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“Yes, sir.” Merrik dragged his gaze up from the ground. As worried as he was for Fieran and Uncle Farrendel, there was nothing he could do for them besides do his duty here in the air.

“Good to hear you are still with us.” Rothilion’s tone held a slight humorous edge. Well, humorous for him.

Merrik opened his mouth to reply, but a loud roaring hummed through the air.

“Incoming! Coming from the southeast!”

A swarm of black dots roared onto the horizon. Only seconds later, a second swarm appeared to their left. Yet another swarm showed on the right.

It was the largest attack of aeroplanes Mongavaria had sent to the sky in weeks. Not that anyone pointed that out. They didn’t have to.

“Half-Breed Squadron, we need to protect the Laesornysh.” Rothilion’s voice lacked that bored quality he usually had when going into battle. Instead, he spoke with a sharp edge.

Below, blue magic crackled as a figure wielded twin blades. He was the sole figure standing between the invading army and the Alliance forces currently scrambling to defend themselves.

Merrik’s chest twisted, but the only thing he could do for Fieran or Uncle Farrendel was make sure they didn’t have to fend off bombs from the sky in addition to holding off an army.

He pointed his aeroplane toward the oncoming enemy aeroplanes, Lije and Stickyfingers just behind him. With Fieran on the ground, the three of them were sticking together.

Bracing himself, Merrik headed straight toward the enemy. All around him, the rest of the squadron fell into place. Rothilion was at the head of the elven pilots, their aeroplanes arrayed above Merrik. The rest of the human pilots formed up behind Merrik.

Somewhere behind them, the pilots from the other two squadrons stationed at Fort Defense would be getting off the ground, now that the Half-Breed Squadron was in the air. Reinforcements would be coming, sooner or later.

Until then, the Half-Breed Squadron would be on their own.

Then they swept into the first swarm of Mongavarian aeroplanes, a chaos of whirling aeroplanes and shredding bullets.

Merrik chased one Mongavarian aeroplane until the pilot made a mistake that put him in Sticky’s crosshairs. Once that enemy was spiraling from the sky, Sticky whirled into the lead as Merrik fell in behind him with Lije just behind and to the side of him.

Two enemy aeroplanes dove at them, strafing as they did so. Merrik juked his aeroplane to the left while Lije went right. Stickyfingers pointed his nose upward, triggering his own machine gun.

Merrik turned his swerve into a swooping turn, bringing him in from the side. He squeezed the trigger for his machine guns. The recoil shuddered through his aeroplane, the bullets spitting through the spinning blades of his propeller, in sync thanks to the new gear preventing the bullets from striking the blades.

The lead Mongavarian dove out of the way, nearly clipping the other enemy aeroplane as that one dodged in the same direction to avoid Lije and Stickyfingers.

More of the enemy swooped in, and Merrik lost himself in the whirl of the dogfight. There was no time for thinking. Just flying and shooting, always keeping his head moving to track both friend and foe.

“I’m taking to the skies.” Fieran’s voice, faint with the distance, crackled through the static and other chatter on the radio. “I just need my aeroplane to finish spinning up.”

As cheers flooded the radio, Merrik breathed out a sigh of relief and flexed his fingers on his control column. They’d gone stiff with his white-knuckled grip. After giving the other chatter a moment to die down, Merrik pushed the talk button. “I will swing back to fetch you.”

With the dogfight ranging across the sky from the border to over Fort Defense, Merrik didn’t want to leave Fieran to takeoff alone. A Mongavarian might get the bright idea to strafe him from above.

“Thanks.” Fieran’s voice, even in that one word, was more tense than usual. Just what had happened on the ground?

With Lije and Sticky’s help, Merrik disentangled himself from the dogfight, dodging around various swirling, diving battles going on across the sky. Below, smoke and clouds of the poison gas Mongavaria had unleashed obscured the clashing armies.

“There’s one more pair of aeroplanes, then I’m next.”

“Almost there.” Merrik flashed over the lower reaches of Fort Defense, then the headquarters. As he neared the hangar, Fieran began a countdown before ending in, “Beginning my takeoff.”

Merrik spotted Fieran’s aeroplane, a dot with wings rumbling across the field below. He put his aeroplane into a steep dive. “Coming down for you.”

The wind whipped past the small excuse for a windscreen and battered his goggles. His silk scarf flapped against his cheek. His warbird dove on that edge between a speedy, controlled descent and tumbling into a crash.

As he neared the ground, he could see the small figures of the ground crew shading their eyes and peering upward. A few pointed or ran, as if they weren’t sure what was going on.

Merrik eased back on the stick, the air hard beneath the two sets of wings, as he leveled out of the dive well above the ground. He leaned over the side and waved as he passed Fieran right when Fieran’s aeroplane was about to take to the air.