burning bridges

And then the station exploded.
It wasn’t really anybody’s fault, that is to say, it was the fault of many people. Maybe it was Wilson, who hadn’t checked the position of the oxygen tanks. Or perhaps it was Shatter, who had simply fired one bullet too many. Or maybe the Feds, who fought back instead of letting their coin be stolen. I like to blame the safety inspectors, who obviously failed at their duty to ensure that the Station itself was not flammable, and could stand up to a bit of fire. It burst into flames almost eagerly. I don’t think that we Runners could be blamed for trying to empty the bank safe. It is our job.

It was panic. One of the most memorable events of the past two decades, the story told and retold by civilians and Runners alike. People scrambling for escape pods, trying to load their possessions, keep ahead of the flames. I like to think that most people got out before the explosion itself, that only property was damaged, that no one ever found the Feds that Shatter had killed. But still, Wilson is the name associated with that catastrophe, and it is no surprise that his crew quickly scattered and renamed themselves.
I was still loyal to Wilson, can't live without loyalty, but I managed to warn Ulysses. I told him that something might be happening, and to be ready. He gripped my elbow and said that if anything happened, he would wait for me.
“There won’t be time. I don’t know what is happening.”
“Yes, you do,” he said, “but I will stay in my hangar. I’ll wait.”

We knocked over the bank later that day. It was complicated, not the hardest job I’ve pulled but a challenge. I mapped it out, Wilson set it up, and Shatter kept our backs free of guards. The rest of the crew was brute strength and greed.
We got cornered in the vault, and Ice had opened fire. A bullet ricocheted into my leg, into the flesh below the knee. For a moment there was no pain, no comprehension, until the blazing agony and weakness consumed me. “Well,” I remember thinking bitterly, “you wanted to know everything.”
But suddenly the strange creaking of tanks along the wall gave us all a shock. Shatter knew the sound, and we grabbed what we could and ran. It was, as I said, panic. Sirens and smoke and screaming. The crew ran ahead, and I was for once at the rear, limping as fast as I could manage. No one bothered to put down a bit of profit to help me.
We neared the hangar, and I realized that the hatch to Front’s dock was only two numbers from Wilson’s. So I reached it first, and pressed the security code. Shatter stood at the hatch of Wilson’s hangar, covering my escape, and cried out in anger when I stopped. She shrieked my name and leveled her gun at me, thinking that I had double-crossed them all.
“No!” I shouted, holding up my bloody hands. As I did so the hatch slid open and Ulysses stepped into the smoky corridor. He looked at me, shocked, worried, and I am sure his presence confirmed Shatter’s thought of betrayal. Ulysses grabbed me and pulled me into his hangar, then into the ship. We couldn’t linger long enough to make explanations, and Xylos was far behind us when it suddenly and brilliantly billowed up, then darkened into the vacuum.