Dark Sky (Keiko)

by Mike Brooks

  ‘You have a better idea?’ Rourke asked, pulling away carefully.

  ‘Jus’ seems a bit cold-blooded, is all.’

  ‘You say that like it’s a bad thing,’ Rourke replied. Her tone wasn’t defensive, but there was steel in it nonetheless. ‘Look around you, A.: this hot-headed revolution would have led to a bloodbath without me. It was going to happen anyway, but I’ve given them ways of making it as efficient as possible. People will die, but people always die in revolutions. Hopefully, my cold-blooded input will lessen the body count.’

  ‘That ain’t what I was talking about,’ Apirana rumbled, ‘an’ you know it.’

  Rourke shrugged. ‘It’s true on a large scale or a small. Just trust that everything I’m doing is based on getting all three of us to where we need to be with as little risk to us as possible.’

  ‘I ain’t necessarily doubting that,’ the Maori sighed, ‘I just wish there was another way.’

  ‘So do I.’

  They were through Vehicle Gate 2 now and into Level Four proper. The remnants of the politsiya presence were scattered around, what parts of it hadn’t been gathered up to be used by the revolution itself as it surged through the streets. It seemed that some of the locals had already been swept up in the tide of bodies that was pushing onwards, and here and there Jenna could see walls daubed with crude yellow-and-black symbols or presumably triumphant graffiti.

  Rourke drove the truck with quiet assurance through the streets, checking the schematic Jenna had downloaded for them all as she went. She mainly stuck to the larger routes, but at one crossroads she took a right onto a smaller street, then a left into one much narrower still. This was little more than an alley; there would barely be space for another vehicle to pass them here, and the buildings on either side seemed to loom despite their relative lack of height.

  A helmeted face appeared at the window, its visor raised so that the Uragan’s face could be seen as he leaned forwards somewhat precariously from the flatbed behind them. ‘This is not route!’

  ‘I’m taking a shortcut,’ Rourke replied, sounding slightly irritated. They rounded another corner and she braked, hissing in vexation. ‘What in the …?’

  Two shot-up vehicles blocked the road and in front of them were four figures apparently arguing with each other, figures whom Jenna recognised as Rourke rolled the truck to a halt not ten metres away.

  ‘Moutinho!’ Rourke called, half leaning out of her window. ‘What the hell are you clowns playing at back here?’

  Ricardo Moutinho turned around, his eyes flashing over his bristling moustache. ‘Go suck an afterburner, Rourke!’

  ‘You’re blocking my road, you Brazilian piece of crap!’ Rourke retorted. ‘Did you wreck these things for fun, is that it?’

  ‘You can’t just blame everything on me, you know that?’ Moutinho snarled. ‘This wasn’t our roadblock: a bunch of cops decided to take potshots at us from behind it. If you’d actually been getting stuck in, instead of pissing about playing big shot, you might have seen that.’

  ‘Well, shift them!’

  ‘To hell with you, turn around and go back!’

  ‘I’m not going to try turning this beast around in here,’ Rourke replied firmly. ‘How about we give you a hand?’

  ‘You?’ Moutinho snorted. ‘You can’t choke a car and shooting it some more won’t help, so how’re you going to help, little woman? Plus I know your Maori’s got a broken ankle.’

  ‘We’ve got passengers,’ Rourke said, jerking a thumb at the rear of the truck. ‘Try to look like good citizens and I’ll see what I can do.’ She turned the other way, craning her head out of the truck’s window, and started speaking in Russian. After a few exchanges, in which Jenna thought her guards sounded a little tetchy, they clumped down from the flatbed and headed for the roadblock where Moutinho and his crew waited. Rourke slipped out of the cab and followed them, fiddling with her left sleeve as she did so.

  ‘I still don’t like this,’ Apirana muttered from beside her. Jenna, fighting down the acid churning in her stomach, had to agree.

  It took much sweating and grunting, except for Achilles and Rourke who climbed into the wrecks and did their best to steer them, but finally the two vehicles were pushed aside and staggered along the alley’s edges so their truck could slalom between them. That done, the three Uragans dusted themselves down and turned to head back to their ride.

  Rourke’s garrotting wire flashed out of her sleeve as she looped it over the head of the leftmost one and jerked backwards. The man’s hands flew up to his neck but the narrow polymer cord was already digging too tightly into his flesh for his fingers to get any purchase.

  Skanda dropped to his knees behind the second and slammed his arm up between the man’s legs. As their victim doubled over, Jack slid his heavy knife from his belt and dragged it across the guard’s throat to spatter the ground with his blood.

  The guard on the right had removed his helmet during his exertions. Achilles snatched it from his hand and, as the man opened his mouth to protest, Moutinho simply placed the barrel of the gun the revolution had provided him with to the back of the guard’s head and pulled the trigger. The bullet exploded from the front of the Uragan’s skull, carrying bits of brain and face with it.

  ‘Damn it, Moutinho,’ Rourke snarled, wrestling her choking, purple-faced victim onto all fours, ‘you got his uniform dirty! That one’s yours!’

  THE TURNING POINT

  AFTER STAKING AN unassailable claim on the hearts and minds of the proles in the lower levels, the revolution had paused briefly at the threshold between Levels Four and Five to gather its strength and transmit propaganda to the rest of Uragan City. After watching the ‘news’ broadcast, Drift had taken this as a cue to grab some sleep, which he’d done in the corner of the politsiya canteen with the ease of a long-time smuggler, on the basis that as soon as anything kicked off again someone would wake him up.

  It had kicked off three hours ago, and the revolution had promptly swept through Level Four and its carefully organised government military resistance. Level Three’s populace had seen the real-time broadcasts of this on their holoscreens and, presumably wishing to keep their homes in good order, had turned out onto the streets to declare for the Free State before Muradov had even had time to try to organise a new line of defence. It was now 8 a.m. local time, and Drift was back in Chief Muradov’s transport riding through Level Two. The security chief’s normal expression of stern professionalism had been replaced with the haggard grimness of a man aware that, short of a miracle, he was fighting a war that was already lost.

  ‘Chief, I’m not trying to be difficult here,’ Drift offered as Muradov studied the tactical holo as though there was some solution to be seen in it if he simply looked hard enough, ‘but perhaps you should just give up?’

  ‘The revolution is unlikely to be kindly disposed towards you, Captain,’ Muradov replied without looking up. ‘I would have thought you would be more interested in keeping your skin intact than suggesting I should surrender.’

  ‘Oh, I’m attached to it, don’t get me wrong,’ Drift replied seriously, ‘but you don’t get as old as I am doing what I do unless you can see which jobs are a losing proposition. The one you’re looking at right now is a loss all ends up, through no fault of your own, and you deserve to be told so. You’ve treated me and mine well, and fairly. You gave us protection when maybe that would have been the last thing on the minds of most—’

  ‘And you repaid me by keeping my team and me alive long enough for us to get out of that wreck,’ Muradov cut in, sparing Drift a glance and a faint, bitter smile, ‘so perhaps my judgement is not so bad as you think.’

  ‘I’m just saying, I’m sure that this Mironova’s going to recognise your qualities,’ Drift persisted. ‘You’ve done your job as well as you can, as well as anyone could, but perhaps it’s just time to let the inevitable happen, you know? Maybe take up your job again under this Free State.’

  ‘Cap
tain, I appreciate what you are saying,’ Muradov said, pinching the bridge of his nose, ‘but let me make a few things clear to you. Firstly, although I have come to realise that you are not perhaps the scoundrel I initially thought …’

  Drift put his best poker face into place and kept it there.

  ‘… there is still a great difference between the somewhat, shall we say, “fluid” nature of your commerce and the responsibilities of my role.’ He looked up, his dark eyes tired but focused. ‘I took a solemn oath upon the commencement of my duty as Uragan City’s security chief, and I will not willingly see that oath broken.

  ‘Secondly, I strongly suspect that “heads must roll” under any new state. There must be certain changes made, lest the revolution be seen as a sham. They have already declared that the governor will be replaced, as of course they would. I can see no reason why they would let me, the man who embodies the will of the governor and, by extension, the Red Star government, keep my job. In the frenzy of revolutionary fervour, it would be a miracle should I even make it to trial on some trumped-up charge. More likely, I would be lynched by a mob before that pretence of justice occurred.

  ‘Thirdly, the Red Star government will retake this city, or even this planet, no matter whether or not it is lost to the revolution. It may not be easy or quick, but it will be done. The minerals harvested here are too valuable for it to be allowed to secede. On the day when Red Star forces retake Uragan City, if I am found to be in any situation other than already dead or languishing in a prison cell, then I shall surely be tried and executed as a traitor to the state; and rightly so.

  ‘Finally, if this is some effort on your part to convince me to let you try your luck and attempt to get back to your shuttle, I should inform you that the spaceport has already declared for the revolution.’

  ‘What?!’ Drift slumped back in his seat, suddenly feeling a lot more tired than he had been. ‘Jesús, Maria, Madre de Dios!’ His admittedly somewhat loose plan, once it became clear that the revolution was going to win out, had been to ride with Muradov as close to the surface as he could and then make for the spaceport to wait for Rourke and the others when they got there. If the spaceport was already in the hands of the Free State, however … but perhaps that means Rourke’s already there. He tapped his comm, but found it dead.

  ‘Civilian communications have been disabled over all levels now, of course,’ Muradov said in response to his questioning look. ‘It is the only advantage we have been able to maintain.’

  ‘Didn’t the rebels manage to get them working again before?’ Drift asked, trying to keep the hopefulness out of his voice.

  ‘When we had only disabled it on certain levels, yes,’ Muradov nodded. ‘We have now shut down the entire network. I do not know how long it will be until they can gain control of it since they already have a foothold on Level One, but until then I am afraid you will not be able to make contact with the rest of your crew.’ He frowned. ‘Did you ever manage to, by the way?’

  ‘Uh, yes,’ Drift replied, ‘but when we were on Level Four they were still on Level Five and unable to reach us.’

  ‘A shame,’ Muradov said, and Drift got the impression the man might actually mean it. He watched as the security chief spoke into the comm that connected him to the driver, and the vehicle turned in response. Drift didn’t usually care much for lawmen, but Muradov was smart, capable and honourable, and clearly cared for the city and the citizens he was responsible for. However, it seemed that wasn’t going to be enough to carry the day. It was a shame, in a way: had the man been more brutal or totalitarian he might have stopped this rebellion earlier, and if he’d turned a blind eye to some of his government’s more stringent regulations then this level of unrest might never have brewed in the first place. Instead he’d followed orders and procedure, and now the poor decisions of others would see him lose his job and quite possibly his life.

  All of which was a damn shame, of course, but it also meant that Ichabod Drift might lose his life. And despite having lived on what might be considered borrowed time for well over a decade, ever since he’d tricked the Federation of African States into thinking he’d asphyxiated aboard the Thirty-Six Degrees, he wasn’t ready to lie down and die yet. He was out of his element down here in this enclosed, Russian-speaking city, but the closer they got to the storm-lashed surface and the sky, the more comfortable he was.

  In fact, he was starting to have an idea.

  He checked his pad, but he was still locked out from the Spine. It looked like he’d have to do this the long way, then.

  ‘Chief,’ he said quietly, getting up and moving to Muradov’s side, ‘let’s say that this has tipped too far and you can’t pull it back. I’d imagine that your responsibility would then be to safeguard the governor, right?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Muradov confirmed, looking sideways at him, ‘although I must confess, if all else is lost then that will not be an easy task. There are few places to hide in this city, and the surface offers no shelter. However, Governor Drugov has demanded my presence and I must attend him to advise him of his options, limited though they are.’

  ‘So what if you got him off-world?’ Drift asked. ‘If I know anything about planetary governors – which okay, I don’t really, but still – I’d have thought he has his own shuttle, right? And his own launch pad?’

  Muradov’s face took on a long-suffering expression. ‘Yes, Captain, but you may remember that there is a large storm overhead at the moment, through which it is impossible to fly. Were it not there, I believe you would have taken off shortly after leaving my custody …’

  ‘“Impossible” is just a word, Chief,’ Drift said, feeling a faint smile tug at the corners of his mouth. ‘Can you bring up details of the storm, please?’ He met the Uragan’s steady gaze. ‘Humour me?’

  Muradov still looked sceptical, but finally shrugged. ‘As you wish.’

  He fiddled with the controls and the tactical holo showing the levels of Uragan City abruptly gave way to a three-dimensional map of the surface, complete with the swirling monstrosity of the storm above it as mapped by the city’s atmospheric instruments. Drift took it in quickly, noting the pattern of the clouds and the more vivid colours which denoted greater wind speeds, then smiled more broadly.

  ‘And the governor’s private launch pad is …?

  ‘Here.’ Muradov tapped something and an otherwise unremarkable part of the ground began to flash.

  Drift chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, studying the display to make sure he’d got this right and wasn’t about to look like a complete idiot. ‘Okay, so this here is the eye of the storm, correct? And it’s due to begin passing over the governor’s residence soon.’

  ‘Captain, a Uragan storm is not like some hurricane on Old Earth,’ Muradov explained shortly. ‘It is many times stronger, and even in the eye, wind speeds are still far too dangerous for flight. Besides which, the eye is narrow: any miscalculation of timing would result in the shuttle being caught in the back edge of the eyewall, where the winds are strongest once more.’

  ‘If the choice is between possibly getting into orbit on a shuttle or almost certainly getting killed by the rebellion, which do you think the governor will take?’ Drift asked mildly.

  ‘I think the governor will be reliant on his personal pilot,’ Muradov snapped, ‘who is unlikely to be feeling suicidal given that he can probably win favour with the revolution simply by refusing to do his job!’

  Drift smirked, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of where Jia sat. ‘Then it’s a good thing we’ve got one with us, isn’t it?’

  Muradov’s face stilled suddenly. Drift knew that expression: it was that of a man who’d just heard some unexpectedly good news and was wondering if he could trust it.

  ‘Ah shit, this don’t sound good,’ Jia remarked from behind him. ‘What you getting me into now?’

  ‘Chief, I’ve got my pilot and mechanic with me,’ Drift persisted, ignoring Jia’
s complaints. ‘I’d stake my life that we can get you and your governor onto whatever ship he has waiting for him in orbit and back to New Samara, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘You didn’t hear me when I told you about the storm, did you?’ Muradov sighed.

  ‘I did,’ Drift countered, ‘and I’m telling you that if anyone in this galaxy can get through those conditions, it’s Jia. We’ve had to do some, ah, unconventional flying at times—’

  ‘You mean smuggling,’ Muradov cut in.

  ‘Unconventional flying,’ Drift repeated firmly. ‘But fine, if that’s an assumption you want to make, let’s run with it. Who would you rather trust in a situation like this? Some jumped-up flight-school graduate in a uniform, whose most important job has been making sure that the governor’s coffee doesn’t spill during a landing? Or a smuggler pilot who’s flown through storms and pitch-blackness, outmanoeuvred security craft, and has put down in places with no landing pad or guidance beacons? Jia’s part insane and part genius, and I’m never quite sure exactly where the sliders lie on that scale, but she’s still the best damn pilot I’ve ever met. I’m not saying it won’t be a bit hair-raising, but we’ll get out.’

  Muradov pursed his lips. ‘Even on a craft she has never flown before?’

  ‘Hey!’ Jia shouted up. ‘What kind of fuckin’ amateur do you take me for? It got thrusters? It got controls? It got structural integrity? Then I can fuckin’ fly it!’

  ‘And the rest of your crew?’ Muradov asked Drift, frowning. ‘We would not be able to wait for them to somehow make contact with you. You would be abandoning them.’

  Drift had thought of that, and the prospect of leaving Rourke, Jenna and Apirana stranded on Uragan wasn’t one he relished. All the same … ‘A great man once said, “You have to be realistic about these things.” Our shuttle’s still in the spaceport, and our ship’s still in orbit. My business partner is fluent in Russian and I don’t believe they’ve given anyone any reason to wish them harm, so hopefully they can find their way off here. Right now, I’m more concerned with what will happen if the revolution catches up with us.’