Page 18 of Stalk the Sky
Not that Pip was going to admit that out loud. Or dwell on it. Much. She had a job to do.
As the rest of the flyboys filed into the room and took seats, Baragh leaned against the stone wall next to her and her flyboys’ table. Pip shared a nod with him before she faced forward again.
Fieran glanced over the gathering, his gaze not lingering on any of them. “Lady and gentlemen, I know you are all disappointed that we’re spending the first weeks of this war grounded.”
A murmur of agreement swept the room. Pip resisted the urge to shake her head. Flyboys and their crazy need to take to the skies. Her half-dwarf side preferred to keep her feet firmly on the ground, thank you very much.
“But what we are doing is important.” Fieran’s bright blue eyes swept the room again. “You more than anyone else know what it’s like to go up against an enemy unarmed and unprepared.”
Another murmur, then a shout from the back row, “But we had Laesornysh!”
“Laesornysh!” A few echoes rang throughout the room.
Fieran held up a hand, something in his face grimmer at the praise. “Exactly. You had me. But the squadrons stationed at the other aerodromes from here to southern Escarland don’t have a Laesornysh.”
Now the entire room had that same grim pall over it.
During training at Fort Linder, Pip had only rarely seen this side of Fieran come through. There hadn’t been an opportunity.
Now that he was in command, the years he’d spent as a prince of Escarland and Tarenhiel in the public eye were showing. He knew how to make a speech and work a crowd when needed. He might have his father’s magic, but now he was very much his mother’s son.
“The plan for war has always been that we would stay safe within our borders and let Mongavaria weaken and break against the Wall.” Fieran’s jaw worked, something flashing in his eyes. “But Mongavaria has made it clear that their plan is to weaken us by attacking not just military targets, but also civilians.”
Down the table from Pip, Tiny’s knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists.
“It’s the duty of the Flying Corps to be the Wall in the sky.” Fieran straightened from his casual position leaning against the table. “All across Tarenhiel and Escarland, our fellow pilots will be going up—probably even as we speak—to defend the Alliance Kingdoms from further attacks, and they need to be properly armed. So while we might be sitting out these first few weeks, we aren’t wasting our time. What we do here could be crucial to the war effort.”
As a cheer rang through the room, Pip couldn’t help but join in, a deep sense of duty welling inside her, even if she knew exactly what Fieran was doing.
He’d taken a room full of flyboys despondent at being grounded and given them a sense of purpose and patriotism.
Her stomach was fluttering, witnessing this extra confidence in him. He’d always been cocky. Confident. But he’d never had the command to show it off before now.
She shook herself. Focus on duty, not on the half-elf lieutenant leading the meeting.
Fieran held up a hand for silence again. When the pilots quieted, Fieran glanced over them again. “So what did we learn in the fight over Bridgetown?”
“That rifles and pistols aren’t enough against an airship,” someone from the middle row spoke up. “Too small of caliber.”
“My machine gun did some damage.” Stickyfingers smiled with an unfocused, fond look on his face.
“Yeah, to our wings. And almost to me.” Lije scowled at Sticky, giving him a none-too-gentle nudge. “You shot one of our wings nearly to shreds. We’re lucky we didn’t crash.”
“The side mount was less-than-ideal.” One of the other flyboys turned to Pip. “No offense, Pip. We don’t blame you.”
“No offense taken.” Pip kept the words light, but her heart still sank. She should have done better that night. Somehow thought of a better way to mount the guns to the aeroplanes.
Could she have come up with a better solution in the less than five minutes she’d had that night?
“Things were less than ideal that night. No time for a proper engineering analysis.” Fieran’s mouth tipped with a slight smile.
That reminder made her feel marginally better, even if the niggling that she should have done better didn’t entirely go away.
If she couldn’t have done better back then, she had the time now to do so.
“Even beyond the problem of shooting our own wings, we had only a limited line of fire between the wing and the propeller.” The voice came from somewhere behind her to the right.
“Nor could we aim. Aiming didn’t matter for shooting at the balloon but hampered trying to take out the machine guns on the airships.”