Titan's Wrath Read online

  TITAN’S WRATH TEXT © 2017 RHETT C. BRUNO

  Cover art © Fabian Saravia & Steve Beaulieu

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  The Titanborn Universe Novels in Chronological order

  The Collector

  Titanborn

  From Ice to Ashes

  Titan's Wrath

  Each book is designed to stand alone without having read the others.

  PROLOGUE

  Luxarn Pervenio, CEO of the solar-system-wide entity known as Pervenio Corporation, stared at the pixels of light projecting from his wooden desk on Pervenio Station, which floated near Saturn. He leaned toward the holographic screen, the smell of oak greeting his nostrils, a scent few other humans still alive ever had the pleasure of experiencing. A recording played of the leader of the Children of Titan—an offworld, Ringer terrorist cell obsessed with retaking Titan no matter the cost.

  On the screen, Kale Trass said heartlessly, “From ice to ashes,” before he exposed former Pervenio Corp. Director James Sodervall to the frigid surface of Titan. Luxarn had known the grumpy old wretch Sodervall since he was but a boy. His father’s right-hand man when they arrived on Titan, and then his. Now, Luxarn stared at the tiny shards of ice Sodervall had been reduced to after Kale Trass had shattered his frozen body.

  Monsters, he thought. Radicals, all of them!

  Kale had yanked on the thread that caused the entire operation around Saturn to begin unraveling like a fraying rope. Nearly half a century of the hard work Luxarn had undergone assimilating their peoples, undone. By now, the entire solar system had likely viewed the recording. The United Sol Federation’s Assembly back on Earth would say Luxarn had lost control. His rivals would smell blood in the water and come for his holdings.

  “Sir, we‘ve lost the Sector C hangars,” someone addressed him urgently. “All public docks are under siege... There’s...there’s too many of them.” Luxarn glanced up to see the commander of his security forces on Pervenio Station panting in his doorway. A door set on hold-open for the first time in...he couldn’t remember how long.

  “Where did we go wrong, Commander?” Luxarn asked calmly, without averting his gaze from the ghastly footage. “The stars are so near. Don’t they understand?”

  “I...sir.” The commander took a moment to gather himself. “There are more ships on their way, stolen from the surface of Titan. Orbital defenses are failing. They hit us there first. Somehow they knew the station’s entire layout.”

  Luxarn released a weak chuckle. “Half these halls were built by Ringer hands.”

  The commander took a few steps further into the office. “Sir, we have to get you off the station before we’re overrun.”

  Luxarn stood without a word. He turned and laid his hands against the cold viewport spanning the wall behind his desk. Beyond it, two sparking halves of a gas-harvesting vessel drifted aimlessly through the icy rocks of Saturn’s rings. Another transport hurtled toward the station, its ion engine flaring blue as it failed.

  “I gave him away at birth, but wouldn’t it be fitting now if we shared the same grave,” Luxarn said.

  “Sir, I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  “No, you don’t. And I suppose that’s my greatest failing as a father.”

  “Sir, please. We’ll wipe all the valuable data before they can get their hands on it, and we’ll thwart this rebellion, but you need to get to safety. Pervenio Corp needs you. Earth needs you.”

  Luxarn breathed in the view of Saturn’s star- and moon-speckled archipelago one last time. His haven of resources meant to usher in a new golden age of humanity. When the Meteorite struck Earth three hundred years before and nearly wiped out his species, he wondered if his ancestors who poked their heads up from his family’s fallout shelter ever could’ve imagined standing on a space station under siege from a group of angry offworlders halfway across the solar system.

  Progress... Something Kale and his army of Ringers would never understand because they fled Earth all those years ago. For three hundred years they lived in their little paradise on Titan, until Luxarn’s family arrived, ignoring the call of the stars and the expansion necessary to ensure humanity was never sent to the brink of extinction again.

  “Lead away,” Luxarn sighed. He followed the commander, Kale’s pale, callous gaze watching him from the holographic screen on his desk all the way out.

  “Your new ship is nearly prepped,” the commander said. “The Ringers won’t be able to catch you, no matter how hard they try.”

  In the adjoined private hangar, a prototype starship sat perched atop an active fuel line. Constructed to be Luxarn’s personal craft, it was the fastest in all of the Sol system at its size. So new it didn’t even have a name yet, but Luxarn had always found disaster to be the impetus for advancement.

  A host of corporate VIPs waited outside the closed loading ramp for boarding. All the brilliant minds and sycophants who helped the unstoppable Pervenio machine chug along. Luxarn scanned the hangar but didn’t find what he was looking for.

  “Where are the bodies?” he asked. “I requested that they make the trip with us.”

  The commander paused from issuing orders to a unit of officers and turned back to Luxarn. “Excuse me, sir?”

  “The bodies of my Collectors retrieved from the surface of Titan before Kale blew it all to hell!” Luxarn roared. The commander winced and swallowed the lump in his throat. They’d located the Children of Titan hideout under a Ringer quarantine but were murdered by the Ringers right before Kale detonated a nuclear engine core on top of the place, taking half of Luxarn’s armed forces with it.

  “They’ve been transported directly to the corporate med block for treatment. Didn’t anyone inform you? One is dead, but the older of them remains in critical condition.”

  Luxarn grabbed the commander by his chest plate. “Malcolm Graves is alive?”

  “Barely. He requires constant life support. Luckier than his freak partner.”

  Luxarn’s hands curled into fists. That freak partner happened to be Luxarn’s illegitimate son. Any other time, he would’ve had the commander spaced for spouting off like that, but he didn’t know. Nobody knew the truth except for Malcolm.

  “His Cogent partner,” Luxarn corrected.

  “Yes, sir… Sorry, sir.”

  “Take me to them immediately.”

  “Sir, there is no time. You must leave now! I’ll have them dispatched on a medical transport as soon as the survivor is stable.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without—”

  The far entry to the hangar exploded. The deafening blast sent Luxarn staggering, and a bullet slashed across the throat of a nearby security officer, spattering red onto Luxarn’s face.

  “They’re here!” someone hollered. A horde of white-marble-faced offworld devils appeared like foaming waves through a broken dam. Pervenio officers charged ahead to return fire. All the VIPs ducked for cover, banging on the prototype ship’s sealed ramp to be let inside.

  “We’re not done fueling!” An engineer shouted before a bullet knocked him off his feet. As Luxarn watched the chaos erupt, he couldn’t help but see the irony. Surrounded by a wealth of all the fuel humanity could want for on Saturn, they lacked it at the most crucial moment.

  “Stall them!” the commander ordered one officer. “Wipe Mr. Pervenio’s office!” he directed another. He then took Luxarn by the arm and ran him in the opposite direction of the fray, leaving the VIPs behind. “This hangar is compromised, sir. We
need to get you to another ship!”

  Luxarn tore free and straightened his shirt. “Prepare a medical evac immediately and have the bodies of the Collectors on them.”

  “Sir, those vessels aren’t shielded or outfitted with sleep pods. You’ll be vulnerable.”

  “Which is exactly why they won’t bother targeting it.”

  “There are more capable transports in the reserve hangar. With Director Sodervall gone, I’m in charge of your safety while on the Ring.”

  “He’s dead, and last I checked, I’m still the CEO of this corporation. Take me to them, now. And consider this your promotion. Ring Director...” He paused to read the commander’s tag. “Loris. When I’m gone, the defense of our holdings here will be in your hands. I hope you prove more capable than your predecessor.”

  A promotion like that usually had Luxarn subordinates beaming, but the commander’s face filled with dread. He’d clearly expected to join Luxarn in fleeing the compromised station.

  “I’m...I’m honored, sir,” he forced out. “I won’t let you down.”

  “Start by doing what you’re told.”

  The newly appointed Director contacted the medical center over his com-link as they ran down the corporate wing’s wide passage. Luxarn stopped at the first turn and glanced back. As he watched the Ringer mob swarm his upper-level employees and tear them to pieces, he made himself a single promise.

  Kale Trass and his Ringers would pay for everything they’d taken from him. His son, the Ring, billions of credits. His father showed them mercy after the Great Reunion brought plague to their world… Never again.

  CHAPTER ONE

  KALE TRASS

  Months had passed since the revolution started. Lack of sleep had all the days of unrest throughout Titan and the rest of the Ring starting to blend together. I stood alone on my ship, holding onto the walls as she plunged through the upper atmosphere of Saturn. Wind tore across the hull and made her rattle, but there was no turning back now. The last bastion of Pervenio Corporations forces on the Ring waited only a few thousand kilometers away.

  I felt like I should be smiling. We’d come so far in so little time, but I knew we were just getting started. The people we were up against would never stop resisting us, and so our fight would never end.

  I sighed and raised my hand-terminal to my ear. Then I listened, as I did before every battle with the Earthers and on every restless night, to the last private conversation recorded on Pervenio Station by its former owner. The renowned Luxarn Pervenio secretly monitored everyone there, no matter what their rank. Even the former wealthiest person in the Sol system needed to ensure he had a leg up on everyone and everything. Manipulation, strong arming—that was the Earther way, and it was what had allowed him to wrest control of Titan and the Ring from my people until I, Kale Trass, took it back.

  “What is it, Sodervall?” Luxarn said on the recording. “I only have time for good news.”

  “It’s Zhaff and Graves, sir,” Director Sodervall responded. He was the former Voice of Titan on local newsfeeds. He’d been well accustomed to making composed speeches in the face of catastrophe, but his voice was shaky. “We made contact. They located a Children of Titan hideout underneath the Darien Quarantine. Zha —”

  “Excellent! I trust that proper preparations are being made?”

  “Of course. Sir, listen to me. Zhaff…Zhaff was found dead outside. Shot in the head. Executed, as if to send a message.”

  There was a pause. “And Graves?”

  “It doesn’t look good. We’re still thawing him.” A longer period of silence passed, until finally Director Sodervall intervened. “Sir, what do you want me to do?”

  “My father should’ve let these inbred Ringers die off when we had the chance!” he growled. As if Luxarn’s father, who organized the Great Reunion between our peoples, could knowingly control the plague that crippled us.

  Before the Meteorite struck Earth more than three centuries ago, the first settlers of Titan had fled on an ark designed by Darien Trass. For all those long years, they lived free of Earther greed, hopping the moons of Saturn like their own icy, archipelago paradise. But the people of Earth didn’t die off entirely. They recovered and set their sights on the worlds beyond Earth so they would never risk being wiped out again.

  Fifty years ago they made contact, and Luxarn and his father traveled millions of kilometers across the Sol system to reunite the Earthers and the Titanborn or, as they call us, Ringers. Centuries away from Earth had left our immune systems crippled. Countless Titanborn grew sick, allowing Pervenio Corp. to step in. They brought their system of credits to control us, stuffed the sick into quarantine, and reaped Saturn of valuable gases.

  “I agree, sir,” Sodervall said. “They’re a cancer to Sol. But it’s too late now. I need to know what you want me to do.”

  “To do?” The fury in Luxarn’s tone was palpable. Even listening through a hand-terminal, it was enough to raise the hairs on my reedy arms. “I want the Children of Titan exterminated, Director! I want this Kale boy delivered to me in cuffs! Evacuate every survivor from the Piccolo until one of them tells us the truth.”

  That simple order that condemned Cora and all my former crewmates on the Piccolo, a simple gas harvester, to death.

  “I’ll get right to it, sir,” Soderball said.

  “You damn well better! I don’t care what it takes, but you will restore order down there. Tear that quarantine to pieces if you have to.”

  There it was. Luxarn’s final, terrible mistake. It dispersed his forces and allowed us to break into Pervenio Station, hijack the Piccolo, and overload its ion engine in order to incinerate thousands of his officers in the Darien Quarantine.

  “Sir,” Sodervall began. “I don’t think that’s—”

  “Just do it, Sodervall! If you hadn’t allowed things to get so dreadful down there, none of this would have happened. My s—Zhaff’s blood is on your hands. Take care of it, or by Earth I’ll find somebody who can, and you can join the skellies in an airlock!”

  The conversation ended there after a loud crash and static, which I could only assume was Luxarn Pervenio slamming his hand-terminal against the wall. Presently, my fingers squeezed around my own terminal so hard it nearly snapped. I captured Director Sodervall soon after and had him frozen to death—punishment for murdering Cora and countless other crimes against Ringers. But it was Luxarn who’d held his leash. I’d killed the wrong man.

  Every time I listened to the recording, I felt a sickening concoction of rage and delectation over what followed. Luxarn and all those who served him had taken everything from us, but it was his arrogance that brought his whole organization crashing down. I was publicly declared the heir to Darien Trass, and hearing it inspired my people to finally fight back. None of what he asked of his Director came to fruition, not even meeting me. He fled the Ring like a coward before I had the chance, but we would have our face to face one day. I swore it over and over in my head. He’d answer for all his family’s atrocities against my people.

  He’d answer for Cora…

  “Kale,” Maya interrupted my ruminations. Her hand fell upon my armored shoulder. “Kale, are you ready?”

  I stowed my hand-terminal, lowered my helmet’s visor, and turned without answering. A cohort of Titanborn fighters were arrayed in front of us in the cargo bay of my ship, the Cora. She was a prototype starship we’d stolen from Luxarn’s private hangar on Pervenio Station, complete with the finest in contemporary ion engine tech, ablative plating, and a full complement of anti-craft ordnance. Basically, she was a one-man warship capable of fending off attacks from the worst manner of scrap pirates hiding throughout the asteroid belt...or helping take down the remnants of Luxarn’s forces around the Ring. Like his personal recordings, the Cora was one of the many technical marvels earned during our subjugation of Pervenio Station. Its name was my sole addition.

  I switched on my helmet’s com-link. “I am now,” I said.

&nb
sp; “I was hoping you finally decided to listen to me and stay onboard,” Maya replied, her voice now over coms.

  I shot her a disapproving glance. Her visor obscured her disfigured face, but an explosion had rendered half of it a mess of mangled flesh and sinew. It happened when she led a mutiny against an Earther ship captain long before I met her. The scars made her appear like a creature from a nightmare, though the sight barely affected me anymore. Ever since our revolution started, she was by my side almost every second—plotting, fighting, figuring out what was best for the Ring. It was tough to find any Titanborn who’d lost more at the hands of the Earthers than her, and her coarse disposition made sure everyone around her always knew it.

  “Commander Loris ran security at Pervenio Station,” I said. “How many of us do you think he spaced there?”

  Loris currently led the last remnants of the Pervenio security forces stationed around the Ring. According to reports, at least a hundred of them were on board a luxury cruiser, ready to make their final stand. We would’ve sent the ship spiraling down into the crushing depths of Saturn if they hadn’t managed to take a few vital Titanborn hostages before commandeering the vessel. But now we were going to get them back.

  “I know,” Maya replied. “But I’m not the one responsible for our people.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “We can handle this mission easy. If you were to get hurt…”

  “Gareth will protect me.” I nodded toward my towering guardian, standing at the back of the other Titanborn fighters waiting for us. Like Maya, he too had been with me since the start of the revolution.

  He grunted his agreement as he walked over. He didn’t say a word because he couldn’t. He could only converse through sign language. The Earthers had stolen his tongue long before we ever met.

  “Something just smells wrong about this, Kale,” Maya said. “They’re desperate and I know what that’s like. Nobody will judge if you stay behind. You can spend some more time in the cockpit with that ambassador you’re so fond of. Whatever she is to you these days.”