Page 1 of Fly to Fury
Chapter
One
As Capt. Fieran Laesornysh stepped out of the underground hangar at the top of the cliffs of Dar Goranth, the chill breeze whipping off the ocean cut through his green military uniform shirt, despite the calendar stating that it was supposed to be early summer.
To one side of the cave mouth, his flyboys lined up as they took in the new squadron landing at Dar Goranth. The sky filled with the shapes of circling aeroplanes waiting for their turn to land, their shadows casting shapes across the low grass and heather covering the island’s craggy landscape.
“Ooh! That’s going to hurt in the morning.”
“I give that landing a one out of ten.”
“Better luck on the next landing.”
The flyboys punctuated the cheerful ribbing with clapping and whistles, even as the sound of whining aeroplane engines and thrumming propellers reverberated from the sky.
On the airfield ahead of them, the ground crew struggledto right an aeroplane where it sat tipped onto a wing after a mild crash landing.
Another biplane—painted gray-green with the Alliance red, gray, and green circles on the wings—wobbled its way downward toward the airfield. A gust of wind kicked up, and the aeroplane danced in the sky. The pilot must have given it more power to attempt to straighten the craft, and it veered to the side, too far to attempt a landing.
“That’s not looking good.” Pretty Face had his arms crossed, his mustache waxed and styled in what was currently popular among Escarlish nobility. “Better circle around.”
Farther down the line, Lt. Saranthyr Rothilion stood near a cluster of the elven pilots of Flight A, his long honey-blond hair tossing in the breeze. He gave a soft snort and shot a look at Pretty Face. “Your Flight was hardly a stellar example of airmanship when you landed at Dar Goranth the first time.”
“Yes, but we’re humans—well, mostly humans. It’s expected of us.” Pretty Face gestured at the aeroplane that barely made it high enough back into the sky to avoid clipping the hill at the far end of the airfield. “These are elves attempting to land, and they aren’t making any better a show of it than we did.”
“Don’t you mean they’recreatingquite the show?” Stickyfingers grinned and elbowed Pretty Face.
Lije eyed Lt. Rothilion, his smile showing off the gap between his two front teeth. “Makes me wonder what your Flight looked like when you landed the first time.”
Aylia, a rather exuberant female elf pilot and Lt. Rothilion’s newly promoted second-in-command, grinned back from where she stood bridging the gap between the humanpilots of Flight B and elf pilots of Flight A. “We were quite terrible.”
“And you gave us such a hard time about our poor showing.” Pretty Face heaved a sigh and smoothed a hand over one side of his mustache, as if to ensure it was still properly in place.
As much as Fieran wanted to join the joking, he was the captain of the whole squadron. Maintaining discipline was now his duty. Even if it meant being a killjoy.
Was it too late to fetch Merrik and send him instead? Fieran could delegate distasteful jobs to his second-in-command, right?
Fieran sighed and strode the rest of the way out of the shadow of the hangar mouth. He couldn’t give Merrik all the less-than-pleasant jobs, tempting as it was. “All right, flyboys and flygirls. Cut them some slack. We need to give our replacements a warm welcome to Dar Goranth, and we all know they haven’t had adequate flight time for the difficulties of landing here.”
These poor pilots had even less flight time and training than Fieran and his men had when they arrived. From what Fieran heard, the training programs for the Flying Corps of both Tarenhiel and Escarland had been shortened to keep up with the demand for more pilots.
As one, the massed elf and human pilots spun to face and salute him. “Yes, sir!”
Fieran suppressed a grimace at having his friends salute him, although it was rather gratifying to receive the gesture from Lt. Rothilion. After saluting back, Fieran strode to the center of the two groups and joined Aylia standing there.
“Has everyone cleaned their things out?” Fieran swept a glance down the line as they nodded and chorused “Yes, sir,” once again.
Merrik was checking their former rooms now, ensuring that everyone had, indeed, carted all their things down two levels of Dar Goranth’s warren of tunnels to their temporary quarters for the night before they left for Escarland in the morning. That vacated the upper two levels for this incoming squadron.
Erendriel, Rothilion’s former second-in-command, was with Merrik, making sure that everything was ready for his new squadron. Orders had come for someone from Flight A to stay behind and assume command of the new squadron of elves so that a commander with experience at Dar Goranth would remain while the rest of them took up their new post at Fort Defense.
Lt. Rothilion had turned down the offer, which would have let him remain as the acting commander of a squadron, and instead the post had gone to Erendriel. Fieran wasn’t sure what to make of the formerly snobby elf lieutenant’s choice to remain under Fieran’s command.
As more of the new elven pilots fumbled their way through their landings at Dar Goranth, Erendriel appeared beside Fieran, giving him a salute.
After returning the salute, Fieran tilted his head toward where the ground crews had parked the first of the aeroplanes, the pilots beginning to climb out. “Let’s welcome your new squadron to Dar Goranth.”
With the newsquadron welcomed and placed under Erendriel’s command, Fieran made his way through the far too quiet and empty hangar. He followed the sounds of hammering and muttering to the back corner, where theremnants of the two older-model aeroplanes they’d used to test gun mounts rested.
