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and Hunt Eleven, with Hunt Leader running to starboard on the same deck as Darrow himself. Hunt Two and Hunt Sixteen were off and low at Darrow’s port.
    Six planes. Six planes were all that was left from the engagement. They’d left all the others as flaming pyres littering the snowcaps of the Makanite Mountains.
    And it might only have been five. Darrow knew he surely would have been chalked by that white killer had not Hunt Leader, sweeping back in a desperate effort to rally his few remaining machines, run in at the last moment, cannons blazing, and driven it off.
    Major Heckel—Hunt Leader—kept asking Darrow if he was okay as they pulled what remained of the formation back together. Heckel sounded extraordinarily worried, as if he felt Darrow might have simply scared himself to death in the frantic chase. But it was probably shock and the ache of responsibility. So many cadets dead. One of the squadron’s black days.
    And there had been so many in the last few months. Darrow wondered how officers like the major coped.
    But then Heckel was only three years Darrow’s senior, and had gained his rank through the accelerated promotion caused by severe losses.
    “Hunt Two. Respond.” Even over the distorting vox, that tone in Heckel’s voice was clear as day.
    “Hunt Leader, I’m all right.”
    He wasn’t. Darrow had a good angle down at Hunt Two. Not only was he cooking out a steady stream of grubby smoke, he was losing altitude and speed.
    What was it? Coolant? Smouldering electrics? Some other lethal eventuality Darrow hadn’t even thought of?
    How long had they got? By his own map and bearing they were forty-six minutes out from Theda MAB North, longer if Hunt Two maintained its rate of deceleration. Darrow’s fuel gauge still showed full, but by Heckel’s calculation, none of them were likely to have more than about fifty minutes in them. Especially not Darrow, given his excessive aerobatics.
    “Hunt Flight…” Heckel’s voice came over the comm. He paused, as if frantically trying to make up his mind. “Hunt Flight, we’re going to divert to Theda South. That should shave fifteen, maybe twenty minutes off the flying time. Confirm and line up on me.”
    Darrow confirmed and heard the others do so too. It was a good decision. Flight command would rather get six Wolfcubs back at the wrong MAB than none back at all.
    Darrow switched channels and heard Heckel banter back and forth with Operations as the reroute was authorised.
    Then he heard the knocking again.
    He was about to call it in when Hunt Eight began screeching over the vox.
    “Hunt Two! Look at Hunt Two!”
    Darrow craned his neck around. The wounded Cub was gently arcing down away from the formation. Its smoke trail was thicker and darker now. It looked heavy and sluggish, as if much more gravity was weighing down on it than on the other planes.
    “Hunt Two! Respond!” Darrow heard Hunt Leader call. “Hunt Two! Respond!”
    A faint crackle, “—think I can hold the—”
    “Hunt Two! Bail, for Throne’s sake, Edry! Cadet Edry… Clear your plane now before you lose too much height!”
    Nothing. The Wolfcub was just a dot at the end of a line of smoke far behind and below them now. “Edry! Cadet Edry!”
    Come on, Edry. Get out of there. Darrow strained to see. With their fuel loads so low, none of them could risk turning back. Come on, Edry. Come on! Let us see a “chute! Let us see a “chute, Edry, before—
    A small flash, far away in the grey-green quilt of the landscape. A small flash of fire and no “chute at all.
     
    Theda MAB South, 07.40
    By the time the transport turned off the highway onto the field approach way, it had been joined in convoy by three others. They waited in turn to be checked off by weary-looking PDF sentries at the west gate and then rumbled on down a steep cutting onto the field basin.
    Commander Bree Jagdea raised herself up on the hard bench of the jolting transport and looked around. Theda Military