Dark Run

by Mike Brooks

  Words.

  ‘I’m taking it from people’s reactions that they don’t think going after Kelsier is a particularly sensible thing to do,’ he began. ‘Let me put this to you another way: going after Kelsier is the only thing to do. We’re a ship full of loose ends who know that he just tried to nuke Amsterdam. We were meant to die in the explosion and tie everything up neatly, but when he finds out what happened he’ll know we’re still alive, and then he will come hunting us.’

  ‘Hunting you,’ Kuai snorted, ‘he only knows you! As soon as I walk out that door . . .’

  Drift shook his head, a humourless smile on his lips. ‘You’re not getting it. He hired us to do a job: sure, he picked me to do it because he thought I might trust him, or he had blackmail material on me, but for some fucked-up reason he needed that nuke to blow up in Amsterdam. He needed a crew who could do a difficult smuggling job, to schedule. He’s a careful man, which means he did his research, and that means he knows my crew. Odds are he knows all of us by name. And he already found us once.’

  ‘Yeah, when we weren’t trying to hide!’ Jia argued. ‘Why can’t we just let this blow over?’

  ‘Because it won’t,’ Drift answered bluntly. ‘You don’t know the man who hired us. I do. When he worked for the Europans and he was giving orders to people like Micah and me, he was very careful, very clever and very ruthless. That was when he was in a government with laws and rules and God knows what around him, even if he might have ignored some of them from time to time. You follow me? Now, imagine a man like that who only answers to himself, and ask yourself whether he’s going to have got any more forgiving.’ He looked over at Micah. ‘Would you agree?’

  ‘He’s a psychopath,’ Micah said simply, ‘and the main reason I left the FDU.’

  ‘Oh no, was he sending you somewhere you might have got shot at?’ Kuai asked nastily. Micah glowered at the mechanic.

  ‘Don’t talk like you’ve ever picked up a gun in anger, little man,’ the mercenary sneered. ‘You expect the staatslieden to think of the big picture, yes, because they won’t be doing the fighting themselves, but some of the orders coming out of ETRA . . .’ He tailed off, shaking his head.

  ‘Anyway, Jia, why are you suggesting hiding?’ Drift demanded, turning back to their pilot. ‘Someone cuts you up in the sky, you threaten to hit them so hard their children will be born bruised. Someone tries to blow you up and you’re just going to run away and say “Please sir, don’t do it again”?’

  ‘It’s not the same,’ Jia growled, but Drift could see that he’d stung her pride. He scanned the faces in front of him and settled on Rourke’s.

  ‘Tamara. You were calling for blood earlier. I’m with you.’ He spread his hands. ‘Are you still in?’

  ‘That was before I knew your history,’ Rourke said flatly. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

  ‘You might note that we’ve worked together for eight years without me killing you, or killing anyone else who’s ever been on the crew, or even leaving someone to die,’ Drift shot back. ‘I mean, I didn’t have to come back and get you on Severus Prime, did I?’

  ‘No,’ Rourke admitted.

  ‘Or how about Benjamin, that time on Janus III? We didn’t leave him behind, did we?’

  ‘He died anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s because we couldn’t get him to the med facility fast enough,’ Drift countered. ‘We tried to help him.’ He waved his hands. ‘Look, I’m not saying this will be easy, but Kelsier will be expecting us to go to ground. He won’t be ready for us to come after him.’

  ‘That might be because it’s a stupid idea,’ Kuai retorted. ‘If he’s got resources to find us if we hide, he’s got resources to protect himself from one little ship. And how would we find him, anyway?’

  ‘Alex might know where to start,’ Drift shrugged. There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘Why,’ Rourke said carefully, ‘might Alex know?’

  ‘Alexander Cruz was the captain of the Dead Man’s Hand,’ Drift replied. ‘He was my main rival, I guess.’

  ‘That pompous little toerag was the Butcher of Dawnside?’ Apirana blurted out.

  ‘You’ve brought us to a starport run by another of Kelsier’s ex-privateers?’ Rourke demanded incredulously, cutting over the Maori. ‘How do you know he won’t sell us out?’

  ‘Firstly, because I had no choice,’ Drift replied honestly, ‘it was here or nowhere. Secondly, because he’s a stubborn bastard with an overinflated opinion of his own honour and he owes me a favour. Thirdly, because if he’d been planning to double-cross us he wouldn’t have been so hostile: he’s not trying to get us to stick around to trap us, he wants us gone before we make his life difficult. I’m inclined to oblige him.’

  ‘So am I,’ Kuai snorted. ‘Jia? Let’s go.’

  The pilot looked sideways at her brother, but didn’t move.

  ‘Do you have a plan, Kuai?’ Drift pressed. ‘Do you know what you’re going to do next? Or are you just going to walk out into Atlantic City and hope you can find someone who needs a mechanic?’

  ‘That beats hoping to find a terrorist,’ Kuai retorted. ‘Jia?’

  His sister’s eyes were fixed on Drift. He could see the uncertainty in her face, but there had always been a fire in the Jonah’s pilot which wasn’t present in her sibling. Drift wasn’t entirely sure if the Chinese had a word that exactly equated to ‘forgiveness’, but even if they did Jia didn’t know the meaning of it.

  ‘You think you can find him?’ she asked him, ignoring her brother.

  Drift nodded. ‘Yes.’ He deliberately didn’t say how long it would take, but Jia’s arched eyebrow suggested she’d caught on.

  ‘You find out where he is by the time traffic’s cleared to break atmo,’ she said flatly, ‘and you have a plan for taking him down, or I’m finding something else to fly off this rock.’ Only now did she meet Kuai’s eyes: the mechanic said something sharp in Mandarin which Drift vaguely recognised to be a querying of her sanity, before Jia responded with an aggressive flurry he had no hope of understanding. He ignored the squabbling Changs and turned his attention to Micah.

  ‘Well?’ he asked. The Dutch mercenary grimaced.

  ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘Fair play,’ Drift nodded, trying to ignore the sinking feeling he was starting to experience. He’d hoped Micah would be fully with him, but the disadvantage of having someone who could confirm Kelsier’s ruthlessness was that the other person would also be understandably unwilling to tackle the old bastard’s operation. ‘Would you feel safer looking for Kelsier through your gunsight or over your shoulder?’

  Micah blinked. ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Risk deserves fair reward,’ Drift added, seeking the leverage he needed. ‘He’s got resources, and I’m intending to clean him out. Anything we take from him gets split seven ways, equally. After expenses.’

  ‘Equal shares?’ Micah’s eyebrows quirked before he drew them into a frown again. ‘You can’t just blind me with money, you know.’

  ‘You know him, at least by reputation,’ Drift pressed. ‘You know he’ll be coming after us anyway; you might as well get paid for fighting his goons, surely?’

  Micah grimaced again, then sighed and shook his head. He nodded sideways at Jia, raising his voice to be heard over the argument. ‘Okay then, but I’m with her. You have a location and a plan by the time we need to move, and I’m with you. Otherwise I’ll take my chances alone.’

  Drift nodded gratefully, then eyed the arguing Changs with some irritation. Still, he was well aware that his authority as Captain was wafer-thin at the moment and the last thing he wanted to do was annoy Jia by telling her to be quiet and causing her to side with her brother out of sheer contrariness, so he turned his attention to the three remaining members of what was still at least nominally his crew.

  ‘Jenna?’ He grimaced, not needing to feign reluctance at the thought of her leaving. ‘I know you haven’t been with us long, but—’r />
  ‘I’ve got nowhere else to go,’ she answered, cutting him off. ‘You picked up a drunk girl and gave her a ride and a job instead of robbing her or . . . worse.’ She attempted a smile, although it was shaky and half-formed. ‘Just try not to get me killed.’

  Drift smiled, the same reassuring grin which had assured many a wary trader of his honesty. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ To his right, the squabbling in Mandarin had subsided, with Kuai wearing the sulky expression of someone who’d lost an argument. Which was, in fairness, exactly what Drift had been counting on: if the mechanic felt the need to ‘look after’ his little sister then he’d hardly abandon her if she was heading off into danger. And thinking of danger . . .

  He turned to look at Apirana, trying not to let his unease show on his face. ‘You’re pretty distinctive, big man. Might find it hard to hide.’

  Apirana just nodded, lips tight and face blank. Drift waited for a further reaction, but none came.

  Except from Jenna.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ the young slicer sighed. ‘Captain, Apirana is sorry he let his temper get out of control and he wants to remain part of the crew, otherwise he’d be off the ship already.’ She turned and addressed the big Maori, whose expression had rapidly slipped into ‘stunned’. ‘Apirana, the Captain wants you to stay or he’d have ordered you off the ship already, but neither of you are prepared to say anything unless you can work out what the other one intends, and goddamnit both of you suck at this!’

  The shocked silence after Jenna’s outburst was broken only by a snigger from, of all people, Tamara Rourke. Drift glared at her, then briefly at Jenna, then set himself and faced Apirana again.

  ‘You want to stay?’

  The Maori’s mouth worked as though more words were trapped behind his lips, but the only one which emerged was a vaguely embarrassed, ‘Yeah.’

  Drift felt his guts get a little less fluttery. He’d honestly had no idea what the big man’s intentions were; Apirana’s emotions were usually so clear that the close-faced, silent Maori had quite thrown him. But if he was willing to stay, that meant he wouldn’t be wandering around Atlantic City and sticking out like a sore thumb . . .

  ‘Good,’ he nodded firmly, trying to take it in his stride, ‘you’re a solid hand and I’m happy to have you. However, if you so much as threaten me again then you will be leaving this ship, immediately, no matter where we are at the time. Are we clear?’

  This time Apirana’s voice was firmer. ‘Yeah.’

  Drift held his gaze for another second, then turned to Tamara Rourke. ‘Well?’

  Rourke met his eyes, her stare weighing and considering. ‘You’ve got a tall order, Ichabod.’

  ‘I can do it. I will do it!’ He heard some of his anger at Kelsier bleeding into his voice, and left it there. ‘I’ve worked too hard to have to give everything up to run and hide. I’ve built a reputation, damn it! We all have, that’s why we get work! If we’re too scared to tell people who we are then we lose all that! Plus,’ he added after a second, ‘he has really fucked me off.’

  Rourke nodded slowly, casting glances to either side of her. ‘It seems you’ve talked your way out of another tight spot, at least for now.’ She met his eyes again. ‘Very well. If we have a location and a plan by the time your “friend” Alex gives us our marching orders, I’m with you.’

  Drift tried to conceal the huge sigh of relief that suddenly built in his chest. He might have only put off the trouble, but he’d take the spectre of trouble in a couple of days to the reality of trouble now. ‘I’m glad that’s settled. Now, any questions?’

  ‘Yeah, why the hell would anyone want to blow up Amsterdam?’ Apirana asked. ‘What’s this guy Kelsier’s play?’

  ‘He told me he’d been fired by the Europans for corruption,’ Drift admitted. ‘The way he said it made me think that was just a cover for him being moved into whatever secrets he was peddling now, but I guess that was his intention.’

  ‘Double bluff,’ Rourke nodded.‘So are you thinking this was a revenge hit? But why Amsterdam?’

  ‘I know there was a group of Dutch politicians who brought a lot of the charges against him,’ Micah put in, ‘it might have something to do with that? I mean, he must’ve been fired about three years ago, but I reckon he’s the type to hold a grudge.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the old bastard’s got a record of everyone who’s wronged him tucked away somewhere,’ Drift agreed bitterly, ‘and God knows he’s careful enough to wait a year or two until everything’s planned out before he acts. Besides, I doubt even he could get his hands on an atom bomb just like that.’

  ‘Get fired, blow up a city?’ Jia asked incredulously. ‘That’s kind of an overreaction, ain’t it?’

  Micah grimaced. ‘I never met him, but if the sorts of orders we got in the FDU were any guide then I can say Nicolas Kelsier doesn’t exactly do “proportional response”.’

  Drift nodded. ‘It was always effectiveness first, efficiency second. He didn’t give much of a damn about collateral damage if what he wanted to get done got done; Cruz wouldn’t have lasted, otherwise. I can buy Kelsier nuking an entire city to take out a few people. Besides, if he did something more specific people might start asking who had an agenda against those victims, and then it might get traced back to him.’

  ‘And you’re saying you got a plan to deal with this guy?’ Kuai asked, his voice dripping with doubt.

  ‘I’ve . . . got the beginnings of one,’ Drift replied, and to his astonishment he realised that it was actually true. He pointed at the Changs, Micah and Apirana. ‘First things first: you four go and get some sleep. We’ve all been wired too tight for too long.’

  ‘Aye, Captain!’ Jia shouted gratefully, turning on her heel immediately. ‘I’ll be in my bunk. Any of you wakes me up unless we need to fly somewhere, you’d best be prepared to duck.’ She disappeared without hesitation, heading in the direction of her cabin. The other three turned to follow her, with grins from Apirana and Micah, and Kuai still looking ready to kick something.

  Drift looked at Jenna. ‘I know you’ll be tired too, but I need you to get onto the Spine and see if you can do anything to fog searches for us. There’ll be a hundred and one theories about what went down already, ranging from terrorists to aliens, so see if you can give credence to the ones which don’t involve a Carcharodon-class shuttle. Then get your head down, too; I reckon we’ll be needing you again.’

  Jenna nodded wearily and headed for the cockpit, which left Rourke and Drift alone.

  Rourke folded her arms. ‘Well? I have to say, I’m intrigued as to what your plan can possibly be.’

  Drift chewed over his words for a second. ‘What do you know about the Laughing Man?’

  Rourke’s face went completely blank, even more so than usual. ‘The Laughing Man? As in, Marcus Hall?’

  ‘Unless there’s more than one,’ Drift shrugged uneasily.‘Kelsier had him running as his private attack dog when he cornered me on Carmella.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Flashed his electat at me,’ Drift said, waving a hand at his face. ‘Either someone out there’s decided to get one as close to the descriptions as they can, or—’

  ‘No one would dare,’ Rourke said absently, her eyes starting to wander. Drift recognised the pattern; what he thought of as her ‘planning’ mode, where her senses automatically checked for threats or bugs while her brain started to work on a problem. She licked her lips absently. ‘Well, that explains why you were so scared, at any rate.’

  ‘I was not . . .’ Drift saw her expression, and tailed off. ‘Okay, I was a bit. Look, it’s not that I didn’t want to tell the others about this, but I wanted to talk to you about him first.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ Rourke asked, scratching her nose. ‘I’ve no doubt you’ve heard the same stories I have. Not all of them are physically possible, of course, but either way it means we’ll have to be doubly careful, and we know Kelsier�
��s got some serious resources at his disposal.’ She nodded slowly. ‘That might actually make it easier, in a way. The larger his footprint, the easier he’ll be to track down. If he can source a nuke and hire Hall . . .’

  Drift made a vague noise of agreement, but noted to himself that Rourke hadn’t answered his question. Something to be considered another time, perhaps. At present, however, he had to deal with another problem courtesy of the enigma that was Tamara Rourke. He still found her as hard to read as he ever had, but he had at least seen a crack in the shell. Granted, it had taken a nuclear bomb to achieve, but it was a sign that there was something under there. People and their natures had always fascinated Ichabod Drift, which was why he’d ended up so good at playing them when he needed to, and his interest in the one in front of him had been renewed. Possibly even enough to overlook what she’d just done, although that rather depended on how co-operative she planned to be.

  ‘There’s one other thing,’ he said, bracing himself. ‘I think you’ve left us with a few difficulties.’

  ‘I’ve left us with difficulties?’ Rourke snorted incredulously. ‘I wasn’t the one who—’

  ‘I’m not talking about the job,’ Drift cut her off, raising a hand, ‘I’m talking about the crew. I can excuse Apirana, once; everyone knows he’s got a short fuse and sometimes he blows up, it’s how he is. You, on the other hand: in the eight years since you’ve been on this boat you’ve demonstrated an emotional range roughly equivalent to that of a particularly stoic asteroid. Yet you still pulled a gun on me in front of everyone else, and held me to account. That’s mutiny.’

  Rourke blinked. ‘You are calling me out for mutiny?’

  ‘Hello? Captain over here,’ Drift pointed out, jerking a thumb at his own chest. ‘I’m not in danger of starting another mutiny because I’ve got no one to mutiny against. This is my damn ship, and everyone on it needs to know that they do what I tell them, not what I tell them unless you currently have a gun held to my head! Sure, I’m not going to tell Jia how to fly or Jenna how to slice, or Kuai how to keep the engines running or Micah how to shoot someone, but . . .’ He threw his hands up. ‘That’s why I hired experts, so I can tell them what I want doing and they work out how best to actually do it.’