The Maltese Defence
Page 37
‘Excellent.’ The admiral left the observation window and stalked over to his first officer. ‘Full thrust. Take us to the objective.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ The man nodded at the sailor standing ready by the wheel. ‘Full speed ahead.’
‘Full speed ahead, aye, sir.’ The sailor grinned and turned to the ship-style engine order telegraph. A bell rang as he pushed the lever forwards, then backwards, then forwards again, as if he were on a ship, signalling in the engineer to adjust the engine speed. It was completely unnecessary on Berth because the fans were controlled by electrical circuits connected to the bridge and the telegraph increased and decreased their speed, but the admiral liked his men to act as if they were on board a proper vessel, after all, when the Kaiser eventually woke up to the fact that Bertha was just a huge waste of time and resources, they would all find themselves back where they belonged.
The admiral watched the pointer slowly make its way up to meet the selected fan speed as the springs in the bottom of the airship released their tension and felt the increasing vibrations below his feet. He grinned; despite how much he detested his posting, he had to admit there was a certain thrill in charging into battle on such a huge vessel.
Gwen struggled to stay with Abby as she carried out one impossible manoeuvre after another. Her job as the wingmate was to identify and guard her leader against incoming threats, but, with the sky and the ground constantly swapping places in a dizzying fashion and the sheer amount of enemy aircraft around them, it was nigh on impossible. However, that abundance of enemy fighters meant there was no shortage of targets to take potshots at and a quick glance at the dial on her instrument panel told her that she’d used almost half of her ammunition in the short time since the Misfits had first dived on the enemy.
Her head was starting to throb painfully with the physical and mental strain, though, and she didn’t know how much longer she could keep up the same intensity. A single slip could well be fatal, for her or for her wingmate, so it was a relief when an unfamiliar voice came over the general frequency.
‘Badger Leader this is Gladiator Leader, would you mind if we joined in the fun?’
‘Not at all, Gladiator Leader, be my guest.’
‘Thank you, Badger Leader, attacking now.’
If the Coalition forces had been uncoordinated before, they were thrown into absolute chaos when an extended line of twelve Spitsteams swept across them, cannon blazing. Most of the Misfits pilots immediately found a distracted enemy aircraft in their sights and didn’t let the opportunity pass them by.
A pair of the dark red and gold Italian machines wandered lazily across Gwen’s nose and she squeezed her trigger, giving them a quick squirt each. She was rewarded with the sight of a big chunk of wing coming off of one, but she didn’t see if she’d hit the second, because Abby changed direction and took her away from them.
A new voice came over the radio, providing a fresh distraction.
‘Badger Leader, this is Warrior Leader. The bombers have some of your old friends with them. Whenever you get a chance you should come up and say hello.’
Finding herself with a moment to catch her breath, Gwen scanned the sky overhead, looking for the bombers, wondering what the woman was referring to. She found what she was looking for almost immediately, even with the awful RAC lenses - bright red fighters mixed in with the large machines, tussling with the Harridans.
‘Haven to Badger Leader, Watcher is safe and sound. Feel free to take Warrior Leader up on her invitation.’
‘Badger Leader, this is Gladiator Leader, we can handle this lot, go have some fun.’
‘Thank you, Gladiator Leader. All Badgers, disengage to the south and regroup. Let’s go and say hello to Mr Gruber and his friends.’
Gruber banked Hölle behind an HO111, using it to block the incoming fire from the two Harridan fighters that were chasing him. The British pilots were hampered by the large machine and he continued the turn, intensifying it, using his aircraft’s superior agility to come around behind them. He poured cannon rounds into the wingman and grinned in satisfaction when he saw huge holes appear in his wing, right next to the cockpit. He stabbed at his controls and switched his aim to the leader, but, before he could open fire, he caught a flash of yellow out of the corner of his eye. He immediately disengaged, rolling under the bomber formation and into clear sky; it was reasonably satisfying to kill inferior pilots in their useless Harridans, but it was nothing compared to the excitement of killing a Misfit.
Gwen peered anxiously up at the red machines of the Crimson Barons. Almost as soon as the Misfits had grouped together and begun their climb, the Barons had abandoned the bombers they were supposed to be protecting and had headed straight for them, forming up as they came. Abby’s plan of climbing to the same level as the Prussian fighters before turning to face them was now impossible and the Misfits were at a severe disadvantage, just as the large group of Coalition fighters had been only a short while before.
‘Looks like we’re going to have to brave their guns or head for home, Badgers.’
‘Why would we go home, Leader? We’ve got them right where we want them!’
‘Yes, thank you, Seven, I’m trying to be serious here. There’s twice as many of them as there are of us, we’re tired, our aircraft are damaged, and we’re running low on ammunition. Nobody would think the worse of us if we turned tail and ran this time and hopefully we’d draw them far enough away from the bombers for the Harridans to get a few.’
‘Five here, Leader. The Barons have been doing all they could to avoid us, so if they’re trying to engage us now they must have a reason. Maybe we should run.’
‘Nah! Gruber probably just thinks we’re easy prey, Derek,’ Drake said. ‘I think we should show him he’s wrong.’
‘So do I, Seven.’ Abby said. ‘Right, then, Badgers, we’re going to stay on this heading and get as much height as we can until they dive on us. You all know the form - break off individually just before they get in range, but get back into your pairs as quickly as you can. Understood?’
Gwen acknowledged, then craned her head to look up and backwards at the Baron aircraft, just visible in the rear of her canopy. What Abby was proposing was incredibly risky, but it wasn’t as if there were any better options, except for diving away for the cover of the anti-aircraft guns of Malta.
As the Barons got closer she was able to make out the individual aircraft. There were sixteen of them, a full squadron, so, either they hadn’t lost any aircraft over Greece, or they had already rebuilt. Apart from Gruber, who seemed to have an almost pathological need to stand out from the crowd, the squadron all had identical aircraft, Blutsaugers, painstakingly-crafted machines that were superior to the mass-produced ones that were available to the rest of the Fleas, or the RAC. Like MU9’s, Spitsteams and Harridans, the design of the Blutsaugers hadn’t changed much since they had been seen over Britain the previous summer, but Gruber’s aircraft was relatively new and vastly different from the one he’d flown over Britain. Then it had been Flamme, the distinctive triplane which had become synonymous with him at the start of the war. It had had incredible manoeuvrability and, with the latest in Prussian spring technology, decent speed, but technology had moved forward since he’d built it and it had become obsolete. He had built a new aircraft, Hölle, which was an amalgamation of the best parts of Dragonfly and Wasp, the aircraft that Abby and Gwen had been flying at the time and over Muscovy it had proven to be superior to any of the machines the Misfits had been flying. However, now the Misfits had Excalibur and Dragon and Gwen was sure that both aircraft would be more than a match for Hölle in a fair fight.
Whether Gruber would allow either of them to have a fair fight was debatable, though.
‘Here they come, Leader.’
Kitty’s sharp eyes immediately spotted the change in aspect as the elite Prussian squadron nosed over into a dive.
‘Thank you Three. Alright, happy hunting, Badgers.’
The Misfits had been slowly drifting apart, making it harder for the Prussians to target them and giving each other room to manoeuvre.
Gwen had been watching the aircraft approaching and when she judged they were about five seconds away from being in range she began to push down on her right rudder pedal, making it look like she was beginning a turn while in fact Excalibur was just sideslipping. Her powerful airscrew quickly started to have an effect, though, and began pulling the aircraft in the direction she was pointing, but Gwen had judged it to a T and just as that started to happen she stomped her left foot down hard and slammed the stick hard over before pulling it into her lap, throwing Excalibur into a hard turn the other way.
Something impacted heavily on Excalibur, making her lurch and Gwen braced herself for more, but none came. She sharply reversed her turn to point her nose back at the Prussian machines, which were only just pulling out of their dives, and pushed the throttle forward to full unwind, sending Excalibur accelerating after them.
‘Bloody hell, not again... Five, bailing out.’
Derek’s voice was strained, but Gwen couldn’t tell if it was due to pain or effort. She shot a glance to the side where his Spitsteam had been and saw it spiralling down, a third of one wing gone - it was the one defect of the wonderfully designed fighters; they were so delicately balanced that they couldn’t take anything like the same punishment as a Harridan could and a few hits could knock one out of the sky.
She kept half an eye on the fighter as she chased after the Barons, but when she saw the small figure thrown clear she ignored it and turned her full attention on her prey.
Gruber grinned as he watched the holes appear in the wing of the Spitsteam. The Misfits’ tactics had been basic, predictable, and all he’d had to do was throttle back and let his men get slightly in front of him so that he’d had time to react when the target he’d picked started its turn. It had then been an easy matter to put several cannon rounds into the machine, more than enough in his experience to knock one of the too-fragile British aircraft out of the sky.
For a moment he regretted shooting down one of the inferior Misfit pilots rather than his preferred targets - Abigail Lennox and Gwenevere Stone - but he had made a decision and he was going to stick with it. He would rip apart Misfit Squadron one by one until it was only those two arrogant women left. Until all their friends were dead. Until they realised just how mistaken they had been in thinking they were as good as him.
Then and only then would he kill them.
‘Well, this is going to be fun,’ said Drake.
Gwen glanced across Dragon’s tail at Lion, tucked in on Abby’s other wing, and found Drake looking back at her.
She grinned. ‘What’s the matter, Digger? Are you scared of a few boys just because they have prettier machines than you?’
‘Actually, it’s more the fact that there’s sixteen of them and just three of us that concerns me.’
The Barons had tried to use the speed from their dive to climb back into the sky and regain their height advantage, but they hadn’t banked on the power of Dragon, Lion and Excalibur, and when they turned to come back at the Misfits they found them nearly at the same height at them and fast approaching firing range. The Spitsteams hadn’t been able to keep up, though, and were lagging about a mile behind, leaving the three aircraft to face the Barons alone, at least for a few seconds.
Gwen chuckled. ‘Leader, I’m not sure that Badger Seven really has what it takes to be a Misfit; he doesn’t seem to be revelling in the prospect of almost certain death.’
‘That’s enough chit-chat for now, please, children. Prepare to break.’
‘Yes, ma’am!’
Gwen laughed as Drake pronounced the honorific with more “u” that he usually did, but she didn’t have time to comment because the Barons were upon them.
She spun Excalibur away from Dragon just as pinpoints of light came into being on the wings of the red aircraft and as the bright tracers flashed past her canopy she squeezed her trigger and sent her own lancing back.
Most Fleas seemed to freeze like rabbits in the beam of a hunting lantern when the Misfits evaded their fire, but the Baron pilots were made of sterner stuff and reacted immediately, manoeuvring frantically to put off the aim of the British.
The aircraft Gwen had been aiming at rolled sharply onto its side and began banking away, but it was a split second too late and her cannons blasted a hole in its tail, the impact knocking it sideways and sending it spinning. Two more Blutsaugers, which had also unsuccessfully tried to target her, flitted by on either side of her, almost close enough to touch, but then she was through the red aircraft and into clear air again.
‘Take that, you blighter!’
Gwen snorted with laughter at Drake’s shout as she put Excalibur into a tight climbing turn, bleeding her speed off.
The Barons had scattered every which way, dividing into pairs, and she craned her head, fighting against the G forces to search for threats and targets.
Dragon was turning with her, but Excalibur was coming around quicker, so it was Gwen who first noticed that four of the red aircraft weren’t turning with the others.
‘Gruber’s going after the Spits!’
‘I see him, Two. There’s nothing we can do about him right now, though,’ Abby replied. ‘Keep your mind on the fight, they can take care of themselves.’
‘Roger, Leader.’
It was easier said than done to ignore the deadly threat to the Spitsteams and Kitty, but Gwen had no choice as she suddenly found herself fighting for her own survival, as the three Misfits spun and weaved their way among the twelve Blutsaugers.
The understanding Gwen had developed with Abby over hundreds, if not thousands of hours on her wing had the two of them instinctively leading pursuers under each other’s guns, coordinating things with barely a word. Drake didn’t have the same connection to either of them, but he was just as effective; Lion, like the Harridan, proving to be extremely adept in such close quarters fighting.
One after another of the Blutsaugers passed through the sights of the three Misfit aircraft and none of them came out the other side unscathed, but after more than a minute of fighting only three of them had been forced out of combat.
‘They’ve done something to these damn things,’ complained Abby, ‘they’re nowhere near as easy to knock down as they used to be.’
‘They’ve probably stolen more of Gwen’s ideas,’ quipped Drake, his voice strained as he pulled a maximum rate turn, attempting to evade the fire of the two Blutsaugers that he had on his tail.
Gwen saw his difficulty and rolled towards him. For a brief second they were almost nose to nose, but then they flashed past, their tails missing each other by scant feet. She opened fire on his pursuers and grunted in satisfaction as holes appeared in the armoured glass canopy of one. She pointedly ignored what her very last cannon round had done to the man within, though. ‘Whatever they’ve done, this is taking too long - my cannons are out and I’m down to a couple of seconds of machine guns.’
‘Me too, Two, but I don’t think we’re going to have to do this for much longer; the bombers are going home and reinforcements are on their way.’
Gwen took the first opportunity she had to glance at the bombers. They had turned and were flying back north, their jobs done, still being harassed by the Harridan squadrons. The remains of the fighter flight had gone with them, but instead of pursuing, the Spitsteams of Gladiator squadron had turned back and were now grouped up and climbing to join the Misfits.
‘The Barons aren’t going to like being outnumbered, are they?’ said Gwen. ‘I wonder how much longer...’ she grinned. ‘Never mind, there they go.’
Even as she had spoken, the remaining Barons disengaged from the three Misfits and dived away, racing to join the rest of the Prussian aircraft. She watched them for a couple of seconds, but then something occurred to her and she inverted Excalibur and searched below her for Kitty and the rest of the Misfits.
‘Haven, this is Badger Leader. Are you open for business?’
Abby’s voice came over the general frequency and Dorothy Campbell replied from the command centre of Hal Far after only a couple of seconds.
‘Badger Leader, this is Haven. By the time you get here we will be.’
‘Thank you, Haven. On our way. Badgers, return to base.’
‘Roger, Leader. Seven returning to base.’
Drake acknowledged immediately, but Gwen stayed silent, scanning the sky below for any sign of her friends, waiting to see if anyone else did. However, all she heard was the soft crackling of the occasional burst of static and finally she had no choice but to acknowledge the order herself, abandon her search and dive for the island.
A good morning’s work, thought Gruber as he put Hölle into a gentle dive towards the island just over the horizon. All of the Misfit Spitsteams had been destroyed, leaving only the two women and that pest, Drake, to deal with.
He was fully aware that at least a couple of the pilots had survived, but that didn’t matter; he would just keep shooting them down until they didn’t get up again. Besides, the ease with which he had defeated them would weigh on their minds and they would cower from him in the future, which would only serve to further demoralise her true targets.
Gruber laughed to himself; the Misfits were already barely worth his attention anymore, but when Malta fell in a matter of days they would cease to exist entirely and the Barons would rule the skies again, as was their right.
And perhaps he would have a few of them as his guests for a while, as he rebuilt his labour force in the depths of Bertha.