Dark Sky (Keiko) (22 page)

‘It would be better if you could use them yourself,’ Rourke pointed out. ‘Everyone will know that the government imposes a communication blackout when there’s any sort of disruption taking place. Imagine the impact it would have if you started broadcasting through that and announce your new state. They wouldn’t be able to pretend it was all under control then.’

‘That would be lovely,’ Tanja said dryly, ‘but you have to understand who we are. Most of us are miners. I’ve been a shift supervisor for twelve years. If we ask for people to build a barricade, or make a bomb from a mining charge, or fight for us, they will do it. But if your holoset or your comm goes wrong, you take it back to the shop. I doubt there are many people in the revolution who would know about broadcasting equipment.’

‘There’s a transmission hub on this level,’ Rourke said, spinning the plans around with a sweep of her finger along the holoboard. ‘It’ll be standardised gear; there must be
someone
who can work it.’

‘Probably Uptowners,’ Tanja replied, jabbing a finger towards the ceiling. ‘It is mainly us workers down here, and you do not get time to learn fancy skills when you work fourteen-hour shifts. I only speak English because my parents saved for lessons and insisted I learn as a child.’

Us workers
. Rourke managed not to snort in derision. This sounded like it was a class uprising as much as anything else, but while maintaining the city’s communications network didn’t exactly match up to working at a mine face in terms of hard graft, she also doubted that the techs were swimming in money. Still, Tanja had played into her hands and Rourke didn’t care whether this revolution took once she and the rest of the
Keiko
’s crew were clear.

‘So we pull specs off the Spine and do it ourselves,’ she shrugged, as though it were nothing. To be sure, even on a relative backwater like Uragan the Spine would contain an enormous amount of data, including innumerable manuals and user guides. However, there was one problem.

‘The Spine is blocked off by the security protocols,’ Tanja told her, sounding quite surprised that Rourke hadn’t worked this out for herself.

‘Well then,’ Rourke replied, looking up with a smile, ‘we need a slicer, don’t we?’

Which was how Rourke, holding a Crusader 920 donated to her by the revolution since her own was still locked up on board the
Jonah
, was able to begin leading an organised search party for her crew. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Tanja not to go back on her word, but each of them were smart enough to know that theirs was a marriage of convenience and Rourke wanted to bump her partner’s side of the deal up the priority chain somewhat. Besides, having an expert slicer with a somewhat cavalier attitude to things like governmental authority was practically essential for a revolution. It wouldn’t solve every problem, but it would reduce the pile considerably.

It was as she was leaving the
politsiya
station at the head of half a dozen of the revolution’s best English-speakers that she caught sight of Ricardo Moutinho and his cronies. They were standing in the street and were clearly doing their best to smile and look cheerful as groups of Uragans bustled past in knots of nervous, excited energy, but every time they thought no one was watching they returned to a sullen huddle. Rourke weighed them up for a second then beckoned to her escort’s leader, a grey-haired, retired spaceport worker named Nikita, and mustered her best Russian. ‘
Can you please start making enquiries around here? I need to speak to these people
.’

Nikita looked startled. ‘
I didn’t know you spoke Russian. Tanja asked for English-speakers.
’

Rourke shrugged. ‘
Not all my crew do, and you may need to explain to them who you are. We are looking for a tall Mexican man with blue hair, a dark-haired Chinese brother and sister, a white American girl with blonde hair and a very big Maori man with facial tattoos and a shaved head.
’

Nikita nodded. ‘
We’ll start asking
.’

‘
Thank you.
’ Rourke watched them drift off up and down the street, accosting people as they went, then strode over to her fellow off-worlders with her new rifle rested casually across her shoulders.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ Moutinho snarled as she approached.

‘Best mind your language,’ Rourke advised him mildly, ‘you’re talking to the revolution’s chief advisor now.’

‘I still want to know how the hell you span that bullshit,’ Moutinho snorted. ‘You’re going to regret it when they figure out you’re a fraud.’

‘Why don’t you let me worry about that?’ Rourke asked. She frowned at the four of them: Moutinho, Jack, Skanda and the kid whose name she still hadn’t picked up. ‘You’re running a smaller crew than you used to, Ric.’

‘The others’ll be along,’ Moutinho replied, but the suddenly expressionless cast to his face told her everything she needed to know.

‘With no comms, and fighting on the streets? I doubt it.’ She glanced over her shoulder to check her escort had cleared the area, then leaned in a little closer to Moutinho. ‘Truth is, I don’t know where a damned one of mine are and I’m thinking you might be in the same predicament.’

‘And you’re telling me this because …?’

Rourke sighed. ‘Neither of us planned to be caught up in this, you numbskull. I’m playing nice with the big bad revolutionaries because I don’t give a shit who owns this planet, but I
do
need their help to find my crew so I can leave it as fast as possible.’

‘You really think that all this is gonna help?’ Jack threw in, arms folded and face stern.

‘I was just being an innocent bystander until your captain here decided to blow my cover,’ Rourke bit out, nodding at Moutinho. ‘Then the head of the revolution that
you’ve
been supplying said I needed to die, and when someone decides to kill me I try to find a way to persuade them not to. So, I’m taking it you didn’t realise that they were going to kick off their party here and now, when some of yours were elsewhere?’

‘Hell, if I’d known this is what they were planning I wouldn’t have even come back to this shithole,’ Moutinho growled. ‘I thought we were supplying a gang or something, not getting mixed up in
politics
.’

‘Here’s what I’m suggesting, then,’ Rourke said, lowering her voice further and speaking fast. ‘Help me look for my crew; they shouldn’t be
that
hard to find. You help me with that and I’ll talk to Tanja about helping you find your lost lambs. While we’re at it, we all keep an eye out on what’s going on and which way the wind is blowing, and we all try to get off here as soon as we can.’ She looked from one to another, trying to meet their eyes. ‘We’re all off-worlders, we’ve got no loyalty to anyone here, and this is a bad thing to be mixed up in. I think we need to stick together.’

‘You’re saying you’d sell out this “revolution” if it came to it?’ Jack asked, so quietly Rourke could barely hear him.

‘I’m saying,’ she replied with a meaningful look at Moutinho, ‘that I’m a businesswoman, and business is looking better elsewhere.’

‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Moutinho muttered. ‘How do we know you can hold up your side of the bargain, though?’

‘Out of the five of us,’ Rourke retorted dryly, ‘who has the revolution trusted enough to give a gun to?’

‘C’mon, boss,’ Skanda piped up, ‘I think she’s got a point.’

‘You can shut up,’ Moutinho snapped, rounding on his crewman and causing him to flinch back. ‘It’s your damn fault we’re in this mess!’

‘Actually,’ Rourke offered, ‘if he hadn’t brought me in there then this revolution would already be faltering and you’d still be standing around wondering where your crewmates were, only you’d also be more likely to get arrested very soon.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m not saying I can give them success, but I might be able to swing it long enough for us all to get away while we’re still flavour of the month.’

‘Oh, fine,’ Moutinho growled, and stuck out a hand with visible reluctance. ‘But if you double-cross us, I swear I’ll take your head off.’

‘Noted.’ Rourke shook his hand and fought the instinctive urge to wipe her palm on her bodysuit afterwards. It still perplexed her that she’d ever been to bed with this man, although admittedly it had more been out of curiosity than desire, and the experience had squashed her curiosity fairly comprehensively. It wasn’t that he was physically unattractive as such, but his personality was so abhorrent that it almost polluted everything else about him. ‘The only member of my crew you haven’t seen is Kuai, the brother of the Chinese girl in that bar. They’ll probably be together anyway, and with Ichabod; around here I’m
hoping
to find Jenna and Apirana.’

‘I think we know what that big
babaca
looks like,’ Moutinho grunted, a sentiment that seemed to be shared by his crew judging by the uncomfortable shuffling from Skanda and the kid. ‘Okay, Skanda goes with Jack. Achilles, you’re with me.’

Achilles?
Rourke shrugged mentally as the skinny pale youth sloped over to Moutinho’s side. There was simply no accounting for parents. ‘So that I know, who are
you
looking for?’

‘My first mate Lena and a guy called Dugan,’ Moutinho said. His tone was all business now; the man might hold grudges, but he was able to keep his feelings in check when he wanted to. Rourke had worked enough deals with people she hadn’t cared for personally to know that was a valuable skill when you were a freelance crew taking work where you could find it. ‘They’re both white American,’ Moutinho continued. ‘Lena’s kind of wiry, dark hair, got a scar down on cheek. Dugan’s a big guy, with quite long, brown curly hair.’

‘Got it.’ Rourke mentally filed the information away, then pointed back towards Tsink Ploschadi. ‘I last saw Jenna and Apirana on the square, before we got separated, so I’m going to start there and try to find someone who saw them.’

‘You wouldn’t think it’d be hard,’ Moutinho snorted, looking at his wrist chrono. ‘Okay, Achilles and I are going this way,’ he pointed into the narrow streets just off the main promenade they were currently on, then jerked his thumb in the opposite direction. ‘Skanda and Jack go that way. We’ll meet back here in half an hour, or as soon as you find anyone.’

Rourke watched them go. It wasn’t exactly the help she’d have wished for, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and she’d meant what she’d said to Moutinho: so far as she was concerned, any off-worlders on Uragan right now would do well to stick together. The Brazilian’s crew might have been rivals and enemies of the
Keiko
’s, but the very same initiative and ability which made them so annoying as rivals would make them useful allies if needed. She just had to hope that A. or Jenna would stop to listen if they were hailed instead of punching someone in the face or running for it.

And where the hell is Ichabod?
She shunted the thought away, slung the Crusader across her shoulders by the strap and started to trudge back towards Tsink Ploschadi. One thing at a time. Drift was a born survivor and she wouldn’t be surprised to find him sheltering in a bar somewhere, having commandeered a bottle of the most tolerable whisky he could find. Probably seducing a barmaid while he was at it, if she knew him. Meanwhile, the Changs weren’t the type to take unnecessary risks so long as Jia wasn’t in a pilot’s chair. They’d keep their heads down and ride it out.

She hoped.

JENNA FELT HER
mouth go dry, but forced herself to remain calm. ‘There’s no reason for them to be looking for us. They’re probably searching for hidden
politsiya
officers, or something.’

‘As you say,’ Kunley replied, although neither his voice nor his face held much certainty. ‘You have no connection with either the rebels or with the government here?’

‘Hell no,’ Apirana rumbled, sitting down again. ‘Sure, we all got picked up by the cops on some gun-runnin’ charge, but it got dropped when they realised it weren’t us.’

‘Unless …’ Jenna thought furiously, but the logic appeared to be alarmingly sound. ‘What if Moutinho’s crew were the real gunrunners?’

‘Sounds feasible,’ Apirana grunted, his tattooed face frowning, ‘what’re you thinkin’?’

‘If they’re the real gunrunners, then that means they’re in with the rebellion,’ Jenna said, growing more alarmed even as she explained it. ‘If they are, then what if they’ve decided to paint us as some sort of … government spies, or something? Yeah, we got arrested earlier, but then we all got released without charge.’

Apirana grimaced. ‘I wish I could say you’re wrong, but you might just be right. I can imagine that
kai kurakura
spinnin’ it to say that we got let out because we cut a deal to report back, or something. It’s not like there ain’t bad blood between us.’

‘You think you may be in danger?’ Kunley asked. He sounded concerned, but Jenna was willing to bet that the concern wasn’t solely for them. The Circuit Cult here had treated them kindly and fairly, so far as she could tell, but there was a difference between taking someone in to attend to an injury for a reasonable payment and denying entry to armed rebels.