Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [167]
“I suppose …” she said, once Crake had released her. “I suppose I owe you an explanation.”
“No,” said Pinn, beaming.
Jez frowned at his abruptness and the twinkle of amusement in his piggy eyes. “No, I mean, you must be wondering how I did it.”
Silo shrugged.
“Not really,” said Frey.
“Nope,” said Harkins.
“Couldn’t give a dog’s arse, frankly,” Malvery added.
She looked at the faces of the crew, and she began to understand. Perhaps they knew exactly what she was, perhaps not. But it didn’t matter because they didn’t care. She was one of them.
“You?” she asked Crake.
“I already know how you did it,” he said. “No need to tell me.” His smile was warm. Bringing Bess back had indebted him to her forever. Bringing the Ketty Jay back had won the hearts of the rest of them.
Seeing their grinning faces joined together in a conspiracy of support, she at last let herself believe. The grin spread to her face too.
“Well, then,” she said. “That’s that.”
HARKINS FLEXED HIS FINGERS on his flight stick and tried not to throw up in his own lap. His stomach had knotted into a ball, and his breath came in shallow pants that offered little relief from the crushing anxiety that pressed in on him. He hunkered down in the cockpit of the Firecrow, eyes darting nervously here and there. He wished the mist would clear. He was also afraid of what he’d see when it did.
Only the metal cocoon of the Firecrow kept him together. The sense of safety it afforded stopped him from panicking completely.
It seemed so long ago that they’d left the Firecrow hidden in a remote cave next to Pinn’s Skylance. The Cap’n had deemed it too dangerous to travel into Rook’s Boneyard in convoy. He’d been right: without masks, the deadly fumes from the lava river would have caused both Harkins and Pinn to crash.
Their fortunes hadn’t gone too well since then, though. The Firecrow was Harkins’s only security, and without it he was lost. He’d spent most of the subsequent days in blubbering fear: first hiding in the Ketty Jay so as not to venture into Retribution Falls, then trembling in Dracken’s brig on the Delirium Trigger, and later waiting to die in his cell at Mortengrace. Superstitiously he blamed his bad luck on his separation from the Firecrow. He should never have deserted her. He wouldn’t do so again if he could help it.
Vast, angular shapes glided past to port and starboard like undersea leviathans. Smaller fighters hove between them, their lights bright bruises against the serene fog. Harkins made minute course corrections and fretted about a frigate clipping his wing and sending him spiraling to a fiery death.
The mines petered out after the lava river. Presumably the pirates reasoned that anyone without a compass to detect them would be dead by that point. He’d hoped that leaving the mines behind would ease the tension a little, but he found that it increased it instead. They were on the final leg of the journey. Soon they’d reach the enormous marshy sinkhole where Retribution Falls lay. Soon the fight would begin.
Survive, said Frey. That’s all you have to do. Don’t take any risks. Look out for each other.
The Cap’n had persuaded Kedmund Drave to let them bring the Ketty Jay’s outfliers. They were invaluable pilots, he’d said, and they’d need every craft in the fight. Harkins and Pinn were useless sitting on board the Ketty Jay. Since their fighters didn’t have Navy markings, they could sow havoc among the pirates, who would be unable to tell them apart from their allies.
Harkins had pointed out that this worked both ways, but Frey had assured him the Navy would know who they were and what they looked like. Harkins wasn’t quite so certain. He could just see a Navy frigate firing a shell up his exhaust in the heat of the moment.
The flotilla was packed in tight, a tentative train behind