Dark Sky (Keiko) (32 page)

‘A shame,’ Muradov said, and Drift got the impression the man might actually mean it. He watched as the security chief spoke into the comm that connected him to the driver, and the vehicle turned in response. Drift didn’t usually care much for lawmen, but Muradov was smart, capable and honourable, and clearly cared for the city and the citizens he was responsible for. However, it seemed that wasn’t going to be enough to carry the day. It was a shame, in a way: had the man been more brutal or totalitarian he might have stopped this rebellion earlier, and if he’d turned a blind eye to some of his government’s more stringent regulations then this level of unrest might never have brewed in the first place. Instead he’d followed orders and procedure, and now the poor decisions of others would see him lose his job and quite possibly his life.

All of which was a damn shame, of course, but it also meant that Ichabod Drift might lose
his
life. And despite having lived on what might be considered borrowed time for well over a decade, ever since he’d tricked the Federation of African States into thinking he’d asphyxiated aboard the
Thirty-Six Degrees
, he wasn’t ready to lie down and die yet. He was out of his element down here in this enclosed, Russian-speaking city, but the closer they got to the storm-lashed surface and the sky, the more comfortable he was.

In fact, he was starting to have an idea.

He checked his pad, but he was still locked out from the Spine. It looked like he’d have to do this the long way, then.

‘Chief,’ he said quietly, getting up and moving to Muradov’s side, ‘let’s say that this has tipped too far and you can’t pull it back. I’d imagine that your responsibility would then be to safeguard the governor, right?’

‘Indeed,’ Muradov confirmed, looking sideways at him, ‘although I must confess, if all else is lost then that will not be an easy task. There are few places to hide in this city, and the surface offers no shelter. However, Governor Drugov has demanded my presence and I must attend him to advise him of his options, limited though they are.’

‘So what if you got him off-world?’ Drift asked. ‘If I know anything about planetary governors – which okay, I don’t really, but still – I’d have thought he has his own shuttle, right? And his own launch pad?’

Muradov’s face took on a long-suffering expression. ‘Yes, Captain, but you may remember that there is a large storm overhead at the moment, through which it is impossible to fly. Were it not there, I believe you would have taken off shortly after leaving my custody …’

‘“Impossible” is just a word, Chief,’ Drift said, feeling a faint smile tug at the corners of his mouth. ‘Can you bring up details of the storm, please?’ He met the Uragan’s steady gaze. ‘Humour me?’

Muradov still looked sceptical, but finally shrugged. ‘As you wish.’

He fiddled with the controls and the tactical holo showing the levels of Uragan City abruptly gave way to a three-dimensional map of the surface, complete with the swirling monstrosity of the storm above it as mapped by the city’s atmospheric instruments. Drift took it in quickly, noting the pattern of the clouds and the more vivid colours which denoted greater wind speeds, then smiled more broadly.

‘And the governor’s private launch pad is …?

‘Here.’ Muradov tapped something and an otherwise unremarkable part of the ground began to flash.

Drift chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, studying the display to make sure he’d got this right and wasn’t about to look like a complete idiot. ‘Okay, so this here is the eye of the storm, correct? And it’s due to begin passing over the governor’s residence soon.’

‘Captain, a Uragan storm is not like some hurricane on Old Earth,’ Muradov explained shortly. ‘It is many times stronger, and even in the eye, wind speeds are still far too dangerous for flight. Besides which, the eye is narrow: any miscalculation of timing would result in the shuttle being caught in the back edge of the eyewall, where the winds are strongest once more.’

‘If the choice is between possibly getting into orbit on a shuttle or almost certainly getting killed by the rebellion, which do you think the governor will take?’ Drift asked mildly.

‘I think the governor will be reliant on his personal pilot,’ Muradov snapped, ‘who is unlikely to be feeling suicidal given that he can probably win favour with the revolution simply by refusing to do his job!’

Drift smirked, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of where Jia sat. ‘Then it’s a good thing we’ve got one with us, isn’t it?’

Muradov’s face stilled suddenly. Drift knew that expression: it was that of a man who’d just heard some unexpectedly good news and was wondering if he could trust it.

‘Ah shit, this don’t sound good,’ Jia remarked from behind him. ‘What you getting me into now?’

‘Chief, I’ve got my pilot and mechanic with me,’ Drift persisted, ignoring Jia’s complaints. ‘I’d stake my life that we can get you and your governor onto whatever ship he has waiting for him in orbit and back to New Samara, if that’s what you want.’

‘You didn’t hear me when I told you about the storm, did you?’ Muradov sighed.

‘I did,’ Drift countered, ‘and I’m telling you that if anyone in this galaxy can get through those conditions, it’s Jia. We’ve had to do some, ah,
unconventional
flying at times—’

‘You mean smuggling,’ Muradov cut in.

‘Unconventional flying,’ Drift repeated firmly. ‘But fine, if that’s an assumption you want to make, let’s run with it. Who would you rather trust in a situation like this? Some jumped-up flight-school graduate in a uniform, whose most important job has been making sure that the governor’s coffee doesn’t spill during a landing? Or a smuggler pilot who’s flown through storms and pitch-blackness, outmanoeuvred security craft, and has put down in places with no landing pad or guidance beacons? Jia’s part insane and part genius, and I’m never quite sure exactly where the sliders lie on that scale, but she’s still the best damn pilot I’ve ever met. I’m not saying it won’t be a bit hair-raising, but we’ll get out.’

Muradov pursed his lips. ‘Even on a craft she has never flown before?’

‘Hey!’ Jia shouted up. ‘What kind of fuckin’ amateur do you take me for? It got thrusters? It got controls? It got structural integrity? Then I can fuckin’ fly it!’

‘And the rest of your crew?’ Muradov asked Drift, frowning. ‘We would not be able to wait for them to somehow make contact with you. You would be abandoning them.’

Drift had thought of that, and the prospect of leaving Rourke, Jenna and Apirana stranded on Uragan wasn’t one he relished. All the same … ‘A great man once said, “You have to be realistic about these things.” Our shuttle’s still in the spaceport, and our ship’s still in orbit. My business partner is fluent in Russian and I don’t believe they’ve given anyone any reason to wish them harm, so hopefully they can find their way off here. Right now, I’m more concerned with what will happen if the revolution catches up with
us
.’

‘You make a convincing argument, Captain,’ Muradov acknowledged. He cocked an eyebrow at a heated exchange in Mandarin coming from the Chang siblings. ‘I do, however, have one question.’

‘Which is?’

‘What in the Prophet’s name is a “pilot hat”?’

AS IT TURNED
out, Ricardo Moutinho didn’t have to wear the hastily cleaned body armour of the man he’d shot because he was rather taller than the guard who’d been wearing it. Skanda would have been the right height, although perhaps a bit on the fat side, but he was no more likely to pass for a native Uragan than Rourke was, and was in any case unwilling to remove his turban. Achilles ended up drawing the short straw, although he hardly looked like an imposing presence. Still, Rourke supposed that since the armour had probably been ‘reassigned’ from its original
politsiya
owners anyway, no one would really be too surprised that there was an obvious gap between the youth’s ribcage and the armavest he was wearing.

‘You two, keep your visors down,’ she’d ordered Jack and Moutinho, who’d managed to fit themselves into the remaining two uniforms. ‘Neither of you will pass muster if anyone sees your faces. Keep your gloves on, too, and your chins tucked.’

‘In future, how about we avoid planets made up exclusively of fucking white people?’ Jack had drawled to his captain.

‘Shut up and try to look pale,’ had been Moutinho’s sole response.

The three
Jacare
crewmen had taken up station on the back of the truck again, this time with Jenna sitting in their middle. Meanwhile, Skanda sat in the cab between Apirana and Rourke as they’d played a cautious game of cat and mouse up through Uragan City, following the revolution’s advance while trying to stay clear of anyone who might recognise her or Jenna as people who were meant to be reporting to Tanja Mironova or her council. All of them studiously ignored any attempts from the revolution at contacting them on the comms, but this was surprisingly piecemeal.

They’d reached Level Two when the two-way radio she’d picked up for infiltrating the communications hub crackled and disgorged Jenna’s voice.

+
They’ve knocked out the comms and the Spine again, over.
+

Rourke frowned and picked her handset up to reply. ‘Do you think they’ve done that centrally from Level One this time? Over.’

+
I reckon. So until the revolution takes control of that, they’re running in the dark again. Over.
+

Rourke pulled the truck around a bend. ‘What was the state of play, last you heard? How far had the revolution reached? Over.’

+
Uh, Captain Moutinho was listening in on the comms, over.
+

Rourke sighed. ‘Put him on, over.’

The radio crackled again, and Moutinho’s voice replaced Jenna’s. +
What do you want to know, O Tactical Genius? Over.
+

Rourke gritted her teeth. ‘Have they taken the spaceport yet? Over.’

+
I heard someone babbling about some fighting up there before the comms got cut, but I couldn’t tell you what the outcome was; I think they were still at it. You thinking we should make a break for it? Over.
+

‘Have you heard anything from your two?’ Rourke asked. ‘Have they managed to get away from Muradov yet? Over.’

+Um segundo.+ There was a brief pause. +
Jack says that the last time he spoke to Dugan they were still with the cops. Your mechanic had passed on a message from Drift on the down-low about him trying to talk everyone’s way clear once they were on Level One, then making for the spaceport. Course, Dugan couldn’t really say much since he wasn’t sure how much the cops around him could understand, I guess. Over.
+

Rourke shared a glance with Apirana and saw her own grim thoughts reflected in the big man’s face. She couldn’t see a likely way out for their colleagues. ‘I think we chance it. We head for the spaceport, try to bluff our way onto the ships and take it from there. Over.’

+
You do realise that once we’re on board we’re sitting ducks with nowhere to go, right? Unless you want to try flying into the teeth of the mother of all storms, I mean. Over.
+

‘We’ll be in a better position to act than we are now,’ Rourke argued. ‘If our crews make it to us then at least we’re all in the right place and we can take off as soon as there’s a break in the weather. Hell, there are bound to be other ways out to the surface in a mining city, some sort of fume vents or something: all they’d have to do is get some breathing apparatus and survive long enough for us to reach them. Over.’

+
And if they don’t make it at all? Over.
+

‘Well, better some of us make it off than none of us, I guess.’ She did her best to look apologetic in Apirana’s direction, but the Maori’s face was hard to read. ‘Over.’

+
You’re a stone-cold bitch, Tamara. It’s why I liked you; I always said you were wasted on that soft-hearted Mexican bastard. Okay, you get us there, we’ll get us in, over.
+

Rourke suppressed a humourless snort. Moutinho had no idea that the ‘soft-hearted Mexican bastard’ he’d just ridiculed had been the most notorious pirate in the galaxy and had once left his entire crew to suffocate in order to save his own skin. Perhaps that was why the Brazilian had always underestimated Drift. ‘Just don’t kill anyone unless you have to, over.’

+
You’re never satisfied, that’s your problem. Over.
+

Rourke grinned. ‘We established long ago that I’d never be satisfied by you. Out.’ Apirana gave a bark of laughter on the far side of the cab. It was a welcome sound: the big man had seemed uncommonly dejected since she’d met up with him and Jenna again, and Rourke didn’t put that entirely down to the pain of his broken ankle. Beside her, Skanda turned slightly to eye her curiously, and she sighed. ‘Don’t say anything.’

‘I wasn’t—’

‘I could hear you
thinking
it.’

With the individual parts of the revolution no longer able to communicate with each other or, crucially, with Tanja, Rourke felt able to take a chance. She navigated through the streets of Level Two and pulled the truck up next to a crowd of revolutionaries who were surrounding the pedestrian elevators, then jumped out and beckoned Jenna over. ‘You can get these working, right?’