Forsaken Skies Read Free Page B

not here to avenge him. The Navy assigned me to work for him, but it was just a job. I never even liked him.”
    â€œI hated him,” Thom replied, unable to resist. Maybe he wanted to justify what he’d done. “I always hated him.”
    â€œWell, that’s in the past now,” Lanoe said. “As is my job—I don’t owe him anything now that he’s dead. I came after you because believe it or not, I do like
you
. That’s all. Please believe me.”
    â€œI can’t,” Thom said. “Lanoe, I’m sorry, but I can’t trust anyone right now.”
    Over the line he could hear Lanoe sigh in frustration. “Why’d you even do it?” Lanoe asked. “Why kill him? In a year you would have been away at university. Away from him.”
    â€œYou think so?” Thom said. “You don’t know anything, Lanoe.”
    â€œSo enlighten me.”
    Thom smiled at the black mist that surrounded him. He couldn’t think of a good reason to lie, not now. “I wasn’t going to Uni. I wasn’t going anywhere. He was sick. All that stress of his high-powered job just ate away at his heart. You know what they do, when your body gives out like that? They give you a new one.”
    â€œSo he would have lived a little longer—”
    â€œYou still don’t understand, do you? I wasn’t born to be his heir.”
    When you were rich and powerful, you didn’t have to worry about getting sick. You didn’t have to make do with an artificial pump ticking away in your chest, or taking immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of your life. You didn’t even have to worry about getting old.
    No, not if you had a little forethought. Not if you could afford to have children. Kids whose neurology was a perfect match for your own.
    The old man could have arranged for Thom to have an accident that left him brain dead. Then he could have his own consciousness transferred into Thom’s young, healthy body. It happened all the time in the halls of power. The legality was questionable but a lot of rules didn’t apply to planetary governors.
    â€œI was designed,” Thom said. “Built to be his next body.”
    There was a long pause on the line. “I didn’t know,” Lanoe said.
    â€œHe had to die,” Thom said. In his mind’s eye he saw it all over again. Saw himself pick up the ancient dueling pistol. Felt it jump in his hand. The old man hadn’t even had a chance to look surprised. “Do you understand now? I’m only twenty years old, and he was going to steal my body and throw my mind away. Kill me. So I had to kill him if I wanted to live. And now I have to keep moving. For another thirty-six hours.”
    â€œThirty-six hours?”
    â€œHis doctors will have stabilized his brain, even if the rest of him is dead. They can keep his consciousness viable that long. If they catch me before his brain really dies, they can still go ahead with the switch.”
    â€œLet me help, then,” Lanoe said.
    Thom closed his eyes again. Nobody could help him now.
    He leaned forward on his stick. Brought the yacht’s nose down until it was pointed right at the core of the planet. Opened his throttle all the way.
    The yacht dove into a dark cloud bank, a wall of smoke thick enough to block Lanoe’s transmission.
    This would be over soon.

    A rain of fine soot smashed against Lanoe’s canopy as he dove straight down into the pressure and heat of Geryon’s atmosphere. The clouds whipped past him and then they were gone and he stared down into the red glare of the neon layer.
    He couldn’t see the yacht—it was hidden behind that shimmering wall of fire. He spared a moment to check some of his instruments and saw just how bad it was out there. Over 2,000 degrees Kelvin. Atmospheric pressure hard enough to crush the fighter in microseconds. The FA.2 possessed enough vector field strength to hold