Read Online Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding - Free Book Online Page B

nearest Swordwing had only just heard the sound of Pinn’s engine when the bullets ripped through the underbelly of his craft. They pierced the prothane tanks and blasted the Swordwing apart in a dirty cloud of flame. Pinn howled with joy, corkscrewed through the fire and burst out of the far side. He craned in his seat to look back, past his port wing, and saw Harkins coming up, machine guns blazing, shredding the rudder of another Swordwing as he shrieked by.
    ‘Yeah!’ he cried. ‘Nice shooting, you twitchy old freak!’
    He hauled the Skylance into a loop, hard enough to make his vision sparkle at the edges, and headed back towards the flotilla. The two remaining Swordwings had broken formation now, taking evasive action. Harkins’ target was coiling its way down to a foggy oblivion, leaving a trail of smoke from its ruined tail. Far below, the Ketty Jay had broken cover and was heading towards the slow bulk of the freighter.
    Pinn picked another Swordwing and plunged towards it. He dropped into position on its tail, machine guns spitting a broken row of blazing tracer bullets. The pilot banked hard and rolled, darting neatly out of the way. Pinn raised an eyebrow.
    ‘Not bad,’ he murmured. ‘This is gonna be fun.’

    ‘She’s heading for the clouds!’ Jez said.
    She was right. The Ace of Skulls had turned her nose up towards the cloud ceiling and was gliding towards it. Visibility would be almost nil in there.
    ‘I’m on it,’ Frey said, then suddenly yelled, ‘Doc!’
    ‘What?’ came the bellowed reply through the open doorway of the cockpit.
    ‘Start hassling the fighters! I’ve got the big fish!’
    ‘Right-o!’
    There was the thumping of autocannon fire as Malvery, in the gunner’s cupola, began unleashing lead at all and sundry. Frey fed a little more into the prothane engines and the Ketty Jay responded, surging upwards. She was surprisingly light for such a big craft, but Frey was long used to the way she handled. Nobody knew her like he did.
    Harkins and Pinn had the Swordwings occupied, chasing them around the sky, leaving the way clear for him. He hunched forward in his seat, frowning intently at his target. Jez and Crake stood behind him, hanging on as best they could as the Ketty Jay rocked and swayed.
    The freighter swam higher, thrusters pushing as hard as they were able, but she was a lumbering thing and she couldn’t get a steep enough angle without tearing herself apart under her own weight. Frey would only get one chance, but one chance was all he needed. The aerium tanks on a craft like this were an enormous target. Though there was nothing on the outer skin to indicate their location, Frey knew his aircraft. It would be hard to miss.
    Just graze the tanks with your guns, he reminded himself. Holed tanks would vent aerium gas, and the steady loss of lift would force the pilot to either land the craft or have her drop out of the sky. A landing might be a bit violent in this kind of terrain, but Frey didn’t much care as long as the cargo was intact. The prothane tanks - the dangerous part - were well armoured and buried deep within the craft. It would take a really bad landing to make them go up.
    The Ace of Skulls swelled in his view, growing larger as he approached. In attempting to escape she’d exposed her belly. He zeroed in on the spot just under her stubby, finlike wings.
    Closer . . . closer . . .
    He squeezed the trigger on his flight stick. The Ketty Jay’s front-mounted machine guns clattered, punching a pattern of holes across the freighter’s side.
    And the Ace of Skulls exploded.
    The windglass of the cockpit filled with a terrible bloom of fire, lighting up Frey’s astonished face for a split second. Then the impact hit them.
    The detonation was ear-shattering. A concussion wave swamped the Ketty Jay, making her roll sharply and sending Jez and Crake slamming into the navigator’s station. Frey wrestled with the controls, yanking on the flight stick with one