“Kale?” Rin said.
I took a few seconds to catch my breath. “I’m fine,” I panted. “I... You said you wanted me to lead, but if you’ve all told me the truth, you operate in separate cells. So what does that actually mean?”
Her expression brightened as much as her disfigured face allowed. “You’re considering it?”
“Just tell me.”
“The Children of Titan are widespread throughout the Ring, yes. We’ve never had a single leader, but neither did Titan before Pervenio arrived. Some don’t believe that we need one now. They’d rather separately chip away at nothing until we’re gone. We won’t win a war of attrition, not when they control the trade and medicine.”
“So you want to bring the cells together?” I asked.
“Yes, and more,” Rin said. “Your father didn’t last long enough for the time to be right for him to take the mantle. He may not have wanted that burden for you, but it’s no longer his decision to make.”
“Why can’t you take it?”
“Sodervall already made you infamous for us, plus you have the plight our people will relate to. Lost father, sick mother, stealing just to survive. Me...” She gestured to her face, grimaced. “I’m just a—”
“Fighter,” I finished for her, knowing that wasn’t what she was going to say. I needed her on my good side for what I was about to propose, and calling her a monster wasn’t going to help, even if it was true.
She grinned halfheartedly. “Sure. But we don’t need you to be one. Titan needs a new voice. All we need from you is to begin broadcasting publicly, provide a face and name to the coming revolution. A Trass to rally to. You can keep your hands as clean as you’d like.”
I regarded the faces of my new companions. They were the strangest group I’d ever encountered, but on second glance, they didn’t seem that much different from those I’d worked with in the Lowers. Dexter Howser lost his legs; Rin her face. Every Ringer worth a damn had scars they couldn’t hide.
“I’ll do it,” I declared. “I’ll say whatever you want me to say, but you’re going to have to do something for me first.”
Rin’s smile faded as she said, “Go on.”
“We’re going to break the Piccolo’s crew out of Pervenio Station.”
Hayes scoffed. Rin struggled not to. “What do you expect us to do, pull the Sunfire up next to it and grab them?” she asked. “Unidentified vessel. They’ll shoot us down as soon as we break atmosphere.”
“I don’t care how we do it,” I said. “You told me to stop worrying about others, but this is what I want. You need your figurehead, you’ll think of a way. Then we’ll be even for what you did to us.”
“Can’t lead anything if you’re dead, kid,” Hayes chimed in.
“No, but would you follow a man who would forsake his friends and crew just to get away?”
Rin glared at me, and even Hayes’s usual smirk vanished from his face. They both knew I was serious, and if I could have seen Gareth behind me, I’d have bet he was secretly glad he couldn’t talk once he realized he’d inspired the idea.
“Kale...” Rin began soberly. “In a cell on Titan, we might have the people and the resources to save them. But there’s a reason nobody’s ever been broken out of Pervenio Station: Nobody’s ever tried. Maybe we could get in, but where would we go afterward? There’s no bridge to Titan.”
“He’s officially lost it, Rini,” Hayes said. “I told you this was a bad idea.”
Gareth stomped forward and signed something slow enough for me to understand. Hayes’s reaction to him helped as well. “Would you rather stay here forever?”
“Better than being dead.”
“We can use the hand-terminal I smuggled to get in,” I proposed. “You told me it will provide a window into their systems.”
“A brief one,” Rin said. “My sister was going to use it to wipe as much of the Pervenio medical database as possible. Erase names and births. Make as many Titanborn illegitimate as possible to hamper Pervenio credit records. But they have to plug into their systems to analyze it, and once she gets to work, it won’t be long before they realize that and destroy it. She can’t do both.”
“Yeah, and we all spent months planning for that,” Hayes added. “It’s the whole reason those people on the Piccolo died, kid. It’d take ’em years to replace the data.”
“And then we’ll be right back where we are,” I said. “Nothing will change.”
“I can look into it, Kale,” Rin said. “You have my word. We can try to arrange something. Keep an eye on them to make sure they’re okay.”
“No. I didn’t ask to be here, but I’m done fighting it. You want more of my help, then it’s time you help me. Otherwise, you may as well shove me into the airlock with Captain Saunders.”
The room went quiet. All I could hear was a gentle chorus of deep breaths and the vibrations from another storm outside.
“Rin, you can’t seriously be considering this,” Hayes protested.
She said nothing.
“If we free my friends from the most guarded place in the Ring,” I said, “Pervenio will know not only that we’ll try to hit them anywhere, but that we can. And people won’t just hope I’m actually a Trass and listen, they’ll believe it, even if I don’t.” By the end of my argument, I was both breathless and impressed with how much I’d improved at negotiation since attempting to haggle with Dexter.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” Rin questioned.
“Rin, c’mon,” Hayes said. “This is the same kid that just puked all over the command deck. He’s probably unstable after what happened.”
“You want to strike Pervenio at their heart.” Rin stood tall before me. The ship trembled, but her balance was pristine. “Me too. For too long.” She extended her hand. “Deal.”
“Deal,” I exhaled. I shook her hand before anyone changed their minds.
Her dark, grayish eyes glinted with a hunger the likes of which I hadn’t seen in them before.
“I hate my life,” Hayes groaned as he threw down his rag.
“It won’t be like sneaking around the Lowers,” Rin said.
“I know,” I replied.
Gareth patted me on the back, and I turned to him. His face remained impassive, but he signed, “I’m with you.”
“This is insane,” Hayes said. “You know I always have your back, Rin, but he’s supposed to be a figurehead. Now we’re taking orders from him?”
“He’s a Trass,” she replied firmly.
“He’s a kid!”
“You’re welcome to stay here alone if you’d like, but it’s time we finally get off this ship.”
Hayes released a fake, exaggerated laugh. Then he scanned the broken-down room, looking from one pleading face to the next. He sighed. “Well, you’ll need a pilot, but I’m making it known I don’t agree with this. And don’t expect me to take a bullet for him either.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything else,” Rin jested.
“So you have an actual plan for this, right, Mr. Trass?” Hayes asked me.
My high of excitement died swiftly. Between my conversation with Gareth and the command deck, I hadn’t really had a chance to think about anything other than how I might convince Rin.
“No,” I admitted.
Hayes threw up his arms in frustration.
“Leave it to me to get us in,” Rin said. “We’ll need my sister’s help again. Kale, you’re the expert on smuggling here. Start thinking of how to possibly get people off Pervenio Station.”
“People...” I bit my lip. “They’re a little bigger than hand-terminals. I don’t know if I can—”
“We just need ideas for now. There’s nothing too crazy to consider at this point.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Hayes added.
“Can you do that?” Rin asked me.
“I’ll try,” I said.
“Good. Hayes, get a read on the nearest luxury cruiser and bring us under the
m.”
“Sure thing, beautiful.” He saluted unenthusiastically before spinning his chair around and getting to work on the navigation console. “Trass-damned maniacs,” he whispered loud enough for us to hear.
“Gareth, evaluate our supplies and munitions,” Rin ordered. He nodded. Then she gripped my arm crisply. “Let’s crack open Pervenio Station,” she said, “and you can tell Director Sodervall who you really are right to his wrinkled, mud-stomper face.”
“There’s one more thing I need to see before we leave.” I stepped past her, ignoring her confused expression, and reached into a supply crate under a control panel. I’d noticed the scanner they used to sort out who had been Ringer, who Earther, on the Piccolo. I grabbed two vacuum-sealed needles.
“Can this check DNA?” I asked.
“Sure,” Rin said. “Blood type, DNA, and bone density if you go deep enough. Everything to help us figure out who’s really Titanborn.”
“Perfect.” I presented the equipment to her. “I’m tired of being lied to.”
She got my meaning. She took the scanner from me and pricked her neck inside of her helmet. Then she switched the needle and did the same to me so she could compare blood samples. I wasn’t sure what most of the information that popped up on the screen meant, but she allowed me to watch as she worked the controls.
We were a genetic match. Family. That was the least crazy of the revelations about my life she’d provided, but it was nice to be 100-percent sure that my memory of her wasn’t somehow fabricated.
“And Trass. Can it test for that?” I asked.
“We don’t have the resources available here or anywhere,” she said. “You’ll just have to have faith.”
“I wish that were easier.”
“Few things ever are!” Hayes hollered back.
Rin handed the scanner back to me. “Stop worrying about what may or may not be, and let’s focus on surviving what’s to come.”
“Right.” I returned the device, and then the word surviving sank in. “Oh, and one more thing: Captain Saunders is coming with us.”
“Kale.” The healthy half of her lips wilted into a grimace.
“He already knows who I am and thinks it was me, so what does it matter? We’ll leave him behind on the station.”
She glanced over at Hayes. He smirked back at her. “He’s a Trass—remember?” he remarked.
Rin closed her eyes for moment and then nodded. I could tell she wasn’t happy, but I was tired of trying to please people. “Fine,” she said. “But only if he’s able.”
EIGHTEEN
The plan Rin came up with was simple... at least the initial part. We were going to abandon the Sunfire and board one of the luxury cruisers sailing around Saturn’s upper atmosphere that provided Earther clientele a lavish reprieve from living under low-g conditions. Not like the pirates of old this time, however. We were going to sneak on and stow away in the supply hangar. Hayes sliced into some Pervenio com’s chatter as our altitude rose, and we learned that a decision had been made from the top that all unessential vessels were being recalled from Saturn in light of what happened to the Piccolo.
The nearest cruiser was already on the ascent, so we didn’t have long. Hayes pushed the Sunfire’s engines so hard that we all had to strap in and load up on g-stims just to stay conscious during the thrust. I could feel the worn-down pieces of the ship priming to snap off all around me.
Once we boarded the cruiser, we’d borrow the suits of the cruiser’s Ringer workers and infiltrate Pervenio Station. Rin was also going to have to tap into its long-range coms to contact her sister Rylah and tell her about the change in plans so that she could hack into the station’s security systems using the hand-terminal I’d smuggled and sneak us into the prison bay.
That was the easy part. Skulking around was my specialty. The impossible part would come after we sprang Cora and nineteen other incarcerated Ringers from Pervenio Corporation’s main headquarters in Sol. We’d lose Rin’s sister’s tech support by then, so hiding for as long as we could in the station’s tram tunnels was the best option our collective minds could come up with. Finding enough exo-suits and ejecting ourselves through the vacuum toward Titan was another choice, but burning up in the moon’s dense atmosphere was more of a concern than how we were going to land. Commandeering a ship would get us blown to bits by the station’s defenses.
It was a far cry from jobs I was used to. Even Dexter Howser’s looniest assignment couldn’t hold a candle to what we were going to attempt, but it was my one chance. I was in too deep to get out, and if Rin had taught me anything in our short time together, it was that I couldn’t escape some of the blame. I’d chosen the quick path to saving my mom, and I would’ve done it a thousand times over again. But Cora, Desmond, and the others were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because of me, they sat in cells, spending every minute fearful of being spaced.
I was going to get them out no matter the cost.
Presently, I trudged down the Sunfire’s airlock corridor, using the wall to lug myself along. Even my powered suit wasn’t enough to combat the ship’s force of acceleration.
“I thought I told you to stay away from me,” Captain Saunders grumbled weakly upon noticing me. He clutched a pipe to keep from sliding along the floor, his face glistening with sweat. Dark bags hugged his eyes. He looked thin and pale, skeletal, like my mom the last time I saw her in person.
“I’m taking you off this ship, Captain,” I said. “I don’t care whether or not you believe me, but I’m getting you help.” I grabbed his cuff and yanked it so hard that it broke off the pipe it was linked to. I was getting used to being abnormally strong. He scrambled backward, but I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and lifted.
“Ah, dammit!” he shrieked. He squirmed out of my grasp and crumpled to the floor, puffing uncontrollably and clutching at his wound. “Oh Earth, just leave me.”
I knelt and checked his injury. The veins surrounding it looked like the webs of an earthborn spider, and the skin was so discolored it was now yellow. Pink-hued pus oozed out of it as the pain caused his stomach muscles to spasm.
“You need a real doctor,” I said. I gave lifting him another shot, but the moment I moved him, he screamed like I’d never heard anyone do before.
“Stop... I can’t...” Captain Saunders wheezed.
“I’m not going to leave you.”
“Then don’t.” He attempted to point at something but couldn’t raise his arm. Instead, his gaze aimed toward the control panel for the airlock.
“Sir, I can get you out of here,” I said.
“If you really aren’t behind all this, then I’m still your captain by contract.” He had to pause for breath between every few words. “End this. That’s an order.”
“Sir—”
“Don’t make me beg. A captain... a captain should go down with his crew.”
“There’s still time.”
“Kill me!” Captain Saunders roared like a madman. He grabbed hold of my thigh and shook. “Just end this. I can’t... I can’t...” He struggled for air and fell backward against the wall, his entire body quivering.
I crouched next to him, unable to choke back my tears. I’d expected him to fight me taking him, but not to give up.
“Please, Kale,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m here, but I’ll tell you people anything you want to know. Anything. Please...” His jaw clenched. “The pain is too much.”
I wiped my cheeks and took a seat beside him. For two years, he’d been my captain. He’d barked orders and kept us in line. Never once did he waver. He was stern, authoritative, and did his best to seem fair. Or, at least, I always thought so.
“Why do you pay us less?” I asked softly, the question suddenly popping into my head as I recalled all the things Rin mentioned, from his exploitation of Ringers, to why he treated Cora special.
“Kale,” Captain Saunders said softly.
“Why?”
“It’s
just the market. Not personal. Pervenio doesn’t leave us fully-manned gas harvesters much room for profit.”
“Why’d you name Cora navigator, then?”
It was difficult to recognize the shock through his agonized expression, but I had no doubt it was there.
“She’s not a full Ringer,” Captain Saunders said.
“That’s never mattered to your kind before,” I replied.
“Yeah, well, John couldn’t navigate worth a shit. She was better. The best. I hope to hell she’s all right.”
“That’s not it. I can handle a wrench better than Culver, but you never would’ve named me head mechanic, would you?”
“Is that what all this is about?”
“No, but I want to know. Tell me the truth, and I’ll...” I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. “Help you.”
“I want your word.”
I nodded. “You have it.”
He drew a deep, grating breath and closed his eyes. “Cora, she’s... she’s my daughter,” he said.
“What?” I said, incredulous. “But her mom was—”
“I know.”
I felt like I’d been struck from behind by a hover-car. It was difficult to slow my thoughts enough to formulate words. “Why?” I managed to force through my lips.
“I was young, Kale. Impulsive. I saw a pretty Ringer, had a little too much to drink, and I made a mistake.”
I pictured Cora lying next to me on the Piccolo, her silvery hair brushing across my nose. She was smiling, wider than I’d ever seen before, and now I knew the person behind the reason she rarely did.
“Rin wasn’t lying,” I whispered, mostly to myself.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t regret it, Kale,” he said, “but I tried to make the best of things once I found out. I care about that girl, that’s the truth. It’s why I never told her who I was. She doesn’t deserve to have to know.”
“That you’re the man who murdered her mom?” I said for him. “That made her an alien to everyone?”
“I didn’t murder anyone!” he protested. Raising his voice caused him to wince. “It was a young man’s mistake, just like the one that got you stuck on my ship. You can understand that, can’t you?”
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 43