Lady Luck

by K. C. Cross

  Valor looks at me, shrugs. “I didn’t mean to push you away like that.”

  “Fuck it,” I say. “I get it now. It’s fine.”

  “Good,” Tray says. “Then let’s do this.” He looks at Nyleena. “Ready?”

  She nods.

  Tray looks at me. “And you?”

  I nod. Then walk over to the console and enter the long string of numbers, letters, and symbols to spin up the node.

  Everyone grabs a pair of last-stage goggles and shoves them down their face to cover their eyes.

  I dial up the photons to a thousand and then turn to face it.

  Valor nods to Tray. Tray nods to me. I nod to Nyleena.

  And then we all hold hands and walk through a hole in reality.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO - NYLEENA

  There’s a sense of spinning and nausea. Like I’m not a part of myself, but I clearly am because oh, my suns, my stomach is rolling. But almost as soon as it starts, it stops.

  And we are on a station. A dark, still station.

  “Everyone OK?” Tray’s voice buzzes in my ears like it’s coming from far away.

  Luck and Valor both say “Yeah,” and “Yes.”

  “Nyleena,” Tray says.

  “Yeah,” I manage. “I’m OK.”

  “All right,” Luck says. “Well… good luck, I guess.”

  Valor grabs Luck’s forearm and squeezes tight. Says, “You keep that luck. We’ll meet you on the other side.”

  “Which side is that again?” Luck laughs.

  “Who knows,” Tray says. “Just… keep everything running as best you can until we get back.”

  Luck nods. Pulls down his goggles and stares at his brother’s face for a moment. Searching it for answers, maybe.

  Tray didn’t tell us much. Just that he was leaving with Valor and he needed us to take him through the spin node. When we pressed him for more info, he said, “Later, Luck. Just trust me.”

  So we did. Luck gave them his secret lock combination to the spin node room and then he disappeared.

  And here we are.

  “How will you get back?” Luck asks.

  “Don’t worry about us,” Tray says. “Now go. You’ve been here too long already.”

  Luck looks at me as he pulls his goggles back up to his eyes. He’s still holding my hand.

  I nod.

  And then we turn and walk back through and come out inside the museum.

  Luck drops my hand and rushes over to the console, turning the photons down to zero. I walk towards him, still feeling slightly sick.

  “How much time did we lose?”

  “Dunno yet,” he says. “No messages in here. Disruptor field, remember?”

  “What if we lost too much?”

  “What if we didn’t lose enough?”

  I smile. Then laugh. “This is nuts.”

  “Come on,” he says, grabbing my hand. “I don’t think we lost much.”

  He’s right. Because when we get outside and check the time on a nearby digital display, there’s only a few minutes to spare. We take the lift bot back up to the Pleasure Prison at full acceleration and step off just in time to spot Lyra coming up an escalator. We duck back through the control-room doors. Pause. Shoot each other a smile. And then go back out and practically bump into her.

  “Oh.” Lyra laughs. “I was just coming to look for you.”

  “What for?” I ask. It’s a real question too. We have no idea what this day looks like now. We changed everything with the two trips back in time we just took.

  “Crux wants to see you.” Then she shoots me a wink. “Did you get the info you needed from ALCOR?”

  “I did,” I say.

  She smiles big. Huge smile, in fact. Shrugs her shoulders up to her ears and says, “I knew you’d do it.”

  I don’t look at Luck. Because if we look at each other right now we’d just be two faces of confusion and Lyra is staring at us with that gigantic smile.

  “So what’s up?” Luck asks Lyra. He’s still a little out of breath from our mad dash through time and space. Not to mention a couple hundred levels of Harem Station.

  “Crux wants to see Nyleena in his office.”

  “Oh,” Luck says, raising his eyebrows at me in mock surprise. “I wonder what this is all about?”

  “Could be a ship in my future,” I say.

  Lyra laughs and hooks her arm in mine. “You’ve had quite the exciting time the past few days, haven’t you?”

  We walk towards the escalators that will take us up to the top level from here and I manage to shoot Luck a knowing look before we get on.

  “I sure have,” I say. The sun only knows what day it is now. I laugh at that thought and this makes Lyra smile even wider. She grins the entire ride up.

  Note to self. Never trust Lyra with a secret. She has no poker face at all.

  When we get to the top level Lyra scoots ahead of us so she reaches the door first. She turns and blocks our way, still grinning. And says—really loud—“OK! We’re going in the harem room now!”

  “OK,” I say.

  Then she throws the door open and yells, “Surprise!”

  It’s a party.

  For me.

  Luck and I look at each other and laugh.

  I make one of those huge o-faces that comes with wide eyes and raised brows and cover my mouth with both hands. “Oh, my suns! What is this?”

  Inside the harem room stands Crux, and his princesses, and Serpint, and Jimmy, and Delphi, and the cyborg master, and Xyla, and Ladybug, and Cha-Cha, and Baby ALCOR in creepy hologram form, and an equally creepy and evil Succubus.

  There’s a long buffet table filled with pretty princess snacks, and a fountain flowing with sparkling princess champagne, and lots of pink and silver decorations. There’s even a banner strung across one wall that reads: Welcome to the Harem Station family, Princess Nyleena.

  Everyone is clapping.

  “Surprise!” everyone yells. Even the harem princesses say it.

  And even though I now know everything I’ve been doing over the past several days was just a scheme to turn back time and get people off the station without Baby and Succubus realizing we were totally onto them, I get a warm feeling in my stomach.

  Like… there’s a glow in there. Growing inside me. A little bud of light.

  There’s a lot of bustle, and everyone comes up to me to be friendly and welcoming, and congratulate me on finding my soulmate, and there are little hovering tray bots handing out glasses of champagne, and blah, blah, blah.

  It’s a celebration.

  Crux starts tapping a spoon against a champagne glass and I force myself to look away just as Luck squeezes my hand.

  That squeeze says, We’re not done yet. Don’t lose focus.

  So I put on my game face and pay attention to Crux as he begins to speak.

  “Princess Nyleena,” he says. “It has been a difficult transition for you. And my brother Luck. I know when you came back from Mighty Minions you were not in the market for a soulmate. But…” He raises his glass and smiles. “We all knew the two of you would make a formidable team.”

  How true that is.

  “Nyleena,” he says. “Did you find the answer to my question I posed to you four days ago?”

  I suck in a deep breath of air. Because I’m on. “Yes,” I say. “I did.”

  “My question was,” Crux says, now pointedly looking at Baby, “what does leveling up mean?”

  Crux looks back at me for the answer.

  And… hell if I know. But I spit out the answer I was given anyway. “It’s a way for the Prime Government to create eternal beings.”

  There’s a gasp from the princess peanut gallery. Obviously they had no clue.

  But all the brothers present, and Succubus, and Baby stay silent.

  Everyone who needs to know the answer to this question already knew. And they all know they already knew.

  Because apparently this whole scavenger hunt thing was
planned by Crux and Booty to “calm me down” and “settle me in” and “make me feel like part of the family” and probably “keep Nyleena from fucking everyone’s plans up” but also “set up the great escape that just happened back in the museum spin node.”

  Tray did tell us that part. Not about the party, of course. I don’t think he knew about this.

  This was a scheme.

  But it’s not over yet. We’ve barely started.

  Crux continues. “I have been begging that Asshole to answer that question for almost a year, Nyleena. And he has refused.” He looks around the room. Playing his part too. “Until you convinced him to talk. Now we know what we’re up against. Now we know who is on our side and who isn’t. Now we know,” he says, stressing the word, “who we can trust.”

  “Not them,” a random princess yells.

  “Not them,” the other minions echo.

  Not them indeed, I think to myself. Looking right at Baby and Succubus.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - LUCK

  “Princess Nyleena!” Crux bellows over the yelling harem princesses. “I sent you on a quest for truth and against all odds you came with the answer I was looking for. I promised you a sentient ship.”

  I glance at Nyleena and find her frowning.

  “So you shall have a ship!”

  I squeeze her hand real fast. It’s the only safe way to communicate with her right now. The only way that Succubus and Baby can’t overhear. And that squeeze says, Play your part, my princess. We’ll work out the details later.

  Nyleena gets it.

  Because Nyleena gets everything. Especially me.

  “The engineers in docking have more than two dozen set up for you to interview at your convenience.” Then Crux frowns. “But…” He glances around to make sure everyone is listening. “But… you cannot leave Harem Station, princess. Not until we find that vile Veila and take her down. This station is not safe until that happens. Lyra isn’t safe. None of us are safe until we find the Loathsome One and bring her to justice.”

  This time it’s Nyleena who squeezes my hand. And then she says, “You know, I don’t really care for that solution, Crux. You promised—”

  “I promised you a ship,” he growls. “And a ship you shall have.”

  “I just can’t leave,” Nyleena growls back. “In other words…” She pauses to look at the princesses. “I’m a prisoner. Just like them.”

  They make faces at her.

  But Nyleena doesn’t pause for their indignation. “Tell me something, princesses,” she says, turning to face them. “Would you like to get the hell out of here and come with me? Would you like to be free for the first time in your life? Would you like me to liberate you, the way Jimmy liberates bots and borgs? Are you—”

  “Nyleena,” Crux roars.

  “—READY TO REBEL WITH ME?”

  The stunned-silent princesses all stare at her. Speechless and probably confused. But when a silver Cygnian princess shows up and asks a bunch of bored-out-of-their minds princesses if they’re in the mood for a rebellion, what do you think happens?

  “Hell yes!” one red-haired royal yells.

  And then they’re all saying it. “HELL YES! HELL YES! HELL YES!” Fists in the air. Scowls on their faces. The room filling with their angry glow.

  Mother of suns. I almost come watching Nyleena start this little pre-planned rebellion.

  Because shit is about to get real. Valor and Tray have left and neither Succubus nor Baby will be able to figure out how. So Tray said we need a station emergency. Something that would disrupt the lives of everyone here. Something that would cause chaos.

  And you know what my princess does better than anything?

  Cause chaos.

  And then hell breaks loose.

  Because an alarm goes off.

  “He’s gone!” Succubus screams. “He’s gone! Which one of you—”

  But the Baby drops a cloud of code over her so that her words are immediately silenced.

  “What the hell is happening?” Crux asks Baby.

  “Asshole ALCOR has escaped the prison.”

  “What?” Crux says, looking around the harem. “But…”

  “Where is Tray?” Baby bellows.

  There’s a bunch of, “I dunno’s,” and “Haven’t seen hims”.

  “And where’s Valor?” I yell. Because it’s my turn now.

  “Find them!” Baby commands. “Find them right now!”

  “Sir,” an engineer says. Everyone turns to find a small guy standing in front of Crux.

  “What is it, Eldar?” Crux asks.

  “Sir, I don’t know how this happened. One minute she was there and then… I dunno. She just… wasn’t!”

  “Who?” Pretty much everyone says. Even me. Though I know who he’s talking about.

  “Booty, sir!” And then the poor guy looks over at Serpint with fear in his eyes. Like Serp might pull out a plasma rifle and kill him dead this instant.

  I want to tell him, It’s all good, dude. We already knew. But I don’t, of course. Because we’re still scheming.

  “And I think she took ALCOR, Tray, and Valor with her!”

  And there you have it.

  Chaos ensues.

  I wish I could say that we got it all under control after that.

  But we didn’t.

  That wasn’t the plan.

  We could’ve, for sure.

  But again. Not the plan.

  It has been three days since the Harem Rebellion started. Three days since Tray, Valor, Booty, and Asshole ALCOR went missing. Three days since we turned back time, so actually, it might be more five or six days. Depending on how you count lost time.

  And in that three days hundreds of things have happened.

  Nyleena and I are now the proud leaders of an army. Not just princesses rebelled that day. All the people who still owed us servitude spins joined our cause. We’ve got about two hundred thousand on our side now.

  We took over levels one through ninety-five. We were going for an even hundred just to make sure no one got suspicious about the secret forest filled with fertility flowers, but Crux drew a line in the sand on level ninety-six.

  Oh, yeah. Crux and I? Not on the same side anymore.

  Or… so it seems.

  He’s the leader of Harem Security. Pretty boring name for an army, if I do say so myself. And almost everyone is on his side.

  But Nyleena and I are leading the rebellion. And that’s such a better name for an army. Kinda romantic, right? The Rebellion.

  Jimmy took my side, which means Dicker took our side—and Lady. So we got control of the docking bays. Serpint took Crux’s side, and the Baby has no clue what he’s doing or any plan to really stop us because guess who else took our side?

  That’s right. The devil-horned Succubus herself. She was pretty pissed off when Baby silenced her with a cloud of code back at the party.

  Which is… just gross. But what can you do? We’re on a station. Baby could cut off our air, and water, and food. We need her to see this plot through until Valor, Tray, Booty, and Asshole get back and we can take her and the Baby out at the same time.

  The Pleasure Prison has been shut down. People were going red like crazy so Crux had the Baby pull everyone out and turn it off.

  We are losing billions of credits every day because of that.

  But fuck the money.

  We’re fighting for our station.

  We’re fighting for our people.

  We’re fighting for our lives.

  We’re fighting for ALCOR.

  Real ALCOR.

  He’s out there somewhere. I know it. I feel it.

  And if anyone can bring him back it’s Tray.

  Until then… we scheme.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR - NYLEENA

  So. Here’s the sucky part of the little rebellion I started. We’re not living in Luck’s quarters or my quarters. We’re actually living in Lady Luck’s docking bay. The engineer break room, to
be specific. Not quite the dream house I’ve always imagined. But it’s got a vending machine and a drinking fountain, and—most importantly—access to Dicker and Lady. Because something tells me we might need to make a quick escape one of these days.

  Not that we’re in any real danger. At least from Crux and his army. We’re not. This is a scheme, after all. Everyone except Baby, Succubus, and the masses are playing a part.

  But…

  “Hey, Princess,” Luck says walking into our little makeshift apartment. He’s all rogue station commander sexy these days, too. Like camo pants, and white t-shirt that shows off his muscles. Shit like that. I love it. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “Um... so… I have something to tell you.”

  “Yeah?” he asks, plopping down on the couch next to me. It’s not auto-mold, which sucks. But it’s got plushy cushions, so that’s a bonus. “Shoot.”

  “Turn on your little disruptor thingy first.”

  “Ooooh,” he says, waggling his eyebrows at me. “Sexy times?”

  “No,” I say. “Just turn it on for a second.”

  He blinks his eyes. Like this disruptor is powered by some internal mechanism. I don’t really get that, but this is not the time to ask irrelevant questions. “OK, it’s on. What’s up?”

  I turn towards him, take his hands in mine, and… fuck. I don’t even know where to begin.

  “Come on, princess. You’re killing me here. Don’t leave me hanging.”

  I take a deep breath and wipe my sweaty hands on my pants. Then take his hands again. “OK. So… remember that time we had all that fantastic flower sex?”

  He grins. Oh, I still love that grin. “I dream about it every night.”

  “Yeah, well.” I laugh. Uncomfortably. “We might’ve forgotten to take a critical step or two.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know… with the whole fertility flower thing?”

  His eyes go wide. “What?”

  “Surprise!” I say weakly.

  “You’re… pregnant?”

  “Ta-da!” I force a chuckle.

  “You’re really…?”

  “I really am,” I say. “I’ve been sick ever since we took Tray and Valor through that spin node. So I had Lady do an exam on me in her medical bay, and… yay? I’m fertile! Who knew?”