When I returned to the airlock, I lay the blanket over his shoulders. He grabbed the ends, crossed his arms, and failed in an attempt to whisper. Then his head drooped back against the wall, and he passed out. So I waited for an hour, maybe two. I waited so long that I started to doze off...
I stood in front of a transparent divider. It was similar to the one in the Darien Q-Zone that separated my mother and me. One by one, a crowd of people on the other side turned to reveal their faces.
First, I saw John, a bandage wrapped around his head. Then came the other familiar faces of the Piccolo’s Earther crew, until Captain Saunders appeared. Blood leaked out of a widening hole in his stomach as he stood.
“Help us.” I could hear their muffled cries, but there was no intercom through which to reply. Lester parted the crowd and limped toward me, bruised and bloody. Yavik arrived next to him, along with a few more recognizable Ringers. Desmond approached last, only he wasn’t alone. He took Cora’s hand as she wept.
“You did it now, Kale,” he sneered.
“Why did you do this?” Cora sniveled. It was hard to hear her over the constant repetition of the Earthers asking for help.
“Cora,” I said and placed my hands against the glass. “Cora!”
Someone touched my shoulder. I turned to see my mother standing beside me, completely healthy and wearing a bright smile. Finally, I was on her side of the divider.
“Don’t watch, Kale,” she said with a calming presence. “It’ll all be over soon.”
I looked nervously between her and the entire crew of the Piccolo. Desmond cackled. The captain cursed me as his belly opened farther. Cora peered up at me through the bloody fingers covering her face, heartbroken.
An obnoxious klaxon blared. My mother took my hand. Then, the back wall of the room the crew was in whooshed open, and their screams were squelched as they vanished into blackness.
“Cora!” I shouted as my eyes sprang open. I was panting, the salty tang of sweat on my lips as more dribbled down my face. I searched from side to side and discovered Rin beside me. The ghastly nature of her face shocked me once again now with the brighter halogen lights of the airlock beaming down on her. She held a cup of water.
“Relax, Kale,” she said. “It was only a dream.”
I sat up and wiped my brow. “I was hoping all of this was,” I said.
“So did I.” She crouched beside me and glared at Captain Saunders. He continued to shiver and clutch the blanket tightly against his chest. “You can try to help him as much as you want, but it isn’t going to change anything that happened.”
“What are you going to do to him?” I asked.
“Like Hayes told you, that’s not up to me,” she said.
“Maybe we are family, but I’m not a murderer.”
“It’d be a mercy at this point. There’s nowhere else for him to go but out the hatch. Aren’t you tired of being called ‘Earther-lover?’”
“Water...” Captain Saunders croaked. He pawed at Rin’s leg, his arm barely able to move.
“You want this?” Rin regarded him with disdain. She tilted the cup in her hand and slowly allowed it to drip over the rim onto the floor.
“Stop! Just leave him alone.” I grabbed the cup from her and held it under his mouth. He struggled through a few sips alone before I had to support his head to help.
Rin snickered and sat against the wall across from me. She poked him in the head, watching with delight as it caused his entire body to tip.
“Fine,” she said. “If you can tell me one reason your captain deserves to live, then I’ll happily pilot this ship straight to Pervenio Station and turn myself in.”
I took a moment to think, and then said, “He gave me my first chance. Got me out of the shadows.”
“Please. If your father wasn’t who he was, you would’ve never escaped your life of thievery on Darien alive. Saunders helped you? He enslaved you. You broke into his clan-brother’s residence and got caught, so he made you work it off for a year, even though nothing was stolen. Then he started paying you like he does the other Titanborn members of his crew and made you feel as if your life had changed. Brought you the joy of credits. The Earthers working next to you make double your wage, at least, but it’s more than you could ever earn legally in the Lowers, so that’s fine. Why should we be treated the same as our brethren from the homeworld?”
My hands tightened into fists. I wanted to scream at her, but I restrained myself. “Did you bring me here just to have somebody new to lecture?” I said.
“No,” Rin said. “I want you to stop blaming the universe for how our people live and start blaming the Earthers. He’s the same as any of them. All that matters to them is the profit margin and let anyone who stands in the way of it rot in quarantine. They’ll make bastards out of us all.”
“And ‘kill as many as possible’ is the only answer you could come up with? Trass wouldn’t have wanted this.”
“Trass died thinking Earth was going with him. ‘He gave his life to give us the Ring.’ How thrilled do you think he would be to see how they’ve corrupted his vision? Robbed it of its very soul.”
“You tell me,” I said. “You’re the expert on him.”
She bit her mangled lip, then sighed. “Do you want to know how I wound up on the Sunfire?”
I glared at her but said nothing. She must have taken that as a “yes,” because she began telling the story anyway.
“Your dad spent his whole life running,” she said. “Director Sodervall and his employer never stopped hunting the descendants of Trass after the Great Reunion. They knew we weren’t all gone, not yet. Alann struggled to hide us every step of the way. My name changed countless times. He didn’t want that for you, and neither did your mom. So we hacked the system and gave you a dead father with the name ‘Drayton.’ Years later, Alann grew tired of having to look out for his little sister too. He decided that I should hide on a gas harvester, out of sight, until the Children of Titan were ready to make a real difference.
“The crew of the Sunfire were the ones eventually meant to be placed in the airlock and evacuated for all the Ring to see. You were never meant to be involved. But the Sunfire had a captain just like this one. He liked to prey on the Titanborn women he hired. Put a little bonus into their paychecks after he took them, and then toss them away if they got sick. For the first few shifts, I was a good girl following her brother’s orders. I met Hayes, Gareth, and Joran, and we helped harvest tons of gas in the name of Luxarn Pervenio. And every night, I or some other poor Titanborn woman, would be escorted away to the captain’s room and he’d have his way.
“He wrapped up his pathetic excuse for a cock just so he could keep us around, but it was a miracle I never got sick. Trass blood is stronger than most. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. I drove a blade into his neck, and that was the end of it. The ship’s security helped me earn this in the riot that followed.” She pointed at the grisly burns maiming her face. “The few left on this ship are the only ones who survived, and we took the Sunfire for ourselves. That was when I decided I was tired of following orders. My sister was our eyes and ears on Titan, so I became our eyes and ears on Saturn. Waiting. Watching.”
“Getting help from Venta Co,” I added. “An Earther corp.”
“Your dad was stubborn until the day he ate a bullet, but he wasn’t about to let me die for failing him. He spent years brokering an agreement with the only company that had the means of getting supplies to a ship that didn’t exist. Their medicine probably saved your life back on the Piccolo, so I can’t say I regret it. We do what we have to for survival, and in the end, it’ll be their mistake. If Venta Co wants to watch their competition burn so badly, then they can all burn together.”
“I’m sorry, Rin, but just because your captain did that to you doesn’t mean Saunders is the same. He doesn’t deserve to suffer like this.”
She stood and said, “Then end it for him. Or don’t. Your choice put him h
ere, after all. Just know that you’re wrong. He’s exactly the same. They all are. Just ask him. Ask him about Cora.”
I grabbed her armored wrist and squeezed. “What about her?”
“You want to save him, get him to tell you why he named her navigator over an Earther.” She stared toward the airlock’s outer seal for a moment, as if she saw something there, then ripped her arm free and stalked away.
“What about her!” I yelled, running after her.
Rin whipped around and grabbed me by the throat, so swiftly that I couldn’t even muster an attempt at evading her. She looked like she was ready to snap my neck in two.
“Cora!” she bellowed. “Your mother! Do you ever tire of worrying about other people? You’re the only one here now, and you have a more important role to play than anyone on Titan has had for generations.”
“I... I still don’t understand what you want,” I stuttered.
“I’m trying to be patient with you, Kale, but you’re as stubborn as he was.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Rin released me. Her scowl softened. “Do you love Titan?” she asked.
“Of course. It’s my home.”
“Do you hate Earthers?”
“Only some of them.” Her eyes narrowed. I held strong. “That’s the honest truth.”
“Do you hate Pervenio Corp, then?”
I thought back to all the moments dealing with security in Darien—being shocked, shuffling into the Q-Zone, my hollow about to be repossessed, Director Sodervall inspiring a riot in the Uppers all around me.
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
“Then follow me.”
Hayes was already in the command deck when we arrived. The Sunfire juddered more than usual, and beyond the viewport whipped a windy haze so dark and thick that it was as if a black hole had swallowed us.
“Strap in,” Hayes said. “We’re entering a bad one.”
The Sunfire lurched, hurling my body to the side. Gareth caught me and planted me in a seat. He strapped me in before he and Rin headed to seats of their own.
“Storm?” I asked.
Rin nodded. The structure of the domed viewport rattled so loudly I thought it was going to shatter. Lightning coruscated all around us, bolts the length of Pervenio Station. My heart started racing.
“Hayes, do you have the director’s address saved up here from earlier?” Rin asked.
“Sure,” he said. “Why?”
“We’re going to show Kale.”
“Oh, c’mon, Rini. He isn’t ready yet.”
“Neither were you when I stuck Captain Sildario.”
Gareth signed something to Hayes, who rolled his eyes.
“That was different,” Hayes said. “This is—”
“Show me,” I cut him off. All three of them faced me, surprised to hear my voice. The Sunfire quaked, and I clutched my chair’s armrests so tight they dimpled. I swallowed hard. “Show me.”
“You heard him,” Rin said.
Hayes grumbled something, but he signaled one of the command deck’s small view-screens to switch to the grainy newsfeed from earlier. Director Sodervall’s face appeared on it, lines of exhaustion creasing his old face. He sat in front of a viewport looking out upon Saturn’s dazzling rings and a handful of its many moons.
“People of the Ring,” he said. Hayes had to blast the volume because the storm was so loud. “By now you’ve all heard of the horrible fate which befell the Piccolo and its loyal Earther crew members. I speak to you now, not as your director, not as the Voice of the Ring, but as one human making a solemn promise to others. The terrorists behind this attack will pay for their crimes. They call themselves the Children of Titan, but we are the people of Titan. Together, we have all helped the Ring thrive! One cowardly act will never thwart all that we have accomplished.
“I am asking—begging for your help in bringing the man responsible for the unwarranted slaughter of twenty-one innocent members of the Piccolo’s crew to justice.” An image popped up next to the Director’s face. It was a cropped view of the Uppers during the riot his address about the Departure Lottery incited. Framed in the center of it, I saw myself, and behind me, the plants surrounding the Trass memorial were up in flames—a ring of crackling orange framing my head.
“He is Kale Drayton,” Sodervall said. “An eighteen-year-old male from level B2 of the Darien Lower Ward. We believe he was also behind a riot that took place not two days ago in the Darien Uppers and cost the lives of two veteran security officers. Consider him armed and extremely dangerous.
“But he is not alone. People in league with these terrorists can be anywhere. Working beside you. Living beside you. Any accurate report of suspicious behavior will be handsomely rewarded. Anyone who is able to provide information leading directly to the arrest of Kale Drayton will personally receive one hundred thousand credits from the account of Luxarn Pervenio. It is time for us to take back the Ring from lawlessness! Lastly, anyone caught replicating the symbol of the Children of Titan anywhere in Sol will be punished by the fullest extent of USF Colonial Law.
“Your safety, no matter where you or your parents were born, is our utmost concern. The fight to ensure our survival rests in all of our hands.”
The feed cut to static. My jaw hung open. Rin could have been lying about everything she’d said since I woke up on the Sunfire, but I’d just watched an address issued by the Voice of the Ring. It wasn’t a doctored video, it was his voice.
“They think it was me?” I muttered.
“The only Ringer who didn’t return,” Rin said. “Half a crew that didn’t see you die. Even we weren’t expecting Sodervall to be this foolish, but people need to put a face to their fears. Your father didn’t allow him to give them one after the bombing in New London, so now Sodervall’s giving them you. It doesn’t matter if you’re innocent.”
“You have to tell them the truth!” I exclaimed. “They think I killed all of those people.”
“Well, you did upload the device that helped us locate the Piccolo without broadcasting our own signal and being spotted. What will you tell them, that you were just downloading music to it?”
I lunged at her, but my chair’s restraints snapped me back down against the chair. I went to remove them, only to find they were locked. So much for no locked doors.
“Easy, now,” Hayes said. “You said no more breaking anything.”
I lost the ability to breathe. Everything Rin had told me paled in comparison to this newest revelation. As rapidly as I inhaled, no air seemed able to reach my lungs. My chest was tight, and as I grabbed at it, the Sunfire dipped hard. I vomited all over the floor.
“For Trass’s sake, kid!” Hayes shrieked.
“That’s all right,” Rin said. She freed herself from her chair and stood behind me, patting my back. “Let it out.”
“I told you he wasn’t ready, Rin.”
“It wasn’t our secret to keep. He’s dealt with enough of those in his life already.”
I continued struggling to catch my breath as I spit up chunks of regurgitated ration bar stuck behind my teeth. It tasted a lot worse coming up.
“I can’t ever go back…” I realized.
“Not like this.” Rin positioned herself in front of me and raised my helmet up with two hands. “You wanted to know what we wanted, Kale Trass? The real reason you’re here? We’ve been spread thin for too long. Be the leader Sodervall thinks you are. It’s what you were meant to be.”
SEVENTEEN
Leader. A leader of the Children of Titan. Was that what my long-lost father never wanted me to be? What my mom hid me from?
All I wanted was to sleep the hours away and shut off my brain, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t force my eyes to close for more than a second without seeing the final moments on the Piccolo, because Rin was right. It wasn’t all my fault like Director Sodervall proclaimed, but their blood was partially on my hands.
I wasn’t innocent. I knew that the moment I read
R’s message on Titan and agreed to her trade.
That seemed like ages ago. Only a day on the Sunfire and my life had changed more drastically than in eighteen years of living. I had gone from the fatherless son of a sick, penniless, Earther house-servant to the descendant of the single greatest human being in our long history of existence. From a worthless gas harvesting worker struggling to make ends meet to the most wanted man in Sol.
It all left me too exhausted to continue the conversation with Rin. I needed to be alone. At least, partially alone. I gathered as much water as I could and brought it to the airlock. Most of it was for me, but it seemed to be helping Captain Saunders. He shook less and groaned more softly.
“There you go,” I said as I laid his head back. “Good as new… almost.”
The bullet wasn’t stuck in him; I’d inspected him closely enough to discover that it’d blasted through his back. I knew a thing or two about infections, and I was lucky enough to have a space-worthy suit on, so I felt comfortable enough to rub him with some Venta-provided cleaning agents I’d found in the galley. He needed a real doctor, though. He needed one badly.
Unfortunately, there were none for hire in the depths of Saturn’s atmosphere. None of my new crewmates would help either. They claimed to have used anything that might’ve actually helped on Rin’s burns and trying to help other Ringer crewmen who rebelled. I didn’t want to give up, though. I couldn’t. Maybe everything Rin had told me about him was true, but he didn’t deserve to die for doing what anybody else would’ve in his position. Did he?
Titan's Son: (Children of Titan Book 2) Page 18