Ketty Jay 04 - The Ace of Skulls (51 page)

Frey slowed and banked hard, bringing the
Ketty Jay
around. He had to see what had become of Bess. He’d never been certain whether he thought of her as a living thing or a disposable object, but right then her safety was deeply important to him. He was still uncertain about the fate of his crew, and he dreaded to face his losses. Every survivor was precious. Even the golem.

Come on, Bess. You’re a tough old girl. You’ll be alright. Please be alright.

The snow filled his sight, flurrying against the windglass. The meadows were hazy with fog thrown up by the Predator’s gun. He squinted, looking closer. Was that movement? Was that –?

Bess!

She came lumbering out of the cloud, turning left and right, searching for Awakeners with the puzzled enthusiasm of a child looking for lost toys. They were all out of sight now, leaving her bewildered but apparently unhurt. The gunship had missed.

Frey let out the breath he’d been holding.

‘Aircraft!’ Samandra shouted.

Frey tensed. The lander! How had it got airborne so quickly? It must have been already halfway to taking off by the time he arrived. They were leaving their men behind in their haste to flee.

Frantically he searched for it. If the lander got away, then all their efforts would be for nothing. The Awakeners would never imagine Frey’s crew capable of capturing an Imperator and forcing information from them, but if the Century Knights were known to be involved, matters were different. The Sentinels would tell the Awakeners what had occurred, and the Awakeners would know their plans had been compromised and change them. But if nobody returned, the Awakeners would simply assume their ambush had failed, or something unforeseen had occurred on the way; there would be no cause to alter anything.

A growing bellow of engines. The lander came thundering out of the blizzard and over their heads, a dark slab of metal flung through the sky.

‘Shoot it!’ Frey cried, but the autocannon was already thumping. He hauled the
Ketty Jay
around, knowing it was already too late to catch them. He couldn’t turn and accelerate in time, and if he lost sight of them in the snow he’d never find them again.

The back end of the lander came into view, its thrusters diminishing into the gloom. Autocannon shells flew after it. None of them came close to hitting the mark.

‘You’re worse than Malvery!’ Frey shouted in exasperation. He hit the throttle, but the lander was already a grey blur, powering away over the hamlet. He watched it despairingly as it faded from view.

Just before it disappeared completely, its back end exploded.

Frey’s eyes widened in surprise as a ball of flame consumed the lander’s thrusters. It slowed and went into a shallow dive, sailing over the hamlet to disappear into the chasm beyond. There was an almighty detonation, and the chasm lit up along its length. After that, silence, but for the sound of the
Ketty Jay
’s Blackmore P-12s.

Frey braked to a hover and fell back in his chair. ‘Good shot!’ he called up to the cupola.

‘Wasn’t me, that’s for damn sure. Can barely aim this thing,’ said Samandra, a grin in her voice. ‘Guess we can be sure that Colden is alive down there.’

Grudge. Grudge had taken it down. The thought of the Century Knight brought the possibility of other survivors to mind. He dug out his earcuff and clipped it on.

‘Malvery! Crake! You still there?’

‘Just about,’ said Crake. ‘You ever blown yourself up with dynamite before? It’s quite a thing.’

Frey laughed, relief making him lightheaded. ‘You get ’em?’

‘We got them. Got most of what we needed, too. But you’re not going to like it.’

‘Tell me later. Malvery?’

‘Me, Silo and Ashua still kicking, Cap’n,’ came the doctor’s voice. Frey could have cheered for joy. ‘Harkins took a hit, though.’

Frey’s silent celebration stalled. ‘Bad?’

‘Got a bullet across his scalp. Bled like a stuck pig and it knocked him out, but he’s come round now. Reckon he’ll be fine. Feller’s got a thicker skull than we gave him credit for.’

There was a fondness in Malvery’s tone that warmed him. There was a bond between this crew, a kind of companionship he’d never known elsewhere. He was so immensely glad he hadn’t lost that today.

Rot and damn, they’d really done it. They’d come through the Awakeners’ ambush alive. He could scarcely believe it.

Up yours, Amalicia
, he thought, giddy with triumph.
Nice try, but you lose.

Then something brought him up short. The count wasn’t right. Somebody was missing. It took him a shamefully long time to remember who.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Anyone seen Jez?’

Thirty-Four

Clearing Up – An Argument – Frey Despairs – Decision Time – ‘Rest Up Now’

T
hey found her in the snow, curled up in a foetal position. It was only by her size that he recognised her. She was smaller than the others.

Frey stared down at the blackened thing at his feet, and was numb. He thought Trinica had emptied him of grief, but now he found a greater emptiness still. Though she’d been distant of late, and sometimes he’d wished her away, he still remembered the old Jez.

He turned his face away. ‘Take her to the infirmary,’ he said to Malvery and Silo, who stood opposite. ‘Least we can do is put her somewhere proper.’

Malvery nodded. There were furious tears glittering behind his green glasses. ‘What about Pelaru?’ he said through a thick throat.

They’d discovered Pelaru nearby, unburned, but with a jagged piece of shrapnel the size of a dagger driven through his skull.

‘We don’t owe him shit,’ said Frey. ‘Leave him.’ It felt good to vent his spite on someone, even the dead.

He walked off, picking his way through the charred corpses. The snow was already covering up the scene, and melted slush was turning to ice. Nearby, the last of the Awakeners were being rounded up by Grudge and Kyne. The survivors had surrendered rather than freeze to death in the blizzard. They were being marched to the Wrath’s hold, where there was a cell for criminals that the Century Knights captured on their travels. What their fate would be, Frey neither knew nor cared.

He walked towards the blazing mass of pipes and rent metal that was all that was left of the hamlet’s generator. He stood so close that the heat on his skin became hard to bear, and his throat began to burn with the fumes. He welcomed the pain and the poison.

Jez was gone. The raw loss of that was almost too much to bear. This new tragedy was different to that of Trinica: more fundamental, closer to home. It wasn’t only that Jez would never speak, laugh, move again – although that in itself was awful enough. It was the knowledge that something irreplaceable had been taken out of his world. Members of his crew had left and come back before, but there would be no coming back this time. The life he’d come to love had been forever altered.

He let out a trembling breath. Tears wanted to come, welling up from the void in his chest. He wouldn’t let them. He stared into the fire and let the stinging of the fumes take the sting from his sorrow.

Jez. Damn it, why’d you do it?

Ashua had told him how Jez had gone alone into the fray, and how Pelaru had tried to stop her. She’d saved their lives more than once in the past that way, but never against such a number. He wondered, if he’d been there, if things would have been different. He wondered if he would have been able to stop her.

He felt like he’d abandoned her. He could have headed back to the hamlet when he found the road blocked off by Awakeners; instead he’d headed for the
Ketty Jay.
It seemed to make sense, but in doing so he’d left his crew to bear the brunt of the battle. And he’d taken too long, far too long to get back to them.

Don’t. You’re not responsible. You didn’t even want to come here, remember?

But whatever he told himself, it was small solace. Jez was gone. Nothing would be the same.

He heard boots in the snow. They stopped some way behind him, held back by the heat. ‘Frey,’ said Samandra. ‘We gotta talk.’

‘Not now,’ he said.

‘Now is exactly when we gotta talk. This won’t wait.’

He didn’t have the energy to resist. He turned and walked past her, without meeting her eye, heading back to the
Ketty Jay.
Samandra sniffed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and followed after.

‘Tomorrow?’ Frey’s voice was flat and dead.

Kyne stood in the corner of the mess, his mask expressionless, without mercy, offering no space for Frey’s desolation. ‘Tomorrow. Maybe dawn, maybe dusk. Even if we set off now, we won’t reach Thesk till past nightfall.’

‘So go,’ said Frey. ‘You got what you wanted. You got your proof.’

‘Not exactly, Cap’n,’ said Crake. Anguish had made his face pale and puffy. Neither wanted to make decisions now, but Crake was slogging on anyway. ‘The Imperator said there’d be an attack on Thesk tomorrow. He said nothing about the Azryx device.’

‘But you got the readings, right? The readings we need to exorcise Trinica?’

Crake hesitated. ‘Well, yes we did. But—’

‘Then why should I care?’

Crake exchanged a glance with Samandra, who was sitting next to him at the table opposite Frey. Frey felt a bitter worm of resentment turn in his stomach. Look at them, the two of them, united. They had each other: who did he have?

‘What we got ain’t enough,’ said Samandra. ‘If they attack tomorrow, the whole Coalition fleet will pile in. That’s what they want. They’ll take out all our forces in one sweep.’

‘Not if you warn them about the Azryx device.’

‘We ain’t
seen
any Azryx device.’

‘
We’ve
seen it!’ Frey shouted suddenly, banging his fist on the table. ‘You were there in the Azryx city and you bloody well know what it can do! If the Archduke’s too damn stupid to listen then he’s welcome to kiss my arse and die with the rest of his pompous, shit-eating mob!’ He lowered his voice to an angry snarl. ‘You wanted us to give you proof? Well, we tried. And Jez is dead because of it.’

The room was silenced. Ashua scratched the back of her neck awkwardly. Silo showed nothing, as ever. Plome steepled his fingers and stared at them. The rest were elsewhere: Malvery was seeing to Harkins in the infirmary, where Jez’s body also lay. Frey felt it there like a weight on his aircraft, a dense presence impossible to ignore.

‘That’s a real constructive attitude you got,’ Samandra said, narrowing her eyes in sarcasm.

‘Screw you,’ said Frey. ‘Wonder how constructive you’d feel if it were Grudge that got burnt to a cinder?’

‘Quit your damn sulking! This is bigger than you!’ she cried.

‘Nothing’s bigger than me!’ he shouted back. ‘Me is all I’ve got!’ Samandra opened her mouth to reply, but Crake put his hand on her wrist to stop her, and she subsided.

‘Yeah, you’re not so diplomatic, are you?’ Frey sneered. He flicked a finger at Crake. ‘Let him try.’

Crake seemed shocked by his tone. He didn’t deserve to be treated like an enemy, but Frey wanted to lash out.

‘Cap’n,’ said Crake carefully. ‘This is the future of our country we’re talking about. Our entire way of life.’

‘Last I heard, the Coalition had us all down as traitors. Change of government might be to our advantage, don’t you think?’

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Don’t I? You sure?’

‘It’s the only way to clear your names,’ said Kyne. ‘If you don’t care about your own, think of your crew. You want to be hunted the rest of your days?’

Frey sat back and crossed his arms. It was a pitiful threat as far as he was concerned. ‘By who? There won’t
be
a Coalition if the Archduke sends his fleet up tomorrow.’

‘All we’re asking is that you come back to Thesk and tell the Archduke and commanders what you saw. Second-hand information won’t be enough.’

‘Wait, our word wasn’t good enough before, but now it is?’ Ashua said.

‘Now we have no other choice,’ said Kyne. ‘And time has run out. Bree and Grudge will back you up as best they can. The generals might listen then.’

Frey began ticking points off his fingers. ‘I killed the Archduke’s son, or near enough as makes no difference. I came bloody close to killing Kedmund Drave. I ruined the Mentenforth Institute, the Archduke’s private collection, and destroyed spit knows how many priceless relics. I reckon I’m not far off when I say the Archduke would love to see me and my crew dead.’ He leaned forward, and anger seeped back into his voice. ‘And you want me to go back there and
surrender
? To throw myself on their damned
mercy
? Maybe get us all hung? For what? On the off chance that the most powerful men in the country deign to climb down out of their arses long enough to hear me out?’

‘If you’re telling the truth, the conviction against you and your crew will likely be quashed.’

Frey laughed. ‘Likely? That’s quite a promise.’

‘It’s not my decision. I can’t say what the Archduke will do.’

‘Then the Archduke can rot.’

‘Frey, you’ll be comin’ in of your own accord, with three Century Knights vouchin’ for your good character,’ said Samandra. ‘Such as it is, anyway. They ain’t gonna string you up.’

Frey was unconvinced, and it showed.

‘We could make you, if we wanted,’ said Kyne.

‘You could try,’ Frey replied darkly.

Crake leaned back in his chair and stared at Kyne steadily. ‘Use that voice of yours, Kyne, and I’ll know it,’ he said. ‘This is his choice.’

Frey was faintly surprised by that. He hadn’t expected Crake to stand up for him in this matter. But then, Crake had always suffered from an unhealthy sense of fair play.

‘No one’s makin’ anyone do anything,’ said Bree, with a glance at her companion. ‘Look, Frey. We all want the same thing here. We all want to stop the Awakeners, right?’

Frey looked around the room. He felt hunted. Most of the room was against him, it seemed. Everyone pushing him to do what was right, to put the good of the country over his own needs. How had it come to this? He’d resented the Coalition for most of his life; now he was supposed to swallow his pride and go crawling to them?