Chapter 7 Roxi
Fracture catches me. One second he’s above me in the tilting ship. The next, glass rains around me. Then his muscled arms secure me against his solid, gray body. He risked hurting himself to save my life.
Life cannot be resurrected until we have a Human-Titan Memory-core Transfer Chamber. I know where we can get one. Aegis is going to want to have one in case anything happens to Aera or the other critical players in this war.
I hope everyone is okay. As I listen into the Titan telenet, I get reports of minor damage but no significant injuries.
It is a guiding moral principle of Creators to risk everything themselves to preserve the future.
Fracture is an honorable Titan. Even free, he operates under the same moral principles.
I’m glad the team that assessed soldiers for the Titan program was as picky as they were.
Fracture definitely deserved a second chance to live.
CSP and Solcrue only risk others’ lives to save their own.
Chasm has called a meeting, and the moment I reconnect the last Titan to the nanosolution recuperation feeders, Fracture is at my side, escorting me. He seems particularly stressed.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
“Based on calculations, we’re going to run out of fuel for Titans within the week of staying out here since recuperation stations are offline. We’re going to be severely hindered so far from a sun.”
“Do you not have backup neutrinovoltaic panels?”
Fracture’s eyes flash. “Lotus has no record of such things.”
I open up a design program and pull together the parts needed to make the graphene-silicon material, and assess the best energy systems for integration on Aegis.
“What are you building?” Fracture asks.
“Sails to bring in a small constant amount of power even when there’s nothing out here but neutrinos. Well, muons and electromagnetic fields can also be utilized. So it will take some modification. But at least there’s something we can do.”
I send the specs to Esthi for a review. She messages back that she knows some Rogues who are available and will get them working on it.
“Looks like Surge, Ohm, and Overload are handling the project.”
Fracture laughs softly. “Just like that. Are you sure you’re not a Titan?”
“I’m certain. I wish I were.”
Fracture looks down at me. “Don’t ever say that.”
“Being human is not all that great in war. We get injured and die easily. And at this point, I’m nearly like Lenarro and KillStar. I’ve just cut out more pieces since I got free of Sin’s lab. Just make me a fucking Titan already. It would be less messy.”
I lift an arm, displaying my patchwork of flesh and tracework. I tap a knuckle on my forearm. “I mean there’s hydramidium in there.”
Fracture scans the mass of other Titans and humans. “I think you’re beautiful the way you are. All your pieces.”
No Titan has ever said such things, but they weren’t allowed to before. Still, the communications of the ones I worked with always showed on my tablet. So I would’ve known anyway. Fracture is the first to find my hacked-together body attractive. I’m certain he’ll be the last.
He suddenly pushes me aside. I stumble and look back to see him spread his feet and catch a massive pallet of goods we just salvaged from the Solcrue transport. The cable system has snapped overhead.
Fracture staggers as he straightens, steadies the crate above him, and sets it down like it doesn’t weigh a literal ton.
Then he fragments and drifts up into the air, his pieces wrapping around the frayed cable and freeing it from the pulley system.
After reloading fresh cable with another Titan, he settles back onto the floor with me and forms up into his usual glass Titan shape.
“Is this the life you dreamed of as a kid?” he asks me.
“No.”
“What was your dream?”
“You’ll laugh.”
“I won’t.”
We continue walking through Aegis toward the meeting room on the other side.
“A little house on a hill, a couple of kids, and to grow my own food and flowers to sell at the market with my husband at my side. I wanted to raise a family that stayed together, that worked together, one that didn’t go off and die in battle.
But they did, so I got involved in the war efforts to get my revenge.
My dream was of a safe and happy life, but it was just a na?ve dream. What about you?”
“I wanted to be a starship mechanic. Prove to my father I wasn’t as worthless as he claimed. But they needed soldiers, not mechanics. My soul died long before he did. So I was ready.”
I touch his arm. “Fracture…”
His eyes close when my skin contacts his. “It’s okay, Roxi. It’s in the past. I’m here now. And I still have a purpose. It’s just…different.”
The meeting room is packed and spilling out into the main hangar, so Chasm moves it outside. He finds Fracture and me in the crowd of hundreds. I think he and Fracture are communicating over their telenet.
Fracture rests a hand against my back and gives me a light nudge forward. “Chasm wants to speak with you. Savage is on his way.”
He guides me through the masses of Titans and humans to the crates where Chasm climbs up and looks out at everyone.
As we approach, Chasm peers down at me. “Fracture has sent me his feed of your work on the burned-up recuperation power core. We cannot afford to be offline, or this war will end fast.”
“Yes, sir,” I reply.
“Surge and his team are building a…” Chasm’s eyes flicker. “Neutrinovoltaic sail to help?”
“Yes, sir. It won’t be much power, but it will be useful this far from a solar source.”
Chasm studies me for a long moment. “I do not think you are just a rebel, Roxi.”
“I am.”
“Not a CyberTech?”
“No, sir.” It’s the truth, just not all of it.
He tilts his head. “Alright, Rebel Roxi. I’m sure there is a reason you are not being fully transparent. Is it to protect us, yourself, or someone else?”
Chasm was a good choice as a leader for the Rogues. But it has put me in a tight place.
“Everyone,” I quietly reply.
Fracture looks down at me with concern.
“No one is at risk of anything by knowing. It will change expectations of me, ones that I cannot fulfill because of the situation we’re in. So what I am is irrelevant.”
Chasm nods slowly. “I understand.”
“I don’t,” Fracture mutters.
“I’m sorry.”
“Just wish you trusted me.”
“It’s not that I don’t. It opens up personal pain I can’t have distracting me right now. And I can’t be what I once was. Things have changed. I have.”
“Ah, okay.” His hand settles in against my low back. “Well, I’m here if you need.”
“Thanks.”
Chasm turns to the collected masses, eyes flashing, and murmurs spread through the gathered Titans and humans. The Titans converse with the humans about the parts we’re looking for. They all know because of the Titan telepathic network and the instant downloads from Fracture to Chasm to them.
It still is amazing to see it in action, how fast information is transferred.
The Creators wanted the telenet implemented for a lot of reasons: instant battle progress communication, swift missions that could adapt on the fly when Titans encountered problems, and to prevent Solcrue from targeting Titans and taking them out along with the critical knowledge they had.
Wish you were all here to see this.
So many of my friends and family, my coworkers, other humans, and Titans have perished and never got to see the rebellion come alive as it has in recent days.
I was with this mixed group of survivors during the escape from Ellipsis, the battle to leave the Iridithatium nebula, and now as they work together to heal each other and repair the fleet.
Unfortunately, no one has anything useful to offer except a few outposts the Rebels have already scrapped.
I fidget and shift my weight, trying to control the nervousness building inside over what it sounds more and more like we’re going to have to do.
I know where we will find everything we need. I just don’t want to travel there or confront my past.
“Does anyone have anything?” Chasm asks.
The silence that follows makes me swear because I realize my option is the only one we’ve got. A headache grows, crawling around the back of my skull to the front where it pounds like I’m severely dehydrated. “Planet Lencio has everything we need. And I mean…everything.”
Asgar Toriszi glances at me from where he stands by his daughter, Kelta, and her Titan, Thruster.
Chasm drags his attention back to me. “Your vocal patterns suggest that is not a good idea.”
“I never returned because it was too dangerous. As far as I know, the base is still there, underground. When I was last there…”
Visions of explosions and rapid gunfire cut through my thoughts. I shake my head and shove away the memories of CyberTechs and Creators dying. I need to focus.
The Titans need parts for their ship, and they’re the best equipped to fight Solcrue. “There were still massive storage bays and labs with parts, hibernation cells with some occupied, and a few Titan memory-core merge systems. It was a skeleton crew when I was there. Before I…left.”
“Why did you leave?” Relic Savage asks as he approaches, smudges of grease staining his dark gray body. He wipes a hand on a rag, then stuffs it in a pocket of his coveralls.
I straighten, trying to stretch out the stiffness in my spine. “Because the CSP we thought were loyal were. It was a CyberTech that wasn’t.”
“A CyberTech?” Esthi gasps. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “We were all nice to Garett. All of CSP died. It was…messy. I locked down the base, killed a lot of Solcrue that tried to enter, destroyed the other enemy transport as I was being taken. But by the time I was free of my cell on my captor’s ship, I was too far from the planet to return.
So I made sure the cruiser we met up with… detonated.
“I took an emissary’s ship in my escape. LightBlades are fast enough to outrun a detonation wave. Pods are not. But it still knocked me into a deathroll. Bounty Hunters picked me up.”
“You’re from a Titan base?” Chasm asks, looking from me to Fracture to Toriszi.