Dark Run

by Mike Brooks

  Apirana blinked. ‘Retire?’

  ‘Yes,’ the mercenary nodded, ‘you think I want to be knocking around the galaxy for the rest of my life dodging bullets or waiting for Jia to fly us into something really solid?’ He casually fended off a woman with a tray of what might have been aubergines. ‘Think about it, A.: how long has the Captain been chasing a big score?’

  ‘For longer’n I’ve been on the crew,’ Apirana admitted.

  ‘And has he ever managed it?’ Micah asked. ‘I mean, I’ve only been with you a couple of years, maybe you all got rich and then blew it.’ The tone of his voice conveyed his opinion of how likely he felt that was.

  ‘No,’ Apirana sighed,‘something always seems t’get in the way . . .’

  ‘Exactly.’ Micah raised his eyebrows in what Apirana assumed was meant to be a meaningful way. The Maori felt his own creasing into a frown.

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘There’s too many complications in this crew,’ Micah said quietly, ‘especially the Captain.’ He cast a furtive glance ahead of them, where Drift’s longlimbed, violet-haired shape could be seen walking alongside the girl sent to guide them. ‘You’ve done your time for your crimes, am I right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Apirana nodded, suppressing a slight grimace.

  ‘He never has,’ Micah pointed out. ‘He’s dodged or tricked or talked his way out of everything. And fair play, when we’re in trouble he can be handy to have around because of that, but how many problems has his history caused us? I’m not just talking about this, now, I’m talking about all the jobs we haven’t taken and all the places we’ve had to avoid without even knowing about it.’

  Apirana grunted. This wasn’t something he wanted to think about too hard; he still felt the cold bite of shame for how he’d behaved in the Jonah’s canteen. Once he’d calmed he’d started to realise that he’d always known the Captain must have had a shady history, and if he’d always been content to let it lie and had never been willing to ask the questions then what right did he have to get angry when the answers were unexpectedly revealed? But he’d felt foolish and his anger had risen automatically. His instinctive reaction to feeling stupid or incompetent was to place the blame elsewhere and get angry about it, no matter how much he came to regret it in the long run.

  And he had nearly come to regret it immensely. He had a brief flashback of seeing Jenna’s face turned up to him, eyes closed and features screwed up, her skin even whiter than usual as she waited for his fist to land. She possibly didn’t even know how close he’d come to lashing out at her, how he’d teetered on the razor’s edge for a long second, trying to fight down the impulse to obliterate this new provocation.

  He became aware that Micah appeared to be expecting a response, and grunted noncommittally. ‘So what’re you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying that if we stay on this crew then you and I are going to be getting shot at and busting our knuckles on people’s faces for the Captain’s schemes until we’re too old to do it anymore,’ Micah said quietly.‘I’m sure as hell not managing to save anything up. If we get a decent score off Kelsier’s corpse, I’m thinking of cutting loose. You know, invest. Maybe buy a bar somewhere; borders change and politics shift, but people will always want liquor.’ He grinned suddenly, a quick flash of white teeth in the darkness of his face. ‘Present company excepted, of course.’

  ‘An’ you’re telling me this because . . .?’ Apirana asked, trying to keep an eye on what was going on around them. There were just so many people in this market . . .

  ‘Wondered if you might be interested in throwing in,’ Micah shrugged nonchalantly. ‘You’re a sound guy, not just a dumb worger, I reckon you’ve got a head for business. Besides, double the starting money means more choice of venue.’

  ‘You’re not considering the possibility that we might die first, then?’ Apirana snorted as they emerged from the alley into a wider square awash with the weak, white light of Perun. The mercenary just shrugged.

  ‘There’s no point planning for a future in which you’re dead. I just—’

  ‘Then shut up a second,’ Apirana cut him off, partially raising one hand while trying to reach casually under the back of his top with the other. Micah frowned, his own hand straying to the holstered gun at his belt.

  ‘Problem?’

  ‘Yeah, this place,’ Apirana replied, looking around. ‘Me an’ the Captain didn’t come through here on the way t’Lavric’s last time. We’re being taken by a different route.’

  ‘Verrek,’ Micah muttered. Apirana saw the mercenary’s eyes flicker upwards, scanning the windows around them. ‘We’re sitting ducks here, I don’t care what the plan is.’ He raised his voice so the others could hear him over the bustle of the market. ‘We need to get into—’

  There was a hiss, and he cut off with a choking sound. Apirana watched him in confusion for half a second as Micah’s left hand rose towards his throat, but then a terrible comprehension dawned in the mercenary’s eyes moments before the hissing sound came again and two of the Dutchman’s fingers were sheared off by the passage of a second stargun disc into his neck. Micah dropped to his knees in front of Apirana’s horrified gaze, his right hand still fumbling with his holster.

  ‘Ambush!’ Apirana roared, hauling his gun out and desperately searching for the threat. He saw it a moment later, through the crowd which had suddenly realised that guns were being drawn and fired in their midst and were starting to scream and run: a man with his stargun still raised and his face obscure by a virulently coloured mask . . . but it wasn’t a mask, Apirana realised with a shock. It was an electat.

  The Laughing Man.

  How long had the Laughing Man been a figure of legend in the galaxy’s underworld? Twelve years? Fifteen? Apirana had first started hearing tales of him in prison on Farport, when new inmates came in bearing dark rumours of callous executions and impossible assassinations. By the time he’d got out again, the man known as Marcus Hall was the unquestioned king of contract killers, a dark myth with an undeniably real core. Only one thing was really understood about him: if he’d taken a contract on you, you might as well arrange a comfortable way to die and save yourself some trauma.

  Apirana had seen bad things in his life. Hell, he’d done more than a few. Even so, it was one thing to know that a man such as Hall existed, and quite another to see him walking towards you. His body reacted a fraction slower than it would have normally, sheer panic freezing his muscles for a split second. Long enough, as it turned out, for his hood to be snatched down from behind and something cold and round to be placed at the base of his neck.

  ‘Drop it, big man,’ someone snarled. Apirana risked a glance sideways and saw other members of the rapidly thinning crowd around him had also broken cover and were now holding guns on his crewmates. His anger flared for a moment, a brief crimson flash of desire to turn and wreak bloody vengeance on the man behind him, but he fought it down. He opened his hand to let the gun fall and stared straight ahead, hands raised to the sides of his head, guiltily grateful that the screams and shouts around him were largely obscuring the bubbling wheezes which were Micah van Schaken’s last actions in life.

  The Laughing Man’s eyes flickered across the group, presumably checking that they were all covered by the motley selection of gun hands he had with him. Several of these were cybernetically enhanced, Apirana noticed; it meant they’d blended in well with the market’s workers, some of whom would be hauling large crates or pallets of goods around, but it also seemed that Kelsier had a definite preference for metal in his employees. The girl Natalija was nowhere to be seen. Apirana wondered if she’d been a plant all along, or simply an innocent decoy told to take them by a certain route.

  ‘Captain Drift.’ Hall’s voice was deep and oddly accented. Apirana had never had much of an ear for accents anyway, but it certainly didn’t sound familiar.

  ‘Mr Hall.’ The Captain wasn’t bothering to hide his anger, or his tension. His face looked thun
derous, but Apirana could read the nervousness there too. Drift knew this stood on a knife edge now. ‘You have a uniquely unpleasant way of announcing yourself.’

  ‘Van Schaken was Europan Special Forces,’ the Laughing Man replied matter-of-factly, ‘I eliminated him because his presence might have severely disrupted this conversation. He was possibly an even greater threat than Miss Rourke here, although I hope you’ll note that I’ve arranged to have three guns covering her.’ The flat eyes in his multicoloured face slid sideways for a second to where Rourke stood, arms slightly splayed and nostrils flared in fury. ‘Consider it a compliment.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself, Hall,’ Rourke spat.

  Hall’s expression didn’t change, as least so far as it was possible to tell beneath the garish, distorted skull design covering his face. He simply turned back to Drift. ‘Your crew’s one short. Where’s the girl?’

  Drift’s eyebrows quirked. ‘Come again?’

  ‘The slicer, McIlroy.’ Hall’s voice was hard, and Apirana suppressed a shiver of rage at the thought of him hunting Jenna down. ‘She’s not with you. Where is she?’

  ‘She bailed on us back on Old Earth,’ Drift replied, folding his arms. ‘Didn’t like the odds.’

  ‘I hope for your sake that she didn’t,’ Hall said, his voice quiet. ‘My instructions are to execute every member of your crew. I can either do that quickly and relatively painlessly, or I can hand the job over to these men, who will take their time. I suspect they’ll leave you until last and make you watch, so I suggest someone tells me where to find McIlroy.’

  Drift just glared at him, lips pressed so thin they’d almost disappeared.

  ‘There is one other option,’ Hall acknowledged. ‘My employer values ingenuity and daring. He could find a place in his operation for you . . . or for Miss Rourke.’ He turned back to face Rourke again. ‘But only one of you. The first to speak up gets it.’

  ‘You’re scum, Hall,’ Rourke snarled.

  ‘I’m a professional, Tamara,’ Hall replied without apparent rancour, ‘and you have three guns pointing at you. As it stands, I look to have made the better life choices. But you can change your situation, if you want.’

  ‘How come only they get the option to join?!’ Kuai blurted out suddenly. The Laughing Man’s gaze didn’t waver from Rourke’s face, but Apirana saw his lips purse slightly.

  ‘If the engineer says anything which isn’t telling us where McIlroy is, shoot him.’ He sighed, then added, ‘It doesn’t have to be fatal.’

  ‘You seem very unconcerned about the law,’ Drift spoke up. ‘Here we are, standing in the open with you holding us at gunpoint and one of my crew dead on the ground. Aren’t you worried the authorities might be taking an interest?’

  ‘My employer has a certain pull in these parts,’ Hall replied, ‘but you’re correct, we should hurry. Yourself or Miss Rourke have ten seconds to accept my employer’s offer, or someone tells me where to find McIlroy, at which point everyone dies efficiently and very quickly. Otherwise we take you somewhere unpleasant and these men set to work on you all until we find the slicer, which could take some considerable time. Ten.’

  ‘Hold on,’ Drift said, his face taking on a slightly desperate expression which Apirana could well identify with, ‘we—’

  ‘Nine.’

  ‘—look, why—’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘Just hold on a—’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘We can pay—’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Damn you, Hall—’

  ‘Five.’

  Apirana forced himself to breathe out and tried to relax some of his muscles. He was only going to get one shot at this. The slim upside was that if it went wrong he’d probably never know about it.

  ‘Four.’

  ‘You’ll never—’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘I accept.’

  Apirana stiffened again as the count stopped. The voice had belonged to Tamara Rourke.

  ‘Tamara!’ Drift cried, shock plastered over his features.

  ‘You fucking bitch!’ Kuai shouted furiously, a second before a gunshot went off and blood spattered from his calf. He went down in a screaming heap; Jia cried out in alarm and tried to move towards her brother, but was hauled back by her collar and had the barrel of a gun pressed to her cheek by her captor, a dark-skinned woman with her hair woven into narrow braids.

  ‘Don’t stop covering her,’ Hall ordered the thugs, who obediently kept their guns trained on Rourke. The Laughing Man seemed to study her for a few seconds, then nodded very slightly. ‘A good decision. I don’t for a second imagine it’s a genuine offer on your part, but that’s not my call to make. My employer seems to think that you can be persuaded, given time, so that’s what will happen. Where is McIlroy?’

  ‘She’s on the Jonah,’ Rourke answered instantly, ‘we needed her there monitoring the feeds, and to make sure no one could get into it even if they had the access codes. She’ll have to open it from the inside.’

  Hall exhaled. ‘Which I imagine she would be unlikely to do for us. This explanation requires us to keep at least some of you alive and undamaged. How very convenient.’

  Rourke’s expression didn’t waver. ‘I can’t change the truth just because you don’t like it, Hall.’

  The Laughing Man snorted. ‘You’re a former GIA agent, Tamara. You should be able to change anything, should you need to. Very well, we’ll play it your way.’ He nodded to the gun hands.

  ‘We’ll blow the ship up. Kill th—’

  A shot rang out before the Laughing Man had finished speaking. Apirana winced automatically, but it hadn’t heralded the brief swirl of red and black pain which was how he imagined taking a bullet to the brain might feel. Instead, one of the three thugs covering Rourke jerked and collapsed, his head exploding like one of the red melons they’d seen earlier being hit with a sledgehammer. Everyone froze in shock for half a second, but this time Apirana’s body reacted fastest.

  He spun to his left, his raised arm knocking the gun barrel away before the man holding it could pull the trigger, although he heard the report of other gunshots around him. He had a vague impression of a jowly, pale-skinned face with decorative studs across the forehead, and then his right fist slammed into the thug’s jaw with an audible crack. The man went down and stayed down: Apirana threw himself as flat as he could, scrabbling for the gun he’d relinquished earlier with fingers which had suddenly become unhelpfully numb and tried to take stock of what was happening.

  Several of Kelsier’s gun hands were prone and not moving, red pools spreading out from their bodies across the flat stones which made up the floor of the market. Apirana saw a couple of backs disappearing into a side alley and raised his gun, but by the time he’d got it up they’d rounded a corner and the shot was gone. In a handful of seconds, the crew had gone from surrounded and held at gunpoint to being alone save for the dead and the dying. Jia dropped down beside her brother and for a moment Apirana felt his stomach clench in worry, but then the pilot pulled her jacket off and held it to the bleeding wound in Kuai’s leg, which caused the little mechanic to cry out in pain again and Jia to scold him in Mandarin.

  +Come in, Agent Rourke.+ A voice flavoured with Slavic vowels crackled in the comm in his ear, and he saw Rourke raise one hand to touch her own. Her other hand held the one-shot palmgun, which had been tucked up her sleeve the whole time. +What’s your situation?+

  ‘Took you long enough,’ Rourke snapped. She glanced over at Kuai, who was still groaning on the ground, then at Apirana. ‘A., you okay?’

  ‘Fine,’ he replied, levering himself up, ‘jus’ didn’t fancy standing in a firefight.’ He looked over at Micah, then looked away again with a flash of mixed guilt, anger and grief. He didn’t need a closer inspection to see that the Dutch mercenary was beyond medical help. ‘Micah’s gone, though.’

  ‘Poor bastard,’ Rourke sighed, then addressed the unseen speaker on the comm again. ‘We’v
e got one in need of medical attention. What happened to Hall? I got a shot off at him, but then had to get down.’

  +We lost sight of him heading towards the north side.+ There was a brief pause. +We seem to have lost contact with our team there.+

  ‘Shit,’ Rourke swore, exchanging a look with Drift. ‘How many got away?’

  +We counted twelve in total, not including Hall.+ Apirana looked around, counting the bodies. Two, four, five, six . . .

  ‘Seven down,’ Rourke reported, ‘so five got away. Your other teams know what to do?’

  +They’ll stand off unless there’s a risk to the public.+

  ‘Good. Give Jenna the signal; this is the only chance we’re going to have to get the intel we need.’

  ‘Not quite,’ Apirana said, looking down at the man he’d struck. A little overweight, dressed in unremarkable overalls, dark hair thinning on top and spiralling tattoos up both arms. He felt his anger fire up again; anger at Micah’s death, anger at Kuai taking a bullet in the leg, anger at them being forced into this ridiculous situation in the first place. ‘I only knocked this guy out. An’ I think he’s starting t’come round . . .’

  HELPLESS

  Jenna bit her knuckle, willing her crew to notice that the trap they were expecting appeared to be closing around them sooner than they’d thought.

  The terminal pinged to her right, but she barely registered it.

  ‘I’ve got a face match,’ Vankova said. Moments later the sound came again. ‘Make that two matches. Both of them from the day before yesterday, both came in from the Market Docks.’

  ‘Got a ship ident?’ Karhan asked, while he adjusted controls to track the progress of the Keiko’s crew through the market.

  ‘Working on it . . .’ Vankova replied, her voice a little testy. ‘Right, both look to have come from the Raggety Edge, assuming that’s her real name, currently in bay Alpha Two Nine—’

  ‘They’re in the square,’ Rybak cut her off, leaning forwards with one hand on the back of Karhan’s chair. ‘Where’s the response team?’