‘Just piss off, Pinn!’ he cried. ‘Just leave me alone for once!’
But it wasn’t going to happen. He flew out of cover behind the freighter and there, homing in on him, was the familiar shape of Pinn’s Skylance. Harkins gritted his teeth. That son of a bitch wasn’t going to give up.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’
He angled his Firecrow into the heart of the fleet and opened up his throttle. Ahead of him, the sky thickened with frigates and fighters. The flagship and the Delirium Trigger hung there, motionless, as other craft glided by like dull grey whales in the rain. Easier to fight in there, where it was tight. The Firecrow didn’t have the Skylance’s speed, but it was more manoeuvrable. And Pinn would have a harder time shooting at him if he didn’t want to hit other Awakener craft. Harkins didn’t have that handicap.
The Skylance raced to intercept him. Tracers whipped past him and he heard the rattle of guns. Thunder boomed. He banked behind a frigate, sweeping along its flank, blocking his pursuer’s line of sight. Then he turned hard and dived, coming out under the frigate’s belly, facing in the direction of the Skylance.
He pressed his triggers as soon as his enemy came into sight. No hesitation this time. But the Skylance rolled and plunged and the bullets hit nothing.
Harkins chased him down. He should have waited for a better shot. Pinn was too good a pilot to let himself get tagged at that range. His leering face appeared in Harkins’ mind, distorted and made horrible by hate.
You’re mine, he thought.
A heavy fighter, a Wolverine, came flying in on his port side. Its electroheliograph mast was flashing: Cease fire. Cease fire. Well, it was only a matter of time before someone else weighed in. Harkins ignored the Wolverine and shot past, the roar of his engines as loud as the roar of blood in his ears.
The air was busy with craft now. Harkins darted between them, tracking the Skylance through the storm. One of the frigates opened fire on them both, but they were small targets, almost impossible to hit at speed. They were past it and gone before the gunners got their range.
Using the big craft as cover, they chased after each other, turning and diving, climbing and rolling, playing hide-and-seek. Harkins lost the Skylance at one point, only to pop up again on its tail; but it got away from him, and he was surprised shortly after by a burst of gunfire that nearly took off his port wing. He escaped with a few holes, and was lucky not to have been hit in the fuel tanks.
Harkins flew with gritted teeth. Usually it was panic that fed his reactions; now it was anger. He knew that, however this ended, it would end in his death. But he wouldn’t go out at Pinn’s hands. After all that man had done to him, it would be too much.
He swung around, spotted the Skylance through the rain again. Pinn appeared to have lost him, and was searching. Harkins pushed the throttle and closed the gap. The Skylance was passing close to the port side of a frigate; Harkins raced up the starboard side, keeping the bigger craft between them, hoping to surprise Pinn at the far end.
When he emerged, the Skylance was nowhere to be seen.
Where’d he go?
Gunfire. Harkins jerked on the flight stick as tracers shredded the air, pinging off the Firecrow’s armour, scoring its flank. The windglass of the cockpit cracked. Harkins caught a glimpse of his attacker before the two craft crossed paths and flew off in different directions.
Not Pinn, he realised, thoughts wild with alarm. The Wolverine.
He dived, still shaken, unsure how much damage he’d sustained. Suddenly he was beneath the belly of a frigate, its keel blurring past above him. A section of windglass rattled in its pane. If it cracked, he was done for: wind and rain would blind him.
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-