The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,187

advised. 'We'll sink underneath her.'

'We dump those tanks, we'll go off course.'

'Isn't that the idea?'

'We go off course, we'll miss the vortex. We miss the vortex, we might not be able to get back to it. There's no telling when or if we'll have steering again.'

'You want to chase the Storm Dog with no steering?' Crake cried in disbelief.

'We are going into that vortex!' said Frey.

'There's half a million tons of metal in the way!' Jez shouted.

'They'll move,' he insisted.

'No, they won't!'

Frey's hand hovered above the valve that would execute an emergency purge of the aerium tanks. The Ketty Jay would dip out of the dreadnought's path, but he'd never get her bow up again if he did. Not with that shrapnel in the tail assembly.

Hitting that valve meant giving up on Trinica for ever. Not hitting it meant that he and his crew would end up splattered across the keel of that dreadnought.

He took his hand away.

'They'll move,' he said.

'They won't move!' Harkins shouted at his captain, as if Frey could hear him. He didn't know what the Cap'n was thinking, but he was furious at him for gambling with Jez's life like that. Either the dreadnought hadn't noticed them, or whoever commanded it had decided to run them down rather than waste ammunition. The Ketty Jay would crumple like tinfoil against that armoured keel.

Why doesn't the Cap'n just pull out of the way?

Maybe they were in trouble. Maybe they couldn't move aside. In that case, a collision was inevitable. In that case . . .

He raced towards them at full throttle. He wasn't sure what he could do about the situation when he got there, but a fierce determination blazed in him nonetheless. He was heady from defeating Slag, and he felt invincible. Somehow, he'd save them. He'd save her.

Pinn was further away, approaching from another angle, yelling pointiessly at the Captain. He was as alarmed as Harkins, and just as powerless to intervene.

Then an idea slipped into Harkins' head. Powerless? Him? Not any more. After all, he'd just punched out a cat. Taking on a dreadnought seemed like the next logical step.

There was no time to think about it, anyway. No time to listen to the voice in his head that screamed, 'What are you doing?!!?' He felt a hard calm overtake him. The kind of calm he'd once possessed in battle, before all those crashes and lost comrades broke his nerve. A colder, more dispassionate part of himself seized control, quelling the panic that beat at his mind. His brow creased into a stern frown, and for the first time in years, he felt like someone to be reckoned with.

He slowed as he matched the Ketty Jay's course, flying in a few dozen metres above them. Ahead was the dark metal landscape of the dreadnought. The Ketty Jay was heading dead into its keel, but Harkins was approaching above the level of the deck.

He could see the Manes emerging from hatches in the deck, swarming out like cockroaches. No wonder there had been nobody firing the guns. Presumably it was too dangerous to be up on deck when they passed through that swirling vortex. Too dangerous for Blackhawks as well, he guessed. That was why they were smuggled through in the bellies of their mothercraft.

Far back on the deck stood a command tower, a black pile of spikes and rivets with armoured slits for windows. If there was a captain, he'd be there, along with the pilot. So that was where Harkins was heading.

He cut the thrusters further, coming in slow to give his enemy a chance to react. Then he flew over the Ketty Jay, leapfrogging her in the air, and headed straight for the command tower.

'You want to play chicken?' he muttered. 'Well, I'm the biggest chicken of them all!'

He didn't fire his machine guns as he came. He refused to. He'd leave them in no doubt of his intentions. He'd let them know he wasn't going to pull away.

He'd let them know he was going to ram the command tower, and if their captain valued his inhuman life, he'd move aside.

The Manes were scrambling to the deck guns, but they wouldn't get there in time. The dreadnought cruised towards him, framed by the flashing churn of the vortex. Harkins squared his shoulders and flew straight.

His heart slammed against his ribs, his muscles rigid as he held the Firecrow steady. The dreadnought was huge now, growing faster and faster. The Firecrow juddered and rocked