“Now you know,” I said. “Let us leave together. I promise, you won’t ever see us again. Or better yet, take me if that’ll make you feel better and let Aria go. The summit is over, so you can stop pretending to want peace. She’ll disappear. She may be telling you the truth, but she’s not one of you. Never will be.”
“That’s for damn certain,” Rin added.
Sparks flew by the entry gate as the Venta Co. officers outside got to work cutting through. Kale averted his gaze from us and grabbed the Red Wing captain by the arm. I studied Rin as he did. If I wanted to make a move on her, now was the time to do it. Venta had them distracted, and Kale was clearly stalling to sort out his feelings.
“Captain, you said your board wished to remunerate us?” he asked.
“They do,” the Red Wing man replied.
“Make contact, then. Venta Co. is conspiring with their old rivals to kill me. I fear we won’t escape the planet’s gravity well without support. Ask them to scramble fighters to ensure Madame Venta doesn’t shoot us down. Do that, and we’ll be even for all of this.”
“Sir… that is a direct act of hostility. The board—”
“This is a third attempt on my life here! If your board denies us, I will see it as proof that your company is also involved, and all shipments will stop. Get it done, Captain.”
The hole in the gate was nearly cut. After taking a few seconds to think things through, the captain wisely drew his hand-terminal to make the call while leading his remaining officers toward the entry.
“We can’t waste any more time, Kale,” Rin said harshly. “Our lives are in the hands of Earthers now, thanks to our lovely ambassador.”
“Listen to her, kid,” I said. “Just give the word, and we’re out of your hair for good. Easy.”
A deafening bang preceded the hangar gate falling inward. A line of Venta Co. officers appeared on the other side. The Red Wing captain and what little remained of his unit stood their ground and refused the orders to step aside. Kale’s surviving guards swarmed us to form a semicircle in front of their leader. The Ringer from the Twilight Sun signed something to him, still upright despite an ample amount of blood dripping from his shoulder and stomach that nobody seemed to be concerned about.
Kale nodded. “Unfortunately for you, I still need her,” he said to me, finally, his voice hoarse. “Rin, do—”
“Please!” Aria urged. “What would you do to have a second chance with the father who left you behind?”
Kale’s stony curtain slipped fully from its hooks. For all his projected bravado, he appeared completely overwhelmed. Every bit the inexperienced young man playing leader that he was. Aria was smart enough to see it, appealing to one sentiment every son or daughter with an estranged parent could understand no matter what world they were born on. It only pained me knowing she’d learned that lesson from me.
“Take him with us onto the Cora, Rin,” Kale decided. He clutched Aria’s hand, his glare hardening again as he regarded her. “We can use him. For better or worse, he’s family now.”
Somehow, being referred to as family with the king of the Ringers wasn’t the strangest thing about what he said. The Cora? I couldn’t help but feel like the name of Kale’s surprisingly advanced ship meant something to me.
“More Earther stowaways,” Rin grumbled. She shoved my pistol against my spine and pushed me toward the ship. “Let’s go, Collector. One wrong move and you’ll spend your days on Titan drinking through a straw.”
She smacked me in the back of the neck with my own gun before I could come up with a witty response and had me seeing stars. I stumbled forward, and when my vision cleared, I saw Aria with Kale and realized how badly I’d misinterpreted things. She wasn’t purely an ambassador or a friend. Just like the last time Aria and I were on Mars together, some six or seven years back, I’d come between her and a lover. They exchanged an unmistakable look—the kind that could only be swapped between two people who’d shared a bed—before they and the rest of Kale’s escort followed us.
Stupid old man, I cursed myself. I’d played my hand all wrong in thinking Kale only needed my daughter to arrange this summit because she wasn’t a Ringer. Even worse, I’d already handed him my best card by revealing where Luxarn was. Now I remembered why retiring seemed like the best plan for me back on Undina. Ever since Zhaff, I was covered in rust that I couldn’t shake.
A gunshot echoed.
The Red Wing captain toppled over. The Venta Co. officers finally realized Kale was exposed. They mowed down the rest of the Red Wing men, and we were next. Kale’s guards opened fire as they grabbed their king and rushed him into his ship.
“Move! Onto the Cora!” Rin barked.
Again, that name clung to my thoughts like a parasite and froze all my other functions, until Rin pushed me up the ramp as hard as she could. She then turned to help Kale and Aria up. Bullets clanged and hissed against the ship’s hull, a few buzzing into the cargo bay, which was basically empty minus a line of Ringer bodies. I quickly counted at least five of them. Kale’s surviving guards formed a wall at the entry while the ramp rose, returning fire as it sealed with a snap and hiss. One of the guards slumped to his knees face-first against it, a thick trail of blood snaking down the shiny surface. Dead.
“Everyone to the cockpit!” Kale ordered. “It’s time to go.”
The mute Ringer from the Twilight Sun signed something in my direction. His bleeding had stopped, but his breathing was labored.
“No, Gareth,” Kale said. “I want your eyes on him at all times.”
Rin passed me off to him, and we all set off down the ship’s winding corridors. It didn’t take more than a few steps in to realize that I was in a former Pervenio vessel. The clean lines, sleek surfaces, and top-end materials were evidence enough of that. Aria was up ahead with Kale, and I struggled to catch a glimpse of her with Rin and the other Ringers in between.
“I’m flying,” Rin said once we reached the spacious trapezoidal cockpit. An injured Ringer posted at the controls limped out of the way.
Flying ships had never been my specialty, but even after a lifetime around Pervenio equipment, that cockpit remained alien. Glittering holographic screens and informational readouts blinked from all over. The best of technology, along every wall and under the sweeping viewport. At first, I’d figured this was merely a stolen gas harvester, but it was clear Kale had taken something valuable to my former employer—a prototype ship the likes of which Sol had never seen.
Rin reached for one of the two navigation chairs nearest the viewport, but Kale towed her back. “Aria’s flying.”
“Her?” Rin said.
“Now isn’t the time,” Kale said, a harsh edge to his tone. “She’s our best pilot.”
“She’s the whole reason we’re in this mess.”
“Would you two stop it already!” Aria snapped. She covered her mouth to suppress a racking fit of coughs, which must have been contagious because I did the same. The radiation sickness was getting worse.
“She’s sick,” Rin said. “She needs treatment, right now. You know why.”
“If we don’t make it off, it won’t matter!” Aria said. “There are too many people on this ship I care about to let you fly. I’ll last.” Aria didn’t bother waiting for Rin to move. She squeezed around her and into the chair.
“Fine,” Rin grumbled. “I’ll shoot.”
She took the copilot seat next to Aria, and then I had the pleasure of seeing my daughter prepare for launch. Despite how nauseated she appeared, her hands flew across the controls, up and down, her chair swiveling from side to side. It was nothing I’d taught her. Just watching was exhausting.
The mute Ringer, Gareth, took me and shoved me into one of the chairs lining the back wall of the room. Quick movements rekindled my queasiness as my innards continued their war with each other. He sat beside me and pointed a pulse pistol at my ribcage. He wheezed even louder than I was. The penetrations in his suit left him compromised, an
d our old bodies were more susceptible to radiation poison than the others’. It was one type of sickness being born on Earth couldn’t help with. I didn’t utter a word.
He reached into my pocket and removed the hand-terminal Varus had given me. A Pervenio logo was stamped on the center of the screensaver. I’d been hoping that in the chaos they’d forget about it and I could send Luxarn our location the moment I got a chance. Gareth tapped Kale, handed it to him, and signed him something.
“Thank you, Gareth,” Kale said. He stowed it and took his seat in the captain’s chair, positioned behind and between Rin’s and Aria’s. “Aria, is everything ready?”
My daughter struck a few keys, then glanced back over her shoulder. Her cheeks were a subtle shade of green. She made eye contact with me and offered the slightest nod imaginable and a frail smile; something to tell me that I hadn’t failed her. I would’ve returned the expression if my stomach wasn’t so unsettled.
“All systems go,” she said. She ran her hand across a holographic screen, and suddenly the back of both my chair and headrest went slack. Restraints popped out over my legs, chest, and forehead as the chair molded to the cambers of my body. It felt like the entire back half of me was submerged in warm goo. The same happened to everybody, only Gareth somehow continued to dig his pistol into my side.
“Open this place up, Rin,” Kale commanded.
“Cora, armed,” Rin said. “G-stims, everyone.” While everybody but me injected a stim into their necks, Rin looked to Aria. “Pressure’s going to give us a jolt. Think you can handle it?”
Aria ground her teeth, wearing a pained expression as she swallowed back what I assumed was bile. “Just shoot.”
The Cora, I realized. Even my exhausted, poisoned mind couldn’t forget that name because the girl it belonged to reminded me so much of Aria. It was the name of a young, mixed-blood Ringer woman I’d interrogated in relation to the attack on the gas harvester Piccolo, which claimed the lives of near twenty Earthers. Cora was a member of the crew during the attack, same as Kale, but when the latter disappeared, he was blamed for the attack by Director Sodervall. Cora refused to believe Kale had anything to do with it, thanks to some damn obvious feelings. Only, you didn’t name ships after someone who was still alive.
What the hell had Director Sodervall done after I left her alive and headed for medical? The greatest revolution in the post-Meteorite era… could it all really be over a girl?
The ship lurched as missiles lanced out from beneath its wings. The wall of the hangar erupted in a plume of swirling smoke and flame that was swiftly extinguished by Mars’s lack of oxygen. The rapid pressure change caused the ship to jolt, and then the impulse drives kicked in, and we shot forward through the breach.
If it weren’t for my seat’s malleable headrest, my neck would’ve snapped in two. Even still, the pressure exerted on my entire body was excruciating. It felt like the fattest Earther imaginable was sitting on my chest, driving his thumbs into my eyes harder and harder. The air grew thick, oxygen pumping in through the forward recyclers at elevated rates to keep the pilot and navigators conscious through the worst of it.
Mars’s rusty sky filled the viewport. Anti-air fire flashed like lightning all around us as the Venta Co. defenses attempted to shoot us down. Aria whipped the Cora this way and that to avoid them. I could see the grimace pulling at her cheeks, even from my vantage behind her. No amateur would be able to focus under such strenuous conditions, but all Venta’s attempts to stymie us sailed by harmlessly.
I sat in awe of my daughter. Her chest was restrained, but her arms masterfully worked the controls. The ship released flares and who knows what other evasive tech it was loaded with as she twirled. It wasn’t even until a flock of blue-colored fighters appeared on the horizon that she even broke a sweat.
“Venta?” Kale asked.
“Seven, heading straight at us!” Aria replied. The end of her sentence trailed off as she dipped us hard to the left under the blast of an anti-air round. “Should I engage?”
“Let’s see what this thing is capable of.”
“My pleasure,” Rin muttered. She worked her targeting array and unleashed a barrage of ordnance. Missiles, plasma torpedoes, high-caliber flak; enough to make Venta think twice. Aria held a straight course until the volley was released, then dropped into a spiral. I covered my mouth as the viewport spun.
The fighters fanned apart and returned fire. The Cora shuddered, missiles tearing into its hull. The screens and consoles in front of Aria chirped as readouts transmitted damage reports. As Aria leveled us out, one of the Ringers in the hold behind us puked so loudly, I could hear it over the clamor of exploding torpedoes outside.
“Three fighters down!” Aria shouted. “Ablative plating at 73 percent. No critical damage.”
“They’re looping back around,” Rin said. “More fighters scrambling from the Little Peru Colony as well.”
“We won’t survive too many straight-on assaults like that.”
“You going to take them all on, Trass?” I grated. “Take my daughter down with you?”
Gareth punched me in the rib with his pistol. I was surprised by how weak the blow felt, considering the powered armor he wore, although my whole body was so racked with pain that anything short of a bullet through the brain wouldn’t faze me.
“We won’t have to,” Kale sneered.
“Intercepting coms with Madame Venta,” Aria said. “We’re being hooked in.” She flicked a switch, and the message came through loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Madame Jamaru Venta, this is Galora Martinez, director of security for Red Wing Company on Mars. You are attacking a transport vehicle under our protection. If you do not retreat, we will be forced to engage.”
“Oh, don’t you fucking do this, Galora,” Madame Venta responded. I’d only ever heard her speak over news feeds, but the ire in her tone was enough to give even me a shiver. “That vessel is harboring known criminals.”
“Kale Trass and his followers have yet to be formally convicted of violating any colonial statutes. As inhabitants of greater Sol, they engaged in a contract with Red Wing Company to provide secure transit to and from Titan.”
“I’m aware of the deal you made.”
“Then you understand that the Red Wing Board has agreed it cannot allow you to infringe upon our agreement.”
“Now isn’t the time to flex your muscle, Galora. Are you really going to start a war with me over a band of terrorists?”
“We uphold all contracts to the best of our abilities.”
“Do you know who they have on that ship? They abducted Basaam Venta. They killed my sons!”
“Basaam Venta remains a missing person with unconfirmed whereabouts. The only thing that we can confirm is that your employees stormed a private hangar chartered by us and caused the deaths of no less than seven Red Wing officers as well as an unknown number of Kale Trass’s escort. You will be lucky to avoid USF sanctions.”
Silence. Only the sounds of a ship’s engine pushed to its limits, and the wheezing of the mute Ringer beside me met my ears. Mars’ thin atmosphere gradually peeled away, like a giant was dropping a black canvas over us. The faint stars glittered like diamonds and grew brighter.
“When this lunatic kills more people,” Madame Venta said, finally, “I want you and your damn board to remember that we could have ended it here.” Her communications cut out.
“We have upheld our end of the agreement and will be expecting payment on schedule,” Red Wing Director Galora addressed the Cora’s cockpit directly after a brief silence. “Red Wing hopes that despite unforeseen complications during your visit, our show of support will encourage you to continue the good faith export of certain goods exclusively to us. Our reach, however, extends only so far. May I suggest plotting a course to Titan that steers as far from Jupiter’s orbit as possible. Safe journey, Kale Trass, and please, give your ambassador our best regards for instituting this contract.”
“All Venta fighters are pulling back!” Aria said.
Aria turned down the throttle as we broke Mars’ gravity well and were embraced by the oppressive blackness of space. The pressure exerted on every inch of my body waned, and for the first time since we took off, I felt like I could breathe again, at least until opening my mouth too wide almost made me heave.
Mars’ moon Phobos hovered off to the right, speckled with lights and a host of Venta cruisers flocking the docking station on its surface. As agreed upon between Venta and Red Wing Company, none followed us or fired. Things really were out of whack with Pervenio Corp so weak. Luxarn, or rather the world-eating Luxarn I knew from before the Ring fell, would have never allowed himself to be played like Madame Venta was.
“Damn mudstompers can’t get out of each other’s way,” Rin sneered.
“You do realize it was a mudstomper who just saved us,” I said. I expected Gareth to try to quiet me with another forceful nudge, but none came.
“And where were they when we stood before the Assembly?” Kale retorted. “Barely a whimper of support.”
“Gareth, keep him quiet,” Rin ordered.
“You have a lot to learn about corporate politics, kid,” I said. “Under-the-table drug trafficking doesn’t net you public backing. It nets you credits.”
Aria loosened her restraints and turned to join the argument, but the moment our gazes met, her eyes went wide in horror. The weight of Gareth’s arm slumped into me, and his pistol drifted weightlessly across the cockpit. Blood followed it, leaking steadily in perfect scarlet droplets out of his mouth, shoulder, and stomach. The pressure of launch must have started the bleeding up again. His eyelids were three-quarters closed, slits of white in the reveals. If there was even the slightest pigment to the Ringer’s skin, it was noticeably absent. I didn’t need to be a doctor to know he was hanging on by a thread.
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 78
