by AJ Super
Nyx slid the hatch at the end of the passage open and climbed the three steps onto the flight deck. Two low consoles sat next to each other with dark grey swivel chairs sitting behind them. One of the chairs pivoted to the door and a bald Sia blinked at Nyx.
Nyx stepped back. The Sia looked like Erebus.
“Unauthorized entry,” Sia chirped.
The other grey chair turned to the hatch as Red poked her helmet-covered head in. “Erebus?” Red whispered. Her hand held an electrical prod at the ready.
Nyx lunged forward, her baton shrieking with little arcs of lightning. She stabbed Sia in the chest and held it as the android froze, mouth hanging open.
Red grabbed Nyx’s arm. “What are you doing? Erebus…”
Nyx pulled the prod away and flipped the electrical pulse off. “It’s not her. Same model, no tattoo.”
Red flipped around and faced a strawberry-blonde, freckle-faced woman as she tried to stand and squeeze past to get off of the flight deck. Red thumbed the electrical prod and tapped the woman, who crumbled with the tiny shock. She turned the prod off, looked at the round tip, and frowned. “If there wasn’t such a chance that I could accidentally shock myself with one of these bad girls, I’d take one with me.”
Nyx shrugged. “Why don’t you anyway? Train the Greene siblings when they get back to use a baton instead of knives or something that kills. I think some of the people from this asteroid have already shed enough blood.”
Red crossed her arms and tipped her head. “You’re recruiting for a war, and you’re worried about shedding blood.” She grimaced. “I don’t know whether to find you hypocritical or just… naive.”
Nyx pulled Sia out of her chair and let her fall to the floor. Then she sat down. She punched up the view of the cargo bay, and of Malcam, the captain of the ore-hauler, and the three roustabouts. She touched the comm behind her ear to activate it again. “We’ve got the pilot. They had a Sia co-piloting, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have another co-pilot, so be aware there may still be two crew on the boat that we need eyes on.”
“There are,” Isabeau’s sweet voice dripped over the comm. “They’re right in front of me. With their fun little pew-pew toys.”
Red pulled her helmet off and raised a brow. “She’s got a way with words.”
Nyx sighed. “I don’t think she meant…” She set her teeth and rolled her eyes. “Never mind.” Isabeau could very likely have meant that she was not being held at gunpoint, which could be worse, but Nyx couldn’t figure out for who yet. “Where are you?”
“Mess,” Isabeau whispered.
Nyx turned and walked down the steps into the narrow corridor. She slipped her left hand out from one of the rubberized gloves she had on as part of the Yangxi X guard uniform and strapped the prod back into its belting at her waist and thigh. She pulled the small chip-carving knife she had stolen long ago from Crius’ wood-carving Undergrounder friend she had stashed under the left side of her body armor. Something about using it on this op felt right. It was nostalgic, even though it was much less efficient than her small flip-knife.
About halfway down the corridor, she slid open a hatch to her left and stared.
Two gangly men lay on the floor between two very scratched metal tables. Two small projectile weapons lay at their feet as they curled in fetal positions, holding their precious cargo and moaning.
Isabeau leaned over and snapped the electrical prod still sparking with a charge. “I’m a lady, and you don’t say things like that to ladies. Though, I didn’t suppose it would hurt you that much to get a little shock in your… brains.”
Nyx gaped.
Isabeau stood up, helmet under her arm. “Mon petit papillon. Did you think I would need you?”
“I—I—You were…” Nyx stammered.
“Not everyone needs saved, ma chérie. I did learn a little from Red.”
Nyx blew up her cheeks and pushed a big breath from her lungs. “Okay.” She turned to leave. “Where did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Mon petit papillon. Not many people call me that anymore.”
“The High Consul.” Isabeau snickered, her bright green eyes sparkling behind the visor. “Matthews tells everyone stories about son petit papillon. His little butterfly. He’s spreading the word of Nyx, you know.”
Nyx stuck the chip-carving knife up the side of her tight-fit body armor and pivoted back to Isabeau. “I know. I guess I haven’t been paying attention to what he’s sharing.” A small ball lodged in her throat. It was her maman’s nickname for her. It was something she kept just for herself, a memory of her childhood that wasn’t erased and tainted. And even though much of her memory had returned, it was so like a dream that she didn’t trust it was real. But that one thing, her maman’s face when she called her mon petit papillon… That one thing was clear as the crystal rain on the spathiphylum leaves of Elysion. And now the memory was being shared with her followers. People she only considered family by default, never even learning their names. She wanted to kill Matthews. The rage boiled into a thin thread and strung tight. Would nothing be truly hers anymore?
Isabeau walked by the moaning men and tapped them again with the charged prod. They fell silent, unconscious. “Children who need taught a lesson need to go to bed early, too,” she cooed.
At least Isabeau seemed to be having fun on this little op. By now, Red should have taken over the flight systems and any security measures the ship had, either remote or triggered from anywhere on the ship.
“Our treacherous young pilot should be waiting for an escort to the flight deck by now.” Nyx smiled at Isabeau, stepping out of the mess. “Is our surprise ready, Red?” she said loudly down the hall towards the deck. Red peeked her head out of the hatch and nodded, braid falling over her shoulder. “I’ll get the genius behind this silly kidnapping plan then.” Nyx touched her comm as she walked down the passageway to the cargo bay hatch. “Is Paladichuk ready?”
“He’s waiting for you at the main hatch,” Malcam grumbled. “Kid looks nervous. And the uniform he’s wearing doesn’t fit, parce qu’il est putain de grand. No one’s noticed the problem, so get him out of sight soon. These roustabouts are getting antsy. As antsy as our little mastermind spy.”
Nyx cracked the hatch and touched the tall guard in front of it on the shoulder. “Paladichuk George, we’re clear. Come on.” She turned and strode down the corridor as the young Navigation Specialist from the Thanatos followed.
She felt the cool steel of a projectile weapon’s barrel rest against the nape of her neck, and she froze with a smile. He was starting his double cross… too bad the Thanatos crew had already caught his secret waves.
“Clear everyone off of the flight deck,” Paladichuk’s throaty voice reverberated over her shoulder. He reached under her armor and pulled the carving knife out and threw it behind them with a light clatter. “No blood, no magical shenanigans.”
Nyx raised her hands and pointed to her ear. “Comm?”
“Go for it.”
“Time to clear the flight deck, Red,” she said, pressing the comm.
“Gotcha. I have everything prepped. We’re good for unlocking and de-docking. Get that genius pilot into his seat.”
Nyx smirked. If only he knew…
The gun pressed harder into her head. “Walk.”
“Fine. I’m walking.”
Red’s shadow passed across the hatch at the end of the shaft and slid through another hatch, staying nearby.
“Faster.”
“There’s only so much ship, little dude.” Nyx grinned over her shoulder. “We’re here already. I assume you want me to climb the stairs and go in.”
He waggled his gun at her, and she slid open the door to the flight deck. The freckled pilot and Sia were gone. The deck was empty. She flopped into the co-pilot’s seat. Paladichuk sat in the pilot’s seat and pointed the projectile weapon at Nyx with one hand while he fiddled on the console with the other.
/> Malcam’s voice scratched over the comm. “Nyxie. We’ve got trouble. There are five more rousties in the cargo bay now. They just materialized. We’ve loaded all the ore on, and now they are forcing the armed guards and me off the ship. We can’t come get you.”
Nyx leaned back and relaxed, supporting her head and thumbing the comm on. “We got this,” she whispered and stared at her captor. “You got a few more people to help? Not afraid of splitting the proceeds from this shipment, since you’re going to blame the whole thing going missing on the cult that took over the asteroid anyway?”
Paladichuk closed the bay doors and disengaged the docking protocol. He fired thrusters and pushed away from the asteroid slowly. Nyx pouted. He was flying smoothly, too. It was terrible to lose such a talented pilot.
“So,” she drawled. She rolled her head and watched the stars slip by easily as the lanky man steered away from the asteroid mine. “You have,” she started, putting up one finger, then an additional three, counting, “the captain, the three original rousties, and five mercs.” She held up nine fingers and pursed her lips. “And I have no way to go God right now…”
Paladichuk glanced at her and glared.
“Guess I’ll have to rely on superior planning.”
He swiveled in his chair. “Superior planning. How? There’s no way…”
Nyx looked up at the ceiling. “There is when you are scanning any waves coming or going from anything attached to your hiding place. Even the simplest of things such as the current yaw, pitch, and roll reports of Yangxi X that broadwave publicly. I mean, it was fairly genius to send it that way to who…? Brothers? Cousins? Those men in the mess, the co-pilot and engineer, looked kinda like they could be your family.”
He reddened, and his gun-hand quivered.
“Report any time, Yoon,” Nyx growled.
“What’s going on?” Paladichuk shook his gun at Nyx. “I know you’ll die if you get shot in the head. The High Consul instructs us all to protect you from weapons that can damage your head.”
Nyx huffed. Matthews was telling everybody everything. Now a whole asteroid of people knew her weakness. Shoot her in the head, then she’s dead. Great, it even rhymes. She ground her teeth. “I’ll have a wee chat over tea with him later,” she snorted. “But you. Your plan didn’t work.”
“Didn’t work? I have the infamous Star of Nyx, which the Protectorate is looking for, and a whole big load of ore worth a half planet.” He laughed. “I have everything.”
Nyx shook her head. “There’s no ore.”
Paladichuk’s brow creased with concern. “No?”
“Nope. Nadda. None.”
“Then what did you load in the crates?”
“People.”
“People?”
“My people.” Silence dragged between them, and Nyx sat forward. “Which means you don’t have me, either.”
He lifted his gun. “This says differently.”
“The Protectorate wants me alive. And if you make me bleed, you die. So, George, I’m going to give you a choice. One way or another, I’m going to bleed. Whether it’s by my hand or yours. And you’ll die. Or… since I left my best pilot with the Thanatos, you can pilot this beast of a boat to the junkyards where we’re going to rendezvous with a few small ships I need crewed. At which time, you can off-load onto Xianlong V with your family and wait for someone else to take you away.”
There was a breath as he paused to think. Then his body deflated, and he let the handle of the pistol spin up and out of his palm. “I pick that one. I’ll be your pilot.
Nyx peeled the projectile weapon from his fingers and set it in her lap. She tapped, annoyed, on her comm. “Yoon, report.”
The hatch slid open, and Nyx popped up with the gun cocked in her hands.
“Whoa. You all like pointing cette merde at me.” Yoon chuckled and held his hands up as he ducked onto the flight deck. “Thought you’d like a report in person.”
Nyx cleared her throat and eased her finger off the trigger.
“The goon squad in the cargo bay is taken care of. The operation was a success.”
27
The cargo bay had been turned into a barracks. The miners lounged on blankets or sat on empty crates and chatted quietly, waiting for High Consul Matthews or one of the acolytes to walk down the mezzanine and preach, or better yet, give them orders. They were visibly restless, and it had only been two days in jump space. They wanted their freedom. They wanted their fight.
Nyx peeked out of the main hatch to the flight deck and squeezed through the shadowed crack, careful not to rouse anyone’s attention. She stepped to the mezzanine rail and leaned on it, counting on the dim light to hide her enough that she didn’t raise a cry: “All hail Nyx,” or something of the sort. She still wasn’t used to it, and the quiet din was reassuring, even if it was tense as everyone waited for their chance to get on their own ships.
Matthews sauntered down the mesh metal mezzanine, wearing white robes, hood covering his blond hair and shading his hazel-green eyes. Nyx started. He was a shadow on the metal walk, barely seen, unheard. He leaned on the rail beside Nyx.
“It’s nice today. The calm anticipation. They know you are the reason they’re free. Free to choose. To fight. To live. To die. To matter,” Matthews whispered. “They know you’ll make a different world for them.”
Nyx grunted, watching the miners below her joke and pound each other on the back, laughing.
“They treat each other like family. Because you treat them like family.”
“I don’t even know their names,” Nyx hushed, staring at the cramped cargo bay. They had left many of the miners behind on the asteroid. This was only a thousand? Twelve hundred? Barely enough to crew the three mid-sized warships that Kai had rescued from the scrapyard. “They may die when we take the Battle Station.”
“You should go down there and greet them.” Matthews glanced at her sideways. “They’d appreciate their god walking among them.”
Nyx guffawed quietly. “Do they really believe all that?”
“You made them believe.”
She shook her head. There were still people who could see through her, see through the God Nyx and see the pirate Nyx, the woman Nyx, the scared girl Nyx. Some saw just a bit of one or two. Some saw all of her.
Malcam walked out from under the mezzanine and patted one of the seated miners on the back as he passed their blanket space. The miner waved and continued conversing with the person next to them. Malcam smiled wide, taking long strides and a zigging through the maze of bedrolls on the ground.
“Berto came after all?” Nyx put her chin in her hand as Malcam clapped the large man on the back, and they sat.
“The chain-gang leader? Didn’t you try to appoint him as one of the captains of the warships?”
Nyx nodded. “I had Sarama track down his family. He has LACF family roots, but he’s from the NAU. He was separated from his wife and kids when they went into debt, and the wife and kids died of some preventable bacterial disease on another mining colony. Now he has a huge chip on his shoulder when it comes to the new Protectorate.”
“He’s not here on faith? Isn’t that dangerous?” Matthews tilted his head.
“Righteousness and faith go hand in hand. He was going to leave and find them, but I did a favor for him and a few other miners. Had Sarama do a little digging for a few of the key personnel and found family members, living and dead. He wasn’t happy when his family was the latter.”
Nyx stared down at the two hulking men who smiled and laughed at each other. Malcam grinned. He looked genuinely happy. He was in his element with the Downsiders of the known universe. The people the governments forgot. The people the Protectorate neglected.
Malcam looked up at the mezzanine and grinned wider. Nyx’s cheeks heated, and she raised a hand without lifting her head. He waved back, and Berto glanced up, then peeked at Malcam and said something that turned Malcam’s cheeks cerise and made him shake his head adama
ntly. Berto’s face broke into a giant, toothy smile, and his laugh bellowed across the quiet cargo bay.
Nyx narrowed her eyes, face cooling, and stood straight. “You should probably tell them all we’ll be docking in twenty. I have a feeling that mundane announcements coming from me won’t be heard.”
Matthews tapped two fingers to his heart. “As you wish, mon petit papillon.”
Nyx turned and reached for the hatch to the flight deck as gravity shifted a little, indicating the transition from jump space to normal space. Her stomach flipped. She’d never get used to that transition, even with all her experience EVA. It was somehow different. She looked over her shoulder and some of the miners were fairly green. Malcam laughed at Berto, who held tight to the crate he sat on.
Nyx stepped through the doorway and slid the hatch shut behind her.
The ship rattled again, gravity generators correcting themselves as something large hit somewhere on the body of the ship. Nyx braced herself on one of the conduit-lined walls in the narrow shaft. She quickened her pace, racing down the hall to the flight deck. There had been no proximity alerts, no alarms of any kind. What had hit the cargo ship?
She swung herself up the stairs and through the door onto the flight deck.
“I cut the alerts so the passengers wouldn’t panic,” Paladichuk said, glancing over his shoulder at Nyx as she walked up to the co-pilot console and sat.
Out the bow window debris floated thick in the black. In the distance, the space station at Xianlong V vented fire and blasts of smoke and shrapnel. Most of the scrap yard docks were gone or damaged so badly that docking would be impossible. Frozen bodies drifted with the debris. In the distance, the Medusa sat between a listing war cruiser and the giant city-ship La Terre. The Medusa fired repeatedly on the city-ship, torpedoes and energy weapons splashing off the gold shields around the behemoth.