The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,45
gunfire,' he murmured.
'Get moving. We need to get back to the others.'
'I'm not leaving my equipment!' Crake protested. 'There's no way I could afford to—'
'Alright! Gather it up! I'll send Silo down to help you.'
On cue, Silo appeared in the doorway. 'Cap'n.'
Frey was wrongfooted by Silo's unusually fine sense of timing. 'Erm . . . Help Crake,' he said.
'Cap'n,' replied Silo, brandishing the packs they'd brought the equipment in. Crake began frantically disconnecting everything. Grist loomed into the already crowded room.
'Is that thing safe or not?' he demanded, pointing at the sphere.
'I don't know!' Crake said. 'I haven't had time! It takes tests, procedures, careful study—'
Grist reached past him and snatched up the sphere.
'However,' Crake continued, 'a reckless disregard for one's own life will do just as well.'
There was another volley of gunshots from outside, snapping through the silent, empty dreadnought.
'Pack up your junk and catch us up!' Frey snapped at Crake. He ran out of the room, with Grist and Crattle hard on his heels. Grist had the sphere under his arm, which Frey wasn't happy about, but now wasn't the time for arguments. He'd make damned sure he didn't let the captain out of his sight, though.
They found Jez sitting by the doorway, a distant look in her eyes. Shell-shocked. Frey didn't have time to wonder what was wrong with her. He hauled her up. 'On your feet, Jez. You alright to shoot a gun?'
She shook herself and focused on him. Her face firmed. 'Yes, Cap'n.'
'Come on, then.'
They backtracked through the dreadnought. The gunfire intensified as they approached the breach where they'd entered. Finally they saw daylight ahead. There, crouching among their abandoned packs in the cover of a bulkhead, was Tarworth. He was using the rifle that had been his crutch to fire out into the undergrowth. Frey reached him first. Tarworth looked up, and his eyes were afraid, but he said nothing.
Frey peered out around the ragged edge of the rip in the dreadnought's hull. Beyond was the forest, steeped in weak daylight. It was alive with movement. Leaves rustled. Half-glimpsed figures rushed this way and that. A few dozen metres ahead of him, he could see the ridge they'd clambered down to get to the floor of the defile. That was their only way out, as far as he knew. The other three sides were sheer.
The undergrowth heaved and Pinn and Malvery burst out of it. They raced towards him, firing wildly over their shoulders and yelling. A spear followed them and buried itself in the ground centimetres from the doctor's foot.
'This way!' Frey cried. He drew Gimble's revolvers and fired covering shots into the undergrowth, aiming at nothing.
'Where do you think we're bloody running to?' Malvery howled back.
They bundled in through the breach and flung themselves into cover, just as Jez, Grist and the others caught up with Frey.
'Where's Ucke?' Grist demanded of his crewman.
'He was out there,' Tarworth said. 'I don't—'
'He's done for,' Malvery panted. 'They got us by surprise. He was the first one. Didn't stand a chance.'
They clustered on either side of the breach, looking out, seeking targets. It wasn't easy. They never stayed visible for long.
'There!' Jez cried.
Frey caught a brief sight of one of their attackers as it loped through the undergrowth. It looked almost like a man, but it must have been seven feet tall, thickly built and covered in black, shaggy hair. It wore beads and was wearing some kind of crude armour, made of hide or leather. In one hand it carried a carved wooden club, decorated with painted symbols and bands of colour; in the other was a spear.
'The beast-men of Kurg,' Hodd breathed, rather unnecessarily.
'Thanks, Hodd,' Frey replied sarcastically, reloading his revolvers. 'I wasn't sure for a minute there.'
'We saw some smaller ones,' said Malvery. 'Ugly little things. Red fur instead of brown.'
'Those,' sniffed Hodd, with a disdainful look at Frey, 'are the females.'
'Those are the native women?' Pinn cried, with the unique anguish of someone whose dreams have just been violently shattered. 'What happened to the sex-crazed tribes of warrior women?'
'Oh, they're rumoured to live in the northern tundra,' said Hodd. 'Actually, there's quite an interesting story I once heard—'
'Will you two shut it?' Frey cried. 'I'm trying to think of a way out of this!'
'Think hard, Cap'n. They've cut us off,' Jez muttered. She took a potshot at something moving in the undergrowth. 'We're trapped in the defile. More of 'em moving up all the time.'