“Are you ready to help us again?” she asked. The lock to my cell clicked open, and before I could think of an answer a shock baton struck me in my chest and a bag was pulled over my head.
Nine
Kale
I’d spent months pushing my mind and body to the edge just to feel something, watching and listening to the end of Cora’s life so I might sense the beating of my heart. Scraping with death of my own.
Now, as I stood outside of Aria’s room in the Hayes Memorial Hospital, my chest was tight and my throat dry. Scans had already come back clean that she and our baby were healthy, but it wasn’t that. We hadn’t yet talked to her about what happened on Mars. We hadn’t talked at all.
“Lord Trass, she’s ready for you,” one of the new doctors she’d trained for the medical center said as he left her room. Considering Pervenio had a monopoly on all official hospitals in the Ring, Hayes was filled with former nurses, and black-market healers, like Aria used to be. It was the best we had.
I clutched the man’s arm. “Now you know about her,” I said. “Nobody else can.”
The man swallowed audibly. “Yes, Lord Trass.”
My glare bored through him as I tried to get a read on him. With Orson Fring busy stirring up ill feelings amongst the older crowd of Titanborn skilled workers, it was hard to know who could be trusted but for my fighters. I finally released the man’s arm so he could continue on his way. I turned and nodded toward one of my guards down the hall, the same young man who’d helped me back on the Cora. He returned the gesture, then followed the doctor at a distance.
He didn’t have instructions to hurt him, just to monitor his behavior and use of Solnet. At least until the baby was born or Aria’s pregnancy was impossible to hide. Another guard remained outside of Aria’s room.
I turned and rested my hand over the door controls. I could feel my heartbeat in my fingertips. I’m not sure exactly what it meant, if I truly loved Aria or was scared she’d betrayed us. I think, mostly, I wanted her to be telling the truth so I didn’t have to say goodbye. Those fleeting moments with her when our minds could turn off—they were the only times in recent memory where I didn’t feel the pain of loss or the stifling pressure of leading. Afterward, those worries always came rushing back in full force, but without those impossibly short breaks, I’m not sure what would have become of me.
I let the air flow in and out of my nose, over and over, until finally, I mustered the strength to enter. Aria lay on a medical bed, a copious number of scanners monitoring her and the baby. The blankets were down around her ankles so I could see how all that time in sleep pods now left the bump of her belly plainly visible in her medical gown. It would take a great deal of effort to hide her condition now regardless.
She rolled her head to face me, and her nose crinkled as she smiled in the same way Cora used to. My legs grew momentarily woozy, but I did my best not to let it show.
“Kale…” she said, her voice raspy. Hosting enough pharma and anti-rads for two had taken its toll on her. Her face had lost so much color she almost looked like one of us. She tried to sit up and winced.
“Don’t get up,” I said, moving to her bedside. Out of instinct, I reached out to stroke her forehead but froze before I touched. She took my hand and brought it against her cheek for me, then nestled into it. Her skin was abnormally warm.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Still exhausted,” she said. “But we’ll be fine.” Again, she smiled as she reached down and caressed her belly with both hands, as if that was all it would take to make up for what she’d done. To her credit, it very nearly was. I found myself staring at her stomach. Up until then, our child was a blip on a screen Aria showed me; now it was all too real.
“How was Gareth’s funeral?” she asked.
“Interrupted by Earthers claiming lies about us,” I replied.
“I wish you’d have let me come...”
“You know I couldn’t.” I finally forced my features to darken. Lying on her back with tears welling in the corner of her eyes and holding her pregnant stomach—Aria almost looked harmless. I suppose that was why I’d been so quick to trust her from the start. She was similar to Cora in that way. They weren’t Sol-class beauties like Rylah or an Earther ad model, more like workers you might find down at a Lowers factory, hair messy and face stained from a hard day of work... real.
Yet buried beneath Aria’s pretty, unassuming façade, I’d learned there was more mystery than anything.
“You brought Pervenio and Venta to our doorsteps,” I said categorically. “I don’t know what happened when I allowed you down to Old Dome, but that’s what you came back with. Now they’ve merged into something even Earth has never seen before, and Gareth is dead.”
She propped herself up, grimacing. “I hope you know I didn’t mean for any of that to happen. I didn’t even know my dad was alive.” She took my hand again and pulled until I sat at the edge of the bed. “You have to believe me.”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
She slid closer, wrapped her arm around my waist, and stroked my chin. I didn’t recoil. “Believe in me.” She turned my face back toward her stomach. “Believe in us.”
I removed her hand and stood. “How many more secrets do you have, Aria? I know who your father is now thanks to Desmond and Rylah. He’s the Pervenio collector who was in New London when you stole medicine for us. The collector who followed you all the way here and shot Rylah. Who seized the Piccolo and Desmond and Cora...” I swallowed hard. I never enjoyed bringing her up around Aria. It was bad enough how much they reminded me of each other. “He’s the same collector who found our hideout under the Q-zone. For not getting along, he seems to be on your heels quite often.”
“Malcolm follows the credits,” Aria said. “He always has. And nothing earns credits like conflict. It just so happens that I’ve been helping a group of suspected terrorists.”
She put on a wry grin. My glower didn’t soften.
“This isn’t a game,” I said.
“It’s how they view you, Kale. You know that. But he retired after he nearly died trying to stop me and got himself shot on Titan. It pained him enough to tell me. The only reason he came after me on Mars was that he thought he was saving me from this life.”
“From me.”
Her lips twisted, and she hung her head. “He’ll be the first to admit he’s never been an outstanding judge of character. You don’t have to worry about him, Kale. So long as he knows I’m safe, he’s harmless.”
“I’m not worried about him.”
Aria didn’t back down. It wasn’t in her nature. She ignored my orders and sat upright at my side. She stared right into my eyes until I had no choice but to stare back at hers. They were as bright a green as Luxarn’s garden outside my residence used to be, with specks of brown like soil.
“All I’ve ever tried to do is help people like me,” Aria whispered. “From the moment Rylah contacted me at Venta and told me how rough things were here. I grew up hiding, being dragged from one smuggling compartment to another by my father because I wasn’t born how Earth wanted me to be. I was ignored by Malcolm when it suited him, spat on by most everyone else. This is my home now whether you trust me or not, but I hope more than anything that you can again.”
“You promised to tell me everything,” I said.
“I told you what I thought mattered. How many of your people do you think are the bastard children of Pervenio men? We don’t choose who our family is like Earthers; you know that better than anybody.”
I sighed. Aria was right, as she so often was. Cora’s father was the Earther captain of the Piccolo, a ship leased out through Pervenio Corp, and she died not knowing it. Aria was just lucky enough to not have been abandoned at birth; to have a father who thought he was protecting her. Though I knew Aria well enough by now to know she didn’t need protection.
“Is he okay?” Aria asked.
“We have him l
ocked up safe and sound until we can figure things out,” I said. “He’s being fed at least, which is all any collector deserves.”
“I can talk with him. See—”
I leveled a glare her way, and she nodded in understanding. Any offworlder with a brain knew collectors never delivered good news.
“So, I guess your father didn’t really give this back to you before he died?” I asked, lifting the Ark ship pendant hanging from her neck. “What is it then?”
“That was true... or, well, he thought he was going to die and so did I.” Her gaze turned to the floor. “He let me go, Kale. That day in the tunnels with your mom when he found us. He betrayed Pervenio Corp, told me to leave Titan behind, and killed his own partner to let me go. But I’m still here, with you.”
“Rin thinks we should get rid of you after our son is born,” I said. “She thinks you purposely led us into an ambush on Mars and that regardless of your father, you might still be loyal to Madame Venta.”
“Rin hates anyone who isn’t as miserable as her.”
“Maybe, but she seems to be right more often than not.”
Aria pulled herself closer to me and ran her fingers through my hair. “And what do you think?”
“I think…” My throat went dry, and I swallowed. “I think anybody who’d go this far just to tear us apart would be insane. You’ve had more than enough chances to kill me.”
I drew her even closer until only a few centimeters separated us. “I don’t want to kill you, Kale. I left my father’s life to help people like us and got caught up with Madame Venta, who only wanted to for selfish reasons. The things she convinced me to do… I don’t want anything to do with Earth. I just want to help this place.”
“Then you have to tell me everything. Because if my people think you became our ambassador for any reason other than that, then I can’t let you stay here.”
“Kale…”
“For your own sake, Aria. You wouldn’t be safe.”
“You’d kick me off Titan just to protect me?” She lay her hand against my heart, feeling as it raced. “I knew there was a good man in there. Nobody else sees you, but I—”
I couldn’t hold back any longer and pressed my lips against hers. I’d met Earthers who hated my kind, dealt with numerous smugglers and shady fences. I’d looked into all of their faces and known they were rotten. Aria didn’t seem like any of them. Maybe she was playing the longest, cruelest con in history—bearing my child and my trust—but as our arms wrapped around each other and we fell back on the bed, I decided I didn’t want to know.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” I whispered as our lips parted for a moment to breathe.
“Never,” she said. “We’re going to figure this out. Our child deserves a real home. All offworlders do.”
“I love you.” I’m not sure what happened; I just blurted it out. As soon as I did, we both froze. I think I meant it. Without her to help me brave spurts when it seemed all there was in my life was darkness, I might have allowed myself to die already.
She didn’t say it back, and I didn’t blame her, considering the circumstances, but she didn’t push me away either. She squeezed my back and kissed me harder, until I could hardly breathe. Then she grabbed my shirt and started to pull it up over my head when the lights suddenly went off, replaced by emergency red track lights.
“What is that?” I asked, yanking my shirt back down.
“Probably just a surge. The hospital isn’t finished yet.” She tried to bring my head closer, but I thought I heard a thud outside.
“I don’t—”
The door opened with a whoosh and the doctor from earlier stood in the entry. I was about to ask him what was going on when he fell forward onto his knees.
A Cogent stood behind him, fully armored in black but with his yellow eye-lens glinting through the darkness. It was the same one who’d shot at me back at the Cora, I was sure of it. His every breath through a respirator rattled like a clogged air recycler. He had a pulse pistol aimed at me, and without my armor, he had me dead to rights.
Luxarn Pervenio had sent plenty of men to take shots at me, but never once did they have me so exposed, not even on Mars. Only this time, I didn’t close my eyes, embrace death, and imagine what could have been. I lunged for the counter to grab anything I might be able to use as a weapon.
“Kale!” Aria screamed.
The Cogent’s finger froze halfway toward squeezing the trigger upon hearing her. His eye-lens angled toward Aria, but he didn’t fire.
“You,” he whispered, a metallic quality to his voice. “You caused all of this!” His hand started shaking, then he fired at her instead of me. I’d raised a medical tray just in time, and the bullet glanced off it before it could cut her to shreds. The force blew me back over the bed and Aria then flipped it to provide us with cover.
Two more bullets tore through its metal frame, missing us by a hair. My eyes darted frantically around the room, but the only way out was the single door. Hayes had a thick, airtight enclosure just like Darien, which meant no viewports outside of common areas.
The Cogent grabbed the bed and hurled it against the wall like it weighed nothing. I charged at him, ramming my shoulder into his gut. Without my armor on, it did nothing. He grabbed the back of my shirt and flipped me over. Again, I expected a bullet to the head, but he turned his attention from me and seized Aria by the throat.
“You are in violation of fifteen Pervenio colonial regulations, Doctor,” he said, emotionless, crushing her.
I pawed along the floor until I found the tray and smashed him across the back of the head. Ringer or not, it was hard enough to bring any ordinary man down, but it barely made him stagger. He raised his gun toward me, and I caught his arm just before it fired, the bullet zipping over my shoulder. It took two of my arms to keep him from rotating his arm far enough to hit me, but I couldn’t last. He was the strongest man I’d ever encountered. His limb almost felt artificial, like Malcolm’s leg.
Aria kicked him in the groin, but he didn’t react to that either. He merely raised her higher and continued squeezing the life out of her, while simultaneously using a single arm to hold me at bay.
“Kale!” A gunshot rang out from another direction, slashing through the Cogent’s shoulder. Sparks and chunks of circuits spewed out, no blood.
I spotted my mother out of a corner of my eye, holding a pulse pistol and with her eyes wide in terror. Until then, I’d completely forgotten I’d invited her to meet me at Hayes, an excuse to keep her out of Rin’s hair while Rin handled Orson Fring.
The Cogent dropped Aria, and I ducked right before my muscles gave out, causing him to shoot over my head before he lost grip on the pistol.
“Run!” my mother screamed.
She fired again. The Cogent recovered quickly enough to raise a hand toward her, and it took a handful of bullets glancing off his open palm to knock him off balance. Her next shot struck his hip, and then one scraped across his jaw before her magazine clicked empty. He banged against the wall, leaning on a counter for balance, but he didn’t go down. And still, he didn’t bleed.
Aria gasped for air. I searched the floor for the Cogent’s firearm, only to find that it lay at his feet. I grabbed Aria’s hand, yanked her up, and ran for the door. I took my mother’s hand as well, and we sprinted down the hall.
“Who is that?” my mother panted.
“I don’t know!” I shouted. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the Cogent emerge from Aria’s room. He fired, but we turned left down a corridor just in time.
“Lord Trass, I heard shooting. Are you all right!” the young Titanborn I’d sent after the doctor said. He had his pulse rifle out and aimed behind us.
“A Cogent,” Aria rasped. “Right behind us.”
“Stay with me, sir.” He allowed us to go by, then fired warning shots at the corner. “Go!” He made sure we stayed in front and kept his eye on our backsides as we raced down the hall. I glanced back occasio
nally to see the shine of yellow while they exchanged fire, taking cover between gurneys and carts and anything else in the hallway. Nurses and doctors in exam rooms hid within, people’s screams echoed throughout the dark passages.
“In there!” the guard directed. We ducked into a room so that he could reload, allowing the Cogent to gain on us. “On my shot, run!” The guard edged around the corner, but as soon as the barrel of his rifle cleared the doorway, a perfectly aimed shot knocked it out of his grip.
He fell back behind cover and regarded us, fear twisting the brave young man’s features. I saw myself in him then, that day when Rin and the others raided the Piccolo like faceless angels of death. The day when I lost Cora for good.
I squeezed Aria’s and my mother’s hands, and they squeezed back.
“I’ll hold him off,” the young guard said, voice shaking. “Get out of here!” He jumped out into the hall before I could stop him and spread his arms. This time, Aria pulled my mother and me out into the hall to flee. I glanced back, waiting for our savior to be torn to shreds, only it didn’t happen.
A Titanborn nurse burst out of a room and rammed into the Cogent. Whoever it was had built up enough momentum to knock him into the wall. The short delay was enough for my guard and us to make it around the next corner. The last thing I saw was the nurse’s brains bespattered against the wall.
Power around the next bend seemed to still be active. I can’t recall ever running so fast in my life as we neared it. I didn’t look back anymore, I just squeezed the hands of two people I was desperate not to watch die.
“Lord Trass, get down!” someone shouted.
Titanborn soldiers emerged from the lit area with their weapons raised. The guard tackled all three of us before we could react, and they unleashed a hail of bullets over our heads. When they stopped, silence filled the hall. I heard my mother’s rapid breathing, and Aria still wheezed. The soldiers moved to help us up, never averting their aim from down the hall.
Titan's Fury: A Science Fiction Thriller (Children of Titan Book 4) Page 13