Page 24 of Wings of War

Pip pressed her face to the glass, but she couldn’t spot the Outpost Museum between the other buildings. Too bad she didn’t have time to tour the museum tonight or before she reported to Fort Linder in the morning. Visiting that museum was on the top of her list of things she wanted to see if she had the chance. She, sadly, hadn’t spent enough time in Bridgetown during her days at Hanford University to visit back then.

The train’s air brakes hissed while the wheels squealed against the rails. With a few jolting shudders, the train ground to a halt at the station in Bridgetown.

Pip gathered her things, but she waited for the other passengers to disembark first. At her diminutive height, she’d just end up taking an elbow or two to the face. Unless she had someone taller and larger to shove a path, it just wasn’t worth it.

Once the car had nearly cleared out, she headed for the door and climbed down the two stairs onto the wooden platform. A wooden porch roof strung with lights sheltered the platform while the building beyond held ticket offices, a communications hub, and waiting rooms.

Pip strode the length of the platform toward the baggage car. She had to duck one man’s elbow and dodge out of a troll’s way. The troll hadn’t even been looking down, and he would have plowed her over if she hadn’t moved.

Once she reached the baggage car, she waited in the line until it was her turn to present her carved wooden token to the attendant. She pointed out her bag, and the attendant went to fetch it. As soon as he picked it up, he grunted at the weight. After checking that the leather tag matched the token, he unclipped the tag to reuse both it and the token before he handed the bag over. “Can you carry this, miss? It’s heavy. A porter can help you transport it to your destination.”

Pip resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Just because she was a pipsqueak didn’t mean she wasn’t strong.

“It’s not that heavy.” She hefted the bag easily enough. Sure, it was on the heavy side. She didn’t know what kind of tools the army would provide the mechanics, and she’d rather have her own tools anyway. She didn’t go anywhere without her favorite wrench.

Bag in one hand and her smaller pack on her back, Pip drew in a deep breath and joined the flow of people from the train station onto the streets of Bridgetown, which were busy even at this time of night.

Just past the train station, she had to worm her way through a crowd pouring out of a cinema. The posters on the front of the building proclaimed showings of the hit multi-reel film Star Forest and the Castle of Doom, complete with images of Tenian Daefiel, the elf who played Star Forest, giving that come hither smolder while his shirt seemed to lack any kind of buttons or laces. His leading lady draped in a swoon in his arms.

Neither the books nor the films were as questionable as the marketing posters made them appear, though the film version had reduced the leading lady to a swooning, too-silly-to-survive-more-than-two-seconds-on-her-own maiden who only existed for the elf hero to save her. The books were, of course, far superior.

As the streets were so well lit and busy, Pip felt perfectly safe, even as a tiny woman all alone in a strange city. She still kept her eyes peeled and her bag close.

Not that she had to fear much. She could shield herself with her magic, and the wrench in her bag also made a good defensive weapon if she needed it.

Well, she was here. All she needed to do now was find a room for the night, then report to Fort Linder in the morning.

Yet a strange emptiness filled her, despite the lively bustle surrounding her.

It was the same hollowness that had filled her when she’d put her things in the tiny room of the boarding house in Aldon her first year at Hanford University. At least then, she’d had the burning desire of her dreams to fuel her through the loneliness and long nights.

What was she doing here? There was still a burning inside her, but she didn’t have a dream to direct it toward just yet.

Hopefully this experience would give her direction. Otherwise, this had all been a huge mistake.

Chapter

Nine

Fieran stood at attention in the crisp row of recruits. It took all his concentration not to bounce on his toes like he was a little kid with a handful of his favorite candy.

They were lined up to one side of the large hangar that sheltered the base’s flyers. The biplanes were constructed of a wooden fuselage, the wings formed of a frame of wood and stretched with canvas. A layer of paint coated all surfaces while the wings were emblazoned with the red, gray, and green circle that was the symbol of the joint Alliance Flying Corps. Each of those aeroplanes was fueled by a magical power cell containing either Dacha’s, Fieran’s, Adry’s, or Louise’s magic.

But it wasn’t the flyers—or only the flyers—that had him struggling to keep the grin off his face that would earn another round of physical training or PT.

It was the man striding back and forth before the lines of recruits, his hair threaded with a few strands of gray while deep lines on his face gave him the appearance of being an older man than he was. While he was only in his mid-forties, he was one of the few pilots from the early days of flight who had lived to even see his fortieth birthday. Most had crashed and died long before then. Still, he was muscular and had that dashing hero look of a pilot with a leather jacket, silk scarf, and goggles perched on his forehead.

Of course he looked the part of a dashing hero. He was Joe Arfeld, an early Escarlish pioneer of flight. A true legend. It was all Fieran could do to stay where he was and not march over there and beg to shake his hand.

Though Joe Arfeld was now a captain in the army’s Flying Corps. Fieran could settle for saluting him instead.

Capt. Arfeld swept his sharp blue gaze over the line of recruits. “Over the next weeks, you will study aeroplanes, the physics of flight, air navigation, weather patterns, and much more. This is not just busywork. Once we are in the air, there is no room for error. You will die. I will die. And I have no intention of dying anytime soon. So you will learn well, or you won’t be allowed to so much as sit in a cockpit.”

Fieran swallowed. The last thing he wanted to do was kill off one of his heroes. Odds were, Fieran would probably survive a mild crash, thanks to his magic and being half elf. But Capt. Arfeld was human and thus far more breakable.

To one side of the large hangar, a large man in green coveralls was leading around a group of men, also dressed in coveralls.

Except that one of the men was tiny…and definitely not a man. Fieran couldn’t get a good look at the girl out of the corner of his eye, and he couldn’t turn his head without the nearby sergeant noticing.

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