Chris Wooding - Retribution Falls

Because he really, really didn’t want a meeting with Trinica Dracken.

Slag scampered up the ladder behind him and thumped down into the passageway, obviously in the mood for some company. He followed Frey into the captain’s quarters and waited while Frey shut the door and dug out the small bottle of Shine from the locked drawer in the cabinet. He sat patiently while Frey administered a drop to each eye and lay back on the bed. Then, once he’d determined that Frey was liable to be motionless for a while, he hopped onto the captain’s chest, curled up and fell asleep.

Frey drifted on the edge of consciousness, dimly aware of the warm, crushing weight of the cat on his ribs. He was scared of what was to come. He hated being forced into this position. He hated having to be brave. But in the soothing narcotic haze he felt nothing but peace, and gradually he fell asleep.

In seeking to block out one thing he’d rather forget, he ended up dreaming of another.

The north-western coast of Samarla was a beautiful place. The plunging valleys and majestic mountains were kept lush and green by frequent rains off Silver Bay, and the sun shone all year round this close to the equator. It was a land of sweeping vistas, mighty rivers and uncountable trees, all green and gold and red.

It was also swarming with Sammies. Or, to be more accurate, it was swarming with their Dakkadian and Murthian troops. Sammies didn’t dirty themselves with hand-to-hand combat. They had two whole races of slaves to do that kind of thing.

Frey looked down from the cockpit of the Ketty Jay at the verdant swells beneath him. His navigator, Rabby, was squeezed up close, peering about for landmarks by which to calculate their position. He was a scrawny sort with a chicken neck and a ponytail. Frey didn’t much like him, but he didn’t have much choice in the matter. The Coalition Navy had commandeered his craft and his services, and since the rest of his crew had deserted rather than fight the Sammies, the Navy had assigned him a new one.

‘They’re sitting pretty, ain’t they? Bloody Sammies,’ Rabby muttered. ‘Wish we had two sets of bitches to do our fighting for us.’

Frey ignored him. Rabby was always fishing for someone to agree with, constantly probing to find the crew’s likes and dislikes so he could marvel at how similar their opinions were.

‘I mean, you’ve got your Murthians, right, to do all your hard labour and stuff. Big strong lot for hauling all those bricks around and working in the factories and what. Good cannon-fodder too, if you don’t mind the surly buggers trying to mutiny all the time.’

Frey reached into the footwell of the cockpit and pulled out a near-empty bottle of rum. He took a long swig. Rabby eyed the booze thirstily. Frey pretended not to notice and put it back.

‘And then you’ve got your Dakkadians,’ Rabby babbled on, ‘who are even worse, ’cause they bloody like being slaves! They’ve, what do you say, assistimated.’

‘Assimilated,’ said Frey, before he could stop himself.

‘Assimilated,’ Rabby agreed. ‘You always know the right word, Cap’n. I bet you read a lot. Do you read a lot? I like to read, too.’

Frey kept his eyes fixed on the landscape. Rabby coughed and went on.

‘So these Dakkadians, they’re all dealing with the day-to-day stuff, administration or what, and flying the planes and commanding all the dumb grunt Murthians. Then what do the actual Sammies do, eh?’ He waited for a response that wasn’t going to come. ‘Sit around eating grapes and fanning their arses, that’s what! Calling the bloody shots and not doing a lick of work. They’ve got it sweet, they have. Really sweet.’

‘Can you just tell me where I’m setting down, and we can get this over with?’

‘Right you are, right you are,’ Rabby said hastily, scanning the ground. Suddenly he pointed. ‘Drop point is a few kloms south of there.’

Frey looked in the direction that he was pointing, and saw a ruined temple complex in the distance. The central ziggurat of red stone had caved in on one side and the surrounding dwellings, once grand, had been flattened into rubble by bombs.

‘How many kloms?’

‘We’ll see it,’ Rabby assured him.

Frey took another hit from the rum.

‘Can I have some of that?’ Rabby asked.

‘No.’

They came in over the landing zone not long afterwards. The hilltop was bald, and where there used to be fields there were now earthworks, with narrow trenches running behind them. Battered stone buildings clustered at the crest of the hill. It was a tiny village, with simple houses built in the low, flat-topped style common in these parts. The trees and grass glistened and steamed as the morning rain evaporated under the fierce sun.

Nothing moved on the hilltop.

Frey slowed the Ketty Jay to a hover. He was surly drunk, and his first reaction was disgust. Couldn’t the Coalition even organise someone to meet their own supply craft? Did they want to run out of ammo? Did they think he enjoyed hauling himself all over enemy territory, risking enemy patrols, just so they could eat?

Martley, the engineer, came bounding up the passageway from the engine room and into the cockpit. ‘Are we there?’ he asked eagerly.

He was a wiry young carrot-top, his cheeks and dungarees permanently smeared in grease as if it was combat camouflage. He had too much energy, that was his problem. He wore Frey out.

Rabby examined the earthworks uncertainly. ‘Looks deserted, Cap’n.’

‘These are the right co-ordinates?’

‘Hey!’ Rabby sounded offended. ‘Have I ever failed to get us to our target?’

‘I suppose we usually get there in the end,’ Frey conceded.

‘Did the Navy tell us anything about this place?’ Martley chirped. ‘Like maybe why it’s so deserted?’

‘It’s just a drop point,’ Frey said impatiently. ‘Like all the others.’

Frey hadn’t asked. He never asked. Over the past few months Frey simply took whichever jobs paid the most. When the Navy began conscripting cargo haulers into minimum-wage service, the Merchant Guild responded by demanding danger bonuses. Those employed by the big cargo companies were happy to sit out the war ferrying supplies within the borders of Vardia. Freelancers like Frey saw an opportunity.

By taking the most dangerous missions, Frey had all but paid off the loan on the Ketty Jay. They’d had some close scrapes, and the crew complained like buggery and kept applying for transfers, but Frey couldn’t have cared less. After seven years, she was almost his. That was all that counted. Once he had her, he’d be free. He could ride out the rest of the war doing shuttle runs between Thesk and Marduk, and he’d never again have to worry about the loan companies freezing his accounts and hunting him down. He’d be out on his own, a master of the skies.

‘Let’s just load out the cargo and get paid,’ he said. ‘If there’s no one here to collect, that’s not our problem.’

‘You certain?’ said Martley, uncertainly.

‘If there’s been a screw-up here, it’s someone else’s fault,’ said Frey. He took another swig of rum. ‘We’re paid to deliver to the co-ordinates they give us. We’re not paid to think. They’ve told us that enough times.’

‘Bloody Navy,’ Rabby muttered.

Frey lowered the Ketty Jay down onto a relatively unscarred patch of land next to the village. Impatient and drunk, he dumped the aerium from the tanks too fast and slammed them down hard enough to jar his coccyx and knock Martley to his knees. Martley and Rabby exchanged a worried glance they thought he didn’t see.

‘Come on,’ he said, suppressing a wince as he got out of his seat. ‘Quicker we get unloaded, quicker we can go home.’