Skybreach (The Reach #3) (47 page)

“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.”

Knile sat, stunned by
this revelation.  He felt like a fool, to have allowed himself to be manipulated so thoroughly yet again.

“You wanted Skybreach to succeed in taking over the Wire.”

“Yeah.”

“You needed someone to disable the
security on the railcar so that you could get the explosives aboard.  That was the only way to destroy the habitat.”

Hank smiled. 
“Attaboy.  Now you’re catching up.  I tried to make it happen a week ago, but that little
pain in the ass
Ursie got inside my head.  Powerful psycher, that one.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“She was a burr in my ass, I’ll tell you that much.  I mean, I’ve been trained to defend myself from the likes of her, so I’m pretty sure she never figured out my true intentions, but she muddled my head, good and proper.  Screwed up my ability to think straight.  I didn’t get Aksel and his friends in Skybreach ready in time as a result.”
  Hank’s smile dropped away. 
“Listen, buddy.  This isn’t anything personal against you.  I’ve always liked you, Knile.  It just so happens that you were the perfect tool for the job.”

“I’m not your buddy, Hank.  And you can go fuck yourself.”

Hank pursed his lips and nodded amiably.
“I guess I deserve that.  But I thought you should know the truth about what’s going on, for old time’s sake.  We had some good times together, you and me, and I’m sorry it had to end this way.”

“And you know what else?” Knile went on, ignoring him.  “I can’t wait to wipe that smile off your face when your plan falls apart.”

Hank raised an eyebrow. 
“How’s that?”
he said, perplexed. 
“You can’t prevent this
, Knile.  The railcar won’t stop, not once it’s been set in motion.  The timer on the explosive is set to go off in”
– he checked his wristwatch –
“thirty-one minutes, right when the railcar docks at the habitat.  You can’t jettison the cargo, either.  It’s not part of the railcar design.  Those are the facts.” 
He shrugged.
“I wouldn’t be telling you this if the outcome wasn’t already decided.”

Knile set a timer on his watch, his mind still racing, and then his composure began to fray.  He felt his cheeks flush with anger at the thought of coming so close to their goal, only to be betrayed at the last hurdle.  His fists clenched and he leaned toward the terminal, irate.

“You think this is the worst problem I’ve had to overcome, Hank?  This is fucking child’s play,
buddy
.  You’re going to wish you never brought me back here.  You hear that?”

Knile was rewarded with a brief flash of uncertainty across Hank’s previously calm visage, but the old man quickly recovered.

“I admire your spirit, but I’m sorry to say that this is the end for you, Knile.  And
the lovely Ms.
Valen.  Enjoy the view up there while you can.”

Knile killed the call and Hank’s smug countenance disappeared from view.  Knile thumped angrily at the wall of his compartment, loosing a scream of frustration, then tried to calm himself.  He took a deep breath.

“Yun?” he said finally.  “Did you get all of that?”

“Knile.”
  Silvestri’s voice, flat and defeated. 
“We heard.”

“Sounds like the party is starting to warm up, huh?”

A pause. 
“What are you going to do?”

“Has Yun reestablished full comms with the habitat?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m going to do the last thing Hank would have wanted.  Get Yun to patch me through.  I’m going to talk to Administrator Valen.”

42

The technician moved away from the view of the camera, and Veronica Valen herself took his place before it.  She stared impassively at Knile for a moment, then turned to address someone off-camera.

“Has the authenticity been verified?
  Is he really aboard the OrbitP
od?”
she said.  The
re was a muffled response, and then she nodded.

“Administrator Valen?” Knile prompted.

She turned back to the camera and gave Knile a haughty glare. 
“Yes.  You have my attention.”

“My name is Knile Oberend, and I’m part of a crew that took control of the Wire several hours ago,” he said, knowing that there was no point being evasive.  At this point he had no choice but to lay it all out there.  “We’re on our way up to you right now.”

“Thank you for the courtesy call, Mr. Oberend,”
Valen drawled sardonically. 
“My security team tell me that when our comms came back online a few minutes ago, they found a very troubling item in one of the cargo bays.  You’re carrying explosives.”

“That’s correct.”

“What are your demands?”

“Well, here’s the thing, Administrator.  The explosives weren’t planted by us.  This is the work of one of your own people, a consul by the name of Jon Hanker.”

“What?”
she said, startled. 
“Hanker died in the recent attack–”

“No, he didn’t.  I just spoke to him a few minutes ago.  He was gloating about the prospect of killing you and everyone else in the habitat.  Said you two had a history, that you wouldn’t let him leave Earth, and this was his payback.”

Valen paled visibly. 
“That fucking bastard,”
she muttered.

“My sentiments exactly.  So, I’m calling to negotiate a deal with you.”

“A deal?”
Valen said sceptically.

“Yeah.  My companions and I aren’t here to destroy you.  We only want safe passage away from Earth.  In return for giving you forewarning about Hanker’s plan, I’d like you to jettison the cargo bay–”

“I don’t negotiate with filth,”
Valen said, her eyes flashing. 
“And even if I did, there’s no deal to be struck here.  The cargo bay doors can’t be opened in transit.  If you don’t have a way to disarm those explosives, there’s no way to stop the detonation.”

“What?  There has to be a way–”

She turned away again and spoke to someone beside her. 
“Raise a Code One.  Full evacuation.  We have less than half an hour before the OrbitPod arrives.”

“Don’t you have someone there who might be able to disarm it when we arrive?” Knile pleaded.  “Or maybe some other idea?”

“I’m not willing to gamble the lives of my people on that slim chance, Mr. Oberend.  Even if there was time to release the explosives through one of the waste chutes,
my techs tell me that the shock wave from the explosion would still tear the habitat apart.”
  She pinched the bridge of her nose wearily, then spoke to the person beside her again. 
“First we have Redmen attacking and killing each other on the concourse, and now this.  What next?”

“Administrator Valen–”

“I’ve heard enough from you, Mr. Oberend.  You and your friends will get what you deserve.”
  She shook her head at him. 
“Do you realise what you’ve done?  You’ve not only earned yourself a violent death, but you’ve also condemned all those still on Earth to wallow there for the rest of their days.  No one will ever leave the planet again after today.”

“Let me speak to your technicians, we can figure something out.  We can still save the habitat.”

Valen had slumped back, morose, and now seemed oblivious to Knile’s presence on the other end of the line.

“So many good people left behind.  So many I couldn’t help.”
  Her eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment, and then she began to move away. 
“How long till the evacuation modules power up–?”

The call terminated, and Knile was left staring helplessly at a blank screen once again.

He was gripped by a real sense of despair for the first time.  Maybe there was no way out of this after all.

“So that didn’t go well,”
came Silvestri’s voice over the comms.

“No.”

“I’ve checked with Yun.  There seems to be nothing we can do from this end.  I’m sorry, Knile.”

Knile closed his eyes.  He wasn’t prepared to accept defeat.  Not now, when they were this close to their goal.

Then he realised there was perhaps one last option available to him.  It was a long shot, but what choice did he have at this point?

He heard a dull thud somewhere inside the railcar, then another. Craning his neck to look around, he tried to locate the source of the noise.  As another impact sounded, he realised what it was.

Lazarus was bashing at the perspex dome of the compartment in which he sat.

What’s the crazy bastard doing?

“Lazarus, cut it out
,” he said.  “That’s not going to get us anywhere.”

“If I am to die,”
Lazarus said through his comms,
“then I shall die in the light.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”  There was no response, so Knile put the matter out of his mind and
glanced back at the terminal
.  “
Silvestri, can you put Yun back on the line?”

“Here, Knile.”

“I need you to patch through another call for me.”

43

Ursie lay on the cot sobbing as Tobias loomed over her, his kindly old face full of concern and empathy.

“What is it, kiddo
?” he said.  “What’s happening to you?  You need to talk to me.”

Ursie wiped the tears from her cheek with cold, shaking fingers.  She opened her mouth, but the words would not come out.

I’m a criminal.  A murderer.  A monster.  You should get away from me while you still can.

These thoughts tumbled around in her head like garments in a clothes dryer, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to give voice to them.  She didn’t want Tobias to hate her.

After all, he was the only person in the world who
didn’t
hate her.

It had been perhaps an hour since the incident with the Redmen out on the concourse.  In the confused aftermath of the encounter, she had stumbled away and found herself back at Tobias’ apartment, clothes smeared in the blood of the men she had killed.

The men she had
butchered
.

In that time she hadn’t come close to dealing with the implications of what had happened.  She was no longer concerned about being caught, or what the Consortium might do to her as punishment for her crimes.

No, those thoughts were behind her.  Now she could only lament her own nature, the brutality of which she seemed capable.

Is this what I’ve become?
she thought miserably. 
A killer like van Asch?  A sociopath who destroys anything that gets in their way?

She’d tried telling herself that it was self-defence, that she hadn’t meant for it to go down as it had, but was that really true?  Could she have prevented the deaths of those men?  Men who were simply doing their duty?

I should have just let them take me.  I should have let them lock me up.  I’m a danger to everyone around me.

“Please, talk to me,” Tobias was saying.  He raised his hand toward her cheek, and she jerked violently aside to avoid his touch.