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

by Rhett C. Bruno

  The first time I saw Aria kiss a boy—a ratty offworlder kid from Ceres who’d tried to pickpocket me, failed, then followed us around like a stray dog—I punished her for no reason, downed an entire bottle of whiskey, and bet an entire job’s worth of credits on a mech fight. Finding out she was pregnant? I wanted to crawl back into my cell and let Ringers keep kicking me in the gut until I died of internal bleeding.

  “I might have left out that part,” Rylah remarked from behind us.

  Aria didn’t say a word as I gawked. “It’s… it’s his, isn’t it?” I asked, breathless, even though I already knew the answer. Female USF citizens are provided pregnancy-impeding implants when they’re of age, removed only by sanctioned doctors when reproduction was approved, or on the black market. Aria wasn’t a citizen, so she’d never received one.

  She hung her head and nodded like she was ashamed. Without thinking twice, I took her chin and forced her to look into my eyes. There was a time I would have screamed at her for being so foolish, but I like to think that everything that had happened since the last time I was on Titan had helped me grow up a little. Some men take longer than others.

  What felt like an eternity went by as I struggled to get my lips moving, but then I said what I imagined she’d want to hear from her father... finally. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Aria.” I took her necklace out of my pocket and lowered it over her head, then pressed the pendant gently against her chest while I kissed her forehead.

  “I’ve done plenty wrong, Dad,” she replied. “Worse than you’ll ever need to know, but you were right. Some people can’t change, and I won’t raise this baby here. I don’t care who he belongs to.”

  “It’s…” I choked back tears. “It’s a boy?” My hand hovered over her stomach but dared not move any closer. Aria smiled, took it, and made me touch her belly myself.

  “It is,” she said.

  “Kale will chase us to the ends of Sol to get him back,” Rylah said. “But this was Aria’s decision. We just had to play along until Kale finally left Darien since Luxarn’s Cogents have had everyone who isn’t expendable on lockdown here for weeks. We won’t get another chance like this.”

  “Once we get away from Titan, we’ll be fine,” I said. “I spent half of Aria’s life teaching her how to hide from the USF and Pervenio Corp. Kale’s got nothing on them.”

  “Then let’s go already. If we wait any longer, the Earther blockade will arrive, and there will be no getting through.”

  I breathed in the sight of my beautiful, pregnant daughter one last time, then released her.

  “I got the hangar open without being noticed, but as soon as the engines ignite, the dock guards will be onto us,” Aria said as she quickly led us through the Cora’s shiny corridors toward the cockpit. “They have stolen Pervenio fighters that will come after us, but nothing that can keep up with the Cora.”

  “I’m not worried,” I replied. “I’ve seen you fly.”

  “It won’t be as smooth breaking Titan’s atmosphere.”

  “You should have seen the landing I just had.”

  “I did.” She snickered. My cheeks went red.

  When we reached the cockpit, Aria hopped into the pilot’s chair and began priming for takeoff. I bowed out of the way so Rylah could take the co-pilot’s seat. Handling guns, not ships, was my specialty, though I’m not sure who Aria got that gift from, considering her biological mother was a streetwalking Martian sewer-girl. Or her brain, for that matter.

  “Aria,” I said while she worked. “Did Kale hurt you?”

  “Never,” she said.

  “Then I have to know. Why risk all this? Last time we talked, you seemed… dedicated.”

  “I care about him, Dad. I really do. And somewhere inside him is the good man who only wanted to save his mother before being forced into all this, but he told me the things he’s made you do, and everything else he’s done. I’m so sorry.”

  “What’s one more life on my conscience?”

  “You have one?” Rylah said.

  “Very funny,” I said. “I did it all for you, Aria. I should have known you didn’t need me, though. Mother of the prince of Titan, they’d have never killed you like they promised, not even Rin.”

  “Until the baby’s born,” Rylah remarked.

  “I thought I understood why he did it all,” Aria said. “And then I realized, he wasn’t telling me. Not really. Even if he thinks he was.”

  “Cora…” I muttered, immediately catching her drift. Call it father-daughter intuition.

  Aria stopped working only for a few seconds. Her features darkened and she managed a single, solemn nod. “I’ve spent enough of my life around a man who didn’t actually want me there to know. Every time he looks into my eyes, I can tell that all he sees is a ghost that’ll never return.”

  “Aria, I—”

  She glanced back. “You’re here now, Dad. And now I get to be the one who saves you.”

  “Well, I’m sorry you had to finally see him for what he is.”

  “No you aren’t. But it doesn’t matter how I feel about him. Venta and Pervenio are about to turn Saturn into a war zone, and my son will be their number one target now that a Cogent spotted me. That’s the only reason they haven’t leaked it. I was stupid to think there was any chance of sitting down and coming to terms, especially not with Rin in Kale’s ear.”

  “They had no intention of a peaceful resolution,” Rylah said. “No matter what happened at that summit.”

  “We’re human,” I said. “Too much ugly went down here for it to end without blood. At least you were willing to try.”

  Aria closed her eyes. “I know. But I won’t let Kale get our son killed. Maybe one day, he’ll even understand why I couldn’t stay.”

  I rested my hand on her shoulder. I’d never been very good at consoling her. I was better at snapping, then drinking away the guilt, but eventually, when the old ways stop working, a little bit of new is all that’s left.

  “I was a shit dad,” I said, “but I promise you, I’ll be there for your son until I’m so old you’ll be taking care of both of us.”

  She snickered. “I hear Pallus has a great retirement community.”

  “Don’t even joke about that.”

  “All ship checks are go,” Rylah said, eyeing the controls and obviously trying to speed things up. “Engines are primed and ready. Waiting on you.”

  “Where will you take us?” I asked. “I’ll let you decide this time.”

  “I haven’t thought much about that,” Aria said. “Hopping from station to station might be more fun than sticking around anywhere for long.”

  “I taught you well.”

  Her lips formed a wicked grin, the likes of which I remembered from when she was still a child, unaffected by my parenting techniques; that same kind of look she put on when I’d tell her to eat her ration bar, and instead, she’d crumble it in zero-g. Or when I’d tell her to stay put, she’d agree, then she’d sneak out through the landing gear of whatever ship we were on to follow me into the seediest asteroid colonies imaginable.

  “All right, impulse drives are heating up.” She struck one last command, and the floor instantly began to rumble.

  Rylah pulled up the feed from the Cora’s rear cameras on her console. “Dock guards are here already,” she said. Two Ringers in their white armor sprinted into the hangar and realized what was going on. They drew their pulse rifles as if those could do anything against the ship’s plating.

  “Seal the cargo bay… What the hell?” Rylah questioned. I leaned over her to see the feed and saw the guards suddenly lying face first on the floor of the hangar.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. Pulling up other feeds to—”

  “I’m locked out,” Aria said. She lifted her hands from the ship’s controls as they started to blink. Then the overhead lights winked off.

  “Aria, what the hell is going on?” I said.

  “W
e need to run,” she said, voice suddenly shaking. “Dad, we need to get out of here!”

  She sprang out of the chair and grabbed me, but by the time she did, the lights flashed back on. I was facing Aria, so I saw fear twist her features first. In her gaping eyes, the unmistakable reflection of a glowing yellow eye-lens made all my muscles tense.

  “Malcolm Graves, you are here,” spoke the same robotic voice of the Cogent who Luxarn assigned to save me back on Martelle Station.

  “It is you,” Aria said through trembling lips. “I knew it.”

  Unlike us, Rylah didn’t freeze. “You!” she shouted. We had powered armor on, and she swung at the Cogent. He caught her hand like she was merely a child throwing a tantrum, twisted her arm, and forced her to the ground.

  “Informant, code-name Rylah,” the Cogent said. “You should be in Pervenio custody.”

  “Stop!” I yelled as I whipped around. The way he spoke her name... I’d heard that voice, way back before Martelle Station. There, I hadn’t been able to see him clearly, but I think deep down, I always knew. Who else could mow down an entire contingent of Venta security officers without a drop of sweat?

  Few things are more shocking than finding out you’re going to be the grandfather of the son of a murderous tyrant. Learning that the partner you’d shot in the head and sent into a coma was back in action... That was tough to beat.

  Zhaff held Rylah in place, even though he wore nothing but a thin black boiler suit and a respirator over his mouth and nose. I knew it was him. The way his eye-lens fixed on me, its inner mechanisms gyrating as he focused; there was no doubt. And somehow, that damn lens was the most human, expressive part of him left. Even more work had been done to him since I saw him floating like a vegetable in that tube on Undina. His head had been shaved, with three lines of ragged scars running along the left side before giving way to the mechanically reconstructed left half of his face.

  Luxarn promised to rebuild him, as if he were a product on a factory-belt. Like a fool, I’d doubted my old employer. I never would again.

  “It’s a pleasure seeing you again, Zhaff,” Rylah groaned.

  “What in Earth’s name did he do to you?” I asked softly. I cursed myself for being so foolish. For so long, I’d taken pride on seeing everything, connecting dots, but again, my aging brain failed me. On the surface, all the mechanization made Zhaff’s voice seem different, but a closer listen revealed that of my old partner. Sure, his every breath rattled as a built-in respirator kept him alive, but he was there, clear as day on Ancient Earth.

  “I am impressed, Malcolm,” is all Zhaff said. “When Father said the enemy recaptured you, I was concerned I might be required to complete our mission on my own.”

  I slowly positioned myself in front of Aria and raised my hands. “Our mission?” I said.

  “To bring the Children of Titan to justice after they left us and so many outside the Darien Quarantine for dead. Do not move, Doctor.” While he restrained Rylah with a single hand, he turned the aim of his pulse pistol toward Aria, who made a move for the ship controls. “You will not get the jump on us again.”

  “Zhaff,” I said, “I need you to put down the gun.”

  “Why are you alongside the two fugitives pivotal in attempting to have us killed?”

  “Attempting… I…” Maybe the slew of surprises had my brain firing on all cylinders, but the way he was talking, it was like we were still on our last mission together, hunting smugglers who might connect us to the greater Children of Titan conspiracy. Like he’d never left. And the fact that his gun was aimed at them and not me meant he didn’t remember what I’d done.

  “Wait,” I said, stepping toward him. “This is the Doctor?”

  “Yes,” Zhaff answered. Aria shuffled barely a centimeter, but Zhaff’s aim tracked her.

  “That day is still fuzzy.”

  “That is understandable,” Zhaff said. “Father had to mobilize us before we were fully recovered. Reports state she shot both of us and fled with the stolen supplies.”

  “Father?” Rylah asked. “What in Trass’ name is going on?”

  “Quiet, traitor.” Zhaff wrenched her arm further and caused her to wince.

  “Zhaff.” I extended my arm to stop him. “They let me out of Kale’s prison. They want to turn themselves over and offer valuable information in exchange for protection. Look at them; neither are full-bred Ringers, and they’re treated like it.” There I was, just like Rylah all those months again, trying to lie to a Cogent. But I’d spent enough time with Zhaff to pick up on his ticks and the key was, there was a load of truth behind every lie I uttered.

  “It’s true!” Aria said.

  “Do not speak,” Zhaff said. His tone didn’t change a note, but the threat was clear enough. I heard Aria swallow audibly. “It is a wise intention, Malcolm,” Zhaff continued. “However, Luxarn is primarily interested in the Doctor’s child now. I caught her engaging romantically with Kale Trass, and, based on his own discoveries through your exceptional work on Mars, he believes the child to be Kale’s offspring.”

  Zhaff returned his pistol’s aim to the back of Rylah’s head. She stared at me, wearing the look I’d seen on so many who’d expected to die. Unlike Orson Fring, she didn’t look ready for the blackness.

  Few ever were.

  “Zhaff, would you listen to me?” I implored. “They have intelligence that can help us undo this. Both of them. They’ll tell us all of it, but we have to get out of here now. Trust me.”

  “I do trust you, Malcolm Graves. I also know you and the information broker have history, which makes this difficult, but she cannot be trusted. Do not worry. I will eliminate her, then we can deliver the Doctor to Father, and after she gives birth, punish her for what she has done. Then you will be free to catch up on your sleep.”

  I would have snickered if I weren’t so terrified. I thought back to my first days with Zhaff heading out to Old Russia on Earth when I’d told him my collector’s tip about never turning down a chance for sleep, something a wise old collector had taught me when I was still young and hungry. If he remembered that, it meant that somewhere within his shiny new shell was the Zhaff I knew.

  “Zhaff, I gave them my word they’d be pardoned,” I said. “It’s all I have left.”

  “Please,” Rylah begged, playing along with me. “We don’t want anything to do with this place any longer. We'll do anything.”

  Zhaff’s eye-lens tilted toward me, then back at Rylah. All the while, the single eyebrow he had remained still along with every human part of his face. “I am sorry, Malcolm,” he said. “I do not believe her.”

  We were back outside on Titan again, Zhaff ready to destroy the life of someone I cared about for the sake of our mission, only this time, he was the only one with a gun. He wouldn’t hesitate. He never did. So instead of shooting him, I decided to try what I should have from the beginning—telling him the truth and testing if the bond we’d built was worth more than a mission from a man who’d never really wanted him.

  If there was one human thing Zhaff might understand, it was a delinquent father trying to make things right. The best case was it’d buy me time to think of a way out of this, and the worst, he’d turn his attention to me, a true traitor, and give Rylah and Aria a chance at subduing him.

  “Zhaff, don’t,” I said. “I have to tell you something about that day that will explain everything.” I turned and regarded Aria’s petrified expression. “About her. Zhaff, she’s… uh… she’s my daughter. The one I told you about.”

  “That does not make any sense,” Zhaff promptly replied. His aim didn’t shift, but now his eye-lens rose to focus solely on me. “She is—”

  “A bastard from Mars,” I finished for him, taking another step closer. “What happened on Titan—”

  “Dad, don’t,” Aria whispered.

  I looked back at my daughter and smiled. I could feel all the creases of age pulling at the corners of my lips and eyes. “I’m tired of all t
he lying.”

  “Malcolm, what are you talking about?” Zhaff said.

  “I’m saying, she’s not the reason we failed on Titan.” I turned back and stared straight into Zhaff’s eye-lens, same as I had all that time ago before I shot him. “Neither of them are. I am.”

  Showing emotion was never one of Zhaff’s strong points, and it seemed especially difficult now, considering he was half-machine, but the way his lens spun to focus in and out on me, and that the rattling of his breathing stopped, I could tell I’d sparked something in his head. His gun-hand began to quake, slight enough that nobody but me would have noticed, but for him, that was like an earthquake.

  “Zhaff, sorry doesn’t even begin to cut it, but we have a chance now,” I said. “A chance to make things righ—”

  A loud bang interrupted me. A Ringer wearing winged armor landed on the bow of the Cora and glared in through the viewport. Kale.

  “Let her go!” demanded the only voice more chilling than the half-robotic one of my former partner. Zhaff looked back toward the ship’s sleep-pod cabin, and Aria wasted no time using the distraction to make her move. She keyed the thrusters, and the Cora shot forward. Rylah elbowed Zhaff in his cybernetic gut at the same time, and that, combined with the force of acceleration, shifted his aim as he pulled the trigger.

  “Aria!” I screamed.

  The bullet missed her by a hair and plunged through the ship’s navigation controls. Sparks flew out, but I’d already decided to go after her rather than Rylah, and yanked her out of the captain’s chair before they seared her face.

  Then we all flew backward, Aria, Rylah, and me. I was able to grab the corner of the hallway and stuck my artificial leg across it to jam it into the wall and block them from going any further. Zhaff and Rin weren’t so lucky.

  The scarred witch got a few shots off. None met their mark as she flipped over a protruding sleep pod. Zhaff caught her by the arm as he plummeted toward the room’s back wall and landed as if it were the floor. There, they struggled over her firearm. Her powered armor helped give her a fighting chance, but he twisted her hand around enough to blow a hole through her left shoulder.