Chapter 4 Roxi
Fracture is thoughtful for a Titan. He’s not just a hunky, prismatic machine that can shred flesh. He can cut open a heart as cold and shielded as mine.
Only the living care.
The dead do not know what I do for them, in their honor.
But Fracture cares. Evo cares because of his mate, Aera, the first of three ancient resistance descendants we must find if we have hope of finding our best weapon, Xiphos.
I was in the meeting with Chasm and Toriszi when Aera and Evo presented the chips and what they learned from the outpost they visited.
“How did you know how to do all of that?” Fracture asks. “In the cell?”
“I paid attention when I was in mine.” It’s not the whole truth, but it isn’t a lie.
He shakes his head and looks away. “I was built in a lab, tested, repaired, tested, and rebuilt. I don’t remember any of it.”
I stretch out my tired legs. In recent days, I flew my Rebel fighter through the Iridithatium escape battle and infiltrated a Solcruean cruiser when I saw Relics get captured with capsule guns.
Today, we took down a supply ship and captured many of our enemies.
It has been a few months since I was last in a hand-to-hand battle of that magnitude, and I can feel it.
“Memory blockers were implemented after BloodCypher mental stability plummeted.”
Fracture cocks his jaw and stills like he’s just figured something out about me but doesn’t want to say anything.
“Speak your mind, Fracture.” I need to know if he’s figured me out.
“You are not who you say you are.” He quietly adds, “I’m not sure whose side you’re on.”
This is a problem. There should be no question. But showing Solcrue mercy as a ploy to get them to open up has often gained me the same response.
“I love Titans more than most. How will Solcrue ever see what they’re missing if they only get treated like the enemy?”
“They are the enemy.”
“Right, so most will have to die. Anger toward them is normal. I just crush mine under my mission. We need everyone on our side that we can get.” I wish I had programming like Titans so I could switch off my emotions.
“We don’t need traitors among us. That ended badly once already.”
Fracture is right.
“It’s a funny thing, isn’t it, giving someone a second chance but never being able to let your guard down? It’s difficult to bring the enemy in close. It’s why they have to earn it. But there must be a gesture of good faith first to help them see how they could live if they tried.”
“You have the hope of a Creator.”
My skin burns from the compliment that I don’t deserve.
“It’s just the hope of a human who is tired of pain.
Many on both sides still long for the same things we do.
We have to get inside enemy heads to learn what they know.
That is why I showed Crezlith mercy. It was not because I pity him. I don’t.
“He made his choices. But the foundation for those choices was trained into him. I figured he would crack because he tried to claim Aera. He wants her at a level that’s deeper than choice.”
I lift my tablet as my assessment program finds the key from Crezlith’s recent brain scan and unlocks the chip from his molar. “Now I have what we need.”
Fracture eases up beside me and slowly sits. He looks on with curiosity.
“Do not share this yet. I want your command to look it over first.” I give him a pointed look.
“That’s fair. The Brothers were harassing me for updates, so I just switched off.” His eyes dim so I can see only his pale blue-white irises tracking over the data.
“Must be nice.”
He eases closer. “You got all of this from just that short conversation with him?”
“I mapped his memory, his voice, got the blood sample, all the pieces to build a genetic decryption packet and…” I motion to the tablet. “Every ship he remembers, every person, what their conversations were about, where they met. He kept great records.”
Fracture’s shoulder bumps mine as he leans in. He panics and lurches back.
I fight a wince and look down at my stinging shoulder.
“I’m so sorry.” Fracture gets up.
The dejection on his face breaks my heart. He cringes like he’s anticipating programmed punishment, and I’m glad the female leaders of this resistance fleet freed the Titans so they don’t have to endure that shit any longer. “Fracture, I’m fine. It’s just a scratch. Please, sit.”
He tilts, looking behind him.
Menace stalks up to us and glances down at me. “Again?”
Fracture hangs his head.
“I’m fine,” I reassure them both. “It’s not the first time a Titan husk has tagged me. I’ll heal.”
Menace shrugs and points to Fracture’s shoulder. “Is that normal?”
Fracture lifts his arm and inspects the spot where he bumped me. His body has sealed into a smooth spot of gray metal. His ultromotor cycles faster. I can hear it, and I know it alarms him to see his base synthskin again.
Menace works something around in his mouth and winks at Fracture, who scoffs and shoos him away with a hand.
I encounter a file with Aera’s face. It is extensive and filled with images of her from Earth Minor, a few from cameras aboard the ship where Crezlith grabbed her by the throat and she shot him.
“Ah, slimy bastard took an emissary’s ship.” Fracture eases back into the seat beside me, but keeps his arms tucked away from me. “Evo said they have good med tech. That’s why Crezlith lived.”
“He has tried to take her before...”
“Yes.” Fracture watches it again. “Evo said it was because his command wanted her. But this change…” He drags his finger over the slider so we can track Crezlith in the video as he grabs Aera. When Crezlith’s skin touches hers, his posture changes from aggressive to almost protective.
“How can they feel such a bond if they cannot smell it?” Fracture asks. “How can it be determined that a Bond is even possible between two…very different beings?”
I watch the replay again. “I don’t know, but they have exceptional hearing. Maybe it’s a voice or another sound or something in their skin. I’m not a biological expert. Just when it comes to cybernetic torture.” It’s mostly the truth.
Fracture looks away and covers his mouth.
“Do glass machines get constipated?” I ask.
“What?”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “I can literally see gears turning inside you.”
“Sorry.” Fracture sighs. “It’s just that our Reversion Syndrome Solcrue we’re all interested in humans.”
“Because they tapped into that ancient power all humans have the potential to carry. Dedication.”
“You mean lust.” Fracture slumps back in his seat. “It can’t be love.”
“Dedication to the ones who matter. And why do they matter?”
“Pretty females?” he asks.
“No.”
“I’m confused.”
“Those Solcruean males saw in the females what they had been missing. Celeste fighting for Chaos. Sefina fighting for Menace. They want to be fought for. Their empire doesn’t do that.”
“They have not earned it.”
“I know. We show them the right way, and then we let them decide.”
“I would rather kill them,” Psycho says, dragging a finger across his throat from where he sits in the row in front of us. “They have killed thousands of us, annihilated our Brothers and our humans.”
All the Titans get fired up as we head for Aegis.
“Can you take on over fifteen thousand ships, not including the hundred thousand more skysprinters?” I ask them all. “You have barely a fleet of a few hundred. How are you going to win? There are hundreds of thousands of Solcrue.”
“One at a time,” Demon remarks.
I shake my head. “You destroy their ships as fast as they build them. You kill them as fast as they are born. You have not made a dent in the empire.”
I can feel the entire ship of Titans and rebels deflate.
Fracture slumps beside me. “Then we are destined to fight until we die again. Only this time it will be permanent.”
“No. We have to be smarter than them and beat them at their own game,” I reply, tapping my temple with a finger. “That means fucking with their heads, converting everyone we can, and finding ways to corrupt their system of order so they start infighting.
“We have to use their tactics against them. Get them to do the work for us. So we need inside details. If the Solcrue have Reversion Syndrome, we need to confirm it and get them out. They can help. Jeris and Sythius already have. So has Crezlith.”
Menace scowls back at me from where he sits by a ship’s gun. “You’re asking for us to befriend the ones who destroyed our way of life, killed our friends, human families, and put us on a course for extinction.”
I chew my lip as others chime in with similar remarks. “We don’t have to like what we do. We have to do terrible things for the greater good. Otherwise, we will all die: Rogues, Relics, and humans.”
“Don’t forget CyberGuard Paradox,” Kelta says.
“He is no one’s friend,” Menace replies. “But he is a badass for sure. Indestructible.”
“Not completely, but close enough,” I mutter. “I don’t want anyone to die or endure decom. I know working with traitors like CSP and Solcrue isn’t easy, but if we can get them to fight this war for us, then we might not have to lose anyone else.”
Everyone on the ship quiets. They don’t really know me. But I have fought with them, retrieved three Titans from a cruiser in the Iridithatium battle on my own, and helped them capture CSP and Solcrue.
Fracture rubs his shoulder as Aegis and Rogue Fleet register in the distance on Eon’s screen.
I motion to Fracture’s injury. “Let me see.”
He reluctantly moves his hand and takes a deep breath. “Why did your touch solidify me?”
His shoulder has returned to smooth glass. I reach up to inspect the area and watch it turn gray again.
Fracture shies away from me. “I do not want to hurt you.”
“Nothing hurts me anymore. The only thing that will hurt me is physically cutting out my parts.” I reach a finger toward his bare shoulder and watch his glassy surface soften and melt into gray synthskin again.
Fracture’s body responds to my touch.
“I didn’t hurt you?” he warily asks.
“No.”
He breathes out like he’s in pain. “I feel the change. My ultromotor is racing. Why?”
I lick my lips and try to figure out how to word my response without exposing a reality I’m not ready to handle. “It’s not damaging. Does it feel like it?”
Fracture shakes his head. “It feels…great. And that scares me.”