Owner 03 - Jupiter War by Neal Asher Read Free Book Online Page B

useful, that they were
doing
something.
    ‘He’ll send his people out to take a shot at us,’ said Var.
    ‘Of course he will,’ Saul replied. ‘So we need to get to the cover of Shankil’s Butte before you speak to him.’ He picked up his pace.
    ‘I still don’t see how this advances our cause any,’ Var protested. ‘I can probably get us inside without him knowing . . .’
    Looking through the base cams, Saul counted eight armed staff. Checking the records there, he saw that most of these were from Mars Science, though some were from Maintenance and Construction. The head of the latter, Martinez, was one of the corpses still lying on a gurney in the medical area, so obviously the eight here were the only ones Rhone trusted with weapons. Saul calculated that Rhone would send a minimum of four of them outside.
    ‘In fact you could not get us in without him knowing, since he’s paranoid enough to be running a recognition system through the exterior cams,’ said Saul. ‘I, however, can get us in, but what then?’ He glanced at her. ‘Eight of his people are armed.’
    ‘You’re as irritating as ever,’ she replied. ‘You’re not going to tell me what you’re planning, are you?’
    Saul analysed that and realized that some human element of him was being wary of letting her know how ruthless he intended to be. He considered the idea of detailing his plans to her but then, deciding he did not yet want to explain the cold reasoning behind them, rejected it.
    ‘You’ll have to trust me,’ he said.
    Var growled in irritation.
    It took them an hour to reach Shankil’s Butte, a partially collapsed monolith of wind-carved sandstone cut through with layers of conglomerate. On the collapsed side, a path wound up through fallen rubble to the top and, without hesitation, Saul began to tramp up this for no other reason than to gaze at the view, which included the base itself lying a couple of kilometres beyond. As he wended his way up, the fuel drop tank launched from Argus Station, which was now well above the horizon but not visible in the daylight sky. Soon they reached the canted summit of the butte and gazed out at the base. The remaining hexes and linking wings were clearly visible, with stacks of regolith blocks and other building materials marking out where much of it had been disassembled.
    ‘Here,’ said Var.
    Saul turned to see her prodding at something on the ground with her toe and then gazing back the way they had come. He walked over and peered down at an assault rifle clip lying by her feet.
    ‘It was from here that one of Ricard’s men shot my friend,’ she explained.
    ‘You killed Ricard and his men,’ Saul noted.
    ‘Will it ever end?’ she asked.
    ‘Everything ends,’ he opined, turning away and finding a rock to sit down on, and again studying the base.
    Over to the right he could see the Mars-format space plane, parked by a low building to one side of a couple of fuel silos, at one end of a rough airstrip where rocks had been dozered to either side and holes filled in and packed down. Checking trajectories in his mind, he focused on the far end of the strip. Half an hour to go now.
    ‘Time for you to talk to Rhone,’ he said.
    ‘You’re sure?’
    ‘Have you ever known me not to be?’ he asked, not sure
what
she had known about him.
    Var made some adjustments on her wrist console, while Saul reached out to the base and established multiple links between the radio receivers there and the internal public address system.
    ‘This is Var Delex calling Antares Base,’ she said, her words echoing in his mind as he heard them at both ends. ‘I need to speak to you, Rhone. There’re some things you need to know.’
    Saul watched the sudden panic stirred up at the other end. Rhone, who had been working at a console in Mars Science, now banished the supplies lists from his screen and called up control schematics for the communication system, immediately trying to shut down public