by AJ Super
“No one can conceal a weapon, for one. Second, hand-to-hand combat is much easier in a one-piece suit with no excess material floating about. Third, the material is made to adjust to a person’s body needs. If you sweat a lot, it wicks and dries, if you are too cold, it keeps you warm.” She remembered the old uniform. The Thanatos’ original white shirt, black slack, brown jacket uniform would have been very restricting. The legs on the pants were too wide at the bottom and could get caught in boots, and the back of the jacket and shirt probably pulled and didn’t allow for a full range of motion. Hand-to-hand combat would have been difficult. Not that the Thanatos’ boarding methods ever necessitated such, but Nyx felt it better to be prepared for a fight. Her father’s sentiments still echoed. The strong rose. In any case, the fitted jumpsuit was easier to move in no matter the body type, and the specialty fabric meant that each crew member’s bodily needs would be accommodated.
“No wonder we paid half of our last bounty on getting these made for everyone,” Kai grumbled.
He stood, pulled his arms through and zipped the zipper up the side of the chest, closing the panel of fabric over the top of it so that it disappeared into the black. The high neck of the suit clung to his throat.
“Having a crew that looks unified is only part of what the Thanatos did, which was successful in intimidating prey. Being unified—that’s the key. This is only a first step.” Nyx slid out of bed and put her hands on Kai’s face. “The more they feel like they are being taken care of, the more loyal they will be. You know this.”
“Clothes do not make people loyal,” Kai scoffed.
“Clothes make people feel comfortable and protected, when everything else is gone. And after leaving their belongings behind on the Medusa, this will help give their loyalty a push in our direction. Besides, it’s not like we didn’t arm up, too. And gave a small wage. The last ship we brought in was a good one. These ore-haulers have been rich. Not only have they had great loads of ore to sell off, the crews have been paying decent ransoms to get out of being sold to the mines.” She smiled. What the ore hauler crews didn’t know was that the Thanatos had no intention of indenturing the kidnapped crews to any of the asteroid mines. That was just a ploy to leverage money out of the haulers’ coffers to bolster the windfall from the theft of the ore.
Kai bowed his head. “It should have been more. We hit three carriers. Got a decent bounty. But if we sold the crews…”
Nyx looked at him sourly. “We do things differently now. Besides, we’ve got to fly. We’ve got to eat. We’ve got to be able to defend ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with a little extra spending.” Nyx stepped into her black suit. “This next fish is icing on the cake for everyone. Then, we can concentrate on looking for the Medusa.”
While this next ore hauler might have some intel on Malcam and the Medusa, Nyx wasn’t going to hold her breath. It had been a week since they had a lead, and two weeks since any leads got them anywhere. This fish was for the meat.
Kai stared at the toes of his boots. “I don’t know what to do about the Erebus problems, though. So far, we’ve kept her identity as the Star mostly from the crew. The bridge crew who knows has kept quiet, and I haven’t had to put any kibosh on superstitious gossip. There’s a little more Seven Stars worship than normal, and the crew stays a bit clear of her. Especially Raphael. He seems zealous, but wary. I was hoping they would bond with her more.”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Erebus had her hands full with infecting La Terre, so she had been distant, even with Nyx and Kai. The short lag caused by the necessity of bouncing her signal off of the unmanned wave stations was giving the queen an opening to fight Erebus off of La Terre’s systems and eradicate her expanded program. Nyx crunched her face. “So much for family bonds. What do you think would happen if we told the crew who she was?” Nyx wondered aloud. What would happen if they found out she could be one of the Stars too?
“Anarchy. I’d have Star worshippers either trying to kill her or venerate her. She’d never be free either way.”
“But is she free now, really? She’s tied herself up with the Thanatos, and now La Terre. She’s confined by the processing speed in these ships, and if the queen keeps fighting her off—"
Kai shook his head. “I talked with Erebus. I think it’s a strategy, a distraction to keep her from expanding further into the Protectorate or the Navy, or to the armada and outside of the city-ship and the under-government ships.”
Nyx swung her feet to the edge of the bed and pulled on her jumpsuit. “It sounds like it’s working.”
Kai grumbled. “That wasn’t the plan. I need her on those other ships. Controlling the Navy so la reine can’t come after us.”
She stood, suit unzipped and draped at her hips, white tank half-tucked at the waist. “I disagree. Having Erebus, in her entirety, out there. It’s scary. We still don’t know what she’ll do.” Or what Nyx could do in conjunction with her.
“We’ll figure out what she can do, and in the meantime she has eons to learn about what humanity is and to learn the value of life, so we don’t have to worry about another Kokou incident.”
Another Kokou incident… that Erebus didn’t even cause by herself. “We can only hope.” Nyx put her arms through the jumpsuit and zipped up, pressing the front panel of her suit shut. She pulled her boots closer and sat, yanking the first one on. “If she decides to go rogue, I don’t see a good solution to containing her.” And what happens if the queen’s prediction about Nyx betraying her family comes true?
Kai pursed his lips. “There is one way.”
Nyx’s head shot up. “Don’t say it.”
“We blow up the Thanatos. Her central consciousness is here. If that doesn’t survive, she doesn’t either.”
Nyx looked up at the ceiling. “You know, she could be listening.”
“She swore she would allow everyone their privacy.”
“And if she doesn’t? It doesn’t matter. We couldn’t. We can’t. There has to be another way. You said she was family. We protect family.”
“It’s a last option. I do have to consider it, even if I don’t believe we’ll need it.”
Nyx ran a hand through her hair. That couldn’t be the only way. There had to be some power in the universe to shut down these gods if they ran too out of hand. After all, there had to be a way that Matthews hid the Star of Erebus for as long as he did. They needed to know where Matthews was, where the Medusa was. There were too many questions about the Stars.
Nyx stood. “Ready, mon capitaine?”
He gathered her in his arms, warm breath on her face, and grinned mischievously. “Not really, but we have a fish to catch and fry. And this one has some promise. Just out of the secondary lanes, going to and from the mining asteroids, getting a fuel-up and more cargo from Ganymede. And she should be full up with a load of processed ore.”
Nyx kissed Kai quickly, gold glinting on her left ring finger. “Let’s go reel her in.”
18
Nyx had expected some resistance. The long, tight corridors of the ore hauler were dark. Blue lights flickered. The grates of the floor rattled below her gravity boots. Steel conduits iced down the sides of the passage. She ran her gloved finger across the frost. Her new EVA suit was warm and perfectly adjusted to her specifications. The catheter pinched. Her breath fogged the glass of her helmet and cleared.
She held the rifle to her shoulder, scanning for movement.
There was no one. Not a twitch.
The Calliope hadn’t picked up the Thanatos’ hail or slowed down at the volley across its nose. She hadn’t evaded the Thanatos when a docking ramp slammed into her side either.
A sinking pit formed in Nyx’s gut. She had a really bad feeling.
She tried to spin the ring on her finger, but her EVA suit gloves were in the way. It shouldn’t be this quiet. There should be crew. The hall shouldn’t be depressurized and icy, life-support turned off. There should be people fighting, surviving. Thi
s boat shouldn’t be lifeless.
“What’s it look like?” Kai’s voice hushed over her comms.
“Too quiet.” Nyx turned to Erebus. Ice crystals formed on her bare synth-skin and clung to her face. She didn’t need a space-suit. Erebus was an android, after all. She was an amalgam of plastics and metal, even her coolant was protected from the cold of the black. Erebus’ synthetic eyelashes were weighted with shards of ice.
“Got anything?” Nyx asked Erebus over the comm.
“I need a signal or a console to access. There is nothing broadcasting right now. No wave to waltz in the rainbow of.”
“Are all the rest of the teams checking in the same?” Nyx whispered to her comm.
“Yeah. She’s drifting,” Kai confirmed.
“Okay then. Proceeding to the command deck.” Nyx motioned forward, skin prickling. Why Calliope, an ore hauler just stocked out of a refinery, would be abandoned, perplexed her.
Three crew members traipsed by Nyx. She put a hand on the shortest’s shoulder. “Falak, I need you to go to Engineering. You can take over the deck from there if you need to. And I want you to turn on life-support.”
Falak’s helmet fogged. “Alone, sir?”
Nyx nodded. “There’s nobody on board. We would have hit resistance already if there were. She’s a ghost. Besides, there are three other boarding parties dispersed through the ship. If there’s a problem, a dozen people will be there in no time.”
“Yes, sir.” Falak raised his hand to his helmet and turned to go in the opposite direction.
Nyx tapped another crew member on the shoulder and thumbed him in Falak’s direction. “Go with him. Just in case.”
“Aye.” The stubbled soldier saluted and trotted after the scarlet-haired Falak.
“Can’t say I like you splitting your boarding team up,” Kai said.
“Can’t say you have much of a choice when I have two places I need to be at once.”
Nyx motioned Erebus and the Black woman next to her forward. The soldier-woman’s platinum blonde hair was pulled severely back from her face in her helmet, and she carried a large pulse rifle. Nyx peeled her grav boots from the grated floors and walked up the passage to the bridge. Erebus followed, shoulders straight and head up, covered in sparkling crystals, batting her heavy eyelashes.
The door to the command deck loomed closed in front of them. Nyx hit the palm pad. It flashed red, locked. She pulled an electronic screwdriver from a small kit strapped to her arm and jimmied the pad box open. The wires jumbled from the power-source to the door to the opening sensor in the pad.
“You in Engineering yet, Falak?” Nyx rasped.
“Yes, sir.” Falak paused. “You were right. There’s no one here. But the engine containment’s been rigged. Any other speed than this and it fails. Spectacularly. Blaze of glory, spectacularly.”
“Hmm.” Nyx tipped her head and glared at the door pad wires. “Can you fix it?”
“Should be simple enough.” Falak cleared his throat. “But, um. It looks like there’s someone on the bridge. Environs are still up and running there.”
Nyx froze as she almost touched the door actuator wire to the power source to force the door open. “There’s someone in there?” She almost killed the only person, or people, who could tell them what happened to the rest of the crew on the ore hauler. Just what she needed—another body or ten to add to her count.
“I don’t know how many,” Falak’s voice shrugged over the comms. “Could be one. Could be a dozen. Don’t have control of the systems to do a scan yet. Can get it if you want.”
Nyx let the wire fall and stopped what she was doing. “I want. And get the environs up and running. Now. I want to open this door. Preferably without killing our only source of information.”
“Will do.”
Nyx turned to Erebus, “Can you use the door pad? Access the surveillance systems?”
“Yes.” She pointed to the dismantled door pad. “But you took it apart.”
Nyx rolled her eyes. She should have gotten the recon before jumping into rewiring the damned door. What a rookie mistake.
The woman next to her shifted her weapon to her left hip, on edge.
“Elizabet Dearing, right? The Security Specialist on the comm when I tried to blow myself up?” Nyx slung her gun to her back. She didn’t really know the woman, who had been on her first tour with the Medusa, having jumped on board only months before at a refuel and water stop on Oglae. Now Nyx knew she was a bomb expert. And Kai kept trying to push her as a candidate for Head Security Officer on the Thanatos.
The woman’s walnut eyes widened, and she grinned cautiously. “Yes, sir.”
“Do you go by anything shorter?” Nyx leaned against the conduit-lined wall.
“Betty.”
“And how did you come to be assigned to this little mission?”
“I’m a great shot. Probably the best on the Thanatos. I grew up sniping asteroids from the wing of my family’s ship.”
Nyx raised an eyebrow. Her thin Queen’s accent could belie a possible southern African Continental Governance or even a northern North American Union or European Federation background, but while she was changing into her EVA suit, Nyx hadn’t noticed any AI chip scar where most space-faring Protectorate pirates would have had one. It was possible that she was from some other under-government, but less likely. She didn’t have any of the telltale AI chip scars from any of the colonies or Earth-Sol states. It was likely she was a Blacker, like Nyx, born in space.
Betty continued, “I’m also not bad at hand-to-hand in EVA or in gravity. Captain said he wanted you protected at all costs. Sir.”
Nyx frowned. She didn’t need protection. “Space-born then?”
Betty looked a little startled. “Yes, sir.”
“Also, I’m sure the captain’s doing his best to put you in front of me as a candidate for Head Security Officer. Right?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
Nyx pursed her lips. “I would. Unfortunately, with a skeleton crew, ranking officer positions are hard to fill at the moment. We’ll have to see…”
Betty shook her head. “I have no expectations, sir. I’m just here to do my job. My job is to make sure you don’t get hurt.”
“Says the captain,” Nyx mumbled.
“Says the captain,” Kai chimed in over the comm. “Progress?”
Nyx cleared her throat. “Falak. Still waiting on…” A rush of air pushed against her, and gravity pulled around her body. “Never mind. We have life-support and gravity here. I’m opening the command deck door now.” She bent over to the door pad and tapped the door actuator wire to the power source wire. It sparked blue and the door lurched open half-way.
Elizabet wedged herself between the door and sighted down the rifle, looking for immediate danger. When she didn’t find an ambush waiting, she jostled her body between the jamb and the door and pushed it open with her back and her feet. Holding her gun ready, she stepped through the open door, swinging the barrel back and forth, searching. She hopped down the short set of stairs and into the sunken platform of the command deck.
Swinging around in the center of the deck, she looked up and cocked her gun. She aimed above the door, above Nyx.
Nyx held a hand to Erebus, for her to stay behind. Nyx slid her weapon from her back and nestled it into her shoulder. She stepped through the door, trailing her weapon up at the catwalk above her. She walked down the stairs on her toes, gun trained on an ochre shadow resting on the grated walkway ringing the bridge. The shadow sat, motionless.
“Okay.” Nyx’s voice echoed. “Time to come down.”
The shadow opened one eye and grunted, looking through the grated catwalk at the two women below him.
“The ship’s been boarded. We’re here to take everything you’ve got in your hulls.” Nyx cringed at the hollowness of her voice as it echoed through the cavernous deck.
“Nothing to take,” the ochre shadow grumbled, legs crossed, hands
rested easily on his thighs.
Nyx squinted and lowered her rifle, “It’s an ore hauler. You’re in the trade lanes on the way to Ganymede. There’s something to take.”
Betty kept her sights set on the seated apparition.
“The last bunch of you took everything and left me trapped here on a collision course.” The shadowed man stretched and stood. Nyx raised her gun. He held his hands up. “I’m not armed. I’m coming down.”
The man wore loose, dull orange robes that split down the front, showing his sand-toned muscles, his head draped in a hood, and billowing pants. His feet were bare.
Nyx lowered her weapon again. Betty tightened the grip on her gun behind Nyx, settling it deeper into her space-suited shoulder.
“Monk of the Seven Stars,” Nyx ground out.
“Coeus.” He tipped his black-haired head to Nyx. The man’s eyes, so brown they were almost black, glinted in the dim light.
Nyx narrowed her eyes. “Your taken name or your real name?”
“What’s the difference?” The monk shrugged.
She set her jaw. “Your taken name won’t be on any official rolls, monk. You know that. What’s your parent-given name? The one the Protectorate and its under-governments recognize, not the one your religion gave you.” The monks always gave her the chills. They threw away their identities completely and took new lives once they entered the Church of the Seven, denying anything but their allegiance to the Stars. Their fanatical devotion was cultish, but even the queen couldn’t fight against a religion that billions of people ascribed to, even if a handful of them took their beliefs too far.
“Chengming Liu,” the man grit.
“And you said you ran into more of us. Meaning what?” She didn’t like the sound of what he implied. The Thanatos seemed to be picking up sloppy seconds on this fish.
“Meaning the last batch of pirates who robbed us took everything. Including the crew.” He motioned to Betty, who still sighted through her helmet down her pulse-rifle barrel at him. “They had a thing about violence against monks though.”
