Dark Run

by Mike Brooks

  There was a sound like the most violent hailstorm ever hitting the viewshield and he slammed his hand onto the jamming switch even before Jia’s shout of ‘Now!’ His headphones were momentarily clogged with the blast of white noise from the Jonah’s own transmitters as Jia hauled them around yet again; the shuttle described a tight arc out through the bottom of the ring, which was merely a few tens of metres deep, and back up into it again.

  ‘Status?’ Jia barked.

  ‘Yes!’ Drift punched the air as the missile’s signal faded, presumably passing them astern as its targeting system was confused by the combination of jamming and the radar-baffling particles of the ring structure. ‘Lost it!’

  ‘Great,’ the pilot replied, her voice still tense. ‘The others?’

  ‘Uh . . .’ Drift frowned at his screen, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. ‘They’ve gone.’

  Jia actually looked over her shoulder at him, the ear flaps of her pilot hat wobbling as she did so. ‘Define “gone”.’

  ‘Nothing has a lock on us,’ Drift told her, checking again to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. Sure enough, the display remained suspiciously clear. ‘They must have cleared when we went through the ring.’

  ‘Or your system’s glitched and we’re about to get blown out of the stars,’ Rybak put in darkly.

  ‘Or,’ Jia continued as they pulled up above the main ring layer once more and the dark bulk of the asteroid loomed up ahead, ‘Jenna’s got off her ass and is running the show now, which is why the doors are opening.’

  ‘They’re what?’ Drift looked up from his station and, sure enough, the gleam of metal now had a slowly widening dark line in its centre. Moments later there was a crackle of static over the speakers, followed by a familiar and all-too-welcome voice.

  +Shuttle Jonah, this is Jenna McIlroy. You are cleared for landing so long as you do it fucking quickly, because I am slicing like a goddamn bastard to keep control of this rock’s systems from whatever techno-wizard they have on board. I’d appreciate you coming in and establishing a perimeter, or whatever it is you do, before I get someone else trying to burn their way into my shuttle.+

  ‘Jenna!’ Drift’s spirits, which had been dipping almost as fast as the Jonah trying to evade a missile, soared once more. ‘Damn, it’s good to hear your voice!’ He frowned. ‘Wait, did you say “someone else” trying to burn their way in?’

  +Uh, yeah.+ There was a nervous and slightly manic laugh. +But we’re in the main hangar bay and, well, I needed to open the door for you guys which involved a security override anyway so . . . I guess it got kinda cold and hard for them to breathe, real quick.+

  Drift exchanged a sober look with Jia. That sounded to him like a Jenna who was stretched about to breaking point. ‘We’re coming in.’

  ‘Damn right we are,’ Jia muttered, throwing more power to the drive and activating the internal comm to address the crowd of Europan troopers in their cargo bay. ‘Hold onto ya butts!’

  ‘Better strap in,’ Drift advised Rybak. ‘When she brakes, she brakes hard.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Rybak replied, following his suggestion and dropping into the seat where Jenna herself would normally be. ‘I’ll say this for your pilot; she can certainly fly.’

  ‘Never say that until we’re inside!’ Jia shouted. ‘Are we still clear?’

  ‘Still clear!’ Drift confirmed, seeing a welcome lack of targeting icons on his scope. At this distance they’d barely have any warning to evade, especially given how fast they were closing on the asteroid. Which was a point, actually. He swallowed nervously. ‘Jia, aren’t we going in a bit—’

  Even given his warning to Rybak, Jia’s application of the retros still caught him by surprise.‘Jesús Cristo!’

  ‘Told ya to hold on,’ Jia snapped, ‘not my fault if you din’t listen.’ The hangar mouth swallowed them with Jia still firing retros, and only a few hastily flicked switches activated the mags and cancelled the Jonah’s artificial gravity before the Heim field of the asteroid took hold of them. The bay itself was larger than any he’d seen except on the biggest ships, and held two other cargo shuttles besides the hulking shape of the Early Dawn.

  ‘Jenna, we’re in,’ Drift wheezed into the comm. ‘You can shut the doors and repressurise, if you can.’

  +On it. Hey, you okay?+

  ‘Yeah, you know what Jia’s flying’s like.’ Drift ignored the snort from the pilot’s chair, slapped at the release on his crash harness and turned to Rybak, who was breathing a little hard herself. ‘Coming, Captain?’

  ‘Certainly, Captain,’ the Europan officer responded, disentangling her own arms from the restraints. She seemed to have got her head around the notion that the Keiko and the Jonah belonged to Drift, warranting him the title of ‘Captain’ despite Rourke still being addressed as ‘Agent’ and viewed as being in charge.

  They came out above the cargo bay and its corresponding payload of nearly one hundred Europan troops in atmo-suits and maglock harnesses, some clamped upright to the walls and the rest lying on the floor, secured against whatever misfortunes might arise from rapid changes of velocity. Rybak adjusted her comm but still raised her voice slightly, probably unconsciously.

  ‘We have breached the asteroid and are currently setting down in the main hangar bay! Standard sweepand-clear, all contacts are to be treated as hostile and engaged unless and until they put down arms and surrender! We believe that the GIA currently have control of this rock’s computer systems,’ here she threw a look at Drift, who gave a hopefully encouraging thumbs-up, ‘but that status is subject to change so I want everyone’s suits to remain sealed until you have at least two airlocks between you and this hangar! Suit protocol from that point will be decided by your squad commander on an individual basis!’ She paused for a second, then dropped her voice to little more than a fierce whisper.

  ‘Go show these bastards what it means to start a war with Europa.’

  ‘YES MA’AM!’ the cargo bay roared back, mag harnesses being unfastened and weapons readied. Within seconds the entirety of Rybak’s company were poised at the main ramp and Drift only just managed to stifle a truly incongruous giggle.

  It had actually worked. The time since Kelsier’s cargo had so spectacularly vaporised part of the North Sea was a jumbled blur: week after week of shitting construction blocks, living by the skin of their teeth and fraying their nerves, trying to spin a web of bullshit fast enough and far enough to get clear of the clutching fingers which seemed to be closing in on all sides. And, against all odds, they’d nearly done it. Here they were, poised to unleash the military might of the old bastard’s former government against him based on the strength of Drift’s tongue, Rourke’s old electat and a Defence Ministry communique forged by a girl just out of her teens with a knack for slicing and the view that, when it came to computers, laws were things which happened to other people. Now there was just one thing left to take care of: Nicolas Kelsier himself.

  And this, of course, was far too important a detail to leave to the Europans. They might get it wrong.

  The Jonah touched down and Jia immediately hit the ramp release, as per instructions. The fully suited Europan troops charged down it as soon as it tipped beyond horizontal, fanning out and sweeping the hangar bay with their weapons. A few shots reached Drift’s ears, indicating that there were at least some of the asteroid’s crew that hadn’t realised exactly what magnitude of threat had come aboard in the slightly battered Carcharodon-class shuttle.

  ‘Agent?’ Rybak had finished fastening her own helmet in place and was walking down the steps to where Rourke was standing, her atmo-suit dark green and looking rather shabby in comparison with the Europans’ slate-blue combat rigs.

  ‘Captain.’ Rourke looked even odder in an atmosuit than most people did, and it took Drift a moment to realise that she seemed wrongly proportioned without her coat and hat. Rybak wasn’t a particularly tall woman, but next to her Rourke looked almost like a child. Granted,
few children would be handling a Crusader 920 with such familiarity. Hopefully.

  ‘Let’s go and see what we can flush out,’ Rybak said, drawing a sidearm. A quartet of soldiers drew up around them on a bodyguard detail and, thus flanked, the two women made their way down into the hangar. Drift waited until they were out of sight, then activated his comm.

  ‘Jia? Can you patch me through to Jenna?’

  +Done.+

  ‘Jenna,’ Drift said, making his way across the gantry to the opposite airlock, ‘how’re you holding up in there?’

  +Your friends have certainly made my job easier,+ the young slicer replied. +Whoever was trying to take the systems back from me seems to have other things on their mind now.+

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ Drift said agreeably. He reached the door and palmed it open.‘How about your friend? Is she still with you?’

  +Sara? Yeah, she’s just gone to the galley to make some coffee now we don’t have to worry about anyone breaking in.+

  ‘She’s not in the room? Good.’ Drift stepped through and let the door hiss shut behind him. Ahead of him, Apirana poked his head out of the Jonah’s own canteen with an enquiring expression. Drift gave the Maori the thumbs-up and his voice took on a more businesslike tone. ‘Have you got access to schematics?’

  +Sure. What do you need?+

  ‘I need to know where Kelsier is,’ Drift told her flatly, ‘and A. and I need to get there before the Europans do.’

  +Gotcha. What does he look like? They’ve got cameras most places . . . well, they did, but I’ve decided they don’t need to see the feeds. However, I’ve still got cameras most places . . .+

  ‘White, old, straggly pale hair to about his collar, mechanical right hand . . .’ Drift paused. ‘Wait. Where haven’t they got cameras? Because I’d bet money the old snake doesn’t want anyone spying on his private nest.’

  +We’ve got . . . ooh, that’s interesting. It looks like . . . yeah, there’s a few corridors and rooms on the schematics which I can’t seem to find on camera,+ Jenna confirmed. +There’s a little network in the middle of it all. It’s pulling down a lot of power as well.+

  ‘Sounds like a good place to start,’ Drift confirmed. Apirana appeared again, now with Micah’s immolation cannon slung over his shoulders by its strap, and Drift barely restrained a wince; the indiscriminate firepower of the big gun would be devastating in the sort of narrow corridors the asteroid was likely to offer. Still, at least it was going to be on his side. ‘How do we get there?’

  +You might be in luck. It looks like our Europan friends have already gone past one of the entrances without turning in, and they’ve been poking their noses in everywhere else. I’m guessing they’re concealed.+

  ‘This is sounding more and more promising,’ Drift said, feeling a tight grin spreading across his face. ‘Send your friend over to the Jonah so she doesn’t see what’s going on.’ He looked up at Apirana. ‘Okay big man, time to move.’

  ‘Let’s end this,’ the Maori growled in reply.

  Drift had wondered about taking a larger gun, but the asteroid was likely to resemble a starship’s interior and he reckoned he’d had more experience of starship boarding than most. Firepower was useful, but speed of reaction was vastly more important than accuracy at range, so he trusted that his pistols would do the job. All the same, he couldn’t help feeling slightly under-equipped as he watched Apirana carrying an assault rifle in one massive hand and steadying the immolation cannon with the other while they jogged across the hangar bay deck towards the Early Dawn.

  +Captain, I’m sending Sara out to you with the drive you’ll need,+ Jenna’s voice crackled into his ear suddenly, +so please don’t shoot her.+

  ‘Gotcha.’ The crew ramp began to lower from the Sei-class shuttle before Drift had finished speaking. He vaguely recognised the girl who appeared out of the Early Dawn’s cargo bay from the introductions back on Hroza Major and raised a hand in greeting. She returned it uncertainly, and seemed to be eyeing Apirana’s weapons uneasily.

  ‘Uh, hi. Jenna said to give you this.’ She held up a small black device, which Drift took from her and tucked into a belt pouch. ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘Just got to go and take care of something,’ Drift said, as reassuringly as he could. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Our ride’s there; go grab a snack and we’ll be back with the rest of them.’ He tapped Apirana’s arm and the two of them turned away, heading for the nearest airlock entrance into the asteroid’s interior.

  ‘Do the soldiers know you’re going in?’ the girl called after them, sounding worried. Drift ignored her; he had more important things to concentrate on than lying to a surveillance officer.

  As he’d expected, the asteroid’s corridors bore a strong resemblance to those of a starship. They were lined with metal instead of being left open as bare rock, presumably to allow the use of mag-levs for the movement of heavy cargo, and the most obvious difference was the rows of pipes and wires, all of which were inside the main corridor since there was no space around it to run them out of sight as was normal practice in a ship. Apirana kept having to duck or sway to one side whenever they encountered a ventilation outlet hanging down from the ceiling like some sort of infeasibly regular stalactite.

  They only had to turn one corner before they found their first bodies.

  ‘The Europans ain’t messing, are they?’ Apirana said, casting an eye over the trio of dead pirates strewn across the corridor beneath a hail of bullet damage to the metal panelling on the wall. Drift saw his eyes narrow, and the Maori’s face screwed up into a grimace. ‘Two of these ain’t even armed.’

  ‘Do you see any reporters around?’ Drift asked him, advancing to the next junction and trying to ignore the feeling in his gut which told him that these deaths were a direct result of his trickery. ‘No one’s watching this little war. That means no one needs to play by the rules.’ He activated his comm again. ‘Jenna, which way?’

  +You’ve got two entrances nearby which the Europans seem to have walked right past, even though they’ve cleaned out the rooms around you. Turn right to get to the closest one, it’s just around the next corner.+

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Drift agreed. He eyed the corridor ahead of them; perhaps fifty yards of no cover save the very slight insets of doorways into side chambers. ‘You’re certain the Europans cleared these rooms out, right?’

  +Trust me Captain, they seem to be killing everything they come across,+ Jenna replied, sounding a little sick. Drift nodded grimly.

  ‘Alright then. A.?’

  ‘Right behind ya,’ the Maori replied. Drift doublechecked that his pistols’ magazines were engaged and the safeties were off.

  ‘Let’s go then.’

  They made it halfway down the corridor before Jenna’s voice rang in his ear again, tight with urgency.

  +Captain, the entrance is opening!+

  INSIDE THE WEB

  ‘Shit!’ Drift brought both his guns up to cover the corridor ahead as he and Apirana halted from their jogging pace. ‘What’s happening?’ +There’s three . . . no, five . . . wait, seven . . . guys, just get out of there, they’re coming your way!+

  Jenna’s warning wasn’t necessary; Drift could now hear a clatter of boots ahead of them. There wasn’t time to get back to the previous junction to take cover so he dropped to one knee and took aim at the corner, both guns outstretched. Behind him and to his right he heard Apirana grunt as the Maori hoisted the immolation cannon up to shoulder height.

  The first man came around the corner, saw them and began to whip his rifle up into a firing position, but Drift’s right-hand pistol barked twice and dropped him before he could bring it to bear properly. There were shouts of consternation and a gun barrel appeared around the corner, but the whump of the immolation cannon was followed immediately by its shell impacting on the wall edge. Some of the volatile gel spattered across the metal face Drift could see and started burning as it came into contact with the air, but
the majority of the weapon’s payload clearly found targets judging by the sudden screaming.

  Drift grimaced: Kelsier’s goons obviously hadn’t expected them and had been driven back momentarily, but he and Apirana were essentially sitting ducks in the corridor should they regroup. They needed to end this, and quickly, and his mind flashed back to something particularly stupid he’d done when boarding a merchantman about fifteen years ago. He’d been younger and thought he was immortal, and he’d been trying to impress a gorgeous young new addition to his crew; she’d had hair like fire, slightly crooked teeth, and a pair of breasts which would have made the ancient sculptors throw their chisels away and start sobbing at their inability to capture such perfection in stone. A shame he couldn’t remember her name.

  ‘Cover me,’ he told Apirana.

  ‘Say what?’

  Drift was moving before he’d even properly registered that the Maori didn’t seem to have understood his instruction. He burst up from his crouch, took four or five quick steps and then slid on his back, feet first, past the line of the wall with both his guns raised.

  The small crowd of the asteroid’s crew – just over half a dozen, perhaps – were in some disarray. He fired into the pack, trying to concentrate on the ones not distracted by clawing at their own flesh or clothing as the immolation gel burned away at them, but realistically he was hardly in a position for sharpshooting. His sudden appearance prompted a spatter of wild shots but they fizzed over him, which was, in fairness, what he’d been counting on. He skidded by the man he’d shot down a second ago, praying to any deity who might be listening that he was either dead or well on the way instead of just winged, and ended up against the corridor’s far wall with his legs bunched beneath him, both pistols dry and the gun barrels of the two men and one woman who were still upright tracking towards his now-stationary form.

  At least, until Apirana stepped around the corner and pulled the trigger of the immolation cannon twice. One man took the first shell full in the face and was taken clean off his feet by the force of the impact; the second shot crashed into the woman’s chest and enough spattered onto the man beside her to incapacitate them both in the way that only flaming chemical incendiaries could truly achieve. God, but Drift sometimes wished he’d never let Micah bring that thing on board his ship. Still, it was undeniably effective. He ejected his magazines and fumbled for clips to reload, not least to put their former antagonists out of their misery and stop the damnable screaming.