From Ice to Ashes

by Rhett C. Bruno

  She cried for a few hours after the third time she returned. Until the entrance opened again and in strolled Director Sodervall himself, the time stamp indicating this happened only a little more than an hour ago. I’d never seen him below his shoulders. He wore a formal black-and-red tunic, and was unexpectedly short even for an Earther. Cora looked up at him, and for the first time I could see the blue of her eyes before she scrambled across the floor. The Director leaned in front of her and said something. He didn’t grin afterward. Or shout. He merely sighed, as if he was tired of the sight of her, before strolling out of the room.

  She watched him go, the dread in her expression matching Desmond’s when I found him. I didn’t need to see what followed to know the truth, but I watched nonetheless. I had to. The inner seal closed. She gazed up at the lens, right into my eyes, and then the outer seal popped open. Her body was sucked through, gone in less than a second. Like ashes in the winds of Titan.

  Chapter 23

  The hand-terminal slipped through my fingers as the recording stopped. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow. I was petrified, like one of Earth’s forests frozen over for centuries after the Meteorite.

  Maya’s hand fell upon my shoulder. Not forcefully, but with the concern of family.

  “We have to go, Kale,” she whispered. “She’s gone.”

  “I…” My lips were too numb to release words.

  Maya crouched by my side and picked up the hand-terminal. “Now you know what we mean to them.”

  I turned to my aunt. Gone was her hardened glare. Her eyes were glazed over, a tear running down the ripples and craters of her disfigured half.

  “She…She didn’t even know anything,” I managed to say.

  Maya propped me to my feet. I didn’t have the energy to fight her as she led me out of the cell. I wanted to sit at the airlock and search for Cora amongst the stars, but I knew I wouldn’t find her or anybody else.

  Back in the hall, Desmond cringed against the railing of the stairs. My assault had caused him to revert to a complete state of terror. Nearby, Vick supported Gareth, and I’d never seen his usually carefree expression so rife with anger. Twenty Ringer members of the Piccolo’s crew had been detained, and only one of them was left, beaten and broken to within a fraction of his life. He would’ve been spaced as well if not for what happened on Titan.

  “Kale, we have to go,” Maya said. “Mazrah’s out and reinforcements are incoming.”

  I couldn’t move. I stared at the long row of open cells, imagining the screams that had echoed from within them at the hands of the Director before each Ringer was rendered silent despite knowing nothing. But they weren’t all gone. I helped Desmond to his feet. His whole body was shivering.

  “Kale, focus,” Maya said.

  “They’ll pay for this,” Vick bristled. Gareth signed his agreement, though his scowl was more than enough to indicate it.

  “They will,” Maya agreed, “but we have to get to the tunnel. Our time is up.”

  I wound my arm around Desmond’s back and walked wordlessly with him toward the stairs. He was heavy, and having only one working leg meant he couldn’t help me much. Rage drove me. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen afterward, but I was going to get Desmond out just to show the Director what failure felt like. Even if it killed me.

  We followed the others down the stairs. I stopped as my view of cell C-031 was about to be cut off. Through the airlock viewport, as the station rotated, I could see the silhouette of Saturn’s largest moon eclipsing the sun. Titan. Orange blades of light wrapped it like a crown of fire.

  “Kale!” Maya shouted with urgency.

  I snapped to and allowed the cell to fall out of sight. Down the stairs we went. Maya took the front, since she wasn’t carrying anybody. Her rifle was ready. Desmond and I brought up the rear behind Vick and Gareth. My shoulder burnt with soreness and my arm felt like it was going to fall off. A few times Desmond stumbled, but I didn’t let him fall. I wouldn’t let him fall.

  When we were halfway down the exit corridor, the emergency alarm started wailing. Mazrah’s interference in the station’s systems had finally been purged. By the time we crossed the lobby, every door into the detention block was reopened. A device that had the potential to wipe a million Ringer identities off the grid had been expended to save only Desmond’s. My first decision as the leader Maya hoped I could be.

  Officers flooded the lobby behind us, their footsteps clattering like a herd of ancient cattle. We retrieved our supply bag at the platform and jumped up onto the service ladder rising through the vertical passage just before any of them might have seen us. The car we’d arrived in was gone, leaving only rock, metal lines, and darkness, enough to shroud us.

  Desmond could barely wrap his broken fingers around the bars, so I stayed below him, keeping him steady. We climbed, the force of the station’s centripetal gravity lessening with every rung. We reached a service landing about forty meters up, where we finally had a chance to rest. It was a tight fit against a power conduit, but we all shoved in, stifling our heavy breaths by pulling our sanitary masks as tight as possible. Desmond didn’t have one on, so I covered his mouth with my sleeve. Getting sick was the last thing he needed to worry about. His gaze dithered as if he was ready to pass out.

  “Legs in,” Maya whispered. “Tram’s coming.”

  The rock all around us rumbled and I heard a loud humming sound like a shuttle taking off. A beam of light pierced the darkness from above, gathering fast. There was just barely enough room for the tram to zip by. My sweaty face was blasted by a wave of warm air.

  “Let’s go,” Maya said once it passed.

  “For Trass’s sake, give them some time,” Vick protested.

  “There is none now.”

  The tram stopped. Then a voice filled the depths of the shaft, one I’d heard countless times before. It belonged to Director Sodervall.

  “What in the name of Earth happened here!” he barked. “Spread out. I want the entire block searched. Find these Ringers and put them down!”

  Hearing him ignited all of the ire festering in my gut. I pictured him leaving Cora’s cell without a care in the world before she was taken by the vacuum.

  The rest of the group listened to Maya. They prepared themselves to climb deeper into the shaft, where gravity would become imperceptible. Even Desmond stood groggily, expecting me to be behind, bracing him. I didn’t move. I stared down the shaft at the platform. My hands squeezed into fists so tight that my nails dug into my palms. I wasn’t sure if it was my limbs shaking or Desmond’s as he lay beside me, but I felt like I was going to explode.

  “Kale, what are you doing?” Maya whispered from above.

  “Aren’t you tired of hiding?” I answered.

  “Kale?”

  I released Desmond and dropped, bracing myself between the metal of the car and the rock of the walls with my hands and feet. It was no different from a ventilation shaft, and negotiating those was my specialty. My light weight made me noiseless, and once I was low enough I swung myself around the cylindrical car and threaded through one of its open viewports.

  Stacks of horizontal seats rushed by me, my body snaking through the narrow spaces between each level. I grabbed hold of the second-lowest one with my left hand and launched myself through the vehicle entrance, landing directly behind Director Sodervall. Before any of his men could react, my pulse-pistol was out of my belt and aimed at the back of his head.

  “Nobody move or he dies!” I screamed.

  The host of officers in front of him whipped around, pulse-rifles raised. I ducked so that the Director obstructed my tall frame.

  “Don’t shoot,” he said, more calmly than I’d have expected. “Listen to him.” He turned his head to catch a glimpse of me.

  “Eyes ahead,” I snapped, taking a page out of Maya’s book.

  He chuckled as if I wasn’t the least threat, like he probably had after he sentenced Cora to death. “You think you�
�re the first Ringer to hold a gun on me?” he asked.

  “No, but if you try anything I’ll be the last!”

  “Kale Drayton, isn’t it? If only Graves could’ve been here to see how wrong he was.”

  “Quiet!”

  I heard the clank of Maya and the others scrambling down the ladder. The officers trained their sites on them. “Tell them to put down their weapons and back away,” I ordered. “Now!”

  “You heard him.” Sodervall extended his hands and made a downward motion. His officers slowly placed their rifles on the floor. I honestly was shocked by their willingness. My impulsive gamble had paid off, at least for the moment. Pervenio wouldn’t tolerate the murder of a Director at the hands of a Ringer. It showed weakness. The act might earn the indignation of Earthers everywhere, but it’d also reveal what they were trying to hide in every address he issued. From their attempt at covering up the riot in the Uppers to ignoring the widespread protest to their invasion of the Darien Q-Zone—they were losing control.

  “What are you doing?” Maya questioned, dropping down behind me.

  “Exactly what you asked me to do,” I said.

  “Do it,” the Director growled. “Kill me and prove to everybody exactly the kind of animals you people are. You’re all the same. We should have wiped you all out when we had the chance.”

  “Shut up!” I peered around his head and made eye contact with his officers. “Contact the rest and tell them that if anybody fires at us I’ll blow a hole in his head. And the only thing it’ll prove is that we can reach you anywhere: Titan, Earth—anywhere.”

  The officers immediately started chattering into their com-links.

  “Kale, what’s the plan?” Maya asked. She stepped in front of us, with the others forming a line beside her consisting of exhausted but healthy Ringers helping wounded Ringers stand.

  I was improvising, like I was a kid again in the midst of a theft that went wrong. I spun the Director around and shoved the barrel of the pistol into his mouth. “The Voice of Titan is going to take us to the Piccolo and ride with us down to Titan,” I said. “Is it still operational?” His eyelids opened wide, finally displaying the hint of panic I yearned for. “Is it?”

  He nodded.

  “Where is it?”

  He coughed a few times, and then glowered at me. “Back to the scene of your first crime, eh? It’s in a private hangar just through the security headquarters. You Ringers will never—”

  I fired a round right past his ear into the ceiling. The sound of the blast caused him to recoil, but I didn’t allow him to move far. “Quiet, or the next one won’t miss!”

  “Fall around Kale,” Maya ordered the others, finally grasping what I was up to. “Half of us in front, half behind. Gareth, can you walk?” He snorted in response and armed his pulse-rifle.

  “You guys are really trying your best to get me killed,” Vick groaned as he stepped in front of me, together with Gareth.

  “Throw us cuffs or he loses a hand!” I hollered at the officers. A few seconds later, a pair slid across the floor, and Maya slapped it on the Director’s wrists. “Walk!” I ordered. I shoved him, and though my weak arms couldn’t send him far, it was enough to get him moving.

  We reached the lobby quickly, where we were greeted by a group of more security officers. The four of my companions huddled around the Director and me like a protective shell. The officers formed a circle around us, matching our every movement but making sure to keep their distance. There were dozens of them, and they were all armed with pulse-rifles. Anytime they got too close I pressed my pistol against the Director’s neck and got my finger comfortable on the trigger.

  “You’ll never escape us, Kale Drayton,” the Director spat as we crossed the dead bodies by the reception desk. “Collectors will find you and your mother, and then I’ll show you what real pain is.”

  “Like you showed him?” I gestured to Desmond, who limped along using Maya as a crutch. “Or Cora?”

  “You sent them here.”

  “They didn’t know anything!” I smashed him in the back of the head with the pistol. I wasn’t strong enough to knock him out, but his head drooped forward. I grabbed him by the jaw and wrenched it back. “I said quiet.”

  He cackled, still unwilling to display weakness. “They’ll find you as soon as you land.”

  “No they won’t,” Maya responded before I could, probably fearful that more of this kind of talk from the Director would provoke me into pulling the trigger and getting us all killed. “Kale, stop. Vick, where are our suits?”

  Vick’s face lit up like he understood where she was going. I wasn’t yet sure. “Latched in to the vent we entered the Ring Skipper through.”

  She turned to face the ring of officers surrounding us. “Send a squad to the Ring Skipper. They’ll find our armor hidden in the cargo hold in an exhaust vent, third from the back. Have it brought to the Piccolo. If it isn’t there by the time we arrive, Sodervall flies. If anybody’s tampered with it I’ll know, and again, he flies.”

  She established eye contact with me, and when I noticed one side of her sanitary mask lift from a grin I realized that her use of the word flies wasn’t accidental. I hadn’t thought of anything beyond using Sodervall to steal the Piccolo to get Desmond home, but with the wings on our suits we wouldn’t have to land at all.

  An officer relayed her orders. I nudged Sodervall to keep moving. He muttered something, but the cold barrel of my pistol against his bare neck rendered him silent.

  —

  The security headquarters wasn’t far from the detention center, but we had to move slowly and constantly remain vigilant. Desmond could barely move at all any longer. All his weight was slung onto Maya, who needed two arms to support him and struggled to keep a hold on her rifle. Gareth leaned on Vick and to combat the pain had to relinquish his weapon so he could grasp his wounded leg.

  We were lucky at least not to be in the Darien Uppers or anywhere where lofty ceilings would provide vantages for sharpshooters. The only officers were directly around us, and any shot would have to go through my protectors before it could hit me. If it came to a firefight, we would lose handily. All I could do was keep my attention on Sodervall and make sure that if he did attempt to break free, I took him with us.

  The security headquarters was a marvel of technology. View-screens, some of which were holographic, shined amongst a bullpen of desks and surveillance stations. Officers inside gawked as we went by. I caught glimpses of shops on fire playing on the screens at their desks, and hordes of screaming Ringers waving scraps as weapons. Any words were too small to read, but those screens were displaying what was really happening in Darien—what the Director’s address and the public newsfeeds didn’t want anybody to see.

  “The hangar is just up ahead,” the Director said. “I hope you’ve thought about this. You murder me and it’ll give Mr. Pervenio a reason to unleash his army on Titan. All of your people will die, and it will be your fault.”

  I ignored him. The tall gate of the hangar was set along the side of a corridor branching off the security headquarters. I could see the fluted flanks of the Piccolo through a wide viewport. It swarmed with officers.

  “You might as well just do it now,” he continued. “Kill me and let my death be the reason Luxarn finally gets rid of you ungrateful Ringers like his father should have. Forty-five years I’ve been stationed here watching over you, listening to you gripe about the lost, ‘perfect’ world that Trass gave you. He was a coward, helping more cowards run from the Meteorite and never look back. Without Pervenio you’d be nothing.”

  “We’d be free!” I growled. It took all of my rage-fueled strength, but I thrust him against the gate, where a retinal scan was required. His face crashed into the unyielding metal surface. “Open it!”

  He spit out a gob of blood. “Free,” he sneered. “Until you get sick and need our medicine again. I wish I’d been there at the Great Reunion. Maybe then we wouldn’t have made the
mistake of not wiping all of you out. We own you, Ringer.”

  “Titanborn!” I fired my pistol into the gate, so close to him that the bullet skimmed his biceps. I heard the clamor of the officers circling us edging closer as he groaned in pain.

  “Back!” Maya warned, firing her rifle into the ceiling.

  “Open it,” I whispered into the Director’s ear. For all his smug talk, he didn’t hesitate. He could try to hide it as much as he wanted, but I could tell he didn’t want to die. Why would he? His hair was gray and his face weathered by time, but as a top executive beneath one of the wealthiest men in Sol he had access to tech that could give him twenty or thirty more years easy. There was a time I’d have longed to swap lives with him.

  The retinal scanner chirped and the gate rose. My companions crowded around me, even tighter now as we stepped into the hangar. Everyone who hadn’t been dispatched to Titan seemed to be present—at least fifty armed officers, at a complete loss over what to do. All of their more experienced counterparts were far away in Darien. From behind Director Sodervall, my gaze swept from vent to vent near the high ceiling to the top of the Piccolo, searching for sharpshooters. There were none.

  A decorated officer stood outside of the lowered exit ramp of the Piccolo. He carried a mobile view-screen instead of a rifle. Once we were close enough he began to speak.

  “Your suits have been delivered as demanded.” He gestured up the ramp, where a few workers unloaded our suits of powered armor from a large container. “However, before you proceed, Mr. Pervenio requests an opportunity to discuss terms. He promises that none of you will come to harm if you abandon this foolish course of action, and begs that you will sit with him to try and resolve the dispute with the Children of Titan. To start with, the million-credit reward issued for your arrest will be paid in full to you, and to any of your companions who comply.”

  We stopped a few meters away from him. A chorus of clanking footsteps, shaking rifles, and heavy breaths besieged my ears. The officer raised the screen for me to see, and on it I noticed a face that was impossible to mistake. I’d seen him live over Solnet during M-day addresses and on a select few ads over the years. Sharp jaw, firm cheekbones, a stern glare: He was as handsome as any Earther model I’d ever seen. A perfect specimen. Luxarn Pervenio.