Bleeding inside, thought Crake, and a cold fear sank into him. Hold on, Cap’n. You can make it.
But his weight seemed to increase as Crake dragged him along, and Crake knew it was because Frey was weakening, supporting himself less and less with his legs.
You can make it.
They’d almost reached the deck when the explosions from outside multiplied sharply. The sound of detonations became constant, now far, now near, a thundering percussion rolling around in the distance, which occasionally sprang loud upon them and rattled their teeth.
‘Do believe that’s the anti-aircraft cannons,’ Samandra muttered. ‘Could’ve done with them holding off a mite longer.’
So the Azryx device had failed. How much longer before that failure became catastrophic, and it obliterated them? Crake didn’t dare think. Any moment could be their last, every passing second a gamble against mounting odds, and oblivion waited at the end. To even consider it might crack him.
There was still chaos on deck, but the combat had ceased. The Delirium Trigger’s crew — what was left of them — had given up the fight and were making their escape. The sky was full of fire and smoke. Anti-aircraft shells burst all around them in deafening, shattering blooms. Tracer fire chattered up into the night. Great looming frigates sank through the air, their guts ablaze, the drone of their engines descending with them. The Coalition soldiers had battened down, pressed against the gunwales, sheltering themselves from the barrage.
Celerity Blane raced over to them as they emerged through the doorway. She gave Samandra a harried smile and then looked at Crake. ‘All here? Good,’ she said in a jaunty aristocratic accent. ‘Now how about we open up that aircraft and get out of here, eh? Before we all die, I mean.’
‘Reckon someone’s already ahead of you,’ said Samandra, looking past her. And Crake saw that the cargo ramp of the Ketty Jay was indeed opening up, which was strange, because there was nobody standing near the keypad on the landing strut, and nobody but the crew knew the access code. Frey had made sure of it, in case anyone got any ideas about leaving without them.
So someone was opening it from the inside?
The ramp touched down. Some of the soldiers had already seen it and were hurrying that way, but they came skidding to a halt and then backed off, their guns ready. Stumbling out of the aircraft was a small, blackened figure, a charred scarecrow that limped onto the deck.
Crake stared, unable to believe his eyes.
‘No!’ Frey cried, his voice bubbling with blood. He spat and hauled in a breath. ‘Nobody shoot!’ he yelled with as much volume as he could manage.
‘Put them guns down!’ Samandra shouted, with considerably more.
The soldiers didn’t put their guns down, but they didn’t fire either. They fell back, moving aside for the stranger. Some of them scrambled to get away. Crake could feel the fear emanating from her even at this distance. Not like the focused power of the Imperators, just the instinctive terror caused by the presence of a daemon.
Onward she came, looking to her left and right, staring curiously at the people around her as if she wasn’t quite sure what they were all doing there. As she advanced, pieces fell from her, great burned scabs peeling away from her face and limbs, leaving her moist and raw beneath. She walked hunched over, like a wounded animal, and as more of her flaked away Crake saw more of what lay beneath.
A gaunt body in ragged overalls. Sallow skin, stretched taut like parchment over her bones. Teeth long and pointed. Fingernails like talons. Eyes a mix of yellow and red. A ghoul of the skies. A Mane.
Jez, and yet not Jez. Not any more.
Then the soldiers cried out and cringed down, and even Samandra stepped back and swore under her breath. As the wreck of a nearby Awakener frigate dipped out of sight, a great black prow broke through the smoke with a bellow of engines. A colossal mass of dirty metal and spikes and rivets, ploughing towards them through a hole in the convoy, ignoring the explosions all around it. Thick chains trailed in its wake like great tendrils, dangling behind and beneath it. The sight of it oppressed them, robbed their courage, nailed them to the spot.
A Mane Dreadnought. And it was coming right for them.
At the sight of it, Jez began staggering forward faster, heading towards the aft end of the Delirium Trigger’s deck. She’d found strength from somewhere; her limp hampered her less. She let out a screech as she went, something inhuman, which cut through the air and froze Crake’s blood.
She’s turned. She’s really turned at last.
As if she’d heard his thoughts, she stumbled to a halt, and turned her head and stared right at him. She looked from him to the Cap’n and back again. And horrible though it was, her face softened a little, and for a moment Crake saw in her the old Jez he’d known. His friend and companion. The woman he’d shared his darkest secret with.
He raised an arm in farewell. She just gazed at him, her head tilted slightly to the side. But though she gave him no more sign than that, he thought he read a farewell in her eyes all the same.
Then she turned and sprinted across the deck. The soldiers cowered as the dreadnought swooped across the Delirium Trigger, its keel roaring by mere metres overhead. A foul-smelling wind whipped around them, stinking of oil and decay. Crake saw a nightmarish blur of faces gathered at the gunwale, and heard the howling and shrieking of the Manes as they pawed the air with sharp-fingered hands. Then the chains that dragged behind the dreadnought smashed into the deck, lashing across the Delirium Trigger’s back like whips, ploughing her with furrows. Jez sprang, and for a moment was lost within the forest of whirling chains; then the dreadnought was past, flying away into the sky, and Jez was clinging on to one of them. Crake watched in awe as she climbed, scampering up the links towards the Manes above, who reached down with long scrawny arms to help her on board.
She was lost to sight behind another frigate, and the dreadnought carried her away.
‘Can someone explain what exactly happened just then?’ asked Celerity, her eyes wide.
‘She’s gone to be with her people,’ said Crake, sadly.
The explosion that tore through the Delirium Trigger knocked them all off their feet. Crake fell beneath Frey; the Cap’n screamed with the pain of the impact. Quickly Crake pulled him up, no time for sympathy, dragging him towards the Ketty Jay. The Delirium Trigger was beginning to list. A hit in the aerium tanks from the anti-aircraft guns. She wouldn’t be in the air much longer. If the Azryx device didn’t take her out, her impact with the ground would.
The soldiers were running for the Ketty Jay with a kind of controlled panic. Samandra ran ahead of them into the craft, while Kyne took Frey’s other arm and helped to haul him across the deck. The Cap’n was dazed with pain, eyes swimming in and out of focus. Behind them came Crund, carrying his mistress.
Another blast shook the deck as they were hurrying up the cargo ramp. Crake stumbled into a hydraulic strut, but he kept his feet this time. On into the hold they went, where the soldiers were securing themselves to anything they could grab. He saw Grissom in there, Bess too, but he didn’t have time to stop.
‘Shut that ramp!’ he called over his shoulder at Celerity, who was the last one inside. The Ketty Jay was tilting with the Delirium Trigger, locked to the deck by its magnetic skids. Anything not tied down had started to slide across the hold.