The airlock sealed, and he disappeared around the corner. It was strange watching him through the tiny viewport from that vantage; seeing what John and the other Earthers had before they were evacuated. It seemed impossible that I would ever have wound up where they were, yet there I was.
“Wait until we start shaking, then we cut the feed and suit Sodervall up,” I said.
Rin nodded without averting her gaze from the viewport. I checked Gareth to make sure he heard me. He did the same.
We braced ourselves, and a few minutes of silence later, the ship lurched as we hit Titan’s atmosphere. The airlock started rocking, more violently with each second. We were thrown against the inner seal.
“Cut it!” I yelled.
Gareth smashed the hand-terminal on the floor. I grabbed the director and released his cuffs. He squirmed, but he couldn’t compete with the strength of my suit. I lifted him, and together Rin and Gareth forced his body into the exo-suit.
“Rin, you take the director,” I said. “I don’t trust myself.”
“With pleasure,” she replied.
“Gareth, you’ll fly alone and keep a lookout for ships. I’ll take Desmond.”
“Take me where?” a bewildered Desmond questioned.
I gently lowered a helmet over his head. He wore a similar expression of terror as the director. “You’ll be fine,” I said. “Just don’t let go.” I sealed his visor.
“Com-links on,” Rin shouted. “Wings ready.”
I didn’t need any help this time. The nano-fabric wings popped out of my arms and stretched to my sides. I closed my visor and gripped the wall. The airlock rattled so intensely it hurt my joints, even through the suit.
“There you guys are!” Hayes shouted over our shared com-link. His voice was muffled by raging winds, so I had to listen carefully to hear him. Either he was pretending to be having fun, or he really was. It made me feel confident that he might actually be the best flier he boasted to be and escape unscathed.
“How is it out there?” Rin asked.
“Hell of a ride! Repair canvas burned up in a flash and I’m holding on to the console with my legs in the air like I’m riding an Earther pig!”
“Are we on course?” I asked.
“Just one more shift!” As slight as the turn was, at the speeds we were going, the force of it heaved us against the side wall. I grabbed Desmond’s helmet just in time to make sure the visor of his far-inferior helmet didn’t hit the wall and split open. Everybody else seemed to make it fine.
“There we go,” Hayes said.
“Take it easy up there!” Rin yelled.
“Too rough for you?” Hayes laughed nervously. “All right, I can see the Q-Zone—by Trass, I can see it! There are ships everywhere. They’re starting to take aim at us.”
“It’s too late,” I said.
“On my mark, I’m releasing the seal. Hold on to your friends, ladies and gentlemen! Five, four…”
My muscles tensed. I clutched Desmond’s arms and stretched them around my waist so that he was holding on as tight as possible.
“One!” Hayes hollered.
“For you, Cora,” I whispered to myself right before the outer seal opened. The ship fell around us as we were pulled out into the atmosphere, where so many of my people’s ashes had been loosed. The wind took me, gripping my wings and twisting Desmond and me about. The force of it racked my brain, but the suit kept me conscious until I could straighten myself out. As I did, Desmond lost his grip on me and fell.
The thick Titanian atmosphere and low g slowed him enough for me to figure out how best to angle my arms to dive toward him. I snatched his body with one hand, causing us to corkscrew through the air. As we tumbled, I managed to draw him against my chest so that he could wrap his arms and legs around me. That allowed me to gain control of my wings, like I’d been flying my whole life. The storms of Titan had nothing on Saturn.
“We’re straight!” I yelled over the coms.
“Us too!” shouted Rin.
Gareth snorted loud enough for us to know that his sound wasn’t merely distant thunder.
“Hayes?” Rin asked, but he remained silent.
That was when I finally had a chance to look around. I tilted my arms to turn, falling in line with the others at roughly the same altitude.
The Piccolo plummeted, a plume of flame from friction enveloping its bow like a red dress. The Pervenio ships hovering around Q-Zone scattered. Others, which had been following us from the station, darted through the upper atmosphere above. Both they and the anti-air turrets tucked along the top of Darien’s enclosure kilometers away let loose a barrage of missiles simultaneously.
Strings of dark smoke traced the sky, but they were all too late. The Piccolo crashed bow-first at full speed into the lonely plateau that harbored the Darien Q-Zone.
Its nuclear-thermal engines and their reactor detonated instantly from the impact, causing an explosion so bright that I momentarily lost control while attempting to shield my eyes. When I flattened back out, the brightness waned to reveal a mushroom-shaped cloud. The blast painted Titan’s horizon in brilliant orange.
I was too high up and too far away to feel the shock wave, but half of the tram-line connecting to Darien itself toppled. Pervenio ships were smacked out of the air like insects. Rocks and debris flew in every direction, so far they peppered the side of Darien’s thick enclosure. I scanned the fragments for a flying man in white but found no one.
Rin continued calling for him, and I hadn’t the heart to tell her to stop. I knew, though. Hayes hadn’t made it, but he took more Earthers with him than anything had since the Meteorite struck their homeworld, three centuries ago.
TWENTY-SIX
I strode down the cramped command center of what was apparently one of the Children of Titan’s many secluded hideouts. Consoles and other equipment were strewn across the floor. Even as far away as we were—within a century-old transport ship buried beneath a string of mountains—the shock wave of the Piccolo’s exploding engine was felt. Loose pieces of the ice-rock walls had snapped off, and the provisional lighting systems strung along the low metal ceiling were dim. Wires hanging between them drooped so low that I had to brush them aside while I walked, as if I were trekking through one of Earth’s pre-Meteorite jungles.
I was told it took five years to construct the series of tunnel systems leading from beneath the Darien Q-Zone to where we were. Titanborn men and women stood in silence on either side of the room. It was strange to see so many of my people together and not wearing sanitary masks. They watched me go by with a mixture of confusion and reverence.
By then, a few hours after the explosion, the entire Ring knew what had happened. Nobody was sure how many Pervenio officers were killed in the initial blast or how many were suffocating beneath the crumbling plateau, soon to die. Debris had shattered one of Darien’s glass farm enclosures, but with my people striking, nobody was inside. Only the plants were left to flash freeze—a small price to pay.
Pervenio rescue efforts to the Q-Zone diverted much of their remaining forces, spreading them thin all across Titan and the Ring. According to Rylah, the central lift to the Darien Lowers had been shut down to retain order as my people protested. Many of them had begun to climb the shafts toward the Uppers in an unstoppable fury. They stormed the intact hydro-farms. Took control of factories, shops, and even docked ships. It didn’t matter how weak their muscles were, or how crude their weapons, with numbers on their side.
I passed Gareth. He stood with a cane and a fresh bandage on his leg. He signed “Now you lead” to me. Beyond him, Desmond lay on a medical table, an IV connected to his arm. His head was angled toward me, his eyes still drawn wide from the thrill.
On an adjacent table sat Rylah herself. I’d have recognized her in her tight-fitting violet dress anywhere, but the rest of her looked like she’d been through a rough battle. She offered me a nod but nothing more.
The red-haired woman Rin had referr
ed to as the Doctor tended to a wound in Rylah’s calf. She was the only person in the entire base who wasn’t watching me. She was also the only non-Titanborn. A necklace with a Departure Ark ship figurine hung from her neck, a clear giveaway since no sane Titanborn would wear anything referencing M-day right now. As I got close, I saw the shimmer of dried tears on her freckled cheeks. It made me wonder if she’d chosen to be where she was, an alien to all those around her… just like Cora.
I shook the thought out of my head and forced myself to focus. Rin waited in front of me. She was out of her armor, wearing a simple tunic like everybody else. She didn’t even have her mask on to conceal her half-burned face. The grisly sight didn’t earn a second glance from me. In her hands, she held a hand-terminal that was set to record.
“Rylah prepared a connection from Darien to broadcast to the entire Ring,” she said. “We’re ready.” Her voice was cold and distant. It had been that way since we’d watched the Piccolo explode and Hayes not emerge from the clouds.
“Good,” I replied. I went to step past her, but she grasped my arm. “Are you?”
I removed her hand as gently as I could and continued on my way. I still wore every part of my powered armor except for the helmet, so I had to be careful not to hurt her.
My mom suddenly parted the crowd and positioned herself in front of me. As one of the recuperating Q-Zone escapees, she still wore her sanitary mask. The rest of those in her situation were in a nearby cavern continuing their treatment under the watch of the Doctor.
When we’d first arrived at the hideout and she saw me, she wept. I squeezed her so hard I almost broke her back, but as grateful as I was to be with her, no tears escaped me. Once I knew she was okay, all I could manage to ask her was whether or not she knew who I really was, who my father really was. Her expression told me everything I needed to know.
“Kale,” she said presently, forcing a smile. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I need to finish what I started,” I said.
“No, you don’t. All that matters now is that we support each other.”
A week earlier, that would have been enough for me, but more had happened in the short time since I’d left the Q-Zone to save her than in the entirety of my life before then.
“You’ll never be stuck in a place like that again, Mom,” I said. “I promise. None of us will.” I placed my hands over her cheeks and gazed straight into her eyes. She seemed healthy. The dark rings around her eyelids were gone, and her cheeks were a lighter shade of pink.
She choked back tears. “Kale… don’t.”
I embraced her, pulled her tight, and pressed my lips against her forehead. Then I placed her frail body to the side and stepped forward. Director Sodervall was on his knees within the airlock that provided entry to the base, hands cuffed behind his back and a bag covering his head. Behind him, a tiny viewport offered a view of Titan’s whipping wind. Two armored Children of Titan operatives stood on either side of the open hatch, pulse-rifles at the ready. I stepped in front of them and turned to Rin.
“Recording,” she said.
I regarded all the people gathered in the room, then stared into the lens of the device in Rin’s hand. Then I cleared my throat. “People of the Ring,” I began. “My people. For too long, we have lived in fear. Controlled. Watched. Infected. No longer.” I spread my arms, taking care to gesture to the armored men behind me. “You all know my face and what we’ve done, but what the Voice of the Ring failed to mention is who I really am. The secret he’s been keeping since the day they arrived. My name is not Kale Drayton. It is Kale Trass.”
The crowd arrayed before me released a collective gasp. I could only imagine the reaction of all the people throughout Titan’s numerous colony blocks or around the Ring watching their local newsfeeds, which Rylah had managed to subvert. That was a far simpler task than broadcasting to the entirety of Sol, and my message was, at first, meant only for my people and our direct enemies. It would spread soon enough.
“Trass’s blood runs through my veins, as it did my father’s,” I continued. “Luxarn Pervenio and his dog Sodervall kept us in the darkness, but no longer. Those who think themselves our masters will fall! Here I stand while one of the places we’ve dreaded for decades burns, begging you as a fellow child of Titan: Rise from your hollows to reclaim our homeworld! Fight toward the light, not just on Titan, but all throughout the Ring and the stations watching over us! Don’t be afraid. The spirits of our fallen watch over us from the winds. Our freedom starts today.”
I stepped to the side, revealing Director Sodervall. The operatives tore off his hood so all could see his bloody face. He screamed futilely into a gag.
“To all the corporations like his who think they can own the Ring. To the USF and every citizen of Earth, I say this: Retribution is coming. There is a new Voice of the Ring, and we are the descendants of those chosen by Trass. We are Titanborn.”
I nodded at one of the operatives, and he moved so I could reach the airlock controls. My hand hovered there as I beheld Director Sodervall’s horrified visage. I then turned to the crowd. To my friends and my family. Their jaws hung. Their eyes were glued open.
Rin gritted her teeth and nodded at me.
My mother wept and turned her head away.
I pictured Cora’s smile, as radiant as Piccolo when its engines blew. Then, wordlessly, I keyed the inner seal of the airlock to close and the outer to open. Director Sodervall didn’t scream as Titan’s cold embrace greeted him. He couldn’t even squirm.
The seconds he was out there felt like a lifetime for me. The room stayed so silent that I could hear the thud of his body collapsing into the hatch. A swipe across the controls signaled the airlock to pressurize again, and the inner seal slid back up into the ceiling. Director Sodervall’s frozen body fell through. As he hit the floor, his head and torso cracked into so many pieces they looked like one of Saturn’s ice rings wrapping what was left whole of him.
No one dared say a word. I turned, glowered directly into Rin’s camera, and said, “From ice to ashes, Titan.”
Epilogue
I jolted awake. My heart raced so rapidly, my ribs were on the verge of breaking open. All I could see were blotches of white and blurred figures. As I turned my head to survey my surroundings, a respirator covering my mouth yanked it back into place.
That was when I realized I was gagging. I grabbed the respirator, needles popping out of my arms as I moved and pulled. The long tube attached to the respirator slid out of my throat, releasing all manner of phlegm and who knows what else as I gasped for a real breath. And kept on gasping. It felt like I’d been chained to the bottom of an ocean until I was on the brink of drowning, then launched to the surface.
I threw myself off whatever I was lying on. More needles affixed to tubes popped out from every region of my body. My legs were weaker than after a month in a sleep-pod on a passenger liner. Or at least, one of them was. I couldn’t feel the other at all, which caused me to stumble forward into a counter upon an attempt to stand. My groping hands knocked over pieces of shiny equipment. Some fell and shattered. My hearing was so distorted that they could well have been explosions.
Fingerlike appendages wrapped my arm and heaved. Muffled voices murmured in my ears. I tore free and attempted to run, but again my numb leg caused me to fall. I grasped at the area in front of me, expecting to find air, but instead, my hand smacked into something rigid and cold.
Once more, someone pulled at me, hoisting me to my feet. I threw them off and hopped along on the leg I could feel while my hands skated across a smooth wall for balance. I continued until one sank through an opening. A door. I grasped the edge, swung myself into the adjoining space, and found the wall again. This time, it was coarse and lumpy, like the face of a cavern.
I clung to it for a few hops, then discovered I wouldn’t topple as long as I pressed all my weight on the leg I could feel, as if there were a crutch in place of the other. I’m not sure where I
was planning on going, but I hobbled as quickly as I could. Faster and faster, like a kid learning how to ride a bike. Until I slammed into a railing.
I searched for the hand-bar, and once I found it, I slouched all my weight onto my arms. My working leg burned with soreness. Each heavy breath I drew stung deep in my chest, like a blade plunged through my sternum. My vision remained cloudy, but as I rested there, the ability to sense shadows and depth returned.
It wasn’t cold enough to be Titan, but I was in some manner of grand hollow wreathed in solid rock. Aged air recyclers rattled through the darkness. An asteroid perhaps? My augmenting senses informed me that the gravity was too weak for it to be Earth or even Mars.
I squeezed my eyelids as hard as I could and reopened them, trying to drive away the blurriness. They were wet with tears even though I wasn’t crying, as confused by disuse as I was about what the fuck was going on. I repeated that procedure a few more times, and then I saw.
On the level below me, a group of twenty or so people trained in hand-to-hand combat. Only they weren’t ordinary security officers. They wore all-black boiler suits. Their hair was neat and trimmed, almost military-like. Their skin was pale and youthful. Over the left side of each one’s face, a yellow eye-lens was attached. The same as the one Zhaff wore.
I fell to a knee. Images of the last memories I could draw on streamed through my consciousness. A gunshot piercing his helmet and leaving only Zhaff’s green eye visible through the stormy haze of Titan. Aria soaring away above him.
My breathing hastened until I was clutching my chest as if to hold my heart inside. I stared through glass at the numerous Zhaff-like people below. They’d stopped training, each of their shiny eye-lenses aimed up at me.
I keeled onto my side, my whole body going numb. The corners of my vision darkened as I grew woozy. Glinting yellow dots danced across the room, like stars against the blackness of space.
Titan's Son: (Children of Titan Book 2) Page 28
