The tanks crept toward the Gates of Hevan, and safety.

Time was, thought Sky-Captain Gabrelle Roheris, when no city had needed gates. Time was coming when no mere wall would be enough. With the advent of sho-fighters, war had changed yet again. Hevan's wall was the site of heavy construction, an experiment in building an immense dome that would render air raids impossible. Until it was finished, though, her fighter wing was Hevan's last line of defense from the sky.

"Echo Three reporting. No sign of enemy bombers at six o'clock."

"Noted, Echo Three. Echo Five?"

"Noonday is clear, Echo Leader."

Gabrelle was just glad that no one had yet cracked the Gateway problem. Friends of the Dark could Travel easily enough, but few ordinary Creeps had the guts to enlist and put their own skins in danger. There were exceptions-there were always exceptions-but the bulk of the Shadow's army were Shadowspawn. That meant the only concern with teleporting hostiles came from Fades. Rumor had it the Supreme Command kept every surface in the Bunker at a constant ten thousand lux, the equivalent of full daylight, if so much as a child could fit inside. As far as she was concerned, that just meant a Myrddraal could pop out of any file cabinet that got opened. Surely Lews Therin had more sense.

"Ground troops still in pursuit, Echo Leader."

"They can't catch the tanks, Seven. But keep your eyes open."

Light burn Be'lal! The man had been one of the Light's best generals, and a master of the political spin that had kept the masses in line through the riots and the rationing. Supposedly he had even been constructing some kind of super-sa'angreal for Lews Therin-that had been his first love back in his earliest days as Aes Sedai. And then, without the slightest warning, he'd deliberately sabotaged New M'Jinn's pressure dome, leaving the entire moon colony to die of suffocation and making it impossible to man the lunar mass drivers that might have won the war two years ago.

Now he meant to take Hevan for the Shadow. Hevan held the Te'saidon Isthmus, a key chokepoint that was keeping Shadowspawn from pouring into the subcontinent beyond. He meant to take it-and Gabrelle meant to keep it from him. She wasn't entirely clear on what Tel Janin was up to with these maneuvers, but General Aellinsar had proven to be a master of defense.

"Looks like rain, Echo Leader."

"No chatter, Two. But you're right." Thick cloud cover was forming over the city. It was a little odd-there was no rain scheduled for the week-but the weather ter'angreal had been overworked lately in an attempt to avoid sabotage. They were known to be temperamental when overused. A storm could interfere with even the toughest sho-fighters.

"Not chatter, Lead. Tactical info. I sense channeling." Choss! General Aellinsar tried to keep at least one channeler with every unit. Even the weakest Servant could tell if there was unauthorized channeling going on near the battlefront. Well, it was saidin, then. There were reports of ter'angreal in the works that would let women sense men, and men sense women beyond the little useless-at-range tinglies, but they sure hadn't filtered down to the rank-and-file yet.

"Echo Base, this is Echo Lead. I have a report of unauthorized weather-control channeling. Get someone down there on Dreadlord watch."

So what was the plan? Gabrelle tried to think tactically, as the General would want. A storm would interfere with her fighters but would also make it hard on any enemy fighters who might want to take advantage. Lightning assaults had proven useless against cities in the early months of the war-there were too many lightning rods built into the towers already, just for protection against ordinary storms. Of course, the clouds could shift and strike at her tanks, or the infantry they were covering, but Aes Sedai there would be on hand for protection. Maybe torrential rains? If the ground turned to mud the tanks could bog down.

"Echo Lead, this is Base. General Aellinsar says keep your cool. Weather control is friendly and authorized. Repeat, the channeling is friendly."

Well, if the General wanted it done, he had a reason. Wouldn't be much of a surprise if he were doing it himself, really. He wasn't quite on Lews Therin's level, but he was very strong in the Power, if not terribly dextrous with anything but wards.

Still, those clouds made her uneasy. "Echo Wing, keep an eye on that cloudbank. Hevan is counting on us. I'm gonna stay on the horn with command for any developments."

On the ground below, the tanks were nearly to the Gate of Hevan. The infantry with them clustered into a tight column, preparing to pass between them and into the city. What in the Light's name was the General worried about? They had this all sewn up.

Thunder muttered softly in the distance. The cloudbank continued to darken, save for a couple of stray cloud-to-cloud lightning bursts. There wasn't another cloud for miles, but these had covered the city now, shrouding all of Hevan in shadow.

...in shadow. "Burn me! Echo Wing, eyes peeled and weapons hot! Nightr...Nighthawks incoming!"

"Night...nighthawks, Lead?"

A v-wing of matte-black ultralight fighters shot out of nowhere from just beneath the clouds. They were small-they had to be-but that outer shell would be some kind of superlight armor. The thirteen contrails behind them hung unnaturally straight, untouched by the growing winds.

"Those, Three!"

Light burn the General! What had he done?

He'd betrayed all of Hevan, that's what.

"Echo Wing, fire at will! Get those Myrddraal!" The craft probably carried one bomb each, no doubt something ultrapowerful. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth risking that many Fades at once. At least there was no way of getting Trollocs into the cockpit. No Trolloc would ever fly a sho-wing of any kind, she was sure.

Gabrelle fired off a heatseeker at the lead Nighthawk, a test. The fighter snaprolled so fast as to be blurry, and the missile shot off into the distance beyond it, coming around in a long arc. "Careful, Echoes. Those fighters have got Fade-class reflexes to match their pilots." She had to report back, and hope someone in the chain of command hadn't been compromised. "Echo Base, this is Echo Lead. We are under attack by Fades in fighters. The mission has been blown. Repeat, mission is blown. I believe General Aellinsar to be knowingly at fault."

Static. Nothing but static. The missile came lazily around. She fired another pair at the lead Nighthawk. If Hevan was going to be saved, it was her wing or nothing now. The Nighthawk rolled again, missing the missiles by inches...and Gabrelle fired off her Gauss rifles at them. Half a dozen white-hot slugs punched through the nose of each missile, and they erupted in balls of oily smoke and shrapnel. The lead Nighthawk, its engines holed and screaming, twisted into a death spiral. The Fade inside might be able to escape, but at least she'd taken out its ride.

But that left a dozen more, and as she looked around she realized she could only see three Echoes remaining. Naturally. Myrddraal were that good on the ground, why not in the air too? A Gateway chopped the wings off the two Nighthawks in pursuit of Echo Two just before he collided with a third that had deliberately angled in front of him. He didn't even get the Fade; she was close enough to see it vanish into the shadow still cast by the thick clouds overhead.

The former lead Nighthawk was still spiraling down. Too late, Gabrelle realized it must still be under partial control; it was heading directly for the column of soldiers and tanks that were still scrambling through the Gates. The city itself offered no direct protection, of course, but the thick walls of the Gates of Hevan might give them some shelter.

The bombs, she realized. The Nighthawks had to be carrying bombs. "Echo Base, get those men under any cover you can! We are down! Repeat, Echo Wing is down!"

Light burn you forever, Tel Janin. Then the shockwave hit her fighter, and Gabrelle tumbled into the darkness.