I knew what I had to do. I only wished it didn’t take seeing Aria like this for me to realize it.
I held Malcolm by the sides of his face and said, “You have to take care of him.”
My response made his bloody brow furrow, but that was all I offered. I left him against the sleep pod, with his body so broken, he couldn’t follow. I then rushed toward the command deck viewport. Undina was less than a half hour from hitting. Com messages from Earth popped up all over the display. Members of the USF begged me to stop, all those men and women who were so quick to sign off on Luxarn doing whatever was necessary to keep the Ring profitable, were now on their knees pleading with a Ringer.
Transport ships flitted across Earth away from New London. I knew it was those very same Assembly sycophants and schemers with a ride reserved for them, preserving their own lives while the civilians in New London filled the streets and watched their doom creep ever closer along the horizon.
They were Earthers, all of them—future collectors, security officers, assembly members, or corporate directors. Maybe there was a new Luxarn Pervenio down there ready to rise to power and get vengeance on us, but it took the dying words of a bastard daughter from the shit-covered sewers of Mars for me to remember what it meant to be Titanborn. What I’d forgotten in blind fury.
That we would stand against them together. That we’d taught my people how.
“One last ride, Cora,” I whispered.
I leaned over the Cora’s controls and accelerated toward the back of Undina as fast as the ship was able. Then I turned and headed back toward the cabin. Malcolm remained on his knees, wearing a thousand-meter stare, shattered. When he saw me, he didn’t even try to attack. All the fight in him was gone.
“Why?” was all he could manage. I scooped him up and battled the g-forces from the Cora’s hard burn to carry him toward the med bay.
We stopped outside. All of my men surrounded the medical bed, bracing against the pressure. Two aimed weapons at Basaam Venta’s head, forcing him to begin the procedure of removing my baby from Aria’s stomach.
“He’s s-still alive,” the frightened Earther stuttered.
“Get him out!” a Titanborn ordered.
“It’s not my area of expertise,” Basaam said.
“No excuses.”
“If my son lives, Basaam goes free,” I said. My men regarded me, and I waved over the young blonde one I was most familiar with. The order buoyed Basaam’s disposition. Nobody understood what the promise of freedom can do for a man better than me. He began requesting specific equipment at breakneck speed with the confidence of a genius.
“Lord Trass, what do you need?” the young soldier asked. His cheeks were still as soft as Luxarn’s mattress in the home I stole.
“What’s your name?” I said.
He seemed taken aback by the question at first, then shook his head and answered, “Geoff Parker.”
“Geoff. Go to the command deck and make sure we don’t crash.”
“Crash?”
“Just go.”
He glanced nervously back at Aria, then nodded and hurried by. I propped Malcolm up against the doorway. “Go to her,” I told him.
“You don’t get to walk away from this,” he rasped.
“I’m not. She fought for us to have a world of our own. I’m going to go make sure we get it.”
“Haven’t you done enough?”
I stared at Aria’s cold, impassive face, framed by strands of wavy hair as red as the surface of Mars. She wasn’t Cora and never would be, but she was dead all the same because of this hatred between my people and her father’s. I’m not sure if I ever really loved her or just told myself I did so I could feel something. I’m not sure if I could ever love again, but I was sure of one thing—she deserved better. All my people did. A king, and a father, they could be proud of.
“Not yet,” I said. I turned away, but Malcolm grabbed my arm. His grip was weaker than an Earther’s ever should be. The haggard old fool was on the cusp of death. Blood stained his mouth and shirt, and if he didn’t get treated soon, he’d probably collapse.
“One day, I’m going to kill you,” he said. “I don’t care what it takes.”
“If it had to be anyone.” I lifted his chin. “Make sure Malcolm sees Sol as it truly is, just like she did.”
“Malcolm?”
“Aria told me that was the name she wanted, before you both tried to run away.”
I removed his hand and left him behind. Even his sharp wit couldn’t produce a response before I was around the corner. For a moment, I worried that he’d follow me instead of doing the right thing, but he never came.
I entered the cargo bay alone. A rack of helmets on the far wall let me replace mine so I’d be able to breathe in space. I considered grabbing an oxygen tank, but what I was planning was a one-way journey, and there was enough woven into my suit’s stores to get me there.
My mag boots switched off, and I steadied myself against the Cora’s exit ramp while the ship’s acceleration racked my body. It was sealed, like it should be during flight and without depressurization, but I tapped the control panel and overrode the system.
Then I waited. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind of everything, which was as impossible as it had been since the day Rin told me I was a Trass. All the awful things I’d done, I thought I did for my people, but it was clear now that wasn’t always true. I did them because of those awful memories of an Earther security officer calling me Ringer like I wasn’t worth a name. I did them for Cora and my mother. And most of all, I did them for me. To make me feel again.
I switched on my coms and set them to my and Rin’s private line. “Rin,” I said weakly. “Titan is yours. Tell my mother… Tell her I didn’t die a monster.” All this rebelling started with me trying to save her, so it felt fitting that my mother was the one who popped into my head as the end neared. I wished I’d have a chance to tell her myself, that I was sorry for letting her down, but Rin’s word would have to do.
“From ice to ashes,” I said staunchly, mustering all my courage. We were too far for me ever to receive her answer in time.
G-forces suddenly tugged on my body as the Cora turned hard. Geoff Parker, one of my Titanborn subjects whose name I’d finally cared enough to learn, did as I asked and kept us from crashing. My finger hovered over the controls to open the ramp. I waited until the wails of a newborn infant echoed down the halls of the Cora.
Then I set the inner door of the cargo bay to seal, closed my visor, and hit the command to open the ship’s ramp. As soon as it cracked open, explosive decompression yanked me out into space. My body flew across the starry void at speeds that would have ripped me apart if not for my suit. One last flight without a g-stim so I could feel everything.
Undina filled my vision, surrounded by the glowing blue of Earth. It was so close now. I was headed for the hangar nearest to the engine, where I wouldn’t immediately burn up while it pulsed, like nuclear bombs over and over.
I didn’t need my wings in space, so I held a straight line until the edge of the hangar was in reach. My elbow snapped as I struck, sending me tumbling along the surface until I was able to grab hold of a rocky outcrop with my good hand. That shoulder was nearly torn from its socket, but somehow held long enough for me to magnetize my boots.
Sweat started pouring down my forehead immediately, even through my visor. Everything around me was drowned in brightness from the Fusion Pulse Engine. It was as if I were walking on the surface of the sun. I crawled toward its base, anchored into the rock, and every meter closer made my armor feel like it was melting.
Earthers said that on their planet they were so near to the sun they could see it shine in the sky. That their retinas could burn if they stared. Now I understood. The engine was so blinding, I couldn’t even look up.
I’m not sure how long I trudged along the wrinkled surface of Undina, but by the time I reached the base of the engine, I felt like I’d sweated al
l the water out of me. Even my powered armor couldn’t help maintain the sensation in my limbs. My eyes were so watery, I could barely see.
I leaned against the base of the engine to catch my breath. Three massive, flexible arms extended from anchors dug into the crust, bending every time there was a propulsive blast from the fusion core and nozzle above. The whole contraption was slowly burrowing into the crust of the asteroid, but it would hold long enough.
I pulled myself around the structure, a wave of heat distortion making it difficult to tell how close I was to anything without touching it. I dug my fingers into the plating and tore a piece off to reveal the manual control panel.
Maybe it was the heat, or maybe Basaam’s programming, but the whole screen was dark. This was the first field test for the drives, so nobody could be sure what would happen when they were attached to an asteroid, in space, without the proper housing and cooling an Ark could afford.
After a handful of failed attempts at activating the controls, I went to punch it out of frustration, but in the reflection, saw two lights. I turned around too late to get out of the way of a small transport ship, which had likely once been used to convey ore to the factories on Luna. It crashed into one of the engine’s structural arms, pinning me against it. Without my armor on, I’d have been dead, but still, my entire rib cage felt like it’d been pulverized.
My lips were chapped, and my throat so dry, it hurt to inhale. I held my breath instead as I struggled to break free. I punched the ship in a Pervenio logo on its hull, again and again, screaming to help pour all my energy into every blow. I pictured Director Sodervall’s smiling face when he spaced my people, and Luxarn’s when I ended his reign for good.
After I lost count, I started to picture Aria’s instead. She stood at my side on Mars when every Earther turned their nose up at us. I pictured my mother, frail and dying in the Pervenio Quarantine before I saved her. I pictured Rylah and Gareth, placing my first rifle in my hands and believing in some worthless Ringer pickpocket to lead Titan into the future. And then I saw Cora, gazing up at me with her brilliant blue eyes in that single night we spent alone together before she died.
I was thrust back to the present when the ship shifted enough for me to fall free. I would have laughed in relief if I could. I clung to one of the Fusion Pulse Engine’s struts and tried to pull myself up. Then I felt a sudden, stinging sensation in my chest. I looked down. A hole cut through my chest plate. My suit was designed to automatically seal it upon exposure, but I’d been shot. I couldn’t hear anything over the engine.
I fell to my knees, clutching my chest as I rolled over against the engine’s support. I coughed, and blood sprayed the inside of my visor. Through it, I saw a shadowy figure topple out of the ship’s cockpit. Whoever it was wore an exo-suit, but the sleeve for his left arm fluttered, and his left leg dragged behind him as he limped. Through the visor, I couldn’t spot the whites of any eyes.
“Zhaff…” I rasped. “You have to stop it.” I raised my arm to point at the locked engine controls, but Zhaff shot me through the bicep. It fell limp to my side, but my body remained too overwhelmed by heat to feel anything.
I groped through the darkness to find something to help me up while Zhaff holstered his firearm and limped over to the engine controls. I pushed against the ship with my knee and was able to get to my feet. I grabbed the first part I could find and tried to use it to pull myself at him until I realized that Zhaff had a hand terminal raised to the engine’s emergency controls.
With only his single hand, he typed like only a Cogent could until the engine controls winked on and he moved to them. I felt the structural arm I was wrapped around shake, then lower. A wave of intense heat burned my cheek through my visor and made my insides feel like they were going to boil. I peered up and saw that the direction of the engine’s pulses had changed, shifting Undina’s direction.
I coughed up another gob of blood and fell back. As the plume of the engines shifted, I noticed the thin blue streak of the Cora far off in the darkness. I closed my eyelids and breathed in deep through my nose. My mouth tasted like rusting metal.
I’d leaped from the Cora to fix my mistake, I’d missed the birth of my son, and the future of our free world, yet it was Malcolm’s mercy toward Luxarn’s son that saved the people of Earth. Not me. And nobody would ever know.
A sound like crackling interrupted the steady pulsating of the engine as Undina entered Earth’s upper atmosphere and its front began to burn up. A Ringer’s body wasn’t suited for Earth. That was one of the first things my people learned. The gravity was relentless on our bones and muscles, but most of all on our hearts. Without suits and proper medication, it would give out after a few days. My father learned that lesson when he came to Earth alongside Aria to steal medicine for my people.
Yet there I was, arriving at the cradle of humanity precisely one year later. I set out from Titan with the intention of destroying everything my enemies held dear, but as I opened my eyes and squinted at the dress of fire Undina wore around its horizon, I thought I could make out the shine of Sol.
We were all under the light of the same star. We were all humans. Sol-born. Maybe, now, the people of Earth would finally see that too.
“To ensure the safety of human propagation,” a faint voice spoke. I lifted my heavy head and saw Zhaff towering over me. Despite being blind, his pulse pistol aimed directly between my eyes.
I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could, Zhaff’s gun flashed, my head snapped back, and my world went black. And like Cora, I’d never be ashes upon the winds of Titan.
Twenty-Four
Malcolm
It was M-Day, September 3, 2335. Exactly three hundred one years to the day after a meteorite struck Earth. Millions watched in horror from the streets of New London, torn from their celebration of survival. They waited to die, helpless as Ringers in quarantine, until Undina was redirected at the very last moment.
It landed in the middle of Earth’s vast ocean instead. Tidal waves ripped across the planet, but Earth’s tide had already been raised permanently by the last, much-larger meteorite, the coastal cities already toppled like dominoes. Earthers now stuck to the heart of the remaining landmasses, and so New London and all their strings of settlements remained mostly unharmed.
Earth’s sky was painted a darker shade of gray from vapor and dust kicked up by the impact. Global temperatures chilled even further than they had since the first M-Day. It was nowhere near as cold as Titan, but every shiver of Earth’s populace would be a reminder of Kale Trass’s final act. His final “mercy,” as his people called it.
I liked to tell myself, from time to time, that it wasn’t Kale who’d redirected Basaam Venta’s engine. But that maybe Zhaff had one ounce of the extraordinary left in him and found a way to redirect Undina himself, saving a planet and people who’d never given a damn about him. It was better than believing the man who’d killed my daughter was a hero merely for realizing his pain pushed him too far.
A handful of ships had ejected from Undina as it hurtled toward Earth and left me holding my breath that maybe I was right, though reports from the USF said they were all found empty. And the asteroid and everything in and on it had burned up in the atmosphere or been vaporized by the impact. Still, it didn’t hurt to dream for once.
Presently, I limped along the docks in the Darien Uppers, still getting re-acquainted with my artificial leg after it required significant repairs. A sanitary mask covered my mouth. Rin Trass made me wear it after she spared my life upon our return. The Scarred Queen of Titan was now the legal ruler of all the Ring, until Kale’s heir—my grandson—was old enough to take over.
It almost seemed fitting that out of the people in that hangar on Mars on that fateful day when I finally met Kale, Rin and I would be the only two to survive. The old wretches, burned out on living yet unable to die. Though I’ve always found that the best leaders are the ones who never wanted the crown, and wretched as Rin was, s
he was no Kale.
The Darien Uppers had become a place of commerce again. A Venta Co. trading vessel arrived in a nearby hangar, and although armed Ringers hounded it, the fact that it hadn’t been shot down was a step in the right direction. Rin still refused to use credits throughout the Ring, but a man like me who’d seen all of Sol could always find a living.
For now, I had a full-time job. As I passed a statue being erected in Kale’s memory in Darien outside the docks, I couldn’t help but think about blowing it to bits. Every day I went by, my blood began to boil, but I kept my mouth shut and did as I was asked.
I rode the lift up one of the residential towers structuring Darien. The gardens at the top bloomed again now that the Ringers were done partying over rubble and celebrating their freedom. Maybe they’d finally remembered something life taught me—that hard work was the only way to control anything. As a collector or a grandfather.
The door to my dwelling unit opened as I approached. Rin strode out, not wearing her armor or her sanitary mask.
“Graves,” she muttered as she passed.
The light caught her scarred face in just such a way that I could see through to the back of her throat. I tried not to stare and nodded in response, like I always did. It was her choice to let me live after we returned from Undina, so it was the least I could offer. We’d been through enough, I think, to have fostered a mutual respect for each other.
Rylah sat on the bed inside, and Kale’s mother stood behind her at the back of the room, watching. I don’t think I’d heard her speak ever since we returned without Kale.
Rylah cradled Aria’s crying son with a synthetic hand she’d constructed after picking apart what was left of my leg. It was still mostly exposed circuits and joints, but it worked well enough, and she used it to repair my leg so I didn’t need a chair like an old codger.
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 109
