Retribution Falls (32 page)

Trinica was waiting for the punchline. ‘Grephen is paying me a lot of money to track you down. Certainly more than you’ve ever seen in your life. What can you possibly offer me that would tempt me to give that up?’

‘I’ll keep your name out of it if I get caught.’

‘You’ll what?’ She was midway between amusement and astonishment.

‘You’re a traitor. You’re a knowing accomplice in the murder of the Archduke’s only son. The Coalition Navy never managed to pin anything on you - maybe because the witnesses have an odd habit of dying - but they know what you are and they’ll jump at the chance to see you swing from the gallows. You know Grephen is afraid of the Knights getting me before you do. He’s afraid I’ll make accusations against him.’

‘That’s the best you’ve got?’ Trinica laughed. ‘The accusations of a condemned man, without any proof to back them up?’

‘Have you thought what’s going to happen if whatever Grephen’s planning doesn’t work?’ Frey asked. ‘My accusations might not save me, but if Grephen makes a move on the Archduke then he’ll prove what I said about him is true. And that will mean everything I said about you will be true. Now maybe Grephen will win and everything will be alright for you, but if he loses, you’ll have the Navy all over you for the rest of your days. You certainly won’t be docking in a place like Rabban anytime soon.’

‘Why would you believe he’s making a move on the Archduke?’

Frey gave her a look. ‘I’m not stupid, Trinica.’

She studied him. Considering. He’d seen that expression a hundred times before at a Rake table, as players stared at their opponents and asked themselves: do they really have the cards to beat me?

Then she snorted, disgusted at herself for allowing him to threaten her.

‘This is ridiculous, and I don’t have time for it any more. It’s all over now, besides. I’ve got you.’ She drained her whisky and got to her feet. ‘You’re done.’

‘This is a parley, Trinica. Neutral ground. Sharka guarantees our safety,’ he grinned at her. ‘Can’t get me here,’ he added, rather childishly.

‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘But I can get your craft.’

‘You don’t even know where she is.’

‘Certainly I do,’ she replied. ‘You’re berthed in the Southwest Labourer’s Quarter. Of course you registered under a false name, but I had every dock master in the city keeping an eye out for a Wickfield Ironclad-class cargo-combat hybrid. There aren’t many around with the Ketty Jay’s specifications, and I do know that craft quite well. I listened to you talk about her enough.’

Frey was unperturbed. Trinica noted his lack of reaction.

‘Obviously, you guessed I’d do something like this,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter. How many men do you have, Frey? Five? Six? Can you afford to keep that many?’ She looked around the room; he bored her now. ‘I sent twenty.’

Twenty, thought Frey, keeping his face carefully neutral, the way he’d learned to at the card table. Oh, shit.

‘What if I did the same?’ he said. ‘What if my men are on your craft, right now?’

Trinica rolled her eyes. ‘Please, Darian. You never could bluff well. You’re too much the coward: you always give in first.’

She sighed and looked down at him, as if pitying a dumb animal. ‘I know you,’ she said. ‘You’re predictable. That’s why I almost caught you at the hermitage. Once Thade told me about you and his daughter I realised that was the first place you’d go. You always did think with the wrong organ.’

Frey didn’t reply. She had him there.

‘You want to know why I’m a good captain and you’re not? Because you don’t trust your people. I’ve earned my men’s respect and they’ve earned mine. But you? You can’t keep a crew, Darian. You go through navigators like whores.’

Frey kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t argue. There was nothing to say.

‘And because I know you, I know you’d never trust anyone with your aircraft,’ she continued, walking past him towards the door. ‘The Ketty Jay is your life. You’d rather die than give the ignition codes to someone who might fly off with her. That means your crew are outnumbered, outgunned, and trapped, defending an aircraft that’s nothing more than an armoured tomb.’ She cocked her head. ‘Perhaps you were thinking of some clever flanking manoeuvre. Perhaps you’re going to bring in reinforcements behind my men. Whatever you try, it makes no difference. You just don’t have the numbers.’

Frey’s shoulders slumped. Twenty men. How long could Jez, Silo and Harkins hold out against twenty men? Everything had relied on timing, but it was only now he truly realised how desperate the situation was. The plan had sounded so fine coming out of his mouth. But he was the only one not risking his life here.

Trinica saw how it hit him like a hammer. She touched his shoulder in false sympathy and leaned down to whisper in his ear, her lips brushing his lobe. ‘By now they’ll be dead, and my men will have filled the Ketty Jay with so much dynamite, the explosion will be heard in Yortland.’

She opened the door and looked back at him. ‘This will be the second time your crew died because of your hang-ups, Darian. Let’s see how far and fast you run without your aircraft.’

Then she was gone, leaving the door open behind her. Frey sat at the table, looking down at the mess of cards before him, feeling pummelled and raw and slashed to ribbons. She’d taken him apart with nothing more than words.

That woman. That bloody woman.

Twenty-Five

Flight - ‘Pick Your Targets’ - No Way Out

Crake ran hard. His lungs were burning in his chest and his head felt light, but his legs were tireless, filled with strength lent by adrenaline. Bess lumbered ahead, Malvery and Pinn hot on her heels. Bullets scored the air around them.

But they were only delaying the inevitable. There was nowhere left to go.

The hangar deck was crowded with cranes, portable fuel tanks and piled cargo. Massive cogs rose out of the floor, part of a mechanism that clamped aircraft in their berths and prevented heavy freighters from drifting. In the distance, elevated platforms for spotlights and a narrow controller’s tower rose almost to the roof of the hangar.

They used these obstacles as cover, darting past and around them, blocking the aim of the Delirium Trigger’s crew. Nobody attempted to stop them with Bess leading the way. Dock workers fled for cover, frightened by the wild gunplay of their pursuers.

The mouth of the hangar opened out to the night and the electric lights of the city. But the hangar deck was forty feet up, and there was no way down. The militia had spread out to block all the stairways. They were trapped, but still they ran, eking every last moment out of their liberty and their lives. There was nothing else left to do.

Bess slowed as they passed another pile of cargo waiting to be loaded onto a frigate. She picked up a crate and lobbed it effortlessly towards their pursuers. They scattered and scrambled away as it smashed apart in their midst. Crake and the others raced past her, and she took up position at the rear. A rifle shot bounced off her armoured back, spinning away with a high whine, as she turned to follow them.

Why did I come here? Crake thought. It was the same question he’d been asking himself all night. Why did I agree to do this? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He flayed himself with his own terror as he ran, cursing his idiocy. He could have just refused. He could have stayed out of this and left at any time. But he’d allowed himself to be roped into Frey’s plan, driven by self-loathing and his captain’s insidious charm. Back in Yortland, he’d been ready to throw it all in and leave Frey to his fate. Yet somehow, he found himself agreeing to join the Ketty Jay’s crew.

He’d made an error. He’d momentarily forgotten that time in the dingy back room of a bar, when Lawsen Macarde held a pistol to his head and told Frey to give up the ignition codes to the Ketty Jay. He’d forgotten the look on Frey’s face, those cold, uncaring eyes, like doll’s eyes. He’d allowed himself to believe - again - that Frey was his friend.

And because of that, he was going to die.

They dodged around machinery and vaulted over fuel pipes, rushing through the oily metal world of the hangar. Dark iron surrounded them; dim lights glowed; everything was covered with a thin patina of grime. They could expect no quarter here. This wasn’t a place for sympathy, but for the unforgiving industry of the new world. Crake had grown up on country estates, surrounded by trees, and had rarely ever seen the factories which had made his family rich. Now a grim fatalism swept over him. It seemed a terrible place to live a life, and a worse one to end it in.

The deck narrowed as they reached the mouth of the hangar, splitting into long walkways that led to spotlight stations and observation platforms. To their left and right, half-submerged below the elevated deck, were freighters and passenger liners, colossal in their shabby majesty. There were people lining the rail, watching their plight with interest, safely remote.

‘Up here!’ cried Malvery, and they were funnelled onto a gantry that projected out to the mouth of the hangar. It was wide enough for three abreast, but at the end there was nothing but a small observation platform. After that, there was only the fatal plunge to the ground.

It didn’t matter. They ran until the gantry ran out, and there they stopped.

The crew of the Delirium Trigger slowed, seeing their quarry was trapped. They gathered at the end of the gantry, where there was cover. Between them and the men of the Ketty Jay was a long, open stretch. They’d be easy targets there, and they still feared the golem enough to respect its power.

‘Now what?’ Pinn asked.

‘Now we surrender,’ said Malvery.

‘We what?’ cried Pinn.

The doctor’s grin spread beneath his thick white moustache. Pinn grinned back as he caught on. Crake was appalled to find that he was the only one who seemed nervous at the prospect of imminent death.

‘I don’t think they’re in the mood to take us alive, anyway,’ said Malvery. ‘Everyone, get behind Bess. She’s our cover.’

‘Hey, wait a—’ Crake began, but they’d already crowded behind the golem, using her bulk as a shield. Bess hunkered down and spread herself out as much as possible. Malvery and Pinn crouched, peering out from either side, their guns ready. Crake, still carrying Dracken’s strange compass in his hands, slid in next to them. He listened to the quiet ticks and coos coming from Bess’s chest.

‘How much ammo do we have?’ Malvery asked.

‘I got . . . um . . . twelve, thirteen bullets?’ Pinn replied.

‘I’m on about the same. Crake?’

Crake gave Pinn his revolver and a handful of bullets. ‘You take them. I wouldn’t hit anything anyway.’

‘Right-o,’ said the doctor, aiming his gun. ‘Pick your targets.’

The men of the Delirium Trigger had swelled in number now. Some held back, studying the situation, while others angrily demanded action. One or two even tried to run up the gantry, but were held back by their companions. A chancy, long-range shot spanged off Bess’s shoulder.

‘Look at ’em,’ Pinn crowed. ‘Bunch of pussies.’

Directed by the bosun, the crew commandeered crowbars from dock workers and started jimmying nearby bits of machinery. The militia had caught up now - beige uniforms milled in the crowd - but having assessed the situation they seemed happy enough to let the men of the Delirium Trigger handle it. Presumably they’d claim the credit afterwards. It was easier than risking any of their own.

‘What are they doing out there?’ Malvery murmured to himself.

Crake peered out, took one look and went back into hiding. ‘They’re making a shield.’

He was right. Moments later, ten men started to advance up the gantry, holding before them a large sheet of iron pulled from the side of a crane. They crept forward nervously but with purpose, their guns bristling out around the side of the shield.

‘Hmm,’ said Malvery.

‘What?’ said Pinn. ‘Soon as they get close enough, we send Crake’s girl out to get ’em. She’ll squash ’em into paste.’

‘Ain’t quite that easy,’ said the doctor, nodding towards the hangar deck. ‘Look.’

Pinn looked. Five men had taken position at the edge of the deck, and were lying on their bellies, aiming long-barrelled rifles at them.

‘Sharpshooters,’ said Malvery. ‘If Bess moves, we lose our cover, and they kill us.’ As if to punctuate his statement, a bullet ricocheted off Bess, inches from his face. He drew back a little way.

‘Bugger,’ said Pinn. ‘Why do we never come up with plans like that?’

‘We did,’ said Malvery. ‘That’s how we ended up here.’

The men of the Delirium Trigger crept steadily closer. The narrow angle along the gantry made it impossible to get a good shot at any of them. Malvery tried an experimental salvo with his pistol, but it only rattled their shield. They stopped for a moment, then continued.

Crake was sweating and muttering to himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He wanted to be sick but there was nothing in his stomach: he’d been too nervous to eat before they set out on this mission.

The shield, having crossed much of the gantry, stopped. The men hunkered down behind it, becoming invisible. There was an agonising sense of calm before the inevitable storm.

‘Well,’ said Malvery to Pinn. ‘I’d say it was nice knowing you, but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘You know.’

‘Likewise, you whiskery old fart,’ Pinn smiled, mistaking genuine distaste for comradely affection. Then the men of the Delirium Trigger popped up out of hiding with their guns blazing, and all thought was lost in the chaos.

The assault was terrifying. They fired until their guns were empty, then ducked down to reload while the men behind them continued the barrage. Bess groaned and howled as she was peppered with bullets. They smacked into her at close range, blasting holes in the chain mail and leather at her joints, chipping her metal faceplate. She swatted at the air as if plagued by bees, cries of distress coming from deep inside her.

Crake had his hands over his ears, yelling over the tumult, a blunt shout of fear and rage and sorrow. The sound of leaden death was bad enough: the sound of Bess’s pain was worse.

Malvery managed to point his pistol around the side of Bess’s flank and fire off a shot or two, but it did no good. They crammed in behind the golem as best they could, but bullets were flying everywhere and they dared not break cover. Bess was being driven back by the cumulative impacts of the bullets, which punched at her armour, cutting into the softer parts of her. She stumbled backward, roaring now. The others stumbled back with her. Crake saw a spray of blood torn from Pinn’s leg: he went down, his pistols falling from his hands, clutching at his thigh.