The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [207]
All he’d wanted to do, ever since he saw the Storm Dog disappear into the vortex, was to rescue Trinica. But now he knew that wasn’t quite right. He wanted to rescue the idea of her. To salvage the possibility of love as he’d once known it. But the reality was considerably more complex and messy.
How was it that life never worked out the way it did in his head?
Well, anyway, they were here now, and he was bloody well going to rescue her. If only so he could hold it over her later.
There were six of them in all, including Trinica. Along with Grist and Crattle were two sturdy-looking thugs and a scared engineer. Another man lay facedown, shot through the chest. All of them, except Trinica and the corpse, were occupied with shooting at the Mane, to no effect. Trinica, sensibly, was saving her ammo.
Keeping well to their rear, Frey took the opportunity to descend from the walkway to ground level. Shooting down on them from an elevated position seemed like a good idea at first, but the walkways provided little protection from return fire, and Frey didn’t much fancy catching a bullet between the legs.
He reached ground level a dozen meters behind Grist’s position. Silo followed him down, and Malvery was just stepping off when Crattle yelled, “The Manes are coming in! Get ready!” Then, warned by some intuition, the bosun looked over his shoulder and saw Frey and his men.
They needed no other signal. Frey, Malvery, and Silo opened fire.
Their first shots were all aimed instinctively at Crattle, who’d raised his pistol toward them. He jerked and twisted, bloody spray punching from his back, and went sprawling to the floor. The rest of Grist’s crew had a few seconds to react. It wasn’t enough. Silo and Malvery chambered new rounds, picked their targets, and blew them away. The last of Grist’s men, the engineer, managed to get off one wild shot before he, too, was killed.
While his companions took care of the others, Frey aimed at Grist. But a dozen meters wasn’t an easy distance for Frey, and Grist was quick for a big man. Frey took three shots, but somehow Grist slipped between them, and Frey hit nothing.
Trinica hadn’t been as fast to appraise the situation as Grist had. She wasted an instant on shock, surprised by the sight of Frey. Then Grist came lunging toward her. Too late, she raised her pistol to shoot him. He cannoned into her, knocking her weapon aside. They rolled together along the ground, and he ended up with one huge arm around her throat, gun pressed to her head. He slid backward until he came up against the barricade and lay there, with her lying across him as a shield.
Grist grinned. Stalemate. Again.
Not this time.
Frey raised his pistol and aimed it at Grist’s head, where it protruded from behind Trinica’s. She was struggling in the captain’s grip, but she didn’t have his strength.
At that moment there was a triumphant howl, multiplying rapidly in volume. The door was opening. The Manes were getting in.
“We gotta go, Cap’n,” Malvery said.
I might hit her, he thought, sighting down the barrel of his pistol. His hand began to tremble. I might kill her.
“We gotta go!” Malvery yelled at him, as the shrieks of the Manes got louder still.
Take the shot, he urged himself.
Her eyes met his. Maybe it was wild fancy, but he thought he spotted a flicker there. A crack in the façade. Fear. There had been a time when she’d genuinely not cared if she lived or died. But something had changed now. She wanted to live. He saw it in her.
Don’t leave me. Don’t let me die.
Malvery and Silo were backing away now, toward the steps. The cries of the Manes had reached a deafening pitch. He heard the slap of their feet as they raced into the room. At any moment they’d come flooding round the