been piled up astern of the Ketty Jay, when Crake and the captain reached them.
‘Trouble?’ Malvery asked.
‘Must be that time of the week,’ Frey replied, then yelled for Silo.
‘Cap’n,’ came the baritone reply from the Murthian, who was squatting at the top of the cargo ramp.
‘You get the delivery?’
‘Yuh. Came an hour ago.’
‘How long till you can get her up?’
‘Aerium’s cycling through. Five minutes.’
‘Fast as you can.’
‘Yes, Cap’n.’ He disappeared into the hold.
Frey turned to the others. ‘Harkins. Pinn. Get yourselves airborne. We’ll meet you above the clouds.’
‘Is there gonna be a rumble?’ Pinn asked hopefully, rousing briefly from his hangover. Harkins was already halfway to his aircraft by the time he finished the sentence.
‘Get out of here!’ Frey barked at him. Pinn mumbled something sour under his breath, stuffed his pistol into his belt and headed for the Skylance, oozing resentment at being cheated of a fight.
‘Macarde’s on his way,’ said Frey, as Malvery passed him a box of bullets. ‘Bringing a gang with him.’
‘We’re low on ammo,’ Malvery murmured. ‘Make ’em count.’
‘Don’t waste too many on Crake, then,’ Frey said, loading the lever-action shotgun he’d taken from Droop-Eye. ‘He couldn’t hit the side of a frigate if he was standing next to it.’
‘Right-o, Cap’n,’ said Malvery, giving Crake a generous handful anyway. Crake didn’t rise to the jibe. He looked about ready to keel over from the run.
Frey nodded at Jez. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Jez. New navvie,’ Malvery said with the tone of someone who’d got tired of introducing the same person over and over.
Frey gave her a cursory appraisal. She was small and slight, which was good, because it meant she wouldn’t take up too much space and would hopefully have an equally small appetite. Her hair was tied in a simple ponytail which, along with her unflatteringly practical clothes, suggested a certain efficiency. Her features were petite and appealing but she was rather plain, boyish and very pale. That was also good. An overly attractive woman was fatal on a craft full of men. They were distracting and tended to substitute charm and flirtatiousness for doing any actual work. Besides, Frey would feel obliged to sleep with her, and that never worked out well.
He nodded at Malvery. She’d do.
‘So who’s Macarde, then?’ Jez asked, chambering bullets as she spoke. When they looked at her, she shrugged and said, ‘I just like to know who I’m shooting.’
‘The story, in a nutshell,’ said Malvery. ‘We sold the local crime lord twelve canisters of degraded aerium at cut price rates so we could raise the money to buy three canisters of the real stuff, since we barely had enough to get off the ground ourselves.’
‘Problem is, our contact let us down,’ said Frey, settling into position behind the crates and sighting along his shotgun. ‘His delivery
