Weapons and bodies clanked the floor one after another, a refrain of death. Then silence.
I released a mouthful of air I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and leaned slowly around the overturned desk. A Venta Co. officer lay, head facing me, a bullet hole through the center of his visor.
“No, please!” I heard an officer shout before he too was silenced by a bullet.
“Who is that!” I shouted.
“Malcolm Graves, you can come out now,” a man replied with the same robotic voice that the Cogent from above in the station had. Now that we were closer, I could hear the machinelike tinge to it that not only made him sound artificial in cadence but like a Solnet user interface.
I came further around the corner, still not willing to expose myself. Maybe Luxarn was helping me out, or perhaps he wanted me for himself to see what I’d learned from my time as Kale’s captive. There was still always the possibility that he’d somehow found out about Aria, considering how public a figure she’d become.
The smoke began to dissipate, revealing at least ten Venta Co. security officers’ bodies lying dead throughout the office and hallway. One clean shot to the head had claimed each of them, except for the one currently in the hands of my Cogent savior. He stood in the entranceway, arm wrapped around a struggling officer’s throat before he snapped it.
I’d seen men killed that way enough times not to be affected by it, but the ease with which he did it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Like he was playing with an action figure but had pushed too hard. He let the body fall from his arms in a heap, then glared up at me. All I could see in detail through the hanging mist was his eye-lens.
The muscles of my gun-hand tensed. Memories of those last moments on Titan with Zhaff rushed through my mind. I heard the ringing of my pistol again and saw him toppling over. Of anyone Luxarn had to have help me, of course, it was another Cogent. If I never had to deal with another one, it’d be too soon.
“Malcolm Graves, you must hurry,” the Cogent said. I couldn’t help but notice the familiarity to the tone beneath that unnatural tinge. However, every Cogent spoke like Zhaff did. My mind was just playing tricks on me again, bringing me back to that moment where my life was turned upside down.
Still cautious, I pulled myself to my feet. The Cogent’s weapon was lowered at the very least. I finally wondered if my insane plan was actually about to work, and Luxarn was really going to help me get a ship in an attempt to have a man inside Kale’s operation.
The Cogent stepped toward me. “Malcolm, it is good to s—"
An earsplitting crash from the testing lab assaulted my ears. The Cogent was whipped off his feet and sucked out of the doorway. Air whistled, then pulled Basaam’s desk, all the bodies, and me with it. The desk jammed across the doorway, and I slammed into it. Incredible pressure squeezed my limbs and made my eye sockets burn. Blood rushed to my head, and with everything I’d been through, I started to grow faint.
I felt a firm grip on my shoulder. White armor filled my vision, then a Titanborn heaved me over his shoulder. The last thing I remembered was the glinting of the Cogent’s eye lens down the hall, holding on to a railing as the change in pressure threatened to tear him out into space through the wall of the testing lab that had been blown open.
Five
Kale
“How much are you willing to risk for a chance to even yourselves with Earth?” Malcolm said to me. “If you aren’t, then ignore me. Otherwise, I’m a man of my word.”
Rin glared over at me from the com’s controls. The way the dim lights played across her scarred face, anybody else might have cringed in fear.
“He’s playing us for fools,” she said.
“What if he’s not?” I replied.
“How many collectors have you met? This is what they do.”
It was true; I hadn’t met any beyond surface interactions. Anyone from Darien who grew up in the Lowers knew to keep away when a collector came to town. Those that didn’t… people didn’t hear from them again. I turned to Basaam, who was being kept quiet by one of my men.
“Basaam, how easy would it be for Martelle Station to block all outgoing communications from their network?” I said.
My guard let his hand off his mouth. “Complicated, but not impossible,” he said, short of breath. “Numerous subsets of Venta Co. operate within the station’s optics. However, a top-down order from Madame Venta or the Jovian High Director could allow for full station override.”
“He’s lying, Kale,” Rin said.
“And how would you like to prove it?” I snapped. “He can’t see Aria, and we don’t have time to wake her. Now move over.” I shoved my way in front of her and lowered my mouth to the coms. “What do you need?” I asked Malcolm.
“I need you to open the Cora’s wide coms and use my hand terminal to link me to Luxarn Pervenio—”
I didn’t hear the rest of what he said because Rin cut in and barked, “Absolutely not! So you can tell them exactly where we are?”
“You forget who you have on that ship,” Malcolm said. “Don’t be fools. You said I was your collector now, so let me do my damn job to keep her safe!”
Rin was in such shock by his request, she scoffed. Then she looked to me, visibly unnerved I didn’t share her same reaction. Months went into planning Mars and Basaam’s capture, but we were all improvising now, as Malcolm would say.
“You can’t seriously be considering this,” Rin said. “Kale.”
“We need that data,” I said.
“We’ll find another way. We can’t trust him. This is too far.”
“There’s no time for arguing!” Malcolm shouted, his voice muffled by a grating noise in the background. “They’re breaking in. These are the split-second choices leaders make, kid. Unless Rin makes all of them.”
“I don’t trust him,” I said.
“I know, you trust her. But just because you care about her doesn’t mean he really does. We should leave him behind and go. At the very least, we’ll give Venta a scare.”
“Is that all we’re good for—frightening Earthers? You always talk about us making a difference, but they were scared of us before we called ourselves Titanborn. It doesn’t change anything any more than spacing people on the Piccolo did.”
“C’mon, kid,” Malcolm whispered. “Don’t be her—”
Rin switched off the coms, then waved back to the Titanborn holding Basaam and signaled for them to leave. He yanked Basaam away, and the Earther yelled about seeing his clan-sister before his screaming was muffled by a thud.
“It’s my job to protect you,” Rin said. “Who knows what he’d bring back to Titan?”
“It’s your job to support me!” I reached into her pocket and pulled out the hand terminal and battery I’d taken from Malcolm. “Gareth died for this chance.”
“Think this through! It’s his job to notice things, and who knows what he saw? If he figured out about Aria, their Cogents might not gun for you anymore.”
“He doesn’t know a thing,” I said.
“And how do you know that?”
“Because he wanted to protect her from you. If he knew she was pregnant with my child, a stubborn old Earther collector like him might not have been so eager to stop it before the baby died.” I shoved the device into her gut. “Do it, or I’ll find someone who will.”
Rin bit her lip in disgust then snagged the hand terminal and plugged it into a port on the Cora’s control console. “You aren’t thinking clearly,” she said as she swiped through commands until Luxarn’s private contact information came up. “Scanners could pick us up the moment I broaden our range.”
“I don’t plan on staying for long,” I said.
She keyed a few commands within the Cora herself to switch on our long-range coms. We’d light up like a star to any Venta scanners watching the area for anomalies. Rin then let her finger hover over the button on the hand terminal, which would sync Luxarn Pervenio onto our privat
e line with Malcolm.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” she said.
“If you want to be Queen of Titan, fine. But until then, you asked me to lead us, and this is our only move. Do it, Rin.”
She held her tongue then did as I asked.
“Good,” I said. “Now cut us out.”
“You don’t at least want to know the lies your new friend is telling?” Rin said, holding back frustration.
“If Luxarn analyzes the feed, they might find that we were listening in. Cut it, now.”
Rin threw her hands up in frustration, but again, did as requested. Silence filled the command deck, and all the proof we had of Malcolm’s conversation with the man who turned Titan into our nightmare was a tiny light indicating their lines were open. We, on the other hand, were now completely exposed.
“The moment they’re done, we burn for Titan,” Rin said.
I leaned forward and stared through the viewport at the distant dot of life that was Martelle Station. Ships swarmed around it and lights flashed with activity. Each of them faced inward.
“First we get Malcolm,” I said.
Rin’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“They’re all focused on him. You’re right, we can’t trust him if he makes contact with Pervenio. They can falsify the data to do Trass-knows-what. So while they’re focused on him, and Venta and Pervenio argue about what to do, we grab him.”
“Why didn’t you just say that was the plan to start with?”
“I didn’t have a plan yet,” I admitted.
Rin let a rattling groan slip through her lips. “We have no idea what defenses are on that station. The whole point of using him was to keep you far away.”
“And if we hide like cowards, like Luxarn, this will all be a waste. But if we get him and secure the data, nobody will see it coming. Malcolm will seem like he’s still on their side, and we can use him again to get close after the engine is finished.”
“Luxarn might already know we’re using Aria as leverage.”
“He doesn’t,” I said.
Rin rolled her eyes. “Again with absolutes. You can’t know that, Kale.”
“I lived with Earthers on the Piccolo for years. I followed even more of them around in Darien. They don’t frown upon anything more than having illegitimate children, and Aria is one. The newsfeeds haven’t yet connected her to Luxarn Pervenio, which means Malcolm kept her quiet to save his job.”
“A job that, according to her, he no longer has,” Rin reminded me.
“He has his pride,” I said. “Like Captain Sildario did, remember? He spent his life protecting Cora but was never willing to tell a soul about who she was. Trust me, Rin, if we get Malcolm now, we’ll hold all the cards.”
“If we make it out alive.”
“That’s why now we need a real pilot.” I jumped up from my seat and rushed down the corridor to the sleep pods. My men were busy putting Basaam back under, and I stopped in front of Aria’s chamber. Waking her before I had any time to think about how to talk to her wasn’t ideal, but I remembered all I’d done to save my mother when she was sick. If she thought she was saving her father, then she was our best bet at getting out. There was no better form of inspiration.
I reached for the controls to start the waking process, only to promptly have Rin’s hand cover mine. “Don’t,” she said.
“I’m not having this argument again,” I said.
“Then don’t argue. You want to put us all in danger, fine. You’re the leader Titan has now—for good or bad—but we can’t wait for Aria to re-acclimate.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“She won’t! Don’t let your need to test her loyalty blind you. In her state, waking from an enhanced dose of chems meant for two, she’ll be sick for a few days. I know she’s the best pilot we have, but not while she’s vomiting. Let me handle this.”
“Enough, Rin! Enough trying to control everything. She is the best we have, and by the time we reach the station, she’ll be fine.”
“I’m not trying to—” She huffed. “Trust me, Kale. I know what she’s going through.”
“Really? Were you tortured in your sleep?”
“No, but I was pr—” She caught herself before any of the others overheard and leaned in. “I was pregnant, and I stole credits from your father to fly to Pervenio Station to get it aborted. I was about as far along as she is when I took the ride. Titan was in its farthest orbit, so they put us under since it was going to take three days. Worst feeling I ever felt when I awoke.”
My pulse slowed, and I looked up at Rin. Her eyes welled in the corners, same way they did when she drank too much and thought about Hayes. “You were?”
“Hard to believe me and not Rylah, I know, but my face didn’t always look like this. It was long before the Sunfire. I couldn’t bear the thought of bringing another one of us into our hell and your father, well… I couldn’t have helped his cell much looking after anyone else.”
“Rin, I…”
“If I hadn’t done it, I never would have gone aboard the Sunfire, and I never would have met you. Now, you aren’t my son, and I’m not Katrina, but I swore to myself I wouldn’t let anything harm you.”
I gazed over at Aria’s placid face and forced a smirk. “Some job you did.”
“What can I say, you’re stubborn like your father.” Rin lay her hands on my arms and turned me back to face her. “I’m our best bet at pulling this off thanks to her training, and it’s too late to turn back. Just trust me.”
As I stared at her, I thought back to those early days on the Sunfire when we first met. Nothing went according to plan, but we did the best we could to make it worth something. All the people we’d lost, all the pain we’d caused—because of it, Titan now had a chance to be free of Earth. Without Rin, none of that would’ve been possible. Maybe Malcolm was right, and there was more she could have done to save Cora, but he didn’t know her. And he didn’t know me.
The Rin I’d come to know would have done everything in her power—would have given her life—to save Cora if she knew what the Earthers would do. She proved that on Pervenio Station when we went back, just as she proved in that hangar how far she’d go to protect Aria once she knew she held a piece of us.
I exhaled. Malcolm had gotten my thoughts racing with his lies, but he’d forgotten one thing: on Titan, we weren’t family out of convenience like his people were, nor were we employees out for credits. Our bonds were strongly tied as the Rings of Saturn.
“Okay, the Cora’s yours,” I said.
“Then we don’t have time to waste.” She took my arm and led me back toward the command deck. “Looks like Malcolm is done talking to his boss. Hopefully, it went well.” She took her seat in the captain’s chair and ran through controls. She wasn’t anywhere near as smooth an operator as Aria, hesitating before her every move, but she got it done.
“Everyone strap in,” she said over the ship-wide coms to the three Titanborn we’d woken. “This is going to hurt.”
“What’s the plan?” I asked.
“Now you want to hear my advice?” she asked as she leaned over and tapped through navigation controls.
“Rin…”
“I can track Malcolm’s position through his com-link. I’ll pull alongside the lab, blow it open, and we’ll have a team to retrieve him.” She reached beneath the console and removed a g stim. She raised it to her neck then regarded me. “Sorry, I only have one on me, and there’s no time.”
I nodded for her to continue and she jabbed it into her neck. I watched her pupils dilate, then she struck the engine ignition. A sudden burst of acceleration pressed me against my seat and made my chest constrict. Without my powered suit on, it might have been enough to knock me out. Even still, my fingers squeezed the armrest, and my jaw clenched.
“What about station defenses?” I groaned.
“I just messaged Rylah to send out false warnings about impending attacks on other Jovian Colonies.”
“Good idea.”
“It won’t help us avoid everything, but the first thing Aria taught me about this ship was the weapons systems. Hopefully, she left us with enough after Mars.”
“She’s always careful.”
“Or up to something.”
I rotated my head, only to find Rin’s healthy half wearing a half-pained, wry grin. She was better suited for dealing with the extreme pressure of acceleration with a g-stim, but no one could handle what we were for too long. Our seats shook as the Cora’s impulse drives propelled us at full speed toward Martelle Station. Hyper-advanced stealth systems allowed us to get close, but by the time the details of the station’s ship-factory offshoots were visible, so were we.
“Unidentified vessel, please slow your vector and state your business,” station control said through our open coms.
“I told you it’d help to know how close we can get,” I said through grating teeth.
“Not close enough.” Rin slowly extended her hand toward the weapon controls and worked them with a few fingers. “Target locked, missile away.”
Even through the rumble of acceleration, I felt a slight jerk. Then a rocket trail lanced out in front of the ship. I watched through my eyelashes as it thinned, then exploded into the side of Martelle Station. Chunks of metal and slag sprayed out across the blackness.
“That’ll get their attention,” Rin said.
A Venta Co. security fighter hovering outside of Basaam’s lab banked hard left and fired a missile at us. Rin scrambled for more controls, and our ship’s PDC rounds lashed out across my view. Rin’s aim wasn’t great, but one of the rounds blew the missile before it struck us. The blast radius still rocked the Cora, but Rin didn’t let up. Our cannons arched back down, and detonated another of the ship’s arsenal right out of the tube, taking the vessel with it.
Piloting and operating the weapons systems wasn’t a one-woman job, but Rin was all we had who knew how to handle it. The Cora came in fast before reverse thrusters kicked in and our portside scraped across the side of the station. The sudden shift in momentum hurled me forward since I’d forgot to secure my restraints, but Rin extended her arm to bar me from slamming into the controls.
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