“We must go, Malcolm,” Zhaff said loud enough so that I could hear him over the rattling of the ship’s ducts and systems. They weren’t meant to be subjected to such intense forces, either.
I looked down at the girl and said: “Don’t move.” She was crying, but she managed to nod.
I gritted my teeth. With the initial shock worn off, I was able to holster my gun and pull myself up by the ceiling so that I could get upright where my boots would work properly. Zhaff had accomplished that task far quicker.
We used whatever we could to pull ourselves forward. He made it look easier, but there was no question that even his chiseled frame was struggling. For the moment, it didn’t make me feel any better seeing him display signs of weakness. I couldn’t help but wish I’d listened to him and exercised to get my muscles up to speed, but I think my unrelenting stubbornness was part of what helped me press on. I desperately didn’t want him to get the last laugh…if he could laugh.
“Graves, what’s going on?” Director Sodervall asked over the com-link with urgency. “Scanners have the Piccolo accelerating directly toward the station! Do not let that ship reach us or we’ll have to shoot it down!”
“We’re working on it!” I grated. It was an effort just to speak. My lungs felt like they were being squeezed inside a vise. “How long until impact?”
The director went silent and before he could find an answer Zhaff had one. “Twelve minutes and thirty-six seconds,” he stated.
“Yes…that,” the director grumbled. “You have eleven, Malcolm. If you can’t find a way to stop it you two better get your asses off that ship!”
“We’ll stop it!” I said. “Don’t fire until you have no other choice!” Of course I had no idea what exactly was going on, but it seemed like the right thing to say to get back onto his good side. Especially if we succeeded.
“This way,” Zhaff indicated.
We turned down a corridor, our bodies outstretched so that we were holding on to the low ceiling with both hands and shuffling forward with our magnetized boots. We couldn’t move very hastily, and the clock in my head told me we weren’t going fast enough. The engine room was on the other end of the Piccolo.
My arms grew completely numb. My legs felt like they were back in the sewers of Mars, sloshing through a meter of shit. Zhaff was building the distance between us, but I clenched my teeth and forced my body to keep pace. Maybe he could handle what was awaiting us on his own, but I wanted to be there. We were partners after all. I needed to prove he needed me if I planned on sticking around for longer than this mission.
I released the roar festering in my belly and pushed myself even faster. Zhaff glanced back thinking I was injured, but I waved him to continue. I had been counting down in my head to try to ignore the pain, and by my calculations we only had six minutes until Director Sodervall was going to give the order to blow the Piccolo into space dust.
We passed by another masked Ringer clinging to the wall, terrified. We ignored him and Zhaff clambered down a nearby staircase beyond which the rumble of the engines grew louder. We were getting close.
I followed him, but when we reached the bottom Zhaff was holding on to the ceiling, completely still. The reddish light leaking through the entrance to the engine room up ahead revealed the body of one of the Pervenio officers. A gruesome cluster of bullet holes punctured the center of his chest, with a deepening stream of blood leaking out and pooling against the base of the stairs.
“Not using non-lethal rounds anymore, I guess,” I wheezed.
“No,” Zhaff stated. He, too, sounded slightly winded. He reached down and drew his pulse-pistol before continuing onward. I would’ve done the same, but I needed both arms just to fight the forces of acceleration and move.
A minute or so later we found another officer lying across the entrance to the engine room. The door was a quarter closed, jammed by his corpse. Zhaff pulled himself toward him and checked for a pulse.
“Dead,” he said.
He positioned himself on one side of the entrance, his body painted completely red by the light of the core. When I finally caught up to him I went to the other. That was when I finally decided to draw my pistol.
“Can you see anybody inside?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “The core is causing interference.”
I stared at him and saw that the countless systems behind the glass of his eye-lens were working hard to maintain focus. Then I noticed that his lips were twitching, even more than when he’d learned the truth about Aria. I wasn’t sure what discomfort looked like for a Cogent, but I have to imagine that was it.
“We’ll go in on three,” I said. “Shoot to kill this time.”
“Agreed,” he said, and for the first time I heard his voice affected by pain as well.
“One, two, three…”
We snapped around the corner, guns raised, or at least mine was. Zhaff’s pistol was swaying back and forth like he was completely blind. The roar of the spherical engine core was deafening, and the pulsating light it emitted as it roiled made it impossible to see clearly. I took a step forward and out of the corner of my eye I picked up a shadow moving.
“Get down!” I yelled.
I was lucky I’d been holding on to the wall with one hand because I used it to throw myself at my partner and tackle him to the ground just before a barrage of bullets almost took off his head. His pistol flew out of his hand and with our heads so close I could hear the clicks of his eye-lens going haywire.
“The Ring will never be yours, mud stompers!” a man bellowed loudly. “We were chosen by Trass!”
“I’ll take him!” I shouted. “Slow this thing down!” I yanked on the grated floor and sent myself soaring around the edge of the circular walkway wrapping around the core.
I could see the flash of the Ringer’s rifle’s muzzle as he attempted to track me. Bullets clanged off the walls, ceiling, and floor. If one of them struck the engine we were all going to be barbecued. I felt one graze the top of the armor guarding my calf as I pushed off the wall and changed direction.
In my ear Director Sodervall said: “Graves, you have thirty seconds or nothing we do is going to be able to keep that thing from hitting us!”
“Just fucking hold your fire!” I responded into the com-link.
I aimed my pulse-pistol toward the area where I thought the Ringer was and unloaded the clip. He returned fire, but his shots veered off toward the ceiling until there were no more. My pistol clicked that it was empty, and just as it did the engine quieted. The Piccolo slowed down and the pressure on my chest dwindled until it no longer hurt to breathe again. Of course I was exhausted and was puffing regardless from exertion.
The main lights throughout the engine room blinked on, and I saw the Ringer in a tattered white tunic—orange circle printed on his chest—lying on the floor around the bend of the spherical core. At least one of my shots had met its mark, because there was a gash in the side of his neck with blood gushing out and spiraling across the room. He gurgled on it, but by the time I was able to drag my weightless body over to him he was dead. His pulse-rifle drifted harmlessly away from him and I grabbed it. It was nothing a Ringer should’ve been able to afford, but there were no markings on it and the model number was removed. Purchased off the black.
“Reverse thrusters are activated, Director,” Zhaff announced through the com-link, sounding back to his normal self. “We’re in control.”
Director Sodervall breathed a sigh of relief. “That was too close,” he replied. “Bring her in slowly and we’ll start cleaning this up.”
I glanced up and saw Zhaff on the other end of the room, holding on to the engine’s manual control console. He had his hand-terminal connected to it. Even impaired he got the job done.
“You all right, Zhaff?” I exhaled.
He turned around to face me, expression blank as ever. “I am,” he stated.
I imagined that was as close as I was going to get to a thank-you for sav
ing his life. Of course, by slowing the Piccolo he’d already made things even. That thought alone was enough to make me snicker. Either I was destined never to get an edge on him, or we were actually starting to make a decent team. The only thing I could be sure about was how glad I was not to have countless pounds of pressure towing on my tired body.
“Nice job,” I said.
Zhaff’s eye-lens—working properly once again—angled toward the Ringer’s body and focused. “And you, Malcolm,” he replied.
I smiled wearily and nodded at him. He nodded back.
If I weren’t weightless I would’ve collapsed against the wall and taken a nap. Instead I demagnetized my boots, closed my eyes, and allowed myself to enjoy weightlessness for a time.
Chapter 14
“I told you, I don’t know anything else,” the girl we found on the command deck of the Piccolo said. Based on our information her name was Cora, and she was sitting across from Zhaff and me in one of Pervenio station’s cramped interrogation rooms. She’d already cried so much during our questioning that her cheeks were permanently stained. In her boiler suit I could tell that her forearm was fractured, but she still hadn’t been permitted to receive medical attention. She had to hold it up with her other hand.
“You’re saying that a man, around your age, named Kale Drayton was behind this?” Zhaff asked. He was sitting on the other side of a table from her while I stood leaning against the door. We’d spoken with half of the twenty or so Ringer members of the crew recovered from the ship by then, and many of them had brought up that same name. Mine and Zhaff’s first legitimate interrogations together as partners. He wanted to start with her, but I insisted they let her get some rest so she could calm her nerves. My little act of generosity to try to loosen her up.
“No…I mean…I don’t think so,” she said. “But they seemed to know him—”
“They?” I asked. I knew who she was talking about, but keeping a suspect thinking was a tool of the trade. Of course, I couldn’t look directly into her soul like Zhaff seemed to be able to do.
“The people who attacked us,” she clarified, her gaze held on me. She’d spent most of the conversation doing that so she wouldn’t have to stare into Zhaff’s eye-lens. I couldn’t say I blamed her. “They took him with them.”
“Right. He was forcefully taken by three armored soldiers other than the one we found on the Piccolo, but only him. And you don’t know why?”
She shook her head meekly.
“You’re never going to get anywhere with these people unless you spill a little blood,” Director Sodervall said into my ear. He had me on com-link with him for the interrogations, claiming that dealing with Ringers was his area of expertise.
I rolled my eyes before reaching up to switch off the device. I could picture him cursing me under his breath. “Show her,” I said to Zhaff.
He pulled out the hand-terminal we’d found her with on the Piccolo and placed it on the table in front of her. Her eyes bulged as she stared at it.
“What about that?” I asked. “Was that really the first time you saw it on the command deck?”
“I…I can’t remember…” she stammered.
Zhaff turned his head toward me. I motioned for him to stay quiet before he said what I knew he was going to say. She wasn’t a practiced criminal and even I could tell she was holding back.
“C’mon, Cora,” I said. I strolled over to the table and leaned down next to her. She didn’t look much like my daughter, but I hoped if I employed the same tone I used to while scolding Aria then I might be able to get her to talk without needing to get violent. She seemed ready to break. “If it were up to him there’d be officers snapping your fingers off until you told him what he wanted to know. Being that you’re still alive, I’d say this can get a whole lot worse for you unless you start answering our questions truthfully.”
Cora continued to stare at the device in silence. A heavy tear rolled down her cheek, and I could tell words were forming in her throat. “I saw it…with Kale,” she said finally. She pointed at the side of the slim device, at a series of scratches along the edge. “It was his, I think.”
“See how easy that was?”
“He wouldn’t do something like this,” she sniveled. “I swear it. In the name of Trass I swear it.”
I slammed my hands down on the table right in front of her and said: “Because of him all of you went hurtling on the Piccolo toward Pervenio station like a bomb. He was going to kill you!”
“It wasn’t him!” She grasped my arm so abruptly that Zhaff jumped to his feet and had his hand wrapped around the grip of his pistol. “I know him. It wasn’t him…It wasn’t him.”
I took a deep breath, peeled her fingers off me, and stepped away. Her broken arm made her wince. Zhaff released his weapon.
“I’m sure it wasn’t.” I waved toward the officer outside the door. “We’re done with you for now. And would you get her arm looked at already?” He offered a halfhearted nod before grabbing her.
“It wasn’t him!” she screamed over and over again as the officer dragged her out, not stopping until she was well down the hall and thrown back into one of Pervenio station’s famous cells. They were three-by-three-meter rectangular boxes with blank surfaces on every side except for the floor, which popped through the exterior of the station. That surface was glass, and the thin barrier between breathable air and deadly vacuum was said to be an air lock that could be opened at any time if someone misbehaved. At least that’s what the prisoners were told. I’d never actually seen someone spaced through one of them.
“Malcolm, she knows more,” Zhaff said.
“She’s not going anywhere even if she does,” I replied. “It’s nothing that will help us, though. Or can you not see it?”
“See what?” Zhaff asked.
I grinned. “You’ve never been with a girl, have you?”
“I have been beside many females.”
“I mean intimately. Or do they cut off your…” I gestured to his hips. “You know, when you enter the initiative.” It was a very real possibility based on everything I’d learned about him. The thought made my stomach turn over, and I felt the need to check my groin just to make sure everything was still there.
“They did not. However, as with all members of the Cogent Initiative, my ability to reproduce naturally has been impaired.”
I could only imagine how Pervenio Corp went about that. It made me feel a bit queasy to think about. “Well, there’s more to it than just making kids. No wonder you are…how you are.”
He didn’t allow any irritation to show, but his eye-lens focused on my face as if it were looking through me. “Malcolm,” he said, “I do not see how this is relevant to our investigation.”
“Apparently, you weren’t taught everything. She obviously has feelings for the man. I’m sure we could get his life story out of her, but I bet it’s like that of any other Ringer who’s been pushed too far.”
Zhaff considered what I said for a moment before stating: “I do not know if I agree with your assessment.”
“Trust me.” I placed my hand on his shoulder and sat him down. “After we’re done here I swear I’m going to take you out for a night with the best women I can find in Sol and then you’ll understand. We’d be wasting our time with Cora. She’s no criminal. Please tell me you can see that.”
“I will rely on your experience in the matter for now.”
“My experience.” I laughed. “So have you found out any more about this Kale Drayton?”
“Yes.” Zhaff pulled down his own hand-terminal and quickly perused the screen. “Security says his name was listed on the manifest for the Piccolo. He is from the lower ward of Darien Colony, level B-two. Security has already raided his hollow and found nothing. His only relative is a mother who was contained in the Darien quarantine zone.”
“Dead?”
“Gone. After the raid on the Piccolo she disappeared from the facility and cannot be located.�
�
“Damn…so after all that it’s just a worthless lead.”
“It appears to be. Director Sodervall has been informed about the situation and he will initiate a Ring-wide search for both Draytons.”
“I doubt they’ll find anything. The Children of Titan somehow got her out of a secure q-zone. They’re something else.” I sat on the table and rested my head on my hand. My neck was unbelievably sore from the Piccolo. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the bright-orange circle on the screen of Kale’s hand-terminal. “What about that thing?”
“The hand-terminal was altered to allow the communications systems of the Piccolo to penetrate the Pervenio network. I have been unable to discover its other capabilities or trace its origin. The programming is beyond my proficiency, and is perhaps impervious now that it has been utilized.”
“Why would they leave it behind for us to find, then? We know the one operative was left behind to give his life crashing the ship into the station.” I shuddered at the thought of another Ringer willing to commit suicide. The director had the body scanned, and as with the bomber on Earth there wasn’t a single match in the database to tell us who it was. “But the broadcast was already transmitted. Seems like too simple a mistake.”
“Perhaps the program needed more time to infiltrate Solnet? I can analyze it further.”
“Maybe. Or maybe they left it as if that damn orange circle were a middle finger. Like they knew even you wouldn’t be able to crack it to find them.”
I snatched the device and spun it around. Physically it looked like any other Venta-distributed hand-terminal of the same cheap model, but if Zhaff couldn’t crack it then the Children of Titan were even more skilled than I thought. He’d sliced into the Piccolo’s engine controls in less than twenty seconds, after all. But it was our only lead. We were going to need to find someone to look at it who was even more talented with programming than him. Someone like…
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