The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,2

being dog-tired. He was beginning to think that getting lynched would be preferable to all this exertion.

Once he got to his feet, he spotted his companions. Malvery was swimming towards the bank with one hand, in great bear-like strokes. He was towing Pinn, fingers cupped around his chin. Pinn had gone limp, giving himself over to Malvery's strength.

Frey squelched along the bank to where the current had carried them, and helped them both out. Pinn fell to his hands and knees, retching up river water.

'You rot-damned pair of bastards!' he snarled, between heaves.

'Oh, come on, Pinn,' Frey said. 'I've seen you take down four aircraft without breaking a sweat. You're scared of a little water?'

'I can't shoot water!' Pinn protested. He burped noisily and another flood spilled over his lips.

'There they are!' someone yelled from the cliff-top. Bullets pocked the bank and threw up little fins of spray from the river.

'Move it!' Frey scrambled away towards the trees. 'It'll take them ages to find a way round.'

He'd barely finished his sentence before the villagers began to fling themselves off the cliff. 'We just want our money back!' an unseen voice called. 'It's for the orphaaaaans!' The final word lengthened and trailed off as the speaker pitched over the edge and plummeted into the water.

'I'm an orphan!' Frey screamed, infuriated by their persistence. He'd done enough to deserve his escape. Why couldn't they just let him go?

His words fell on deaf ears. Angry faces broke the surface of the river and came swimming towards them.

'Don't those fellers give up?' Malvery complained, and they ran.

It was more luck than design that brought them to a familiar trail, which led them back to the Ketty Jay. The villagers had stopped shooting - their guns were soaked - but they showed no signs of abandoning the pursuit. In fact, they were gaining. A lifetime of unhealthy habits and too little exercise hadn't equipped any of Frey's team for a lengthy foot chase. Their waterlogged clothes weighed them down and chafed with every step. By the time they made it to the clearing where their companions waited, Malvery looked like he was about to burst a lung.

The Ketty Jay loomed before them, dwarfing the two single-seater fighter craft parked nearby. Frey had long ceased to see her with a judgemental eye. He'd never have called her beautiful, but she wasn't ugly to him either. After fifteen years she was so familiar that he no longer noticed her squat, hunched body, her stub tail or her ungainly bulk. He knew her too well for appearances to matter. That wasn't something Frey could often say about a female.

Harkins, Jez and Crake stood before her, shotguns and pistols in their hands.

'Get to stations!' Frey panted as he entered into the clearing. 'Harkins! Pinn! Up in the sky, right now.'

Harkins jumped as if stung and fled towards one of the fighter craft, a Firecrow with wide, backswept wings and a bubble of windglass on its snout. Pinn lurched off towards the other: a Skylance, a sleek racing machine, built for speed.

'We heard gunfire,' said Jez, as Malvery and Frey approached, soaking and bedraggled. She eyed the doctor, who was unsuccessfully trying to catch his breath. 'Has he been shot or something?'

Malvery's retort was little more than an irate wheeze. He staggered off towards the cargo ramp on the Ketty Jay's far side.

'Robbing the children didn't go to plan, then?' Crake asked the captain, one eyebrow raised.

Frey shoved the lockbox full of coins into Crake's hands. 'It went well enough. Where's Silo and Bess?'

Crake regarded the leaking lockbox disapprovingly. 'Silo's in the engine room, trying to fix the problems we had on the way over here. Bess is asleep in the hold. Should I wake her?'

'No. Get on board. We're going. Last one in, shut the cargo ramp.'

He spared a moment to check on his outflyers before boarding the Ketty Jay. The Firecrow and the Skylance were rising vertically from the clearing as their aerium tanks flooded with ultralight gas. Satisfied they were on their way, he ran up the ramp.

Malvery was beached and gasping just inside the hold, surrounded by a large puddle. Frey paid him no attention. Nor did he spare a glance for the hulking metal form of Bess, standing dormant and dark by the stairs. She'd long ceased making him uneasy.

He sprinted up the steps to the main passageway. It was cramped and dimly lit, the cockpit at one end and the engine room at the