Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

Didn't see that one coming, did you, Trinica?

The Storm Dog thundered past the Ketty Jay as Frey went to take care of his own target. Grist was moving into position between the Delirium Trigger and the barque, to block her off and give Frey time to work. The Delirium Trigger would have her cannons in action in moments. She was wounded but far from finished.

The barque was slower to react to the attack. It continued on its course as if oblivious, widening the gap between itself and its escort. It was long and thin, the stern end boxy and stout with stubby fins sticking out to either side to serve as mounts for her ailerons. The foremost two-thirds of the craft was split along its length, giving it the look of a twin-bladed bayonet. A Dakkadian bayonet, like the one Frey had taken in the guts back in Samaria. The memory made Frey's stomach cramp unpleasantly.

He craned forward to see through the rain on the windglass, his finger hovering over the trigger on the flight stick. The barque was a design he'd never come across, and he had nowhere to aim. Not that it bothered Malvery, who was blasting away on the autocannon with reckless abandon.

'Jez!' he snapped urgently. 'You ever seen this kind of craft before?'

'It's a Kedson Harbinger, Cap'n.'

'Any idea where the aerium tanks are?'

'Two on each side, port and starboard. One about ten metres back from the bow, one beneath the ailerons.'

'I could kiss you.'

'I'd rather you didn't. Allsoul only knows where that mouth's been.'

The barque loomed closer. It still hadn't showed any sign of reacting to the surprise attack. Slow crew, badly trained. That was good. They weren't pirates and they weren't Navy. What did Awakeners know about aerial combat?

Frey heard a bellow of cannon to port, and the night was lit by fire: the Storm Dog and the Delirium Trigger were engaging each other in earnest. He ignored them, hoping he was beneath their notice. In this visibility, with all that was going on, the Delirium Trigger probably didn't even know the Ketty Jay was there.

He adjusted his approach, aiming his machine guns for the aerium tanks on the barque's stern end. Shoot out the aerium tanks, and the craft would lose buoyancy and sink. Once they brought it down, it would be easy pickings.

'Steady,' he muttered to himself. 'Steady.'

A stutter of lightning lit up his target.

Not yet . . . not yet. . .

He pressed down on his guns, and at the same moment, the night exploded.

It was like being swatted by a giant. The Ketty Jay was thrown sideways, machine guns raking wildly along the flank of the barque. Frey was flung about in his seat and Jez almost fell out of hers. Pipes shrieked and burst out in the corridor, spraying gas and fluid everywhere. There was the sound of shattering glass and Malvery came tumbling down the ladder that led to the cupola. He crashed in a heap at the bottom, accompanied by a squall of wind and rain.

Frey had just about enough sense to pull the Ketty Jay aside in time to avoid ramming the side of the barque. They shot past on the aft side, passing through the backwash of the engines. The Ketty Jay was lifted and blasted aside, rolling crazily, engines coughing as they threatened to stall.

Don't die on me, girl! Frey begged his aircraft as he wrestled to stop her flipping entirely. Jez hung on to her seat for dear life. Malvery was sent skidding down the corridor on his back, bellowing like a bewildered walrus. Frey could hear distant machine guns, and saw tracer fire gliding past him in the night from the direction of the barque. A moment later, a dozen sharp, punching impacts echoed through the Ketty Jay.

'You never told me the damn thing was armed!' Frey screamed at Jez.

'I didn't think I needed to!' she screamed back. 'I thought you'd be expecting a little resistance!'

'Well, you thought wrong!'

'Well, you're an idiot!' she replied. Then, respectfully, 'Cap'n.'

By now Frey had fought the Ketty Jay level, and the engines were settling down. They raced away from the barque and the Delirium Trigger, slipping safely out of range. Frey's hands were trembling. A freezing hurricane was blowing through the cockpit from the corridor. The cupola was smashed, and rain from outside lashed the passageway.

'Doc! Are you alright?' Frey called through the door of the cockpit.

Malvery was piled against the engine room door in a position that had to be painful. 'Just about, Cap'n,' he wheezed.

'Damage report,' Frey ordered.

'Cuts and bruises. Bashed my knee pretty bad. I've felt better.'

'Not you . The aircraft.'

'Oh. Right-o,' said Malvery. 'I'll ask Silo, shall I?'

'Would you?'

Malvery' untangled himself and headed into the engine room while Frey turned the Ketty Jay.

'Delirium Trigger's putting out her fighters, Cap'n,' said Pinn in his ear. ' Storm Dog too.'

'Get in there,' said Frey. 'Make sure none of them come after me.' He turned to look at Jez, who was arranging herself in her seat again. 'Okay. This time we do it right.'

The aerial battlefield swung into sight as he brought the Ketty Jay around for a second run at the barque. The Delirium Trigger and Storm Dog glided past each other in different directions, slow leviathans, their cannon batteries flashing. Gouts of yellow flame erupted from their hulls; slabs of armour buckled and wheeled away into the storm. The Delirium Trigger's outflyers - Norbury Equalisers, fast and deadly - were spraying from her hangars, emerging to meet the Storm Dog's ragtag squadron of heavier fighter craft. Lightning flickered and thunder shattered the air.

Frey couldn't see Harkins or Pinn in the mix. They'd be waiting for their moment to dart in and hit the Equalisers. Satisfied that the Delirium Trigger and her outflyers were fully occupied, Frey turned his attention back to the barque.

The Awakeners, foolishly, were making a run for it. Perhaps frightened by the sudden appearance of the Storm Dog , they'd boosted their thrusters and opened up distance between themselves and the Delirium Trigger. Maybe they believed they could lose themselves in the storm and escape, leaving their escort behind. But all it did was rob them of their best defence.

Frey closed in on them. This time, he took an evasive pattern, rolling and diving as he approached. A blast of artillery rattled the Ketty Jay, but it didn't come close enough to trouble them. The heavy machine guns fared little better. Tracer fire slipped out of the dark from the turrets on the back of the barque, but it waved about wildly and never got a fix. Now that he was moving around instead of coming in straight, they couldn't draw a bead on him.

'Engines weren't hit, Cap'n!' Malvery shouted from down the passageway. 'Rot knows where we took the bullets, but if you can't feel it in the controls then Silo says not to worry. We probably won't know until we explode.'

Frey barely heard him. He was focused only on his target.

Gunfire came at him from several turrets, but he slipped between it. He headed for the aerium tank at the end of the barque's port prong. With the autocannon out of commission, he only had the nose-mounted machine guns to work with. The trick was to graze the tank, causing a slow leak that would force the pilot to land the craft. But Frey was angry and shaken up, and not in the mood to be subtle. He squeezed the trigger hard, and kept it down. His machine guns didn't so much graze the tank as rip it apart.

The Ketty Jay dove underneath the barque as it vented a pungent cloud of aerium gas. Frey smelt it on the cold wind that whipped around the cockpit and blew his hair against his face. The barque slid through the sky overhead, metal groaning as it tilted. The sudden weight on its port side was pulling it down.