We are many and we are one, he thought to himself, and his hangdog face lit up in the muzzle flash of his machine guns.
Pinn’s overwhelming impression was one of huge disappointment.
That was it? That was his war? A few minutes of wiping the sky with Coalition pilots, and then it was over? Granted, the end of the Coalition Navy had been spectacular, but his elation quickly gave way to boredom as the guns went quiet. Where was the fight against impossible odds, the hair-raising escapes, the suicidal bravery? Where was the heroism?
If this was the climax of the civil war and the end of the Coalition, then frankly, he felt robbed.
Below him, the city rumbled with explosions. Domes collapsed and grey, rain-battered buildings crumbled. Fighters swooped with blazing guns, sending citizens and militia scattering. The thought of attacking civilians didn’t excite him much. There was no challenge there since the anti-aircraft guns had been disabled.
He flew on listlessly through the sky. Lisinda’s creased portrait radiated disapproval from the dash.
‘Well, I can’t bloody help it if no one has the pods to fight me, can I?’ he snapped at her in exasperation.
He spotted the Awakeners’ flagship off to starboard, a long, rectangular craft, split at the ends like an old rotted beam. The Lord High Cryptographer was on board, they said. He remembered that moment in the Awakener base when he’d gazed upon the leader of the Awakeners, and felt something stir inside that had inspired him to abandon his friends. He fancied he could feel his presence now.
Nearby was a familiar shape: the black bulk of the Delirium Trigger, hanging in the sky. Other frigates had begun sending down landing shuttles full of troops, but the Delirium Trigger just hung there in the storm. Lightning flickered behind it, and thunder came down on the city like a fist.
The sight of Trinica’s craft brought back a nagging memory, of sitting at a bar with Balomon Crund. They’d both been drunk, sloppy drunk, and Crund had leaned over, shoved his big shaggy head up close to Pinn’s and said ‘You gotta promise me something.’
The promise. That was right. Pinn wasn’t normally one to treat a promise with much gravity, but this one had stuck in the back of his mind. What had he promised?
He stared at the Delirium Trigger as it slid past his wing, and tried to remember. Wisps of memory began to coalesce in his benighted mind. It seemed as if the answer was almost within his grasp when suddenly he saw a plume of flame light up the sky ahead of him.
He narrowed his eyes and looked closer. That wasn’t a bomb; it was an explosion at altitude. As he watched, he saw two aircraft chasing off after another one. Tracer fire slid silently through the air.
Pinn became suddenly interested. Were they fighting over there?
He opened up the throttle and headed in that direction. The war had been a let down so far, but Pinn wasn’t averse to feeding on scraps. Any battle was a good battle, as far as he was concerned. Someone else was going to get the business end of Pinn’s machine guns before the day was through.
Harkins rolled and climbed as tracer fire ripped through the sky behind him. There were two of them on his tail. One was a Firecrow, painted with Cipher decals as his own craft was. The other was a patchwork junker he didn’t even recognise. They flew dangerously close to one another, jostling for position, each eager to be the one to take down the rogue in their midst.
Bad pilots, both of them. Harkins levelled out and gave them both a good few seconds to draw a bead on him, making himself a tempting target. Once he had them on the hook, he threw his craft to starboard. Both pilots reacted instinctively, banking to follow him, but they were flying too tight. The junker’s wings clipped the Firecrow’s and both of them went spinning away into the rainy gloom.
Lightning flickered and thunder rolled. Harkins allowed himself a sweaty grin. He was out on the edge of the Awakener fleet now, and he’d either lost or destroyed all his pursuers for the moment. Fire pumped through his veins. He was the assassin within, the hidden killer. Between the storm and the fact that his craft was painted up like an Awakener’s, he’d avoided drawing the attention of too many pilots at once. Those that took an interest didn’t know if he was the enemy, or his pursuers were. And there were dozens of identical Firecrows in the Awakeners’ service. Once he stopped shooting, he became invisible again.
I am the Coalition Navy, and the Coalition Navy is me.
He’d head over to the other side of the convoy, start again. It would take them time to pick him up, and by then he’d be gone, harrying them elsewhere. He’d take the whole damned fleet down with him one by one if he had to!
Through the rain-streaked windglass of the cockpit, he caught sight of an aircraft ahead and above him, heading in his direction. He frowned, wiped at the glass, and then remembered the rain was on the outside. He narrowed his eyes and looked closer. There was something about that aircraft.
A gull-winged F-class Skylance, a racing craft bulked out with armour plate and fitted with underslung machine guns. He’d know that craft anywhere. There wasn’t another one like it.
‘Pinn!’ he cried joyously. ‘Hey! Pinn!’
The Skylance opened fire.
Harkins was shocked and slow to react, but his senses had been tuned by battle, and his instincts took over where thought failed him. He banked to starboard, swinging out of the path of the bullets, though not fast enough to avoid them entirely. Several glanced off the Firecrow’s armour. Burning tracers fizzed past him and away.
‘Pinn, you fat idiot! It’s me!’ he screamed. ‘Put in your earcuff!’
But Pinn couldn’t hear him. The Skylance plunged past him as Harkins swung away. He craned in his seat, trying to spot it again. He couldn’t let Pinn come up on him from beneath.
What that moron up to? Why was he attacking? But of course, Harkins knew the answer. His Firecrow looked like every other Firecrow out there. Pinn had no idea who he was.
Harkins brought the Firecrow around, banking and diving, chasing the Skylance downward even as it started climbing back up towards him. There was a moment when he had a clear shot at the exposed cockpit, and he almost took it; but he hesitated. This was Pinn. However much of a disgusting fool he was, he was part of the Ketty Jay’s crew. Harkins couldn’t just-
The Skylance fired early, catching him by surprise again. Harkins swung out of the way, pulling up hard. The blood drained from his head and his vision sparkled as g-forces dragged at him. He levelled up and raced behind a cargo freighter, putting it between him and his attacker. The huge craft was heavily damaged; fires blazed inside the holes in its hull.
Pinn! Why’d it have to be Pinn? Everywhere he went, everything he tried to do, Pinn was there to screw it up. His repulsive grinning face loomed large in all of Harkins’ memories of the Ketty Jay. Pinn had always been his chief tormentor, merciless in his mockery, never offering a kind word. And the insults weren’t even the worst of it. He’d been forced to share his quarters with that evil shit for years now, putting up with his stink and his snoring. That man had been the bane of his life from the moment Harkins laid eyes on him.
And now here he was to ruin things again, spoiling Harkins’ swan-song. Any nobility Harkins might have found in death would be lost now. Harkins would die ridiculous, shot down by his erstwhile crewmate who, in his blithe stupidity, would never even recognise what he’d done.