by AJ Super
She had so many questions for him.
Yoon leaned into her, grinning. “You’re staring.”
She blinked. “I. Um, sorry.” Heat rose around her ears.
“Where’s Falak?” Raphael squinted at Nyx, accusatorially.
“They were on their way here.” Nyx ran a hand through her bob. “I can’t imagine what’s keeping—”
The low roar of shuttle engines interrupted Nyx. The four turned to watch a bulbous grey shuttle breach the environmental field keeping the atmosphere in the bay, while the doors were open and awaiting Nyx and her shuttle’s take-off. The incoming ship settled next to the Thanatos’ sleek shuttle, and its back hatch lowered. At the top of the ramp stood Kai, glowing with fiery energy, hair pushed back away from his dark eyes. Next to him was Elizabet, his head Security Officer, holding a pulse rifle close to her body, platinum hair pulled high into a ponytail. Kai flexed his hand on a pulse pistol and walked down the ramp. A couple men who Nyx didn’t recognize followed after Elizabet.
Nyx sighed and strode to Kai, meeting her ex-fiancé half-way between the shuttles in the cavern of the docking bay. “I asked you for help on this a week ago. What are you doing here now?” she growled.
“I decided you couldn’t do this on your own.” Kai raised a black-brown eyebrow. “Where’s Phoebe and Erebus?”
She crossed her arms to stop her fingers from fiddling with the missing ring on her finger. “Long story. How are you here?”
“Intercepted your receiver signal.” He shrugged.
“You’ve been monitoring us?” Nyx bit her tongue, and her fingers froze mid twirl on her empty ring finger. She sent her energy tendrils flowing into his red flames, strangling the white blaze connecting her to him. She pursed her lips angrily. Ever since she infected him accidentally when Malcam shot him, he had been nothing but an ill-timed pain in son cul. It seemed so long ago that she had cried over such an interfering man. A man who never trusted her abilities. A man who, clearly, never trusted her.
He coughed as his smoky-bronze shoulders sagged. “Nyx,” he warned and lifted his pulse pistol to her head. Malcam shifted behind her. He wouldn’t be able to get a shot at Kai. She was in the way. But likely, he was sighting down on Kai’s party anyway. So was Raphael. Elizabet puffed her black cheeks and lifted her weapon, shaking her head. Nyx didn’t want to start a firefight between friendly parties. Or semi-friendly parties.
She eased her energy from Kai’s, and his breathing relaxed. “I’m just here to help, Nyx.”
“We don’t need your help,” Malcam rumbled. He stalked up to Nyx and Kai, finger stiff on the trigger of his energy weapon, arm ready to come up and shoot at any moment. “You aren’t a part of this. You made your choice, Ionas.”
“Now you’re listening to this mutineer? Nyx you’re better than this.” Kai’s face dripped sadness and condescension.
Nyx set her jaw, eyes stony. “I’ll decide who I listen to and when. I’m as good as my crew. And my crew is just fine.” Raphael shifted behind her.
Kai’s jaw dropped. Then he clenched it tight. “He killed your father.”
Raphael snorted and muttered, “Everyone knows you killed her mother, connard.”
Malcam cleared his throat and sent a warning look to Kai. Nyx narrowed her eyes. What was she missing?
Kai shifted, apparently not hearing the pilot’s jab. “You still killed him. You’re still complicit,” Kai hissed.
“Still?” Nyx wondered. “What?”
Malcam glared at Kai and ground his teeth. He turned to Nyx. “Nope. I’m not a good person. Never will be. Not going to apologize for that.”
Something went between Kai and Malcam silently, their jaws tight. Nyx really was missing something. But, having Malcam as her ExO was as far as she could go with forgiving him. He may be dangerous, and he was the reason her father was dead. He tortured her and Matthews. He would never be the generous person he could have grown up to be. The one he seemed to desperately want to be. The one who gave Downsider children coins and overextended his ship’s resources to compensate his crew extra for their loyalty. She couldn’t truly forgive him, but she could keep his strength close, let him move on. And she could move on. Or at least, she could keep a potential enemy as close to her as possible.
Yoon leaned over to Raphael. “What’s up with the newbie?”
Nyx glanced at the two men as Raphael shrugged and sat back down in the middle of the ramp of the Thanatos’ shuttle. “Kai?” he whispered. “The three of them grew up on the Medusa together. There’s beaucoup d’histoire.” Nyx snorted and turned back to Kai and Malcam, where the men stood glaring at each other.
The splash of weapons firing broke the uncomfortable silence between Nyx, Kai, and Malcam. Elizabet lifted her pulse rifle and aimed at the door to the bay as it split open, letting Red herd Falak through while covering the rear retreat, firing into the open space behind her.
Falak fled quickly to the docking hatch of the Thanatos’ shuttle, leaving Raphael scrambling up and fumbling with his pulse pistol. Red let the doors close then shot the door pad, disabling the opening mechanism for a time.
Red glanced over at Nyx, Kai, and Malcam as she raced up the ramp. “Hate to interrupt the reunion, but we need to leave.”
The bay door cracked open and the barrel of a pulse pistol poked through. A couple wild shots bounced off stacks of crates filled with outdated cloning tech, causing everyone to duck and cover their heads as the crates dented and fell over in blasts of light.
Red glanced at Elizabet as the Black woman nodded at her with a soft smile. Then, Red raised a hand while shoving Yoon, as he protested, into the back of the shuttle. “Everyone in.”
Nyx bit her lip. It’s not like she didn’t want to see Kai. Did she? She was over him. Wasn’t she? “Next time just agree to help, Kai. You know you’re going to show up to try to save the day no matter what. You always try to be the hero.”
Malcam grabbed her arm. “Time to go, princess.”
As she and Malcam scrambled to the shuttle, Nyx glanced over her shoulder at Kai, who was fingering her cast-off engagement ring on the chain around his neck. Her mouth dried. He still had it. She stumbled. Malcam caught her elbow and straightened her, looking cross.
The bay door was open enough for a single armored Queensman to squeeze through, but instead they were using the door as a barricade and sighting down the back of the ramp as Nyx and Malcam ran up it. Nyx covered her head as a shot went wide and splashed next to her, making her ears ring loudly with a rush of blood. Malcam wrapped his arms around her and bundled her into the back of the shuttle, pulling the lever to close the back hatch. It slowly rose as another pulse splashed next to her and Malcam in the shadows of the back of the shuttle.
When the hatch closed, the pounding of the pulse weapons against the shields became a muted hush of thumps and slaps. Hand-held weapons wouldn’t get through the shuttle’s defenses. The small ship rose and slid out of the bay, and Nyx finally let her tensed shoulders drop. She leaned against Malcam, who still held her tightly against the back wall of the shuttle’s narrow corridor, protecting her from the energy shots they left behind. His blue miasma burned brightly, and her white tendrils eased in and out of the fiery waves like fingers combing through sand.
She sighed. They didn’t have Phoebe or Erebus. Maybe the information Nyx was given wasn’t even meant to lead her to them in the first place. But what it did lead them to was a universe of possibility. Possibility and power.
Yoon stormed up to the two and Nyx straightened.
“Let me out. I can’t protect them from here. I have to be on the Andraste.”
“We’re not letting the new Protectorate have any Stars. Let alone one who can control a putain de army of Stars,” Malcam growled and dropped his arm from around Nyx.
Yoon ran a hand through his hair. “They’re not Stars. Just clones. And she,” he nodded at Nyx, “can control them just as much as I can, now.”
The powe
r in the words resounded through her chest. Nyx stared deep into the flowing sapphire creek of his energy, mesmerized at the white flame tying them together. Malcam wouldn’t be able to see it, he’d question whether she would be able to do what Yoon said. But he would never say it aloud.
He tipped his head, clearly wanting to ask if what Yoon said was the truth.
Nyx nodded and straightened. “Yoon, I promise. We’ll go back to the Andraste. We’ll take the ship. We’ll take the clones. We’ll get the army away from the Protectorate.” She frowned, her heart beating hard. She would have one of the known universe’s most powerful Battle Stations and an army to man it at her fingertips. She could be the most feared pirate in the black. There would be stories, songs, and all good space-faring Blackers would shudder at her name. A chill ran through her spine. Her reputation could keep her crew safe. Her family safe. No one would cross her ever. She could be the God of Gods. The Star of Nyx. All because of a fluke infection… All because Yoon touched her. She bit her cheek thoughtfully. Yes, she would bring Yoon’s clones to safety for him… but she could benefit from them as well, couldn’t she?
Yoon sagged. “Thank you.”
Nyx stared at his back as he walked away, relaxing only when the hatch to the crew section clicked behind him. She leaned back into the metal wall next to Malcam and looked up at him. “This will work. Won’t it?”
“You need strength. Best I can see is that ship and those clones.”
Nyx looked down at Malcam’s arms as he crossed them in front of his chest. They had been around her shoulders. It had been comfortable. When had that happened? She stretched and her tendrils curled around Malcam lazily. When had her tendrils snaked back into his strong blue waves? It was all so natural.
“I’d have an army,” she said tentatively. “Something to get my sisters back.” She shuddered as Malcam drew closer, cerulean eyes curious. But her shudder wasn’t out of fear or trepidation. It was the pleasure of the thought. She was looking forward to having an army of her own, to being able to have the power to protect her family. She could be the God of Gods, if that was how she was going to rescue her sisters and save her family from the NAU and ACG, from the new Protectorate. She could take the power she was due. And she could use it.
5
Nyx waited as the maw of the back hatch of the shuttle opened in the docking bay of the Thanatos, only to be greeted by Doc Lenus Groenfeldt adjusting his glasses with a grim face. Grace Sarama stood next to him, her dark lips pressed tight. Nyx walked down the ramp to her First Officer and the medic turned doctor.
Lenus glanced at Sarama and cleared his throat.
Sarama stepped forward, staring over Nyx’s shoulder at Yoon as he walked down the ramp. “Pas de reine et Erebus?” she drawled in her thick Queen’s Speech accent.
Nyx shook her head. “No Phoebe. No Erebus. But we found another Star. This is Yoon. He’ll be joining our crew. I’ll have Quartermaster Rice assign him duties.” She had elevated Emlyn to Quartermaster when she took over the Thanatos, and it had proven to be a great decision. The young woman was organized and had a great feel for where people were suited best. But Nyx had a feeling that Yoon would prove to be a challenge to place on the official roster.
Sarama nodded, brow creased.
Lenus cleared his throat again and took off his glasses, polishing them with a corner of his white lab coat.
Sarama rolled her eyes slightly. “We do have a problem, though.”
“It’s not a problem if you just would have let me treat him,” Lenus complained.
Nyx tipped her head to the side. “What happened?”
“It’s Matthews.” Sarama pursed her lips.
“He put one of the new crew members in the infirmary,” Lenus blurted and shoved his glasses back on.
Sarama closed her eyes. “We had to put him in the brig. He was too violent to control, and we have no way of treating him.”
“That’s not strictly true,” Lenus said. “If you just would have allowed me—”
“That tech is experimental at best,” Sarama snapped. “It’s Erebus’ and Nyx’s tech. You know very little about it. I couldn’t, in good conscience, let you just put it in him without talking to le capitaine.”
Nyx put her hands up. “Whoa. Whoa. I don’t follow.” She started walking to the bay door and slapped the pad, looking over her shoulder as the door whisked open. “Lenus, explain while we walk. I want to see Matthews. Sarama, your objection is noted. You can continue with your duties.” She swept into the corridor with Lenus scurrying after. “Tell me what happened.”
“Short on details, but there’s a very injured Second Comms Officer in the infirmary right now under VR-coma treatment for a minor traumatic brain injury, because Matthews beat him so thoroughly.” Lenus put his hands in his coat pockets, the form-fitting line of his black uniform hidden underneath.
“Okay. And this is just the time dilation sickness progressing?” She paused in the tan-paneled corridor to look at the Doc.
He puffed up his white cheeks and pushed his hair from his cloudy blue eyes. “We know that time dilation sickness affects the frontal cortex, basal ganglia, parietal cortex, cerebellum, and hippocampus. Basically anything that has to do with the sensation of time and time passing. Eventually, it effects the amygdala, where memory is stored, as a result. But the amygdala also plays a big part in emotional processing within the limbic system, especially fear and aggression. Thus, time dilation sick patients become violent.”
“Les Étoiles, I know the gist. Get to the point, Lenus.” Nyx turned and started walking again.
Lenus trotted up beside her. “Once it starts, the illness is cyclical. It just keeps eating at the brain. Almost like an ouroboros. It’ll even start to eat what’s already been eaten. Compounding the damage.”
It was obvious that her mother’s blood and whatever made her heal wasn’t strong enough to fight off the illness. Not strong enough to heal Matthews. And Nyx had no control over his life energy, so she couldn’t stop him from hurting people. Whatever passed between the people infected by the Star of Nyx’s blood, wasn’t passed on to subsequent Stars.
She hadn’t told anyone that Matthews was a relic of Nue’s time as the Star of Nyx, that he was immortal like Malcam and Kai. Having a violent immortal with time dilation sickness on board her ship was a cause for concern, and Sarama and Lenus would be the first to speak up about it. The fact that Lenus hadn’t caught on medically yet surprised Nyx. She narrowed her eyes. Or he had, and he was just keeping his mouth shut for some unexplained reason.
She turned to the door in front of her and hit the pad. The door whooshed open, and she walked in with Lenus on her heels.
Matthews lay on the floor of the cell to Nyx’s left, limbs spread. He still wore the old Thanatos uniform: a white mandarin collar shirt, black slacks, and his brown leather jacket. His blond hair was spread out around him in a short halo.
There had to be something she could do. She rested her hand on the hilt of the knife at her side and tapped it with a finger. Matthews was already infected. Infecting him again with her own blood wouldn’t be any different than what her mother had done. She pulled the knife out and pressed it into her palm.
Lenus shot his hand out and stopped Nyx, whispering, “You can’t do that.”
“I’ll at least be able to control him when he gets violent.”
Lenus took his hand off Nyx’s forearm and shook his head. “No. You’ll kill him.”
Nyx scrunched her face, confused.
“It’s hard to explain. But the Nyx blood… it can’t overlap. It creates a massive overload in the brainstem and…” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “The subject dies.”
Nyx sheathed her knife and crossed her arms. “You know he’s infected? And not by me.”
Lenus pursed his lips. “Of course.”
So he had been keeping his mouth shut. “Why didn’t you say anything to me before this?” She paused. “You’ve be
en running tests on him?”
“Fascinating really. The way the healing factor just barely holds off the time-dilation sickness, but it still seems to creep forward. I wonder how much cognitive capacity Matthews will have in one-hundred years if left untreated.”
Nyx narrowed her eyes and knelt next to Matthews. She smoothed his ruffled hair.
“Untreated? Does that mean you have something to treat him with?”
He pulled a hypodermic gun from his pocket. “These… these could stop it.”
Nyx stopped cold. She had an idea what Lenus was going to say. He’d had a sample of her blood for some time now and had been running experiments on the nanomedics that Erebus had reprogrammed to turn on the code in her DNA, as well as heal her from an unfortunate ‘accident’ EVA when Malcam had mutinied.
“If you let me inject the reprogrammed nano-medics, I could do some experiments,” Lenus begged.
She blinked. It was exactly what she thought. “Will it reverse the sickness?”
He adjusted his glasses and looked at the ground. “I’m not sure. I think there will be some healing, but since the illness is compounding, I doubt it’s a cure. Matthews will always have some form of dementia as a result of the time dilation sickness. But I think it can reverse it enough that he won’t be violent. He may even be coherent.”
Nyx looked up at the camera pointed at the cell. “Erebus, are you listening?”
“Is that a problem?” Erebus’ voice whispered in Nyx’s ear, as Matthews stood up with a start.
“Mon petit papillon!” His grin spread wide. Then, it faded as quickly as it appeared. “Xaoc locked me up. Can you get me out of here and back to the Thanatos? I have to get back to my crew.”
Nyx sighed. She was hoping that Matthews would at least recognize her this time. But he thought she was her mother, Nue, and that he was trapped on the Medusa. “Erebus, you programmed the nanomedics,” Nyx began aloud.
Lenus raised an eyebrow at her, and she shook her head and pointed at the comm behind her ear.
