I could barely move either leg, and they didn’t even bother whipping up a new electromag dampener to disable my artificial one. I feared what that meant for Rylah, as if worrying about Aria and now Zhaff wasn’t enough. My hips popped any time I tried to move them, like I was an elder shoved into some clan-family retirement clinic. Even drawing breath led to a sharp pain pulling at my sides.
Even with all of that, however, it was my mind that felt the worst. We were so close to being free of Titan forever. The frozen world where nothing good in my life had ever happened. It was there that I once decided to leave Rylah and continue being a collector for credits I’d waste on whores and gambling dens. Where I was forced to kill my friend and partner. Where I’d learned my daughter was working with terrorists, and later that she was carrying the child of their leader.
All I kept thinking about was how much easier things would’ve been if Luxarn had left me out to freeze. No fake leg. No more worrying about Aria. No seeing the sad creature Luxarn had turned Zhaff into to ease his own guilt. Just peace, quiet, and an eternity of darkness.
“On your feet, Earther!” a hardened Titanborn ordered, banging on my cage. Desmond was gone. If I knew the self-proclaimed king of Titan like I thought I did, Desmond’s failure to control me probably got him punished. Or killed, more likely.
“You plan on helping me up?” I groaned, voice muffled by a new sanitary mask strapped to my face even tighter. Speaking brought about aches that I didn’t even know were humanly possible. A tough feat, considering I’d spent a lifetime fighting.
Before my new guard could answer, a throng of heavy feet marched into the cavern. They spread around the perimeter of Basaam Venta’s workspace. The engine he was building remained in a series of pieces, but all they needed now was to be assembled. It was complete. The hollow had been freezing when I was first sent down who knows how long ago, just how the Ringers liked it, but his creation emitted heat like a warm hover-car engine upon every test. By the bars of my cell, it was enough to make me sweat.
“Mr. Venta,” the familiar voice of my captor addressed him. “I trust everything is in working order.”
“Yes… yes, of course, Mr. Trass,” Basaam stammered. “Tests show that the Fusion Pulse Engine is operating at ninety percent yield in comparison to those I’d been working on for the Departure Ark. I attempted to produce comparable models, but in these conditions, and with the materials available, I...I...”
“Relax, Mr. Venta,” Kale said calmly. “That will be more than enough.”
The boy king wrapped his arm around the scientist’s shoulders, towering over him. I could hear Basaam’s gulp all the way from my cell. He probably thought exactly what I was. With his work completed, what would happen to Basaam and his clan-sister?
“Bring down transports and have the parts loaded onto the Cora immediately,” Kale ordered one of his men.
“Kale… uh… Mr. Trass,” Basaam said. “I’ve told you, this technology is not optimized to operate on a ship the Cora’s size.”
Basaam Venta was still trying to do the humane thing, even in his situation, like a good scientist. I wondered why more of the brilliant people I’d had to take down for Pervenio Corp in my day for pushing tech too far couldn’t be more like him. Then I saw Kale stoop over the man and make him cringe and remembered why. Only weak men wound up in situations like this, forced to do things to protect loved ones. What did that say for myself and all I’d done to make this possible?
“As I’ve told you, I have no intention of using these on the Cora,” Kale said. “Take him to the Cora and have him assemble the engine there.”
Two armored Titanborn seized him, knocking his glasses off in the process.
“You said you would let her go if I did this!” Basaam yelled. He did his best to fight them. Poor bastard. Not everyone with Earther strength grows up knowing how to wield it. “Please. You gave your word.”
Kale raised a hand to stop his men. “He’s right. You’ve done everything I’ve asked of you, Mr. Venta. Your clan-sister will be released back to her own people with the others, as promised.
“What others? Where are you taking me? I gave you my work. Just let me go with her!”
Kale grinned. “Titan still needs you. We’re going on a ride, Mr. Venta. You, me, and our friend over there.” Kale nodded to his men, and they returned to hauling Basaam out of the room. His screams for Helena echoed throughout the hollow until he was out of sight, then stopped abruptly. I could hear the woman crying in the cell next to mine. She couldn’t even get a word out, she was so distraught. Weak or strong, I was beginning to realize that nobody was built to handle a situation like this.
“I feel like I’ve seen this scene before,” I said to Kale, trying to draw attention away from her. My body creaked and cracked as I used the bars to heave myself to my feet. “That’s right. It’s just like back on Pervenio Station before I left Sodervall in charge of your crew. We all know how that ended.”
“Quiet!” My new guard hit the bars with his rifle.
Kale turned to me, sneering. I would’ve paid all the credits in the world for another chance to wipe it off his face.
“It’s okay.” Kale motioned for the guard to back away and approached my cell himself. Just the sight of his face after what had happened had my blood boiling. The smug, pompous kid who thought the whole solar-system owed him everything. I’d put down too many ambitious young men like him to count for Pervenio, but he was by far the worst.
“I think you and Sodervall would have gotten along,” I said. “You’re both insufferable, self-righteous shits. Want to know what I should’ve done after I interrogated Cora? Taken her with me myself. Could’ve given her a better life than either of you or, you know… death.”
Kale’s expression didn’t break. Getting under Desmond’s skin was simple, and driving a wedge between Kale and Rin had been as well. But every time I saw Kale again, this war had made his shell a little harder. It was like Aria was the only thing left helping him cling to his humanity, and now he knew she wanted to run.
A second bout of insults stopped on the tip of my tongue when I realized who that numbness to the horrors men are capable of reminded me of—Me. Three decades as a collector made me indifferent to everything, at least until Zhaff and Aria turned me inside out.
“I’m starting to enjoy our conversations,” Kale said.
“You too?” I replied.
“I’ll miss them, but it’s time for you to help us one last time.”
“How many times do me and Aria have to tell you I’m retired.”
“Oh, Aria told me many things. About how you abandoned her so often as a child to get ahead on credits. How after five long years without talking, you found her in that cavern on Titan and tried to get her out. You want to know my favorite part, though? It’s when you shot Luxarn Pervenio’s secret bastard son to keep him from taking her in.”
Kale clapped his hands; I flinched. To me, it sounded like that very gunshot that took Zhaff’s life, echoing over and over in my brain. Only now I had the extreme displeasure of picturing him squirming as his body was gored.
“Zhaff Pervenio,” he mused. “I wonder what Luxarn will say when I find him and tell him that his prized collector is the real killer. That Malcolm Graves is the one who made our revolution possible.”
“It takes two, Ringer,” I grated. “Cora was a good kid. Could you imagine if she could see what you’ve become? She’d probably want to run away from you as fast as she could, just like Aria.”
“She can’t.” His armored hand squeezed into a fist. “She can’t because we lived in a world where every damn Ringer was guilty the moment they were born. Our word: worthless. And if she were still alive, she’d be at my side fighting the fight we’ve been fighting our whole lives. The only difference is that now we’re on top.”
“Until the moment you fall. Don’t you see, kid? That’s the way things have always been. Earthers, Ringers, the old countries. It�
��s the people that own the shit worth fighting for that wind up sitting pretty. The only reason anyone gives a damn about what goes on here is because of that gas giant floating out there. Once that engine of yours goes public, you’ll be another failed protest. And trust me, you may have slowed Earth a hair, but they’ve got enough backups of Basaam’s research to build it. You’ll be just another blip on the radar while humanity chugs on.”
I thought that would get to him, but all he did was force a grin. That was the best way to deal with rioting workers on offworld colonies. Show them how futile it all was. Crush them under the weight of the world and history so that they doubted their movement enough for it to come down.
“Lucky for you then, you get to come along on the ride,” he said.
I couldn’t back down. I was desperate. “One last chance, kid. Let me and Aria out of this, or it’s going to end the same way as all the other rebels I’ve dealt with.”
“I look forward to it.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Let him out,” he said. “It’s time.”
His scarred aunt strode forward, emotionless and leaning on a cane. Based on the times I’d seen her before, she seemed eternally dour but not anymore. Her gaze was distant, and even the skin-covered half of her face was bruised and scraped. She unlocked my cell without a word or even looking at me, and two Titanborn swept in to grab me. I gave one good tug to break free, but my body couldn’t manage much more
“How’s your sister?” I asked Rin on my way by. “Is that where he’s taking me? To put a bullet in her like Fring, so you all don’t have to?” No answer. “It amazes me that she looks like she does and you look like, well…”
Her fists squeezed as she continued to avoid looking directly at me. Kale stepped between us before I could get another word in. I never realized how tall he was before. Maybe he was just carrying himself differently now that he was a proper killer, but he towered over even the rest of his Ringer brethren.
“You should see her,” Kale said.
“What the hell did you do, Kale? If you killed her—”
“She’s alive, for now.”
“And my daughter?” I found the strength in my body to lunge forward and grab his arm. One of his guards nailed me in the back with the butt of his rifle almost immediately and knocked me to my knees. “Where is she?” I growled.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
“She had nothing to do with that,” I said. “Nothing. It was me and the Cogent. We didn’t give her or Rylah a choice.”
“I didn’t see a gun to her head until we put one there,” Rin said, earning a glower from Kale that sent her shrinking back into the shadow. Something had happened between them beyond Zhaff putting a beating on her. Something that for the first time left no question over who was really in charge.
“There’s a gun to her head every second she’s in this hell hole with your bastard son growing inside of her,” I said. “Zhaff found out, and Luxarn knows now, which means so does Venta. If your son is all you want, then just take him from her and let us leave.”
Kale leaned forward, so close our noses nearly touched. He almost looked amused. “We are leaving, Collector. Aria, you, Zhaff, and me together... and your grandson.”
“Zhaff is still alive?” I questioned.
“If you could call whatever his father made him into living. He still has a part to play.”
My synthetic foot found flat footing, and I begged my brain to move it. I sprang up, fist aiming straight for Kale’s pretty little head, but right before the blow struck, he clutched my forearm. The power provided to his fingers from his armor nearly broke my wrist as he wrenched it back. My feet lifted off the rocky floor.
“An Earther will never strike me again,” he said callously, his composed demeanor coming unhinged. “You’ll come with me, and if you don’t do exactly as I say, Aria will die the moment she delivers my child into this world. But if you act as my loyal collector, she’ll be cared for the rest of her life. She will be permitted to watch her son grow and teach him the ways of your people so that we never wind up stuffed in quarantines again. Which is more than you ever did for her.”
He released me. I blinked hard, seeing stars from the pain in my wrist. I pictured Aria, wherever she was, holding her pregnant belly and wishing she could be anywhere else in Sol. Leaving her with a nice, safe clan-family after she was born seemed like the better choice now. Everything seemed like the better choice.
“I…” I coughed and gathered my breath. “I won’t kill Rylah for you. I can’t.”
“You think that’s what this is about?” He laughed. No one joined him, not even Rin. “Rylah is no concern to us anymore. No, Malcolm Graves, you’re taking me to your master on Undina. His and Venta’s fleet is on our doorsteps, yet still, he hides from me.”
“You really think you’re going to kill Luxarn Pervenio?”
“Yes. And you and Luxarn’s son are going to help me.” He strode toward Basaam Venta’s creation and slapped the fusion core chamber. “We’re going to give Earth an M-Day they’ll never forget!”
He was almost gleeful as the wheels of a terrible plot I couldn’t imagine churned in his head. I felt a chill run up my spine. I’d dealt with more monsters and miscreants than I cared to remember. I could usually guess their next move after a second in the same room as them. Not Kale.
I think that was what scared me the most. Even more than the thought of losing Aria, Rylah, or Zhaff again, or an employer I’d dedicated my life’s work to. Luxarn had done enough to earn the hatred of Ringers. Some conspiracy theorists even thought he and his father purposely spread sickness to take control after the Great Reunion. I’d never cared enough to ask, but he’d made his bed.
An M-Day to remember, though? A mysterious, life-changing engine invented by a genius and meant for a Departure Ark. Men were usually after the simple things. Credits. Power. Revenge. The stuff that drives a sane person. Kale was after more than any of that. He’d already executed Cora’s murderer, and it wasn’t enough. And killing Luxarn wouldn’t be enough. How did you right the wrongs of half a century worth of abuse from Earthers in the head of a madman?
“What are you planning, Kale?” I asked, voice trembling.
“To free my people,” he replied. “You and your daughter helped spark our revolution from this very cavern amongst our dead and dying. Now it’s time we finish it, once and for all.”
Seventeen
Kale
Screens displaying the vicinity of Saturn filled the entire command deck of the Cora, now parked in a new Darien hangar. She’d sustained minor cosmetic damage during Aria and Rylah’s attempt at escaping, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed now that all of my people were dedicated to building our fleet. The screens were tuned in to feeds from Pervenio Station, Enceladus, and Pandora—to all the moons and stations in the cosmic archipelago of which Titan was the beating heart.
The Earthers had arrived.
Only a few months after Madame Venta and Luxarn Pervenio’s corporations merged and orchestrated the assassination of the majority of the Red Wing Company board, a fleet more massive than anyone could have imagined surrounded our ringed planet. They were prepared to end our insurrection forcefully, apparently even without the USF approving of it. Ships of every shape and size—transports and passenger liners converted into warships, fighters, and defense frigates—they bore the logos of the three most powerful corporations in Sol, now as one. The combined might of Venta Co., Pervenio Corp, and Red Wing Company was arrayed before us.
“We barely have half that amount,” Rin said, gawking at the feeds. We stood alone in the Cora, my aunt and me, the last living members of a bloodline I’d just learned died off more than three centuries ago. A part of me knew for sure that Rylah wasn’t lying when she told me.
“All because your sister wasn’t able to handle a protest until we returned,” I replied. Our plan to use our captives to slow their invasion was prepared, but nobody could have predicted how
much Earth would send.
“A dozen more ships wouldn’t have helped.”
“You’re afraid?” I asked.
“You aren’t?”
I turned to her. She’d been irritated after Rylah was punished. I was too. It was one thing she’d never taught me about leading: that you’d inevitably be betrayed by some of the people closest to you and have to manage to keep fighting.
It didn’t matter. Rin could hate me for what I was forced to do, but now, Titan needed me. Her body had been too battered by Zhaff to be of use.
“You’ve been preparing for this your entire life, Rin,” I said. “A chance to make them cower. These are the people who did that to your face. Who beat you. Raped you.”
“I didn’t even know who Madame Venta was when that happened. I shouldn’t be here fighting her. I should be with you when you look Luxarn Pervenio in the eyes.”
“Without Rylah, you know I need you here defending our homeworld.”
“Well, if you hadn’t crippled her—”
“I still wouldn’t trust her,” I interrupted, stopping her before she joined them on my bad side. Then I studied her from head to toe. She still needed a cane to walk, and her face remained covered in bruises. Every time she inhaled, I could tell she was trying to hide a wince of pain.
“Besides, you’re in no condition to fight if it comes to that,” I said.
“I’ve fought through worse,” she said, seething.
“It’s done, Rin. You need to stay. You’re the only person they’ll believe is in charge.”
“While you trust a Pervenio collector to deliver you to Luxarn unharmed? It’s too risky.”
“You said it yourself. We can’t beat them in a straight-on battle.”
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 101
