He paused long enough to retrieve the stack of his flight gear from the back seat of the roadster. He hesitated a moment before he also grabbed his swords. The rest of his gear had already been passed to a member of the ground crew to load into the second seat of one of the bombers, since only some of the bombers had a second seat gunner.
Then Fieran and Pip strode between the various bombers spinning up. They didn’t speak until they reached Fieran’s new aeroplane.
Pip let go of his hand as she walked around the aeroplane, occasionally patting the side or peering closer at a section of it. “A brand new Soarwing Defender with the latest Dymman engine.”
“I’m going to miss the old one.” Fieran eyed the aeroplane. The canvas covering the fuselage and wings was so taut and painted so glossy that it almost appeared to be sheeted in metal. Not a single scratch or bullet hole.
But this wasn’t the aeroplane he’d flown for so many miles, until the control stick had been worn to his fingers and the seat in the cockpit molded to him.
Yet he’d never fly that aeroplane again. He’d blown that one to bits.
“Me too.” Pip’s eyes never left the new aeroplane, as if she was already itching to open the engine compartment and start wrenching on it. “But this is a beautiful machine.”
Fieran swallowed, set the stack of his flight clothes on the wing, and dug into his pocket for the box he’d stowed there. “Pip, I…I got this for you.”
He held out the brown paper wrapped box, sporting a white ribbon tied in a bow.
Pip took the box, her eyebrows scrunching as if she was puzzled about what he’d get her.
He rocked back and forth from heels to toe and clasped his hands behind his back to hide the fact that he was struggling to keep his magic from twining around his fingers.
Pip slid the bow from the box before she took off the lid. She gasped as she lifted the necklace out of the box. “Fieran, this…it’s…”
It was a deceptively simple necklace. Just a chain with a single pendant dangling from it. Except that the pendant was in the shape of a wrench, and he’d had the jeweler set three gems along the wrench’s handle. A ruby, an emerald, and a diamond. The Alliance colors.
“Are thesereal?” Pip gawked, first at the necklace, then at him.
“Uh, yes?” Fieran shrugged and winced. “Is that okay?”
He hadn’t been sure what was the correct price range for the first jewelry gift for a girlfriend. He suspected whatever he considered a normal amount was still on the higher end.
Pip stared at the necklace for another moment before she smiled. “It’s perfect. Linshi.”
She stood on her tiptoes, and he drew her in for a quick kiss. He would have loved to give her a longer kiss, but there were too many people around.
Once he stopped kissing her, he kept an arm around her waist as she unclasped the necklace and quickly put it on. It fell onto her blouse, the gems winking in the sunlight.
The bomber aeroplanes in line before Fieran rolled forward as the aeroplanes before them moved into position to take off next.
“I’m next.” Fieran didn’t want to let her go.
“Then I suppose you should get dressed in your flight gear.” Pip didn’t step away either.
“I should.” Fieran wrapped her in his arms for one last embrace as he pressed a kiss into her hair.
Then he forced himself to let her go and step back. He turned away and busied himself with pulling on his warm flight boots that covered all the way up to his thighs, his flight coat that went to his knees, a flight cap, goggles, and finally his scarf around his neck.
Of course, none of these werehis. They were all as new as his aeroplane. This jacket wasn’t the one he’d broken in until it was flexible and comfortable. The boots were still stiff when he moved. The cap wasn’t worn to fit his head just right.
Lastly, he picked up his swords in their sheaths. He probably should have stowed them in his trunk, but he found he couldn’t bring himself to entrust them to one of the other pilots, especially as green as these bomber pilots were.
He met Pip’s gaze as he climbed onto the wing. “I’ll see you at Fort Defense in a few days.”
“I’ll be counting them down.” She backed away from his aeroplane.
As he’d hoped, his family had come through. Orders had come that she was to take the train to Fort Defense with the first batch of new synchronization gears in a few days.
The upper wing crowded closer to the cockpit on this new aeroplane, and Fieran had to bend and maneuver his way into the cockpit more than he had on his old one. When he settled in, the dimensions weren’t familiar, the scant leather padding beneath his butt not yet broken in. Even the control column didn’t feel the same, as it had an additional trigger lever for firing the two machine guns mounted side-by-side on the aeroplane’s nose. No more having to let go to reach the triggers on the guns themselves.
