Chapter Thirty-Five

Aura sighed.

At first, when Rosa and Eva looped her into their findings, she’d been hoping they would all agree on a resolution.

But when Halikkon didn’t find the courage to act at all, her faith faltered. So with the idea that pressure from the public would force them into action, she secretly leaked their data.

But that also failed, only causing more panic, chaos, and years of indecisiveness.

She sighed deeply again.

And hurt.

Her heart ached.

Her chin began to quiver as she became engulfed with shame and remorse. She had betrayed those closest to her.

For years, the scientific community ostracized Eva and Rosa, though they were proven innocent early on.

It was Aura. Only Aura.

She loathed what she had done to them. To her own friends. She hated herself for endangering Viktoriya.

She drew her elbows in tightly against her body, not from the stress of the ascent, but from her guilt and haunting waves of realizing how badly she had deceived the very ones she claimed she cared about.

Azid had lost it, and this might just be the death of them all after their encounter with Viktoriya.

All the memories of the past flooded over her like she was reliving them here and now. Her tears wrestled to break free from their shackles, causing her eyes to sting and her vision to blur.

She had so much to say and much to confess. Like how this was a big mistake and how she should never have been a part of Argosys at all. But instead, she had no other choice except to remain steadfast in the quest and mission to save Earth.

If she somehow survived this, she promised herself that she would live the rest of her life trying to make up for it, making amends for everything.

“Prepare docking approach, one niner five,” the pilot said over the comms.

She turned to the bay window at the loading area of their ship. Then, ready to go, she walked over and peered out at TITAN, coming into view on the horizon.

They had constructed TITAN in a perfect horizontal loop. Its almost black, sleek metal exterior glinted in the sunlight. There were larger hubs at opposite poles of the loop—home to TITAN’s command systems and science hubs.

Getting inside—where she could upload COTITAN, execute her code, and take control of the vessel—was her primary mission.

Her eyes wandered to the small rectangle at the bottom of one of the pod-shaped structures. The loading dock. That was where they were headed.

Having been aboard TITAN before, she knew exactly how far she had to go: up three levels, down a long corridor, and to the mainframe Collective.

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What she wasn’t sure of was if they’d already have military or extra security on board, or if they even knew for certain she was a part of the hacker group.

But with Argosys’ exposure, it stood to reason they’d be protecting TITAN from their next move.

Joel sounded in with the stolen credential while obfuscating their own InID transmission.

“TITAN command, this is Delphi, coding in VX98010, requesting permission to dock at H-Niner-Niner-Zero-Seven,” Joel requested.

“Please hold current position, await further. Wait… Say again? Okay, scratch that, you are clear, proceeded to H-Niner-Niner-Zero-Seven bay Zero-One.”

Alex stepped beside her as she pulled the gun from her hip holster.

“I see you’re taking my advice,” he said, adjusting his helmet. “Wise.”

“I will kill no one, but something seems… off,” she spat back without looking in his direction.

He didn’t respond. He merely cocked his pistol and stood at the ready.

The Argosys crew waited in silence as their ship floated into the shadow of TITAN. Soon, the stars disappeared entirely; the only thing occupying the window was the sight of oncoming metal bays and the hangar crew.

As the ship aligned to the final docking approach, railed titanium doors suddenly began spinning down, locking over every dock, every opening or access port over the entire TITAN, retracting into an impenetrable shell as railguns appeared around the perimeter.

“Shit, I didn’t even know it could do that!” she cursed, knowing they triggered the AI defense.

Joel shouted, “We gotta get outta here!”

They faintly heard concussive booms, dozens of what sounded like explosions from the hull of TITAN.

As they turned and peered through the ship’s portal windows, they saw the escape pods as they began jettisoning from the vessel, carrying the personnel, scientist, and engineers away to safety, away from the chaos that was closing in, threatening them.

Away from Aura.

A sea of strike drones formed around their ship, like a swarm of wasps attacking their prey in unison.

The rail gun turrets began firing on their ship, their bolts glancing away from the defensive shields protecting the vessel.

“Hang on, secure yourselves! We’re in for a hell of a ride!” Joel exclaimed, spinning the fighter into a tight corkscrew to evade the drone’s missile swarm.

“Take that!” he yelled as he downed all the drones and the two railguns in their path with one EMP strike.

“That was close; everyone still here?”

“Joel, look! They have all jettisoned TITAN. Everyone is gone.”

She tapped her phone to get ready to connect.

“Shit, my phone! The COTITAN code isn’t here! What the hell?” she cursed.

“That’s perfect, perfect, we’re screwed, and this is a wasted mission.”

“Hold on, Aura. We still have Z’s tablet. With his original source code, it has the insertion program for the COTITAN. Yes! It’s here. So, we can go back to an external command sub-station port on TITAN, and we can access the Collective. We can still finish the mission! We can still do this, and with no one there to stop us. We’ll take it for sure,” Alex shouted over the noise.

“I’m in! Let’s get back to work!”

Joel cut in, “Over there, that tower. Tower Nine. On the other side, there is an antenna array to link TITAN Earth comms. They can’t sever that line, or they will have no communication at all with TITAN systems. It’s our last chance.”

The dropship hovered around the base of the comms link antenna while Aura made her way to the zip-line gun.

“Bad news, we’re at the edge of TITAN’s perimeter shield. This is as close as I can get. You guys will have to zip-line it.”

The alarms rang on the ship as more drone units descended, circling them.

“Dammit!” she cursed, trying to think of something. They had to get this right, or else everything had been in vain.

“I’ll lead them away from you. Aura, focus on getting that code jacked in,” Alex said.

“Just cover me. I can EMP the drones using the device control system once I’m there,” she called back.

The drone swarm fired their mini-sidewinders at the dropship. Each shot significantly reduced their shield’s strength and jostled them relentlessly.

She unclipped her harness and stood, taking a long stretch, placing her hands against the ship’s wall to brace herself. She looked out the port window at a waterfall of drones falling from the sky down toward Earth.

“iSpace Force’s electromagnetic pulse algorithm must be working. Everyone, HUDxHelm up, I’m opening the airlock!”

Aura checked her weapons and loaded Z’s tablet with the tech she needed into her pack. The bay door slid open, giving her a face-to-face view of their target.

Alex secured himself next to Aura to take out any drones that came too close to her.

She braced herself, took careful aim, and shot the magnetic zip-line to the tower base from the fixed line-gun mounted at the ship’s massive door frame, hitting her target where the antenna array stood.