Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [22]
A distant drone came floating through the quiet. It steadily rose in volume, swelling and thickening. Around the side of a mountain came a lone four-winged corvette. A heavily armed Besterfield Ghostmoth.
Lurking in the mist layer, barely a shadow, the Ketty Jay stayed hidden as it passed.
Frey watched the Ghostmoth from the cockpit, its dark outline passing overhead. Crake watched it with him.
“That’s not the one we’re after, is it?” he asked, rather hoping it wasn’t.
“No,” said Frey. He wouldn’t have taken on a Ghostmoth for any money. He was concerned only that its pilot might spot them and decide to take an interest. You could never be sure. There were a lot of pirates out here. Real pirates, not fair-weather criminals like they were.
Nothing sat right with Frey about this whole plan. Nothing except the colossal payoff, anyway.
He’d never liked piracy, and historically he’d displayed a lack of talent in the field. Of the four times he’d tried it, three had been failures. Only once had he successfully downed and robbed a craft, and even then the loot had been meager and his navigator got stabbed and killed in the process. Twice they’d been forced to flee in the face of superior firepower. On the most recent attempt they’d actually managed to board the craft, only to find it had already delivered its cargo. That was the closest his crew had ever come to mutiny, until he hit on the idea of placating them with a night out at the nearest port. The following morning, the incident was forgotten, along with most of their motor skills and their ability to speak.
In general, Frey didn’t like being shot at. Piracy was a risky business and best left to the professionals. Even Quail’s assurances of an easy take did little to quell his fears.
The Ghostmoth slid out of view, and Frey relaxed. He checked on Harkins and Pinn, hovering a short way above them and to starboard, dim in the mist. The Ketty Jay drifted silently but for the occasional hiss of stabilizing gas jets as Frey’s hands twitched across the brass-and-chrome dashboard. The cockpit lights had been turned off, leaving the interior gloomy. Jez was sitting at the navigator’s station, studying a map. Crake, who had dropped in uninvited, stood behind the pilot’s seat, wringing his hands. Frey thought about ordering him back to his quarters but couldn’t be bothered with the argument that might ensue.
“Quail said they’d be coming through here?” Crake murmured.
“That’s what he said,” Frey replied.
“Makes sense,” Jez told Crake. “You want to get through the Hookhollows without being spotted, you follow the mountains that rise closest to the cloud ceiling. That way you can’t be seen from above and you minimize possible sight lines from below. Two of the most obvious routes converge on this point.”
Frey turned around in his seat and looked at her. “I’m beginning to think that, after many months, I’ve finally found a navigator who actually knows what they’re doing,” he said.
“We’re few and far between, Cap’n.”
“How’s the shoulder?”
“Fine.”
“Good. Don’t get shot again. You’re useful.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said, with a quirky grin.
Frey settled back to watching. Jez was a lucky find. In the few days she’d been on board, she’d shown herself to be far more efficient and reliable than he’d expected. Competence was by no means a prerequisite to joining the crew of the Ketty Jay, but Jez was head and shoulders above the other navigators Frey had worked with. He suspected that she was accustomed to better crews than Frey’s mob, but their slapdash technique didn’t seem to bother her. And she was good at what she did. She’d brought them in from Marklin’s Reach with pinpoint accuracy, with only a featureless sea of cloud and a few mountain peaks by which to plot their position. Frey had dropped down through the cloud and found himself dead in the middle of the pass they’d selected for their ambush.
She was a smart one. He only hoped she wasn’t too smart.
Perhaps the others hadn’t noticed, but Jez knew something