“Clothes and belongings,” an automated female voice requested. A panel in the wall beside me folded open, revealing a chute.
I placed my travel bag in first. It contained only clothes and sanitary products. I removed my shirt next, just to buy myself time, and then my gloves and mask. With nothing left but my pants, I dipped my hand into my pocket, feeling my pulse in my fingertips as I did. I slowly withdrew the hand-terminal. I think I was closing my eyes during most of this, but I peeked through my lashes once to notice that the enigmatic icon on the screen was no longer orange. I don’t know when, but it had become blue and filled with green to resemble a normal Solnet icon.
I stared at the hand-terminal for a few seconds, confused, then realized I probably looked suspicious and dropped it in the chute. It struck the bottom so hard, I was lucky the screen didn’t break.
I attempted to shrug it off and act casual before undressing all the way. When I was finished, I was directed to the center of the chamber, where the decontamination process initiated. The procedure was similar to the one in the Q-Zone, and the blowing air along with the tingling beams dried the thick layer of sweat on my back. Every second I stood there felt like an hour, until a voice announced I was clean and my belongings reappeared by the exit. I’d never been so thrilled to hear the word “clean,” though for all the wrong reasons.
I threw my clothes back on before anyone decided to change their mind. I was still snapping my gloves over my wrists when I exited and hurried toward the docked shuttle. An officer at the entrance gave me one final check with a scanner, even though he let an Earther ahead of me walk right on by, and then I was through.
My assigned seat was in the last row of the ship. Ignoring the glowers of the dozens of already seated Earthers, I shuffled down the aisle. I stowed my bag below the cushion and fell into it.
The heat and my nerves had me panting uncontrollably. My sanitary mask at least helped stifle the sound so that the other passengers wouldn’t think I was having a panic attack. I stretched open my pocket and glanced inside at the hand-terminal. Nobody sat near me yet, but I wasn’t going to take any more risks.
The icon was orange again.
“Kale Drayton!” someone exclaimed and slapped me on the shoulder.
I yanked my hand out of my pocket too fast, banging it against the seat in front of me. It hurt like hell. Two years on the gas harvester really had made me forget everything I’d learned in the Lowers about acting cool when I was up to no good. I glanced up and saw Desmond’s toothy grin.
“Don’t tell me you got a job on the fuckin’ station?” he asked. He stored his bag and plopped down beside me. Considering my luck, I don’t know why I ever expected to be seated next to anybody else.
“Nope,” I replied, struggling not to show how much pain I was in. “Decided I’d give the Piccolo another chance.”
“Is that right? I’m surprised that mud stomper Saunders took you back. He whined like a child when he asked me to try and help him find some new recruits.”
“Yeah, well, he did.”
“Trass, what crawled up your ass?” Desmond shifted in his seat to get more comfortable, purposefully jutting his bony elbow over my armrest.
I nudged him back. “Sorry. It’s hot in here.”
“As usual.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “You missed a hell of a time the other night. Your girl got drunker than I’ve ever seen her. Mentioned you a few times too. She seemed pissed you were leaving.”
It was hard to know when he was bullshitting. I figured this was one of those times based on how I’d seen her acting at the Foundry. I grunted in response and turned my head toward a narrow viewport to try to take a nap. Desmond thankfully didn’t bother me much after that. It was an eight-hour flight through zero-g to Pervenio Station, and the shuttle wasn’t going to get any cooler. I figured he was saving his latest wisecracks for the four months we’d be sharing a dorm.
Unable to sleep, I gazed through the shuttle’s viewport out into space for most of the flight. No stars were visible, since by then, Saturn constituted the entire view and was cast in shadow while it eclipsed the sun. I could, however, see the glimmer of the planet’s blade-like belt of rock and ice, illuminated by the bright lights of Pervenio Station. It was built into one of the planet’s tiniest moons, located along its inner ring. If Titan was the heart of the Ring, the station was its brain, directing everything that happened on Saturn’s many moons and settlements.
People said it was the largest station in all of Sol. Almost all transport of goods from around the solar system ran through the many docking chutes poking out of the rocky exterior, along with most of Saturn’s gas-harvesting and ice-hauling industries. Those were what had allowed Pervenio to grow into the largest corporation in Sol. Others had smaller stations and colonies located on the Ring, but it was only with Pervenio’s permission, and getting that cost a pretty credit.
Captain Saunders liked to boast that the Piccolo was his, passed down through his clan-family to those who were worthiest, but everybody who’d served more than a shift and seen all the faded corporation logos on board knew that wasn’t true. Pervenio just didn’t care much about its antiquated harvesters anymore and rented them out. They operated slower, took in less gas, and required more of a workforce.
“We will be arriving at Hangar 13 on Pervenio Station in fifteen minutes,” an automated voice announced throughout the cabin. I could hardly hear it over Desmond’s incessant snoring. “Please ensure your restraints remain fastened.”
Most of the passengers, including myself, already had theirs on. We were in zero-g, after all, and the security officers on board didn’t take too kindly to people floating around the cabin unless they had to use the restroom. The warning only existed because there was always the danger of the shuttle banging into a rock or some debris as it gradually descended over Saturn’s inner rings toward the station.
After once again preventing Desmond’s arm from slipping into my area, I leaned closer to my viewport to watch as we grew nearer. An ice hauler blinked around a frozen rock a few hundred kilometers to the shuttle’s side, and another one beyond that. Many more haulers existed than gas harvesters, since they were almost entirely automated. There were fewer potential hazards to account for outside of Saturn’s erratic atmosphere, where they operated. Communications within it were spotty at best, limiting updates from the stations monitoring the planet and the ability to exclusively automate systems.
New-age gas harvesters circumvented that by skirting the very fringes of Saturn’s atmosphere and depositing balloon-like vessels to sink through, fill with gas, and rise back to be retrieved. They worked well, but nowhere near as efficiently as the gas harvesters like Piccolo that went deeper. They required skilled, hands-on navigators like Cora to avoid unpredictable storms and locate concentrated pockets of the vital gases we were after. Honestly, I didn’t understand how Cora managed it all.
Cora... For the first time since accepting R’s offer, I realized that I was going to be uploading the mysterious program into her command console. The captain oversaw the ship, sure, but she controlled navigation. Though the thought of spending time with her again was the single bright spot in this whole ordeal, she was the last person I wanted to be forced to lie to.
I didn’t have a choice. I had to get the job done, like old times. The stark curtain of blackness beyond the glass made my reflection clearer than usual, and all I could see in my yellow-brown eyes was the mother I shared their color with. Her condition deteriorated rapidly. She couldn’t have long.
My reflection vanished when the shuttle slipped into one of Pervenio Station’s airy hangars. The ship tilted vertically ninety degrees until it was able to land atop the very airlock it passed through. Pervenio Station, and what was left of the moon it invaded, had been provided additional spin when it was built to generate a stronger centripetal force. The floors of all its inhabitable spaces were located on the inner face of the exterior shell to
take advantage of that.
A familiar force tugged on my body as soon as the ship touched down. The simulated g conditions on the station were relatively similar to Titan’s, and after hours in transit, they were much appreciated. My restraints came undone, and a security officer began escorting passengers out of the shuttle. Earthers went first, since they were in the front, and the pack of masked Ringers followed soon after.
Desmond and I were in the last row and had to wait until everyone else was off. I nudged him awake. We didn’t have much time to waste, considering the Piccolo’s hangar was located clear across the station.
“What’s your rush?” Desmond asked, yawning. He rubbed his eyes and got to his feet as leisurely as one could possibly do so.
“The Piccolo’s scheduled to leave soon,” I said. I sprang up once he was finally ready and grabbed my bag. I stayed right on his heels as he moseyed down the aisle.
“Relax. You think Saunders will leave without us there? Crew is light as it is.”
“I’d rather not risk it.”
He sighed. “Dammit, Kale. Have you ever broken a rule in your life?”
I would’ve grinned if I hadn’t been so nervous. I didn’t talk about my past life much. I’d found that the best way to leave it behind was to pretend it’d never happened. What he didn’t know was that the only reason I was eager to get on the Piccolo was to escape the prying eyes of security. Though the armed presence would be greater, there’d be no more decon-chamber scanners to pass through after we disembarked.
“Can we just get there and then argue?” I asked.
“Fine, fine, quit your whining,” he said. “You just can’t wait to see Cora, can you? Me neither.” He smirked and picked up his pace as if he expected me to smack him. I’m not going to lie—I wanted to. But at least he gave me something to worry about other than what was in my pocket.
“Relax,” he said as I sped up to catch him. My cheeks were probably fluorescent pink. “I met a girl back in Darien during our last break. I tried as hard as I could, but Cora’s all yours.”
“She’s not mine,” I grumbled.
“Have I ever told you you’re a damn idiot?”
I took an exasperated breath of the station’s warm, stale air. “Plenty.”
The similarities between the docks of Pervenio Station and those of Darien didn’t extend beyond the fact that they were both packed. The former wasn’t a place to go shopping. Hangar bay after hangar bay was positioned on either side of a gracious concourse. The only breaks were for eateries and bars catering to the station’s tremendous workforce. I’d visited a few before and after shifts, but the moods of the mostly Earther patrons were exactly what you’d expect: gruff, exhausted, and wary of my kind.
Desmond and I passed one bar that had the words NO GLOVES OR MASKS PERMITTED ON PATRONS posted on the door. Earthers tried to be clever about keeping my people out of certain places without outright saying NO RINGERS ALLOWED. With glasses at the bar passed between Trass knows how many uncovered hands, there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d ever go in.
As in the Uppers, the views from the main concourse were spectacular. Translucencies were cut into the passageway’s floor at a downward angle to reveal Saturn’s rings. Seeing them extend away from me on a horizontal plane almost made them feel artificial.
We had to take the tram-line crisscrossing the tiny moon to reach the Piccolo’s departure hangar. Since Desmond and I had been the last to get off the shuttle from Titan, the first tram was full, making us later than I’d thought. Security ushered us into our seats when the next tram finally arrived after twenty more minutes.
The tram-line was closer to a lift than a train, since cutting through the spherical station from where we were standing meant going straight up. Every seat in the car was arranged horizontally, with our backs facing the floor. Halfway through the moon’s core, the car flipped 180 degrees so that we’d be right side up on the other side upon arrival. I remembered puking the first time I took one and having it whipped right back in my face. That was when I learned that the center of Pervenio Station had no gravity. It was also the first time I had the pleasure of meeting Desmond. He’d been delighted not to try to hide his amusement.
The Piccolo’s hangar was a short distance from where we were let off. I was relieved to find the ship still docked. Security scanned our IDs and checked our bags, then added us to the departure ledger before allowing us to pass. That part wasn’t stressful, but I was glad to be through. Security checkpoints had become so ingrained in my life that I hadn’t really noticed how many there were until I’d had something to hide. It was like a tremendous weight being lifted off me.
Captain Saunders waited directly inside, foot tapping. At first, I was worried, then I noticed that the Piccolo was still being loaded with supplies. Members of the crew rolled containers filled with food and other necessities into the cargo hold. Others carted cumbersome cylindrical canisters meant for transported harvested gases to the ship’s cold storage.
The Piccolo currently had a total crew of forty-one, with pretty much an even split between Ringers and Earthers. My last time aboard, it was forty-three, but things changed shift to shift. I recognized most of the faces save for a few new members of the maintenance crew, like me. We did everything from cleaning harvester canisters and tanks to making minor repairs. Then there was a handful of overseeing mechanics, including the head one, security, a few engineers, a doctor, and a chef who seemed unnecessary considering the slop he served. I didn’t spot Cora, but the ship’s engines rumbled, so she was probably already at her post running through checks. She was the only Ringer with a position above maintenance.
“There you two are,” Captain Saunders remarked without averting his gaze from his busy crew.
“Sorry we’re late, sir,” I said.
“Not your fault,” the captain groused. “Pervenio security has everything backed up more than usual. We had to wait for them to sweep the entire ship before we could start loading. Like anyone in Sol gives a damn about the Piccolo but us.” The captain turned to Desmond and me. “Get hauling—we’re only waiting on a few more. Cora’s had the engines prepped for hours already. Waste of damn time.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
Desmond glared at me for a moment as we set off toward the Piccolo, and then sighed. “‘Yes, sir,’” he mimicked.
I ignored him.
The Piccolo was exactly how I remembered. Its tapered hull was designed to slash through heavy winds and looked to have experienced far too many storms in its time. A patchwork of plates and fist-sized bolts coated the exterior, all with varying degrees of corrosion and piss-colored stains from being pounded by Saturn’s sulfuric atmosphere. It was impossible to tell what was original from when the ship was constructed, years before the Great Reunion had even happened. Its flanks were what inspired its name, as they had the appearance of an ancient woodwind instrument. A line of vertical ducts ran down either side, interspersed with the massive pumps used to siphon gas out of Saturn’s atmosphere. Tubes extended from them and ran across the hull, able to be extended and reeled to reach gas pockets. They led to the harvesting bay, where gas was refined and sorted before being carted to cold storage in the belly of the ship.
At the front end, a glassy bulb popped out like the eye of an ancient insect. It housed the command deck, where I knew Cora waited anxiously to put her navigating skills to good use on the decades-old command console. The nuclear-thermal engine with auxiliary ion thrusters stuck out the very back. While most ships used ionic impulse drives these days, anything heading into Saturn needed extra thrust. Stubby wings flanked it, which alone wouldn’t accomplish much if the engines failed while in the midst of Saturn’s impressive winds. It was a long plummet to the planet’s core, where the pressure would crush our bones into dust before the ship itself gave out. The captain often reminded us of the horrific story of the Sunfire, a gas harvester, which nearly three years ago had inexplicably lost power to its engines
and disappeared down there, never to be heard from again. It was his way of ensuring that nobody slacked off when it came to keeping the engine core in optimal condition.
“You two, let’s fuckin’ move it!” John shouted from his position at the base of the ship’s entry-ramp. Seeing him made my heart skip a beat, but the fact that he was just pointing in our direction and not charging me meant he still didn’t know I was the one who stole his hand-terminal. He was in an exceedingly grumpy mood, however, and I figured it was because of the loss.
“Ship ain’t gonna prep itself,” he said, “and I don’t feel like hearing that bitch complaining that we had her keep the engines on too long.”
“Why’re you standing around, then?” Desmond asked.
John grinned, a wad of synth-tobacco in his mouth making his lower lip bulge. He crossed his arms so that his biceps bulged out of his boiler suit’s short sleeves. On either side of him, the two other burly Earther members of the Piccolo security team who’d been with him in the Sunken Credit did the same. They made sure that scuffles on the Piccolo didn’t last long... when they weren’t the ones starting them.
“I’m so glad to see you again, Desmond,” John said. “Should be a fun shift.” He spat at our feet.
I noticed Desmond’s hands ball into fists, but I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him onto the ship. The XO was looking for any excuse to fight and get Ringers stuck on a shift keeping the boiling-hot engine room squeaky clean. He glared at us until we were all the way onto the ship.
“Wait until we’re in Saturn, at least,” I said.
“I’m going to kill that man,” Desmond seethed.
“Well, wait until I’m asleep, then.”
We dropped our bags off in the Ringer dormitory. Desmond was greeted in the hallway by his close friends Lester Cromwell and Yavik Vanos. They’d been in the Foundry the night before too. The three of them liked to pretend they oversaw the Ringer members of the crew, with Desmond as their ringleader. Lester had an even sharper tongue than him, and the narrowest, most hawkish face I’d ever seen. Yavik wasn’t bad on his own but was frequently too high on foundry salts to do anything but go along with everything the other two did. His skin was a medium-gray hue because his ancestors apparently came from a place on Pre-Meteorite Earth where people were all brown-skinned.
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 32
