“What took you so long?” Lester asked. “Thought you were coming up with us. That mud stomper, John, is in rare form today.”
“I had business,” Desmond answered succinctly. “Let’s go.”
I listened to their footsteps fade down the hall before taking a second to change my gloves; they had the filth of Darien and Pervenio Station all over them. After I did, I glanced into my pocket at the hand-terminal, where the mysterious orange circle remained.
After finding out about my mother, I never thought I’d be back on the Piccolo, yet there I was. The first step of R’s task was done. Now it was time to help get the ship moving.
NINE
When the Piccolo entered Saturn’s upper atmosphere, all the Ringers, including me, were issued a g-stim injection. The chems helped our muscles and organs endure the Earth-like g conditions, where even breathing could be straining. The ship’s doctor oversaw dispersing doses every morning so that we wouldn’t deplete the ship’s Pervenio-issued supply before the shift was up.
I was then immediately assigned to work in the harvesting bay. No time to check out the command deck or say hi to Cora. I wondered if she’d even heard I was back.
The harvesting bay was the largest open space on the vessel, and while the floors, walls, and ceilings matched the ship’s worn exterior, all the equipment inside was kept squeaky clean. The overall harvesting process seemed relatively simple, ignoring the myriad technical aspects I didn’t need to understand.
Vacuum chambers lining the wall were switched on and off by the navigator, and Cora siphoned gas out of Saturn’s stormy skies when she located a pocket composed of the valuable ones. Pervenio had no interest in most of the elements that made up Saturn’s atmosphere, so the vacuums emptied their stores through a series of thick pipes into towering, noisy vats. Chemical reactions of some sort took place within them to filter the valuable gases into spherical tanks. The largest ones were labeled for helium-3 and deuterium. Those two rare gases, among a few other lesser ones, were what drove fusion cores and interplanetary engine systems. Basically, they were what made the Ring so desirable for Pervenio. Jupiter couldn’t compete when it came to their abundance. Another one of Darien Trass’s brilliant foresights in choosing Titan to run to.
Much of the harvesting procedure was automated up until storage, and apparently, the newer harvesters had that almost entirely mechanized as well. Engineering staff monitored the systems to make sure levels in every storage container remained at an acceptable level, so that we weren’t all blown to bits. Maintenance men like me were there only for conveyance and cleaning. Anything that interacted with the gases had to be kept as spotless as a Ringer’s body. Otherwise, like the captain always said, “We’d join the Sunfire in being eternally crushed by Saturn’s core.” Every once in a while, the tanks and vacuum chambers were emptied, and I had to climb in to rub them down too.
It took only an hour of scrubbing the grime out of harvester canisters for me to fall back into my old routine. Prep a canister, wipe the sweat from my brow, and pass it over to a stronger Earther, who would have it inspected by the head mechanic before carting it down to cold storage all the way on the other side of the ship. Keeping a stockpile of flammable gases as far away from humans as possible was the first rule of gas harvesting.
The work was mind-numbing. As I scrubbed, I often found myself thinking about how I could’ve successfully robbed Tanner Saunders. My duties rarely differed from what the Ringers cleaning the restaurants in Delora’s Upper Ward did. It was high-stakes cleaning—a lack of attention could taint an entire haul or potentially result in a fiery eruption—but it was cleaning nonetheless.
John liked to remind us how cleaning was a job fit for Ringers, that our long arms and slender fingers allowed us to reach impossible places. I couldn’t deny that might be true, but I welcomed every chance to switch things up. Earther maintenance staff got to do all the lifting and carting, since Earth g conditions made things heavier and made us tire more rapidly no matter how strong the g-stims were.
Sometimes, however, equipment throughout the Piccolo would malfunction, and I’d have an opportunity to actually repair something. The Piccolo being old as it was, that was a common occurrence. But there were a dozen other workers to compete with, as well as the grumpy Earther head mechanic, Culver, who chose who got to do what. The captain tried to make sure the work was spread evenly to keep us all focused, but an Earther was likely to choose his own as often as he was permitted. That was simply the way of things.
After a few hours of sweating in the harvesting bay, I’d have given almost anything for a chance to roam the ship’s halls and perhaps catch a glance through a viewport at Saturn’s blustery, ruddy sky. Except for the Ringer dorms, the ship was kept at a balmy seventeen degrees Celsius, but all the working machinery in the harvesting bay made it the second-hottest area outside of the engine core room. The g-stim kept my heart from giving out, but it did nothing for the heat.
“Hey, Drayton, keep that hand moving!” Culver shouted from across the room. He leaned on a cane, his pebbly eyes glaring in my direction. The wrinkles striating his face seemed to deepen every time I saw him. A scraggly white beard used to cover a lot of them, but it was no longer enough.
I nodded, without the energy to raise my voice. Desmond snickered beside me. We were both on harvesting canister prep, right next to each other yet again.
“Gotta love that man,” Desmond said under his breath.
“Do you have something to say about everything?” I groaned and dipped my hand farther into the canister I was prepping to receive a new haul.
“I’m not the one who got caught daydreaming. Must really make your heart ache when you get in trouble like that, Earther lover. Must make you want to give old Culver a hug and say sorry.”
“Why the hell are you even here?”
“You two—enough!” Culver hollered. “Get working, or I’ll have those masks replaced with muzzles.”
Desmond muttered something under his breath, so softly that I couldn’t hear him over the machinery. Then he whispered to me: “Same reason as anyone else. Credits. Trass damn them. Didn’t exist on the Ring until the Earthers arrived, you know. All we cared about was making things better.”
I hushed him. The rag in my hand ran across the bottom of the canister, scraping off a profuse layer of grunge. Even through my sanitary mask, the smell was foul, like sulfur mixed into a cesspool.
“That was when people like us were judged on skill alone,” Desmond continued all on his own. “You probably would’ve still been right where you are, but I could’ve been a king.”
“Or a jester,” I muttered.
“What was that?”
“Whatever you say,” I said a little louder.
I removed my hand from a freshly cleaned canister and handed it over to an Earther. It was marked DEUTERIUM, so he carted it over to the matching tank and hooked it up to a nozzle. He raised a thumb to an engineer, then a series of green bars on the side of the canister lit up. The worker detached it once they were filled.
“All right, navigation says this pocket’s been emptied out!” Culver announced a short time later. I heard his cane clicking as he shuffled into the center of the room so everyone could hear. “Chow time!”
Everyone exhaled in relief and stopped what they were doing.
“Finally,” Desmond said. He purposefully nudged me with his shoulder on his way by. “I’m starving.”
At least that was something we could agree on. Not sure why, but cleaning up filth had my stomach rumbling. I just had to clean my gloves first. They were so filthy it looked like I’d been sloshing around in a Martian sewer.
I stepped up to the chef’s counter in the galley, and he slapped a pile of food down into my bowl. It was just lumpy, colorless goop, but it contained all the necessary daily nutrients. Or so we were told, and it didn’t look any worse than most of what I’d grown up eating in the Lowers. I filled a cup with murky water fr
om a leaky nozzle at the end of the line and then turned to find a seat.
The galley was small compared with the harvester bay. Its exposed ceiling was low enough for me to hear the constant buzzing emanating from a series of bundled circuits and ducts. The tiled floor was permanently stained.
Two long tables were set on either side of the room, each flanked by rusty benches. Ringers wearing gloves and sanitary masks stretched down to their necks sat at one of them, and Earthers at the other. Even if some Earthers and Ringers were friends, it was like an invisible line split the galley in half. Nobody dared to even think about crossing it. That was the quickest way to incite a fight.
I turned toward the Ringer table and spotted Cora. It was my first sight of her since I’d boarded the ship. The only times she ever got off navigation duty was to eat and sleep, but she was always kept on call. The Piccolo had an autopilot setting and other crew members who knew the basics of flying, but if there was even the hint of a storm, she was summoned no matter what she was doing.
As usual, she sat at the very end of the table, with an extra-wide space between her and the nearest person and nobody across from her. Some of the Ringer crew felt she was a risk because her strengthened immune system meant she might be carrying something. This ensured, along with her rank, that there was never any real danger of unwanted advances when Ringers drank not far from her bed in our shared dorm. It also served to make her even more intimidating to me.
The inherent risk involved in falling for her was real. In our dorms, she was even required to wear a mask and gloves. I never thought about it much, but visiting the Q-Zone countless times has a way of making someone view even the tiniest details differently. Paranoia had become second nature.
But that wasn’t enough for me to let her eat alone. I headed to the seat across from her, knowing from years of observation that she was neat enough for me to be perfectly safe unless I shared her spoon. As I sat down, she didn’t even bother to glance up from her meal.
“I told you he was back,” Desmond said to Cora. He sat on the same side as her, though with a solid meter of empty space between them.
“Yep,” Cora answered, still not looking up. She was always fairly timid, but this seemed different. I guess I should’ve expected her to be angry that I’d planned to leave the Piccolo without telling her.
“Couldn’t stay away,” I said, smiling at Cora. She said nothing and continued to eat.
“Of course you couldn’t,” Desmond replied. He raised a spoonful of the goop toward his mouth, then stopped and stared at it dejectedly as he allowed it to drip back into his bowl. “I should’ve jumped at one of those openings for work with Venta Co when they started construction Europa Colony a year back. Open call to anyone with the credits to get there. I hear they serve fresh greens every day. Imagine that?”
“You should go, then. I’m sure they’re still building.” I pulled my mask down to my chin and shoveled a spoonful of the goop into my mouth. It was pretty much tasteless and took less work to force down my throat than ration bars.
“Can you afford passage that far?”
I didn’t respond.
“Exactly,” Desmond said. “So why did you really decide to come back, Kale?”
“Like you said earlier: I needed the credits,” I said.
“No, no, that’s not it.” Desmond grinned in Cora’s direction. Luckily, she was too busy trying to ignore me to notice. “I bet that shit Saunders offered you something. Ringers dropping like sick flies and he gets a sure hand back.”
“Nope.” I shrugged. “I just realized there wasn’t anything better.”
“Oh, c’mon.” Desmond reached over the table and prodded my arm. “I bet he promised you he’d make you head mechanic one day.” He snickered. “Told Lester that once too, and Yavik.” His two pals sat on the other side of him, nodding in unison and holding in laughter. They were low-level maintenance men as well.
My pale cheeks blushed as much as they could.
“Trust me,” Desmond said, his voice purposefully elevated so that the whole room would hear him. “Nobody’s getting that job until the old man kicks the fucking bucket!”
“Watch your mouth, skelly, before I shut it for you again!” John hollered over in response. “I’m sure our lovely Cora is dying to see a show.”
Desmond slammed his fists on the table and jumped to his feet. Cora dropped her spoon and finally looked up, our gazes meeting for the first time. That was the only reason I stayed quiet despite that word getting my blood boiling.
“What the hell did you just call me, mud stomper?” Desmond growled.
John rose to his feet beside the two members of his security team. I’d seen my share of fights growing up in the Lowers, so I knew when one was about to happen. I was usually smart enough to avoid exchanging blows with an Earther, though. They were physically much stronger, especially under the grueling Earth-like g conditions of Saturn’s upper atmosphere.
“Your big ears didn’t hear?” one of the guards next to him said. “He called you a Filthy. Fucking. Skelly.”
Before Desmond could react, the last months’ worth of troubles swelled up in me. I didn’t care if Cora saw. I sprang across the table and crashed into the guard. It wasn’t enough to knock the broad-shouldered Earther over, but it was enough to make him reel.
Desmond backed me up and swung at John. After a few seconds, nearly everyone in the galley joined in, which was pretty much the entire crew minus Captain Saunders and the doctor. John and his security team kept their batons sheathed; they had no interest in wrapping things up promptly. Old Culver was even brave enough to throw a few punches before his people pulled him away. In the middle of it, something hit me so hard in the gut that I keeled over. That was when I saw her.
John had escaped Desmond and torn Cora out of her seat, her head banging against the floor. Typically, she was left out of scrums. Not because she was one of the few women on board, but because her job was more crucial than any other and she was the best at it. Injuring her was the fastest way to get onto the captain’s shit list. I knew that had to make the Earthers jealous, and I saw that jealousy written all over John’s face as he hunched on top of her. A messy brawl was the perfect opportunity for him to sneak in a shot to relieve his envy.
My instincts kicked in. I scurried along the floor and snatched a baton off one of the guards’ belts. John had her by the throat and said, “Maybe the cap’n won’t favor you so much if I bust your pretty—”
I cracked him across the side of the head before he could finish. With a weapon, it didn’t matter how weak I was in comparison to him. He toppled over, blood splattering onto the floor. I grabbed Cora by the wrist, heaved her to her feet, and yanked her out of the fray. I took a few hits in the side along the way but somehow kept my balance.
I managed to get her to the wall by the galley’s exit, hidden behind a rack for trays. We stood there, panting and watching the brawl. It was impossible to tell whose fist was whose anymore. But it wouldn’t be long before we were spotted and dragged right back into it.
The clacking of heavy footsteps suddenly echoed from outside in the Piccolo’s corridors. “Enough!” Captain Saunders roared as he stormed in with a pulse-pistol in his hand. He shot at one of the empty, overturned tables and everyone, including me, froze. “Next one will go through the head of whoever throws another punch.”
Anyone still standing took a step back. The captain moved farther into the room, and then Cora tapped me on the shoulder and gestured toward the hallway. With all the groaning and people twisting off tipped furniture, she was easily able to slip behind the captain out of the room without anyone realizing. I followed her, no questions asked.
“I’m tired of this,” the captain continued. “I don’t want to have to hire a real security team, but if this keeps happening, I damn-well will!”
“But, sir—” I heard one of John’s security members reply.
“Quiet! Any damage is coming out of y
our paychecks. Start cleaning, boys!”
I followed Cora down the corridor until I couldn’t hear the captain anymore. “What’re you doing?” I whispered.
“We have to get you to the command deck,” she said. “I’ll say you were eating there with me the whole time. None of the Earthers will know who swung that baton.”
“I don’t think anybody saw or we wouldn’t have gotten out.”
“Do you want to risk it?”
Brawls weren’t uncommon during recreational hours, but hitting the XO with a weapon wasn’t how they typically ended. Even if I was protecting the navigator, Captain Saunders would have to make an example of me if he ever found out. That meant engine room maintenance duty at the very least, if John didn’t kill me first.
“Right,” I said, swallowing. “Good plan.” Being around her almost made me forget the reason I was back on the Piccolo. I’d been wondering what my excuse for getting into the command deck was going to be, and now I had it.
“I guess this makes us even?” I asked, trying not to dwell on it.
“Nope,” she said. “Or did you forget I pulled you out of another clash in Darien? You seem to attract them.”
“Yeah...” I glanced over at her. Her long hair made it impossible to tell, but I knew there had to be a bump on her head courtesy of John. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. You shouldn’t have hit him like that. John’s all talk.”
“Didn’t look like that to me.”
“He’s just jealous. He was the navigator before I was brought on, and almost got the Piccolo torn to pieces. That’s all it is.” She glanced back over her shoulder and then sped up. “We have to hurry—let’s go.”
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 33
