“And all get killed?” she said. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I’ve considered it.”
She crouched in front of me. “You think with me out of the way, Kale won’t have the balls to put her down?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“You people will keep underestimating him until you’re extinct.”
“By Earth, ‘you people.’ You aren’t fucking aliens, you know that? We’re all humans doing this to each other.”
“Perhaps you should have told your employer that,” she said. “Now get up.”
I didn’t listen at first, but the two Titanborn behind her carrying pulse-rifles got me moving. Until Rin was off the Cora, it was clear Aria wasn’t safe. She garnered the same level of respect as Kale—though she might not realize it.
“You know, this isn’t really how being a collector works,” I said. “They don’t force us on jobs. We can always walk away unpaid.”
“It’s sad you believe that,” Rin replied.
I bit my lip. She’d caught me in a blatant lie there. Luxarn had been irritated enough when I retired. Before Kale’s rebellion, he wouldn’t have let it go down so easily. He would’ve roped me in with promises of riches and more. But so much about Sol had changed since I nearly died on Titan. The only thing that never would was people.
Rin shoved me along down the halls of the Cora. Of course, she had mag-boots, and I had to pull my way along the ceiling. My arms still felt like wet dough from being under for a month. Another reason I didn’t think it was the right time to fight back again yet.
“What did you do to Kale?” I asked.
“I let nature run its course,” she replied.
“No. I’ve been racking my mind for answers. It’s easy to blame it on what happened to Cora, but I saw his records. Before you took him off the Piccolo, he was just some lowlife pickpocket trying to afford meds for his sick mother in quarantine.”
“Better than the people like you who got her sick and stuffed her in there,” Rin said.
“Ah, so it was you who led the Piccolo attack? I had a hunch.” Rin shoved me harder, probably frustrated that I’d tricked her into that bit of information. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but they didn’t call us collectors for nothing. Now I knew who was there when Kale went from petty thief to rebel king. And now I knew that when Cora Walker had sat in front of me and doubted her friend—more than friend—could be capable of murdering the entire Earther crew of the Piccolo, she was telling the truth. Though that Kale was gone now.
“Everything comes back to that moment,” I said. “Kale was nothing, and then he disappeared with you and emerged the leader of the Children of Titan. You’re the secret ingredient. The moment Sodervall accuses him, his mother goes missing, and he becomes a killer; that’s when he met you. Congratulations.”
Rin grabbed me and pushed me into the wall of the ship. She gained her strength from somewhere, because no Ringer should’ve been so strong. My lungs crunched against my rib cage and left me wincing.
“And killing for credits makes you what?” Rin growled.
“I know what I am,” I said. “Just like you know what you are. We understand each other, but Kale? He’s just an impressionable kid who got his heart broken at the worst possible time. What—did you look in the mirror one day and decide to mold him in your image so you didn’t have to lead?”
She grabbed me by the back of my duster and hurled me into a cramped room. I feared the worst at first, then noticed all the flickering controls and the viewport cut into one side. Any ship the size of the Cora would be designed with at least one escape pod, especially one this cutting-edge.
“Put this in,” Rin said. “Compliments of your employer.” She tossed me a com-link half the size of a fingernail—Pervenio tech for sure.
“Do you people not understand retirement?” I said as I observed it. It was small enough to slide into the ear canal and avoid detection unless someone really went digging.
“No. We barely earned enough to live.”
I smirked. “So what’s the plan?”
“They must know you’re with us by now. You escaped to this pod. Station Security will take you down for inspection. According to Basaam Venta, he keeps his most up-to-date research locally on his own personal computer to avoid corporate sabotage. You find your way to Basaam’s terminal and transmit all the data on his prototype Fusion Pulse Engines to us. Simple.”
“Then you leave me behind, right? A Pervenio man screwing over Venta Co., fracturing their relationship.”
“And you talk your way out of it,” she said, “and get to enjoy your retirement.”
“There’s only one problem. What are you going to tell Aria when she wakes up, and I’m gone.”
“Same story,” Rin said. “That you escaped and got yourself into trouble pulling off one last job for Luxarn because his company is your only love in life.”
“You know, that’s not half bad. I’m guessing you came up with it and not Kale. Maybe you’ll let him think it was him.”
“It was him.”
I pulled myself into a seat and took a deep breath. I tried not to let the pain pulling at my sideshow. “Your loyalty is inspiring.”
“You wouldn’t know a thing about it. Now you might want to hold on, Collector. And remember, if you fail, your daughter will never wake up.”
A response was on the tip of my tongue when the escape pod’s hatch slammed closed. I scrambled for the restraints and only got them over one arm when the pod shot forward. Acceleration squeezed me against the backrest, threatening to pop me like a balloon. My eyes felt like they might burst.
Then I was pitched in the other direction. My legs swung up, and I clutched the restraints with one elbow as thrusters made the pod decelerate. The thing had enough juice to get me far away from the Cora if her engine was going to overload or she was being raided by pirates. When the velocity equaled out enough for me to collapse into the center of the small, spherical space, I vomited into my sanitary mask. Without anything in my stomach but sleep-pod IV fluids for months, warm bile coated my lips.
I tore the mask off my face and used it to wipe my cheeks. The tight confines now reeked of my innards. I searched the myriad controls for a storage compartment, found one, and stuffed it in. Then I leaned back against the seat.
“Can you hear me, Collector?” Rin’s smoky voice spoke into my ear, giving me a startle.
“I—” I leaned over and fought back another gag. “Loud and clear…”
“Your pod is broadcasting a universal distress signal. Remember, when someone picks you up, you escaped and need medical attention immediately.”
“Perfect. Just a quick question: have you ever been to Europa? Because last time I was here, it was tiny, and by the looks of it, it isn’t any longer.” I crawled across the pod to the tiny porthole offering me a view of space.
Jupiter comprised all of it. The Big One. Bands of reddish-white streaked its surface, broke up by the great roiling eye in the very center. Pictures didn’t do the storm justice. As massive as Jupiter was—and it made Saturn look like a belt-wearing moon by comparison—it was hard to look anywhere else. Even from millions of kilometers away, it looked like it wanted to devour everything. I wasn’t easily impressed by anything, but it’d been a few years since I’d been to Jupiter and the sight still had a way of making my jaw hang.
Like Saturn, dozens of moons of all shapes and sizes filled the space around it. Unlike Saturn, very few of were colonized with major settlements, if at all. Darien Trass had started settling Titan three centuries ago, and Earth was playing catch up to fill all the promising spots between. Back when I was a kid, Pervenio Corp staked its future on communicating with the Ringers and preparing for a great reunion. Their biggest competitor, Venta Co, set their sights on Jupiter.
The explosion of interest and potential wealth in the Ring slowed their development of Europa, where potable water beneat
h the smooth surface was their most significant export. Valuable gases, however, were discovered to be of far less volume in Jupiter, along with storms exponentially stronger and more unpredictable. The gas harvesting trade never took off—but now I could see that with the chaos on the Ring, Jupiter’s archipelago of moons was of burgeoning interest.
Impulse Drive trails stood out against the ruddy atmosphere of the gas giant, flying this way and that between moons and stations. Red Wing Company had some industrial plants on Ios and owned an impressive conservatory on Ganymede, housing all sorts of ancient earth flora and animals—I wasn’t one for vacations, but the newsfeeds claimed it to be a must-see. However, Europa was the crown jewel of the Jovian orbit.
A tremendous cylindrical station hovered over it, surrounded by smaller ship-building factories locked in orbit. Martelle Station was named after the founder of Venta Co., who was long since passed. It floated just over Europa but within the moon’s gravity well. The upper half was transparent and the bottom more densely plated down to a domed underside, and a ring around it festooned with Coms Relays and other nameless tech.
Vast swathes of the station were covered in rippling insulation sheets, dividing up portions still under construction. I could see the flashes from fusion torches of thousands of workers at the fringes even from as far away as I was. I’d never seen such a tremendous undertaking in person. Pervenio Station had been completed long before I was ever sent out to Saturn.
But that floating station was only the surface. A space elevator sank through its center, dropping down and plunging through Europa’s striated crust where it was anchored. At its base, the lights of industry flickered. Then, further out, dotting the surface at equal intervals, were the tops of towering water pumps and storage towers.
This far out into the system, water was a major export. From the other colonies around Jupiter, to the entire asteroid belt, to Mars, where water at the polar caps could be siphoned but not nearly in such a quantity, there were dozens more pumps than my last visit to Europa Station. Hundreds more ships transporting and importing supplies as well.
“Basaam Venta is in the process of being woken,” Rin said. “He will instruct you.”
I’d forgotten what I wanted to ask her. I even nodded in response before giving the affirmative out loud. Luxarn’s hold on the Ring had been severed only for a few months, and both Venta Co. and Red Wing Company were clearly hard at work trying to drive the metaphorical gold rush of human expansion to the moons of Jupiter. No rest for capitalism.
“Unidentified vessel, this is the Venta Co. security frigate Polaris 5. We have been dispatched to your coordinates in response to a broad-range distress signal,” a voice filled the escape pod. “Please respond.”
I nodded awake. My head was against the viewport, a bit of drool floating around between me and the glass. My head rang from the beating Rin and her men had put on me. Pain always did take a few hours to settle.
“We repeat, unidentified vessel, please respond.”
I sighed and stretched my back. It took a few bends to get my artificial leg back in sync so I could use it to help cross the pod. The human one felt like its usual shitty self. My ribs were sore, my stomach churning.
I stretched out for the pod’s com controls and switched them on. My lips were so chapped, and my throat was so dry from breathing the stale, recycled air, I had to clear it a few times before I could get any words out.
“This is Malcolm Graves,” I said. “I’m a Pervenio Corp collector. I was taken prisoner by Kale Trass on Mars but managed to reach this escape pod. Where am I?”
A few minutes of silence answered me. No doubt whoever it was searched records and reached out to anybody they could to find something on my name.
“Our records state that your Collector ID has been retired,” Polaris 5 said, as I expected.
“Why would Kale Trass kidnap a retired collector?” I replied. “Recheck your records or find a way to contact Luxarn Pervenio. I’ve been undercover.”
“I’m sorry. We do not have that level of clearance.”
“Then pick me up, for Earth’s sake,” I said.
“Are you in need of medical assistance?”
“They put a solid beating on me.” I stretched out so that the pain pulling at my side elicited a genuine groan. “Probably a few broken ribs.”
“Standby for retrieval. You will be transported to the Martelle Venta Memorial Hospital on Martelle Station for inspection and processing. Please, keep a safe distance from the hatch as we breach. Polaris 5 out.”
“Be gentle.”
I switched off the coms, then pulled myself up onto one of the seats to wait. I had to admit, this plan Rin came up with wasn’t the worst I’d ever been a part of. With all the activity around Jupiter, breaking in looking like they did on a rogue ship wouldn’t be possible. They’d get what they wanted and get me out of the picture. Except, once I retrieved what they wanted and gained the upper hand, I had no plans to transmit it to them unless they found a way to get me back onto the Cora with Aria.
That was the best plan I could come up with on such short notice, because one thing was for certain—whatever they wanted Basaam’s invention for, it meant enough to them to put Kale in harm’s way. Enough for them to make a deal with an Earther like me.
“Well done,” Rin said over our private com-link.
“This must kill you,” I said.
“What?”
“Putting so much faith in an Earther like me.”
“You may think you can get under Kale’s skin, but you won’t get under mine, Collector. I trust you’ll do what it takes to keep Aria safe.”
“And you’re probably right. So I guess threatening and blackmailing your way to freedom is what you people want? I guess it’s better than bombing innocent people who just want to have a good time.”
“I’ll fight this war however I have to,” she said. “The Titan we build isn’t for me.”
“And what about Kale? Me and you, our leases on life are ticking away, but he’ll be king for a long, long time if you win.”
“Kale is stronger than you’ll ever know,” she said.
“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “He must be to get Aria to care about him. But a man can only lose so much before he shatters. That’s why I did my damnedest not to love anything for so long.”
“You Earthers aren’t capable of love.”
“If love means dropping a nuke on men whose only crime was doing their jobs, then I guess that’s a good thing. Does your king ever think about those people in the Q-Zone he murdered? About their clan-families or their loved ones? I’ve met a few of them. One tried to blow you all to pieces back in New Beijing.”
“Then it’s a good thing you people can’t aim either. Now quiet. Your ride is approaching.”
“But our conversations get me going,” I said as the com-link cut off.
I grinned. I’d never met a suit of flesh I couldn’t get under—it was part of my charm. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to kill Kale Trass for Luxarn, but I could widen the rift between him and the woman who was undoubtedly his most trusted adviser. Maybe they didn’t even realize it was there yet, but I could sense the tension in the air between them back on the Cora. Whatever wicked thing life had made her that allowed her to torture a sleeping woman, Kale wasn’t the same, yet.
Darkness closed in around the escape pod as the hull of the Polaris 5 filled the viewport. I couldn’t miss the missile tubes tucked on its flanks or the 360-degree PDCs on its bow. It was a relative warship—the kind the United Sol Federation—or the USF—made plenty of legislature about avoiding. Corporations securing their holdings was one thing, but they didn’t want privately owned fleets when they didn’t even have one for themselves.
The rise of Titan was truly changing everything.
My escape pod rumbled as the Polaris 5 bridged to it. I heard footsteps clanking, then the hatch hissed and fell open. Venta Co. security officers rushed in, pulse rifles
raised with barrel-mounted lights scouring every corner of the tiny compartment.
“Took you all long enough,” I said. I barely got the words out before one of the officers grabbed me and wrenched my arms behind my back.
“What the hell is this?” I demanded.
“Sorry, corporate’s orders,” an officer replied. “We must verify your story and identity.”
“Get me to a damn terminal, and I’ll contact Mr. Pervenio myself, then.”
“Corporate has reached out to his office and is awaiting a reply.”
The officer pulled me around a corner into their ship’s cargo hold. He shoved me into a reserve seat and cuffed me to the armrest. From being treated like a prisoner on a Ringer ship to the same on an Earthers.
“Mr. Pervenio won’t be happy when he hears about this,” I said.
“You’ve missed a ton of news, haven’t you?” He chuckled. “Soon enough, that won’t matter.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, and he didn’t give me time to ask. The men left me alone in the hold, shackled up like I was a criminal. Granted, I didn’t have the best intentions for Martelle Station, but it was about respect. Being a collector from any corporation used to be enough to be put up in a nice room and be treated with respect. Nobody wanted to upset the wrong person. Now everybody was on edge.
“Why couldn’t I have a daughter into drugs like everyone else?” I groaned as I let my head fall back. The Polaris had left the escape pod behind and now zoomed toward the whitish-brown orb of Europa. For my entire life, Luna had been the ship-building capital of Sol. We didn’t have to get too near for me to see the wheels of industry turning around Martelle Station like I’d never seen before.
One huge factory stuck in Europa’s orbit surrounded the skeleton of an Ark Ship bigger than any I’d ever seen. Clearly, Venta had no doubt their design would be selected at the upcoming M-Day celebrations—that holiday during which we Earthers celebrated three centuries ago when a meteorite the size of a small moon slammed into the planet, but we survived the threat of extinction. More factories like it floated near Martelle Station and dotted the moon’s surface, where dozens of ships, like the warship I was currently on, were being constructed.
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 83
