Painkiller: Odin's Warriors - Book 2

by Aeryn Leigh

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Ella once more watched Amelia and the puppies play in the surf. This time however, she'd come prepared. Amelia tried hard to keep up with throwing five sticks to the dogs, as each returned and dropped their retrieved stick. At low tide, the long, flat stretch of wet sand opened out in front of her, pieces of green seaweed here and there, sickly-sweet and rotting.

  Let's try this again, shall we? Structural failings.

  She gripped her own tapered stick, and advanced toward the recalcitrant problem in her head. Using the blank sand as her canvas, she began once more to draw a 1:1 scale model of the PBY seaplane she saw in her mind.

  Top down view. Okay. So twin motors, one here and here. The tip of her cane carved out the outline of the Wright-radials. An image popped into her head. Diamonds. Ha. Yes. Like geodesic frames, like in the Wellingtons. Try that. Simple, strong, and sturdy. Swish, swish, swish. Faster, Ella, faster. Don't think. Act. Rely on instinct woman. Play.

  Up on the sand dune, Laurie joined Merrion and the personal guards, and as always, Volfango, and they watched Ella skip and dance across the beach, barefoot, her feet hardly leaving a mark, and when they did, always on the outside of the sketch, an artist at work.

  "Run out of paper, have we?" said Laurie, not taking his eyes off the design being wrought.

  "Apparently," said Merrion. "I think it's just an excuse to play in the sand."

  "Wouldn't be so sure of that, mate," said Laurie. "She's a natural plane designer. And pilot. Bit of a temper though when pushed into a corner."

  Merrion raised his eyebrow, and laughed. "Pot kettle black."

  "Yeah mate, well, it's an imperfect world."

  The tide, having retreated into the bay, turned into a slow advance back up the beach.

  Okay, thought Ella, looking good. Now, to draw the side profile. She pictured herself as if from above, and drew upon the sand in matching proportions, trusting her Muse as the dogs barked playfully.

  There.

  She ran around the outlines and up to the group of men.

  "Merrion, my scrapbook. Quickly." She took the thick brown book and opened to a new page, and scribbled hard looking up at the beach design and down at the paper with her pencil. Without another word, she raced back down to the design, and began pacing out measurements with the length of the cane. Ella jumped up into the air, yelling.

  "That's it," she said, joining them. "The stroke that split the diamond."

  "Geodesic structure," said Laurie. "Nice and simple. I like nice and simple."

  "And strong enough to carry us all, even towing gliders," said Ella. She cupped her hands to her mouth and bellowed. "Amelia, come on. Marines, we are leaving!" and her child and the dogs ran back, over lines in sand the sea now relentlessly reclaimed.

  Chapter Twelve

  FIRING RANGE

  "C'MON GIRL, BE NICE," said Griffin. The .50cal Browning machine gun laid in front, mounted on its new wooden tripod. "There's only so many times I can strip and clean you out each day." The gunnery sergeant, eased his big hands around the wooden handles, cocked the firing slide, and aimed down the firing range behind The Pit's war factories. Ten rounds of ammunition fell over the side in their linked belt, ten rounds he'd assembled only that morning, each massive bullet an exercise in patience, care, and respect.

  To his left and right, the sergeants of what remained of the Republic's Third Army drilled their fresh recruits, most of them young, or old, men. A few women peppered the ranks, but the rest of them worked in the factories, where nimbler hands proved useful. Using captured weapons, they fired down the range where impromptu dummies clothed in Inquisition uniforms stood at fifty-, hundred-, and two-hundred-yard markers.

  A depressing number of them stood untouched. But a few, he observed, a few, showed promise.

  Griffin's target, the mangled remnant of a detonated Inquisition tank, rested just behind the two-hundred-yard marker. Facing away, presenting its thinner rear armour, Griffin knew from experience of H-Day the under half-inch plate could be penetrated day in, day out with a normal .50cal round.

  He pulled the trigger.

  In a second, they were gone. Grey-black smoke washed over him, and he stood.

  "Cease fire," he said, and the soldiers stopped. "Sergeants, that's enough for the day. Take them back, make 'em strip and clean their weapons again, this time a random musket taken from the first table. Dismissed." The sergeants saluted, returned by Griffin, and squad by squad, departed the field, back to the barrack long halls over the slight ridge, carrying their weapons over their shoulders, and in fine tradition, yelled at.

  He inspected Betty. Black, gritted residue covered the machine gun, from the lower-tech black powder cartridges, the casings empty in the dirt. Or some were. He picked up all ten, and held them up so that the sunlight shone into them. Two of them still contained reasonable amounts of unfired gunpowder.

  Damn.

  In the walk to the tank, Griffin yet again cycled to thoughts of his two girls. A year older now. And their Mama, getting on with their lives. It's like a blister on the roof of your mouth. Just can't leave it alone, can ya? Shit.

  I hope they're getting on. It'd be early 1945 now. Is the War still going? Are you all okay? Be strong, I know you all are very strong. Ma and Pa can help, should be helping out, if your Ava can swallow her pride.

  The ball of grief flared up, and Griffin stomped it flat, teeth grinding.

  Later. Now, focus.

  He came to the rusting, blackened war machine.

  Nothing.

  Seven new scratches, one reasonable crater, but nothing made it through. Zero penetrations.

  The amount of work left ahead telescoped out in front of him.

  I need to speak to Abe again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ASTRONOMY AND ASIMOV

  THE FOLLOWING EIGHT-DAY weeks turned into months on Elysium, and in their spare time, or what little there was of it, the two navigators constructed the astronomy tower on the highest point on the island of Fairholm. Far away from the belching smoke, and burning oil stacks of the Republic's fledgling industries and just-discovered oilfield which ran all day and all night, pumping liquid black gold from underground.

  Andrew and Daniel considered the stars and constellations above them from the first-storey platform they'd built on the rocky outcrop of the mountain, its supports mounted in concrete, or Mick's Mix as it was now called throughout the island. Bits of scrounged timber lengths piled around them, and under the platform, scored from the salvaging crews recycling the hundreds and hundreds of destroyed ships in the bay. The much harder part of grinding wide enough glass lenses had been outsourced to Fairholm’s few spectacle makers, with a bounty provided by General Marietta.

  "Eight-day weeks, the days at twenty-four and a half of Earth's hours," said Andrew.

  "It's close," said Daniel, peering through his sextant. "This world is like Earth. The gravity feels right, the air's a little thicker, and richer, hell even the Moon looks similar. Although some of those crater markings look a little funny."

  "Hmm," said Andrew. "Do you read much Daniel?"

  "Just the pulps, like the ones Amelia's got. Love me a good detective-murder whodunnit. You?"

  "I like the new authors in Science Fiction, a little horror for some guilty pleasures. Asimov in Astounding Magazine. H.P. Lovecraft. Dagon gives me the willies. Ugh. Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker for when I need to bend my brain into knots." He sighed, and gazed into infinity above. "Ah bugger," said Andrew. "I'm not going to find out what happens next." His shoulders slumped.

  "What?"

  "I can't believe it didn't occur to me earlier. The final part of Triplanetary? Children of the Lens. E.E Doc Smith?" He got up and paced the small wooden area, and addressed the night sky, shaking his fist.

  "You, mischievous pricks! Do you hear me you alien bastards? What happens next?" Daniel watched Andrew curse and kick timbers for the first time he'd known the talkative Aussie, and thought o
f all the things he'd miss too.

  A shooting star flashed across the star field.

  When Andrew's calm demeanour returned he sighed and took a deep breath.

  "Sorry about that," said Andrew. "Don't usually lose my temper." He sat back down. "Where was I. Do you have any family, Dan?"

  "Just my Ma and Pa, and my four brothers. I was the youngest."

  "It must be hard."

  "Nah. Was the youngest, left home when I could and signed up. You?"

  "Mum and Dad. Anyway, here we are." Through the sextant once more, he looked. "So, we're still in the Milky Way."

  "Seems that way. But a few galaxies over. Hurts my brain just thinking about it."

  "Not wrong my friend. Not wrong at all. But if we can make this telescope, maybe we can find some better answers. Like what's happening with that." Both stared up into the empty, vast patch of black surrounded by countless pins of light.

  Chapter Fourteen

  AND SO IT BEGINS

  "I THOUGHT we'd gone over this," said Mick, examining the pile of parachutes taken from the Lancaster and B-17, in the corner of their supplies building.

  "We have," said Laurie. "I'm just using you as a soundboard. A devil’s advocate."

  "Ah," said Mick, brightening up. "That, I am good at, mate."

  Laurie remained deadpan. Or tried to.

  "So. Anyone that's used a parachute before is using one. Merrion is going on a glider. I know the lads — and ladies — want to do some practice jumps, and they're grumpy because we can't. Yes, I know. Wasn't born yesterday. Why?"

  "Because none of us knows how to pack a parachute?"

  "Yeah. Even after a year of sitting, at least they're professionally packed by the WAAF back home. Once we use them, even once, I don't relish the prospect of trying to restuff them like a long pair of socks, then risking your life on it on the hope you did it right. But c'mon, Mick. Get grumpy at me." He waited.

  And waited.

  "Why, short arse?"

  "Dunno."

  "C'mon, you dead goanna on a stick."

  "Because I don't want to fucking jump out of an otherwise perfectly good aircraft!"

  "Aha!"

  "I want to be on the glider instead, you creaking dinosaur!"

  "Do you now? Dropped vertically straight down in a death dive, then trusting in that main parachute to deploy a hundred foot off the ground?"

  "I do!"

  "What if I ordered you to?"

  "To what?"

  "Parachute out of the Cat?"

  The two men regarded each other.

  "Of course I'd do it."

  Laurie picked his nose, wiped the contents on his only handkerchief, now getting threadbare, then folded it neatly back in his trouser pocket.

  "Yeah, I know you would, mate." He breathed out. "Well, that settles it."

  "Settles what?"

  "This mission is hazardous enough as it is. I'll talk to Beowulf. He keeps eyeballing the parachutes anyway. Anyone wants to go on the glider, can do so. Makes sense to split the personnel up, not all the eggs in one basket. C'mon my old Spanish friend, let's get a beer in us. Creaking dinosaur. Ha."

  THE DAWN CREPT over the horizon, and Corporal Geoffrey Banks stretched, raising his arms up high. He blinked a few times, and held up his binoculars, taken from the Purity's captain, and resumed his watch from the Republic's observation tower, built on the southernmost tip of the Island, where the Bay of Harmony began. The forward observation post, a stone and wood round building which used to be Fairholm lighthouse before the War, before one of the dreadnought's secondary gun batteries removed the very top section, sliced off like the top of a boiled egg, was built on the outcrop of stones hundreds of feet above the ocean waves pounding the shoreline below.

  The Republic maintained its around the clock watch. Just getting to the post proved challenging enough, two miles of intermittent wooden planking around the rim of the bay balanced on inhospitable rocks and deep fissures several men deep, and some that held more than one corpse irretrievably lost.

  "Anything interesting, Corporal?" said Lieutenant Vince Pernelli. Banks shook his head.

  "No, sir, nothing unusual. Just the normal red lights of campfires and Inka smoke stacks." The closest island of the arpeggio chain which stretched out far over the horizon lay three miles away, and there the Inquisition built Gods only knew what, waiting, and waiting.

  "Thank you, Corporal Banks. You stand relieved. Send the morning message saying all clear." The corporal handed the lieutenant the binoculars, and headed inside to send the message from the wireless set, taken from Hades' Express, to its sister in the Command Bunker. The young man was glad to be out of the cold, stinging winds. First though, some hot tea.

  The lieutenant began his watch, scanning the horizon.

  Another five days and this rotation ends. I can get off this damn forsaken rock.

  His eyes caught something. There, from the closest island. Tiny reflections of metal in the morning suns, rising above the landmass, gaining height with every second. He focused in on them. Ten specks, arranged like a flock of birds.

  Metal birds.

  Headed right for Fairholm.

  Vince lowered the binoculars and turned around, colliding with the corporal holding two mugs of tea. Hot, scalding water splashed over them, the corporal shouting in pain, but Lieutenant Pervelli barely noticed in his rush inside to the wireless set.

  His hands trembled as he picked up the headset, twisting the control knobs.

  "Eagle to Bear, Eagle to Bear, are you there, over?"

  "Roger that Eagle," said the voice of Communications Sergeant Nigel ‘Bear’ Halford. "I hear you."

  "We have bogeys inbound, ten, repeat bogeys inbound, ten, over."

  There was a pause, before the Lancaster's wireless set squawked. "Roger that. Keep observing no matter what, Eagle, over?"

  The lieutenant hesitated, then from outside the corporal bellowed as hard as he could into the longhorn.

  "Copy, Bear," said Lieutenant Pervelli, and put down the headset.

  The corporal continued blowing into the Viking longhorn, and after the fourth blast, in between panting breaths, they heard droning motors, and the air-raid sirens echoing from across the bay in response.

  "That's enough, Corporal," said Lieutenant Pervelli, and again watched the aeroplanes coming toward them, as the complement of soldiers stationed in the lighthouse below all clamoured for a look on the wooden circular balcony. "Men," he said, "we've drilled for this. Break out the armoury."

  BEAR TURNED IN HIS CHAIR. "We could really use a third wireless set," he said, as the little rotary generator outside the Command Bunker powered the ear-splitting din of the emergency siren.

  "The Aerodrome has responded with an affirmative, sir," said Private Jasper, his face flushed, returning from the mound behind the bunker from which messages were relayed via the seemingly magical signal machines taken from the two bombers.

  "Well done, Private," said Bear. "Now I guess we find out how good Lucius and Ella's little air force is."

  AT THE AERODROME, panic reigned.

  "Where's the commander?" said Loki Kroner, Squadron Leader, to the other junior pilots trying to don their flight suits, in the barracks area of the airbase. On the wooden walls, various paintings, both old and new, added a little life to the bare room. "Where's my goggles?"

  "Beats me," said Victoria Green, struggling with her right arm.

  "He'll be here soon enough," said Max Hunter, pulling his suit up over his waist. "Speak of the devil."

  "Get to it, pilots," said Commander Lucius from the doorway. He didn't look happy. "Your machines are already on the tarmac. Chop, chop." He left the room.

  "I'll give him chop, chop," said Max, at last donning the leather and sheep-wool flying suit.

  "All talk and no action," said Marianne Harcourt, already dressed, and helping Victoria with her stuck arm. "Can you help Hilda?"

  "I'm good," said Inger Rucker. "
The inner seam came apart on the leg. Got it."

  All the pilots, dressed and with leather helmets and goggles in hand, ran out the door and into the morning light. The row of flying machines awaited, and each pilot sprinted toward their respective machines, a ground crew mechanic attending each.

  Commander Lucius intercepted them, and they halted.

  "Nothing heroic," he said. "Especially you, Hunter. Loki, take them up, get an eyeball on them. If they carry bombs or the like, try to shoot them down, or disrupt them enough. If not, do not engage. There's ten of them, and seven of you, remember. Use your heads. Otherwise, remember your training. Go."

  The pilots raced to their planes, and climbed up and into the small cockpits.

  Loki settled in, and like the others, went through the preflight checklist in his head.

  He double-checked the pair of M3 grease guns mounted on each side of the fuselage, the strings attached to the triggers poking through the fuselage canvas and ending in a y-handle just to the left of the control stick.

  Rudders. Ailerons. Check.

  He finished the rest of the procedures, and waved to his mechanic, standing in front of the wooden propeller out front.

  Magneto switch. Centred and on. Fuel on.

  He gave the thumbs up.

  The mechanic pulled the propeller down and around a half-circle, priming it, then watching his footing, swung the propeller hard. The rotary engine puffed and spluttered into life, Castor oil flying backward in the slipstream. The mechanic circled around, and removed the wheel chocks.

  The little aeroplane moved forward. To his right, he saw Aisha's engine start, then catch fire, ground crew running toward the aircraft with buckets of sand, as the pilot killed the magnetos and hastily got out.

  Dammit, he thought. Six. He taxied down the runway, increasing speed, and pulled back on the stick a little, to prevent the aircraft's torque spinning it around, until a little over halfway down the runway, the plane lifted off. He looked to his left and right. Four others. Aisha's aircraft blossomed in flame as the fuel tank ignited, and another sat on the tarmac, motionless. David Gravistor's.