Dark Sky (Keiko) (18 page)

Well, and she had a crew these days, the location of which she had no idea.

She looked sideways and met Tanja’s eyes. ‘You know what happens now, I hope?’

‘Now,’ the other woman said, a tight excitement visible in her features, ‘we start to throw off this government that works our people to the bone to ship
our
natural resources elsewhere.’

Rourke sighed. ‘I was thinking more that an incident of live ammunition fire on government personnel during an alert status calls for the imposition of martial law.’
I never liked dealing with amateurs, but at least I used to have a chance to coach them a bit before we unleashed hell on a population.

Tanja was looking at her, her expression guarded once more. ‘Martial law?’

‘Shoot on sight, and shoot to kill,’ Rourke said grimly. ‘That applies to anyone seen on the streets, so I hope you’ve already done your rallying work.’ On the plaza outside, even the body armour of the
politsiya
wasn’t helping them. Some had thrown themselves to the ground to narrow the angles of fire available to their ambushers, but even so they were exposed in the middle of a flat, open space. There wasn’t going to be a happy ending for them.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Tanja replied confidently, and not without some steel in her tone, ‘the people will rise. This was just a taster for the dogs in charge.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ Rourke said. She checked her chrono again. ‘Because the imposition of martial law means the planetary governor sending a signal to the system capital – so New Samara in this case – requesting immediate military aid. And that means that by the time the storm up top clears you’re going to have half the Rassvet System’s defence force sitting overhead in troop transports ready to land, so you’d better have finished the job by then.’

There was a stunned silence.

‘Seriously?’ Rourke couldn’t keep a tone of incredulity out of her voice. ‘You thought the Red Stars would just let one of their primary ore planets secede? There’s no government in the galaxy that would give up resources like this without a fight.’ She swallowed back further words. There was no need to tell them that even if they took the entire city, even if they held the planet, the Red Stars would simply blockade them in. At some point, someone here had had a dream of a life not ruled by a bureaucracy of interminable layers leading all the way back to Moscow on Old Earth, and that dream had spread far enough that people were willing to try to seize it even though it was impossible, simply because they couldn’t bear not to any longer.

Focus, Tamara. You’re not trying to set them up to destabilise the entire system. All you need to do is find your crew and get out of this hole as soon as possible.

Tanja seemed to have only got more determined. ‘Then we
will
finish the job.’ The other woman paused, then continued slightly more hesitantly. ‘Will you … help us?’

It was a bigger question than it sounded, Rourke knew. Whether or not Tanja was in overall control of the revolution – if anyone was ever in overall control of a revolution, which in Rourke’s experience was not the case – the Uragan woman was certainly the one doling out the orders around here. Taking advantage of the information Rourke had provided for free was one thing; asking for help was a concession that she didn’t know everything and was, potentially, something that might damage the belief of her followers. And a revolution was nothing without belief.

But that really wasn’t Rourke’s problem.

She turned to Tanja. ‘You understand that this isn’t my world and it isn’t my fight, and I’m not going to pretend that it is. You help me find my crew and keep them safe, and get us to the spaceport. You’ll need to take that anyway, if you want to have a hope of stopping any invasion. You do that, and I will give you any and all advice and information I can.’

‘You won’t be able to leave until the storm subsides anyway,’ one of the younger Uragans spoke up, ‘and you said the troops will be overhead by then. How will you get off-world?’

Rourke fixed her with a steady gaze. ‘I trust my pilot.’ She looked back at Tanja and extended her hand. ‘Do we have a deal?’

Tanja clasped her hand firmly. ‘Ms Rourke, we have a deal.’

‘
THEY’LL HAVE GUNS
too, you know,’ Drift said.

Chief Muradov turned away from the officer he’d been speaking to, and glowered. ‘Who will?’

‘The protesters your people have just opened fire on,’ Drift explained, as patiently as he could. ‘It wasn’t rioters who shot up the squad here, it wasn’t people who’d found some guns from somewhere and decided to join a rally, they were in a bar! The protest was just bait to draw your squad in, and then they opened fire from the side!’ He spread his hands, trying to look as convincing as possible. ‘I’d say you’ve got a full-blown insurrection on your hands, planned out in advance.’

‘The possibility
had
crossed my mind,’ Muradov snapped, then frowned. ‘Why do you care, anyway?’

‘Because my business partner, tech officer and …’ he searched for a term for Apirana and plumped for ‘… translator are in a hotel next to that protest, and the longer stray bullets go flying around the more likely one of them is to get hurt.’

‘Translator?’ Muradov’s eyes flickered over to the Changs, apparently eliminating possibilities, then cocked an eyebrow quizzically. ‘The big man?’

Well, he
is
very good at making himself understood. Sometimes he doesn’t even need to use language.
‘He’s West Pacific,’ Drift said instead, ‘speaks Japanese like a native, and has pretty good Indonesian, too.’

‘I do not doubt it,’ Muradov said dryly, ‘but please do not take me for a fool. I am fairly sure that is not his only role on your crew, Captain.’ He frowned again, his eyes wandering slightly to the left, and Drift realised he must be listening to a comm report in his ear. Then he looked up again, fixing Drift with a stare. ‘However, that is not my concern at present. We are needed elsewhere.’ He turned and barked instructions in Russian, pointing at the armoured transports which the mass of
politsiya
with him had arrived in. Three of them quickly started filling up again, while it seemed two units would be left to chase down and disperse any remaining rioters in the local streets.

Drift turned to look over at the Changs, who were standing a little way away with the Shirokovs and generally trying to escape notice. Jia made a gesture that combined hands and eyebrows and somehow managed to eloquently ask what they were going to do now. Drift shrugged. Jia rolled her eyes and used a hand gesture that required no translation.

‘Captain,’ Muradov said from behind him, ‘I need to ask you and your companions to come with me, please. Maximum of two to a vehicle.’

Drift turned, an uncomfortable sensation prickling in his stomach. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Uragan City will shortly be placed under martial law,’ Muradov said grimly, rechecking the magazine of his rifle, ‘and procedure in martial law is to shoot to kill anyone seen violating curfew.’ He looked up and met Drift’s eyes. ‘You and your companions have no home to go to here, so it would be a dereliction of my duty to leave you in the street.’

Drift pursed his lips. ‘And you don’t trust me.’

‘And, as you say, I do not trust you.’ Muradov flashed a thin smile, fast as summer lighting over New Shinjuku. ‘You also discharged a firearm at Uragan citizens—’

‘Oh come on!’ Drift protested. ‘I aimed over their heads and I was trying to save some of your people’s lives!’

‘—
and you are fairly distinctive
,’ Muradov continued firmly. ‘Quite frankly, Captain, even if my officers did not shoot you I would half expect one of the rioters to find you and do it anyway. Consider it protective custody if you like, but
get in the damned vehicles.
’

‘Well, when you put it like that,’ Drift muttered. He turned and gestured to the Changs and the Shirokovs, who made their way over doing a collective impression of a study in variations of reluctance.

‘We’ll be riding with them,’ he informed the others, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the APC behind him, ‘maximum of two in each, so I guess you folks pair off and I’ll take this one. It’s not negotiable and it’s not my idea, so no yelling at me.’ He aimed that last at Jia, who narrowed her eyes at him but kept her mouth shut.

‘Are we in trouble?’ Kuai asked gloomily.

‘When aren’t we?’ Drift grinned at him, but the mechanic didn’t seem to take it well. Even Drift had to admit that it was a fairly poor attempt at lightening the mood, so he covered the awkwardness by turning and climbing into the APC by the rear doors.

It wasn’t his first experience of being inside a vehicle belonging to law enforcement, unfortunately, but it was certainly the first time he’d been in one of this size or bulk, some unholy cross as it was of bus, truck and tank. There were benches down each side for the riot officers to sit on, a gun rack halfway along each and a ladder in the centre up to the turret. At the far end was a hatchway through to the cab and what looked like a tactical comms station, and seated next to that was Alim Muradov.

‘Captain!’ he called, beckoning. Drift made his way uneasily over to him, trying to avoid getting in the way of the various officers currently taking up position and strapping themselves into their seats. One or two gave him a strange look as he passed, but he also got a couple of smiles.

‘They have heard how you intervened for Sergeant Lukyanenko’s squad,’ Muradov said quietly, apparently picking up on Drift’s confusion at the mixed messages as he sat down next to the security chief. ‘It is rare enough that anyone will step in to help us, let alone an off-worlder.’

‘Not everyone’s heard, apparently,’ Drift remarked. One of the larger officers, a middle-aged male with close-cropped ginger hair edging towards grey and a blunt moustache, was still eyeing him uncertainly.

‘Oh, they all have,’ Muradov smiled, ‘but that does not mean all of them trust you. They are
my
officers, after all.’ The last member of the team jumped on board and pulled the doors shut behind her, and the man sitting opposite Drift hammered his fist twice on the hatch leading through to the cab. Moments later the engine roared into life and the sirens began to wail, and the big vehicle started rolling forwards.

‘Where are we heading, anyway?’ Drift asked, fastening the restraints around him and feeling for a moment like he was in his chair back in the
Jonah
’s shuttle, waiting for Jia to perform a spectacularly stupid atmospheric manoeuvre.

‘Tsink Ploschadi,’ Muradov replied absently, watching a readout on the tactical station. Drift watched coloured dots and icons move slowly over green-on-black grids and presumed it was some sort of display of contacts between
politsiya
units and protesters or rioters, but he didn’t know the key and lacked enough knowledge of Uragan City’s geography to make head or tail of it. What he did realise as Muradov cycled between screens was that there was one for each level of the city. Some appeared clear of conflict, so far as he could work out, but even so he was impressed at the Uragan’s ability to not only apparently make sense of what he was seeing but presumably remember it all.

‘Has there been more trouble there?’ he asked uneasily, a nasty image jumping into his mind of Jenna crumpled on the floor next to a window with a shattered hole through which a stray bullet had passed. ‘I mean, I doubt you’re making the trip just to get me back to my hotel.’

‘Captain,’ Muradov replied with strained patience while he frowned at the display in front of him, ‘I am trying to coordinate an operation to return peace and safety to a city of slightly over two million people spread over a dozen levels. I’d appreciate it if you could—’

He broke off suddenly and Drift saw his eyes widen, then he jabbed at a switch on the console and shouted something in Russian. Drift didn’t catch all of it, but judging by their sudden increase in speed, something had gone wrong somewhere.

‘Was that—?’

‘I do not believe that fate can be tempted, and I trust in Allah, not superstition,’ Muradov said grimly, casting him a dark look from beneath his brows, ‘but that said, Captain, I would appreciate it if you would keep your mouth shut until this issue is resolved.’ He turned to the officers riding with them and spoke again. Drift caught the words for
gunfire
and
rebels
and didn’t need to ask any further questions. It sounded like someone had employed the same ambush tactic he’d got mixed up in earlier. More and more, he was getting the uncomfortable feeling that he was getting caught in a burgeoning civil war.

Better just hope the other side doesn’t have anyone too competent in charge, then.

They cornered sharply – it felt sharp, at least, although with no windows Drift couldn’t say for sure – then accelerated again, and he was suddenly grateful for the restraints that prevented him from sprawling across the vehicle and into the lap of the officer sitting opposite. Still, it was nothing compared to flying into a storm system in a shuttle with no power like he’d done on his last visit to Old Earth. On the other hand, he did at least trust Jia’s piloting skills and he had no idea about the competence of whoever was driving now.