Titanborn (14 page)

“I…I don't know,” the Ringer stuttered. “They switched all the lights off and disappeared. I swear, we didn't do anything!”

“He's telling the truth,” Zhaff assured.

“Don't try to make a move,” I said to the Ringer. He nodded vigorously and Zhaff lifted off him. His weightless body started to drift upward, but without his hands he would be completely useless at escaping.

I switched on my com-link. “We've encountered our first member of the crew,” I said. “He was unarmed.”

“Us, too,” one of the officers responded in my ear. “He's…alive,” he added with a grumble.

I tapped Zhaff on the shoulder and he continued forward. He turned left at the next branch in the corridor. My magnetized boots brushed across a large patch of blood splattered on the floor. It was still fresh enough to rub off on the soles.

“I guess not everyone got into that air lock alive,” I whispered to Zhaff.

Zhaff stopped moving and knelt. He ran his gloved finger through the grooves of what appeared to be bullet-induced dents on a nearby pipe. “Doubtful,” he said. “The attackers used non-lethal rounds.”

“How generous of them. So nobody got to miss out on their little show.”

“It was a message,” Zhaff clarified.

“Trust me, I know. I've seen plenty like it, though usually they target officers or soldiers, not innocents.”

“The harvesting of Saturn's gases is vital to expansion. Removing one ship, no matter how outdated, will cost Pervenio Corp greatly.”

“Not to mention make Venta Co's efforts around Jupiter seem far safer to invest in,” I realized. “I'll give them this, these Children of Titan sure did their homework.”

Something moved behind us. I whipped around quick enough to see someone's foot disappear around the corner. I went to follow it, but Zhaff grabbed my arm and shook his head. “Ignore it. That Ringer is unarmed. The command deck is close.”

We walked until the corridor we were in ended at a sealed door. The screen on the console adjacent to it was blinking red with the word
ERROR.

“Locked,” I groaned. “Naturally.”

“One moment,” Zhaff said.

He knelt in front of the console and drew out his hand-terminal. He held it up to the screen and typed furiously in order to hack the controls. After a few seconds he signed the door to slide into the ceiling, and before either of us could do anything the air in the corridor rushed through the opening into the command deck, heaving Zhaff and me out with it. The room had a dome-shaped viewport for a ceiling, but its structural members were splayed open, exposing it to space.

I grabbed on to the floor with my off hand before I was sucked through the breach. Somehow Zhaff managed to seal the door behind us, halting the change in pressure and allowing the vacuous conditions of space to take hold. I quickly set my visor to close before I suffocated and switched on my limited oxygen supply.

“Forgive me, Malcolm,” Zhaff said into the com-link. “The door was too dense and I could not get a reading of this space to know it was ruptured.”

“It's fine,” I said. I swung my feet around so that my magnetized boots would cling to the metal floor. As I did I noticed that someone else was holding on to the floor by the ship's command console.

“Don't move!” I shouted before realizing that the Ringer couldn't hear me with my helmet sealed.

Zhaff pushed off the back wall and darted over my head. He perched on the captain's chair and aimed his gun down at the person. Whoever it was, they were also in a space suit, and their helmet turned slowly to see him. I shone my flashlight on the area as quickly as I could. Through the visor I could see it was a young girl, probably in her late teens, with a pale Ringer face and hair so blond it could've been silver. I immediately noticed she had something clutched in her hand.

“Hand!” I shouted into the com-link.

Without hesitating Zhaff grabbed the girl by the forearm and slammed it into the edge of a command console. The device, which appeared to be little more than an older model hand-terminal, floated out from her fingers. Zhaff promptly snatched it and placed it in his belt. Then he yanked her away from the command console and pointed to the sealed entrance.

I turned around and heaved myself toward it. Zhaff followed close behind with the girl in tow. He set the door to open. The rapid change in pressure made it incredibly difficult to pull myself through even in my suit, but as I curled my legs to push off the floor and give myself a boost I felt a strong thrust from Zhaff. The door slammed shut behind us, and when I removed my visor everything was quiet again. Zhaff tore off the girl's helmet and held his pistol against her forehead.

“What were you doing?” he questioned, his voice more elevated than I'd ever heard it. It was enough for me to know that she was in trouble if she lied.

All she could manage was to shriek in response and grasp for her injured arm. Her bulky suit made it difficult to tell, but judging by her expression it was probably broken. She was panting wildly, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. Her lips were shuddering.

“Tell me,” Zhaff demanded.

Maybe it was because she was so young, but I actually felt bad for her. She didn't look like a terrorist at all. In fact, despite her face having many typical Ringer features, she was relatively short for one and it made her look even more frail and harmless. She also wasn't wearing a sanitary mask like they usually did.

I placed my hand on Zhaff's shoulder and brushed him to the side. I knelt in front of her and gazed straight into her eyes.

“You'd better not irritate him,” I whispered to her. “Just tell us what you were doing up here and you'll be fine.”

“Malcolm,” Zhaff said. I glanced up at him, and he was holding the hand-terminal up so that it faced me. The screen was completely white except for an orange circle in the center. “All of the data has been wiped off it except for this image.”

The girl's eyes widened as she saw the device. “I found that connected to the command console!” she said, her frantic breathing hardly able to keep pace with her words. “By Trass, I swear I only found it when I got up here! I…I only wanted to see what they did.”

Zhaff nodded to confirm her story, and I looked back at her. “I believe you,” I said. “So the attackers came through the command deck. What happened to them?” I incidentally shook her shoulder a bit too hard and she winced.

“They all left…I think,” she moaned. “I…I was trying to switch the systems back on so we wouldn't run out of air, but I was locked out.”

“Are you sure you did it correctly?”

“I am…was the navigator. I know how to run the ship. All of the power was being diverted to the engines using emergency overrides.”

“Shit!” I cursed to myself. I switched on my com-link to message the rest of our squad. “Have you reached the engine room yet?”

“We're there now,” one of the officers answered. “Thing's humming, but all the lights are off down here as well. Wait…We've got something. Argh—” His feed cut out.

“What is it? I repeat, what did you see?”

I heard gunfire erupt through the com-links of the other officers as they attempted to respond. After a short period theirs went silent as well.

“Zhaff, we've got to get down there now!” I shouted.

Zhaff started to run, but as he did we were thrown back against the wall. A powerful force seized my body, enough to make me feel like my eyeballs were going to pop backward into my skull. The Ringer girl howled in pain.

I figured out what was happening immediately. The
Piccolo
had begun to accelerate at a full burn, on a course set directly for Pervenio station. We were standing on a four-hundred-ton projectile with an ion-drive engine core as well as unknown amounts of flammable gases that together could create an explosion as powerful as an atomic bomb if it overloaded.

“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.