by AJ Super
She let the disinfectant water sluice down her body and inspected where her wounds had been as the dried blood flaked away. There wasn’t even any scar tissue. Nyx ran her hands through her hair and scrubbed. The water’s stinging hot needles drove into her skin.
The intercom at the door switched on. “Are you finished?”
Nyx stepped away from the showerhead, and the water quit running. “Yes,” Nyx said reluctantly.
“There is a towel by the door and a set of clothes. Tell me when you are dressed,” the soldier’s feminine voice crackled over the door comm.
Nyx’s Thanatos uniform, boots, holster, and dirty underclothes were missing. She grabbed the heavy cotton towel off the top of a stack of clothing and patted herself dry. Then she picked up the white tunic from the pile. Its tapered sleeves and v-neck were simple, as were the tight white leggings and soft white mary-janes on the bottom of the pile, complete with a pair of clean white underwear and a white tank top. She slid into the clothes quickly.
Sitting on the bench to pull on the shoes, she noticed a glint of silver on the floor. The chip-carving knife hid in the shadows under the bench, fallen from her holster. She had forgotten that she had wedged it back in. Without a weapon to keep it secured, it must have fallen to the bottom where no one could see it, then bounced out when someone traded her clothing.
She bent over and snatched the knife and stuffed it in the waistband of her pants, under the caftan-like shirt. Not the most concealed, or the most comfortable place to put it, but at least it was handy, and at least she had a weapon.
The door to the shower room opened.
“Hands.” The soldier-woman held out cuffs.
“Are those necessary?” Nyx ground her teeth.
“Hands.” The soldier shoved them at Nyx.
Nyx bowed her head and put her hands together. The soldier clipped on the cuffs and dropped Nyx’s hands.
“Follow me,” the soldier-woman muffled. Nyx stepped out of the shower room behind the white-armored woman. Another soldier fell in line behind Nyx, rifle low and ready. They marched down a mirror-black corridor, void of anyone else.
The soldier-woman hit the pad at the end of the hall to a lift. A console on the wall next to the lift blipped with information, a map of the sector floor rotated and then resolved on the schematics of the entire Battle Station.
Nyx closed her eyes. The Battle Station Kokou II was enormous. She had already lost herself getting to this lift from the shower cubicle. There were too many turns and lifts. She supposed that may have been a tactic on their part, confusing her. But even if it wasn’t, the inside of a Battle Station was hard to navigate.
The soldier behind her grunted and pushed her with the tip of their rifle. “Go on. Get in the lift,” a sonorous voice echoed from the helmet.
Nyx opened her eyes. The lift doors were open, and the female soldier waited in the lift to the left. Nyx walked to the center, and the grumbling soldier flanked her.
Nyx’s gut lurched as the lift zipped up. She leaned on the wall with her head bent, damp hair hanging in her eyes. The soldiers shifted, uneasy. Both secured their rifles.
“Where are we going?” Nyx glanced back and forth between the two helmeted soldiers, enigmas in white.
“A solitary examination room,” the soldier to her right muttered.
Solitary confinement on a Battle Station was reserved for the most dangerous prisoners, generally vociferous mutineers, political prisoners, and killers with multiple crimes committed. Solitary was reserved for people being taken to Earth for permanent confinement and execution, people being taken to the judgement of the queen. Nyx puzzled. She was going to be taken to the queen? That didn’t seem right. That wasn’t in keeping with the actions of these soldiers or the scarred soldier on Elysion. She seemed to want to keep Nyx away from people, so solitary confinement made sense in that regard. But if she was being taken to Earth, it wasn’t to see the queen for a final judgement. Maybe the soldiers would know the purpose of her being kept in solitary, of her being taken to Earth. She tipped her head and opened her mouth.
“No more questions,” the soldier-woman ordered.
The lift shuddered to a stop.
The female soldier debarked the lift first, and the silent soldier pointed to the exit with the barrel of their rifle.
She was going to be some kind of political prisoner then. Kept away from the queen.
The soldier-woman slapped a door pad. The door slid open, and the room went from black to shining white, like the shower cubicle. Two chairs faced each other across a small metal table in this room. The soldier behind her stood in the doorway at a very stiff ease. The female soldier pulled out one of the chairs and ordered, “Sit.”
Nyx did as she was told. There had to be a better chance to get out of this mess. She had to find an opening, one that didn’t end up with her shot again.
The soldier pushed in the chair and held out her hands, gesturing for the cuffs. Nyx sighed. At least she wouldn’t have the weight of the giant piece of metal clinging to her wrists. As the soldier-woman passed the key over the cuffs, they sucked themselves to the metal table.
Nyx couldn’t move her arms from the table. The manacles were magnetized to the top. “Hey.” She yanked her hands. “Hey. Let me up.” She stood, no, bent over the table and tugged. She huffed, grinding her teeth. If she couldn’t move, she couldn’t escape.
The woman put a hand on Nyx’s shoulder and shoved her back onto the metal seat. “Sit.” The female soldier nodded to the soldier at the door, and they both tromped out.
Nyx looked around the shining white room, her breath uneven. Black tinged the edges of her vision.
She needed to calm herself. She closed her eyes and slowly exhaled. Then she inhaled deeply and opened her eyes again, letting them adjust to the bright white of the room.
There were small strands of emerald and gold energy scrolling through the tech in the Battle Station. Erebus must have infected the Kokou II from Elysion, and Nyx was still connected to her. She let a single smoky tendril wind around a line of Erebus’ code, and she closed her eyes again, searching for her sister, still too far away to sense in whole, but bits of her consciousness were in the Battle Station. It was comforting that the virus the Star of Erebus was fighting hadn’t pulled her completely away from Nyx.
“So, sister. I’m stuck. Any help you could give? That would be amazing,” Nyx begged the silent room.
There was no reply.
The door slid open. A Queensman in a white and gold uniform, capelet draped over both shoulders, walked in. He had a purring kitten in his arms. He paused as the door slid shut behind him, gnarled fingers wrapped around the grey fuzzy animal as it squirmed.
Nyx’s eyes narrowed. The man wanted something from her. She knew it already from the gleam in his pale blue eyes.
White hair swept off the man’s scalp, thin and oiled back. He flexed the fingers on his free hand, and stepped towards the metal table. The man’s gaunt face and sallow cheeks shadowed a frown as he set the kitten down in front of Nyx. The grey fuzzball mewled. Nyx instinctively curled her hands around the kitten and stroked its tiny head until it began purring.
The man cleared his throat and stepped back from the table, peering down his sharp nose. “I think a demonstration is in order. We would like to know how you killed Commander Frizzel.”
Nyx turned rigid. The kitten meowed and pushed its head into her hands.
“You will use whatever power you have on this.” He sniffed. “Cat.” He may as well have said vermin.
The kitten grabbed one of her fingers with its paws, then licked it. She couldn’t infect the kitten. She didn’t even know if she could infect a species outside of humans. But if she could, the kitten was harmless. She couldn’t use her powers on something so small and defenseless.
The Queensman arched an eyebrow. “Well?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Nyx croaked, trying to buy some time.
“Then, how does it work?” He leaned in, settling his hands on the table.
Nyx’s gut tightened. She couldn’t do this. She looked at the kitten batting her finger. What he was asking was beyond the bounds of humane. She bit her cheek. But, just maybe, she could get him to do something for her if she agreed.
She glimpsed from under her brow, still petting the purring cat. “My hands have to be free.”
The Queensman squinted his beady eyes. “And why would that be?”
Nyx shrugged and bluffed. “It’s the magnetics in the cuffs. They interfere with the technology in my blood.”
“Tech in your blood? We’ll have to test that. See if we can reproduce it,” the gaunt-faced man mumbled. He stared at her. She met his eyes, unflinching. She had to play this calmly. If she could get her hands free, she had a much better chance of getting out of this room.
The Queensman huffed and fished the key from the front pocket on his uniform jacket. He passed it over the shackles, and they opened. Nyx suppressed a smile. She rubbed her freed wrists. They turned a sallow shade of blue, but the nanomedics already deadened the pain; she shouldn’t have yanked so hard on the damn things when they were magnetized to the table. She pet the little grey puff of fur. It pushed its head into her hand. She walked around the table to stand next to the Queensman.
His gnarled hand hovered over his gold and white pulse pistol, resting heavily in his white patent-leather, waist-belt holster. He took a step back away from her and nodded to the kitten, face set in grim stone. “Once I am satisfied with the result of this experiment, and I have confirmed Captain Boucher’s report, I will turn you over to medical for the beginning of your testing.”
Nyx leaned over the table, muttering to the grey fluffball. Ice crawled along her skin, prickling across her entire body. She was going to become some kind of test subject. Her mouth pulled into a thin line. “Boucher? She’s the soldier with the scar?”
“Jaymes is one of our best.” The Queensman grinned. “Especially bringing us such an interesting specimen.” He cleared his throat, realizing he had said too much.
At least Nyx now had a name for the woman who had put her here. Maybe one day she’d have a chance to pay her back. She pulled up her tunic. The Queensman behind her shifted. He was getting impatient, and probably sensed she was stalling.
The kitten cried at her, big yellow eyes blissful.
She pricked her right thumb with the chip-carving knife stuck in her waistband. The white tendrils amassed at the prick of blood on her finger.
“Get on with it,” the Queensman growled.
Nyx pushed a lump in her throat down. She hovered her bloody thumb above the kitten. “It’s working. Do you want to see?” He needed to be closer. Her blood would dry soon, and it would be useless then.
The Queensman hesitated. He shuffled forward a step. “You are in my way. Stand aside. Let me see.”
Nyx shifted to the right, cradling the blood droplet on her now healed right thumb.
“I see no change. Is this a trick? There’s nothing different about this cat.” He put his hand on his weapon.
Nyx shot her right hand out. The kitten skittered to the edge of the table and howled. The Queensman’s eyes widened as he slid to the side, dodging Nyx’s jab to his face. She shifted her balance and aimed lower. Her thumb grazed his throat as he swept away from her in a whirl of white and gold, leaving a thin line of blood across wrinkled white skin.
The man drew his weapon and aimed at Nyx. “Sit. Hands in the cuffs.”
Nyx raised her arms. The cut on her thumb was already healed, and the blood wiped away. There was no evidence of her injury. She grinned. The man glowed like wispy, ashen smoke. She sent her brilliant white tendrils twining through his phosphorescence, tying it in knots.
The Queensman wiped at his throat and motioned again to Nyx with his weapon. “Sit.”
A boiling red rage climbed up Nyx’s gut. She glared into the man’s eyes. He had wanted her to kill a defenseless creature, one that was now shaking in fear in the corner of the room, trying to hide from the two towering humans.
She didn’t want this power over life.
She didn’t want to be a death-bringer, an executioner. But here she stood. The only thing in the room that deserved to die was the one who didn’t value life. Rage filled her, consumed her, bubbled in her veins and began to burst from her fingers.
She squeezed the ashen smoke surrounding the Queensman. He grunted, and the hand holding his energy pistol dropped. His fingers loosened, and the weapon clattered to the floor. Her tendrils wrapped around the white, breathing flame beneath his ashen light. She set her jaw and ripped the ashen light from his body as she extinguished the white flame. The Queensman collapsed in a pile of white and gold, limp limbs twisted at odd angles.
She could kill quickly now. She knew how. Extinguish the flame and pull the light away.
Nyx exhaled. She hadn’t noticed she was holding her breath. Her shoulders relaxed, and the rage evaporated. Meowing from the corner made her turn.
She gathered the grey kitten in her hands and calmed it. It glowed a soft lavender ripple, a drop of a stone in a pond at dawn. Somehow, she had wiped some of her blood onto the little cat.
“You’re a little lab rat too, aren’t you?” she whispered to the kitten. She couldn’t leave the animal here for the Queensmen to poke and prod, and she couldn’t abandon something so helpless that she had infected. Whether she liked it or not, she had another family member to take care of now. At least this one was cute and didn’t fight like Malcam and Kai. She set the fuzzy feline down on the table and smoothed its head until it purred.
Nyx walked to the Queensman and unhooked the holster at his waist. She wrapped the belt around her own waist, pulled the chip-carving knife from her waistband, and stuck it in the holster with the gun, which was partially covered by the hem of her tunic. She gathered the kitten to her chest with one hand, then stepped to the door pad. She slapped it, and it glowed red. Locked.
She glared at the body of the gaunt man. Of course it was locked. They wouldn’t leave a solitary prisoner and a secret interrogation unlocked. She wondered if they were at least recording what was happening, since no one seemed to be watching. The Queensman clearly had no backup. Why was her presence so secreted away? Were they deliberately keeping her from the queen?
She grabbed one of the Queensman’s arms, tugging him closer to the door. Panting, she lifted his hand to the door pad and smashed his hand on it. The door whispered open. Bio-locked. Nyx hoped that she didn’t run into any other bio-locks as she made her way through the Kokou II.
The kitten curled up in her arm, and she pet it softly.
“You have to be quiet, kitty.” She couldn’t have her new immortal family member give away her position, not down here in the detention levels. She at least needed to get out to a level where she could hope to blend in with a crowd and find somewhere to hide until the Battle Station met with La Terre.
She peered out, glancing up and down the hallway. She remembered the map-console next to the lifts. She needed one of those. She had to be able to get around on the Kokou II. There was nothing out there but the black right now, and she didn’t know when the ship would dock. Nyx walked to the window across from the solitary interrogation room. Outside was the pitch dark of jump space.
She also needed something to trap the queen’s consciousness in. A solid-state Sia memory drive would be the best, but she didn’t know where to get her hands on one. Maybe there would be something in a Sia parts storage, either here or on La Terre.
She couldn’t rely on Erebus, since the queen’s virus was mucking with her ability to communicate, even though she could see the whorls of her emerald code dancing through the walls of the Battle Station.
Nyx ran down the deserted black-mirrored corridor, cradling the grey kitten. Getting to the lift was the easy part. It was just a straight shot, several hundred meters away from the white solitary room through the hulking
Battle Station.
Nyx’s skin prickled. Battle Stations were normally filled with activity, hives of industry. The Kokou II seemed to be running on a skeleton crew. Nyx supposed it was docking with La Terre to pick up the rest of its contingent. If she was lucky, there may not even be a security detail patrolling this section of the halls.
The ship was dead, like its predecessor, the Kokou Five Seven Eight, as if Nyx had emptied the air from every corner. The shadows she had seen were ghosts of the past crew.
Nyx strode quickly down the empty hallways to the lift, tense. She flipped through the map on the wall console, searching for a docking bay. She should get there and sneak through the gangplank before much of the staff for the Kokou II could transfer from La Terre. She stared at the flashing map on the console in the wall next to the lift.
Laughter rose behind her. Two men in grey coveralls walked up.
Nyx cuddled the kitten closer to her and lifted her tunic over the gun. She fingered the chip knife in her holster. Better it than setting off a firearm alert. She took a deep breath and readied herself for a fight.
“You lost?” A broad-shouldered man touched her arm. He smiled at her.
Nyx’s eyes widened. This man wasn’t wary of her. He didn’t even have his guard up. He just saw her as another passenger on the Battle Station. She lowered her head and looked at her clothes. The Queensmen hadn’t dressed her as an inmate. Why? To hide her? From who? So, she was dressed as… What echelon of the Battle Station did her clothes identify her as? “The docking bay.” She smiled nervously.
“From the look of it, you’re headed to C to meet the new Engineering recruits. That starts in an hour, doesn’t it?” He crowded closer to her, touching through the map.