The Ace of Skulls totkj-4

by Chris Wooding

  Muzzle flash ahead. He looked up and his eyes widened in horror. The Skylance was there, roaring along the length of the frigate from the opposite direction, machine guns chattering, coming at him head-on. Harkins didn’t even think of evading; he didn’t have time to think at all. He pulled the trigger and let loose with everything he had.

  For a single, endless second, the two aircraft shot towards each other, a hail of lead filling the air between them. But Harkins had the better aim. He saw the Skylance’s nose chewed up by his bullets, saw it burst apart. He pulled the Firecrow away as the Skylance tipped upward and ploughed into the underside of the frigate, dragging a long line of fire all along its keel before exploding in one final, stunning detonation. Then Harkins was flying away into the rain, looking over his shoulder as the bow of the wounded frigate began to dip and the enormous craft went sinking towards the city below, its aerium tanks breached.

  His head snapped round and he faced forward again. His heart pounded, and his skin was cold. Bloodshot eyes stared into the gloom ahead of him.

  Pinn.

  He’d killed Pinn. All those times he’d dreamed of doing it, and finally he had. The enormity of it piled onto him. All those times Pinn had mocked him. All that abuse.

  Harkins’ throat went dry. He’d just killed his best friend.

  Something welled up within him, expanding from his thin belly up through his chest, swelling until it couldn’t be contained any more. He let out a loud yell. His voice rang in the confines of the cockpit. He yelled until he was out of breath, then sucked in air and yelled again. A raw, wordless sound of uncontainable grief and fury.

  Then, as abruptly as it had come, the feeling was gone. His mouth snapped shut; his eyes went hard. He yanked on the flight stick and slammed the Firecrow into a turn. He was looking for someone, anyone, to vent his feelings on.

  Where are they? Where are they?

  Tracer fire came flitting towards him. He took it as an invitation, and gunned the fighter down. Another one came for him at three o’clock. He swung round and flew straight towards it, reckless, uncaring. His guns rattled; his enemy fell from the sky.

  Bullets from behind. He evaded automatically, then craned round in his seat to try to catch sight of whoever was on his tail. He couldn’t, so he banked to starboard and shot behind a frigate instead, hoping to block them off. The frigate started up with its guns, but way too late; he was past it and away by then. He found himself on the tail of another fighter, one whose pilot seemed totally unaware of the battle going on around him.

  Harkins didn’t care. Conscript or volunteer, peasant or mercenary, armed or unarmed; they were all Awakeners to him. He pressed down on his guns, and the pilot died.

  More bullets came from behind him. He looked back, and saw there were two of them on his tail now. They were spreading out, working together to get angles on him. They knew how to fly, then. That was going to present a problem. He was attracting too many aircraft, flying wild. Asking for it.

  He dodged and weaved, but they stayed on him. Fiery shells whipped past the cockpit. The Firecrow’s engines screamed, and the cracked windglass of his canopy shivered and pinged.

  Just let me get you in my sights, you bastards, he thought. But they were good, and they didn’t let him turn. They hung in his blind spot, careful and methodical, and sent gunfire his way when they had the opportunity. Sooner or later they were going to nick him, and a few bullets in the right place was all it would take.

  One of the frigates had found his range now, and started sending artillery his way. The Firecrow was shaken and shoved, and the cockpit hummed with the force of the detonations. Harkins barrel rolled and dived down towards a wallowing barque, hoping to put it between himself and the frigate. He cut in close to its flank, swung around behind it-

  — and came face to face with the Wolverine, coming the other way. He’d swung right into its path, and was dead in its sights. His stomach plunged with the inevitable certainty of what would come next. The Wolverine opened fire-

  — and exploded, ripped apart by gunfire from above. Harkins just stared as the heavy fighter blew to pieces in a belch of dirty flame, and a fighter craft went plunging past.

  ‘Waaaaa-hooo!’

  ‘Pinn?’ Harkins almost screamed.

  ‘Who else, you twitchy old freak?’

  Harkins’ brain refused to process what he was hearing. He flew away from the barque on automatic, out of range of the frigate. Who was this talking in his ear? Was it some trick of the daemon-thralled earcuff, channelling emanations from beyond the grave? He’d never trusted those damned things.

  ‘But. . but. .’

  ‘But. . but. .’ Pinn mimicked cruelly. ‘Thought it was you. I’d recognise your flying anywhere.’

  ‘Why weren’t you wearing your earcuff?!’ It was the only thing Harkins could think of to say.

  ‘Just put it in now,’ said Pinn. ‘Why, what’s up?’

  ‘I thought I killed you, that’s what’s up!’

  Pinn howled with laughter. Harkins felt himself redden. He checked around himself and saw that the pursuit had fallen away. The pilots on his tail had been scared off by the artillery or by the prospect of an even fight. Probably mercs, then. The faithful wouldn’t have given up so easily.

  Now that he wasn’t shooting, he was anonymous once again. He tried to find Pinn among the frigates in the rain. ‘I shot down your Skylance!’ he said, still trying to make sense of it all.

  ‘That wasn’t me in there!’ Pinn crowed. ‘You think you’d have got me? The Awakeners stole my craft and gave it to someone else. They gave me some old piece of shit instead, but I can still. .’ He tailed off as the penny finally dropped. ‘You shot down my Skylance?’ he squawked.

  ‘I thought you were flying it,’ said Harkins, in his defence.

  ‘You thought. . you thought what?. . You. . ggnnaaaRRRGHHHH!’

  Harkins felt a smile spread over his face as Pinn degenerated into incoherent animal noises of rage. He’d never heard Pinn so angry. And it was all on his account.

  Well. That was a turn up for the books.

  Pinn came up on his wing. He was flying a Linfordby Warrior, a pre-war fighter that had been ahead of its time but had been superseded by other models since. If Harkins looked closely, he thought he could see Pinn thrashing about in the cockpit, waving his arms and hitting the dashboard.

  ‘You alright, Pinn?’ he asked cheerily. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have joined up with the Awakeners after all.’

  Pinn fixed him with a deadly glare across the gap between them. Then suddenly, his tone changed, his anger forgotten. ‘Wait, wait!’ he said. ‘Where’s the Cap’n?’

  ‘Cap’n’s gone,’ said Harkins. ‘North, to Yortland.’

  ‘He’s gone?’

  ‘Left not long ago.’

  ‘We gotta catch him up!’ said Pinn. ‘He might come within range of these ear thingies if we throttle it!’

  ‘Err. .’ said Harkins, half his mind on flying. ‘Why?’

  ‘Cause I think I know how to save the Coalition!’ he said. ‘Follow me! Artis Pinn, Heeero of the SkiiiEEEEEES!’

  He banked his Warrior and belted off north, away from the fleet. Harkins, bewildered and full of excitement, could do nothing but go after him. Save the Coalition? However ridiculous his plan, if there was even a chance it had merit, he had to see it through.

  It was only once he was far from Thesk that he realised he’d somehow survived his suicide mission.

  Thirty-Nine

  North — Crund’s Message — Responsibility — The Ace of Skulls

  Frey listened to the steady exhalation of the Ketty Jay’s thrusters, the hum of her aerium engine, the creaking of her bulkheads. This is all I need, he said to himself. I have everything I want right here.

  The words rang hollow in his mind, so he said them again to convince himself. Once, he wouldn’t have needed convincing. Once he’d believed only Darian Frey mattered in the world, and he was con
tent with that.

  Maybe, with enough effort, he might believe it again.

  Silo stood in the doorway of the cockpit, leaning against the bulkhead, arms crossed and head down. He hadn’t said a word since they left. Frey wished he’d go away, back to the engine room where he spent most of his time. He felt judged. The Murthian’s presence reminded him that he’d had a crew once. It was something he desperately needed to forget.

  He gazed out with dull eyes at the cloudy morning. The storm was behind them now; the skies were calm and sunless. Less than half an hour ago, he’d been at the end of a rope. This particular day seemed a poor reward for survival, but he’d take what he could get.

  Survival. That was what it was all about now. Survival, and nothing more.

  Yortland would suit his mood: icy, empty and cruel, a hard place populated by hard people. He had a vague plan to track down Ugrik, the batshit insane son of the High Clan Chief who’d helped them find the Azryx city in Samarla a few months back. Ugrik ought to be able to set him up with some work. After that, well, he’d do what he’d always done. He’d get by.

  Once Vardia was in the Awakeners’ hands, Yortland would be the only safe place left. No point heading for Thace; even if they let him in, it would be first on the invasion list once the Sammies got the aerium they craved. Maybe he’d make the run to New Vardia if the Great Storm Belt wasn’t too bad. He’d find himself a quiet place with a game of Rake and a few suckers to fleece. That’d do him.

  Trinica. . Well, he wouldn’t think of Trinica. She was lost in some hell where he couldn’t reach her, and that was all there was to it. It took a lot for Frey to admit he was beaten, but that was the fact of the matter. Suck it up and move on.

  There’d been a time when he had no aspirations and no possibility of disappointment, but these past few years he’d taken to fooling himself with delusions of grandeur and the pursuit of fame, riches and love. People said it was better to try and fail than to never try, but those people obviously hadn’t failed hard enough. Hope had raised him higher than he’d ever have believed possible, but the fall from there was crippling.

  You’ll find another crew, he told himself. There’ll be other women.

  He said the words again in his head, to convince himself.

  Silo, by the bulkhead, stirred and straightened. ‘You’re gonna want to hear this, Cap’n.’

  ‘Hear what?’ said Frey, who couldn’t hear anything outside of the workings of the Ketty Jay.

  Silo walked over, pulled the silver earcuff from his ear and held it out. Frey looked from the earcuff to his first mate and back again.

  ‘Took it off the dash,’ said Silo by way of explanation. ‘Seemed you weren’t usin’ it.’

  Frey was angered, for no reason he could understand. Silo had been listening for the voices of the crew as they departed, drawing out the connection to the very last. He wanted to know how they were faring. But the anger lasted only a moment before it was washed away by guilt. Frey knew how much it had cost Silo to come with him, how much faith and loyalty this man had shown by leaving the others behind. If Frey had been capable of love right then, he’d have loved him for that.

  With some trepidation, he took the earcuff and clipped it on to his ear.

  ‘-nyone listening? Cap’n? Can you hear us?’

  ‘Oi! Cap’n!’

  ‘It doesn’t make it go further if you shout louder, you quarter-wit!’

  ‘Ah, shut your clam trap. You don’t know how these things work.’

  Frey frowned in disbelief. Was that Pinn? Pinn and Harkins, bickering away like always? It didn’t seem real. He listened to them yell at each other for a short while more. It was strangely comforting.

  ‘I’m here,’ he said at last.

  ‘Cap’n!’ they both cried together, and the joy in their voices made something twist in his chest.

  ‘You decided to come with me, then?’ he asked. Their presence felt like an endorsement. He’d made the right choice.

  ‘What?’ said Harkins. ‘No, Cap’n, we came to bring you back.’

  Frey’s brief good feeling withered. ‘I’m leaving, Harkins,’ he said. ‘I told you that.’

  ‘Something I’ve got to tell you first,’ said Pinn. ‘A message from Balomon Crund.’

  Crund? What did he want? The man had always hated him, jealous of Trinica’s affection.

  ‘He made me promise, Cap’n. If I could find you, I had to tell you. He said you’re the only one outside the crew who ever gave a shit about Trinica. The only one who might be able to do something about it.’

  ‘Just spill it, Pinn.’

  ‘Trinica’s not gone,’ said Pinn. ‘That’s what he told me. He said he knows. The old Trinica’s still in there, under the daemon.’

  The words piled like stones onto Frey’s heart. The dreadful weight of responsibility, expectation, obligation. Of all people, Balomon Crund was reaching out to him, asking him to save Trinica. He’d persuaded himself that there was no chance, that his love was a lost cause, and now here was Pinn to shatter that certainty and let in the vile, deceitful light of hope.

  No. He wouldn’t believe it. ‘What does Crund know?’ he said bitterly. ‘What in damnation makes him so sure? What is it, a feeling he’s got? Some bloody intuition? Why’s he trying to lay this on me?’

  Pinn seemed confused by Frey’s tone. Perhaps he’d expected gratitude instead of scorn. ‘Er. .’ he said. ‘I don’t know. He just said to tell you she’s been carrying a book around.’

  That caught him. ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Pinn. ‘Some book you gave her. He says she started carrying it about after she got turned. Reading it sometimes.’

  Frey went cold. There was only one book he could possibly mean. The Silent Tide. He’d given it to her in Samarla as a present over dinner, a token of love back before he’d even admitted his feelings to himself. And for a moment he was there again, on the veranda of the most expensive restaurant he’d ever sat in, with the river in the background and the city lights reflecting in its dark waters.

  ‘What’s it about?’ he heard himself ask her, for he hadn’t known himself. He couldn’t even read the title; it was in Samarlan.

  ‘It’s a classic romance,’ she replied, her eyes shining.

  ‘Do they get it together at the end?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘They die. It’s a tragedy.’

  Frey’s breath grew short. What would a daemon be doing reading a classic romance in Samarlan? There was only one explanation Frey could think of. Trinica, the real Trinica, had somehow exerted enough control to make it happen. Maybe she’d disguised its significance from the daemon; maybe the daemon thought it didn’t matter. Or maybe it was just some old instinct, a last act of tough and stubborn love.

  However he looked at it, it meant only one thing. A cry for help. Not from Crund, but from Trinica. A signal that had reached him, against all the odds, across thousands of miles, across the frontier of a war.

  Tears welled in Frey’s eyes, blurring his vision. She was alive in there, a prisoner in her own body. It was too awful to bear.

  ‘That’s not all, Cap’n!’ Harkins enthused, oblivious to his reaction. ‘Listen to this!’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Pinn. ‘Yeah! The Azryx device, the one that took out the Coalition Navy? Guess who’s carrying it.’

  ‘The Delirium Trigger!’ Harkins cried gleefully.

  ‘Oi! He was meant to guess!’

  Frey pulled off the earcuff and cut their voices to silence. Now all he could hear was the Ketty Jay, the one precious constant all through his adult life. He stared out at the empty sky ahead.

  Yes, of course, it made sense. Turn the captains of the biggest frigates into Imperators to keep them loyal, and then have them carry the Azryx device. The Delirium Trigger was the most formidable craft in the fleet, even more than the flagship. Naturally they’d put it there.

  Frey felt the walls of the cockpit closing in on him. All he wanted was to be
free. To fly off into nothingness and never to have to deal with pain or misery or suffering ever again. To cut his losses and fold his hand while he still could.

  But life wouldn’t let him. The same tides of fate that had brought him to this point were now trying to suck him back. As much as he tried to suppress it, a plan was forming in his mind. A way to save Trinica, and incidentally to save Thesk and the Coalition as well. A plan that only he could carry out.

  It’s not my responsibility, he thought. Then, with gritted teeth, he hit the dashboard with his fist. ‘It’s not my responsibility!’

  Silo, standing by, said nothing.

  But the crack that Pinn had made in his shell of denial was widening. Everything he’d stuffed inside came spilling out in a flood, filling him with breathless hope, panic, joy and resentment. He wanted to burst into tears; he wanted to kill somebody; he wanted to dance and rage all at the same time.

  Was loving Trinica worth his death? Would a life not loving her be worth anything? Everything, everything rested on him. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to force him to a choice like that.

  ‘Do you think we can do it, Silo?’ he said quietly.

  Silo could not have heard half the conversation that he’d had with Pinn and Harkins, but it didn’t matter. He knew what Frey was talking about.

  Frey waited. If he detected even a hint of doubt, the merest shred of uncertainty, then he was determined to hit the throttle and never look back. If he thought the man at his side had anything less than absolute faith, it wouldn’t be enough to give him the courage he needed to do this. It wasn’t the danger that frightened him; he’d faced danger plenty. It was the thought of getting back on the horse that had thrown him. It was the possibility of failure.

  ‘Cap’n,’ said Silo at length. ‘I known you a long time now. And I ain’t never met nobody so good at screwin’ up a winnin’ hand as you are.’

  Frey blinked. He hadn’t expected that.

  ‘But I also ain’t never met nobody so good at turnin’ a losin’ hand to winnin’,’ Silo continued. ‘You took this crew o’ outcasts and misfits, people who didn’t have no place in the world, and you made us into somethin’. Don’t you remember, Cap’n? We took down the Awakeners once already, back at Retribution Falls. Saved the Archduke’s hide that time.’ His voice became unexpectedly passionate as he went on; it wasn’t something Frey was used to hearing from his first mate. ‘We took on the Manes, Cap’n! We flew behind the Wrack and we looked ’em in the eye and we came back to tell about it. And after that, what d’you reckon we did? This team o’ alcoholics and layabouts and shit knows what else that you pulled together? We found a damn Azryx city right in the heart of Samarla! We saw a Juggernaut! And what we brought back, it pretty much set off this whole war they all fightin’ back there! None of us weren’t nothin’ on our own, but ’cause of you, we shook the damn world!’