The Ace of Skulls [Chris Wooding] (fb2)

Chris Wooding
The Ace of Skulls
One
The Optimist — Stormriding — Jez is Distracted — Women’s Intuition — A Majestic Decline
Captain Darian Frey was accustomed to long odds; his whole life, he’d been an outside chance. Lacking the ability to win in a fair fight, he survived instead by guile and the illogical optimism favoured by gamblers and drunks, which made the riskiest of plans seem like a good idea at the time.
That was how he found himself flying through the heart of a thunderstorm, on the trail of a target he couldn’t even see.
The Ketty Jay shuddered and bucked, shoved this way and that by crosswinds as Frey wrestled with the flight stick. Bulkheads groaned, fixtures rattled, thrusters clawed the air. Tatters of cloud flapped at the windglass like angry black ghosts.
Frey bullied the Ketty Jay onward, teeth gritted. ...