Nemesis Boxset

by Alexandria Clarke

  Tariq tries to ask something else, but I walk out of range. Like everyone else aboard The Impossible, he’s a gossip. When you travel at lightspeed with the same people for company for years on end, you nab any drip of entertainment available. Saint Rita doesn’t usually take hostages. The Intelligence Operator is a hot topic.

  Before I reach my bunk in the lower decks, my Monitor flashes to indicate a private call from the captain.

  “Ophelia,” Saint Rita says. “Meet me in my quarters.”

  “Five minutes, Captain,” I reply. “I’m bringing rations to the hostage.”

  “Forget the hostage,” the captain orders. “My quarters. Now.”

  I pocket the jerky and dump the rest of the food into the nearest trash chute. Wasting rations is ill-advised, but it’s worse to keep the captain waiting. My boots clack against the grated floor as I jog to the stern. I shimmy up a hatch ladder to the topmost deck. The wide doors to Saint Rita’s quarters are already open and she watches our departure from Proioxis at the observation window, but I linger outside.

  “Come in, Ophelia,” she orders without turning around.

  I step into the best room of the ship. The captain’s quarters stretch the full length of the ship. It’s carpeted and furnished like a Harmonia penthouse apartment. She takes her meetings in the front half. When The Impossible travels through deep space, the observation window acts as a pathway to the void. The darkness closes in, leaving nothing between you and the captain. She likes it that way.

  Saint Rita’s private quarters lay behind a print-locked door. I’d only seen the area once. When the Captain contracted a virus that put her out of commission for a week, she appointed me as her temporary successor. The first day of her illness, she allowed me access to her bedroom. Seeing her beneath the covers—pale and sick—highlighted her mortality. It was the exact opposite of what she wanted me to think of her. After that, we met in the public section of her quarters, but I never forgot the look of the Captain’s illness.

  “Good of you to join me,” Saint Rita said. “Come.”

  I stand beside her at the observation window, my boots positioned a half-step behind hers and planted at shoulder width. Ready for anything, including one of the captain’s temper tantrums.

  “Look at that.” She clicks her tongue. “Pathetic.”

  Proioxis is still within sight. Bright blue wisps indicate several IA ships have been deployed to pursue us, but Saint Rita has purposely ordered Jett—our helmsman—to keep The Impossible on IA’s radar but out of range of their cannons. She’s teasing them, but the longer we dally, the better chance IA has of catching up to us.

  “We should jump to hyperspeed soon,” I comment. “If we want to lose them.”

  “Worry not, Ophelia.”

  She waits until the blue light trails of the IA speeders grow close enough to reflect off the observation window. A slow grin creeps across her face. Her Monitor flashes.

  “Captain?” Jett’s voice, processed and robotic, echoes over her comms system. “They’re getting close. Shall we jump to hyperspeed?”

  “Not yet,” she replies.

  The speeders zip alongside The Impossible. I can see each pilot through their cockpit windows as they position themselves in the five-pointed star formation meant to subdue and take down any ship. I swallow hard.

  “Captain…” I say.

  “Cutting it close,” Jett interrupts over the Comms. The wobble in his voice echoes my own nervous energy. “Captain?”

  “A few more moments,” Saint Rita says. She clasps her hands behind her back, all confidence. After all, chicken is her favorite game.

  “Incoming comm,” Jett reports from the bridge. “It’s IA.”

  “Allow,” the captain says.

  The message plays over the speakers in the Captain’s quarters.

  “This is Commander Boothe from the Intergalactic Armament,” a tight voice booms. “You are guilty of piloting a stolen ship, attacking a government facility, and trading illegal goods throughout the galaxy. Surrender now and you will face a fair trial in front of IA Intelligence’s judicial board. Refuse to cooperate and you will risk immediate death.”

  “Jett?” Saint Rita says.

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Risk immediate death.”

  “Right away, Captain.”

  When The Impossible jumps to hyperspeed, IA’s pilots can’t get out of the way fast enough. We smash their point man to pieces and fry the others in the wake of our ship’s thrusters. Proioxis disappears for good as the universe flies by us.

  Saint Rita chuckles. “Never gets old.”

  “You could leave them alive,” I say. “Since they have no chance of catching us anyway.”

  She turns from the window and drops into a lounge chair. “I like to remind IA who the true power is in this galaxy. How’s your friend?”

  “Tariq?” I say, confused. “Moronic, but fine. Defense grazed him—”

  “Not your assistant,” Saint Rita says. “The hostage. The woman you refused to throw in the brig and stowed away in your own bunk instead.”

  “We’re not friends.”

  She waits me out. Silence in Saint Rita’s presence is weighted. It thickens the air and gets in your lungs and burns like opalite dust.

  “The brig is filthy,” I say. “We haven’t captured anyone in years. It’s inhumane to keep anything down there, be it humans or lesser life forms.”

  “You’re concerned with the filth?” the captain asks. “That’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  She flicks open her cooler box—the only one on the ship other than the industrial storage cooler in the kitchens—and takes out an entire bowl of fresh strawberries. My mouth waters at the red, plump flesh. Fresh produce is hard to come by, and The Impossible crew hasn’t seen real fruit since last spring.

  “Strawberry?”

  She holds one out to me. I make the mistake of reaching for it.

  “I forgot,” she says, withdrawing the offer. “You prefer proteins to sugars.”

  The contradiction lingers on the tip of my tongue, waiting to jump off, but I swallow it back. Yes, I prefer dried meats to the useless snack cakes the other pirates favor. I’m one of the few crew members who doesn’t play host to space gut—the layer of fat around the waist that’s a result of consuming too much processed crap rather than real food. The advantages of a toned figure—speed, strength, lightness of foot—are more important to me than the sugar rush of a snack cake. Still, I would’ve liked the strawberry. I lock my hands around my back.

  “Forgive me for asking again, Captain,” I say, “but I wonder at your intentions towards the hostage. What is her purpose aboard The Impossible?”

  Saint Rita lazily drops the strawberry between her lips and bites off the tip. “I wonder at your insistence on this topic. Am I required to include you in all of my plans, Ophelia?”

  “No, Captain,” I say. “But you usually do.”

  She flicks the stem at me. I catch it between deft fingers and launch it into the trash chute in the same gesture. Saint Rita winks.

  “This is why I keep you around,” she says. “Quick reflexes. Quick thinking. The thing about being quick, Ophelia, is you often lose out on tact.”

  “Am I tactless?” I ask lightly.

  “Quite.” She tosses me an actual strawberry. “Tell me what you know about the hostage.”

  I don’t eat the strawberry. I can’t afford for my mouth to be compromised in the captain’s presence.

  “She’s an Intelligence operator,” I say, “but you know that already.”

  “I do.”

  She lets silence fall again, waiting for more. I don’t give it to her.

  “That’s all,” I say.

  Saint Rita stows the rest of the strawberries but takes one for the road as she unfolds herself from the lounger. I scurry out of her way.

  “Crew meeting,” she announces. “Chow hall.”

  “That’s it?” I ask,
scrambling to follow her. “That’s all you wanted to talk to me about?”

  Her quarter closes itself behind us, and I hear the locking mechanism click into place. Saint Rita sweeps her raven hair over one shoulder and places her captain’s hat—also lifted from IA—atop her head.

  “Apparently you have nothing to report,” she remarks as she leads the way to the chow hall. She traverses The Impossible’s crisscrossing corridors with absolute confidence. It took me years to learn the ship’s layout—and occasionally I still use the map on the Monitor to get around—but Saint Rita knows The Impossible as if she was born on it. Instead of climbing down the hatch ladder, she plants the toes of her boots on either side and slides all the way to the main deck. I descend after her, my own boots slipping on the rusty metal.

  She takes ridiculously long strides for someone of her height. I jog to keep up, but her gait is as smooth as the sight on my R-One. From the chow hall, voices overlap, silverware clinks against plates, and the unmistakable crinkle of snack cake shrink wrap echoes through the hallway. Like always, when the captain enters, silence falls.

  “Take a seat, Ophelia,” the captain says so everyone can hear.

  I capture the inside of my cheek between my teeth, focusing on the sharp pain in my mouth to quench the embarrassment rising in the back of my throat. Saint Rita never tells me to sit with the rest of the crew. Unless she’s displeased with me. I sit next to Tariq near the back of the room. Soleil throws me a smirk over Tariq’s shoulder, but I pretend not to see it.

  Saint Rita approaches her designated seat at the head of the highest table, but she doesn’t sit down. “While you’re enjoying your meal,” she begins, “I have another announcement to make. Our mission objectives have changed. The jaunt to Proioxis was only the beginning.”

  A hushed murmur ripples through the crowd. The Impossible’s mission objective is straightforward: obtain and trade opalite without gaining IA’s attention. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. If the captain no longer prioritizes opalite, it’s worse news for me. I’m her best trader.

  “I tire of the IA’s disciplinary attempts,” Saint Rita continues, wiping nonexistent sweat from her perfect brow. “The Impossible is the true power of this galaxy, and it’s time the Intergalactic Armament knows that. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  The crew roars their approval. Tariq bangs his pewter tankard against the table as he howls along. I dodge the splashes of mead that come my way and thunk him on the head.

  Saint Rita motions for the crew to quiet down. “Now you’ve all heard the rumors about Phobos,” she says. “For as long as IA has existed, they’ve been telling us that this planet is uninhabitable and inaccessible. However, fresh intel has come my way. My friends, as expected, IA has been harboring the galaxy’s biggest secret.” She pauses and surveys her crew. “A weapon.”

  The murmurs start up again. Soleil leans over and whispers something in Tariq’s ear. I strain to hear the contents of their conversation, but the noise of the crew is too loud. Once more, Saint Rita asks for silence.

  “As you all know, Phobos’s atmosphere is poisonous to humans,” she goes on. “This has prevented any ships from landing on the planet, but I believe IA has discovered a way through. To my knowledge, IA’s Intelligence sector works on Phobos to weaponize its natural resources. What they’ve come up with is powerful enough to take on any army in not just this galaxy, but every galaxy.”

  Saint Rita begins to pace around the chow hall, her long fingers grazing the shoulders of the crew members as she passes. Each pirate shivers beneath her touch as if accepting some magical power from the tips of her fingers. When she walks behind me, her hands skip from the pirate on my right straight to Tariq.

  “My opinion is but a humble one,” Saint Rita says with a sly smile. “But I don’t believe IA deserves that kind of power.”

  Another heated holler goes up from the crowd and settles again.

  “It is my intention to chart a course to Phobos,” the captain continues. “With our new friend from IA Intelligence, we should have all the information we need to land safely, employ the weapon, and become the most daunting vessel in the galaxy. We will never again answer to the whims of the government. What say you, friends? Will you join me on this journey to freedom?”

  The chow hall erupts in pandemonium. Tariq showers me with mead as he jumps on the table and stomps his feet. Saint Rita spreads her arms to absorb the chaotic energy of her crew. A slow grin creeps across her face. She thrives on this kind of madness, so she lets the pirates get out all their celebratory shouts this time.

  “This mission does not go without challenge,” she warns us. “Phobos is still harmful to us, and we must approach it with caution. Not to mention, IA is swarming all over that planet. We’ll need an offensive plan, starting with our speeder pilots. In addition, we’re on a bit of a time crunch.” She stands on a bench to be seen above everyone else. “The black hole near Phobos is growing at an exponential rate. IA expects it to swallow Phobos whole by the end of the next lunar cycle. They’re in a rush to secure the weapon and transport it to Harmonia before Phobos is destroyed. We need to beat them to it. We have less than thirty days.”

  The captain hops off the bench, her speech finished. As soon as she clears the chow hall, the pirates bow their heads together to gossip. It’s one thing to dream of destroying IA from the inside, but it’s another to serve under the pirate queen attempting to do it. Tariq’s bravado spills like his mead.

  “Less than thirty days?” he says, climbing off the table and into his seat. “That’s not a lot of time to prepare. Do you think we can do it?”

  “If the captain thinks it’s possible—” Soleil starts off.

  “I wasn’t asking you,” Tariq says. “Ophelia?”

  Soleil fumes, her face flushing beneath her tan skin, and her knuckles clench. She pushes the bench away from the table with enough force to jostle the rest of us sitting on it, but she thinks better of storming off. My opinion as Saint Rita’s First Mate is more valuable than her show of pride, so she crosses her arms and pretends not to listen. A few other pirates turn my way as well.

  “I don’t know,” I answer Tariq. “Everyone knows how hard it is to get to Phobos. According to Intelligence, IA isn’t able to land there.”

  “But the captain said—”

  “I know what she said,” I interrupt. “But I don’t know where she’s getting her information. Intelligence operators are brainwashed, as are Defense officers. If there’s a mole in IA, they were planted a long time ago.”

  “It’d be pretty great though, wouldn’t it?” Tariq beams. “Don’t gotta answer to IA anymore after this.”

  “We’re talking about overthrowing a government that invaded a galaxy and eradicated hundreds of alien life forms so humans could continue to thrive,” I remind him. “Or did you forget about the Planetary Wars?”

  He waves my point aside. “I didn’t forget. I trust Saint Rita.”

  “She’s one pirate against thousands of IA operators and officers.”

  “She has us,” Soleil interjects. “Clearly you don’t believe in her as much as we do.”

  The nearby pirates titter at the remark, and I fight to keep my bubbling temper from boiling over. Rising to Soleil’s bait won’t get me anything but more trouble.

  “No one has more faith in the captain than I do,” I say. “She needs an army or an insider to pull this off.”

  Tariq tears off a hunk of jerky with his teeth. “She’s got one. That Intelligence chick we captured earlier, remember?”

  I couldn’t forget.

  “Just shut up and enjoy the food,” I tell him. “Once Saint Rita starts working on this mission, you won’t have time to eat.”

  Soleil rolls her eyes, but they don’t know the captain like I do. Pirates come and go on The Impossible, but I’m one of the few that hasn’t died in a raid or fallen on Saint Rita’s bad side. Soleil and Tariq are younger members of the crew. They don’t kn
ow what the captain’s like when she sets her mind on something.

  My Monitor crackles on. It’s the captain. Again.

  “Better get that,” Soleil says.

  I simper at her and grab what’s left of the jerky from Tariq. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I chew on the jerky as I leave the chow hall and check my Comms. The captain’s requested I meet her in my bunk. She’s there already, alone with the hostage. I start running.

  My bunk is in the bowels of the ship near the weapon’s bay. I’m the only one who sleeps down here. I’m also the only one who gets her own room since no one else wants to kip with the odor of opalite seeping in through the wall panels.

  I flatten my palm against the reader and barrel inside. Saint Rita lounges on my bed. The Intelligence operator stands at the tiny porthole window with her arms crossed. Though they appear to be ignoring each other, the operator’s back is not entirely turned to the captain and her shoulders are squared off. Her eyes dart toward me, the captain, and back to the porthole. She’s aware of every movement in the small room.

  “Ah! Ophelia.” Saint Rita rolls to her feet and stretches. “How wonderful of you to join us. I’ve just been getting to know our guest.”

  From the heated silence in the room, the Intelligence operator hasn’t afforded the captain a single word.

  “As you can see, it’s going well,” the captain remarks.

  “Captain—”

  Saint Rita seizes a fist full of the operator’s curls and yanks her away from the porthole. The movement is so quick and violent that the operator has no time to react before the captain slams her to the floor. Saint Rita plants a boot on the operator’s rib cage and points her pistol-sized blaster at the woman’s face.

  “Move and you die,” Saint Rita says.

  I forget to breathe as the operator slowly raises her open palms in defeat. Her scalp is red where the captain manhandled her and she pants through her nose like an angered bull, but she makes no attempt to thwart the captain’s promise.

  “Name,” the captain orders.

  The operator glances at me.