Dark Run (25 page)

‘Old lady plays it straight, at any rate,’ Drift muttered. He unzipped his armavest and slipped it off his shoulders, then passed it to Apirana. ‘Fine. Let’s get this over with.’

He wondered what the Maori was frowning at for a second before he remembered the scratch marks down his chest.

‘Oh, so it was
that
sort of “persuasion”,’ Micah snorted. ‘I might have known.’

‘Worked, didn’t it?’ Drift muttered, not feeling in the mood to discuss it any further. Micah opened his mouth to reply but then shut it again; Drift only realised why when Maiha appeared at his shoulder.

‘No nutshots, no biting, no headbutts, no eyepokes and no strikes to the throat,’ she informed him matterof-factly, with no hint of her earlier provocative manner. ‘Disqualification is instant.’

Drift blinked. ‘There are
rules
?’

‘Of course there are rules,’ she snapped. ‘What do you think we are, barbarians? Two of our fighters have gone on to join the IFL! Shoes off.’

Drift knew better than to question or argue, so he bent down to untie his boots. When he’d pulled them off and stood straight again Maiha inspected him thoughtfully, then motioned to Apirana and Micah.

‘Step away, please.’

‘Do it,’ Drift told them, and the Dutchman and Maori obediently stood back. Maiha stepped forwards and started to frisk him, her palms passing over him with a businesslike briskness completely at odds with their previous, private encounter.

Drift sighed. ‘Do you
really
—’

‘Shut up and listen,’ Mai hissed as she reached around him, fingers feeling down his back for some sort of subdermal weapon, presumably. ‘Limberg is good, but you’ll have reach on him, you lanky fucker. Keep moving and keep your jab active in his face. He’ll wait for you to drop your hands and then kick you in the head, but if he gets frustrated he’ll try to get you on your back, and when he does that he tends to leave his neck open. Grab it and squeeze it, and you
might
get out of this one. Oh, and he’s lefthanded, but his stance won’t tell you that.’ She stood back, her face showing nothing but professional satisfaction. ‘He’s clear,’ she announced loudly.

‘
Gentlemen
,’ Nana’s voice declared, ‘
into the cage
,
if you please. That’s if you still want to go through with this
,
Captain?
’ Drift looked up and met her gaze; there was no mockery or gloating there, simply interest.

‘Why the hell not?’ he retorted, loud enough for her to hear him. Limberg was stepping through the door which had been swung open for him, and Drift jogged up to the cage to follow him in. He tried not to hear the
clank
of it shutting behind him as the sound of a prison cell.
Although in fairness, in prison there’s always the chance that your cellmate
won’t
be trying to knock you out.

‘You know the drill!’ Maiha shouted at Limberg from outside the fence, who nodded. Then she turned to Drift. ‘Keep going until you hear the horn!’

‘Sure,’ Drift muttered, taking up a stance he dimly remembered; left hand and leg forwards, right leg back, right hand cocked by his ear to swing or ward off punches, chin tucked into his chest. Sure, he’d done this sort of fighting before, but that was the best part of twenty years ago when he was fresh out of high school on Soleadovalle, and he and all his friends were in the gym thinking they were going to be the next ‘Lightning’ Nik Alvarez. In the intervening years his main involvement in physical altercations had consisted of hitting anything
with
anything until the other person was unconscious or, in more recent times, until Apirana finished off whoever he’d been dealing with and came to help.

Sadly, that scenario was not an option. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t asked, either, but Nana had been very clear that it had to be him going into the cage rather than the huge Maori.

‘Fight!’ Maiha yelled. Someone pressed a button on an airhorn and Drift strode forwards towards the centre of the ring, mainly because he remembered that the one place he really didn’t want to be was backed up against the cage wall with nowhere to go.

Drift had forgotten the peculiar tunnel vision which took over at times like these. He’d been in his share of fights, of course, but that had always been something more organic; a firefight when an FAS freighter crew had decided to make a stand once the
Thirty-Six Degrees
had overridden their airlocks and forced a boarding, or a brawl breaking out over a payment dispute at a smuggling drop-off. In those situations everyone was involved and threats could come from anywhere, so you relied on your crew to watch your back while you watched theirs. This situation, where you were surrounded by bodies making noise but the only one you had to concentrate on was standing in front of you . . . this was unfamiliar.

The lines on Limberg’s chest moved suddenly, the tiger roaring silently. Drift stared, caught off-guard for half a second by the unexpected electat, and in that half-second Limberg darted forwards with a leaping left hook.

Shit!
Drift back-pedalled hastily, feeling the breeze as the punch cleared his nose by a fraction, but Limberg wasn’t done. He kept moving forwards, that lead left hand pawing at the air, and Drift remembered just in time what Maiha had said: with his power hand advanced Limberg would have a potentially knockout jab, while his weaker right would get a full wind-up behind it. He backed off again, then suddenly became aware of the cage behind him.

‘Circle!’ a voice shouted, probably Micah. ‘Left!’ it added a moment later. Drift obliged, since moving towards Limberg’s left hand didn’t seem like a good plan in any case.

‘
Fuckin’ hit ’im, bro!
’

That would be Apirana, then.

Limberg had eased off his pursuit since his initial straight-line rush hadn’t worked, but was still uncomfortably close and looking for an opening, matching Drift’s sideways movements with his own to pressure him backwards. Drift tried to concentrate and get back into a long-forgotten groove as his opponent’s left fist flicked out in an attempt to judge the distance between them. It fell short and Drift jabbed back with his left hand, surprising himself as the hasty punch glanced off Limberg’s jaw. It had no substantial effect on Limberg except to make his eyes narrow in annoyance, but it did wonders to settle Drift’s nerves a bit. He jabbed again; Limberg swayed back out of reach, but Drift could see that Maiha had been right about the reach discrepancy. He pressed forwards and fired off two more jabs, then swung a sloppy haymaker with his right hand which Coach Hernandez would have bawled him out for.

Limberg had barely watched it whistle by when his kick caught Drift in the ribcage like a gunshot.

Although actually, some gunshots he’d taken had hurt less than that.

Nonetheless, he staggered sideways and nearly dropped his guard, only just raising his hands to catch the swift one-two of punches which followed. He flung out his left hand again,
jab jab
, and Limberg stood back to let him punch thin air, then kicked him again. This time Drift dropped his right arm to block it, and got the feeling of someone sledgehammering his bicep for his trouble.

He tried to hide the pain by going on the offensive: he kicked at Limberg’s leg but the other man pulled it back just in time, so he tried to rush him. One, two, three punches fired at Limberg’s head, which were either harmlessly blocked or simply avoided, and a swinging elbow aimed at the temple which Limberg ducked under. On his way past, the fighter hammered Drift’s ribs again – a punch, this time – and Drift stumbled face first into the mesh which surrounded them. He turned back with his guard up, but a right hand slid through and glanced off his cheekbone with stinging force. As he retreated along the cage wall he felt a warm wetness trickling down his face, and knew he’d been cut.

‘One minute gone!’ Micah shouted. Drift cursed inwardly. His ribs felt like they’d been set on fire, his lungs didn’t seem to be doing their job properly and his opponent was barely even sweating. There was no way he could survive another four minutes of this. He was a starship captain, not an athlete; he might not put on weight, but the only regular exercise he got was in the beds of beautiful women. And even that wasn’t as regular as he’d have liked.

Limberg was holding back for the moment, but he’d start unloading in earnest as soon as he realised that Drift really didn’t pose a threat to him. At that point, no matter how badly Drift wanted the information that Nana supposedly had, all bets were probably off. He didn’t like pain in general, he didn’t like getting punched in the face in particular, and he didn’t think he possessed some sort of magical constitution which would prevent him from getting knocked unconscious.

He tried to manoeuvre around Limberg, but the other man matched his sideways movements and kept him pinned against the cage, then fired off a one-two at Drift’s face only to put all his weight into another kick which caught him in the ribs again. Drift staggered again, unable to keep his legs in order, but couldn’t get away from another hammerblow of a kick which he took on his arm leaving it momentarily numb.

Then the feeling came back into it, and it was a feeling he could have easily done without.

Limberg was studying him, as if sizing him up for the next attack, and Maiha’s words came back to him.
He’ll wait for you to drop your hands and then kick you in the head
, she’d said.

But Limberg didn’t know that he knew that.

Drift let his right arm hang at his side, as though it were broken or otherwise incapacitated – which in fairness, wasn’t
that
far from the truth. He raised his left hand so the back of it was facing his bloodsmeared right cheek, the desperate defensive position of a battered man fearing a vicious left hook and seeking to ward off the inevitable for a few more moments.

Limberg stepped forwards and swung another kick, this time with his right leg, aimed at Drift’s ribs on the other side of his body. Drift pulled his left hand back and down in an obviously futile attempt to block it, but it had only ever been a feint; a leaping step which ended in Limberg’s left leg whipping upwards towards Drift’s now completely unprotected jaw.

Drift ducked then, as the surprised fighter was carried around by his own momentum, tackled Limberg from behind and bore him to the mat.

The fights Ichabod Drift had been in generally had not consisted of standing in front of a trained fighter and exchanging punches and kicks. Certainly not without the ability to kick them in the testicles or poke them in the eyes. Choking someone out quickly and silently so they couldn’t raise an alarm but you didn’t have to actually kill them . . . ah, that was far more in the
Keiko
’s playbook.

He swarmed on the startled Limberg like a spider, wrapping his legs around the other man’s waist and snaking his left arm over Limberg’s shoulder and around his throat. Then he anchored his left hand on his throbbing right bicep, gritted his teeth and squeezed.

Limberg knew what he had to do, he was simply a little too late to do it; he hadn’t expected to be suckered into the headkick, and he hadn’t expected the apparently incompetent man he’d been beating up to know how to apply such an expert blood choke. His fingers clamped around Drift’s forearm, but he was already a step off the pace and panic made him sloppy. Drift watched his head turn a deeper and deeper red, felt his struggles losing power and urgency . . .

The horn sounded.

Drift let go and rolled off Limberg, who didn’t move. Somewhere in the distance he heard a roar which could only have been Apirana, but his own head was pounding loudly enough that everything sounded like he was underwater. He registered feet running into the cage and someone bending down to check on Limberg, then someone else helped him sit up. He found himself staring into the steady, dark eyes of Maiha Takahara and opened his mouth to express some sort of thanks, but was stopped by a furious widening of her eyes and tightening of her mouth, and an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Her gaze flickered upwards for just a second.

Right. Can’t let the boss know you spoiled her game. Guess I’d better play my role, then.

He gave her the finger.

It was approaching midnight in Prague, and it was raining. In fact, ‘raining’ was possibly an inadequate term; great sheets of water were dropping from the sky until it seemed that the air was comprised more of liquid than of gas, or that the Vltava had risen from its bed and come looking for a night out in the Old Town. Tamara Rourke was more grateful than ever for her waterproof body glove, especially since her coat was definitely getting rather sodden. She flicked the brim of her hat and sent droplets scattering out of the relative shelter of the archway and into the downpour, where they were immediately swallowed.

Weather. No wonder most of our species left this planet behind.

Lightning arced across the sky above the city, bright enough to cancel out the advertising holos dancing in the air above the street and accompanied immediately by the tearing boom of a thunderclap. Behind Rourke, Jenna jumped noticeably. Franklin Major and Minor were two of the relatively few planets in the galaxy where terraforming had been completed, but their breathable atmospheres boasted comparatively calm climates. The sort of storm currently breaking over Prague was rare indeed in their skies.

‘You alright there?’ Rourke asked over her shoulder. Jenna nodded, but the rain-slicked strands of redblonde hair sticking to her face suggested otherwise. The girl’s lips moved, but Rourke didn’t hear the words over another peal of thunder. ‘What?’

‘Why did we have to come outside?’ Jenna repeated, in what would have probably been a whine were it not for a conscious effort on her part.

‘Because it’s loud,’ Rourke replied.

‘But why’s that important?’

‘Because when Ichabod calls me, I don’t want any fancy bugging techniques being able to pick up what he’s saying,’ Rourke told her. Jenna frowned.

‘Why would anyone be bugging
us
?’