Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 Read Free

he’d seen it, down to the blue and white roundel on its tail. As it passed the first pylon, it rolled, wings tipping up and over, kept rolling, maintaining height, maintaining a perfect line as it rotated around its own center, around the pilot himself in his cockpit. Lewis’s muscles tensed, feeling in imagination the aileron hard over, the world spinning around him: not the hardest maneuver in the world, but hard to do well. And this was done well. Gilchrist finished the last roll just before the end of the course, snapped level to flash upright past the pylon. The crowd cheered — at least some of them knew what they were seeing — and a stranger in a shabby jacket leaned close to shout something.
    “Nice,” Lewis shouted back. “Real nice.”
    The red Jenny was circling back to land, coming in almost sedately. She bounced once, twice, then settled and slowed, trundling toward the hangars. He should follow, he knew. That was what the dream had meant, he was sure of it — maybe Gilchrist needed another pilot, maybe he was hiring — but that was too good to be true. He couldn’t rely on dreams when he had real leads to follow up. He pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket instead, checked Forrest’s hangar number.
    He should have known when he got there that it was a bad idea. Forrest’s planes were all white, decked with red and blue stripes like bunting, and the Legion flag hung from the rafters, limp in the heat. A couple of boys in what looked like old uniforms were sitting just inside the door; they pointed him to Forrest, a big man who’d put on his khakis for the occasion.
    “Mr. Forrest?” Lewis put on his best smile. “Ham Wiggins said you might be looking for a pilot with military experience.”
    The big man turned, pushing his doughboy’s hat onto the back of his head. “I might be,” he said.
    “I put in four years regular Army, three of that with the Air Service,” Lewis said. “And I’ve been flying as a civilian ever since I got out.”
    “Barnstorming,” Forrest said.
    “Some. I worked a couple of years for a guy who had a mail contract. Then I did some charter work. I’ve dusted crops, and I’ve given lessons.”
    Forrest was starting to look interested in spite of himself. “Huh. What’s your name, son?”
    “Lewis Segura. Lieutenant —”
    But the interest had died. Forrest shook his head. “Sorry. I only hire American.”
    I am American, damn it. Lewis had been down this road often enough to know there was no point in arguing. “Suit yourself,” he said, and turned away. He could feel the boys smirking as he left the hangar, wished he’d kept the Coke bottle so that he could smash it. It wouldn’t take much, they’d been too young to have served, despite the cocky uniform — wouldn’t even take a gun to kill them – even a broken bottle would do, the jagged edge sharp as any blade. There was no good thinking like that. Lewis kept walking, dust in his mouth and the odor of gasoline and oil filling his lungs. It smelled like France, or like the France he’d known best, the hangars and the rickety houses where the squadrons lived. Where he’d learned to fly, where a dozen friends had died —
    He shoved that thought back into the box where it belonged, jammed his hands into his pockets. There would be work, somewhere, even if the barnstorming tours seemed to be dying away. A flash of red caught his eye — Gilchrist’s red Jenny, half out of its hangar, the paint seeming even brighter in the sunset light. It was unmistakably the plane he’d dreamed about, and in spite of himself he drew a little closer. It was just to check the design on the tail, he told himself, but the dream-memory had him in its clutches: this plane was for him, was going to take him back to the skies.
    The design was exactly what it had been in the dream, too, a circle and cross that looked military, but when you got up close was probably meant to be a stylized compass. There was writing