Chapter 150 - The Null Brood

  I pulled on the discarded headset from our missing tail gunner. “Lura, our tail’s clear, but won’t be for long.”

  “Perhaps we ought have kept to plans simply to look upon our quarry, little brother!”

  “No need to rub it in,” I muttered.

  I only had a moment before the nymphs would be on us. Sighting through the viewfinder on the gun, I began to rattle off rounds at the encroaching null broodlings. Armstrong squeezed his way up behind me to lean out into the ferocious wind with his rifle, taking shots at the creatures that pushed in on our port and starboard sides. The young ones were fast, nearly as fast as a goblin interceptor—which really wasn’t that fast in terms of jet fighters. But I hadn’t expected anything on Rava to be able to keep up with a jet engine.

  Lura banked us around, taking the fighter back toward the battle. Our pursuers chased, and soon rockettes were spitting from both fore and aft as we shot through the swarm.

  “Draw them north! Away from the city, lest these minor devils worm their way within its walls to escape us,” said Lura.

  While not exactly for altruistic reasons, I did appreciate the effort to pull the fight away from the Ifrit city. The devastation if these tinier version of the magic-devouring beasts had managed to get in through cracks too small to permit the adult… It might be an end to an ancient civilization.

  I spun my gun to the left to spit rockettes at a larger nymph that had to be at least as long as the orc fighter. The hits weren’t lethal, but they did knock it to the side, and the wind catching its underbelly slowed it as though we’d attached one of the recoilless rifle drogue chutes. I felt Armstrong twist behind me, and his gun sounded on the opposite side—answered by an unearthly shriek as his shots hit home.

  We banked sharply, enough that I had to hold onto the gun mount to avoid being thrown from the rear turret. I risked a glance behind to see Lura had cut in on three broodlings giving chase to one of the other orc fighters. With bursts from her cannons, she quickly cut down two of the beasts, and dove to avoid the third as it circled back and threw itself at us. I had to duck back down into the turret in order to avoid the creature stoving in my head as it skipped off the top of our aircraft with the shriek of stressed metal. When I stuck my head back out, I saw that its claws had torn furrows in the skin of the fuselage.

  “Quiet, are these cannons, now,” said Lura. “My quiver is spent. We must roost this iron hawk and file fresh its talons.”

  The shadow of the null devil passed overhead, casting just as much shade as Raphina. I grit my teeth as Lura poured on the throttle, pushing us clear of the swarm. Two more of the orc fighters followed suit, though they all had to be running low on ammunition. I shot at one of the broodlings who attempted to keep pace, but they turned rather than travel too far from the full-grown null devil. The Dawn’s Light had the big devil’s full attention now. The massive beast seemed to have lost all interest in breaching the City of Brass.

  “Look ahead, little brothers. Joined the hunt, have your kin!”

  I twisted around in the turret, looking at the line of black dots in the sky to the north. A dozen more aircraft were screaming in at full throttle. The fast, nimble goblin interceptors piloted by Eileen’s most lunatic air delivery pilots raced toward us, and a salvo of 24 missiles streaked overhead. Some impacted early against broodlings, and some veered off to God-knows where. But most of them flew on to strike the null devil. Even goblin accuracy couldn’t miss a target that size.

  The fighters passed us, and then broke formation to engage the broodlings in tight dogfights with their nose guns. The nimble goblin interceptors weaved in and out of the cloud of juvenile devils, covering our retreat. I saw one interceptor go down to a trio of broodlings that latched onto it. Another crashed against the hide of the null devil.

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  “Boss, four more Ifrit just landed at China Lake,” came Eileen’s voice, relaying the messages she got through the command jet.

  “Eileen!” I called. “The interceptors are in the fray, but the orc fighters are bingo on fuel and ammo.”

  “The hobgoblin heavies should be there soon, and the rest of the orc jets were almost ready to take off.”

  I watched the null devil swat at a plane who barely managed to avoid the monolithic claw. Another lost a portion of its wing to a collision with a broodling, but somehow managed to stay airborn. Hopefully they got here soon, because this was far from a sure thing. The dozens of small parachutes that dotted the obsidian hide needed to be hundreds. And now with the broodlings in the mix, that was going to be even harder to achieve. I had tried to build for every contingency. I had planned for the creature’s hide being nearly impervious, I had planned for it climbing to 15,000 chooms or more in altitude. I had planned for it to be smart, fast, ruthless, and as tough as a granite mountain. I hadn’t planned for it to come with a posse.

  But we would adapt. We had the tools, the knowledge, and the skills. I kept the gun pointed behind us. Lura turned the nose north and retreated with the other orc fighters who had spent their payloads. A few minutes later, we passed a wave of hobgoblin fighters, and a few minutes after that you could hear the thunderous rumble of their missiles striking the creature and, worryingly, it’s even-louder answering roar.

  My hands itched with nothing to do. My goblins were fighting behind us, and I was on my way out. Ahead of me, in the sky, a fat dot resolved into the C2 jet, hanging heavy in the air with its trio of engines.

  “Lura,” I said into my mouthpiece, “can you match our course and speed with that one?”

  “Aye, tis less hawk than gull. We can match it easily.”

  “Good, I want to transfer over to it.”

  “Perhaps my ears ring too thick with blood.”

  “Just trust me! Eileen?”

  “Onnit, boss!”

  Ahead, the command and control jet banked slightly to accommodate us, and Lura lined us up directly underneath as slow as the jet could go without stalling. Overhead, a hatch opened at the bottom, and a knotted cord trailed down with a hook at the end. I managed to catch it and fasten it inside the turret.

  “Alright, Lura, we’re going across. We’ll send back crewmen to undo the line and fly the rest of the way back to China Lake with you.”

  “You’d best send a pilot, as well. If you think not that I can see yon cannon on the great gull above, you are mistaken. I am no ferry-man when fighting is to be done.”

  “Read you loud and clear,” I said. “We’ll sort it.” I gestured for Armstrong to go first and then shimmied up the rope after him. Even with the buffeting wind, we had no trouble scaling the knotted cord thanks to our natural goblin climbing ability. Several goblins and hobgoblins already waited above, ready to swap with us. They dropped down once we were through the deck hatch, and only one of them missed the rope and flew off into the desert.

  A few moments later, Lura’s head emerged through the hole in the floor, red-faced and hair blown into disarray. Her air bottle was clipped to her belt, and the leather mask was tight against her face.

  “How was swapping out for a hobgoblin pilot?” I asked, grinning. “Those cockpits are awful tight.”

  “I wish not to discuss it, little brother,” Lura grumbled, eyes narrowing behind her flight goggles. She glanced back through the hatch and shook her head. “Madness,” she declared, straightening.

  The cord below us was unhooked and hauled back up by the goblins. I turned my attention to the frenetic hive of activity that was the lower level of the command ship. Goblins packed the compartment wall to wall, squabbling and squawking as sparkers worked radios and tried to coordinate the wings of goblin fighters. The totems mounted throughout the cabin glowed and flickered, as though their benefits were being tested by the null devil’s silencing effect on the System. Igni prepped small arms and tube launchers at an armory locker and goblins were donning their protective plate vests and ceramic skull masks.

  Lura waded through the sea of blue fur, following us to the forward end of the aircraft. A palpable tinge of voltage hung in the air at this end of the jet, and buzzing banks of electrical equipment arced and spat sparks under the watchful eyes of sparkers. Each one snaked into a single opening much like the nose ball turret on the orc fighters, connecting to an assembly of rails and gears and ceramic bearings that formed a huge gimbal built around a long-barreled gun half as long as the aircraft itself. Wind howled through the gaps in the paneling.

  “It’s actually good you’re here,” I shouted. “This takes a crew of several to operate.”

  “What is this beast called?” asked Lura, running a hand across its metallic surface.

  “The System called it a steely sparky huck’em. But where I’m from, we called them railguns.”