Ketty Jay 04 - The Ace of Skulls (59 page)

Harkins brought the Firecrow around, banking and diving, chasing the Skylance downward even as it started climbing back up towards him. There was a moment when he had a clear shot at the exposed cockpit, and he almost took it; but he hesitated. This was
Pinn
. However much of a disgusting fool he was, he was part of the
Ketty Jay
’s crew. Harkins couldn’t just—

The Skylance fired early, catching him by surprise again. Harkins swung out of the way, pulling up hard. The blood drained from his head and his vision sparkled as g-forces dragged at him. He levelled up and raced behind a cargo freighter, putting it between him and his attacker. The huge craft was heavily damaged; fires blazed inside the holes in its hull.

Pinn! Why’d it have to be Pinn? Everywhere he went, everything he tried to do, Pinn was there to screw it up. His repulsive grinning face loomed large in all of Harkins’ memories of the
Ketty Jay
. Pinn had always been his chief tormentor, merciless in his mockery, never offering a kind word. And the insults weren’t even the worst of it. He’d been forced to share his quarters with that evil shit for years now, putting up with his stink and his snoring. That man had been the bane of his life from the moment Harkins laid eyes on him.

And now here he was to ruin things again, spoiling Harkins’ swan-song. Any nobility Harkins might have found in death would be lost now. Harkins would die ridiculous, shot down by his erstwhile crewmate who, in his blithe stupidity, would never even recognise what he’d done.

‘Just piss off, Pinn!’ he cried. ‘Just leave me alone for once!’

But it wasn’t going to happen. He flew out of cover behind the freighter and there, homing in on him, was the familiar shape of Pinn’s Skylance. Harkins gritted his teeth. That son of a bitch wasn’t going to give up.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’

He angled his Firecrow into the heart of the fleet and opened up his throttle. Ahead of him, the sky thickened with frigates and fighters. The flagship and the
Delirium Trigger
hung there, motionless, as other craft glided by like dull grey whales in the rain. Easier to fight in there, where it was tight. The Firecrow didn’t have the Skylance’s speed, but it was more manoeuvrable. And Pinn would have a harder time shooting at him if he didn’t want to hit other Awakener craft. Harkins didn’t have that handicap.

The Skylance raced to intercept him. Tracers whipped past him and he heard the rattle of guns. Thunder boomed. He banked behind a frigate, sweeping along its flank, blocking his pursuer’s line of sight. Then he turned hard and dived, coming out under the frigate’s belly, facing in the direction of the Skylance.

He pressed his triggers as soon as his enemy came into sight. No hesitation this time. But the Skylance rolled and plunged and the bullets hit nothing.

Harkins chased him down. He should have waited for a better shot. Pinn was too good a pilot to let himself get tagged at that range. His leering face appeared in Harkins’ mind, distorted and made horrible by hate.

You’re mine
, he thought.

A heavy fighter, a Wolverine, came flying in on his port side. Its electroheliograph mast was flashing:
Cease fire. Cease fire.
Well, it was only a matter of time before someone else weighed in. Harkins ignored the Wolverine and shot past, the roar of his engines as loud as the roar of blood in his ears.

The air was busy with craft now. Harkins darted between them, tracking the Skylance through the storm. One of the frigates opened fire on them both, but they were small targets, almost impossible to hit at speed. They were past it and gone before the gunners got their range.

Using the big craft as cover, they chased after each other, turning and diving, climbing and rolling, playing hide-and-seek. Harkins lost the Skylance at one point, only to pop up again on its tail; but it got away from him, and he was surprised shortly after by a burst of gunfire that nearly took off his port wing. He escaped with a few holes, and was lucky not to have been hit in the fuel tanks.

Harkins flew with gritted teeth. Usually it was panic that fed his reactions; now it was anger. He knew that, however this ended, it would end in his death. But he wouldn’t go out at Pinn’s hands. After all that man had done to him, it would be too much.

He swung around, spotted the Skylance through the rain again. Pinn appeared to have lost him, and was searching. Harkins pushed the throttle and closed the gap. The Skylance was passing close to the port side of a frigate; Harkins raced up the starboard side, keeping the bigger craft between them, hoping to surprise Pinn at the far end.

When he emerged, the Skylance was nowhere to be seen.

Where’d he go
?

Gunfire. Harkins jerked on the flight stick as tracers shredded the air, pinging off the Firecrow’s armour, scoring its flank. The windglass of the cockpit cracked. Harkins caught a glimpse of his attacker before the two craft crossed paths and flew off in different directions.

Not Pinn
, he realised, thoughts wild with alarm.
The Wolverine
.

He dived, still shaken, unsure how much damage he’d sustained. Suddenly he was beneath the belly of a frigate, its keel blurring past above him. A section of windglass rattled in its pane. If it cracked, he was done for: wind and rain would blind him.

Muzzle flash ahead. He looked up and his eyes widened in horror. The Skylance was there, roaring along the length of the frigate from the opposite direction, machine guns chattering, coming at him head-on. Harkins didn’t even think of evading; he didn’t have time to think at all. He pulled the trigger and let loose with everything he had.

For a single, endless second, the two aircraft shot towards each other, a hail of lead filling the air between them. But Harkins had the better aim. He saw the Skylance’s nose chewed up by his bullets, saw it burst apart. He pulled the Firecrow away as the Skylance tipped upward and ploughed into the underside of the frigate, dragging a long line of fire all along its keel before exploding in one final, stunning detonation. Then Harkins was flying away into the rain, looking over his shoulder as the bow of the wounded frigate began to dip and the enormous craft went sinking towards the city below, its aerium tanks breached.

His head snapped round and he faced forward again. His heart pounded, and his skin was cold. Bloodshot eyes stared into the gloom ahead of him.

Pinn.

He’d killed Pinn. All those times he’d dreamed of doing it, and finally he had. The enormity of it piled onto him. All those times Pinn had mocked him. All that abuse.

Harkins’ throat went dry. He’d just killed his best friend.

Something welled up within him, expanding from his thin belly up through his chest, swelling until it couldn’t be contained any more. He let out a loud yell. His voice rang in the confines of the cockpit. He yelled until he was out of breath, then sucked in air and yelled again. A raw, wordless sound of uncontainable grief and fury.

Then, as abruptly as it had come, the feeling was gone. His mouth snapped shut; his eyes went hard. He yanked on the flight stick and slammed the Firecrow into a turn. He was looking for someone, anyone, to vent his feelings on.

Where are they? Where are they?

Tracer fire came flitting towards him. He took it as an invitation, and gunned the fighter down. Another one came for him at three o’clock. He swung round and flew straight towards it, reckless, uncaring. His guns rattled; his enemy fell from the sky.

Bullets from behind. He evaded automatically, then craned round in his seat to try to catch sight of whoever was on his tail. He couldn’t, so he banked to starboard and shot behind a frigate instead, hoping to block them off. The frigate started up with its guns, but way too late; he was past it and away by then. He found himself on the tail of another fighter, one whose pilot seemed totally unaware of the battle going on around him.

Harkins didn’t care. Conscript or volunteer, peasant or mercenary, armed or unarmed; they were all Awakeners to him. He pressed down on his guns, and the pilot died.

More bullets came from behind him. He looked back, and saw there were two of them on his tail now. They were spreading out, working together to get angles on him. They knew how to fly, then. That was going to present a problem. He was attracting too many aircraft, flying wild. Asking for it.

He dodged and weaved, but they stayed on him. Fiery shells whipped past the cockpit. The Firecrow’s engines screamed, and the cracked windglass of his canopy shivered and pinged.

Just let me get you in my sights, you bastards
, he thought. But they were good, and they didn’t let him turn. They hung in his blind spot, careful and methodical, and sent gunfire his way when they had the opportunity. Sooner or later they were going to nick him, and a few bullets in the right place was all it would take.

One of the frigates had found his range now, and started sending artillery his way. The Firecrow was shaken and shoved, and the cockpit hummed with the force of the detonations. Harkins barrel rolled and dived down towards a wallowing barque, hoping to put it between himself and the frigate. He cut in close to its flank, swung around behind it—

—and came face to face with the Wolverine, coming the other way. He’d swung right into its path, and was dead in its sights. His stomach plunged with the inevitable certainty of what would come next. The Wolverine opened fire—

—and exploded, ripped apart by gunfire from above. Harkins just stared as the heavy fighter blew to pieces in a belch of dirty flame, and a fighter craft went plunging past.

‘
Waaaaa-hooo!
’

‘
Pinn?
’ Harkins almost screamed.

‘Who else, you twitchy old freak?’

Harkins’ brain refused to process what he was hearing. He flew away from the barque on automatic, out of range of the frigate. Who was this talking in his ear? Was it some trick of the daemon-thralled earcuff, channelling emanations from beyond the grave? He’d never trusted those damned things.

‘But . . . but . . .’

‘
But . . . but . . .’
Pinn mimicked cruelly. ‘Thought it was you. I’d recognise your flying anywhere.’

‘Why weren’t you wearing your earcuff?!’ It was the only thing Harkins could think of to say.

‘Just put it in now,’ said Pinn. ‘Why, what’s up?’

‘I thought I killed you, that’s what’s up!’

Pinn howled with laughter. Harkins felt himself redden. He checked around himself and saw that the pursuit had fallen away. The pilots on his tail had been scared off by the artillery or by the prospect of an even fight. Probably mercs, then. The faithful wouldn’t have given up so easily.

Now that he wasn’t shooting, he was anonymous once again. He tried to find Pinn among the frigates in the rain. ‘I shot down your Skylance!’ he said, still trying to make sense of it all.

‘That wasn’t me in there!’ Pinn crowed. ‘You think you’d have got
me
? The Awakeners stole my craft and gave it to someone else. They gave me some old piece of shit instead, but I can still . . .’ He tailed off as the penny finally dropped. ‘
You shot down my Skylance?
’ he squawked.

‘I thought you were flying it,’ said Harkins, in his defence.

‘You thought . . . you thought
what
? . . . You . . . ggnnaaaRRRGH
HHH
!’

Harkins felt a smile spread over his face as Pinn degenerated into incoherent animal noises of rage. He’d never heard Pinn so angry. And it was all on his account.

Well. That was a turn up for the books.

Pinn came up on his wing. He was flying a Linfordby Warrior, a pre-war fighter that had been ahead of its time but had been superseded by other models since. If Harkins looked closely, he thought he could see Pinn thrashing about in the cockpit, waving his arms and hitting the dashboard.

‘You alright, Pinn?’ he asked cheerily. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have joined up with the Awakeners after all.’

Pinn fixed him with a deadly glare across the gap between them. Then suddenly, his tone changed, his anger forgotten. ‘Wait, wait!’ he said. ‘Where’s the Cap’n?’

‘Cap’n’s gone,’ said Harkins. ‘North, to Yortland.’

‘He’s
gone
?’

‘Left not long ago.’

‘We gotta catch him up!’ said Pinn. ‘He might come within range of these ear thingies if we throttle it!’

‘Err . . .’ said Harkins, half his mind on flying. ‘Why?’

‘Cause I think I know how to save the Coalition!’ he said. ‘Follow me! Artis Pinn,
Heeero of the SkiiiEEEEEES!’

He banked his Warrior and belted off north, away from the fleet. Harkins, bewildered and full of excitement, could do nothing but go after him. Save the Coalition? However ridiculous his plan, if there was even a chance it had merit, he had to see it through.

It was only once he was far from Thesk that he realised he’d somehow survived his suicide mission.

Thirty-Nine

North – Crund’s Message – Responsibility – The Ace of Skulls

F
rey listened to the steady exhalation of the
Ketty Jay
’s thrusters, the hum of her aerium engine, the creaking of her bulkheads.
This is all I need
, he said to himself.
I have everything I want right here.

The words rang hollow in his mind, so he said them again to convince himself. Once, he wouldn’t have needed convincing. Once he’d believed only Darian Frey mattered in the world, and he was content with that.

Maybe, with enough effort, he might believe it again.

Silo stood in the doorway of the cockpit, leaning against the bulkhead, arms crossed and head down. He hadn’t said a word since they left. Frey wished he’d go away, back to the engine room where he spent most of his time. He felt judged. The Murthian’s presence reminded him that he’d had a crew once. It was something he desperately needed to forget.