“It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Kale Drayton,” the man said. The grit in his voice spoke of booze and a lifetime’s worth of scuffles. He surely wasn’t a Cogent. None of his clothing was marked with the Pervenio emblem. His face, mottled by furrows and faded scars, hid under the shadow of carelessly tousled gray hair. An unkempt salt-and-pepper beard wrapped his square jawline like he’d forgotten to shave for months.
I couldn’t place why, but I recognized him from somewhere. Nobody outside of Darien would’ve known my mother’s surname, Drayton, which I went by for most of my life. I figured maybe he was a former Pervenio officer I’d seen around the city growing up. He had the look of one. His hazel eyes were weary, like he’d already seen everything the world had to offer yet couldn’t keep himself from seeking more.
“Just put a bullet in him,” Rin gargled.
“Kale, listen to me,” Aria implored. “He’s not going to shoot anybody.” That same rattled expression she wore around Madame Venta contorted her face.
“Listen to her,” the old man said. “Nobody has to die.”
“Then drop the weapon,” I demanded. Gareth appeared by my side so fast it was like he’d teleported. The old man’s eyes widened as he saw him.
“You’re that illegitimate from the Twilight Sun, aren’t you? Clever, kid. You’ve been planning this from the start, not because of the summit. Used that dumb fuck Trevor to get to Basaam, I’ll bet.”
I glanced at Gareth. He shrugged his shoulders. “How did you know that?” I asked.
“A hunch. Been doing this for a long time, Drayton.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“I suggest you listen to him,” Captain Barnes said as he caught up with us. “You are under arrest for violating an official USF contract of suspended hostilities.”
“Red Wing,” the man scoffed. “Why don’t you run along and let the adults handle this.”
“Why you!” Barnes raised his gun, but I lowered the barrel. Gareth took my cue and forcefully shoved him aside so that he wouldn’t intervene.
“What do you want?” I questioned.
“I want to back out of here alive,” the old man said.
“Nobody is stopping you.”
He smirked, and not like Madame Venta did when she wanted to act like she was in control. There was a blitheness to it, the kind of expression that said he hadn’t been truly afraid of anything in a long time and he wasn’t going to start now.
“I’ll make this simple, Drayton—” he began.
“I said stop calling me that!” I interrupted.
“Ashamed of your mother? I can’t say I blame you, kid. I was about your age when I left my clan-family and chose a name of my own. Nothing as fanciful as Trass, but, you know, different strokes.”
“Stop stalling.” I sidled forward, my fingers fidgeting around the trigger of my gun, desperate to put down another Earther who spoke at me like I was nothing. He took a healthy stride back, dragging Rin and Aria with him.
“Please,” Aria urged me. “Stay calm.”
“Just shoot him already,” Rin croaked.
“I’ve got a feeling we’ve both seen enough of that today,” the old man said. He coughed, causing his grip on Rin to loosen for a second. I took a hard step toward him, but he recovered and pressed the barrel of his pistol hard into her temple. Aria raised a hand to keep me back.
“Radiation. Every second you waste, your insides corrode a little more,” I said. I gestured toward the whole of the hangar, still rife with contamination.
“It can’t do a better job than whiskey.”
I drew a deep, grating breath. “I’m going to ask again. What do you want?”
“Aria. She’s walking out of here, straight to treatment and away from you. You can kill me if it makes you feel better, but she walks.”
“In exchange for what?” Aria’s brow furrowed at my query, though I couldn’t tell if she was insulted or relieved. A chance to escape her responsibilities, what I wouldn’t have given for that.
The old man motioned to Rin. “She lives.”
“Rin would gladly give her life, and you’ll be dead before she hits the floor,” I said. “You can do better.”
“I thought you people didn’t like striking deals with Earthers?” Uncertainty momentarily rippled across his face. He was stalling… human after all.
“But you’re different than the others, aren’t you? You seem equally as tired of their rotten deals as I am.”
“I can…” He searched the room, pausing on the molten remnants of a Cogent eye lens that had somehow remained intact enough to identify. “I was a Pervenio collector for three decades. That comes with certain skills. Certain privileges.”
“He’s lying, Kale,” Rin said. “Just finish him. You have to get out of here.”
Now his staunch demeanor was starting to make sense. This was what the collectors of offworlder legend were supposed to be like. Not that rat Trevor Cross.
Gareth nudged me in the side. “He’s not lying,” he signed. “He and Trevor were arguing when I took him. His retirement came up.”
“And how does a retired collector help me?” I asked.
“How do you want it to?” he replied. “I know Luxarn Pervenio. How his mind works.”
“Even where he hides?”
The Collector hesitated at first, then nodded ruefully. “I know where he shits. You let Aria go free of all this trouble, and my gun is yours. Anything you need.” He stared at Aria with the same blend of sorrow and tenderness that my mother had when I used to visit her behind the divider of the Darien Quarantine. Of all the riddles of Aria’s past, there was no denying one—this mysterious old man cared for her deeply.
“Don’t do this for me, Dad!” Aria couldn’t cover her mouth fast enough.
Hearing the title drew everyone’s attention and provided Rin the opening she needed to break free. Her elbow smashed into the former collector’s stomach. As he reeled, she twisted his arm until his pulse pistol popped out of his hand. Before any of us knew it, she had his own gun aimed back at him. She would’ve pulled the trigger too if Aria hadn’t leaped between them.
Twenty
Malcolm
“Please don’t!” Aria cried.
I stood behind her, under the sights of yet another Titanborn who’d ripped a gun out of my hands. First on Earth when Zhaff was once forced to save me, then on Titan a number of times, now here. It was beginning to become a trend. If only I’d taken the time to nap instead of pointlessly gallivanting around Old Dome to try and find a good reason why Wai was dead when there was none. Then maybe I would’ve had my wits enough about me to get Aria out without starting a standoff with the adolescent king of Titan and his disfigured guard dog.
“A Pervenio collector?” the one Kale referred to as Rin said, her rage palpable. “You’ve been working with them the whole time!”
“I’m not!” Aria protested. “I swear I was going to tell you, Kale.” She coughed once, then started to dry retch. I had to grab her to keep her upright. Kale and the other Titanborn wore airtight armor and helmets, but Aria and I weren’t so fortunate. Radiation poisoning was a bitch. I recalled dealing with a bad bout of it, a decade ago back on an asteroid colony when a reactor overloaded. This was worse. It hurt all over just supporting Aria’s weight, and she wasn’t even born on Earth. My insides felt like they were fighting to squeeze through my pores.
“Working with me?” I released a weak chuckle. This was another fine mess I’d gotten her into. “I could hardly get her to talk to me.” I looked past Rin and straight at Kale. He was in shock, his gun elevated but aimed at nothing. “Malcolm Graves. That’s my name. Have you ever heard her use it? It’s because I abandoned her on Mars, and I didn’t look back. She was better off without me.”
“Well, you’re here now,” Rin growled.
“A dying father come to rectify his sins, that’s all,” I said. “You think I wanted her working with you peo
ple? Under Luxarn Pervenio’s lens? No, I came to get her out because Earth knows I’m the reason she went running into the arms of suicidal Ringers.”
A bang at the entry reverberated across the hangar. The door was partially welded shut from their ship’s impulse drive ignition, but it wouldn’t hold long. “This property belongs to Madame Venta!” an officer outside shouted. “Open up, or we will be required to use force!”
“Venta Co. is here,” a Red Wing captain, who Kale somehow had working for him, announced. “Mr. Trass, you must leave immediately.”
“I’m aware,” Kale said.
“We may still need Aria, but let me put a bullet in this Pervenio scum,” Rin said.
Kale’s dusky eyes darted between us and the continued banging at the gate.
“I know I should’ve told you,” Aria pled. “From now on, I’ll tell you everything. Just please, let him go. He’s out of the business. He has nothing to do with any of this.” Now she was the one trying to help me. Maybe we really were starting to get along better.
“Is this who you desperately needed to go see?” Kale questioned her. “Your illegitimate father? I don’t care if he’s out; he’s still Pervenio.”
“I swear, I didn’t even know he was still alive until today.”
“C’mon, Kale,” Rin said. I could feel the familiar barrel of my pistol rustling through my hair. “It’s time.”
“Undina Mining facility,” I said.
“What?” Kale said.
“That’s where Luxarn Pervenio is holed up.”
“Look how loyal the dog is,” Rin spat.
I rolled my shoulders. It was tough being overly loyal to a man who drained my credit account out of spite after thirty years of doing whatever he asked, but that wasn’t what made me say it. Undina was the closest asteroid to Earth in the system, pulled into its orbit for ease of mining years ago when Pervenio Corp was building a Departure Ark and still had influence. It also happened to house what was left of the Cogent Initiative. An attempt at breaking in to get to him was suicide. If I couldn’t kill the boy-king and free Sol from all the trouble he was causing, then maybe he’d chase the man they held responsible for subjugating Titan and get himself killed for me.
“Now you know,” I said. “Let us leave together. I promise, you won’t ever see us again. Or better yet, take me if that’ll make you feel better and let Aria go. The summit is over, so you can stop pretending to want peace. She’ll disappear. She may be telling you the truth, but she’s not one of you. Never will be.”
“That’s for damn certain,” Rin added.
Sparks flew by the entry gate as the Venta Co. officers outside got to work cutting through. Kale averted his gaze from us and grabbed the Red Wing captain by the arm. I studied Rin as he did. If I wanted to make a move on her, now was the time to do it. Venta had them distracted, and Kale was clearly stalling to sort out his feelings.
“Captain, you said your board wished to remunerate us?” he asked.
“They do,” the Red Wing man replied.
“Make contact, then. Venta Co. is conspiring with their old rivals to kill me. I fear we won’t escape the planet’s gravity well without support. Ask them to scramble fighters to ensure Madame Venta doesn’t shoot us down. Do that, and we’ll be even for all of this.”
“Sir… that is a direct act of hostility. The board—”
“This is a third attempt on my life here! If your board denies us, I will see it as proof that your company is also involved, and all shipments will stop. Get it done, Captain.”
The hole in the gate was nearly cut. After taking a few seconds to think things through, the captain wisely drew his hand-terminal to make the call while leading his remaining officers toward the entry.
“We can’t waste any more time, Kale,” Rin said harshly. “Our lives are in the hands of Earthers now, thanks to our lovely ambassador.”
“Listen to her, kid,” I said. “Just give the word, and we’re out of your hair for good. Easy.”
A deafening bang preceded the hangar gate falling inward. A line of Venta Co. officers appeared on the other side. The Red Wing captain and what little remained of his unit stood their ground and refused the orders to step aside. Kale’s surviving guards swarmed us to form a semicircle in front of their leader. The Ringer from the Twilight Sun signed something to him, still upright despite an ample amount of blood dripping from his shoulder and stomach that nobody seemed to be concerned about.
Kale nodded. “Unfortunately for you, I still need her,” he said to me, finally, his voice hoarse. “Rin, do—”
“Please!” Aria urged. “What would you do to have a second chance with the father who left you behind?”
Kale’s stony curtain slipped fully from its hooks. For all his projected bravado, he appeared completely overwhelmed. Every bit the inexperienced young man playing leader that he was. Aria was smart enough to see it, appealing to one sentiment every son or daughter with an estranged parent could understand no matter what world they were born on. It only pained me knowing she’d learned that lesson from me.
“Take him with us onto the Cora, Rin,” Kale decided. He clutched Aria’s hand, his glare hardening again as he regarded her. “We can use him. For better or worse, he’s family now.”
Somehow, being referred to as family with the king of the Ringers wasn’t the strangest thing about what he said. The Cora? I couldn’t help but feel like the name of Kale’s surprisingly advanced ship meant something to me.
“More Earther stowaways,” Rin grumbled. She shoved my pistol against my spine and pushed me toward the ship. “Let’s go, Collector. One wrong move and you’ll spend your days on Titan drinking through a straw.”
She smacked me in the back of the neck with my own gun before I could come up with a witty response and had me seeing stars. I stumbled forward, and when my vision cleared, I saw Aria with Kale and realized how badly I’d misinterpreted things. She wasn’t purely an ambassador or a friend. Just like the last time Aria and I were on Mars together, some six or seven years back, I’d come between her and a lover. They exchanged an unmistakable look—the kind that could only be swapped between two people who’d shared a bed—before they and the rest of Kale’s escort followed us.
Stupid old man, I cursed myself. I’d played my hand all wrong in thinking Kale only needed my daughter to arrange this summit because she wasn’t a Ringer. Even worse, I’d already handed him my best card by revealing where Luxarn was. Now I remembered why retiring seemed like the best plan for me back on Undina. Ever since Zhaff, I was covered in rust that I couldn’t shake.
A gunshot echoed.
The Red Wing captain toppled over. The Venta Co. officers finally realized Kale was exposed. They mowed down the rest of the Red Wing men, and we were next. Kale’s guards opened fire as they grabbed their king and rushed him into his ship.
“Move! Onto the Cora!” Rin barked.
Again, that name clung to my thoughts like a parasite and froze all my other functions, until Rin pushed me up the ramp as hard as she could. She then turned to help Kale and Aria up. Bullets clanged and hissed against the ship’s hull, a few buzzing into the cargo bay, which was basically empty minus a line of Ringer bodies. I quickly counted at least five of them. Kale’s surviving guards formed a wall at the entry while the ramp rose, returning fire as it sealed with a snap and hiss. One of the guards slumped to his knees face-first against it, a thick trail of blood snaking down the shiny surface. Dead.
“Everyone to the cockpit!” Kale ordered. “It’s time to go.”
The mute Ringer from the Twilight Sun signed something in my direction. His bleeding had stopped, but his breathing was labored.
“No, Gareth,” Kale said. “I want your eyes on him at all times.”
Rin passed me off to him, and we all set off down the ship’s winding corridors. It didn’t take more than a few steps in to realize that I was in a former Pervenio vessel. The clean lines, sleek surfaces, and top-end ma
terials were evidence enough of that. Aria was up ahead with Kale, and I struggled to catch a glimpse of her with Rin and the other Ringers in between.
“I’m flying,” Rin said once we reached the spacious trapezoidal cockpit. An injured Ringer posted at the controls limped out of the way.
Flying ships had never been my specialty, but even after a lifetime around Pervenio equipment, that cockpit remained alien. Glittering holographic screens and informational readouts blinked from all over. The best of technology, along every wall and under the sweeping viewport. At first, I’d figured this was merely a stolen gas harvester, but it was clear Kale had taken something valuable to my former employer—a prototype ship the likes of which Sol had never seen.
Rin reached for one of the two navigation chairs nearest the viewport, but Kale towed her back. “Aria’s flying.”
“Her?” Rin said.
“Now isn’t the time,” Kale said, a harsh edge to his tone. “She’s our best pilot.”
“She’s the whole reason we’re in this mess.”
“Would you two stop it already!” Aria snapped. She covered her mouth to suppress a racking fit of coughs, which must have been contagious because I did the same. The radiation sickness was getting worse.
“She’s sick,” Rin said. “She needs treatment, right now. You know why.”
“If we don’t make it off, it won’t matter!” Aria said. “There are too many people on this ship I care about to let you fly. I’ll last.” Aria didn’t bother waiting for Rin to move. She squeezed around her and into the chair.
“Fine,” Rin grumbled. “I’ll shoot.”
She took the copilot seat next to Aria, and then I had the pleasure of seeing my daughter prepare for launch. Despite how nauseated she appeared, her hands flew across the controls, up and down, her chair swiveling from side to side. It was nothing I’d taught her. Just watching was exhausting.
The mute Ringer, Gareth, took me and shoved me into one of the chairs lining the back wall of the room. Quick movements rekindled my queasiness as my innards continued their war with each other. He sat beside me and pointed a pulse pistol at my ribcage. He wheezed even louder than I was. The penetrations in his suit left him compromised, and our old bodies were more susceptible to radiation poison than the others’. It was one type of sickness being born on Earth couldn’t help with. I didn’t utter a word.
Titan's Rise: (Children of Titan Book 3) Page 26
