THE LAST FLIGHT OF THE ATOMIC ADONIS

by Noel K Hannan

The midday heat seemed to crack the runway tarmac as they posed for the group photograph beneath the nose cone of the Atomic Adonis, six healthy young women smiling toothpaste-perfect smiles. Their bomber totem, lovingly hand-painted on the B-99 fuselage, provided a colourful backdrop, all muscular pink fleshtones and flaming red hair on blinding steel airframe. Captain Helena lifted her hand and covered up the painted Adonis’ improbably large erection. The photographer took the picture.

“Fun’s over, girls!” Helena barked as they broke formation, trailing oxygen pipes and communication leads from their padded flightsuits. Lieutenant Cleo, the navigator, and Sergeant Octavia, the tail gunner, exchanged playful sparring punches.

“Let’s roll!” Helena reiterated, clapping her hands like a football coach as she saw the crews of the Nashville Narcissus and the Minnesota Mercury clambering aboard their aircraft across the shimmering tarmac. “Last one in the air gets to take lead bomb position. We don’t want that, do we, girls?”

Ten minutes later, the Island was an insignificant speck behind them in the vast blue ocean. The Atomic Adonis had been first in the air and was jockeying into position as wingsister to the Minnesota Mercury, the Nashville Narcissus taking the unenviable lead position.

The girls shook themselves out over the drone of the four huge turbofans and the incessant chatter from the hyperactive ground control. Helena, Cleo and Sergeant Thea, the flight engineer, occupied the cramped cockpit with its huge bubble front and hooded armoured blast screens, a stifling womb of sliding LCD displays and softly glowing monitors. Thea, the oldest member of the crew and always the most affected by the incessant heat, had already stripped to the waist, sweat running down her face and neck and across her large pendulous breasts. She would have to resuit when they entered the combat zone, to protect her from flashfire and shrapnel.

Lieutenant Roma, the bombardier, and Sergeant Via, the dorsal or midgunner, operated in a narrow pod halfway along the B-99’s fuselage, Via sitting high in a swivelling seat with a bubble cockpit around her and her quadruple-barrelled 30mm chain guns pointing menacingly out into the wide blue yonder. Roma sat beneath her, hunched over an array of screens and downward-looking video monitors, stationed directly over the B-99’s bomb bay that housed the freefall munitions and the revolving cruise missile launcher. Poor design of the pod meant that Via’s podgy thighs were spread around Roma’s consoles, so that Roma was treated to a constant display of Via’s crotch throughout the flight. It was not by coincidence that the slightly overweight Via (“Puppy fat,” she would retort petulantly, full lips pouting) and the raven-haired Roma were lovers.

The sixth member of the crew of the Atomic Adonis, Sergeant Octavia, was isolated at the rear of the aircraft, in the tail gunner’s bubble between the massive tailfins. The only member of the crew in solitary, she occupied the lonely transit hours between the Island and the targets with a chess computer, her sketchpad (she was an accomplished artist and the painter of the Adonis’ lewd nose icon), a collection of male bodybuilder digest magazines and a particularly noisy and power-hungry sex aid that she had secretly modified to run from the aircraft’s electrical supply. Often she was completely unoccupied on missions - the Nu Zooland stealth fighters she was meant to defend the Atomic Adonis against, with her identical weapons suite to that of Via, were becoming few and far between as their missions progressed. Great Mother’s Flight Control told them this was because the high-tech stealth squadrons were difficult to maintain. The steam-and-string avionics, propulsion and gunnery of the B-99s was archaic by comparison but the success rate of missions and combat readiness of Bouddicca Squadron spoke for itself. This was Octavia’s thirty-third mission and she had not seen a Nu Zooland stealth fighter, the Black Bats, since the twenty-fifth. Fast and undetectable as they were, their flimsy hulls, sacrificing armour weight for radar invisibility and speed, were little protection against Octavia, her pumping 30mm cannon and her buzzing, mains-charged sex aid. The multiple orgasms of power-induced vibration and the thumping of the cannon sending a Black Bat spinning from the sky were something Octavia never tired of enthusing over at length during post-mission drinks in the Vulvarine Club back on the Island, and for her more than made up for the isolation of flight time. She hoped that the Nu Zooland Air Force had a stealth fighter or two to send against her today. She was feeling horny.

Back in the cockpit, Helena and Cleo were conversing curtly over a map display that was projected on the front window. Cleo traced her chrome-nailed finger along their projected flight path, over a thousand miles of open ocean until it hit the coast of Nu Zooland, far to the south. From there they would fly nap-of-the-earth inland through fjords and river canyons, releasing their battery of ten cruise missiles to attack the northern population centres of Zellington, Shannan Falls, Ockland, Shag Bay and Weissman, then proceed further south to freefall bomb the military city of Machismo, where automated air defences would bring down the unimaginative, preprogrammed cruise missiles, and only a human pilot would be - theoretically - unpredictable enough to break through. This would be the most dangerous part of the mission due to the highest concentration of antiaircraft defences, the time-over-target required for precision freefall bombing, and the possible danger of retaliation from stealth fighters. If Nu Zooland was fielding any Black Bats today, here they would be.

It was a great deal to ask of any pilot, but Helena had done this seventeen times over seventeen similarly-defended targets, and had never lost an aircraft she was commanding or a single crew member. Only her bombardiers had ever let her down.

“You won’t let me down, will you, Roma?” Helena had asked as they had showered and dressed for the mission earlier in the day.

Roma paused from washing her cropped black hair under the shower, suds cascading over her naked body. She looked offended.

“Helena, what sort of question is that to ask Bouddicca Squadron’s most decorated bombardier?”

Helena dried herself and pulled on the lycra undersuit, steadying herself against Roma’s broad shoulder as she hopped on one leg.

“You know the problems I’ve had with bombardiers, Roma. First Ivon over Shannan Falls, where we lost two aircraft because of her hesitation, then Janny over Mount Kascade, bombing too early and taking out the POW camp in the mountains. According to the Kross Rouge, seventy captive airwomen died that day. Forty of them were pregnant.”

“Better dead than a breeding sow for those bastards,” Roma replied. Helena’s face was like thunder. Roma quickly retracted.

“I’m sorry. That was a cheap shot. I know your sister got shot down over there last year. Listen, Janny was only seventeen, fresh out of the academy, she should never have been on a combat flight let alone as a lead bombardier. Damn Mother and her last-one-in-the-air rule! Well, Janny paid her debt all right. You forget it was me that found her hanging from the gym roof.”

Helena nodded, shrugging into her oversized flight suit. The shower room was starting to fill up, Octavia and Thea entering and stripping off sweaty workout gear after their circuits of the airfield, and climbing into the steaming showers. Helena’s quiet, private moment with Roma was passing by.

“And Ivon,” Roma continued in a lower voice as she dressed, aware of her commander’s need for discretion, “well, Ivon was just Ivon. She wanted to be the best, tried too hard to be perfect. Couldn’t get it through to her that to wait too late to release her bombs was worse than doing it early, it could be fatal to the rest of the wing. Always took too long. Lost her over Ockland, the mission after Shannan Falls. Guess she paid her price too. Maybe we all do eventually. Maybe that’s just the way it goes.”

Roma leaned forward, conspiratorially, as she tightened the last of the buckles and straps on her suit. Helena leaned in, almost touching Roma’s forehead with her own, despite the odd looks they were getting from Octavia and Thea in the shower.

“Don’t worry about me, Boss,” Roma whispered. “I’ll be doing my job. If you want my opinion, it’s Cleo you should be concerned with.”

Helena looked shocked. “Cleo? Why? She’s an excellent navigator. She’s flown with me on every mission I’ve ever commanded. Why should I be worried about her?”

Roma held up her hands defensively.

“I didn’t mean that. I know she’s the best. I just mean, lately, well, the way she looks at you.”

“The way she looks at me?”

“Do I have to spell it out, Boss? I think she has a crush on you.”

Helena recoiled and blinked sharply.

“A crush? On me? Are you sure?”

Roma smiled and laughed. “You know about me and Via, Boss. Trust me, I know how to recognise these things.”

Helena sat back on the bench seat beneath the clothing hooks strung with sweaty gymwear. This was something she did not need. A relationship between a bombardier and a midgunner was one thing (indeed, it was rumoured that the majority of Bouddicca Squadron’s aircraft had such a pairing, a product of the bad design resulting in inevitable anatomical intimacy), such a situation between a crew commander and any member of the flight, particularly a cockpit crew member, was unthinkable.

“It’s impossible,” Helena said at last. “I’ll have to keep an eye on the situation. I won’t have Cleo impairing our operational capability because of a schoolgirl crush.”

Helena let her last few words slip out a little too loud just as Cleo entered the shower room, sweaty and panting from a run. It wasn’t clear if she’d heard her or not. She began to strip off, but was aware that Helena and Roma were watching her. They both looked away self-consciously. Helena gathered up her equipment and made for the door, trailing hoses and wires. She turned before leaving.

“Roma, what I was trying to say was, keep your eyes on your screens and dials, not Via’s fanny, okay? Mother wants tight bomb patterns to show the ladies in power.”

All of which served to add to the air of tension in the cockpit as Helena and Cleo ran business-like through the navigation procedures. Helena felt awkward in Cleo’s presence after Roma’s revelations, and was concerned she had offended the young navigator with her cheap parting shot. Cleo, on the other hand, had heard Helena’s comment on her infatuation and was annoyed at Roma, whom she had confided in the previous night, when they had been the last ones propping up the bar at the Vulvarine Club, outlasting even the usually hard-drinking Thea.

“Do you think, you know, she maybe feels the same way about me?” she had slurred to Roma over a double-figure beer.

Roma took a long drag on her cigar and regarded Cleo coolly through the smoke. As a lifelong, dyed-in-the-wool, vastly experienced lover of women, she had become used to her role as the agony aunt for the girls of the Bouddicca Squadron as they came to terms with their long-term male-free existence on the Island, and began inevitably to turn to each other for comfort and companionship. Girls like the man-hungry Octavia, her vibrator and her lust for the Nu Zooland POWs (now moved off the Island and back to the mainland, mainly due to the attempts of Octavia and others like her to break into their camp), were aberrations and exceptions to the rule.

“Have you asked her?”

Cleo sipped at the beer.

“Of course not. You know it’s forbidden for crew commanders to have relationships with flight members.”

“An unwritten rule. Nothing in the flight regulations.”

“That’s a maybe. But Mother would hang us.”

“If Mother knew.”

“What do you mean?”

Roma took a long drag on the cigar and exhaled two long pungent streams out of her nostrils. She ran her hand through her bristly black hair. Behind her, the blonde uniformed bar girl, a medical orderly by day, coughed loudly, wanting to close up for the night but unwilling to forcibly eject the (often aggressive) drunken aircrews. They were allowed long leashes on the Island between the stressful missions.

“No one needs to know, girl. You can be discreet. The Boss is a cool chick -”

Cleo smiled, suddenly enlivened.

“She sure is. That’s what I like most about her. She’s so cool. Last month, y’know, we were on that mission over Ockland, y’know, the one where we lost Ivon? The Hyperreal environment system had gone down, we had to raise the blast screens and we were using the Mark One Eyeball. And this antiaircraft missile is climbing toward us, straight up, like a telegraph pole. I’m bunched up in my seat, crying like a baby for God, Mother, whatever. Thea’s reaching for the ejection handle, just about ready to bang us out and leave the rest of ‘em to it. Every alarm in the cockpit’s going off at once. It’s like we’ve tried to bugger the Devil in his sleep, but we’ve woken him up and he’s well pissed off. We can see death coming straight at us. And the Boss, she’s like, not even blinking, hands dead relaxed on the controls, looking down at this fucking tower block speeding toward us. And at the last minute she gives the sticks a little nudge and this thing, this mountain of high explosive just sails by the cockpit, blotting out the sky, literally a few centimetres away. And when it’s gone, she just turns to us - me, I’ve pissed myself and it’s swilling around the cockpit floor, Thea’s hand is locked around the ejection handle and she has to pry it loose with her other hand - and the Boss just says : “Is everyone okay?”. We just nod, can’t even speak, and she goes on the intercom and checks through the rest of the you, who never saw a thing of course.”

“Like I said, a cool chick. You should make your feelings known to her. Maybe you could work something out.”

“Does she, you know, like women?”

“I really don’t know. She don’t socialise much away from the missions. Pretty much keeps herself to herself, always running or working out or hanging out in the library. I don’t think she’s like Octavia, though. Doesn’t seem to express a preference for either. However, you know my opinion on the subject. On the Island, sooner or later, you get the taste for the fairer sex. Only a matter of time.”

Cleo thought this over. Perhaps all she had to do was wait, then, and Helena would come around to her way of thinking without her having to do or say anything? It seemed the easiest option, after so many beers. It required no action or positive decision.

“You won’t tell her, will you?” Cleo asked, a note of sudden panic in her voice. Her vision was becoming cloudy. She hoped Roma wouldn’t take advantage of her while helping her back to her bunk.

Roma smiled and slid her chrome-nailed hand across the table to pat Cleo’s own similarly-adorned fingers, spreadeagled on the beer-stained tabletop.

“Hey, we’re crewmates,” Roma said. “You can trust me with your life or your secrets. Atomic Adonis forever, hey?”

“Atomic Adonis forever,” Cleo slurred, and passed out across the table.

Roma carried her back to her bunk, but did not take advantage of her. Instead, she returned to the club and spent the night with the long-haired bar girl, who had red painted fingernails instead of barcode-data-implanted chrome ones, and who giggled wickedly when she saw the collection of lethal-looking strap-ons in Roma’s room.

***

Thea was still slightly hungover from the previous night, despite it being well into the afternoon, two hours into the mission. Silence had descended on to the cockpit after the navigation procedure, and Thea could sense something was wrong. Still bare-breasted in the heat, she tied the loose sleeves of her flight suit around her waist and moved from her seat.

“Place is like a fucking morgue,” Thea commented loudly before disconnecting her wired intercom and replacing it with a remote. “Got a power anomaly aft. Gonna check it out. You know where I am if you need me.” Curt nods from Helena and Cleo. Thea snorted and began crawling down the narrow tunnel that linked the cockpit to the navigator’s station, the mid gun and tail gun pods.

“God damn premenstrual tension,” Thea muttered as she worked her way down the cool crawlspace on her elbows and knees. “Shouldn’t make ‘em fly on those days if it affects ‘em that bad.”

As she reached the fuselage pod she became aware of a familiar, musky smell drifting up to meet her. She stopped, contemplating going back, then cursed and carried on. She slid out of the tunnel to a full view of Via’s podgy naked thighs and spreadeagled legs hanging from the turret blister, with the back of Roma’s head obscuring her crotch. Roma was working with great concentration with tongue and fingers and didn’t even notice Thea’s entrance.

“Excuse me,” Thea said sarcastically, Roma’s preoccupation forcing her to shove the navigator roughly aside. “Don’t mean to disturb you or nothing.”

“Hey, Thea!” Roma called after her as she disappeared head-first into the tunnel leading to the aft fuselage and Octavia’s rear turret. “Don’t come down here flashing your tits and cussing at us. At least, not unless you want to join in? What do you say?”

Roma’s laughter echoed down the tunnel as Thea crawled on, shaking her head.

“I got warrin’ lovers in the cockpit,” she muttered to herself, “and lovers fuckin’ in the fuselage. What the hell am I gonna find up here? At least Octavia’s on her own.”

The buzzsaw drone of Octavia’s power-dildo was so loud that Thea had to tap her on the shoulder to make her presence known. Like Roma and Via she was not in the least embarrassed but realised she was in for a dressing down from the flight engineer for her illegal and unorthodox modification. Guiltily, she switched off the vibrator and zipped up her flight suit.

“Mains power?” Thea bawled, holding up the thick cable hardwired into the gun controls. “Are you mad, girl? A short circuit in here leaves your guns without juice, leaves you - shit, leaves all of us - sitting ducks if the Noo Zoos ever get a Black Bat off the ground again. And all for the sake of bringing yourself off? You must be out of your mind. Helena’s gonna haul your ass all the way to Mother for this one.”

Octavia’s eyes flew wide with fright.

“Can’t we keep this between us, Thea? I mean, no one need know. Just rip it out. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

“Give me one good reason why I should do that.” Thea was standing in Octavia’s turret now, hands on hips, staring at her angrily.

“Well,” Octavia said, suddenly coy, “there is the little matter of your speed habit.”

Thea’s hand flew to Octavia’s muscular upper arm and gripped her tight. Octavia gasped at the pressure.

“What the hell are you talking about? I ain’t got no -”

Octavia pushed her away hard.

“Don’t lie to me, Thea. I saw you buying that shit from the Island natives. Little blue pills they make in their shanty plantations. Give you a good buzz, Thea? Help you keep your hands steady and calm all through a flight, ‘til you can make it back to the bar in the Vulvarine Club? Getting a little old for all this, aren’t we, Thea? Need a little help to see us through. Should be leaving it for the youngsters by now.”

Thea’s face was thunderous. She made no reply to Octavia. She was, of course, absolutely right. Thea examined the ad hoc wiring, her face burning.

“Suppose I could take this out when we get back,” she murmured. “Leave no trace for the techs to moan about. Good enough for you, Octavia?”

Octavia grinned, triumphant. “Deuce.”

The intercom crackled suddenly into life.

“Cockpit to all crew. We’re making initial target approach. All crew to battle stations. Prepare for weapons test fire and final checks.”

Thea murmured an acknowledgement into the intercom and clambered back into the tunnel, shrugging her flight suit back around her shoulders and zipping it up.

“Watch our ass, Octavia,” she called as she crawled back to the cockpit. Octavia watched Thea’s rear end disappearing into the gloomily-lit tunnel, and graciously suppressed the obvious wisecrack.

Cleo’s hands flew across the proximity-sensitive controls situated on the pull-down bar across her lap. The encoded data in her chrome nails, optimised for navigational and AA defence functions, interfaced with the Atomic Adonis’ hardware and ensured that they were on a correct course, at the correct airspeed, holding true to the mission profile. Land had just peeped over the horizon - the craggy cliffs and fjords of Nu Zooland’s northern coast. The Nashville Narcissus was a dark grey cross approximately two thousand metres ahead and slightly above them, with the Minnesota Mercury in a mirror-image position on the starboard side, no more than five hundred metres separating her from her wingsister. Cleo glanced up from her calculations to see her counterpart in the Mercury with her head down in rapt concentration.

Thea thumped into her seat behind the pilot’s station, muttering. “This aircraft is full of fucking nutcases.”

“Find the power anomaly, Thea?” Helena asked, half-turning in her seat.

“Uh, yeah. Octavia’s entertainment system. Had Joan Jett cranked up too loud.”

Helena laughed. She keyed the intercom wired to her throat mike.

“Cockpit to all crew. Prepare for weapons test. Guns first. Away you go, Via.”

“Uh, Boss,” Thea said, leaning forward into Helena’s left ear, “just who the fuck are we sparring with today, by the way?”

“Pilot and navigator briefing, Operation Man Hunt,” Great Mother had intoned at the dawn operations group. It had taken place in a nylon mesh tent outside the Flight Control Tower because the air-conditioning inside had broken down. Three sides of the huge tent were rolled up to allow the warm dawn breeze, coming in off the ocean, across the beach and the airfield, to cool the flight commanders and navigators who sat in bikinis and lycra undersuits and flight boots on the wooden benches inside the tent. Great Mother, the Offensive Flight Operations Squadron Leader (known to her political mistresses back on the mainland as ‘The Offensive One’) , stood in front of them, backed by a pull-down screen illuminated with a tactical map projected from a laptop computer. She was twice the age of the oldest crewmember - maybe fifty years old, the girls liked to estimate - but still wore her grizzled grey hair in the regulation crewcut. Her face was heavily lined and leathery from too much sun, too much beer, too many combat missions. She liked to half-joke that each laughter-line (only the brave or the very foolish would call them crows’ feet) marked a dead friend, as a tree’s rings marked its age. The ribbons on her immaculate if sweat-stained fatigue shirt were awarded in wars when men and women fought side by side, not against each other. Great Mother’s first assignment, she often reminded the girls, was as navigator to a male fighter pilot. He liked to squeeze her ass when ‘helping’ her into the plane. She broke his arm after he followed her into the shower one night. The mythical, legendary, indestructible Great Mother.

“Missile targets for today are Ockland, Zellington, Weissman, Shannan Falls and Shag Bay,” she began, marking out the place names on the pull-down screen with thwacks! from a brass-tipped cane that made the screen ripple and distort. The crews tapped the information into notepad computers strapped to thighs. It would all be available online for the flight systems, and many of those systems were fully automated, but the tradition of fliers taking notes was hard to break. Great Mother encouraged it - it showed the crews were paying attention and aided memory retention.

“Missile release points here-” thwack! “-and here-” thwack! “Once delivery is complete, switch to nap-of-the-earth profile and continue south-south east for precision freefall bombing of Machismo.”

Unified intake of breath. Those that had watched the track of Great Mother’s cane on their own corresponding notepad displays could see what was coming.

“Machismo.” Great Mother spat the word out. Her cane remained still. All eyes in the room rose to meet hers. They saw compassion there, a little pity, but more than anything else, steely resolve. There was a job to be done.

“Nu Zooland’s main military training complex,” Great Mother continued, rather redundantly. Everyone on the Island, everyone in the Air Force, everyone back on the mainland, everyone knew where and what Machismo was. And everyone who knew what it was wanted it bombed back to the stone age.

“And that’s your job,” Great Mother said, putting down her cane and lighting a huge cigar. “Half a million men. The biggest airfield in the southern hemisphere. A munitions depot with enough explosive power to sink Nu Zooland. Armour and artillery workshops, a military sea port. Take out Machismo and you stand a chance of ending the war. It represents fifty per cent of Nu Zooland’s fighting power.”

“And about ninety per cent of its antiaircraft defences,” Captain Whilma, crew commander of the Nashville Narcissus, noted dryly. “A suicide mission, Great Mother?”

Great Mother snorted cigar smoke. Dissent in the ranks. To be stamped on, or it would spread like wildfire.

“Bouddicca Squadron is not sent on suicide missions, Captain Whilma,” Great Mother said evenly, “as you well know. B-99s are equipped with the most up-to-date defence and antiaircraft suppression systems available. Many B-99s have penetrated Machismo’s defences before and survived.”

“Never with accurate bombing results,” Whilma retorted. “And never with such a concentration of aircraft. Would I be right in saying the whole of Bouddicca Squadron, all ten wings, are being committed on this operations? Thirty aircraft?”

“That is correct. The concentration of aircraft is unprecedented, I realise. It is hoped that such a number will negate inaccurate bombing by individual aircraft, lack of proper - how should I say this? - navigational flair on behalf of crew commanders or-” She paused, after her veiled reference to cowardice. “-numbers of casualties. Any questions?”

“How do I get off this fucking crazy plane?” wailed Thea, clasping her hands to her head in mock distress.

“Ours is not to reason why, and all that,” said Helena, smiling at Thea’s reaction to the mission information. The groans and curses of the rest of the crew echoed over the intercom as they absorbed the bad news.

Suddenly Via’s guns opened up in their regulation test fire, a coincidental but apt release of her anger. The aircraft vibrated with the hydraulic pumping of Via’s guns and twin lines of tracer swept away over the port wing as Via swung the powered turret around, testing its operation.

“Mid-gunner to cockpit. Guns a-ok.”

Octavia was next, her quadruple cannon blasting out to the rear like a stinging tail and her grunts of satisfaction punctuating the cannon fire over the open intercom channel. She swung the guns around on the powered traverse and perforated the Atomic Adonis’ spectral vapour trail.

“Tail gunner to cockpit. Guns a-ok. All quiet on the northern front.”

Guns tried and tested, Roma’s turn was next. Hunched over her consoles, her face was a mask of rapt concentration in the bluish glow, she lowered the huge revolving cruise missile launcher from its resting place in the B-99’s hull, double bay doors sliding back and allowing the launcher to extend into the airstream, like a dog’s penis unsheathing. Roma manipulated the controls and the launcher revolved, electronically testing the firing circuit on each missile as it reached the lowermost launch position. There was one failure which Roma cursed, but it was not unusual for one out of ten to be a dud. It meant either jettisoning it with the freefall bombs (a common if illegal practice) or returning to the Island with it still in the bomb bay - a taboo for bomber crews since aircraft first took to the skies with the intent of raining death and destruction on some far off foreign land. Roma had been aboard aircraft where bomb-laden landings had taken place due to jammed missiles or fouled bomb-bay doors or failed electronics. White-knuckle landings on empty airfields, ground crew and everyone else, including emergency tenders, evacuated to a safe distance. Not something Roma wished to repeat in a hurry.

“Bombardier to cockpit. Nine natural-born man-killers, one expensive mother of a freefall bomb. Catch my drift?”

Helena sighed. “Understood, Roma. I’ll leave that in your capable hands.”

The Nu Zooland coast became a grey blur beneath their feet in the front of the bubble cockpit, grey cliffs harried by seagulls and smashed by waves giving way to lush fields and deeply forested slopes. The Mercury dropped behind slightly and allowed the Adonis to surge ahead, presenting a long, extended V-line, the Nashville Narcissus at the spearhead. They were shaking out into bombing positions. Enemy territory was beneath. To be brought down over Nu Zooland homeland meant death or worse - rape, torture and degradation in the work camps, or three-year cycles of four pregnancies in the baby factories. All of which served to sharpen the wits and the resolve of every woman who took to the skies in an effort to beat these barbarians, whether her hands were on aircraft sticks, bomb releasers or cannon triggers. The shock of capture would be immense - from the hot, noisy womb of the B-99 with all its sharp, comforting defensive weaponry, to the reality of broken ribs and legs dangling from a smashed ejection pod deep in a pine forest, with angry men gathering ten metres below, weapons raised. The sound of tearing parachute silk and the hard-ons already stirring in khaki groins. just waiting for you to hit the ground........

“We’re being irradiated.” Cleo: calm, business-like, noticing the softly-flashing alarm light before it had even blinked twice. “Over-the-horizon radar bouncers. Routine sweeps, nothing to worry about.”

“Initiate countermeasures,” Helena ordered. “Better safe than sorry.” She keyed the transmit on her throat mike. “Narcissus, Mercury, this is Adonis. Be aware we are being watched out of one eye. The giant is still asleep. Proceed with caution.”

The laconic voice of Captain Whilma, crew commander of the Nashville Narcissus, came back :

“Way ahead of you, Adonis, but thanks for the tip. Initiating countermeasures. Suggest all aircraft follow suit.”

Captain Marina, Minnesota Mercury :

“Muchos Gracias. My navigator is asleep, silly bitch. Countermeasures on.”

The flight began to take a southeasterly heading, hugging the craggy fjords of Nu Zooland’s north eastern coast. Each aircraft danced back and forth in a long, loose line, dodging imaginary antiaircraft fire, providing hard targets for any gun emplacements situated in these densely wooded coastal areas. No opposition was expected this far north of the targets, as it was unusual for an attacking flight to use this route. The flightpath that took them over thousands of kilometres of open ocean in a great south-westerly arc from the Island before coming in on the major population centres from the western coast, was now heavily defended and fortified by specially-designed gunboats patrolling the Taz Sea, equipped with dedicated antiaircraft weaponry suites. Some flights of Bouddicca Squadron would attack that way today. Their time over hostile territory would be limited (although time over deep shark-infested ocean would increase), but some of them would pay the heaviest price of all.

“Coming up on missile release point,” Cleo reported evenly. Helena keyed the intercom.

“Cockpit to Bombardier. Prepare for missile launch. Watch for beacon signal.”

“Roger that, Boss. Fly, little birds, fly!”

The launcher, retracted after its earlier test so as to not interfere with aerodynamics, dropped once again into its battle position. Roma rotated the launcher until the dud missile was in the launch position, then ran the ignition test again. Nothing. Cursing, she moved the unruly missile to the last position on the carousel, and settled a functioning, obedient one in its place.

Patiently, she watched her screens for signs of the beacon that the Nashville Narcissus would trigger once they were over the designated launch zone. Via shifted restlessly above her. Roma put her hand to her warm crotch and Via purred.

A bank of lights illuminated across Roma’s screens.

“Come to Mama,” she breathed, pinching Via’s inner thigh. Via squealed. “Auntie Roma’s Patented Population Control, do your demonic stuff.”

The launcher whirred and revolved and missiles tumbled away from their electromagnetic cradles, stubby wings flicking out to stabilise after a few seconds of freefall, turbos kicking in and sending them streaking away from the B-99’s hull on software preprogrammed flight patterns, nine little birds of prey leaving the nest and going off to hunt for the first time, never to return. In the cockpit, the flight crew felt the nose rise as the weight halved in the bomb bay and they watched the missiles burning away on long vapour trails, joining the batteries fired simultaneously from the Narcissus and the Mercury. The Mercury’s passed overhead and below, disconcertingly close. For a few minutes it looked as if a squadron of between twenty and thirty long, thin planes was forming up ahead of the Narcissus as the missiles converged, microcomputers double triple quadruple checking coordinates and recognising terrain features, before turning away on a multitude of different headings, like some fantastic airshow stunt by an aerobatic team.

“Mine eyes have seen the glory,” Thea murmured, transfixed by the sight.

“You can keep your cannon fire, girl,” Roma shouted at Via. “Guided missiles is where it’s at! Did you see that? Oh Lord.......”

The Adonis lurched suddenly as Helena threw him into a steep dive, following the Nashville Narcissus’ lead, heading for the pine-clad hills below. The mission profile was hi-lo-hi - a high transit to the missile release point, a low-level, terrain-hugging, radar-avoiding transit to the freefall target, followed by a high-level pop-up to precision bomb. Machismo was situated in a deep valley bowl surrounded on three sides by high mountains, making the approach a little less hazardous. But there were early warning stations studding the coast and particularly along the mountain ridges guarding the valley. And there was always the threat of the dreaded Black Bats.

In practice, the early stages of a low-level flight were as easy to automate as high-level transit, leaving Helena free to concentrate on a message she had just received from Great Mother that had caused her brow to crease with worry. Later, as they avoided flak and missiles, it would take superhuman concentration and human hands on the sticks.

Helena keyed the intercom once she had digested the message from Great Mother. She had made some notes on her thighpad.

“Cockpit to all crew. Intelligence reports from the forward flights already over target are indicate high levels of AA fire and SAM batteries.”

“No kidding?” muttered Thea.

“Reports also indicate presence of Stealth fighters. Yes, the Black Bats are back, girls. Via, Octavia, you hear that?”

Via : “Ready and willing.”

Octavia : “Bring it on, boys. Octavia’s gonna bag her a Batman.”

“That’s the spirit. Atomic Adonis forever, yeah?”

“Atomic Adonis forever!” they chorused down the intercom. It brought a lump to Helena’s throat.

“Alright. Let’s go to work. Full flak protection. I know it’s hot. No bitching, just do it. Combat intercom discipline from now on. Cockpit out.”

The girls observed the discipline of intercom silence but cursed to themselves as they dragged hinged sections of kevlar plating from underneath seats and fitted them into chest, back, groin and thigh pockets on their flight suits, turning them into hot, sweaty armoured knights. Helmets were donned, chrome anti-flash and (in the case of Cleo and Helena) Hyperreality visors lowered, and throat mikes swiftly swapped for the helmet-mounted ones. Finally, mesh spall nets mounted on roller blinds and designed to minimise the shrapnel effect of explosions were pulled down around each flight station, cocooning each crew member in a flexible cubicle of semi-opaque kevlar netting. Even in the cramped cockpit, the spall nets induced a feeling of isolation. The heat was becoming unbearable - Thea snuffled and sweated in the corner under the restrictive weight of the extra protection.

In her lonely tail pod, Octavia unzipped her flight suit and slipped the powered dildo inside. Thea wouldn’t notice a small power anomaly during combat, she reasoned, as the vibrator slid home. She gasped as it powered up. It was simply too good an opportunity to miss. The combination of air-to-air combat and the power dildo - Oh Man! Vibrations shuddered pleasurably up and down her thighs as she swung the turret around, sweeping the sky. Nothing was going to get past her today.

“The Narcissus is entering the target zone,” Helena intoned over the intercom. Ahead, the grey cross of the Narcissus had pulled up from its tree-skimming and was banking steeply toward the summit of the mountain range below. It was late afternoon - the sun was a red ball to the west, dipping into the horizon. They would turn as they entered Machismo’s valley and make their bombing run, traditionally, coming out of the setting sun. Symbolic and practical.

“Pilot and navigator to Hyperreal mode,” Helena said, and hers and Cleo’s worlds turned to a kaleidoscope of animated colours on the inside of their visors, a graphic threat, terrain and target program replacing their normal vision. The mountains and plains were pastel colours, undulating contours, gentle, non-threatening. Anti-aircraft emplacements on the mountainsides were angry red pyramids or domes, their pinnacles representing accurate range or danger zones. Radar stations or tracking sensors were pink blobs, winking slowly - threatening but offering no immediate danger. Narcissus was a blue arrow to their front. Helena disliked Hyperreal flying - she felt it was artificial and disembodied. But standard operating procedures were standard operating procedures. The display flickered and tracking lines flashed across it. Helena made some minor adjustments and initiated the sequence that would seal off the vulnerable cockpit bubble with the externally-mounted blast hoods. All human vision out of the cockpit would cease. She heard the hoods close with a satisfying thump.

Soundlessly, puffs of smoke began to appear around the Narcissus wings, little black clouds appearing from nowhere, translated into Hyperreal terms as bursting shards of black triangles. Almost immediately the Narcissus began to fly erratically, jiggling its huge wings, and ejecting streams of bright silver chaff and burning flares from its wingtip, fuselage and tail pods, decoys for missiles and confusing signatures for radars.

Helena followed the Narcissus’ flight path as they cleared the mountain range by what seemed like a hair’s breadth, text warnings flashing up in the periphery of her vision in Hyperreal 3D. And there they were, 2,000 feet over the valley of Machismo, heart of Nu Zooland’s military might, a vast gridded complex spread out below them like a little boy’s toy town.

“Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred,” quoted Roma, watching multiple views on her display screens - bombardiers had yet to be absorbed into the Hyppereal web. Fires burned and smoke drifted from the ground as a result of earlier bombing attacks - Bouddicca Squadron appeared to be doing well today. At this altitude, Roma was spared the sight of dead B-99s already shot down, littering the landscape. “Cannon in front of them volleyed and thundered.”

“Yea though I walk in the shadow of the Valley of Death,” retorted Via, looking down from the turret at Roma’s manic grinning face below her, “I will fear no evil, for I am the meanest motherfucker ever to walk in the Valley.”

“You said it girl. Give me a kiss.”

It was impossible with the helmets on, and Via should really have been eyeballing the darkening sky, but she dropped momentarily into Roma’s space and gave her a brief affectionate nuzzle.

“Taking some interest,” Helena reported nonchalantly. Black triangles burst around them. Buffeted by shockwaves, the Adonis powered through them. Shrapnel pattered the hull like hailstones. Thea’s spall net flexed and caught a piece of armour that had scabbed off close to her head. Thea did not notice her close decapitation, she was too rapt in the mind-numbing array of gauges and displays in front of her as she monitored the four engines, electrical systems and avionics, all put under unimaginable stress by Helena’s evasive manoeuvring. Thea imagined she could hear the Adonis protesting in the sudden violent displays of red-lined needles and overload warnings. She stroked her console reassuringly.

“There, there,” she said. “Thea’s here to take care of you. There, there. Good boy.”

“Cockpit.” Helena’s voice clear and calm. The centre of the storm, holding them all together. “Bombardier, report.”

“Thirty seconds to release point,” Roma came back quickly. “Doors open, mixed payload ready. You want I should dump the evidence?”

“Not yet. Save the dud for a target of opportunity on the way back.”

“Roger that. Twenty seconds.”

The aircraft shuddered to the noise of cannon fire. The intercom crackled into life, buzzing madly.

“Tail gunner! Tail gunner! They’re all over us! Oh glory be! This is a fine, fine day!”

Via spun in her cockpit and saw nothing but Octavia’s guns streaming tracer into space.

“What is it, Octavia? What are your firing at?”

“Black Bats! Dozens of them!”

“I can’t see them! I can’t see them!”

“Coming up below! Watch your six! WATCH YOUR SIX!”

Via gasped as three Black Bats, grey bellies visible, shot up from the tail of the Adonis, ascending vertically on afterburners in a V-formation. Octavia’s tracers swept after them but they were almost instantly out of her elevation envelope. Via was initially too shocked to take over as Octavia’s guns returned to firing downwards.

“Wake up, girl!” Octavia remonstrated. “Roma - stop distracting Via - she’s got a job to do.”

Via sent a few half-hearted volleys after the stealth fighters which had carved away from the flight and were traversing the valley, preparing for another attacking run. Via was hyper-ventilating, excited.

“Where are they?” Cleo asked, a note of panic in her voice. She swung her head around wildly, scanning the Hyperreal environment for signs of the Black Bats.

“They’re absorbing our mapping radar,” Helena said, flipping her visor up and reluctantly raising the blast hoods. She saw the three Bats across the valley. She suddenly felt very vulnerable in the glass bubble. “Go to visual, Cleo. It ain’t working.”

“Roger.”

“Cockpit to tail gunner. Three Bats ain’t dozens, Octavia,” Helena chided. “Remember combat discipline. Give me an accurate report.”

“If you don’t believe me, Boss,” Octavia replied, a professionally offended note in her voice, “then check your feet.”

Helena and Cleo looked down. Through the clear floor of the bubble cockpit a formation of Black Bats were sweeping by, discernible as distinct flights of two aircraft each as they peeled away and began climbing to engage the bombers. A pair passed between the Adonis and the Narcissus, ascending vertically as the others had, so close that Helena could see black-suited pilots in the cockpits, insectoid helmets gleaming. It was said that Black Bat pilots were limbless cyborgs jacked permanently into flight systems. No one knew for sure - no one had ever captured a flyer, as Black Bats were never risked away from home territory.

“Fifteen seconds,” Roma reported.

“The Narcissus is taking a mauling,” Cleo whispered, glancing up from her countermeasures console. Streams of flares and chaff ejected at the waft of her fingertips. In the open sky ahead, the Narcissus had taken a flak strike that had knocked out the inner starboard engine. Her flight path was erratic and she was being harried by the two Black Bats that had come between her and the Adonis. Only her midgunner was returning fire - the tail gun was silent, the lower cannon drooping mournfully over the tail planes, the turret shattered by flak. The flight’s first casualty.

“We must help them,” Cleo said, reaching for the air-to-air missile controls. Each B-99 carried two Viper Air-to-Air missiles for use against other bombers or fighters. Helena’s hand snaked across and grabbed Cleo’s wrist without taking her eyes off the battle.

“You know the rules, Cleo,” Helena said. “We carry Vipers for personal protection only. Over the target, everyone’s one their own.”

As she spoke, a Black Bat made a strafing run along the Narcissus with railgun fire, approaching from beneath like a marauding shark, too close and out of the traverse envelope of the remaining gunner. The Narcissus’ side opened up like a tin can and she gouted flame from ruptured fuel lines. The big aircraft lurched over on her starboard side and plunged into a sickening, spiralling dive. A body tumbled from the split fuselage and spun away, no sign of a parachute. Her midguns chattered for a final time and fell silent.

“Oh Lord.” Thea, fist in mouth.

The Adonis entered the Narcissus’ slipstream. There was a wet thump as a mix of aviation fuel and blood splashed across the cockpit bubble, evaporating almost instantly into thin pink smears by the integral heaters.

They watched the Narcissus spin downwards in silence for a few long seconds. Cleo broke the silence.

“Why don’t they eject?”

Helena keyed the transmit.

“Narcissus, Whilma, this is Helena. Eject for Mother’s sake, eject!”

The line crackled in reply. The voice was distant, but recognisably laconic. Captain Whilma.

“No can do, Atomic Adonis. Lost my right leg. Nav’s dead, engineer’s disappeared. Ain’t no one left but me. Don’t want to be no cripple. Ain’t gonna make no babies for Nu Zooland either! Nashville Narcissus for-”

Her last words were terminated by the Nashville Narcissus ending his death-dive in the middle of a Machismo compound, a fiery explosion detonating and rippling upwards in blossoming orange mushroom cloud. He had received the fatal blow seconds before his bomb drop and had crashed with a full load. Roma watched the resultant fireball and the crater it left behind through her bombardier cameras.

“Nashville Narcissus forever,” she whispered. She knew them all personally, a couple of them intimately. She would toast their memories and hang her head in silence for a minute in their honour tonight in the Vulvarine Club, and paste their photos behind the bulging perspex board in the bar where those who didn’t make it back could be seen smiling out from crew photoshoots or drunken parties or bikinied romps on the beach. Forever young.

“Bombardier. Five seconds.”

“Roger that. We are now lead aircraft.” And that was enough mourning.

Via and Octavia’s eight cannon rocked the Atomic Adonis. The drumbeats merged then diverged, merged then diverged, Via’s steady one-banana two-banana three-banana four (she muttered this mantra as her fingers opened and closed on the triggers, just as she had been taught in gunnery school) contrasting with Octavia’s short chaotic bursts followed by seemingly endless fusillades that threatened to overheat her barrels and chambers and preignite the ammunition - a potentially disastrous occurrence. Her firing rhythm was dictated by the hawk-like swoops of the Black Bats and the tidal ebbs of her power-assisted orgasms. Her whoops and yells went unheard over the closed intercom channel.

“Bombardier. Bombs away!”

The Adonis nose lifted dramatically as the massive load of iron bombs plummeted from the bomb bay. Their target, cross-haired in Roma’s displays, was the Black Bats’ airfield and the adjacent military deepwater port. The bombload contained munitions that would crater the runway then leave tiny mines to hamper engineers during rebuilding, and aquatic devices that would sink to the bottom of the harbour, awaiting triggering by the passage of a warship above. Then there was simply tons and tons of pure high explosive to pulverise concrete bunkers, destroy armoured vehicles and helicopter gunships, ammunition, fuel and supplies, and purpose-built nasties to flay the skin from human beings with jellied napalm. Roma let it all go and whooped with glee.

“All gone. Just one little indiscretion left. Let’s head for home!” Roma hugged Via’s ample thighs with delight. Via reached down and pinched her cheek.

Helena dragged the Atomic Adonis hard to port in a gut-wrenching g-inducing turn, almost pivoting on a wingtip. Behind them, harried by another pair of Black Bats, the Minnesota Mercury was dropping her bombs, her gunners keeping the Bats at arms’ length with furious tracer fire. The Mercury, pursued by the two Bats, climbed into a cloud bank once free of her bomb load. From her tail position, Octavia watched her go, waiting for her to break through and join the Adonis in retreat. The B-99 never emerged from the cloud. Neither did the Black Bats.

“Tail gun to cockpit. Boss, do you have the Mercury on your screens?”

Helena examined a display. She caught her breath.

“Cockpit to tailgun. Negative, Octavia. Did you see where she went down? Did anyone eject? Was there a pod? A chute?”

Octavia knuckled her eyes. Surely she could not have imagined it? She turned off the vibrator reverentially.

“Tail gun to cockpit. Uh, negative, Boss. Just flew into a cloud and........ I know this sounds crazy, but she just disappeared. Two Bats along with her. Just never came out.”

Helena started to say something but was cut off as two pairs of stealth fighters made strafing runs straight toward them, the lead fighters appearing to slide along the B-99’s fuselage, they were so close. Machismo was receding beneath them, and the coast beckoned to the west. The sun was bleeding into the horizon, a burning beacon signalling the way home.

The hull shook with the impact of railgun fire. Spall nets spattered with armour scabs. Helena threw the aircraft into a twisting, turning dive.

“I got four more Bats on visual,” Cleo reported. “SAM launches too. We’re locked on.”

She looked across at Helena. The familiar cool, calm exterior, but in her eyes was a wild fear. Cleo had never seen it there before. It scared her. If Helena, the beautiful, brave Helena was scared, what hope was there for the rest of them?

The aircraft juddered with incoming and outgoing fire. Roma was choking on the fumes from Via’s gun, Via was high as a kite, Octavia was singing and squirming in her chair, her dildo back on. Roma struggled to fix the overheated extractor fan with a Swiss army knife, pulling her oxygen mask on in the meantime.

Helena watched a huge missile, as big as a B-99’s wing, climbing toward them. There was a calmness about her, Cleo though reassuringly, but those eyes, those eyes........

“Cockpit to all crew. Brace for impact!” Helena barked into the intercom, hands suddenly white-knuckled on the sticks. Cleo tucked her head between her knees. Thea reached for the ejection pod handle.

“I got one!” screamed Octavia, orgasmic, as a Black Bat gouted flame and tumbled, fatally swatted, from the sky. “I got one I got one I got one!”

The missile loomed past the cockpit, blotting out the sky. Helena pulled hard on the sticks. Cleo wet herself. Thea gripped the handle and prayed.

The missile did not hit them but was proximity fused and exploded close by. The Atomic Adonis was raked with shrapnel from stem to stern. The cockpit bubble ruptured and disintegrated and Helena found herself sitting over empty sky, her feet dangling into the abyss, nothing between her and the wooded mountain slopes below. She sucked on thin icy air, numbing her lungs after the heat of the pressurised cabin. With stiff fingers she pulled an oxygen mask on to the helmet studs and banged it home.

She glanced around the cockpit. Cleo looked up at her, fumbling with her own mask. There were bloodstains and ripped suit in her lap but she looked otherwise intact. Helena looked behind her. Thea’s station was empty. There was no seat, no floor mountings, no Thea. The explosion had ripped her bodily from the cockpit, and flung her into space as if she had never even existed.

“Cockpit to all crew. Status report.”

“Bombardier. Via’s in my lap, bad wounds to chest and stomach. Bleeding all over me. Got oxygen. We’re hanging on in there.”

“Are her guns operational?”

Roma looked up. The blister was gone but the weapons suite looked intact.

“I think so. I’d have to try ‘em.”

“Do it.”

“I can’t leave her!”

“Apply some pressure bandages and morphine and grab those guns, Roma. Otherwise we all die.”

Roma was silent, angry. Via was her lover, who the fuck was Helena to order her to leave her to bleed to death on the cold fuselage floor? She was about to key the intercom when something splashed against her leg, rolling from the direction of the tail turret. She looked down. Octavia’s head looked up at her, eyes wide open, face locked in a grotesque parody of a final moment of pleasure. lood ran in a sticky black river down the crawlspace.

“That’s an order, Roma,” Helena warned.

Helena was right. Roma was their sole defence now, apart from the Viper AA missiles, but out on the vulnerable wing pylons they would have borne the brunt of any explosion. She clambered in to Via’s seat. The wind ripped at her face, threatening to tear her mask off. She settled into the swivelling chair and assumed the natural position behind the guns, hands on the grips. Via smiled weakly up at her. Roma put a few bursts in the direction of a Black Bat that had come in for the kill, causing it to veer sharply away and abandon its attack.

“Mid gun to cockpit. Roma here. Guns a-ok. Tail gun kaput, tho’. Tail gunner too.”

A moment’s silence from Helena.

“At least she took one down with her. Keep your eyes peeled, Roma. Cockpit out.”

Helena turned back to her instruments. Warning lights flashed like fireworks. She was momentarily confused and shut her eyes for a long five seconds.

“Navigator. Status report.” Over the roar of the wind.

“I love you, Helena.”

“What?”

“I said I love you. I’ve always loved you. There’s no use me hiding it anymore. I know it’s forbidden between cockpit crew but-”

“Cleo, what the fuck are you talking about? Give me a status report, NOW!”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we? I have to tell you before we die, I think you’re very beautiful, and very brave.”

Helena leaned across and pulled Cleo’s oxygen mask from her mouth. Cleo leaned forward, smiling an idiot’s smile, the smile of a pleased child, and shut her eyes, as if expecting a kiss. Helena punched her soundly in the mouth, splitting her lip and knocking out two teeth.

“Navigator. Status report.”

Cleo, stunned, spat out teeth and blood and reseated the mask. She looked at her instruments through a veil of tears.

“Hull integrity breached in a dozen places. Fuel lines ruptured, we’re losing twenty litres a minute. Numbers two and four engines failed, three is about to seize.”

“What you’re trying to say is, we’re fucked.”

“Yes. We don’t have enough fuel even to reach international waters. We’ll have to ditch in Taz Bay.”

“That’s all I wanted to know. Now, what were you trying to tell me?”

Cleo knuckled the tears from her eyes and probed her sore gum gingerly with the tip of her tongue.

“Nothing. It was nothing.”

Helena keyed the intercom.

“Cockpit to midgun. Roma, is the fuselage escape pod operational?”

Roma looked around her. The integrity of the iris doors and the unit that would seal off the pod and eject it from the aircraft looked as if it had survived the explosion.

“Looks ok. Only one way to find out. What you got planned?”

Helena took a deep breath.

“Gonna send Cleo back to you. I want you, Cleo and Via to eject over Taz Bay. There’s a liferaft and survival gear in the pod, you might evade capture long enough for some of our own people to come in and get you.”

Roma swung around, tracer fire sweeping after a marauding stealth fighter. She found it hard to talk and shoot at the same time. She took a glance down at Via before keying the intercom. Her heart leapt to her throat.

“Via’s dead. And just what do you plan to do, Captain? Go down with your ship?”

“Exactly. There’s a cruise in the bay. I’m going to take out the target that the Narcissus didn’t reach. Alone. Cleo’s coming down to you.”

“Cleo’s going nowhere,” said Cleo, weakly.

“What? Don’t you recognise an order when you hear one?” Helena ripped her own mask angrily from her face. Cleo looked at her with sad eyes.

“I would if I could. I can’t move.”

She lifted back a loose flap of padded flight suit and kevlar plating that covered her lap. There wasn’t much blood, and they were still grotesquely in position, but her legs had been neatly severed mid-thigh. Cleo’s face was deathly white.

Helena gagged. She struggled to regain her composure.

“Cockpit here. Cleo’s staying with me. Bang out, Roma, leave us to it. We’re almost over the bay.”

Roma snorted into the intercom, as the last of the ammunition cycled through the guns. The Black Bats circled cautiously, like lions surrounding a wounded wildebeest.

“And end up as some Nu Zooland baby whore? No thanks. You should know me better than that, Helena. Me of all people. A fate worse than death. Now you just turn this old man around and get us back over that fucking Hell on Earth, and let’s try and get one thing right today.”

“There’s no need for you to die, Roma,” Helena protested. “Bang out and take your chances. That’s an order.”

Roma paused and contemplated a suitable reply.

“Fuck you. You’d better turn around quick or we won’t have enough fuel to reach the target. I’m swimming in the stuff down here.”

Helena pivoted the Atomic Adonis on its starboard wingtip in a long lazy turn, the remaining engine screaming in protest. Oily black smoke streamed from it and its dead counterparts. It was barely holding the B-99 in the air.

The Black Bats continued to strafe and harrie, redoubling their efforts as the mid gun fell silent and the aircraft made the suicidal turn back over the target. Ground controllers screamed abuse at Black Bat pilots to bring the last bomber down, as they realised what was happening.

Helena watched her instruments coolly, finding some small refuge from the terror of impending death in a professional evaluation of the state of the aircraft. The fuel, airspeed and altitude indicators were all falling. The great sprawl of Machismo loomed before them, filling their view as Cleo weakly fed Helena the coordinates of the Narcissus’ designated target area. Helena adjusted the heading, then reached across and entwined the fingers of her left hand with those of Cleo’s right. Eyes smiled behind masks.

“What were you trying to say to me?”

Cleo’s eyes, the light failing, dying. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter anymore. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.” Her grip relaxed on Helena’s hand, and she died.

Impact was no more than twenty seconds away. As they entered a steep dive, Helena felt as if she were tied to the front of a medieval battering ram that was about to slam into the castle gates. The last engine failed and there was an eerie silence, save for the roar of the divine wind.

Roma, over the intercom: “There’s something I want you to know.”

Helena, tired : “Not you as well.”

“We’d have gone great together, you and me. I would have had you eventually, you know. You’re familiar with my rule of thumb-”

“I know. Maybe you would have been right. Who knows?”

“See you on the other side, Boss?”

“I’ll be waiting. God speed, Roma.”

The kamikaze attack of B-99 AA007 Atomic Adonis destroyed the headquarters of the Nu Zooland military command, situated in a previously-considered ‘impregnable’ bunker thirty metres underground. The combined collateral damage of the Bouddicca Squadron’s bombing raids on Nu Zooland that day was far in excess of the enemy’s defence budget for that year of the long war. But a price was paid. Out of the thirty B-99s that left the Island that sunny day, only seven returned.

Great Mother watches the replacement crews giggle and tease each other as they unpack and settle in the barracks. Finding the personal belongings of one hundred and thirty eight missing women still in lockers, under bunks and on the floor sobers them momentarily, as do the already-fading crew photos tacked to the wall.

These new ones look so young, Great Mother reflects sadly. Tomorrow the new aircraft, the B-2000 uprated using captured technology, will arrive, and then the job will begin of moulding these girls into bomber crews.

Until then, Great Mother envies their youth, and cherishes their ignorance.

(c) ankh 2000