Retribution Falls

Twenty-Four

‘To your left! Harkins, to your left!’

Harkins waved his pistol in the vague direction of the enemy and fired three wild shots before cringing back into the cover of the barrels. The shadowy figure he was aiming for ran behind a parked fighter craft and disappeared from sight.

‘Nice shooting,’ Jez murmured sarcastically under her breath, then resumed scanning the dock for signs of movement. She flinched as three bullets pocked the barrels in front of her, searching her out. But the barrels were full of sand, and they were as good as a wall.

They’d put the Ketty Jay down close to a corner of the elevated landing pad, so as to give themselves only two sides to defend when Dracken’s men came for them. The barricades gave them good cover, and the largely empty dock meant that Dracken’s men had a lot of open space to deal with. But they had twenty men out there, and on Jez’s side there were only three. Two, if you didn’t count Harkins, and he wasn’t really worth counting. She checked her pocket watch and cursed.

They couldn’t hold out. Not against these odds.

Silo was crouched behind a barricade to her right, sighting along a rifle. He fired twice at something Jez couldn’t see. An answering salvo chipped the wood inches from his face.

There was one unforeseen disadvantage to their choice of position. Being close to the edge of the landing pad meant that they were near the lamp-posts that delineated it for the benefit of aerial traffic. Their attackers, on the other hand, had crossed the pad and were shooting from its centre, where it was darkest. The landing-pad staff—who would use spotlights to pick out places for craft to land—had fled when the battle began, presumably to rouse the militia.

Jez wasn’t hopeful. She doubted help would come through these broken alleys soon enough. Besides, being arrested by the militia was as sure a death sentence as Dracken’s men were. They’d be recognised as fugitives and hung.

Privately, Jez wondered if she’d survive that.

Don’t worry about that now. Deal with the things you can deal with.

‘Silo!’ she hissed. ‘The lights!’ She thumbed at the lamp-posts.

Silo got the message. He sat with his back to the barrels and shot out the nearest lamp-post. Jez took out another. In short order, they’d destroyed all the lamp-posts nearby, and the Ketty Jay sat in a darkness equal to that of their attackers.

But the distraction had let Dracken’s men sneak closer. Even in a quiet dock like this, there were hiding places. The need to fuel and restock aircraft meant there was always some kind of clutter, whether it be an idle tractor for pulling cargo, small corrugated sheds for storage, or a trailer full of empty prothane barrels waiting to be taken away.

There was movement everywhere. A shot could come from any angle. Sooner or later, something was going to get through.

Harkins was whimpering nearby. Silo told him to shut up. She looked at her pocket watch again. Rot and damnation, this was bad. They hadn’t expected twenty. Ten they could have held off. Maybe.

Something skittered across the landing pad, a bright fizz in the gloom. It took Jez only a moment to realise what it was. Dynamite.

‘Down!’ she cried, and then the stick exploded with a concussion hard enough to clap the air against her ears. The barrels murmured and rattled under the assault, but the throw had fallen short. Dracken’s men weren’t close enough to get it over the barricades. But it wouldn’t be long before they were.

She looked back at the Ketty Jay, rising above them like a mountain. The cargo ramp was open, beckoning them in. She thought about what Harkins had suggested when he first saw Dracken’s men coming. How long could they hold out inside? How much damage would a stick of dynamite do to the Ketty Jay?

Of course, Dracken’s men might have more dynamite. And a lot of sticks of dynamite could do a lot of damage.

She raised her head and looked out over the barrels, but was driven down again by a salvo of bullets, coming from all sides. Panic fluttered in her belly. They’d keep her pinned, creeping nearer and nearer until they could fling dynamite over the barricade. There were too many to hold back.

And then, almost unnoticed, she felt the change. It was becoming more natural now, a slight push through an invisible membrane: the tiniest resistance, then a parting. Sliding into elsewhere, easy as thought.

The world altered. The dark was still dark, but it didn’t obscure her vision any more. She sensed them now: eighteen men, two women. Their thoughts were a hiss, like the rushing of the waves along the coast.

Panic swelled and consumed her. She was out of control. Her senses had sharpened to an impossible degree. She smelled them out there. She heard their footsteps. And in the distance, far beyond the range of physical hearing, she heard something else. A cacophony of cries. The engines of a dreadful craft. And its crew, calling her. Calling in one wordless, discordant chorus.

Come with us. Come to the Wrack.

She recoiled from them, trying to focus her thoughts on anything other than the beckoning of that nightmarish crew. But instead of snapping out of that strange state, her mind veered away and fixed on something else. She felt herself sucked in, as she had been in Yortland watching predators stalking snow-hogs. But this time it was no animal she joined with: it was a man.

She felt his tension, the sweat of him, the thrill of the moment. Comfort and satisfaction at being on the winning side. He knew they had the advantage. Don’t slip up, though, you old dog. Plenty of graves full of the overconfident (pleased with that line, use it on the boys). Seems like they’re keeping their heads down, now. That dynamite scared ’em good.

Need to get closer. Get a good shot on ’em then. Cap’n (respect awe protectiveness admiration) would love it if you bagged one for her. Come on. Just over there.

Run for it!

Suddenly Jez was moving, rising, sighting down her rifle. She was in him and she was herself, two places at once. She knew where he was; she saw through his eyes; she felt his legs pumping as they carried him.

Her finger squeezed the trigger, and she shot him through the head at forty metres in the dark.

His thoughts stopped. All sense of him was gone. He was blanked, leaving only a hole. And Jez was thrust back into herself, her senses all her own again, curled in a foetal ball behind her barricade as she tried to understand what had just happened to her.

What am I? What am I becoming?

But she knew what she was becoming. She was becoming one of them. One of the nightmare crew. One of the creatures that lived in the wastes behind the impenetrable cloud-wall of the Wrack.

I have to run, she told herself, as a fresh volley of gunfire was unleashed. Bullets ricocheted off the side of the Ketty Jay. Another stick of dynamite fell close enough to knock over some of the barrels at the end of a barricade.

‘We can’t hold out no more!’ screeched Harkins.

No, she thought grimly. We can’t.

The deck of the Delirium Trigger was all but deserted. Most of the skeleton crew were in the guts of the aircraft, anxiously listening to the silence coming from the cargo hold. Others had gone to summon the militia. In the face of such alarm, nobody was loading cargo or swabbing the decks. When Malvery, Pinn and Crake emerged from the captain’s cabin with their plunder, there were no crew to stop them.

They raced across to the winch, now unmanned. A loaded palette was dangling over the cavernous hatch that led to the cargo hold. Pinn flustered around the controls for a few moments before finding something that he assumed would lower the winch. As it turned out, he was right. There was a loud screech and the palette began to rattle downwards.

Crake scanned the craft nervously. A crowd of dock workers had gathered around the Delirium Trigger on the hangar deck, but nobody dared cross the gangplank. They’d heard men talking about a monster aboard. Now they followed the activity of the newcomers with keen interest, assuming them to be crew.

Crake didn’t even see who shot at them. Pinn threw himself back, spitting a foul oath, as the bullet hit the winch next to his head. They scrambled out of the way, searching for their assailant, but there was no sign of one. Crake tripped and sprawled as another rifle shot sounded. Fear flooded him. He couldn’t take shelter if he didn’t know what direction the attack was coming from.

That didn’t bother Malvery overmuch. ‘Get to cover!’ he yelled, rushing towards an artillery battery, a cluster of massive cannons.

Crake scrambled after him. Another bullet hit. Out of the corner of his eye Crake saw the dock workers shouting in consternation. They were unsure who the villain was here. Some were following Crake’s plight, but others were looking at a spot above and behind him.

He looked over his shoulder. There, where the deck of the Delirium Trigger rose up towards an electroheliograph mast, he saw movement. A man, crouching, aiming.

Then Crake was behind the cannons, hunkering down next to Pinn and Malvery. ‘He’s up there!’ he panted. ‘By the mast!’

Malvery swore under his breath. ‘We need to get off this bloody aircraft, sharpish. Before them down below work out what’s going on.’

There was a sudden whine of strained metal from the winch. The chain swung sharply one way, then another, pulled from below.

Malvery edged along the barrel of the cannon and peered out for an instant, then drew back. ‘I see the bastard.’ He drew a pistol from his belt. It looked tiny in his huge hand. His usual shotgun had been too large to smuggle beneath their clothes.

‘Wait,’ said Crake. ‘Not yet.’

The chain pulled restlessly back and forth. The mechanism shrieked in protest at the weight it was carrying. The weight of the golem, clambering up the length of the chain and out of the cargo hold.

An enormous hand grabbed on to the lip of the hatch. Bess pulled herself up with a low bass groan, hauling her enormous bulk onto the deck.

‘Now!’ said Crake. Malvery swung out of hiding, aimed his pistol, and fired at the crewman hiding near the mast. The crewman, amazed by the sight of Bess, was taken by surprise. The shot missed by inches, but it startled him enough to send him scrambling out of sight.

The dock workers on the hangar deck were panicking now, beginning to flee as Bess drew herself up to her full height. They’d never seen anything like her, this humpbacked, faceless armoured giant. Those who were nearest fought to get out of the way, pushing aside the men at the back who were crowding closer to see what the fuss was about.

‘Bess!’ Crake called as they broke from hiding. The golem swung towards him with a welcoming gurgle. He hurried up to her and quickly patted her on the shoulder. The dock workers’ fear of Bess grew to encompass Crake and the others now: they were friends with the beast! ‘We’re getting out of here.’

Malvery sent another blast towards the electroheliograph tower as they ran for the gangplank. There were shouts of alarm from behind them as crewmen were roused by the gunfire. Bullets nipped at their heels. Pinn sent a few back, shooting wild.

Bess thundered down the gangplank and onto the hangar deck, the others close behind. The dock workers melted away from the Delirium Trigger like ice before a blowtorch, spreading chaos through the hangar as they fled. All activity came to a halt as crewmen on nearby freighters sensed the disturbance.

Malvery took the lead, heading towards the stairs that would take them to ground level, where they could exit the hangar. But he’d barely started in that direction when whistles sounded from below: the Ducal Militia of Rabban. Beige uniforms began to flood up the stairs that Malvery had been running for.

Too many men. Too many guns. Bess could make it through, but her more fragile, feshy companions wouldn’t.

Malvery came to a halt, pulled out his pocket watch and consulted it. He looked back at the Delirium Trigger, where the angry crew was already marshalling for pursuit. The militia had blocked their escape route. There was no way out.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Now we’ve got problems.’

Trinica Dracken looked at her pocket watch, snapped it shut and slipped it back inside the folds of her black coat.

‘You need to be somewhere, Trinica?’ Frey enquired.

She looked up at him across the card table. She seemed to be weighing a question.

‘I think we’ve beaten around the bush for long enough, Darian. You wanted to parley. Speak your piece.’

Her tone was newly impatient. Frey put two and two together.

‘Why the hurry, Trinica? You were happy to make small talk until now. You wouldn’t have been trying to buy time, would you? Delaying me here for some reason?’

He caught the flicker of anger in her eyes, and felt a small satisfaction. She’d had the best of this meeting so far: it was good to score a point on her.

‘Make your offer,’ she said. ‘Or this meeting is over.’

Might as well try, thought Frey. ‘I want you to give up the chase. Turn your back and leave us alone.’

‘What good will that do? You’ll still be wanted by the Century Knights.’

‘The Century Knights I can handle. They don’t know the underworld. I can scatter my crew, duck my head till the worst of it blows over. Maybe I’ll get out of Vardia. Sell the Ketty Jay, get a real job. But not with you on my heels. Most of them don’t even know my face except from some old ferrotype, but you do. I think you’d find me in the end. So I’m asking you to give it up.’

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.