The headlights of a mining crawler facing me flashed on, flooding me in a radiance so bright that I had to yank up my spotters. The vehicle consisted of an oblong operating cockpit sitting atop six spindly legs, like those of a spider. With those it could easily clamber around the walls of the hollows blown open for mining, where there was essentially no gravity, and use the blades set along its front to carve out minerals into the storage basin attached to its bottom. The vehicle’s engine roared to life, and it charged forward at me.
I stood my ground, bullets fired from the rifles of the other miners pinging off tables or whizzing by my ears. I aimed my gun at the crawler’s cockpit as long as I could, until I could see the face of the man within it. I squeezed the trigger right before I dove out of the way. The vehicle promptly slammed into the wall behind me, its legs still thrashing.
Now that I was back in darkness, I was able to escape the sights of the remaining miners with guns. I hit one in the kneecap and two others in their collarbones. When the last one fell, the only sound that remained was the moaning of the injured. The others either had fled or were hiding in the shadows, waiting for the fight to come to a conclusion.
I hurried over to the crawler and climbed over the back. The control console in the cockpit was flickering as its legs began to die out. There was a circular gash in the center of the glass, and Yev Tavar lay in the seat behind it. Blood leaked out of a wound in the center of his chest. I popped open the glass lid using the external controls and ripped him out. He squealed in pain as he tumbled over the side of the vehicle.
“I’ll applaud you for a solid fight,” I panted as I hopped down and knelt over his body. “But you couldn’t have thought this would work.”
“Better…” He spit up a glob of blood. “Better to try. One day you and all those Pervenio fucks will pay for how you treat us. All I wanted was to negotiate fairly.”
I tapped him on the forehead with the barrel of my gun. “You lost your rights to negotiate when you murdered the security team posted here,” I said. I got tired of giving the same speech to every “righteous” dissident.
“Murdered?” He started laughing so hard that blood sprayed all over my coat. He raised his shaking right hand and pointed to a generous exit leading out of the refectory. “They’re alive. Through there, tied up in the hangar.”
“How kind of you. Maybe for that I’ll let you have a quick death.”
“We’ll…all have one now…because of you.”
I watched his gaze sweep away from my face and down toward his left hand. In it he concealed a hand-terminal, and it didn’t take me long to realize what he meant. I shot him right between the eyes, but not before he was able to key a command. The exterior hangar of sector D opened without depressurizing first.
It was a neat trick, hacking into the hangar controls and syncing them to both his own handheld device and the mobile generators they were relying on. One that would require at least some level of expertise. I know I should’ve seen the device in his hand, but clearly the directors had missed something when they’d briefed me on him. No lifer in a mine should’ve been capable of something so complex.
A loud whistling noise tore through the refectory. My body was towed along with it, more forcefully with each passing second. I grabbed hold of one of the mining crawler’s heavy legs before my own were thrust into the air. With my other hand I clutched Yev’s arm. The squeals of the miners he’d decided to take down with him echoed as they, too, were yanked into the air and through the opening.
Tables and chairs flew by me. Light fixtures were torn down. Even the substantially sized mining crawler was dragged across the steel floor. I would’ve followed everything else through the refectory’s exit and across the hangar into the vacuum of space if the crawler hadn’t turned far enough so that its long side wasn’t able to squeeze through.
I found myself pinned tightly against the vehicle by a pressure so violent that it felt as if my rib cage were going to cave in. I watched a few bodies, including Grant’s, be sucked out through the space above the jammed crawler, but somehow I managed to hold on to Yev without passing out. My hand slipped down his arm until I was able to locate the hand-terminal within his clenched grip. I grabbed it before releasing him to the great vacuum.
I couldn’t pull my arm back in front of me to see, so I started blindly keying at the screen of the device. It didn’t matter what I pressed. If I didn’t do something there would be no oxygen left for me anyway. A roar of agony was beginning to percolate in the bottom of my throat from having my body tugged on as if I were a children’s doll being fought over by two jealous brothers.
When it was almost too much to bear I must’ve stroked the correct key, because the deafening howl of air being sucked out into space suddenly quieted. The mining crawler plummeted, and me with it, until I was sitting against its fractured chassis, wheezing. My limbs were so sore that I could barely even feel them, let alone move them. I had to use my shoulder to slide my spotters down over my eyes. Once they were on I searched for the heat signatures of anyone else nearby who’d somehow survived. I couldn’t find a single one.
I imagine that the miners of sector D would’ve spaced Yev right in the beginning of the strike if they’d known what he was going to do just to hit Pervenio Corp in the wallet. As if any single man could affect that.
Fucking offworlders…they never learn.
Chapter 2
For the first time in a long time I was on vacation. Well, forced vacation to be more precise. At least that’s what Director Sodervall called it. After cleaning up the mess on 92-Undina, that was to be my punishment for what happened. He demanded that I take some time off to “relax under the pleasant g conditions of our beloved homeworld.” Like I was some sort of old man.
Sure, what happened on Undina could’ve been avoided, but it had nothing to do with my age. Shit happens on the job that nobody can predict. If Pervenio had provided better intel that mentioned Yev used to be a programmer for Venta Co on Mars, then maybe I would’ve been more cautious with him. Still, there was no way to ignore a death toll of nearly fifty due to the hangar opening, including the ten security officers that Yev Tavar was holding captive. Not to mention that an entire sector of the Undina Mine had been rendered in need of heavy repairs.
Thirty years of loyal service kept me from having the ten thousand credits I was owed rescinded as a result, but it wasn’t enough to change Sodervall’s mind about me needing a break, no matter how ready I was to go right back to work.
“Take a week or two to get your muscles right,” he’d said through my hand-terminal. “We’ll send you to New London. It’ll be M-day when you get down and there’ll be plenty to drink.”
He knew me too well. I wasn’t the kind of man to say no to a drink. I fought him as much as I could, but in the end it was an order, and I had no other means of getting assignments without him backing me. So I swallowed my pride and hopped onto a shuttle bound for the capital of human civilization: New London, Earth. At the very least I had a shiny new pile of credits to spend, which would make the punishment of being stuck in New London on M-day more bearable.
I settled into a suite at the most luxurious hotel in the city after I arrived. I thought about catching up on some much-needed sleep, but the whole situation had me too irked to lie still. Instead, I decided to brave the unruly crowd of Earthers flooding the city for M-day and find a place to get a glass of whiskey where I wouldn’t be sweating by the time I ordered it.
It was a tall order. The streets were mobbed. M-day was the most important holiday in all of Sol, especially for anyone who grew up on Earth like me. Hell, it was the only holiday for us, and people would come from all over the solar system to fill its largest city. It commemorated the exact day three centuries ago—A.D. September 3, 2034—when the fiery Meteorite crashed into Earth, and celebrated the fact that even though Armageddon had come, humanity endured.
Men would dress in their finest tunics and the women i
n sparkling gowns that matched the vibrant hues of makeup decorating their faces. Most of them probably couldn’t afford their extravagant getups, but on M-day every Earther in New London got to pretend they were a part of the wealthy elite. They’d get drunk, they’d get merry, and they’d get a little too brazen for my taste. I’d worked security in New London when I was younger, so I knew what it was like to flash a badge at a crowd of drunken Earthers who felt like they were invincible.
Those were a few of the innumerable reasons that M-day was my least favorite time to be on Earth. The crowds were the worst part, though. It took me a kilometer of scouring the upper-level walkways of New London to spot a bar that looked like it had enough room for me to squeeze in. I had to step over the legs of a passed-out drunkard and push through a row of market stands to get to the door. They were selling artifacts from pre-Meteorite Earth, from broken tech to utensils. Buying garbage like that was another thing people did on M-day, though I’d wager at least 90 percent of it was counterfeit.
The bar was a tiny place called the Molten Crater. It was tucked into an alley across from the maglev rail station cutting through the center of the city. For the life of me I couldn’t recall whether I’d ever been there before.
It may have been less crowded than any other bar, but hundreds of Earthers were packed inside. The booths running down the long wall were overflowing. The fabric of the seats was stained and shredded from people standing on them, lying on them, or doing whatever they could on them to get comfortable. The profits from the holiday were always worth the inevitable repairs. Every so often the entire crowd glanced up from their drinks at the bright view-screens lining the tin-paneled walls, eagerly waiting for the broadcast of the M-day address to commence. By my count it wouldn’t start for another hour or two.
I weaved my way across the room, which reeked of spilled beer mixed with whatever else happened to be on the filthy, faux-wood floors. Everyone who noticed me stopped what they were doing to sneak a look.
My loose duster was purposefully pulled open just enough to reveal the pulse-pistol dangling from my belt and a sliver of the Pervenio emblem printed near the shoulder of my shirt. I always chose to wear the gun on Earth as long as it was permitted. No Earther would bother me if they thought I was on duty, even though I wasn’t. Half of them were probably nervous that I was going to put a bullet in the back of their heads over something foolish they’d done years before. People have a way of thinking their mistakes are far more significant than they really are.
Once I finally made it to the bar everyone quickly returned to their conversations, as if nothing more than a ghost had passed by and given them a shiver. Every stool was taken, so I leaned on the counter in a narrow space beside a plump Earther who was seeing how big a glass he could put down in one gulp to impress a group of finely dressed strangers. It wasn’t sitting, but it at least provided my weary old legs with a much-needed break from walking.
The bartender was a young Earther woman, pretty and with her hair dyed purple. I ordered a whiskey and slapped down my Pervenio ID. It was linked directly to my personal credit account.
When she returned with my drink, she swiped my ID through a scanner and perused the information that popped up for a moment. She grinned and shook her head.
“First one’s free today, Mr. Graves,” she said before moving on to the next customer.
I wasn’t going to complain. After spending a nice chunk of my reward for killing Yev Tavar on my hotel room, I wanted to make sure the credits I had would last me my whole, unwanted vacation. They could be tough to come by, and even as a collector I was prone to living job-to-job.
I lifted the cold, perspiring glass to my lips and took a swig. It was a foul bit of swill, no doubt as artificial as it was cheap. They always served the inexpensive stuff for the M-day crowds. I reluctantly forced a mouthful down my gullet and placed it back on the bar, trying to ignore the pale reflection of myself that stared back at me from the glass. Sometimes I forgot how gray my hair was getting, or how there seemed to be a new wrinkle forming somewhere on my face every morning.
While I stood there, wondering where the years had gone, the space to my right was vacated and a slender man promptly squeezed in to order a water. I glanced over. There was no doubt he was an offworlder, and not some recent immigrant to a Mars colony where getting some sun through the shielded domes could be even easier than it was on always-cloudy Earth. No, the man had the look of a Ringer born on Saturn’s moon Titan.
Like all Ringers he was excessively tall and lean, with knobby joints that appeared more delicate than they really were and a long face atop his lengthy neck, which was as white and veiny as a slate of polished marble. What really gave him away, however, was the sanitary mask pulled tight across his mouth and nose to go along with the rubbery gloves yanked halfway up his forearms. I’d been to Titan so I knew its people wore all that protection to keep from getting sick around Earthers. For that reason, among others, it was exceedingly rare to see one on Earth’s surface. None of his precautions seemed to be working very well, either. The skin around his inflamed eyes was dark and saggy. Each grating breath he took sounded like a struggle.
Not wanting to get caught staring, I turned my attention to the view-screens behind the bar. An advertisement interrupted the local newscast.
“Help preserve the human race!” a rousing male voice said as a recording panned across a post-apocalyptic scene. A burning tree sat on a hill overlooking a ruined skyline—a glorified reproduction of Earth after the Meteorite hit back in 2034. “Colonies throughout the solar system await your arrival, and Pervenio Corporation is proud to aid you in your transition. Help us add our domes to the crimson surface of Mars, or help with the harvesting of vital gases on the Ring. The fight to ensure our survival rests in your hands!”
The ad ended with the emblem of Pervenio Corp—a crimson helix wrapped around a crooked branch—projected over a crowd of people who were waving off a massive ship headed up into space. A small patch of text—which most people missed—popped up at the bottom of the screen, indicating all that couldn’t be promised when someone decided to move offworld, most significantly their safety or legitimate work.
For everyone who grew up on Earth it was one of countless century-old ads put out by the USF or any of its sanctioned corporations encouraging the diffusion of the human race. After the Meteorite drowned half the planet and nearly wiped out humanity, that was the creed that drove the survivors. The idea was not to risk extinction by staying secluded on Earth. I’d grown weary of the message by the time I could speak. To me it was like listening to a song I’d heard so many times that when it came on I found myself mouthing the words without really enjoying or realizing it.
For the offworlder I assumed to be a Ringer beside me, the ad evoked a far different reaction. Even under his mask I could see the twitch of resentment pulling at his lips, and the rage filling his bloodshot eyes.
It was easy to understand why. In A.D. 2031 when the colossal Meteorite somehow had its course altered and was discovered to be hurtling toward Earth, a small group of scientists, under the lead of a visionary named Darien Trass, turned their attention to space instead of wasting time attempting to restore its old trajectory. Trass built an Ark for three thousand people and sent it to Titan, the orange moon of Saturn. He decided back then that it was the most promising celestial body in all of Sol for human expansion due to the resources offered by it as well as the ringed gas giant it orbited. The Ring, as it became called, had everything but breathable air and warmth.
Over time the settlers of the Ring forgot about their old world, our world, as they focused on constructing their new one. Their initial ship grew into bigger and more advanced settlements all across the surface of Titan. They began adapting to the low gravity and their sunless skies, growing taller, slimmer, and paler with each ensuing generation. They even grew accustomed to the cold. On the occasions a job took me way out there I found the temperatures in the Ring
er-inhabited lower wards of their colony blocks to be unbearable. They kept them at freezing, and for them that was like summer.
It was sometime when I was still a child that our two peoples reconnected. Those who’d stayed behind on Earth as doomsday approached, and those who’d fled for colder pastures. At first we tried to accept each other with open arms, but as more and more immigrants from Earth flooded into the Ring, they realized that it wasn’t only the Ringers’ appearance that had changed. Being in sterile environments for so many years had crippled their immune systems, and we Earthers brought with us all the bacteria and diseases that no longer affected us.
Sickness on Titan prevailed. Entire colonies were crippled, allowing the physically stronger people from Earth to take control of every level of the Ringer infrastructure with ease. What had been a grand reunion quickly went sour. Earthers grew to resent the Ringers for abandoning Earth, and the Ringers never took too kindly to being assimilated into our culture, or having their loved ones crammed into quarantine zones due to rampant illness.
Maybe it was the whiskey, but as I thought about how strange it really was to be seated next to a Ringer in the heart of New London I found myself curious. “Don’t see many of your type out here for M-day, offworlder,” I said.
I didn’t want to flat-out call him a Ringer yet even though I was confident my assumption was correct. I knew better than most that people could be touchy about where they were from. It was possible he could merely be an exceptionally tall man from a proud Earther family unfortunate enough to have spent most of the last few generations buried deep within an asteroid mining colony. Could be that he was merely getting over an everyday cold and was bitter toward immigrants who could afford to go to a planet-sized moon instead of a floating rock on the edge of space.
Titanborn Page 2