Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

'The company?'

'Gradmuth Operations.'

'I've heard of them. Big aerium suppliers to the Navy,' Trinica said.

Sprine grunted. "Cept it's not just the Navy they're supplyin'. It's them pus-arsed Sammies!'

Frey raised an eyebrow. Yards supplying Samarlans? Their old enemies in the south, the same people they'd recently fought two wars against? It didn't sound especially likely.

'Soon as we got word, we was up in arms,' Sprine said. He spat on the ground. 'It's not enough that they pay us barely enough to feed our families. Not enough that they work us harder every day. Now they're makin' traitors of us, too!'

Frey was pleased to note that nobody seemed to want to shoot them any more. He glanced at Trinica, to be sure she was alright. She didn't seem the least bit scared.

'I heard the Century Knights were here?' he asked.

'Aye, they turned up quick-smart, didn't they?' said Sprine. 'Always do, when they're protectin' the rich folk. Don't turn up so fast when it's the miners in trouble. They're holed up in the refinery with Roke and the rest of the company folk.

'So these mercs . . . they work for Gradmuth Operations?'

'Aye. Paid killers.'

'Well,' said Frey, indicating the dishevelled doctor by his side. 'I think you can see by the state of us that we haven't been paid by anyone in a long time.'

Sprine looked them over. 'Aye. You've a point there.'

Frey fixed his eyes on a point a dozen metres behind Sprine. 'In fact, if we were mercenaries, we'd probably look more like that.'

Sprine laughed. 'You don't expect me to fall for thaaaAARGH?!' he bellowed, and then pitched forward into Frey as he was shot in the leg.

Pandemonium. The deafening, percussive sound of rifle fire. The air was full of snow and bullets and the stink of gunsmoke.

Malvery heaved Sprine off Frey as the miner fought to untangle his rifle and find a target. The mercenaries, dressed in blue uniforms, were shooting round the corner at the end of the alley. Frey and Malvery went the other way, towards the miners. Malvery dragged his captain towards the wall, as far out of the line of fire as they could go. Hard chips nipped at Frey's cheeks as bullets bounced off the stone.

He cast around desperately for Trinica, and saw her being bundled away by Silo. The miners were in disarray, some of them shooting and others retreating, falling over each other. One lay on the ground, staring upwards, a fanned spatter of red blood on the snow. Everyone was yelling.

Frey and Malvery slid along the wall, pressing themselves close to it. Bullets flew past them in both directions. Some of them thumped into flesh, but thankfully none of it belonged to Frey.

Then they were behind the miners, their heads down, running. The miners were too caught up in their gunfight with the mercs to care about prisoners now. Frey threw himself round the corner after Silo and Trinica, and ran smack into something that felt like a building.

Suddenly, the chaos turned to stillness. Frey blinked. Somehow, he was on his back, gazing at the sky. Snow was floating down to settle on his face. Everything seemed vaguely dreamlike.

There were faces looking down at him. Some he recognised; one he didn't. An ugly face, belonging to a giant. Bearded, beetle-browed, cut from rock. Dimly, Frey came to the conclusion that he'd run head-first into this man's chest.

Everything swam back into focus. The sound of the gun-battle around the corner became loud again. Then another face come into sight, and an altogether more pleasant one. He recognised Samandra Bree, of the Century Knights. Which meant the man he'd run into was her partner, Colden Grudge.

She bent over him, hands on her thighs, her tricorn hat perched on her head.

'Hello, Frey,' she said. 'Fancy meeting you here.'

They left the miners and the mercs to fight it out and headed away through the alleys. Bree and Grudge led the way, she with her twin lever-action shotguns, he with his colossal autocannon. It was big enough to be mounted on an aircraft, but in his hands it seemed about the right size.

'You're not going to break up the gunfight?' Malvery asked, as the sounds of dying men diminished behind them.

'Not our problem,' rumbled Grudge.

'Not your problem?' Malvery was faintly appalled. 'Then what is?'

'Our problem is back in the refinery,' said Samandra.

'That's where we're going now?' Frey asked.

'Yep,' she replied. That suited Frey. If the miners were to be believed, Almore Roke was there.

He drew his cutlass as they hurried through the narrow back ways of Endurance. It made him feel a little better. They'd left all their guns on the ground when they fled, and he felt uncomfortably vulnerable without them.

'I shouldn't worry,' said Samandra. 'The miners might be riled, but they ought to stop short of firing on the Archduke's Knights.'

'Ought to?' Frey asked.

Samandra shrugged. 'Guess you never can tell.'

The snow was coming down thicker now, and settling. Frey glanced over at Trinica, who was sticking close to Silo. The Murthian had pulled her out of the crossfire earlier. He'd done a better job of protecting her than Frey had. Frey suppressed a surge of jealousy.

Just be glad no one got hurt. No one important, anyway.

'I should thank you,' he said to Samandra. 'For coming to collect us. Didn't expect an escort.'

'We saw you coming in. Recognised the craft. I wouldn't soon forget the Ketty Jay. Not after the shit you pulled at Mortengrace.'

Frey grinned. 'And you just couldn't resist.'

'Actually, it was more 'cause I want to pick your brains about Grist.' She winked. 'And because it'd just break my heart to see that handsome face shot off.'

'Mine, too,' Frey admitted.

He checked on Trinica again. Samandra spotted him. 'She's new,' she said. 'Pretty, too. What's the story?' She nudged him in the ribs.

'Her? Passenger,' said Frey. He hoped that he was offhand enough to discourage her interest. Trinica was under sentence of death for treason, and if the Century Knights realised who she was, it'd all be over for her. Luckily, she was all but unrecognisable without her make-up.

Samandra gave him an insinuating smile, but she didn't pursue the matter.

They came out of the alleys and on to narrow streets. There was more evidence of combat here: bullet holes in the walls, fallen bodies being slowly buried by the snow. Bree and Grudge slipped from corner to corner, covering the angles, each supporting the other. Frey had to admire the seamless way they worked together.

They spotted a group of blue-uniformed mercs ahead, who came sallying out of a side street. They raised their weapons at the sight of the rag-tag group coming their way, but lowered them again as they identified Bree and Grudge. The Knights and their companions were left to pass unhindered.

Now that the distant gunfire had stopped, silence returned to Endurance. The only sound was their boots whispering through the snow, and the clank of Grudge's body armour. Frey found it all a bit eerie.

'Where is everybody?' he said.

'That's what worries me,' said Samandra. 'Most of the town disappeared when the trouble began, before we got here. There are little roaming groups fighting skirmishes with the mercs; as to the rest, we ain't got half an idea where they are. But you can be sure they're about somewhere. Probably been rounded up by the Underground, getting ready to make their move.'

'The Underground?'

Samandra indicated a sign daubed in red paint on a nearby wall. An underlined U. Frey had noticed several others on their way, but hadn't thought much of them. 'The Underground. Bunch of militants who say they fight for worker's rights, votes for all freemen, that kind of thing. They've been stirring the locals up good. This place was a powderkeg. Only a matter of time before something set 'em off.'