I floundered along the floor. By the time I located my gun and spun around, they were all gone. I stumbled to the balcony overlooking the Tongueway. The people out there who’d somehow missed the excitement all surrounded me, asking if I was okay. I ignored them and searched the nighttime crowds. The head Venta collector in the duster was easy to spot across the street. They were on their way to a parked hover-car, Aria’s body hanging limply over the partner’s shoulder.
Even though I was in a fog, I didn’t hesitate. I launched myself over the railing and bent my human leg so that only the synthetic one slammed on the street. I didn’t tuck cleanly into a roll like my younger self might’ve, but I found my way to my feet and gave chase.
I wasn’t going to lose her. Never again.
Fifteen
Kale
A Red Wing Company airship transported us to the New Beijing Spaceport in the dead of night. The upper portion of the city appeared lifeless minus the ads, but lights pulsed from clubs and other nightlife venues down in Old Dome below the main throughways. Like back in Darien where I grew up, the Earthers who designed the city kept the more dubious venues buried. Down there in what Aria referred to as Old Dome, New Beijing was a sleepless city.
That was where she still remained, and neither she nor the guards I’d sent with her had answered any messages since I let her venture there. She’d told me she’d grown up there, scrumming for food in the tremendous sewer lines and subway tunnels. I couldn’t imagine what I was thinking letting her leave my side. She was far too important. If anybody recognized her…
“We’re here,” our pilot said, snapping me out of it.
I was overthinking things as usual. Aria could handle herself, I’d learned that well enough. If she could deal with Rin, she could deal with any strung-out offworlder in Old Dome looking for a quick payday. Nobody else would dare risk making so public a move.
My guards led me outside, where the Red Wing presence on our newly assigned landing pad was overwhelming. A quick peek into the concourse revealed that not a single civilian remained within the spaceport dome itself.
“There won’t be any trouble this time, Mr. Trass,” Captain Barnes from Red Wing security said as he met me outside the terminal. He bore only a few scratches on his already grizzled face as a result of the explosion.
“I hope not,” I answered, a harsh edge creeping into my tone. We were halfway through the station when he decided to speak up again.
“The board extends its gravest apologies for what happened,” he said. “There will be no more Venta interference from here on out. Remember, Mr. Trass, when the Red Wing Company security branch gets hired, we honor our agreements, no matter what.”
“And what kind of offer would it take to get you to change your mind?”
Barnes looked appalled. “It would never happen, sir. We aren’t like Venta dogs chasing after the highest bid. We were hired to keep you safe during your visit, and we failed. The board would like to offer recompense for the trauma our shortcomings caused you and your people as well as the two Titanborn lives claimed by the attack. They hope you will find the time to contact them and discuss what you might require to make your organization whole.”
“I’m a very busy man these days.”
“Please, sir. We pride ourselves on customer satisfaction and loyalty.”
I exhaled. I’d had very few good experiences with his kind, but most of them still didn’t refer to us as Titanborn. I hoped that meant something regarding his honesty. “Tell whoever is in charge that I’ll be in contact when I can,” I said.
“The board votes together on all matters of importance, but they will be eager to speak with you.” We stopped outside the entrance to our private hangar, where the Cora waited patiently to carry us home. The captain stuck out a hand for me to shake, realized his mistake before I had a chance to react, and pulled it back. He bowed instead. “Thank you for your understanding, Mr. Trass.”
“Keep this hangar under lockdown until we’re gone. I don’t want another soul within one hundred meters without consulting me.”
“Of course.”
Barnes allowed my escort and me in, then shut the gate behind us and started relaying orders to his men. Rin and the Titanborn we’d left with the Cora were finishing loading supplies. Two others lay on gurneys, wrapped in body bags, thanks to the bombing. None of my people were getting left behind. The ashes of the dead would be loosed upon the winds of Titan, where they were meant to be.
“I trust the meeting went as expected?” Rin shouted down from the entry ramp.
“As if you’d scripted it,” I replied.
“Trass-damned mudstompers. Don’t know when they’re beat.”
“Do you have him?”
“Even better.”
Her sanitary mask lifted from a smirk beneath as she helped me up the ramp. Inside the cargo bay, three people with bags over their heads were on their knees in front of Gareth. Basaam Venta, the chubby man in the center, was clearly born of Earth, but the unfamiliar women on either side of him bore the slighter builds of offworlders.
“The one on the right is his clan-relative,” Rin said.
“Caught them in his hotel room trying to legally conceive,” Gareth signed. “A bit of vacation romance.”
“And the other?” I asked.
“An illegitimate from the sewers. Apparently, she was along for the ride.”
“Earthers…” Rin groaned.
I tore the bag off Basaam’s head. Messy graying hair tumbled out over his shoulders. He and Madame Venta couldn’t have been groomed more oppositely. His shaggy beard was a mess, his skin brown like caramel. The only thing they had in common was that, like her, ancient-style spectacles sat on the ridge of his nose, fogged by grime from his journey up.
I removed the sanitary mask strung tight over his mouth to muffle his cries. “What is the meaning of this?” he coughed. He fixed his glasses and glared at me, eyes magnified by the thick lenses. “Kale Trass? Does Madame Venta know about this? Your employees violated more codes of conduct than I can list. Do you—”
I placed a finger over his mouth. Words spewed forth from his lips so fast that his tongue could hardly keep up. Many considered him one of the brainiest men in Sol, and it showed.
“They aren’t my employees,” I said.
“Well, in any case, this is not proper business etiquette,” he said. “I presume your meeting with the USF didn’t go how you’d hoped. If you think taking me can convince Madame Venta to sway the opinion of the entire Assembly, you are in dire need of education.”
“He’s been blathering on like this since we grabbed him,” Rin groaned.
“I’m being reasonable!” Basaam countered. “When she finds out you took me—”
“We’ll be too far for her to do anything about it,” I said. “Your head of security is already dead, so I suggest you shut your mouth if you plan not to join him.”
He swallowed hard and fiddled more with his glasses. “What do you want?” he asked finally.
“You’re developing engine prototypes for your upcoming Departure Ark. Is that correct?”
“Yes. Fusion pulse engines, until I can think of a better name. They utilize supercritical fusion pulses of hydrogen-boron for propulsion, resulting in exponentially faster acceleration and top speeds that dwarf the best current ion-impulse drive tech. Nearly impossible to stabilize the plasma flow, but less reliance on our gas giant’s rare assets.”
“He didn’t ask for a report,” Rin bristled.
“Does it work?” I asked.
“Of course it does!” Basaam attested. “I invented it. We will be unveiling the prototype at this year’s M-Day celebrations on Earth after we are undoubtedly chosen to design the Ark. This is all public knowledge, Mr. Trass, so if you kidnapped me simply to ask these questions, then I suggest you employ someone capable of utilizing Solnet.”
“Place them in sleep pods,” I said to Gareth. “We have what we came here fo
r.”
Gareth immediately grabbed both Basaam and his clan-relative by their collars. Another Titanborn took the unfortunate streetwalker who shared their bed, and together they dragged the three toward the ship’s central corridor.
“Wait!” Basaam blurted. “What do you want with me? You release us, and I promise I can make it worth your while. Weapons tech. That’s what you’re after, right? For your war.”
I raised a hand to halt Gareth. “Pervenio left us all the weapons we need,” I said. “All I need are your fusion drives.”
“Fusion pulse engines,” he corrected, the word trailing off at the end as if he’d spoke purely out of impulse.
I bit my lip. “I need you to construct an operational version for me on Titan.”
“B…but I can’t,” he stammered.
Rim seized him. “Why not?”
“The technology is still too volatile to be used on any vessel smaller than the Ark we’re designing! You’d blow yourself to pieces. As a registered doctor, I cannot be party to that, no matter how poorly you treat me.”
“It isn’t your concern what we’re using them for,” I said.
“Regardless, I have none of my research. She broke my hand-terminal in my room, and even that isn’t enough. Have you somehow transmitted my research from Martelle Station over Europa to Titan? Captured all my assistants? How do you expect me to build anything from scratch?”
My features darkened. “You’ll find a way.”
“In a few years, perhaps. But I’ve been working on this tech for almost a decade. Even my memory isn’t that prodigious.”
“That’s too long,” I said.
“You’re lying,” Rin snapped at Basaam.
“I’m not!” he answered. “Starting from scratch, in a new lab, with new technicians? I’ll be lucky if I ever get it working.”
“You’ll do what we ask, or your friends here will have a difficult time enjoying their vacation.”
“How dare you threaten them!” he yelled, spit dribbling down his beard. The shrill tone of his voice rendered his attempt at intimidation laughable.
“What is it with you Earthers?” Rin asked. “One woman isn’t enough?”
Gareth playfully smacked Basaam in the back of the head, then signed, “What. He’s not your type, Rin?”
“I wasn’t born on Earth,” Basaam said.
“Well, you’re fat enough to have been,” Rin said. The insult made him huff. “Lord Trass has given his orders. You all enjoy your sleep. Hopefully, after our long, long flight, you’ll have a change of heart.”
She waved Gareth to take him.
“You’re asking the impossible! See reason, Mr. Trass!” Basaam and the two women kicked and squirmed, screaming at the top of their lungs for help until they disappeared around the corner. Rin turned to me and scratched her scarred jaw through her mask.
“The Cora is ready for departure when you are,” she said. “Everything is loaded up.”
“Not everything,” I said.
“Oh, right. Where is our former doctor?”
“Coming. She had some affairs to see to before she leaves Mars behind for good.”
“Well, she’s late.”
“She worked hard to organize all this, Rin. You weren’t in there. To see everything unravel… her own people dismissing us like common protestors. I know you don’t think she cares.”
“But she’s late. You realize who we have in our cabin, right, Kale? He’s the most vital cog in Venta Co. right now besides his clan-sister. We got lucky the bombing distracted everyone enough to snatch him easy, but if Aria doesn’t hurry, our luck will run out.”
“Lord Trass,” one of my guards interrupted us from the base of the cargo ramp.
“What!” I growled.
“Y… you need to come immediately.”
My heated glare lingered on Rin a few seconds longer, then we followed him out into the hangar. Captain Barnes waited by the gate, holding a hand-terminal. The room’s temperature was to his kind’s preference, yet sweat matted his hair to his forehead.
“Mr. Trass,” Barnes said anxiously. “May I?” He held out the screen, refusing to cross the gate threshold without my permission.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s Madame Venta, sir. She filed an urgent request to speak with you.”
“About what?”
“Spit it out!” Rin hissed.
“Ask her yourself.” Barnes handed me the device, then quickly retreated.
I took a moment to compose myself before rotating the screen to face me. Madame Venta’s smug face was right in the center, hair pulled into a tight bun like she was about to tend a garden.
“Mr. Trass,” she said, smiling. “Just when I thought we could be friends.”
“We’re preparing to leave, Madame, so make it quick.”
“You kids have forgotten the value of a good conversation. One day I’ll teach you how to play the game.”
“Is that really why you called?”
“I know who you have.” Her pleasant tone quickly eroded. “I don’t know why, and I don’t care, but I’m giving you one chance to hand him over. I’ll consider it a rash act of impulse because of how the summit went, or because you fear his new engines may one day render Saturn’s gases obsolete. We can continue on as we were.”
I didn’t provide Rin the luxury of a look, though I knew her expression was probably saying “I told you so.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I addressed Madame Venta.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” she said.
Madame Venta handed the device to her son Fern, who cackled like a maniac as he crossed the room. He spun the camera around so that I could see a woman, shackled to a wall naked but for the pendant hanging from her neck. Not just a woman—Aria. The mop of auburn hair atop her head gave it away first, rumpled by her captors, then the pendant hanging from her neck. She wasn’t bleeding or bruised, but she lurched when she saw me, her limber figure arching toward the camera as she struggled to pull herself free.
“Kale!” she screamed. “Don’t listen to anything she says!” The rest of her words were muffled when Karl Venta slapped his hand over her mouth. She tried to bite it, but he cursed and slapped her before getting a tighter grip.
Madame Venta took the camera back. “You know, after I found out about Basaam, I found myself wondering how to possibly get to you when it seems you won’t listen to anybody. Then I caught an early glimpse at a story cover featuring the little show you two put on outside the USF elevator, and it hit me.”
“What’s she talking about, Kale?” Rin asked.
I ignored her. “If you hurt her,” I said, seething.
“I have a hard time damaging something so fair.” She moved to Aria’s side and ran the tip of her finger down her neck and over her breasts. Aria squirmed. “But sometimes, exceptions have to be made.”
“Get your filthy hands off her!”
“Give me Basaam!” Madame Venta snarled. She grabbed Aria by the throat and shoved her face into the screen. “It is only out of respect for her former service to me that she still has all her fingers.”
“I warned you, Kale,” Rin whispered. “I told you we needed to leave.”
“Let Aria go!” I demanded. “Or I swear to you—”
“That you’ll what?” Madame Venta scoffed. “That you’ll fucking what? You’re in way over your head, boy. Give me Basaam, and she’ll be returned in one piece. You have five minutes to decide; otherwise, I might start cutting things off.” Madame Venta rubbed Aria’s slightly swollen stomach, a bump still so subtle it was only visible while she was naked. “Or out.”
The feed cut out just as Aria was able to squeeze a shriek through Karl’s fingers. Without intending to, my strong grip cracked the screen of the device.
“You should have kept her by your side,” Rin said crossly, but as my breathing started to hasten, her stance softened. She laid a hand on my sho
ulder. “I know you’re close to her, but we can’t risk everything for one offworlder. The Cora is faster than any ship they’ve got. We should leave now while Red Wing Company still backs us.”
I couldn’t get words out. I could hardly breathe.
“If you’re right about her, she’d be happy to give herself for our cause,” Rin continued. “Besides, that Earther bitch is all talk. They have history. She’s one of the agents who Rylah first contacted for us years ago to set up supply exchanges with Venta Co. Madame Venta won’t just kill her. She’ll keep using her to get Basaam back until we don’t need the fat slob anymore.”
“She has my son!” I bellowed.
“What are you talking about?”
I clutched my chest, trying my best to steady my breathing. Rin wrapped her hand around my back to support me but was flung away as I punched the wall of the hangar as hard as I could. The bang nearly made Captain Barnes jump out of his armor, and Gareth immediately bounded down from the Cora to see what was wrong.
“My son...” I whispered. “Aria has him.”
“What are you saying?” Rin clutched my face and stared deep into my eyes.
“Rin, listen to me. Aria is carrying him. The heir to Titan.”
“Why… why didn’t I…” She stumbled backward. I’d never seen her appear so flabbergasted by anything. If Gareth hadn’t arrived in time to brace her, she might have collapsed.
“It wasn’t planned, but it’s the truth,” I said.
We’d found out shortly before the raid on Director Lawrence and the Luxury Cruiser. Being illegitimate meant she didn’t get the Birth Control medications distributed to USF citizens without reproduction clearance.
I wasn’t lying to Rin; her getting pregnant wasn’t intended, but little with Aria ever was. I could still remember her face when she called me from the new Hayes Memorial Hospital to tell me about the tests she’d run on herself. It took me a few minutes to formulate words, but her—it was like her whole life had changed. Like the piece she’d been missing had come back to her.
In that moment, our occasionally nightly fling when both of us wanted to feel something became so much more. She started wanting to talk about things, and I did my best to open up—to see her, and not the woman Pervenio took from me. I wasn’t sure if it’d been working until now that she was taken. All I could think about was getting her back, how she’d walked before the USF Assembly and stood up for us when so few would.
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 73
