Dark Sky (Keiko) (10 page)

She went for the men. It was that sort of day.

‘A.,’ Drift was saying, ‘I think they can have their documents now.’

Apirana passed the emigration plastics over to the Shirokovs, who took them with badly concealed haste. Pavel frowned at his as he opened it, then spoke in a light tenor which Jenna found slightly surprising given his frame, his words heavily accented. ‘This … will work?’

‘They don’t come with any damn guarantees,’ Drift replied testily. ‘You wanted the impossible on very short notice, you’ve got the best we have. Jenna?’

‘Data’s coded,’ she replied, watching the last set of impressive pectorals resolve. ‘I can transmit it to the shuttle now, or …’

‘Not yet,’ Drift told her, ‘I don’t want to throw anything into the Uragan system if we don’t have to.’ He looked back at the Shirokovs. ‘Well,
señores
, time to get moving.’

Jenna let out a small breath she’d not really been aware she’d been holding. She hadn’t been sure if Drift would follow through on his end of the deal once they had the data, given how angry he’d been about being seemingly manoeuvred into a corner. It was probably the wiser course of action rather than risk a scene here which might delay them, of course, but every now and then the Captain did something a little irrational in a fit of pique.

The Shirokovs didn’t need telling twice: they rose to their feet and took hold of their suitcases, and were heading for the door almost before Drift and Apirana had joined them. Jenna fell into their wake, then frowned to herself as her wrist console vibrated. But she’d turned all notifications off except …

Shit.

Her throat was suddenly dry as she clawed back the fabric of her sleeve again, then swiped the display.

Shitshitshit.

‘Captain!’ Several heads turned towards her in addition to her crew, but she didn’t care. Drift’s expression was already grim; he must have known automatically that she wouldn’t risk drawing attention to them if the need weren’t dire.

‘What?’

‘We …’ Jenna trailed off hopelessly as both doors to Cherdak burst inwards, disgorging black-clad
politsiya
in body armour and riot masks with guns trained on them. She hit the key that would send Shirokov’s information winging through the Uragan Spine and – hopefully – to the databanks of the
Jonah
. ‘Never mind.’

Angry Russian filled the air, none of it coming from the other punters who were all busily throwing themselves to the floor to get out of any possible line of fire. The Shirokovs tried that as well, but were clearly viewed to be guilty by association judging by the way they were hauled back up again. Jenna found herself staring down at least three gun barrels belonging to men shouting words she didn’t understand, and made an assumption that raising her hands with her palms outwards was a universal gesture for ‘please don’t shoot me’.

‘Drift!’

That shout was clear enough, although Jenna couldn’t work out which mask it had come from. The Captain, who had already raised his own hands, coughed slightly.

‘Uh … yeah?’

Two men approached Jenna while the third kept her covered. Her arms were wrenched down and cuffed behind her back with some sort of auto-constricting, segmented metal manacle. The same thing was happening to the others, including the Shirokovs. She noticed Apirana resisting for a moment, just to show that it would take more than one man on each arm to budge
him
, before he relented and allowed himself to be secured.

One of their captors stepped forwards and shouted in Russian again, leaving Drift looking uncomfortable and blank all at the same time. ‘Uh, I’m sorry, I don’t—’

‘He says we’re under arrest,’ Jia provided miserably.

‘I kinda got that,’ Drift snapped, clearly exasperated, ‘but my translator’s not working properly with all this noise. What the hell
for
?’

‘Uh …’ Jia raised her voice. ‘
Za chto?
’

‘
Kontrabanda oruzhiem!
’

Jenna knew the expression that flooded Jia’s face then. It was one of complete and total bafflement.

‘Guys, you ain’t gonna believe this …’

‘G
UN-RUNNING?!
’ DRIFT SPLUTTERED
. ‘That’s ridiculous!’

Security Chief Alim Muradov looked at him levelly across the desk in the small, grey-walled interview room. He was probably somewhere in his forties, with his black hair slicked back and his moustache neatly trimmed. His skin held a richer tone than most of the other Uragan natives Drift had seen, and if the crescent moon pendant at his throat was anything to go by, he was a Muslim: at a guess, Drift would have put his ancestry somewhere in the historically Russian-influenced Middle East. Given that bigotry was far from absent in the galaxy, especially on more insular worlds like Uragan with largely homogenous populations – ethnic Russian Orthodox Christian, in this case – the odds were that to reach the rank of security chief Muradov would either have to be a corrupt toady or formidable at his job.

Drift didn’t get the feeling it would be the former. He relaxed a little, despite the cold metal around his wrists. For once, his crew were completely innocent of all charges being brought against them, and any halfway-competent investigation would show that. His nerves were jangling at the time they were wasting, though. It had been two hours since they’d been arrested in Cherdak, and the storm would be closing in fast.

‘Ridiculous or not, Captain, these are not allegations my force can ignore,’ Muradov replied calmly. His English was good, although his accent seemed to remove a lot of the emotion from the words. Or maybe there just wasn’t that much there to begin with. ‘This is your crew’s first visit to Uragan, yes?’

‘Mine, certainly,’ Drift nodded, ‘as for my crew, no one said they’d been here before. It’s not the sort of place you’d forget about, I think it’s fair to say.’

‘Nor one you would visit twice without good reason,’ Muradov replied. Drift started to nod again, then caught himself; was that dry humour, or a camouflaged accusation? The Chief seemed to notice his momentary confusion, and snorted. ‘Come, Captain, we are hardly a tourist destination. Still, utilitarian though my planet is, it is my job to keep it secure and its people safe.’

‘Of course,’ Drift agreed, ‘but if you’ve searched my shuttle you’ll know the only weapons we have are for personal use, and while in your spaceport they’re locked away securely, in compliance with your laws.’

Muradov’s teeth showed for a moment beneath his moustache, a flash of a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘And there speaks a man who has had to talk his way out of trouble with the law before, I feel.’

‘Not your law and not your planet,’ Drift countered, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong here.’
Well, apart from furnishing two citizens with fraudulent documents, but we’ll say nothing of that.
‘If you have any evidence to the contrary, please …’ He spread his hands invitingly in front of him.

Muradov looked at him for a second, and Drift fought the urge to smile.
You’ve got nothing. If you had, you’d have brought it out by now.

‘So, Captain,’ Muradov said instead, ‘why would we get these allegations?’ He quirked an eyebrow inquisitively.

‘Probably because you listened to Ricardo
fucking
Moutinho of the
Pouco Jacare
,’ Drift replied promptly. He’d had suspicions about the source of this latest inconvenience from the moment the police had burst into Cherdak.

‘Captain Moutinho?’ Muradov actually seemed surprised. ‘The tip was, in fact, anonymous. Captain Moutinho is well known to us, however; he has been a regular visitor over the last few months. What makes you think he would do such a thing?’

‘Moutinho and I are both freelancers,’ Drift told him flatly. ‘We own our own ships and take whatever jobs we can. You do that for a living, you tend to run into other captains who try to undercut you, steal your work or sabotage you. Moutinho and I had a falling out a few years ago and he’s tried to make my life difficult every time we’ve run into each other since.’ He shrugged. ‘It would be his style, probably just to annoy us. I’m surprised he made up something as far-fetched as gunrunning, though.’

‘Far-fetched?’ Muradov snorted. ‘Perhaps not so much as you think, Captain. Still, I cannot deny that we found no weapons, and our security feeds show that you have offloaded nothing since you landed.’

‘So I’m free to go?’ Drift asked. He didn’t want to seem so eager he drew suspicion, but he also didn’t want to be trapped by the storm. In any case, who would want to remain in custody longer than they had to?

‘Not just yet,’ Muradov told him, raising one hand. Drift forced himself to appear calm.

‘Well?’

‘You landed here something like eight hours ago,’ the other man said, fixing Drift with a steady, dark-eyed gaze. ‘You have offloaded nothing, and you have loaded nothing. You describe yourself as a freelance captain, so I have to wonder: what brought you to my world?’ He drummed his fingers on the desk, as if genuinely contemplating the problem.

‘Signal transmission across our system is not instantaneous, Captain, but we are not out of range. Your ship was recently docked in orbit over New Samara.
New Samara!
With its clean air, its plants, its …’ Another half-smile appeared briefly. ‘… its
rich people
. Why, after spending time there, would you choose to fly to my storm-lashed little rock? For the views?’ He snorted. ‘I think not.’

‘Looking for work,’ Drift replied immediately. ‘We’d taken some shore leave on New Samara, yes; my crew had been cooped up for too long. Since we were in the area, I thought I’d see if we could make a bit of cash.’
Technically true.
He let his face take on a rueful expression. ‘But of course, all the haulage out of here is handled on governmental contracts.’
Also true. I just knew that before I came.

‘And your two passengers?’ Muradov queried. ‘This was not arranged before you got here?’

‘Can’t say it was,’ Drift replied easily. ‘I met the older one in Cherdak earlier today when I went there with a couple of my crew; I guess he was hanging around an off-worlders’ bar trying to find a transport. I don’t normally take on passengers, but I figured it would cut our losses a little.’

Muradov nodded, as though this was all reasonable. ‘And the fare?’

Drift hesitated for a split-second, sensing a trap. Should he make a figure up? But they’d probably already asked the Shirokovs the same question, so he went for as close to the truth as he dared. ‘We hadn’t agreed a price, I was taking them to see the ship.’ He essayed a mercenary grin. ‘If you wait until the passenger can almost taste their destination, they’re generally a little more willing to part with their cash.’

Muradov watched him for a couple more seconds without saying anything, then finally chuckled and shook his head. ‘Captain, I do not trust a single word you are saying to me, but I have no reason to hold you further. Everything you have said hangs together …
just
.’ He pressed a button on the wall next to him, and the door buzzed open to admit a junior officer. ‘Please escort Captain Drift to his crew. They are to be released without charge.’

Muradov fixed Drift with a steady gaze while his subordinate activated his collar comm and passed on the instructions. ‘I am sure you are intelligent enough to work this out on your own, Captain, but I think it might be best for your sake if you gave us no further cause to investigate you during your stay here.’

‘No fear of that,’ Drift replied, getting to his feet and holding out his hands towards the other officer. ‘I’m going straight to my shuttle and leaving. No offence, but I’ve had enough of Uragan.’

‘None taken,’ Muradov nodded, ‘but I am afraid you will have to wait a while. The storm rolled in faster than we were expecting. I hear the spaceport was closed about twenty minutes ago.’

Drift stared at him in horror, barely registering the cuffs being removed from his wrists. ‘What?’

‘Meteorology is not an exact science, especially on a planet as volatile as this,’ Muradov explained. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Why, was there somewhere you needed to be?’

So that was it. The quick-and-easy hundred grand from Orlov and the associated benefits of having the goodwill of the area’s major crime lord, gone just like that thanks to Aleksandr Shirokov’s wanderlust and Moutinho’s pettiness. In fact, forget about goodwill: they’d be lucky if Orlov didn’t decide to make an example of them.

Drift controlled his expression with an effort, trying to ignore images of some New Samaran thug taking a vibrohammer to his knees. The shit icing on a cake of crap would be if Muradov decided that his eagerness to leave before the storm was suspicious.

‘It just means I’m going to have a crew kicking about my ship for three days with nothing to do and no way to earn any money,’ he grumbled.

Muradov stood. He was not a tall man, and lean with it, but he had a certain air to him that suggested he was not to be trifled with. The security chief didn’t present himself as the sort of man who would take massive issue with you accidentally spilling his drink, for example, but woe betide the person who squared up to him should he accidentally spill theirs.