From Ice to Ashes

by Rhett C. Bruno

  A hand landed on my shoulder. I turned and saw Gareth, expression staid as ever. He signed something to me, slowly so that I could better understand it. He had to repeat the symbols a few times to spark my memory.

  ‘Won’t accept help?’ I read.

  “No,” I said. “Because he’s an Earther, right? Like your old captain.”

  Gareth shook his head. ‘Would you, as him?’

  I exhaled. “No. I guess I wouldn’t. I don’t know what to do…” I folded my legs out from under me and sat, steam cascading over my shoulders. Gareth joined me. “I’m just so tired.”

  ‘Sleep?’

  “Not like that. I meant I’m tired of being so out of control of everything in my life. All of you telling me who I am. For the briefest moment, I thought I had everything. I saved my mom. I had Cora. A job.”

  His hands remained still.

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”

  ‘What do you want?’

  “Me? I have no idea. I thought I was doing the right thing helping her. Now everyone else I know is either locked up somewhere, refusing my help, or dead, and I’m stuck here in the middle of Saturn talking to the mute who helped put me here…Sorry. I’m sure you were only following orders.”

  His expression didn’t shift. ‘What do YOU want?’

  I took a deep breath. “To fix it. I know my life can never be the same—you’ve all made damn sure of that—but I guess I failed at keeping my distance from people. At not caring. Trass, I’d kill to have a drink with Desmond right now and I never thought I’d say that. I don’t know what I’d do to be with Cora.” I sighed, and a weak chuckle slipped out.

  ‘Then do it.’

  “That’s easy to say, but I can’t. You’re stuck here with the most wanted man in Sol.”

  He shook his head, and then stared directly into my eyes. It made me shiver. ‘Listen to her then. You lead. You choose.’

  “I lead,” I whispered. I leapt to my feet, having a sudden epiphany. “I lead.”

  —

  I ran to the command deck as fast as possible; Gareth could barely keep up with me. Maya sat at a console, keying commands while she munched on one of our precious ration bars. Vick scrubbed my vomit off the floor and the back of his chair, visor on, presumably so he didn’t have to deal with the stench.

  “Maya!” I hollered.

  She calmly glanced up from her work. “What is it?” she asked. “Are you feeling better?”

  Vick raised his visor. “Is he feeling better? How about me? He should be the one cleaning this shit up.”

  “Quiet.”

  “Fuckin’ Trass…” he grumbled, and returned to scrubbing, cursing under his breath the entire time.

  “Kale?”

  I took a few seconds to catch my breath. “I’m fine. I…You said you wanted me to lead, but if you’ve all told me the truth, you operate in separate cells. So what does that actually mean?”

  Her expression brightened as much as her singed face allowed. “You’re considering it?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “The Children of Titan are widespread, yes. We’ve never had a single leader, but neither did Titan before Pervenio arrived. Some don’t believe that we need one now. They’d rather separately chip away at nothing until we’re gone. We won’t win a war of attrition, not when they control the trade and medicine.”

  “So you want to bring the Children together?”

  “Yes. Your father didn’t last long enough for the time to be right for him to take the mantle. He may not have wanted that burden for you, but it’s no longer his decision to make.”

  “Why can’t you take it?”

  “Sodervall already made you infamous for us, plus you have the plight our people will relate to. Lost father, sick mother, stealing just to survive. Me…” She gestured to her face, grimaced. “I’m just a—”

  “Fighter,” I finished for her, knowing that wasn’t what she was going to say. I needed her on my good side for what I was about to propose, and calling her a monster wasn’t going to help even if it was true.

  She grinned halfheartedly. “Sure. But we don’t need you to be one. Titan needs a new voice. All we need from you is to begin broadcasting publicly, provide a face and name to the coming revolution. A Trass to rally to. You can keep your hands as clean as you’d like.”

  I regarded the faces of my new companions. They were the strangest group I’d ever encountered, but on second glance they didn’t seem that much different from those I’d worked with in the Lowers. Dexter lost his legs; Maya lost her face. Every Ringer had scars they couldn’t hide.

  “I’ll do it,” I declared. “I’ll say whatever you want me to say, but you’re going to have to do something for me first.”

  Maya’s smile faded. “Go on.”

  “We’re going to break the Piccolo’s crew out of Pervenio Station.”

  Vick scoffed. Maya struggled not to. “What do you expect us to do, pull the Sunfire up next to it and grab them?” she asked. “Unidentified vessel. They’ll shoot us down as soon as we break atmosphere.”

  “I don’t care how we do it. You told me to stop worrying about others, but this is what I want. You need your figurehead, you’ll think of a way. Then we’ll be even for what you did to us.”

  “Can’t lead anything if you’re dead,” Vick chimed in.

  “No, but would you follow a man who would forsake his friends and crew just to get away?”

  Maya glared at me, and even Vick’s customary smirk was wiped from his face. They both knew I was serious, and if I could have seen Gareth behind me I’d have bet he was secretly glad he couldn’t talk, once he realized he’d given me the idea.

  “Kale…” Maya began soberly. “In a cell on Titan we might have the people and the resources to save them. But there’s a reason nobody’s ever been broken out of Pervenio Station: Nobody’s ever tried. Maybe we could get in, but where would we go afterward? There’s no bridge to Titan.”

  “He’s officially lost it, Mai,” Vick said. “I told you this was a bad idea.”

  Gareth stomped forward and signed something slow enough for me to understand. Vick’s reaction to him helped as well. ‘Would you rather stay here forever?’

  “Better than being dead.”

  “We can use the hand-terminal I smuggled to get in,” I proposed. “You told me it will provide a window into their systems.”

  “A brief one,” Maya said. “My sister was going to use it to wipe as much of the Pervenio medical database as possible. Erase names and births. Make as many Titanborn illegitimate as possible to hamper Pervenio credit records. But they have to plug into their systems to analyze it, and once she gets to work it won’t be long before they realize that and destroy it.”

  “Yeah, and we all spent months planning for that,” Vick added. “It’s the whole reason those people on the Piccolo died, kid. It’d take ’em years to replace the data.”

  “And then we’ll be right back where we are,” I said. “Nothing will change.”

  “I can look into it, Kale,” Maya said. “You have my word. We can try to arrange something. Keep an eye on them to make sure they’re okay.”

  “No. I didn’t ask to be here, but I’m done fighting it. You want more of my help, then it’s time you help me. Otherwise you may as well shove me into the airlock with Captain Saunders.”

  The room went quiet. All I could hear was a gentle chorus of deep breaths and the vibrations from a weak storm outside.

  “Mai, you can’t seriously be considering this,” Vick protested.

  She said nothing.

  “If we free my friends from the most guarded place in the Ring,” I said, “Pervenio will know not only that we’ll try to hit them anywhere, but that we can. And people won’t just hope I’m actually a Trass and listen, they’ll believe it…even if I don’t.” By the end of my argument I was both breathless and impressed with how much I’d improved at negotiation since attempting t
o haggle with Dexter.

  “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” Maya questioned.

  “Mai, c’mon,” Vick said. “This is the same kid that just puked all over the command deck. He’s probably unstable after what happened.”

  “You want to strike Pervenio at their heart.” Maya stood tall before me. The ship trembled, but her balance was pristine. “Me too. For too long.” She extended her hand. “Deal.”

  “Deal,” I exhaled. I shook her hand as quick as I could, before anybody changed their minds. Her grayish eyes glinted with a hunger the likes of which I hadn’t seen in them before.

  “I hate my life…” Vick groaned and he threw down his rag.

  “It won’t be like sneaking around the Lowers,” Maya said.

  “I know.”

  Gareth patted me on the back, and I turned to him. His face remained impassive, but he signed, ‘I’m with you.’

  “This is insane,” Vick said. “You know I always have your back, Mai, but he’s supposed to be a figurehead. Now we’re taking orders from him?”

  “He’s a Trass,” she replied firmly.

  “He’s a kid!”

  “You’re welcome to stay here alone, if you’d like, but it’s time we finally get off this ship.”

  Vick released a fake, exaggerated laugh. Then he scanned the broken-down room, looking from one pleading face to the next. He sighed. “Well, you’ll need a pilot, but I’m making it known I don’t agree with this. And don’t expect me to take a bullet for him either.”

  “Wouldn’t expect anything else,” Maya jested.

  “So you have an actual plan for this, right, Mr. Trass?”

  My high of excitement died swiftly. Between my conversation with Gareth and the command deck, I hadn’t really had a chance to think about anything other than how I’d convince Maya. “No,” I admitted.

  Vick threw up his arms in frustration.

  “Leave getting in to me,” Maya said. “We’ll need my sister’s help again. Kale, you’re the expert on smuggling here. Start thinking of how to possibly get people off Pervenio Station.”

  “People…” I bit my lip. “They’re a little bigger than hand-terminals. I don’t know if I can—”

  “We just need ideas for now. There’s nothing too crazy to consider at this point.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” Vick added softly.

  “Can you do that?” she asked me.

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  “Good. Vick, get a read on the nearest luxury cruiser and bring us under them.”

  “Sure thing, beautiful.” He saluted unenthusiastically before spinning his chair around and getting to work on the navigation console. “Fucking maniacs,” he whispered loud enough for us to hear.

  “Gareth, evaluate our supplies and munitions.”

  He nodded.

  Maya gripped my arm crisply. “Let’s crack open Pervenio Station,” she said, “and you can tell Director Sodervall who you really are right to his wrinkled, mud-stomper face.”

  “There’s one more thing I need to see before we leave.” I stepped past her, ignoring her confused expression, and reached into a supply crate under a control panel. I’d noticed the scanner they used to sort out who had been Ringer, who Earther, on the Piccolo. I grabbed two vacuum-sealed needles. “Can this check DNA?”

  “Sure,” Maya said. “Blood type, DNA, and bone density if you go deep enough. Everything to help us figure out who’s really Titanborn.”

  “Perfect.” I presented the equipment to her. “I’m tired of being lied to.”

  She understood. She took the scanner from me and pricked her neck inside of her helmet. Then she switched the needle and did the same to me. I wasn’t sure what most of the information that popped up on the screen meant, but she allowed me to watch as she worked the controls.

  We were a genetic match. Family. That was the least crazy of the revelations about my life she’d provided, but it was nice to be 100 percent sure that my memory of her wasn’t somehow fabricated.

  “And Trass. Can it test for that?” I asked.

  “We don’t have the resources available here. You’ll just have to have faith.”

  “I wish that were easier.”

  “Few things ever are!” Vick hollered back.

  Maya handed the scanner back to me. “Stop worrying about what may or may not be, and let’s focus on surviving what’s to come.”

  “Right.” I returned the device, and then the word surviving sunk in. “Oh, and one more thing: Captain Saunders is coming with us.”

  The healthy half of Maya’s lips wilted into a scowl. “Kale.”

  “He already knows who I am and thinks it was me, so what does it matter? We’ll leave him behind on the station.”

  She glanced over at Vick. He smirked back at her. “He’s a Trass—remember?” he remarked.

  Maya closed her eyes, and then nodded, somewhat disagreeably. “Only if he’s able.”

  Chapter 18

  The plan Maya came up with was simple…at least the initial part. We were going to abandon the Sunfire and board one of the luxury cruisers sailing around Saturn’s upper atmosphere, which provided Earther clientele a lavish reprieve from living under Low G conditions. Not like the pirates of old this time, however. We were going to sneak on and stow away in the supply hangar. Vick sliced into some Pervenio com’s chatter as our altitude rose, and we learned that a decision had been made from the top that all unessential vessels were being recalled from Saturn in light of what happened to the Piccolo.

  The nearest cruiser was already on the ascent, so we didn’t have long. Vick pushed the Sunfire’s engines so hard that we all had to sit down just to stay conscious during the thrust. I could feel the worn-down pieces of the ship priming to snap off all around me.

  Once we were on board, we’d borrow the suits of the cruiser’s Ringer workers and infiltrate Pervenio Station. Maya was also going to have to tap into its long-range coms to contact her sister Mazrah and tell her about the change in plans, so that she could hack into the station’s security systems using the hand-terminal I’d smuggled and sneak us into the prison bay.

  That was the easy part. Skulking around was my specialty. The impossible part would come after we sprung twenty incarcerated Ringers from Pervenio Corporation’s main headquarters in Sol. We’d lose Maya’s sister’s support by then, so hiding for as long as we could in the station’s tram tunnels was the best option our collective minds could come up with. Finding enough space suits and ejecting ourselves through the vacuum toward Titan was another choice, but burning up in the moon’s dense atmosphere was more of a concern than how we were going to land. Commandeering a ship would get us blown to bits by the station’s defenses.

  It was a far cry from what I was used to. Even Dexter Howser’s looniest assignment couldn’t hold a candle to what we were going to attempt, but it was my one chance. I was in too deep to get out, and if Maya had taught me anything in our short time together it was that I couldn’t escape some of the blame. I chose the quick path to saving my mom, and I would’ve done it a thousand times over again. But Cora, Desmond, and the others were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because of me they were sitting in cells, spending every minute fearful of being spaced.

  I was going to get them out no matter the cost.

  Presently, I trudged down the Sunfire’s airlock corridor, using the wall to lug myself along. Even my powered suit wasn’t enough to combat the ship’s force of acceleration.

  “I thought I told you to stay away from me,” Captain Saunders grumbled weakly upon noticing me. He clutched a pipe to keep from sliding along the floor, his face glistening with sweat. Dark bags wrapped his eyes, the kind that come when you haven’t had real sleep in too long. He looked thin and pale, skeletal, like my mom the last time I saw her in person.

  “I’m taking you off of this ship, Captain,” I said. “I don’t care whether or not you believe me, but I’m getting you help.”
I grabbed his cuff and yanked it so hard that it broke off of the pipe it was linked to. I was getting used to being abnormally strong. He scrambled backward, but I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and lifted.

  “Ah, fuck!” he shrieked. He squirmed out of my grasp and crumpled to the floor, puffing uncontrollably. “Oh Earth, just leave me.”

  I knelt and checked his wound. The veins surrounding it looked like the webs of an ancient spider, and the skin was so discolored it was now yellow. Pink-hued pus oozed out of it as the pain caused his stomach muscles to spasm.

  “You need a real doctor,” I said. I gave lifting him another shot, but he screamed like I’d never heard anyone scream as soon as I moved him.

  “Stop…I can’t…” he wheezed.

  “I’m not going to leave you.”

  “Then don’t.” He attempted to point at something, but couldn’t raise his arm. Instead, his gaze aimed toward the control panel for the airlock.

  “Sir, I can get you out of here.”

  “If you really aren’t behind all this, then I’m still your captain by contract.” He had to pause for breath between every few words. “Do it. That’s an order.”

  “Sir…”

  “Don’t make me beg. A captain…A captain should go down with his crew.”

  “There’s still time.”

  “Kill me!” He roared like a madman. He grabbed hold of my thigh and shook. “Just end this. I can’t…I can’t…” He struggled for air and fell backward against the wall, his whole body quivering.

  I crouched next to him, unable to choke back my tears. I’d expected him to fight me taking him, but not to give up.

  “Please, Kale. I don’t know why I’m here, but I’ll tell you people anything you want to know. Anything. Please…” His jaw clenched. “The pain is too much.”

  I wiped my cheeks and took a seat beside him. For two years he’d been my captain. He’d barked orders and kept us in line. Never once did he waver. He was stern, authoritative, and did his best to seem fair. Or did he?

  “Why do you pay us less?” I asked softly, the question suddenly popping into my head as I recalled the things Maya mentioned.

  “Kale…”