Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [24]
The Second Aerium War had fizzled out mere days before he had the chance to sign up. Those miserable Sammies called it off just as he was about to get in there and bloody his guns. It was as if they’d intended to spite him personally. As if they were afraid of what would happen when Pinn got into the thick of things.
Well, if the Sammies were too chickenshit to face him in the air, then he’d take it out on the rest of the world every chance he got. Having been cheated once, he reasoned it was only his due. A man deserved the opportunity to prove himself.
He snatched up the small, framed ferrotype of his sweetheart, Lisinda, that hung on a chain from his dash. The black-and-white portrait didn’t do her justice. Her long hair was fairer, her innocent, docile eyes more beautiful in his memory.
It had been taken right before he left. He wondered what she was doing now. Perhaps sitting by a window, reading, patiently awaiting his return. Did she sense his thoughts on her? Did she turn her sweet face up to the sky, hoping to see the cloud break and the sun shine through, the glimmer of his wings as he swooped triumphantly in to land? He pictured himself stepping down from the Skylance, Lisinda rushing joyously toward him. He’d sweep her up in his arms and kiss her hard, and tears would run uncontrollably down her face, because her hero had returned after four long years.
His thoughts were interrupted by a series of flashes from a lamp on the Ketty Jay’s back. A coded message from the electroheliograph.
Go.
Pinn whooped and rammed the prothane thrusters to maximum. The Skylance boomed into life and leaped forward, pressing him back in his seat. He stamped down on a pedal, wrenched the stick, and the craft came bursting out of the mist, arcing toward the small flotilla high above. They’d all but passed overhead now, so he came at them from below and behind, hiding in their blind spot. A fierce grin spread across his chubby face as the engines screamed and the craft rattled all around him.
“This ain’t your lucky day,” he muttered as he lined his enemy up in his sights. He believed true heroes always said something dry and chilling before they killed anybody. Then he pressed down on his guns.
The pilot of the nearest Swordwing had only just heard the sound of Pinn’s engine when the bullets ripped through the underbelly of his craft. They pierced the prothane tanks and blasted the Swordwing apart in a dirty cloud of flame. Pinn howled with joy, corkscrewed through the fire, and burst out of the far side. He craned in his seat to look back, past his port wing, and saw Harkins coming up, machine guns blazing, shredding the rudder of another Swordwing as he shrieked by.
“Yeah!” Pinn cried. “Nice shooting, you twitchy old freak!”
He hauled the Skylance into a loop, hard enough to make his vision sparkle at the edges, and headed back toward the flotilla. The two remaining Swordwings had broken formation now, taking evasive action. Harkins’s target was coiling its way down to a foggy oblivion, leaving a trail of smoke from its ruined tail. Far below, the Ketty Jay had broken cover and was heading toward the slow bulk of the freighter.
Pinn picked another Swordwing and plunged toward it. He dropped into position on its tail, machine guns spitting a broken row of blazing tracer bullets. The pilot banked hard and rolled, darting neatly out of the way. Pinn raised an eyebrow.
“Not bad,” he murmured. “This is gonna be fun.”
“SHE’S HEADING FOR THE clouds!” Jez said.
She was right. The Ace of Skulls had turned her nose up toward the cloud ceiling and was gliding toward it. Visibility would be almost nil in there.
“I’m on it,” Frey said, then suddenly yelled, “Doc!”
“What?” came the bellowed reply through the open doorway of the cockpit.
“Start hassling the fighters! I’ve got the big fish!”
“Right-o!”
There was the thumping of autocannon