‘YOU HAVE FIVE AND A HALF HOURS TO BREACH THE SYSTEM AND PASS US OFF AS STAFF ABOARD A LUXURY CRUISER NAMED THE RING SKIPPER. CAN YOU GET IT DONE?’
‘I ALWAYS DO. TRANSMITTING NAMES NOW.’
“IDs,” Rin said to us.
We handed over the IDs stuffed into the pockets of the Ringer outfits we’d stolen. They were little more than transparent cards with a data-chip embedded in one corner, and the Pervenio Logo ghosted across the middle, like my real one had looked before it got left behind on the Piccolo. You received one for living in a colony run by Pervenio Corp.
Rin sent her sister each of the names. I was Gavin Davier, in case anybody asked me, which I doubted. Messing with IDs was supposed to be impossible, but I’d been finding that claim disproved a lot by the Children of Titan recently.
‘DO YOU NEED AN IMAGE OF KALE TO DOCTOR?’ Rin asked.
‘I’LL MAKE DO WITH WHAT I’VE GOT,’ Rylah replied.
I shot her a sidelong glare. Rin shrugged and typed: ‘YOU STRAND US WITH THESE AS IS AND WE’RE DEAD.’
‘YOU’LL BE FINE. CAN YOU MAINTAIN CONTACT THROUGHOUT?’
‘NOT WITH THIS TERMINAL. IT’S STOLEN AND A RISK. I’LL FIND A WAY BACK ONTO SOLNET. PREPARE A ROUTE.’
‘GOOD LUCK.’
As soon as the last message went through, Rin switched the device off and used her nails to pry out the power source. The nearest crew member peered at her over the top of her sanitary mask. Rin shot a scowl back at her, so piercing that the woman instantly turned her head and closed her eyes to pretend she was asleep.
“Better rest up,” Rin said, letting her head fall back.
“Don’t have to ask me twice,” Hayes replied. Gareth grunted his agreement.
I tried to take her advice, but I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Captain Saunders’s face before I locked him in the airlock. I thought I’d feel guiltier about condemning him to a slow death, even though he’d begged to die. I didn’t. I wondered if that was because he deserved what he got, or if I was no different from the people sitting on either side of me who’d murdered half of his crew.
Then I pictured Cora with the blood of a man she didn’t even know was her father being washed from her cheeks by tears, and I knew I would’ve done it the same way all over again.
Ever since I was sent off to work on the Piccolo, I’d felt out of control of my life, but that wasn’t completely true. I’d chosen to break into an Earther’s house, just like I’d chosen to do whatever it took to get my mom right. At every stop, I could’ve continued along like most people did, gone through the motions, made a simple living. But ever since I was a child, I’d reached into the darkness and grasped for more. I stole what I wanted to, snuck wherever I could, and lied when I had to. The truth was that I hated every second aboard the Piccolo, taking orders. I hated feeling like a cog in a wheel.
Was it the blood of Trass in me? Was that the only reason I’d decided to break prisoners out of Pervenio Station—to do the impossible? Or did I actually care?
“We are arriving at Pervenio Station,” the captain announced. “Please prepare for disembarking.”
Rin’s eyes snapped open like she’d been stirred from a nightmare. Hayes yawned awake and had to nudge Gareth a few times to get him to come to. My eyes stung from exhaustion. Five hours, yet I couldn’t quiet my mind enough to even nap for a few minutes.
No viewports were available to see into space in the Ringer holding area, but I felt the gentle pull on my body of the cruiser tilting to land on the inner face of the moon-station.
“We can’t keep this,” Rin said, wasting no time. She slapped the hand-terminal down on my lap.
“What do you want me to do with it?” I asked.
“Ditch it before we hit any scanners.”
I nodded and stowed it in my uniform. The ship halted, and then our restraints popped off. The soothing tug of near-Titan-level g drew my feet to the floor. I was sore as hell. The g-stims we’d taken had mostly worn off during transit, but even though it hurt to stand, I was glad to do it. My bones and muscles were built for similar conditions.
A Pervenio security officer appeared in the holding cabin’s doorway. “All right, everybody off!” he barked. “No dragging your feet.”
The Ringer crew stood with a collective groan. They were all as exhausted as I was, and if we were going to be punished for dragging our feet, the officer would’ve had to electrocute us all. We shuffled, one by one, out of the cabin and were escorted through the luxurious halls of the cruiser.
First, we stopped at the Ringer dorms so the crew could retrieve their baggage. Despite the majesty of the cruiser, they looked like oversized versions of the ones on the Piccolo. We waited to go in last and kept our heads down as we found the only four bunks with any unclaimed bags beneath them.
Then we set off for the main exit ramp, which, of course, was located on the far side of the cargo hold. My eyes darted from side to side as we entered, searching the scores of containers and racks for bodies, weapons, and armor. I was used to handling almost everything on my own during jobs, so it was difficult not to feel anxious. I saw nothing, not even a speck of blood on the stark metallic floor. Hayes and Gareth had taken care of their end impeccably. They’d even reattached the vent cap we’d busted in through.
We passed the container Gareth had stuffed the first Ringer staff member we’d replaced into. I half-expected to hear the man banging on the inside to be freed, but it was silent. The thought that maybe Hayes and Gareth had taken care of things too excessively popped into my head, but I couldn’t afford to let it fester.
“Good as new, eh?” Hayes said, nudging me in the back. “Old Gareth loves moving shit.”
Gareth flicked him the middle finger in response. Then he stealthily reached into a nook between two containers and snagged the supply bag we’d brought over from the Sunfire so that we wouldn’t starve while we hid on the station. In its place, he dropped one he’d taken from the dorms.
“Stop it, you two,” Rin whispered. “Focus.”
The ramp exited into a massive hangar, larger than any I’d ever been in before. Deep trusses swept overhead, thirty meters into the air at least, their surfaces shining like they had been installed recently. I instinctually turned my head and gazed upon the cruiser in awe. From the atmosphere of Saturn, there was nothing to provide scale, but standing next to it, I realized how tremendous it was. Its top nearly scratched the ceiling, and it extended what had to be half-a-kilometer behind me. A true testament to Earther decadence.
“Focus,” Rin repeated directly into my ear.
I looked straight ahead. The Earther patrons were already waiting at the bottom of the ramp, preparing to pass through a security inspection post. The first thing I noticed was how light security was. Only two officers in addition to those who served on the Ring Skipper were present. The Piccolo’s hangar typically received at least three times that for a crew of only around forty.
The second thing was the plump Earther I’d robbed earlier. He stood with his arm around a woman, likely his wife, barely able to stand. I knew the symptoms. His cheeks were pale, and he appeared hungover enough to vomit at any moment. Drunks always made the easiest Earthers to pickpocket. He probably didn’t even remember he’d had his terminal on him and figured it was stowed in his baggage.
I veered toward him. The others followed me, no questions asked. I sped up and purposely bumped into his wife. Compared with him, she was slender, but she was still an Earther—it was like walking into a wall. I reached around her back as I collided with her and dropped the hand-terminal into his pocket.
“Watch where you’re going, ghost!” he slurred, then hiccupped. His wife shot me a look of disgust and towed him away.
“Sorry,” I said before falling back in line with my companions. Hayes wrapped his arm over my shoulder.
“Nice one, kid,” he said.
My grin was swiftly wiped away by what Rin said next.
“Now remember, Kale, you’re the most wanted man on the Ring,” she whispered. “Don’t remove that mask, no matter what. Fake a bad cough, be confident about it. You’ll be fine. They won’t expect anyone new coming from Saturn.”
My throat went dry. I’d forgotten about that little detail. Without the mask, I would be locked up within minutes of being spotted.
We fell into line at the scanners, and I forced out a few grating coughs. There were no decon-chambers on the way back in, only before hopping on a shuttle back to Titan. It maintained efficiency during disembarking, and considering how wiped I usually was after a shift, I never minded. That would help me as long as the officer at the gate was in a decent mood.
The line ticked along. I grew more and more nervous with every step. I didn’t even know Rin’s sister, and we were essentially trusting her with our lives to falsify the IDs we had. I was trusting her, and them.
“ID,” the security officer said to Rin when it was finally our turn. I realized then how young he was, probably just out of training.
Rin placed her bag on the scanning belt and then handed her falsified ID over. He ran his scanner over the data-chip, and when her information appeared on the view-screen, his brow furrowed in a way that boosted my anxiousness.
“I’m going to need to see under that mask,” he said.
She reached up and slowly pulled it down to reveal the ghastly burns coating half of her face and the sinewy hole in her cheek. The officer looked repulsed. Immediately, I realized that the blemish must not have been featured in the linked identity Rylah provided for her.
“How’d you get that, Ringer?” he questioned.
“Cooking oil spill on board a while back,” she replied without a moment’s hesitation.
“Well, put that thing back on before you scare somebody. Your baggage is clear—move along. Next!”
Rin passed through the full-body scanner clean, and Hayes stepped up. His passage went much smoother. I was after him, and predictably, my heart thumped uncontrollably. I fake-coughed repeatedly, hacking so it grew phlegmy. I was fortunate I hadn’t slept, leaving my eyes red and with a slightly glassy appearance. I repeated my fake name over and over in my head, just in case.
The officer snatched my ID from my clammy hands and gave it a scan. I saw the top of his screen. My face popped up; however, everything from the bridge of my nose down had been altered in a manner that was unexpectedly familiar. My memory of my dad was fuzzy, but I was pretty sure it was him at my age. I feigned a series of even more guttural coughs than earlier and rubbed my eyes.
“Mask,” the officer grumbled, clearly tired of repeating the order.
“Is that necessary, sir?” Again, I hacked.
“Just for a second, Ringer. C’mon, you’re holding up the line.”
“I’m worried I caught something on board… Please. I can’t risk it.”
He sighed. He glanced back at his partner, who monitored the bags, and they exchanged shrugs. The officer then leaned forward and stared straight into my eyes, so close that I actually did get nervous about germs.
“You do look like shit,” he said, lip twisting in revulsion. “Decon-chamber on the way home should sort you out. Let’s go.”
He placed my ID back into my gloved hand and beckoned me along. I hesitated for a moment, shocked that it had worked, and then shuffled forward. I maintained my cough all the way through the scanner, until I found Hayes and Rin waiting on the other side. Gareth came through with our supplies soon after. Nothing was suspicious about a Ringer hoarding ration bars and water packets.
We were in.
TWENTY-ONE
Pervenio Station’s main concourse wasn’t anywhere near as busy with foot traffic as usual. Instead, I noticed the overly-packed entertainment venues running alongside it. Security seemed low outside of the hangar as well. I was used to seeing an officer posted on the station at every corner, but all the way down the gently-arcing hall, I spotted only a handful, spread thin.
“Don’t need these,” Rin said. She tossed her stolen luggage into a trash compactor bin. Everyone but Gareth did the same. Our Ring Skipper staff hats also went in, which thankfully made the oppressive heat of the Earther-run station more bearable.
“So how do we contact Rylah?” I asked.
“We’ll need the best terminal out there,” Rin said. “As minimal transmittal delays as possible.”
“Where do you plan on getting one of those?”
“Like everybody else.”
Rin headed toward a tech shop nestled between two bars. She strolled right in, past all the screens and automated dispensers displaying Pervenio-made gadgets for sale. Terminals, timepieces, health monitors—all the things people with credits used to make sure they were never late, never disconnected, and lived longer than any human ought to. She strutted right up to the counter and requested the same V3X model I’d stolen from John what seemed like an eternity ago. Five thousand credits. A shift’s worth of Piccolo work in pay, and that was before Pervenio and USF colonial taxes.
The Earther shop-keep was so short I could see only his big head above the counter. His eyes lit up when Rin slapped her ID down without a care in the world. Like John would have. My real ID chip used to be linked directly to my credit account, so her sister must’ve done the same to hers… or to the Children of Titan’s. For a group that cursed credits, I couldn’t help but wonder how much they had.
“You’re sure?” the man asked. “I have a few cheaper models over here—”
“No, I want this one,” Rin said, oozing confidence. “Been working for years—might as well get the best.”
“If you say so.” He retrieved the shiny device from his display counter. “V3X, it is. If you’d just have your friends there wait outside, I’ll get it registered straightaway.”
She glanced back at us, and we took the cue. We stepped into the concourse and waited outside of a bar-restaurant called Pan Fusion. The words NO GLOVES OR MASKS ALLOWED were projected beside the entrance.
“She does a good impression of one of them, doesn’t she?” Hayes said.
“Must hurt her,” Gareth signed in response.
“Guys, look,” I said.
Pan Fusion was separated from the hall only by a hip-height partition, and every single Earther patron on the other side of it crowded around a view-screen. Their drinks were all lowered, and they were so silent it was like they were attending a funeral.
On the screen, a news correspondent stood in the tram station within the Darien Q-Zone, a place I was all too familiar with. We were too far away to hear her, but the tram was parked in the Q-Zone station, with armed Pervenio security officers swarming about it. Hundreds of sick Ringers were being herded by them, marched along like they’d committed a crime and shoved into the tram cars. I also caught a glimpse through one of the space’s narrow viewports of Pervenio dropships hovering outside.
“What the hell is this?” Hayes said, echoing my own sentiments.
Our peoples had one unspoken agreement since the Great Reunion: Leave our sick alone unless all proper precautions are taken. But the decon-chambers at the end of the waiting area were powered off and being used like rotating doors by officers and ailing Ringers. The reporter didn’t wear a helmet or a mask, and neither were many of the higher-ranking officers.
Suddenly, a Ring-wide address broadcasted through every speaker and view-screen in our vicinity. The Voice of the Ring, Director Sodervall himself, popped up. He appeared more exhausted than ever. His wrinkles cut deeper, and the whites of his eyes were as pink as mine, like he too hadn’t slept properly in days.
“People of the Ring,” he announced, his tone autocratic yet solemn. “According to reports from our Collectors, the terrorists behind the Piccolo attack are hiding out in caverns somewhere below the Darien Q-Zone. All tram-lines have been suspended until further notice as peaceful efforts are made to displace the residents to a contained area of Darien for a brief period while the investigat
ion commences. I assure you, nobody who is innocent will be harmed. Soon, this war being waged in the shadows will be extinguished, and we will have peace. The fight to ensure our survival rests in all of our hands.”
The feed cut out, replaced by the usual talking heads discussing the director’s announcements and defending all of his words. “Peaceful efforts?” This was the greatest show of force I’d ever witnessed in my lifetime. The amassed officers weren’t flaunting shock-batons. They wielded pulse-rifles, fingers on triggers, ready to blow a hole in Ringers, even though they were surrounded solely by the frail and dying.
Rage filled my heart. Gareth grabbed the rail of the low divider and squeezed like he was choking the life out of someone. I’d never seen him display such emotion. Hayes’s trademark smirk vanished, replaced by pure abhorrence.
“Rylah’s in,” Rin said to us. We turned to see her staring down at her hand-terminal. Her expression surprised me. It wasn’t brimming with the unbridled hatred I’d expected her to radiate after hearing the director’s message, but sorrow.
“Rin, are you seeing this?” Hayes asked.
“We have to move,” she said.
“Rin!”
“We have to move. As soon as security finds those staff members on the Ring Skipper, this place will be shut down tight.”
She started walking, leaving us no choice but to follow. She moved at a brisk pace, but I caught her by the shoulder.
“Stop!” I said. “You knew this was coming, didn’t you?”
“No,” she said.
“You’re lying.”
She stopped and faced me, breathing heavily. “I have no reason to lie to you! Rylah just informed me the orders to sweep the Q-Zone from top to bottom came from Luxarn Pervenio himself.”
“By Trass,” I said. “How many people were you hiding under there?”
“Not enough to warrant this. There is a Pervenio army down there. Look around. Security has never been this light on the station, because he dispatched so many to Darien. Rylah said transports arrived by the dozens to maintain order before they went in. The feeds won’t show it, but the Lowers are going crazy. Everything is shut down. It’s...” She gathered her breath. I could tell that beneath her sanitary mask, her lips trembled slightly. “It’s happening.”
Titan's Son: (Children of Titan Book 2) Page 23
