Titan's Fury: A Science Fiction Thriller (Children of Titan Book 4)

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Two Titanborn guards stood outside the entry, fully armed and at the ready after the Cogent attack. They bowed their heads as they saw us. They were good, loyal warriors, not like the protesters on Phoebe who couldn’t see what Titan needed beyond their own selfish desires.

  “Never doubt what we’re doing here,” Rin said as I stepped off the lift. “A Titan of our own.”

  “At what cost?” I asked.

  “Whatever it takes, like always. We’ll bear the weight of our hard choices so that our children will never have to.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said.

  “You’ve trusted me this long. Only a little while longer now.”

  “And I still do. But next time we make a decision like this, I want my mother and Rylah there… if they’ll ever listen again.”

  “You charged me with the security of our homeworld,” Rin said. “More voices will only—”

  “It’s not a request, Rin.”

  The lift doors shut her out. I squeezed my temples between my thumb and forefinger and begged my chest to stop feeling so tight. My leg brushed against a withering plant struggling to survive, embarking on one last stretch for the artificial lights above that once brought life to a verdant garden.

  I let the air clogging my lungs slowly escape through my teeth as I leaned over and let one of its leaves rest in my palm. I used to love sneaking around the Darien Uppers as a boy and seeing all the decorative plants Pervenio Corp put on display. All the things we Ringers didn’t have in the Lowers because it was easier to keep people down when they longed for something as simple as plants.

  My fingers squeezed, the leaf so near to death, it crumbled under the pressure.

  I knew Rin was right. It didn’t make things any easier, but none of this was easy. We were so close to having Earth where we wanted it. No matter what they blamed on us, Madame Venta or Luxarn Pervenio wouldn’t be able to stop what was coming now that our best workers could assist Basaam Venta. There was no room for us to show weakness or let our people divide themselves.

  Orson Fring died for the good of us all, if I could ever get my mother and Rylah to forgive it. Aria might never look at me the same either, once she found out. If she found out. Then would I have to tell her about the other people I’d let die when I could have saved them? Captain Sildario, Cora’s father, whom I let crash with the Sunfire. Hayes aboard the Piccolo. Those children stuck in the freezer on the Ring Skipper.

  Rin and I had allowed our trust in Aria to be comprised because of her secrets, yet I had so many of my own. We kept everything we planned to do on Mars from her, and now, what we were making her father do.

  I stopped before the door to my residence. Aria waited inside under constant watch. I considered heading to my old Lowers dwelling, where I could get some silence instead. I was halfway toward turning around when I noticed a beam of light filtering in through a dusty skylight. The single pink flower it touched clung to life and color, unlike all the rest of the plants. It refused to give in to neglect.

  Cora died without knowing I was capable of the things that had happened. That I was a scoundrel and a thief before Rin turned me into a smuggler and a rebel. I never got to show her the parts of me that even I didn’t like, even though she’d opened her heart to me. And now I never would.

  Somehow it felt like that flower was her sending me a message; like her soul had swum through space just to reach me before I made any more mistakes. I drew out my hand terminal and pulled up that final footage of her in her cell before she was spaced. She’d died barely knowing how I felt about her. She’d died protecting me from collectors and Cogents. She’d died ignorant to who I really was, and I decided I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  An assassin could kill either of us at any time, and before death came for me, I’d let Aria in. Let her see me in every ugly shade. I’d fallen for her. Unintentionally, maybe, but since I’d nearly lost her on Mars, I realized I’d gone the longest I ever had without watching that footage of Cora or listening to Luxarn Pervenio condemn her to death.

  Aria made me feel again.

  I stepped into my apartment and found her standing right in the entry as if waiting for me. Her hair and clothing were a mess like she’d just woken up. She didn’t ask where I was going. Instead, she chuckled, her nose wrinkling in that particular way I struggled to resist.

  “I saw your speech,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  I was through the door before I knew it, my legs with a mind of their own. I went right to Aria and threw my arms around her. “I’m fine,” I whispered. “It was just… unexpected.”

  “I can’t believe after all these years, Luxarn Pervenio can still find ways to shock you.” She slowly began removing the pieces of my powered armor.

  “Neither can I.”

  I heard shouting and flinched. A viewscreen by the bed replayed my latest speech across a Ringwide newsfeed. I hadn’t realized how loud I was projecting my voice by the end. Director Sodervall sounded similar in his final days addressing the Ring on Pervenio Corp’s behalf after I went missing.

  “You’re getting better at that,” Aria said.

  “Rin said the same,” I replied.

  “Well, I guess we can finally agree on something.” She laughed, and I gave it my best effort to join her.

  The top half of my armored suit peeled off me, the tiny needles it poked into my body to sync with my nervous system and enhance my strength sliding out with a delicate pinch. Aria took my hand, guided me toward the bed, and laid me down. Her face hovered above mine, but all I could focus on was the image of me speaking on the viewscreen behind her.

  She rolled over and turned it off. Then she turned back to me. Her hands stroked my face, so warm. Some people said that the internal temperature of Titanborn had dropped noticeably in our three centuries on freezing Titan. It sure seemed like it was true whenever she touched me.

  “One day, all the fighting will stop, Kale,” she whispered. “No more Cogent assassins or kidnappings on either side. Just peace.”

  “Sometimes I don’t think that’s possible,” I replied.

  “If my father could walk away from his job, then anything is possible.”

  “Do you really believe anyone can walk away from something like that?”

  She ran her fingers through my hair. “I remember a time when he left me on a rooftop outside New London to go claim a bounty in the middle of M-Day. One moment we were watching a Departure Ark leave; the next it was dark, and I was freezing cold and alone. I think I was six.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a very good dad,” I said.

  “Not at all.” She smirked. “I remember him stumbling up there to get me. His breath reeked of liquor, like he’d totally forgotten about me. He was a mess.” She laughed. “But he did come back, and he brought me this necklace as a gift.”

  “Typical Earther. Always trying to buy loyalty.”

  “He did his best in his own way. Earthers aren’t used to raising a family on their own. He’d tell me all the time about the nine mothers and fathers in the clan-family he was born into. Ask if I’d rather be polishing floors for a big, safe community like that instead of seeing all of Sol.”

  “My dad was the opposite,” I said. “Always promising to be around but never there. And my mother... she never left me alone. I swear, sometimes I wish she’d left me alone on a roof.”

  “They’re never perfect, are they? But you know what? He was right.”

  “About what?”

  “Seeing Sol was so much better. As much as I complained in the moment, I wouldn’t trade any of it for a normal life.”

  I exhaled. “Keeping me out of the Children of Titan was probably smart of mine too. I’d be dead by now otherwise.”

  “To our distinguished families.” Aria giggled before pressing her lips against mine. It was nice to see her in a better mood, especially after the Cogent’s attack. As I closed my eyes and kissed her back, I could almost pretend I was in one too.


  “I’ve never had a home,” she whispered after she pulled away. “But I’m glad I have one here. I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier, but in case someone else tries to kill us first, I want you to know that I think I love you too, Kale Trass.”

  A smile took control of my face, spreading so wide and so unfamiliar, my cheeks went sore. “You’re one of us now, Cora Walker,” I said. “Until the end.”

  I kissed her again, but her eyes bulged, as if that idea was terrifying. She backed away slightly. I could only imagine how strange belonging anywhere might feel for a woman like her who’d spent her lifetime planet-hopping.

  “I’m Aria, Kale,” she said, brow furrowing with concern.

  My reaction was similar, until I finally realized what I’d called her, and cursed myself. “I… I’m sorry, I know.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am,” I said. “This whole thing with Orson Fring… it just reminds me of the Piccolo and what happened to her.” I spun a loose strand of her hair around my finger and forced my smile to return. “You are Aria, the bastard queen from Mars, and you’re finally home.”

  A few seconds went by in silence, and her features didn’t brighten, so I leaned down and kissed her again. “I promise you, Aria,” I said, “for the first time in so long, I’m here with you. All of me.”

  “Good,” Aria whispered, her stern façade finally breaking as she returned the kiss. “But speaking of being a bastard. I know it’s safer here for me here right now with the Cogent on the loose, but do you think I could see Malcolm?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We can’t risk it yet.”

  “I get it, Kale, I do. It’s just hard to imagine him locked up, of all people. Maybe I can talk some sense into him. His loyalty to Pervenio only ever went as far as credits, and they can’t pay him now.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “That’s all I ask,” she said.

  “There’re some things I wanted to tell you first.”

  “No talking yet. I’m going to make sure you never mistake me again.”

  “Aria, I—"

  Aria pressed her finger against my lips to silence me. Then she removed the top off her dress and let it fall over her belly. She pulled herself up onto me and wrapped her legs around my slender hips. She was strong, stronger than Cora ever could have been, being born on the Ring to a Titanborn mother. Before I knew it, I was lost in her touch, and all my worries about family and rivals, dead and captured men—it all washed away.

  Twelve

  Malcolm

  “Eat up, M-mudstomper,” Desmond cackled. He slid a bowl filled with grub into my cell so hard, it tipped over.

  Weeks had passed since Rin found me huddled with Orson’s body. Maybe longer. She’d had to fight off her own people to stop them from beating me to death. I expected a public execution as punishment, but they’d dragged me right back to my cell.

  I crawled to the bowl on four limbs like a beast, digging in with my hands until I realized what I looked like. I grabbed it and threw it at Desmond. It clattered against the bars while facing the wrong way and spilled all over me.

  Desmond laughed. “Starve for all I care.”

  “What?” I grumbled. “Your lunatic king doesn’t need me for any more hits?” Pain still pulled at my sore ribs from the beating I’d taken. If they weren’t fractured already, they were now. Desmond had been keeping his distance since I returned, but I was chipping away in our limited face-time. Pissing people off was what I was best at, and after that one time seeing Rylah, she’d never shown her face again. I’d started wondering if it was my old mind playing tricks on me.

  “Whatever he’s p-p-planning to do with you, I’m sure it’ll be good,” Desmond said.

  “Pervenio collectors have a special place in our hearts.”

  “He doesn’t tell you anything, does he?” I realized then that I hadn’t heard any newsfeeds playing in the hollow. Even at his station, Basaam often complained about his lack of access to most corners of Solnet for data. Now I could barely hear him over the racket of whatever he and his team of Ringers and now Earther slaves were building. Desmond was locked away underground with us like a sick dog, a memory from a horrible thing that Kale didn’t want to be reminded of.

  “All I know is that you’re gonna get w-what’s coming to you,” he said, his gaze momentarily shifting toward Basaam Venta’s busy workspace across the hollow. “All you mudstompers a-a-are.”

  I wiped the muck off the bottom of my sanitary mask and dragged my impotent, cybernetic leg toward the bars, the electromag dampener reactivated.

  “What? You think some magical engine built by an Earther is going to save all of you? It’s too late for that. The things you people have done, there’s no coming back from. It’s like you didn’t even learn from us.”

  “There was nothing to learn.”

  “I’ve seen this before. Protestors dig in until they’re at their wits’ end and then start killing each other. How long before he has me kill you just like he had me kill Orson Fring because he can’t stand to look at your face?”

  “Not this time, G-Graves,” he said, sneering. “They told me to ignore you.”

  “Because they know I might talk some damn sense! What do you think they removed me from my cell for, some coffee? A chat about how Earthers tick? I’m Kale’s collector now, and it’s more of the same, just lower pay.”

  “N-n-no, not the same. We’re free here now.”

  “Free? Killing anyone who speaks out against him. Sounds a lot like Luxarn Pervenio to me.”

  “He’s nothing like him!” He smacked the bars.

  “You’re right. Worse. At least Luxarn had the decency to lock up peaceful men instead of leaving them bleeding on the floor.”

  “What do you call what he had S-Sodervall do to me, then? To Cora. That’s the problem with you m-mud-mudstompers. You think you can justify everything.”

  “At least we know what we are,” I said. “You lot parade around your colonies like you’re heroes all because Kale dropped a nuclear bomb on a bunch of security officers. You think they knew what was going on when they entered that quarantine? They were just doing their jobs. Men with families, children. He killed all of them and then some more. Anyone who stood in his way, and he has the rest locked in cells in the same station where Sodervall spaced your friends. Does that sound like heroes to you? You’re a bunch of damned skelly fanatics, same as you always were.”

  “What the f-f-fuck did you just say?”

  I could see his fingers itching around the trigger of his gun. I’d found a nerve, and it was time to keep poking. I didn’t care how sore my body was, I was tired of playing along. Being forced to murder a good man was the last straw; it was time for action.

  “I was there in New London when your Children of Titan bombed it,” I said. “Civilians with their limbs blown off. You call that fighting for freedom? I call it an excuse for a bunch of murderers to dance around a moon pretending they own it.”

  “You really think that even compares to what your p-people did to us?”

  “What? Put you in quarantines because you got sick?” I paused. I’d seen the awful condition of those places. The way his people were withering away to bones under Pervenio’s watch because it was better for business. I couldn’t back down now, though.

  “How does that compare to the Children of Titan spacing twenty Earthers on the Piccolo just to send a message?” I asked.

  “Do you know how many times those same men sm-smacked my meal away or beat me with batons because I was a ‘filthy Ringer.’ Or h-how they made us scrub the shit out of canisters because our arms are longer, while they grinned and d-d-drank?”

  “So you kill them all,” I said. “Everyone who’s ever had a bad thing to say. Then you wonder why a man like Sodervall is pushed so far he spaces a bunch of innocent Ringers like Cora just to find out how to stop the Children of Titan. He may have hit the switch, but your king is
the reason she’s dead, and you can’t walk. He forced Sodervall’s hand while he hid like a coward.”

  Desmond raised his gun, screamed, and fired. The gunshot echoed so loudly in the hollow, it sounded like an explosion. I’m not sure if the miss was intentional, but the bullet missed my ear by a hair. The bang sent me spinning into the wall. Desmond kicked open my cell’s door and limped at me while I held my ringing ear.

  “That was your people’s fault!” Desmond yelled at the top of his lungs, anger erasing his stutter. “You did this to us, not him!” He shoved the barrel of his pulse rifle into my chest.

  “Is it our fault your kind are more suited for cleaning up our messes?” I said through clenched teeth.

  That was the final straw for Desmond, a former gas harvester worker who’d done just that for Earthers for most of his life. Who’d been crippled at the hands of one before watching most of his crew get spaced. He went to shift the aim of his rifle toward my head, with clear intent to shoot and hit this time, and I used that opening. I mustered all the strength in my earthborn muscles and punched him in the side of the face with my good arm. He flew against the wall, the rifle flying out of his hands. I scrambled across the floor and tackled him.

  I reared back to strike him again, but by then, his head was turned away, and he was crying. “No, p-p-please,” he said, eyes twitching as he did. I imagined those were the words he spoke as Pervenio Corp tortured him for information on Kale that he didn’t have.

  I couldn’t bring myself to hit him again. Seeing me, an Earther, stooped over him probably transported him back to that moment of terror. For all his gun-toting bravado, the Ringer was broken. He’d shot me in the hip, and all I could manage was pity.