The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [90]
He hunched forward in his seat, searching the darkness. “Where are you, Trinica?” he muttered. “Where’d you go?”
Trinica. In among all his other problems, there was Trinica. Why did she need to get involved? Why did it have to be her that robbed him on Kurg? If it had been anybody else he might have given up, cut his losses, and parted company with Grist. But he couldn’t take the humiliation, not from her.
He found himself thinking of this operation more and more in terms of Trinica. It was her he was beating. Maybe he couldn’t take her on himself, but it was his plan, his effort that had set up the ambush. It would be him that ended up with the prize. Maybe the Storm Dog would shoot her down, or maybe she’d shoot down Grist. As long as they kept each other busy for long enough, he couldn’t care less. But he’d like to see the look on her face when she realized who’d done her over.
“Cap’n,” said Jez. She craned forward and narrowed her eyes. “Contact.”
Frey sat up. “You see them?”
Jez looked for a few more moments. “Bearing two eighty-five, heading across us to the east.”
Frey thumped the dash in excitement. “Alright, we’re on!” he announced. “Harkins, Pinn, hit the deck. Stay low, and listen to Jez for course corrections. We’re heading up into the clouds.”
“Can we shoot at them this time, Cap’n?” Pinn asked. He was still sore about their last encounter, when they were bested by yokels flying mail planes and crop dusters.
“Unless you can think of some other way of blowing them out of the sky,” Frey replied.
Pinn whooped. “Watch out, boys! It’s dyin’ time!” he yelled. Frey presumed he was addressing the enemy.
“Crazy idiot,” Harkins said under his breath, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Meow,” said Pinn.
“Shut up! You shut your fat yap!” Harkins snapped. Dumb as Pinn was, he was very accurate when it came to hitting a nerve.
“Both of you shut up,” said Frey. “I want you coming back alive. Remember, as soon as we’ve got the sphere on board, you break off and fly like your tails are on fire. We’ll meet up at Osken’s Bar in Westport. Got it?”
“Got it, Cap’n,” said Harkins.
“Meow,” said Pinn.
“That’s it!” Harkins shrieked. “I’ve had just about enough from you, you, you ignorant piece of—”
Frey pulled his earcuff off and tossed it onto the dash. He pinched the bridge of his nose, where his headache had focused. He didn’t need this on top of a hangover and a sleepless night.
“Taking us up,” he said. He fed more aerium into the tanks, and the Ketty Jay rose toward the clouds. “Doc! Tell me if we lose the Storm Dog, okay?”
“Right-o!” came the reply. Frey heard the unmistakable sound of a bottle being swigged.
“Are you drinking up there, Doc?”
“There’s a quarter inch of windglass between me and five crillion volts of lightning, Cap’n. You’ll forgive me if I take a nip, eh?”
Frey thought that was fair enough, so he kept quiet. As long as Malvery could still shoot straight. He wasn’t exactly a crack shot with an autocannon, but Crake was worse, and Frey couldn’t spare anyone else. Silo needed to concentrate on keeping the engine running. He still didn’t have the parts he needed to fix it properly, so he was forced to do the best he could with what he had.
The black clouds swallowed them up. Once they were far enough in, Frey flicked on the taillights to give the Storm Dog something to follow. Jez went back to her charts and began plotting the trajectory of their targets based on their speed and direction. Frey found it rather impressive that she’d divined that information from many kloms away on a dark, rainy night, but he was used to being impressed by Jez. He took it for granted nowadays.
“Adjust to two seventy,” she said. Frey did so. Winds shoved the Ketty Jay this way and that. Frey bullied her back on course. He dumped some aerium to lend them weight and stability. Lightning flickered, muffled by the clouds. Thunder detonated all around them.
Frey gripped the flight stick, shoulders tense,