Dark Run

by Mike Brooks

  Rybak glowered at her. ‘You’re not convincing me that an assault on foot makes any more sense, Agent. If they can shoot us when we’re shooting them, they can shoot down any assault shuttle we send in, especially since we can’t open the door.’

  ‘Not if they don’t realise it’s coming,’ Rourke argued. ‘We can set the Jonah to silent running and ghost in—’

  ‘Silent running?’ Rybak snorted. ‘There’s no way you could set that up from far enough out to avoid detection!’

  ‘I have faith in Jenna,’ Rourke replied firmly. ‘She’ll get the tracker working. Then we just line the approach up.’

  ‘“Just line the approach up.”’ Rybak shook her head disbelievingly. ‘Even powered down and on radio silence, they’ll pick you up the moment you fire manoeuvring thrusters. So unless you have a pilot who can plot the approach trajectory from outside sensor range without needing to make any course adjustments—’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jia Chang didn’t even look up.

  Rybak blinked. ‘What, you think that’s easy?’

  ‘Easy? No.’ Now Jia did look up, meeting Rybak’s eyes with a challenging stare. ‘If it was easy, anyone could do it.’

  Rybak looked questioningly at Rourke, the Is she for real? query plain in her dark brown eyes. Rourke just shrugged.

  ‘I have a specialist crew. They come with certain . . . idiosyncracies.’

  Rybak sighed. ‘Fine. Assuming your expert pilot is capable of what she says, I still don’t see how you’re planning to get inside without the piggy-backed access to the central control systems your slicer was supposed to provide.’

  ‘We ram the fucker in,’ Jia spoke up again.

  Rybak’s eyebrows rose. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘We’re gonna have to come in fast anyway,’ Jia said, angling her hand through the air to mimic their approach. ‘Less chance of being seen, less chance of getting hit. Odds are they’ll have an internal hangar, cos most smuggler dens do; we don’t know how big the doors’ll be but they’ll need to be at least big enough for a Sei, and that’s twice our size. Bigger doors mean less . . . Kàng l aˉ qiángdù . . .’ She looked over at her brother, who was sitting sullenly in the corner. ‘W oˇ rúhé shu oˉ?’

  ‘Tensile strength,’ Kuai provided. Jia nodded and turned back to Rybak.

  ‘Yeah, that. Hit ’em dead centre at the sort of speed we’ll be going and pow!’ She smacked one hand into the other. ‘Bust straight through.’

  ‘And . . . you don’t think that might damage the craft we’d be going in on?’ Rybak asked, her tone of voice the sort Drift might have used to speak to a child, had he ever needed to do such a thing.

  ‘Nah, the Jonah’s got a reinforced nose,’ Jia replied, tapping her own for emphasis. ‘We toughed it up after we . . . had to do something similar before,’ she finished a little lamely as Rourke’s warning glare caught her eye. Drift breathed a silent and hopefully unobtrusive sigh of relief: the last time they’d needed to ram-raid their way into somewhere it had been a Europan government supply facility in orbit over one of the moons of Karibu, and he saw no reason why Captain Rybak should become aware of that particular piece of larceny.

  Rybak herself was shaking her head slightly in what appeared to be disbelief. ‘I have to say, Agent Rourke, one hears a lot of things about the GIA but this . . .’ She gestured with one hand, a vague wave seemingly intended to take in their presence on her bridge, Rourke’s stubbornness and Jia’s flippancy all in one go. ‘This, I did not expect.’

  ‘Our chief weapon is surprise,’ Drift commented gleefully, ‘surprise and fear.’ He waited, but there was no sign of comprehension dawning on anyone’s face. ‘Really? Have none of you studied the Classics?’ Rourke shot him a look which was closely related to the one that had just shut Jia down, and he subsided as a GIA field operative would presumably be expected to when glared at by a full agent. ‘Sorry, boss.’

  Rourke turned back to Rybak and shrugged again. ‘Specialist crew.’

  Rybak’s expression showed what she thought of Rourke’s explanation, but she turned to the two officers standing with her, whom Drift understood to be a first and second lieutenant. ‘Gentlemen? What’s your assessment of this . . . plan?’

  ‘It’s highly unorthodox,’ the taller one said, scratching at the neat blond moustache which sat on his upper lip. Drift still hadn’t caught his name properly. Hamann? Harmon? Something like that.

  ‘Counter-terrorism doesn’t lend itself well to orthodox,’ the other, older man reminded him. This was First Lieutenant Yao, and from what he’d seen of the man so far Drift considered him trustworthy and reliable; so much so that he almost felt guilty about the rain of shit which would undoubtedly land on this force when their compliance with an unauthorised military operation was discovered.

  Almost. Some moral obligations outweighed others.

  ‘It’ll be a risk, ma’am,’ Yao continued, addressing Rybak, ‘but if we’re going to prosecute this mission successfully then we’ve got limited options now our original plan is no longer viable. Our troops are, at least, well-trained in the sort of close-quarter fighting we would encounter inside any such asteroid. The issue will be getting them in there intact, but while the agent’s plan is risky it does provide us with the same element of surprise as if we could open their doors externally.’

  ‘Very well,’ Rybak said, nodding slowly and rubbing her chin with her index finger. ‘If we go ahead with this . . . plan . . . to ram in the main hangar doors then the interior won’t be pressurised, and the force of the crash could be devastating. We’ll need all our people in suits, and braced; we won’t have any crash couches, but magnetic crash webbing should keep them secure enough.’ She straightened slightly, threw a last, brief sideways look at Rourke, and straightened slightly to address her two juniors.

  ‘Lieutenant Yao, give the instructions for all troops to suit up in preparation for low-pressure combat. Every piece of magnetic webbing is to be throughly checked before it’s deployed; one failure could mean several casualties.’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’ Yao saluted and turned away, and Rybak focused on the second lieutenant.

  ‘Lieutenant Hamann, instruct navigation to extrapolate the likely coordinates of Kelsier’s location based on the navlog information from the Early Dawn’s previous visits to this system, then set the sensor team to work identifying any bodies in that area. Soft and quiet; the last thing we need is for them to get wind that we’re here if by some chance they’re not expecting us.’

  ‘Ma’am.’ Hamann saluted in turn, then made his way down the steel steps to where various uniformed Europans sat at terminals. The Draco’s bridge was far larger than that of the Keiko, consisting as it did of the command deck where they were standing and what Drift thought of as the ‘business area’ below where people actually did things. He supposed the frigate had more sophisticated sensor and communication equipment than a freighter like the Keiko, not to mention weapon systems, but even so he wasn’t sure what there was to be gained by having everyone so far away from each other.

  ‘Well, Agent,’ Rybak said in a low voice, turning back to face Rourke, ‘the wheels are in motion. I hope to hell your shuttle can do what your pilot thinks it can.’

  ‘When it comes to knowing the capabilities of the ship she’s flying, I’ve never known anyone better,’ Rourke replied steadily. ‘Besides, as she says, this isn’t the first time we’ve done this.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell me about that,’ Rybak said, her expression serious.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s classified,’ Rourke told her, with the closest approximation of a polite smile Drift had ever seen her muster: it still didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Just be assured that Jia doesn’t have a death wish. If she’s flying a boat into somewhere, she wants it to come out again.’

  ‘Every man or woman I’ve led or followed into combat has wanted to come out again,’ Rybak said quietly. ‘I don’t think I need to tell you that it doesn’t always work out that w
ay.’

  ‘We know that well enough.’ Rourke’s smile had dropped away, and Drift didn’t need to wonder why. It wasn’t like they hadn’t known the risk they were taking playing bait, and it wasn’t like Micah had been particularly close to any member of the crew – the mercenary had been largely callous, bordering on thoroughly unpleasant at times – but no one deserved to die like that, choking on their own blood on the whim of a true monster like the Laughing Man. Drift hoped that the Hrozan forces had succeeded in apprehending the assassin, but wasn’t going to hold his breath. Marcus Hall had slipped his way in and out of too many tight spots for there to be any likelihood of him being run to ground in such a relative backwater.

  ‘Well then, Agent,’ Rybak was saying, ‘I need to oversee arrangements to ensure as many of my people come through this as possible. In the meantime, perhaps you’d like to ensure the shuttle they’ll be going in on is thoroughly prepared?’

  Drift knew a dismissal when he heard one, and had levered himself away from the bulkhead where he’d been leaning even before Rourke nodded her assent to the Europan captain. Jia offered an arm to Kuai, who took it; the bullet he’d taken in the leg had missed any bone but had torn up his calf muscle pretty badly, and despite prompt medical attention he was going to be hobbling for some time. The Changs had virtually stopped bickering since Glass City, although Drift couldn’t say for sure if it was Kuai’s injury or Micah’s death which was the cause. He’d half expected the little mechanic to have been berating his sister for agreeing to this plan in the first place, but there’d been little sign of that, and he leaned on her without complaint or protest as the four of them – only four now: Micah dead, Big A. in his cabin, and Jenna . . . God knows – began to head for the door which would take them to where the docking link joined the two ships.

  ‘Ma’am!’

  The shout came up from beneath them. Rybak frowned and took two brisk steps to look down over the railing. Rourke paused and half-turned back, ostensibly to check the Changs were following but in all reality Drift knew his partner was as curious as he as to what had prompted the interruption.

  Lieutenant Hamann came hurrying back up the steps, his words audible across the bridge. ‘We’re receiving a signal, ma’am: the tracker beacon. Comms are pinpointing the location now but it doesn’t seem to be where we expected Kelsier’s base to be. It’s reading as close by, in the ring system.’

  Rybak’s brows furrowed immediately. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t like it?’ Rourke interrupted, making her way back towards the Europans uninvited. Drift followed her as inconspicuously as he could, being roughly a foot taller and with violet hair to boot; the dirty look Rybak gave him showed that he had failed miserably. ‘This is what we were waiting for!’

  ‘But why now, Agent Rourke?’ Rybak demanded. ‘If the signal had been running when we arrived, that would be one thing. We’ve been here,’ she checked her wrist chrono, ‘seven minutes. To my mind, that means our target saw us arrive, has finished preparations and is now trying to lure us in.’

  ‘Or Jenna and that Vankova girl have only just managed to activate the beacon,’ Rourke replied, her voice audibly tight. ‘It could be their last gasp, Captain.’

  ‘It’s too convenient,’ Rybak snapped. ‘We’ll follow the signal, but if they’ve seen us already then your silent running idea is just going to get us killed. We shoot it to bits; if we can’t do that then the Draco stays to take out anyone trying to flee and you take Lieutenant Hamann back to the Perun System to gather more ships with more guns.’

  ‘By which time two of our own will certainly be dead,’ Rourke bit out.

  ‘It’ll be more than two of mine dead if we get shot down before we even make it inside,’ Rybak replied icily. ‘I appreciate your feelings, Agent, but I expected a more realistic attitude from the GIA.’

  ‘You won’t get any confirmation that you’ve found Kelsier,’ Drift cut in, trying another angle of approach. ‘The bodies won’t be identifiable, any computer systems won’t be accessible . . . you’ll never know if you’ve actually completed your mission!’

  ‘And I certainly won’t complete it if my troops are blown up in a vacuum,’ Rybak said, eyes flicking to him for a moment before returning to her staring match with Rourke. ‘As ranking officer here, I—’

  ‘Ma’am!’

  Another shout came up from below. Lieutenant Hamann, seemingly grateful for the opportunity to remove himself slightly from his superior’s argument, darted down the ladder and exchanged a few words with a commsman before returning apace clutching a piece of paper.

  ‘A data transmission we’ve just picked up on the emergency frequencies,’ he said when he reached them again. He passed the paper over to Rybak. ‘It’s text only: two words.’

  Rybak glanced at it and shook her head. ‘It means nothing to me.’ She looked up, somewhat grudgingly, and handed it to Rourke. ‘Agent? Some GIA cypher, perhaps?’

  Rourke looked down and Drift peered over her shoulder. Sure enough, two blocks of letters were centred on the slip of white:

  HAERE MAI

  Rourke looked around at him, the whites of her eyes bright in the shadow cast on her dark face by her hat. Her expression was neutral, but he was good enough at reading her to know that she was as stumped as the Europans.

  ‘Haere mai,’ Drift muttered, trying out the sound of the unfamiliar words, if actual words they were. ‘Haere mai.’ Something plucked at the back of his brain, an infuriating, nagging sensation that he’d heard these words before. The vowel sounds seemed slightly wrong, somehow. He tried again with a different inflection. ‘Haere mai.’

  Ahh. That sounded more familiar. Where from? He closed his eyes – the left physically, the right with a mental command – and tried to think. Somewhere on the Keiko or the Jonah, certainly, but he spent most of his life on one of the two so that didn’t really narrow it down. A holo show? Maybe, but that wasn’t what he’d been thinking of . . .

  ‘Ichabod?’

  ‘Sshh.’ GIA operatives probably didn’t shush their superiors, but it was too late for that. ‘I’m thinking.’

  For some reason he had a memory of hearing it when his right hand was hurting a bit. Why would that be? What was the context? It wasn’t like he was Apirana and went around punching walls— Wait.

  He felt the beginnings of a grin creep over his face, and looked up at Rourke and the Europans. ‘We know of nothing in this system that should be broadcasting anything?’

  ‘It’s claimed by the FAS, but they don’t even have an outpost here so far as we know,’ Hamann replied, shaking his head. ‘If we were looking for an actual asteroid then it would be further afield, but the ring system of this planet has plenty of large chunks of rock and ice. If I were a betting man . . .’

  ‘Well, I am a betting man,’ Drift exclaimed, a fierce joy he’d thought he might have lost starting to stir in his chest again, ‘and I’d place big money on us having a way into wherever sent this, but we need to get there now if not sooner.’

  ‘But what does it mean?’ Rybak demanded.

  ‘It means “come in”,’ Drift told her with a grin, ‘and it’s come from Jenna, I guarantee it. It’s in a language that only one person within about three systems of here will speak, and Jenna will have heard it every time she’s knocked on his cabin door.’

  He turned around and looked at the Changs, whose faces indicated that comprehension was starting to dawn.

  ‘Jia? Go get Apirana.’

  GOING IN

  ‘Missile lock!’ Drift shouted. ‘Missile lock!’

  ‘I heard you the first time!’ Jia snapped. ‘Yeah, well there were two!’ Drift protested, watching the display with a sinking feeling in his gut. Of all the ways I could choose to die, being blown into hard vacuum by an explosive device was a long way from the top of the list. There was a sickening lurch as the Jonah corkscrewed to one side and at least nominally upwards, the change in momentum d
oing unkind things to Drift’s gut despite the artificial gravity.

  ‘Are there still two now?’ Jia demanded. ‘No,’ Drift confessed. ‘There’re three now.’

  ‘Cào n ıˇ z uˉz oˉng shíb aˉ dài!’

  ‘I thought you said your slicer would be able to get control of their systems!’ Rybak shouted. The Europan captain was dressed in a full atmo-suit except for the helmet and was ‘supervising’ their run from the doorway, although the notion of anyone having much of an input into proceedings once Jia had actually started flying was a convenient fiction Drift had been happy to go along with.

  ‘Why do you think we suggested this?’ Drift demanded, desperately scanning the screens. ‘Dios! Jia, one incoming!’

  ‘If we reach that rock and Jenna’s still alive, I’m gonna qi aˉ s ıˉ that little bitch!’ Jia spat, a term Drift didn’t know the translation of but which didn’t sound friendly. ‘Hold on!’ The Jonah changed course again, a roll-turn which sent them diving down towards the main layer of the ring structure. ‘As soon as we hit dust, jam it!’

  ‘Won’t the—’

  ‘Just fucking do it, bái ch ıˉ!’

  Drift hovered his hand obediently over the jamming switch: not a feature commonly seen on Carcharodon- class shuttles, but a certain level of paranoia was rarely a bad thing in a starship captain, especially when they might sometimes have to leave places in a hurry after doing something not technically legal. ‘Ready.’

  ‘Wait for it . . .’ Jia muttered as the shifting, refracting plane of the ring loomed up towards them. With no sense of scale, Drift found his eyes swimming as he tried to focus and work out the distance to the mass of rock and ice shards. He glanced back at the display and saw to his dismay that the missile was closing in on them even faster than he’d feared, its radar tracking signal growing stronger and more urgent.