Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [23]
She feels it too, Frey thought. Instinct.
Instinct. Perhaps. Or perhaps she sensed that her captain intended to rip them off good and proper.
He tried to feel bad, but he really couldn’t manage it. After all, you couldn’t be robbed of what you never had. Quail had promised him fifty thousand ducats, not them. Granted, he’d always maintained a system of fair shares for his crew, dividing the booty according to prearranged percentages, but these were exceptional circumstances. By which he meant an exceptional amount of money. Too much to share.
It was just this one time, he promised himself. Because after this, he’d never need to work again.
He’d informed the crew that Quail had given them the tip-off in exchange for one thing. There was a chest on board that he wanted. They were to bring it to him. Everything else was theirs for the taking.
Frey had obtained a full description of the chest, and he knew it would be locked tight. Quail had also assured him there were plenty more pickings besides. The crew could loot to their hearts’ content, and everyone would be happy. They didn’t need to know what was inside the chest. They didn’t need to know about the arrangement between Frey and Quail.
But Jez kept giving him that look.
“I hear something,” Crake said suddenly.
Frey listened. He was right: a low throb, accompanied by the higher whines of smaller engines. Hard to make out how many.
“Jez,” Frey murmured. “Ready on the electroheliograph.”
“Cap’n,” she said, reaching over to the switch.
“This is the one, isn’t it?” Crake asked, squinting through the windglass, trying to catch a glimpse.
“This is the one,” Frey said.
The Ace of Skulls slid into the pass, cruising majestically between two broken peaks. Long, blunt-faced, and curve-bellied, she had stubs for wings and a tail assembly like an enormous fin. Thrusters pushed her along as she glided through the air, buoyed up with huge tanks of aerium gas. Decals on her flanks displayed her name, printed across a fan of cards. She was a heavy, no-nonsense craft, without frills, solid. Nothing about her gave away the value of the cargo within.
Buzzing alongside, dwarfed in size, were four Swordwings. Frey recognized them by their distinctive conical down-slanting muzzles and aerodynamic shape. They were fast fighter craft. Nothing exceptional in their design, but in the hands of a good pilot they could be deadly.
“It’s not exactly minimum escort,” Crake muttered.
Frey made a distracted noise of agreement. He didn’t like the look of those Swordwings. He’d expected two, not four.
“Just give me the word,” Jez said, fingertip hovering over the press pad of the electroheliograph switch.
Frey stared up at the freighter. It wasn’t too late to listen to the voice that told him to back out of this. The voice that told him to lay his cards down when he knew his hand was beat. The voice of caution.
You could keep going on as you are, he thought. It’s not a bad life, is it? You’ve got your own craft. You don’t answer to anyone. The whole world’s therefor you. Now, what’s wrong with that?
What was wrong with it was that he didn’t have fifty thousand ducats. He hadn’t really minded before, but suddenly the lack had become intolerable.
“Cap’n?” Jez prompted. “Time’s a factor.”
Frey had picked a spot just below the mist layer and in the shadow of a peak to give them a good view of the pass above.
But if he could see the Ace of Skulls, she might see him, and without the element of surprise they’d have no chance.
You know this is too good to be true, Frey. Stuff like this doesn’t happen to guys like you. Ambition gets people killed.
“Cap’n?”
“Do it,” he said.
PINN WIPED HIS RUNNING nose with the back of his hand and stared at the gray bulk of the Ketty Jay.
“Come on! What’s taking so long?” he cried. The need to get up there and shoot something was like a physical pull. His boots tapped against the complicated array