The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,156

alright, Frey thought.

The further from the landing pad they went, the more the city flattened and spread out. Eventually, they reached an industrial district of factories and warehouses. The roads became narrow, bleak and dirty. Walls crumbled, cracked by frost. The air smelled of chemicals, and the buildings were sooty with residue.

Crund brought the tractor to a halt just before the crest of a rise. Beyond, the road dipped down towards a group of blank brick warehouses huddled round a large aircraft hangar. The warehouses were surrounded by a formidable metal fence, ten feet high and tipped with spikes. A pair of guard towers stood overlooking the compound.

Frey got a better view with his spyglass. They were Yorts, their beards and hair knotted and braided, faces tattooed and pierced in several uncomfortable-looking places. They were carrying heavy repeater rifles, and appeared generally unfriendly.

He scanned the compound while the others pulled the tarpaulin off the trailer and checked their weapons. There were fifteen guards that he could see. One guard each.

Not good enough. Fair fights were for suckers. It was time to employ their secret weapon.

He walked around the side of the trailer, where Bess now lay uncovered. 'Wake her up, Crake,' he said.

Crake put a brass whistle to his lips and blew it. No sound was made, but Bess stirred and sat up. Trinica's men stepped back uneasily. Some of them remembered the golem from her rampage through the Delirium Trigger when she was berthed in Rabban during the Retribution Falls affair.

'Come on, Bess,' said Crake. The golem clambered down and the trailer groaned in relief. Trinica's men set about detaching it from the tractor they'd hired from the landing pad.

'Are your people ready?' Frey asked Trinica.

Trinica gazed at him in that cool, half-amused way she had. 'They'll do their part.'

The group split into two. Five of Trinica's men were staying behind with the tractor. The rest were coming with Frey and his crew, Trinica and her bosun included. Frey didn't feel good about Trinica fighting alongside him - he'd have preferred her safe and out of the way - but she wouldn't be dissuaded and he knew better than to try. She was hungry to get her own back on Grist. She wanted to be there in person when the big man went down.

'Get moving as soon as you hear the first gunshots,' he told the men who were staying behind. They acted as if they hadn't heard. They didn't take orders from anyone but their mistress.

Frey's group headed off the road and through back ways towards the compound. It was too early for many people to be around in this part of the city, so Bess could travel unconcealed. Walking through the heart of Sakkan in the company of an eight-foot golem would have brought the Militia down on them in minutes, but out here in the industrial district there was no one to see her.

One of Trinica's scouts led them, taking them down the hill by routes that kept them out of view of the compound. Soon enough they found themselves in the mouth of an alleyway between two grim storage facilities, looking out across a road at the fence that encircled their target. A warehouse lay just beyond it, blocking most of the compound from view. A guard tower overlooked both fence and compound, but the guards within weren't paying a great deal of attention to their job, being more interested in playing a game that involved punching each other in the arm and laughing a lot. Yort humour, Frey supposed.

Trinica nodded towards the fence. 'Tell your golem to be subtle, hmm? Get us in quietly.'

He cocked his pistol. 'She doesn't really do subtle.'

He motioned to Crake, who said a few words to Bess. Bess strode out across the road, took hold of the bars of the fence, and with one huge pull she ripped them out. Metal screeched and twisted and snapped as she tugged at the bars, dragging a great section of the fence with her. By the time she'd torn a hole big enough for them to get through, she'd also destroyed the fence for ten metres to either side.

'So I see,' Trinica commented dryly.

The racket had attracted the attention of the Yorts in the guard tower, who were yelling and pointing at her. One of them began taking shots with his rifle. The bullets just bounced off Bess's armoured hump. Other guards on the ground were running over to investigate the source