Double Eagle by Dan Abnett

on its side. The raking blasts atomised the front end of the water tanker.
    Then the shots stitched right across them. Half a dozen of the troopers from the stranded truck were thrown down, their bodies flung aside, or into the air, or into pieces. The air filled with up-flung dust and dirt. LeGuin lost sight of Matredes, but saw Mergson clearly as he was hit. Everything below Mergson’s waist vaporised in a blitz of flame and fibres.
    “No!” LeGuin screamed as he dropped back into the turret for cover, three shells spanking off the Line’s top armour.
    The bat had already hammered past, but as he’d dropped, LeGuin had seen a second one right behind it.
    Raging, he seized the yokes of the main turret’s twin mount, threw the autoloader lever and began to fire.
    The turret rocked. He couldn’t see a thing through the prismatic sight, certainly not a target.
    A waste of munitions? Let me miss first, LeGuin reasoned, then tell me that.
     
    Over the Makanites, 12.01
    Flight time was coming up on one hour. Twenty thousand metres of clear air down to the frosted mountains below them, three-tenths cloud. Visibility clear to forty-plus.
    Strapped in his flight armour and breathing air-mix through his mask, Viltry looked up out of his Marauder’s shadowed cockpit into the bright realm of the sky. Ahead, and slightly high, Hello Hellfire was cruising smoothly, leaving long, straight, pure-white condensation trails behind her. The sunlight glinted off her polished-alloy silver.
    It was almost serenely quiet apart from the background thrum of G for Greta’s four ramjets. According to the auspex, there was nothing in the air except their six plane formation for a hundred kilometres.
    Viltry clicked his intercom. “ Gee Force, check in.”
    That was G for Greta’s other nickname. Gee Force Greta. Orsone had coined it, and it had stuck.
    “Bombardier, aye.”
    “Nose, aye.”
    “Tail, check.”
    “Turret, aye.”
    Lacombe, Viltry’s navigator, looked round from his position and made a finger-and-thumb “O” with his gloved hand.
    “How far?” Viltry asked the navigator.
    “Coming up on the waypoint, sir. We want to make a turn bearing east ten in the next five.”
    “What’s it called again?”
    “Irax Passage. I believe, named after a local species of alpine herbivore that—”
    “Thanks, Lacombe. War first, history later.”
    “Sir.”
    Viltry switched channels. “Halo Flight, this is Halo Leader. Prepare to come about bearing east ten on my mark… three, two, one… mark.”
    The angle of the sun tilted. The tactical bombers turned. G for Greta, Hello Hellfire, Throne of Terror, Mamzel Mayhem, Get Them All Back and Consider Yourself Dead. Except for heavy operations, Halo seldom lofted all of its dozen birds for one sortie. Six was standard, and these six had been picked by straw poll. Widowmaker had been drawn, but then switched out because of a vector duct problem. Mamzel Mayhem had taken her place. The Mamzel was Halo Two, Kyrklan’s bird. As Viltry’s second-in-command, Wassimir Kyrklan usually led sorties with the other half of the flight while Viltry’s half was in turnaround. It was unusual for them to be flying together.
    “Make your descent by five thousand,” Lacombe said.
    “Copy all flight, descent by five thousand.”
    There was a change in engine tone as they began to drop. The ice-capped peaks began to seem terribly close.
    “Lacombe?”
    The navigator’s sharp eyes switched between the terrain-scanning auspex and the cockpit view. “Looking for a point turn. Yacob’s Peak. Plot brief says it stands at the mouth of the pass.”
    Another slow minute. “Come on, Lacombe.”
    “There it is. Twelve kilometres and closing. We need to lose another two thousand now. Brief advises wind shear once we enter the pass.”
    Viltry nodded, easing the stick. “Halo Flight, Halo Flight. Point marker twelve kilometres and closing. Stoop by three, and watch for crosswind.”
    “Halo Two,