The Black Lung Captain

by Chris Wooding

  'What happened to—'

  'Never mind what happened to me. Where's - um - where's the Ketty Jay?'

  'Heading for that great big bloody rip in the sky. Don't ask me why. I'm going back to 'em now.'

  'Back?' Harkins was appalled. He'd left them? 'I had to draw off a few Blackhawks . . . er . . . wait a minute.' The tone of Pinn's voice alarmed him. 'What do you mean, wait a minute?' He flashed at full throttle through the battlefield, ascending hard. 'What's wrong?'

  'The Cap'n's playing chicken with a dreadnought.'

  'He's whaaaaat?' Harkins screamed. He came out of the main body of the battle, up into clearer sky, and spotted them immediately. The Ketty Jay was heading right into the centre of the vortex. A dreadnought, many times their size, was lumbering out of it. And neither looked at all like getting out of the way.

  Jez!

  He angled the Firecrow towards them and put on all the speed he had.

  'Shrapnel in the tail assembly!' Malvery called from the cupola. 'I can see it! It looks like it's coming loose! Waggle the flaps more!'

  'I'm waggling as hard as I bloody can!' said Frey, waggling. 'Dump out the aerium tanks,' Jez 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 around him. The thrusters roared in his ears.

  I'm not moving. He projected his thoughts at his opponent. Are you?

  'Harkins, what the shit do you think you're doing?' Pinn asked. 'They're Manes! This is not the time to grow a backbone!'

  Pinn. He was the worst of those who laughed at him. Well, one way or another, no one would be laughing after this.

  He was coming up on the deck of the dreadnought. Close enough to see the faces of the scurrying figures there. They howled and pointed. Perhaps they sensed his intention, but they couldn't stop him.

  Closer. His hand began to shake on the stick. Doubts ate away at his resolve. What would it feel like to die? What would come after?

  Closer. He was passing over the bow of the dreadnought. Suddenly all the bravado he'd gained from beating up a cat deserted him. The cowardly voice in his head rose to a shriek. His arms trembled with the effort of resisting the urge to pull away.

  Don't do it!

  Don't do what? Don't carry on, or don't crack and flee?

  The deck streaked past beneath him. The tower rose ahead. He was still aiming right for the bridge. The wind shook and battered the Firecrow, as if the whole craft might come apart.

  He gritted his teeth to clamp down on the blubbering wail rising up from his chest. The black metal slab of the command tower thundered towards him, the promise of fiery oblivion with it.

  Just this once, he thought. Just this once. Be a man.

  Then there was a deafening blast of escaping gas, and the command tower tilted as the frigate vented its aerium tanks on the starboard side. The dreadnought listed hard and dipped. Manes went scrabbling and sliding across the deck towards the gunwales. Harkins rolled to his own starboard as the bigger craft bowed aside, and the Firecrow raced past the command tower, wings vertical, with half a metre to spare.

  Harkins blinked in shock. The dreadnought was diminishing behind him, the vortex gaping ahead. He undipped his straps and twisted to look over his shoulder.

  The dreadnought was venting on its port side to level itself up, but the added weight was making it sink fast. As it moved out of the way, he saw the Ketty Jay, flying over the top of the dipping craft, trailing in his wake.

  'Wa-hooo! You crazy bastard!' Pinn was ecstatic. 'That was the bravest damn thing I ever saw!'

  A tentative smile spread across his face. That had been brave, hadn't it? And even better, he was still alive to enjoy it.

  He turned away from the vortex, back toward the Ketty Jay.
The electroheliograph on her back was flashing rapidly. Break off. Don't follow. Meet at Iktak.

  Harkins understood. The fighter craft would likely be destroyed in the unknown stresses of the vortex. Maybe the Ketty Jay would, too. But there was nothing he could do to prevent that now. His part in this, and Pinn's, was over.

  But he'd done himself proud. At least he could say that. He'd done himself proud.

  He gave the Ketty Jay a tilt of his wings as he approached, acknowledging the message. Then, just before they passed each other, another message flickered from the electroheliograph.

  It took him a moment to decipher it, by which time he was already heading away from the battle, with Pinn following after. It was a private communication, from Jez to him.

  Nice work, hero.

  Harkins was so happy he thought he might die.

  Forty

  The Vortex — Jez Reads The Wind —

  Among The Dead

  The Ketty Jay groaned and screeched as she was flung this way and that. Rivets popped and gauges cracked. Thrusters squealed as they chewed up the roiling air.

  Slowly but surely, she was coming apart.

  Crake hung on to the cockpit doorway for dear life. Frey fought the controls as if he'd forgotten they didn't work. Jez clutched at her maps and instruments, which were sliding all over the desk of the navigator's station.

  The cockpit was dark, lit only by occasional blasts of brightness from outside. Grey cloud flurried past the windglass, whipping and switching in the hurricane. They were in the heart of the vortex. Jez didn't think they'd come out of it in one piece.

  They'd all been shocked by Harkins' display of bravery, how he'd faced down the dreadnought. Nobody had thought him capable of that, least of all the Cap'n, who'd been singing his praises until the winds took hold and he had bigger things to deal with. Now, he was probably wishing Harkins hadn't been quite so courageous. Following the Storm Dog into the maelstrom seemed like less and less of a good idea with every passing minute.

  Jez felt like she was emerging from a daze. Activating the Mane sphere had been like a hammer blow to her mind. The energy released, the sheer force it took to tear open a rift to another place, was colossal. All those in the ancient sanctum had been stunned by the detonation, but Jez had caught it worse than the others. The sphere sent out a cry for help, loud enough to resonate across the planet, to jar the senses of Manes everywhere. Unbraced and unpractised at dealing with her new, inhuman awareness, she'd been overwhelmed.

  Since then she'd been operating on automatic. Her faculties were all in place, but her Mane senses were deadened. Down in the streets of Sakkan she'd killed Manes without compunction, and felt nothing for the loss. She knew the Cap'n worried for her, but he needn't have. There was no kind of tribal kinship there. She was part Mane, but she didn't owe them loyalty. They'd press-ganged her. She hadn't chosen to be one of them.

  Now her Mane senses were recovering, and a new awareness was seeping in. Ahead, she sensed something: a vast, ominous presence, growing stronger as they ploughed clumsily through the clouds. The Manes. They were going to where the Manes came from, and their nearness threatened her. She felt herself slipping into a trance.

  No. Not now. You could lose yourself for good, here.

  But despite her best efforts, it was happening. She fought to resist, but it was all she could do to stop herself going under entirely.

  She could sense the aircraft around her, like a living thing. She felt the shift and grind of its mechanisms, the stresses on its tortured joints. She could smell the fear coming off Crake, and plot the swirl of the clouds that whipped at the windglass. The darkness didn't affect her. She saw everything with uncanny definition.

  Hold it back, she told herself. The temptation to let herself go, to allow herself to be subsumed in the daemon that shared her body, was terrible. Here, so close to the Manes, its pull was fierce.

  But she wouldn't let it win. Her crew needed her now. They needed Jez the navigator, cool and collected. Not a wild Mane in their cockpit.

  The craft surged to port, hit an air pocket and plunged. Frey hollered with amazed joy.

  'What are you so happy about?' asked Crake, who was looking green.

  Frey ignored him. 'Doc!' he yelled through the doorway. 'Can you see that shrapnel? Is it still stuck in our tail?'

  'Can't see it,' came the reply. 'Then again, I can't see bugger all else, either!'

  Frey swooped the Ketty Jay to starboard. She bucked against the wind shear. Metal howled and something burst deep in her guts.

  'Wind must have blown it clear! I can steer again!' Frey said.

  'Well, can you stop steering?' Crake replied. 'We were doing better before!'

  Jez surged to her feet. 'Cap'n,' she said. 'Let me fly her.'

  Frey was shocked by the request. He'd always guarded his place in the pilot seat jealously, and only ever let her fly when he wasn't there to do it. She didn't know the Ketty Jay's quirks like he did.

  'We're breaking up, Cap'n,' she said urgently. 'But I can ride the winds. I'll get us through.'

  He gave her a long stare.

  'Let her try!' Crake urged him.

  'Alright,' he said. He slipped out of the seat, his expression faintly resentful. Jez took his place, grabbed the stick, and closed her eyes.

  There was an invisible swell coming up from beneath. She angled the wings and let them be carried on it. It should have been a battering ram against their hull. Instead they were lifted, firmly but steadily, like a swimmer on a wave.

  'I can get us through,' she said again, and now she knew that she could.

  The winds in the vortex were a labyrinth, a three-dimensional maze of turbulence. Jez saw it in her mind's eye, all the impossible complexities laid out before her. She tracked changes in the currents as they began to happen, knots and valleys in the wind. By the time they reached her, she'd corrected their course to take advantage. She flew as birds flew, at home with the mysteries of the sky.

  As she went, she sank further and further into the trance. Her entire concentration was focused on her task, and there was little left to resist the pull of the daemon inside her.

  There were voices on the wind. Some called out, some screamed in pain, others murmured as they went about their industry. Drowning them all out was the alarm, the cry of the sphere, pulsing at her mind. It drew her with a primal urgency, like the wail of a newborn draws its mother. Its distress was her distress. Her brethren needed aid. She wanted to help.

  The dreadnoughts were beginning to evacuate the Manes from Sakkan. She knew that, without knowing how. They covered for one another, beating back the beleaguered Navy, and let down their ropes for their crew to climb, bringing the newly Invited with them. The sphere was no longer in Sakkan, so they were gathering their people and preparing to give chase.

  Even with her best efforts, the Ketty Jay's passage through the clouds was violent. She couldn't react fast enough to account for every variation in the vortex. The craft shivered and whined as she was pummelled from all sides.

  But gradually, the chaos eased, and the jolts came less often. Finally they reached still air, a featureless blank of grey cloud. Jez sat back in her seat, her expression vacant.

  'You did it,' said Crake, after he'd swallowed a few times to get some moisture back into his throat.

  'Nice work, Jez,' said Frey. 'Bloody nice work.' He got out of the navigator's seat and slapped the bulkhead. 'She's a tough old boot, the Ketty Jay!'

  'Cap'n,' said Jez, her eyes distant. 'Cloud's thinning out.'

  A light was growing ahead of them, and the temperature had dropped noticeably. Frey and Crake pulled their coats closer around them and crowded up behind Jez. Their breath steamed the air, despite the Ketty Jay's internal heating system.

  The picture faded in gradually, until at last the land opened up before their eyes.

  'Oh, my,' whispered Crake.

  The haze in the air had diminished but not disappeared, giving
the panorama a bleary, dreamlike quality. The sun shone, weak and distant, forcing the barest illumination through the shroud. Beneath them, a dim white world was laid out, an ocean of ice and snow as far as they could see. Cliffs surged abruptly into the sky at steep angles, as if they'd exploded up violently from beneath. Some lay splintered against one another, smashed by epic, millennia-long conflicts. The plains were rippled with sastrugi, great breaking waves, flash-frozen. Distant mountains loomed high and bleak. At their feet was a wide, low shadow, all curves and angles, glowing a faint shade of green.

  'By damn,' said Crake. 'Is that what I think it is?'

  'Yes,' said Jez. 'It's a city.'

  Even Jez couldn't believe what she was seeing. A city of Manes, here in the arctic. To the others, it was barely visible, but Jez's vision was far superior to theirs. The city was all circles and arcs, built from black granite without much thought for human ideas of symmetry.

  The majority of the buildings were low and round, stacked in uneven layers, half-circles and crescents and S-shaped curves. Among them stood sharp towers of shiny, glassy black, slender stalagmites that thinned unevenly towards their pinnacles.

  The stacks and towers were linked by a complicated sequence of curving, covered boulevards that fractured and split in all directions. The buildings were like points on a diagram, the boulevards a web of connections between them. A seething green light soaked upward from the ground around the city, but Jez couldn't see what was making it. It was too far, even for her.

  'Where are we?' asked Frey.

  'We're at the North Pole,' said Jez. 'On the far side of the Wrack.'

  Crake licked his lips nervously. 'Cap'n . . . what we're seeing here ... no one's ever been here.'

  'No one's ever been here and come back alive,' Frey corrected. 'I'll bet the second part's the trickier of the two.' He scanned the sky and pointed. 'There they are.'

  The Storm Dog was a few dozen kloms distant, hanging in the air, her thrusters dark. A dreadnought lay alongside, firmly attached to Grist's frigate by a half-dozen magnetic grapples. There was no sign of life or movement on either craft.