Dark Sky (Keiko) (29 page)

+
The broadcast’s started.
+ The background noise filtering through from Rourke’s end of the comm suddenly increased. +
I have to go.
+ She didn’t wait for a reply: there was simply the
click
of a terminated call in his ear. Moments later, however, his comm buzzed again. This time, he was surprised to see that it was Kuai.

‘Go ahead.’

+
Captain, you need to see this. We’re in the canteen.
+

Drift turned and headed back for the station. The two officers stationed on the doors were eyeing the street with a mix of confusion and burgeoning uneasiness, but they knew Drift had arrived with the city’s security chief so he was able to re-enter the building without any issues.

‘What am I missing?’ he asked the mechanic as he was buzzed through into an area which would normally be for officers only. Truth to tell, Drift wasn’t sure how happy Muradov would be if he learned that Drift had been coming and going at will, but the old ‘hive mentality’ trick seemed to be working again: once you were inside somewhere, everyone generally assumed that you had a reason to be there and decided it was someone else’s job to challenge you.

+
Uhh … the revolution has been holovised?
+

KUAI WAS TIRED
, and irritable, and possibly a little scared. Coffee was only really helping with one of those.

The police canteen was a fairly grim and soulless affair, and reminded him why he didn’t like being off-ship. The
Keiko
wasn’t huge and the
Jonah
was significantly smaller, but that didn’t trouble him in the slightest. He had his own space and he could put his own imprint on it: not just in his cabins on the respective vessels, but in the engine rooms where he spent so much time. Everything was in its right place, and that place was the one that
he
had designated, and there was room for his own individual touches to make it all feel homely. He felt like an outsider here. Besides, you only had to walk into this canteen and look around to realise that no one lived here and no one loved it.

Jia was sitting on his right, either arguing or flirting with one of the officers they’d ridden in with, or possibly both. The Captain had once suggested that Jia constantly picking fault with him was simply her way of showing affection, but Kuai knew better. It was actually her way of showing that she was an obnoxious little brat, to the point of always trying to ensure that any men in the vicinity were concentrating on her, not him. Still, she was an obnoxious little brat whom he’d promised their parents he’d look after, and he kept his promises. Even when they took him to the far side of the galaxy and deep into the crust of a backwater mining planet where someone had apparently stirred up a revolution.

Kuai had grown up in downtown Chengdu on Old Earth, in the middle of a conurbation stretching for tens of miles all the way to the foothills of the Hengduan Mountains, and the grip of the Red Star Confederate’s government there was an invisible omnipresence in the same vein as gravity. The notion of any meaningful action being taken against the state was laughable: you would get the occasional political rally or outspoken commentator, but even they were looking to change things in line with the existing order. The notion of simply saying ‘we don’t want this anymore’ and dumping the entire system was a fanciful dream, and a dream that most people wouldn’t want. The uncertainty, the insecurity, the very real possibility that the government would just march in and take everything back anyway … how did that appeal? Jia had been the one to rail against the rules, the regulations, and even the confining walls of their parents’ apartment. Kuai would have been happy to stay on the planet that had birthed humanity and get a job in a repair shop, or similar.

But, as always, his sister had gone and got in trouble, and in trying to protect her he’d ended up well outside his comfort zone. Sometimes he was grateful to the Captain and Rourke for bailing Jia out when she’d got herself arrested, sometimes he was still mad that they’d persuaded her to jump that same bail and fly them around the Milky Way from then on. He supposed he was just lucky they’d needed a mechanic at the same time, as otherwise he’d have had to face his parents and admit that he’d let his little sister down.

There was a holoscreen making up one wall of the canteen, displaying whatever inane chatter served as entertainment for Uragan. He already knew it would either be fanciful escapism or one of the peculiarly dour Russian soap operas his mother was inexplicably fond of: ‘workers or wizards’, his father had dubbed it once. Kuai understood enough about how society worked to know that this sort of place, with its grim drudgery and lack of prospects, wouldn’t be one where the government would want people to get ideas above their station. Of course, they seemed to be capable of getting those on their own anyway …

He became aware of a change in the atmosphere of the room, and that the heads of the few officers who’d been relieved of duties for long enough to grab a snack were all turning to face the holoscreen. Someone turned the volume up a moment later, and the voice of a dark-haired woman was suddenly to the fore.

‘… you can see behind me, the revolutionaries are in effective control of Levels Five and below of Uragan City.’ She was facing into the camera and speaking into a branded microphone, neither of which were necessary for reporting but which even now were still used to communicate the urgency and immediacy of A Person At The Location. ‘This of course gives them control of the main mine face and the raw materials it produces, which they have stated belong to every Uragan citizen equally and will no longer be sold off with the profits going to the gov … the Red Star government.’

Officers were looking at each other in confusion. Voices were raised, first in protest and then, as men and women in uniforms and visors just like their own appeared in shot, walking under a Free Systems banner behind the reporter, in anger.

‘… of the police force resisted, but many have embraced the revolution’s aims and have declared themselves ready to serve this new state. As you can see behind me, the—’

Kuai grimaced and, in what he suspected was a probably futile attempt to glean good fortune, touched the dragon pendant his mother had given him. He’d been hoping this whole mess could be sorted out and put down with the minimum of fuss and trouble, but that suddenly looked a whole lot less likely. It wasn’t even that he had any form of loyalty to Red Star rule, he just hated it when things were unpredictable, and there was little that was more unpredictable than an enclosed city in the grip of a determined and apparently expanding revolution. He fell back on one of his old adages: if things looked bad, make it someone else’s problem. He activated his comm and entered the Captain’s callcode.

+Go ahead.+

‘
Captain, you need to see this
,’ he said. ‘
We’re in the canteen.
’

There was a brief pause, although the faint noises of breathing and echoing footsteps from the other end of the line suggested that Drift was on the move. Then the Captain’s voice came again. +What am I missing?+

Kuai debated briefly how to get over exactly what he was watching, and gave it up. English was reportedly a very versatile language in the right hands, but he still hadn’t mastered it fully. ‘
Uhh … the revolution has been holovised?
’

The canteen door banged open and the Captain strode in, ignoring the glances he got from the officers who didn’t know him and exchanging a couple of nods with the members of Muradov’s team who looked around. Kuai had got the impression that the Captain had actually acquitted himself well in the immediate aftermath of the transport he’d been riding in being overturned by a revolutionary booby trap, and that the officers had taken something of a liking to him as a result. Even Muradov seemed to trust him now, which in Kuai’s opinion just demonstrated that the man wasn’t nearly as smart as he should be.

‘
Well
,’ the Captain said, sliding onto the bench between Kuai and Jia and looking up at the screen, ‘
this really is a clusterfuck of epic proportions. The revolution’s gained enough of a foothold that they’ve co-opted the governmental broadcast units. Besides which, I’ve just found out that they’ve managed to lift the comm blockade too: Tamara called me a moment ago.
’

‘
Seriously?!
’ Jia put in from the Captain’s other side. ‘
They all alright?
’

Drift grimaced. ‘
Depends how you look at it. It sounds like they got separated for a bit, and A.’s broken his ankle somehow, but him and Jenna are with Tamara now.
’ He lowered his voice a little. ‘
They also seem to have called a truce with Moutinho’s mob. Where are his two goons?
’

‘
Over there.
’ Kuai pointed to the far corner where Karwoski and Goldberg sat. He presumed that neither of them spoke good Russian as they’d not interacted with anyone or even looked at the holoscreen, but the woman was now talking urgently into her comm. Presumably Moutinho was on the other end, giving her the same information which Rourke had just passed to the Captain.

‘
Keep an eye on them
,’ Drift warned, speaking even more quietly so Kuai and Jia had to lean in to hear him properly. Thankfully, the officers in the room were still transfixed by the pictures on the holoscreen. ‘
They were the gunrunners, Tamara’s confirmed that, but we’ve got a bit of a problem ourselves. It sounds like the revolution have found themselves a very good slicer, and she’s been involved with lifting the communications blackout.
’

‘His mother’s dick,’ Jia swore in Mandarin, immediately realising Drift was referring to Jenna. She switched back to English. ‘
So, she been coerced then?
’

‘
It sounds like Tamara had to make herself useful to avoid being killed, and that meant dragging Jenna in as well. I don’t think they’ll just be slipping quietly away from anything any time soon, that’s for sure.
’

‘
Plus, if Muradov finds out about Jenna then we’re screwed
,’ Kuai grunted.

‘So maybe don’t go throwing their names about?’ Jia hissed at him in Mandarin.

‘
Most of these don’t speak English as well as us
,’ Kuai retorted, although he glanced about to see if any of the officers had looked around at the mention of their chief. It seemed not. ‘
They’ll speak Mandarin though, you think of—
’

‘Shut up!’ Drift snapped. Kuai sometimes thought ‘
Bì zuĭ
’ was the only Mandarin the Captain knew. ‘
I’m not in the mood for you two to start squabbling. Tamara thinks we should try to get to the Jonah and wait for them there; she seemed to think that the revolution’s going to push upwards and that maybe they’ll be able to reach us.
’

‘
Wouldn’t surprise me
,’ Kuai admitted, ‘
they’ve done alright so far.
’

‘
Yeah, but they won’t be taking the government by surprise any more
,’ Jia argued.

‘
Oh, and you’re some sort of exper—
’ Kuai cut himself off as Drift’s natural eye narrowed in his direction. He settled for downing the last of his coffee in a gulp, then grimaced as he registered how cold it was. ‘
Whatever. It still seems like the best chance we’ve got. Plus, at least we’ll actually be on the shuttle in case something goes wrong.
’

‘
Something has gone wrong
,’ Drift pointed out.

‘
You know what I mean.
’ Kuai shrugged. ‘
The three of us: we’re a pilot, a mechanic and a captain with the access codes. Say the others can’t get to us, or … y’know … something goes wrong.
’

The Captain’s face had become a blank mask. ‘
You mean, if they get killed.
’

‘
If something goes wrong
,’ Kuai repeated, shifting a little uncomfortably in the stare of that metal eye. Damn it, why did everyone always try to make him feel guilty for being realistic? ‘
I’m just saying that if we needed to, if there was no point in staying, we could take off and fly away. That’s all.
’

The Captain held his gaze for a moment longer, then deliberately looked away and up at the holoscreen. ‘
Just keep an eye on Moutinho’s pair. And the Shirokovs, for that matter.
’

‘
You still thinking to give them a ride out?
’ Jia asked, astonished.

‘
I’m thinking that this entire venture is neck-deep in shit and I’ll take what recompense I can
,’ Drift snapped, with enough heat to cause a couple of nearby officers to look around momentarily at the tone of his voice, even if they hadn’t made out the words. He waved a hand irritably. ‘
Never mind. I just—
’

He cut off in mid-sentence at exactly the same time as Kuai saw something he recognised on the holoscreen. The revolution’s newscast, still transmitting in spite of what Kuai assumed must be frantic efforts on the part of the government to shut it down, had just shown a panning shot of the plaza outside the guest house they’d been intending to stay at. Yellow-and-black Free Systems banners had been draped across building fronts and people were celebrating in the square with apparent genuine delight, despite the fact that Kuai was pretty sure he’d heard about people being killed there only a few hours ago. And there, in the corner of the shot and seen only for a second in the far background, was a familiar wide-brimmed hat and flowing coat. The wearer was talking to someone else and pointing, apparently oblivious to the camera directed at them, and both the tiny hand emerging from the coat sleeve and the smudge of face visible between collar and hat were dark enough to mark them out from the vast majority of Uragans in shot. The person also appeared to have a rifle slung over one shoulder.