The mess slowed the guard coming at Rin and gave her enough time to think. She’d been invited to the captain’s quarters a few times before she’d had enough and killed him, and she knew he kept a loaded pulse-pistol in a stand by the head of his bed in case the crew got rowdy.
She sprawled across the mattress and fumbled through the drawer until her reedy fingers found the rubberized handle. She whipped around and saw a shock-baton speeding toward her head. She caught the Earther’s burly arm before it shocked her. At the same time, he grabbed her pistol-hand and shoved it upward. Born on Earth, under Earth-like g conditions, he was multiple times stronger than her. Both of her arms were ready to give out when she decided to pull the trigger.
The shot hit a power conduit running along the exposed wall behind them. Electricity coruscated through the air toward the baton’s lit end. She squirmed away from him just in time to escape the current as the guard screamed. His back wrenched, and he shook violently. While he was incapacitated, Rin reached around him and put a second bullet into the head of the guard kicking Hayes’s curled-up body. Gareth and Joran didn’t need her help. The former was plunging his shiv into their guard’s chest over and over as the latter held him down.
With the wailing, electricity-filled Earther stuck in front of her, Rin was trapped between him and the wall. She tried to slide her thin body around him without making contact, but as she did, there was a crackle, followed by a deafening bang. The power conduit overloaded and went off like a stick of dynamite centimeters away from the right side of her face, launching her across the room.
Rin rolled over, her vision foggy, her ears ringing. There was no pain. Shadows raced toward her, screaming her name. Hayes reached for her face, appearing horrified as he hesitated to touch her.
She ran the tips of her fingers across her own cheek. Still, she felt nothing, but when she pulled them away, charred flesh was stuck beneath her nails. She clawed at her face again, this time peeling away skin as if she were a wax sculpture held to a torch.
Gareth pulled her to her feet while Hayes yelled for her to focus. She pushed them aside and grabbed a baton off the floor. One of the Earthers crawled toward the fallen gun. Rin’s vision remained cloudy, but she didn’t need to see straight to hit one of their fat bodies.
She spit out a glob of blood, skin, and liquefied sinew, then cracked him across the head with the baton over and over until his legs stopped twitching.
ONE
I focused on the off-duty XO of the Piccolo, a rickety, Saturn-based gas harvester on its last legs. Earther John Barnes was enjoying his time off by fleecing the Darien Lowers for cheap drinks while he gambled away his paycheck.
He sat between two members of the ship’s security crew at a card table in the Sunken Credit. I knew him well after spending the last two years working maintenance on that very same ship. He had a tendency to pick fights with his Ringer subordinates just for the sake of it, and his bulging muscles meant he always won. He gave even Earthers a bad name. Not an easy task.
He was my mark.
A pretty server placed a tray of drinks down for them. Their fourth round. She winced as John grabbed her arm before she could hurry away. I slid my stool a tad closer so I could hear what he said to her over the din of the Sunken Credit, mostly the desperate voices of old, worn-down Ringers at slot machines and tables who’d been trying and failing to catch a break every day since they were unfortunate enough to have been born in the Darien Lowers. Noisy clusters of thick pipes ran along the rocky ceiling as well, feeding the water purification plant on the other side of its rocky walls.
“Aye, you mind telling your Ringer bosses to turn up the heat?” John barked.
“Of course,” the server replied. “I’ll—”
He cut her off, instead wrapping his arm all the way around her waist and pulling her close to the table. A full transparent bodysuit and sanitary mask kept her safe from direct contact, but she wore nothing underneath—just her skinny, malnourished figure.
“And I thought I said to bring it neat?” he blustered. “I said that, right, boys?”
His two smirking mates nodded. “That’s how I heard it,” one remarked. “If we wanted ice rocks, we’d go outside.”
“That’s right. Now how about you take your skinny Ringer ass back there and fetch us another.” He handed her the tray but first took his drink and chugged half. He slammed it down, his Earther strength causing her to scramble to keep the tray level as she hurried away.
She slipped right between me and an old Ringer who’d long since passed out with his face on the bar. I struggled not to glance over at her. The transparent plastic outfit the bosses made every server wear to help garner more tips for the house sure wasn’t doing her any favors when it came to lecherous Earthers like John.
“I don’t know why we still let those mud stompers in here,” the bartender remarked.
“They tip well,” the server replied. I caught a glimpse of the parts of her face not covered by a sanitary mask, expecting to see signs of tears after she’d endured a barrage of insults over the course of the night. Instead, she appeared relatively unfazed. A real pro.
“Well, if you want a break, just let me know.”
She shook her head. “Just refill them. Neat.”
The bartender poured more liquor for the Earthers, then reached into each glass and scooped out the ice with his gloved fingers. “That ought to do it. And I’ll be sure to turn down the temperature too. Freeze their fat backs to the inside of their coats.”
“Thanks, Chev.” The server’s mask lifted from a smile, then she picked up the tray and sauntered back toward the tableful of goons.
“You having another?” the bartender asked me. I was too busy peering at John’s table to hear him at first. “Drayton?”
I looked up at him, then down. Ice inside rattled against the sides of the empty glass in my hand. I nodded and flashed him my ID to transfer some of the last few credits I had to my name. The transparent card bore no information but for a data chip linked to the Pervenio database. Words and images were too easy to falsify.
The charge went through, then purple synthahol lifted the perfect spheres of frozen water as the bartender filled my glass. People didn’t bother selling the good stuff in the Darien Lowers since barely any Ringer could afford it, but water, Titan had plenty of. It was one of the few things we did have and freezing it was easy. If there was a definition of cold, it said Titan next to it, and my people had lived there for three centuries since Darien Trass’s first settlers fled Earth to escape a meteorite large enough to wipe all life from the planet. Zero degrees Celsius was like a warm summer’s day on our former homeworld for me.
I lifted the glass to my mouth and pretended to take a sip. The only reason it even needed ice was to dilute the dreadful taste of the lab-brewed concoction. Lucky for me, I had no plans of drinking a second. One was all I needed to strengthen my nerve, and now I had to keep my head straight.
After John and his crew received their drinks, he smacked the table to compel their Ringer dealer to distribute digital cards across the display built into the tabletop. No physical cards meant the dealer didn’t have to touch anything his patrons did, though that didn’t keep him from checking his gloves and sleeves every time he had to swipe the screen just to make sure none of his pasty skin was showing. Contact with an Earther could get a Ringer stuck in quarantine. Staying out of there was the only thing more important than a good tip.
While John and his crew played, I watched him drink with one hand and with the other whip out his hand-terminal and struggle to read whatever was open on the screen. He barely paid attention to the game, as if he had too many credits to spare… which may well have been true. The device—a Pervenio-issued V3X model, just released in the past month—was worth more than I’d earn in one whole shift on the Piccolo. The screen was double the size my Venta Co terminal had been before I sold it to be able to pay for the previous month’s rent without starving.
It was exponentially faster and able to connect to Solnet broadcasts originating from anywhere in Sol. The entire device was thin as a sheet of glass, its silvery back-casing shimmering brighter than anything else under the Sunken Credit’s failing lights.
I was going to steal it. After leaving the Piccolo to be closer to my mom after she caught something and got stuck in quarantine, I was desperate for credits. My plan was to use the expensive new terminal to try to get back into the good graces of one of the fences I used to run for. They were all still bitter about me leaving the shadows behind to try to make an honest living.
After two years on a gas harvester, I was out of practice, so John made for an easy warm-up. I knew from experience that he liked to get so drunk he wouldn’t remember how he got the bruises from the night before. The fact that he deserved to get swiped was just a bonus. I had standards, at least. I never liked stealing from people I didn’t know anything about. Earther or not, there was no saying what they’d been through. Mom taught me that, even though she hated what I used to do and was preparing to do again.
Thirty minutes passed quickly. My staring didn’t appear suspicious, because everyone else in the gambling den had an eye on the Earthers from the moment they’d entered. Ringers came and went, most with heads hanging in defeat and a few wearing looks that said they’d broken even and would be back tomorrow to try getting rich again. John and his friends were on another round of drinks. If they had a shred of decency—which I knew they didn’t—it was long gone. John was swaying. He went to hug the server and fell off his stool onto his knees, cackling hysterically.
“Oh, c’mon, girl,” he slurred. “I don’t bite.” He grabbed her leg. She kicked at him to pry free, but he didn’t budge. Waves of fear finally flooded her face. John drew himself to his feet, then tugged her tight against his puffy thermal coat. His mates chuckled the entire time.
“I swear I’m cleaner than any of the Ringer filth you’ve screwed before,” he said. He ran his fat fingers up her back and through the ends of her hair. Seeing direct contact like that between a Ringer and an Earther made my skin crawl. She yelped and slipped down out of his grasp, causing him to again stumble to his knees.
That was when the bouncers had finally had enough. Just what I’d been counting on. I stood and used them as cover to get closer. I wasn’t worried about John or the others recognizing me with my sanitary mask on. That was the one benefit of having to wear one everywhere: It made me difficult to differentiate from any other Ringer at first glance. What I was worried about, though, was the baton hanging openly from John’s broad hips. Weapons weren’t allowed to be worn anywhere in Darien without special permits, but no gambling den manager in the Lowers was going to stop him, considering what he was spending.
“All right, fun’s over,” a bouncer said. “Let’s go, all of you.” The slender man towered over the Earthers by at least half a meter, but three centuries of breeding in Titan’s low g had rendered him significantly weaker than them. John could probably throw him clear across the room if he wanted, and when the bouncer leaned down to help him up, he pretty much did just that.
“Get the fuck off me!” he grunted. He shoved the bouncer with one of his meaty arms, and the Ringer flew back into a nearby table so hard that the fastenings at the base went loose. John’s companions jumped to their feet. They wobbled, but their stocky legs kept them upright. The other Sunken Credit bouncers surrounded them, wiry fingers curled into fists. Every patron stopped what they were doing.
“Do it, skelly,” John said. He stood as tall as he could. “I’m begging you.”
The Sunken Credit went silent. Everyone stopped what they were doing and gravitated toward the debacle. Skelly wasn’t a term anyone with a brain would use in the Lowers. It originated because many of the Ringers stuck in quarantine looked like skeletons, with their pale skin, their emaciated bodies, and the black bags under their sunken eyes.
I hurried over to a structural column near the disturbance and leaned against it, chin in my palm, sanitary mask pulled as far up over my nose as possible. I had to fight the urge to join everybody else in approaching them. With my mom in quarantine, skelly hit closer to home than ever before. But knowing that I was about to hit his wallet was reprisal enough.
John gripped the handle of his baton and glared at the bouncers. “C’mon!”
He lost his footing for a moment but caught himself on the back of his chair. “Give me a reason!”
The crowd around the Earthers’ table continued to swell. John didn’t back down, but the two others with him got shifty-eyed. Strong as they were, they were vastly outnumbered. The only reason fists hadn’t started flying after what he’d said was that the Sunken Credit would have lost some of its best customers. That, and it was never smart to hit an Earther out in the open in Darien, Lowers or not. You never knew who they were connected to with their extensive clan-families. Any Earther could be related to a member of Pervenio security, a Director, or worse, a Collector. If there was one thing any Ringer knew, it was not to do anything bad enough to have one of them hired to hunt you down.
“Leave them, John,” one of his team said, dozens of glowers seeming to sober him up in a hurry. “Let them enjoy their shit-filled cave.”
John scanned the crowd one last time then broke out into laughter. He patted one of the bouncers on the shoulder. “You Ringers can never take a joke.” He laughed. “Let’s go, boys, before we run them out of credits and have nothing to come back to.”
He shoved through the bouncers, his crew following so close behind they were almost stepping on his heels. The gathered crowd parted to let them pass, but their glares didn’t shift.
“I fuckin’ love this place!” John shouted. He pointed to the craggy ceiling. “So much more fun than up there.”
His path toward the exit was going to take him right past me. The hand-terminal was in the left pocket of his jacket. I’d watched him place it there before he went for the server.
My fingers wriggled in anticipation as I started toward him, head down so he wouldn’t recognize me. Not that any of us looked different to trash like him. My palms got clammy, and my heart raced. I should’ve had that second drink. It’d been so long since I’d lived in the shadows. It felt natural, though, anxious as I was. Going back to something familiar always seems easier than leaving it behind.
I braced my body for the impending impact. I knew from similar undertakings that walking into a muscle-bound Earther was like slamming into a stone wall. I fixed my gaze on the floor until I saw his feet, then held my breath.
My long fingers slithered into his pocket as we collided, and I snatched his hand-terminal. The fact that he was drunk and wasn’t stepping with purpose was the only thing that kept me from falling, but the force still made me stagger backward. I transferred the device into my pocket behind my back as I did.
“Watch where you’re going, Ringer!” John barked.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. I turned my head and squeezed between him and one of the other drunken members of the Piccolo security team. I made it only a few steps away before John must’ve realized something was missing and patted his coat.
“What the…” he said. “Hey, my terminal!”
I didn’t wait to start sprinting. I blew past the Ringer bouncers, who made a half-assed effort to grab me and gave chase for a few seconds just to seem like they cared before giving up. I was counting on that too.
“Get back here!” John shouted, surprising me with how near his voice sounded.
A glance down at the elongated shadows cast across the floor told me that he and the other Earthers were in hot pursuit. I’d expected them to be slower in their drunken state, but weighted boiler suits under their coats held them tight to the surface. That allowed them to move quicker under Titan’s low-g conditions, whereas my stringy frame protracted every one of my long, hopping strides. I leaped over a dealer’s table, John’s baton just missing me before it came crashing down and snapped off the edge
.
My chest heaved. There was a service hatch at the back of the Sunken Credit. I’d made sure to slice the lock earlier that day as I planned my escape route. Maybe I was out of practice, but I wasn’t stupid enough not to be extra cautious.
“I’ll break your skinny neck!” John roared, sobered by rage. His crew couldn’t even keep up with him.
I yanked open the hatch and rushed through, and as I tried to seal it behind me, his baton poked through the gap to pry it open. The move didn’t buy me much time, but it was enough for me to distance myself as I took off again. The service hatch led directly into the upper level of a water purification plant, where I was welcomed by a forest of massive vats, pumps, and pipes being used to siphon water out of Titan’s subterranean ocean. Steam poured out of exhaust vents, obscuring the floor like I was in some sort of mythological grotto.
John’s heavy feet slapped against the grated metal of the catwalk we emerged onto, echoing down to the plant’s imperceptible bottom. Ringer maintenance workers and engineers shouted in confusion. John yelled something, but I couldn’t hear what. The racket of the purification equipment was exponentially louder than it had been next door.
I took a twisting path along the catwalks strung between each vat to try to slow John down. It didn’t work. My weight forced me to take wide turns, whereas his allowed him to whip around corners. He grew so close that I could hear him wheezing.
“Got you now!” he said. One of his hands extended to grab me, but it caught only air as I leaped up the side of one of the lofty water vats. My rangy fingers gripped the sloping edge of the lid, and I heaved myself up. There was no way he could copy that move at his mass.
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 25
