by AJ Super
Nyx sliced her hand open and slapped both tightly coifed blonde women across the face with the blood dripping from her quickly healing palm. The pain didn’t even register anymore, the nano-medics automatically sealing off the nerves and beginning the healing process to close the wound.
Blood smeared across both women’s cheeks.
Nyx barely let the fuchsia and lime energies of the women register as she sent her white tendrils arcing deep into their auras to find the tiny white flame bursting forth. The immortal energy infection spread instantaneously. She wrapped her white wisps around the burgeoning flames and put them out. The two Queensmen collapsed without a whisper.
Nyx stared at the crumpled bodies on the floor. It had been so easy. So quick. She let out the breath she had been holding and glanced up at Malcam. She could protect her crew and family.
Malcam cleared his throat. “You’re getting too good at that,” he whispered, a little hoarse.
“It’s better if we’re quiet.”
“They’ll still find the bodies.”
“They’d sense weapons’ fire sooner,” she whispered. “Just do it my way.”
Malcam holstered his gun and grumbled. “I don’t like how comfortable you are doing that. I don’t trust it.”
Nyx paused and turned. “You don’t trust me? You killed my father, and tortured me. Pot calls kettle.”
“You’re the one who made me your ExO.”
“I have to keep an eye on you somehow.”
“You could have just put me on your ship. Or even put me in the brig.”
“You’re too useful.” She stalked by him, her hair bouncing around her ears. “Besides, my father saw something in you.” Her father had seen something in the brute, something she desperately needed to see as well. Some kind of intelligence, strength, loyalty… friendship. He had something she needed, but she still wasn’t sure what it was.
The darkened corridor had a large window on one side with a rail looking out to the star-scape. Malcam stopped and stared out of the window. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you. Back then. I know it seemed like it. But I had a promise to keep.”
Nyx walked down the corridor backwards, not really listening to him. “Fine. Fine. We’ll talk about it later. Let’s find Phoebe and Erebus.” A couple of turns into the bowels of the Andraste, and they would be in the solitary sector of the Battle Station. She skidded to a halt as she rounded the corner of the hallway.
A squadron of six white-armored soldiers marched up the passage towards her and Malcam. Nyx’s jaw dropped. “What the…?” Her blood would be useless against these armored soldiers as long as Erebus couldn’t infect the ship. The signal to their automated armor was clear of any sign of Erebus’ swirling emerald code-energy. Nyx’s hand hovered from her knife to her energy weapon. The low buzz of Malcam’s weapon charging behind her hummed through the hallway.
The six soldiers stopped, their weapons held at the ready.
Nyx glanced to her left. About three meters ahead of her, just before the two front rank soldiers, was another corridor. If she and Malcam could make it down that, they could run and bypass the soldiers barring their passage and find another way to the solitary confinement sector. It wasn’t that far away. They could just circle back to it, get Phoebe and Erebus’ Sia avatar, and get out.
She braced herself and slid her silver energy weapon from her holster. Malcam would follow her. It would be tight, but they could make it.
In unison, the soldiers pointed their energy rifles at them. Nyx took a deep breath.
“Put your weapons down,” a deep masculine voice from the soldier on the left intoned. He motioned his rifle to the ground. “Get on the floor.”
Nyx lifted her gun and squeezed the trigger. A loud thwang reverberated down the hallway, and she ran for the open corridor to her left. Another thwang and a deep boom behind her followed by a shower of blue sparks made her pick up her feet faster. The metallic sound of energy weapon fire and the bending of metal as it hit the passage walls surrounded her.
She turned down the corridor and sprinted, extending her weapon behind her, blindly pulling the trigger repeatedly. Vaguely hoping Malcam wasn’t in the way, she kept shooting until her energy weapon whined. It was out of charge. She was nearly to the end of the passage, at a tee-junction. She veered right, dropping her gun behind her.
An echoing thwang rang down the hallway and crashed against the metal wall, a concussive wave pressing against Nyx and lifting her. She smashed into the corner of the wall, her forehead banging on the cold, smooth metal where the wall turned ninety degrees. Blood dripped into her eyes. Nyx blinked and wiped her brow with the back of her hand. She scrambled up and around the corner, glancing at the broad dent in the metal wall behind her. She had caught the edge of an energy blast from one of the soldiers’ rifles. She was lucky not to be spitting up blood, since the nano-medics wouldn’t let her die… unless her brainstem was severed. Nyx shivered, looking back at the dent as she skittered down the hall. With that force, it could have happened. Her brain could have been gooed if it had been a direct hit.
Footsteps bashed on the floor. Some of the soldiers must have started running after her. She eyed the corridor ahead. There were several doors. Turning to one, she hit the door pad. It glowed locked-red. She ran to the next. Red. The soldiers would turn the corner any second and start firing again, and she had no weapon to defend herself.
Nyx breathed hard. She spun to another door, and her hand hovered over the door pad, fingers not even touching the black plasteen as the door whispered open. She furrowed her brow. Confused. Who, or what, was inviting her in?
The stomping of soldiers’ armored feet echoed around the corner. She could hear their muffled shouts growing closer, louder.
There was no time. She slid into the dim room beyond the door, panting. The door whispered closed behind her as the room lit bright white.
Nyx froze.
A quiet man reclined in a black and chrome chair. Sapphire-filled tubes feeding through the floor at the base of the chair were secured intravenously to his right arm. The silent man sat with his eyes closed, impossibly long black eyelashes brushing his sharp, high cheekbones.
Nyx turned to the door and hit the door pad. It lit red, locked.
“I didn’t let you in so you could just go back out and get shot.”
Nyx paused at his smooth baritone voice. He sat up, reached for a strip of tape and a cotton ball sitting on a small tray to his left and pressed it against the IV in his right arm. He gently pulled the intravenous needle from his vein, leaving a small drip of sapphire beaded in the crook of his elbow, near the grey shadow of a tattoo tracing up his arm and neck to his jaw. He rolled the cotton ball and tape over the sapphire bead and secured the tape. Then, he glanced up, warm cedar-brown eyes shining.
“You’re safe here. No one is going to come in.” He grabbed a dark grey, mandarin-collared shirt hanging from the back of the chair and slid it over his shoulders, zipping it up and covering his tawny chest.
Nyx eyed the man suspiciously, mouth pulling tight. “Why did you let me in?”
He ran his hand through shoulder-length black hair, spilling it around his sharp jaw. “You looked like you needed help.” He gestured to a security display near the reclining chair.
“That’s all?” She gaped. “You don’t know who I am or why I’m here.”
He swung his legs off of the reclined chair and stood. “I imagine there will be plenty of killing soon enough. I don’t have to watch it happen on my ship.”
Nyx furrowed her brow, confused. “Your ship?”
“Never mind.” He shrugged. “Nothing you need to worry about. There’s nothing you can do to stop an army.”
She set her jaw. “You don’t know that.”
“Do you have an army? Can you fight tens of thousands? Or even just thousands?” he snipped.
Nyx crossed her arms and smiled. “Maybe.” She was the Star of Nyx after all… and with Erebus at her
side, nothing was impossible. Who was he to contradict her, anyway? Wasn’t she supposed to be the god of gods?
He walked up to her, black fabric of his pants whispering in the quiet. Nyx stood still, not sure if she should bolt, hand hovering over her knife. He reached out a neatly manicured hand. Nyx ducked, but he touched her cheek with his opposite hand and held her face. Gently he wiped her forehead where she had hit the corner of the wall with his thumb, palm resting on her temple. “No wound? There’s enough blood here that it looks like you hurt yourself.”
Nyx’s eyes widened. He touched her blood. She jerked back, and he let his hand fall.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” He stepped away from her.
A swirl of sapphire energy blossomed around him, the same color as the liquid in the intravenous tubes. She stared at the glow. It was different than Malcam’s or Kai’s. Or even Joshua’s. Or that cafard, Coeus’. The only four people she had left alive whose energy had joined with hers, leaving them immortal. It was different than the humans she had infected, then had to kill. It shimmered and buzzed in her consciousness like water in an oasis. It melted and ebbed with her breath. The little white flame buried within his aura fed a tickling sensation. A connection she only felt with two others. But his energy also burned a little like Malcam’s, fire of human life.
She inhaled hard.
This was the vapor of code and humanity. In one person.
He was a Star.
Like her. Some kind of hybrid.
She stepped forward. “No. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You. I didn’t know. You touched.” She gasped for the words. She didn’t mean to do it. She didn’t want to do it. “My blood.” She had to explain. Without scaring him. Without making him want to kill her. That was a real possibility. He may want to kill her when she said the next words aloud. She exhaled softly. “I’m the Star of Nyx.”
His warm eyes turned cold, and his body went rigid. Slowly he raised the hand with which he had touched her forehead, turning it over. “Guess it’s too late,” he sighed. He lifted his head, narrow chin high and full lips tight. “Do it quickly.”
Nyx scrunched her face. “Do what?”
“Upload and partition.” He furrowed his forehead. “Isn’t that what you do?”
“No. I mean, I can… but I’ve only tried once,” she muttered. This isn’t what she wanted. Yes, eventually she wanted to find her other siblings… but not this way. Not infecting them. Making them a part of her. “I haven’t ever though. Look.” She stepped forward, hands up. “I’ve infected a couple of the other Stars, but I haven’t partitioned anyone. Family is family, regardless. And I’d rather not have you all in my head.” She paused. “I… I know what I was made for. But it’s not what I want. I’d rather have a family.”
His tight shoulders relaxed a little. “Family? You don’t know any of us. How can you consider us family? Even if we were made by the same person, that doesn’t make us family.”
Nyx let her hands fall to her sides and shrugged. “Family is who you choose. Phoebe may be a pain in le cul, but she’s strong and dangerous and would do anything to keep the Stars safe. That’s family in my book. Crius chose to make their own family with a group of homeless misfits for the same reasons. They both care about people. I have my crew and the Stars. I get two families. We all fight to protect what we have. It gives us a reason to be, to live. To move forward.” She shifted her weight. “How about you? Who do you have?”
His eyes went dark. “I have people I want to protect, too. Phoebe gave me her word…”
“Do you think Phoebe’s still in charge of the Protectorate?”
“Why? Is she not? What happened?”
“The NAU and ACG staged a coup d’état. They have Phoebe and Erebus as prisoners. That’s why we’re here—to rescue them.”
“We?”
Nyx nodded. “I have a small team.”
“I know that the Andraste runs with a skeleton crew, but the security is tight. Do you really think you’re going to get off this ship that easily without help?”
“We’ll have help soon.”
“You mean the two headed to Engineering?”
Nyx froze.
He grabbed Nyx’s hand and dragged her to the console and view-screen near his chair. He keyed up camera views of the corridors leading to Red and Falak’s destination. Two squads of white-armored Queensmen patrolled the hallways. Then he keyed another camera view onto the screen and Red and Falak appeared—Red sitting patiently and Falak pacing in a small storage room.
“They’re pinned down by this,” he said, pointing at one of the squads on-screen, “squad here. But good news is that no one seems to know they’re even on that floor. The only alerts out are for you and,” he keyed another camera view, “your burly friend.”
Malcam. She had almost forgotten about him. “Merde. Where is that branleur?”
He shrugged with a smile. “Why? I like it here with just you.”
Nyx cringed. “We have to find Phoebe and Erebus and get off this ship.”
“I can’t leave.”
“But you’re not doing… whatever for Phoebe’s Protectorate anymore.”
“I have my own kind of family who I need to protect, too. I can’t just leave them.” He pivoted, walked to the chromed chair, and fingered the IV tube. “Besides, what’s left out there for me? Here I have a purpose. I do something. I fulfill my programming.”
She ticked her head to the side. “And what exactly is that? Why is it important? I refuse to fulfill my programming. I’m not going to absorb six sentient beings just because I was designed to be the operating program of a complex AI-system.”
“What else am I supposed to do?” He breathed.
Nyx strode to him and put a hand on his taut shoulder. Her heart beat a little harder. Being near him was exciting. She still didn’t know how, or why, but his energy read so oddly. Not human, not AI. He had to be a hybrid. He had to be like her. His watery sapphire swirled with her white wisps, curling white whirlpools in eddies flowing around him like a crystal creek in the midday sun. She let her tendrils dance in his sapphire energy, calm and unafraid.
“Be with me,” she whispered. Then, she felt her body ice over and redden. “That’s not. I meant…” She pulled her hand away from his shoulder as he turned to face her. “Be a part of my crew. My family. Find a new way to be. That’s what I meant,” she said hurriedly.
He smiled softly and reached to push Nyx’s hair behind her ear. “I liked the first suggestion better.”
The door slid open, and a wailing alarm seared through. A Queensman slouched in front of Malcam, unconscious. Malcam tossed the hawk-nosed man to the side of the door and stalked in, the door sliding shut behind him.
“You’ve been hiding in here the whole—” He froze as he spotted the Star in front of Nyx touching her hair. Nyx spun towards Malcam as a sneer painted his face. “Found something interesting, eh, Nyxie?”
“He’s the Star of—” Nyx blurted, not sure why she felt so uncomfortable under Malcam’s glare. Squaring her shoulders, she pursed her lips and turned her head over her shoulder to the Star standing behind her. “What Star are you?”
The cedar-eyed man laughed. “Adonis. But this body is called Yoon Chung-Ae.”
Malcam pulled his brows together and ran a finger along his black ear-gauge. “Yoon. Fine.” He swiveled his attention to Nyx. “After a chat with this here.” He kicked the unconscious body of the Queensman. “There’s only one Star on this ship. They don’t go by the name of Phoebe or Erebus.” He nodded to Yoon. “I think you found the prisoner your informant told you about. It never was information about your sisters that you had. Someone set you up or gave you the wrong info. Either way, we need to get out of here. Alarms are going off in the halls now.”
Nyx looked around, breath coming fast. The room was silent, and she still couldn’t see Erebus’ code in the ship’s systems. No Phoebe. Worse, no Erebus. How could her information be so wrong? Why w
as it so quiet in this room? If only she could catch her breath. Her white tendrils stretched, searching for the calm blue storm of Malcam’s energy. What was she supposed to do now? She glanced at Yoon, “Alarms?”
Yoon shrugged. “I turned off the alarms in here.”
“Neat trick,” Malcam said dryly. “Now magically get us out of here.”
“Where are we supposed to go? I haven’t heard from Erebus’ AI yet. She isn’t in the systems, and she hasn’t linked me with Raphael, so we don’t know what bay to go to. Which also means security and the shield still need taken care of.”
Yoon put a hand on Nyx’s shoulder. “I can do that. Find a way to signal your friends headed to Engineering.”
Malcam touched his ear. “These are receivers only right now. There’s no way to send without plugging into Andraste’s comms.”
Nyx pivoted to Yoon. “You can disable the shield and Battle Station’s security measures from here?”
He smiled and walked to his security display. “I did mention that this was my ship, didn’t I? Let’s just say I have executive privileges for providing the Protectorate with proprietary military technologies.”
Her mouth dried. Phoebe wouldn’t use one of her siblings for military gain. This had to be a part of the coup. Yoon seemed to have no knowledge of what side he was working for. The North American Union and the African Continental Governance had done a good job of keeping him in the dark. She swallowed. The Star of Adonis was the God of Rebirth. What exactly was Yoon’s AI power?
Yoon touched the screen. “I suppose if you’re here to rescue the queen, she wasn’t the one who wanted me doing what I’ve been doing?”
“She wouldn’t use you for no reason.” She paused. “I think.” Phoebe had tried to use Erebus without explanation, but it had been to prevent the coup. Unfortunately, Nyx had gotten in the way and prevented the queen from enacting whatever plan she had in store for the NAU and ACG. Nyx had likely put the whole Protectorate, the whole known universe, in danger. She had to find Phoebe and make it right. “She cares for her people and her family. I’m the one who made a mistake.”
