasty, so I had to baby it."

"And then you dove and started a vertical aerilon roll in the opposite direction...?" Charlotte queries.

You shrug. "Proactively countering any spin. The bad kind, that you didn't actually ask for."

"And why were you diving at all?" Charlotte asks slyly. You've got a funny feeling she already knows, but you've got to think about it for a second.

"The engine was flooded, I needed airflow to keep the prop turning and more air in the intake to fire her up again. Then I just leaned the mix."

Everybody's staring at you.

"I think I need to talk to you. Alone," Charlotte says. You begin to object, but she just seizes you by the collar of your jacket and begins hauling you away.

Comply?

Freak out?

Gondor calls for aid?

Mild trolling?

You see your aircrew following at a polite distance, hands in their pockets, just ambling along. They're setting up an informal escort, but Charlotte doesn't seem alarmed, which you hope means she isn't planning anything violent. Besides, she's been extremely pragmatic and she has an awe

some

harley

FFFFFFUCK.

Charlotte gets you just inside the hangar doors, and glances about suspiciously. She shoots your two boys a hard look, and they suddenly develop extreme interest in the men circling around the Martian portable maser, snapping photos, some distance off.

Charlotte cuts her eyes at you. "So what do you know about engines?"

"Push button, go vroom vroom?"

"Were you a machinist pre-war? Daddy a mechanic?"

"No, my old man's a-"

"Race-car driver?"

"Nope."

Charlotte sets back a bit, and takes her chin in her fingers thoughtfully. "Do you have any idea why I'm suddenly grilling you?"

Answer?

You have absofuckinglutely no idea what Charlotte is talking about, so you do the only thing you can think of.

You look Charlotte dead in the eye, fixing her with a completely deadpan expression. "You need something lubricated?"

She's already opened her mouth to reply when the statement registers. You watch her tongue trying to form a response before her mouth abruptly shuts again. She rocks back ever so slightly on her heels, her mouth pressed tight, but quirked somewhere between pissed and amused.

"Not enough displacement for my cylinders," she says, trailing off as she reaches the plural 's'.

You huff, but before you can retort, Charlotte jerks a thumb over her shoulder casually and says "Lucchini could always use a better ground tech, though."

You snort. "Zucchini needs a god damn *leash.*"

Charlotte laughs aloud at that, but it ends with a hard-edged smile. "Yeah. She does. She likes to play mechanic a little too much."

You manage to contain your sense of horror at that last comment. Jesus Christ, she's like TWELVE.

"Well, I'd better give you back before your mothers get overprotective," she says, clapping you on the shoulder. She strides away casually, and you think she's swaying a little more then necessary.

Not that you're looking.

You walk over to Ian and Sean, who drop their interest in the Martian maser photography session as soon as Charlotte turns her back. They're staring at her ass too.

"Hey," you say, snapping your fingers.

"Ssssh," Ian says, intent on his subject of study. "She's... gone. Okay, now you're the most interesting thing around again."

Sean looks at the goo of the pureed Martians still spread over the tarmac and hunkers down. "Nnnope."

You kick some Martian goo at him irritably. "So. Uh."

"What'd she say?" Ian asks.

"She asked me some questions about what I knew of engines, or mechanics."

"And then?"

"She implied that Luuchini is a massive slut."

By Ian's expression, that information is hardly surprising. "Was that before or after she burned you?"

"What?"

"We saw it," Sean said. "She was shocked, then sized you up, and then you were left sputtering. She shot you down."

"The wha- she's sixteen, you scumbag. I didn't-"

"Shame to see a young man cut down in his prime," Ian says casually.

"Queers," you grumble. Friends, man. Can't kill them, can't fly without them.

Now what?

Downtime? Downtime!

What's with all the brass running around this island, anyways?

So Sean, about that Martian Sense you seem to have... time to talk about that.

In twenty-four hours, you and your crew have become aces-in-a-day, saved Gertrude's life, trolled the ever-loving fuck out of half the Armed Services, fucked with the Wing Commander mentally and emotionally, and fought a 3AM ground battle with ambushing Martians.

"Miller time?"

"MILLER TIME."

You get halfway into the hangar before a terrible thought hits all three of you.

"Do they even... have alcohol here?"

"One of 'em does," Sean mutters grimly. The fire of the Olde Irish dances behind his eyes, and Ian and you both know alternate sources of alcohol must be located swiftly to stave off disaster.

Spotting a mechanic idly packing up his toolbox in one corner, your trio strides over. "Excuse me, but is there an O-Club or anything like that on the island...?"

The engineer cuts his eyes sidelong at you. "No. No O-Club. Just facilities for us lowly enlisted bastards. Doubt it would interest you."

fuck him, make your own party

fuck him, get off the island for a bit

I KNOW WHAT YOUR HEART DESIRES

You sigh and look off into the middle distance dramatically. "Too bad. Guess we'll have to fly to Christchurch to get the kinks worked out of that new bird."

The engineer just grunts, loading his toolbox with his back turned to you.

"Guess we can pick up our overnight bags while we're there," Sean says

"Just overnight bags?" Ian scoffs. "We can bring all of it. The Widow is so... *big.*"

The engineer's hand freezes in mid-air with his last wrench.

"Yeah," Sean says thoughtfully. "Especially if you don't load the amidships fifty-cal bin... and in the wings... there's just so much *space,* you know?"

"And those new engines have so much power..." you muse. "You wouldn't even notice the extra load..."

The engineer isn't even breathing now, his hand clenched tight on the wrench.

You take a stealthy step closer. Lean over.

"I know what your heart desires," you whisper intently.

The engineer shudders.

"At twenty-thousand feet, it's cold."

He positively quivers.

"Anything in the wings... gets *ice* cold."

"Come with me," he says in a low, strained voice.

The engineer leads you to the male dormitories, on the opposite side of the huge castle as the Witch's quarters. The men even have their own kitchen and mess, and when you're introduced as the men with the Big Plane With Huge Amounts Of Internal Space Nobody Looks Into, you're greeted quite warmly indeed. A man named Mac sits your trio down on a worn-out, overstuffed sofa and smiles at you.

"We usually don't tolerate you pilot sons-of-bitches in the land of the working man," he says good-naturedly, "but after the shit you guys pulled last night, we'll overlook that."

"When you say space," another man asks you, "like, how much space are we talking about?"

"We have to fuel her differently to keep center-of-gravity balanced. That kind of space," you inform him. He nods, grinning. "Good. How soon can you work out an excuse to get to Christchurch?"

"What's the rush?"

"We're going to have a proper send-off for our boys," Mac says, and the buoyancy in the room dies a sudden death. Without looking around, you know the smiles you saw earlier were forced.

"In that case, I think we can accelerate our schedule," Ian says.

You suggest making the trip after nightfall, and Sean agrees. "This place is starting to look like a fucking planetarium, with all the stars running around. Makes me nervous."

"Oh yeah, that," Mac says. "It's been completely insane today. Hard enough to clean up the mess we've got today, after fighting a soddin' land battle, we've got the brass sniffing around."

"I hear Bradley's been ragging on Patton all day to get the coffee pot back," one man says wryly. "Patton just goes around collecting odd looks with the damn thing."

"... Bradley?" Ian asks. "Does anybody know what the hell is going on?"

Mac makes a zipper-like motion across his mouth. "Top secret. Nobody has a clue.

Ian nods sagely. "So what is it?"

"Counter-attack," Mac says, leaning forward eagerly. Every man in the room tugs their sweat-stained caps lower over their eyes and leans in with him, excited. "All the brass hats are in the area planning some kind of Big Push. The surprise attack last night - they hit us everywhere, you know - they're terrified that the Martians cottoned to the whole thing, and that's why they struck."

"But the Martians flubbed it pretty hard," another man chimes in. "And now they must be low on reserves."

"There's no way in fucking hell to know that," a young man - no, boy - says. He can't be older then seventeen, and his arm's in a sling. "Nobody knows SHIT about those crazy bastards."

The other engineer shrugs. "Well, they're burning through memo pads about *something.*"

How very, very interesting.

Mood's shot. Who/what is next?

You happen to mention that your new ship is a prototype, and if somebody were to diagnose Certain Issues with the engine, you'd probably have to fly to Christchurch for repairs. That's enough to send a swarm of your new buddies towards the hangar. Fifteen minutes later, they determine the engine is fine except for carbon buildup and some fouled plugs, indicating she ran too rich for a little bit.

"Sounds like you were spot-on," Ian muses. "You know why she choked out in the first place?"

Mac scratches his head. "Airflow to the engine was disrupted. Perhaps some funny eddy or something when you adjusted the cowling flaps."

You nod thoughtfully. "Luke said they were having problems with the ducting."

Mac nods, and points to the engine nacelle. "The scoops could probably be canted a little bit, or have little shields or something in front of them to break up any vortexes."

With that settled, Sean motions to repair to the central lounge, in the Witch side of the castle, and you all agree. It's happily deserted, and you all flop onto the couches carelessly, enjoying the rest. None of you had enough sleep, your injuries from last nights fight still ache, and the incident earlier didn't help much, either.

After some time dozing in silence, Ian addresses the ceiling.

"I know what Charlotte was fishing for."

Sean opens his mouth and Ian fetches him a a pillow to the face before he can interrupt.

"She was wondering about your uncanny luck with aero engines," Ian states.

You blink.

"You a wizard, mate?"

"Oh not THIS shit again," you mutter.

"He's got a point," Sean says to the ceiling, more to egg you on then anything else. "I mean that thing with the engine the other night, when we bounced Sanya, OOooOOoOOoo spooky," he intones, waggling his fingers.

You sit up straight. "I'm just good with engines. I've liked them all my life. I pay attention to them, the sound, the vibration. It's just intuitive. There's nothing ma... odd about that."

"Charlotte didn't seem to think so," Ian says seriously. "If I don't miss my guess."

"I know how to use the engine controls, big deal," you say, a bit uncomfortable. "I've seen weirder shit lately. For instance, I think it's time we talk about how Sean knew the Martians were there before they attacked, last night. In his sleep."

Sean sits up as well and fixes you with his fiery eyes. "I think it's about time to ask how you had two different guns slam-fire on you last night."

You open your mouth-

"-and the same gun refused to go off when it was pressed against your skull," Ian adds.

- you close it again.

Flyers are a superstitious lot. Insane, unbelievable luck is not unheard of, not by a long shot.

But this shit is just getting too weird. And besides -

"Nobody say the M word. Not here. Of all fucking places, not here," you mutter. "With all the brass running around, I swear to God I will cut you."

"You don't have to worry about us," Ian says, and he sounds brooding, which constitutes an extreme emotive display for Ian. You wonder if he hasn't had any odd luck of his own recently.

"I noticed the quiet," Sean says. "I was listening to the waves hitting the beach - always nice to listen to, if you're sleeping near a coastline - and I realized, ALL I could hear was the waves. No crickets, no dick-ass nightingale plagiarizing all night, no HOOT HOOT or anything... island isn't that small. I just got a bad feel, you know? Last time I had that feel I was in the Kentucky bush and a cougar was sizing me up for lunch."

"So we're just good," Ian says thoughtfully. He's frowning now, another rarity for cool, collected Ian. "We're just that damn good..."

Both your friends make excuses and wander off. You don't stop them, since you've got some brooding of your own to do. You wander the halls of the castle alone, thinking. Trying to remember the last time an engine really got the better of you.

Plenty of stalls, forced starts, vapor-lock, backfires, you name it... but never a time you were well and truly defeated. Plenty of interesting battles, but you can't really remember the last time something you were familiar with got the upper hand on you. You just fiddle the controls without thinking and VROOM! up they go.

That's not... magic.

It isn't, god dammit.

Your random wandering is interrupted by the sounds of an argument from down a side-hall. Your long talent at dodging responsibility and awkward meetings lets you recognize it as a dressing-down in progress.

"-ire command be taken by surprise. There's talk of relieving you on the spot."

"To replace me with who?" a cool voice replies.

"Somebody competent. Somebody-"

"-who'd either be here now, if they could be spared from their current units... or a damn filthy nip."

Silence. "What did you say?"

"Nothing you don't hear in the O-Club every other day. Damn. Filthy. NIP," the woman says, her voice steely cold. "Churchill would have an anyerism if a nip were running an entire squadron of Strike Witches, wouldn't he?"

"Don't be so sure," the man says hotly. "You fucked up, Wilcke, and we won't have it."

What?

WILCKE?

You boggle. That voice, cold and clean as a honed steel blade, putting some General over her knee.. that's Wilcke?

You're glad, because whoever the man is, he's way off-base. Especially obvious after Sean's testimony that the Martians hit the island in complete silence.

On the other hand, are you really going to interrupt a senior officer in a private meeting? His accent is obviously British, so it wouldn't be INSTANT career suicide, but still...

Most pilots don't try to dogfight. The best way to fight is to lay for your opponent, and waste him before he knows you're there.

You decide to apply this maxim by standing right outside the door, at stiff attention, eyes forward.

"Are you visiting London next?" Minna asks coldly. "Or Pearl Harbor? Or any of the other Army bases that were hit all over the globe last night? I'm sure you've got some stiff words for them, too, Vice-Marshall?"

"Somebody does," the man retorts hotly. "Somebody's got something to say to all of them. You're no exception. You're no exception to a lot of things, Wilcke. Remember that." He storms out of the room and would have made a great exit on a good line had he not almost blundered into you.

"Who the hell are you?" he snaps.

You fire off a salute. "Sir, pilot reporting to Wing Commander Wilcke, sir."

He narrows his eyes at you. "I asked you who you were, yank." He seems to be pissed that you were obviously eavesdropping.

"Sir, I'm the man who just made ace-in-a-day and has been nominated for the DFC. "

The man seems to swell with suppressed rage, but he contains it. "What were you going to report?" That request is cutting right into Minna's command, and he knows it - it's a calculated insult.

"That my radar operator only noticed the attack was imminent when the crickets stopped singing. He compared them to a stalking puma."

The man blinks. "What in the Sam-Hill is a puma?"

"Mountain Lion. Cougar. A huge cat, to be precise."

The man seems to seethe with rage, but spins smartly and stalks off with that crisp step unique to the British services.