Titan's Fury: A Science Fiction Thriller (Children of Titan Book 4)

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “All right, all right. Keep your pants on.” I used the rungs lining the ceiling to propel myself out of the room, thankful for zero-g providing my battered body a rest. “Keep flying, Aria, you hear me? Keep flying.”

  The moment I was out of the command deck and back into the main sleep pod cabin, Kale slapped a familiar hand terminal into my palm.

  “What’s this?” I asked. “Need someone to teach you how to use Earther tech?”

  “You never stop, do you?” he said. “Even after you’ve lost. No wonder Aria would never come right out and say what a piece of mudstomping trash you were.”

  “Just trying to live up to my reputation.”

  “And that’s exactly why I need you.” Kale pushed off the wall and grabbed hold of an empty sleep pod. Two of his men helped him inside. “You’re going to contact Undina one last time and tell your boss that you captured me and are on your way. You broke through Madame Venta’s blockade so that he could get the credit for bringing the self-proclaimed king of Titan to justice, just like he deserves.”

  “Luxarn Pervenio didn’t become the richest man in Sol because he’s stupid, kid. You really think he’s going to believe that?”

  “A Pervenio man, through and through, you would never lie to him.” He grabbed hold of another sleep pod and drew himself closer. Within, I saw the pale, cyber-enhanced face of my former partner. “Tell him you saved his son too. How would he know that you once tried to murder him? Or hid a daughter from him that became my ambassador?”

  “You really thought of it all, didn’t you?”

  “Not until you fell into my lap.”

  I lay my hand over Zhaff’s sleep pod. He was still now, though I couldn’t stop picturing him squirming toward me, unable to understand why I’d done what I did. “Is he alive?” I asked, my voice catching.

  “We patched him up for this,” Kale said. “Though I wouldn’t call whatever Luxarn made him alive.”

  “He’s younger than you are, kid. Just let him go and deal with me!”

  “You know, I thought about leaving him on the Cora to die. Then I realized what a mercy that would be after what Luxarn did to him. I can’t even imagine how much it cost to bring him back to life after you put a bullet in his head. Enough to feed every one of my people for a year, I’d imagine.”

  “Whatever plans you have for him, he doesn’t deserve it,” I said. “He doesn’t know any better; he’s only ever tried to belong.”

  “Well, he picked the wrong side.”

  “We don’t get to pick our fathers!”

  Kale’s gaze listed off toward the command deck. “True enough,” he said. He then regarded his men. “Close me in and watch him. If he tries anything, you know what to do.”

  “I saw the way you looked at her back on Mars,” I said. “Whatever she did to hurt you, I believe you wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “Do you really want to test that?”

  His men closed him in before I could answer, and I found myself under the aim of pulse-rifles from every angle. I glanced down at the hand terminal he’d given me. How does the most famous rebel in post-Meteorite history break into a clandestine facility buried within an asteroid so close to Earth and filled with elite operatives? He gets invited in.

  “Let’s go,” one of the guards ordered. “Lord Trass says you need to act confident.”

  I sighed. “Shouldn’t be tough.” I activated the device, navigated to Luxarn Pervenio’s direct contact, and set it to video-call him. It took about a minute for service to hook into the nearest laser com relay in Sol, then it went through.

  “Undina Mining Facility,” someone in the support office answered, surprising me. A finely groomed man in formal attire appeared on the screen. Everything to make the mine appear like a proper enterprise. Apparently, after Martelle Station, Luxarn had either changed his direct contact information or was no longer open to it. Either that or a USF investigation into what happened had him hiding certain aspects about his business more strictly.

  “I need to speak with your boss,” I said.

  “The foreman is on vacation, but if you’d like to leave a message.”

  “Not that boss. Luxarn Pervenio.”

  “I’m sorry, you seem to have the wrong contact information. The Undina Mining Collective is merely a subsidiary of Pervenio Corporation. Let me transfer you to the Pervenio Corporation headquarters on Earth.”

  “Tell him.” I drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Tell him that Malcolm Graves is on his way with a royal gift.”

  The man’s brow furrowed. He turned away from the camera and typed something into his terminal. His eyes went wide momentarily; then he composed himself and turned back to me. Luxarn always had a knack for hiring professionals, unlike those sloppy bastards at Venta Co.

  “I’ll transfer you right away,” he said.

  The screen blinked, and Luxarn appeared on the display almost immediately. He looked worse than ever. Not only unkempt but like he hadn’t even showered in days.

  “Graves, is that you again?” he questioned, nearly tripping over his words like some crazy hermit living beyond the habitable strings on Earth. I’d met a few. The kind of bearded loon who lives in a shack and still believes that Earth was never almost destroyed.

  “In the flesh, sir,” I said. The words came out meekly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of Kale’s hounds level his rifle at my head and then into the cockpit. It wasn’t because I was nervous. Seeing Luxarn so broken, the man who for most of my life could enter a room and have all the ladies swooning and all the wealthy ready to pry open their credit accounts... It put things into a certain perspective. Kale was right. Luxarn appeared in a place to believe anything I had to say.

  “By Earth, I thought they finally got you on Martelle after Zhaff cleared your path,” he said.

  “You know I’m a tough son of a bitch to kill.”

  “That’s for sure. Graves, I… I’m sorry I didn’t have chance to let you know that he pulled through his coma with the help of a new cerebral implant we’re developing alongside Venta Co. I sent him after Kale on Titan and told him to keep a lookout for you as well. He nearly got Trass, but I haven’t heard from him since he found out Kale’s little secret.”

  “That Ar… the ambassador is pregnant with his child. Yeah, I know. About Zha—”

  “Where are you, Graves? Are you still near Titan? Madame Venta informs me that our assault has been delayed by Kale’s treachery already. I swear, it’s impossible to find good help these days. I told her not to rush in, but you can never trust a Venta.”

  “The situation doesn’t look pretty,” I said. “I passed it on my way to you aboard the Cora. Zhaff... uh... he broke me out of my cell, and we stole it.”

  Luxarn laughed and clapped his hands. “Did I not tell you that you two made a formidable team?”

  “You did.”

  “And where is my boy?”

  “With me.” I rotated the hand terminal and showed him Zhaff’s face in the sleep pod. My chest tightened as I held it there to push the lie through.

  “Is he...”

  “He’s stable,” I said, “but he was injured in the fighting, so I put him under to recover. Without him, it never would have been possible, but, sir…I have him.”

  “What?” Luxarn asked.

  “Kale Trass.” I angled the hand terminal to show Kale inside of his sleep pod, eyes closed and tranquil. The thing wasn’t even on, but the young king was growing into quite the showman. “They’re trying to keep it secret that he went missing, but that’s why his aunt is handling all of their defenses.”

  Luxarn’s features brightened. “Is he dead?”

  “No.” I slapped the side of the pod. “Just fast asleep.”

  “Madame Venta did say he wouldn’t speak with her. She doesn’t know?”

  “She doesn’t. With all due respect, sir, I don’t trust Venta scum, even if they’re your partners now. Especially not after seeing how she nearly got
your fleet destroyed in minutes.”

  “You did the right thing, Graves. The finest collector there ever was! I knew you couldn’t stay retired.” He laughed gleefully again, and a bit of color finally came to his cheeks. There were even hints of a smile, though, with all the cosmetic work done to his face sagging from lack of upkeep, it was difficult to tell.

  “What are your orders, sir?” I asked.

  “Bring him to Undina immediately and tell nobody,” he said. “I help provide Venta with the largest fleet ever assembled, and she fails before she even started. Yet one Pervenio man will topple the Trass family for good. You’ll be remembered forever for this, Graves. I’ll have a damn statue of you erected in the heart of New London myself.”

  “I don’t need any of that. Kale went too far.”

  “I won’t accept no this time. Together, you, me, and Zhaff are going to rebuild everything they stole from us. Madame Venta will be booted from her own company for this fiasco, and I’ll name you in her place. The second richest man in Sol; how does that sound? We’ll rewrite history together.”

  “It sounds great, sir. Just sit tight. I’m on my way.”

  I switched off the hand terminal, unable to bear talking to him any longer. Seeing him hell-bent on revenge was one thing, but falling headfirst into a trap was another. All the corporate alliances and anti-USF moves were a façade. That shrewd, world-eating businessman Sol knew was already dead, and Kale hadn’t even pulled the trigger yet. It would be a mercy killing, just like for Zhaff after what Luxarn made him into.

  I tossed the device to one of the guards. “Happy?”

  Kale popped open the lid of his sleep pod, and his men hauled him out. Then they poked me in the back with their pulse-rifles.

  “Well done, Collector,” Kale said. “Now get in.” His man seized me.

  “This is never going to work, kid,” I said, shaking them off me. “You’re going to get us all killed.”

  “It already has worked.”

  He pushed off toward the command deck, and the lit end of a shock baton prodded me in the back before I had a chance to do anything else. My body convulsed, ten-thousand volts coursing through me. I continued to twitch even after the guards stuffed me into the pod and hooked me up, unable to scream at them for fear of vomiting.

  Then they closed me in. The worst part about it other than the silence wasn’t that I knew Kale was right, but that he was also smart enough to put me under. Aria had to remain at the ship’s controls, considering her condition and the warlike state of Sol, but with my brain shut off, I wouldn’t have any time to think of a way to get us out of this.

  I’d have to improvise in the thick of it, the way I used to when I was a collector. No more scheming. If I was going to clean up this mess, I’d have to be the one thing I feared was no longer possible. Myself.

  Malcolm Graves. The finest collector there ever was… in another lifetime, maybe.

  Nineteen

  Kale

  More than a month on a ship with nothing to do had never gone faster. It was my second time being invited to the core planets of Sol, only this time, our host already thought I was defeated. And this time, I would actually make a difference.

  We were right on schedule. It was M-Day when the tiny, metal-rich asteroid known as Undina appeared through the Cora’s viewport, drifting harmlessly in orbit. Beyond it, Earth grew closer and closer. I’d never seen the blue and brown orb of their half-drowned planet in person before. Stories said it was once lush and green all over, but now there was a single, vast ocean with spots of land after the Meteorite caused tides to rise, and dark clouds swirling all over. Offworlders who immigrated to Titan always talked about how beautiful Earth still was from space, but to me, it paled in comparison to Saturn—to those rare days when Titan’s stormy skies broke, and its Ring slashed across the frozen horizon.

  Today, celebrations would run rampant on the world that infected my people for so long. Venta Co. was set to unveil the designs for the new Departure Ark that would be sent to the stars in four years after being unanimously selected for the honor—I’m sure our attack was used by them to build sympathy. Their people would see it and dream of new worlds to spread their sickness to. Only Venta Co.’s CEO remained busy blockading the Ring and cleaning up the mess Rin made of their fleet and Earth’s hostages. And the man who invented the engines meant to power that Ark lay asleep in my ship, with the first working version of them carried by my ship.

  “We’re here, Rin,” I said over the Cora’s coms. It’d been days since Aria could pilot the ship. Exhaustion and pregnancy forced her into the ship’s reconstructed medical bay. Since she was the only doctor on board, I had to trust her when she said she was on the verge of giving birth, though I made sure guards were always nearby.

  “Is it everything you hoped for?” Rin said.

  “It’s so much smaller than I expected,” I replied.

  “Your father said the same before he landed there.”

  “And then their gravity crushed him. Even their world is designed to destroy us.”

  “So is ours, Kale,” Rin said. “One hand outside and it freezes off.”

  With the threat of Madame Venta’s armada neutralized for the foreseeable future, there was time for her to scold me again over Rylah. On the eve of our victory… just like a mother.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  “Alive,” she said. “How’s Aria?”

  “Alive.”

  “She should be here, you know. Your son should be born on Titan, like we all were.”

  “We’re not having this conversation again. I need her here.”

  “No, Kale. You needed Basaam Venta and an asteroid. You didn’t—” She sighed. “I’m sorry, Kale.”

  “For what?”

  “For showing you that violence was the only way we could change anything. And for waiting until now to tell you.”

  “Have you been spending time with my mother?”

  “I’m not joking,” she said.

  “The only thing you showed me was what needed to be done. Our people need to know that Luxarn can never hurt them again, just like they needed to know that we shouldn’t ever betray our people for an Earther.”

  I switched off the coms without a goodbye. If a swift victory over Venta Co. wasn’t enough to cheer her up over what happened to Rylah—a sister she once had to beg to help her own people, according to Rin—then nothing would. She’d done her part to help deceive Luxarn Pervenio. Now it was my turn.

  I removed my restraints and let the Cora continue on its automated course for Undina. I drifted out of the cockpit. The youngest of my men who’d saved me so many times noticed me from the galley, eyelids teetering on the verge of sleep.

  “Is everything all right, Lord Trass?” he asked.

  I glanced past him at the other Titanborn struggling to stay awake after a month-long voyage. Six of them. Titanborn on their second mission to the inner Sol system. I didn’t know any of their names. They’d been handpicked by Gareth and Rin before we went to Mars. Now one of those two would never see a free Titan, and the other seemed to be losing her will to fight for one.

  This time, I was alone.

  “We’re here,” I said. “Gather everyone and get to the compartment in my quarters.”

  The smuggling compartment Luxarn had installed in what was supposed to be his ship was built to mask anything within from thermal and other scanners, so that he could never miss an opportunity to move something valuable. Gareth had used it to sneak out into New Beijing, grab the ex-collector Trevor Cross, and start all of this. Greed would be Luxarn’s downfall just like the rest of his people.

  My guard bowed and left to rouse the others. I went in the other direction, toward the med bay. Aria had her arms and legs tied to the table so she didn’t float away. Her eyes were closed, a tuft of curly red hair covering one of them. Her belly was so full, it looked like it was ready to burst and send my son hurtling into existence.

 
; I drew a deep breath, remembering how Gareth looked in an older version of the room before being sucked out to Space, then drifted in as quietly as possible. I drew myself along the table. I reached out slowly to rub Aria’s bulging stomach, then stopped. She needed her rest. After Malcolm and I entered Undina and turned it into a projectile, she would be the only pilot capable of keeping Earth’s defensive nuclear arsenal off us. I leaned as close as I could, until I could hear every one of her raspy breaths.

  “Titan was never meant to be lived on, but it’s our world,” I whispered. “When I’m done, you won’t have to fight for it any longer. Be a better king for them than I was.” I planted a gentle kiss on Aria’s stomach, then turned to leave.

  “Kale,” she whispered.

  I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. She’d betrayed me, forced me to use her as a hostage to reach this point. I knew now that she could never be one of us, no matter who she carried. Her greatest gift to Titan would be to ensure that my heir had an immune system strong enough to resist whatever earthborn disease our enemies might ever throw at him to try and take control, like Luxarn Pervenio had done before.

  I returned to the sleep pods. My guards were busy heaving Basaam Venta out of his. Naturally, the spoiled Earther puked almost immediately.

  “Mr. Trass,” he said groggily. “What is the meaning of this? Where are we now?”

  “Hide him with you in the smuggling compartment and keep him quiet,” I addressed my youngest guard. “The moment we have control of the station, he will instruct you on how and where to install the engines on the asteroid’s surface.”

  “Yes, Lord Trass.”

  “And take Aria with you,” I said.

  “But, sir, she—”

  “Can’t register on their scanners either. Luxarn will be surrounded by his Cogents. We can’t risk anyone other than me, Zhaff, and the collector being spotted until the time is right.”

  “Of course, Lord Trass. We’ll make sure she’s comfortable. From ice to ashes.”