Chosen of Chaos (Eve of Destruction Book 1)

by Benjamin Medrano

  “How did you know?” Lairia asked, blinking in surprise.

  “The reaction. Most companies would’ve shipped you right back, at least if they were going to pay you anything at all. Those who wouldn’t? They’d just cut you off and not pay you anything. That means there’s something else in play,” Evelyn said, sitting back in her chair as she studied Lairia. “The Confederacy has particularly nasty superstitions when it comes to sole survivors. If you’re a sole survivor, they despise putting you on a new ship, it’s unlucky. Isn’t that right?”

  Lairia stared at Evelyn for several seconds, then let out a short laugh, shaking her head. “Hells, I didn’t expect anyone out here to know that. How’d you know?”

  “Helmsman aboard my assault shuttle when I conquered Peldra’s capital was from the Confederacy. He was a sole survivor, too, and when they abandoned him out here after a year, he hired on to local outfits.” Evelyn explained, shrugging. “He was pretty bitter about the whole thing. You think they’ll give you a job again?”

  “That’s the question,” Lairia admitted, letting out a sigh, then paused as a robot trundled up with a pair of drinks. It set one in front of each of them, then turned and left. Only when it was farther away did she continue… though Evelyn noticed that they were getting a lot of stares. “I’m not sure. I’m a good engineer. A damned good one, really… I’m rated for a twelve-limbed exo-suit, and there aren’t many people who can do that, not that it helped when an ooze ate the suit before I could blow the reactor. The question is whether that’s enough to save my career.”

  Evelyn’s eyebrows rose. Lairia wasn’t blowing smoke about how good she was, not with that sort of claim, at least not with how easy it was to test. Most people struggled to use even two limbs, let alone an exo-suit that had another one. As for the one Lairia was talking about, with eight additional limbs, each with their own tools… Evelyn doubted there were more than three other people in the cluster who could do that.

  “Impressive,” Evelyn replied, examining Lairia for a couple of seconds, then her lips quirked into a smile. “I’m not hiring though.”

  “What?” Lairia said, blinking at Evelyn in confusion. Confusion that might actually be sincere, but Evelyn wasn’t going to trust that.

  “Look… I’m guessing someone suggested that you might be able to find a position with me, since I saved you from being eaten by the darkborn ooze,” Evelyn said, taking a sip from her drink and setting it to the side as she looked Lairia in the eyes. “You’re in a bad position, and I feel some sympathy for you, but whatever your reasons are, I can’t trust them. I don’t hire people who come to me looking for jobs. I’ve had that sort of thing blow up in my face before, sometimes literally, and I’m not willing to let it happen again. Someone like you would be able to find a position in any of dozens of ships in the cluster, given a month, or in the various shipyards. That makes me suspicious, and if I can’t trust you…”

  Evelyn made a pouring gesture and shrugged. Lairia just stared at her for a few seconds, then chuckled.

  “I guess that makes sense. I hoped… well, you’re right, someone did point out that you’d just gotten a new ship and didn’t have an engineer. Wonder why they suggested it at all?” Lairia asked, frowning a little. “Mind you, I was serious about wanting to thank you for what you did. I’m pretty sure anyone else would’ve blown me into my base atoms with the ooze.”

  “Most likely. As for why… if you’re not working for them, I’d suggest you take a look at your implants and make sure that everything is clean,” Evelyn suggested, frowning slightly. “I wouldn’t put it past someone to plant a virus in you. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen that, either.”

  “Oh, that’s a nasty thought. I’ll go through full diagnostics later,” Lairia spat out, anger flooding her face, then she took a deep breath and relaxed. “Damn it, that’s… oh, if someone planted a virus in my implants, I’m going to be pissed. I’ve optimized these things as much as I can, and any disruption could be catastrophic, you know?”

  “Mm, I can imagine,” Evelyn murmured, just thinking about what would happen if someone were to take the wrong action when, oh, working on a ship’s power core. That could lead to a very large explosion.

  Lairia didn’t say anything for a few seconds, drumming her fingers on the table restlessly, but slowly the scowl on her face eased. Evelyn didn’t interrupt, letting the engineer work out her own issues. While Evelyn wouldn’t mind a non-Doll engineer, she also wasn’t going to take such obvious bait. At least, obvious to her. Fya would probably disagree with her, but she wasn’t going to ask the djinn’s opinion.

  “Were you serious?” Lairia asked. She hesitated, then clarified. “About me being able to get a job just about anywhere out here. I don’t know much about the cluster, since I grew up in the Confederacy, and I know how superstitious spacers can be.”

  “Dead serious,” Evelyn confirmed, sitting forward again to examine the woman. “Someone with your skill set, assuming you aren’t exaggerating, is extremely rare. I was thinking that there might be three other people in the cluster with the same skills, which should give you an idea of how rare it is. Let alone ships, there are governments that would love your skills. I’ve always heard that people like you can do the work of six engineers on your own. The only disadvantage is that you do need to sleep and can only be in one place at a time.”

  “Huh. I thought… eh, never mind,” Lairia said, taking a deep breath, then let it out again as she shrugged. “And here I thought it’d be hard to find a position. Thanks again, and not just for the rescue. I don’t like the idea of being someone else’s tool.”

  “You and me both,” Evelyn agreed, then glanced over and smiled as a robot came out of the kitchen with what she thought was their order. “And here comes our food, if I’m not mistaken. Now we get to find out if the reputation of this place is deserved or not.”

  “Sounds about right,” Lairia agreed, examining the burger on the second plate skeptically. “I don’t know… is meat supposed to be green?”

  “Depends on where it’s from,” Evelyn replied, grinning even more now.

  Then it was time to eat, and she was happy to say that she was going give the business a positive review. The food was delicious.

  “This is hard,” Ilyra said, sweat trickling down her face as she concentrated, moving the barbell up and down with magic, over and over again.

  “Yes, it most certainly is,” Zelirana said, doing squats nearby with a bar over her shoulders and weights in place. The succubus could lift about five times what Ilyra could without magic, so she thought it was a little unfair of a comment to make.

  “I was talking about the magic!” Ilyra protested. “Evelyn said that adding a chant gave her five percent more power, or something like that. I’m spending three times as much when I don’t use the gestures or incantation, and even then—oh, pufflesticks!”

  Her distraction interrupted the spell, and Ilyra’s magic came to an end, dropping the barbell to the floor abruptly. Fortunately, the floor was designed for that sort of thing, so she didn’t scuff the beautiful new workout room, but Ilyra looked at the barbell, a little crestfallen, while Zelirana snickered.

  “Pufflesticks, is it? That’s a new one,” the succubus said, grinning broadly at her. “As to that… Evelyn is practiced with using magic without incantations. You’re barely starting out, and there’s a reason that most beings use incantations and gestures. It’s possible to learn magic without them, but it’s far, far harder in general. They tend to suggest using fewer and fewer of them as you grow more skilled. You’re trying to bypass years of training… though I think that this may make you a better mage in the end.”

  “That doesn’t make me any happier about it,” Ilyra said, glowering at the weight for a moment as she inhaled slowly, gauging how much mana she had available carefully, then nodded to herself. Not as much as she might like, but more than she’d been afraid that she’d spent. It would be nice to have a
miniscule fraction of what Evelyn had, but there were some things that were just pipe dreams.

  “It shouldn’t,” Vaneryth said, almost gasping as she stopped the treadmill at last, beads of sweat running down her face. The woman leaned over, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath, then shook her head. “Gods… I hate being this weak. I didn’t used to have issues with this little exercise. Believe me, Lyra, if anything, be glad that you didn’t have power and lose it. There’s nothing quite as frustrating as knowing you should be able to do something, yet you can’t.”

  “Maybe so… but didn’t you say you weren’t good with guns before?” Ilyra asked, looking at the angel in concern. She sometimes wondered if the woman was going to hurt herself when exercising. “You seem to be doing better with them! Better than me.”

  “You’re trying to learn two things at once, and yes, I wasn’t,” Vaneryth said, straightening after a few seconds. “It doesn’t make up for how much I lost, but not much will. I’m going to do my best, but the problem with being an angel is that we aren’t meant to improve through training, not like mortals. While this exercise does me some good, it’d take decades to get as much out of it as a human could in a year.”

  “That isn’t restricted to angels. It’s the same with demons,” Zelirana interjected, smirking as she glanced at Vaneryth. “Fortunately, that doesn’t apply to learning new skills, or you’d leave our dear angel behind in short order.”

  “Would you leave me alone?” Vaneryth demanded, glowering at the succubus. “I’d rather you not flaunt the fact you didn’t lose your power.”

  “I’m not flaunting it. You’re being defensive,” Zelirana corrected her, smiling widely. “I find it amusing, since I don’t have to do anything.”

  “You two are funny,” Ilyra said, giggling under her breath, then she decided she’d done enough with the barbell, and picked it up to put back. It strained her muscles, leaving her gasping by the time she put it back in place, but that just told her that Fya was right. She really needed to work on her endurance. “So… do you think that Evelyn is going to recruit that engineer?”

  “I doubt it,” Zelirana replied instantly.

  “Oh?” Vaneryth asked, her annoyance fading as she looked at the succubus curiously.

  “Think about it. How many employees did Evelyn have after years in Rakal?” Zelirana asked, looking at the angel chidingly. “Yes, she didn’t have much need for them, but think about how long of hours her business had. We saw the hours that were posted, so do you really believe that with it being open twelve hours a day, six days a week, she wouldn’t have hired employees? I think the only reason that we got a chance with her is because we dropped into her lap.”

  “I… well, maybe so,” Vaneryth replied slowly, biting at her upper lip as she frowned. “She didn’t seem happy to see us when she first opened the doors. Fya was begging her on the whole harem thing.”

  “Precisely. I think that if anyone wanted to work for her, the best person to approach would be Fya, but I don’t think it’d go how they wanted,” the succubus said, finishing with her workout at last and stretching, in the process popping her wings out of her back. “Ah, that feels good.”

  “Drat. I was hoping to have more people aboard. This is a big ship,” Ilyra said, setting up the bike machine for the settings that Fya had suggested. “I feel like we’re rattling around in here, even if the Dolls are… sort of company?”

  “We’ll have to see, but as Evelyn hasn’t even talked to me about getting more crew, and I’m in charge of things like that, at least theoretically…” Zelirana said, letting her voice trail off as she shrugged. “I wouldn’t count on it. If anything, assume that anyone else who joins will be like us, strays she picks up along the way by happenstance.”

  “I sure hope they aren’t like you,” Vaneryth muttered, prompting another giggle from Ilyra.

  She saved her breath and focused on the workout, though. If the last time was any example, Ilyra was certain that by halfway through the workout, she was going to be wishing she’d saved her breath.

  Chapter 39

  “Well, this has changed!” Moon said, looking through the window along the docking arm, and Star nodded in agreement.

  While the hologram Zelirana had mocked up had given them a good idea of what the Djinn’s Gift would look like once it was re-painted, she hadn’t expected it to be quite so… vivid. That was likely the difference between a small model and a full-size starship, she suspected. It was one thing when the image was shorter than her forearm, and another when it dominated the view from a dock, stretching from one end of the viewport to the other.

  “I think we chose right. It stands out from the stars, not blending in,” Star said after a few seconds, and started down the passage again.

  “Yup! At least it looks good. Plus, we’re not going completely against all the advice we got,” Moon agreed.

  “Oh?” Fya’s voice came from ahead of them, as the djinn poked her head out of the hatch at the end of the docking arm, her hair and eyes currently matching the ship’s paint job, complete with gold highlights. “Did your parents try to get you to stay there, rather than coming back?”

  “Only for about half of the trip,” Star confirmed dryly. “Maybe more, I’m a little hazy on the exact point when they gave up on trying to change our minds, and instead started filling our heads with all the advice they could come up with. Half of it, I think they looked up in the datanets, but… they weren’t against it in the end.”

  “Though that first week and a half was rough,” Moon agreed, smiling warmly as she added. “Hello, Fya! How’ve things been going here?”

  “Pretty good, aside from port authority trying to convince us to leave constantly,” Fya said, grinning broadly. “I also got a few… interesting messages from Halcyon Yards, I think they were disconcerted about who ended up in possession of the ship. They can go suck eggs, we bought the ship, and they can’t do a damned thing about it, not unless they want to pick a fight with Milady. So… planning to join the harem?”

  “That’s under discussion,” Star said quickly, cutting Moon short as she looked at her sister pointedly. “We haven’t decided for sure yet. That definitely wasn’t part of the discussion with our parents, either.”

  “Heh,” Fya giggled, grinning as she said. “Welcome back, though! We’ve got just about everything situated at this point. Hydroponics and the nutrient plant are both online and up to specs, which should make you happy, Moon, and your quarters haven’t been touched, aside from dumping your stuff inside. Lots more stuff in the ship, pantries are full, all of that. Now we just have to decide where to go. I think Evelyn has ideas, but she hasn’t told us anything. I don’t know why.”

  “That sounds good… though it makes me think that I’m laying down on the job a little,” Star said, flushing a bit. “I mean, I’m supposed to be the purser, aren’t I?”

  “Milady has been a business owner for years, she can handle stuff like this,” Fya said without batting an eyelash. “Same with the stock of food and that. She supplied an army, or at least signed off on it, so it isn’t like that’s new to her, either. It might not be what the two of you would’ve gotten… but eh, that’s how it is!”

  “Fair. Well, thank you for having us back,” Moon said, smiling warmly at Fya as she offered her a hand to shake. “At least we’ve got some of our own—huh?”

  Moon yelped a bit as Fya ignored her hand to pull her into a firm hug, and Star giggled at her sister, waiting her turn. Fya finished after a few seconds, then hugged Star tightly, which she returned, though she was a bit surprised by how strong the djinn was. She really shouldn’t be, but she was anyway.

  “You’re part of the crew, so hugs are in order,” Fya said, grinning. “Come aboard! I think we’ll be undocking pretty much as soon as you’re settled in, so best to make sure you have everything you need. You don’t need anything else, do you?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Moon said, looking a lit
tle flustered, but she glanced at Star before moving into the ship.

  “We got most of our things from the house, so all we really need is our rooms,” Star explained, grinning as she added. “Hells, they even kept all of our old games, for that matter! We’ve got study material, games, and more. Nothing physical aside from the clothing, of course, but every little bit helps.”

  “Sounds good to me!” Fya said, waiting for Star to enter the ship before following, and she hit the button to seal the airlock as she continued. “Now, we did have a few issues with suppliers trying to sneak a couple of tracking beacons onto the ship, but we got rid of them. And made certain to get partial refunds… but I should wait. Milady will want to see you, so go get settled in!”

  “Alright,” Star agreed, and waved at Fya as she left, amused despite herself. Once they were out of sight, she looked at Moon, asking. “You sure this is the right idea? I… forgot what a whirlwind she can be.”

  “Would you rather stay where everyone’s walking around on eggshells around us, or the media can give us trouble?” Moon countered, already moving down the hallway toward the rooms they’d claimed the last time they were aboard.

  “Not really, no,” Star admitted, relief washing through her as she thought about the mess they’d left behind.

  She didn’t like being part of the reason that the university was in trouble, but it wasn’t as though either of them had wanted to be abducted, and the university staff had ignored the problem. Well, the people in charge had, which wasn’t a good thing… and she didn’t know where it was going to end.

  Shaking off the thoughts, Star focused on getting to her room, since she didn’t want to keep Evelyn waiting. It was time to start what amounted to a new life. For both of them.

  “Welcome back, ladies,” Evelyn said, smiling at Moon and Star from across the large, plush conference room, and she glanced around at the others as she continued. “As Fya doubtlessly told you, the local authorities have been gently asking when we planned to leave. That’s been happening periodically for the last month, though it’s intensified since the refit completed a few days ago. Daggerhound has also been sold, so it’s no longer my problem. It doesn’t nearly make up for the price of Djinn’s Gift, but it makes the expense less painful. Before we begin, do you have anything you want to ask or say?”