Turbulence shook the Valiant violently as they flew towards the dispersal zone. The storm had come out of nowhere, purple lightning splitting the sky and black clouds roiling into existence in minutes. There was no doubt that the storm was unnatural, some warp-spawned madness drawn into being by alien minds. Flight Captain Bronwen Aes, ‘Cold Caller’, had lost contact with the rest of the wing two minutes ago, and the only clue she had that the other four birds were even still in the air were the occasional glimpses of AH2’s nose peeking through the roiling fog ten meters off the port wing.
The auspex was throwing back little but noise, and Harris in the navigator’s seat had taken to operating it in short bursts to avoid the devil’s song of static returns numbing her mind. She sat up suddenly, peering more closely at the round screen set into her console.
“Contact, intermittent, thirty miles and closing fast.” She alerted the pilot. “Marked as Bogey 1.”
“I’ve got it.” Aes replied, noting its location on her HUD. “If it’s a bug, we’ll be sitting ducks up here in the clouds. Do you still have eyes on Ay-Aitch Two?” As she asked, a downdraft knocked the Valiant down a few metres.
“Negative.” The navigator responded after glancing out the canopy. “We’re on our own.”
“Well, that’s just fine.” Aes chuckled, darkly. “I’ll take us beneath the clouds. Lets see what our Bogey is before it decides one of the other birds will make a tasty lunch.” She eased the stick forward, lowering the nose.
“Cold-caller, what’s going on?” The colonel’s voice came through the internal commlink.
“Storm’s separated us from the rest of Alpha Hotel and we’re picking up a bogey in our operational area. We’ll divert to investigate. Too much risk of it hunting us up here if it’s hostile.” The pilot responded. “Buckle up, it could get bumpy.”
“Understood.” The colonel responded, her voice fading as she addressed her squad. “You heard the woman, put that tea set away.” The responding laughter from the Solstice command section was grim. “Looks like we’re all belted in, Captain. Try not to drop us.”
“Do our best, ma’am.” Aes responded, chuckling at the gallows humour and closing the intercom. The clouds thinned until the Valiant broke through completely. She checked the guncam, but the storm was still interfering with the rangefinding and image enhancement, so she tipped the stick, banking the aircraft to eyeball the situation. The jagged, snow-covered peaks of the Wicker Mountains loomed below, far closer than she found truly comfortable.
“I see it.” Harris spoke up. “Four o’clock, nap of the earth. It’s Alpha Hotel Four.” The relief in her voice was palpable.
“Well spotted. They must have decided to try and get out of the wind.” Bronwen replied, chuckling. “Wait, what’s that? Point one kays abow of her, there’s something wrong with the ground.”
“Avalanche?” Harris suggested. The snow did appear to be moving. “She hasn’t seen it...” As she spoke, AH-4 passed over the edge of the disturbed area. Seconds later, the ground erupted into a cloud of dark shapes that swamped the valkyrie in seconds, a swarm of gargoyles mobbing it like jackdaws attacking a buzzard.
“Damn.” Ready the guns, we’ll have to rescue them.” Cold-caller decided, tipping the stick and hitting a stall turn to descend on the swarming fliers. The top casing of AH-4’s hull struggled to rise above the mass, small flashes from inside it escaping as the pilot attempted to use her multilaser to clear the path.
“Autocannons free.” Harris replied. “Slaved to your control stick. I’m picking up a large thermal signature under the snow. Something’s still down there.”
“Understood,” Aes replied. “Firing.” She reported, depressing the stud on her left control stick. All eight autocannons opened fire, spitting a hail of mass-reactive shells down into the swarm of insectoid aliens and punching a hole in the formation just ahead of the beleaguered assault carrier, which suddenly leapt forward into it and out of the mob as the pilot hit the afterburners, rising from the cloud and incinerating several behind the aircraft. Bronwen eased the stick back, peeling off from the attack run to regain some altitude.
“Alpha Hotel Four to Unknown Valiant. That you, Cold-caller?” The vox crackled, the message fuzzed with static and interference
“Who else? Get out of there, Callie, they’re regrouping.” Aes replied.
“Understood. We’ve got flap damage, and one of my intake guards got ripped off. Gaining altitude’s going to be problematic.” AH-4, piloted by Flight Lieutenant Calwen Sars, replied.
“Use the downthrusters, just get out of there. Burn some reaction mass if you have to.” Aes told her, urgently. “We’ll try to keep them off you.”
“Understood. Good hunting. Alpha Hotel Four out.” The vox went quiet as the Valkyrie’s lift thrusters suddenly lit, the bird rising straight up in a fuel-guzzling manoeuvre that under normal circumstances would be a criminal offence. Aes banked again, lining up for a second attack run. Easing the nose forward into a shallow stoop, she kept one eye on the ground and the other on her erratic rangefinder. The boiling mass of gargoyles was like a single living entity as it turned from its failing pursuit of the crippled Valkyrie to meet this new threat.
“Burners ready.” Harris reported. “Cannons loading fine. That thermal mass is on the move.”
Aes grunted recognition of the information, waited a moment longer then squeezed the firing stud, all guns spitting a hail of lethal shells into the mass. Just before the swarm engulfed them, she thumbed the afterburners and felt the Valiant leap forward. She kept the firing stud pressed down as the G-forces pushed her back into her seat, the mass-reactive shells cutting a path through the cloud of gargoyles, many being incinerated behind the aircraft as they were caught in its jet wash. Gargoyles – living and half-dead – pelted off the canopy and were deflected by the intake guards, preventing them from being catastrophically drawn into the engines. Three seconds later and they were through the swarm, the ground looming below them rapidly. Bronwen eased the stick back, pulling up from the dive and cut the afterburners. As they reached the bottom of their stoop, metres off the ground, the snow erupted in front of them, forcing a curse from the pilot’s lips as she was forced to throw the nose back down again roughly, then ease it back up as a giant Tyranid flier burst from the snow, passing less than a metre from the canopy as the Valiant slipped beneath the rising monster. A lesser pilot would have crashed there and then, caught with less than a metre’s total clearance between the Harridan and the snowscape below with the temptation being to pull the nose up too quickly. Aes avoided burying the tail booms by mere inches, climbing rapidly. She kicked the burn in again for two seconds, hurling them up away from the snow and ice and throwing a long plume of powdered slush up behind the plane.
“What the frack was that?” Harris asked, scanning the skies frantically.
“Banshee.” Aes replied, grimly. “Must be those ‘goyles’ broodmother. I can’t see it, have you got eyes on?”
“Ne.. yes, there! Tagged on HUD.” The navigator responded as lightning split the skies. “It’s coming round... does that thing have a ranged weapon?”
“Emperor only knows.” Aes muttered. “Keep your eyes on it.” She ordered, extending the flaps to get every ounce of lift out of the wings she could.
“It’s glowing. That’s bad, right?” Harris commented. Aes didn’t dare look for herself; she was barely holding the aircraft on course against the turbulence that was battering them and the strains that full throttle was putting on the wings. “Yes, it is.” Harris muttered. “Evasive action. It’s-“ As she spoke, Aes kicked the thrust vector on the port wing, rolling the Valiant to the left with a shriek of tortured metal. On the starboard wing, a spoiler tore free, causing the plane to lurch as it returned to level flight. A glowing ball of bio-plasma streaked through their previous flight path before atomising a three-metre-wide crater in the snowscape.
“Guess we won’t be slowing down in the near future.” Bronwen joked, glancing at the wing as warning indicators popped up and an alarm sounded. She silenced it instantly. “Disable the safeties. The old girl’s not going to like this.” She decided, pulling the nose up and turning them towards the peaks and dropping to fly nap-of-the-earth. A chime warned that fuel had dropped to fifty percent. Twenty would be needed to reach the landing zone.
“What are you doing? Cap, we’re sitting ducks down here!” Harris yelped, searching the skies for their enemy as they jinked away from another ball of plasma.
“We’re a Valiant, Harris! We don’t have the manoeuvrability to dogfight a damn Banshee in the air!” Aes replied, harshly as they shot up the mountain side. “Deploy chaff.”
“Chaff?! What good’s that going to do?!” Harris demanded, even as she obeyed.
“What chaff always does. Confuse it.” Aes replied as the glittering strips of silvered paper spread out across the snowscape behind the valiant in a wide vee, tossed and fluttering in the wind. She tipped the wing, firing the vector thruster on that side to shoot the valiant sideways, before firing both thrusters and cutting forward motion to keep them sliding sideways up the mountain without losing momentum. The harridan’s next three balls of bio-plasma buried themselves in the snow, kicking up yet more confusion. Aes continued matter-surfing across the surface of the mountain, forcing the Harridan to fly lower, using careful bursts of all four thrust vectors to control the valiant more than the rudders, barely touching the ailerons at all. Fuel hit thirty percent as they scooted up the mountainside, jinking from side to side to avoid increasingly rapid bio-plasma bolts. As their altitude increased, Aes pushed the engines further, opening them up completely and kicking the afterburners in. They overshot the mountain peak at fifteen hundred kilometres per hour, then Aes cut forward thrust from the port turbojet, redirecting all its power to the landing thrusters, spinning the valiant around on its horizontal axis. The G-forces crushed her into her seat, the edges of her vision darkening as she came close to blacking out. She forced her throttle controls into position with a long, low growl of effort, reversing thrust in an instant to steady their flight. In front of her, Harris let out a pained whimper and went floppy.
The manoeuvre was complete, however, and the Valiant was now skidding backwards through the air, pointing down the mountain. The harridan burst from the cloud of powdered snow, a screaming dragon-form, mouth open and glowing with burgeoning bio-plasma.
Aes fired first, unloading seventy five rounds into the beasts’ gullet in three seconds. The mass-reactive explosive shells tore through the harridan, detonating its prepared bio-plasma attack and incinerating its gargoyle payload. Everything went quiet for a few moments, the only sound in Branwen’s ears her own gasping breath, then the world started to come back. There were no less than four alarms sounding in the cockpit. The portside thrusters had overstressed, fuel was down to twenty one percent, all eight cannon were down to two rounds apiece and the damaged spoiler warning had cropped up again. With a sigh, she cancelled the alarms, setting the valiant to hover mode for a moment before leaning forward to slap the back of Harris’ helmet until she came round.
“Have a nice nap?” She asked the woozy navigator, who just groaned at her.
“Next time you plan on pulling a fifteen G turn after a five G acceleration, let me know so I can swallow my tongue first.” Harris groaned. “You probably liquefied our passengers.”
“Ah, they’re Sunshiners, they’ll be fine.” Aes responded, flippantly. “Plot me a course to the LZ, flight lieutenant.”
“... Aye-aye.”

Turbulence shook the Valiant violently as they flew towards the dispersal zone. The storm had come out of nowhere, purple lightning splitting the sky and black clouds roiling into existence in minutes. There was no doubt that the storm was unnatural, some warp-spawned madness drawn into being by alien minds. Flight Captain Bronwen Aes [her name is pronounced "Ace"? Grrr], ‘Cold Caller’, had lost contact with the rest of the wing two minutes ago, and the only clue she had that the other four birds were even still in the air were the occasional glimpses of AH2’s nose peeking through the roiling fog ten meters off the port wing.
The auspex was throwing back little but noise, and Harris in the navigator’s seat had taken to operating it in short bursts to avoid the devil’s song of static returns numbing her mind. She sat up suddenly, peering more closely at the round screen set into her console.
“Contact, intermittent, thirty miles and closing fast,” she alerted told the pilot. “Marked as Bogey 1.”
“I’ve got it,” Aes replied, noting its location on her HUD. “If it’s a bug, we’ll be sitting ducks up here in the clouds. Do you still have eyes on Ay-Aitch Two[Alpha Hotel Two or just AH2; spelling letters phonetically is wicked distracting]?” As she asked, a downdraft knocked the Valiant down a few metres.
“Negative," the navigator responded after glancing out the canopy. “We’re on our own.”
“Well, that’s just fine,” Aes chuckled, darkly. “I’ll take us beneath the clouds. Lets see what our Bogey is before it decides one of the other birds will make a tasty lunch.” She eased the stick forward, lowering the nose.
“Cold-caller, what’s going on?” the colonel’s voice came through the internal commlink.
“Storm’s separated us from the rest of Alpha Hotel and we’re picking up a bogey in our operational area. We’ll divert to investigate. Too much risk of it hunting us up here if it’s hostile,” the pilot responded. “Buckle up, it could get bumpy.”
“Understood," the colonel responded said, her voice fading as she addressedturned to address her squad. “You heard the woman, put that tea set away.” The responding laughter from the Solstice command section was grim. “Looks like we’re all belted in, Captain. Try not to drop us.”
“Do our best, ma’am,” Aes responded said, chuckling at the gallows humour and closing the intercom. The clouds thinned until the Valiant broke through completely. She checked the guncam, but the storm was still interfering with the rangefinding and image enhancement, so she tipped the stick, banking the aircraft to eyeball the situation. The jagged, snow-covered peaks of the Wicker Mountains loomed below, far closer than she found truly comfortable.
“I see it,” Harris spoke up. “Four o’clock, nap of the earth. It’s Alpha Hotel Four.” The relief in her voice was palpable.
“Well spotted. They must have decided to try and get out of the wind,” Bronwen replied, chuckling chuckled. “Wait, what’s that? Point one kays [they just switched from Imperial to metric...] abow of her, there’s something wrong with the ground.”
“Avalanche?” Harris suggested. The snow did appear to be moving. “She hasn’t seen it...” As she spoke, AH-4 passed over the edge of the disturbed area. Seconds later, the ground erupted into a cloud of dark shapes that swamped the valkyrie in seconds, a swarm of gargoyles mobbing it like jackdaws attacking a buzzard.
“Damn.” Ready the guns, we’ll have to rescue them.” Cold-caller decided, tipped the stick and did a stall turn to descend on the swarming fliers. The top casing of AH-4’s hull struggled to rise above the mass, small flashes from inside it escaping as the pilot attempted tried to use her multilaser to clear the path.
“Autocannons free,” Harris replied said. “Slaved to your control stick. I’m picking up a large thermal signature under the snow. Something’s still down there.”
“Understood,” Aes replied. “Firing.” She reported, depressing pressed the stud on her left control stick. All eight autocannons opened fire, spitting a hail of mass-reactive shells down into the swarm of insectoid aliens and punching a hole in the formation swarm just ahead of the beleaguered assault carrier, which suddenly AH-4 leapt forward into it gap and out of the mob as the pilot hit the afterburners, rising from the cloud and incinerating several behind the aircraft. Bronwen eased the stick back, peeling off from the attack run to regain some altitude.[Leaping is always "sudden" -- perfect example of an unnecessary adjective]
“Alpha Hotel Four to Unknown Valiant. That you, Cold-caller?” the vox crackled, the message fuzzed with static and interference
“Who else? Get out of there, Callie, they’re regrouping,” Aes replied.
“Understood. We’ve got flap damage, and one of my intake guards got ripped off. Gaining altitude’s going to be problematic.” AH-4, piloted by Flight Lieutenant Calwen Sars,replied.
“Use the downthrusters, just get out of there. Burn some reaction mass if you have to,” Aes told her, urgently. “We’ll try to keep them off you.”
“Understood. Good hunting. Alpha Hotel Four out.” The vox went quiet as the Valkyrie’s lift thrusters suddenly lit, the bird rising The bird rose straight up in a fuel-guzzling manoeuvre that under normal circumstances would be a criminal court-martial offence. Aes banked again, lining up for a second attack run. Easing the nose forward into a shallow stoop, she kept one eye on the ground and the other on her erratic rangefinder. The boiling mass of gargoyles was like a single living entity as it turned from its failing pursuit of the crippled Valkyrie to meet this new threat.
“Burners ready,” Harris reported. “Cannons loading fine. That thermal mass is on the move.”
Aes grunted an acknowledgment recognition of the information, waited a moment longer then squeezed the firing stud, all guns spitting a hail of lethal shells into the mass. [Unless she's using non-lethal weaponry, you don't need to tell us whether her massive automatic weapons fire lethal rounds or not, we can pretty much guess.] Just before the swarm engulfed them, she thumbed the afterburners and felt the Valiant leap forward. She kept the firing stud pressed down as the G-forces pushed her back into her seat, the mass-reactive shells cutting a path through the cloud of gargoyles ahead and the jet wash incinerating them behind, many being incinerated behind the aircraft as they were caught in its jet wash. Gargoyles – living and half-dead – pelted off the canopy and were deflected by the intake guards, preventing them from being catastrophically drawn into the engines. Three seconds later and they were through the swarm, the ground looming below them rapidly. Bronwen eased the stick back, pulling up from the dive and cut the afterburners. As they reached the bottom of their stooparc, metres off the ground, the snow erupted in front of them. forcing a curse from the pilot’s lips as she was forced to throw She swore and snapped the nose back down again roughly, then eased it back up as a giant Tyranid flier burst from the snow, passing The monster passed less than a metre from the canopy as the Valiant slipped beneath the rising monster it. A lesser pilot would have crashed there and then, caught with less than a metre’s total clearance between the Harridan and the snowscape below with the temptation being to pull the nose up too quickly. Aes avoided burying the tail booms by mere inches, climbing rapidly. She kicked the burn in again for two seconds, hurling them up away from the snow and ice and throwing a long plume of powdered slush up behind the plane.
“What the frack was that?” Harris asked, scanning the skies frantically.
“Banshee.” Aes replied, grimly. “Must be those ‘goyles’ broodmother. I can’t see it, have you got eyes on?”
“Ne.. yes, there! Tagged on HUD,” the navigator responded as lightning split the skies. “It’s coming round... does that thing have a ranged weapon?”
“Emperor only knows,” Aes muttered. “Keep your eyes on it.” She ordered, extending the flaps to get every ounce of lift out of the wings she could.
“It’s glowing. That’s bad, right?” Harris askedcommented. Aes didn’t dare look for herself; she was barely holding the aircraft on course against the turbulence that was battering them and the strains that full throttle was putting on the wings. “Yes, it is,” Harris muttered said. “Evasive action. It’s-“ As she spoke, Aes kicked the thrust vector on the port wing, rolling the Valiant to the left with a shriek of tortured metal. On the starboard wing, a spoiler tore free, causing the plane to lurch as it returned to level flight. A glowing ball of bio-plasma streaked through their previous flight path before atomising a three-metre-wide crater in the snowscape.
“Guess we won’t be slowing down in the near future,” Bronwen jokedsaid [we can tell she's being darkly funny, you don't have to tell us], glancing at the wing as warning indicators popped up and an alarm sounded. She silenced it instantly. “Disable the safeties. The old girl’s not going to like this.” She decided, pulling the nose up and turning them towards the peaks She pulled the nose up and turned towards the peaks, dropping to fly nap-of-the-earth. A chime warned that fuel had dropped to fifty percent. Twenty would be needed [b]They needed twenty to reach the landing zone.
“What are you doing? Cap, we’re sitting ducks down here!” Harris yelped, searching the skies for their enemy as they jinked away from another ball of plasma.
“We’re a Valiant, Harris! We don’t have the manoeuvrability to dogfight a damn Banshee in the air!” Aes replied, harshly snapped as they shot up the mountain side. “Deploy chaff.”
“Chaff?! What good’s that going to do?!” Harris demanded, even as she obeyed.
“What chaff always does. Confuse it.” Aes replied as the Glittering strips of silvered paper spread out across the snowscape behind the Valiant in a wide vee, tossed and fluttering in the wind. She tipped the wing, firing the vector thruster on that side to shoot the Valiant sideways, before firing then fired both thrusters and cutting cut forward motion to keep them sliding sideways up the mountain without losing momentum. The harridan’s next three balls of bio-plasma buried themselves in the snow, kicking up yet more confusion. Aes continued matter-surfing across the surface of the mountain, forcing the Harridan to fly lower, using careful bursts of all four thrust vectors to control the Valiant more than the rudders, barely touching the ailerons at all. Fuel hit thirty percent as they scooted up the mountainside, jinking from side to side to avoid increasingly rapid bio-plasma bolts. As their altitude increased, Aes pushed the engines further, opening them up completely and kicking kicked the afterburners in. They overshot the mountain peak at fifteen hundred kilometres per hour, then Aes cut forward thrust from the port turbojet, redirecting all its power to the landing thrusters, spinning and spun the Valiant around on its horizontal axis. The G-forces crushed her into her seat, the edges of her vision darkening as she came close to blacking out. She forced her throttle controls into position with a long, low growl of effort, reversing thrust in an instant to steady their flight. In front of her, Harris let out a pained whimper and went floppy.
The manoeuvre was complete, however, and the Valiant was now skidding backwards through the air, pointing down the mountain. The harridan burst from the cloud of powdered snow, a screaming dragon-form, mouth open and glowing with burgeoning bio-plasma.
Aes fired first, unloading seventy five rounds into down the beasts’ gullet in three seconds. The mass-reactive explosive shells tore through the harridan, detonating its prepared bio-plasma attack and incinerating its gargoyle payload. Everything went quiet for a few moments, the only sound in Branwen’s ears her own gasping breath.
Then the world started to come back. There were no less than four alarms sounding in the cockpit. The portside thrusters had overstressed, fuel was down to twenty one percent, all eight cannon were down to two rounds apiece and the damaged spoiler warning had cropped up again. With a sigh, she cancelled the alarms, setting the Valiant to hover mode for a moment before leaning forward to slap the back of Harris’ helmet until she came round.
“Have a nice nap?” she asked the woozy navigator, who just groaned at her.
“Next time you plan on pulling a fifteen G turn after a five G acceleration, let me know so I can swallow my tongue first,” Harris groaned. “You probably liquefied our passengers.”
“Ah, they’re Sunshiners, they’ll be fine.” Aes said responded, flippantly [Obvious she's being flippant....]. “Plot me a course to the LZ, flight lieutenant.”
“... Aye-aye.”