Titan's Wrath

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “Good,” I said. “Be as fast as possible. The less germs you pick up out there the better.”

  “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

  He removed a loose portion of plating from the wall, revealing a wide duct, which easily fit a skinny Titanborn and led out of a hatch in the back of the ship. My favorite part about it was that we hadn’t made the addition. The great Luxarn Pervenio left a hole in his prized vessel so that even he could smuggle goods or people under the radar of the USF.

  Gareth stopped in front of the opening. “Tell Maya not to miss me too much.”

  “She’ll be in touch with our location, but try to stay off your terminal if you can. We don’t need anybody intercepting something without meaning to.”

  “You’re not the only one who learned how to sneak around growing up in the Lowers.”

  I laid my hand on his shoulder. “Titan owes you for this. If I could go myself, you know I would.”

  He shook his head vigorously. “You lead,” he signed.

  “We’ll be prepared if you come back with any infections. You have my word.”

  “I survived this long. Maybe my blood is as strong as a Trass’s.”

  “You get him to us alive, and I’ll tell the world you are one.”

  His eye’s glinted as he bowed his head. “From ice to ashes.”

  “From ice to ashes.”

  We exchanged a nod, and then he disappeared into the guts of the ship to carry out a task equally as important as staking our claim to the Ring in front of the entire Assembly. The only difference was that only Maya and I knew about his.

  I detached the helmet of my suit and placed it down. I didn’t need a visor to hide my face, and the air of Mars’s domes was breathable enough regardless of the Earther stench. Then, I reached into my belt and removed an old companion. The moment my sanitary mask went on it was like I’d never taken the thing off. I had to set an example that there was nothing to fear while on Titan, but I understood the urge to wear them, which my people couldn’t break. The pressure as it tightened against the ridge of my nose; the way it muffled my voice...it just felt right. I was clean all over.

  I made a few more adjustments to my armor before heading to the cargo bay. Maya and Aria waited by the exit ramp. My aunt wore armor similar to mine, and Aria was in another loose-fitting dress with an Earther flair—ornate around the collar and base, with an interweaving pattern of dark greens throughout. She had to look the part of non-militant ambassador.

  “Where’s Gareth?” Aria asked.

  “I told him to stay with the ship,” I replied. “I don’t trust the Cora in anybody else’s hands.” The answer seemed to satisfy her, and my lie brought the edges of a smirk to the healthy half of Maya’s lips.

  While the three of us were unarmed, the other Titanborn we brought along each had pulse rifles strapped to their armored backs. A few I recognized from battles around the Ring, but I didn’t know any of them well since Gareth and Maya were tasked with selecting them. I had to trust they’d be able to steady their eager trigger fingers for the time being. I had to trust Maya wouldn’t provoke a fight. I had to trust Aria was as deft a negotiator as she seemed and wasn’t being played right along with us.

  I closed my eyes as the exit ramp unfolded. Sometimes I liked to picture the first time I ever stepped onto the Piccolo and saw the world beyond the Darien Lowers. My problems seemed so trivial back then. Nobody scrutinized every single little thing I said or did.

  Then the ramp clanged as it fully extended, and I was greeted by the harsh reality of our situation. There were no trumpets or cheering crowds to embrace a visiting dignitary. Instead, the lofty hangar was filled by a battalion of Red Wing Company gunmen, decked out in crimson armor with sweeping helms that made them appear as though they were living in the wrong era. They too stored rifles on their backs rather than in their hands as a gesture of peace. A smattering of Venta Co. men stood among them. Being that Venta essentially ran New Beijing under the umbrella of the USF, we’d all agreed on a privately owned hangar to land in and a neutral party to monitor the summit.

  Neutral… Just thinking that word made me feel idiotic. No matter what colors they wore, we were all at the mercy of Earthers once again.

  “All right, everyone,” Maya began, voice tempered by a sanitary mask of her own. “I want eyes all around us. Lord Trass isn’t to be touched, do you hear me? I don’t want any of these mudstompers even breathing their germs on him.” The legion of guards lined up on either side of us voiced their agreement. “From ice to ashes!”

  The words reverberated through the Cora’s austere cargo hold as everyone repeated them except for Aria. Instead, she took my arm. It was either that or nervousness for what was to come that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Probably both.

  “Everything is going to work out,” she assured.

  “It better,” Maya spat before I could reply. “You set it up.”

  “It will.” Aria stood her ground like she always did. No matter how harsh I or any of my people ever were to her. She was as stubborn as she was brave.

  “Too late to turn back now,” I said. I pulled free of her and took the first step forward. Immediately, everyone followed. The eyes of all the Earther gunmen waiting on the burnished floor below widened as they saw us.

  “Greetings, Mr. Trass,” said a man in an extravagantly patterned blue tunic as we emerged. “I am Director Yashikawa Venta.” He extended a hand, and I glared at it. My gaze didn’t falter, and after a brief moment he noticed my sanitary mask and reeled it back. “Forgive the mix-up during your entry. We aren’t accustomed to this type of arrangement.”

  “Neither are we,” I replied.

  “Yes, well...I hope that’s the last issue we experience. Captain Barnes and our Red Wing partners will help look after your ship and belongings.” He nodded toward the most decorated Red Wing officer.

  “A pleasure, Mr. Trass,” Barnes said, bowing his head. A jagged scar on his jaw and military haircut left little doubt that he was a corporate-security lifer.

  “Unfortunately, your people will be required to deposit your weapons before entering the USF Assembly Building,” Director Yashikawa indicated. “Would you rather stow them here?”

  I glanced at my guards. They were as tense as any of the Earther officers. “I think we’ll hold onto them for now. Maya, leave two others with our ship…and belongings.”

  Maya pointed at two of my guards, and they promptly hurried back up the Cora’s ramp.

  “As you wish.” Director Yashikawa’s eyes narrowed as he watched them, but he maintained his composure. The gray peppering his thin mustache was evidence of his experience. Aria had explained to me before we left how Venta Co. operated differently from the top down than Pervenio Corp. Where Luxarn had no family of his own and selected based on merit, Madame Venta, their founder, built her corporation around her constantly growing clan family. Every Earther born with the Venta name had a place in the organization, from her Directors to the chefs in her office building’s kitchen.

  “We should get moving,” Director Yashikawa insisted. “The Assembly is eager to meet with you so we can move beyond this and reestablish trade with the Ring that has been so beneficial to all of us.”

  “I’m sure that with your company’s continued development around Jupiter, your employer is doing well enough,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I could tell by the way his features darkened that those words stung. I may have lived on Titan, but I kept careful track of Earther newsfeeds enough to know whose wallet was hurting and why. Darien Trass chose Saturn and its moons over Jupiter’s three centuries ago for many reasons, and Venta was starting to find out why. Despite being the largest of all the solar system’s gas giants, Jupiter simply didn’t foster the volume of rare resources that Saturn did.

  The Director put on a pleasant smile and beckoned us forward into the New Beijing Spaceport. It was vast, though still paling in co
mparison to Pervenio Station. Vibrant ads dotted the walls of every hallway and outside every hangar. Anything you could want could be found or bought on Mars. They spoke to everyone who passed, scanning their eyes in order to inform them in a relevant manner about where to get dinner, what to buy off Solnet, what shows were worth seeing. It reminded me of how the docks in Darien, Titan, looked before our revolution shattered all the viewscreens.

  “Do mudstompers build anything modest?” Maya muttered in my ear.

  “You should see where I was born,” Aria said.

  “I’ll pass.”

  Our arrival terminal was crammed with people from all walks of life. Tall and short, dirty and spotless. Some wore rags, other the poshest outfits imaginable, with heavy makeup in matching hues. Gareth would fit in fine as a homeless wretch. Venta Co. security officers were everywhere, rifles out instead of shock batons. More patrolled a series of catwalks strung below the vaulted, crystalline ceilings where images from more ads blinked. If I had to see one more about the new Pervenio Corp. service bot, I feared I might snap.

  My legs were sore by the time we emerged into the station’s main concourse. Captain Barnes had our escorts fan out to maintain a wide perimeter. The front line pushed aside unarmed civilians with riot shields. If the people of Mars weren’t expecting us before—which I highly doubted—they were now. The pure white of our armor and flesh contrasted with everything. Hateful glares and insults beset us from every direction, some spoken, others held up on holo-signs. My hands squeezed into fists when I spotted one that read: SEND THE DIRTY SKELLIES BACK HOME.

  Half of my people drew their weapons and shouted back. Not all of us were as accustomed to Earther swearing as Maya and I, who’d served on mixed-race gas harvesters.

  “Weapons down!” I barked. My people instantly obeyed.

  “Thank you, Mr. Trass,” Director Yashikawa said. “I can’t believe our citizens would behave this way.” He didn’t deserve a response.

  We continued our long slog across the concourse toward a landing pad. It was like plowing through two meters of snow with nothing but a shovel. The Red Wing men locked shields to hold back a swelling wave of protestors. Countless instigators were arrested by patrolling officers for throwing debris at us and our corporate escorts. Drones and service bots hovering overhead recorded us, their footage duplicated on newsfeeds wrapping the mezzanine level. Half of them zoomed in solely on my face.

  SELF-PROCLAIMED KING OF TITAN KALE TRASS LANDS ON MARS. FOR PEACE OR WAR? some of the tickers read. THE BUTCHER OF THE RING IS GREETED BY WARRANTED PROTEST, said another. Just a few of the myriad titles they’d given me. King was my personal favorite, especially since I never once actually used the term like they always said I had. As if our revolution was so surprising and unwarranted that the only title its leader could bear had to derive from antiquity.

  We reached a landing platform where the rich could navigate the cramped city in private hovercars and stay high above the rabble. Public transit through the city’s Redline subway was out of the question for us. Again, the Red Wing officers gave a strong push to provide us passage. By then we were all covered in garbage, even Director Yashikawa, who seemed particularly disgusted. Men like him usually didn’t have to even toss their own trash, let alone wear it.

  The platform protruded into the open air of New Beijing’s tremendous dome. It extended high up and away from us and was jam-packed with glassy, ad-filled towers. We were about halfway up the skyline, looking out upon narrow streets below filled with Earthers. All the plasticrete and metal surfaces bore a reddish tinge from being mined from Mars. Terraced gardens were everywhere, earthborn plants literally dripping over the facades of buildings. The glass of the dome covering all of it was tinted blue, with its latticed, metal structure colored white like clouds, as if mimicking the sky of Earth.

  A line of Red Wing hovercars waited above, engines humming. Protestors impeded their ability to land. Director Yashikawa leaned over to address Captain Barnes. “I want those things down immediately!”

  “You don’t get to boss me around, Yashikawa,” stone-faced Captain Barnes replied.

  The Director drew a hand-terminal. “Do you want me to ask your Board?”

  The captain muttered something under his breath, then started issuing orders. One by one his men shoved people out of the way, protestors and the wealthy waiting for their rides alike. The three transport hovercars needed to land in order to carry all of us. Nothing bigger would be able to squeeze between the city’s tightly clustered towers, even toward their tops where they tapered.

  “Repent, brothers!” someone shouted.

  I spun and saw that the words had come from a withered old man with a scraggly beard standing by the far railing. A frayed cloth robe covered his stout Earther body, and he held a hefty, worn tome against his chest. His kind always had rosier skin than mine, but his cheeks were flushed so red they were like the surface of Mars. He appeared nauseated as well, even as he spouted his drivel.

  “The Three Messiahs warn us of trespassing in the heavens!” he continued. “I beg you all, come home with me, lest we invite God’s judgment once again.”

  “Would someone shut that nut up?” Director Yashikawa snapped. A few Red Wing officers tried to reach him, but a throng of civilians had quickly amassed in front of him.

  “Every second you remain here reaching beyond the world meant for us is a sin!” The preacher paused to cover his mouth as if he were going to puke, then went on. “And now you invite the demons from Titan closer to God’s Earth. When our world was purged of sinners, the children of Trass fled His judgment. They are beyond salvation. All who harbor them shall feel the fist of Heaven!”

  “Shut him up!” the Director shouted.

  Watching the officers push their way toward him was laughable. If there was one good thing about our presence on Mars, apparently, it was that it drew the fanatical Church of the Three Messiahs folk that Earther newsfeeds constantly complained about all the way to Mars to protest. It was our gracious host’s turn to be derided.

  I turned to see how Captain Barnes was progressing on emptying the platform, and out of the corner of my vision I spotted something that made my heart stop. Lying prone on top of the nearest hovercar was a Pervenio Cogent agent. A skintight uniform reflected his surroundings like camouflage so no sharpshooters or drones would spot him, but the lens over his eye glinted yellow. He had his pulse pistol raised and was lining up a shot...at me.

  I froze. The crazed preacher had drawn Maya just far enough away that there’d be no chance of her jumping in front of me to block the first shot. Death had come for me, with all of Sol watching. Another chance for Luxarn Pervenio to show the kind of man he really was while he hid somewhere in Sol.

  I’m not sure how much time passed in that moment. A second or two, maybe less, but I closed my eyes, and for the first time in months my tumultuous thoughts slowed down. I pictured Cora’s beautiful face. I imagined myself free of war, as ashes on the winds of Titan with Cora for eternity.

  At peace…

  An explosion rang out. My instincts returned, and I grabbed Aria to shield her unarmored body just before we were launched across the platform. I rolled off her, ears ringing, vision filled with smoke and blurred figures. My body was numb, but I scrambled to my knees to try and make sense of the bedlam.

  The hovercars banked noisily to the side to escape the blast. People screamed and moaned. Limbs of civilians thrashed from a pile around the preacher. Shreds of his rags and embers danced above his feet, which was all that remained of him.

  Aria coughed beneath me, completely fine thanks to my embrace. Maya wasn’t as lucky. She lay a few feet away, unconscious but breathing. The few Titanborn nearest the preacher were far worse, though the crowd and the line of Red Wing officers surrounding him had fortunately shielded most of my people from the brunt of the blast.

  I disregarded all of it. Instead, I anxiously scanned the landing pad for the Cogent. I couldn’t
die yet. I couldn’t join Cora’s remains in the sky because her body had been lost to the vacuum thanks to Pervenio Corp. Luxarn Pervenio and his corporation had taken everything from me, but he wouldn’t get my life. Anybody but him.

  The shimmer of the Cogent’s eye lens through the haze was impossible to miss. He’d toppled off the hovercar and was struggling to gather his bearings. I sprang up and drove my weary legs forward until I was running.

  He got one shot off from a few meters away. It glanced off my shoulder plating but wasn’t enough to slow me. I grabbed him by the jaw and, with my powered armor and reignited rage augmenting my muscles, snapped his neck like a twig.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MALCOLM GRAVES

  “Haglin.” Somebody shook my shoulders. “Haglin, wake up.” Another shake, promptly followed by a slap across my face. That got my eyes open.

  A young woman’s face hovered over me, silhouetted by a bright viewscreen overhead. All I could distinguish was the long, curly hair cascading down over her shoulders. “Aria?” I said softly. I reached out, brushed a lock of her hair, and then cupped my palm around her cheek.

  “Lǎo wán gù!”

  Again, my face was slapped, and the sting snapped my vision into focus. Wai hopped backward, her expression teeming with disgust. I shook my head. The screen behind her was advertising the new Pervenio service bot. TIRED OF BEING ALONE? it asked. THE PERVENIO SERVICE BOT IS THE FIRST MOBILE ROBOTIC HELPER WITH ADAPTIVE INTELLIGENCE TO LEARN WHAT YOU NEED BEFORE YOU NEED IT. All I could focus on was the damn red-helix logo following me everywhere.

  “Oh… Sorry, Wai,” I said.

  She fixed her hair and her shirt. I wasn’t used to seeing her outside of her dancer’s garb. A crummy parka covered her down to her knees, stained with grime and who knows what else. I was glad I was too hung over to catch a whiff of it.

  “Good dream, eh?” she asked. “Who’s Aria? Some old fling from your secret life?”

  My initial chuckle transitioned to a groan quickly. My head rang like someone had shoved a bell in my skull and kept bashing it. “Something like that. What time is it?”