Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

The thought made him furious. He was no longer sad; he was consumed by a bitter, savage anger that flooded through his veins like molten metal.

'What's that weird grinding sound?' Harkins queried in his ear.

Pinn unclenched his teeth and gave a terrible howl of rage. Harkins squealed in fright. A flash of lightning lit up the battlefield, and a crack of thunder rocked the Skylance. Pinn saw aircraft swooping in the distance. He felt a deep need to avenge himself on the whole world. Those Equaliser bastards would be a good start.

The Skylance's engines shrieked as he flew at reckless speed towards the aircraft. Lightning, muzzle flashes and tracer fire drew him towards an Equaliser that was heading away from him. He gave chase, hoping to catch the pilot unawares, hoping to blast his sorry arse out of the sky before he even knew what was happening.

Then suddenly the air was full of bullets. Tracer fire, flitting all around his craft. Sharp impacts as his hull and wings were hit. Pinn looked frantically over his shoulder, yelled in alarm as the saw an Equaliser hanging on his tail, and rolled out of the way.

'Pinn? Are you alright?' It was the Cap'n, but Pinn didn't have time for a chat right now.

'I think ... I mean, Cap'n, it sounds like he's gone crazy!' Harkins opined.

'Pinn? Have you gone crazy?'

'Will you both bloody shut up?' Pinn cried. 'I've got an Equaliser on my tail!'

'Get over there and help him out!' Frey ordered Harkins.

'Where?'

'Near the frigates!" Pinn shouted. He banked hard, but the Equaliser stuck to him like glue. Just ahead, a bolt of lightning struck the Storm Dog. fizzing off her black hull. The Storm Dog shrugged it off and kept firing.

He heard the chatter of his pursuer's guns, but this time he was ready for it and he dodged. Another spray came out of nowhere; he barely pulled away in time. He twisted his neck, searching for the source. Another Equaliser, coming in high at seven o'clock. Pinn swore. Two of them, ganging up. Their cowardice infuriated him.

'Alright, shitwads." he snarled. I'll give you a chase.'

He broke hard to starboard, slipping out of the way of another volley of machine-gun fire. He'd caught a couple of hits, but the Skylance was still handling well. The Storm Dog and Delirium Trigger slid into view in front of him. He boosted the thrusters and arrowed towards them.

The sudden jump in speed threw his pursuers for a few seconds. They forgot about shooting at him while they concentrated on catching up. Pinn considered engaging the Skylance's racing afterburners, leaving them all choking on his fumes, but that would mean abandoning the fight and the Ketty Jay. In the mood he was in, he wasn't about to do that. He wanted to kill someone first.

By the time the Equalisers had got back within firing range, the frigates loomed large before them. They were flying alongside each other, lumbering through the black sky, cannons blasting. The space between them was a mess of artillery fire and bullets. Pinn headed straight for it.

The Equalisers opened up on him. He swung left, left again, then dived, making himself a hard target. The frigates swelled as he neared them. An alley of death between them, their blasted metal flanks the walls. Turrets on the Delirium Trigger had swivelled to track him: he heard autocannons kicking in.

Go!

He rolled hard and kept rolling, corkscrewing wildly through the deadly mesh of gunfire. Explosions rattled the Skylance, knocking him off course, jerking him about in his seat. It was only a few seconds, but it seemed to stretch out for ever. He pulled the Skylance level and rammed the thrusters to maximum, racing straight along the length of the frigates and out of the alley, whooping all the way.

He craned around in his seat in time to see one of his pursuers ripped to pieces in the crossfire. He couldn't see the other. Maybe that one hadn't been stupid enough to follow him in. Either way—

Machine guns. A rain of tracer fire from above. Pinn's head snapped up. An Equaliser, coming in from direcdy overhead. The Skylance was laid out flat beneath it, the whole craft presented as a target, with Pinn totally exposed in his cockpit. Rookie mistake. The Equaliser couldn't miss. Pinn's heart sank.

Then the Equaliser erupted in a blast of oily fire, spinning away in a dozen separate pieces, fading to invisibility in the storm. Harkins' Firecrow sped across the sky in the opposite direction to Pinn.

'Pinn! Did he get you?'

Pinn slumped back in his seat. 'No. He didn't get me.'

'You let him come in from above!' Harkins snapped, sounding unaccountably outraged. 'You could have been killed! Pay attention! What's wrong with you?'

'I don't know,' Pinn murmured, gazing at the ferrotype of Lisinda hanging from his dash. 'I don't know.'

Crake's palms were clammy and chill. The revolver in his hand felt like it weighed twice as much as usual. His heart skipped and tripped, little irregular bumps and flutters in his chest. He felt dried out and sick, and he was dog-tired from lack of sleep. On top of all that, he was probably going to get himself shot sometime in the next few minutes.

Not for the first time, Crake wondered how a man like himself, a man of good education, breeding and prospects, had ended up this way.

The cargo ramp was opening, squealing gently on its hydraulics. Cold wind blew in, stirring his hair and clothes. Tarpaulins flapped on the crates stacked nearby. Between the booming of the thunder and the shudder of lightning, there was the quieter sound of distant cannon fire and machine guns.

Silo, Jez and Malvery were keyed up, fidgeting with anticipation. Frey was loading his revolver, his cutlass dangling from his belt. He'd taken out his earcuff. unable to stand listening to Harkins and Pinn babble any longer. Jez would be their contact with the pilots.

Bess stood next to Crake, shifting restlessly. She smelt of old leather and machine grease. A thrumming noise came from her chest, a sign of tension and unease. She knew what was coming. He laid a hand on her mailed elbow to calm her.

I'll fix you, Bess, he thought. I'll make this better somehow. For now, we have to get through this.

He just hoped she wouldn't get hurt. Even though he knew she was all but invulnerable to anything short of high explosives, he hated himself every 7time he allowed her to be sent into battle. But how could he explain his reluctance to the Cap'n without also confessing his crime? To the rest of the crew, Bess was just a dumb lump of metal. Only Jez knew the truth.

I'll be with you, he told the golem silently. Don't worry.

The ramp thumped down. Frey raised his pistol in the air, looked back at his crew and yelled, 'Board 'em!'

They ran down the ramp and out. Wind and rain assaulted them. The hardy moor grass whipped around their legs. A dozen kloms away, the flashing of cannons and the slow lines of tracer fire lit up the Storm Dog and the Delirium Trigger, caught in their own private war. Lightning flickered, scarring jagged paths through the night. The air was charged with it.

Before them, like some vast, slain creature of the deep, was the crumpled hulk of the Awakener barque. They were close enough now to see the name painted along the buckled hull: All Our Yesterdays. Smoke leaked from vents near its stern end. It lay in a trench that stretched away out of sight, the earth rucked up in piles all around it.

'The entrance will be over there,' said Jez, pointing. Jez, the craftbuilder's daughter. She knew her aircraft better than any of them.

They sallied across the gap between the aircraft and located the door that Jez had promised. There was no sign of anybody coming out of the All Our Yesterdays. The door had been bent and twisted in the impact, and was half-buried by the banked-up soil. Bess dug it out with her hands, took hold of the edge, and tore it off.