As I watched Aria provide Rin with subtle clues to prepare her for landing, I realized how hard it was to bear the sight of her in a navigator’s chair as well, no matter how much I trusted her. Especially the Cora’s.
The ship shook again, this time from breaching Mars’s thin atmosphere. Nobody seemed shocked by it. It was nothing like being bowled side to side by the stormy Titanian skies upon entry. Gravity pulled me tight against my seat, straining my lungs just a hair beyond their comfort level since I’d decided against injecting a g-stim.
“Unidentified vessel, you are intruding on the airspace of the USF and its affiliated corporations,” an operator spoke through our coms. “Venta Co. security has been dispatched and will be forced to fire if you do not reply.”
“What are they talking about, girl?” Rin asked.
“I… I don’t know,” Aria replied. “I submitted our transponder codes before we left.”
“See, Kale? This is the kind of sloppiness we can expect with an outsider in charge.”
“I swear, I sent them.”
“I altered the codes,” I said matter-of-factly. They gawked at me, but I leaned forward and gazed at the tremendous web of segmented domes stretching between and filling a collection of craters. “What's New Beijing like?” I asked Aria.
“Kale, what the hell were you thinking?” she questioned. “I know these people. They aren’t bluffing.”
“Watch your tone,” Rin interjected.
The boom of two fighters breaking the speed of sound on either side of the Cora made my bones chatter. Their bows were visible through the corners of the viewport. The dual white and blue overlapped V company logo was imprinted on their flanks.
“What’s the plan, Kale?” Rin said, struggling to keep her eyes straight ahead.
“What’s it like?” I asked Aria again.
“I repeat, identify yourself, or we will fire,” the Venta operator demanded.
Rin held our course and kept quiet. Aria’s eyes darted from side to side nervously as she clutched the pendant hanging from her neck. “It’s like anywhere else,” she said. “Clean on the surface, dirty underneath.” The fighters dropped behind us, and Cora’s advanced defensive matrix started beeping as they targeted us.
I couldn’t tear my gaze away from New Beijing. Every dome comprising the city extended toward the light. Their glass enclosures were tinted from radiation shielding and the diamond pattern of structural beams holding it up, but everyone below got to look up and see a real sky. The vast interiors were brimming with ad-covered skyscrapers and vertical layers of narrow hanging walkways. They were organized similarly to how the old cities of Earth I’d seen on documentaries were, only clustered more densely.
I’d heard about the great Martian domes, but seeing them was something else entirely. Only Earthers would be audacious enough to treat Mars like it was their homeworld. Just slap a lid over their ridiculous tower cities like a glass jar and be done.
“Kale!” Aria shouted.
I switched on our end of the coms. “This is Kale Trass requesting entry into the New Beijing Spaceport,” I said calmly, earning a collective gasp from Aria and the other stirred members of our crew who had gathered behind.
“M… Mr. Trass,” the operator stuttered. “My apologies, we didn’t realize the vessel belonged to you.”
“We’re having some trouble with our new transponder.”
“There is—” He paused, likely to speak with a supervisor. “No problem. Our fighters will escort you into your designated hangar to ensure your safety.”
And to make sure it’s really you, I knew he wanted to add. That settled the debate that had raged in my head while I sat alone throughout the journey. Hearing only my voice and name offered no certainty it was really me, but they couldn’t risk shooting us down or denying me entry. That meant they were starting to take us seriously enough to at least be cautious.
“It’s not smart to coerce them like that,” Aria scolded as the Venta Co. airships sped out in front of us. “Madame Venta isn’t known for her temperance.”
“I told you to watch your tone,” Rin bristled.
“Quiet, both of you,” I said. “I wanted to see how close the Cora’s stealth systems could get us before they noticed. In case we need to leave in a hurry.”
Rin obeyed for a few seconds, and then couldn’t help herself. “This better not be another trap, ambassador,” she muttered to Aria as if I wouldn’t hear her.
“If I wanted you dead, Rin, you’d have never left Titan,” Aria remarked. She didn’t wait for a response either. The moment the last word escaped her lips, she patted my aunt’s tense shoulder and drew herself out of the room.
I snickered. Rin shot me a sidelong glare. “She’s lucky I’m flying.”
“None of us are lucky for that,” I replied.
The Cora suddenly banked so hard around the crest of a bulbous, barren mountain that my stomach lurched. Judging by how smoothly the ships leading us made their approach to New Beijing, it wasn’t an accident. Turbulence was as alien to Mars as we were.
“You shouldn’t encourage offworlders to talk to us like that,” Rin advised. “Kale, are you listening? I don’t care who they are or what they’ve done in the past. Earth’s authority this far into the solar system is strong.”
Our ship leveled out and headed straight for an open portion of a smaller dome bulging from the side of New Beijing’s main one. I unfastened my restraints and stood.
“How I missed your lectures while you were asleep,” I muttered. As a fellow Trass and experienced combat leader, Rin answered to nobody but me. I valued her opinion more than anybody’s, but Aria’s position within our fledgling administration had been our first disagreement.
“I’m serious,” she said. “You let one of them in close, they’ll spread like a sickness. Just like last time.”
“Well, this one got us a meeting with the USF Assembly. She’s given as much as any of us for the cause. Besides, even you know we need her.”
Rin rolled her shoulders. “For now.”
“Just try and pretend you can stand them at least a little bit. I have a feeling this will be the only meeting we get. For now, they have to see we come in peace.”
“You’re right. I’ll just keep my mouth shut and let the Earther… offworlder… whatever the hell she is, speak for me.” She licked the corner of her lip, and I could see the side of her tongue wriggling through the crater in her cheek.
Her support was always welcome, but maybe keeping her mouth shut was a good idea for now. Diplomacy wasn’t her specialty. Plus, I could remember how terrified I was the first time I laid eyes on Rin. Even in a sanitary mask, there was no way to completely hide the horrors of what Earthers had done to her.
And now we were about to arrive on a planet full of them.
Six
Malcolm
Sol was filled with rotten and fuzzy memories. Everywhere I considered going in my retirement, I could think of a job that got ugly, a night that got out of hand, or a hotel where my daughter looked disappointed when I smuggled her in. I guess that’s what happens when you get to be my age. No matter where you go, the past is lingering to haunt you.
So I searched for a place that was still a part of civilization where I could disappear easiest. I settled on New Beijing, Mars. Of all the shit memories I had, at least a handful of the good ones came from there. The expansionist propaganda rampant on Earth would drive me to put a gun in my mouth if I stayed there too long. Development around Jupiter was happening too rapidly to relax. I’d seen too many asteroid colonies busted open or wither when their wealth dried up to choose one of them. And the Ring... I’d rather board a Departure Ark out of the galaxy than go back there, even if it wasn’t a war zone.
New Beijing it was.
The city both where my daughter was illegitimately born to a streetwalker and where I’d lost her. A city mostly free from that damn Pervenio logo I’d spent too much of my life honoring. N
ews feeds all portrayed the grandeur of New Beijing with its vast domes, shiny towers, and cascading garden terraces. It was home to some of the wealthiest people, most elegant hotels, and best entertainment venues in Sol. Of course, that was all above surface level. The parts of New Beijing I knew best were where I’d once operated. In the shadows. I’d spent so long hunting offworlders that, ironically, they wound up being the people I felt most comfortable around.
Every city came with its own seedy underbelly, but few were on par with New Beijing’s. Everything sandwiched between the main-level avenues and the expansive subway subterranean tram and sewer network were once covered by the city’s original lower domes before they were radically extended. Rusty, amalgamated structures bridged the major walkways as more and more people were shoved down toward the planet’s surface. They called the place Old Dome, and it boasted some of the best and grubbiest gambling dens, clubs, and streetwalkers a person could buy.
Over-crowded, Venta-run, there was no better place for a retired old Pervenio collector like me to stay off the grid.
Too many years removing targets for Pervenio had left me with more enemies than I probably knew I had. And I couldn’t be sure whether or not Luxarn would have me taken out just to be safe. As if I knew anything that really mattered. He put on a pleasant face when we parted ways, but men didn’t get to be as rich as he was if they weren’t good actors.
It didn’t take me long on the Red Planet to find the hole I’d likely spend the rest of my life in. A little bar buried so far in Old Dome you could almost smell the rank of the sewers if you stepped outside. It shared a wall with one of the city’s larger Redline Stations, the crisscrossing New Beijing subways. That meant constant rumbling within and a steady flow of homeless offworlders desperate for a place to sleep. Yeah, the Twilight Sun was my kind of dump.
They needed a new bouncer at their door, and since I’d apparently invested decades of collector service into a new leg I didn’t ask for, I still needed credits despite retiring. The job made me wonder why I hadn’t dragged my old bones into similar work sooner. There wasn’t any glory in it and sure as hell no thrill, but I finally wasn’t seeking any of that. In exchange for sitting at the door and making sure things stayed quiet in a place that usually had more tables than patrons, my new boss let me live in one of the apartments upstairs and drink as much as I liked. Enough to stop picturing poor Zhaff floating in that tube from time to time. It offset the garbage pay too.
The Twilight Sun tried to instill some old-world oriental charm with its bracketed faux-wood bar and the old ink paintings dotting the walls. They depicted ferocious beasts long extinct and serene landscapes the Meteorite ensured were now impossible, yet all of it was discolored or scratched. Even the sliding paper walls at the private booths were too torn to provide real seclusion, not that anyone was paying to use them. The owner hadn’t put a credit into the place in years. Probably why he had to hire a gunman with no resume for the door. At least, not one I could elaborate on.
I raised the rim of a bottle to my mouth and leaned my head all the way back to coax out the last few drops of whiskey. I sighed. A lackluster month and a half had passed since I had taken the job, and all I’d accomplished was building my already impressive tolerance. From my seat by the front door, I had a great view of Wai, the only dancer the bar could afford to keep on the payroll. She was on the cracked stage behind the bar, wearing a skimpy leotard and a conical hat with blue beads falling from the brim to conceal her face.
She was a pretty young thing, with soft skin and almond-shaped eyes as deep brown as wet soil. A sewer girl just like Aria’s mom. Too green for me, though, and too skinny. Her ribs protruded like the keys of a piano. All I could think about while watching her was ordering her a ration bar or three.
The night was so far gone only one patron was left watching her. The slovenly, gray-bearded man synced credits to the hand-terminal set upright by her nimble feet. He could hardly keep his swaying head up, and by then, she wasn’t doing much more than wiggling her hips to eerie, atmospheric string music. When the song came to an end, the man reached out and stroked her calf.
My bottle dropped with a loud clank, and I stumbled toward her, using every table en route to steady myself. Intoxication limited my brain’s ability to communicate with my artificial leg so that I could walk straight. That was what Doc Aurora had warned me about at least. I’m reasonably confident a full bottle of Martian whiskey would’ve had any man stumbling no matter what kind of legs he boasted.
“It’s time to close,” I said to the man.
He turned his head slowly, eyes lagging behind. “No, it ain’t.” He was slurring worse than I was. “I’m just getting started.”
My hand fell toward my pulse pistol, the only friend I had left. He watched it, then started to chuckle.
“What’re you gonna do? Shoot me over watchin’ some sewer trash?” he asked.
“No. I’m going to shoot you so I can get some damn sleep.” I grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him toward the door. Another good part about Old Dome. I was an Earther, and scrawny offworlders like him were easy to push around.
“Alright, alright,” he said as he bumped a chair. He turned to say something else, hiccupped instead, and then continued on his winding path toward the door straight ahead.
“What the hell was that?” Wai said, visibly irritated. “He was still paying.”
“Was he? Didn’t realize.” I slumped into his vacated seat and eyed his ale. It didn’t look like he’d even taken a sip, so I took one for myself. Warm and metallic, like everything else on tap in the Twilight Sun.
“Lǎo wán gù!” she cursed in an ancient, oriental dialect still championed by the poor folk of New Beijing. “You weren’t getting enough sleep over there?”
“Why are you even still here, Wai?”
“You know why. I guarantee your old Earther pigu hasn’t ever had to sleep a night in the sewers.”
I smirked. I remembered plenty of such nights, more than a few with Aria’s mom or with Aria herself when I dragged her around on jobs.
“You could be dancing at one of the big corporate dens, you know,” I said. “You’re good enough. Got the looks. You’d make a hell of a lot more.”
“And be asked to do a hell of a lot more.” She twirled on the stage once before falling back into the couch across from me. She had a robe waiting in it, which she pulled over her body so that only her thin, pasty legs were showing.
“Can I have one more before we close? Synth, strong.” She waved to the owner, who didn’t have the money to hire a human bartender, let alone one of Pervenio’s new service bots. Yan Ning was as old and ragged as I was. If I had to guess, I’d take him for an ex-security officer on some run-down asteroid mine. Without a nod or acknowledgment, he filled a glass with the most fluorescent yellow liquid you could imagine and carried it over to her.
“You’re locking up, Haglin,” he grumbled to me.
My brow furrowed; then I remembered. Sometimes I drank too much and forgot my fake name. I didn’t care if anybody knew who I was, but something was appealing about disappearing where even Luxarn Pervenio couldn’t find me. It made it easier to relax. Setting up a fake credit account and passable ID with a gun-carrying license wasn’t too tough. I still had a few connections on Mars who owed a favor.
“Sure thing, boss.” I saluted. I wondered if he had any idea how much of Sol I’d seen to know how ridiculous it was every time I called him that.
The room started to tremble as a subway train raced underground, kicking up dust and making the lights rattle. Yan Ning waited until it passed before placing Wai’s colorful drink in front of her and heading out without a word. She took a long sip. Her lips scrunched as the awful-tasting synthahol went down, but after the initial shock, she sank back into the couch and made herself comfortable.
“I’ve known Yan Ning since I was a girl,” Wai said. “I like it here. Everyone keeps their hands to themselves mostly or drinks
so much that I can do it for them. And it’s quiet.”
I tipped my glass toward her. “We can agree on that.”
One of her eyebrows lifted. “You really think a corps-den would hire me, though?”
“Sure.”
“How much would you pay, lǎo tóuzi?”
“That’s tough. Maybe the rest of this warm beer?”
“Earther pig!”
I smirked. Wai had a mouth on her. If I didn’t know better, I might think I’d fathered another illegitimate daughter on Mars. I found myself staring as she raised her drink again. The way the dim lighting struck the sphere of ice inside it suddenly caused a glimmer of a yellow like Zhaff’s eye lens to touch her eyes.
The glass slipped from my hand, and a healthy portion spilled before I caught it. I coughed a few times, squeezed my eyelids tight, and when I reopened them, the yellow was gone.
“Okay, lǎo tóuzi, I think you’ve had enough to drink.” She went to grab the glass, but I pulled back.
“I’m fine!” I objected then realized I’d snapped. “Sorry. Never come between an Earther and his drink.”
She wasn’t bothered by my tone. Instead, her gaze had wandered to my leg. The attempt at catching the glass had caused my pants leg to raise enough to spot my artificial ankle above a shoe I didn’t need to wear.
“You weren’t always a bouncer, were you?” she asked, wide-eyed.
I quickly fixed my clothing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Please. I may be from the sewers, but I’m not stupid. Nobody down here can afford gāo kējì like that, and the ones that can are running from something.”
“Running,” I snickered. “If only. What does it matter to you?”
“It doesn’t, but you cost me credits tonight. I think I at least deserve to hear a good story to make up the time since you only pay in old beer.”
I stood and chugged the rest of the ale. “I’ll tell you what, when you find your way out of this shithole, I’ll tell you.”
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 60
