Chapter 8 Aera #2
Evo cautiously sets me upright like it’s no strain to him at all, then motions for me to continue. As I make my way to Isa and Brodin, Evo hands out gel packets and bottles of water from his bag. Each time he does, he now cracks the caps before passing them off.
When I reach Brodin, he’s leaned up against the wall. Isa lies on the floor, her feet up on a pillow, and his hand around hers. I slow and sink to my knees.
Brodin tears up. “She heard you were here and gave me one last smile. Then she just closed her eyes, and...”
I take her cold hand in mine, kiss the back of her fingers, and choke on a sob. She still carries the faint scent of igniter dust from the engines she worked on.
Brodin eases his body away from the wall like every bit of it aches and crawls to my side, where he draws me under an arm and kisses the side of my head. “You made it back. She knew you did. That was the last thing she wanted. Do not cry for her. The last thing she knew was hope.”
Brodin’s words only make me want to cry harder. But then I remember what Isa told me about tears, and I pull the pain deep inside and bury it, stash it away for the next time I meet the enemy.
I hope it is soon.
We wouldn’t be out here if CSP hadn’t betrayed us. If we hadn’t been at war. I don’t care that Solcrue are our descendants. They’ve become twisted, bloodthirsty, space-crazy assholes.
Evo comes closer. “Poppy is getting us ready to jump to the nebula. It would be wise to secure your family member and yourselves. It will be a bumpy ride with many jumps.”
Steele, hunkered forward and holding his stomach, walks up to us and leans his shoulder against the wall. “Edensen is having us place those who have left us in the cargo hold near our crematorium, since we do not have the power to operate it right now.”
Evo bends over and picks Isa up with a tenderness that touches my heart. “I know where it is.”
Steele gives him an odd look. “How? This ship was built long before Titans existed.”
“I scanned the ship,” Evo replies. “Now, you three should find seats in the cockpit with Poppy. I will join you as soon as I have laid her to rest with the others.”
Brodin gets up and stops Evo. He braces Isa’s head in his hands and kisses her forehead. “Goodbye, my love. I will find you again one day, wherever you’ve ended up after this, even if it is only adrift in peaceful silence.”
I get myself upright, tears in my eyes, and hug Brodin as Evo carries Isa out among the slowly emptying crowd. Steele shuffles up beside me. Brodin hands him what remains of his gel and water, to which Steele thanks him. After a moment, Steele seems to find a bit of strength and straightens.
“Come on. Let’s help those left into the main cabin.” I give each of them a side hug that I hope is comforting, wipe the water from my eyes, and help an older woman up from a pile of blankets not far from us.
It takes another thirty minutes to get the central room cleared out, the dead secured in the cargo bay, and the very injured and sick into medical care and on Torizi’s ships.
Those who can endure a longer journey fill the seats of the forward cabin, behind pilots Poppy and Eon.
Commander Tarrant and Captain Edensen sit close, ready to answer questions, but too weak to keep their eyes open for long periods of time.
Steele takes the seat to my right while Brodin stays to my left. Evo braces himself on an overhead truss in the starboard aisle, keeping his eyes moving through the crowd.
A hand reaches over my seat and settles onto my shoulder. Colt peers down at me with a tired smile on his face. “Charlee is going to make it. You got here just in time.”
I grab his hand, give it a comforting pat, and let him go. He sits in the row behind with Daken and Racer and belts in. Daken and I may not have been together for years, but he’s always close, always watching out for me.
“What is his deal?” Steele asks me.
“Huh?” When I look back at Steele, I notice Evo has pinpointed Colt behind me and is scrutinizing him like he doesn’t trust him. “Oh. Him?”
Brodin sighs. “Titans are protective of humans by design, but especially of Creators, engineers, CyberTechs, and their descendants. Evo is the one who found you, yes?”
“Pulled me from my ship.”
“Then he will protect you until you reject him.” Brodin braces his head in a hand. “But if you do, he may decommission himself.”
“What? Why?”
Poppy announces our first jump with a countdown.
Brodin inhales deeply and forces it out, then closes his eyes as blue light swallows the ship, and we jolt out into new space.
“Eight more jumps.” Poppy switches a setting above her head and tilts her head toward Eon like they’re having a silent conversation. He nods and taps a nearby screen, sliding his fingers over configuration bars.
“It was built into them so they could not betray us en masse. CSP was enough of a threat. Your parents spoke often of design flaws, things they would fix if they could. Sometimes, they did, mostly with CyberGuard models because they had learned what worked and didn’t since the Relic era.
But when the plant on Titan was destroyed, and the limited staff escaped, they also only had so many supplies to work with until more were resourced.
“I mean, if you think about it, if a bunch of super-powerful Titans in a star base adrift in the Deep Black with a handful of humans on board turned on the humans, there’s no telling what kind of damage they would do.”
“But they’re human inside,” I retort.
He arches a brow. “So are CSP. But it’s also why the Creators only took soldiers who chose to fight for humanity, because they were already loyal.
So the programming was a redundancy because no Creator would ever reject their children unless they were corrupt beyond hope.
Your mother, like Besha, never gave up on her Titans.
Qurin was corrupt. And they and other Creators knew it.
So they built in the back-up programming to free Titans from such regulations.
But he had his own little secret workshop where he hid many and tortured them.
The truth about what he was actually doing didn’t get uncovered for years. ”
Poppy counts down to another jump.
Brodin breathes out as blue light flashes over us again. We rock in our seats as we drop out into space, and the generators spool up again.
Beside me, Steele grunts in pain. “I thought they all had unit batches: medics, power generation, explosives, infiltration... But this one is...different.”
When I check on Evo, he’s still hanging onto the rail like he’s completely comfortable with the body jolts. His eyes abandon the stars to look at me. When he sees me watching him, he looks down and away again, like he’s ashamed he was caught staring.
“There are a few that were one-offs,” Brodin says. “Or so your mother told me.”
“Mine?” Steele asks.
“She was a Cybertech, worked for Aera’s mother near the very end.”
“Shit. I thought she was just a pilot.” Steele slumps back in his seat.
For several long minutes, we sit in exhausted but semi-warm silence. And I am grateful.
Poppy jumps us again. Brodin breathes out.
I watch the blue light swallow us this time. The distant stars blur, and we’re dumped into new space again.
“Ugh, I wish we could do this in one go,” Daken mutters. Racer agrees with him.
Evo glances back at them, eyes flashing like he’s communicating with other Titans.
Eon’s voice comes over the speakers. I only know it’s his because I can see him talking from the copilot’s seat.
“I am sorry for the turbulent ride. But we do not have generators big enough to hold a jump across the whole span. Deep breaths. Breathe out when we jump.”
Brodin sighs beside me like he’s familiar with it even if he hates it.
“You’ve been through portal jumps before?” I ask.
“It is ancient human technology that was supposed to be lost. Intentionally lost. I only remember hearing rumors of it when I was young. Then some of it was recovered when I was a teen. We had it on special fighters in Omega Force. We tried to protect it, but we were desperate. Then CSP took it for themselves.”
Brodin breathes out with the next jump. “Solcrue left some of their kind behind when they ventured into the stars and left us to rot on the planet their kind destroyed. The self-centered breed of humans desperate to save themselves weaseled their way into CSP. Now, back to Evo. How does he make you feel?”
I check on the Titan. “Safe. He is careful, attentive, defensive, but hesitant like he’s holding thoughts back.”
Brodin hums a quiet note. “They have all been through a lot, just like us. Evo...”
“His brother says it’s short for Evolution.”
Brodin’s eyes snap to mine. He points at Evo.
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” He covers his mouth and zones out for a long breath.
“I remember your mother talking about him with someone else, back when your father and I had to report for a mission briefing, and Omega Force and Titan command were operating out of CyberGuard Star Base. They wanted to decommission him for being a hazard risk. Guess your mother convinced them to push him through.”
We endure another jump.
“Why would he be a hazard?” I ask.
“He adapts like humans. So what do we get that machines don’t?”
“Self-doubt?”
He chews his lip. “He can adapt beyond his programming. If I heard your mother correctly, she said he could write programs with a simple touch.”
Steele leans toward me. “So he can what, turn into anything?”
“In theory.” Brodin pats my knee. “What matters is he’s here, and he saved your life. That’s all I need to know to trust him.”
I pull the chip out of my pocket and run my thumb over the honeycomb, watching it light up. “Why does this activate for him?”
Brodin and Steele look between the chip and Evo.
“It does? For that guy?” Steele asks.
“Yeah. That’s weird, right?” I ask Brodin.
“I mean, it’s weird that it lights up when you touch it,” Steele replies.
“It just recognizes her DNA. Her fingerprints.” Brodin wraps his hand around mine. “Please, put it away.”
I squint at him, wondering what all the secrets are about. But I pack it away. “So...in theory, if a Solcrue saw me with it and knew my name, what would that suggest?”
Brodin grows eerily still. “When did this happen?”
“There were Solcrue on the ship trying to steal what was left of the emergency power,” I admit. “I tackled one of them and the chip fell out of my pouch. He called Command and told them I was alive just before Evo shot him.”
He swears a long string of curse words.
“You know why Solcrue know my name,” I state.
Poppy jumps us again. We rock in our seats. The ship calms and the blue light fades.
Still, Brodin doesn’t speak.
He glances at Evo. The moment we slow, he unbuckles and crawls out of his seat, flashes Daken a glance, then motions me up. “Come with me, Steele, you too. Hurry.”