"Tex, pull up!" I yelled into the radio of my Hughes Devastator, seeing an enemy pilot close on the tail of Tex's machine, trying to force her down into a crossfire from some other planes climbing up toward us. Our little raid on the zep carrying payments meant for the mid-western People's Collective was turning out to be a lot more complicated than I'd originally planned. Right then and there being the leader of the Fortune Hunters wasn't the easiest job in the world.
"I can't shake him, boss!" came Tex's southern drawl over the radio. I was already veering in toward her machine and, more importantly, toward the Defender that was on her tail. It was an ungainly plane, with a tail that looked like it was held on by a popsicle stick (which, knowing a little about Marquette Airworks, the only plane-maker in the Collective, might have been the case). But the swept-back wings carried a pair of Czech-made .50 caliber cannons, along with a .30 caliber machine gun, giving the Defender plenty of punch, although the four .40 cals mounted on the wings of my Devastator were nothing to sneeze at.
I banked to the right and slipped in behind the Defender as it tried to draw a bead on Tex. Tracer rounds from its machine guns burned through the air toward Tex's plane. But she was zigging and zagging around enough that the pilot couldn't get a solid hit on her. He was focused almost entirely on nailing his target to the exclusion of everything else, his mistake. Keeping an eye on the sky around me, I got the Defender lined up in my sights and hit the firing stud for my machine guns.
The .40 cals roared to life, bright tracers cutting through the few hundred yards of air between my plane and my target. I was rewarded with a thin streamer of white smoke from the tail of the Defender was my rounds cut into him. He was certainly aware of me now, but it didn't make much difference. He kept heading on the same course as before and it quickly became clear that I'd damaged his rudder because he couldn't turn properly. I saw him head straight away from the fight area, smoke streaming behind him like a white flag.
"Thanks, chief," Tex's voice crackled over the radio.
"Think nothin' of it," I replied. "Now, let's get the rest of these sell-outs out of the air, Fortune Hunters, and call it a day." I banked around and headed back toward the zeppelin that was vainly trying to get away from us, like an elephant trying to outrun a pack of hungry lions. It didn't have a prayer of outrunning us, it's only hope was for its erstwhile defenders to drive us off, and that wasn't going to happen as long as I had something to say about it.
Thing was, the People's Collective used to be easy pickings for pirate bands. The states of the Collective didn't have any native air industry when they broke away from the Union in the early '30s. The People's Militias held out well enough against Federal troops and the neighboring ISA, but their air power was sorely lacking. That's where the Defenders came from, built by a crash design and construction program in Iowa. Then, of course, once the Collective built them, they had to find pilots to fly 'em. They started out training volunteers, in what turned out to be a real "crash-course" program, but then they started hitting upon an idea that could have come from one of their Sunday morning, fire-and-brimstone pulpits; why not fight fire with fire?
That's when the Collective started hiring mercenaries to defend their borders, bringing them in with promises of a safe haven, new machines, and the chance to shoot down as many of the opposition as they wanted, settling plenty of old scores. They didn't get a lot of takers, for some strange reason mercenaries and pirates weren't all that interested in settling out in "God's country", but it was enough. The planes we were taking on sure as hell weren't Collective Militia regulars. They knew too many of the tricks and flew too well to have been trained out in some cornfield. Nope, these pilots were some of our own kind, working from the idea that you use a pirate to stop a pirate. Right at the moment, it was looking like a pretty sound idea.
I recognized the markings on the wings of the dark blue Defenders as belonging to a band calling themselves the Dust Devils, no relation to the Dusters, some of the Collective's legitimate militia. There were six of us and eight - no, make that seven - of them. We'd been expecting a much smaller welcoming committee guarding the Guiding Star, and dealing with the Dust Devils was slowing us down. We had to wrap things up and take the zeppelin before the Collective could get its own militia in the air to help out their hired hands.
"Jack-o, you still with me?" I asked my wingman, Jack Mulligan.
"Right behind you, boss," he said.
"Great. Let's wrap this thing up." I banked to come around the side of the Collective zeppelin and climbed, gaining altitude while I was briefly out of sight of the Dust Devil planes. Jack stayed right with me as we passed over the top of the zeppelin's silvery surface, almost close enough to reach down and touch it. Coming up over the top, I looked down at the dogfight going on below before diving down into the thick of things.
I got one of the Devils in my sights as I dropped down toward him, keeping an eye out for his friends. I closed the distance a bit more to make it a clean shot before I opened up on him with my machine guns. He tried to veer off at the last moment and, rather than putting the rounds directly through his tail as I'd intended, they cut through his left wing instead. I saw fragments of it chewed away before the end of the wing was blown off and the Defender started to go into a spiraling dive toward the ground more than 15,000 feet below. Instead of panicking and hitting the silk like I would have expected, the pilot managed to get his machine under control and started limping westward at an altitude of around 8,000 feet. If he was any good he'd be able to land his machine, but he was out of this fight.
I saw Tex and Buck working together as only they could to take down another of the Defenders. The two of them made a great team and the Defender's pilot hardly knew what hit him. One second he thought he had Buck firmly in his sights and the next Buck's machine flipped up into a reverse while Tex's came out of nowhere to catch the Devil in a cross-fire that send it spiraling down toward the ground, trailing smoke and flames. There was no way the pilot of that machine was getting it under control. But he did manage to hit the silk, his chute spreading out to carry him to the ground a lot more gently than his plane, which plummeted like a brick.
That shifted the odds in our favor, with three of the eight Dust Devil planes out of the fight, leaving only five to our six, and our Devastators were better planes compared to the Defenders. But the Devils didn't give up easily. Even outnumbered, they kept right on fighting when I expected them to pull back. I didn't think the People's Collective could be paying them that much, but I understood loyalty, even if it was misplaced.
As I banked back toward the fight around the zeppelin one of the Defenders headed straight for me. It was a daring maneuver and I wasn't about to be the first to turn away from the challenge. We drew closer and closer, then the pilot of the Defender opened up with his guns about the same time I threw my machine to the side, dipping my right wing so I flew almost sideways. The rounds slipped past me on either side, with only a few sparking off my wings as I kept flying right at the Defender. Sure enough, the pilot banked hard to swerve away before we could collide, exposing his plane's belly to me as I righted mine and thumbed the firing button.
The .40 caliber rounds cut right through the armor on the underside of the Defender, where it was weakest, and the plane went into a tailspin, dropping out of control toward the ground thousands of feet below. The plane didn't look too badly damaged, so I guessed that I'd managed to hit the pilot.
"When you get to the ground," I said, "tell 'em Nathan Zachary sent you!" Then I banked off and looked around to see what else was going on, when the radio crackled again.
"Could use some help over here!" Tiny said, "Anybody free?"
I looked around and spotted Tiny's plane, on the run from one of the remaining Defenders. It looked like Tiny and his wingman Big John were tied up in a dogfight with two of the remaining four Defenders and they were taking some of the worst of it. I opened up my throttle and headed for them, picking up my radio mike.
"Hang on, Tiny," I said, "help's on the way!"
Tiny kept trying to shake the Defender but the enemy pilot knew his stuff and his plane was lighter and more maneuverable, letting him stick with Tiny like glue. I was closing in, but still out of range for my .40 cals. Tiny dove and rolled, banked and looped, but the Dust Devil was right behind him, closing up the gap. He waited until he was practically on top of Tiny before opening up with his big .50 caliber cannons.
"Tiny!" I called, but it was too late to warn him. The rounds tore into his tail and sent pieces of it flying before chewing their way up the fuselage of his Devastator. He made an attempt to swerve, but not before several rounds shattered the canopy of his cockpit and I saw the Devastator list to the side, roll over, and go into a spin, trailing dark smoke from its broken tail.
"Sonnova" I closed in with the Dust Devil and opened up with my own guns, but my approach was too obvious, and the Defender banked and climbed, easily avoiding my fire from such a distance. I glanced back down at the rapidly dropping Devsatator.
"C'mon, Tiny, c'mon," I muttered. "Bail out." But there was no white blossoming of a parachute, no sign that Tiny was even able to escape from his falling plane. I suspected one of the rounds that shattered his canopy did him in. At least, that's what I hope. Dying in a crash isn't one of the best ways to go, although taking a bullet isn't one of my personal favorites, either.
I turned my attention back to the Defender that was climbing up above me, trying to gain some altitude for a diving attack, no doubt. But I wasn't about to give him the opportunity. I gunned my engine and started to climb and bank, following the Defender's own climb. The Defender was lighter and faster, but it didn't have the horsepower of my Devastator, or as high a ceiling, so climbing to gain the advantage on me was about the worst thing he could have done. We were a good distance above the zeppelin when the Dust Devil started to hit his ceiling but I kept on climbing, gaining a little height before getting him in might sights.
The Defender's pilot started diving back down, taking us toward the zep and the rest of the fight, but I stayed right with him. When it came to diving, my heavier machine still had an edge and I started to line up the Defender in my sights. Still he seemed like he wasn't making much of an effort to shake me. More like he was just trying to get me to follow him until
I threw the stick sharp to the left and brought up my right wing just as a chatter of gunfire sounded behind me. Most of the rounds streaked past me, with a few hitting my plane's heavy fuselage armor and sparking off the right wing. There was another Defender coming in behind me, he must have looped around to help out his friend while I was climbing after him. If I hadn't moved at that moment, his rounds probably would have found their way to my cockpit or engine instead of just burning my tail.
I was about to give up on the Defender I was chasing to turn and face this newcomer when Big John's voice came over the radio. "I've got the one on your tail, boss, go get that other one!" Then I saw John's plane come screaming in, pushing his engine to its limits as he zoomed between me and the other Defender, guns opening up and forcing my pursuer to break off or fly right into the line of fire. I silently thanked Big John and re-focused my attention on the Defender in front of me, who seemed surprised by the sudden turn of events.
He began trying to evade in earnest this time, but I stuck with him. Still, he was starting to pull ahead of me and I knew his machine could outrun and probably outmaneuver me, assuming I gave him the opportunity. I took a chance and lined up the best shot I could make, opening up on him with my guns and watching as he veered a moment too late and the rounds shattered his tail assembly into a smoking ruin.
The Defender kept diving, although he did his best to use his wing flaps to try and pull out of his dive. It gave him enough time to pop the canopy and bail out as the silvery cigar shape of the zeppelin grew larger and larger in the distance. As the pilot dropped away from the plane, I glanced from the Defender toward the zeppelin and back again.
"Oh, hell," I muttered as the pilot's chute opened. I dove after the Defender and grabbed the radio.
"Everybody get away from the zep!" I said. I opened fire on the Defender again, hoping I could damage it enough to knock if off course. I tore up part of its wing but it was too little, too late. Maybe a rocket
"Boss, you're getting too close!" Jack said over the radio. "Pull up!"
I pulled back hard on the stick and watched helplessly as the Defender screamed into the side of the zeppelin. There was a crunching and tearing sound as the plane impacted with the fabric and framework of the airship. Then there was a moment of almost preternatural calm as I prayed that the Collective's poor relations with Texas (and pretty much every other part of North America) didn't mean what I thought it meant. Please let them be using helium, I thought. Please.
A fireball blossomed from the side of the zeppelin, answering my worst fears and a mighty explosion shook the air, sending my Devastator into a roll as flames shot from all sides of the crippled zeppelin. Her other gas-bags caught in the explosion and several more dull booms followed the first. In moments, the entire zep was an inferno, dropping out of the sky like a shooting star.
I managed to right my plane and watched as the burning zeppelin went down, taking with it all our profits from this little adventure, and making it certain that the People's Collective was going to be more difficult than usual to deal with in the months ahead. I called in on the radio and made sure everyone else was okay, everyone but Tiny, who never bailed out of his machine, but was joined on the ground by the crew of the zeppelin and most of the Dust Devils protecting it.
"All right people," I said glumly into the mike, "let's go home."