Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

'Engines are iced, Cap'n,' came the reply. The Ketty Jay's engine room was like a miniature version of the Storm Dog's. Silo, as usual, was invisible, lost somewhere in the walkways. 'She can't take these temperatures. There's cracks in the tanks.'

'Hold her together! Just till we get out!'

Silo didn't bother to reply to that. Frey returned to the cockpit, listening anxiously to the clattering noise coming from the thrusters. Trinica and Crake hovered about. They could do nothing to help.

'She sounds bad, Cap'n,' said Jez, whose mental clarity had apparently returned. She seemed no worse for her experience. In fact, she seemed considerably better.

'Don't push the thrusters if you can help it,' he told her.

Til do what I can.'

The Ketty Jay moved away from the Storm Dog, leaving her hanging in the sky, empty and abandoned. In another time and another place, Frey would have cheerfully stolen her. But all he wanted now was to get to safety in one piece.

The bleak world of ice and the strange city in the distance were lost to sight, as Jez turned the craft away and took them into the deeper mist. They slipped past the dreadnoughts that were gliding in the other direction. Later, maybe, he'd think about the things he'd seen here, and marvel at the day's events. For now, he was too preoccupied.

Trinica was watching him. Her mind was a mystery, as it ever was. He'd known better than to expect gratitude, but it still rankled that he'd had no word of thanks from her. No words at all, in fact. He'd risked his life and the lives of his crew to come here and get her. They might yet all die on her account. Wasn't that worth a little praise?

Instead, she studied him as if he was some new and mildly fascinating thing she'd never noticed before. Her attention made him slightly uncomfortable.

You stabbed me in the back and I saved your life in return. I'm better than you. Live with that.

He was conscious of an awkward pressure against his ribs. Irritably, he opened his coat and pulled the rolled-up sheaf of papers from his inside pocket. Since Crake was nearby, he held them out to him.

'What's this?' Crake asked.

'Grist's father's research. Apparently it's compelling evidence that the Awakeners have been using daemonism to create Imperators.'

'They've what? Crake exclaimed. He snatched them from his grasp. 'Give me that!'

'Yeah, didn't I mention it? When you were away we went to Bestwark University, and we met—'

'No, you bloody well did not mention it!' Crake began leafing through the papers excitedly, their predicament suddenly forgotten.

'To tell you the truth, I sort of forgot about it till I was in Grist's cabin. Didn't seem all that important.'

Crake stared at him, aghast. 'Do you know what this means? he asked, brandishing the folio.

'Reckon so. If it got into the Archduke's hands, it could help bring down the Awakeners, or something,' he said offhandedly. He didn't much care whether the Awakeners were around or not, but Crake certainly did.

'Spit and blood! This is incredible!'

'Yeah, well, enjoy it,' said Frey, listening to the labouring thrusters. 'It won't be so incredible if the prothane engine doesn't hold out.'

The mist closed in around them, and the wind began to pick up fast. The Ketty Jay started to shake and rattle. Jez stared out into the gloom. What she was seeing, Frey couldn't tell. The route back was invisible to him, but she seemed to know exactly where she was heading. She twitched the flight stick, banked and dived. Frey steadied himself against the navigator's desk. It was going to be rough.

The wind buffeted them as they flew further in, and Jez was forced to manoeuvre more and more.There was a screeching noise coming from the port thruster. Frey bit his lip and hoped. If the thrusters failed now, they'd be tossed about in the tempest until they came apart.

If only he'd had the time and money to get the parts Silo had been asking for. If only he didn't live this hand-to-mouth, breadline existence. If they died today, it would be his mediocrity that was to blame.

You can do it, girl, he thought, addressing his aircraft. Hang on.

The Ketty Jay bucked and surged as she fought through the storm.

Lightning flickered in the clouds. Frey felt useless. He wanted to be doing something, but there was nothing he could do. Having given up his seat as pilot, he was just a passenger. He watched Jez, or gazed out at the mist, or listened to the disturbing sounds coming from the engine. Mostly, he willed the aircraft to stay together, and tried to keep his balance as they were jostled around. There were safer places to be while the Ketty Jay was fighting through such savage turbulence, but no one would leave the cockpit.

Time ticked by. Moment after agonising moment. Frey lost track of it altogether.

'Not far now,' Jez said.

Frey exchanged a cautiously optimistic look with Crake. Crake, who was clutching the papers tight in one hand and steadying himself with his other, gave him a brave smile. Maybe they'd make it after all.

Then the thrusters coughed and hacked and, with a final bang, the engine blew out.

No.

Frey felt himself go cold. The world seemed deadened, the silence profound. The injustice was like a blade under the breastbone. To have got so close. So close, and to fall at the final hurdle.

No.

Outside was the endless, empty grey. They drifted, somewhere in the vague, strange space between the Wrack and Sakkan.

No.

Then the wind hit them, and this time there was no way to ride it. The Ketty Jay was flung hard, throwing Frey off his feet. He crashed into Trinica and they went down together, sliding along the floor to fetch up against a bank of instruments. Crake was thrown against the navigator's station. He cracked his head on the side of the desk and fell senseless to the floor, papers scattering all around him.

Jez stabbed at the ignition frantically. The thrusters didn't respond. Frey tried to get to his feet, but the Ketty Jay plunged, and he was lifted from the floor and slammed down hard. Jez wrestled with the controls, but her efforts were futile.

Everything was futile.

They were shaken like a rag in a dog's mouth. Without thrust, they had no control. Everything not fixed down went flying about the cockpit. There was the squeal of tearing metal from the corridor. The jolts came fast and from all directions, making it impossible to find their feet. Something snapped and crashed down in the cargo hold. The windglass cracked.

The craft was breaking up. And there was nothing any of them could do about it.

Frey crawled across the floor towards Trinica. One of her black contact lenses had fallen out in the chaos, revealing the green eye he knew. That eye was the one he focused on. The eye of the woman he'd loved. There was the woman he'd risked it all to save. And she was scared; he could see it. Frightened of the end. She didn't want it to be over.

He reached out a hand to her. She snatched it and clutched it hard.

Her hand in his. He could think of worse ways to die.

At least he'd tried, he thought. It was reckless, headstrong and stupid, but it was real and it was worth it. With a little more luck, he'd have made a story that every freebooter, raconteur and drunk would have told for a decade. The man who went into the Wrack, rescued the dread pirate Dracken, and came back to tell the tale. They'd all know the name of the Ketty Jay then. If he never did anything else, at least he'd have done that, and made a tale worth telling of his life.

He just needed a little more luck. But everyone's luck ran out sometime.