‘Pinn! They’re right on my tail!’
‘I’m coming, you noisy chickenshit! Hold on!’
He spotted the approach of tracers from his port side and rolled the Skylance a moment before a blast of machine-gun fire ripped past the belly of the craft. A quick glance told him that it had come from a Windblade.
‘I’m on your side!’ he yelled. He could feel a strange tiredness settling into his bones, and remembered the daemonic earpiece. Every whoop and comment he made was sucking a little more energy out of him, and now he’d begun to notice it. He nearly cursed, but at the last moment remembered to keep his mouth shut.
The Windblade had realised its mistake, and was peeling away to search for fresh targets. Pinn craned around in his seat to look for Harkins, and spotted him a klom away, shooting skyward at an angle close to vertical. Three aircraft chased him, sending weaving lines of tracer fire ahead of them.
Pinn hit the throttle and the Skylance responded. He streaked across the dull sky, the battle beneath him and the mists above, his eyes fixed on the steadily ascending quartet of aircraft. Harkins was jinking and twisting as best he could, but the sheer volume of gunfire made it unlikely he could evade them long enough to make it to cover.
Pinn found himself in the grip of an unfamiliar sensation. He was worried. As much as he scorned Harkins, he didn’t want to be without him. Harkins was just about the only person on the crew he could push around.
You better not get shot down, you stuttering old lunatic.
Smoke began to pour from the Firecrow’s wing.
‘I’m hit! I’m hit!’ Harkins screeched.
Pinn thumbed his trigger and his machine guns clattered, tearing through the foremost of Harkins’ pursuers. The aircraft exploded in mid-air, sending chunks of itself flying away. The others were too close to avoid the debris: a slab of wing, spinning end over end, whipped through the air and into the cockpit of another pirate, smashing him out of the sky. The third aircraft went into evasive manoeuvres immediately, searching for the author of the surprise attack, and then decided that the chase wasn’t worth it and plunged back down towards the main mass of the fighting.
Pinn whooped and slapped the side of the cockpit, then scooped up the ferrotype of Lisinda and gave her a kiss. ‘Harkins!’ he called. ‘How bad is it?’
Harkins levelled out and then banked experimentally. He looked wobbly, but the smoke had stopped.
‘I . . . er . . . I lost one of my thrusters . . . had to shut it down. Not good, really, then.’
Pinn looked regretfully at the combat going on below them. ‘We’re done here. You’re not gonna last another skirmish. Let’s go help out the Cap’n.’ He matched Harkins’ turn and fell into position behind him.
‘Hey, Pinn? Hey?’
‘What?’
There was a pause. ‘Um . . . thanks.’
Pinn smiled to himself. ‘Didn’t I tell you to clam it?’ he said.
‘Where’s the treasure kept?’ Malvery demanded. The pirate’s reply was incoherent, mouthed as it was around the barrel of a shotgun.
‘Take the gun out?’ Crake suggested.
Malvery withdrew the shotgun a little way. The pirate - still shocked at
