Chương 47: Chapter Forty Seven

If anyone had ever told Xela that she'd be sitting in a Shard being piloted by a plebian one day, she'd have struck them for the insult. And it was an insult. Though I can't help but wonder if the fact that the plebian in question is pretty decent behind the controls makes it better or worse, she pondered idly as she reached down to grip the secondary controls. She didn't think she'd need them, as the craft seemed to be coming in for a smooth rolling landing – but she preferred to err on the side of caution.

She'd already had a few close calls this month and was less than inclined to experience another if she could avoid it. Fortunately, despite her caution, no input or correction was needed from her, as Private Shelly's deft manipulation of the Shard's controls soon had the wheels touching down. Indeed, she did so with such skill that there was barely a jolt as the Shard started rolling down the dirt runway they'd set up.

What few bumps Xela and her student felt as the Shard slowly rolled to a stop were entirely a result of the fact that said runway still wasn't entirely even. Fortunately, that would be changing soon enough, as the Alchemist's guild were finally scheduled to start putting down tarmac in the coming week. Proper tarmac. Assuming our lord's latest 'request' hasn't delayed that, Xela thought as she glanced at the distant shape of the Jellyfish – the great airship covered in scaffolding and moving figures.

She'd seen the plans for the new 'flat top' that was being installed. She wasn't a fan. Because she wasn't stupid. It wasn't hard to see the commonality between her liege's request for his new air-corp to practice rolling landings exclusively and the new design being implemented on his airship. In her opinion, rolling landings were already more complicated than they needed to be; the notion of performing one on a moving ship a few thousand feet up in the air bordered on insane.

An opinion she had every intention of making known the moment her liege lord returned for his 'check in' next weekend.

"Good job Private," Xela congratulated the woman as the pair clambered out of the machine.

"A textbook landing."

"Ah, my thanks ma'am," the brunette young woman blushed at the honest praise. Xela just grunted. Her feelings on the matter aside, she couldn't fault any of her students' enthusiasm for the role they'd signed up for. Which is only to be expected, Xela thought as she gestured for the young woman to return to her fellows. I'd be pretty damn enthusiastic too if I was plebeian and I got given the opportunity to fly a tree-damned Shard. That kind of shit just didn't happen.

For obvious reasons, given that a shard core would only produce aether for eight minutes without a mage to 'prompt' it to continue. Oh, William could talk about how deleterious the coming war might be to combat-mage numbers until he was blue in the face, but Xela just couldn't imagine a world in which any house got so desperate for bodies that they'd be throwing plebeians into pilot seats. Still, her's wasn't to question. Well, it was.

She'd questioned loudly and at length, but ultimately her Lord had given the order and she obeyed. Even if the fool boy's set on wasting my time, and his coin, she thought as she glanced out toward a distant hangar where one of her former Navy buddies was giving the rest of the cadre a lesson on aerodynamics with the aid of a large blackboard.

Likewise, off in the distance she could both see and hear the dull drone of Redwater County's second training Shard – the one that had, until recently, been little more than a science experiment, before rapidly being converted back into a two-seater training craft. Two people. That had been all she'd been able to get on short notice using her contacts. The rest either hadn't responded, were retired, were off playing mercenary on the continent, or were still serving in the Royal Fleet. So, she only had two.

Which, while not nearly enough for what she needed, was still a not insignificant drain on the county's finances. Even just two veteran mage knights pulling down salary was a considerable expense for a small territory like theirs. She knew that for a fact given that she'd been responsible for said finances for five years. She knew better than anyone what the median tax yield of the county was after the Queendom took its cut. And William had wanted her to hire on even more?

In addition to the small army of craftswomen they were already employing? Oh, she'd received assurances of the fact that there'd be some kind of new income stream on the way, but her liege's reassurances on the subject had been more than a little lacking in details. Which was… both in character and not. The boy loved to talk about his little innovations – even if most of them didn't do anything, to hear the workshop workers talk about them. But he also liked to keep his plans close to the chest.

Which was part of the running theory that said workshop creations were but a part of some greater whole that none of the workers had been able to figure out as of yet. Assuming it even existed. Much like this supposed revenue stream, Xela thought. Fortunately the issue of hiring on more instructors, and the expenses that would entail, had become a moot point.

Oh, she could have gotten more if she'd needed – because she'd be damned if she was about to train up forty pilots with just the help of Sandals and Merry – but in the end that hadn't proven necessary.

"What the fuck are you waiting around for!? A fucking written invitation? Stop wasting daylight and get in the fucking Shard already!" Xela winced a little at the shouting, before turning with weary eyes to see a terrified Guardswoman turned pilot trainee practically sprinting in her direction. Or rather, in the direction of the Shard the wood elf had just vacated. And behind her, stomping forward with an intensity that would have made actual Academy Instructors jealous, came Lady Sveta Greygrass.

"Why your Lord thought a worthless piece of refuse like yourself would ever be worthy of piloting a Shard is beyond me. But I'll be damned if you waste his mercy!" The dark elven mage knight shouted at her human charge – even as the latter woman clambered onto the wing and towards the cockpit.

"Good. Now I expect you to be able to read off your pre-flight safety check flawlessly by the time I clamber up after you or you'll wish your worthless moon-cow of a mother never managed to catch your daddy's eye." Xela didn't bother to look and see if the trainee responded, instead she turned to greet the dark elf with a wry smile. It was not returned.

"Marshal," the other woman nodded.

"Anything to report regarding the operational status of the craft?" It should have been a fair question, given said machine had been running pretty much day and night for the last few days – as instructors worked in shifts to give as many of their students as much flight time as they could. Which was also why a number of technicians had also jogged out and were quickly giving the machine a once-over before it went up again. The reason why Xela thought it should have been a fair question was simple.

"Given you've asked me that every time you've relieved me, don't you think I'd tell you unprompted if there was something like a shudder in the airframe?" she asked.

"Perhaps," Sveta said, completely unphased.

"With that said, as an instructor it's my job to ensure that any craft I take a student up in is both safe and flight worthy. To that end, I will continue to ask – rather than assume that you would see fit to inform me of a given issue." Xela stared.

"You know, I had the privilege of acting as your daughter's flying instructor for a few weeks a while back. She's intense too. I think I see where she gets it from." Something akin to pride flashed across the other mage-knights features.

"I'll take that as a compliment." Xela hadn't really meant it as one. She hadn't meant it as an insult either though. It was simply an observation that the Greygrasses were a bit… high strung. Indeed, even though she couldn't actually see the other Greygrasses about, the wood elf had little doubt that the two other knights that had arrived with the woman in front of her were off haranguing someone. Which, while useful in a fellow instructor, was more than a little irritating in a colleague.

A few nights ago, Xela had made the mistake of asking the Greygrass half of their contingent if they wanted to hit the local tavern with her and her Navy buddies. The reaction she'd received had been… well, quietly scornful was probably the best way to put it.

"Well, in regard to your question of flight worthiness, I can say that Unicorn One is still holding up strong," the wood elf said. Satisfied, Sveta gave what might have been a smile on someone else, before storming off towards the craft in question. As she went, Xela whispered a quiet prayer for the poor trainee that was about to spend the next thirty minutes with the woman.

Because for all that the plebian-pilots would only be capable of eight minutes of flight time themselves, Xela and her people would be damned if they were forced to restrict their practice sessions to that kind of time. Even with them practically throwing a new trainee into the pilot seat each time they sat down before taking off again, a mere eight minutes of flight each would have them spending about as much time standing on the tarmac as in the air. …

Though after spending the last four hours sitting in a pilot's seat, Xela couldn't say she'd have begrudged more breaks to get out and stretch. Indeed, that very thought reminded her.

"I need to take a piss," she muttered. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Seeking to put words to deed, she mentally tuned out the sound of yelling that started up as a result of the recruit behind her obviously not reciting her pre-flight safety check to the satisfaction of her dark elven instructor.

Still, I'll not deny I'm a little curious as to what hold William has over House Greygrass to get three mages working for him practically for free, Xela thought. Talented mages at that – as much as it burned her to admit it. Xela didn't exactly consider herself soft, but she could freely admit that she'd let her instincts dull a bit on the fighting front over the last five years. The same could not be said for the Greygrass gals.

Which she supposed was only to be expected, given they'd somehow managed to wrangle up an airship core from somewhere just a month ago. And while the official story claimed they'd 'found it', everyone knew that the unofficial story would have involved a lot of blood – and likely more than a few dirty deeds done in the dark. Again, they were talented knights.

Probably a betrothal of some sort, but if that was his groom-price he's definitely wasted it on getting them to train a bunch of plebians to pilot Shards, Xela thought derisively. Something they'd made abundantly clear they thought of as equally foolish – though that hadn't stopped them from throwing themselves into the task with a fervor. Indeed, the enthusiasm they were showing almost made Xela sad that the program was probably going to come to an end sometime in the next few weeks.

Roughly around the time the esteemed Count Redwater realized that his team couldn't compete with the other house's Shards using just the Academy machines. No, this training program would wither on the vine just as soon as she got the orders to convert Unicorn One and Two back into competitive frames and ship them up to the Academy.

William was having the time of… well, this life. All was right with the world as he pushed lightly on the control stick of his Shard, sending the plane into a shallow dive. A thrill rushed through his chest as the mild acceleration forced him back into his seat. Though he didn't have long to dwell on the gloriously familiar sensation. No, his focus was on the outline of the craft in front of him. A craft that, moment by moment, crept closer to the crosshairs of his machine. Not directly into it. That was folly.

No, he wasn't aiming for where the craft was – but where it would be half a second from now. There, he thought as he squeezed gently on the trigger of his machine. In less than a second, dozens of bolts leapt forth from the Unicorn's four nose mounted bolt-throwers, each one heralded by a momentary spouts of blue-green aether.

Fortunately, for his vision of the skies around him, said aether quickly vanished beneath his craft as a result of the extruding barrels being mounted south of the machine's horizontal centre line. And while four of every five shots was all but invisible to the naked eye, the fifth blazed with an unnatural glow, allowing it to stand out even against the evening sky as it plunged through the air in the direction of his target.

Only to miss, barely skimming the left wing of the opposing Unicorn as it banked to the right.

"Not enough lead," a deadpan voice from the seat behind him informed William of what he already knew.

"Bolt-cannons pack a bit more power than a hand-held bolt-bow, but even with that extra velocity you've got to account for distance and speed."

"Aye, ma'am," William said, vocally acknowledging the instructor's words. She wasn't wrong. Bolt-cannons were a bit more potent than bolt-bows, being powered by the Shard's internal mithril core – but at the end of the day they were still just gas powered machine guns. Essentially more energetic air-rifles, with all the drawbacks that entailed. Indeed, the only upside of the design was that the lack of a casing to eject allowed for a seriously wicked fire rate.

Though in the world of dogfighting, where a pilot's ability to squeeze the trigger before running out of ammo could be counted in seconds, it was debatable how much of an advantage that truly was. With that in mind, he resisted the urge to try for a follow up shot as the enemy Unicorn banked away. He also felt the temptation to turn after them, but he resisted that too. They were both in Unicorns and they had the same specs. Which meant the same turn-speed.

His foe had gotten out of the sight of his guns by juking after William missed, and so long as he kept turning she'd be able to remain there – with William fruitlessly turning with her. As Marline was so aptly demonstrating in the distance, albeit as the defender rather than the aggressor. The two Unicorns were all-but sat on the deck as they spun in a sluggish circle. Both were sitting ducks for anyone coming in from the outside.

A fact William's opponent had tried to take advantage of after losing William himself in the clouds above them. Now though, said opponent had been forced to bank away from that direction to escape William's fire. She'd need time to come around again, and even then said turn would have cost her precious speed. She couldn't catch him now, as William dove towards her teammate and his own. Ideally, this'd be the moment he radioed Marline to inform her of his plan, but the Shards lacked that capability.

They had flags that could be raised, but they were for communication in low speed cruising, not dogfights. If he attempted to raise one now it'd probably snap off. That was something he intended to rectify once the inter-house matches started and they transitioned from two-seater Unicorns to single-seater Drakes.

Certainly, the fact that said machines still came from a communal pool meant he wouldn't be able to modify them, but there was nothing stopping him outfitting his people with radio 'chest packs' that they could bring into their Shards with them. It'd be cramped and uncomfortable to be sure, but it'd also be well worth it.

Indeed, only the fact that radio was still supposed to be a secret while Yelena installed it onto the ships of her most trusted Captains and he had an instructor in his Shard kept him from bringing radios with him today. So it was that it likely came as some surprise to his teammate when his Shard shot past her own, weapons blazing to stitch a line across her opponent's hull. A quite visible one at that, given that the practice rounds they were using were made from reinforced wax.

And barely a second later, William was rewarded by the sight of said Shard starting to trail roiling black smoke as a result of the instructor inside pulling the release cord and declaring the vehicle 'dead'. Indeed, a moment later it started 'falling' from the sky as the Instructor took over the controls from her, likely rather annoyed, student. The woman would simulate the Shard falling just until they were beneath the thousand foot flight floor, before leveling out and heading off back to the airfield.

Which meant that William and Marline now had their foe outnumbered two to one. Unfortunately, Marline was still slow from her circling. Doubly unfortunately, William's own opponent had come around and was bearing down on her. Which meant she was about to experience a fate not unsimilar to that which had just occurred to her opponent. Fortunately for William, that gave him the time he needed to bank up, converting the speed he'd built up back into altitude without fear of being shot in that moment of vulnerability.

At which point he'd once more have the altitude advantage. And in a prop? That meant victory was all-but a foregone conclusion. On that note, good game, he thought as he watched his opponent race towards Marline.

"You used me as bait!"

"You used yourself as bait," William said offhandedly as the pair headed towards the hangar changing rooms.

"I just took advantage of it. Don't like it? Don't get into a turn fight with a Shard with the same energy state and turning capability." Even as he said the words, he wasn't really focused on them. Instead, his gaze was on the Shards they'd just vacated, where a ground crew was in the process of refilling the ammo-bins. Nearly a year ago he'd thought himself clever when he'd thought to create an item, enchant it, then break it into many pieces.

Sure, in doing so he'd reduced the efficacy of the enchantment and turned it from permanent to temporary, but at the time it had been worth it to create multiples of something he only needed for less than twenty minutes. Of course, he'd not been so arrogant as to think he was the first to come up with that idea. After all, he'd read about the concept of shatter-enchanting in a textbook in the Ashfield library.

With that said, he'd thought himself amongst the few to come up with practical applications for that brand of spellcasting.

"Harden. Harden. Harden. The world shall not break you. The elements may not take you. Harden," one of the crew members – and the only mage - was chanting as a long spool of paper covered wax rounds were pulled out of a nearby crate. Through his magical senses, he felt as the enchantment took place, an almost ethereal pressure brushing up against him. He also felt it when said enchantment was shattered, as the wax coated string that connected all the faux bolts was pulled loose.

That's probably why we were supplied wax rounds in the final match of that duel, William thought. At the time he'd thought it was a special consideration. And in a way it was. Enchanted ammo was still more expensive than harpy venom. But not as much as he'd been thinking. Instead the wax rounds had likely been pulled from the Academy's pre-existing stock.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Marline said from beside him, having noticed the direction of his gaze.

"That the Academy has enough mages employed to pump out two batches of rounds like this each time some cadets go up to practice." Indeed, as if to prove her point, the menial-mage turned to a second box and pulled out another – smaller – belt of rounds.

"Burn. Burn. Burn. Bright. Sunlight. A blinding blaze. Let all who see you know the sun's splendor." Almost instantly, the woman needed to look away as the belt became a string of mini-torches. Eyes averted, she continued.

"Harden. Harden. Harden. The world shall not break you. The elements may not take you. Harden," she said before handing the belt off to another crew member, who set about loading it, along with the other, into the ammo bin of the Shard.

"You're not wrong," William said. With those three enchantments, that mage was done for the day. And nearby, another mage was likely performing a similar spell on the other Shard's ammo. That was the spellcasting of two mages for an entire day. And multiple Shards went up in a day. Indeed, William found himself wondering just how many mages the Academy employed just to enchant ammo? It couldn't have been a small number.

And it only served as further evidence of why the Academy held such renown – and why it was also the only one of its kind in the country. The kind of funding required just to keep it operating was likely only available to the Crown.

"I didn't know about the enchanted ammo belts," he said finally.

"Really? Even though you did that… thing last year?" Marline said. He shrugged.

"I read about it in a book." The dark elf hummed.

"Well, I suppose it's not too surprising. Enchanted ammo belts are fairly new. Both here and in real combat." William glanced over.

"Really?" Marline nodded eagerly – the expression of genuine excitement on her features at odds with her usual taciturn disposition.

"Oh yeah, it used to be that most pilots wanted to go into a dogfight with a full roster of spells on-hand so they could pull off a handy drive-by lightning bolt if need be. And some still do. A lot of the of the new generation though prefer shoving a bunch of enchantments onto their ammo belts instead. Mage light. Heat metal. Fireball. That kind of thing. Tracer. Incendiary. High Explosive, William mentally translated. Not totally dissimilar from back in my world. Just a different vector. …

And he'd been completely ignorant of it until now.

"Huh, I'm surprised I didn't know that," he said, fighting down the frown that threatened to spill across his features. Marline nodded.

"Well, it's a fairly new practice. At least, as a standard practice. And I don't imagine you were privy to a lot of military secrets back home."

"Well, no," he admitted.

"The only pilots on the Ashfield estate were my family, and given I was a guy, one who wasn't supposed to be anywhere near the Shards, they were less than inclined to share stories or tips." Marline patted him on the shoulder.

"Well, now you know. I mean, that's why we're here isn't it? To learn?" Well, he couldn't argue that. In fact, that reminder actually made him feel better about coming back to the Academy rather than remaining in Redwater County to focus on developing it. Know your enemy and know yourself, he thought. Well, now he knew one more thing about them.

"How much longer until the inter-house Shard duels start, you think?" he asked as he turned once more in the direction of the changing rooms.

"Two weeks, give or take, I'd say."

"Great." He grinned.