Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

'Planes,' he said, in the dull tone of one perilously close to going berserk. 'Jez, explain to me how come a bunch of backward country folk have their own air defence force.'

Jez narrowed her eyes. 'Cropdusters modified for fighting forest fires. Mail planes for local deliveries. Personal flyers. There's a small cargo craft in there. Some of them are prop-driven.' She counted. 'There's eight of them in all.'

'Propellers?' Frey scoffed. 'Any of them have guns?'

'Not that I can see. Some of them are open-cockpit two-seaters, though. The passengers have rifles.'

Frey could barely make out the shape of the aircraft at this distance and in this light. But it was no surprise to him that Jez could see every detail. Her eyesight was, literally, inhuman.

He glanced at his navigator. She looked like a normal young woman. Very normal, he thought uncharitably, since his habit was to only pay attention to the pretty ones. She wore practical, shapeless overalls and kept her brown hair in an unflattering ponytail. But she was more than she appeared to be. Frey had made it his business not to think about what she actually was, but the fact that she had no heartbeat was a pretty hefty clue that something wasn't quite right.

Still, all of them had their secrets, and on the Ketty Jay you didn't ask. She was an outstanding navigator and as loyal as you could want. She was the only other person aboard who was allowed - or indeed able - to fly his beloved aircraft in his absence. That decision had taken a lot of trust on Frey's part. Trust didn't come easily to Frey. But she'd been on the Ketty Jay for over a year now and she'd never let him down.

In the end, it didn't matter what she was. She was crew.

Frey fired up the prothane engines and swivelled the craft, presenting her stern to the approaching planes. 'They really think they're going to catch us in those junkers?' he said. 'Let's show 'em what a real aircraft can do.' Jez braced herself against the back of his seat as he lit up the thrusters.

The expected acceleration didn't come. The boom of ignition was far feebler than Frey was used to hearing. At first the Ketty Jay didn't move at all, struggling to shift her own weight. When she began to push forward, it was like moving through treacle. The clearing full of angry villagers slid away beneath them, but not half as fast as Frey would have liked.

'Silo wasn't joking about the engines,' he murmured.

'You ever heard him joke about anything?'

'Suppose not.' He leaned back in his seat and bellowed out the cockpit door. ' Malvery! Get up here!'

The Ketty Jay was picking up speed, but far too slowly. There was a silver earcuff lying in an ashtray set into the brass and chrome dash, between the dials and meters. He snatched it up and clipped it to the back of his ear.

'Harkins. Pinn. Can you hear me?'

'Yes, Cap'n, I'm, er, you startled me a bit, I mean, loud and, erm, I can hear you, yes,' came Harkin's babbled reply.

It sounded as if he was standing right next to Frey, instead of sitting in his cockpit fifty metres away. He was wearing an earcuff of his own, as was Pinn. When one of them spoke, the others could hear what they said. It was one of Crake's little tricks. Sometimes having a daemonist on board came in handy.

'What's up with the Ketty Jay?' asked Pinn. 'Her thrusters are barely lit. Might as well strap a gas stove to her arse for all the acceleration you're getting.'

'Technical difficulties,' Frey replied. 'We've got incoming craft. They've a couple of rifles, that's all. No real danger, but the Ketty Jay isn't going to outpace them till she builds up speed. Keep them off me as best you can.'

'I'll keep them off you, alright,' Pinn said eagerly. 'I'll—'

'And don't shoot them down. I don't want them madder than they already are.'

'We can't shoot them down?' Pinn cried. 'What are we supposed to do? Hypnotise them with fancy flying?'

'It's a bunch of cropdusters and mail planes, Pinn,' Frey told him. 'They're not much of a threat, and I could do without the Navy coming after us. We've managed to stay beneath their notice since the whole Retribution Falls thing. I'd like to keep it that way. Let's keep the needless slaughter to a minimum, eh?'

'You, Cap'n, are a pussy,' said Pinn.

'And you're scared of water.'

'He's scared of water?' Harkins crowed eagerly.

'Don't you start, you jittery old git!' Pinn snapped. 'You're scared of everything.'

'Not water, though,' Harkins replied, with an unmistakable note of triumph in his voice.

'Everyone shut up and fly!' said Frey, before they could get into an argument. Pinn subsided, grumbling.

The Ketty Jay had picked up a respectable amount of speed now. Malvery appeared at the door of the cockpit, still red-faced from his run earlier.

'You bellowed, Cap'n?'

'I need you up in the bubble. There's planes on our tail. Don't shoot at them unless I give the word.'

'Right-o,' said Malvery. He returned to the passageway and climbed the ladder that led to the autocannon cupola on the Ketty Jay's hump. From there, he could act as Frey's eyes astern. Frey wished there was a better way to see what was going on behind his craft while he was airborne, but if there was, he hadn't found it yet.

'They're catching us up, Cap'n,' Malvery reported. 'You might want to go a bit faster.'

Frey swallowed his reply and concentrated on flying. The Vardenwood lay for hundreds of kloms in all directions. In the far distance he could see the grand city of Vaspine, a crown of lights on the highest hilltops. Below them was the forest, cut through with steep, sharp valleys that joined and divided haphazardly.

'What's the plan, Cap'n?' Jez asked.

Frey hated being asked that, usually because he didn't have an answer. 'Well, they can't really do much. They don't have guns that can penetrate the Ketty Jay's hull. Pinn and Harkins can stay out of their range. We just need a bit of time to pick up speed, then we'll leave them behind.'

Jez returned to the navigator's station and began looking at her charts. Frey watched Harkins and Pinn drop back, behind the Ketty Jay , out of his line of vision.

'Er, one of them's coming up on us awfully fast, Cap'n,' said Malvery. 'Cropduster, by the looks.'

'Put a few warning shots across his bow,' Frey called. ' Warning shots, Malvery.'

'Got it, Cap'n.' The autocannon thumped out a short burst.

'Hey, how come Malvery gets to shoot?' Pinn complained in Frey's ear. Frey ignored him.

'Doesn't seem to have done much good, Cap'n,' said Malvery from the cupola.

Frey pulled the flight stick sharply left. The Ketty Jay responded with an unsettling laziness.

'That didn't do much, either,' Malvery said. 'He's gonna pass over us.'

'You see any guns?'

'No.'

Frey frowned. He wasn't quite sure what the pilot of that plane thought he was going to do to a craft the size of the Ketty Jay. He was still wondering when an avalanche of dust hit the windglass of the cockpit, and he found himself flying blind.

'Cap'n!' Malvery yelled. 'I can't see for buggery up here!'

'What in damnation just happened?' Frey panicked, wrestling with his flight stick. The thrusters were labouring. The Ketty Jay's Black-more P-12s could usually chew through anything, but in their present state, they were having trouble unclogging themselves.

'He dumped his tanks on you!' Pinn told Frey. 'All his fire-fighting dusty stuff. Can't hardly see you in the cloud! Ah, there's more of them coming in now!'

Frey banked again. He heard Malvery open up with the autocannon above him. 'Malvery! I said no!'