“I don’t. I just want to leave, preferably in one piece,” Duran retorted. “All things being equal, I’d rather be a long way from here.”
“Stay cool,” Silvestri said. “Play the odds and stay in cover. If they want to roll the dice and push forward, let them try.”
“We should hit them first,” Duran insisted. “They–”
There was the sound of a gunshot behind them, and someone screamed.
Yun’s voice. “Someone’s here! Help!”
Silvestri reacted first, moving with great alacrity as he kept low on his way toward the railcar dock. He turned toward the terminals and fired three shots at something Roman couldn’t see, then glanced further within the machines to ensure the area was clear. He paced forward cautiously and knelt to inspect something.
“Dammit,” he said. “Fuck!”
“What is it?” Talia said.
Silvestri lifted a hand to his brow. “This is bad.”
“Oh, god.” She didn’t like where this was going. “What happened?”
“They got Remus. He’s gone.”
“What? How?” Talia said.
“One of them made it back here.”
“Must have dropped below the ledge, worked their way around behind without us seeing,” Duran said. “I told you, we should have made a move on them before now.”
“Zoe,” Silvestri said urgently, appearing at the edge of the terminals. “We need a sweep of the northern end of the platform. Find out if there are any more of them creeping around back here.”
“On it.”
As she left, Roman glanced back toward the elevator. The light outside had activated once more, indicating that the doors were about to open again.
Worse, the looters were edging forward along the pathway, their heavy riot shields held protectively before them.
“Shit, they’re coming again,” he said. “Heads up!”
Roman moved instinctively, bounding into a run before he could think better of the idea. Bullets whizzed around him as the attackers opened fire, but in a few steps he had reached the RECS. He dived inside, slamming the door behind him, and a hail of bullets rained against the hull behind him.
He settled himself behind the controls and powered up the RECS. With dismay, he noted that the power core was almost dead. He didn’t have long to work with.
The only question is, he thought, what the hell am I going to do?
He looked through the cockpit window to see Talia and Duran firing upon the attackers, who continued to advance. Beyond, a handful of new arrivals were making their way out of the elevator.
Then he understood what he had to do.
Roman pushed the RECS forward, veering to the side and continuing past Talia and Duran. He heard her shout something at him, but it was lost in the sound of gunfire. As he moved across the platform into the gloom, the lights on the RECS speared into the night, illuminating the scuffed floor where he’d battled the Redman earlier in the afternoon. The edge of the platform was not far away. More rounds smacked ineffectually against the RECS, and then he found his target – the inert form of the second RECS, which was lying on its side in the place Roman had left it during the fight.
He reached out with the claw of the RECS, snaring the broken machine by the arm, then turned back the way he had come.
He began to drag it toward the pathway that led to the elevator.
The looters turned their attention to him in earnest as he approached, directing their gunfire almost exclusively at the hulking form of the RECS, and Roman saw the hull begin to dent inward in places where it had been weakened earlier by the pulse rounds.
In a few seconds, those bullets would be coming through. He had no doubt about that.
Looking in his rearview camera, he could see the dead RECS sparking as its underside ground against the platform. Roman pushed forward with everything he had.
A few strides later he was on the pathway, then he was amongst the looters themselves. He swung the free arm of the RECS, bashing aside their shields with a lusty blow, then caused them to scatter backward with a second. He kept swinging, keeping them at bay as he advanced, and in moments he had forced them all the way back to the elevator.
The doors were closing again.
Roman turned the RECS, gripping the second machine with both claws, then hefted it up off the floor. The RECS groaned mightily around him, sounding as though it were about to fall apart, then Roman flung his cargo toward the elevator doors, where it bounced along the path before coming to rest in the opening. As the doors attempted to close, they met with the bulky metal hull of the RECS. There was a grinding sound as the doors tried to force their way shut, but the RECS proved far too strong. The doors creaked and strained a moment longer before coming to rest.
A klaxon began to sound inside the elevator.
The looters formed up again, attempting to dislodge the fallen RECS from the doorway, but Roman moved forward and pounded them with the claws again, knocking them away and sending them sprawling. As he turned to seek help, he found that Talia and Duran had materialised beside him, and now had the prone attackers in the sights of their weapons.
“Stay down, all of you!” Duran thundered. “You even think of moving and I’ll put one between your eyes.”
Duran finished tying up the last of the attackers by the railcar dock and then straightened. He looked along the line of captives that he’d positioned next to the Consortium techs, satisfied with his work.
“How are you doing here?” Silvestri said, appearing from the darkness where he’d been patrolling the edge of the platform.
“They aren’t going anywhere,” Duran said by way of an answer.
“Good. We’ve completed our sweep of the roof. That’s the lot of them.” He glanced back down at the elevator, where the RECS remained wedged, preventing further passengers from travelling up from the Atrium. “The roof is officially secure.”
Talia tapped on the cockpit window, and Roman leaned forward to look out at her.
“You can come out now, Roman,” she said.
“Okay.” Roman disengaged the lock and the door swung open. He’d decided to remain inside the RECS until the attackers had been secured, figuring that the sight of the hulking contraption looming over them might help to act as a deterrent from any further acts of retaliation. In truth, the power core had all but run dry, and he wasn’t sure if the machine would even have enough juice to start up again.
Fortunately, it hadn’t come to that.
Talia slung her arm around his neck as he stepped down. “That was some good thinking back there,” she said, smiling proudly.
“Agreed,” Silvestri said, stepping forward and offering his hand. “You made the difference, Roman. We’re in your debt.”
Roman shook his hand and couldn’t prevent an embarrassed smile from creeping onto his face.
“Glad to finally be of use around here,” he said.
Silvestri turned and looked over his shoulder at the covered body of Remus nearby.
“Perhaps if I’d acted as swiftly, we would all be alive to celebrate,” he said, his voice full of regret.
Talia reached out and touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about that now. We–”
“Hey!” Yun called out. He was standing over by the terminals, oblivious to their discussion. “I’ve got systems coming back online here. Almost full functionality restored. Data is coming in from the railcar.” He tapped away at something. “Yeah, this is good. Should make things a lot easier when Holger and the others secure the habitat.”
“Good,” Silvestri said soberly. “We’re through the worst of it, I hope.”
Roman glanced skyward again, seeing nothing but blackness, and imagined how far the railcar might be from its destination.
“Wait,” Yun said uncertainly. As Roman lowered his eyes again he saw the tech looking somewhat perplexed. “I’m getting some weird alerts here…”
“What’s going on?” Silve
stri said, alarmed.
Yun’s face drained of colour. “Holy mother of fuck.”
41
“I think I can see something up there,” Holger was saying through his comms. “Or is it… shit, I dunno. Might be nothing.”
Knile craned his neck and looked out through the perspex dome that covered his compartment. He couldn’t see anything up there but the blackness of space.
“Holger, we’re still half an hour out from when we’re supposed to dock,” Knile said. “I don’t think we’re going to see the habitat just yet. Don’t panic.”
“I’m not panicking, buddy. Just trying to figure out what’s going on here.”
Knile settled back into his seat. “I figure when we get close, we’ll know it.”
“Meanwhile, I’m dying of boredom over here,” Morgan chimed in. “Where’s the porno feed on these terminals?”
Knile tapped at the screen that was embedded next to his armrest, but it remained black and lifeless.
“Yun must still be working on the comms,” he said. “Once those are up, we should be able to use these things.”
“Well, he better pull his finger out,” Holger said. “Things are getting tight.”
“He’ll come through,” Knile said. Realising that he hadn’t heard from anyone other than the two brawlers in some time, he glanced out the side of his window to see if he could determine what the other two were up to. “Aksel? Lazarus? You still with us?”
“Here,” came Aksel’s voice over the comms. A moment later, Lazarus also spoke.
“I am here. Is there a problem?”
“No. Just seeing how you’re doing.”
All went quiet again, so Knile gave up on trying to start a conversation and shifted back into his seat. After a moment, his eyes were drawn to the jaw-dropping vista at his feet, a sight that had entranced him for much of the journey. Even though Morgan had complained of boredom, Knile had found the ride up the Wire to be an exhilarating experience. Undoubtedly the thought of what lay waiting for them in the habitat above had caused the adrenaline to pump through his system, but in addition to that, the view of Earth slowly receding before him was possibly the most incredible thing he had ever seen. Largely covered now in shadow, the sheer immensity and majesty of the planet made his skin prickle. Drifting upward aboard the railcar was like taking a step back and seeing his world from a new perspective, in a different light.
“I finally appreciate the beauty in her,” he said wistfully.
Holger’s voice. “Huh?”
Knile smiled ruefully to himself. “Never mind. I–”
At that moment, the terminal in his compartment came to life. A bright green cursor flashed several times, then disappeared.
“Hey, something’s going on,” Morgan said.
“Yeah, I see it,” Knile said. He tapped the screen. “Looks like Yun came through after all.”
The words Himura OrbitPod appeared on the screen in a stylised font that looked like a logo, and then it too went away. The screen remained blank for another thirty seconds, and just as Knile was about to give up on it again, Yun’s face appeared.
“Knile! Thank hell I got you.”
“Yun, good to see you,” Knile said amiably, but then the smile melted from his face. Something in Yun’s demeanour wasn’t right. “What’s going on?”
“You’re not going to like this, man.”
“Just spit it out.”
“You know that the railcar cargo bays have their own scanners, right? To check for contraband or any other nasties.”
“Yeah, but those were deactivated so we could stow our weapons without triggering alarms in Habitat One.”
“Well, see, here’s the thing,” Yun said, licking his lips as he spoke. “They just came back online, and they’re picking up something really odd.”
“The weapons,” Knile said, as if it should be obvious. “Just shut it off–”
“No, it’s not something on our manifest. It’s something else.”
“What are you talking about, Yun?”
“Knile, there’s explosives up there with you. In Cargo Bay Six. I’m talking a serious payload.”
Knile allowed that to digest for a moment. “I don’t get it. We weren’t planning on–”
“They’re stowed inside the briefcase Aksel was carrying.”
Knile felt a chill run down the back of his spine in the ensuing silence. For several heartbeats, no one spoke. Finally, Knile cleared his throat.
“Aksel,” he said calmly, “what’s going on?” There was no response. “Aksel?”
Silence.
“Listen, you fuckin’ kid,” Holger began, “you better start talking–”
“I didn’t know!” Aksel shouted suddenly, clearly distressed.
“Didn’t know what?” Knile said.
“What was inside it. He just told me I had to deliver it to the habitat, that’s all.”
Knile went cold at those words. “Who’s ‘he’, Aksel?”
Knile thought he heard Aksel sob. “The guy who was… who was helping me.”
“Helping you to do what?” When there was no response, Knile raised his voice. “Who, Aksel?”
“I don’t know his name, okay? He came and found me when I was working in Gaslight, offered to get me off-world. He gave me his number so that I could call him for help when I needed it–”
“What kind of help?”
“The hacking. He’s been helping me to do the hacking.”
“I don’t understand,” Knile said. “Why do you need help hacking?” There was no response. “Aksel?”
“Look, I’m sorry–”
“Why are there explosives in your briefcase, Aksel? Start talking.”
“It’s his briefcase. I don’t know why–”
“What’s the number?” Knile said, his patience wearing thin. “Call it. Get him on the line, right now!”
“He won’t like that–”
“I don’t give a shit, just call the number.” Knile looked back at the terminal. “Yun, I need you to patch the call through to the relays down there. Can you do that?”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
Aksel made a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat, then Knile heard the sound of the call connecting. It began to ring.
Who the hell is he talking about? What’s going on? Knile’s mind was working overtime as he attempted to figure out what was happening. Were Children of Earth connected to this somehow? Had they gained Aksel’s trust without anyone else in Skybreach knowing about it? A dozen possibilities flitted through his mind, half-formed notions that were dismissed as quickly as they arrived. Nothing made sense.
The call answered, and a voice flooded Knile’s compartment.
“What is it?” the man said testily. “You were instructed not to call unless there was an emergency.”
Knile listened, confounded by what he heard. He knew this voice, but from where?
“Who is this?” Knile demanded. “Who am I talking to?”
There was a pause. “I could ask the same question of you.”
Knile processed the sound of the man’s voice again, racking his brain as he sought for recognition. It was tantalisingly within his grasp.
“Listen, I don’t have time for games–”
The video feed on the call activated suddenly, and a man’s face appeared on the terminal.
Knile sat dumbfounded, in shock. It was Jon Hanker.
“Hank? What the hell is this? What’s going on? I thought you were dead.”
The old man gave him a rueful smile. “Me, dead? Heck, no. There was no way I was going to burn to death in that consulate. I got out, took my Redmen with me. We’re hunkered down, safe in Gaslight.”
“Tell me what’s happening. How do you know Aksel?”
“Don’t go too hard on the kid. He didn’t know what I was up to. I found him a while back, stacking shelves in one of the stores in the marketplace here. He had a bit of a knack with tech, pic
ked things up quick, so I figured I could use him.”
“Use him for what?”
Hank sighed and rubbed at his neatly trimmed beard. “Aksel can’t hack the Consortium network, Knile. I’ve been feeding him the information he needs. Whenever he asks for something to be unlocked, I unlock it. Simple as that. In return, I told him I could get him off-world. All he had to do was help Skybreach and, when it was time, deliver the briefcase up to the habitat. He didn’t know what was inside.”
“But why? What’s your endgame here, Hank?”
Hank leaned back in his chair. “It’s that bitch, Valen. She was never going to let me out of this hellhole. Ever.” He smiled bitterly. “I was supposed to finish my tenure over five years ago. Did you know that? I should have been sipping cocktails in Europa by now, but Veronica… well, she just kept extending my stay. Shouldn’t be any surprise, really. She and I have… I guess you could say a chequered history. Some bad blood from way back.” He looked at Knile directly. “She wants me to die down here, buddy. I’m never getting out. So I made it my mission to see that she and all of her cronies suffered the same fate.”
The horrible realisation of what Hank was saying began to hit home. He thought back to their previous conversation, and the bitterness in the consul’s voice as he’d spoken about his impending retirement off-world – a destiny that, in reality, the old man knew he could never have. It all made sense now.
“You want to blow up Habitat One,” he said. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
Hank gave him a companionable wink. “You always picked things up quick, Knile. Always thought quick on your feet. That’s why I brought you back.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“You know that the only reason you’re back in the Reach is because I wanted you here, don’t you? I gave your name to Ursie’s sponsor, van Asch. Told him you could guide her up the Reach. But that wasn’t why I wanted you to come back here. See, I’d been grooming your pals in Skybreach this whole time.”
“You know about Skybreach?”
Hank chortled. “I’m not an idiot, y’know. Heck, I was the one who arranged for Aksel to join their crew. I made sure they knew you were in town when you arrived, too. That trick you do with the Stormgates, how you reverse them… I knew they could use that. Figured they’d want to recruit you. You have a skill set that matches their needs.”
Skybreach (The Reach #3) Page 31