was upset. All the explosions, you see.’
‘We’ll try and keep it down,’ Frey replied dryly. ‘Get me a damage report from Silo.’
Crake ran off down the corridor to comply. Frey returned his attention to the storm. The Ketty Jay rocked and shivered as the winds began to play around her. Machine-gun fire sounded from behind them.
‘There goes Harkins,’ Frey said. ‘Malvery! What’s going on back there?’
‘They dodged round him! Still coming!’
‘Well make sure you—’ he began, but was drowned out by the heavy thudding of the autocannon as Malvery opened up on their pursuers.
Frey cursed under his breath and swung the Ketty Jay to starboard. He heard the chatter of machine guns, and a spray of tracer fire passed under them and soared away towards the clouds.
‘Will you hold still?’ Malvery bellowed. ‘I ain’t gonna hit anything if you keep jigging around like that!’
‘I’m jigging around so they don’t hit us!’ Frey shouted back, then banked again, dived, and yawed to port. The Ketty Jay was a sizeable target, but she could move faster than her bulk suggested. Her pursuers were still at the limit of their range, but they were catching fast.
‘You know the worst thing about flying an aircraft like this?’ he asked Jez. ‘You can’t see behind you. I’m just guessing where those sons of bitches are while they take pot-shots at my arse. I wish, just once, someone would have the guts to take us on from the front so I could shoot ’em.’
‘Sounds like it wouldn’t be a very wise tactic, Cap’n,’ she replied. ‘But we can hope.’
The storm was filling the sky now. They were flying in low, and the thunderheads had swallowed the sun. The cockpit darkened, and the air got choppier still. The Ketty Jay began to rattle around, buffeted this way and that.
‘Let’s see ’em aim straight in this,’ he murmured. ‘Signal Harkins. Tell him to get out of here. He knows the rendezvous.’
Jez complied, tapping the electroheliograph.
A few moments later, Malvery yelled: ‘Hey! Harkins is turning tail! That yellow toad was supposed to be—’
‘My orders!’ Frey yelled back. ‘He can’t follow us into the storm. It’s up to you now.’
‘You’re giving orders now?’ Malvery sounded surprised. ‘Blimey.’ Then the autocannon began thumping again in clipped bursts.
Crake appeared at the door. ‘Silo says the engines have taken a hit and they’re overheating, but it’s nothing too serious. Other than that there’s only minor structural—’
There was a shattering din as a salvo of bullets punched into the Ketty Jay’s hull from behind. She yawed crazily, hit a pressure pocket in the storm and plunged fifteen metres, fast enough to lift Crake off the ground and slam him to the floor again. The engines groaned and squealed, reached a distressing crescendo, then slowly returned to their usual tone.
Crake pulled himself up from the floor, wiping blood from a split lip. ‘I’ll get a damage report from Silo, shall I?’ he enquired.
‘Don’t bother,’ said Frey. ‘Just hang on to something.’
Crake clutched at the metal jamb of the cockpit door as the Ketty Jay began to shake violently. Frey dumped some of the aerium gas from the tanks
