Sunspire (The Reach, Book 4) (22 page)

“Holy
fuck
,” he said as recognition dawned.  “The bodyguards who were with that guy Gernot, back at the dirigible place?”

“Yeah, except they’re obviously not bodyguards.  They lied about the whole thing.  They’re Redmen.”

“But that makes no sense.”

“Maybe it does.”

“Huh?”

“What if they had intel on Knile?  On Talia?”

“They knew where she was going,” Duran muttered. 
“Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying . This can’t be a coincidence.”

“But what’s their endgame?”

“Who knows?  Maybe Hanker is still pulling the strings.”  She snapped her fingers.  “What if he’s still trying to get off-world?  What if he found out about Sunspire?”

“But how?”

Zoe shrugged.  “He works for the Consortium.  Who knows what kind of tech he has at his fingertips?”  She thought for a moment.  “If he knew where Talia was going, he might have sent the Redmen out to intercept her,
to either kidnap her or follow her to Sunspire.”

“And then what?”

Zoe shook her head.  “The guy doesn’t seem to have a problem with killing people.  Once they get what they want, why leave any loose ends?”

Duran looked about helplessly.  “It doesn’t matter now anyway, does it?  There’s nothing we can do.  It’s not like we swapped phone numbers
with Talia or Silvestri.
  We can’t warn them.
”

“So we’re going to just let them die at the hands of the Consortium?”

Duran pressed a hand to his brow.  He thought back to the moment when they’d left Talia and the others at Bagley’s, how she and the others had seemed so pathetic and hopeless, and how he’d revelled in that knowledge.  How he’d figured they deserved their lot.

Now, he couldn’t seem to derive any pleasure from the thought.  More than that, he didn’t even see them in the same light anymore.  With the passing of his father and those memories of his youth, his perspective had shifted altogether.  Now he saw Talia and her companions not as criminals who deserved to fail, but as downtrodden refugees trying to find their way to a better life.  After all, that’s what they were, weren’t they?  They hadn’t ascended the Reach in order to destroy anything.  They were attempting to liberate themselves, along with the other unfortunates in the Reach who had been forgotten by the Consortium.

That same feeling of shame Duran had felt as a kid, admonished by his father, now returned to him tenfold.  He realised that perhaps that sense of revulsion he’d experienced when looking back at Talia was not in regard to her, but instead to
himself.

Somewhere along the line, he’d forgotten who he was.

Keep standing up for the Jeremy Longs of the world.

He let out a sob of anguish, of regret, covering his face with his hand.

“Alec?”

His hand dropped away, and he looked at Zoe.  “I’m okay,” he said.  “I know what I need to do.”

“What?”

“The shuttle that Jovanovic and de Villiers are working on.  She said it was heading out to a coastal place called Ayre.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s in the east.”

Realisation came to her and she smiled.  “Heads past Sunspire Mountain?”

Duran nodded.  “We need to make it to Nix Junction before it leaves.”

26

Nurzhan stared down at Silvestri’s motionless form as he replaced the silenced .45 back under his jacket.  He glanced at the staircase, but there was no noise from downstairs in response to what had just happened.

Talia and Roman were unaware that Gernot and Silvestri were both dead.

In truth, Nurzhan hadn’t wanted it to go down like this.  The plan was for himself and Kazimir to insinuate themselves within Silvestri’s group, tag along with them to Sunspire, wait for the cruiser to dock, and then make their move.  At that point, everyone would be expendable apart from the cruiser captain, he reasoned.

But things hadn’t gone according to plan.  He’d stepped outside on the balcony with Kazimir for only a few short minutes, in order to speak alone with him as they assessed the situation, but Silvestri had cornered the fool Gernot too quickly.  He’d caught them off-
guard.

Now that Silvestri was dead, everything had changed.

“That was reckless, brother,” Kazimir said beside him.  “You’ve endangered our mission.”

“I disagree,” Nurzhan said.  “It was entirely necessary.”

“But this man, Silvestri… he was an important part of the plan to get off-world.  What good is he to us now?”

Nurzhan extracted the radio from his pocket, the one that had belonged to Jon Hanker.

“You heard the message from Talia that was sent to Knile through the longwave, just as I did.  Silvestri made contact with the cruiser captain, Ngozi.  The deal was struck.”

“And if there’s a change of plan?”

“Kazimir, listen.  Silvestri was onto us.  He saw through Gernot from the start.  He wasn’t convinced, and it only took a few minutes alone with him to find out the truth.  Gernot was spilling
everything
when we walked in here.”

“We should have been more careful.”

“Yes, we should have, but it’s too late for that now.”

Kazimir pursed his lips.  “And where to from here?  Talia will never cooperate now that you’ve killed Silvestri.  You will have to kill her, too.”

“No, she must live at all costs.  We need her alive when we reach Sunspire.  Otherwise, there will be no reason for Knile to activate the elevator.  We need her to make contact with him first.”

“So what is your plan, brother?  Kidnap her?  Force her to do as you say?”

“Knile is resourceful.  If we create a hostage situation, he may find a way to ruin our plans.  I think the best chance for us is to continue with subterfuge, make them believe that everything is going to plan.

“So we will not use force?”

Nurzhan smiled reassuringly at his fellow Redman.  “No, Kazimir.  I have something else in mind.”  He unslung the rifle from his shoulder and pointed at the doorway that led to the balcony.  “Take your position over there.”

Kazimir did as he was instructed and Nurzhan moved to the centre of the room.  He raised the rifle and aimed at a blank patch of wall, allowed his finger to rest on the trigger.  Then he drew a deep breath.

“Get down!” he yelled.  He fired a shot at the wall, the report deafening in the confined space.  Then he fired another.  “Gernot, Silvestri, take cover!” he shouted, pretending as though the two were still alive, instead of bloody corpses on the floor.  He fired four more shots, then ran across the room to take his position opposite Kazimir.

“Silvestri?”  Talia’s voice from downstairs.  “What’s going on?”

“Talia, we need help!” Nurzhan yelled.  He fired another shot.  “It’s the raiders!”

He glanced back, and Talia appeared on the stairwell, bleary-eyed, with Roman not far behind.

“What happened?” she said, looking about wildly.

“The raiders
snuck in behind us somehow.  We killed two out on t
he balcony and drove the others off, but Gernot and Silvestri were hit.”

Talia’s eyes swept across the room and alighted on the two casualties, and she became as pale as a ghost.

“Silvestri?” she shouted, distraught.  She bounded across the room to where he lay, tilting his face toward her, and then let out a strangled cry of grief.  “
No!
”

Nurzhan turned back to the balcony doorway and fired another shot at nothing in particular.

“That was a scouting party,” he said.  “They’ll be back in greater numbers.  We need to relocate.”  He got up and moved over to Gernot, and even though he felt nothing but revulsion for the little cretin, he managed to feign shock and dismay.  “
Dust and ashes
!  They got Gernot.  They got our master.”

“Will he live, Norrey?” Kazimir said from the doorway, joining in on the game.

Nurzhan placed two fingers on the dead man’s neck.  “No, Kolos.  He is already gone.”

Over by Silvestri, Talia was inconsolable.  She was weeping openly, her hands and arms now covered in blood as she attempted to cradle Silvestri’s head to her.  The boy, Roman, stood above the two of them, clearly in shock.  He stared at Silvestri’s ruined face in disbelief.

“What about Silvestri?” Nurzhan said urgently.  Talia made no response, lost in her grief.  “He’s dead too, isn’t he?”

Talia looked at Nurzhan, numb.  “I… I don’t…”

“He’s dead,” Nurzhan said.  He gripped her under the arm.  “And we need to go, or we’ll suffer the same fate.”

Talia resisted, still clinging to the dead man forlornly, but after a few moments she relented and stumbled to her feet.

“How the fuck did this happen?” she said miserably.  “How the
fuck
did this happen?  I was just talking to him a few minutes ago.”

“They came out of nowhere, maybe in through the ground floor,” Nurzhan said.  “Silvestri and Gernot had already been shot by the time we got here.”

“But they would have had to have come right past us to get up here,” Roman said, confused.  “I don’t…”

“You were in darkness down there, yes?” Nurzhan said.  “They probably didn’t notice you.  There was light up here, people talking.”

“Yes, but–”

“There’s no time for this,” Kazimir said, getting up from where he’d positioned himself by the balcony door.  “Norrey is right, we’re dead if we stay here.  We have to move before they bring back more men.”

“But Silvestri,” Talia said, waving a hand helplessly at her fallen comrade.  “We can’t just leave him here like that–”

“There’s no other choice!” Nurzhan said, gripping her more firmly and directing her downward.  “Move!”

They made their way down to the lower floor, and Kazimir led the way to the nearest exit.  He opened it a crack, then looked out into the street.

“Clear,” he said.

Bundling their two confused and distraught companions ahead of him, Nurzhan pushed forward and out into the ruins once again.

In the night sky above, the pinprick of orange light that he knew to be Mars – his home – seemed just a little closer than it had before.

27

The shape behind the translucent curtain solidified, coalescing into the outline of a man, and then a hand reached out and slid the plastic aside.

An old man dressed in tattered overalls stepped through and allowed the plastic to fall back in place behind him.  He lifted a weapon, some kind of handgun that Knile had never seen before, and pointed it
at them.

“So you’ve come for me,” he said, his mouth invisible behind a long, shaggy grey beard.  “You’ve finally come for me.”

Knile raised his hands placatingly.  “Wait a minute, buddy.  Don’t do anything stupid.  We haven’t come for anybody.”

“Is that so?” the old man said.  “Then what the hell are you doing in my way station?”

“We’re just passing through on our way to Sunspire,” Knile said.  “We’re not here to cause trouble.”

The old man scowled and looked across the faces in the group, evaluating.  “I gotta admit, you’d be the scruffiest bunch of
transit officials I ever saw, if that’s what you were.”

“You are hardly one to talk, by the state of you,” Lazarus grumbled.  “If I were you, I would attend to my own hygiene first before–”

“Shut it,” Knile whispered, digging the Redman in the ribs.

The old man shrugged.  “Well, it’s not like I could shoot you with a hose fitting, anyhow,” he said, tossing the implement on the bench.  “Still, it was a nice bluff.”

Knile relaxed, feeling a little foolish.  “A hose fitting?  Is that all it was?”

“No,” the man seemed to mutter to himself.  “They won’t try anything.  Be quiet.”

Knile glanced uncertainly at Ursie.  “Did you say something?” he said to the old man.

The old man ignored him, moving away and
gathering up a bag of powder and sprinkling it on several of the plants on the nearest row, as if he’d forgotten the newcomers were even there.  Knile moved over and picked up the fitting, which was roughly the size and shape of a .38 revolver, possessing both a trigger and a chrome finish.  On closer inspection it was not so convincing, but in the heat of the moment it certainly
could
have been a weapon of some sort.

“Who are you?” Ursie said.

“The name’s Walt Parks,” the old man said.  “I’m the caretaker in these parts.”

“What parts would that be?” Knile said.

Walt stopped and gestured vaguely around him.  “The way station.”  He cocked his head as if listening, then nodded.  “Yes, I’ll ask them.”  He looked them over.  “Who are you, anyway?”