Dark Sky (Keiko) (21 page)

It had been some time since he’d fired an assault rifle. It felt a bit like being punched repeatedly in the shoulder by a Wing Chun expert, and in the enclosed vehicle the roar of the action bordered on painful.

By some miracle he managed to keep the barrel more or less level and avoided hitting the other door that was still hanging down across half of the opening, which would have resulted in potentially lethal ricochets inside. Instead, the hail of fire tore across the legs of the rioters, with dramatic consequences. He probably didn’t actually hit that many – even close together there was still a lot of space between legs for the bullets to fly into – but three Uragans fell screaming and the ones he hadn’t hit fled abruptly rather than risk their knees. One of his three victims had caught another bullet somewhere more fatal as they fell, judging by her lack of movement, and a second had rolled desperately away out of his line of fire. That left him staring down the barrel of the assault rifle at a dark-haired young man, possibly in his early twenties, howling in pain and clutching at his blood-spattered trouser leg.

And with the pistol he’d been holding lying on the Uragan rock floor, still in easy reach.

What did he do? The kid had already dropped his weapon, albeit involuntarily. An instruction not to move was unlikely to be obeyed by someone who’d just taken a bullet in the leg, and Drift couldn’t put the correct Russian phrasing together off the top of his head anyway. He was left with the option of shooting the youth dead, or waiting for him to become a threat again and
then
shooting him dead. He hesitated for a second in agonised indecision.
Damn it, this was easier when I was younger and less moral.

The
politsiya
had wisely been keeping their heads down when he’d been firing, but now a couple of seconds had passed with no further shots, one or two of them had started to stir. The large man who’d been looking at him oddly before raised himself painfully up onto his elbows, looked at Drift, looked out of the door at the writhing rioter, looked back at Drift, then drew his own pistol and shot the kid twice.

Drift blinked.
Well, I guess he
was
involved in crashing this thing. Probably.
‘Ah, to hell with it,’ he grunted aloud, and turned around to look at Chief Muradov who was sitting up and holding his bleeding head. ‘You alright?’

Muradov responded with an emotion-laden burst of Russian, then gritted his teeth. ‘No, I am
not
“alright”! We have just been ambushed! A
politsiya
armoured vehicle has been attacked! This is not a riot, these people have started a war! Do you understand me? They have started a
war
!’ He pulled himself to his feet, using the tactical console which had knocked him out as a handhold. Drift realised with surprise that Muradov didn’t look angry. Instead, the security chief looked to be on the verge of tears, and his next words contained only bitter sorrow.

‘It is a war they cannot win.’

‘You don’t seem as happy about that as I’d have expected,’ Drift offered.

‘Captain, I have
seen
war,’ Muradov bit out, ‘and I have no wish to bring it down on the people I’ve sworn to protect. But this’ – he gestured at the riot vehicle and his team, some of whom were now getting to their feet – ‘this cannot be smoothed over and explained away to the governor.’ He pushed past and shouted something Russian at his team in a manner that had more than a little military bearing to it, now Drift came to think about it.

Seven of the officers were now upright but three had remained on the floor, one of them unmoving and with his head at an angle that looked very unhealthy. Drift averted his gaze, feeling slightly sick, which meant he was looking directly at the hatch through to the cab when it fell open with a bang and the somewhat shell-shocked driver clambered through to find herself confronted with a blue-haired Mexican holding an assault rifle.

‘Whoa!’ Drift nearly dropped the gun as the woman wrenched her pistol out, stopped himself just in time when he remembered the safety was off and settled for raising one hand and using the other to hold his weapon at arm’s length, pointing downwards. ‘Chief?!’

‘
Nyet, Vazirov!
’ Muradov barked, and the driver – clearly rather surprised – stopped bringing her gun to bear.

‘Thanks,’ Drift muttered, then gestured at the rifle with his free hand. ‘Uh, about this …’

‘Captain, you have saved the lives of members of my force twice now,’ Muradov said, picking up and loading an identical weapon without looking at him. ‘So far as I am concerned, you can keep it until we are out of danger.’ He barked more orders in Russian, ones which saw two of the able-bodied officers move to assist both of the downed wounded, then beckoned to Drift. ‘In fact, come up here.’

‘I’m not going to like this, am I?’ Drift asked rhetorically, making his way to the Uragan’s side.

‘None of us will, I imagine,’ Muradov admitted, tapping the comm in his ear, ‘but the driver of the vehicle following says that there was no shot fired to knock us over. It must have been a trap planted in the barricade, and since the rebels could not know exactly where we would ram through it, there are likely to be more in the wreckage. The other teams dare not follow to get to us in case their transports are similarly damaged, so
we
must get to
them
.’

Drift swallowed nervously. ‘So we’re meant to run through a potentially booby-trapped barricade in an area of town where it seems everyone’s out to get us?’

‘That appears an accurate summary, yes,’ Muradov nodded, ‘although if we head for where this vehicle drove through, then any trap in that immediate area may at least have already detonated.’ He frowned and looked back at Drift. ‘I have to wonder, Captain, how an off-worlder caught up in all this remains so calm.’

Drift shrugged. ‘I’ve made a career out of never quite being killed by everything around me going wrong.’

Muradov nodded. ‘Admirable. You take 90 to 180 degrees.’

‘I … what?’ Drift blinked, then realised what Muradov had meant. ‘Three o’clock to six o’clock. Right?’

The
politsiya
captain turned to look at the rest of his squad, settled a riot helmet in place over his head and pointed at the door in front of them. ‘
Vidvigaisya!
’

It was a strange sensation, trying to burst quickly and aggressively through what was now essentially a giant, half-length pet door. Drift wheeled to his right as soon as he was through and brought his borrowed rifle up to sweep the dimly lit street, letting the corner of the door rest on his right shoulder to try to make it easier for the officers supporting their injured colleagues. Not that he had any particular attachment to the wounded, but if he was going to get into even the dubious safety of another vehicle he needed to be with this group, and that meant he needed to ensure they all moved as fast as possible.

‘Clear!’ he shouted, trying to look everywhere at once but fairly certain he hadn’t missed anything. There were no other barricades or improvised fire screens set up, and the various windows that passed under the roving barrel of his gun stayed reassuringly empty. He could see movement on the plaza at the end of the street, but that was some distance away and none of it appeared to be focused on them. However, that caused an ugly question to bubble to the surface in his mind. ‘Muradov! Are you still planning on heading to help out your boys on the plaza over there?’

‘Keep your mind on the job!’ Muradov shouted back, his voice rendered slightly metallic by the speakers on his helmet.

‘Just checking whether I want to get into another of your cars, is all!’ Drift replied, taking a few cautious steps backwards as the party began an agonisingly slow ‘dash’ away from their wrecked vehicle. He was terrified he was going to trip and fall during his backtracking, but he was damned if he’d turn around to see where he was going and let some Uragan rebel pop up to shoot him in the back.

‘I have ordered anyone there who can still hear me to stand down,’ Muradov replied heavily. ‘We are pulling back to Level Four.’

Drift cursed under his breath. For all the risks involved, an armour-plated ride to his hotel’s front door had seemed like his best chance of getting back in touch with Rourke and the others, but now that option was being taken from him. With no comms and no
politsiya
escort, he had no clue how he’d find them again. For a moment he considered grabbing the Changs and heading off in search of the other half of his crew anyway, but—

There was a flash from around the corner of what looked like some sort of shop and the air was torn by the report of a gunshot. Drift ducked instinctively and then, belatedly, fired back. His volley of shots tore holes in the wall near where the attack had come from, but a second after he released his trigger again a dark shape edged out just enough to aim a gun once more.

And promptly collapsed backwards as a single shot rang out.

Drift turned, despite himself, to see Muradov lowering his rifle. The
politsiya
captain barked another order and the group stumbled into movement again; Drift followed a second later, more certain than ever that when Chief Alim Muradov said he’d seen war, he hadn’t been employing a metaphor.

They’d nearly reached the barricade now, a ramshackle collection of furniture and miscellaneous metal items, plus at least one door. It had stretched across most of the street at a crossroads, but there was a hole in it where their vehicle had punched through and the detritus from that impact was now making their footing troublesome. On the other side, with rear doors facing their group and turrets rotated so the water cannons and linked guns were covering them, were the other two armoured transports.

Drift, casting nervous glances over his shoulder, had half expected Muradov to send someone else through first in case another trap was detonated. Instead, still covering the twelve-to-three angles of their retreat, the
politsiya
captain made a dash for it and fetched up against the rear of the right-hand vehicle before anyone inside could even get the door open. The driver of their transport, who’d ended up taking the nine-to-twelve quarter, made it through next, followed by the two injured officers and their minders.

Drift had had enough. He turned and ran for the beckoning safety of the transports’ opening doors, eager to put as much metal between himself and any incoming bullets as he could. Hell, he didn’t even have a problem with these people! He was just trying to make a living and they had to go and have a damn revolution while he and his crew were—

Something hit him in the back like a thunderbolt, and he fell.

TANJA HADN’T BEEN
exaggerating about the populace rising for the rebellion, Rourke noted. The protest in the plaza had melted away in the face of gunfire, it was true, but that wasn’t necessarily surprising. However, there was almost a party atmosphere now that the security forces had been ‘subdued’ (most of them not fatally, she was pleased to see) and their reinforcements driven away, and the amount of people out in the streets with pro-independence placards and banners or just generally rejoicing was quite telling. Tanja was instructing everyone to announce that Level Five was now free of Red Star rule, which seemed slightly premature but was probably good for general morale, and reports trickling in from the lower levels suggested that similar things were occurring further underground.

‘What we need to do now,’ Rourke said, puzzling over a diagram of Uragan City’s various levels, ‘is to spread the word.’

‘We have people on the streets,’ Tanja replied, gesturing outside. They were on the first floor of a
politsiya
station which had turned out to be not far from Tsink Ploschadi, and which had apparently decided that opening its doors and playing nice was preferable to undergoing a siege. Rourke had immediately suggested it should be requisitioned as the new state’s headquarters. This had been opposed by some, who’d argued that they wanted to distance themselves from the Red Star regime, but Rourke had pointed out that people tended to react to a change better if they had at least some familiar reference points. Besides, she’d added, the cells were a handy place to put the
politsiya
officers who’d surrendered until it could be decided what to do with them, and it would be good to have the armoury under their direct control.

That last point in particular had seemed to swing it.

‘People on the streets is fine, up to a point,’ Rourke said carefully, ‘it shows that we’re not scared of reprisals. Still, this isn’t the twentieth century; we need to be broadcasting to everyone. Civilian comms are down, so unless people see us from their windows they won’t know what’s happening, and the government are probably playing this down as much as they can on the official channels.’

Tanja nodded, tapping one finger on her lips. ‘We can probably get to the official broadcast wires and disable them. Once people are not hearing the government anymore they will know that something is happening.’