After he had reassured them, he tried to focus again, but by that time the aerial tide had turned. The Stormreaders were already speeding off for home: not because they feared the fray — he had more than enough evidence of their fanatical tenacity when it was called for — but because Collegium would need to know that the Second Army had recovered some fragment of its air power.
Defending the airships had been a flight of the new Farsphex models that had come close to winning the air war once before. Tynan had no illusions that the fight was decided, but his army could at least put up a fight in the air. They were back in the war.
After the airships had set down safely, to the general enthusiasm of the Second Army, the flight of Farsphex made their landing — long, elegant machines, larger than the Spearflights and yet more agile in the air, representing a whole different generation of flying machine. Their four wings could be fixed for longdistance flight, they were designed to make use of the Empire’s new and efficient mineral fuel and they were equally ready to duel in the air or to bombard a city.
Tynan saw only a dozen of them. The Stormreaders could probably have destroyed the lot, with losses, had they kept at it. The Collegiates valued knowledge over bloodshed, though, and Tynan suspected that they were right to do so.
Where are the rest? he asked himself, but he had a feeling this was all he was getting for now. No great strikes against the enemy, then. Perhaps just enough, with the Spearflights and the rest, to make taking to the skies over the Second costly for the Collegiate pilots.
‘There will be new officers,’ he told his staff. ‘Some from the Air Corps at the least. Bring them to my tent. I want to know what’s going on.’
The last batch of pilots he had worked with had proven a law unto themselves, clannish and close-mouthed, but of course he knew the reason for that now, although it had taken him a while to get his intelligence officer to reveal it.
The Empire keeping secrets from its own generals, but at least that’s nothing new.
His tent, nothing grander than those of his subordinates since the Second’s camp had been hit by the first Collegiate bombing, was a cramped place in which to hold a command conference, but Tynan wanted his own slice of secrecy this time. He felt a keen need to get to grips with this changing war before his soldiers were allowed time to speculate about it. Old, I know — and getting older by the second, the way this war’s going. The future of the Empire was in the hands of cleverer men than he: artificers, pilots, diplomats, all innovating, changing the rules of his profession. Some days he felt surprised that the Empress had not replaced him.
He thought of sending for Mycella. Relations between her people and the Wasps had been fractious these last tendays, the enforced waiting and the bombing leading to much blame being cast about. Wasp soldiers were always ready to hold their allies of lesser kinden responsible when things went wrong. Usually, in Tynan’s experience, they were right to do so, but in this case the assistance of the Spiders had proved invaluable in espionage and strategy, as well as in the actual fighting. Still, there had been skirmishes and brawls, and his sergeants were stretched to their limit in keeping discipline — those of them who were not themselves nursing a resentment against the Spider-kinden.
Having Mycella alongside him when he met the new arrivals would send a strong message of unity, but in the end he shied away from it. One never knew, after all, what orders might be coming from home. Instead he summoned Colonel Cherten of Army Intelligence, just in case he needed the man’s sidelong perspective.
The two men who came to see Tynan and Cherten first were not pilots, nor even Wasps. In the lead was a bold little Fly-kinden man with a major’s badge, wearing an outdoorsman’s hard-wearing leathers with a striped tabard thrown over them. Studying him, Tynan would have taken him for an officer of scouts.
‘Major Oski.’ The salute was haphazard, but at least it was there. ‘Engineers, and come with some fresh artillery for you.’ He jerked a thumb at the larger man standing behind him. Tynan saw a stocky Bee-kinden, older than Oski, younger than Tynan himself, dark-skinned and flat-faced but with none of the sullen slave mindset that he was used to seeing in Bees. He wore a uniform of halved black and gold, but with an engineer’s insignia at the chest.
‘Captain-Auxillian Ernain,’ Oski named him. ‘He’s my second.’ He waited to see if Tynan would make something of that, because an Auxillian engineer holding that rank was a fair-sized stone likely to cause ripples.
‘As long as he knows what he’s doing,’ Tynan remarked, because for him it was competence that was the paramount military virtue.
‘That he does, sir. I’ve orders for you, also.’ The little man handed over a sealed package. ‘How do you like our entrance, by the way?’ He seemed very pleased with himself.
‘You must have been very sure of your escort, Major,’ Tynan noted, breaking the seal. ‘We were all set to pick over your corpses, since the Air Corps has failed me before.’ He fixed the small major with a scowl before breaking the seal.
The orders were unambiguous: more space was devoted to the stamps, codes and signatures of authenticity than to the Empress’s will.
‘We’re to march,’ Tynan announced, his eyes seeking out Oski’s. ‘What the pits am I supposed to do about their air power, Major? I can assure you, unless those Farsphex have some new sky-clearing secret weapon, they’ll not win the skies over Collegium. Perhaps Capitas underestimates just how tenacious the Beetles are, land or air.’
‘I’m just artillery, sir,’ Oski said with an easy shrug, an engineer passing up on another man’s problem. ‘I’ve been knocking walls down since the Twelve-year War and I’m looking forward to Collegium getting within greatshotter range.’
‘So was your predecessor,’ Tynan warned him. ‘And the fact of your being here should tell you how that went. How many. .’ He stopped then, because a new voice was addressing his guards outside.
‘Inside, now,’ he snapped, and his new pilot officer ducked into the tent, shouldering Ernain the Bee aside.
Tynan registered the captain’s insignia and the pilot’s chitin helm and goggles dangling from the belt. In truth, he should have been ready for the rest of it, but still required a moment to recover his balance before he acknowledged the salute.
‘Captain Bergild reporting for duty, sir,’ said the Air Corps officer, a Wasp-kinden woman aged no more than twenty. But, of course, the older pilots had mostly died over Collegium in trying to break the Beetles’ air defences. The supply of new pilots ready for combat was limited, and the Empire could not stand on ceremony when throwing them into the fray. But of course. .
Of course the new pilots, that insular elite, were those possessing the Art that Ant-kinden took for granted, but which Wasps developed so rarely. They could speak mind to mind, these pilots, and that was the secret of their skill every bit as much as their improved machines and training. The mindlinking Art was hard to find, these days, after generations of it being rooted out. Anyone who possessed it — no matter who they were and despite centuries of Wasp traditions — was required to fly. There had been women in the last batch, and one of them had given her life trying to defend the Second when the Stormreaders came.
The newcomer was staring at him almost defiantly, and he guessed that she had endured her share of hostility in getting where she was and that, to be made leader of pilots over Wasp men, she must be very good at her job.
‘Sir,’ she repeated, waiting for his response, and he finally managed to remember his maxim — competence above all — and demanded of her, ‘Where’s the rest of you? What can I do with this handful, now that I’ve been ordered forwards?’ A general berating a junior officer, nothing more.