For a moment, Zhaff wondered if he was the one who'd beaten him—he had trouble remembering any names from that time due to the brain trauma. Then he cursed his faulty mind. That wasn't logical. He'd learned enough about his father to know the bully was somewhere terrible, or dead.
The elevator doors opened. Zhaff stepped out into the hall, his Pervenio-labeled boiler suit worn proudly. His pulse pistol hung at his hip. The floor of the Red Wing Assembly Hall was busy. Aides, dignitaries, security officers; they all waited outside the conference room where a pivotal deal allowing Pervenio Corp to supply engines for all Red Wing vessels was to be negotiated.
Director Ulnor was to serve as Luxarn's representative, and the service bot hovering behind their backs his proxy. Zhaff stood silently, ignoring the stares of so many as Director Ulnor was greeted and invited in. Luxarn bid them all hello from a screen on the service bot's lens—his first semi-public appearance since the enemy stole the Ring.
“Thank you for the escort, Zhaff,” Luxarn said through a private com-link set within Zhaff’s ear. “You know what to do.”
“Yes, sir,” Zhaff replied. That was the code-phrase indicating their operation was green-lit. It wasn’t easy smuggling what they needed to into the Red Wing headquarters. They didn’t have a central headquarters in a city like Venta or Pervenio—instead, theirs was aboard a luxury cruiser in constant rotation of Mars. The Red Wing, true to their name.
Zhaff left Director Ulnor behind and hurried toward the restrooms. He had to push through the crowd as he searched all the faces. Finally, a man in a Red Wing uniform approached from the opposite direction. Unlike the other patrons around the meeting hall, this one didn’t stare with shock at Zhaff and his reconstructed face. His eyes were set upon the ground, jaw grinding, lips parting just a hair as if he were speaking his thoughts back to himself, forehead dripping with sweat.
Nervous.
Zhaff knew that had to be his mark. A low-end security supervisor who decided he owed more loyalty to his clan-family than his employer. He passed a keycard into Zhaff’s hand as he went by, never once looking up. The manmade toxin on Zhaff’s glove rubbed onto the man’s skin. In a few short hours, he would fall ill and die without a trace, and with no way to change his mind about helping Pervenio Corp. A sacrifice, for the good of the solar system.
Zhaff coolly slid the card into his pocket, then made an abrupt turn into the restroom, where he washed his glove off in the sink before continuing to the back stall. A container sat on top of the toilet. The white powered suit of armor inside had been reclaimed from Ringers killed on Mars. The sight of the orange circle painted on the chest plate made Zhaff’s heartbeat off rhythm. It was part of his last memories on Titan before he’d failed. Failed his company, failed his father, and failed his partner.
Zhaff averted his gaze from the symbol as he dressed. He had the offworlder stature to fit in snugly, though he could only feel the tiny needles set within the carbon-fiber inlay, which helped augment strength along his left half. The rest of him was numb—either synthetic or covered by dead skin.
At the bottom of the container, he found a pulse-rifle, an outdated model made by Venta Co., the same type he’d used back on Titan before the Children of Titan won. His fingers froze on their way to grasp the handle.
Failure, failure, failure. The word bounced around Zhaff’s head like a rubber ball. His father told him it wasn’t his fault, but he knew—his failure had caused the Ring to fail.
He smacked himself in the synthetic half of his head, causing his vision to go temporarily fuzzy. Then again.
“Focus,” he told himself. He grabbed the gun, then hit a switch on the container, which caused it to fold up tight enough to be stored in his belt. Not a hint of evidence left behind. He returned to the exit and used thermal imaging to keep track of the assembly hall. The formalities were coming to an end, meaning everyone of importance would enter the conference room, and everyone else would return to their responsibilities.
One of the security personnel working the floor was on his way to leave the hall, only the man decided to stop to relieve himself. Zhaff hurried to the corner as the man entered and headed for a urinal. Zhaff considered shooting him, but it’d be too loud. Instead, he imagined the route he could take to avoid detection before being able to subdue him. With powered armor in addition to his synthetic limbs, applying the force necessary to render a man dead or unconscious would be simple.
Zhaff took a single step, then imagined the bully beating down on his face. Once again, the bully appeared old and haggard. Before Zhaff knew it, he was out into the hall, walking toward the conference room doors. No surveillance feeds were directly outside the bathroom—their contact informed them of that. No more guards between him and the tall, metallic doors.
Red Wing Company thought they were safe in their ship. Everyone thought they were safe until the Children of Titan ruined that. They interrupted the necessary expansion of man amongst the system and eventually toward the stars.
“Stop right there!”
Zhaff whipped around, gun raised, and saw that same officer he’d spared now aiming a pulse pistol at him. He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t heard him. Perhaps he wasn’t used to the audio receptor rather than an ear on the rebuilt half of his head.
The officer was green, twitchy. Zhaff easily had the first shot if he took it, but all he could see as he raised his weapon was loose sand spanning the distance between them and frozen rock. His veins ran cold. Lightning coruscated in the distance as a Titanian storm formed, only he wasn’t on Titan.
“Weapon!” the officer yelled.
A bang echoed, then a bullet struck Zhaff in the side of the helmet. It didn’t pierce the heavy armor, but it dented it hard enough to give Zhaff’s brain a shudder. He hit the floor, seeing red.
Failure, failure, failure.
Zhaff lifted himself onto all fours. His fists pressed into the metal floor so hard it warped. His fingers trembled with rage.
“Stay down!” the officer yelled.
The man was thirteen meters away, head exposed. He was about to make a move when he identified another officer approaching from behind, prepared to subdue him with a shock baton. Zhaff swept his leg backward, catching the second guard unaware. The man struck his own throat with the baton on his way down, instantly vomiting. Zhaff rolled over his body and sprang up. He took a glancing shot off his chest plate, which scraped off a layer of orange paint, then fired. The officer across the room toppled forward with a hole square in his forehead.
This time, Zhaff didn’t hesitate. He slapped the keycard against the reader, and the conference room door slid open. A glass table set for two dozen rested in the center of the ovular space. A latticed translucency stretched overhead, two stories high, with a view of the red planet beyond. The Red Wing board sat in their formal attire, gaping toward the door. Director Ulnor looked as shocked as any of them.
Two more security officers waited inside. Zhaff got a reading on them through the wall. He ducked as he entered, another shock baton blow soaring over his head. Zhaff grabbed the man’s arm and directed the blow into the other’s chest. His body convulsed as Zhaff flipped the other over his shoulder and planted a bullet in his head.
“The Ringers are here!” A Red Wing official bolted for the door, earning a bullet to the leg. Another reached for a personal firearm, and Zhaff shot it out of his grip. He had orders not to kill any of them until the right moment. That wasn’t the Children of Titan’s M.O.
“What is the meaning of this!” a woman seated at the head of the table asked. Director Ulnor sat on one side of her. Luxarn’s service bot floated on the other, his face projected in the center, feigning shock. His acting wasn’t convincing upon close examination. Zhaff would have to let him know later.
Zhaff slowly stalked forward. The board members nearest to him flinched, a few stifled tears. Rich men and women—the kind who attended Phobos Academy.
“What do you want from us?” Directo
r Ulnor asked.
“All who partner with…” Zhaff paused. His helmet obscured his face and distorted his voice—the same way it did the Ringers when they raided the Piccolo—but the next words were difficult to get out. He’d been prepped by Luxarn, but lying never came easily to Zhaff. The truth was so much simpler.
“Pervenio Corp is our enemy,” Zhaff finished.
“Just stay away from us!” a Red Wing official yelled.
“Take what you want!” screamed another.
Zhaff slowly spun around. He caught another guard approaching from the hall on his thermals and shot the man’s foot as he edged against the entry. He fell forward into the opening, and another bullet ensured he would never breathe again.
More cries filled the room.
“Whoever you are, Ringer, you won’t get away with this!” Luxarn growled. For a moment, Zhaff wasn’t sure if it was through the com-link built into his reconstructed ear or the service bot until a few of the board members voiced their agreement.
Zhaff turned back to face Luxarn in the bot’s live feed. He stared into the weary face of his father, noticing wrinkles that he’d never had before. Blemishes caused by the stress of Zhaff’s failures. Luxarn looked directly at Director Ulnor for some reason.
“Go on,” Luxarn said. The lips on the screen didn’t move, indicating the voice was in Zhaff’s com-link. “I promised a gift to you, Zhaff. Look into the eyes of Director Ulnor and see.”
Zhaff did as requested. Fear racked the director’s face. Zhaff’s eye lens zoomed in and out, poring over his every feature, and that was when he saw. The bully who’d beaten him all those years ago sat directly in front of him. For a moment Zhaff’s eye-lens lost focus, and he saw that haggard old man in his place, then it centered.
It was him. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed earlier.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, Zhaff,” Luxarn said. “You don’t ever have to be afraid. Him, Kale Trass—all those who ever put us down—will pay. So, go on. You survived Titan for a reason, I know it.”
Zhaff slowly approached the director, memories of that day filling his mind. The world melted away, and he found himself crossing the icy surface of Titan. He heard the bully’s friends laugh at him; heard that old man whisper about family and understanding…
“Get out!” Zhaff roared. He gripped the massive conference table hewn from the very rock of Mars and flipped it with the mere flick of his wrist. The board members on the other side were smashed against the wall. “Just get out!”
Those board members who weren’t incapacitated by the table stood to bolt for the door, but Zhaff whipped around and shot the one in the lead. “Not you!” he said. The respiratory aid built into his throat rattled as his breathing hastened and it was pushed to its limits. All the frightened voices of the Red Wing board blurred.
“This is what happens to those who steal from our Ring!” Zhaff said, still trying to recite his lines. Not to fail.
“Us steal?” Director Ulnor said. His voice broke through the madness and Zhaff focused. He could hear his own face crunching again as a younger version of the man beat down on him. Without logic. Without reason.
“Why did you do it!” Zhaff shouted. He seized Ulnor by the throat and pulled him close. He imagined freezing air whipping all around them, Titanian sand stinging his skin like a thousand tiny knives. His eye-lens focused in and out, but he saw himself lying on Titan with his partner Malcolm beside him, both bleeding out after the bang of two gunshots.
“Family,” Malcolm whispered, voice faint and quavering.
“Why!” Zhaff lifted Ulnor and slammed him against the floor.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the director wheezed.
Zhaff’s vision refocused and he saw Ulnor, then the board of Red Wing directors, frozen by terror. Everything was being captured by Luxarn’s service bot, and he had only one final line to recite.
Focus, Zhaff told himself. Sometimes there is no logic, only chaos.
“Finish it, Zhaff,” Luxarn said sternly into his ear.
“From ice to ashes,” Zhaff said out loud. All the eyes of those before him went wide. They’d seen this act before.
Zhaff aimed his pulse-rifle at the translucency above, then unloaded his magazine into one segment. The fused silica glass was strong enough to withstand the barrage without shattering, but Zhaff looked down again at the director. Now he stood above him, only he didn’t see Ulnor. Again, he saw a gray beard, worn eyes—he saw Malcolm Graves.
He couldn’t explain why, but without thinking twice, he screamed at the top of his lungs, grabbed the director, and flung him with all his might into the compromised glass. It blew open, the explosive decompression tearing the hole wider, twisting structural members and sucking every member of the Red Wing board, along with Director Ulnor, out with it.
Zhaff joined them as well, only his armor was designed to withstand such forces. Nano-fiber wings beneath the arms helped him ride the gush of air. In a few seconds, he floated across space, looking down upon the breached ship and the glowing red of Mars beneath it.
When he looked back up, Titan, blood, and Malcolm Graves filled his view. “Family... I hope you understand, Zhaff,” his old partner said softly.
Zhaff refocused his vision, and through the field of glass and debris, saw a small Venta Co. ship zooming toward him.
“I’m proud of you, my son,” Luxarn said through his com-link. “A worthy sacrifice has been made in our quest to secure the safe propagation of human life. Now we take back what was stolen from us.”
My son. Luxarn had never referred to him like that before, only ever Zhaff. So much had changed while he was under. Zhaff hated change.
One
Kale Trass
After I lost Cora, I never thought I could feel again, but as I floated alone aboard the ship named in her honor, staring at Gareth’s body, it all came rushing back. He was my friend. Believed in me in ways even Rin couldn’t. Only it was then I realized I didn’t even know his last name.
War changes everything. It makes friends into strangers, men into monsters. They said it plagued Earth back before the Meteorite—that Darien Trass would have been wise to leave, impending apocalypse or not. All I knew was I’d be saying goodbye to more than Gareth before our war was through. At least all those years watching our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers be sent off to Quarantine never to be released were good practice.
“Are you feeling any better, Kale?” Rin asked, pulling herself along the hallway at my back.
“Fine,” I said. I clenched my jaw and exhaled. My stomach remained uneasy, and my muscles ached all over. Though, apparently, that was to be expected after roughly a month in a sleep pod.
“Those Earther anti-rads pack a punch.”
I drew myself closer to Gareth and took one of his limp hands. His skin was cold as the surface of Titan. All that time learning how to communicate with him, now I’d never need to read his hands again.
“Don’t let the collector get in your head,” Rin said.
“We should have paid attention,” I said.
“We were too busy dealing with traitorous ambassadors and Earthers.” She joined me at Gareth’s side and lay her hand over ours. “He died how he would have wanted to. Keeping you safe.”
I swallowed then nodded. “I won’t let it be for nothing. Is the collector almost ready?”
“He’s stabilizing,” Rin said. “Kale, I’m still not sure this is the best idea. I know you want to make a statement on M-day, but they’re Earthers. They believe every day belongs to them. We can delay.”
“Delay plans so more people can die like him? Basaam’s prototype can end our war.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Now you don’t believe?” I asked.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then you agree? We won’t have another chance like this to retrieve it. All the Earther corps are reeling. I che
cked the feeds before you woke up—”
“You opened coms this close to Jupiter?” she interrupted, her features darkening.
“Only for a second.”
Rin took me by the shoulders and stared straight into my eyes. I didn’t need to fight my impulses anymore to keep my gaze from trailing off toward the gruesome half of her face or the hole in her cheek through which I could see the shine of her tongue. It felt strange to remember I hadn’t even known her for a half a year. Everything before the day she’d pulled me off the Piccolo felt like a blur. Every day since, an eternity.
“Do you realize how dangerous that is?” she said.
I brushed her away. “Something happened, Rin. Red Wing stock is plummeting over something called The Massacre. Pervenio Corp and Venta Co. are in open talks about a merger. What we did in that hangar is changing everything. Earthers have never been so close to a battle since before the Meteorite.”
Rin looked like she wanted to say something then bit her lip and exhaled. “We targeted Basaam on Mars because we knew he’d be easier to take there. Even with all our planning, things went sideways. Now we’re going to put things in the hands of an Earther?”
“You’re always talking about reading and reacting,” I said. “Letting the Earthers extend too far. M-day is coming. You say we can delay, but symbols are everything, right? It’s what helped us take back the Ring. It’s what I am.”
“You’re more than that now,” Rin replied.
“Am I?” I pushed past her back out into the hallway and made my way through the Cora’s innards. She kept pace with me.
“Maybe you’re right, and the collector can get this done, but maybe you’re wrong, and they’re waiting for this,” she said. “They had Aria for hours. Who knows what she told them.”
“She didn’t know anything about Basaam.”
“And we didn’t know she was the daughter of a Pervenio Collector. She could have overheard us any time.”
I turned my attention to the circular room lined with sleeping pods. Two of my men stood beside Malcolm’s, prepping him to be woken up. Aria lay in another, dreamless. I knew that was the case now after my first spell using one. There were no grand adventures of the mind or nightmares once put under—there was nothing.
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 81
