Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

The Imperator was intimidated by her, his dark grandeur diminished. He readied his blade as she moved closer. Then, when she was close enough, he lunged.

Jez flickered. Suddenly, she seemed to be in three places at once: before him, beside him, behind him, flitting from one position to the next in the time it took to blink an eye. The Imperator's thrust hit nothing; Jez sprang on to him from his left, hands clutching the masked head. Her weight took him down to the ground. She smashed his skull twice against the floor, the second time accompanied by a grotesque crack. Then she tore his head off.

The effect was immediate. It was as if Crake had been gripped by an invisible hand, squeezing his chest, and now it had been released. He gasped like a drowning man reaching the surface. Next to him, Silo was experiencing similar relief.

It had an effect on Jez, too. She stood up and staggered backwards, the Imperator's head dangling from one hand. There was an expression of bewilderment on her face, a look of shock and fear. No longer was she the feral thing they'd seen a moment ago. Now she was small, and scared. She stumbled for a few moments, and then her eyes rolled back and she fell to the ground.

Crake hung on to a girder, letting the strength seep back into his body. The choking smoke and murk was getting thicker by the moment, but he breathed it anyway, and coughed. It was worth it, to be alive.

Frey and Malvery were getting to their feet. They approached Jez carefully, as though she were a dangerous beast that might spring up and lunge at them. Already they were afraid of her. They'd seen the other side of their navigator, and nothing would ever be the same after that.

Damn it, Jez, he thought. Sooner or later they had to find out. But I wish they hadn't seen you this way. I wish you'd told them first.

Then his thoughts went to Bess, lying motionless on the battlefield, and he scrambled to his feet to help her.

'Get him off me! Get him off my tail!'

A chatter of machine guns, and the night was full of tracer fire, ripping past Harkins' cockpit. He banked and dived, squealing all the way, and by some miracle he didn't catch any of it.

'Will you shut your meat-hole, Harkins?' said the voice in his ear. 'I can't bloody think with you shrieking like a pansy.'

Pinn. How he hated Pinn. Of all the men and women and small furry animals that mocked and humiliated him, Pinn was the worst. Well, except for the cat. He'd rather have Pinn than the cat.

'What's there to think about? Just shoot him!' Harkins cried. He twisted in his seat, trying to locate his pursuer.

There was no sign. Hard to see anything in a storm like this. The Equaliser was probably somewhere in his blind spot, anyway. He went into a steep climb and rolled to starboard. A smattering of bullets chased after him through the rain.

'Pinn? Pinn? Stop scratching your fat arse and help me!'

There was a dull boom, and the windglass of his cockpit lit up with reflected flame. He looked behind him and saw the unfurling flower of a mid-air explosion, yellow against the night. The Skylance went spinning past, its pilot whooping in triumph.

'That's five for me!' Pinn said. 'How many have you got, eh?'

Harkins slumped back in his seat and mopped his face with his sleeve. His heart was kicking against his thin ribs and his gorge had risen dangerously high.

'Three, I think,' he said weakly.

'Hah!'

He couldn't care less how many he'd shot down. All he cared about was that he was still breathing. His life was a miserable affair for the most part, scurrying through the shadows of other men, ignored or derided by everyone. But all the same, he clung to it with a fierce grip. Death was even scarier than life was.

Lightning flickered, illuminating the moors beneath. Harkins scanned the sky for potential threats. All he could see was the motley of aircraft that formed the Storm Dog's squadron of outflyers.

'The Delirium Trigger's pulling out!' Pinn yelled suddenly. 'Look! Dracken's running, that pasty-faced chickenshit bitch!'

Harkins banked to bring the frigates into view and saw that Pinn was right. The Delirium Trigger had broken off from the Storm Dog and was rising towards the clouds. The other was making no attempt to pursue. Both craft were battered and blasted, leaking smoke and flame. The Equalisers were scattering across the plain, racing away in different directions, no doubt to rendezvous at some pre-arranged location.

Harkins gave a broad smile at the sight. The battle was over! He'd made it through!

'Cap'n!' he said. 'Cap'n, did you hear that?' There was no reply. 'Jez?' he inquired tentatively, his voice softening.

'Jez? Jez?' Pinn mimicked in a simper. 'They're not listening. Must've taken out their earcuffs. Probably sick of hearing a grown man squeal.'

Harkins bit his lip. Don't rise to it. That's what he wants. But it still hurt.

Once, he'd been a Navy pilot, and his nerve had been as strong as anyone's. What if Jez had met him then, uniformed and proud? He'd always been awkward and highly strung, never quite at ease in his own skin, but he'd been more of a man back then. At least until his comrades started dying in the Aerium Wars. Until he'd been shot down that first time, and then twice more. Until the miraculous escapes began to add up.

If Harkins had been an optimist, he might have thought himself a lucky man. He'd survived dozens of dogfights and got out of scrapes that left his companions dead in his wake. But he was no optimist. Instead, he fretted about how much luck he could possibly have left, and when it was finally going to run out.

Not tonight, though. Not tonight.

Flying was all he knew how to do, but if he had his way, he'd never fight again. All he wanted was an aircraft of his own, and the wide blue sky to fly in. Just to soar for ever. There would be no one to make him feel small. Just him and the sun and the air. He wouldn't ask for anything more.

Well, maybe one thing more. Maybe someone to share it with. Someone he trusted to be kind to him.

Jez, he thought. I wonder what she's doing now?

'Jez?' said Frey tentatively.

She wasn't moving. She lay on the ground next to the decapitated corpse of the Imperator, face down, her hair across her cheek. Frey crept up to her and gave her a poke with the toe of his boot.

'She's not going to bite you, Cap'n,' said Malvery, in the tone of someone who didn't much fancy finding out the truth of that statement for himself.

'How do you know?' Frey asked. 'You saw what happened! She ripped the Imperator's head off with her bare damn hands! One moment she was there, the next she was somewhere else! What was that?'

'That was Jez, and she saved our lives,' said Silo. 'Ain't the first time, neither.'

'That,' said Frey, pointing at her, 'wasn't Jez.'

'Ain't the time nor the place, Cap'n,' said Silo. He picked up the navigator's limp body and slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. 'Let's get done here and go.'

But Frey couldn't shake the memory of her, feral and snarling, that terrifying look in her eyes. That wasn't anyone he recognised. She'd changed.

Crake was at Bess's side. The golem was stirring, to Crake's evident relief. He was tearing up, and not just from the smoke. Well, at least they hadn't lost anyone. At least there was that.

But could he ever look at Jez in the same way again? Would he be able to fly, knowing she was at the navigator's station behind him?

The Imperator's head lay a short distance away. The smooth mask had come loose, and was hanging off. Frey walked over to it. 'Keep an eye out for any more Sentinels,' he told his crew.