The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [8]
“How’s that crop duster, Malvery?” he called.
“Falling behind,” the doctor replied from the cupola.
Frey smiled. The Ketty Jay had finally built up some speed. Not enough to outstrip the villagers’ craft but enough to make them work to keep up. Still, it was going to be difficult flying through the valleys in her condition. Since the Ketty Jay took so long to accelerate, he couldn’t use his air brakes. He’d be forced to take every turn at speed.
Just be extra careful, he told himself, knowing that he wouldn’t be.
The Ketty Jay swooped into a valley. Slopes of grass and rock blurred by on either side, punctuated by scrawny trees hanging on at unlikely angles. Frey boosted the aerium engines—at least they worked fine—and pulled back on the flight stick to level out a few dozen meters above the river. The valley floor was wide here, and there were small, isolated farming communities on the banks, their windows dark. The Ketty Jay roared past them, kicking up spray and panicking their sleepy herds. Frey took a small, malicious pleasure in that.
“Malvery? The crop duster?”
“He’s gone. Pulled off. Can’t see him now. Others are coming in though.”
Well, at least we’ve scared one of them off. Let’s see how long the rest of them last in the valleys.
Frey looked up and saw several of the villagers’ rust-bucket aircraft angling down toward him. Harkins and Pinn were doing their best to harass them, but the villagers’ resolve was unshakable.
Jez was rustling charts at her station. “Valley branches right up ahead, Cap’n. That one’s narrower.”
“We’ll take it,” said Frey.
The villagers intercepted them before they got to the fork, descending from above to surround the Ketty Jay. Suddenly Frey found himself in the midst of a swarm of small aircraft that buzzed around him like clumsy bees. He wiped at the inside of the cockpit windglass in a futile attempt to clear the dust that stubbornly clung to the other side. He didn’t dare take evasive action. The villagers were flying too close.
He heard the sharp tap of a bullet hitting the Ketty Jay. “They’re shooting at us,” Malvery called, sounding unconcerned.
“Let ’em, if it makes ’em happy,” said Frey. The Ketty Jay’s armor plating could take a good deal more than that.
“Turn coming up,” Jez warned him.
Frey flexed his hand on the flight stick. “Pinn! Harkins! Keep going straight on. Take as many with you as you can. I’m going right.”
“Got it, Cap’n!” said Harkins. Then he screamed.
“What? What?” Frey demanded.
“Something hit me!”
Frey searched for Harkins among the planes that surrounded them and located the Firecrow. It appeared to be undamaged. Then his eye fell on a nearby villager, who was riding shotgun in an ancient open-top biplane, above and to the left of Harkins. As Frey watched, the man lobbed a small object out of the cockpit. It dropped through the air and bounced off the Firecrow’s wing. Harkins screamed again and banked in panic. He almost collided with a one-man flier that was hard on his tail.
“It happened again!”
“They’re throwing stuff at you,” Frey informed him. “With pretty extraordinary accuracy. I think the last one was a wrench.”
“A wrench?!” Harkins shrieked. “What … how … I mean, what kind of madmen are these? I don’t have to take this! Cap’n, I’ve got a bad feeling … I mean to say … It’s just … Allsoul’s balls, I’d rather fight the Navy than these lot!”
“Turning coming up now!” Jez said.
Frey saw it. The branching valley was a lot narrower.
“Everyone, get out of the way!” Frey yelled at the craft around him. “I’m coming through, like it or not!” With that, he wrenched the flight stick to the right. Planes scattered as the Ketty Jay slewed away. Frey and Jez were pressed into their seats. There was a raucous series of crashes as every unsecured object on the Ketty Jay tipped over. The artificial horizon on Frey’s dash tipped sideways.
We’re going too fast!
The rock and scree slope raced to meet them as the Ketty Jay curved gracelessly into the tributary valley. Frey hauled on the stick as hard as he could, but the turn was just a fraction