by Kacey Ezell
Less than an hour later, Evelyn sat strapped into her seat, her mind rapidly cycling through the senses of each of the men. Running a net of this size wasn’t new to Evelyn, but it could be a bit taxing, if she wasn’t careful. Oddly enough, the best way to do it seemed to be to open herself wide and let all but her most necessary barriers drop. In this way, she became less of a conductress and more of a conduit. The men could sense each other nearly directly simply by casting their thoughts toward one of their fellows. In truth, Evelyn still facilitated things by routing attention and information streams to the desired recipient. It just happened fast, faster than conscious thought, as she welcomed the men into the landscape of her mind and let their consciousnesses mingle and flow.
Takeoff checks complete, Carl thought, and the back of Evelyn’s mind registered the increased vibration all around her. Next came the sensation of motion, dizzyingly amplified through eleven other minds. Evelyn fought down nausea and worked to distill out the sensory inputs. She wanted to keep the channel wide open, so she couldn’t just shunt them to the side as she’d done on the ground. But since the men were all experiencing the movement of the aircraft in different ways (some of them backward!) it made for a uniquely disorienting rush. Evelyn focused on her breathing while the plane pitched up, and with a shudder, they were airborne. The disorientation subsided somewhat, and she allowed herself to relax a bit. Upchucking would have been embarrassing, but it also would have represented a real danger to the crew. Last night had proven that she needed to fuel her body in order to do her job. She couldn’t afford to be wasting calories by throwing up.
Their mission required them to fly over the English Channel into occupied France. The target was a factory complex that manufactured automobile parts. Parts that, according to the intelligence briefing that Carl and the other officers had received, the Nazis were adapting for their notorious Panzer tanks. The first part of the sortie was uneventful...which meant that it was dead dull. The aircraft (or “Fort” as the men called the B-17) thrummed with the vibration from the four massive Cyclone-9 radial engines. The rumble of the engines deafened speech, but with the net, they didn’t need to speak, and the noise settled into a sort of subliminal roar. Evelyn tried to concentrate on relaxing and conserving her energy while keeping the net as open as possible to allow the men to get used to thinking at each other.
Evie, check your toes and fingers. Carl’s thought cut through her sort of semi-conscious trance because it was directed specifically at her. Evelyn blinked and wiggled her fingers and toes obediently. Sure enough, her hands were numb and stiff with cold.
Sean, I think her gloves have gone out, the pilot thought. Evelyn felt a swift jolt of worried agreement from the red-headed flight engineer, and she blinked again, sleepily, as Sean turned and began to work his way back toward her. The formation was flying at 38,000 feet above the Channel. Evelyn didn’t know how cold it was, but numbers like negative fifty floated around in some of the men’s consciousnesses. The crew all wore electrically-heated suits with gloves and booties that fit inside their regular boots. They’d actually had to scramble a bit during the previous night in order to find gear small enough to work for Evelyn.
“Evie!” Sean called, out loud and mentally. Evelyn’s eyelashes fluttered as she fought to focus on him. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but he seemed a shadow figure, leeched of color. The edges of her vision started to sparkle.
Jolts of alarm came from all directions as each of the men began to realize what was happening to her.
Oxygen! Check her O2! Her tube must be frozen! Check her air!
Sean swore, but Evelyn couldn’t have said whether or not she heard it with her ears or her mind. She felt a warm, contented kind of amusement at his colorful language. Didn’t they know she was a lady?
She felt him tugging at the oxygen hose connected to the mask that covered her mouth and nose. More swearing, more mental alarm bells from the other men, and all she could do was smile. Her eyes drifted slowly closed, and for the first time since she’d landed in England, Evelyn felt a delicious, delicate sort of warmth steal over her.
Another jerk on her hose, and suddenly, a blast of air quite literally took her breath away. Evelyn’s eyes popped back open, and the sparkling gray receded from center of her vision outward. A tight pain pierced her forehead right between her eyes as the forced O2 flowing from her mask reinvigorated her.
What happened? she asked. Her connection to the net felt ragged and worn, and she reached out with tentative mental fingers to repair it.
Hypoxia, Sean replied, grimly. Your O2 hose froze over, musta got some water in there. Probably condensation. I switched you to an emergency bottle. Now let me see your hands.
Her head continued to throb with pain as she obediently held out her gloved hands. Sean opened up the fur-lined collar of his jacket and felt the outside of her gloves against his exposed cheek. He swore again and stripped her gloves off. The frigid air felt as if it burned on her skin as he uncovered it. He unzipped her jacket and crossed her arms one over the other so that she could put her hands under her armpits.
Hold them there for just a moment, Sean said. I’ve got a spare set of electric gloves. They’ll be huge on you, but you’re not doing anything with your hands anyway.
Evelyn felt a quick surge of shame. Everyone else on the crew was using their hands, or would be. Was she just dead weight?
No! Carl’s negative response slashed into her mind. If not for your net, we never would have known you were in trouble until it was too late.
Evelyn didn’t respond right away, focusing instead on how Sean was chafing her hands before pulling the spare electric gloves over her frigid fingers. Feeling started to come back in painful prickles, and that gave her yet another excuse to not respond to Carl.
Because, of course, the truth was that if she hadn’t been there, then she wouldn’t have gotten ice in her O2 hose in the first place. And then Sean wouldn’t have had to leave his crew position above the cockpit. He would still have been scanning for enemy fighters, or monitoring the engine gauges, or something else equally useful. Evelyn felt her own uselessness settle on her like a weight around her neck. But she couldn’t let the men feel it, too. They couldn’t doubt her, or the net would be further weakened. So she wrapped it up, shunted it away, and locked it behind barriers she hoped the men would never even sense, let alone wonder at.
A sudden tension flowed back to her from Carl and Bob in the cockpit. Sean caught it, too, because he straightened suddenly, gave her a thumbs-up and a pair of raised eyebrows as if to ask if she was all right. She gave him a smile and a pulse of wordless reassurance, and he turned to hustle back to his position.
Easy now, just tighten it up. Nice and slow, Carl thought to his copilot. Bob, the young lieutenant copilot, was flying. He was doing a fair enough job of holding formation, but as Evelyn looked through his eyes, she saw what had caused that increase in tension. White and gray wisps of cloud began to cut across their line of sight, cutting between their formation and the one ahead, now kissing the top or belly of the Pretty Cass herself.
Slowly, Bob pushed the four red-knobbed throttles forward, causing the engine noise to build slightly as the Cyclones took a deeper bite of the air, and Pretty Cass began to accelerate just a bit.
Back it off now, Carl thought then, nodding as his eyes stayed glued to their lead plane, flying ahead of them and to the left, at their eleven o’clock. See how Teacher’s Pet is getting larger in the wind screen? That’s right, right there. Now just ride that line up on her...perfect.
Bob followed Carl’s mental nudges, and the Cyclones’ whine changed again as the Fort’s acceleration slowed. Evelyn felt a jolt of pleased surprise coming from the waist and ball turret gunners.
Nice hands, LT, Les thought, carefully articulating the thoughts. His wave of approval flowed down the link, and Evelyn caught a pulse of warm gratification from the copilot. He might not have wanted to admit it, but Lieutenant Bob Becket craved the
approval and respect of his crew, and he desperately wanted to be looked up to, the way they looked up to Carl.
Evelyn caught that thought and quickly tried to squirrel it away so that the rest of the crew didn’t catch hold of it. Things like that were often an awkward side effect of being in an extended net. It didn’t help matters for after the job was done and the net dropped, so Evelyn did her best to mitigate such things and preserve what privacy she could.
Not that she could do much.
It’s all right, Evie. It was Paul Rutherford, on an incredibly tight channel that spoke to her, once again, of his previous experience working in a net with his lost sister. We all know already. Bob’s a good sort, when he’s not trying too hard. He works hard, and the men will all like him quite a bit once he calms down. A little bit of atta-boy will do him a world of good.
Evelyn began to understand. These men were a crew, which meant something she’d only just now realized. Their relationship had already been tight and interdependent before she’d arrived on the scene. It hadn’t been hard to build a net for them; in fact, the net had seemed to want to spring into existence with disconcerting eagerness. This was why, Evelyn realized. These men had flown together and fought together. They’d watched friends die together. Their very survival depended on knowing what each other was doing and thinking. They’d honed the ability to anticipate each other into something astonishing, and, truth be told, near psychic on its own. No wonder they had naturally clicked into her net.
We’re fully IFR now, boys...and Evie, Carl announced. A quick look through his eyes told her what “IFR” meant: they were completely enveloped by the clouds. It was as if the formation of Forts existed in a sea of white and gray wisps. The formations ahead of theirs flickered in and out of sight like indecisive ghosts as the clouds played havoc with Carl’s vision.
I can help, Evelyn said suddenly, as an idea occurred to her. That’s our lead aircraft, right? The one forward and to the left?
At the eleven o’clock, Bob replied, his mind tight with concentration as he fought to maintain position.
Evelyn took a deep breath and reached out, seeking the mental signature of the lead bird’s psychic. It wasn’t easy, for they weren’t really as close as they seemed, and there was a lot of distraction with the crew and the aircraft itself. Eventually, however, Evelyn made contact with the tightly wound threads of Alice McGee’s mind.
Alice was young, only about seventeen, but she was tough as nails. She’d grown up on a farm in rural Georgia with seven brothers. She and Evelyn had bonded over being country girls thrown onto this wild ride, but where Evelyn was shy and demure, Alice was brash and cocky.
Only she didn’t seem so cocky now, Evelyn realized as she touched her friend’s mind in query.
Evelyn? Alice asked, her mind tone sounding near hysterical. Oh, Evelyn...I don’t...I’m not sure I can handle this...
Alice, what’s wrong?
The men, they’re so scared, and we can’t see where we’re going, and I feel so disoriented...
Just then, Evelyn felt Carl’s jolt of recognition.
“Roll out, Bob!” he said out loud, his voice urgent. Evelyn heard it through both Carl’s ears and Bob’s.
“Lead’s in a bank,” Bob replied. “If I roll out, I’ll lose him in the cloud.”
“Radio! Get ahold of lead!”
I’ve got it, Evelyn replied. I’m in contact with lead’s psychic. Carl, focus on the artificial horizon, please. I’m going to feed that to Alice in lead. She took a deep breath and reached out again.
Alice, you have to calm down. Your panic is disorienting your crew. It was hard for me, too, but you’ve got to just open your channels and let them feel each other’s minds. And then you have to control what sensations and emotions get through. Your pilot is in an inadvertent bank. Feed this image to him, Evelyn thought, passing along Carl’s sensation and knowledge while Bob fought to keep position on lead. The clouds were getting denser and denser, and if they lost sight of the other aircraft in the formation, the risk of a midair collision increased.
Evelyn felt Alice’s trembling acceptance of the image, and she felt the younger woman pass it along to her crew. The lead pilot recognized his error with a horror that echoed down the two joined links.
Alice! Suppress that! Evelyn snapped, on what she hoped was a tight channel. In any case, her whipcord order got through because she felt Alice grab on to her pilot’s emotional response and dampen it, pull it out, away from the other men, and fine tune her crew’s focus.
Lead rolled out of the bank, then transmitted a course correction over the radio.
Thank you, Evelyn, Alice thought to her. How did you know I was in trouble?
I didn’t, Evelyn responded. I just thought that in this dense weather, maybe we ought to link our nets together. I thought it might reinforce the integrity of the formation. Are you all right now?
Yes, Alice thought, her mind firm and grim. I am sorry about that. I let their emotions get away from me. It was just the flying in the weather...I let everyone’s unease reinforce each other. It won’t happen again.
Evelyn hoped not, but she didn’t say so, or even think it loudly enough for Alice to hear. That, then, was a vulnerability that they hadn’t discussed in training. The negative emotions of the crew could get into a feedback loop that caused problems for everyone if their psychic wasn’t on top of things.
Let’s link up, Evelyn suggested again. We should check on all the others and make sure they’re not having problems, too.
All right, Alice thought back at her. My navigator says that we’re over the Channel now, and that this weather should clear once we’re “feet dry” again.
Evelyn passed an acknowledgment to Alice, then reached out to link with the other psychics in the formation. None of them were in the same bad shape Alice had been in, but none of them were particularly comfortable. Their training hadn’t prepared them for any of this...and they hadn’t even entered hostile airspace yet.
Still, one did what one could. Evelyn passed along Alice’s position report and her suggestion to maintain at least a light link with each other in the event that something went wrong. Maude Phillips, over on Ginger Gal on the other side of the formation, suggested that this might even help them keep some awareness, if and when they came up against Luftwaffe fighters. Deep inside, Evelyn quailed at the thought, but she appreciated the support to her suggestion.
Once the entire formation was linked in a loose net, they began to fly much tighter. Once again, Evelyn felt the way that this pleased her men. Close formation meant less vulnerability to enemy fighters. That could only be a good thing, as far as they were concerned.
The flight droned on. Evelyn began to feel a creeping sense of unreality to it all. The constant drone of the Cyclone engines, the numbing cold, the peculiar sensation of multiple perspectives...these things combined to leave Evelyn drifting along the streams of her own net.
* * *
“Look sharp, everyone,” Carl said after a while. Evelyn couldn’t have said whether they’d been droning for minutes or hours in the cold, dense white of the cloud cover. “We should be overhead the French coast in about thirty seconds.”
The men all reacted to this announcement with varying degrees of excitement and terror. Sean got up from his seat and came back to her, holding an awkward looking arrangement of fabric and straps.
Put this on, he thought to her. It’s your flak jacket. And your parachute is just there, he said, pointing. If the captain gives the order to bail out, you go, clip this piece into your ‘chute, and jump out the biggest hole you can find. Do you understand? You do, don’t you. This psychic thing certainly makes explaining things easier, he finished with a grin.
Evelyn gave him what she hoped was a brave smile and took the flak jacket from him. It was deceptively heavy, and she struggled a bit with getting it on. Sean gave her a smile and a thumbs up, and then headed back to his station.
The other men we
re checking in and charging their weapons. A short time later, Evelyn saw through Rico’s eyes as the tail gunner watched their fighter escort waggle their wings at the formation and depart. They didn’t have the long-range fuel capability to continue all the way to the target.
Someday, that long-range fighter escort we were promised will materialize, Carl thought. His mind felt determinedly positive, like he was trying to be strong for the crew and not let them see his fear. That, of course, was an impossibility, but the crew took it well. After all, they were afraid, too. Especially as the formation had begun its descent to the attack altitude of 20,000 feet. Evelyn became gradually aware of the way the men’s collective tension ratcheted up with every hundred feet of descent. They were entering enemy fighter territory.
Yeah, and someday Veronica Lake will...ah. Never mind. Sorry, Evie. That was Les. Evelyn could feel the waist gunner’s not-quite-repentant grin. She had to suppress a grin of her own, but Les’ irreverence was the perfect tension breaker.
Boys will be boys, she sent, projecting a sense of tolerance. But real men keep their private lives private. She added this last with a bit of smug superiority and felt the rest of the crew’s appreciative flare of humor at her jab. Even Les laughed, shaking his head. A warmth that had nothing to do with her electric suit enfolded Evelyn, and she started to feel like, maybe, she just might become part of the crew yet.
Fighters! Twelve o’clock high!
The call came from Alice. If she craned her neck to look around Sean’s body, Evelyn could just see the terrifying rain of tracer fire coming from the dark, diving silhouette of an enemy fighter. She let the call echo down her own channels and felt her men respond, turning their own weapons to cover Teacher’s Pet’s flanks. Adrenaline surges spiked through all of them, causing Evelyn’s heart to race in turn. She took a deep breath and reached out to tie her crew in closer to the Forts around them.
She looked through Sean’s eyes as he fired from the top turret, tracking his line of bullets just in front of the attacking aircraft. His mind was oddly calm and terribly focused...as, indeed, they all were. Even young Lieutenant Bob was zeroed in on his task of keeping a tight position and making it that much harder to penetrate the deadly crossing fire of the Flying Fortress.