The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [89]
The problem was, the aircraft they were searching for would be running without lights. Nobody flew the Flashpan unless they didn’t want to be found. According to the Grand Oracle, the Awakeners’ lives were being made miserable by the Navy lately. Archduke’s orders, no doubt. Awakener craft were boarded and searched wherever they were encountered. It wasn’t that the Navy expected to find anything; it was just to piss them off. But the Awakeners couldn’t risk their precious Mane sphere being found by the Navy, so they were sneaking across the Flashpan at night. In the dark and rain, they were all but invisible.
Not to Jez, though. If anyone could spot them, Jez could.
While she scanned the horizon, Frey concentrated on maintaining course and keeping a safe altitude. The wind jostled the Ketty Jay about, making her groan and rumble. He was flying by his instruments, since vision was almost zero except when a flash of lightning lit up the land. He kept a wary eye on the rock masses that hulked out of the moors below him, half-expecting one of them to loom up into his path.
To calm his nerves, he ran over what he’d learned from the Grand Oracle, hoping to get one step ahead of the game. Pomfrey had been forthcoming about the details of how the Awakeners intended to transport the sphere, but Frey had been left frustrated in other areas. When he asked the Grand Oracle what the Awakeners intended to do with the power source from a Mane dreadnought, Pomfrey had only looked confused.
Frey had prompted him. Were they planning to sell it? Perhaps they wanted to make a deal with the Archduke, a trade in return for freedom from further persecution? Or did they have designs on building an invincible fleet of their own?
The Grand Oracle had seemed mystified. “What power source?”
At that moment, several people had entered the parlor, and Crake had been forced to wrap it up quickly, commanding the Grand Oracle to remember nothing of the conversation.
But Frey remembered.
What power source?
Grist had lied to him. It wasn’t a power source at all. So what exactly was it?
Whatever that son of a bitch was up to, he still wasn’t being straight with Frey. And Frey was damned if he’d be mucked around like that.
Once they located their targets, it would be the Storm Dog’s job to deal with the Delirium Trigger. The Ketty Jay was far too small to handle her. Instead, she’d go after the Awakener barque, to capture its cargo: the Mane sphere.
As soon as they had that, Frey was going to run for it. Forget Grist and his secrets. Whatever that thing was, Frey was having it, and Grist could go hang. He’d work out later what to do with it.
Some things are worth riskin everythin for, Grist had said. But what was it he was after? What was worth that much?
“Doc!” he called through the cockpit door. “Are they still with us?”
“Wait a sec!” Malvery called back from the gunnery cupola. There was a flash of lightning and a tearing sound overhead. “Storm Dog’s right on our tail, Cap’n!”
Frey stared out into the night. The cockpit lights had been doused, except for dim night-flying bulbs on the dash to illuminate the instruments. Another flash of lightning showed him the Firecrow and Skylance, flying some distance below them, as Frey had instructed. A lightning strike wouldn’t affect the Ketty Jay or the Storm Dog, but smaller craft had a tendency to explode that way. The Storm Dog’s outfliers were safely stashed in a hangar in her belly, but that wasn’t an option on the Ketty Jay, which was less than a tenth her size. Instead, he used his craft to shelter his pilots as best he could, hoping it would soak up the lightning.
“Harkins. Pinn. Everything alright?” he asked.
“Darker than a miner’s arsehole down here,” came Pinn’s reply through his earcuff. “Otherwise, fine.”
Jez had suggested that they might give an earcuff to Grist, to better coordinate the attack, but Frey had flatly refused. The earcuffs were a secret that only the crew of the Ketty Jay shared. A little stroke of genius from Crake. It gave