Page 16 of Fly to Fury (War of the Alliance #3)

Chapter

Nine

P ip stood off to the side as Fieran strolled into the hangar, his stride still strong even after a battle and his long patrol.

Before she had a chance to approach, Fieran was swarmed, both by the members of the Half-Breed Squadron and pilots from the other two squadrons.

Capt. Fleetwood pushed his way through the group to slap Fieran on the back.

The other captain, Capt. Kentworth, remained where he was, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a glower on his face.

Pip turned away, shoving aside the disappointment. It didn’t matter. She’d talk to Fieran later. It wasn’t like she expected him to greet her first every time he landed.

Just as well that she didn’t get caught up talking to Fieran. She had work to do.

As the ground crew worked to push the squadron’s aeroplanes back into the hangar, Pip approached the nearest aeroplane and started her inspection, cataloguing the damage. Several bullet holes in the canvas. One of the wing struts had some damage. The engine itself needed wires replaced.

After making notes on a paper on her clipboard, Pip moved on to the next aeroplane, falling into a familiar rhythm. Occasionally one of the other mechanics would interrupt her with a question, but she soon had them sent off to their tasks.

Pip had her head in the engine compartment of Fieran’s aeroplane when she heard that familiar steady stride coming up behind her. She didn’t withdraw from the aeroplane and instead spoke without looking. “What did you do to this aeroplane?”

“Fought a dogfight.” Fieran sounded far too cheerful.

“Yes, but I’ve seen your aeroplane after battles before. You burned the guts out of it this time.” Pip wrenched the nut off to free the wiring harness.

“We’ve never faced a solely aeroplane dogfight before.” Fieran was likely rolling his shoulders in that easy shrug of his. “And we then flew a rather long patrol afterwards.”

“Well, I’m establishing a few protocols.” Pip finally withdrew her head from the aeroplane. Mak had nicely made her a tall enough ladder so that her feet were already firmly standing on the top. “No aeroplane goes back into the sky without a thorough inspection.”

“That sounds serious.” Fieran tucked his thumbs into the pockets of his trousers, looking far from serious with his short red hair tousled, his flight jacket over an arm, and his goggles pushed onto his forehead.

“Very serious. Yours isn’t the only one with wires about ready to short out.

Then there’s this.” Pip reached over and grabbed one of his propeller blades.

“You can’t see it, but Mak checked the wood with his magic.

There were hairline stress fractures in the propeller after taking so many bullet hits.

If Mak hadn’t fixed them with his magic, your propeller would have cracked eventually.

Yours wasn’t even the worst one. Tiny’s propeller had a visible crack.

It was only a few hits away from giving out. ”

The grin fully dropped from Fieran’s face as his jaw worked. “I hope someone back home invents a way to prevent the bullets from striking the propeller soon.”

“I agree.” Pip released the propeller and instead tapped the wire running over the body of the aeroplane. “How were the new shielding wires?”

“They helped. A lot. I didn’t have to use as much concentration to hold the shield over my aeroplane.

” Fieran rocked back and forth from his heels to his toes.

“How hard would it be to install similar wires on all the aeroplanes of the squadron? I think they would make it possible for me to actively shield the other aeroplanes. Or, at least, those closest to me. It wouldn’t have been nearly so difficult to prevent my magic from incinerating Merrik’s aeroplane if his aeroplane had been rigged like this. ”

She’d seen the scorch marks on bits of the canvas of Merrik’s flyer. Fieran had come rather perilously close to taking Merrik out of the sky. The fact that Fieran’s aeroplane didn’t have those same marks proved the wires had been effective.

“Not that hard. Once all the aeroplanes are fixed, I can start on the wires.” It would give her something to do the next time the squadron was on standby.

And considering how bored Fieran had seemed while on standby, he might offer to help.

Pip ran a wire through her fingers, infusing it with her magic. She sat cross legged on her workbench, her back against a spot she’d cleared of tools in the pegboard. A coil of magic-infused wire rested on one side, the spool of magicless wire on the other.

She tried to pretend she wasn’t glancing at the hangar doors. She wasn’t watching for Fieran and the flyboys to return. She definitely wasn’t listening for the crackling of the radio set on a workbench in the corner.

Outside, aeroplanes touched down on the airfield, rolling to a stop before they headed toward the hangar.

Pip ducked her head and told herself to focus on the wire. Focus on calling up her magic and weaving it into the wire, strengthening the metal all the way to its core.

As she finished the last of the spool of wire, a burst of laughter from the doors drew her gaze again.

Fieran strolled into the hangar, his flight jacket thrown over his shoulder, his goggles shoved onto his forehead, and his red hair sticking out beneath his flight cap. The other flyboys surrounded him, some clapping him on the back, others laughing.

After a few moments, he wandered in her direction, leaning his hip against the workbench.

“How was the patrol?” Pip gathered the finished coil of wire, trying not to look at Fieran. He was too flight-tousled for her heart to take at the moment.

“Boring.” Fieran heaved a sigh as he peeled off his goggles and cap, leaving his longish red hair spiked in some areas, flat in others. The look should have made him appear ridiculous, but all it did was make Pip itch to run her fingers through the strands.

She needed to get a grip .

“No enemy aeroplanes this time?” She fiddled with the coil in her hands.

“There was. But the pilot took one look at us and hightailed it out of there.” Fieran huffed, as if that wasn’t a good thing. “As they all have lately. If they don’t run the moment they see our nose art, all I need to do is coat my aeroplane with my magic, and they flee.”

“Incinerating an entire squadron will do that.” Pip winced as soon as the words left her mouth.

Fieran’s eyes darkened before he looked away, his grin slipping.

Here on the frontlines, everyone joked about death and killing. It was just so much a part of life, especially for the airship crews and the aeroplane pilots who did the bulk of the fighting currently. It was either joke about it or collapse under the reality.

But at the same time, the weight of death still existed, even if they all tried to ignore it.

After a moment, the grin returned, and Fieran shrugged. “Yes, well, it has made for rather boring patrols.”

“I suspect the other squadrons are appreciating the break.” Pip tipped her head to where some of the pilots from Capt. Fleetwood’s squadron were trying to cajole Pretty Face into helping them with painting nose art on their aeroplanes.

“Capt. Fleetwood’s pilots are, at any rate.

” Fieran’s posture relaxed again as he leaned more firmly against the workbench, facing outward.

“More of his pilots are adding nose art. Not sure if it is because they actually want art or because they’ve realized they’ll be safer with it since the Mongavarians will assume they’re facing my squadron. ”

“A little of both, I’d guess.” Pip forced herself to stop fiddling with the coil of wire. Instead, she held it up. “I have more wire ready. Want to help me install it? ”

“Of course.” Fieran pushed away from the workbench, stepping back to give her room to hop down. “Whose aeroplanes are we up to?”

“Lije and Stickyfingers.” Pip strode toward where the ground crew had parked those aeroplanes. They’d already added the wire to Merrik’s aeroplane, followed by Tiny’s and Murray’s. “Mak got the insulators attached to their aeroplanes yesterday.”

The insulators were a bit more rudimentary than what she’d installed on Fieran’s aeroplane. She’d found an old rubber truck tire and was cutting it up into small tabs. After piercing a hole in it for the wire, Mak used his magic to attach the rubber tabs to the aeroplane.

She and Fieran strolled across the hangar, pausing a few times as various flyboys and pilots halted them to talk to Fieran.

At Lije’s aeroplane, Fieran set to work stringing the higher ring of wire while she worked on the lower wiring.

A few aeroplanes away, Mak and Merrik worked on Pretty Face’s aeroplane, attaching the rubber insulators using their plant growing magic. Her brother tapped out a rhythm and used a hammer in conjunction with his magic while Merrik simply pressed his hand to the wood.

“If your flyboys have time, we could speed up the process if they helped make more insulators.” Pip wiggled the end of the wire through the hole in one of the rubber tabs. “If even a portion of the squadron helped, we’d have a pile of these in no time.”

“The whole squadron would gladly help out.” Fieran leaned over to reach between the wings to thread his section of the wire. “We can add it to tomorrow’s project list.”

“You’re going to have a mutiny on your hands if you keep adding to the to-do list.” Pip found herself grinning up at Fieran, her hands falling still.

With the way he was leaning over to reach the next insulator, his shirt pulled taut across his chest, his feet balancing on the wing and one hand gripping a wing support.

Locks of his red hair had fallen over his forehead.

Her grin faded as he glanced down at her, his piercing blue eyes meeting hers. Their faces were still several feet apart, but she still found herself swaying forward at the crackle between them.

Then Fieran straightened, turning back to the wire he was stringing and clearing his throat. “I’m a captain now. I need to encourage productivity on our days off instead of using all the time for recreation in Little Aldon.”

What were they talking about again? Pip swallowed, her tongue drying.

“That sounds like something our dachas would say,” Merrik called from the next aeroplane over. Green magic wrapped around his fingers as he melded the aeroplane’s frame over a rubber insulator.

Pip jumped, her face flushing even though she and Fieran had done nothing but hold each other’s gaze for a charged moment. She’d forgotten that not only were they not alone but Merrik and—even worse—her brother were only a few yards away.

How embarrassing. Hopefully Mak hadn’t been paying attention.

“Our dachas are rather focused.” Fieran wiggled the wire through the rubber insulator at the very far stretch of his reach, not giving any indication that he’d even felt the moment the way she had.

His ears weren’t even pink. “The squadron might grumble, but they’ll thank me when the first summer storm rolls in and our tents are more than just old canvas and rickety poles. ”

Pip gave a slight shudder. She, Aylia, and the other female elven pilots were bunked with a few female mechanics for the airships in a wooden barracks to the side of the hangar claimed by the airships.

As the wooden barracks had been funded out of the airship budget, the barracks were sturdy, weathertight, and had real glass windows.

Compared to that, Fieran and the flyboys’ tents were especially sad.

“While you work on the tents, I’ll get started on more wire and insulators.” Pip ducked under the wing and crouched, balanced on her toes, as she strung the wire.

“Actually, Merrik and I are headed into the mountains in the morning to fill magical power cells, and I was hoping you’d come along.

” Fieran jumped down from the wing, his boots coming into view as he landed on the floor.

“You could learn how to run the machine, if you’d like.

It wouldn’t hurt to have another person trained on it, and you have all the proper certifications. ”

A morning with just her, Fieran, Merrik, and a magical machine? Sign her up.

“Yes!” Pip blurted the word before she could squash her bubbling excitement. At least the wing shielded her from view, giving her a moment to get her enthusiasm under control. When she spoke again, her voice had steadied. “I’d like that.”

From where she was crouched beneath the wing, she had a view of Merrik, Mak, and Pretty Face’s aeroplane. Merrik shot a look at Fieran, but Mak was looking at her, his eyebrows raised.

Bother. He was starting to suspect. She’d have to be more careful about how she interacted with Fieran. Otherwise, she’d activate Mak’s protective big brother mode, and she wasn’t sure what would happen then.