Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 773: Aces of the Reich

Heinrich von Zehntner’s hand hovered over the throttle for a heartbeat longer than it should have.

The Me P. 1110 “Hündin” sat crouched at the end of the Sicilian runway like a predatory animal chained in place, exhaust howling at idle, heat shimmering behind the fuselage.

The cockpit canopy framed the world in curved glass, runway ahead, sandbag revetments to either side, technicians already squinting away from the blast they knew was coming.

In the distance, the coastal guns barked again. The horizon flashed dull orange where American shells walked across a hillside.

“Griffin-one, cleared for takeoff. Repeat, Griffin-one, cleared for takeoff. Vector two-one-five after wheels up.” The controller’s voice crackled in his headset.

Heinrich flexed his gloved fingers once on the control yoke.

The new jet still felt unfamiliar, weight and responsiveness not yet imprinted into his bones the way the PTL-8 trainer had been.

His eyes flicked over the instruments, engine temperature, fuel flow, airspeed, radar set to standby, weapons safeties locked.

He wasn’t ready.

He would never be ready.

He pushed the throttle forward.

The engine’s whine rose into a bestial scream, the aircraft lurching as if suddenly remembering what it had been built for.

Heinrich felt it through the seat and the bones of his spine, that savage forward pull.

The concrete blurred beneath him.

He counted under his breath.

“Fifty… eighty… one-ten…”

The nose lightened. The vibrations moved from a rumbling growl to a high tremor through the frame.

“Rotate.”

He pulled back gently. The Hündin obeyed, nose rising, main wheels skimming, then leaving the earth behind.

The moment the tires cleared the ground, the aircraft seemed to shrug off a burden. It climbed as if it hated the idea of ever landing again.

Gear up. Flaps up. Trim.

Heinrich glanced at the airspeed indicator and almost swore aloud. She accelerated like a shell out of a gun.

The fields outside the base were gone in seconds, replaced by coastline and then blue, endless blue.

“Griffin-two airborne,” his wingman reported. “Forming on your right.”

Heinrich checked his mirrors. The second P. 1110 rose like a shadow, sliding neatly into formation off his wingtip. Two sleek darts cutting through the morning air.

“Griffin-one to Tower. Formed up and climbing. Heading two-one-five.”

“Tower copies. Be advised – bandits inbound, angels fifteen. Multiple propeller formations, probable escort for strike package. You are weapons free upon contact. God with you, Griffin-squadron.”

Heinrich set his jaw.

“Griffin-one copies. God with us.”

He nudged the stick and eased the nose higher. The altimeter wound upward. Eleven thousand. Thirteen. Fifteen.

The controls felt twitchy at first, every slight motion producing a larger response than his muscle memory expected. Twice he corrected over-hard, the jet wobbling briefly before he tamed it.

The Hündin responded best when he thought in intention, not force. It wasn’t a heavy prop that needed to be bullied through the sky; it was a blade that wanted to cut.

Ahead, the Sicilian coast fell away. Below, he saw glimpses of the American beachheads like ugly scars across the shoreline, wrecked landing craft, burning vehicles, the flash of artillery.

Anti-aircraft smoke puffs drifted like dirty flowers beneath him.

“Radar on,” he murmured, flipping the switch.

The scope to his right warmed and then flickered to life, a circular display with a sweeping line rotating around it like the hand of a clock.

For a moment it showed only clutter, ground returns, noise, echoes from the mountains.

Then the first clean blips appeared.

“Contacts,” Heinrich said calmly. “Bearing two-one-five, range… thirty kilometers. Multiple, grouped. Angels fifteen, maybe sixteen. Speed… slow.”

He could almost hear his wingman’s smile over the radio.

“Prop-jockeys,” Griffin-two muttered. “They still think it’s 1939.”

“Let them,” Heinrich replied.

He adjusted his course slightly, bringing the nose toward the cluster of radar marks. His thumb brushed against the weapon selector on the stick, guns, IR missiles, Guns+Missiles. He set it to missiles, then double-checked the master arm switch, still safe.

He’d fired them in practice only once. The thought of releasing an invisible spear of heat-seeking death into another man’s machine made his stomach knot in a way even the thought of being shot at had not.

He kept climbing, trading speed for altitude, then easing back into level flight to let the jet build up energy again.

Somewhere behind him, the sound barrier waited. He imagined it like an invisible wall he didn’t quite dare to punch through. Not here, not yet, not in combat with lives depending on his control.

The radar blips grew thicker.

“Tower to Griffin Squadron,” the controller’s voice cut in. “Strike package confirmed, P-47 Thunderbolts with P-38 escorts. We count at least twenty. They’re heading for our supply columns. You are cleared to engage at will.”

Heinrich’s lips tightened.

“We have tally,” he said, though visually he did not, not yet. “Closing distance. Stand by.”

His heart began to beat steadily while the American formation was flying straight, confident, unaware.

Eight kilometers.

He flicked the safety cover up on the missile trigger.

“Griffin-two, hold slightly low and back. We will come in from their high twelve. First pass with missiles, second with cannon. Do not dogfight with them. They cannot reach us unless we allow it.”

“Acknowledged, Griffin-one.”

The first glints appeared ahead. Tiny silver insect specks against the blue, growing as they approached. Propeller discs shimmered in the sunlight.

He locked his gaze onto the leading edge of the formation.

The radar pinged softly as his targeting reticle merged with one of the returns. A tone whined briefly in his headphones as the IR seeker in the nose began to track the heat signature of an American engine.

Heinrich’s hand was steady now.

“This is it,” he murmured, not keying the mic. “Let’s see what you can do…”

The tone sharpened into a sustained wail.

Lock.

He pressed the trigger.

There was a muffled thump beneath him as one of the underwing missiles leapt free, the Hündin jolting very slightly as weight vanished. For a fraction of a second, Heinrich saw the missile streak straight, a slim dart of metal.

Then its motor ignited fully, and it vanished ahead in a streak of fire.

He held his course, already cueing the next target.

The first Thunderbolt never had a chance.

From the American pilot’s perspective, there was only a sudden flash of something tearing upward at impossible speed, then a white-hot detonation just behind his engine.

The aircraft seemed to fold in on itself, wings snapping, fuselage blossoming into fragments.

Heinrich saw it only as a brief flower of flame and smoke, then it was already behind him.

“Splash one,” he said, voice flat.

The second missile took the left-hand lead escort. The IR seeker clung to the heat of its overworked engines like a hound on a blood trail. When it struck, the P-38’s nose simply disappeared, the airframe spinning, shedding a canopy and a pilot that never got his chute open.

The American formation shattered.

“Jesus Christ, what was that!?” an English voice shrieked across the open emergency frequency.

“Bandits! Bandits! Fast movers! Two o’clock high! Repeat, two o’clock!”

He yanked the Hündin into a shallow descending turn, cutting across the top of the American formation.

The G-forces pressed him into his seat, vision dimming briefly at the edges, but the harness held him firm.

A P-47 flashed across his nose from left to right, hauling its heavy frame around in a desperate attempt to climb toward him.

He squeezed the trigger.

The 30mm cannons in the nose barked in a short, savage burst, the entire aircraft shuddering as shells ripped free.

Heinrich walked the streams of fire across the Thunderbolt’s cockpit and wing root.

Armor-piercing rounds tore through canopy, flesh, and steel. The P-47 rolled over like a dead animal and fell smoking into the cloud deck below.

“Splash three,” he said.

Griffin-two came in on the opposite side, cannons blazing. A P-38 caught a full burst in its left wing, fuel igniting instantly. It spun away trailing a comet-tail of flame.

The Americans tried to climb to meet them, but it was like watching men trying to sprint up a cliff.

The Hündin simply outpaced and outclimbed anything with a propeller. Their turns were broader, their dives shallower.

“Break! Break!” someone yelled in English. “They’re too fast… they’re—”

Heinrich rolled inverted, pulled through into a diving attack on a P-47 that had broken away, trying to escape toward the sea.

The airspeed indicator surged. Eight hundred. Nine hundred.

The airframe began to tremble, thin vibrations building into a steady buzz through the controls. A warning light flickered as he flirted with compressibility.

He eased off, just enough. The American pilot craned his neck, seeing nothing but a dark shape growing larger in his mirror before it filled his world.

Heinrich fired a half-second burst.

The rounds stitched across the tail and up the fuselage. The Thunderbolt disintegrated, pieces shearing off in all directions.

For a moment Heinrich flew through a cloud of fragments, the Hündin slicing through debris like a sword.

“Griffin-one, this is control,” the radio barked. “Our scopes show the enemy formation collapsing. Status?”

Heinrich dragged in a breath heavy with the scent of hot electronics and cordite.

“Four confirmed destroyed by Griffin-one,” he said. “Griffin-two?”

“Three more,” his wingman replied, sounding almost disappointed. “The rest are running.”

He glanced at the radar, what had been a tight cluster of returns was now a ragged scatter of fleeing blips, each breaking away at full throttle.

He could almost see them down there, wrestling heavy controls, nursing wounded engines, stunned by an enemy they’d never trained for.

“Griffin-squadron, do we pursue?” his wingman asked.

Heinrich considered it. The fuel gauge had already dipped lower than he liked. The jet’s engines were thirsty, and Sicily’s heat didn’t help.

“Negative,” he decided. “We did what we came for. Strike package disrupted. Let them carry the story home.”

He leveled out into a wide arc, wings slicing through a sky that suddenly felt thinner, emptier.

Below, the beachhead burned.

Thunderbolts and Lightnings that had survived turned tail for their carriers or distant fields, climbing and diving like frantic insects under an invisible hammer.

Heinrich let the Hündin settle into a cruising speed that would have seemed impossible a few years ago: faster than any prop could match even in a dive, and he was barely pushing the throttle.

This is the end of their age, he thought.

All their doctrine, all their training, all their courage, it was written for a world where machines like this didn’t exist.

“Tower, Griffin-one. Enemy strike package scattered, multiple bandits destroyed. No losses.”

There was a brief silence; even the controller seemed stunned.

“Copy, Griffin-one… No losses confirmed. Flak reports multiple parachutes and crashes over enemy lines. You are clear to RTB. Fuel status?”

“Yellow,” Heinrich admitted. “Enough.”

“Understood. The field is ready. And Griffin-one… well flown.”

He didn’t answer that last part.