Chris Wooding: Retribution Falls

‘I like her,’ Pinn said to Malvery.

‘Well, good,’ he replied. ‘Come on, let’s say hi to Harkins.’ They nodded their farewells.

‘He ain’t a bad lad,’ said Malvery as they walked over to the Firecrow. ‘Dumb as a rock, but he’s talented, no doubt about that. Flies like a maniac.’

Firecrows had once been the mainstay of the Navy, until they were succeeded by newer models. They were built for dogfighting, with two large prothane thrusters and machine guns incorporated into the wings. A round bubble of windglass was set into the blunt snout to give the pilot a better field of vision from the cockpit, which was set right up front, in contrast to the Skylance.

Harkins was in the Firecrow, running rapidly through diagnostics. He was gangly, unshaven and hangdog, wearing a leather pilot’s cap pushed far back. His dull brown hair was thin and receding from his high forehead. Flight goggles hung loosely around his neck. He moved in rapid jerks, like a mouse, tapping gauges and flicking switches with an expression of fierce concentration. As they approached, he burrowed down to examine something in the footwell.

‘Harkins!’ Malvery yelled at the top of his considerably loud voice. Harkins jumped and smashed his head noisily on the flight stick.

‘What? What?’ Harkins cried, popping up again with a panicked look in his eyes.

‘I want to introduce you to the new navvie,’ Malvery said, beaming. ‘Jez, this is Harkins.’

‘Oh,’ he said, taking off his hat and rubbing his crown. He looked down at Jez, then launched into a quick, nervous babble, his sentences running into each other in their haste to escape his mouth. ‘Hi. I was doing, you know, checking things and that. Have to keep her in good condition, don’t I? I mean, what’s a pilot without a plane, right? I guess you’re the same with maps. What’s a navigator without a map? Still a navigator, I suppose, it’s just that you wouldn’t have a map, but you know what I mean, don’t you?’ He pointed at himself. ‘Harkins. Pilot.’

Jez was a little stunned. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ was all she could say.

‘Is that the Cap’n?’ Harkins said suddenly, looking away across the docks. He pulled the flight goggles up and over his eyes. ‘It’s Crake and the Cap’n,’ he confirmed. His expression became alarmed again. ‘They’re, um, they’re running. Yep, running down the hill. Towards the docks. Very fast.’

Malvery looked skyward in despair. ‘Pinn!’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Something’s up!’

Pinn sloped into view around his Skylance and groaned. ‘Can’t it wait?’

‘No, it bloody can’t. Tool up. Cap’n needs help.’ He looked at Jez. ‘Can you shoot?’

Jez nodded.

‘Grab yourself a gun. Welcome to the crew.’

They were passing out weapons, gathered behind a stack of crates that had been piled up astern of the Ketty Jay, when Crake and the captain reached them.

‘Trouble?’ Malvery asked.

‘Must be that time of the week,’ Frey replied, then yelled for Silo.

‘Cap’n,’ came the baritone reply from the Murthian, who was squatting at the top of the cargo ramp.

‘You get the delivery?’

‘Yuh. Came an hour ago.’

‘How long till you can get her up?’

‘Aerium’s cycling through. Five minutes.’

‘Fast as you can.’

‘Yes, Cap’n.’ He disappeared into the hold.

Frey turned to the others. ‘Harkins. Pinn. Get yourselves airborne. We’ll meet you above the clouds.’

‘Is there gonna be a rumble?’ Pinn asked hopefully, rousing briefly from his hangover. Harkins was already halfway to his aircraft by the time he finished the sentence.

‘Get out of here!’ Frey barked at him. Pinn mumbled something sour under his breath, stuffed his pistol into his belt and headed for the Skylance, oozing resentment at being cheated of a fight.

‘Macarde’s on his way,’ said Frey, as Malvery passed him a box of bullets. ‘Bringing a gang with him.’

‘We’re low on ammo,’ Malvery murmured. ‘Make ’em count.’

‘Don’t waste too many on Crake, then,’ Frey said, loading the lever-action shotgun he’d taken from Droop-Eye. ‘He couldn’t hit the side of a frigate if he was standing next to it.’

‘Right-o, Cap’n,’ said Malvery, giving Crake a generous handful anyway. Crake didn’t rise to the jibe. He looked about ready to keel over from the run.

Frey nodded at Jez. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Jez. New navvie,’ Malvery said with the tone of someone who’d got tired of introducing the same person over and over.

Frey gave her a cursory appraisal. She was small and slight, which was good, because it meant she wouldn’t take up too much space and would hopefully have an equally small appetite. Her hair was tied in a simple ponytail which, along with her unflatteringly practical clothes, suggested a certain efficiency. Her features were petite and appealing but she was rather plain, boyish and very pale. That was also good. An overly attractive woman was fatal on a craft full of men. They were distracting and tended to substitute charm and flirtatiousness for doing any actual work. Besides, Frey would feel obliged to sleep with her, and that never worked out well.

He nodded at Malvery. She’d do.

‘So who’s Macarde, then?’ Jez asked, chambering bullets as she spoke. When they looked at her, she shrugged and said, ‘I just like to know who I’m shooting.’

‘The story, in a nutshell,’ said Malvery. ‘We sold the local crime lord twelve canisters of degraded aerium at cut price rates so we could raise the money to buy three canisters of the real stuff, since we barely had enough to get off the ground ourselves.’

‘Problem is, our contact let us down,’ said Frey, settling into position behind the crates and sighting along his shotgun. ‘His delivery came late, which meant he couldn’t get us the merchandise on time, which meant we were stuck in port just long enough for one of Macarde’s bumble-butt pilots to fly into a wall.’

‘Hence the need for a swift departure,’ said Malvery. ‘Flawless plans like this are our stock-in-trade. Still want to sign on?’

Jez primed her rifle with a satisfying crunch of metal. ‘I was tired of this town anyway.’

The four of them took up position behind the crates, looking out at the approach road to the docks. The promontory was accessed by way of a wide, cobbled thoroughfare that ran between a group of tumbledown warehouses. The dockers who worked there were moving aside as if pushed by a bow wave, driven to cover by the sight of Lawsen Macarde and twenty gun-wielding thugs storming down the street.

‘That’ll be us outnumbered and outgunned, then,’ Malvery murmured. He looked back to where the Skylance and the Firecrow were rising from the ground, aerium engines throbbing as their electromagnets turned refined aerium into ultralight gas to fill their ballast tanks. Separate, prothane-fuelled engines, which powered the thrusters, were warming up with an ascending whine.

‘Where’s Bess, anyway?’ Frey asked Crake.

‘Do I look like I’ve got her in my pocket?’ he replied irritably.

‘Could do with some help right now.’

‘She’ll be cranky if I have to wake her up.’

‘Cranky is how I want her.’

Crake pulled out a small brass whistle that hung on a chain around his neck, and blew it. It made no sound at all. Frey was about to offer a smart comment concerning Crake’s lack of lung power when a bullet smashed into a crate near his head, splintering through the wood. He swore and ducked reflexively.