Dark Deeds

by Mike Brooks

  Rourke leaned back as far as she dared and frantically slammed her left knee into Larysa’s ribs, over and over. The first few blows bought her nothing but grunts from the other woman, but then Larysa’s furious mask spasmed in pain, and her right arm jerked involuntarily downwards in an attempt to protect herself.

  Rourke released Larysa’s right wrist and lashed out with the best punch she could muster, striking the bigger woman square in the temple. Larysa didn’t go fully limp, but her body abruptly lost much of its strength, and her left arm faltered in its quest for Rourke’s throat. Rourke dropped Larysa’s other wrist, kneeling on the bodyguard’s right arm as she did so, and lashed out twice with her right hand. The punches struck home almost undefended, and Larysa’s eyes started to roll back in her head.

  Rourke grabbed the shard that Larysa had been trying to lacerate her with from the other woman’s unresisting fingers and stabbed it into the bodyguard’s throat, then rolled clear of the gout of blood.

  There was a thud, then a gunshot, quickly followed by two more.

  Rourke came up in a crouch and saw Drift on his back on the floor, and she tasted bile in her throat. Then she saw the gun in his hands, pointed upwards at Roman, who had apparently just thrown him there. The bald man’s shirt was abruptly flooding with red, and he staggered sideways on suddenly unsteady legs. He managed to focus on Rourke, his face twisting in incomprehension as he struggled for a word in Russian.

  “Why . . . ?”

  Then his foot caught something, and he collapsed, unable to keep his balance. Rourke got to her feet and noticed Larysa’s gun was still on the floor where she’d knocked it: Drift must have wrestled Roman’s from him in their struggle.

  She crossed to Ichabod’s side and knelt down. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” the Mexican puffed. “Just winded.” He turned to look at her, struggling for breath. “What the hell . . . was that for?”

  Rourke gritted her teeth.

  Everything.

  But she couldn’t say that. She couldn’t explain to Drift how she’d given her word to Orlov that she’d remain in his employment, and that she had no idea if he’d let her go back on that word. That the only way she could be sure of her and Drift both getting out was to strike first, and strike hard, before Roman or Larysa had any notion that things weren’t going to go down the way they’d thought.

  She couldn’t explain that she was angry at herself for agreeing to work for Orlov in the first place, and also at herself for going back on the decision that was best for her. She couldn’t also explain that she was angry at Drift for coming back and putting her in this position. She certainly couldn’t explain that she was irrationally, unfairly angry at Kuai for dying and being the source of the guilt that had caused her to change her mind.

  “For Kuai,” she said levelly, holding Drift’s gaze. “If Orlov hadn’t forced you into this deal, he’d still be alive.”

  She turned to look at Sergei Orlov. Her initial blow had been decisive, apparently: The most powerful man in the Rassvet system was slumped in his chair, drool running from his mouth while blood and vitreous jelly leaked down his right cheek. The pen was still sticking out of his eye socket.

  “You should have listened to me,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Huh?” Drift grunted, propping himself up on his elbows.

  “Never mind,” Rourke told him, grabbing him under the arm and hauling him to his feet. “Come on, we need to get out of here.” She eyed the apartment’s entrance warily. “Did Roman manage to call anyone?”

  “Give me some credit, please,” Drift said, holding up a comm in his left hand. “I might have been able to take him out quicker if I hadn’t needed to worry about him calling for backup.”

  Rourke nodded, thinking quickly. “Good. Even so, someone might have heard those shots. I know there’s good soundproofing here, but you never know. We’d best move.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Drift said. He spread his arms, gesturing at the walls around them. “Move where? If we take the elevator down, I think people might start asking questions about why we’re unaccompanied and why we look like we’ve been in a fight.”

  “Simple,” Rourke said, crossing to Orlov and rooting in his pockets. “We don’t go down; we go up. Orlov’s aircar is parked on the roof. All we need to do is get to street level, and we can go on foot from there.” She retrieved the gangster’s car fob, then eyed the money spread out over the table and began raking it back into the pack Orlov had tipped it out of. Drift hunkered down wordlessly next to her and scooped more up, passing it to her.

  “Ichabod,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “It means a lot.” She moistened her lips and went on. “It really does. That you came back for me. Even though you didn’t know what he was going to do. Even though you’d . . . though we lost Kuai.”

  “And Jia,” Drift said heavily, dumping another double handful of notes into the pack.

  Rourke felt her chest constrict again. “What?”

  “Not . . . no,” Drift said hastily. “Not like that. But she’s left the crew. She’s taken Kuai back to Old Earth. We had to hire a new pilot on the fly, as it were. Kid called Spark.” He cleared his throat, as though he was having trouble speaking. “Seems sound enough.”

  “Oh.” Rourke stared at the pack for a moment. Jia had been infuriating at times, and Rourke hadn’t thought she’d really miss her when she’d been planning to stay on New Samara. However, the notion of flying around in the Jonah or the Keiko without Jia at the helm was just . . . weird. What exactly was she going back to?

  She’d have to find out. She’d made her bunk, and she’d lie in it.

  “Okay.” She swept the last of the notes in and closed the pack. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait.”

  She turned to look at Drift, who was eyeing Orlov’s body with an ugly expression on his face.

  “What?” she asked, anxious to just be gone.

  Drift straightened up, took two steps, and plucked the pen loose from Orlov’s eye socket. It came out with an ugly sucking noise. He held it out to Rourke, who recoiled slightly.

  “Ichabod, what the hell?”

  “Write down ‘revenge’ in Chinese,” Drift instructed, proffering the pen again.

  Rourke frowned. “What? Where?”

  “On a piece of paper! I don’t care which one.”

  Rourke took the pen from him, trying not to grimace, turned over one of the pieces of paper Orlov had been dealing with, and scrawled two characters on the blank back of it. “Okay, now can we leave?”

  “One more thing.” Drift took the paper and pen from her, then placed the paper over the left side of Orlov’s face and, to Rourke’s astonishment, pinned it to him by ramming the pen into the former mob boss’s other eye socket. “Yeah, now we can go.”

  “Do you mind telling me what that little display was about?” Rourke asked as they headed for the doors that led to Orlov’s rooftop garden and, indirectly, up to where his aircar was parked on the penthouse roof.

  “We got the money by interfering in a Triax payoff to a crooked security chief,” Drift said, following her. “It seems Muradov took it into his head to tell the woman in question that she could blame the little incident on Sergei Orlov. He said he thought it would help throw the Triax off our scent, although personally, I think it’s more likely he just fancied sending some trouble Orlov’s way.”

  Rourke nodded as she pulled open the doors, and the winds of New Samara whipped around them. “So when word reaches Orlov’s outfit that the Triax blame him for interfering in their dealings, they assume that the ‘revenge’ was the Triax.”

  “And with any luck the two outfits gun for each other indiscriminately instead of focusing on us,” Drift said as they started up the steps to the penthouse roof. “It’s not perfect, but it’s the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment.”

  Rourke laughed humourlessly. “I think you’ve just sum
med up both our lives in one sentence.”

  “I just might have, at that.” They reached the top of the steps, and Drift whistled in momentary appreciation as he took in the sleek lines of Orlov’s private aircar. “Nice. Want me to drive?”

  Rourke knew what was supposed to happen here. She was supposed to snort derisively and insult his driving abilities, then pilot the car herself. It was a routine they went through nearly every time they needed to get somewhere via vehicle, and Drift had initiated it through a desire for some sort of familiarity in a turbulent time.

  It was a routine she currently had no real stomach for, because things weren’t the same between them anymore. But she couldn’t let him know that.

  She snorted. “I’ve seen your driving, remember? Get in, Captain Drift.”

  LOOSE ENDS

  The Jonah was climbing high into the New Samaran sky, heading back for the Keiko, where it lay at anchor at a waystation, and Tamara Rourke was alone in her cabin. The new pilot, Spark, did indeed seem perfectly competent, if a little odd. Then again, Jia Chang had hardly been normal. Come to think of it, most of the career pilots Rourke had met had been odd in one way or another. Perhaps it was something about the job, or more likely, about the sort of person who wanted the job.

  She’d seen Apirana and Jenna, of course, both of whom were delighted to have her back safe and well. She was glad to see them, too, and was also glad that their relationship appeared to have deepened and strengthened while they’d been away from her. Hopefully they could take comfort in that to get them over the loss of Kuai and, in a different way, of his sister.

  Muradov had greeted her professionally and courteously, and had given her rifle back with apologies for using it without her permission. She’d waved the apologies away and had retired to her cabin shortly afterwards, asking not to be disturbed for a while.

  She plugged her comm into her ear and opened her pad up, then dialled a number from memory. They were still close enough to the surface for the Jonah’s transmitters to patch into New Samara’s network and get her signal to where it needed to go, albeit with a second or so delay due to transit time.

  +Hello, Galactic Exports.+

  “Hello,” Rourke said levelly. “Could I speak to Jhonen in Finance, please?”

  +One moment, transferring you now.+

  There was a brief snatch of hold music, and then a new voice came on. It was an older voice, with a slight rasp to it.

  +This is Jhonen. How can I help you?+

  Rourke licked her lips. “My name is Tamara Rourke. I was approached by one of your employees called Danny Wong about an account held at the Grand House.”

  There was a pause, longer than could be accounted for by signal delay.

  +Go on.+

  Rourke swallowed.

  “Please inform our superiors that I have now closed this account.”

  She terminated the call before Jhonen could reply, if he indeed would have done at all, then lay back on her bunk and stared at the ceiling. Eventually her heart rate calmed, her eyes closed, and Tamara Rourke fell asleep.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MIKE BROOKS was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, in the United Kingdom and moved to Nottingham when he was eighteen to go to university. He’s stayed there ever since, and now lives with his wife, two cats, two snakes, and a collection of tropical fish. When not working for a homelessness charity, he plays guitar and sings in a punk band; watches football (soccer), MMA, and nature/science documentaries; goes walking in the Peak District or other areas of splendid scenery; and deejays wherever anyone will tolerate him. And, y’know, he writes. For more information about what he is up to, visit mikebrooks.co.uk or follow him on Twitter at @MikeBrooks668.

  MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT

  SimonandSchuster.com

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Mike-Brooks

  ALSO BY MIKE BROOKS

  Dark Run

  Dark Sky

  We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

  * * *

  Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. * Text copyright © 2017 by Mike Brooks * Jacket illustration copyright © 2017 by John Harris * All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Saga Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. * www.SimonandSchuster.com * SAGA PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. * For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com. * The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. * Also available in a Saga Press paperback edition * The text for this book was set in Adobe Jenson Pro. * Manufactured in the United States of America * First Saga Press hardcover edition October 2017 * 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 * Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data * Names: Brooks, Mike, 1982– author. * Title: Dark deeds / Mike Brooks. * Description: First Saga Press hardcover edition. | New York : Saga Press, 2017. | Series: Keiko ; 3 * Identifiers: LCCN 2017013964 | ISBN 9781534405462 (eBook) | ISBN 9781534405455 (hardcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781534405448 (pbk) * Subjects: LCSH: Space ships—Fiction. | Smugglers—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Space Opera. | FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure. | FICTION / Science Fiction / General. | GSAFD: Adventure fiction. | Science fiction. * Classification: LCC PR6102.R6633 D36 2017 (print) | DDC 823/.92—dc23 * LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013964