From Ice to Ashes

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “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 squeezed into fists. I wanted to scream at her, but I restrained myself. “Did you bring me here just to have somebody new to lecture?”

  “No. 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 Earthers 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. You’re the expert on him.”

  She 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. Director Sodervall and his employer never stopped hunting the descendants of Trass. They knew we weren’t all gone 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 Vick, Gareth, and Joran and we helped harvest tons of gas in the name of Luxarn Pervenio. And every night I or some other poor woman would be escorted away to the captain’s room and he’d have his way.

  “He wrapped up 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 that 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.

  “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 to survive, and in the end it’ll be their mistake. If Venta Co wants to watch their competition burn so bad, then they can all burn together.”

  “I’m sorry, Maya, 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. “Then end it for him. Or don’t. Your choice put him here, after all. Just know that you’re wrong. He’s exactly the same. They all are. Just ask him. Ask him about Cora.”

  My fingers wrapped her armored wrist and squeezed. “What about her?”

  “You want to save him so bad, get him to tell you why he named her navigator.” She stared toward the airlock’s outer seal for a moment, as if she saw something there, then ripped her arm free and walked away.

  “What about her!” I yelled, running after her.

  Maya whipped around and grabbed me by the chest plate so fast 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, terrified.

  “I’m trying to be patient with you, Kale, but you’re as stubborn as he was.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  She released me. Her scowl softened. “Do you love Titan?”

  “Of course. It’s my home.”

  “Do you hate Earthers?”

  “Only some of them.” Her eyes narrowed. I held strong. “That’s the 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 being repossessed, Director Sodervall inspiring a riot in the Uppers all around me.

  “Yes,” I said. “I do.”

  “Then follow me.”

  —

  Vick was already in the command deck when we arrived. The ship 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,” Vick 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 Maya headed to seats of their own.

  “Storm?” I asked.

  Maya 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.

  “Vick, do you have the Director’s address saved up here from earlier?” Maya asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “Why?”

  “We’re going to show Kale.”

  “Oh, c’mon, Mai. He isn’t ready yet.”

  “Neither were you when I stuck Captain Sildario.”

  Gareth signed something to Vick, who rolled his eyes.

  “That was different. This is—”

  “Show me,” I said. All three of them faced me, surprised to hear my voice. The Sunfire quaked and I squeezed my chair’s armrests so tight they dimpled. I swallowed hard. “Show me.”

  “You heard him,” Maya said.

  Vick 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 striating 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. Vick had to blast the volume because the storm was so loud. “By now you’ve all heard of the horrible fate that befell the Piccolo and its loyal crew. I am speaking to you now not as your Director, not as the voice of Titan, but as one human making a solemn promise to another. The terrorists behind this vicious attack will pay for their crimes. They call themselves the Chil
dren of Titan, but we are all the people of Titan. Together we have helped the Ring thrive! One cowardly act will never thwart everything we have accomplished.

  “I’m asking, begging for your help in bringing the man responsible for the unwarranted slaughter of nineteen 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, an eighteen-year-old male from Level B2 of the Darien Lowers. We believe he was also behind the riot that took place not two days ago in the Darien Uppers, one that cost the lives of two veteran security officers. Consider him armed and extremely dangerous.

  “But he is not acting alone. People in league with this terrorist can be anywhere. Working beside you. Living beside you. Any accurate report of suspicious behavior will be handsomely rewarded. Anybody who is able to provide information that leads directly to the arrest of Kale Drayton will personally receive one million credits from the account of Luxarn Pervenio. It is time for us to take back the Ring from madness! Anybody caught replicating the symbol of the Children of Titan anywhere in Sol will be punished by the full 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. Maya 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 Titan. It wasn’t a doctored video. It was his voice.

  “They think it was me?” I muttered.

  “The only Ringer who didn’t return,” Maya 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 Sodervall to give them one after the bombing in New London, so now he’s giving them you. It doesn’t matter if you’re innocent or not.”

  “You have to tell them the truth! 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 transferring a show to it?”

  I lunged at her, but my chair’s restraints snapped me back down against the chair. I went to remove them, and found they were locked.

  “Easy, now,” Vick said. “You said no more breaking anything.”

  I lost the ability to breathe. Everything Maya had told me paled in comparison to this newest revelation. As fast as I was inhaling, 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!” Vick shrieked.

  “That’s all right,” Maya said. She freed herself from her chair and stood behind me, patting my back. “Let it out.”

  “I told you he wasn’t ready, Mai.”

  “It wasn’t our secret to keep. He’s dealt with enough of those in his life already.”

  I continued to struggle, catching 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.” She positioned herself in front of me and held my helmet up with two hands. “You wanted to know what we wanted, Kale Trass? The reason you’re really here? Be the leader Sodervall thinks you are. It’s what you were meant to be.”

  Chapter 17

  Leader. A leader of the Children of Titan. Was that what my long-lost father never wanted me to be? What my mom was hiding 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 Maya 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 M’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 harvester worker struggling to make ends meet to the most wanted man in Sol.

  It all left me too exhausted to continue the conversation with Maya. 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 was shaking less, and groaning 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 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 Maya’s burns. I didn’t want to give up, though. Maybe everything Maya 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?

  I patted a wet, unused harvesting rag on the front side of his wound.

  “Fuck…” he groaned. “Stop.”

  I grabbed his jaw and tilted his face. He squinted through his eyelashes at me.

  “Captain!” I exclaimed. “I never thought I’d hear a familiar voice again.”

  “What the…Where are we?” He attempted to sit up, the effort causing him to grimace and clutch his stomach.

  “Don’t move.”

  His breathing picked up. He lifted his bandage and struggled to focus on what lay beneath. The skin surrounding the hole was slightly discolored and oozing pus.

  “By fucking Earth!” He poked the area and lurched. “Oh Earth, it hurts!”

  “Don’t touch it.” I brushed away his free hand and returned the bandage to its proper position, then pulled it as taut as possible.

  “We’re still on the Piccolo?” he groaned.

  “No. You wouldn’t believe where we were even if I told you.” I shuffled backward and sat across from him. “You loved to remind us about the place.”

  He noticed that one of his hands was cuffed to a pipe. “They took us prisoner? Where’s the rest of the crew?”

  I paused for a moment, then said: “Far away, or dead…Don’t you remember?”

  “We were by the airlock.” His weary gaze darted around the room. The color drained from his face. “This one.”

  “It’s not—”

  “They took all of my people! John, Varrick, and the others.” He scrambled as far away from me as his cuff would allow.

  “Captain, you should try to stay still.” I wrapped my hand around his ankle. His stare swept from one of my unchained arms to the other. His eyes opened as wide as they had since he’d come to when they settled on the orange emblem on my chest.

  “Don’t fucking touch me!”

  “Captain, relax! You’re safe here, I promise.”

  “You son of a bitch…You’re one of them!” He sprang at me, but his body was snapped backward and he face-planted. He screeched in pain. “You son of a bitch!”

  “I’m just trying to help you.” I went to lift him back into a seated position.

  “Don’t you fucking touch me, traitor!” He punched my chest, his knuckles crunching against my armor. He roared like he was shot all over again, rolled onto his side, and cradled his arm. Bloo
d started leaking out of his gut, but he didn’t have a free hand to help stem the flow.

  “I stuck my neck out for you,” he panted.

  “I know, and I’m grateful.” After everything that had happened, it felt good to say that and know I meant it. Whether as a slave or not, he got me out of the shadows, gave me a chance to see Saturn for the first time. But this good feeling didn’t last long, as I witnessed the mounting revulsion on his face. “I swear. None of this is what it looks like.”

  “You put on quite a show, Drayton.” He was sweating so profusely that I could’ve showered under his chin. “Leading on Cora. Pretending to save my life while you handed over my ship. My crew. What the fuck did you do to them?”

  “That’s not what happened! Just calm down and I’ll explain everything. You’ll aggravate the wound.” I picked up my wet rag and held it out for him, smart enough to keep my distance this time.

  “Scared of getting sick?” He spat at me, a sticky mixture of saliva and fresh blood. I was able to turn my body just in time so that it splattered on the side of my helmet instead of my face. “I should have never let you back on!”

  “Wash yourself then!” I shouted. I threw the rag at him and jumped to my feet. I stopped outside of the airlock’s inner seal. “I’m trying to help you, sir.”

  “You touch me again and I’ll wring your skinny skelly neck, Drayton! You took my ship! I’ll fucking kill you.” He tugged on his cuff again, then collapsed onto his side and squirmed in agony. The veins in his neck bulged. “I’ll kill you,” I heard him groan through his teeth after I decided to hurry away.

  My eyes welled with tears. My throat was tight. I made it around the nearest corner, and then screamed at the top of my lungs: “FUCK!” I punched the wall over and over again. My armored fists slammed through a cluster of exhaust pipes, causing hot steam to spew onto my face. I didn’t stop. I kept punching until my arms were sore and the lights started flickering from damage to power lines buried in the wall.

  “Why is this happening to me?” I said to myself as I fell to my knees. “Why me…?”