He climbed into the seat and settled himself. This small space was his domain, perhaps more so than the infirmary, since no one ever came up here. It was chilly and musty and smelt of him. Partly empty rum bottles, old broadsheets and battered books were stuffed into spaces in the bulkhead. He rummaged around till he found a bottle that was quarter full, pulled the stopper and raised it to the night sky, which was flashing and thundering with anti-aircraft fire.
‘Stay safe, mate,’ he said to Crake, and drank deeply.
A maudlin mood settled on him. Crake was gone. Just like that. No doubt he was capable of taking care of himself, but still. Stalking off that way. Wasn’t like him. And now they’d been forced to leave him behind.
Still, you had to admire the feller. Man took a stand for what he believed. That was more than Malvery had done. And now Malvery was off to join the Awakeners, the bloody Awakeners, and as far as the Coalition were concerned he was a genuine turncoat, too. All he’d wanted to do was join the war on the Coalition side, but it was too late for that now. Bridges had been burned. They’d never let him join up even if he asked them, and what did they want with a fat old alcoholic anyway, Duke’s Cross or not?
The thought of it curdled the rum in his stomach. He drank some more to wash away the taste.
Should’ve done something, he told himself. Should’ve taken a stand.
But Abley had needed him, and by the time he’d seen to his patient the chance had gone. His fit of pique back at the underground chasm seemed churlish now, an act of defiance that only served to make him feel better. He might have protested, but in the end he hadn’t mustered the wherewithal to do anything about it. He always did go with the flow a bit more than was good for him.
He took another swig of rum. It helped take his mind off it.
The Ketty Jay trembled as the engines powered up. There was a soft buzz through the hull as the electromagnets got to work, extracting gas from liquid aerium, pumping it into the ballast tanks. The Ketty Jay creaked as she became lighter. She stood up on her skids and floated uncertainly off the ground.
‘Doc? You in position?’ the Cap’n’s voice came faintly from below.
‘I’m here!’ called Malvery. Then, quieter and to himself: ‘Always here.’
The sky cracked and flared with explosions. Tracer fire slid up into the night. Coalition Windblades shot by overhead, chasing down Awakener craft that were lifting off from hidden places all over Korrene. To the right of the Ketty Jay, the Firecrow was rising. He saw Harkins in the cockpit, intent on the controls, his pilot’s cap jammed low on his head and his scarecrow legs visible through the bubble of windglass on the nose of his aircraft. Pinn was ascending alongside him, his pudgy face underlit by the dash of his sleek Skylance. Inside the cupola, Malvery felt insulated from it all, as if it were some show happening far away with no power to affect him, and which he was equally powerless to affect.
An explosion close overhead shook the Ketty Jay and made him spit his rum all over his crotch. Suddenly he felt a lot less detached.
The Ketty Jay’s thrusters kicked in, pushing her forward. Her outflyers kept pace alongside. Frey flew them low over the city to avoid the worst of the flak, but it still seemed uncomfortably near to Malvery.
Coalition forces were swarming now. They were determined to inflict some casualties on the scattering Awakeners. Now the Ketty Jay was airborne, Malvery could see that the anti-aircraft fire was much lighter than on their way in. In some areas, it had diminished to almost nothing, as the gunners joined the retreat.
‘Doc! How we doing back there? You still keeping your eyes out?’ Frey called. He had a tendency to nag during a battle. Not being able to see behind his craft made him anxious.
‘Apart from all this sodding flak?’ Malvery called back. ‘Just fine.’ He stopped as he caught sight of something moving in the dark, then bawled: ‘Eight o’ clock high, Cap’n! Fighter! Incoming fire!’
Frey reacted immediately. The world lurched and tilted outside Malvery’s cupola. A flurry of blazing tracers whipped past him and flew away earthwards to be swallowed by the streets. Malvery stuffed the bottle of rum into a gap in the bulkhead so as not to drop it into the corridor below.
‘Where is it now?’ Frey called, wrenching the Ketty Jay back and forth in an evasive pattern. Harkins and his Firecrow swung into view and away. Malvery craned his neck, trying to spot the fighter against the night. A flash of anti-aircraft fire lit it up just as it unleashed another barrage. This time gunfire lashed across the Ketty Jay’s hull, pocking the metal with bullet holes. Something deep inside the craft groaned. A pipe burst and steam hissed out into the corridor below him. He heard Silo come running to fix the leak.
‘It’s on our six, Cap’n! Still above us!’ he yelled over the noise.
‘Well bloody shoot it then!’ Frey yelled back.
‘It’s a Windblade!’ he protested.
‘Do I sound like a man who gives a shit?’ Frey screamed.
‘I ain’t shooting at Coalition!’
‘They’re attacking us! You want to die for your damned patriotism?’
‘Why not?’ Malvery roared. ‘You want us to die for your damned woman, don’t you?’
The Cap’n was momentarily defeated by that. There was silence from the cockpit as he formulated a comeback, but then a fresh salvo from the fighter put a few new holes in their wing, and Frey gave up trying to be witty.
‘Just do it!’ he shrieked.
Exasperated, Malvery grabbed the handles of the autocannon. The cupola swivelled with the gun. ‘Keep her still, then!’ he shouted. Frey stopped jinking about, and Malvery brought the target into the centre of his crosshairs.
It was a peach of shot. The Windblade was lining up on them, encouraged by the lack of return fire. The pilot, thinking only of the kill, wasn’t even trying to dodge. Both of them were in each other’s sights.
‘Malvery!’ Frey yelled.
The first one to fire would destroy the other.
‘Malvery! Take the shot!’
Malvery’s finger hovered over the trigger. He thought of all the people on the Ketty Jay. Of the Cap’n and Silo and Ashua, especially, who he was inordinately fond of. All the people who’d likely die if he didn’t shoot.
‘Malvery!’ Frey screamed, loud enough to threaten imminent prolapse. ‘You horrible fat bastard! Fire!’
Malvery took his finger away, sat back in his battered leather chair, and sighed with something like satisfaction. What would be, would be. But he’d be damned before he shot down a Coalition aircraft.
A moment later, the Windblade exploded, ripped apart by tracer fire from out of the night. Pinn’s Skylance slashed through the air and away.
Malvery watched the flaming pieces of Windblade fall towards the city below. They’d outrun the flak now. There was no more pursuit that he could see.
He pulled out the bottle of rum and emptied the remainder down his gullet. Then he hauled himself out of his seat and went down into the steam-filled corridor in search of another. He was going to get plenty drunk tonight.
Who says I can’t make a stand?
Twelve
Pinn’s Women – Signals – The Interloper – A Horror
Artis Pinn, thought Pinn to himself. Hero of the Skies.
He rather liked the sound of that. He pictured the title on the cover of the novel they’d one day write about his adventures. Maybe a few more exclamation marks here and there. Artis Pinn!!! Hero of the Skies!!! Yes, that would do. Make it stand out a little. The cover had to be good, since he’d never actually read it. The important thing was that it looked impressive in the window of a bookshop.
The flight from Korrene had left him time to daydream. Or should it be nightdream? he thought. It’s dark, after all. He congratulated himself on his own wit and wiggled his butt in the seat of the Skylance to dig a more comfortable dent in the padding.
They’d been flying without lights for hours, heading southwest. The glow of the
Ketty Jay’s thrusters, the steady roar of his aircraft and the long period of inactivity had lulled him into a half-drowse. His mind, such as it was, wandered freely.
The Coalition Navy had been long left behind them. Crake too, and good riddance to the pompous arsewipe. If he wanted to flounce off in a strop like a girl then let him. Pinn wouldn’t miss him one bit. In fact, he’d have his biographer write Crake out of the book altogether. He didn’t want the reader distracted from the real focus of the story. Artis Pinn. Pilot, lover, rogue.
He glanced at the little picture frame that hung from the dash, swaying gently with the motion of the aircraft. A ferrotype of a middle-aged woman looked back at him, with long curly hair, slightly crooked teeth and a formidable bosom. In the past, he’d spent hours staring at that portrait, but she didn’t look quite so good tonight. He struggled to remember her name, and was alarmed to find that he couldn’t. It might be important, he thought. What if his biographer needed to know?
Emanda, he thought, with the kind of relief he normally associated with unloading a particularly troublesome bowl of oats in the Ketty Jay’s head. Yes, he remembered her now. The woman from Kingspire. He’d spent a few heady days with her, gambling and drinking and shagging like champions. Inevitably, she’d succumbed to his charms, and told him she loved him. She was a bit hammered at the time, but he’d leave that part out. Anyway, he’d known at that moment that she was the one for him, and he left her that night with a note of explanation. He was going to find fame and fortune, and then he’d be back. When he was worthy of her. When he was a hero.
Except, well, all of a sudden he just wasn’t that keen on her.
A thought occurred to him. He held the flight stick awkwardly between his knees to keep it steady, then took the frame from the dash and opened it up. He took out the portrait of Emanda and tossed it aside. Jammed in the frame behind it was another ferrotype. He took that one out too. A blonde, eighteen or so, with a wide, plain face and big innocent eyes. A smile free of guile or intelligence. He frowned as he stared at her. Who was she?
Pinn was a creature of the moment. Seven years was a long, long way back for him. It took time for the memories to seep apologetically through the armour of his consciousness.
Lisinda!
At last he had it. His biographer would want to know that one. His first great love, a girl from his home town. Pinn had slept with other local girls during the tenure of their relationship – men had urges, of course – but never with her. He wanted to keep her pure. That kind of consideration was probably why she adored him, and why she’d ended up telling him she loved him. He left her soon after, with a note of explanation. He was going out into the wide world to seek his fortune. He’d be back when he was worthy of her.
Pinn dimly discerned a pattern there for the briefest of instants, but the thought was slippery and he lost it.
Lisinda. She’d promised she’d wait for him. Well, actually, she hadn’t, he just expected her to, since she’d told him she loved him. Seven years wasn’t that long. But anyhow, she’d gone and married someone else or something, so she could piss off now. He’d found out in a letter she’d sent him. A letter! She didn’t even have the decency to tell him to his face! Faithless wench.
He crumpled up her picture and stuffed it in his pocket so he could deface it later. Then he took up the flight stick again. Lately, a notion had been growing in his mind. Maybe all this heroism and fortune-hunting wasn’t getting him anywhere. Maybe there was something bigger than all this. And maybe there was another woman out there for him, a woman far more intelligent and beautiful than Lisinda or Emanda. A spiritual woman.
Stuck to his dash was a piece of paper. Written on it in barely legible script were several short phrases in pencil:
Jurny.
Deth.
Dark hared stranger (not hot)
Find sumthin important
Trajedy on sum-one deer (emanda?)
You will beleeve!!
The first three lines had been crossed out. He reckoned that Korrene counted as a journey to a place they’d never been to. The dark-haired stranger was obviously Pelaru. And death was probably to do with Osger, since he was dead. Pinn couldn’t understand why Pelaru had been so broken up about some shit-ugly half-Mane with a face like a maggoty bollock, but Thacians were a strange lot.
‘There’s the fleet,’ Frey said in his ear, startling him out of his reverie. He lifted his head and saw a knot of lights on the horizon, above the cloud line. It seemed like their hostage’s information about the rendezvous was good.
He dug around for a pencil and crossed out the fourth line. Find something important? That was surely the Awakener base they were heading for. He stared at the paper and shook his head in amazement. This prophecy stuff was really pretty incredible. There had to be something behind it. After all, how did she know?
He looked at the next line of the prophecy.
Tragedy will fall on someone you hold dear.
He stared at the words with an expression of deep thought, then slowly lifted one of his buttcheeks and farted.
‘Here they come,’ said Frey.
Ashua watched the Awakener cruiser approach through the windglass of the cockpit. It had broken away from the main mass when they turned on their lights, and set course towards them. This fleet didn’t have anything as big as a Coalition frigate, but they had guns enough to blow up the Ketty Jay several times over.
‘Stay due north of the fleet. That’s the approach pattern for today,’ Abley told Frey. He was sitting in the navigator’s chair, within easy reach of the press-switch that operated the electroheliograph.
‘Don’t try anything,’ Ashua warned him darkly. ‘They try to board us, I promise they’re gonna find you with a hole in the back of your skull.’
Abley didn’t say anything. He looked cowed enough, though. Ashua was a big believer in threats. You had to make sure people knew their situation. Hostages got it into their heads to try the stupidest things when their backs were against the wall. Their consciences made them brave, so they screwed it up for everyone, and almost invariably ended up dead. She’d seen it happen enough on the streets.
Ashua wasn’t a big fan of the Cap’n’s latest plan. She didn’t want to take sides in this war. Having grown up in the violent slums of Rabban and later in Samarla, she didn’t feel she owed Vardia much. Archdukes or religious fanatics, rulers were all the same to her. Her inclination was to sit back and see who was going to win, then join them.
But the Cap’n called the shots, and he wanted his pirate lady. Ashua had only ever met Dracken briefly, and then Dracken had threatened to have her nails pulled out. Ashua didn’t know what the Cap’n saw in her. Still, she must be quite a woman, with all that Frey was willing to go through to get her. That, or he was just desperate.
Well, at least while he was after Dracken, he wasn’t after her. That made for a more pleasant travel experience all round.
A light began to blink on the cruiser’s electroheliograph mast. Abley watched it closely. Ashua watched him, just as closely. She was good at spotting liars and tricksters. She’d been surrounded by them all her life.
When the blinking stopped, Abley set to work, tapping away. With Jez still out of action, they had no way of telling what he was communicating. Of those in the cockpit, only the Cap’n had any knowledge of EHG code, and he’d relied on navigators for so long that he was abominably slow at it. Ashua exchanged a glance with Silo, who was standing next to her, his arms crossed. No sign from him to betray his emotions, of course. If he was tense, she couldn’t tell.
Abley finished up. They waited. Then the cruiser began flashing again. Abley picked up a pencil and scribbled down the message. Then the cruiser swung away from them, heading back towards the aircraft hanging in the distance. Ashua noted that several of the bigger craft were departing the fleet and heading away, going dark as they left the main mass.
‘They’ve accepted the code,’ said Abley, his shoulders sl
umped in evident relief. He held up a piece of paper. ‘These are the coordinates for the next rendezvous. Looks like it’s due west of here, over the Splinters. We have to be there by dusk.’
‘The Splinters?’ Ashua said. ‘I thought we were meant to be going to the Barabac Delta.’
‘I don’t know! That’s just what they told me!’ Abley protested.
‘Can’t move a whole fleet all the way ’cross Vardia by daylight,’ Silo rumbled. ‘Least, not without someone takin’ note.’
‘So everyone makes their separate ways to the rendezvous,’ Frey mused, thinking it over. ‘Then they fly down the length of the Splinters by night. Lights off, no one’ll see them.’
‘Makes sense,’ said Ashua.
‘Looks like we’ve got an appointment to keep, folks,’ said Frey. He waved a hand at Silo. ‘Put the lad somewhere he can’t cause any trouble, will you? We’ll sort out what to do with him later.’
‘You said you’d let me go!’ Abley protested, as Silo pulled him to his feet.
‘We will, if you behave,’ Frey replied.
Abley hobbled away with Silo. Ashua, deciding that the danger had passed, went with them down the corridor, then split off and headed to the cargo hold.
She emerged on a walkway overlooking the dim, echoing chamber that had become her home. Below her she heard thumping and clanking: Bess, restless, as she’d been ever since they’d taken off. Ashua spotted her stomping about near the lashed-up crates of Awakener relics they’d pulled off the freighter a few days ago. The weak hold lights reflected from her dull and battered armour.
‘He’s not here, Bess,’ she said quietly to herself. ‘He left you behind. People do that.’
She was a little sad about Crake. She’d liked him. Maybe it was his aristocratic style, but he reminded her of a younger, finer Maddeus, before he’d wasted away. Now he was gone, and Malvery wasn’t half as much fun since he’d started brooding about the war. The others were still along for the ride for now, but she wondered how much longer they’d stick with the Cap’n if he didn’t find Trinica soon. Or maybe the Cap’n would dump them once he got his woman. Being saddled with a bunch of reprobates was hardly conducive to romance, after all.