Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

'Cap'n!' Jez cried. 'Cap'n, look!'

The tone of her voice drove him to his feet. He pulled Trinica up with him, and they staggered a few steps to clutch the back of Jez's seat.

Bleary lights in the mist. Electric lights, and a huge shadow behind them. Another dreadnought? No, dreadnoughts flew without lights. Then what?

'It's the Delirium Trigger !' said Jez, an amazed smile breaking out over her face. 'It's the bloody Delirium Trigger!'

And it was. Vast, ugly, brutal, looming from the cloud. The wind couldn't threaten a frigate of her size. Thick snakes uncoiled from her shadowy decks and slammed into the hull of the Ketty Jay. Magnetic grapples, clamping on. The lines went taut, and the Ketty Jay began to move through the storm, hauled inexorably forward by the Delirium Trigger's massive engines. They were pulled towards the mouth of the vortex, and the safety of the world they knew.

Frey couldn't believe it. It didn't seem possible. Jez was cheering in her seat, but he just stared, gaping, unable to credit their reprieve.

'How did they find us?' he asked. 'In all this mist, how did they find us?'

Trinica held up her left hand before him. On her finger was the silver ring he'd given her. The ring that was linked to a compass, which Trinica had given to her bosun when she took it from Jez, back in Grist's hangar.

He looked from the hand to her. She smiled at him. A genuine, beautiful smile, that filled him with such happiness it made tears prickle at his eyes.

The Yort engineer led the way up the Ketty Jay's cargo ramp. Frey and his crew followed him in, looking around curiously, as if they'd never seen their own aircraft before. A blast of icy air and a flurry of snow chased past them. Beyond, in the grey glare from outside, there were tractors and hangars, and Yorts walking back and forth. They were in dock at Iktak, where the Delirium Trigger had recently been repaired, and the Ketty Jay more recently still.

'We had to put in a whole new engine assembly,' the engineer was saying. 'Fixed up your thrusters, too, but the guts of 'em were good, so we kept most of it. Blackmore P-12s.' He grinned. 'They don't make 'em like that any more.'

The engineer was a short man, but stout, making up in width what he lost in height. A well-attended gut hung over his belt, but his shoulders and arms looked stuffed with cannonballs. Orange hair fell down his back in braided ropes, and his jawline was outlined with studs of metal.

'We did over your control system and some of the internals. She ought to fly better now, at any rate. Don't know how you kept her together all this time. Your Murthian's a bloody genius.' He thumbed at Silo.

Frey was finding it hard to keep up with his accent. All Yorts spoke Vardic, but it was so heavily inflected that you had to pay strict attention to get any meaning out of it. He suspected they did it on purpose, thorny buggers that they were.

'Sounds like you did a thorough job,' he said uneasily. He was worried that the Ketty Jay wouldn't be the same old girl he knew. After fifteen years of flying her, he'd learned to compensate for all her little tics and problems. They were part of her character. He felt bad about losing them.

The engineer didn't notice. 'Lot of environmental damage on the hull, so we gave her a patch and weld, scrubbed her out. Basically did her over, top to bottom. She'll be better now than when you bought her.'

That's what I'm afraid of, Frey thought. Then he told himself to stop being a grouch. He'd just had his aircraft given an all-over service by one of the best workshops in the North, and it hadn't cost him a shillie. That put a smile on his face.

'I can't wait to fly her,' he said. 'She looks great.'

She did look great. She'd been polished up so she looked factory-new. And Frey had never seen the cargo hold so tidy. His crew looked amazed. Like him, they'd never realised there was so much space in here.

'Anything you couldn't fix?' Frey asked, half-hopefully.

The engineer pointed to an air duct, where Slag was hiding, watching them malevolently. 'Your cat's disposition,' the engineer replied. 'Damned thing kept attacking us whenever we went near the vents.'

'The cat?' Harkins scoffed loudly. He made a lunging movement towards the vent. Slag took fright and disappeared in a scrabble of claws. Harkins crossed his arms and looked smug. 'Who's scared of a cat? You are about twenty times his size, after all.'

Everyone turned to look at him. The engineer gave him a flat glare.

'Er . . .' said Harkins.

'Don't mind him,' Frey told the engineer. 'He laughs in the face of danger.' He slung his arm around Harkins' shoulders. Harkins tensed up, as if expecting to be hit. 'May I introduce my outflyer, "Fearless" Harkins. You know, one time, he played chicken with a dreadnought and won!'

'Him?' the engineer asked.

'Hey, I could have done that, if I'd got there in time!' Pinn protested. 'I'd have won, too!'

'I'll leave you all to have a look around, eh?' the engineer said, somehow making it a threat directed at Harkins. Then he stomped off. Frey took his arm away and Harkins relaxed visibly.

' "Fearless" Harkins, eh?' he said, glancing sidelong at Jez.

'Don't let it go to your head,' Pinn grumbled.

The crew scattered throughout the craft, keen to see what had been done. Only Malvery stayed behind with Frey.

'I bet they even cleaned the infirmary,' Frey said.

Malvery snorted. 'About time someone did.'

'How's the shoulder?'

'Fine. Crake's hand's healing up okay, too. It won't lose any mobility.'

'He seems better these days,' said Frey. 'Happier. So does Jez.'

'We all do, Cap'n. Been through the wars, come out alive. This is the second time we pulled off something we really shouldn't have got away with. The lads are getting confident, I reckon.'

Frey and the doctor considered the empty hold. The subdued clamour of the docks filled up the silence.

'Thought I was losing you lot for a while there,' Frey said eventually.

'Who, us? Nah.' Malvery said. 'Where would we go?'

'Off to find new sweethearts, like Pinn?'

Malvery roared with laughter. 'Chance would be a fine thing.' Then his laughter tailed off and he harumphed uneasily.

'What is it?' Frey asked, sensing something wrong.

'Actually, Cap'n,' he said. 'About that. I've got a confession to make. You know that letter from Lisinda that Pinn got?'

Frey groaned. 'Oh, Doc. You didn't.'

'Well, you know. I thought he was full of it, always talking about that bloody girl of his. Thought I'd call his bluff. To tell you the truth, I posted it a couple of months ago, when I was leathered. Forgot all about it till it turned up in Marlen's Hook.'

Frey pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

'Well, I never thought he'd actually go, did I?' Malvery protested. 'I'm fond of the lad, myself.'

Frey took a deep breath before replying. He thought about all the trouble he'd have faced if Pinn hadn't come back, and he'd been forced to find a new pilot. He wondered if their fight over Sakkan might have turned out differently. Harkins might have been shot down by the Blackhawks. They might never have made it through at all.

But they had come through. They were all safe and well. Given that, it was hard to be angry at Malvery, even if he thought he probably should. The doctor was too much of an affable sort. Besides, no harm was intended, and Pinn seemed more spry than ever since his return.

'I think, on balance, you did him a favour,' he said. 'But keep it to yourself, eh? And don't do it again.'