Dark Sky (Keiko) (25 page)

‘I’d noticed,’ Drift muttered as the benches became occupied by
politsiya
backsides. On the upside, he was clapped on the shoulder in comradely fashion by the woman who ended up squeezing in on his left: clearly his efforts to stay in one piece by keeping as many armoured bodies as possible alive to help him had convinced people that he was a team player.

‘You said you’re pulling back to Level Four?’ he asked Muradov above the noise of the engine. The security chief nodded.

‘There have been no reports of rioting above Level Five. We can close off the lower half of the city until the unrest has run its course, so you should be safe.’

Drift didn’t much like the idea of being sealed off from half of his crew, but did his best not to let it show on his face. ‘Could you relax your restriction on crews not being allowed to stay on their ships?’ he asked instead.

Muradov pursed his lips. ‘I will consider it.’

‘We’ve got nowhere else to go,’ Drift pushed, ‘and I’d like to be somewhere the rest of my crew can—’

‘I said, I will consider it,’ the security chief stated with finality, and Drift subsided. The thing was, he was fairly certain that Muradov
would
consider it, which made it more difficult to dislike him for not giving an immediate answer. Drift liked being able to dislike authority figures; it made it easier to ignore his conscience when he inevitably broke their rules.

+Kommandir!+

Muradov looked up sharply as the driver activated the intercom, and he reached over to answer it. A quick exchange in Russian followed, and Drift looked to Kuai for a translation while belatedly fumbling with his pad to activate the translation function on his comm earpiece. He didn’t want to drain his pad’s charge too much while on the move, but it looked like he was going to be surrounded by Russian speakers for a while yet.

‘Civilians in the road,’ the Chinese mechanic murmured, just loud enough for Drift to hear. ‘The driver thinks they’re off-worlders, judging by the clothes.’

Tamara?
If anyone could track them down in a city with no comms and in the middle of a mass riot, it was his business partner.
But what if Muradov decides it’s another trap?
He took a breath to protest if the security chief gave any indication of ordering the gunners to open fire, but instead the Uragan swiped at a holoscreen to bring up an image of the road in front of them. There were two people visible, one larger and one smaller, both waving their arms desperately and growing larger by the moment as the car rumbled closer.

‘Captain,’ Muradov said, looking over his shoulder at Drift and gesturing at the screen, ‘do you know these two?’

Drift got to his feet and picked his way as quickly as he could through the forest of boots and legs to stand next to Muradov. As soon as he got there his hope of seeing Apirana and either Rourke or Jenna evaporated into bitter disappointment. For a moment he considered denying all knowledge, but he’d already decided that lying to Muradov wasn’t something he wanted to try unless he absolutely had to.

‘They’re members of Ricardo Moutinho’s crew,’ he said reluctantly. ‘The man’s called Dugan; I don’t know the woman’s name.’
Although she was willing to go one-on-one with Apirana if needed, which makes her batshit crazy at the very least.

Muradov seemed to consider that for a moment, then activated the comm again and gave the order to stop. The vehicle began to slow in response, to Drift’s surprise and mounting apprehension.

‘Chief,’ he said in alarm, ‘this could be another trap!’

‘Which is why everyone will have their guns ready,’ Muradov snapped. ‘Captain, I appreciate you and Captain Moutinho are not on the best terms, but I have the same duty to these people as I do to you and yours.’

‘And what if Moutinho was involved in the gunrunning?’ Drift demanded. ‘You said yourself he’s been here several times over the last few months.’

‘Well then,’ Muradov said quietly, ‘I will need to be having conversations with his crew, will I not?’ He turned away and began barking instructions to the
politsiya
officers, who readied their weapons. Drift watched uneasily as the hull-mounted camera tracked closer and closer to the frantically waving smugglers, then glided past them as the vehicle slowed to a halt. Someone threw open the back doors to reveal Dugan and the woman, whose expressions of relief were replaced by alarm as they realised they were facing a dozen gun barrels.

‘Get in, please,’ Muradov ordered from behind a small wall of
politsiya
.

‘But—’

‘That was
not
a request,’ the security chief snapped. His officers shuffled backwards a little to make room and the two off-worlders reluctantly clambered aboard into the increasingly crowded transport. The doors were pulled shut behind them as soon as all their limbs were inside the passenger bay and Muradov signalled another officer, who hammered on the driver’s door to set them in motion again. Drift picked his way back to Kuai, mainly so neither Dugan nor the woman ended up stealing his seat.

‘I am Security Chief Muradov,’ Muradov announced without preamble, ‘and Uragan City is currently in a state of martial law. You have both been identified as crew of the
Jacare
and are being placed in protective custody until the current state of emergency is ended. Your names?’

‘Dugan Karwoski,’ the big man replied, still eyeing the guns nervously.

‘Lena Goldberg,’ the woman added. ‘Identified by who, anyway?’

Muradov jerked a thumb in Drift’s direction. ‘By the good Captain here.’

The pair’s eyes tracked to Drift, seeing him for the first time, and widened almost simultaneously. Goldberg’s face hardened instantly. ‘Son of a—’

‘Captain Drift is also in protective custody,’ Muradov said over her impending curse, ‘as are the members of his crew here. Where are the rest of yours?’

‘Hell if I know,’ Karwoski said, not without a hint of despair. ‘Captain was meeting someone, Lena and I headed out for a drink. Next thing we know there’s sirens everywhere, and everyone’s looking at us a bit strange, and our comms don’t work anymore. Then we heard gunfire, and
then
we saw your vehicles.’

‘Thought we’d flag you down and find out what was going on,’ Goldberg put in, a little sullenly, ‘not get taken for a ride.’

‘Who was Moutinho meeting?’ Muradov asked, deceptively quietly.

‘Some contact about a shipping contract,’ Goldberg replied, a little too quickly if Drift was any judge. ‘I don’t know the name.’

‘Where’re you taking us, anyway?’ Karwoski asked, changing the subject fairly blatantly.

‘The fourth level,’ Muradov replied after a second or two of studying their faces. He held up one hand to silence their protests, and both were at least smart enough not to try shouting over him. ‘Martial law is in effect on Level Five and the streets are not safe. Since you have no homes to go to, you are coming with us.’

‘And what about our crew?’ Goldberg shouted after him as the security chief turned to pick his way back to the tactical comm unit at the other end of the vehicle. Muradov stopped and looked back over his shoulder.

‘Hopefully, they are not doing anything stupid.’

He turned away again immediately and so didn’t see the look that passed between the two, but Drift had been watching for it and knew guilt when he saw it. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that Moutinho had not only been bringing in the guns but had pinned it on the
Keiko
’s crew as a combination of petty revenge and a smokescreen. And now some sort of revolution had kicked off … but it had apparently taken these two unaware, and presumably Moutinho as well. Had they really not realised who they were selling to? Then again, Drift knew full well that asking too many questions could simply get potentially lucrative doors shut in your face. Sometimes you just took the job and did it.

One other thing was tugging at his mind, though. He could remember all too clearly how unhappy his crew had been on their dark run into Amsterdam when they’d found out that he
had
known who their employer was, despite his previous protestations to the contrary. That – and the subsequent revelation of his previous identity as Gabriel Drake, notorious pirate – had sparked a near-mutiny. No one liked being kept in the dark by people they felt they should be able to trust, and he’d have put money on Goldberg and Karwoski wondering, right at the moment, whether Ricardo Moutinho had been as honest with them as he could have been.

And that was something he might be able to use, should he need to.

‘
SO WHEN THEY
were shouting about “the American woman” …’ Jenna began, understanding starting to dawn.

‘They were telling each other to find me,’ Rourke finished with a nod. The pair of them, with Apirana hobbling behind, were making their way towards the
politsiya
building that was now apparently serving as the headquarters of Level Five’s new government.

‘And you’ve joined the revolution?’ Apirana put in. ‘Seems a bit reckless, I gotta say.’

Rourke turned and looked at the big man, her expression serious and her voice low. ‘It wasn’t my choice. I wound up in the same place as some of Moutinho’s crew and Tanja, who seems to be in charge around here at the moment. Moutinho tried to land me in it as soon as he saw me, of course, so I had to throw Tanja a bone to keep myself alive.’ She shrugged. ‘Thanks to a bit of lucky timing that bone worked quite impressively, and now here we all are.’

‘So this isn’t actually some well-disguised GIA plot?’ Jenna asked. She didn’t genuinely think that – although the Galactic Intelligence Agency was rumoured to be very, very underhanded in its activities – but Rourke pursed her lips and seemed to be seriously considering the question.

‘It seems unlikely,’ the older woman said a couple of seconds later. ‘I’d have expected to run up against another agitator by now, if that was the case. No, I think this is purely organic. Which is probably why they had so little idea what they were doing.’

‘Come again?’ Apirana asked.

‘Almost invariably, any native with enough understanding of the system to bring it down has too much invested in it to want to see it fall,’ Rourke replied absently, turning away from them to head towards the main doors. ‘That’s how the system protects itself. Even if you set out to sabotage it, by the time you’re in a position to influence anything you’ve probably been caught up in it one way or another. Although there are always exceptions.’

The three of them attracted a fair amount of stares as they approached the headquarters. Jenna had become used to that since she’d been spending any time with Apirana, but now it wasn’t just the Maori who was being studied. She got the uncomfortable feeling that she was being weighed up by many pairs of eyes, and as they reached the maglev pad that would take them to the next floor up without Apirana needing to brave the stairs, she leaned close to Rourke. ‘What exactly did you tell them I was going to do?’

‘You’re going to slice into the Spine to find instructions on how to work the broadcast equipment on this level so the revolution can spread the good news,’ Rourke told her placidly as the clear plastic doors whispered shut behind them. ‘Oh, and find some way for us to contact the others.’

Jenna blinked. ‘You want me to do
what
?’

Rourke turned to look at her, dark eyes cool. ‘I’d have thought that would be your area of expertise.’

Jenna closed her eyes and swallowed an urge to swear violently, but when she opened them again Rourke was still studying her. ‘There is a hell of a difference between slicing a … a starport records system, where things are changing all the time and it’s probably cobbled together on out-of-date software and no one follows the security protocols because they’re too busy … and trying to slice through a
governmental block
.’

‘Well, we’d better talk fast then,’ the other woman said with a grimace. A moment later the platform rose up past the level of the next floor and slowed smoothly, bringing the corridor into view.

‘I’m touched by your faith in me,’ Jenna muttered as the elevator’s doors opened, ‘but did you ever think that governmental security measures might not be vulnerable to a university graduate?’

‘Not when that university graduate is you,’ Rourke whispered back, a comment which Jenna found both complimentary and infuriating in roughly equal measure. She took a deep breath and tried to project an outward calm to match Rourke’s. It was clear that their standing in this proto-state was somewhat dependent on the results they could deliver, and sweating profusely and stammering was unlikely to engender much confidence in her abilities.

The room Rourke led them into had clearly originally been some sort of conference or presentation room, dominated as it was by a large holotable in the middle which was currently displaying a three-dimensional map. The windows had been blacked out to maximise the efficiency of the display and the other people in the room were mainly illuminated by the light it was giving off, which gave them a slightly sinister, unnatural-looking aspect in Jenna’s eyes.