Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [110]
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 toward 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 armored 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 in to 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 code 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 here.
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 that 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 funneled 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 mustache. 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