The fighters fanned apart and returned fire. The Cora shuddered, missiles tearing into its shell. The screens and consoles in front of Aria chirped as readouts transmitted damage reports. As Aria leveled us out, one of the Ringers in the hold behind us puked so loudly I could hear it over the clamor of exploding torpedoes outside.
“Three fighters down!” Aria shouted. “Ablative plating at 73 percent. No critical damage.”
“They’re looping back around,” Maya said. “More fighters scrambling from the Little Peru Colony as well.”
“We won’t survive too many straight-on assaults like that.”
“You going to take them all on, Trass?” I grated. “Take my daughter down with you?”
Gareth punched me in the rib with his pistol. I was surprised by how weak the blow felt considering the powered armor he wore. Although, my whole body was so racked with pain that anything short of a bullet through the brain wouldn’t phase me.
“We won’t have to,” Kale sneered.
“Intercepting coms with Madame Venta,” Aria said. “We’re being hooked in.” She flicked a switch, and the message came through loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Madame Venta, this is Valora Chung, Director of security for Red Wing Company on Mars. You are attacking a transport vehicle under our protection. If you do not retreat, we will be forced to engage.”
“Oh, don’t you fucking do this, Valora,” Madame Venta responded. I’d only ever heard her speak over newsfeeds, but the ire in her tone was enough to give even me a shiver. “That vessel is harboring known criminals.”
“Kale Trass and his followers have yet to be formally convicted of violating any colonial statutes. As inhabitants of greater Sol, they engaged in a contract with Red Wing Company to provide secure transit to and from Titan.”
“I’m aware of the deal you made.”
“Then you understand that the Red Wing Board has agreed it cannot allow you to infringe upon our agreement.”
“Now isn’t the time to flex your muscle, Valora. Are you really going to start a war with me over a band of terrorists?”
“We uphold all contracts to the best of our abilities.”
“Do you know who they have on that ship? They abducted Javaris Venta. They killed my sons!”
“Javaris Venta remains a missing person with unconfirmed whereabouts. The only thing that we can confirm is that your employees stormed a private hangar chartered by us and caused the deaths of no less than seven Red Wing officers as well as an unknown number of Kale Trass’s escort. You will be lucky to avoid USF sanctions.”
Silence. Only the sounds of a ship’s engine pushed to its limits and the wheezing of the mute Ringer beside me pushed equally far met my ears. Mars’s thin atmosphere gradually peeled away, like a giant was dropping a black canvas over us. The faint stars glittered like diamonds and grew brighter.
“When this lunatic kills more people,” Madame Venta said, finally, “I want you and your damn Board to remember that we could have ended it here.” Her communications cut out.
“We have upheld our end of the agreement and will be expecting payment on schedule,” Red Wing Director Valora addressed the Cora’s cockpit directly after a brief silence. “Red Wing hopes that despite unforeseen complications during your visit, our show of support will encourage you to continue the good faith export of certain goods exclusively to us. Our reach, however, extends only so far. May I suggest plotting a course to Titan that steers as far from Jupiter’s orbit as possible. Safe journey, Kale Trass, and please, give your ambassador our best regards for instituting this contract.”
“All Venta fighters are pulling back!” Aria said.
Aria turned down the throttle as we broke Mars’s gravity well and were embraced by the oppressive blackness of space. The pressure exerted on every inch of my body waned, and for the first time since we took off, I felt like I could breathe again, at least until opening my mouth too wide almost made me heave.
Mars’s moon Phobos hovered off to the right, speckled with lights and a host of Venta cruisers flocking the docking station on its surface. As agreed upon between Venta and Red Wing Company, none followed us or fired. Things really were out of whack with Pervenio Corp. so weak. Luxarn, or rather the world-eating Luxarn I knew from before the Ring fell, would have never allowed himself to be played like that.
“Fucking mudstompers can’t get out of each other’s way,” Maya sneered.
“You do realize it was a mudstomper who just saved us,” I said. I expected Gareth to try to quiet me with another forceful nudge, but none came.
“And where were they when we stood before the Assembly?” Kale retorted. “Barely a whimper of support.”
“Gareth, keep him quiet,” Maya ordered.
“You have a lot to learn about corporate politics, kid,” I said. “Under-the-table drug trafficking doesn’t net you public backing. It nets you credits.”
Aria loosened her restraints and turned to join the argument, but the moment our gazes met her eyes went wide in horror. The weight of Gareth’s arm slumped into me, and his pistol drifted weightlessly across the cockpit. Blood followed it, leaking steadily in perfect, scarlet droplets out of his mouth, shoulder, and stomach. The pressure of launch must have started the bleeding up again. His eyelids were three-quarters closed, slits of white in the reveals. If there was even the slightest pigment to the Ringer’s skin, it was noticeably absent. I didn’t need to be a doctor to know he was hanging on by a thread.
“Gareth!” Kale shouted, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t. I’d snatched Gareth’s pistol out of the air and aimed it straight at the king of Titan’s face.
A stroke of luck for once. I could end it all then, just like I’d helped get it started when I put Zhaff down. My hand wasn’t even cramping this time. I was too sick for my compromised mind to take control. Kale Trass, or Drayton, or whatever he thought he was had it coming. There wasn’t a soul on the Cora, even his allies, who didn’t know it.
I didn’t shoot.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Aria’s pleading face. I remembered when I had killed the smuggler Elios Sevari to try and protect her, the first man she’d ever fallen in love with. I remembered all the times I’d let her down, and the last time I’d saved her by killing my own partner and friend. Murdering Kale wouldn’t free her from the life her bad choices led to. She wasn’t one of them, and Maya would order our slaughter the moment I pulled the trigger. I could see that written all over her scarred face. Once the shooting started, nobody would get off the Cora alive.
So, I made the only decision a father could. I coughed once, wiped my mouth, and then spared the boy king of Titan his warranted assassination. I released the gun and allowed his revolution to keep on churning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
KALE TRASS
The moment Malcolm released the gun, I loosed my restraints, pushed off my chair and zipped across the Cora’s cockpit toward Gareth. I knew Malcolm wouldn’t shoot, not with Aria there, but he’d wasted precious time.
“Earther scum!” Maya snarled as she shot forward and punched Malcolm across the face.
“Aria, he needs medical attention!” I said. Her gaze darted back and forth between the ship’s controls and Gareth. “Now!”
Navigation could wait. So long as Venta upheld their end of things, drifting aimlessly through space posed no current threat. Aria unstrapped herself, glided over to us, and placed two fingers over his neck for a pulse.
“He’s still alive,” she panted. “We need to get him to the medical bay.”
I nodded and grabbed the ceiling bars to help pull us along when I noticed Maya preparing to follow. “No. You have to stay and watch the Collector.”
“With all due respect, I’m no babysitter,” Maya said.
“I’m happy to fly if you need a pilot,” Malcolm muttered.
Maya grabbed Gareth’s pistol and shoved it against Malcolm’s cheek. “You sat there and let him bleed out!
”
The old Collector rolled his shoulders. “Seems like we all did.”
Maya’s hand was quaking, and I was completely prepared for her to pull the trigger when Aria intervened. “Would you shut up, Dad!” she snapped. “Just…just stay here and don’t move.”
Malcolm grabbed Aria’s forearm, and they glowered into each other’s eyes for a few seconds. Then he released her, exhaled, and allowed his head to sink back farther into his viscous headrest. He looked deathly ill. The radiation was ravaging his old body faster than his daughter’s.
“Kale, let’s go!” Aria shouted.
We drew Gareth’s weightless body through the Cora as quickly as possible. It would’ve been easier with gravity. The only ships I’d served on in my life endured more of it within Saturn’s atmosphere, not its absence. On our way, Maya ordered a few of the healthy Titanborn seated in the hall outside the cockpit to keep an eye on Malcolm and prepare the sleep pods.
The medical bay was down through the ship’s mostly vacant galley. A few of the burnished cabinets were stuffed with ration bars, but with everyone but myself put under for the journey, there wasn’t much need for anything else.
We whipped around the corner into the med bay and laid Gareth down on the table in the center. Everything around me was white, like the halls of the Darien Q-zone before I razed the place to the ground and booted Luxarn Pervenio from the Ring.
“I need to stem the bleeding,” Aria said as she rifled through the magnetically sealed cabinets searching for equipment. “Get his suit off him.”
I fumbled along his back searching for the switch that loosened his red-stained armor, but I could hardly see straight. All the white was dizzying. Maya brushed me aside and unlatched him herself. Then she started removing his suit. His bloody shirt was stuck to the inner layer and had to be peeled away like a shell.
Zero G made it difficult for her to gain leverage, and after a few seconds I gathered my bearings enough to help. He was injured badly. I knew right away I should have never let him keep pushing himself. Not that it would’ve mattered. Thanks to Aria and her suddenly appearing father, there would’ve been no time to treat him before taking off.
“Kale, move!”
Aria shoved me out of the way and ripped his shirt down the center with a scalpel. His milk-white stomach was drenched with blood. The gaping hole in its center bubbled. A perfectly angled shot had apparently sliced clean through his armor.
Aria sprayed Pervenio Corp. congealer over the wound. I’d learned a bit from watching her work. The stuff was as cold as the surface of Titan, enabling it to slow the flow of blood cells and cause them to clot.
“The bullet is still lodged in there,” Maya objected.
“That’s the least of our problems,” Aria replied. “His heart’s stopped. Hold him down.” She ripped a defibrillator off a rack on the wall and held it over his chest. His body arched toward the ceiling when she pressed them down once.
“He’s not breathing!”
“Come on, Gareth!” She went to shock him again but lost her grip on the handles. She turned toward the sink right in time before vomiting. It bounced around the rim in zero G, streaks of red in the bile. I wasn’t sure if it was the extreme radiation, which was enough to penetrate my suit, or the sight of another dead friend, but I joined her at the sink and vomited as well.
“Give me those!” Maya snatched up the defibrillators and continued jolting Gareth. The parts of him not held down all slowly lifted, limp like the arms of a puppet. By the third try, I couldn’t watch it anymore.
“He’s dead,” I rasped, holding out my arm.
“N…no…” Aria stuttered. She wiped her mouth and tried to return to Gareth’s body. “We can still—”
“He’s dead!” I smacked the defibrillators out of Maya’s hands. “I don’t need to be a damn doctor to know that!”
“From ice to ashes, old friend,” Maya whispered. She ran her fingers over Gareth’s eyelids to close them.
“I can...still save him,” Aria whimpered.
“You’ve done enough, Ambassador.” She lowered her face over Gareth’s and pressed her lips against his forehead. I remained completely frozen, watching.
Aria’s hand suddenly slipped as she went to push off the wall again, and she knocked into the med table, startling us both. She released a bloodcurdling moan and held her stomach. I felt the pain in my gut too, like someone was lighting a bonfire in the pit of my stomach, but Aria had been totally exposed in the hangar.
“Kale,” Maya said.
“Gareth,” I finally managed to utter. I grasped his hand, and his long fingers rolled across my palm as if they were slabs of rubber left in the freezer too long. Maya pried me free.
“Kale. If we don’t get Aria to a pod soon, I fear for your child’s life. I’ll plot our route home and update Mazrah. Aria. Aria!” She slapped Aria’s face lightly to keep her conscious. Her freckled cheeks were discolored, and her eyes rolled aimlessly between brief stints of focus and moaning. It was only then, as her hand rubbed across her slightly bulging belly, that I remembered what she carried inside of it.
“I’ve got her,” I gasped. I wrapped my arm under her shoulder.
“She knows?” Aria looked up at me and wheezed. Her eyes were bloodshot.
I nodded.
“We don’t have long before it hits us too,” Maya said. “Our suits were made to withstand many things, but nothing could block that blast completely.”
“I know,” I said. “I feel it.”
“I’ll set the IVs in the sleep pods to pump us with every ounce of anti-rads that came with this thing.”
“What about Gareth? We can’t just leave him here like this.”
“Oxygen to the ship will be off while we’re all under. His body will be right here when we wake, unspoiled just like all the others. Now let’s go.”
“I don’t want to sleep.”
Maya took me by the jaw. “I know, Kale, but you have to this time. Pretend it’s a long dream.”
I bobbed my head. I didn’t have the energy to fight her. Maya rushed by us en route to the cockpit, and I took Aria around the waist so we could head to the sleep pods. She was muttering incomprehensibly. I froze in the entry for a moment and stared back at the corpse of my guardian. Gareth always had a grim demeanor, like there was a foul taste on the tip of his tongue that he couldn’t rid himself of. Until now. He looked almost...peaceful.
“Kale!” Maya called back to me. I finally tore my gaze away.
I swam down the corridors of the Cora with Aria in tow, through stale, frigid air that suddenly bore the heady stench of death. We drifted too hard and slammed into the controls for Aria’s sleep pod. I righted myself and hovered in place to prepare the pod for her entry. My surviving guards were already busy loading themselves into theirs. Some were in worse condition than others. We knew releasing an ion stream in such close proximity was a risk, but whatever the Cora was packing in her prototype ion engines was clearly worse than anticipated.
I fumbled with Aria’s IV line as I raised her arm to stick it in. My fingers were getting numb. My stomach rolled. I lifted her weightless body to place her in the pod, and as I did, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine.
“I’m so sorry, Kale,” she whispered.
I ignored her and tried to focus on getting everything hooked up properly. She was sick for two now. That was my only concern. I lowered her into the gelatinous substance filling the pod and checked her IV and connections.
“He didn’t make it, did he?” Malcolm asked. He was being escorted by two of my guards. His lips went taut as he battled the same horrible pain that afflicted Aria. “Pressure from acceleration probably squished the blood out of him like a wet sponge.”
“Be quiet, Dad,” Aria said. She rolled her head from side to side and squeezed her eyes in agony.
“I want you to know exactly the type of man you’re serving.” He cleared his throat. “He’d rather run t
han slow down to save one of his own. Think about what he’ll do with you if he has no other choice.”
“Please… Just stop.”
“That’s enough, Earther!” one of the guards barked. Malcolm was too debilitated to do anything about it as they stuffed him into a sleep pod, right next to the one in which Javaris Venta slept soundly. Two Earthers now on my ship.
“Kale…” Aria reached out and grazed my cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
“If I hadn’t let you leave, he’d still be alive,” I said. “They all would be.”
“We…we didn’t know what she’d do…”
I folded her arms over her chest and signaled calming pharma to be injected into her veins and induce slumber. Then anti-rads would cleanse her system along with my unborn child’s.
“You can’t blame yourself for Gareth, Kale…” she uttered as she began to get drowsy. “You can’t…”
I stared at her. Her leaf-green eyes glittered, that broken girl who’d eased my own anguish returning once more. That girl who had been there, right when she needed to be to conceive my child. A stranger. And now she had her fingerprints all over everything that had gone wrong on Mars. The summit. A hostage negotiation. The Pervenio Cogents attacking under the lead of her estranged father. Everything.
“I don’t blame myself,” I said, then pushed the pod’s lid to seal her in.
Maya and Gareth were right. I really didn’t know anything about her at all. And she sure as Trass wasn’t one of us.
I turned, and one of my guards was immediately there to escort me. “Your pod is prepped, Lord Trass,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
“I’ll do it myself.”
I headed straight for the open pod beside Malcolm’s. My people were busy ensuring all of us got loaded in safely before worrying about him, even though he was in the worst shape. So, I took it upon myself to hook him up, just as I’d done for his daughter. If what he told me about Luxarn Pervenio’s hiding place was true, he would prove an asset.
“Every death is on you, Drayton,” he grated. I stabbed his arm with an IV needle as forcefully as I could. The veins on his irritated throat bulged as he released a half laugh, half chuckle. “That’s what it means to be a leader. You don’t get to blame the Earthers for your problems anymore.”
Titan's Wrath Page 26