‘Cap’n!’ said Pinn. He grabbed Frey’s arm as Frey headed for the ramp.
‘What?’ Frey snapped irritably.
Pinn stood there a moment, thinking. No doubt trying to assemble his moronic thoughts into some kind of coherent grunts, Harkins thought uncharitably.
Frey ran out of patience. ‘There’s no time! We need to get out of here!’ he said.
‘But that’s just it,’ Pinn blurted. ‘I’m not coming!’
Frey stared at him. Harkins stared at him. Silo kept his eye on the people from the other freighters. One of them was calling out. ‘Hey! What’s the trouble over there?’
‘Better move it, Cap’n,’ he rumbled.
‘Pinn, get in the Skylance!’ Frey cried. ‘You can have whatever bloody crisis you’re having after we’re airborne.’
But Pinn shook his head, stubborn as a mule. ‘It’s not right, Cap’n. What we’re doing.’ He pulled out a piece of crumpled paper and held it up. There were several phrases scrawled on it, all but one crossed out. ‘See?’ he said. ‘The prophecy! Look! Journey: that’s Korrene. Death: that’s Pelaru’s mate or whatever. Dark haired stranger: Pelaru. Find something important: well, we just did! Tragedy will fall on someone dear. .’ He looked at Frey meaningfully, and drew his finger across the last phrase, as if crossing it out.
Frey was about to explode. ‘What in the name of gibbering shit are you talking about, arse-wit?’
‘The Allsoul is real, Cap’n,’ said Pinn, his piggy eyes wide. ‘We’re fighting on the wrong side.’
‘What are you lot doing out here?’ Ashua cried as she came hustling out with Malvery, pulling Abley between them. The Awakener boy had his hands tied behind his back, gagged, limping and bewildered. Ashua put her boot in his arse and sent him sprawling on the turf. ‘Bess! Inside!’ she said sternly.
Bess trudged off up the ramp, having given up on the possibility of her master returning. Ashua and Malvery followed her inside.
‘Oi! Hey! What’s up over there?’ called one of the approaching men, in a tone that made a friendly enquiry sound like a threat. Abley tried to yell something through his gag.
‘Do what you like, Pinn,’ Frey snapped, angrily dismissive. ‘Do whatever you like.’ He rounded on Harkins. ‘What did I say, Harkins? Get to your damn aircraft!’
Harkins shuddered at the force of his voice, and fled towards the safety of the Firecrow’s cockpit. A pair of Overlanders raced into the clearing, skidded to a halt and began disgorging armed men. As if that was the signal, the suspicious freighter crew opened up, and the sweltering night was suddenly alive with the snap and whine of gunfire.
Frey and Silo loosed off a few shots and then ran up the ramp, which Ashua was closing. Pinn danced on the spot for a moment, obviously tempted to follow now that he saw his predicament. But he procrastinated too long, and the ramp raised out of his reach, and in the end he fled off towards the trees at the edge of the clearing.
Harkins sprinted for the Firecrow and threw himself up the ladder that led to the cockpit. All his previous joy had faded: he was trapped in a nightmare of fear again. Halfway up, he felt his leg seized, and he was pulled away from the ladder and crashed heavily to the muddy ground. Spluttering, he tried to get up, but a dark figure put a boot in his chest and shoved him back down.
‘You ain’t goin’ nowhere,’ snarled a rough voice. ‘Let’s see what you been up to, huh?’
He struggled wildly, but the man was standing on him and he was pinned. He could hear the sound of the Ketty Jay’s engines powering up; he saw more men rushing in, and Speakers with guns in the lights of the newly arrived Overlanders. Guns cracked as they shot uselessly at the Ketty Jay.
They’ve caught me! he thought, his mind ablaze with panic. They’ve caught me and they’re going to kill me and they’re going to make me pay for whatever the others did and I wasn’t even there!
The only thing in his mind was to get away. No matter what the consequences, no matter what the cost. His terror at being left behind to face the music was worse than his terror of anything else.
‘Quit strugglin’!’ said the man holding him down. Harkins couldn’t even see his face: he was an elemental enemy, an opposing force without character or identity. The man took his boot from Harkins’ chest and leaned down to secure him more thoroughly with his arms. Harkins writhed to one side, pulled his pistol from his belt and jammed it under his attacker’s ribs.
The man froze, eyes wide in horror. Harkins was no less horrified at where he found himself. He had an instant in which to act, and only that.
He pulled the trigger.
He saw the man’s face in the flash of the shot. A folded, weathered face, underlit by the blast. It was there for a fraction of a second and then gone, but it stayed in his mind, burned there like the afterimage of the sun.
He slumped towards Harkins, an avalanche of inert meat. Harkins shoved him aside as he fell, and scrambled out from under him. He heard shouts nearby, but he couldn’t make out the words. The world had closed in around him. Everything had narrowed: he saw as if through a tunnel.
He blundered back to the ladder, his route to safety. The Firecrow’s cockpit had always been his sanctuary, the place where he was the master, where there was no one to mock him or make him feel small. He climbed to it, and opened the windglass canopy, and pulled it shut over him.
Dimly, he was aware of the Ketty Jay rising nearby. The Skylance sat silent and forgotten beyond it. Moving on automatic, he hit switches, pulled levers, strapped himself in. The acrid smell of aerium wafted through the cockpit as the tanks filled. The engine clanked and hummed as it ignited. Bullets pinged off the hull, but the sounds were dulled and he had difficulty connecting them with danger.
That man’s face. He could still see it. The look in his eyes as his life blew out like a candle.
A bullet hit the windglass in front of his face, sending a long crack along it, making him jump. It shocked him back to sense. He looked about himself, and saw men swarming all around, rushing towards the Firecrow with guns firing. They couldn’t harm the Ketty Jay, but a shot in the right place could damage the Firecrow.
He lit the thrusters while he was barely off the ground; he needed to present a moving target. The Firecrow moved sluggishly, not yet light enough for effortless acceleration, but it shifted enough to spoil the aim of the men shooting at him. Harkins hunkered down over the flight stick, banking and climbing slowly as the aerium tanks flooded and the craft lost weight. Bullets pinged off the underside now, and some punched through. But the Firecrow gained altitude fast, and the thrusters pushed harder as they warmed. Harkins pulled out of the clearing in a long ascending curve, circling round the Ketty Jay, which was rising vertically. He saw her thrusters light up, shoving her away over the trees, and he followed her.
The gunfire fell away behind them. Harkins didn’t feel relief. He didn’t feel anything.
That man’s face. .
The explosion caught him completely by surprise. The Firecrow was slammed sideways, swiped by a wave of concussion that sent him into a hard bank, engines screaming. The cockpit shook like it was going to come apart. He’d barely managed to react to the first blast when there was a second, lighting up the sky ahead of him, rattling the windglass. The crack doubled in size, reaching out like a lightning fork.
Anti-aircraft guns.
Blood thumped at his temples. He hit the throttle and blasted forward through the turbulent air. The engines whined, came close to stalling, then kicked in with a blaze. A barrage of detonations pounded him; the noise battered at his mind. Caught in the flashes, he saw the Ketty Jay climbing fast, flying without lights, reaching for the safety of the darkness high above.