Flying the Storm (21 page)

The lead henchman on Koikov’
s side put a finger to his ear and said something in Russian. “Of course,” said the loudspeaker.

“Thank you,” said Elias, walking towards the marine carrier
, still with his hands held high. He gingerly stepped over the corpse of the pilot. “Mr Koikov is a true gentleman.”

Elias disappeared from view for a moment,
leaving the two parties still silently bristling; every so often a nervous eye would dart to the carrier. Aiden was uneasy.

Soon, Elias’ voice was heard from the hold again. “A true gentleman indeed,” he said, emerging from shadow, with a long, wide tube in his hands. “My deepest thanks!” he cried, raising the tube to his shoulder.
There was a thunderous blast from the back, and the dark blur of a missile shot over the heads of Koikov’s men. With deafening concussion it exploded in flash and smoke and metal shards, obliterating one of the nose guns and its operator.

Everybody apart from Elias ducked
. Pieces of aircraft showered both sides of the standoff, and a fuel line ignited somewhere on board, belching black smoke and flame amongst the twisted metal.

There was a roar
of anger over the loudspeaker. Elias had drawn his pistol and was marching towards Koikov’s men. Both the marines and Koikov’s henchmen opened fire. Aiden threw himself to the ground amidst the hail of bullets, pulling Nardos down with him. Many of the marines did the same, dropping to their bellies as they fired, though many were hit already. The breeze had blown the black smoke of the wreckage across the road, engulfing everybody and intensifying the chaos. Aiden saw his chance.

He drew the pistol and pulled Nardos to his feet. Staying crouched they darted for the roadside, slipping unnoticed behind the line of marines, hidden by the
choking cloud of smoke and the chaotic shooting. Reaching the roadside ditch, they threw themselves into it. The lip of the ditch jumped and sprayed as rounds skipped across it. “I need a weapon, Aiden!” shouted Nardos, over the screams and gunfire. Aiden just nodded. He peered across the lip.

“I can’t see anything!” he sho
uted. “The smoke is too thick!”

“We should run, then!” s
aid Nardos. “Find the militia!”

Aiden nodded again. The pair climbed out of the ditch and ran at a crouch all the way back until they were amongst the buildings.
The fighting still sounded deafeningly close. Looking back towards the road, tracers flickered back and forth through the smoke, illuminating it from within.

Nardos lead the way. He was running towards the town centre, towards the militia and Tovmas.
He stopped suddenly.

“Aiden,” he said, gripping him by the shoulders, “you have to go.”

“What? Why?”

“Ashtarak will want someone to hang for this.”

“But-”

“It doesn’t matter if you are responsible or not, you are an outsider! That might be all the reason they need!”

“Where do I go?”

Nardos turned his head to the west. “The landing pad. Goriun’s car should still be there. Take it and go north, find your friends. You can’t stay here!”

Aiden hesitated. He didn’t know anything about what lay to the north. Georgia, yes, but how far? Where would Fredrick have gone?

“OK,” he said. He took Nardos’ hand and pulled him into a short embrace. “Thanks, brother.”

Shouts, growing louder, came along the road from the town.

“Go now!”

Aiden nodded and sprinted away, down a side street and off towards the landing pad.

“You boys isn’t gonna believe this! Tell them where you
was today, Hammit! Tell them what you told me!”

Hammit fidgeted with his spoon. He
hated
attention. Why he even told Morley… Maybe if he ignored him, he’d go away. Everyone knew that Morley was as twitchy as a garbage fly.

This time though, Morley
was determined. He sat down across the table from Hammit, looking at him like he owed him something. Hammit kept his eyes on his slop. He stirred it with his spoon. Today it moved like axle grease: Cook was probably in one of his moods.

Other folks sat down with Morley. A couple sid
led up to Hammit, and everyone looking and expecting.

“Tell them!” whined Morley.

Hammit finally looked up. A row of oily faces looked back at him, all eyes and streaky creases. He sighed through his nose.

“I’m eatin’” he said, shovelling a spoonful in. It was salty and meaty,
in that order, as usual. There wasn’t much to chew on, but he chewed anyway, just wasting their time.

“Oh come on, Hammit! You got to tell them why you
was late for slop!” Morley looked about ready to strop. “Well if you won’t, I will!”

Hammit waggled his spoon.
Go on
.

“Fine ‘en.
I’ll tell you.” Morley looked around at his audience. “He was in the H-A-M.”

Gasps and mutterings.
Somebody asked. “The High-Air Mess?”

“You gotcha!” exclaimed Morley, pointing at the asker.
“The High bleedin’ Air Mess! And you know why he was there?”

Nobody did.

“Only ‘cause a bleedin’
commander
has taken likes to him!”

More gasps.

Hammit glared at Morley. “I
just fixes his craft,” he said.

“So you
does, so you does. But why you, Hammit? You is a sub-deck greaser. Why is you even
allowed
on the hangar deck with the flyboys?”

“I
knows his craft,” replied Hammit. Why was he even talking? Damned Morley.

“Naw, naw, naw.
That ain’t the whole of it. Ain’t no reason you’d know that craft no better than a hangar-decker. Naw, you keepin’ somethin’. You keepin’ somethin’ from us, Hammit.” Morley eyed him crookedly.

“I don’t owe you nothin’
,” said Hammit.

“
Aww, Hammit, we all your friends here! We’s interested, s’all.”

“Well you c’n
go interest in somethin’ else.”

Morley drummed his fingers on the table. He looked round at his audience. A sly smile twitched on his face. “You know what I reckon,” he said. “I reckon that
commander’s got the shine for you, Hammit. I reckon you actin’ his cabin boy!”

Everybody was laughing.
Everybody except Hammit. He pounded a fist on the table. Everybody shut up.

“I saved his life!” he shouted, his face warm. He wasn’t supposed to tell anybody.
Curses on you, Morley
.

Morley looked triumphant. Everyone else was stunned. “How’d you do that?” somebody asked.

Hammit breathed out through his nose. “I found a sabotage on his craft,” he said.

Some folks gasped. Morley’s dumb smil
e had been wiped off. Even he was shocked. Folks muttered. Hammit went back to stirring his slop.

“Someone put
a sabotage on a commander’s craft?” asked somebody. Folks leaned in closer.

Hammit nodded. “Little ‘splosive on the
‘nol-line. All set up so that so much ‘nol had to go past ‘afore it went bang.”

“That’s cold,” said one of the listeners.
Folks nodded and muttered it was so.

“He reckons it’s someone wants his job,” continued Hammit. He didn’t know why he was still speaking. Folks nev
er normally paid him much mind.

Folks nodded at this, grunting. It made sense to them. Only Morley still looked confused. He leaned forward. “I still don’t ‘stand, Hammit. You ain’t told us what you was doin’ up on the
hangar deck a’ first place!”

Hammit didn’t reply.

Morley’s eyes widened. “You’s tryin’ to get transferred! You think you’s too good for a sub-decker!” Folks were getting angry.

“No, Morley, I just…I just been helpin’ up there in
my free times!”

“You piece o’… That’s where you been slinkin’ off to whenever there’s a lull! I lost count o’ times when I say ‘Hammit, pass me that-’ or ‘Hammit, lend a hand with-’ just to find you ain’t there no more! You sneakin’, slinkin’ piece
o’ work.”

“A man gets bored with
piss all to do!” yelled Hammit, defiant. Morley would not get the best of him.

“What you lookin’ to get transferred for, anyhow? We
gets everythin’ a greaser could ever want, right here, in the sub-deck. We works, we get our slop, we get chits for the whores and a dry bunk! What else you want, Hammit?” Morley cried. Then he lowered his voice. “You too good for us? That it?”

“Not better
than these folks, but I’m sure as shit better than you!”

Some folks laughed. Hammit felt good saying it.
Morley looked black-affronted. He was fuming.

“You watch it, Hammit,” he growled. He stood up from the table a
nd stormed off out of the mess.

The folks at the table moved off on their own ways too, leaving Hammit with his slop. He felt pretty good, showing Morley up like that. Nosing bastard deserved it.

He shovelled in a spoon of slop. It had gone cold, but Hammit didn’t care.

That night, long after the shifts had changed, Hammit lay wide awake in his bunk. He was tossing and turning, too cold without the blanket and too warm with it, and all the time his mind was running like an open valve.
If he still had any chits, he’d have gone to the brothel. Best thing for it, if you can’t sleep.

It was tha
t cursed Morley that had wound him up, he knew. That damned, no-good, pick-prying Morley with his “you think you’s better than us” jabber. Why did it matter to him, whether Hammit was transferring or not? Morley was the laziest son-of-a-bitch in the whole of the D deck, maybe even all the decks, so what exactly was riling him up so bad about somebody moving up? Folks had done it before, Hammit knew. Sure, he could understand if folks were left with a whole load more duties to cover, but everybody knew that the D deck was full of extras not pulling their weight. Extras like Morley, who might actually have to start doing some work if Hammit moved up.

Hammit smirked in the dark. That explained it then. Morley was afraid of having to get off his lazy ass.

Did Hammit feel bad for Morley? No. It’d do Morley some good to start lending a hand now and then. Might even put some muscle on his scrawny bones. Maybe he felt a little bad for the other folks on the deck, since they’d have to put up with the bitching and whining, but it wasn’t going to change Hammit’s mind. He’d been up on the hangar deck for the first time since he’d been drafted. He’d smelled the ‘nol on the fresh wind and he’d even seen the sky through an elevator hatch. After that, there wasn’t anything could talk him into staying in the sub-decks. He was a changed man. He was a hangar-decker. 

A piss.
A piss might help him sleep. Hammit rolled out of his bunk and tramped along the corridor towards the head.

The steel was coo
l on his bare feet. It was nice, but it wasn’t anything like the breeze on the hangar deck. When he felt that on his face and cutting through his overall… It made him remember things. Things from before. Things he didn’t even know he remembered. Now he fearsome wanted to feel it again.

His piss rattled
pleasingly in the urinal. Hammit closed his eyes and imagined he was pissing outside, off the edge of the ship. How far would it fall? Where would it land? Would it land at all?

But then, the outside was dangerous.
The
Gilgamesh
was the only safe place left. Folks on the ground had all gone mad: only brave folks like the marines and the flyers could go land-side. They were trying to fix things, bit at a time, chasing the savages and rescuing folk and such. The Chaplain said that it was still a war of sorts, even though the big war was supposed to be long finished. Far too dangerous, he said, for soft folks like the engineers.

Still
, Hammit itched like he’d never itched before to see what it was like out there. He didn’t know why it hadn’t bothered him until now. There wasn’t even a porthole for three decks up or down, so maybe it was like they said: out of sight, out of mind. He’d been fine and happy for years, not even thinking about the outside, working for his slop and chits. He had everything he’d needed, but in the last few days that had changed. Something was missing, though he still couldn’t figure what.

Done and dry, Hammit turned to leave the head. There, in the doorway, was Morley.
On his face was a smirk, and in his hand was a shifter-wrench. Hammit froze.

“What you doin’
up, Morley?” said Hammit, eyeing the shifter.

Morley just snarled, and came running at Hammit. Hammit jumped aside; the
wrench whistled past his head.

“Morley!” he shouted, “You be carefu
l Morley! I’m bigger than you!”

Morley took no heed. He swung the heavy wrench at Hammit again, so hard that he l
ost his balance when it missed. Hammit saw his chance and took it, dragging Morley headfirst into a cubicle wall. Something cracked, and Morley yelped.

“Dammit Morley!
Don’t make me hurt you!” Hammit was getting angry. What right did Morley have to start on him?

Morley rubbed his head and spun to face Hammit, hunched and showing his teeth. He didn’t say any words, just screamed from his gut and threw himself at Hammit again
. Hammit tried to get out of the way, but his foot slipped in something wet and he fell onto his back. Morley stood over him, and lifted the wrench high. Hammit flinched and covered his head.

Then there was
the loudest bang, loud as a rupture, and Morley went floppy. He dropped the wrench and staggered back into the cubicle wall, sliding to the floor. Blood was smeared all down it. Morley wasn’t moving any more.

A hand grab
bed Hammit and pulled him up. Hammit couldn’t stop looking at Morley, just sitting there all limp and still.

“Engineer!” said the man behind him. Hammit only barely heard.

“Engineer!” shouted the voice, louder this time. “Commander Petrus needs you on the hangar deck.”

Hammit turned around. The man was taller than Hammit, dressed like a flyboy. He was tucking his gun into its holster.
“Did you hear me, Engineer?” said the man.

Hammit nodded.

“Alright then, let’s go.”

The flyboy walked out of the head. Hammit followed to the door, but couldn’t go further without looking back at Morley. He was dead, that was for sure.

Poor Morley, dying in t
he privies. Nobody deserved that, not even Morley. It was no place to die.

Hammit followed the flyboy back through the corridor, past the engineers’ bunks, where a gawping, muttering crowd had gathered. They went quiet when the flyboy passed them, but still stared gape-mouthed at Hammit.
He grabbed his boots as he passed, pulled them on quickly and kept moving.

“What you done, Hammy?” said someone. Hammit said not
hing. Everything seemed unreal.

The flyboy led Hammit to an elevator. Inside, he risked a look at the man who’d killed Morley. His hands were crossed behind his back, and his face showed nothing. If he was feeling even a bit bad about Morley, Hammit couldn’t tell. These flyboys were cold kil
lers.

The elevator door
s slid open with a hiss and the flyboy led Hammit out onto the hangar deck. The air was cool and smelled of ‘nol. Hammit couldn’t help gawping at all the craft lining the sides of the deck, lit by the bright lights in the dark metal ceiling. He’d been up here a few times now, but every time he was just as amazed at the number of craft.

There was nobody
around, it seemed, apart from by one of the craft: Commander Petrus’s craft. It was being fuelled and checked by a big team of engineers, inside and out. Belts of shells were being fed into the forward and tail guns. A trolley of supply boxes was rolled up the ramp into the craft: rations, water, medical supplies.

Hammit could tell
Petrus was leaving for a while.

C
ommander Petrus came onto the hangar deck by a side door and walked over to the side of his craft, where Hammit and the flyboy were standing now.

“Thank you, Arkwright, that will be all,” said Petr
us. The flyboy nodded and left.

For a minute, the commander
and Hammit just stood and watched the deck crew work.