The Cora spun and threw them into another wall, knocking the gun free before Zhaff could shoot Rin in the head.
“We’re losing control,” Aria strained to say. “I need to get to the controls.”
I felt my foot beginning to slip and pushed harder until it sank into the wall.
“Go,” I grated. I barely had the strength to move any other human part of me, even wearing the Ringer armor, but Rylah was stuck against my leg and, together, we shoved Aria toward the controls. My daughter pulled herself into the seat and strapped in.
More pressure pinned my head back. All I could do was shift my gaze from the Cora’s viewport, where the view spun between Titan’s surface and Darien as Aria yanked at the ship’s yoke to try and pull us out of the spin, to the cabin.
Zhaff had Rin by the throat and punched her helmet. Somehow, she’d been able to get her visor up, but Zhaff’s fist was as artificially well-constructed as my leg. The visor shattered and the helmet broke, and Zhaff pounded the ugly side of her face until blood covered the scars.
“You will not slow human propagation any longer,” Zhaff said. Just as he finished speaking, his fist froze right before striking her again and likely killing her. His eye-lens snapped up in my direction.
“‘Family. I hope you understand, Zhaff,’” Zhaff said, repeating the last words I’d whispered to him when I thought he was dead. I could never forget them. I’d heard his voice elevated a few times. I’d even heard him make a joke, but I’d never heard his voice tremble.
My heart sank like a brick. I’d told him the truth, yet it was only then, when he dropped a daughter of Trass rather than kill her, that I knew—he finally remembered what had happened. He remembered that awful day on Titan when I chose family over the company.
“Why?” Zhaff said. “Why did you do it!” The way he screamed made his respirator hiss and stole all the human quality from his voice. He leaped at me, and thanks to the pressure of the ship spinning, I could do nothing but watch.
“Everyone, hold on!” Aria shouted.
The underside of the Cora slammed into Titan’s surface. Zhaff’s metallic finger scraped across my neck right before the force of the impact caused my artificial foot to slip and carve a deep trough across the wall. Rylah was whipped against a wall, and her armor kept her head from being split open. My back crunched against a sleep pod in the next room, and I flipped over before landing on my stomach and having the wind knocked out of me.
I found my way to my hands and knees, my ears ringing. Aria was in the command deck, still strapped to her seat, moaning. Rylah lay in the hall, unconscious, but it looked like she was breathing. Rin was further down the hall on her back, coughing up blood and loose teeth.
Black-gloved fingers wrapped my wrist. For a split-second, I expected the worst, then I realized how weak the grip was.
“Why...” Zhaff rasped, his respirator ticking from malfunction. His sparking artificial leg was crushed between two sleep pods, one of which had been pried loose of the wall and overturned. A conduit that ripped from its supports plunged through his torso. No blood leaked from the wound, only from the countless scrapes covering the other half of his body made by shattered glass.
He squirmed to pull himself free, but it was no use. And all the while, his eye-lens never shifted from me. I longed for that image of him lying completely still on the surface of Titan to fill my head again instead of this. At least then he’d looked peaceful and not like a wounded animal caught in a trap.
“Stop them!” a distorted voice ordered.
Kale appeared in the entry from the cabin, fully armored along with a group of Ringer soldiers. They marched into the room. The first grabbed Rin. A few more raced by toward the command deck for Aria and Rylah. One came for me, and I found my wits in time to grab his rifle and flip him over.
Skinny Ringers… now that I was in one of their powered suits too, I was as strong as three of them lumped together.
I ripped the soldier’s rifle free and went to aim at Kale, but his knee caught me in the side of my head. He pressed down on me, weak like the rest of his kind, but he aimed my own pulse pistol against the side of my head. A second later, more rifles than I could count aimed at me.
“Kale, don’t!” Aria screamed. “It wasn’t him.”
“Get her the hell out of my sight!” he roared. More of his men held her with her hands behind her back and dragged her by. She didn’t go easy, that was for sure, kicking and shouting his name, but her pregnant, unarmored body was no use against them.
“Try it,” Kale whispered in my ear, noticing my finger threading the trigger of the rifle. Rage resonated from him like a fusion core. “I’ll let her watch.”
I let the gun clank to the floor.
“That’s what I thought.” He shoved my face against the floor as he stood and allowed his men to seize me. They didn’t take any risks, at least four of them heaving me to my feet. I wound up face-to-face with Zhaff, whose eye-lens continued to fixate on me.
“Why!” Zhaff groaned. He finally gained purchase with one of his feet and pushed, causing the conduit to grate through his mechanized insides as his body slid forward along it like meat off a skewer. One of the soldiers bashed him in the head and knocked him out, putting me out of my misery, since I found myself unable to look away.
“I want the Cogent alive,” Kale said. He ordered his men to stop and walked right up to me. I fought every urge in my body not to spit on his face. “Luxarn Pervenio will want to see his son again.”
The nightmarish grin Kale put on—before then, I’d looked at him and see a troubled kid influenced by the wrong people. Not anymore. I’m not sure if he knew exactly what had happened yet, that Aria and Rylah had betrayed him, or if seeing his teacher Rin half-dead had done it.
It all happened so fast.
All I was sure of was that once again Zhaff arrived at the worst time and kept my daughter and I from riding out into the sunset, and that right at that moment, Kale had cracked. Not even his great-how-many-times-grandpa Darien Trass could save whoever he turned his fury upon next.
Fifteen
Kale
I stood outside the Darien Hall of Ashes, watching my people file inside. It felt like I was back in the Darien Quarantine before the revolution, waiting to visit my sick mother. Not a smile to be found in the crowd. Feet dragging along toward places visitors had to go but wished they would never enter.
“Kale,” my mother addressed me from behind, using the same haughty tone she always did when she was trying to teach me a lesson.
“Not now, Mother,” I replied.
I didn’t bother turning to face her until she pulled on my shoulder. “Kale, listen to me.”
“I said not now!” I shrugged her off and took a step toward the entry, but she caught up and forced her way in front of me.
“I know what she did was wrong, but she’s family,” she said. Tears glazed her eyes. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes exhausted. She almost looked like she had in the quarantine, only she could at least stand under her own weight now.
“Not with me.”
Again, I went to pass her, but she didn’t budge. “How many second chances have I given you? Stealing any Earther tech you could get your hands on. Constantly getting into fights... Killing Orson Fring… We all make mistakes, Kale. Some worse than others.”
“And what about the next one?” I bristled. “What if she or anyone else decides to sell us out to Earth? If they decide a free Titan isn’t worth the struggle? Do you know the things I did to get you free of their quarantine? Do you even understand? You can’t.”
“I didn’t ask for any of it. All I wanted was one last chance to hug my boy.”
“And now you can,” I said. “No mask, no gloves, because I turned that quarantine into dust. Not Rin, me. I’m the only one willing to do what’s necessary to survive.”
“Survive? We’ve already won, Kale! Pervenio Corp is gone. The USF was willing to sign Titan over to us.
Our own world back, everything we wanted, and you rejected them. Aria told me everything. I’ve stood by and watched you push them further and further because you seem to think that the thing we all fought for isn’t good enough.”
“Good enough? Why should we settle for good enough? The Ring was ours long before they crawled out of the ashes of the Meteorite. We should beg them for scraps because one day they decided to come here and infect us? Spread their Earther greed like a plague? We’ve lost too many lives because of them to settle.”
“Is Cora’s life really worth all of this? She wouldn’t—”
“This isn’t about her!” I bellowed. The echo of my voice caused my people to stop and stare. “This is about justice.”
My mother slipped out of my way, her eyes bloodshot and bulging. “What happened to you?” she said softly. “What happened to my son?”
“He learned what it takes to protect the people he cares about. Now, please, get out of my way, or I’ll have to make an example out of you as well.” I wished I could take back that last part as soon as it left my mouth. She didn’t deserve it. She was only trying to do what a good mother should, but I was tired of her not understanding the sacrifices our revolution took.
Her fear gave way to anger. “Tell your aunt congratulations. She’s finally transformed you into your father.”
She rushed by me, and I had no chance to answer. Not that I had anything to say. My father wasn’t there for us because he gave his soul to found the Children of Titan as only a Trass could. To start the fight that I was finishing. Whatever line he’d crossed, I know he did it for me. For my future. Same as I was doing for my child.
Why couldn’t my mother ever understand?
I drew a deep breath to settle myself, then started off toward the Hall of Ashes again. I barely made it two steps before Rin was in front of me to beg for Rylah as well. She appeared neither sad nor irritated, not that showing emotion with half a face was easy, especially now that it was bandaged and freshly gashed from the beating Zhaff put on her. Her left arm was in a sling, and the other gripped a cane to help her balance. Her legs shook from injury as she slowly lowered to her knees in front of me with all my people watching. If I hadn’t broken into the Cora when I did and saved her, doctors said she might have died from internal bleeding.
“Lord Trass,” she said, hoarse and needing a breath between every few words. Losing an entire cluster of teeth made her even tougher to understand as well. “I’ve come to ask you to spare my sister.”
I groaned, grabbed her by the shoulder, and heaved her to her feet. “Not in front of them,” I whispered, pulling her off to the side. She, the fearless, ruthless warrior who had ringed me into this fight shouldn’t be seen begging.
“It was my fault, Kale,” she said. “I brought Rylah into this years ago when she wanted nothing to do with the movement, but she’s never had the stomach for it. She—”
“Did you know?” I asked calmly, stopping her mid-sentence.
“Know what?”
“That she had a serious history with the collector and Aria going back before working together out of convenience. Because Aria conveniently left that part out of her promise to ‘tell me everything’ until today.”
Rin’s marred lips twisted. “I knew she recruited Aria out of Venta Co. to be our doctor like you did. I didn’t realize how well they all knew each other before that, but—”
I cut her off again. “She put both our cause and my son in jeopardy for a Pervenio collector. Who knows what else she might have been planning while I left her here in control of Titan because you trust her. You said it yourself, she didn’t want this.”
“Let me talk to her. I can figure out what she was really after.” I’d never seen my hardened aunt so rattled, not even over Hayes’ death. She’d been at my side since the beginning, helping me make the hard choices for the good of Titan, convincing me when something as horrible as taking care of Orson Fring was necessary. She was always calculating, justified. Now her tongue flicked along her open scars like it always did when she was agitated, only more so.
“So she can spin more lies?” I asked. “Keep more secrets? That was her job on the old Titan, wasn’t it? Exchanging secrets. Knowing things to get the upper hand.”
“We can trust her.”
“We can only trust our own.”
Rin grabbed me by the chest plate, her features warping with rage. If I were anybody else, she might have struck me. I didn’t flinch. Not with my people watching.
“She’s as much one of us as Aria!” she seethed. “They got on that ship together, Kale. Will you destroy her too?”
“Aria kept the same secret from me.” I pictured her at the controls of the Cora before Rin stopped them. At first, I thought it was all the collector and the Cogent’s doing, but I’d seen the security recordings from the hangar—they merely crashed the party. And Aria told me the truth the moment I got her off the ship. She wasn’t a hostage. She was as ready to fly the Cora back to Earth as any of them. Ready to abandon me.
“She will raise our child so that the blood of Trass, our blood, endures,” I said, “but she will never speak for us again, and she will never leave this place. Be happy, Rin. Now you get to say you were right about her.”
Rin released me, and her head drooped. “Only now, I don’t want to. I understand that you have to make an example of one of them, Kale. Trust me, I do. But exile Rylah instead. Make her live with her other half. I’m not asking you as your advisor but as your blood.”
“It’s only because of who you are that she isn’t being executed. Freeing a Pervenio collector and helping steal my unborn child makes us look weak enough as it is.”
“You might as well be killing her,” Rin said.
“What happened to whatever it takes?”
A mouthful of air slipped through Rin’s lips, the healthy side beginning to tremble. She stared up at me, a single tear dribbling down her cheek in and out of her grisly scars before dampening one of her red-stained bandages. “Be better than me,” she said.
I wrapped my hand around her gruesome jawline. Most people cringed at the sight of her. I had once but not anymore. “‘We’ll bear the weight of our hard choices so that they’ll never have to,’” I whispered. “We’re so close, Rin. Don’t lose sight.” I drew her into a tight embrace, then strode into the Hall of Ashes.
It was even more packed than for Gareth’s sham of a funeral. Guards formed a line on either side of me and pushed through the mob of baffled faces. Most had no idea yet that Rylah had betrayed us all. That a woman born half-of-Titan and half-of-Earth would choose the latter.
Rylah stood in front of one of the tubes the ashes of the dead were sent through, her wrists bound and stuffed into the opening. She watched me the entire way over, utter revulsion twisting her features. I’m not sure how I never saw how she felt about me before. I was blinded by Rin’s trust, I suppose. A part of me couldn’t believe my fearsome aunt had a weak spot. It made me feel even more alone under the crushing weight of my responsibilities than ever before.
“Kale, let me out of here!” Rylah shouted over the raucous crowd, pulling to try and free her arms from the tube. “This is insane, just listen to me.”
I stopped directly in front of her. My guards gave us space and held the others at bay. I scanned her from head to toe. For once, she couldn’t wield her charm and beauty as a weapon. Her dress was ripped, her shoes broken. Makeup like the Earthers wore ran down from her eyes. She looked plain.
“I trusted you,” I said, seething.
“I trusted you! Trusted Rin that you’d be different when you’re just as bad as them. And trust me, Kale Trass, nobody knows that better than me. I knew all Pervenio’s little secrets, but at least they were honest before they sent us out an airlock.”
The back of my armored hand crashed into her face, splitting her cheek. She couldn’t fall with her arms jammed, but she folded over the protruding tube and spat a gob of blood.
“Stop!” I bellowed. She didn’t dare disobey. “This woman betrayed us all!” I addressed the crowd. “She attempted to free the Pervenio collector who murdered Orson Fring in cold blood.” The collective gasp of everyone watching was as loud as a tram zipping by. “But this Earther-sympathizing snake didn’t stop there. I wanted him to be born healthy before I shared the news with Titan, but my son grows within our ambassador. He is the blood of Trass, and this woman tried to take him from me. From you!”
“Traitor!” a Titanborn in the crowd spat.
“Whore!” shrieked another.
They surged inward, forcing my guards to utilize the strength of their armor to keep them from ripping Rylah apart. I raised my arms to try and control them, then circled Rylah. I pointed to her arms, trapped within the tube.
“With those hands, she deceived my guards and unlocked the Earther’s shackles,” I said. “In their attempt to escape, they joined forces with the Cogent who nearly killed me.” I gestured to a scar on my cheek from my brawl with the Cogent. Again, the crowd gasped. “But we are stronger than they think!”
They erupted, half cheering, half spewing insults at Rylah. Rin sank back behind my guards, a thousand-meter gaze aimed in the direction of her half-sister.
“I ask you, my people, what should be done to someone willing to sell us out to our enemies?” I said. “Someone willing to free an Earther and let him walk our halls, spreading his sickness and germs?”
“Kill her!” a man across the hall yelled. Chants echoing his sentiments rang out through the crowd, but I ignored them. Instead, I turned and regarded Rylah.
“You want to know why I tried to free them?” she muttered. “You.” Blood bubbled in the corner of her lips. “They’re going to wipe us out because of you. Rin wanted a heartless leader for her revolution. You got more than you bargained for, didn’t you, Sister!” She lunged at Rin, but her trapped arms snapped her back. For the first time in my life, I saw Rin flinch.
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