Flying the Storm (20 page)

“You mock me,” said Elias, his voice dead calm. “
I do not like to be mocked.” He drew an ornate pistol from a holster at his waist. Then he walked across to the lanky Armenian and pointed it at his head. The marine behind the prisoner sidestepped out of the way.

“I will ask you once more,” Elias said to Aiden. “Where is your friend?” He cocked the pistol’s hammer. On the Armenian’s face was terror. He was sobbing silently, his eyes squeezed shut. Sweat and tears washed little st
reaks of grime from his cheeks.

Aiden’s heart pounded. He couldn’
t betray his friend and he couldn’t let Elias kill that innocent man - a man who had helped Aiden in a time of need.

But then, if he told Elias where Fredrick was, what could he do about it?
As far as Aiden knew, all of the surviving marines were inside the town hall, surrounded on all sides by the Ashtarak militia. The marines’ aircraft was sabotaged and their pilot was dead. They couldn’t get to Fredrick, even if they knew where he was.

“Ok
ay! Okay!” said Aiden, gesturing to Elias to lower the gun. “Fredrick was at the tavern on the outskirts!”

“There,” said Elias. He didn’t lower the pistol. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it? I expect he will be heading for the aircraft, yes? Is he cold-hearted enough to le
ave you and make a run for it?”

“Yes. He won’t wait for me.” Aiden held his hands out, pleading
for Elias to put the gun away.

“Well. Isn’t he the intelligent
one.” Elias shot the Armenian in the head. The sharp bark of the pistol rang around the hall. The lanky man fell backwards with a clatter, his shoulders in spasm. There was a brief rustling as the body jerked and twitched nervelessly, then it was still. An awful silence filled the room.

“I apologise,” said Elias, quite c
almly, “his smell offended me.”

There were confused shouts from outside. The militia
had heard the shot.

Aiden couldn’t believe it. He’d given Elias what he wanted.
Another man was dead, and he felt sick again. There were no words.

Elias walked back over towards the ring of chairs. Azarian’s shoulders were slumped. He looked defeated. Tovmas’ brother was crying softly. The other, younger man was muttering quietly to A
zarian, a hand on his shoulder.

“Corporal!”
Elias said curtly. “I wish to thank you for bringing this criminal to me. I trust you left a detachment to guard their aircraft?”

“Well, Mr Prosper, eh, no, actually. When we heard the shootin’, I brought the prisoners straight back here. I brought both of the grunts with me, in c
ase you folks needed the help.”

“I see. So you needed one marine per prisoner, am I correct?
Even though you have automatic firearms?”

“Well, eh…” stammered the burly marine
. Elias shot him between the eyes. His armoured form crashed to the floor just like the Armenian, as the piercing echo of the gunshot lingered for a moment.

Elias strode up to the corpse and nudged it with his boot. Then he stooped, as if
spotting something interesting.

“Well,” he said, “it appears the late corporal did in fact have brains, contrary to
prior evidence.”

Aiden swallo
wed back bile. Somehow seeing somebody killed was worse than doing the killing. Even if it was just a marine.

“Maddox!”
Elias shouted. “You are henceforth the acting sergeant of this unit. I shall put in a commendation when we return ship-side. It seems the herd has been thinned. The fat has been trimmed.” He pointed to the shadowed wall, at the propped-up form of what Aiden assumed to be the previous sergeant. The figure was clearly dead; its head hung low and a caked stream of blood ran from its nose and mouth. Aiden realised it had been the source of the earlier moaning.

“Somebody raise the carrier pilot!” Elias ordered the marines. “Tell him to prepare for take-off. I need him to disable that aircraft if it tries to make an escape. Tell him not to destroy it, just to force it to ground. I
will
have that fugitive alive!”

At this, Aiden felt a slight stir of satisfaction. The pilot wouldn’t be reached. Fredrick would get away. Aiden had saved his fri
end.

One of the marines in the shadows started trying to contact the pilot. He tried over and over, the same radio call, pausing for a moment between. A few minutes passed. Clearly the marine was unwi
lling to admit failure to Elias. It was understandable, considering the fate of the corporal.

Eventually he stopped. “Mr Prosper,” he said, “There’s no
response from the pilot, sir.”

Elias was still for a moment. Then, without warning he strode across the hall to one of the windows, a rising growl in his throat. The growl turned to a scream of frustration and he fired his pistol wildly out of the window.
Then he walked back into the middle of the hall, seeming to ignore the angry hail of return fire. Everyone else ducked the ricochets and stone chips that buzzed and whined from the walls and ceiling.

When the shooting stopped, it was replaced by
the cursing of the marines and the whimpering of the men in the middle of the circle. Aiden and Nardos elected to stay squatting on the floor, wary of more gunfire. Aiden’s ears rang.

“I suppose it is time for the proverbial plan ‘B’,” muttered Elias.
He changed his pistol’s magazine. “Maddox! What explosives have we?”

A marine next to the window by the door spoke. “W
e have some grenades,” he said.

“That’s all?”

“Yes sir.”

Elias was silent again for a moment. “Maybe they will do,”
he said at length. “A little bit of shock and awe is just what we need here.”

Hurled from the lower windows of the council hall, the grenades exploded amongst the besieging militia with tooth-rattling blasts and showers of shrapnel. The marines seized the moment by bursting from the council hall in a tight formation, with carbines pointed in all directions and the few hostages held as shields in front of them. Only Aiden and Elias walked in the centre of the phalanx: Aiden hunched and flinching, Elias striding calmly forwards with his silver-wrought pistol drawn.

Gunshots cracked across the square, though wild and inaccurate, and the marines responded with trained steadiness, firing in short bursts to suppress and kill. They advanced steadily into the dust and smoke, over the shredded bodies of the fallen militiamen. Aiden tried not to look at them.

As some of the smoke cleared, Aiden could see the militia falling back up side streets and into buildings, driven off in disarray by the sudden assault. Only a few paused to shoot at the m
arines. Even then, only one marine fell, shot through his unarmoured thigh. His comrades did not stop for him.

It was Azarian who fell next,
tumbling to his knees with a stomach wound. His aide cried out and ran to his side, only to be hefted back into position by a marine and dragged along with the formation once more.

As they left the open space of the square, the marines fanned out on the street. At Elias’ order, they began to run. Aiden had no choice but to run too. Nardos now jogged alongside him. He gave Aiden a me
aningful sideways look. Nardos wanted him to draw his pistol.

Then he heard it: the drone of engines. In a moment the streamlined form of the
Iolaire
roared through the air above the town, bringing the marines and Elias to a halt. Carbines barked and tracers flickered skywards as the
Iolaire
made another pass, this time with its tail gun blasting at the street ahead of the marines, hemming them in. More shots snapped along the street from the edge of the square, where the militia had reformed in cover. Elias and his men were caught between the
Iolaire
and the furious locals. If he hadn’t been so terrified for his life, Aiden would have laughed.

The
marines, huddled into what cover they could find on either side of the street, looked to Elias and Maddox. They knew they were in a hopeless position. Elias nodded to Maddox. Maddox roared to his men, “Open fire, you cowards! Cut them to pieces!”

The street became a deafening nightmare of gunfire. Tracers streaked and dust leapt,
while the
Gilgamesh
’s marines threw all they had at the advancing militia. Aiden cowered behind a hand cart and became as small as he could. The fight was intense. Bullets skipped from the road and blew chunks from the wall above his head. Two more marines were cut down in the whirlwind of lead.

Then suddenly, a pair of thunderclaps shook the ground. Aiden looked skyward and saw two great clouds of smoke near the
Iolaire
. The
Iolaire
banked hard and hurtled away to the north, as another pair of shells exploded behind it. The tail gun fired now at some unseen target. Not long after, a huge aircraft thrashed across the sky in pursuit. It was the
Sokol
. Koikov had found them.

“What fresh hell is this?” cried Elias.
“Maddox! Is that one of ours?”

“I don’t recognise it, Mr Prosper! It’s not from the
Gilgamesh
!”

The gunfire on the street died a little as heads
turned to watch the aerial fight: the bulky, powerful form of Koikov’s aircraft chasing the sleek
Iolaire
far to the north. Streaks and beams of light raced between the two as they exchanged fire. It wasn’t long before they were out of sight altogether. Aiden whispered encouragement for Fredrick and Vika.

“Maddox!” shouted Elias again. “We must get to the
carrier! Let us use the lull!”

Maddox shouted to the rest of the marines, and more or less as one, they upped and fell back along the street.
Azarian’s aide lay bleeding on the road. Maddox himself grabbed Aiden by the shoulder and pulled him along with the group. Another pair of marines used Nardos and Tovmas’ brother as shields as they covered the rear of the formation, backpedalling along the street. The militia held their fire, seeing the hostages.

Aiden knew he was running out of time. When Elias and the marines reached their
carrier and found it inoperable and the pilot dead, he reckoned their resolve to take him alive might waver a bit. All it would take would be a single marine to lose his temper. No doubt Elias would skin the bastard afterwards, but that wouldn’t be much use to Aiden.

He had to take the first chance he got.
There were eight marines left: still far too many to even consider trying anything. He’d only get himself and the other prisoners killed.

As the buildings began to thin, Aiden knew they were getting close to the carrier’s landing site. He was looking down alleys and into houses as he jogged past: looking for anything that might let him get away.
But then, as they rounded a corner and saw the squat carrier in the distance, he heard engines once more.

He craned to look over his shoulder, and saw
the brutish form of the
Sokol
thundering towards the town. It was trailing flame from one of its engines, and another was belching thick black smoke. Vika was a natural gunner.

The great aircraft circled the town once, leaving a ring of smoke, before it reared and started to descend, not far from the carrier. It must have spotted the landed aircraft from the air. With an undignified crunch, it smashed down onto its landing gear in a field, and the cargo ramp flopped open. A dozen or more men came pouring out of it, all armed, and once they reached the road
they began moving towards the marines. Both groups approached warily, with their weapons raised. Nervous looks were exchanged between comrades, carbines were set to auto and fingers hovered over triggers. The groups converged at the carrier.

The corpses of the two marines and the pilot still lay where Aiden and Nardos had left them: slumped by the road and laying at the foot of the carrier’s cargo ramp.
Elias looked furious, but it was hard to tell what the marines made of it. It was still early in the morning, and they had already lost half of their comrades. If they hadn’t been murdering, pirating bastards, Aiden might have felt sorry for them.

The engines of the huge aircraft cut out, still smoking, and the only sound left was the whine of the big rotors spinning down.
The two parties faced each other, no more than twenty metres apart.

Suddenly a loudspeaker activated on the big aircraft, and a drawling voice with a Russian accent crackled across it. “My name is Oleg Koikov,”
it said. “I claim this craft for salvage. The parts are needed for repairs to my aircraft. Please leave in peace.” As if to punctuate the demand, the barrels of the aircraft’s two nose guns spun up. They held their fire, but the threat was clear. Not even the armoured marines could take them on.

Elias’ face looked perfectly calm. He held his hands up, and his pistol was nowhere to be seen. He edged forwards
a little. “Very well,” he said. “Perhaps I could retrieve some personal items from the aircraft first? Then it will be all yours.”