Titan's Wrath

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “What?”

  “We can give Madame Venta back all of their people. Box them up like a shiny new hand-terminal and ship them all over the Ring. Casualties during the heat of battle she and Luxarn can talk their way out of, but if we make them visible for all of Sol to see—”

  “We give them no choice but to pick them up,” Maya finished for me. She peered into one of the rooms at the cluster of emaciated Earthers lying inside. “Hard to fight when their ships are as full as this place. I can recall shipping containers from around the Ring. Thousands of them.”

  “It should buy us enough time to get Javaris’s drives as close to Earth as possible.”

  Maya reached to her ear to switch on her com-link, and just then an urgent message came through for both of us on an emergency line. It was the head of security at the Darien Docks.

  “Lord Trass,” the man said fretfully. “There’s been an alert of unauthorized entry to the Cora. The dockhand says it’s just an error, but there are also reports that the Pervenio Collector you’re holding was escorted out of his cell yet hasn’t passed any checkpoints in some time.”

  I looked to Maya, my fingertips digging into my palms. Just when things were starting to look up. “Graves,” I said through clenched teeth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  MALCOLM GRAVES

  Mazrah and I stood at the end of the tunnel, suited up. Mine was so loose I felt like a kid back on Earth in my clan family hand-me-downs. I raised my arms. Wings sewn from heavy-duty tensile fabric like my mask was stretched from hip to forearm. It seemed insane that a human being could fly just by flapping these on Titan, but I’d seen the Ringers do it before. The moon’s atmosphere was thick as syrup.

  “Are you ready?” Mazrah asked over our coms. Her hand rested on the hatch that would expose us.

  “As I’ll ever be.” I took her arm. “Thank you, Maz. I know we were never going to work out, but I like it better when we’re not shooting each other.”

  “Don’t get any ideas, Mal. This is for her. Mostly.” I was pretty sure I saw the corner of her lips lift as she turned her visor from me and opened the hatch.

  We were greeted by air so cold it could freeze the skin off our bones. Even the Ringer suits couldn’t impede it completely. Cold filled the crevasses of my loose suit and the space of my helmet, instantly making my ears and nose feel numb. Strong wind whipped grains of pallid, icy sand through the opening of the tunnel.

  We had to climb through a cluster of debris to get out. The Darien Quarantine above had been blown to bits by Kale Trass, and pieces of it littered the ground in every direction. Chunks as large as a hovercar were chucked nearly a kilometer away. It was no wonder that after Pervenio security stormed the place looking for his hideout, not one of them survived.

  “Aria’s waiting in Hangar Thirty-Four at the Darien Ports!” The storm outside was so loud Mazrah had to shout. Reddish bolts of lightning forked above a distant plateau, like the blades of the devil’s pitchfork in old Three Messiahs folklores. There were few places in Sol I hated as much as Titan.

  “Just get a good head start and spread your arms,” she said. “The wind should lift you even if you’re a fat old Earther.”

  I think she was expecting a laugh, but I’d stopped outside to observe a pile of smooth rocks trapped under a hunk of debris. One had a patch of red on top. I was probably just seeing things, or it was the rock’s natural coloring, but that was the exact spot Zhaff went down after I’d blown open his head.

  “Malcolm, let’s go!” She punched my arm.

  I should have died there lying on the tundra with him, but here I was with another chance to make things right. Zhaff Pervenio didn’t deserve to die, and he didn’t deserve to become the killer his father made him. A son he rejected and pretended was never born all because he wasn’t perfect.

  I thought seeing my friend’s unmarked grave would eat me up inside, but the Malcolm who pulled the trigger truly had died there with him. Everything else was borrowed time. I spent half my life in sleep pods from mission to mission. Wishing for morning so that I could waste credits earned taking down some poor sap, or wishing for night so I could sneak off-ship while Aria was asleep and get into trouble.

  If Zhaff had to die to teach me to cherish even a second with her, then he’d died a better friend than I’d ever be. I wasn’t about to let that sacrifice be in vain.

  “Goodbye, old friend,” I whispered.

  “Malcolm!”

  I turned and met Mazrah’s gaze, then nodded that I was ready.

  “Just keep your arms steady, or the fall won’t be pretty,” she said.

  She sprinted headlong into the gale. I followed her, and side by side we raised our arms. I flapped them like an idiot, but it was unnecessary. The wind snatched me off my feet, and before I knew it, the wreckage of the Darien Quarantine was lost in the fog of the storm.

  My heart raced. I’d been to every corner of Sol, dealt with every manner of miscreant imaginable. I’d been on asteroid colonies when their walls were blown open and the air sucked out. I’d watched a madman try to turn good people into cyborgs by reprogramming their brains. I’d been on ships of every size, but I’d never flown.

  Pervenio Corp. didn’t allow personal gliding suits on Titan when they were in control because it was too hard to monitor. Only registered vessels could legally traverse the skies. As Mazrah led me through the tempest like we were a flock of birds on Earth before the Meteorite, I almost understood why the Ringers were willing to fight so hard for their planet. Almost.

  “Enjoying the ride?” Mazrah asked.

  “I’ve been on worse.”

  “The wind usually swirls around the Darien Colony block. Don’t fight it too much, or you’ll lose control.”

  “This isn’t your first time, is it?”

  “How do you think my birds fed me information from around Titan without anyone knowing? Storms are the best time to fly.”

  She gradually banked left. I made out the large shadow of Darien’s three-kilometer-long enclosure coming up below us. The city’s Uppers were within the portion above the surface, as were its major ports. We glided around it until we were level with the top. Viewports offered glimpses of the gardens for the upper residencies within, gardens now browned and dying from neglect. The glass-covered farms sloping down all around the perimeter of the block, however, were lush and filled with busy Ringers. At least Kale hadn’t let everything rot.

  Mazrah dipped one arm in order to turn and wrapped back underneath me, heading toward a half-open hangar in the side of the enclosure. I did my best to mimic her, feeling the resistance on my wings. They weren’t used to bearing the weight of an Earther. Her feet touched down gracefully in the hangar. My wing ripped.

  I tried what I could to right my course, but I was losing altitude fast and headed straight for the impenetrable shell of Darien. I flapped my good wing as hard as I could, but it was no use.

  “Mazrah!” I screamed. I closed my eyes and prepared for impact when something grabbed my back and lifted me. When I re-opened them, I was skidding across the hangar until I slammed against the landing gear of the Cora.

  Mazrah tapped down beside me, even more gracefully this time. “I’ve always wanted to see an Earther fly,” she chuckled.

  I groaned and rubbed my unbelievably sore hip. Congealer helped with bleeding, but it didn’t make the bullet hole in me hurt any less.

  “Did you have to throw me?” I asked.

  “Consider it payback for last time.” She helped me to my feet. “C’mon, Aria is waiting.”

  I nodded and took off for the ship’s entry ramp with my synthetic leg carting me forward. The nerve endings near it stung every time my brain signaled motion now, but it was sort of refreshing. I didn’t feel as much like I had a ghost growing from me.

  I bounded up the ramp into the cargo bay as fast as I could. Mazrah followed me and sealed the ship. Then the cargo bay’s interior door slid open. Aria stood waiting beh
ind it, fire-red hair tumbling over her slender shoulders like every curly strand had a mind of its own.

  “Aria!” I threw my helmet off and ran to her, wrapping my arms around her like it was the last time I’d ever see her. I squeezed, and she squeezed back, but something was different about her. Even in my armor I could feel the bump of her stomach pressing against me. I held her at arm’s length and stared down. On Mars it was too subtle for me to notice, but now it was obvious. She was pregnant.

  “I might have left out that part,” Mazrah remarked from behind us.

  “It’s his, isn’t it?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer. Female USF citizens are given a pregnancy-impeding implant when they’re of age, removed only by sanctioned doctors when reproduction was approved, or on the black market. Of course, Aria wasn’t a citizen, so she’d never received one.

  She hung her head and nodded like she was ashamed. I took her chin and forced her to look into my eyes. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Aria,” I said.

  “I’ve done plenty wrong, Dad,” she said. “Worse than you’ll ever need to know. But I’ll die before I choose to raise this baby here. I don’t care who he belongs to.”

  “It’s…” I choked back tears. “It’s a boy?”

  Aria smiled. “Yes.”

  “Kale will chase us to the ends of Sol to get him back,” Mazrah said.

  “I spent half Aria’s life teaching her how to hide from the USF and Pervenio,” I said. “Kale’s got nothing on them.”

  “Then let’s go already. If we wait any longer, the Earther blockade will be here and there’ll be no getting through.”

  I breathed in the sight of my beautiful daughter one last time, then released her. She led us through the Cora’s shiny corridors toward the cockpit.

  “I got the hangar open without being noticed, but as soon as the engines ignite, the dock guards will be on us,” Aria said. “They have stolen Pervenio fighters that will come after us, but nothing can keep up with the Cora.”

  “I’m not worried,” I replied. “I’ve seen you fly.”

  “It won’t be as smooth breaking Titan’s atmosphere.”

  “You should have seen the landing I just had.”

  “I did.” She snickered. My cheeks went red.

  When we reached the cockpit, Aria rushed to the pilot’s chair and began priming for takeoff. I bowed of out of the way so Mazrah could take the copilot’s seat. Handling guns was my specialty, not ships. I’m not sure who Aria got that gift from, considering her biological mother was a streetwalking Martian sewer girl.

  “Aria,” I said while she worked. “I’m sorry you had to finally see him for what he really is.”

  “It doesn’t matter how I feel about him,” she replied. “Venta and Pervenio are about to turn Saturn into a warzone. I was stupid to think there was any chance of sitting down and coming to terms.”

  “He had no intention of a peaceful resolution,” Mazrah said. “No matter what happened at that summit.”

  “She’s right,” I said. “Too much ugly happened here for it to end without blood. At least you were willing to try.”

  Aria closed her eyes. “I know. He won’t stop now, but I won’t let him get our son killed.”

  I rested my hand on her shoulder. I’d never been very good at consoling her. I was better at snapping, then drinking away the guilt, but the Malcolm Graves that didn’t die on Titan was a changed man.

  “I was a shit dad,” I said, “but I promise you I’ll be there for him until I’m so old you’ll need to take care of both of us.”

  She laughed, then kissed the top of my hand. “I hear that Ceres has a great retirement community.”

  “Don’t even joke about that.”

  “All ship checks are go,” Mazrah said, obviously trying to speed things up. “Engines are primed and ready. Waiting on you.”

  “Where will you take us?” I asked.

  “I haven’t thought about that much,” Aria said. “Hopping from station to station might be more fun.”

  “I taught you well.”

  Her lips formed a wicked grin, the likes of which I remembered from when she was still a child unaffected by my parenting techniques, that same kind of look she put on when I told her to eat her ration bar and instead she crumbled it in zero G. Or when I told her to stay put, and she’d sneak out through the landing gear of whatever ship we were on to follow me into the seediest asteroid colonies imaginable.

  She leaned forward and expertly keyed a few more commands. She was all grown up now.

  “All right, engines are heating up.” She struck one last command, and the floor instantly began to rumble. A 3D readout at her command console showed her how long it would take for them to be ready for launch.

  Mazrah pulled up the feed from cameras on the back of the Cora on her console. “Dock guards are here already,” she said. Two Ringers in their white armor sprinted into the hangar and realized what was going on. They drew their pulse rifles as if those could do anything against the ship’s plating.

  “Twenty seconds,” Aria said.

  I took that cue to strap into one of the seats lining the back of the cockpit. “Take us home, Ar—”

  Her name wasn’t even off my lips when there was a crash. Someone in winged armor landed on the bow of the Cora and stared in through the viewport. Kale. He was unarmed, but I could feel the rage in his glare even through both our visors.

  “Is he insane?!” Mazrah shouted.

  Aria waved for him to get off. “Kale, move! Please, you have to move.”

  He didn’t budge at all.

  “He’s not going to move,” I said. “Just go through him!”

  “Kale, move!”

  I unstrapped myself and rushed up behind Aria. I knew what game the boy king was playing. He knew Aria was too good a person to crush him under the weight of his own ship, but I would. This family reunion was great, but I’d made a promise to myself back on Mars to get Aria away from all this, even if it made her hate me.

  “More guards,” Mazrah said. “They’ve got fusion cutters for the ramp. If we don’t get out of here now, we may not have another chance.”

  “I’m not going to kill him!” Aria said. “Kale, don’t do this! You have to let us go.”

  “He’s not giving you a choice,” I said.

  “Kale!”

  “We have to go.” I reached over her for the thruster controls. I almost had them, but Aria gripped my arm and shoved me away.

  “No!” she screamed. “I can’t kill him!”

  “That son of a bitch. Mazrah, keep her up here and the ship ready. I’ll handle this.”

  I stormed back toward the cargo bay. Sparks flew out as the Ringers outside traced a circle in the sealed entry ramp. I wasn’t about to let Kale Trass stand in our way when we were so close. If Aria wouldn’t plow through him, I’d remove him from the bow of the ship myself.

  I stepped up in front of the ramp and took a deep breath. Then I kicked it with my synthetic leg, throwing all my weight behind the blow. The half-cut ramp shot across the hangar, bowling through the Ringers. A sharp pain shot down my hip, but I ignored it and jumped down.

  One of the Ringers recovered quickly and raised his rifle. I tore it from his hands with enough force to flip him over. Skinny Ringers. Now that I was in one of their powered suits too, I was as strong as three of them lumped together.

  “Kale!” I roared through the speakers in my helmet.

  I sprinted around the Cora and fired over the bow. He ducked behind the side of the viewport instead of jumping off. I kept pressing. “Get out here!” I saw a flit of motion and unloaded at it before realizing Kale had thrown his gun as a distraction. Before I knew it, he was gliding down from over the Cora with his winged suit and crashed into me.

  We tumbled, end over end, into the wall. I lost my gun and my bearings. When we stopped rolling, I found my visor being pummeled by him. Maybe I was stronger, but rage fueled him. I could see the hate in
his eyes as he pounded away, cracking the glass. My body was too numb to be hurt anymore. I braved the onslaught and clutched his throat.

  “Go!” I screamed for Aria, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. Kale used that opening to slip out of my grasp and drive his elbow into my neck. I gasped for air, and that was when I saw why the Cora wasn’t moving.

  We were too late. A cluster of ships painted with the orange circle of the Children of Titan hovered outside the hangar. If Aria accelerated, they’d all wind up dead. Kale grabbed me by the chest plate and slammed me against the wall of the hangar, screaming at the top of his lungs like a rabid beast.

  He didn’t bet on Luxarn Pervenio’s creation. I drove my synthetic knee into his stomach, and he folded. Then a kick sent him flying through the air. I glanced up at the viewport of the Cora as I approached him, floundering on the floor and wheezing. Aria watched me, her face gripped by terror. She shook her head, but I didn’t care if she hated me. If we couldn’t leave, I’d end Kale’s reign forever.

  He glowered up at me from the floor. I raised my artificial leg to stomp down on his chest as hard as I could, then stopped. Back up in the Cora, a pistol slid up against the back of Aria’s head. The face of the woman gripping it rippled with shiny scars.

  My leg hovered there, so near to ending the rebellion I helped start. Then a full legion of Ringer soldiers flooded the hangar, pulse rifles aimed at me. In the Cora, Maya wrapped her arm around Aria’s throat and pushed her gun right up under her chin.

  I lowered my leg, fell to my knees, and raised my arms. We weren’t going anywhere.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  KALE TRASS

  I stood outside the Darien Hall of Ashes, watching my people file inside. It felt like I was back in the Darien Quarantine before the revolution, waiting to visit my sick mother. Not a smile to be found in the crowd. Feet dragging along toward places visitors had to go but wished they would never enter.

  “Kale,” my mother addressed me from behind, using the same haughty tone she always did when she was trying to teach me a lesson.