“Of course she is,” I groused. “Any more lost family members I should know about?”
“No relation to you, actually. She got the looks and the brain, we got the bloodline. Lucky for her. Amazing what she did with the hand-terminal, though, isn’t it? I forgot to ask if you had any trouble getting it through security.”
“None,” I said. “My mom?”
“Right.”
Rin switched on the view-screen and shuffled through a few recordings before selecting one. The time stamp was from a few hours earlier, and I fell to my knees in front of the screen when I saw what was on it. The feed was so rife with static that hearing anything was impossible, but my mother sat upright on a medical table, in a cavern that looked nothing like her Q-Zone room.
“We had her extracted the moment you left Titan,” Rin said. “She’s in the capable hands of our own doctor, receiving treatment.”
I assumed she had to be talking about the woman standing in front of my mom, inspecting her eyes and throat with a flashlight. She faced the other direction, so I was able to see only the curls of her red hair, but she was shorter than your average Ringer.
I slid across the floor on my knees until the screen was an arm’s length away. The recording wasn’t long, only a handful of seconds of my mom undergoing inspections, but there was no question that she looked healthier already. An IV was still plugged into her arm, but her rashes were healing and her eyes bustled with renewed vigor. My fingers ran across the screen.
“She had something called strep,” Rin said. “She’s going to be fine now, thanks to you. We’ll make arrangements for a new identity so that she can avoid any trouble.”
The sight brought a smile to my lips that I was grateful my helmet kept Rin from seeing. “Will I ever be able to see her again?”
“Returning to Titan will be difficult for some time. We have more important issues to deal with.”
“‘More important?’” I whipped around, my cheeks hot with anger. “She’s supposedly your sister-in-law, for Trass’s sake! You should’ve helped her the moment they stuck her in there!”
“I did. Arrangements had to be made. With Alann—your father—gone, I had to make sure you weren’t harmed. And unfortunately, you went right back to that ingrate Dexter Howser. Who knows what he was planning on doing with you. We had to intervene.”
“I can handle myself. You didn’t have to bring me here or make me watch you kill those people!”
“I had no choice!” Rin said, raising her voice for the first time. Her jaw stretched so far I could see an entire row of teeth through her wound. It shut me right up. “Don’t you understand? You’re not just some kid from Darien. You’re not the worthless son of a thief and some Earther’s slave-bitch. You’re the blood of Trass!” She pounded her chest plate. “We didn’t die off after the Great Reunion, Kale. We hid. Your father, you, me—we’re his descendants. The last of his line.”
My mouth froze. I had to sit on the couch, or I would’ve fallen, suit and all. It was the most ridiculous claim I’d ever heard. Rin panted, and before either of us could do anything else, Hayes burst into the room. Gareth leaned against the wall by the door.
“Rin, it’s happening,” Hayes said excitedly.
“Don’t you have a ship to pilot?” Rin bristled.
He waved his hand dismissively. “It’s on auto. I bounced our reception off a luxury cruiser passing above us to capture this off the Ring-wide newsfeeds. Look at this.”
He switched the view-screen over to the feed. It was grainy but clear enough to understand what we were looking at. The ticker at the bottom read URGENT: ATTACK ON THE PICCOLO, and the reporter in front of the camera stood in a hangar on Pervenio Station. Her voice went in and out. Not that I could focus anyway, considering the news about my father. The only thing I heard was that Director Sodervall was going to be addressing the Ring in a matter of hours.
In the background sat the Piccolo, its aft torn asunder. Pervenio security officers surrounded it, and one by one, members of the Ringer crew were escorted off the ship. They weren’t being treated like victims. I saw Yavik, Lester, and Desmond, nose still bleeding, amongst all the others. Sweat poured down their faces. Some of them needed help walking. The one person I didn’t spot was Cora. That fact finally earned my full attention.
The reporter said, “Early reports say that one of the same Ringers responsible for the horrific video being circulated throughout Solnet attempted to accelerate the Piccolo, a gas harvester loaded with flammable gases, into Pervenio Station. While there is no word on who exactly he was, two heroic Pervenio Collectors thwarted the attack and were able to detain the surviving members of the crew.”
“You said they wouldn’t be harmed,” I said.
“Relax, lover boy.” Hayes playfully thrust his hand past my face. “Deception. Joran was going to stop before anything happened. We merely wanted to show them that they aren’t safe, even in their station.”
“Quiet, Hayes,” Rin ordered.
He leaned in next to the side of my helmet. “They’ll think that all this was our endgame,” he whispered, “and bring that hand-terminal of yours right into their security headquarters to be analyzed, just like we want. It’ll provide us with a brief opening into their systems when they do, thanks to that gorgeous sister of Rin’s.”
“I said quiet!”
Hayes hopped away, snickering. I stared at the view-screen. Someone was being carried out of the ship on a hovering gurney. I slid as far forward on the couch as I could. Lousy feed and all, I confirmed it was Cora. Her head was propped up, and she wore a pained grimace, no doubt due to the brace wrapping her arm, but she was alive. A few more Ringers being treated for minor wounds followed behind her. Then came a body bag.
“Those mud-stomping bastards!” Hayes growled.
“From ice to ashes, Joran,” Rin said solemnly. Gareth stepped over and placed a comforting hand on her arm.
“They’ll pay for this.”
“He knew what he was volunteering for. We can only hope he took some of them out first.”
Gareth nudged Rin so hard I could feel her armored shoulder tap mine. He pointed at the screen, and I followed his finger, finally able to avert my focus from Cora. Strolling out of the Piccolo last was a pair of men in Pervenio armor who were two peculiar-looking officers. One was an Earther with a graying beard and hair, an iron glower, and a pulse-pistol dangling from his hip. The top part of his armor was removed, revealing a faded brown duster. The other was taller and lean, an offworlder in his twenties most likely, with a strange yellow-colored lens apparatus stretching over his right eye.
“Collectors,” Hayes said. “Guess that video made us more popular than we thought.”
“They’ll be taken care of,” Rin grunted. The feed switched over, and the stern face of Director Sodervall appeared onscreen, ready to address the Ring. “Turn this off. It’s time we all rest.”
“But the director—”
“Off.”
She powered the view-screen down herself and stood. Without another word or even a glance back at me, she left the room, clearly affected by the death of one of the men under her command. Gareth snorted and followed her.
Hayes plopped down onto the couch beside me. “You get used to her,” he said. “She isn’t all bad.” He patted me on the back and held out the ration bar from earlier. “You forgot this, by the way.”
“What will they do to them?” I asked as he dropped it onto my lap.
“Who?”
“The crew of the Piccolo.”
“That what you’re worried about?” Hayes said. “They’ll lock ’em up on the station for a bit while they try to figure out what happened. Standard procedure.”
“Standard? I’ve heard about how they interrogate prisoners in that place. You’re all so worried about our people, why’d you leave them on the ship to be taken in?”
“We don’t have the supplies for ‘em. The Sunfire would fall apart faster than i
t already is. Would you rather us all starve here together, or let them take a few lumps before Pervenio realizes they don’t know anything?”
“I...” I bit my lower lip. I’d traded my mother’s freedom for the imprisonment of the woman I loved. Whether or not Cora knew anything, Pervenio Station’s cells were infamous for a reason. They’d try whatever it took to get answers out of her and the others before they set them free.
“Kid, eventually, you got to realize that this was going to happen with or without you,” Hayes said.
“I’m sure you know that’s not true.”
In my peripherals, I noticed Hayes’s brow furrow. “She told you, didn’t she?” he said. “Pretty crazy, isn’t it?”
“Do you all really expect me to believe anything she told me?” It was insane. Trass was a genius, a brilliant scientist and inventor who’d constructed the ark that would carry human beings farther through space than ever before in only a handful of years, under the pressure of impending Armageddon. Me? I was a reformed thief who couldn’t even save his mom from sickness on his own. Sure, I could repair a faulty harvesting vacuum or a flickering light, but I was far from a genius.
“Personally, I don’t care as long as it gets the job done,” Hayes replied. “I didn’t believe her either when we first met, but she can be very convincing.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Your pop worked hard to keep the lot of you hidden from Pervenio. Seems like as good an indication as any that that’s what you all are. Wouldn’t do Pervenio Corp any good having a bunch of Trass’s running around after they took over.”
“You knew him too?”
“Nah. Alann let very few people actually know him, but I’d see him around before I got stuck here. This, all of this—the Children of Titan—he helped start it.”
“So that’s what you’re calling yourselves?” I said, making no effort to mask my disdain.
“Look down, kid.” Hayes tapped the orange circle printed on the chest plate of my armor. “You’re one of us now. Better get used to it.”
“Shoving me in your armor doesn’t make me one of you.”
“Do you think I asked to be trapped on this piece of junk for three years either? It sure as hell would’ve been easier not to have been born a Ringer. But let me ask you this: If you’d known you’d wind up here, if you’d known everything that would happen, would you have said no to helping your mom?”
The question gave me pause, and as soon as he noticed that, he grinned. I wanted to be irritated by his reaction, but I couldn’t because I knew he was right. I would have done it all the same, and if I didn’t, it would’ve been Cora or Desmond, or some new Ringer crew member I’d never met before forced to do their bidding. Rin didn’t seem like the type of woman who’d give up easily.
“Exactly!” Hayes said. He hopped to his feet. “Now, what do you say we cheer you up a bit. We’ve got a gift for you. I swear on your great-however-many-times-grandpa, you’ll love it.”
“I’m not—”
“Won’t accept any ‘nos.’” He yanked on my arm, his powered suit easily providing the muscle to haul me upright. “After three years with those two, no way I’m dealing with another sorry sack. Oh.” He bent over, picked up the ration bar, and shoved it into my hand. “And would you eat the damn thing already? You pass out, and it’ll be my ass.”
With that, he left the room. I guess I was starving because once he was around the corner, I ripped open the wrapper and shoved half of the bar into my mouth. Chicken soup-flavored, it tasted like heaven. I scarfed down the rest and hurried to catch up with him, struggling to match his strides. He was far more accustomed than I to walking in these suits.
“How have I never heard of your group... organization... whatever it is?” I asked, still chewing.
“Outside of Pervenio higher-ups, few had before the recording we sent out on the Piccolo,” he answered. “For decades there’ve been factions of Titanborn protesting for more rights, with names and fancy leaders. Pervenio and his hound Director Sodervall put them all down. Unlike them, the Children of Titan aren’t a group. We’re a symbol. We’re everywhere, and nowhere—operating out of sight. Cells functioning on our own terms. This is just one of many, kid. Few of us know of each other, even fewer have seen each other, but we all know what we want.”
“And what’s that?”
“Our home back.”
A difficult sentiment to argue with. Every Ringer dreamed of what it might’ve been like to live before the Great Reunion, when our chief concern was how best to work together to acquire the resources we needed and build a prosperous, peaceful civilization. The new, better Earth Darien Trass had dreamed of. We never considered going back, and it wasn’t only because Titan’s atmosphere was often too stormy to see through. Even once we discovered that Earthers had survived a century after the Meteorite hit, we were happy to let them rebuild on their own and fight each other for control, until Luxarn Pervenio’s father showed up on our doorstep and we foolishly invited them in.
“Do you know how many Titanborn are living throughout the Ring?” Hayes asked after a few seconds went by without me responding. “And I don’t mean one-generation offworlders from Earth. I mean real, genuine men and women with roots dating back to before the Great Reunion.”
I shrugged.
“Roughly two-point-three million by census,” he answered. “Probably a couple hundred thousand more illegitimates. Hasn’t grown in decades because of our damn immune systems, but it hasn’t fallen much either since the plague’s effects leveled out. Just like Trass never thought the people we left behind would eventually enslave us, Earthers never figured their arrival would drive us to focus on settling down with a good mate and popping out baby Ringers.”
“Just so they can get sick too,” I grumbled.
“You’re not listening. By blood, we outnumber the Earthers here three to one, probably more. Eventually, new Earther immigrants will close the gap like Pervenio wants, but if we can make them fear this place too much to dig out of the mud on Earth and drag their asses over, if they choose to go to a Venta Co colony at Europa instead, or Mars, then guess what?”
“It gets better.”
“It does indeed. But if we don’t change anything, eventually, there won’t be anyone to remember the days before they arrived and the home we built. We’ll be offworlders, the same as any others, throwing our lot into the Departure Lottery just to feel like we’re worth something.”
He turned down a branch in the hallway, and as I followed, I realized, based on my knowledge of the Piccolo, where we were headed. We were at the starboard airlock wing. This hall was flanked by similar rows of benches, only there were no empty exo-suits hanging on the wall. The inner seal was closed.
I froze.
“Don’t worry,” Hayes snickered. “I’m not going to shove you out.” He keyed a command to open the inner seal, and sitting inside the airlock was Captain Saunders, his wrist cuffed to a pipe. His skin was whiter than any Earther’s should be, and his whole body was drenched in sweat, even though he was shivering. A torn shirt was tied around his torso, covering a gunshot wound.
“Captain Saunders!” I exclaimed and scurried over. His head slumped to the side as he wheezed. Judging by how red the floor around him was, he’d lost a lot of blood. I nudged him, but his eyelids only fluttered, and he groaned something inaudible.
“What the hell are you doing to him?” I questioned.
“Figured we’d save the worst of them for you, Mr. Trass,” Hayes said, grinning.
SIXTEEN
Hayes wasn’t pleased when I asked him to show me where the ship’s water stores were so I could retrieve some for Captain Saunders, but he reluctantly let me do as I pleased. That was the first time I began to consider that maybe he and Rin were telling the truth about who I was. No doors were locked for a Trass. The thought was so unbelievable it almost had me amused. Almost.
The Sunfire’s galley was barren. Cabine
t doors hung loose and tables were tossed about, stained with blood and corrosion. It was like I’d stepped into a time machine and emerged on the Piccolo years after it being abandoned. A pallet filled with ration bars like the one I’d been given earlier sat in the corner, along with a few small tanks of water. All of it bore Venta Co markings, and while I wasn’t sure how they got the supplies onto the Sunfire, there was no doubt they were how Rin and her skeleton crew had survived for so long. Some expiration dates were after the Sunfire’s supposed disappearance. I wondered if Venta knew they were backing a public execution, all to stick it to their corporate rivals.
I filled a cup with water for the captain before realizing how dry my own throat was. I downed three cups, then saved one for him. With the Venta g-stim diminishing my soreness, I also found that I was starving. I stuffed another ration bar in my mouth and grabbed two more just in case. Nobody stopped me. Hayes returned to the command deck after he saw what I was up to. Gareth stayed to watch my every move, but despite his hawkish glare, he kept his distance.
“Hey, Captain,” I said as I approached the airlock, water in hand and focused on ensuring I didn’t crush the cup with my unnaturally strong grip. I kneeled beside him. “C’mon, you need this.”
He was barely conscious. I grabbed his jaw and pried open his mouth enough to pour some water inside. Most of it dribbled down his chin, washing the blood away, but some of it got in. He coughed, and I held his mouth shut so he wouldn’t spit it out before I forced in some more. When it seemed he’d had his fill, I yanked on the cloth wrapping his torso and dripped some into the area of his wound. He moaned and pushed at my arm, but with my suit on, he couldn’t fight me off. I continued cleaning him until the cup was empty.
“You’ll thank me for that,” I said.
I noticed the whites of his eyes peeking through a narrow crack in his eyelids as his head turned to face me. He shivered again. The Sunfire was cold, even for Ringers, so I couldn’t imagine how he must have felt. I got back up and returned to the room I’d first awakened in. All I could find was a ratty blanket, but I knew it was the best I’d get. I couldn’t risk letting him borrow any of my clothes. After falling face-first into a pool of his Earther blood, I was lucky I wasn’t already covered in rashes and vomiting, even though for once in my life, a trip to quarantine was the least of my concerns.
Titan's Son: (Children of Titan Book 2) Page 17
