The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,90

happening.

Then suddenly the air was full of bullets. Tracer fire, flitting all around his craft. Sharp impacts as his hull and wings were hit. Pinn looked frantically over his shoulder, yelled in alarm as the saw an Equaliser hanging on his tail, and rolled out of the way.

'Pinn? Are you alright?' It was the Cap'n, but Pinn didn't have time for a chat right now.

'I think ... I mean, Cap'n, it sounds like he's gone crazy!' Harkins opined.

'Pinn? Have you gone crazy?'

'Will you both bloody shut up?' Pinn cried. 'I've got an Equaliser on my tail!'

'Get over there and help him out!' Frey ordered Harkins.

'Where?'

'Near the frigates!" Pinn shouted. He banked hard, but the Equaliser stuck to him like glue. Just ahead, a bolt of lightning struck the Storm Dog. fizzing off her black hull. The Storm Dog shrugged it off and kept firing.

He heard the chatter of his pursuer's guns, but this time he was ready for it and he dodged. Another spray came out of nowhere; he barely pulled away in time. He twisted his neck, searching for the source. Another Equaliser, coming in high at seven o'clock. Pinn swore. Two of them, ganging up. Their cowardice infuriated him.

'Alright, shitwads." he snarled. I'll give you a chase.'

He broke hard to starboard, slipping out of the way of another volley of machine-gun fire. He'd caught a couple of hits, but the Skylance was still handling well. The Storm Dog and Delirium Trigger slid into view in front of him. He boosted the thrusters and arrowed towards them.

The sudden jump in speed threw his pursuers for a few seconds. They forgot about shooting at him while they concentrated on catching up. Pinn considered engaging the Skylance's racing afterburners, leaving them all choking on his fumes, but that would mean abandoning the fight and the Ketty Jay. In the mood he was in, he wasn't about to do that. He wanted to kill someone first.

By the time the Equalisers had got back within firing range, the frigates loomed large before them. They were flying alongside each other, lumbering through the black sky, cannons blasting. The space between them was a mess of artillery fire and bullets. Pinn headed straight for it.

The Equalisers opened up on him. He swung left, left again, then dived, making himself a hard target. The frigates swelled as he neared them. An alley of death between them, their blasted metal flanks the walls. Turrets on the Delirium Trigger had swivelled to track him: he heard autocannons kicking in.

Go!

He rolled hard and kept rolling, corkscrewing wildly through the deadly mesh of gunfire. Explosions rattled the Skylance, knocking him off course, jerking him about in his seat. It was only a few seconds, but it seemed to stretch out for ever. He pulled the Skylance level and rammed the thrusters to maximum, racing straight along the length of the frigates and out of the alley, whooping all the way.

He craned around in his seat in time to see one of his pursuers ripped to pieces in the crossfire. He couldn't see the other. Maybe that one hadn't been stupid enough to follow him in. Either way—

Machine guns. A rain of tracer fire from above. Pinn's head snapped up. An Equaliser, coming in from direcdy overhead. The Skylance was laid out flat beneath it, the whole craft presented as a target, with Pinn totally exposed in his cockpit. Rookie mistake. The Equaliser couldn't miss. Pinn's heart sank.

Then the Equaliser erupted in a blast of oily fire, spinning away in a dozen separate pieces, fading to invisibility in the storm. Harkins' Firecrow sped across the sky in the opposite direction to Pinn.

'Pinn! Did he get you?'

Pinn slumped back in his seat. 'No. He didn't get me.'

'You let him come in from above!' Harkins snapped, sounding unaccountably outraged. 'You could have been killed! Pay attention! What's wrong with you?'

'I don't know,' Pinn murmured, gazing at the ferrotype of Lisinda hanging from his dash. 'I don't know.'

Crake's palms were clammy and chill. The revolver in his hand felt like it weighed twice as much as usual. His heart skipped and tripped, little irregular bumps and flutters in his chest. He felt dried out and sick, and he was dog-tired from lack of sleep. On top of all that, he was probably going to get himself shot sometime in the next few minutes.

Not for the first time, Crake wondered how a man like himself, a man of good education, breeding and prospects, had ended