“You don’t have to worry about that. You did well getting us here, Aria. Earthers needed to put a voice to a conflict so far away. Now they know we won’t bend. Whatever happens from here, they will start taking us seriously.”
We reached the doors of the Assembly Hall. USF officers had to shove a wall of Earthers aside so we could pass, then slammed it shut behind us. The Red Wing men hired to oversee the event filled the antechamber, rifles up and ready for anything, while some held back a wave of reporters at the entrance. The room at our back sounded like the galley on the Piccolo during a brawl.
“Mr. Trass, your belongings,” one of the Red Wing officers said to me. He handed me my hand-terminal and com-link, which I immediately shoved into my ear and switched on.
“That you, Kale?” Rin whispered through it.
“Kale… what are you really planning?” Aria asked, her voice trembling. Rin must have heard that because she was immediately comfortable enough to fill me in.
“We have him,” she said, smart enough not to use Basaam Venta’s name in case anybody was listening. “We had to dispense with some light security, but we weren’t seen. Gareth has us on a concealed route back to the Cora. Smooth sailing from here. I’m switching off coms until we’re on board.”
“You can tell me, Kale,” Aria implored. I was busy doing my best not to react to Rin’s news. “I may not approve of your aunt’s methods, but I do understand why you all might think violence is the answer.”
I ran my hand across Aria’s freckled cheek and looked her straight in the eyes. “I’m going to show them what they fear most. I promise you, the next time you discuss a treaty with Earth, it will be on our terms.”
I could tell by her expression that the next logical question was on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to ask it, but I wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the full answer. Aria believed that things could be handled fairly and with diplomacy—that was why I valued her so immensely as our ambassador. But she wasn’t Titanborn. She couldn’t understand, no matter how hard she tried. She didn’t know what it was like to have an entire race look down upon yours like the dirt stuck to their boots. Even though she was an illegitimate offworlder who grew up ostracized and without a clan-family to call her own, she could still easily blend in with the rest of them.
Before either of us uttered another word, footsteps clacked across the antechamber. Madame Venta was approaching, wearing excessively high heels like she had made it a point that I would never be able to gaze so far down upon her again.
“You have quite a flair for dramatics, Mr. Trass,” she said, her flamboyant entourage trailing closely behind her. “If I were you, I would have taken the deal.”
“Anything to benefit you, right?” I replied.
“Their blessing is just a formality. Every corporation exists under that same pretense, and you don’t seem naïve enough to think the USF makes any decision on their own.”
“My ambassador has made me very aware of how your world works.”
“Few have had such an intimate look.” She ambled closer, until there was barely half a meter between us. The sweet tang of her perfume accosted my nostrils. Her very presence silenced Aria and left her staring.
“If you don’t mind, Madame Venta, we have to go.” I took Aria’s hand and drew her around them, but both of Madame Venta’s sons moved to impede us. My guards rushed in front of me. The Red Wing men watching over the room stirred.
“My Chief Engineer at Europa went missing earlier,” Madame Venta said calmly. “He was supposed to be here. You wouldn’t happen to have seen him anywhere, would you?”
“Losing track of your own people now?”
“He’s not one to be late.”
“Always prompt,” Karl sneered.
“If I hear anything, I’ll be sure to pass it along,” I said. “Though I am an outsider here after all.”
“So you are,” Madame Venta said. “But she’s not.”
“She’s been with me this entire time. I wish we could be of more help, but we really must go.”
Again, I attempted to walk away. Madame Venta laid a hand on Aria’s shoulder. It wasn’t aggressive, but the way she did it made my blood boil. Like she owned her. “You should consider keeping better company, Aria,” she whispered. Her fingers slid up Aria’s collarbone toward her slender neck. Madame Venta stroked her once there tenderly; then she and her entire entourage marched in the other direction.
Aria released a breath as if she’d just been suffocating. We stopped outside of the elevator, currently being secured by Red Wing Company men.
“Ignore her, Aria. She’ll earn the same fate as Luxarn soon enough.” I took her wrist and stepped onto the lift, but she wriggled away.
“Kale, I… If you’ll allow it, I’d like to go see an old friend from Old Dome before we leave,” she said, standing just outside of the elevator doors with her thousand-meter stare still aimed toward where Madame Venta had been.
“It isn’t safe.”
“It is for me. It’s like Rin always says, I’m not one of you.”
“Aria, what’s wrong?”
“It’s…” She bit her lip, still unable to look at me. “I grew up here. There are people I haven’t seen in a long time. Places I’d like to say goodbye to. I have a feeling this is the last time I’ll ever be back.”
“You said yourself how dangerous it could be here.”
“I promise. I’ll be back in our hangar before you leave. Please, Kale, for me?”
Something was obviously troubling her, and it was more than what she’d seen between me and Trevor Cross. More than being a part of our failed meeting with the Assembly. I remembered leaving my home for the first time and boarding a gas harvester; the feeling that I might never come back. Now she was the same. An outsider.
If anybody understood how much someone needs time for themselves, away from judgment or responsibility, it was me. And even though I knew both Rin and Gareth would warn me not to let her out of my sights on a world owned by Earth, I trusted her. Aria could have fled the moment she found us interrogating Trevor, but she didn’t. She’d stuck by my side before the Assembly, and so I’d stand by hers.
“I understand,” I said as I blocked the elevator doors and held her by her slight shoulders.
“Thank you.” She leaned up on the balls of her feet and started to plant a kiss on my lips before realizing where we were and awkwardly shifting toward my cheek. It was too late. One of the relentless reporters at the building’s entry had slipped a recording drone in and caught us from across the room.
“By Trass!” Aria murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
I surveyed the antechamber. The drone zipped into the mob before anyone could stop it. Gone with a picture that’d earn thousands of credits. I thought I’d feel angry, but I didn’t. After the summit, I couldn’t care less what any Earther thought of me. If anything, my relationship with a non-Titanborn only proved we weren’t as shallow as they were.
“Don’t be,” I said. “Just try to be as quick as you can and keep your terminal on just in case. I’ll message you when we’re preparing for takeoff.” I addressed two of my guards. “Retrieve your weapons and stay with her. Keep her safe, or you’ll feel Titan’s air on your flesh.”
“Yes, Lord Trass,” they said.
“They’ll just draw attention,” Aria protested.
“They’ll accompany you, or you won’t go. Your face might be recognizable now after they air footage from this. Come upstairs and change into something plain.” I turned to the guards. “And both of you change into unmarked clothing so you all blend in like poor offworlders.”
Aria sighed and nodded meekly as she stepped onto the elevator. “All right, fine.”
The elevator doors shut, and we shot up through the building. Our meeting with the USF was officially concluded, and it went exactly how I’d expected it to. Exactly how Aria hoped against reason it wouldn’t. It was time to leave the stifling air and glittering tower
s of New Beijing behind, and thanks to Rin and Gareth, we wouldn’t leave empty-handed.
The elevator reached our floor. I stopped outside of Aria’s room. “Don’t be long, okay?” I said. “We can’t leave without you.”
“Rin wouldn’t mind,” Aria replied, smirking.
“I don’t know if I can handle her without you. I’ll see you so—” Before I could finish, she leaned up on the balls of her feet so she could reach my lips and kissed me. I wasn’t shy about returning the favor this time.
“We don’t have time,” I panted as our lips parted for a second.
“Stop. Your aunt’s finally not watching.”
Before I knew it, I was in her room, peeling off my armor. I couldn’t stop it, and after a few seconds, didn’t want to. Cora was timid the first and only night I’d had with her, but not Aria. I could barely breathe by the time she laid me on her bed. She grabbed my hand and ran it across her stomach, then around her narrow waist. That was the thing about Aria. We may have been around the same age, but whatever things Venta Co. had her do, she knew her way around a man. And she always took control, and in those few minutes of bliss, before the crushing weight of the world fell back upon me, I didn’t have to be.
Sweat dripped from my brow when our lips finally parted, and I lay back. Exerting myself so in gravity stronger than Titan’s had my chest heaving. She lay beside me, staring into my eyes.
“What was that for?” I asked.
“A thank you,” she said, not nearly as winded as me. “I don’t know why you really wanted to come to Mars, Kale, but thank you for letting me get you here.”
I propped myself up against the headrest. “Next time it will be different. You’ll see.” She rolled over and laid her head upon my chest, and I ran my fingers through her hair. For a moment, under the lights, a strand of it looked silvery like Cora’s had. I squeezed my eyes shut, and then it was red again.
“I’m sorry about what you walked in on earlier,” I said. “It wasn’t meant to go like that, but he gave us crucial information.”
“You still should have told me.”
I nodded in agreement. She was right. If I was going to preach to everybody about trusting her, I had to prove it myself. It was no different from how I lived in the Darien Uppers without a sanitary mask just to show my people it was safe.
“Whatever that business with the officer was, you’re better than that,” she said. “Maybe you don’t see it, or Rin or Gareth, but I do. I have since the day we met.” She ran her hand through my hair and stared straight into my eyes. “You’re not the monster Earth paints you to be, and you never will be.”
“Says the woman whose shot put him out of his misery without blinking.” I watched the color flee her cheeks as she sank backward. “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay. It’s being around my old employer is all. Makes me feel a little crazy.”
“That wasn’t your first time shooting somebody, was it?”
She shook her head.
“You made the right move, Aria. We saw a bit about his history on Pervenio Station logs. Venta or not, he’d done plenty to hurt our people in the name of hurting Pervenio profits. Enough to deserve what he got, but he gave us what we needed. He earned a quick end.”
I forced a smile then planted a kiss on her forehead. Anything to avoid staring into her eyes for too long. It was always the worst after we shared a bed—I’d see Cora in every little thing she did. No matter how much I begged my mind to stop and to focus on the incredible woman in front of me. The woman who’d sacrificed everything to help my people.
“You should really get going if we want to keep to schedule,” I said.
She drew a deep breath then kissed me one last time. “You’re right.” She hopped off the bed and went to her luggage to pick out a plainer dress to wear. The windows in my room were always tinted, but hers weren’t. Flashing vibrant lights from countless ads painted her glistening skin, emphasizing every one of her curves.
I couldn’t help but stare as she dressed. She wrapped her father’s Ark Ship pendant around her neck last, then straightened her outfit.
“Why do you help us?” I asked. I’m not sure why the questioned popped into my head then.
“Why do you let me?” she countered. She tightened her belt and made sure to show me that she had her hand-terminal on her. “I’ll see you on the Cora?”
“If you run into any trouble.”
“I’ll call your aunt.” She flashed me a smile, the kind that made her nose wrinkle in that particular way, then she headed out of the room.
I watched her until the door clicked shut, then dressed myself and headed back to my own room. The youngest of the guards Rin and Gareth hand-picked was posted outside my door, holding a covered dinner-plate. He had fair skin, even for a Titanborn, and hair so unnaturally blonde, the lights gave it a shimmer. A scar ran down from his jaw to his collarbone, no doubt from our revolution.
“Lord Trass.” He lowered his head in reverence. “Venta Co. had this sent up immediately following the summit. They wished to thank you for traveling such a long way.”
I lifted the lid, and a smell I hadn’t been privy to since Rin and I wound up serving Earthers dinner on a luxury cruiser greeted my nostrils. Freshly grilled meat.
“They said it was authentic, rare bovine meat from an animal farm on Earth,” he explained.
I raised the slab, red juice dripping all over the floor. A common source of sustenance before the Meteorite hit, now a rare delicacy. Just another thing Earthers like Madame Venta could hold over us. Few animals had survived the apocalypse, and while there were a few farms on Mars, low gravity left their meat tough and almost inedible, the stuff sold to food stands in the darker parts of cities.
I lifted the meat to my mouth, but the guard stopped me. “Lord Trass, it’s not healthy for us. My father snuck something like this from his Earther boss once and wound up in the Q-Zone a week later.”
I ignored him and tore a piece off with my front teeth. They were accustomed to soft greens and condensed ration bars, never anything so chewy. The taste was rich with flavors I couldn’t describe with any other word but smoky, as if someone had condensed the flaming halls of Pervenio Station after we stormed it into food.
I could understand why it was an Earther delicacy, unlike coffee or milk. They always had been proud to put their dominance on display, and what was more dominant than literally eating an animal? Slaughtering them. It was no different than stuffing my people into quarantines while they and their credits took over everything.
It was undoubtedly delicious, but nothing worth fighting over. None of their delights were. I slapped it back on the plate and replaced the lid.
“Toss it, and then thank our esteemed hosts,” I said. “It’s the last gift I’ll ever take from them.”
The young man bowed his head. “Right away, Lord Trass.”
I entered the room and sealed the door behind me, leaving me alone with the garish display of other foods and finery on the counter meant to make us rethink our ways. The rest of the room was spotless, with no evidence that Trevor Cross had ever been hanging upside down, bleeding.
I leaned my hand-terminal on the counter, sat in front of the screen, and contacted Rylah back on Titan. It took a few minutes to reach her over Solnet since we were so far, but eventually, her face popped up on screen. The sounds of industry roared in the background. Metal clanking. Engines humming. Her soft face was covered in soot.
“Lord Trass, I wasn’t expecting your call,” she said. “Is the summit over?”
“It is, and nothing’s changed, Rylah,” I said.
“How’s Aria? I tried to warn her that it would go like this.”
“She’s fine.”
“I know you’re lying. She really believed this summit might change things. She poured her soul into—”
“She’s fine, Rylah,” I interrupted. Sometimes she went out of her way to support Aria, I think b
ecause they were both born without an identifying race and struggled to fit in anywhere. Rin made it tough for our ambassador, and Rylah tried to ease the tension, but Aria could take care of herself well enough on her own.
“Listen to me,” I said. “I need ship production on Phoebe accelerated. Bring on as many capable hands as you can find.”
She hesitated for a moment before answering. “We’ll need more than that. Workers are still asking when they’ll receive some form of tangible payment for their overtime labor. Phoebe Station Production Manager Orson Fring has sparked some vocal protests over the lack of benefits.”
“I told you to offer improved housing in Uppers throughout Titan and extra rations.”
“Not all of them want to live up there where the air is fresh. I don’t know what else to offer. And we won’t have extra rations until we send all the Earther captives on the station back home. Let me provide the credits we’ve accumulated, for now.”
“They don’t need credits! We won’t be trading with Earth for a long time. Lower the rations for the Earther captives, and make our people understand that Titan needs them. We need to be prepared to fight back once the USF decides to take their next inevitable step.”
Rylah stifled a groan. “I’ll do what I can without starving the poor Earthers to death, and I’ll have your mother speak with Fring. She’s the more convincing of the two of us.”
“Good.”
“You should contact her, you know. She’s been asking about you constantly since the spaceport bombing.”
“I’ll talk to her when we’re back. For now, I want everyone focused on building Titan a fleet Earth will respect. They won’t hand us the Ring, Rylah. It’s time for us to prepare to hold it by force. All of it, not only what Luxarn stole.”
Fourteen
Malcolm
“Dad?”
Just like that, everything changed. Only one person would call me that. Maybe whoever said the word wasn’t talking to me. I didn’t know Aria’s voice well anymore. Seeing her one time in five years would do that. Maybe after what happened with Wai and a lack of sleep, I was hearing things.
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 71
