by Natalie Grey
“If we go for this, there are going to be scratches.”
“If your Dragon ship isn’t scratched up, you’re not using it properly. Dock the damned thing.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Choop was laughing. There was a screech and a thud and a moment later, his voice came back, sounding very smug. “That is one locked-down ship, and I am pleased to report that we managed it before the Ariane.”
“I’ll remember that at bonus time.” Nyx pointed around at the rest of them. “All of you take note of that when we’re inside. Captures are preferred, especially with the bridge crew, but if they’re shooting at you, do what you gotta do. This isn’t customer service, you don’t have to just take it.”
“Recruiting from customer service jobs might not be a bad idea,” Wraith suggested. “Lots of repressed rage.”
“I’ll pass your suggestion along to Hugo,” Nyx assured her. “I’ll take the A group to the fore, you take B group aft. You six, go with her; you all, you’re with me except Doc—you stay here so you can go wherever we need a medic. Maple, take point with me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Maple waited until the airlock door came open and then, at Nyx’s nod, peered into the hold of the ship and dropped down, immediately heading to the fore to give Nyx room as well. “First cover a few meters up on the right.”
Nyx came after her, gun raised, sights sweeping left and right. The ship was deathly quiet. “Gambit, tell me what you can about where people might be.”
“Hacking their security feeds,” Gambit’s voice came back. “Gimme a few. The bridge is to the fore, though, unless they’ve made any modifications from the standard GA-class frigate. This is a nice one, but that’s what it is.”
“Thank you.” Nyx waved to the next group to pass them down the hall and listened as they called to one another and took up position. At Halo’s gesture, she and Maple advanced again.
It was a top-of-the-line ship, and it was close to new. That much, she could see at once. The hallways were the slick white that civilians always seemed to think they would like, but that hurt the eyes after a while, and there had been no chance for any serious scuff marks or dirt to accumulate.
“There’s a group on the bridge,” Gambit reported as Nyx’s second group advanced again. “Wraith, there’s another group in the hold.”
“Roger,” Wraith’s voice came back. She dipped out of the group channel, but not before Nyx heard her directing the team to come through all of the entrances to the hold at once.
Nyx nodded slightly. Each team had its own language, developed over time, and watching Wraith in command taught her some of Team 11’s—which would help her get her team moving quickly in a crunch.
“Heads up, ma’am,” Choop reported, “the Ariane has docked as well and they’re ahead of you on the other side of the ship.”
“Oh, hell no!” Nyx waved her team forward. “They are not getting there first.”
Then she caught sight of movement.
“Enemies ahead!” Halo called. The team dashed for cover or dived prone as a smoke grenade came bouncing through the hall. Nyx bumped the inside of her wrists to activate a scanner looking for other types of explosives and took aim through the smoke.
They’d better hope this wasn’t their only tactic, because it wasn’t going to be close to enough.
The firing started at once, however, and the other team advanced through the smoke warily, guns swinging side to side. It wasn’t a very practiced motion and Nyx narrowed her eyes.
“This is Captain Alvarez of the Dragons!” She pitched her voice to carry, even from inside her helmet. “Stand down!”
In answer, three grenades came bouncing down the hallway toward them.
“Grenades!” Nyx yelled. “Halo, Maple!”
Halo dived for one and Maple took another while Nyx grabbed the third. She wrenched one of her pauldrons off and slammed the grenade between the armor and the wall, holding it in place behind both hands, her legs planted as it went off. Her body rocked back and then slammed forward again, and she looked at the hole in the wall with satisfaction.
Grenade-proof armor wasn’t quite perfected yet, but almost all Dragons wore a single piece that qualified. It redistributed force delightfully well, though Nyx’s hands were still going to be stinging in a few hours—there was only so much science could do.
She didn’t waste her time thinking about that. “Maple, you and me, forward!” They advanced, guns raised. “Stand. Down,” Nyx called.
Gunfire was her answer.
“Taking cover!” Maple called. “Four ahead!”
“On your left.” Nyx directed a burst at the far left and took a knee. “One down on the left!”
Maple came up to fire. “Second one down!”
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” The voice was panicked. “We surrender!”
“Finally,” Nyx muttered. “All right, weapons down, hands up—”
“The doors to the bridge are opening and they’re running for them,” Gambit said.
“Fucking hell.” Nyx hurdled a fallen door and took off. “Trap?”
“I don’t think so, they have some panic-room thing. Locking the bridge doors open, but the panic room is on a different circuit.”
“Thank you!” Nyx skidded onto the bridge and narrowed her eyes. Gambit had been correct—the bridge crew and the last two gunmen had huddled together behind a wall of bulletproof glass. She kept her gun out as she advanced on the. Behind her, the other four members of her group flowed into the room and took cover behind desks, running scans and calling results to one another.
“Nothing in the air systems,” Gambit reported. “No explosive devices that I can see.”
“So it’s a waiting game, then?” Nyx shook her head, then looked over her shoulder as Talon and another group came onto the bridge. “So nice of you all to join us.”
“Your pilot took the good docking point.”
“Said the crybaby.” The corner of her mouth twitched.
Snickering came from the members of Team 9, hastily cut off when Talon’s head whipped around to glare at them.
“Would you like to interrogate them?” Nyx asked, over-solicitous.
“No, no.” He gave an overdramatic sigh. “To the victor go the spoils.”
“Why, thank you.” Nyx strolled forward to look at the captive crew. “So. Who the fuck do you all work for?”
There was only a terrified silence. She took another step and they all backed away from the wall.
“You realize it’s only a matter of time before we hack that thing, right?” Nyx asked.
Still nothing.
“Look, you’re outnumbered, you’re trapped, and your team members in the hold are also being apprehended.” She would have heard from Wraith or Gambit if there had been a problem with that part of the operation.
“Apprehended, but useless.” Wraith sounded annoyed. “I got a story out of these ones. See what you can get out of them and we’ll see if it matches.”
“This should be good.” Nyx looked at them. “We’re going to play a version of the newlywed game and see if your answers match the answers of the people in the hold. Ready? Okay, first question: who do you work for?”
They looked at one another nervously. Beside her, Talon’s shoulders were shaking with laughter, though he was trying to keep his rifle stable.
“We can’t tell you,” one of them said finally.
“Can’t or won’t?” Nyx asked.
“Can’t. We don’t know much about him.”
“So it’s a him. Tell me more, tell me anything.” Finally, they were getting somewhere.
“He gave us the ships,” one of them said, “and then—” He stumbled. “…Then….”
The other people in the panic room were beginning to sway on their feet.
“Oh, shit. Wraith, get your team out of the hold! Gambit—”
“I see it. Nothing coming through on your suit, though, it’s just them. And do not open that room up, it
won’t help anyone else and they are already gone.”
“Why the hell? Listen, is there anything we can—”
“I’m doing what I can, but I don’t think so.” Gambit’s voice was tight. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
Nyx didn’t respond. She stared at the room as the people inside began to drop. They weren’t in pain, but they knew what was happening. Their eyes were wide and terrified as they died.
“Christ,” Talon whispered. “That bastard.”
Nyx was shaking. This was Estabrook, it had to be. He’d only counted on Talon, but he’d had enough experienced with Talon to plan for the eventuality of Team 9 surviving.
And so he had rigged the game so that even if Talon won, he’d find out he had killed civilians—or, at least, people who wouldn’t have known exactly what they were getting into. He gave them ships, gave them a target, and told them that the panic room on the bridge would keep them safe if they were boarded.
He had very neatly kept them from spilling too many details, either.
Nyx let her rifle drop. She looked at the people inside the chamber and then she walked away, rubbing at her forehead.
They had won. That was what this was supposed to be—survival against all odds. And instead, Estabrook had made sure that even their survival was a defeat.
“Hey.” Talon put a hand on her shoulder. “They were never going to survive this, okay?”
Nyx nodded.
“And anyone stupid enough to take a state-of-the-art ship for the low, low cost of killing someone is … well, first of all, stupid as shit, and second of all, an assassin. When someone tries to kill you, you don’t waste time feeling sorry for them.”
She looked over at him. He was saying it as much for himself as for her.
“Right.” She nodded.
“Now, you go,” Talon said. “Go get Ghost. We have a detail coming in from Crius, they’ll get us there safely for repairs.”
“Missed my window on Ghost,” Nyx said flatly.
Something flashed in Talon’s eyes. Appreciation, perhaps. He knew what she had given up to come. “You missed a window. Not the only one.”
She gave him a mock salute and beckoned to the team to head back to the Conway.
“And Nyx?” Talon’s voice was quiet.
She looked back. “Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
She nodded. She didn’t trust her voice. Then she jogged back along the hallways to the Conway.
24
“Don’t worry,” Lesedi said. “I mean that, Nyx—we’ve got a solid trace on that ship. They changed course unpredictably for a couple of hours, I’m guessing to get well out of range and make sure no one was tracking them. They’ve been on a straight course for a while now, though, so my guess is that they think they’re in the clear. I’ve radioed coordinates. Tristan is not getting away from you.”
“Thank you.” Nyx found it in herself to smile, but she was so exhausted that she felt entirely numb at this point. She couldn’t even feel relief at the idea of still getting Tristan.
Lesedi watched her for a moment, and Nyx saw thoughts clearly chasing themselves one after another through her head. She wondered what Lesedi would say. Back when they had been only one of her many clients, they had exchanged only facts and humor. They had known some things about each other’s lives, but not too much.
Now that she was a part of their team, she was letting her guard down. Nyx had seen the first real indications of how much Lesedi cared for them when she had tried to stop Talon from going after the Warlord. Lesedi had been worried for them.
Now her care was even clearer.
“How’s that beautiful boy?” she asked finally.
Nyx gave a sigh and started to laugh. It was entirely involuntary, a let-down after the hours of fear and the rush of battle.
“Thoroughly ashamed of himself. And before you tell me that I have to go talk to him, I know I do and I’ll do it right after this. We have a few hours while we follow this guy.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I think it was stupid for us to bring him on so young. I don’t know how he fits with the team. Or how I do, for that matter—but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.”
“It wasn’t stupid.” Lesedi’s voice was tart. “You’ll be your own type of leader, so I won’t say this sort of thing often, but there is one thing you could learn from Talon, my dear. He didn’t take people onto his team because of what they were, he took them because of what they could be. Even you, and especially Loki. Treat your team with that set of expectations, and you’ll have one to rival Team 9, trust me.” She looked over, her head following some noise Nyx couldn’t catch over the call. “We have to go, we’re in our final approach. Take this bastard down and make sure he gives you something you can trace to Ghost.”
“I will. Is Mala there?”
Lesedi smiled. “Yes. One moment. Mala!”
Mala appeared a few seconds later. Her blue eyes lit up at the sight of Nyx and she slid into the seat with a wide grin. “Hey, you.”
“Hey yourself.” Nyx reached out to touch the screen. “I miss you. We’ll come meet up after this mission, okay? I think everyone’s going to be ready for a few days off.”
“Okay.” Mala could not seem to stop grinning. “It’s so good to see you.” She looked towards the door, and Nyx could faintly hear Cade’s voice. “I really have to go, we’re closing in on satellite range. I love you, I’ll see you soon.”
“You, too.” Nyx waved.
When the call ended, she stared at the black screen and chewed her lip for a moment. There really wasn’t any way to keep putting off her talk with Loki, and anyway, after the rescue mission, things probably weren’t dire anymore.
She pressed the keys for his personal comm channel. “Loki. Can I see you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His voice came back promptly, though a bit wary.
Nyx, or I’ll thump you. But she figured that might just make him more nervous right now.
She was sitting on her bed when he arrived, elbows resting on her knees, and she watched him while he came into the room and stood awkwardly, the door sliding shut behind him.
“Take a seat.” She nodded her head to the chair.
He edged over to it like he was afraid it might be booby-trapped, and she felt her lips twitching.
“Talk,” she said.
He stared at her, blind-sided. As far as he was concerned, he’d come here for a lecture. “What?”
She just inclined her head for him to start talking.
He swallowed and looked away. “I’m sorry. It was very wrong to—”
“Loki.”
“You’re my family.” The words came out in a rush. “I know none of you asked to be and I’m the fucking—I don’t know, the little brother following all the big kids around, annoying the shit out of everyone.”
Nyx gave a laugh and Loki gave one as well, but tears squeezed out of his eyes. He wiped at them, almost angrily.
“I know we’re not on Team 9 and I asked for that, but it’s so hard to…. They’re still family and I couldn’t deal with the thought of them being dead. I’m not sure I’m cut out for this.” He looked up at her and shook his head. “We’re soldiers. If I can’t deal with the idea of us dying, am I even okay to be here? I should go home.”
“Loki, man, what would you even do on Crius?” She couldn’t keep from chuckling now. She pressed her palms together, her torso shaking with laughter.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m a liability. You were right, I’m too young for this.”
Nyx scratched at the back of her head. “You done?”
“Yes. No. Wait, with what?”
“This whole, ‘I don’t belong here’ shit.”
Loki opened his mouth and closed it. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Do you really think I should stay, after … everything?”
“I think you’re the only one who knows the answer to that.” Nyx lifted her shoulders. “This is a hell of a job, kid. It’s y
our whole life. The world goes on outside and you’re fighting for it, for all the people out there, but you don’t remember how they live anymore, you don’t have much in common with them. And it’s hard. It’s fucking hard to spend everything you have every day. Even when you win, it’s hard, and you don’t always win. Loki, if you don’t love this life, you won’t be able to keep going for long. It’ll chew you up and spit you out, you hear?”
He nodded. “I don’t feel like it’s chewing me up,” he said finally. “I feel like this is where I was meant to be. I feel better here than I’ve ever felt.”
Nyx smiled. “That’s good. I’d hate to lose you.”
“You mean that? After I made an ass of myself?”
“Kiddo, you think the rest of us never made asses of ourselves? We live together on a ship 24/7. There are gonna be spats, there are going to be days that if Jim snaps his fucking gum one more time you’re going to beat him with a frying pan.”
Loki started laughing. “That gum.”
“And Talon would get up on his high horse and Aegis needed to lighten up a little and Jester could stand to lighten down, if that’s a thing. But they’re family and you love ‘em and you put up with them—and in this family, they’re there for you no matter what.”
Loki nodded.
“For what it’s worth, maybe you are ‘too young,’ maybe you would have known more at 25, had more experience to bring to the Corps. But if we’d gotten you at 25, Talon and I and the rest of Team 9 might be dead, Loki. You more than pulled your weight when we went up against Soras. I’d say we got you at just the right time.”
Loki blinked at her. His eyes were bright. He ducked his head finally and nodded.
“I’m never just going to leave you to die, or kill you without a second thought, or fall in line with some manipulative asshole who hurts people just because he likes to. I promise you that, Loki, and on that score, my word is fucking gold.”
“I know. I’m … sorry I doubted you.”
“I know.” She gave him a wry smile and then sat up. “All right, that’s over, let’s never speak of it again.”
“I could go for that.” He gave her a nod, brows raised. “And we’re going to get this guy, right?”