Hellsky (Hunter-Killer #3)

Chapter 37 - When We Look to the Heavens

When he looked at Rubicon's observatory, Lanto almost wanted to weep. It wasn't the grandest building in the city, nor the largest, but there was something about that mournful, hemispherical mound of rose-red stonework that called back to a different time. A time when humans had been finding their feet on this world for the first time.

Protruding from the top of western side of the mountainous crescent that formed the boundary of Rubicon, the observatory blended into the landscape, easy to miss if you didn't look too closely. The road leading up to it was cracked with age, and the beginnings of hardy shrubbery had began to bristle around the foundations.

He watched, his chest swelling with anticipation, as the domed roof split open with a creak of ill-maintained metal. Sheets of dust sloughed off and spilled down onto the small plateau upon which the observatory sat.

"I'll say this for you, Lanto," Minister DeVanter said, clapping him on the shoulder as she moved up to stand beside him. "When you commit to something, you commit."

He grinned at his fellow minister, and let his eyes wander back to the industry taking place before their eyes. The specialists from Rubicon's engineering cadre worked quickly and efficiently under the direction of Archivist Thaniakis, having stripped the ancient sensor arrays from Nautilus and freighted the whole system up to the surface.

Now they were splicing the systems of the colony ship into the observatory's main computer, coupling the deep space array to align with the immense barrel of the telescope. Around them a security detail headed by Lieutenant Almar patrolled at a respectful distance.

This was it. His last roll of the dice, to pursue a mystery the rest of the planet wanted to just forget about.

"I hope it was worth it," he chuckled.

"You're better off," DeVanter advised, her voice thick with disdain. "You deserve better than that 'committee'. That's no way to spend your retirement years."

"Who said I was retiring?"

"If I'd spent as long jousting with brutes like Nastassos as you have, I'd be glad to be rid of the business."

"Oh, I am. But I've still got unfinished business."

Lanto knew he'd exhausted the last of the patience of the Planetary Defence Sub-Committee. Xanthus had made that painfully clear. He'd used his own funds to requisition specialised haulers and transportation equipment, and amassed a not-insignificant number of signatures of support from the dissenting voices in Rubicon's Commissariat – Ilay DeVanter among them.

Even then, Xanthus had only indulged him because he'd offered to trade his soul away.

Offering to resign his position on the Committee – to relegate himself to a backbench maverick – had been the only way to ensure the others would allow the veritable sacrilege of cannibalising the Nautilus for parts. Even Nastassos had been swayed by that. The prospect of no longer having to put up with Lanto's incessant disagreements had been too good to turn down.

He smiled wryly. In a sense, it had been too easy. He'd known what they wanted, and leveraged that to get what he needed.

"Well, good luck to you," DeVanter said.

"Not sticking around?"

"The Commissariat still needs people like us. Even if its just to ensure that history knows we didn't all go along with this madness." Her expression darkened. "The army's almost at Brekka."

"I hear our southern friends haven't exactly been welcoming."

"No. And I can hardly blame them." She shook her head. "It was bad enough the first time, and they've sent Llewellyn again. The same man with the same rod rammed right up his ruddy arse."