The Black Lung Captain

by Chris Wooding

  Frey stopped up ahead, at a corner where a corridor branched off from theirs. He peered round and held up a hand. 'Trouble,' he warned.

  Crake caught him up and looked round the corner. Through the murk, he could just about make out the obstruction. The corridor was choked with torn metal and the floor had buckled upward, forming a jumbled barricade.

  'I can't see anything,' Crake said.

  'When you've been shot at as often as I have, you get used to assuming the worst,' said Frey. 'They'll be waiting for us.'

  Crake wiped his tearing eyes, and as he did so he thought he saw someone moving behind the barricade. But when he looked again, he wasn't sure.

  Frey went to their prisoner. 'Is there another way round?' he demanded.

  'This is the only way,' said the Awakener. 'It's in a room at the end of that corridor.' Frey grabbed him by the collar and glared at him, searching for a lie. 'I swear by the Allsoul!' he cried, his voice high and fearful.

  Crake took sour pleasure in seeing the prisoner cringe. He hated Awakeners even more than he hated overprivileged layabouts like Hodd. Them and their ridiculous faith, based on the thoroughly insane ramblings of the last king of Vardia. It would be comical if it weren't for the fact that half of the population believed in their rubbish. It was the Awakeners who championed the persecution of daemonists. Many good men and women had been hanged because of them.

  Frey shoved the man away, having evidently decided he was telling the truth. 'Get out of here,' he said. The prisoner needed no second invitation.

  Jez looked around the corner at the barricade, then back at her captain. 'Full frontal assault?' she suggested cheerily.

  Frey sighed. 'Why not?' He slapped Bess on the shoulder. 'You first, old girl.'

  Bess thundered off with a roar. Bullets and screams greeted her as she piled into the barricade like a battering ram.

  'That's stirred 'em up,' Malvery grinned.

  'You have to admit, she's effective,' Frey said, loading his revolver.

  'Are we going to help her at all?' Jez asked.

  Frey snapped the drum closed. 'Let her mop up a bit first.' He counted off a few seconds, listening to the wails of Bess's unfortunate victims. 'Now.'

  They ran for the barricade, cloaked by the smoke. Crake stayed low, slipping along the side of the wide corridor, mouth dry and throat tight. He was worse than useless in a firefight, but he couldn't leave Bess to do it alone.

  Bess was already over the barricade by the time Frey and the others reached it. They scrambled between the twisted girders and plates of ripped metal, shooting at anyone the golem had missed. Crake heard more guns on the other side. He came across a man who'd been impaled by Bess, a spike through his guts, still horribly alive. Silo pushed past and put him out of his misery with a shotgun.

  He saw Jez, aiming and firing up the barricade through the smoke. A figure at the top jerked like a marionette and fell backwards. Bess was roaring somewhere out of sight, and men shrieked and swore. Blood pounded in Crake's head. He saw a figure scrambling along the barricade, aimed, and almost fired before Silo grabbed his hand and pushed it down.

  'It's the Doc,' he grunted, and then headed up the slope.

  Crake squinted, and saw that Silo was right. He slumped against a girder, overwhelmed with relief. Stupid! Stupid! He'd almost shot a friend.

  Then he saw a movement, behind them, someone hiding in the rubble that they'd passed. He was squatting, his eye to a rifle, aiming upslope.

  Crake couldn't see well enough to know who it was, but the rifle gave them away. None of his companions carried rifles. He thrust out his arm with a yell and emptied his revolver in their general direction. The Sentinel flinched as bullets sparked off the barricade all around him. Then, rather surprised at finding himself unhurt, he switched his aim towards Crake.

  A shotgun blast, deafeningly close to Crake's ear. The Sentinel flailed and disappeared.

  Silo emerged through the murk, eyes bright in his narrow, beak-nosed face. He gave Crake a strange look, then grabbed him by the arm and propelled him up the slope to the crest.

  Beyond the barricade was another barricade. The corridor had compressed like a concertina, leaving a narrow, junk-strewn battlefield between. Corpses lay here and there. Bess was busy making more. Frey, Malvery and Jez hid among the debris, picking off the Sentinels as they fled from the golem's wrath. Beyond the second barricade, the red glow of flames could be seen. Thick black smoke roiled along the ceiling.

  Silo pushed Crake down as bullets came their way, and they began to creep through the forest of tangled metal. The heat and smoke at the crest were too much to stand for more than a few seconds. Crake tried to shoot at a fleeing Sentinel, but his gun clicked empty. He found a sheltered spot and fumbled some more bullets into the drum while Silo blasted away.

  Then, all at once, the fear hit.

  It came from nowhere, overwhelming, clawing at his throat, robbing him of breath. It was thick enough that it seemed like a physical weight, crushing him to the floor. He wanted to scream and run, but he couldn't move. He stared this way and that, eyes wide and desperate. filled with primal dread. To his right, he saw that Silo had been similarly affected. He was huddled down like a rabbit in the shadow of a hawk.

  What's happening to us?

  The makeshift battlefield had gone silent. Crake folded trembling fingers round the edge of his shelter and peered out.

  There was a figure standing on the crest of the second set of battlements, backlit by the restless glow of the fire. It was cloaked, hooded and masked, dressed head to toe in close-fitting black leather. Crake felt his stomach knot into a ball at the sight.

  An Imperator. One of the Awakeners' deadly elite. Men who could read your thoughts, who could scour a mind clean with their terrible gaze. The ultimate inquisitors.

  Spit and blood. We're all dead meat.

  The Imperator came walking unhurriedly down the slope of the barricade. The Sentinels were all gone now, dead at the hands of Bess or her allies, but the Imperator was not troubled at being outnumbered. No one dared to raise a gun to him. They were all afflicted with the same awful fear.

  He was heading for the spot where Frey hid. Crake saw his captain go scrambling away on his hands and knees, shaking his head, begging incoherently. The Imperator drew a long black knife from his belt and walked relentlessly onward.

  There was a screech of metal, and Crake's gaze went to Bess, who was pulling aside a girder that was in her way. She was not crippled by fear like the rest of them, it seemed, but only bewildered by the sudden end to the violence. Seeing the Imperator advancing on Frey, she went lumbering in to attack.

  The Imperator held up a dismissive hand. Bess froze, mid-stride, and toppled over with a crash. She didn't move again.

  The sight was like a punch in the chest to Crake. He wanted to scream her name, but no noise would come. What had been done to her? Why wasn't she moving? Had she been put to sleep, the way he put her to sleep with his thralled whistle? Or had she been extinguished, like a candle? The thought that he might forever lose the chance to save his niece, to atone for his crime - it was more than he could possibly suffer. If that was the case, he'd rather die now.

  The Imperator turned his black gaze to Frey, pinning him like an insect. Frey rolled over on his back, whimpering. The Imperator put his boot to Frey's chest and shoved him down. He leaned over his victim, knife raised.

  A gunshot made Crake jump. The Imperator staggered sideways, clutching his shoulder. Another, knocking the black-clad figure back further.

  Jez, getting to her feet, pistol in her hand. Jez, and yet not Jez. There was a strange look to her now. Her usually pale face had gone paler still. Her hair hung lank, eyes dark, lips skinned back over her teeth, a snarl on her face. Something animal in the way she moved, slightly crouched. Feral.

  The Imperator straightened. The bullets hadn't harmed him. Jez pulled the trigger again, but the gun was empty. She tossed it aside, and as she did s
o, she flickered. One moment she was there, the next she was half a metre to her left, and the next she was back again. Quick enough to be a trick of the eye. But Crake saw it.

  I knew it, he thought. I knew it all along.

  The Imperator's grip on Crake's mind had weakened. The paranoia, the nameless horror, receded to bearable levels. In some distant, rational part of his mind, he found he recognised this feeling of horror that the Imperator inspired. In a strange way, it was familiar to him. He'd come across it before, to a lesser degree, in his experiments. It was the feeling of being close to something wrong. The body's instinctive reaction to something not of this world.

  What manner of man is this?

  The Imperator backed away from Jez, blade in his hand. Frey scrambled off gratefully to cringe in a new hiding place. Jez prowled closer to the Imperator, her gaze fixed on him. Nothing physical had changed about her, but her aspect was different. Where once there had been a petite woman in a baggy jumpsuit, now there was something fearful. Something inhuman, alien. A creature that wore the shape of their navigator.

  The Imperator was intimidated by her, his dark grandeur diminished. He readied his blade as she moved closer. Then, when she was close enough, he lunged.

  Jez flickered. Suddenly, she seemed to be in three places at once: before him, beside him, behind him, flitting from one position to the next in the time it took to blink an eye. The Imperator's thrust hit nothing; Jez sprang on to him from his left, hands clutching the masked head. Her weight took him down to the ground. She smashed his skull twice against the floor, the second time accompanied by a grotesque crack. Then she tore his head off.

  The effect was immediate. It was as if Crake had been gripped by an invisible hand, squeezing his chest, and now it had been released. He gasped like a drowning man reaching the surface. Next to him, Silo was experiencing similar relief.

  It had an effect on Jez, too. She stood up and staggered backwards, the Imperator's head dangling from one hand. There was an expression of bewilderment on her face, a look of shock and fear. No longer was she the feral thing they'd seen a moment ago. Now she was small, and scared. She stumbled for a few moments, and then her eyes rolled back and she fell to the ground.

  Crake hung on to a girder, letting the strength seep back into his body. The choking smoke and murk was getting thicker by the moment, but he breathed it anyway, and coughed. It was worth it, to be alive.

  Frey and Malvery were getting to their feet. They approached Jez carefully, as though she were a dangerous beast that might spring up and lunge at them. Already they were afraid of her. They'd seen the other side of their navigator, and nothing would ever be the same after that.

  Damn it, Jez, he thought. Sooner or later they had to find out. But I wish they hadn't seen you this way. I wish you'd told them first.

  Then his thoughts went to Bess, lying motionless on the battlefield, and he scrambled to his feet to help her.

  Twenty-One

  A Retreat — Uncertainties — The Interpreter —

  Frey Stands His Ground — Down To Earth

  'Get him off me! Get him off my tail!'

  A chatter of machine guns, and the night was full of tracer fire, ripping past Harkins' cockpit. He banked and dived, squealing all the way, and by some miracle he didn't catch any of it.

  'Will you shut your meat-hole, Harkins?' said the voice in his ear. 'I can't bloody think with you shrieking like a pansy.'

  Pinn. How he hated Pinn. Of all the men and women and small furry animals that mocked and humiliated him, Pinn was the worst. Well, except for the cat. He'd rather have Pinn than the cat.

  'What's there to think about? Just shoot him!' Harkins cried. He twisted in his seat, trying to locate his pursuer.

  There was no sign. Hard to see anything in a storm like this. The Equaliser was probably somewhere in his blind spot, anyway. He went into a steep climb and rolled to starboard. A smattering of bullets chased after him through the rain.

  'Pinn? Pinn? Stop scratching your fat arse and help me!'

  There was a dull boom, and the windglass of his cockpit lit up with reflected flame. He looked behind him and saw the unfurling flower of a mid-air explosion, yellow against the night. The Skylance went spinning past, its pilot whooping in triumph.

  'That's five for me!' Pinn said. 'How many have you got, eh?'

  Harkins slumped back in his seat and mopped his face with his sleeve. His heart was kicking against his thin ribs and his gorge had risen dangerously high.

  'Three, I think,' he said weakly.

  'Hah!'

  He couldn't care less how many he'd shot down. All he cared about was that he was still breathing. His life was a miserable affair for the most part, scurrying through the shadows of other men, ignored or derided by everyone. But all the same, he clung to it with a fierce grip. Death was even scarier than life was.

  Lightning flickered, illuminating the moors beneath. Harkins scanned the sky for potential threats. All he could see was the motley of aircraft that formed the Storm Dog's squadron of outflyers.

  'The Delirium Trigger's pulling out!' Pinn yelled suddenly. 'Look! Dracken's running, that pasty-faced chickenshit bitch!'

  Harkins banked to bring the frigates into view and saw that Pinn was right. The Delirium Trigger had broken off from the Storm Dog and was rising towards the clouds. The other was making no attempt to pursue. Both craft were battered and blasted, leaking smoke and flame. The Equalisers were scattering across the plain, racing away in different directions, no doubt to rendezvous at some pre-arranged location.

  Harkins gave a broad smile at the sight. The battle was over! He'd made it through!

  'Cap'n!' he said. 'Cap'n, did you hear that?' There was no reply. 'Jez?' he inquired tentatively, his voice softening.

  'Jez? Jez?' Pinn mimicked in a simper. 'They're not listening. Must've taken out their earcuffs. Probably sick of hearing a grown man squeal.'

  Harkins bit his lip. Don't rise to it. That's what he wants. But it still hurt.

  Once, he'd been a Navy pilot, and his nerve had been as strong as anyone's. What if Jez had met him then, uniformed and proud? He'd always been awkward and highly strung, never quite at ease in his own skin, but he'd been more of a man back then. At least until his comrades started dying in the Aerium Wars. Until he'd been shot down that first time, and then twice more. Until the miraculous escapes began to add up.

  If Harkins had been an optimist, he might have thought himself a lucky man. He'd survived dozens of dogfights and got out of scrapes that left his companions dead in his wake. But he was no optimist. Instead, he fretted about how much luck he could possibly have left, and when it was finally going to run out.

  Not tonight, though. Not tonight.

  Flying was all he knew how to do, but if he had his way, he'd never fight again. All he wanted was an aircraft of his own, and the wide blue sky to fly in. Just to soar for ever. There would be no one to make him feel small. Just him and the sun and the air. He wouldn't ask for anything more.

  Well, maybe one thing more. Maybe someone to share it with. Someone he trusted to be kind to him.

  Jez, he thought. I wonder what she's doing now?

  'Jez?' said Frey tentatively.

  She wasn't moving. She lay on the ground next to the decapitated corpse of the Imperator, face down, her hair across her cheek. Frey crept up to her and gave her a poke with the toe of his boot.

  'She's not going to bite you, Cap'n,' said Malvery, in the tone of someone who didn't much fancy finding out the truth of that statement for himself.

  'How do you know?' Frey asked. 'You saw what happened! She ripped the Imperator's head off with her bare damn hands! One moment she was there, the next she was somewhere else! What was that?'

  'That was Jez, and she saved our lives,' said Silo. 'Ain't the first time, neither.'

  'That,' said Frey, pointing at her, 'wasn't Jez.'

  'Ain't the time nor the place, Cap'n,' said Silo. He picked up the navig
ator's limp body and slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. 'Let's get done here and go.'

  But Frey couldn't shake the memory of her, feral and snarling, that terrifying look in her eyes. That wasn't anyone he recognised. She'd changed.

  Crake was at Bess's side. The golem was stirring, to Crake's evident relief. He was tearing up, and not just from the smoke. Well, at least they hadn't lost anyone. At least there was that.

  But could he ever look at Jez in the same way again? Would he be able to fly, knowing she was at the navigator's station behind him?

  The Imperator's head lay a short distance away. The smooth mask had come loose, and was hanging off. Frey walked over to it. 'Keep an eye out for any more Sentinels,' he told his crew.

  'Cap'n,' said Malvery, a warning in his voice.

  'I've dealt with these Imperator bastards before,' Frey said, as if that was an explanation. The truth was, he was angry. This was the second time he'd been unmanned by an Imperator, forced to cower in fear like a whipped dog. He wanted to see the face under the mask. Somehow, he thought it would lessen his fear of them.

  He was wrong. When he pushed the mask aside with the barrel of his revolver, the face beneath was enough to make him recoil with a shout. The cheeks and eyes were sunken, irises yellow like a bird of prey. The mouth was stretched open as if in a scream, showing sharp, uneven teeth in receding gums. White, dry skin; the septum of the nose rotted away. It looked like something you'd uncover in a grave.

  'Blimey,' said Malvery. 'Someone needs to eat their greens.'

  Frey screwed up his face in disgust and looked closer. A stump of a tongue, cut out at the root, showed between cracked lips. There was only a spotting of blood on the floor, despite the brutal nature of the Imperator's death.

  'That,' said Frey, 'is not natural.' He turned away and looked at Jez, who was hanging over Silo's shoulder. 'Can anyone enlighten me as to what in buggery just happened to my navigator, by the way?'

  'She's a Mane,' said Crake, coughing. 'Partly, anyway. I suppose she wasn't fully infected.'