The old man motioned to Maya. “She lives.”
“Maya would gladly give her life, and you’ll be dead before she hits the floor. You can do better.”
“I thought you people didn’t like striking deals with Earthers?” Uncertainty momentarily rippled across his face. He was stalling...human after all.
“But you’re different than the others, aren’t you? You seem equally as tired of their rotten deals as I am.”
“I can…” He searched the room, pausing on the molten remnants of a Cogent eye lens that had somehow remained intact enough to identify. “I was a Pervenio Collector for three decades. That comes with certain skills. Certain privileges.”
“He’s lying, Kale,” Maya said. “Just finish him. You have to get out of here.”
Now his staunch demeanor was starting to make sense. This was what the Collectors of offworlder legend were supposed to be like. Not that rat Trevor Cross.
Gareth nudged me in the side. “He’s not lying,” he signed. “He and Trevor were arguing when I took him. His retirement came up.”
“And how does a retired Collector help me?” I asked.
“How do you want it to?” he replied. “I know Luxarn Pervenio. How his mind works.”
“Even where he hides?”
Malcolm hesitated at first, then nodded ruefully. “I know where he shits. You let Aria go free of all this trouble, and my gun is yours. Anything you need.” He stared at Aria, with the same blend of sorrow and tenderness that my mother had when I used to visit her behind the divider of the Darien Quarantine. Of all the riddles of her past, there was no denying one...this mysterious old man cared for her deeply.
“Don’t do this for me, Dad!” Aria couldn’t cover her mouth fast enough.
Hearing the title drew everyone’s attention and provided Maya the opening she needed to break free. Her elbow smashed into the former Collector’s stomach. As he reeled, she twisted his arm until his pulse pistol popped out of his hand. Before any of us knew it, she had his own gun aimed back at him. She would’ve pulled the trigger too if Aria hadn’t leaped between them.
CHAPTER TWENTY
MALCOLM GRAVES
“Please don’t!” Aria cried.
I stood behind her, under the sights of yet another Titanborn who’d ripped a gun out of my hands. First on Earth when Zhaff was once forced to save me, then on Titan a number of times, now here. It was beginning to become a trend. If only I’d taken the time to nap instead of pointlessly gallivanting around Old Dome to try and find a good reason why Wai was dead when there was none. Then maybe I would’ve had my wits enough about me to get Aria out without starting a standoff with the adolescent king of Titan and his disfigured guard dog.
“A Pervenio Collector?” the one Kale referred to as Maya said, her rage palpable. “You’ve been working with them the whole time!”
“I’m not!” Aria protested. “I swear I was going to tell you, Kale.” She coughed once, then started to dry retch. I had to grab her to keep her upright. Kale and the other Titanborn wore airtight armor and helmets, but Aria and I weren’t so fortunate. Radiation poisoning was a bitch. I recalled dealing with a bad bout of it, decades ago back on an asteroid colony when a reactor overloaded. This was worse. It hurt all over just supporting Aria’s weight, and she wasn’t even born on Earth. My insides felt like they were fighting to squeeze through my pores.
“Working with me?” I released a weak chuckle. This was another fine mess I’d gotten her into, but I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to get her out. “I could hardly get her to talk to me.” I looked past Maya and straight at Kale. He was in shock, his gun elevated but aimed at nothing. “Malcolm Graves. That’s my name. You ever heard her use it? It’s because I left her on Mars, and I didn’t look back. She was better off without me.”
“Well, you’re here now,” Maya growled.
“A dying father come to rectify his sins, that’s all. You think I wanted her working with you people? Under Luxarn Pervenio’s lens? No, I came to get her out because Earth knows I’m the reason she went running into the arms of suicidal Ringers.”
A bang at the entry reverberated across the hangar. The door was partially welded shut from the ion engine ignition, but it wouldn’t hold long. “This property belongs to Madame Venta!” an officer outside shouted. “Open up, or we will be required to use force!”
“Venta Co. is here,” a Red Wing captain, who Kale somehow had working for him, announced. “Mr. Trass, you must leave immediately.”
“I’m aware,” Kale said.
“We may still need Aria, but let me put a bullet in this Pervenio scum,” Maya said.
Kale’s dusky eyes darted between us and the continued banging at the gate.
“I know I should’ve told you,” Aria pled. “From now on I’ll tell you everything. Just please, let him go. He’s out of the business. He has nothing to do with any of this.” Now she was the one trying to help me. Maybe we really were starting to get along better.
“Is this who you desperately needed to go see?” Kale questioned her. “Your illegitimate father? I don’t care if he’s out; he’s still Pervenio.”
“I swear, I didn’t even know he was still alive until today.”
“C’mon, Kale,” Maya said. I could feel the familiar barrel of my pistol rustling through my hair.
“Undina Mining facility,” I said.
“What?” Kale said.
“That’s where Luxarn Pervenio is holed up.”
“Look how loyal the dog is,” Maya spat.
I rolled my shoulders. Tough being overly loyal to a man who drained my credit account out of spite after thirty years of doing whatever he asked, but that wasn’t what made me say it. Undina was the closest asteroid to Earth in the system, pulled into its orbit for ease of mining years ago when Pervenio Corp. was building a Departure Ark and still had influence. It also happened to house what was left of the Cogent Initiative. An attempt at breaking in to get to him was suicide. If I couldn’t kill the boy king and free Sol from all the trouble he was causing, then maybe he’d chase the man they held responsible for subjugating Titan and get himself dead for me.
“Now you know,” I said. “Let us leave together. I promise, you won’t ever see us again. Or better yet, take me if that’ll make you feel better and let her go. The summit is over. She’ll disappear. She may be telling you the truth, but she’s not one of you. Never will be.”
“That’s for damn certain,” Maya added.
Sparks flew by the entry gate as the Venta Co. officers got to work cutting through. Kale averted his gaze from us and grabbed the Red Wing captain by the arm. I studied Maya as he did. If I wanted to make a move on her, now was the time to do it. Venta had them distracted, and Kale was clearly stalling to sort out his feelings.
“Captain, you said your Board wished to remunerate us?” he asked.
“They do.”
“Make contact then. Venta Co. is conspiring with their old rivals to kill me. I fear we won’t escape the planet’s gravity well without support. Ask them to scramble fighters to ensure Madame Venta doesn’t shoot us down. Do that, and we’ll be even for all of this.”
“Sir… That is a direct act of hostility. The Board—”
“This is a third attempt on my life here! If your Board denies us, I will see it as proof that your company is also involved, and shipments will stop. Get it done, Captain.”
The hole in the gate was nearly cut. After taking a few seconds to think things through, the captain wisely drew his hand-terminal to make the call while leading his remaining officers toward the entry.
“We can’t waste any more time, Kale,” Maya said harshly. “Our lives are in the hands of Earthers now, thanks to our lovely ambassador.”
“Listen to her, kid,” I said. “Just give the word and we’re out of your hair for good. Easy.”
A deafening bang preceded the hangar gate falling inward. A line of Venta Co. officers appeared on the other sid
e. The Red Wing captain and what little remained of his unit stood their ground and refused the orders to step aside. Kale’s surviving guards swarmed us to form a semicircle in front of their leader. The one from the Twilight Sun signed something to him, still upright despite an ample amount of blood dripping from his shoulder and stomach that nobody seemed to be concerned about.
Kale nodded. “Unfortunately for you, I still need her,” he said to me finally, his voice hoarse. “Maya, do—”
“Please!” Aria urged. “What would you do to have a second chance with the father who left you behind?”
Kale’s stony curtain slipped fully from its hooks. For all his projected bravado, he appeared completely overwhelmed. Every bit the inexperienced young man playing leader that he was. Aria was smart enough to see it, appealing to one sentiment every son or daughter with an estranged parent could understand no matter what world they were born on. It only pained me knowing that she’d learned that lesson from me.
“Take him with us onto the Cora, Maya,” Kale decided. He clutched Aria’s hand, his glare hardening again as he regarded her. “We can use him. For better or worse, he’s family now.”
Somehow, being referred to as family with the king of the Ringers wasn’t the strangest thing about what he said. The Cora? I couldn’t help but feel like the name of Kale’s surprisingly advanced ship meant something to me.
“More Earther stowaways,” Maya grumbled. She shoved my pistol against my spine and pushed me toward the ship. “Let’s go, Collector. One wrong move and you’ll spend your days on Titan drinking through a straw.”
She smacked me in the back of the neck with my own gun before I could come up with a witty response, and had me seeing stars. I stumbled forward, and when my vision cleared, I saw Aria with Kale and realized how badly I’d misinterpreted things. She wasn’t purely an ambassador or a friend. Just like the last time Aria and I were on Mars together, some six or seven years back, I’d come between her and a lover. They exchanged an unmistakable look—the kind that could only be swapped between two people who’d shared a bed—before they and the rest of Kale’s escort followed us.
Stupid old man, I cursed myself. I’d played my hand all wrong in thinking Kale only needed my daughter to arrange this summit because she wasn’t a Ringer. Even worse, I’d already handed him my best card by revealing where Luxarn was. Now I remembered why retiring seemed like the best plan for me back on Undina. Ever since Zhaff, I was covered in rust that I couldn’t shake.
A gunshot echoed.
The Red Wing captain toppled over. The Venta Co. officers finally realized Kale was exposed. They mowed down the rest of the Red Wing men, and we were next. Kale’s guards opened fire as they grabbed their king and rushed him into his ship.
“Move! Onto the Cora!” Maya barked.
Again, that name clung to my thoughts like a parasite and froze all my other functions, until Maya pushed me up the ramp as hard as she could. She then turned to help Kale and Aria up. Bullets clanged and hissed against the ship’s hull, a few buzzing into the cargo bay, which was basically empty minus a line of Ringer bodies. I quickly counted at least five of them. Kale’s surviving guards formed a wall at the entry while the ramp rose, returning fire as it sealed with a snap and hiss. One of the guards slumped to his knees face-first against it, a thick trail of blood snaking down the shiny surface. Dead.
“Everyone to the cockpit!” Kale ordered. “It’s time to go.”
The mute Ringer signed something in my direction. His bleeding had stopped, but his breathing was beleaguered.
“No, Gareth,” Kale said. “I want your eyes on him at all times.”
Maya passed me off to him, and we all set off down the ship’s winding corridors. It didn’t take more than a few steps in to realize that I was in a former Pervenio vessel. The clean lines, sleek surfaces, and top-end materials were evidence enough of that. Aria was up ahead with Kale, and I struggled to catch a glimpse of her with Maya and the other Ringers in between.
“I’m flying,” Maya said once we reached the spacious, trapezoidal cockpit. An injured Ringer posted at the controls limped out of the way.
Flying ships had never been my specialty, but even after a lifetime around Pervenio equipment, that cockpit remained alien. Glittering holographic screens and informational readouts blinked from all over. The best of technology, along every wall and under the sweeping viewport. At first, I’d figured this was merely a stolen gas harvester, but it was clear Kale had taken something valuable to my former employer, a prototype ship the likes of which Sol had never seen.
Maya reached for one of the two navigation chairs nearest the viewport, but Kale towed her back. “Aria’s flying.”
“Her?”
“Now isn’t the time, Maya,” Kale said, a harsh edge to his tone. “She’s our best pilot.”
“She’s the whole reason we’re in this mess.”
“Would you two stop it already!” Aria snapped. She covered her mouth to suppress a racking fit of coughs, which must have been contagious because I did the same. The radiation sickness was getting worse.
“She’s sick,” Maya said. “She needs treatment, right now. You know why.”
“If we don’t make it off, it won’t matter!” Aria said. “There are too many people on this ship I care about to let you fly. I’ll last.” Aria didn’t bother waiting for Maya to move. She squeezed around her and into the chair.
“Fine,” Maya grumbled. “I’ll shoot.”
She took the copilot seat next to Aria, and then I had the pleasure of seeing my daughter prepare for launch. Despite how nauseated she appeared, her hands flew across the controls, up and down, her chair swiveling from side to side. It was nothing I’d taught her. Just watching was exhausting.
The mute Ringer Gareth took me and shoved me into one of the chairs lining the back wall of the room. Quick movements rekindled my queasiness as my innards continued their war with each other. He sat beside me and pointed a pulse pistol at my ribcage. He was wheezing even louder than I was. The penetrations in his suit left him compromised, and our old bodies were more susceptible to radiation poison than the others’. It was one type of sickness being born on Earth couldn’t help with. I didn’t utter a word.
“Aria, is everything ready?” Kale asked as he took his seat in the captain’s chair, positioned behind and between Maya’s and Aria’s.
My daughter struck a few keys, then glanced back over her shoulder. Her cheeks were a subtle shade of green. She made eye contact with me and offered the slightest nod imaginable and a frail smile; something to tell me that I hadn’t failed her. I would’ve returned the expression if my stomach wasn’t so unsettled.
“All systems go,” she said. She ran her hand across a holographic screen, and suddenly the back of both my chair and headrest went slack. Restraints popped out over my legs, chest, and forehead as the chair molded to the cambers of my body. It felt like the entire back half of me was submerged in warm goo. The same happened to everybody, only Gareth somehow continued to dig his pistol into my side.
“Open this place up, Maya,” Kale commanded.
“Cora, armed,” Maya said. “G-pills everyone.” While everybody but me popped a pill, Maya looked to Aria. “Pressure’s going to give us a jolt. Think you can handle it?”
Aria ground her teeth, wearing a pained expression as she swallowed back what I assumed was bile. “Just shoot.”
The Cora! I realized. Now everything clicked. Even my exhausted, poisoned mind couldn’t forget that name because the girl it belonged to reminded me so much of Aria. It was the name of a young, mixed-blood Ringer woman I’d interrogated in relation to the attack on the gas harvester Piccolo, which claimed the lives of near twenty Earthers. Cora was a member of the crew during the attack, same as Kale, but when the latter disappeared, he was blamed for the attack by Director Sodervall. Cora refused to believe Kale had anything to do with it thanks to some damn obvious feelings. Only, you didn’t name ships after
someone who was still alive. What the hell had Director Sodervall done after I left her alive and headed for medical? The greatest revolution in the post-Meteorite era...could it all really be over a girl?
The ship lurched as missiles lanced out from beneath its wings. The wall of the hangar erupted in a plume of swirling smoke and flame that was swiftly extinguished by Mars’s lack of oxygen. The rapid pressure change caused the ship to jolt, and then the engines kicked in and we shot forward through the breach.
If it weren’t for my seat’s malleable headrest, my neck would’ve snapped in two. Even still, the pressure exerted on my entire body was excruciating. It felt like the fattest Earther imaginable was sitting on my chest, driving his thumbs into my eyes harder and harder. The air grew thick, oxygen pumping in through the forward recyclers at elevated rates to keep the pilot and navigators conscious through the worst of it.
Mars’s rusty sky filled the viewport. Anti-air fire flashed like lightning all around us as the Venta Co. defenses attempted to shoot us down. Aria whipped the Cora this way and that to avoid them. I could see the grimace pulling at her cheeks even from my vantage behind her. No amateur would be able to focus under such strenuous conditions, but all Venta’s attempts to stymie us sailed by harmlessly.
I sat in awe of my daughter. Her chest was restrained, but her arms masterfully worked the controls. The ship released flares and who knows what other evasive tech it was loaded with as she twirled. It wasn’t even until a flock of blue-colored fighters appeared on the horizon that she even broke a sweat.
“Venta?” Kale asked.
“Seven, heading straight at us!” Aria replied. The end of her sentence trailed off as she dipped us hard to the left under the blast of an anti-air round. “Should I engage?”
“Let’s see what this thing is capable of.”
“My pleasure,” Maya muttered. She worked her targeting array and unleashed a barrage of ordnance. Missiles, plasma torpedoes, high-caliber flak; enough to make Venta think twice. Aria held a straight course until the volley was released, then dropped into a spiral. I covered my mouth as the viewport spun.
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