Sunspire (The Reach, Book 4) Read Online Free Page B

Hanker shouted, pacing about angrily.  “Fucking little prick!”
    Even though it had been several hours since Hanker’s plan to destroy the habitat – and Administrator Valen along with it – had been thwarted, the old man had not come close to regaining his composure.  He had spent the duration stomping around the makeshift office, cursing and muttering to himself as he’d tried to come to terms with the fact that his years of scheming had come to nothing.
    Valen, and the rest of the Consortium staff on the habitat, had escaped.  Hanker’s carefully laid plans for revenge had been ruined by Knile Oberend ’s distress call to Valen.
    The habitat had been evacuated.  Valen was, most likely, sitting comfortably at one of the moon bases right now, planning her retirement to the Outworlds.
    “You think you’re so clever, Knile,” Hanker said, lost in his own thoughts.  “But old Hank hasn’t played his last hand.  Not yet.”
    Nurzhan waited patiently for a few more moments, then cleared his throat noisily.
    “You called for me, Consul Hanker?”
    Hanker snapped his head around, as if surprised to see him standing there.  The consul’s eyes were feverish, intense.  He had the look of a man who had become unhinged.
    “Redman,” Hanker snapped, “we need to make preparations to leave.”
    In all the years Nurzhan had served him, Jon Hanker had never addressed him by his name.  It was always ‘Redman’ or ‘Guard’ or sometimes simply ‘You’.
    Nurzhan suppressed his displeasure , keeping his voice even.  “Where are we to go, Consul?”
    Hanker dropped down into his chair again and began to shuffle through more papers, which were filled with untidy scribbles in his own handwriting.  He began to mutter to himself again as he flicked between them, and Nurzhan waited patiently once more.
    “Where are we going, Consul Hanker?” Nurzhan prompted.
    Hanker ceased his frenetic shuffling and glared at the Redman.  “They think they’ve won, but they haven’t,” he said.  “Not by a long shot.”
    “Who?”
    “Valen!” Hanker said.  “The Consortium.  They think they’ve found safety, but they haven’t.  Not by a long shot.”
    Across the other side of the room, Kazimir appeared, having returned from his inspection of the perimeter.  He nodded to his fellow Redman, then stood at attention.
    “I don’t understand,” Nurzhan said to Hanker.  “How can you touch the Consortium now?  The Wire has been severed.  We’re trapped here forever.  All of us.”
    Hanker grinned sardonically.  “Well, no one ever accused you of having a brain in your head, Redman.”  He lifted a small device from the edge of his desk.  It was a metallic grey colour, and a silver antenna protruded from one end.  “If you’d been listening, you might have figured it out.”
    Nurzhan bristled at the insult.  “What do you have there?”
    “This,” Hanker said, lifting the device and staring at it appreciatively, “is a custom built receiver.  It allows me to tap into any channel used by a longwave registered to the Consortium.”  He raised an eyebrow.  “You know what a longwave is, don’t you?”
    Nurzhan nodded.  “A device used for off-world comms.”
    “Correct.  And I happen to have had this receiver tuned to a specific longwave, ever since I got the call from that little brat Ursie up in the habitat.”  Hanker leaned forward.  “I know what they’re doing.  Knile and his friends.”
    “And that is?”
    “They’re taking the Skywalk over to the old Sunspire elevator.  They’re going to try to get it started again, get their friends off-world.  They even have a cruiser waiting out there to pick them up.”  He waggled the receiver at Nurzhan.  “That’s our ticket out of here.”
    Nurzhan glanced at Kazimir, but the other Redman remained stoic, emotionless behind his gas mask.
    “Then we would not be consigned to live on this forsaken wasteland,” Nur zhan said, his