Skybreach (The Reach #3) (50 page)

The shaking and rattling inside Knile’s compartment seemed to go on forever, and more than once it became so bad that he thought the railcar must surely have come free from its mounts and was now tumbling out into the blackness of space.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered how it would feel to burn up in reentry, trapped inside the railcar as he was roasted alive.

Don’t worry Knile
, he consoled himself. 
You’ll die of asphyxiation long before you have the chance to experience death by fireball.

At some point, he stopped checking his watch.  There was no point.  For a start, he couldn’t read it properly due to the shaking.  Second, it didn’t really help to know how far away they were from their destination.  He was a passenger on this ride, a helpless bystander until the railcar came to a halt.  Until then he could only sit tight and bide his time.

Another calamitous jolt hit the vehicle, and then Knile felt himself float upward against his seat harness as the momentum of the railcar began to slow.  He struggled forward and was able to finally look upward through the perspex bubble.

Something large and shiny was closing in on them at a rapid pace.  The habitat.

“Almost there,” he said, even though he was unsure anyone could hear him through his comms.  “Get ready to–”

Something caught his eye to the side, and he looked just in time to see one of the compartments explode outward.  The railcar rocked again as fragments of perspex and a tumultuous cloud of gas erupted into space, and as it cleared, Knile saw something else.

Aron Lazarus hung there, one massive hand wrapped around his seat harness, clinging on for dear life as his momentum sought to carry him outward along with the rest of the debris.

The crazy bastard!  He bashed his way out.

“Lazarus, what the fuck are you doing?” he bellowed.  “You’re going to die out there!”

Lazarus bunched the muscles in his arm, swinging himself adroitly back toward the bulk of the railcar.  He took a firm grip of the hull, then let go of the harness altogether.

“Lazarus–”

Knile stopped himself, realising the awful truth.  There was no point trying to save the Redman.  Not now.  With no way to get back inside the railcar, he was going to die no matter what.

For his part, Lazarus seemed unfazed by his predicament as he climbed across
from one compartment to the next.  There was a slight scowl on his face, a determined glint in his eye, but no panic.  No fear.  He slid around a bulge in the hull, then dragged himself across the front of Knile’s compartment.  He glanced inward once, meeting Knile’s eyes, but there was no emotion there.  No farewell, no sense of sadness or regret.  Then, as quickly as he had
approached
, he moved on.  In moments he reached the cargo bays, then stopped.  He took a firm grip with one hand, then seemed to set himself.

Knile finally realised what he was doing.  This wasn’t some kind of misguided attempt at suicide.

He was trying to reach the explosives.

Lazarus began to wrench on the handle of the cargo bay, straining and pulling with all his might, but he seemed to make little headway.  He shifted his body and then began to use both hands at once, the cords in his neck standing out like iron rods.  Knile could see the sweat on his arms already turning to ice crystals, lending an odd sheen to his skin.

Lazarus drew back one of his fists and then slammed it forward into the cargo bay door.  As he drew it back for the second time, Knile could see that it was covered in blood.  He wasn’t holding back.  The next blow was just as powerful as the first, sending a jolt along his arm as his knuckles impacted the steel.  He rained blow after blow on the door, teeth gritted, but there was no way for Knile to tell whether he was having any effect on his target.

Knile looked up again, and now the habitat was perilously close.

And they were coming in hot.

“Brace, brace, brace!” he yelled into his comms, gripping his hands around the harness as he prepared for the worst.

Surely this was it.  This was the moment when the railcar would burst apart, sending the lot of them spinning into space.

He looked back at Lazarus, but the Redman’s attempts to force his way into the cargo bay had already ended.  Succumbing to the brutal environment of space, he now lay slumped against the hull, unmoving, his body cold and lifeless.

Ursie waited at the airlock doors, peering out through the window as the OrbitPod loomed larger and larger in the roof of the dock.  Although she’d never seen the vehicle approach from this angle, she couldn’t help but feel that it was moving too fast.  It really did seem to be coming in at breakneck speed.

Maybe there was simply no way for it to slow down in time, given the acceleration she and Heketoro had applied to it earlier.

“Gonna be rough,” Tobias said at her side as he squinted through the window.

“Yeah.”

She glanced over at the old man.  As the situation had escalated, Tobias had seemed to
experience a few moments of lucidity
. 
For a few moments here and there, h
e seemed sharper, more intense.  Whet
her this was some kind of fight-or-
flight instinct, or something else entirely, Ursie couldn’t be sure, but she welcomed it nonetheless.  Although she had grown to love his carefree, harmless attitude, right now she needed someone who could help her get through this mess, and that was what he was giving her.

Suddenly, the OrbitPod cast a shadow over the dock, and then it collided with the huge clamps at the end of the Wire.  The entire habitat rocked, and both Ursie and Tobias fell away from the window.  She waited for the walls around her to rip apart, to feel herself being sucked into the vacuum of space, but the structure held firm.  After a moment she was able to climb back to her feet.  As she reached the window she saw bits of metal and other detritus fall soundlessly from the OrbitPod onto the floor of the dock below.  Both the OrbitPod and the clamps seemed to be wobbling madly, but they had not broken apart.  They were holding firm.

“They made it!” she exclaimed.

“Don’t count yer chickens just yet,” Tobias said, picking himself up.  “We don’t know if the hull ruptured, or somethin’ worse.”

The clamps locked around the OrbitPod, and as the massive doors above started to slide together, the OrbitPod began its 180 degree transition in order to orientate itself with the gravity inside the habitat.  More pieces of debris spun away from the vehicle, and as Ursie peered closer, she saw a horrible sight – at least half of the compartments designed for carrying people  had sustained damage.  One of them looked as though it had blown apart completely.

“They’re dead,” she said, distraught.  “They’re all dead.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Despite her gloomy thoughts, she remained rooted to the spot.  She had to wait until the docking procedure finished, and then she would know for sure.

The doors came together, sealing the dock and shutting out the view of Earth above, and the OrbitPod completed its rotation a few moments later.  Urise heard a hissing sound as the oxygen jets flooded the dock with breathable air.

Moments later, the lock disengaged and Ursie swung the door open.

She began to run forward, her eyes scanning the length of the OrbitPod as she sought for any sign of life.

“Knile?” she called out.  “Where are you?”

So intent was she upon the OrbitPod that she did not notice the chunk of debris on the floor in front of her until she had tripped over it.  She went sprawling awkwardly on her hands and knees, cursing, and as she looked back, she realised that it was not debris that had caused her to fall.

It was a dead guy.

She picked herself up and looked down at the man.  His skin was raw and sickly red, as if he’d been dragged across coarse asphalt for a few blocks.  Although his arms were bare, he wore a tattered breastplate that was all too familiar.

The guy belonged to the Crimson Shield.

She leaned down and turned his chin toward her to look at his face.  She did not recognise him as one of the local Redmen, which meant he must have hitched a ride from Earth.

“Ursie?”

Her heart leapt, and as she spun back toward the OrbitPod, she saw Knile and three others climbing down shakily toward them.

Four minutes, fifteen seconds.

That was how long they had to live.

Knile held his wristwatch steady for a moment longer, ensuring that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, then turned to Holger and the others.

“Four minutes,” he told them.  “Forget the cargo, just–”

Holger wasn’t listening, however.  He was bearing down on Aksel with a grim expression on his face.

“You little turd,” he spat, gripping Aksel by his shirt front.  “You lying sack of shit–”

The shotgun appeared from his trench coat and lifted toward Aksel’s chest.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Knile said, yanking the weapon down again.  “We don’t have time for this shit.  We need to get out of here.”

“Not this fucker,” Holger said, tightening his grip on Aksel’s shirt.  The kid began to sob.  “This little wank stain dies
right here
.”

“He was tricked, okay?” Knile said.  “We all were.  You heard the conversation with Hank.  He manipulated all of us, you and me included.”

Holger pressed his lips together in disgust, staring down at Aksel menacingly, then relented and shoved him away.

“Later,” he told Aksel.  “There’ll be time for this later.”

“Knile, c’mon!”

Knile turned to see Ursie standing nearby with an old man in a weathered station cap at her side. She looked pale, more gaunt tha
n when he’d last seen her.  Sickly. 
But there was also an undeniable
shine in her eyes, a glimpse of relief and happiness.  She seemed glad to see him.

Knile ran toward her, with Holger, Morgan and Aksel in close pursuit.

“Looks like you bought us some time, Ursie,” he said, offering her a brief smile.  “Now, please tell me you have a plan to get us the hell out of here.”

“There’s an evacuation pod waiting for us, out this here door,” the old man said, gesturing with his worn fingers.  “Just follow the red arrows on the floor.”

“Wait a minute,” Holger said, turning back to the railcar.  “Why don’t we put the goddamn bomb in the evac pod?  Let it explode somewhere else?”

“Too much risk,” Knile said.  “What if the pod doesn’t reach safe distance in time?  The shock wave from the explosion might still rip the habitat open, and then we’re screwed.”

“Come on!” Ursie yelled.  “Let’s go!”

Holger hesitated for a moment longer, then they all broke into a run. 
Knile took a few steps, then
faltered as he caught sight of Lazarus lying prone on the floor nearby.  Ursie turned back to him.

“Looks like one of the bad guys tried to hitch a ride,” she said.  “Got what he deserved.”

“No,” Knile said sadly.  “He was one of ours.”

“Huh?”

“He was helping us.  He was a… a friend.”

“You two, get a move on!” Tobias barked at them as the others disappeared through the doorway.