Retribution Falls

Six

In the steep heights of the Hookhollows, where the lowlands of Vardia smashed up against the vast Eastern Plateau, silence reigned. Snow and ice froze tight to the black flanks of the mountains, and not a breath of wind blew. A damp mist hazed the deep places, gathering in crevasses and bleak valleys, and a glowering ceiling of cloud pressed down hard from above, obscuring the peaks and blocking out any sight of open sky. Between sat a layer of clear air, a sandwich of navigable space within which an aircraft might pick its way through the stony maze.

It was isolated and dangerous, but this claustrophobic zone was the best way to cross the Hookhollows unobserved.

A distant drone came floating through the quiet. It steadily rose in volume, swelling and thickening. Around the side of a mountain came a lone, four-winged corvette. A heavily armed Besterfield Ghostmoth.

Lurking in the mist layer, barely a shadow, the Ketty Jay stayed hidden as it passed.

Frey watched the Ghostmoth from the cockpit, its dark outline passing overhead. Crake watched it with him.

‘That’s not the one we’re after, is it?’ he asked, rather hoping it wasn’t.

‘No,’ said Frey. He wouldn’t have taken on a Ghostmoth for any money. He was only concerned that its pilot might spot them and decide to take an interest. You could never be sure. There were a lot of pirates out here. Real pirates, not fairweather criminals like they were.

Nothing sat right with Frey about this whole plan. Nothing except the colossal payoff, anyway.

He’d never liked piracy, and historically he’d displayed a lack of talent in the field. Of the four times he’d tried it, three had been failures. Only once had he successfully downed and robbed a craft, and even then the loot had been meagre and his navigator got stabbed and killed in the process. Twice they’d been forced to flee in the face of superior firepower. On the most recent attempt they’d actually managed to board the craft only to find it had already delivered its cargo. That was the closest his crew had ever come to mutiny, until he hit on the idea of placating them with a night out at the nearest port. The following morning, the incident was forgotten, along with most of their motor skills and their ability to speak.

In general, Frey didn’t like being shot at. Piracy was a risky business, and best left to the professionals. Even Quail’s assurances of an easy take did little to quell his fears.

The Ghostmoth slid out of view, and Frey relaxed. He checked on Harkins and Pinn, hovering a little way above them and to starboard, dim in the mist. The Ketty Jay drifted silently, but for the occasional hiss of stabilising gas-jets as Frey’s hands twitched across the brass-and-chrome dashboard. The cockpit lights had been turned off, leaving the interior gloomy. Jez was sitting at the navigator’s station, studying a map. Crake, who had dropped in uninvited, stood behind the pilot’s seat, wringing his hands. Frey thought about ordering him back to his quarters but couldn’t be bothered with the argument that might ensue.

‘Quail said they’d be coming through here?’ Crake murmured.

‘That’s what he said,’ Frey replied.

‘Makes sense,’ Jez told Crake. ‘You want to get through the Hookhollows without being spotted, you follow the mountains that rise closest to the cloud ceiling. That way you can’t be seen from above and you minimise possible sight-lines from below. Two of the most obvious routes converge on this point.’

Frey turned around in his seat and looked at her. ‘I’m beginning to think that, after many months, I’ve finally found a navigator who actually knows what they’re doing,’ he said.

‘We’re few and far between, Cap’n.’

‘How’s the shoulder?’

‘Fine.’

‘Good. Don’t get shot again. You’re useful.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ she said, with a quirky little grin.

Frey settled back to watching. He’d begun to think that Jez was a lucky find. In the few days she’d been on board, she’d shown herself to be far more efficient and reliable than he’d expected. Competence was by no means a prerequisite to joining the crew of the Ketty Jay, but Jez was head and shoulders above the other navigators Frey had worked with. He suspected that she was accustomed to better crews than Frey’s mob, but their slapdash technique didn’t seem to bother her. And she was good at what she did. She’d brought them in from Marklin’s Reach with pinpoint accuracy, with only a featureless sea of cloud and a few mountain peaks to plot their position by. Frey had dropped down through the cloud and found himself dead in the middle of the pass they’d selected for their ambush.

She was a smart one. He only hoped she wasn’t too smart.

Perhaps the others hadn’t noticed, but Jez knew something was wrong with this job. He kept catching a glimpse of the question in her eyes. She’d open her mouth as if to say something, then shut it again and look away.

She feels it too, Frey thought. Instinct.

Instinct. Perhaps. Or perhaps she sensed that her captain intended to rip them off good and proper.

He tried to feel bad, but he really couldn’t manage it. After all, you couldn’t be robbed of what you never had. Quail had promised him fifty thousand ducats, not them. Granted, he’d always maintained a system of fair shares for his crew, dividing the booty according to pre-arranged percentages, but these were exceptional circumstances. By which he meant an exceptional amount of money. Too much to share.

It was just this one time, he promised himself. Because after this, he’d never need to work again.

He’d informed the crew that Quail had given them the tip-off in exchange for one thing. There was a chest on board that he wanted. They were to bring it to him. Everything else was theirs for the taking.

Frey had obtained a full description of the chest, and he knew it would be locked tight. Quail had also assured him there were plenty more pickings besides. The crew could loot to their hearts’ content, and everyone would be happy. They didn’t need to know what was inside the chest. They didn’t need to know about the arrangement between Frey and Quail.

But Jez kept giving him that look.

‘I hear something,’ Crake said suddenly.

Frey listened. He was right: a low throb, accompanied by the higher whines of smaller engines. Hard to make out how many.

‘Jez,’ Frey murmured. ‘Ready on the electroheliograph.’

‘Cap’n,’ she said, reaching over to the switch.

‘This is the one, isn’t it?’ Crake asked, squinting through the windglass, trying to catch a glimpse.

‘This is the one,’ Frey said.

The Ace of Skulls slid into the pass, cruising majestically between two broken peaks. Long, blunt-faced and curve-bellied, she had stubs for wings and a tail assembly like an enormous fin. Thrusters pushed her along as she glided through the air, buoyed up with huge tanks of aerium gas. Decals on her flanks displayed her name, printed across a fan of cards. She was a heavy, no-nonsense craft, without frills, solid. Nothing about her gave away the value of the cargo within.

Buzzing alongside, dwarfed in size, were four Swordwings. Frey recognised them by their distinctive conical, down-slanting muzzles and aerodynamic shape. They were fast fighter craft. Nothing exceptional in their design, but in the hands of a good pilot they could be deadly.

‘It’s not exactly minimum escort,’ Crake murmured.

Frey made a distracted noise of agreement. He didn’t like the look of those Swordwings. He’d expected two, not four.

‘Just give me the word,’ Jez said, fingertip hovering over the press-pad of the electroheliograph switch.

Frey stared up at the freighter. It wasn’t too late to listen to the voice that told him to back out of this. The voice that told him to lay his cards down when he knew his hand was beat. The voice of caution.

You could just keep going on as you are, he thought. It’s not a bad life, is it? You’ve got your own craft. You don’t answer to anyone. The whole world’s there for you. Now what’s wrong with that?

What was wrong with it was that he didn’t have fifty thousand ducats. He hadn’t really minded before, but suddenly the lack had become intolerable.

‘Cap’n?’ Jez prompted. ‘Time’s a factor.’

Frey had picked a spot just below the mist layer and in the shadow of a peak, to give them a good view of the pass above. But if he could see the Ace of Skulls, she might see him, and without the element of surprise they’d have no chance.

You know this is too good to be true, Frey. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen to guys like you. Ambition gets people killed.

‘Cap’n?’

‘Do it,’ he said.

Pinn wiped his running nose with the back of his hand and stared at the grey bulk of the Ketty Jay.

‘Come on! What’s taking so long?’ he cried. The need to get up there and shoot something was like a physical pull. His boots tapped against the complicated array of pedals; his gloved fingers flexed on the flight stick. These were the moments he lived for. This was where the action was. And Pinn, as he never tired of telling everyone, was all about action.

The Second Aerium War fizzled out mere days before he had the chance to sign up. Those miserable Sammies called it off just as he was about to get in there and bloody his guns. It was as if they’d intended to spite him personally. As if they were afraid of what would happen when Pinn got into the thick of things.

Well, if the Sammies were too chickenshit to face him in the air, then he’d just take it out on the rest of the world, every chance he got. Having been cheated once, he reasoned it was only his due. A man deserved the opportunity to prove himself.

He snatched up the small, framed ferrotype of his sweetheart Lisinda, that hung on a chain from his dash. The black and white portrait didn’t do her justice. Her long hair was fairer, her innocent, docile eyes more beautiful in his memory.

It had been taken just before he left. He wondered what she was doing now. Perhaps sitting by a window, reading, patiently awaiting his return. Did she sense his thoughts on her? Did she turn her pretty face up to the sky, hoping to see the cloud break and the sun shine through, the glimmer of his wings as he swooped triumphantly in to land? He pictured himself stepping down from the Skylance, Lisinda rushing joyously towards him. He’d sweep her up in his arms and kiss her hard, and tears would run uncontrollably down her face, because her hero had returned after four long years.

His thoughts were interrupted by a series of flashes from a lamp on the Ketty Jay’s back. A coded message from the electroheliograph.

Go.

Pinn whooped and rammed the prothane thrusters to maximum. The Skylance boomed into life and leaped forward, pressing him back in his seat. He stamped down on a pedal, wrenched the stick, and the craft came bursting out of the mist, arcing towards the small flotilla high above. They’d all but passed overhead now, so he came at them from below and behind, hiding in their blind spot. A fierce grin spread across his chubby face as the engines screamed and the craft rattled all around him.

‘This ain’t your lucky day,’ he muttered as he lined his enemy up in his sights. He believed true heroes always said something dry and chilling before they killed anybody. Then he pressed down on his guns.

The pilot of the nearest Swordwing had only just heard the sound of Pinn’s engine when the bullets ripped through the underbelly of his craft. They pierced the prothane tanks and blasted the Swordwing apart in a dirty cloud of flame. Pinn howled with joy, corkscrewed through the fire and burst out of the far side. He craned in his seat to look back, past his port wing, and saw Harkins coming up, machine guns blazing, shredding the rudder of another Swordwing as he shrieked by.

‘Yeah!’ he cried. ‘Nice shooting, you twitchy old freak!’

He hauled the Skylance into a loop, hard enough to make his vision sparkle at the edges, and headed back towards the flotilla. The two remaining Swordwings had broken formation now, taking evasive action. Harkins’ target was coiling its way down to a foggy oblivion, leaving a trail of smoke from its ruined tail. Far below, the Ketty Jay had broken cover and was heading towards the slow bulk of the freighter.

Pinn picked another Swordwing and plunged towards it. He dropped into position on its tail, machine guns spitting a broken row of blazing tracer bullets. The pilot banked hard and rolled, darting neatly out of the way. Pinn raised an eyebrow.

‘Not bad,’ he murmured. ‘This is gonna be fun.’

‘She’s heading for the clouds!’ Jez said.

She was right. The Ace of Skulls had turned her nose up towards the cloud ceiling and was gliding towards it. Visibility would be almost nil in there.

‘I’m on it,’ Frey said, then suddenly yelled, ‘Doc!’

‘What?’ came the bellowed reply through the open doorway of the cockpit.

‘Start hassling the fighters! I’ve got the big fish!’

‘Right-o!’

There was the thumping of autocannon fire as Malvery, in the gunner’s cupola, began unleashing lead at all and sundry. Frey fed a little more into the prothane engines and the Ketty Jay responded, surging upwards. She was surprisingly light for such a big craft, but Frey was long used to the way she handled. Nobody knew her like he did.

Harkins and Pinn had the Swordwings occupied, chasing them around the sky, leaving the way clear for him. He hunched forward in his seat, frowning intently at his target. Jez and Crake stood behind him, hanging on as best they could as the Ketty Jay rocked and swayed.

The freighter swam higher, thrusters pushing as hard as they were able, but she was a lumbering thing and she couldn’t get a steep enough angle without tearing herself apart under her own weight. Frey would only get one chance, but one chance was all he needed. The aerium tanks on a craft like this were an enormous target. Though there was nothing on the outer skin to indicate their location, Frey knew his aircraft. It would be hard to miss.

Just graze the tanks with your guns, he reminded himself. Holed tanks would vent aerium gas, and the steady loss of lift would force the pilot to either land the craft or have her drop out of the sky. A landing might be a bit violent in this kind of terrain, but Frey didn’t much care as long as the cargo was intact. The prothane tanks—the dangerous part—were well armoured and buried deep within the craft. It would take a really bad landing to make them go up.

The Ace of Skulls swelled in his view, growing larger as he approached. In attempting to escape she’d exposed her belly. He zeroed in on the spot just under her stubby, finlike wings.

Closer . . . closer . . .

He squeezed the trigger on his flight stick. The Ketty Jay’s front-mounted machine guns clattered, punching a pattern of holes across the freighter’s side.

And the Ace of Skulls exploded.

The windglass of the cockpit filled with a terrible bloom of fire, lighting up Frey’s astonished face for a split second. Then the impact hit them.

The detonation was ear-shattering. A concussion wave swamped the Ketty Jay, making her roll sharply and sending Jez and Crake slamming into the navigator’s station. Frey wrestled with the controls, yanking on the flight stick with one hand, hitting switches with the other. The engines groaned and stuttered, but Frey had flown this craft for more than a decade and he knew her inside out. Teeth gritted, he gentled her through the chaos, and in seconds they were level again.

Frey looked out of the cockpit. He felt sick and faint. An oily black cloud of smoke, blistering with red and white flame, roiled in the air. The Ace of Skulls’ enormous bow was plummeting into the pass far below; her tail assembly crashed against the side of a mountain and broke into pieces. A cloud of lesser debris spun lazily away, thrown out by the colossal force of the explosion.

And in among the debris, charred, limp things fell towards the earth. Some of them were still almost whole.

Bodies. Dozens of bodies.

Harkins stared at the slow cascade of wreckage as it tumbled from the sky. He wasn’t sure he’d exactly grasped the full implications of what had just happened, but he knew this was bad. This was very, very bad. And not just because they’d screwed up yet another attempt at sky piracy.

Then, suddenly, the Swordwing he’d been chasing broke left and dived. Harkins’ attention switched back to his target.

He’s running! Harkins thought. A glance told him that the second Swordwing was doing the same, spearing up towards the clouds. Pinn was hot on its tail, spraying tracer fire. Smoke trailed from one of its wings.

Harkins threw the Firecrow into a dive. Whatever had just happened, Harkins was certain of one thing. They were in trouble.

But only if someone lived to tell about it.

The Swordwing was dropping hard, towards the layer of mist that had hidden the Ketty Jay. Harkins rattled off a short burst from his guns, but he was still too far away. He opened the Firecrow’s throttle and screamed after the Swordwing as it was swallowed up by the mist.

Oh no, he fretted to himself. I don’t want to go in there, I really don’t!

But it was too late for second thoughts. The mist closed over him, greying his vision. The Swordwing was a dark smudge ahead. It had pulled level, skimming through the upper layers of mist where visibility was just the right side of suicidal. Harkins tried to close the distance, but they were evenly matched on speed.

Sweat began to trickle down the deep folds of his unshaven cheeks. They were going too fast, they were going way too fast. This pilot was a maniac! Was he trying to get himself killed?

Harkins pressed down on his guns, hoping for a lucky hit. The tracer fire blazed away into the gloom.

A mountain loomed out of the mist to starboard, an unending slope of snowy rock fading into view. The Swordwing swung in recklessly close to it, hugging the mountainside. The shockwave of its passage threw up clouds of loose snow, whipping them into Harkins’ path. The pilot was trying to blind him further. But the tactic was ineffective: the powdery snow dispersed too fast, and did nothing to slow him. Harkins angled himself on an intercept trajectory and closed in on his target.

The mountainside ended without warning, and the Swordwing made a dangerously sharp turn, almost clipping the corner. Harkins followed out of reflex. The only safe place in this murk was where his target had already been.

An outcrop of black stone came at him like a thrown fist.

His reactions responded in place of conscious thought. He shoved the flight stick forward and the Firecrow dived, skimming under the jutting stone with barely a foot to spare. It thundered over him for a terrifying instant and was gone.

He pulled away from the mountainside, gibbering. That was too close, too close, too close! His legs had begun to tremble. This was insane! Insane! Who did that pilot think he was, anyway? Why was he putting Harkins through such torment?

But there it was: the Swordwing. Still visible through the bubble of windglass on the Firecrow’s snout. It was heading down, further into the dull blankness, a ghostly blur.

Harkins followed. Afraid as he was, he was also afraid to face the consequences of giving up. He couldn’t take Frey’s wrath if he let the Swordwing go. Death in the cockpit was one thing, but confrontation was quite another. Confrontation was a special kind of hell for Harkins, and he’d do just about anything to avoid it.

Dense, threatening shadows came into view on either side of them: mountains, pressing in close. Harkins bit his lip to stop his teeth chattering. The Firecrow’s engines cocooned him in warm sound, but he was acutely aware of how fragile this metal shell would be if it hit something at a hundred knots. He’d seen Firecrows shatter like eggs, some of them with his friends inside.

But that never happened to me! he told himself, firming his will, and he pushed harder on the throttle.

The mountains slid closer on either side, pushing together, and he realised they were heading into a defile. Then, suddenly, the Swordwing slowed. Harkins bore down on it. The blur took on form and shape, growing before him. He pressed down his guns just as the Swordwing went into a steep climb, and the tracers fell astern as it shot upwards and disappeared into the haze.

At that moment, Harkins realised what his opponent was doing. Panic clutched at him. He yanked back on the flight stick, hauling on the throttle and stamping the pedal that opened the flaps for emergency braking. The Firecrow’s blunt nose came up; the craft squealed in protest. Harkins felt a weight like a giant’s hand shoving him down into his seat.

A wall of grim stone filled his vision. Massive, immovable, racing towards him. The end of the defile. He screamed as the Firecrow clawed at the air, scrabbling to climb. Blood pounded in his thighs and feet. His vision dimmed and narrowed as he began to brown out.

You’re not gonna faint . . . you’re not gonna faint . . .

Then everything tilted, vertical became horizontal, and the wall that had been in front of him was rushing beneath his wings. He let off on the stick, blood thumping back into his head, and the Firecrow shot out of the defile and upwards. There were a few seconds of nothing but grey, then he burst out of the mist and into the clear air.

Stillness.

As if in a trance, he cut back the throttle and gently brought the Firecrow to a hover, letting it float in the air, resting on the buoyancy of its aerium tanks. A dozen kloms away, visible between the peaks, the Ketty Jay hung listlessly, waiting for his return. He looked down into the sea of mist, but his quarry was long gone.

His hands were quivering uncontrollably. He held one up before him and stared as it shook.