Sunspire (The Reach, Book 4)

by Mark R. Healy

  He took a deep breath, then hit the button for the outer door.

  Knile saw a lock disengage, but heard no noise. Then the door slid open, revealing the void outside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and then the spectacle before him came into full view.

  The stars were so bright. So much more brilliant than they were when seen from Earth, under the pall of smog and toxic fumes. Set against the curtain of blackness, they were positively dazzling. As Knile moved forward, Earth itself came into view, half covered in night, a shining crescent of blue and orange. Once again Knile was struck by how much more beautiful it seemed from up here, how the ruin and decay melted away with distance.

  Remember what you’ve got to do, he told himself.

  He left the airlock, carefully trailing the umbilical in his wake. Above, the edge of the railcar hung ominously overhead. Now that he was closer, Knile could see that this vehicle was somewhat sleeker and more aerodynamic than its counterpart over at the Reach had been, but on the whole it used a similar design – modular and functional.

  He took no further time for sightseeing, instead getting on with the task of climbing outside the habitat.

  As Lazarus had suggested, moving around in the suit took some getting used to. He felt incredibly floaty, disconnected, and out of control. Trying not to panic, he kept moving one hand after the next, gripping each handhold that presented itself as he moved to the top of the railcar.

  Soon he was there, looking up at the space elevator, a silver conduit that disappeared into the planet high above.

  Not far away, he could also see the locking mechanism. He was almost there.

  “Knile, we can see you,” came Ursie’s voice in his helmet. She must have figured out how to use the comms.

  Glancing around, he saw the vague outline of her face in the transit control window.

  “Yeah,” he said, surprised by how breathless he sounded. “Almost there.”

  He worked his way across the bulk of the railcar, stopping several times to find the next handhold, then finally reached the locking mechanism.

  On the housing was a circular handle set into the metal, surrounded by black and gold striped hazard markings. Without wasting any time, he reached in and began to turn it in a counterclockwise direction.

  “I’m at the lock. Trying to disengage it now.”

  “Be careful.”

  He completed a full revolution, then took a moment to catch his breath. He had almost completed a second turn when the enclosure sprung open.

  Inside was a release lever with a black grip.

  “Found it,” he gasped. “Here goes nothing.”

  He reached in and closed his hand around the grip, then tried to ease it toward him.

  It didn’t budge.

  He tried again, more firmly this time, but the result was the same.

  Now he braced himself against the housing and tried to get more leverage on his target, grunting with exertion, but he couldn’t move it.

  “Come on!”

  “Knile, what’s going on?”

  “Everything is seized up around here. It’s a pain in the ass.”

  “I guess that happens after a few decades of sitting around, not being used.”

  Placing his feet on the housing, he reached in with both hands and pulled with all his might.

  The handle shunted outward abruptly, and the locking mechanism shuddered and fell aside. As the vibrations jarred Knile’s hands, he lost his grip.

  “Shit!” he cried. “Dammit!”

  Suddenly he was cartwheeling through space, the railcar spinning in his visor. The umbilical went taut, stopping his momentum abruptly, and he swung sideways and into another section of the habitat.

  Then the unthinkable happened. The umbilical connector on his suit snapped off.

  Knile cried out again, realising that he was now untethered, cut adrift from the habitat. Somewhere at the back of his mind he wondered if he’d secured the connector properly.

  Probably not. In too much of a hurry to be thorough.

  If he didn’t find purchase, he’d float off into space with no chance of making it back inside again.

  With a desperate flail of his arms, he somehow snagged the end of the umbilical in his fingers. Ursie was screaming something in his ear, but he had no idea what it was.

  The only thing that mattered was the umbilical. It was his only way back to safety.

  But it was slipping through his grasp.

  He lunged forward, tried to get a better grip, but it felt as though his momentum were somehow taking him in the opposite direction, like someone had him by the ankles and was trying to haul him out into the void. Try as he might, he could not seem to arrest his slide.

  Little by little he was slipping away to a place from which there was no return.

  He closed his eyes, tried to gather every ounce of strength in his arms, preparing himself for one last push. He had to do it, there was simply no other option. Just like he had all those times before, he had to find a way to survive.

  He opened his eyes again, and, miraculously, the airlock was right in front of him. Moments later he was drawn back inside, and the door closed behind him. He crashed to the floor as air gushed in around him. He lay there for what might have been half a minute, wondering if perhaps he had already blacked out and was now dreaming this improbable rescue, but as the seconds ticked by, he realised that he wasn’t imagining this.

  It was real. He was back inside Sunspire.

  The inner door opened and Lazarus appeared there, his bulky frame blotting out the light from behind him.

  “The umbilical has a mechanical retraction system,” he said. “A useful feature.”

  38

  The bodies were arranged in rows, lying flat on their backs in a precise grid that might have been admirable were it not so macabre.

  “Oh, god,” Talia said, covering her mouth with her hand. “What the hell is this?”

  “Nothing left but skeletons,” Kolos said. He crouched over the remains of what once might have been a woman, her blouse now a blackened and tattered rag clinging to her bones, and probed gently with the muzzle of his rifle.

  “Whatever happened here,” Norrey said, “it happened a long time ago. I’m guessing decades, by the state of these bodies.”

  “Why are they lined up like that?” Roman said, a sickly look on his face. “That’s not natural.”

  “It’s ritualistic, that’s for certain,” Norrey said. “But whether they died where they lay, or were killed and then arranged in this fashion, we’ll probably never know.”

  “If they were killed, who did it?” Talia said. “And where are they now?”

  “We have to complete a sweep of the entire complex,” Norrey said. “Make sure it’s safe.”

  “This might have been a ceremonial tomb for the locals,” Kolos said, getting to his feet again and casting an eye over the dead. “Each time someone died, they were brought here to be laid to rest with the others.”

  “Perhaps,” Norrey said. “Once we’ve searched the place, we might learn more.” He turned to Talia and Roman. “Stay close behind us. We don’t want to get separated in here, just in case there’s someone lurking around looking to add to their collection of bodies.”

  Talia reached out and took Roman by the hand, finding reassurance in his touch. Her sense of uneasiness certainly hadn’t lessened with the discovery of the bodies; it only added to the mystery of what had happened to Sunspire.

  What had become of this place after it had shut down? Why did the shroud of death hang so heavily upon it?

  “This way,” Norrey said, and they continued on past the bodies and into the next corridor. They made slow going over the next half an hour, systematically moving from room to room and searching thoroughly wherever they went. There were more of the rigged explosives in several locations, and they were careful to avoid inadvertently setting these off.

  Nearing the end of their sweep, they found a l
ong and narrow corridor with the telltale wiring threaded across the ceiling – another trap.

  “Maybe we should avoid this one,” Kolos said.

  “No,” Norrey said. “We check every last room.”

  At the other end of the corridor lay a room labelled ‘Transit Communications’, which housed a number of consoles and terminal screens, as well as a switch on the wall for the explosives. Talia made her way around the room, trying to ascertain its function, and then saw a label above one of the consoles that read ‘Transport Module’.

  Is this how we talk to the railcar? she wondered to herself. Reaching out, she activated the system and waited as it began to boot. After about thirty seconds it came online. She pressed the transmit button and spoke into the microphone.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  “What are you doing?” Norrey said.

  She shrugged. “Just seeing if there’s anyone listening, I guess.”

  “We should continue our sweep,” Norrey said.

  “Sure. Which way?”

  “There’s only one way out of this room,” Kolos said. “Back down the corridor again.”

  Their investigation of the premises ended soon after. The final room they came to was perhaps the most important of all. It was the control room for the space elevator, a broad, oval-shaped room with a bay window along one wall that looked out upon the space elevator itself. Talia could see rain pattering against the glass, and as the lightning flared, the slender shape of the space elevator could be seen against the sky.

  She was so preoccupied with the view outside that she didn’t see the man sitting in the high-backed chair, faced away from them, until she was almost upon him.

  “Get back!” Norrey cried, catching sight of the man at the same time as Talia. He brought up his rifle and began to strafe the target. “You in the chair! Get down on the floor, right now!”

  The man in the chair made no effort to turn, continuing to stare out the window. Only part of his face was visible. As the lightning lit up the room, Talia saw the brown, desiccated skin of his cheek and a tuft of white hair on his scalp.

  “Easy, brother,” Kolos said, his rifle also trained on the target. “I doubt this one poses any threat to us.”

  Norrey reached the man and nudged the chair with his boot, spinning it around, and Talia understood what Kolos had meant.

  Like the others who resided in Sunspire, the man was dead. Although not as decayed as those they had found on the floor earlier, he was still well and truly past his expiration date. His skin was shrivelled, mottled brown and black, and incredibly dry, as if it might crumble away at the slightest touch.

  “The last of the ghosts, then,” Norrey said.

  “Look,” Roman said, pointing over at the console near the chair. “A camera.”

  He edged past the dead man and activated the terminal. After a few button presses, a video feed sprang to life. The others crowded around.

  “So,” a man said into the camera. “This is the last log of Able, First Watcher of Heaven’s Light.”

  “What is this?” Kolos said.

  “I think this is the answer to what happened at Sunspire,” Talia said.

  “The journey has been long,” the man went on, “but we have persevered. We have struggled through the trials that were set before us, and not a single one among us doubted. Not a single one fled the cause.”

  He was a young man in his late twenties, with dark hair swept back over his ears and a fervent gleam in his eyes. He was handsome in a way, Talia supposed, but something about the way he stared into the camera unnerved her. Despite his calmness, he seemed unhinged. On the verge of madness.

  “As I told them the first day we arrived here, salvation is waiting above. On the appointed date, the skies will open and the light of the heavens will shine down upon us.” He leaned forward eagerly. “We will be delivered from this putrid Earth and be welcomed into the arms of the heavens themselves.”

  “Zealots,” Norrey grunted. “I should have known.”

  “Finally, the day is here,” Able said. “The time is come. The others have already prepared themselves. They have tasted the medicine and lain down in preparation for their souls to be lifted upward.” He picked something up off camera, then sat back down in his seat, the same high-backed chair in which the corpse now resided. “With gladness, I go to join them. We are leaving here today.” He downed a cup of clear liquid, then smiled, tears in his eyes. “And we are never coming back.”

  The video feed cut out, and the screen went black.

  “What is this?” Roman said, looking around at the others. “Some kind of cult?”

  “That’s exactly what this is,” Talia said.

  “Idiots. I’ll guarantee that these pitiful souls never found the light,” Norrey said. Talia wondered at the strange phrase, but Norrey continued on before she could dwell on it. “And so, our duty is done, Talia. We have seen you to your destination, safe and whole. From what I can tell, there are no living inhabitants left here.”

  “Thank you,” Talia said earnestly. “You’ve been a great help to us.”

  “I would suggest you find somewhere to bunk down for the night. Await the arrival of your friends.”

  “Yes. That’s probably a good idea. We could use the rest.”

  Norrey glanced at Kolos. “Would you mind if Kolos and I stayed a while longer, at least until the storm has passed?”

  “No, of course not,” Talia said. “I’d hardly expect you to go traipsing back out there in this weather.”

  “Many thanks,” Norrey said, inclining his head politely. “We promise not to snore too loudly.”

  Talia found a small storage space not far from the control room and bedded down there, while Norrey and Kolos wandered off to find their own place to rest. As she lay there with Roman, she took out her holophone and tried calling Knile, but once again there was no response.

  “Piece of shit,” she muttered.

  “Maybe you’re out of reach of the relay again,” Roman said.

  “Yeah. That’s probably it.”

  “Do you think Knile’s going to make it?”

  “He’ll make it,” she said without hesitation. “He won’t leave us alone down here.”

  Yet, somehow, at the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but feel that they were going to end up alone, and worse – there was nothing she could do about it.

  Nurzhan stood at the doorway, watching over the sleeping forms of Talia and Roman. Despite the unsettling discoveries inside Sunspire, the two of them had fallen into slumber quickly.

  He wasn’t surprised. They had been through a lot, and they hadn’t had any rest for some time. They were exhausted.

  He and Kazimir, on the other hand, had been trained at the Citadel. They knew how to conserve their energy, how to remain alert for days on end.

  Nurzhan knew that they had to keep their wits about them. They were close to their goal now, so close, but one slip could ruin everything. He’d made a mistake earlier with that disparaging remark about the cultists, that they would never find the light. Talia had looked at him strangely.

  She had not yet twigged about their true identities yet – he was sure of that. But one more ill-considered remark might be enough to give away their ruse.

  “So, what now?” Kazimir murmured at his side. “Do we kill them?”

  “No.”

  “But we agreed that nothing would stand in the way of our return to the Citadel. All loose ends must be tied.”

  “And they will,” Nurzhan assured him. “But we need her to contact Knile first. The elevator must be activated, and we must get on board. Once we have reached the top, that’s when we tie up the loose ends. All of them.”

  “A righteous bloodbath, then?”

  “Nothing less than they deserve,” Nurzhan said. “Talia, Roman, Knile… these faithless wretches are no better than the brainless cultists who killed themselves in the belief that death would bring them deliverance. They
will never leave this Earth. Their souls are condemned. They are bound to this place, and will forever languish in shadow.” He turned to Kolos and placed a hand on his shoulder. “But you and I, brother. We will walk in the light.”

  39

  Back in Earthside Transit Control, Knile went over the launch procedure checklist for the fifth time in as many minutes. Although much of the process was automated, there was still a sequence that needed to be followed.

  Even though time was running out, it wouldn’t do them much good to screw something up during the launch and subsequently cause more delays.

  Or worse, break something they couldn’t fix.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “I think I’ve got it.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Ursie said.

  “I think our best bet is for me to handle the technical side of things. I can control the launch, make sure things go smoothly.”

  “I’m happy with that,” Ursie said.

  “We don’t have any contact with Talia at the other end, yet, but we can send the railcar on its way from here. After that, I should be able to control the railcar all the way to the bottom of the ride.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Ursie said. “I’m with you so far.”

  “So the main problem,” Knile said, “will be bringing the railcar back up again. We can send it down to Talia, but it looks like there’s input needed from the other end to send it back. Without the right technical expertise at her end, she might not be able to make the return trip.”

  “Yeah, that’s a problem,” Ursie said.

  “So, we’re stuffed,” Tobias grunted.

  “Not exactly,” Knile said. “There’s an option here to transfer control of the railcar to the vehicle itself once it’s free of the habitat. Once again, it’s a backup system that’s supposed to kick in if communications are lost between transit control and the railcar. We can activate it using an override.”

  Ursie stared at him doubtfully. “You’re going down in the railcar?”