The Ketty Jay’s thrusters kicked in, pushing her forward. Her outflyers kept pace alongside. Frey flew them low over the city to avoid the worst of the flak, but it still seemed uncomfortably near to Malvery.
Coalition forces were swarming now. They were determined to inflict some casualties on the scattering Awakeners. Now the Ketty Jay was airborne, Malvery could see that the anti-aircraft fire was much lighter than on their way in. In some areas, it had diminished to almost nothing, as the gunners joined the retreat.
‘Doc! How we doing back there? You still keeping your eyes out?’ Frey called. He had a tendency to nag during a battle. Not being able to see behind his craft made him anxious.
‘Apart from all this sodding flak?’ Malvery called back. ‘Just fine.’ He stopped as he caught sight of something moving in the dark, then bawled: ‘Eight o’ clock high, Cap’n! Fighter! Incoming fire!’
Frey reacted immediately. The world lurched and tilted outside Malvery’s cupola. A flurry of blazing tracers whipped past him and flew away earthwards to be swallowed by the streets. Malvery stuffed the bottle of rum into a gap in the bulkhead so as not to drop it into the corridor below.
‘Where is it now?’ Frey called, wrenching the Ketty Jay back and forth in an evasive pattern. Harkins and his Firecrow swung into view and away. Malvery craned his neck, trying to spot the fighter against the night. A flash of anti-aircraft fire lit it up just as it unleashed another barrage. This time gunfire lashed across the Ketty Jay’s hull, pocking the metal with bullet holes. Something deep inside the craft groaned. A pipe burst and steam hissed out into the corridor below him. He heard Silo come running to fix the leak.
‘It’s on our six, Cap’n! Still above us!’ he yelled over the noise.
‘Well bloody shoot it then!’ Frey yelled back.
‘It’s a Windblade!’ he protested.
‘Do I sound like a man who gives a shit?’ Frey screamed.
‘I ain’t shooting at Coalition!’
‘They’re attacking us! You want to die for your damned patriotism?’
‘Why not?’ Malvery roared. ‘You want us to die for your damned woman, don’t you?’
The Cap’n was momentarily defeated by that. There was silence from the cockpit as he formulated a comeback, but then a fresh salvo from the fighter put a few new holes in their wing, and Frey gave up trying to be witty.
‘Just do it!’ he shrieked.
Exasperated, Malvery grabbed the handles of the autocannon. The cupola swivelled with the gun. ‘Keep her still, then!’ he shouted. Frey stopped jinking about, and Malvery brought the target into the centre of his crosshairs.
It was a peach of shot. The Windblade was lining up on them, encouraged by the lack of return fire. The pilot, thinking only of the kill, wasn’t even trying to dodge. Both of them were in each other’s sights.
‘Malvery!’ Frey yelled.
The first one to fire would destroy the other.
‘Malvery! Take the shot!’
Malvery’s finger hovered over the trigger. He thought of all the people on the Ketty Jay. Of the Cap’n and Silo and Ashua, especially, who he was inordinately fond of. All the people who’d likely die if he didn’t shoot.
‘Malvery!’ Frey screamed, loud enough to threaten imminent prolapse. ‘You horrible fat bastard! Fire!’
Malvery took his finger away, sat back in his battered leather chair, and sighed with something like satisfaction. What would be, would be. But he’d be damned before he shot down a Coalition aircraft.
A moment later, the Windblade exploded, ripped apart by tracer fire from out of the night. Pinn’s Skylance slashed through the air and away.
Malvery watched the flaming pieces of Windblade fall towards the city below. They’d outrun the flak now. There was no more pursuit that he could see.
He pulled out the bottle of rum and emptied the remainder down his gullet. Then he hauled himself out of his seat and went down into the steam-filled corridor in search of another. He was going to get plenty drunk tonight.
Who says I can’t make a stand?
Twelve
Artis Pinn, thought Pinn to himself. Hero of the Skies.
He rather liked the sound of that. He pictured the title on the cover of the novel they’d one day write about his adventures. Maybe a few more exclamation marks here and there. Artis Pinn!!! Hero of the Skies!!! Yes, that would do. Make it stand out a little. The cover had to be good, since he’d never actually read it. The important thing was that it looked impressive in the window of a bookshop.
The flight from Korrene had left him time to daydream. Or should it be nightdream? he thought. It’s dark, after all. He congratulated himself on his own wit and wiggled his butt in the seat of the Skylance to dig a more comfortable dent in the padding.
They’d been flying without lights for hours, heading southwest. The glow of the Ketty Jay’s thrusters, the steady roar of his aircraft and the long period of inactivity had lulled him into a half-drowse. His mind, such as it was, wandered freely.
The Coalition Navy had been long left behind them. Crake too, and good riddance to the pompous arsewipe. If he wanted to flounce off in a strop like a girl then let him. Pinn wouldn’t miss him one bit. In fact, he’d have his biographer write Crake out of the book altogether. He didn’t want the reader distracted from the real focus of the story. Artis Pinn. Pilot, lover, rogue.
He glanced at the little picture frame that hung from the dash, swaying gently with the motion of the aircraft. A ferrotype of a middle-aged woman looked back at him, with long curly hair, slightly crooked teeth and a formidable bosom. In the past, he’d spent hours staring at that portrait, but she didn’t look quite so good tonight. He struggled to remember her name, and was alarmed to find that he couldn’t. It might be important, he thought. What if his biographer needed to know?
Emanda, he thought, with the kind of relief he normally associated with unloading a particularly troublesome bowl of oats in the Ketty Jay’s head. Yes, he remembered her now. The woman from Kingspire. He’d spent a few heady days with her, gambling and drinking and shagging like champions. Inevitably, she’d succumbed to his charms, and told him she loved him. She was a bit hammered at the time, but he’d leave that part out. Anyway, he’d known at that moment that she was the one for him, and he left her that night with a note of explanation. He was going to find fame and fortune, and then he’d be back. When he was worthy of her. When he was a hero.
Except, well, all of a sudden he just wasn’t that keen on her.
A thought occurred to him. He held the flight stick awkwardly between his knees to keep it steady, then took the frame from the dash and opened it up. He took out the portrait of Emanda and tossed it aside. Jammed in the frame behind it was another ferrotype. He took that one out too. A blonde, eighteen or so, with a wide, plain face and big innocent eyes. A smile free of guile or intelligence. He frowned as he stared at her. Who was she?
Pinn was a creature of the moment. Seven years was a long, long way back for him. It took time for the memories to seep apologetically through the armour of his consciousness.
Lisinda!
At last he had it. His biographer would want to know that one. His first great love, a girl from his home town. Pinn had slept with other local girls during the tenure of their relationship — men had urges, of course — but never with her. He wanted to keep her pure. That kind of consideration was probably why she adored him, and why she’d ended up telling him she loved him. He left her soon after, with a note of explanation. He was going out into the wide world to seek his fortune. He’d be back when he was worthy of her.