Nemesis Boxset

by Alexandria Clarke

  Say it, I mouth silently.

  She spits, “Vega Major.”

  “Vega, the falling star,” Saint Rita says. “Appropriate. How long have you worked for Intelligence headquarters?”

  Vega squirms beneath the captain’s boot. “They recruited me when I was ten. I graduated from the Academy and became a cadet at eighteen like everyone else.”

  Her gaze flashes us to meet mine. I catch another glimpse of that metallic glimmer then return my attention to the captain.

  “What do you know about Phobos?” the captain demands.

  “Nothing,” Vega answers.

  Saint Rita’s boot compresses Vega’s ribs.

  “I swear on the galaxy!” Vega gasps, grasping the captain’s boot to keep it off her lungs. “I work in Information Storage. All I do is manage space! I don’t know anything about Phobos. Please!”

  Saint Rita leans into her front foot. Vega splutters.

  “Captain,” I say.

  She eases off, and Vega manages a shaky inhale.

  “If you work in Information, you should have access to Intelligence intel,” Saint Rita says. “Is that not the case?”

  Vega shakes her head. “Any important intel is coded and password protected. I can’t see the contents. All I do is transfer it around.”

  Saint Rita finally removes her foot from Vega’s torso with a little shove. “What a terrible disappointment. Are you of any use to me at all?” She tosses her hands. “I miss the old days when good old-fashioned torture could get you the answer to any question. Don’t you, Ophelia?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Miss it?”

  “Oh. Uh—” I glance at Vega cowering near my cot. She shakes from head to toe whenever she’s within Saint Rita’s line of vision, but when she catches me looking, she makes a point to roll her eyes at me. “I guess so.”

  “It was glorious,” the captain sighs. “Pulling fingernails, yanking teeth. I miss the music of the screams.” She turns to the porthole as Vega holds in a gag. “Shitty view.”

  From this angle, there isn’t much available to look at other than blank space.

  “I like it,” I declare.

  “Of course you do.” The captain folds her hands behind her back. “Anyway, I suppose you’re both wondering what we’re all doing here together. Ophelia, I have a task for you.”

  “Fresh opalite trade?” I suggest. “We have leftovers from the Proioxis raid. One good sale and we could get the crew something decent to eat.”

  “Let them eat snack cakes,” Saint Rita says. “We’ll trade the opalite later. No, I want you to show our guest here around The Impossible.”

  I gape at her. “What?”

  “Make her feel cozy—but not too cozy,” she adds quickly. “Give her a tour, get her some food, introduce her to those ruffians you call friends. You get the gist. She’s your responsibility from now on. If you lose sight of her or she kills herself in the name of IA or the crew decides to make her their next meal, it’s on your head. Is that understood?”

  She’s already halfway out of my bunk. I stumble into the corridor after her.

  “Captain, wait. I can’t watch her!”

  Saint Rita turns to face me. “Why not?”

  “B-because—” I splutter, trying to come up with a valid excuse. “I’m an opalite trader, not a babysitter.”

  “You are whatever I order you to be,” the captain reminds me. “And right now, I’m ordering you to be a babysitter.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t screw this up, Ophelia,” Saint Rita says. “If you do, you can say goodbye to life on The Impossible. I’m sure Soleil won’t mind stepping up to take your place.”

  Like always, she leaves before I have time to process the threat. My head spins as I head into my bunk again. Vega has hauled herself off the floor. Blood drips down her temple.

  “We can get that looked at in the clinic,” I offer, offering her a kerchief. “We’ll start the tour of the ship there. We can raid the kitchens too—”

  She punches me in the face.

  4

  Vega’s first two knuckles land squarely on my upper lip, and the metallic tang of fresh blood coats my tongue. Out of pure defensive instinct, I tuck my own fist into her torso, coming in from the bottom for an uppercut. She grunts, hardening her core just in time for impact. My fist hits solid muscle and bounces off. When Vega tackles me, we go sprawling across the floor and hit the opposite wall with a loud bang. I wrestle her hands away from my neck and pinch at her pressure points. It’s a dirty but efficient way of fighting. She gets tired quick, and I finally squeeze her shoulder hard enough to make her yelp. She rolls off of me and retreats to the far side of the room. I jump to my feet, and we circle around each other like boxers in a ring.

  “Where’d you learn to fight?” I work to control my breathing. Long inhale, long exhale. “Intelligence operators don’t get trained like that.”

  “How would you know?” she spits. “You haven’t been privy to IA training procedures in seven years.”

  “You lost your eye,” I comment, nodding toward the shiny glimmer in her otherwise hazel iris. “Who’d you piss off?”

  “IA,” she answers matter-of-factly. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  I take the chance of relaxing my stance. “Vega—”

  “You left me,” she declares. “I was young and scared, and my best friend left me all alone.”

  “I was young and scared too.”

  “It’s different!” She sits down on my bed and sweeps her hand across my pillow. “You had everything. Everything. And you gave it all up to go rogue.”

  “I did not go rogue,” I say. “You don’t get it.”

  She throws the pillow at me. “Then why don’t you explain it to me?”

  I toss the pillow onto the bed and sit down on top of it so she can’t weaponize it again. She immediately stands up like she can’t handle being that close to me.

  “You’re technically a traitor,” she says. “A defector. They could have you arrested and executed.”

  “Why do you think I’m here?” I ask her. “You think I’m hanging out on The Impossible for shits and giggles? No, I’m protected here.”

  “You’re a pirate.”

  “I have a life,” I counter. “One that doesn’t make me want to crawl out of my skin.”

  She laughs, but there’s nothing funny about it. “Yeah, Fee. Tell me again about what a terrible life you had, growing up as one of the richest kids on Proioxis with an upper-level Intelligence operator for a mother and a war hero for a father. It must’ve been awful. I would’ve run away too.”

  “It was awful,” I say. “You’re simplifying everything.”

  “Then un-simplify it.”

  “Nothing I say is going to make sense to you.”

  She paces, but my room is small. She gets about five steps in before she has to turn around and go the other way. “Try starting at the beginning.”

  I hug my pillow to my chest and bury my face in it. The air on the ship is always frigid and I usually run cold, but the chilly fabric helps soothe my burning cheeks for once.

  “You know some of it already,” I begin. I can’t look at her, but she refuses to take her gaze away from me. “When I was ten years old, IA recruited me just like they did you.”

  She shifts from one foot to the other. Her throat bobs when she swallows.

  “But they couldn’t decide where to place me,” I go on. “Intelligence or Defense? My brother joined Intelligence and my sister joined Defense, so I was stuck in this middle ground of decision making. I should’ve known to bail then.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I was ten,” I remind her. “Who knows what they want when they’re ten? It’s bullshit to have to pick your career before you’re old enough to pilot a cruiser. Do you want to hear this or not?”

  She presses her lips together.

  “I was the youngest,” I say. “There was a
lot of pressure to do well in IA, pressure I didn’t respond well to. You saw what I was like in school.”

  “Talented and tactless.”

  “That’s the second time today someone’s called me that.” My Monitor slips and pinches my wrist. I accidently hit the Comms call for Saint Rita trying to adjust it and tap the screen to cancel it. “Anyway, the point is that I was never a huge fan of discipline, which didn’t fly at IA. I can’t remember how many times they put me in detention.”

  “Fifty-six in just our senior year,” Vega says. “I papered my bunk with those little pink slips.”

  “Paper.” I snort. “So archaic.”

  “Paper can’t be hacked,” she retorts.

  “It can be burned,” I reply. “Or torn or soaked or destroyed in a number of other ways. Are you going to stop interrupting me? Because I can leave.”

  “According to the captain, you can’t,” Vega says, crossing her arms. Her smirk rivals Soleil’s. I wonder which of them will be the death of me. “I’m all yours, Fee.”

  She’s the only person who doesn’t call me O, but the childish nickname sounds stale and brittle between her teeth, like she wants to bite down and crush me out of existence.

  “The captain likes to test me.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Saint Rita,” I say. “You’ve heard of her.”

  “I have?”

  I let out a sigh as I fall back and prop my legs straight up against the wall. “Maybe they call her something else at IA. Ten years ago, she attacked an IA battleship in a speeder with only two other companions. They were killed in the effort, but she took the ship for herself and renamed it The Impossible.”

  Vega surveys the room, but her penetrating gaze goes beyond the walls of my bunk. “She can’t have crewed this entire ship on her own.”

  “She claims she did,” I say. “Everyone goes along with it. I figure she probably threatened whatever was left of IA’s crew to help her out.”

  “And the name she chose for herself?” Vega asked. “What’s that all about?”

  “Remember religions?” I say. “The captain’s got a thing for them. In Catholic tradition, Rita was the patron saint of the impossible. Hopeless cases and all that. Go figure. Anyway, the actual nun had a pretty hard time of it. Abusive husband, vengeful sons, the whole shebang. She was essentially known for her suffering. When the captain started collecting miscreants from around the galaxy to crew this beast, she adopted the new moniker.”

  “Shitty joke.”

  “The captain’s suffered too.” I watch her—my head hanging upside-down off the edge of the bed—as she drifts toward the door. “You don’t want to do that.”

  She gives me a sharp look. “Why not?”

  I tuck my knees, roll backward off the bed, and land on my feet. “First of all, where are you going to go?”

  “Escape pods,” she answers easily. “Every battleship’s got ‘em.”

  “How would you find them?”

  “Start at midship and look for the signs.”

  I bite my lip. Pod garages are clearly marked aboard The Impossible and every other IA battleship. It’s a common safety regulation. “What about the hundred and twenty pirates who all want a taste of your blood? How are you going to get past them?”

  “Oh, heavens. You eat humans?”

  There’s enough humor in her tone to knock any sarcastic reply clean off my tongue. Briefly, it feels like we’re eighteen again, bantering back and forth until one of us can’t supply a satisfactory comeback. Vega’s eyes glimmer in triumph.

  “Ha,” she says.

  My face burns. “Fine. Go ahead without me. Try to escape. When you end up in an engine room with an amputated hand or the other crew members decide to use you as their new dartboard, don’t come crying to me.”

  When we’re both standing, she’s an inch taller than me. Growing up, I always had the jump on her. I’m not sure I approve of the switch.

  “I’ve long since learned not to rely on you for anything, Ophelia,” she says. “Not since graduation.”

  The memory slams into me like a freight ship.

  “It wasn’t easy for me,” I say. “I knew what I was getting myself into, but I also knew what I was getting myself out of.”

  “A steady job? The community’s respect?”

  “A corrupt government’s hold over me,” I correct.

  Vega scoffs. “You’re eating whatever Saint Rita’s been feeding you. She’s lying to you, Fee. She doesn’t care about you. She just wants to keep you loyal to her.”

  “Manipulation is one of her sharpest knives,” I agree. “But we have proof IA isn’t telling Pavo citizens everything it knows.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Phobos—you’re fishing!”

  She mimics reeling in a line. “You’re easy to catch.”

  “Shut up.” I thump her shoulder hard, but she takes it like a Defense officer, moving with the hit to counteract its force. No Intelligence operator would’ve learned that technique when I was at IA’s academy. “Want a tour of the ship or not?”

  Vega narrows her eyes. “You’re going to willingly show me escape routes?”

  “No,” I say. “I’ll show you the atrium, the chow hall, and maybe the weapons bay. Saint Rita’s orders.” I toss her an extra bomber jacket from my closet. “Put that on. You’ll be freezing in that measly uniform.”

  Her polo shirt is made of cheap, thin fabric, and she wears pleated khaki pants that don’t match, but when she zips the puffy olive-green bomber up to her collar, she almost looks like one of the crew members. Except for the pleats.

  “Boots,” I say, throwing her a pair.

  “These are too small.”

  “Do you like your toes? Lot of heavy shit on this ship just waiting to dislodge during hyperspeed jumps and crush your feet.”

  She kicks off her shiny loafers and forces her feet into the boots. They’re my old pair, so I don’t mind that she borrows them. She loosens the laces so her toes aren’t too cramped.

  “After you,” I say, gesturing her out.

  The crew makes no effort not to stare at Vega. They’re not accustomed to having a member of IA on this ship—or at least one they’re aware of—and Vega’s especially noticeable. Her swarthy complexion, chiseled jaw, and the mechanical mechanism in her eye that allows her to see make her an anomaly aboard The Impossible. Then again, she doesn’t fit in with the rest of the Intelligence recruits either. Most of them are skinny and pale, unable to throw a punch or lift anything heavier than a textbook.

  Vega makes eye contact with every passing pirate, scanning each one of them up and down. Occasionally, she asks me a question about someone, always phrased the same way.

  “What’s her deal?”

  She studies Soleil as we tour the bridge of the ship. Soleil stands at the helm with Jett, our master pilot. Her brow furrows in concentration as Jett explains the control panel.

  “She’s training,” I say. “Saint Rita picks promising crew members to learn the ins and outs of The Impossible. One day, one of us will replace her.”

  “And you’re the frontrunner?” She taps the patch on my vest that labels me First Mate. “Did you embroider that yourself?”

  I cover the patch with my palm. “Don’t touch.”

  Soleil glances up from the helm’s touchscreen as we pass through. “No interlopers allowed. Get your trash out of here, Ophelia.”

  “She’s Saint Rita’s trash now,” I retort. “And she’s got a brain bigger than yours. Asteroid!”

  Soleil whips her head around to address the threat, but there’s no sign of rocks or any other danger ahead. She glares at me.

  “Be careful with her,” she warns Vega. “She’ll dump you in a black hole as soon as you start trusting her.”

  “Where’s the love, Soleil?” I ask.

  “In the garbage with your dignity,” she replies.

  “You’re really into trash today.”

>   Jett steps between us. He’s an older guy with jowls, a layer of peppery scruff that never goes away, and a voice like a broken accordion.

  “Ladies,” he warns. “What have I told you before? No insults in the bridge.”

  “Aye-aye, Master Pilot.” I give him the official IA salute.

  “Don’t do that,” he orders. Like me, Jett has a past with IA, but neither one of us acknowledge it to each other out loud.

  I press against Vega’s back to urge her out of the bridge.

  “Try not to crash,” I say to Soleil. She throws me the middle finger.

  Out in the hallway, Vega chuckles. “You haven’t changed much. What happened between you two?”

  “We used to be decent friends,” I say. “Saint Rita picked her up a few years ago. Rescued her from a slaver. I took her around the ship, made sure she knew everything she needed to know to make life on The Impossible easy.”

  “And?”

  “She duped me,” I answer. “Pretended like she was all weak and stupid so I’d never consider her a threat. Then she turned around and used all the information I’d given her to make Saint Rita favor her.”

  Vega presses her lips together and hums.

  “What?” I demand.

  “Nothing.”

  “Not nothing. You always do that when you’ve got something to say you know will offend me.”

  “It’s just—do you have any friends on this ship?” she asks.

  “I’ve got plenty of friends!”

  “My mistake.”

  As we pass the chow hall, Tariq comes out, gnawing on a piece of jerky as he tries to smuggle snack cakes under his shirt. Food isn’t supposed to leave this area of the ship. I grab him as he passes.

  “I wasn’t doing anything!” he says automatically. The snack cake wrappers crinkle against each other.

  “I don’t care about your poor diet,” I say. “I wanted to introduce you to someone. Tariq, this is Vega, our hostage-slash-new-crewmember. Vega, this is my friend Tariq.”

  “Aww.” Tariq pouts and places a hand over his heart. A snack cake falls out of his shirt. “Ophelia, you’ve never called me your friend before.”

  Vega howls with laughter as I punch Tariq in the midriff. His snack cakes tumble out. Some of the packaging bursts and crumbs litter the floor.