章節 174: Guilt

The docking port airlock was unlocked, and in front of me were two people I thought I knew very well. One of them was my wife, Mei, although I now had some difficulty referring to her as such. The other one was a dear comrade, and my former commanding officer, Tachibana.

I already had a script in my mind which I would play to deceive the shuttle crew and protect the architect, but I wasn't expecting Tachibana to be a part of this. I froze up, giving them the opportunity to speak first.

"Kagan." said Tachibana. "You surely took your sweet time unlocking the docking port. Anyway, it's been a while. If I knew it would take a disaster to meet again, I would've just set myself on fire years ago."

"We have an actual city on fire." I said. "Listen, at this rate, we will not rescue everyone before the air becomes unbreathable. Open up the interior spaceport airlock and let the powerful craft directly land within the city. Redirect some others to move in through the hole on the side. Go back to the command centre and-"

"Kagan..."

Mei interrupted me, cleaned her throat and spoke.

"Your advice is appreciated, but we are not here to discuss the evacuation procedure. We need to find the architect, quickly. Terry Myo. He knows the details of this gigantic structure better than anyone else does, and we need his help to bring Fort Unity back to operational status."

"Mei, architect or not, there is no bringing this structure back to life without that giant hole on the side of the city being patched up. That would take weeks at best. You people are focusing on the wrong objective. Let spacecraft land directly onto the city, the spaceport doesn't have the capability to provide everyone with a way out in time."

"Kagan, you promised us knowledge about the architect." said Tachibana. "We have listened to you, we have docked to your ship. Now, we need the information. Once we get it, we will be on our way."

"The architect is aboard." I said. Tachibana's eyes opened wide.

"Where?" he asked.

"There is a bit of a problem, though." I said. "He says that he will not be cooperating with us."

Tachibana spent some time thinking about what to say next. I continued instead.

"Why do you think that would be? I don't think he is the kind of person who would enjoy others' suffering." I asked.

"He must be frightened." said Tachibana. "Fort Unity is his design, and when it failed like this and claimed many lives, I think he felt guilty. We shouldn't let this be an excuse for refusing to cooperate, though. Please, Kagan, take us to the architect."

"Very well." I said. "Mei, Tachibana, this way please."

The moment Mei and Tachibana stepped out of their shuttle, they were pinned down by the passengers who were waiting alongside the walls of Delta Rubycon in silence. Both were handcuffed on my command.

"Kagan." said Tachibana, changing his tone with a surprised one. "Why?"

"You know why." I said. "The architect told me everything while we took our sweet time unlocking the airlock. He told me that you were running some covert tests on Fort Unity's propulsion systems and secretly installing experimental hardware on the structure, despite his objections. He also told me that you were probably looking for him to assassinate him so that he wouldn't speak to anyone else about your experiments, now that things went wrong. Fortunately for him, we happened to crash-land by the skyscraper he was hiding inside, and he could sneak into the shelters we had extracted from Tau Rubycon's debris. I, however, want to ask Mei the same question. I can understand Tachibana, but Mei, why? What was your goal?"

"What do you mean?" asked Mei. "I was only after saving my life."

"I refuse to believe that our presence here in this region of space right when this disaster happened, and your meeting with Tachibana at the disaster site was a simple coincidence. You knew something was going to be happening around here, and so you brought us here saying that you wish to move to another celestial."

"Yes, you are right." Mei admitted. "I knew about it. Tachibana had contacted me earlier. But if I told you what was going on, I thought you would try to stop us, so I didn't take the risk."

"And I should have." I said. "What I can understand from all of this is that one of Tachibana's experiments have gone really wrong, and that's because he did not listen to the architect who warned him not to push the limits. Now, instead of taking the responsibility and trying to save as many people as he can, he is trying to save himself from the judgement of public."

"Kagan, there was no malicious intent." said Tachibana.

"What was your goal then, Tachibana?" I asked. "Enlighten me, why did you risk the lives of one hundred fifty thousand people? What was worth destroying a monumental space habitat? You wanted nice looking toys hanging on the outside of your habitat? You have the blood of thousands in your hands!"

Tachibana went silent.

I turned to the passengers who had captured Mei and Tachibana.

"Arrest the rest of the shuttle crew as well. Tachibana was just a member of the Unity command crew, he couldn't have acted without the knowledge of the rest of the crew."

I turned back to Tachibana.

"I will bring you to the bridge. You will get on comms and command rescue ships to land directly onto the city."

"Sir, that won't be necessary." said a passenger. "News spread quickly. The air jet has weakened. The city atmosphere has already thinned out, the remaining survivors won't last longer than a minute or two."

"No, no..." Tachibana started crying. Mei, on the other hand, was just sitting completely still in silence.

"Tachibana." I said. "Then, as your final task, you will ask for a head count from all rescue vessels and hope that the numbers rise as much as they can. From there, I will take the command."