Ingrid stood upon the bow of the Ten Skies beside the runway, holding in front of her face a watercolor painting of the city of Veninmark in central Taisia. Long, open boulevards surrounded by tall buildings with peaked roofs, rounded bell towers, teeming markets filled with people wearing colorful hats. Ingrid lowered the painting and frowned. A massive scar ran in a line across the city. She could see it even against the dimming sky, in contrast to the other streets lit by gas lamps. The scar was black, smoking, malicious. The outskirts of the city were unchanged, but the city streets were filled with refugees, medical tents, and Taisian soldiers.
"A surgical attack," Vaska said. "The sheer quantity of bombs dropped on this area, it would require an airship. However, our scouts were able to arrive in time to see the portal close and there were no airships inside."
An engine roared on the deck behind them. Ingrid turned to see a large airplane with extremely long, thin wings being dragged across the deck with ropes by a dozen soldiers. Midnight black, the color of the night sky, reflecting little of the light of the lamps carried by the airmen on deck. Vaska let out a long sigh.
"I am going to miss that airplane," she said.
"Why is it here?" Ingrid asked.
"FIA wanted their own pilots to deliver it to the Empire. I do not want my father to know where my workshop is, so I brought it here."
They returned to the command deck where Elizabeth awaited in the map room. She had a series of charcoal sketches in front of her. A man wearing an apron stood by her side, his hands stained black. A blinking magenta Colored Orb sat on the table in a glass box. Vaska picked up one of the sketches, her face filled with determination. It depicted a fat airplane with pylons jutting out in front of the wings.
"What is this?" she asked.
"I am in contact with Taisian medical staff on the surface," Elizabeth said. "These sketches were described to us by victims of the attack."
"A flying pig," the man added, "with wings like a bird and a tail like a whale. It dropped bombs on the city, and then flew back through the portal when it was done."
"Elizabeth, abort the takeoff of the spy airplane."
"What?" Elizabeth asked.
"Contact the deck, abort the takeoff now! I need to give something to the FIA pilot for my father."
Elizabeth left the map room, and the artist left with her. Vaska flipped over a map to the blank side and rapidly started making marks with a pencil. Equations. Small diagrams of wings and engine pylons. Then she started sketching a big image in the center of the sheet. A long tube of a body, massive wings with no less than six engines mounted far forward on pylons. A wide tail with two vertical fins, a massive opening door on the bottom where bombs could be dropped.
"That was quick," Ingrid said.
"This thing would be completely helpless in a fight against fighter jets. It would be far too easy for Dark-Three missiles to pick out the airplane with lots of souls on board. And the sheer quantity of metal and materials for bombs would mean that something like this would be unfeasible in a normal fight. And yet... if you could open a portal directly over the city you want to bomb, then make a surgical strike, that would be a perfect use case for a machine like this."
"Does the Empire not have anything like this?" Ingrid asked.
"No we do, or at least we did. Not the Air Navy, but the Imperial Air Force operates jet bombers that are too large to land on airships. During the Unification War, we had much smaller bombers with two propellers in the Air Navy. Six engines and the capacity to destroy an entire city. This is not something that I was anticipating."
Vaska started writing long paragraphs of notes on the bottom of the sheet. Elizabeth returned and said: "the takeoff has been aborted."
"The Imperial Air Force is going to need to build bases in Taisia," Vaska said. "Runways that are several miles long, a weapons factory on the site itself, support staff, Metal Elementals to repair damage to the landing gear."
Vaska finished writing her notes and shuffled out of the room. Ingrid followed her.
On deck, the airmen brought out a ladder for Vaska to climb up to the canopy of the spy plane. She handed the folded map to the FIA pilot. "There is a diagram with some notes on the back of this map," she said. "Give this to your director and make sure copies are made for the Emperor and the Air Force top brass. Do not let anyone else see this sheet of paper."
"Yes Princess," the man said.
Two airmen ran with the airplane holding the wings level with ropes as it began to speed up along the deck. The ropes released from the wings shortly after, once the airplane had started rolling faster than they could run. At that speed the ailerons would not stall, and the pilot could prevent the wings from striking the deck. It rushed away in a hiss and vanished into the night sky.
As the faint red glow of sunset fell away to the deep darkness of night, Ingrid and Vaska retired to their quarters. "Ingrid," Vaska said. "I have something I want to say."
"About what?"
"It's about the other Great Houses, the ones that control the light crystals. They are very dangerous."
Very dangerous, Titania agreed. Ingrid had begun thinking of the little Light Elemental by her proper name. She never protested when addressed this way.
"The incident with the bomber today, I hope that it demonstrates just how dangerous these people are. With the near-infinite power of the Elementals, the delicate balance between the Heylin Empire and the Federation of Kanti, and the rapid technological explosion occurring on both sides. The world stands on the brink of a catastrophe. Can you imagine entire nations being enslaved and sent to the Elemental Planes to help power more contracts?"
"I do not want that to happen," Ingrid said. "I want to help people. I want to save the sacrifices if I can."
No, no breaking the contract, Titania protested.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"I didn't ask for your opinion!" Ingrid snapped. Vaska's eyes went wide. "Sorry, I was talking to Titania. I would never talk to you like that."
"I see. The important thing I want to ask, Ingrid, is... know that everything I do, is for one purpose. And that purpose requires the total annihilation of the other Great Houses. All of them. All of the Light Crystals under the control of House Maryy."
"That seems ambitious," Ingrid said.
"Ingrid, will you make me a promise?"
"Like what?"
"Promise me, that no matter what happens, no matter what secrets I still keep from you, that you will stand by my side in this war against the other Great Houses, and help me with my ambition. Please, I am begging you."
Ingrid looked Vaska in the eyes. She was begging. She needed this. Ingrid wrapped her arms around Vaska.
"I do promise," Ingrid said. "I don't think there is anything you could say to me that would make me betray you, as so many people have betrayed me."
"Wonderful," Vaska said. Then she dragged Ingrid down into the bed.
----------------------------------------
Ingrid roamed the sky in a loop at fifty thousand feet, as she had done for three mornings. She only returned to the Ten Skies to use the bathroom. She asked Vaska if she could design a fighter with a toilet. Vaska gave her a choice: "You can have a toilet or an ejection seat."
Ingrid was certain that Vaska could spend at least a little bit of time trying to find a working design, but she didn't push the issue.
The attack on Veninmark had since been analyzed by Elizabeth's staff, and they concluded that the bomber had targeted primarily military installations inside the city. A munition factory, a recruitment center, soldier barracks, and a fighter jet component factory. Ingrid now flew in a large circuit between three other cities that also contained military installations. Elizabeth had identified these as being likely targets. Additional fighters roamed near each target.
Ingrid could see the sunrise, however the light of the sun had yet to reach past the tall peaks on the horizon. The landscape was still blanked in a thick layer of shadowy mist. She could see the flat tops of billowing pillars of clouds far below her. It was quiet. Peaceful.
The sky belonged to her.
Portal! Titania said. Another portal!
"Dammit," Ingrid said. "Where is it?"
Heading zero-six-one forty nautical miles.
That was close. Very close. Just a few minutes away.
Ingrid rolled over and pulled up hard on the stick, leveling off at the correct heading.
"Portal, heading zero-six-one, forty nautical miles," Ingrid said. "It is not inside one of the cities. I am not sure what they are thinking."
"The others will be informed," Vaska said over the magenta Orb. "Do not engage."
"I am just five minutes away, I want my demon to get a visual on the bomber."
"Don't get too close."
Directly below and not too far away, Ingrid spotted the massive glowing portal.
"Dark purplish gray," Ingrid said. "That is the color of the portal."
"The Elemental Plane of Metal," Vaska replied.
Ingrid pointed her nose at the portal and began to descend. The airspeed indicator rocketed up into the yellow zone. The engine roared and the aircraft shuttered. The portal continued to grow larger below her.
Incoming missiles from the portal, her ocular demon warned. Three, no seven, no fourteen. Dark-Three missiles, all of them.
"Fourteen missiles!" Ingrid cried. She pulled hard on the stick and entered into a loop. When the nose was pointing perfectly away from the portal she rolled upright. She could see the flickering flames of the missiles rocketing towards her in her mirrors. "How many fighters were down there?"
I only saw an escort of two fighter jets, the demon said.
"Just two fighter jets? That's impossible. They would need to be carrying seven Dark-Three missiles each."
Yet that is what I saw.
She pointed her nose straight at the sky and flew vertically until the airplane almost stalled. "Where are the missiles now?" she asked.
Fighting gravity, and losing. I think you are safe up here.
"Certainly they are out of missiles," she said.
I saw many more on the wings.
A thought occurred to Ingrid. "Those fighter jets cannot maneuver," she said. Over her colored orb, she said: "Vaska, imagine a fighter jet that is terrible in a dogfight and cannot do even basic maneuvers."
"Why would anyone want an airplane like that?" Vaska asked.
"How many missiles could you put on the wings?"
Silence.
Ingrid flew high and fast in a circle around the portal. Long, smoky contrails were forming over the landscape below as friendly fighter jets converged on the location. Ingrid turned back to face the portal again. With other fighters nearby, maybe the enemy would spend their remaining missiles killing her men.
"With an internal missile bay and sawtooth mounting structure covered in hardpoints," Vaska said, "Each airplane could carry up to twenty-two missiles if it had two engines."
"Well guess what? The Ayaruans are flying something exactly like that. They just shot fourteen Dark-Three missiles at me!"
"Stay away," Vaska said. "Let the other pilots do their job."
Everything Vaska had said that night suddenly converged in Ingrid's mind. The world stands on the brink of catastrophe. Portals opening to the Elemental Planes, fighter jets armed with dozens of missiles, bombers that can destroy cities.
What did she have?
An aerodynamically unstable fighter jet, and nobody on the ground telling her what to do.
"Vaska," Ingrid said. "I'm sorry."
She cut off the Colored Orb and flew straight at the ground. The enemy ocular demons would see her, even through fog. The enemy was also flying low, perhaps five thousand feet above the fog.
"Tell me what you see," she said.
The two fighter jets are escorting a much bigger aircraft, the demon said. They are facing forward, I think they see your incoming allied jets.
Ingrid pulled up, forming a quarter-circle through the sky, leveling off just skimming the blanket of fog. She brought the portal in the distance into her gunsight. "Do they see me?"
If they see you, they are not reacting right now.
Another sudden thought occurred to her. She smirked.
"I get it."
She hugged the surface of the fog, flying directly towards the enemy airplanes at full power. The sun peeked over the mountains, casting a bloody red glow across that pale fog. Still the enemy did not react to her approach. They were focusing on the other fighters.
She pulled up behind and below the enemies. She got close enough to visually see the smooth bottom of the fuselage of each airplane. Unbroken. There were no glass bubbles to hold ocular demons underneath.
"The price they pay," Ingrid said as she brought one fighter into her gunsight. A missile lanced off his wing towards her men in the distance. She pulled the trigger.
A white hot hose of bullets streamed out in front and hit the enemy right in the canopy. The airplane instantly went completely silent, the engine flames vanishing. It listed to the side lifelessly. The other pilot panicked and attempted a maneuver that she would only expect Ivan to ever try in his little warbird. He couldn't quite complete the maneuver and only succeeded in stalling his wings.
"Ice-Two," Ingrid said. She didn't bother to watch the missile as it flew at the fellow, but she did see the flash of an explosion out of the corner of her eye. She turned her attention to the bomber, which apparently did not notice her, or had no way of reacting.
It was massive, painted dark green. Just like Vaska had drawn, it had six engines and two massive vertical tail fins attached to the ends of its oversized horizontal stabilizer.
She brought the nearby wing into her gunsight and pulled the trigger. Bullets sprayed out at the point where the wing connected to the fuselage, throwing up sparks and flames on impact. She held the trigger, emptying all of her ammunition into the thing. The wing snapped off violently, and the airplane immediately developed into a spin, plummeting out of the sky. For all its size, it still needed both wings to fly.
The airplane vanished into the pinkish fog. Light, brilliant, angry orange light erupted below that fog.
Ingrid reactivated her Orb. "Vaska," she said.
"What the hell Ingrid!"
"Vaska, it turns out all those bomb and missile bays come at a cost. Were you able to incorporate an ocular demon bubble into your sketches?"
"Where are you? What the hell are you doing?"
"Answer my question," Ingrid said.
"No, it was just a sketch. It will be fully fleshed out by the other engineers."
Other fighters from the Order of the Ten Skies arrived and formed up around Ingrid as she flew.
"Those airplanes were likely prototypes then," Ingrid said. "They are gone now. I shot them all down. I don't think they ever saw me."