Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding Page B

fell back into his seat as Silo led the retreat, the Rattletrap skidding and jolting as shells erupted all around them. The confidence his crew had shown earlier seemed desperately misplaced now. What should have been a nice straightforward ambush had just gone horribly, horribly wrong.
    Harkins, as usual, was terrified.
    Harkins didn’t get scared in the way ordinary people got scared. What they called fear was his standard operating level, the state in which he existed day to day. Most people didn’t get really, properly terrified too often. Harkins managed it at least a dozen times a week.
    Being so familiar with the sensation, he’d come to experience it in a different way. He still felt the same physical reactions: shortness of breath, sweating, the overwhelming desire to scream, occasional paralysis. But terror had kept him alive many times in the past. It came to him like an old friend. A friend that he loathed and hated unreservedly, but a friend nonetheless.
    Amid the explosions, the gunfire and the overwhelming awfulness of the whole situation, Harkins could only think of one thing.
    Why didn’t I just stay on the Ketty Jay ?
    Hadn’t he proved himself useless in a firefight time and time again? Wasn’t it well known that his only skill lay in piloting the Firecrow they’d left behind in Shasiith? Nobody thought less of him for opting out of ground missions. In fact, it was assumed that he would. Without his fighter craft, he was like a snail out of his shell.
    Jez was the reason, of course. Kind, sweet Jez, the only one who didn’t mock or pity him. He was thankful that she couldn’t see him now, unmanned by fear yet again. She was too busy fleeing across the scrubland, pursued by one of the enemy. Just as they were.
    He looked over his shoulder. The Dakkadians were on their tail, red dust in their blond hair, their faces covered with dirty goggles and leather masks. Their Rattletraps were of similar design to the one Harkins rode, with a driver, a passenger and a gun operator standing at the rear. Bullets cut through the air and pocked the ground to either side of them, but Ashua’s driving and the uneven terrain kept them from finding a mark.
    ‘Will somebody shoot at them?’ Ashua shouted.
    ‘These damn things don’t turn backwards!’ said Pinn, struggling to pivot the gatling gun.
    ‘Then use your shotgun, you moron!’ she cried.
    ‘Oh, right,’ said Pinn. He abandoned the gatling and dropped into a sitting position, facing backwards with his legs braced against the roll cage. Now secured, he pulled out his shotgun and opened up on their pursuers.
    ‘And you!’ said Ashua, glaring at Harkins. ‘What are you waiting for?’
    Harkins jumped at the harsh tone of her voice. He fumbled his revolver out, opened it to check that it was loaded, snapped it shut again. It felt unnatural in his hand, heavy with danger.
    He took a steadying breath and then leaned out sideways, pointing his weapon in the general direction of the enemy, bending his wrist backwards to do so. The leather ears of his pilot cap slapped wildly against his unshaven cheeks. He closed his eyes and fired. The noise stunned him; the recoil crashed against his wrist and elbow. The gun shuddered and dropped from his hand to the ground. He drew himself back against his seat, holding his arm against his chest, burning with shame and shock.
    ‘Rot and pus!’ Ashua barked in exasperation. ‘I thought you were meant to be a freebooter? What kind of jelly-arsed milk-bubble did I get landed with?’
    Harkins supposed that was a rhetorical question, so he kept quiet. Ashua didn’t say anything further, because at that moment they hit a rise in the ground and took off. They sailed through the air for a few horrible seconds before smashing back to earth with a jolt that made Harkins’ teeth clack together.
    ‘I can’t hit a damn thing like this!’ Pinn complained.
    ‘Then they can’t hit us, either,’ Ashua snapped, swerving to