Free Dark Run by Mike Brooks

breath, held it, let it out again, and stepped back out of his cabin. Time to go and play nice.
    The Jonah ’s cargo bay was several times Drift’s height and spacious enough to hold three large freight containers (so long as the crew breathed in when squeezing around them). Apirana was waiting, of course, and Rourke, Micah and Jenna emerged from the stairway which led down from the canteen just as Drift arrived. Rourke nodded once at him, which he couldn’t help but interpret as This had better go well, or I’ll rearrange your face .
    ‘Jenna, you get the doors,’ Drift instructed as Rourke climbed into the cab of their small, tracked loader. ‘Micah, A.: Tamara will bring ’ em aboard, you shift ’ em into place.’
    The two men nodded as Jenna headed over to the door control, while Drift tucked his thumbs into his belt. Long-standing cautiousness meant he always wanted his hands near his guns when a deal was going down, but it was best to find some sort of excuse for them to be there. If that meant looking like a hick farmhand posing for a picture, then so be it.
    Seconds dragged by into minutes, until Jia’s voice crackled over the comm speakers. +They’ve opened the bay for us. Taking us in now.+
    Drift felt a sudden forwards momentum as the retros fired, braking the Jonah , then the hum as the electromagnets in the hull powered up to counteract the gravitational effect of the larger craft’s own subdeck Heim field. There followed some thirty seconds of what seemed like no motion at all, although Drift knew – or at least, hoped – that Jia was simply manoeuvring carefully to avoid hitting anything.
    +Setting down now.+
    There was a jolt, albeit a minor one, as Jia powered down the mags and the Jonah sank to meet the deck of the Gewitterwolke , then their craft’s engine throttled back and died as Kuai acted on his sister’s instructions. A few more seconds passed.
    +They’re pressurising the bay.+
    There was silence for about half a minute.
    +It’s quite a big bay . . .+
    Micah rolled his eyes. Apirana shifted on his feet and worked his shoulders. Drift looked over at Rourke, who met his gaze with the impassivity of a particularly unreadable statue. Jenna tried to look attentive. Then the lights over the bay door changed from red to green, and Jia’s voice crackled over the intercom again.
    +Okay, sensors say you’re good to go. You’ve got a welcoming party, too; looks like . . . a Muslim woman and some goons? Four of them. They’ve got some crates.+
    Drift nodded, more to himself than anyone else, then directed a more definite tip of his head at Jenna. ‘Let’s go meet them.’
    Jenna hit the door release and a section of the Jonah ’s thick exterior shielding started to swing downwards to form a ramp. There was a faint hiss as the pressure outside and inside equalised, and then harsh white light began to filter in through the widening gap. Drift’s right eye instantly adjusted to the rays hitting his face, although his natural left one took a couple of moments to catch up.
    By the time the ramp was halfway down he could see the faces of their welcoming party. Kelsier’s assistant was clad in a niqab again, and the datalens was still in place over one eye. Meanwhile, the two men who’d accompanied her to get him off the street and into the bar had been joined by another man and a woman, both with their own cybernetic augmentations. The appearance of the group wasn’t uniform – in all honesty, it was more like they’d been attacked by the vengeful and possibly parasitic contents of a scrapyard – but nor was it that uncommon. Manual workers often had replacements or enhancements to limbs to give added strength or endurance for their tasks, or sometimes had them completely replaced by specialist tools, and a bunch of cargo haulers might well pick up the variety of additions he could see in front of him. Then again, it was easy to conceal a weapon in a mechanical limb, quite apart from the