Jake Morrison's Arc

Chapter 46 of 54

The tyrant's boats were on the water. Jake had forty machines and forty pilots. Not one of them had fired a shot in real combat. He knew what would happen when the first gun opened up. His people would scatter. They would break formation and drop into the sea. He turned to Darrell. "They can fly. They can't fight. That's different." Darrell nodded slow. "Then teach them the difference. Today." Jake had one day. He drove his pilots into the sky above the enclave walls. He split them into pairs and made them chase each other. No guns loaded, just the machines. "You break, you die," he shouted over the props. "Hold your wingman. Turn when he turns." The first hour was chaos. Machines swerved wide. Two pilots nearly clipped props and had to peel off. Jake landed them and made them run it again. He climbed into a steam-driven skiff himself, the copper coils hissing at his back. Marisol dropped into the gunner pit behind him. She strapped the fifty caliber's belt tight and locked the swivel. "You fly, I'll show them how the gun feels," she said. Her dark eyes were steady. She had built these machines with her own hands. Now she rode into her own storm to prove they held. Jake threw the skiff into a dive. Marisol swung the gun and hammered blank rounds at a floating barrel target below. The recoil kicked the whole frame sideways. Jake fought it level. "Feel that?" he called back. "The gun moves you. Fly through it." One by one the other pilots copied the run. They learned to hold course while the fifty bucked and roared. By dusk the pairs turned together and stayed together. The formations no longer broke. The pilots landed in the failing light, hands raw, faces gray with fatigue. Jake walked the line. "You held," he told them. "When their boats fire tomorrow, you hold like today." Nobody cheered. They were too tired. But they stood straighter now. Jake saw it and knew the fear had turned into training. They would not scatter. While they rested, Darrell worked the ground crews late. He fitted each machine with special bombs slung under the frames and packed the gunner pits with ammo belts. His wrench-scarred hands moved without pause. "Charged and loaded," he said, wiping grease on his jeans. "Every coil plugged in overnight. First light, they lift straight off the ground." Jake ran his palm over a warm tank. Forty machines stood in a row, armed and ready, their pilots trained to fight as one. Jake found Marisol at the wall, watching the dark water north. "They're faster than the scout thought," she said. "The boats will reach the coast by morning." Jake looked at his sleeping fleet, then at the sea. His pilots could fight now. But the enemy would arrive at dawn, and the battle would come before he was ready to choose the ground.