What am I? What am I becoming?
But she knew what she was becoming. She was becoming one of them. One of the nightmare crew. One of the creatures that lived in the wastes behind the impenetrable cloud-wall of the Wrack.
I have to run, she told herself, as a fresh volley of gunfire was unleashed. Bullets ricocheted off the side of the Ketty Jay. Another stick of dynamite fell close enough to knock over some of the barrels at the end of a barricade.
‘We can’t hold out no more!’ screeched Harkins.
No, she thought grimly. We can’t.
The deck of the Delirium Trigger was all but deserted. Most of the skeleton crew were in the guts of the aircraft, anxiously listening to the silence coming from the cargo hold. Others had gone to summon the militia. In the face of such alarm, nobody was loading cargo or swabbing the decks. When Malvery, Pinn and Crake emerged from the captain’s cabin with their plunder, there were no crew to stop them.
They raced across to the winch, now unmanned. A loaded palette was dangling over the cavernous hatch that led to the cargo hold. Pinn flustered around the controls for a few moments before finding something that he assumed would lower the winch. As it turned out, he was right. There was a loud screech and the palette began to rattle downwards.
Crake scanned the craft nervously. A crowd of dock workers had gathered around the Delirium Trigger on the hangar deck, but nobody dared cross the gangplank. They’d heard men talking about a monster aboard. Now they followed the activity of the newcomers with keen interest, assuming them to be crew.
Crake didn’t even see who shot at them. Pinn threw himself back, spitting a foul oath, as the bullet hit the winch next to his head. They scrambled out of the way, searching for their assailant, but there was no sign of one. Crake tripped and sprawled as another rifle shot sounded. Fear flooded him. He couldn’t take shelter if he didn’t know what direction the attack was coming from.
That didn’t bother Malvery overmuch. ‘Get to cover!’ he yelled, rushing towards an artillery battery, a cluster of massive cannons.
Crake scrambled after him. Another bullet hit. Out of the corner of his eye Crake saw the dock workers shouting in consternation. They were unsure who the villain was here. Some were following Crake’s plight, but others were looking at a spot above and behind him.
He looked over his shoulder. There, where the deck of the Delirium Trigger rose up towards an electroheliograph mast, he saw movement. A man, crouching, aiming.
Then Crake was behind the cannons, hunkering down next to Pinn and Malvery. ‘He’s up there!’ he panted. ‘By the mast!’
Malvery swore under his breath. ‘We need to get off this bloody aircraft, sharpish. Before them down below work out what’s going on.’
There was a sudden whine of strained metal from the winch. The chain swung sharply one way, then another, pulled from below.
Malvery edged along the barrel of the cannon and peered out for an instant, then drew back. ‘I see the bastard.’ He drew a pistol from his belt. It looked tiny in his huge hand. His usual shotgun had been too large to smuggle beneath their clothes.
‘Wait,’ said Crake. ‘Not yet.’
The chain pulled restlessly back and forth. The mechanism shrieked in protest at the weight it was carrying. The weight of the golem, clambering up the length of the chain and out of the cargo hold.
An enormous hand grabbed on to the lip of the hatch. Bess pulled herself up with a low bass groan, hauling her enormous bulk onto the deck.
‘Now!’ said Crake. Malvery swung out of hiding, aimed his pistol, and fired at the crewman hiding near the mast. The crewman, amazed by the sight of Bess, was taken by surprise. The shot missed by inches, but it startled him enough to send him scrambling out of sight.
The dock workers on the hangar deck were panicking now, beginning to flee as Bess drew herself up to her full height. They’d never seen anything like her, this humpbacked, faceless armoured giant. Those who were nearest fought to get out of the way, pushing aside the men at the back who were crowding closer to see what the fuss was about.
‘Bess!’ Crake called as they broke from hiding. The golem swung towards him with a welcoming gurgle. He hurried up to her and quickly patted her on the shoulder. The dock workers’ fear of Bess grew to encompass Crake and the others now: they were friends with the beast! ‘We’re getting out of here.’
Malvery sent another blast towards the electroheliograph tower as they ran for the gangplank. There were shouts of alarm from behind them as crewmen were roused by the gunfire. Bullets nipped at their heels. Pinn sent a few back, shooting wild.
Bess thundered down the gangplank and onto the hangar deck, the others close behind. The dock workers melted away from the Delirium Trigger like ice before a blowtorch, spreading chaos through the hangar as they fled. All activity came to a halt as crewmen on nearby freighters sensed the disturbance.
Malvery took the lead, heading towards the stairs that would take them to ground level, where they could exit the hangar. But he’d barely started in that direction when whistles sounded from below: the Ducal Militia of Rabban. Beige uniforms began to flood up the stairs that Malvery had been running for.
Too many men. Too many guns. Bess could make it through, but her more fragile, feshy companions wouldn’t.
Malvery came to a halt, pulled out his pocket watch and consulted it. He looked back at the Delirium Trigger, where the angry crew was already marshalling for pursuit. The militia had blocked their escape route. There was no way out.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Now we’ve got problems.’
Trinica Dracken looked at her pocket watch, snapped it shut and slipped it back inside the folds of her black coat.
‘You need to be somewhere, Trinica?’ Frey enquired.
She looked up at him across the card table. She seemed to be weighing a question.
‘I think we’ve beaten around the bush for long enough, Darian. You wanted to parley. Speak your piece.’
Her tone was newly impatient. Frey put two and two together.
‘Why the hurry, Trinica? You were happy to make small talk until now. You wouldn’t have been trying to buy time, would you? Delaying me here for some reason?’
He caught the flicker of anger in her eyes, and felt a small satisfaction. She’d had the best of this meeting so far: it was good to score a point on her.
‘Make your offer,’ she said. ‘Or this meeting is over.’
Might as well try, thought Frey. ‘I want you to give up the chase. Turn your back and leave us alone.’
‘What good will that do? You’ll still be wanted by the Century Knights.’
‘The Century Knights I can handle. They don’t know the underworld. I can scatter my crew, duck my head till the worst of it blows over. Maybe I’ll get out of Vardia. Sell the Ketty Jay, get a real job. But not with you on my heels. Most of them don’t even know my face except from some old ferrotype, but you do. I think you’d find me in the end. So I’m asking you to give it up.’
Trinica was waiting for the punchline. ‘Grephen is paying me a lot of money to track you down. Certainly more than you’ve ever seen in your life. What can you possibly offer me that would tempt me to give that up?’
‘I’ll keep your name out of it if I get caught.’
‘You’ll what?’ She was midway between amusement and astonishment.
‘You’re a traitor. You’re a knowing accomplice in the murder of the Archduke’s only son. The Coalition Navy never managed to pin anything on you - maybe because the witnesses have an odd habit of dying - but they know what you are and they’ll jump at the chance to see you swing from the gallows. You know Grephen is afraid of the Knights getting me before you do. He’s afraid I’ll make accusations against him.’
‘That’s the best you’ve got?’ Trinica laughed. ‘The accusations of a condemned man, without any proof to back them up?’
‘Have you thought what’s going to happen if whatever Grephen’s planning d
oesn’t work?’ Frey asked. ‘My accusations might not save me, but if Grephen makes a move on the Archduke then he’ll prove what I said about him is true. And that will mean everything I said about you will be true. Now maybe Grephen will win and everything will be alright for you, but if he loses, you’ll have the Navy all over you for the rest of your days. You certainly won’t be docking in a place like Rabban anytime soon.’
‘Why would you believe he’s making a move on the Archduke?’
Frey gave her a look. ‘I’m not stupid, Trinica.’
She studied him. Considering. He’d seen that expression a hundred times before at a Rake table, as players stared at their opponents and asked themselves: do they really have the cards to beat me?
Then she snorted, disgusted at herself for allowing him to threaten her.
‘This is ridiculous, and I don’t have time for it any more. It’s all over now, besides. I’ve got you.’ She drained her whisky and got to her feet. ‘You’re done.’
‘This is a parley, Trinica. Neutral ground. Sharka guarantees our safety,’ he grinned at her. ‘Can’t get me here,’ he added, rather childishly.
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘But I can get your craft.’
‘You don’t even know where she is.’
‘Certainly I do,’ she replied. ‘You’re berthed in the Southwest Labourer’s Quarter. Of course you registered under a false name, but I had every dock master in the city keeping an eye out for a Wickfield Ironclad-class cargo-combat hybrid. There aren’t many around with the Ketty Jay’s specifications, and I do know that craft quite well. I listened to you talk about her enough.’
Frey was unperturbed. Trinica noted his lack of reaction.
‘Obviously, you guessed I’d do something like this,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter. How many men do you have, Frey? Five? Six? Can you afford to keep that many?’ She looked around the room; he bored her now. ‘I sent twenty.’
Twenty, thought Frey, keeping his face carefully neutral, the way he’d learned to at the card table. Oh, shit.
‘What if I did the same?’ he said. ‘What if my men are on your craft, right now?’
Trinica rolled her eyes. ‘Please, Darian. You never could bluff well. You’re too much the coward: you always give in first.’
She sighed and looked down at him, as if pitying a dumb animal. ‘I know you,’ she said. ‘You’re predictable. That’s why I almost caught you at the hermitage. Once Thade told me about you and his daughter I realised that was the first place you’d go. You always did think with the wrong organ.’
Frey didn’t reply. She had him there.
‘You want to know why I’m a good captain and you’re not? Because you don’t trust your people. I’ve earned my men’s respect and they’ve earned mine. But you? You can’t keep a crew, Darian. You go through navigators like whores.’
Frey kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t argue. There was nothing to say.
‘And because I know you, I know you’d never trust anyone with your aircraft,’ she continued, walking past him towards the door. ‘The Ketty Jay is your life. You’d rather die than give the ignition codes to someone who might fly off with her. That means your crew are outnumbered, outgunned, and trapped, defending an aircraft that’s nothing more than an armoured tomb.’ She cocked her head. ‘Perhaps you were thinking of some clever flanking manoeuvre. Perhaps you’re going to bring in reinforcements behind my men. Whatever you try, it makes no difference. You just don’t have the numbers.’
Frey’s shoulders slumped. Twenty men. How long could Jez, Silo and Harkins hold out against twenty men? Everything had relied on timing, but it was only now he truly realised how desperate the situation was. The plan had sounded so fine coming out of his mouth. But he was the only one not risking his life here.
Trinica saw how it hit him like a hammer. She touched his shoulder in false sympathy and leaned down to whisper in his ear, her lips brushing his lobe. ‘By now they’ll be dead, and my men will have filled the Ketty Jay with so much dynamite, the explosion will be heard in Yortland.’
She opened the door and looked back at him. ‘This will be the second time your crew died because of your hang-ups, Darian. Let’s see how far and fast you run without your aircraft.’
Then she was gone, leaving the door open behind her. Frey sat at the table, looking down at the mess of cards before him, feeling pummelled and raw and slashed to ribbons. She’d taken him apart with nothing more than words.
That woman. That bloody woman.
Twenty-Five
Flight - ‘Pick Your Targets’ - No Way Out
Crake ran hard. His lungs were burning in his chest and his head felt light, but his legs were tireless, filled with strength lent by adrenaline. Bess lumbered ahead, Malvery and Pinn hot on her heels. Bullets scored the air around them.
But they were only delaying the inevitable. There was nowhere left to go.
The hangar deck was crowded with cranes, portable fuel tanks and piled cargo. Massive cogs rose out of the floor, part of a mechanism that clamped aircraft in their berths and prevented heavy freighters from drifting. In the distance, elevated platforms for spotlights and a narrow controller’s tower rose almost to the roof of the hangar.
They used these obstacles as cover, darting past and around them, blocking the aim of the Delirium Trigger’s crew. Nobody attempted to stop them with Bess leading the way. Dock workers fled for cover, frightened by the wild gunplay of their pursuers.
The mouth of the hangar opened out to the night and the electric lights of the city. But the hangar deck was forty feet up, and there was no way down. The militia had spread out to block all the stairways. They were trapped, but still they ran, eking every last moment out of their liberty and their lives. There was nothing else left to do.
Bess slowed as they passed another pile of cargo waiting to be loaded onto a frigate. She picked up a crate and lobbed it effortlessly towards their pursuers. They scattered and scrambled away as it smashed apart in their midst. Crake and the others raced past her, and she took up position at the rear. A rifle shot bounced off her armoured back, spinning away with a high whine, as she turned to follow them.
Why did I come here? Crake thought. It was the same question he’d been asking himself all night. Why did I agree to do this? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He flayed himself with his own terror as he ran, cursing his idiocy. He could have just refused. He could have stayed out of this and left at any time. But he’d allowed himself to be roped into Frey’s plan, driven by self-loathing and his captain’s insidious charm. Back in Yortland, he’d been ready to throw it all in and leave Frey to his fate. Yet somehow, he found himself agreeing to join the Ketty Jay’s crew.
He’d made an error. He’d momentarily forgotten that time in the dingy back room of a bar, when Lawsen Macarde held a pistol to his head and told Frey to give up the ignition codes to the Ketty Jay. He’d forgotten the look on Frey’s face, those cold, uncaring eyes, like doll’s eyes. He’d allowed himself to believe - again - that Frey was his friend.
And because of that, he was going to die.
They dodged around machinery and vaulted over fuel pipes, rushing through the oily metal world of the hangar. Dark iron surrounded them; dim lights glowed; everything was covered with a thin patina of grime. They could expect no quarter here. This wasn’t a place for sympathy, but for the unforgiving industry of the new world. Crake had grown up on country estates, surrounded by trees, and had rarely ever seen the factories which had made his family rich. Now a grim fatalism swept over him. It seemed a terrible place to live a life, and a worse one to end it in.
The deck narrowed as they reached the mouth of the hangar, splitting into long walkways that led to spotlight stations and observation platforms. To their left and right, half-submerged below the elevated deck, were freighters and passenger liners, colossal in their shabby majesty. There were people lining the rail, watching their plight with interest, safely remote.
<
br /> ‘Up here!’ cried Malvery, and they were funnelled onto a gantry that projected out to the mouth of the hangar. It was wide enough for three abreast, but at the end there was nothing but a small observation platform. After that, there was only the fatal plunge to the ground.
It didn’t matter. They ran until the gantry ran out, and there they stopped.
The crew of the Delirium Trigger slowed, seeing their quarry was trapped. They gathered at the end of the gantry, where there was cover. Between them and the men of the Ketty Jay was a long, open stretch. They’d be easy targets there, and they still feared the golem enough to respect its power.