“It’s fine,” I said, jumping forward. “I’ve got it.”
I hurried over to take the plate, and as I did, I noticed a rectangular lump in the man’s pocket. My heart started racing like it always did when I reached the object of a job. I positioned my back so that the officer’s view was obstructed. With my left hand, I picked up the plate, purposefully allowing the loose fork to fall to the floor to distract the Earther. As I bent over to retrieve it, my right hand slipped into the pocket of his fancy tunic. His chubby leg made it a tight fit, even for my fingers, but it also likely mitigated some of his sensation.
“Sorry about the mistake, sir,” I said, feigning all the pleasantries of a proper servant.
He snorted and folded his arms on top of his belly. “Fix it.” His breath reeked of alcohol, a fact I hoped would keep him from noticing anything was missing until we were long gone.
When I returned to the cart, plate in hand, his hand-terminal was stuffed securely into the waistband of my pants beneath my shirt. The officer moved along, and I nudged Rin to remind her to focus so we could finish our mission.
We emptied the racks, and then returned to the kitchen. We didn’t get far before our cart was topped off with additional plates, each of them bearing a triangular slice of something white and creamy. I’m not sure what it was, but the fragrance was so sweet it was nauseating.
“I don’t know if I can handle another round,” Rin grumbled.
“You’ll be fine.” I gained her attention and flicked open my shirt to show her the hand-terminal. “Now let’s go feed some Earthers.”
We pushed the rack back out, and I felt her pat me on the back in approval as we passed through the door. All my life, I’d worked jobs for fences, mostly on my own. Sometimes I’d be partnered up with another thief, but we were always out only for ourselves. Typically, we didn’t converse much more than signing each other from across a room. Even on the Piccolo, I didn’t scrub canisters to make anyone else satisfied, only my wallet.
I knew I shouldn’t—not after the crimes I’d seen Rin and her crew commit—but right that moment, it felt good to be a part of a team. Part of something beyond the pursuit of credits.
TWENTY
The meal didn’t last long before the Earthers were shepherded away to be restrained for zero-g. Rin, the rest of the Ringer staff, and I were tasked to help clean the kitchen. Out of the generosity of his heart, the head chef left behind meals for us—the same lumpy goop I was fed on the Piccolo. I was glad to eat anything other than a ration bar, but Rin wasn’t nearly as enthused and skipped the meal entirely.
“What now?” I asked her, lifting my last spoonful to my lips while I scrubbed down a counter with the other hand.
“We wait.” She glared at the security officers by the exit. They would notice if I pulled out an expensive hand-terminal. The rest of the Ringers were too busy and overheated to notice that we were strangers, however. Once again, I found sanitary masks to have a greater use than simply keeping germs out of my mouth. They were a scoundrel’s best friend.
“What about Hayes and Gareth?” I asked.
“Worry about us.”
I nodded. Her confidence was infectious. I kneeled and scrubbed the grime out of the inside of an oven. Some got on my glove, and I considered licking it off just to get a taste of real steak. Then I recalled my mom’s lessons about washing my gloves as often as I could to avoid germs and did that instead.
“All right, Ringers!” one of the officers shouted. “We’re breaking atmosphere soon. Finish up and head to holding.”
After the kitchen was cleaned, Rin and I stuck to the back of the pack as we traversed the ship. I was nervous that beyond the commotion of the kitchen, someone might realize we were impostors, but Rin seemed calm as ever. A few members of the Ringer staff complained about their sore arms during the walk, but that was it—almost complete silence. I wondered if we would’ve been noticed on the Piccolo under similar circumstances. It seemed impossible we wouldn’t have been, but Culver’s incessant yelling had a way of making me want to avoid everyone around me. Of having me keep my head down.
The holding cabin was somewhere toward the stern of the cruiser, on a level beneath the cargo hold where the rumble of the ship’s engines made it difficult to perceive anything. Unlike the rest of the vessel, the room had a military feel. Rows of bolted-down seats lined the walls. They were fitted with heavy-duty restraints. Officers in the entrance let us sit wherever we liked, so we selected the farthest positions.
I watched the jaded faces of more Ringer staff trickling in once we were seated. Lucky for us, the flow stopped shortly after, and we were left without anybody sitting next to us. It seemed the crew wasn’t large enough to fill every seat; perhaps the shortage of willing workers that had plagued the Piccolo was widespread.
“Sorry we’re late,” someone at the entrance said to the officers outside. They allowed two more Ringers in staff uniforms into the room, then sealed the door and left.
It took me a second to recognize the newcomers as Hayes and Gareth, since their faces were half-covered by sanitary masks and I’d never seen them outside of helmets. They scurried over and took a seat on either side of us.
“I was worried you two wouldn’t show up,” Rin said.
“Yeah, well, if Gareth didn’t take his sweet-ass time,” Hayes answered.
Gareth signed something discreetly to Rin. I couldn’t see what it was, but she smirked.
Hayes rolled his eyes, then whispered, “We spread everything throughout the cargo hold, so it should take security hours to comb through it all.” He stretched out his legs, his knees cracking. “I’ll miss the suit… and my gun.”
“You get used to it,” I said.
All three of them regarded me with blank expressions but said nothing.
Restraints suddenly lowered over our shoulders. My body was forced back against my seat, where an automated g-stim injection jabbed the side of my neck. The cruiser then started shaking violently as its nuclear-thermal engines powered it through Saturn’s atmosphere. An incredible pressure built up in the center of my chest and behind my eyes, which would’ve been unbearable even with the g-stim if I hadn’t been getting so accustomed to it. My short stay on the Sunfire had bolstered my endurance.
“Ascension has initiated,” the calm voice of the captain announced. “Please remain in your seats until our arrival at Pervenio Station. Approximate flight time is five hours and thirty-six minutes.”
“So, you two get in contact?” Hayes asked us through gritted teeth.
Rin tapped me on the leg. “Kale, the terminal,” she said.
Everyone else in the cabin was too busy dealing with the forces of acceleration to pay us any attention, so I reached into the folds of my uniform and pulled the device out. I couldn’t extend my hand much due to the restraints, but my long fingers again helped me out. Rin took it from me and held it between our legs.
“You sure you can do this?” Hayes asked.
“I contacted that brother of yours after we went missing, didn’t I?” she said.
His cheeks turned a light shade of pink, and he leaned back without another word. Rin’s thumb shifted across the touch screen of the device, rifling through commands. She didn’t operate it with the natural grace that Cora did when she sat at a command console, but she knew what she was doing.
In a few minutes, she breached Solnet through the cruiser’s long-range navigation systems. In one more, she sliced into the black parts of the vast network, where the fences I’d worked with operated amongst people with far more reprehensible cravings. She entered a contact number—a clutter of numbers and characters that it must’ve taken her weeks to memorize—then typed a message.
‘CHANGE OF PLANS. CAN YOU TALK? —R’
Since we were departing Saturn and Rylah was on Titan, there was a natural delay. It took about two minutes for a reply to come through. Letters arrived, scrambled and nonsensical at first before they each flicker
ed and changed individually to reveal words. The Children of Titan were clearly extremely careful when it came to communications.
‘ONLY LIKE THIS. I’M UNDER WATCH. THEY TRACED THE TERMINAL BACK TO ME AND BROUGHT IT HERE,’ answered a contact I assumed to be her sister Rylah.
‘IT’S NOT ON THE STATION?’ Rin asked.
Rylah said, ’IT WASN’T. IT’S BACK ON ITS WAY NOW FOR ANALYSIS. THEY SENT TWO COLLECTORS AFTER ME, ONE A COGENT. I GOT THEM TO BELIEVE I WAS COERCED... SOMEHOW. THEY’RE BEING HANDLED.’
Rin said, ’GOOD. AS SOON AS THEY PLUG THE TERMINAL IN ON THE STATION FOR STUDY I NEED YOU TO SLICE INTO THE SECURITY NETWORK AND HELP US REACH THE DETENTION BLOCK.’
‘DETENTION?” Rylah typed. “WHAT HAPPENED TO WIPING THE MEDICAL RECORDS? I CAN’T DO BOTH.’
‘LIKE I SAID, CHANGE OF PLANS. WE HAVE OUR TRASS. THE TIME HAS COME. CAN YOU DO IT?’
‘NOT SURE. THE OFFICERS WITH ME MAY BE STUPID, BUT THEY AREN’T BLIND. THEY’LL SEE MY SCREENS MONITORING THE STATION,’ Rylah said.
‘THEN GET RID OF THEM.’
‘WAIT.’
The conversation went silent for one minute, then another. By the third, the Ring Skipper had broken through Saturn’s atmosphere, and the ship stopped shaking. Restraints continued to hold me down, but my body became weightless. It was a welcome relief.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Rin grumbled. “C’mon, Rylah.” She tapped the device to make sure it was still working.
Much of the Ringer crew had conked out from the stress of breaking Saturn’s gravity well, but a few of them eyed the device. Though none of them said anything, it made me nervous. On the Piccolo, no Ringer would ever rat out one of their own for doing something wrong, and I could only hope that extended to every crew.
“Here,” Rin said. A new message came through from Rylah, one letter at a time.
‘SOMETHING IS HAPPENING DOWN HERE. EVERY MEMBER OF THE TEAM WATCHING ME JUST LEFT IN A HURRY EXCEPT ONE. SEEMED URGENT. PERVENIO OFFICERS THROUGHOUT DARIEN ARE MOBILIZING.’
‘WHAT IS IT?’ Rin asked.
‘THE COLLECTORS LOCATED OUR BASE BENEATH THE Q-ZONE BEFORE WE GOT RID OF THEM, BUT SECURITY OFFICERS ARE GATHERING OUTSIDE OF THE MAIN Q-ZONE TRAM ON DARIEN LIKE THEY DON’T KNOW EXACTLY WHERE IT IS.
I noticed a shade of panic cross Rin’s face. ‘THE DOCTOR?’ she asked.
‘ESCAPED, SOMEHOW. HER PATIENTS ARE BEING EVACUATED THROUGH THE TUNNEL NETWORK. WHEN AND IF PERVENIO GETS THERE, ALL THEY’LL FIND IS ROCK.’
Rin breathed a sigh of relief. “Katrina will be fine, then,” she whispered to me. Though I didn’t know enough about what was going on to realize I should’ve been worried, I found her assurance oddly comforting.
‘WHAT’S YOUR STATUS?’ Rin asked.
‘I’LL HAVE MY WATCHER TAKEN CARE OF IMMEDIATELY,’ Rylah answered.
‘YOU HAVE FIVE AND A HALF HOURS TO BREACH THE SYSTEM AND PASS US OFF AS STAFF ABOARD A LUXURY CRUISER NAMED THE RING SKIPPER. CAN YOU GET IT DONE?’
‘I ALWAYS DO. TRANSMITTING NAMES NOW.’
“IDs,” Rin said to us.
We handed over the IDs stuffed into the pockets of the Ringer outfits we’d stolen. They were little more than transparent cards with a data-chip embedded in one corner, and the Pervenio Logo ghosted across the middle, like my real one had looked before it got left behind on the Piccolo. You received one for living in a colony run by Pervenio Corp.
Rin sent her sister each of the names. I was Gavin Davier, in case anybody asked me, which I doubted. Messing with IDs was supposed to be impossible, but I’d been finding that claim disproved a lot by the Children of Titan recently.
‘DO YOU NEED AN IMAGE OF KALE TO DOCTOR?’ Rin asked.
‘I’LL MAKE DO WITH WHAT I’VE GOT,’ Rylah replied.
I shot her a sidelong glare. Rin shrugged and typed: ‘YOU STRAND US WITH THESE AS IS AND WE’RE DEAD.’
‘YOU’LL BE FINE. CAN YOU MAINTAIN CONTACT THROUGHOUT?’
‘NOT WITH THIS TERMINAL. IT’S STOLEN AND A RISK. I’LL FIND A WAY BACK ONTO SOLNET. PREPARE A ROUTE.’
‘GOOD LUCK.’
As soon as the last message went through, Rin switched the device off and used her nails to pry out the power source. The nearest crew member peered at her over the top of her sanitary mask. Rin shot a scowl back at her, so piercing that the woman instantly turned her head and closed her eyes to pretend she was asleep.
“Better rest up,” Rin said, letting her head fall back.
“Don’t have to ask me twice,” Hayes replied. Gareth grunted his agreement.
I tried to take her advice, but I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Captain Saunders’s face before I locked him in the airlock. I thought I’d feel guiltier about condemning him to a slow death, even though he’d begged to die. I didn’t. I wondered if that was because he deserved what he got, or if I was no different from the people sitting on either side of me who’d murdered half of his crew.
Then I pictured Cora with the blood of a man she didn’t even know was her father being washed from her cheeks by tears, and I knew I would’ve done it the same way all over again.
Ever since I was sent off to work on the Piccolo, I’d felt out of control of my life, but that wasn’t completely true. I’d chosen to break into an Earther’s house, just like I’d chosen to do whatever it took to get my mom right. At every stop, I could’ve continued along like most people did, gone through the motions, made a simple living. But ever since I was a child, I’d reached into the darkness and grasped for more. I stole what I wanted to, snuck wherever I could, and lied when I had to. The truth was that I hated every second aboard the Piccolo, taking orders. I hated feeling like a cog in a wheel.
Was it the blood of Trass in me? Was that the only reason I’d decided to break prisoners out of Pervenio Station—to do the impossible? Or did I actually care?
“We are arriving at Pervenio Station,” the captain announced. “Please prepare for disembarking.”
Rin’s eyes snapped open like she’d been stirred from a nightmare. Hayes yawned awake and had to nudge Gareth a few times to get him to come to. My eyes stung from exhaustion. Five hours, yet I couldn’t quiet my mind enough to even nap for a few minutes.
No viewports were available to see into space in the Ringer holding area, but I felt the gentle pull on my body of the cruiser tilting to land on the inner face of the moon-station.
“We can’t keep this,” Rin said, wasting no time. She slapped the hand-terminal down on my lap.
“What do you want me to do with it?” I asked.
“Ditch it before we hit any scanners.”
I nodded and stowed it in my uniform. The ship halted, and then our restraints popped off. The soothing tug of near-Titan-level g drew my feet to the floor. I was sore as hell. The g-stims we’d taken had mostly worn off during transit, but even though it hurt to stand, I was glad to do it. My bones and muscles were built for similar conditions.
A Pervenio security officer appeared in the holding cabin’s doorway. “All right, everybody off!” he barked. “No dragging your feet.”
The Ringer crew stood with a collective groan. They were all as exhausted as I was, and if we were going to be punished for dragging our feet, the officer would’ve had to electrocute us all. We shuffled, one by one, out of the cabin and were escorted through the luxurious halls of the cruiser.
First, we stopped at the Ringer dorms so the crew could retrieve their baggage. Despite the majesty of the cruiser, they looked like oversized versions of the ones on the Piccolo. We waited to go in last and kept our heads down as we found the only four bunks with any unclaimed bags beneath them.
Then we set off for the main exit ramp, which, of course, was located on the far side of the cargo hold. My eyes darted from side to side as we entered, searching the scores of containers and racks for bodies, weapons, and armor. I was used to handling almost everything on my own during jobs, so it
was difficult not to feel anxious. I saw nothing, not even a speck of blood on the stark metallic floor. Hayes and Gareth had taken care of their end impeccably. They’d even reattached the vent cap we’d busted in through.
We passed the container Gareth had stuffed the first Ringer staff member we’d replaced into. I half-expected to hear the man banging on the inside to be freed, but it was silent. The thought that maybe Hayes and Gareth had taken care of things too excessively popped into my head, but I couldn’t afford to let it fester.
“Good as new, eh?” Hayes said, nudging me in the back. “Old Gareth loves moving shit.”
Gareth flicked him the middle finger in response. Then he stealthily reached into a nook between two containers and snagged the supply bag we’d brought over from the Sunfire so that we wouldn’t starve while we hid on the station. In its place, he dropped one he’d taken from the dorms.
“Stop it, you two,” Rin whispered. “Focus.”
The ramp exited into a massive hangar, larger than any I’d ever been in before. Deep trusses swept overhead, thirty meters into the air at least, their surfaces shining like they had been installed recently. I instinctually turned my head and gazed upon the cruiser in awe. From the atmosphere of Saturn, there was nothing to provide scale, but standing next to it, I realized how tremendous it was. Its top nearly scratched the ceiling, and it extended what had to be half-a-kilometer behind me. A true testament to Earther decadence.
“Focus,” Rin repeated directly into my ear.
I looked straight ahead. The Earther patrons were already waiting at the bottom of the ramp, preparing to pass through a security inspection post. The first thing I noticed was how light security was. Only two officers in addition to those who served on the Ring Skipper were present. The Piccolo’s hangar typically received at least three times that for a crew of only around forty.
The second thing was the plump Earther I’d robbed earlier. He stood with his arm around a woman, likely his wife, barely able to stand. I knew the symptoms. His cheeks were pale, and he appeared hungover enough to vomit at any moment. Drunks always made the easiest Earthers to pickpocket. He probably didn’t even remember he’d had his terminal on him and figured it was stowed in his baggage.
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 46
