Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [74]
“I’m jigging around so they don’t hit us!” Frey shouted back, then banked again, dived, and yawed to port. The Ketty Jay was a sizable target, but she could move faster than her bulk suggested. Her pursuers were still at the limit of their range, but they were catching up fast.
“You know the worst thing about flying an aircraft like this?” he asked Jez. “You can’t see behind you. I’m only guessing where those sons of bitches are while they take potshots at my arse. I wish, just once, someone would have the guts to take us on from the front so I could shoot ’em.”
“Sounds like it wouldn’t be a very wise tactic, Cap’n,” she replied. “But we can hope.”
The storm was filling the sky now. They were flying in low, and the thunderheads had swallowed the sun. The cockpit darkened, and the air got choppier still. The Ketty Jay began to rattle around, buffeted this way and that.
“Let’s see ’em aim straight in this,” he murmured. “Signal Harkins. Tell him to get out of here. He knows the rendezvous.”
Jez complied, tapping the electroheliograph.
A few moments later, Malvery yelled, “Hey! Harkins is turning tail! That yellow toad was supposed to be—”
“My orders!” Frey yelled back. “He can’t follow us into the storm. It’s up to you now.”
“You’re giving orders now?” Malvery sounded surprised. “Blimey.” Then the autocannon began thumping again in clipped bursts.
Crake appeared at the door. “Silo says the engines have taken a hit and they’re overheating, but it’s nothing too serious. Other than that, there’s only minor structural—”
There was a shattering din as a salvo of bullets punched into the Ketty Jay’s hull from behind. She yawed crazily, hit a pressure pocket in the storm, and plunged fifteen meters, fast enough to lift Crake off the ground and slam him to the floor again. The engines groaned and squealed, reached a distressing crescendo, then slowly returned to their usual tone.
Crake pulled himself up from the floor, wiping blood from a split lip. “I’ll get a damage report from Silo, shall I?” he inquired.
“Don’t bother,” said Frey. “Just hang on to something.”
Crake clutched at the metal jamb of the cockpit door as the Ketty Jay began to shake violently. Frey dumped some of the aerium gas from the tanks to add weight and stability to the craft, letting the thrusters take the strain instead. Getting the balance right was crucial. A craft like the Ketty Jay, unlike its outfliers, wasn’t aerodynamic enough to fly without the aid of its lighter-than-air ballast. It couldn’t produce enough lift to maintain its bulk.
The thunderheads rushed toward them, inky billows flashing with angry lightning. Wind and pressure differentials began to shove them this way and that. The world outside darkened rapidly as they hit the outer edge of the clouds. A blast of blinding light, terrifyingly close at hand, made Crake cower. Jez glanced over at him and gave him a sympathetic smile. He firmed his resolve and stood straighter.
“Doc! Are they still with us?” Frey howled over the rising wail of the wind. There was no reply. “Doc!”
“What?” Malvery cried back irritably.
“Are they still with us?”
A long pause.
“Doc!” Frey screamed.
“I’m bloody looking!” Malvery roared back. “It’s dark out there!” Then, a moment later, he boomed a triumphant laugh. “They’re turning tail, Cap’n! Running off home!” Jez beamed in relief.
The Ketty Jay was pushed from beneath by a pressure swell and veered steeply, dislodging Crake’s grip on the jamb and sending him careening into a wall. It was black as night outside. Frey flicked on the headlights, but that only lit up the impenetrable murk that had closed in on them.
“I can’t help noticing we’re still in the storm,” said Crake.
Jez supplied the answer, since Frey was concentrating on flying. “We need to put some distance between them and us. Otherwise they might just pick up the chase again when we emerge.”
“And what happens if some of that lightning hits us?” he asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
“We’ll probably explode,” Frey said. Crake went gray. Jez opened