The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,87

damn thing was armed!' Frey screamed at Jez.

'I didn't think I needed to!' she screamed back. 'I thought you'd be expecting a little resistance!'

'Well, you thought wrong!'

'Well, you're an idiot!' she replied. Then, respectfully, 'Cap'n.'

By now Frey had fought the Ketty Jay level, and the engines were settling down. They raced away from the barque and the Delirium Trigger, slipping safely out of range. Frey's hands were trembling. A freezing hurricane was blowing through the cockpit from the corridor. The cupola was smashed, and rain from outside lashed the passageway.

'Doc! Are you alright?' Frey called through the door of the cockpit.

Malvery was piled against the engine room door in a position that had to be painful. 'Just about, Cap'n,' he wheezed.

'Damage report,' Frey ordered.

'Cuts and bruises. Bashed my knee pretty bad. I've felt better.'

'Not you. The aircraft.'

'Oh. Right-o,' said Malvery. 'I'll ask Silo, shall I?'

'Would you?'

Malvery' untangled himself and headed into the engine room while Frey turned the Ketty Jay.

'Delirium Trigger's putting out her fighters, Cap'n,' said Pinn in his ear. 'Storm Dog too.'

'Get in there,' said Frey. 'Make sure none of them come after me.' He turned to look at Jez, who was arranging herself in her seat again. 'Okay. This time we do it right.'

The aerial battlefield swung into sight as he brought the Ketty Jay around for a second run at the barque. The Delirium Trigger and Storm Dog glided past each other in different directions, slow leviathans, their cannon batteries flashing. Gouts of yellow flame erupted from their hulls; slabs of armour buckled and wheeled away into the storm. The Delirium Trigger's outflyers - Norbury Equalisers, fast and deadly - were spraying from her hangars, emerging to meet the Storm Dog's ragtag squadron of heavier fighter craft. Lightning flickered and thunder shattered the air.

Frey couldn't see Harkins or Pinn in the mix. They'd be waiting for their moment to dart in and hit the Equalisers. Satisfied that the Delirium Trigger and her outflyers were fully occupied, Frey turned his attention back to the barque.

The Awakeners, foolishly, were making a run for it. Perhaps frightened by the sudden appearance of the Storm Dog, they'd boosted their thrusters and opened up distance between themselves and the Delirium Trigger. Maybe they believed they could lose themselves in the storm and escape, leaving their escort behind. But all it did was rob them of their best defence.

Frey closed in on them. This time, he took an evasive pattern, rolling and diving as he approached. A blast of artillery rattled the Ketty Jay, but it didn't come close enough to trouble them. The heavy machine guns fared little better. Tracer fire slipped out of the dark from the turrets on the back of the barque, but it waved about wildly and never got a fix. Now that he was moving around instead of coming in straight, they couldn't draw a bead on him.

'Engines weren't hit, Cap'n!' Malvery shouted from down the passageway. 'Rot knows where we took the bullets, but if you can't feel it in the controls then Silo says not to worry. We probably won't know until we explode.'

Frey barely heard him. He was focused only on his target.

Gunfire came at him from several turrets, but he slipped between it. He headed for the aerium tank at the end of the barque's port prong. With the autocannon out of commission, he only had the nose-mounted machine guns to work with. The trick was to graze the tank, causing a slow leak that would force the pilot to land the craft. But Frey was angry and shaken up, and not in the mood to be subtle. He squeezed the trigger hard, and kept it down. His machine guns didn't so much graze the tank as rip it apart.

The Ketty Jay dove underneath the barque as it vented a pungent cloud of aerium gas. Frey smelt it on the cold wind that whipped around the cockpit and blew his hair against his face. The barque slid through the sky overhead, metal groaning as it tilted. The sudden weight on its port side was pulling it down.

Malvery stumbled into the cockpit, holding on to his glasses with one hand. 'Silo says go easy! Don't tax the engines too much!'

'She'll hold,' Frey said, through gritted teeth. 'Shut the door.'

Malvery hauled the door to the cockpit shut, closing out the wind from outside. Sporadic machine-gun fire followed the Ketty Jay as Frey pulled her around for another pass. The battle between the frigates was