by Natalie Grey
“We need evidence, boss.” Tersi’s voice was quiet in Nyx’s headpiece. “If there’s a rogue senator abducting people and torturing them, you know we need evidence. Especially this senator.”
Nyx pressed a button on her arm guard, and the plating of her helmet came down. This would muffle the noise of her speaking, at least. She opened a team-wide comm channel.
“All right, everyone, listen up. We’re getting Mala back to the Ariane, and then we’re going back in. We need security feeds, documentation on that chair, anything that shows the senator was here. She may not be our first target, but like hell are we going to let her get away with torturing random civilians.”
She felt her team’s approval, savage in its intensity. She had seen a glimpse of her own fury mirrored in their eyes when they saw the chair and Mala’s injuries. Mala wasn’t familiar with that technology, but they were—and they knew a civilian’s desperate fear when they saw it.
There was anti-corruption activism … and then there was off-the-rails vigilante justice. Dragons walked the line more than anyone else, and they hated it when someone else crossed it.
How had this woman ever thought she was doing the right thing? Nyx felt her hands clench around the grip of the gun. It was one thing to slide slowly and inexorably into terrible behavior, but she could not believe that someone could listen to tortured screams without knowing just what it was they were doing. And this base, so far off the grid, so well made, showed that this senator had been approaching things this way for years.
“Well, well, well.” The voice echoed out of the speakers. “Did you really think you could just walk out of here?”
The Dragons stopped, closing formation around Mala, and Nyx heard the frantic tap of Tersi hooking into security feeds.
“Troops headed your way, boss.”
“Move,” Nyx said harshly, setting off again.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you go.” The woman’s voice was ice cold. “I knew Ms. Orion was a dangerous woman, but if she has a team of pet Dragons, she’s rather more dangerous than I thought. Congratulations, Ms. Orion. I am rarely surprised.”
“Orion?” Nyx looked over at Mala, and saw her face white with fear. “Eve Orion?” Could that be what this was? Had they possibly all mistaken Mala for the woman who owned the apartment? Something about it seemed false, but Nyx could not think what it might be.
Mala said nothing. She was looking around her, to the speakers.
“Mala.” Nyx’s voice was firm. “Does she mean Eve Orion?”
“I….”
The roar of engines caught their ears.
“Boss, there’s a ship warming up. If you want to get to her before she gets away…”
“Loki, Esu, you get Mala back to the ship. The rest of you—”
“Oh, my dear Dragon, I suggest you not even try.” The voice was dry. “You have about one minute before the facility … goes offline. I do regret this, you know, but I really can’t allow you to live.”
Nyx’s blood ran cold.
“Tersi—”
“I’m on it—but move.” She heard his fingers burst into motion on the keys.
“Come on.” Nyx grabbed Mala’s hand and yanked her down the corridor.
“One minute until the facility goes offline?” The woman’s voice was panicked.
“Don’t talk! Run!” Nyx swore as she tried to pull Mala along faster. Mala could match a quick run, but she didn’t have the implants of a Dragon.
“I was able to stretch it to two minutes, but there are soldiers coming up ahead of you.”
“Got it.” Nyx shoved Mala as hard as she could, hearing the woman hit the floor with a muffled oath, and lowered her head to plow into the line of soldiers that had appeared in front of her.
Chaos reined, and the countdown kept going in her mind. One minute 45 seconds, one minute 44 seconds… Nyx planted her foot into one soldier’s chest and shoved, watching her target take another soldier down with him. Good. Shots were ringing out and Loki was roaring for the soldiers to stand down, get out before the place vented.
One minute 28 seconds…
A scream caught her ears and she turned in time to see Mala lash out at a man who was trying to drag her down the hallway. Nyx took him out at the knees, driving her fist up into his groin and pulling Mala up off the floor.
“With Esu! Go!” She pointed up the hallway and Esu yanked Mala along behind him as they made for the ship. “Take them down,” Nyx yelled. She was probably deafening Tersi, but she didn’t care.
One minute 4 seconds…
One left. Staggering sideways under the force of a bullet to her side plating, Nyx twisted as she fell and got a shot off as the soldier brought their pistol back to fire.
“Come on!” Loki hauled her up and they ran, pain blossoming in Nyx’s side and blood trickling down under her armor. She looked around herself breathlessly, counting them. All Dragon’s accounted for.
They pounded onto the Ariane with Tersi’s shouts in their headsets.
“Everyone hold on, they’ve got really angry satellites!”
“Shit.” Nyx tumbled sideways with a wince as the Ariane lifted off and banked in one sharp movement. She pressed her hand against her side.
“Melissa.” Mala was crawling towards her. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s all right.” Nyx winced and rolled as the ship banked again.
“It’s not. We have to get you to—” Mala froze as Nyx’s bloody fingers clamped around hers.
“Mala. Answer me. Who is Eve Orion?”
It was then that she saw the spreading blood on Mala’s shoulder. The woman opened her mouth to speak, her face going grey, and then she slumped down, eyes rolling back in her head.
28
Mala ran her fingers over the too-smooth skin of her shoulder as she walked. Tersi had been cheerful as he helped her sit up and take out the IVs in her hands. Healing bullet wounds is actually a lot easier than you’d think. He’d made a lot of explanations of how the quick-healing mechanisms worked, and all Mala could do was touch the skin and think how wrong it was that she’d had a hole in her only a few hours before, and now there was no sign of it. A faint ache told her that her body knew it was wrong, too.
She stopped and drew in a deep breath. She was really just using this to avoid thinking about everything else, and she knew it. She dropped her fingers and squared her shoulders. Time to go tell the truth. Nyx knew almost all of it—by now, perhaps she did know all of it.
Answer me. Who is Eve Orion? The woman had the knack of command, all right; the words had been on Mala’s lips before everything went dark. She swallowed hard, now, raised her hand, and knocked on the door to the captain’s quarters.
“Come in.” Nyx was hunched over a desk, scribbling notes on an old-style paper notebook. She waved Mala in distractedly and spun her chair. “If we assume the security protocols are consistent across—” She broke off. “You’re not Tersi.”
“Sorry?” Mala lifted one shoulder.
“How are you feeling?” Nyx stood and cross the room in two strides, her brown eyes intent.
“My shoulder feels wrong.”
“This is your first quick-heal?” Nyx smiled, and moved Mala out of the way as she retrieved another tank top from her locker. “How about something clean to wear? You’re still covered in blood.”
“Thanks.” Mala edged into the tiny bathroom. She changed her shirt and then, on reflection, splashed a tiny amount of water into the sink and used it to give her arms and face a cursory cleaning. When she turned her head, she saw Nyx leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Her eyes were fixed on Mala, and there was turmoil there—and a definite heat.
Mala didn’t even think. She took the Dragon’s face between her hands and kissed her. There was a moment of resistance, but only one, before Nyx was kissing her back. She pushed Mala up against the wall, fingers sliding up the tank top so that Mala arched, pressing herself against the touch. Fingers tangled in her ha
ir and drew her head back, baring her neck for a kiss, and Mala lost herself in the sensation.
“Oh, my God.”
There was a low chuckle that made her breath come short. “I know.”
The humor was infectious, and Mala grinned. “You know…”
“Mmm?” Nyx’s teeth grazed her throat.
“I don’t think Kiran ever envisioned you taking care of me quite like this.” Nyx froze, and Mala realized too late what she’d done. “I….”
Nyx turned away, her fingers rubbing at her temples.
“Hey. I didn’t mean—”
“But you’re right.” The woman’s voice was flat.
“You really think he’d be upset that we were doing this? He wouldn’t want us to be happy?”
“I can’t make you happy.” The words were brutal, and Nyx looked back at her, jaw clenched. “Kiran would have been horrified, and he’d be right to be.”
Mala stared at her incredulously. You said you’d always come to get me, she wanted to whisper, and she knew it meant nothing. The only reason Nyx had come back into her life at all was that promise. What would there have been between them if not for that? She opened her mouth, trying to find something to say, and a headshake from Nyx cut her off.
“Don’t. You think this is about how we feel, but it isn’t. You don’t understand this world—my world. You need to … go back. Where you’re safe.”
“Where I’m safe? What if I don’t want to be safe?” Mala shook her head. “I don’t need you to protect me.”
“You do.” Nyx cut her off again. “Mala, you’d be dead if not for us. Do you understand?”
“Of course I understand!” Mala felt her cheeks flushing. She was eight years old again, listening to her brother call her a stupid little kid, and she felt as helpless now as she had then. “But sometimes shit happens to people. You got caught up in this and … you don’t have to be.”
“No, I do. Because I promised—”
“Kiran! You promised Kiran, I know!” Mala stepped back when Nyx would have approached her. Fury was building in her veins. “Would you shut up about that? Kiran could be a real ass sometimes, you know that? And you, too. You just decided to spy on me for years, and then you came running in after me.
“And yeah, maybe I would have died without you, but that doesn’t make me a child and it doesn’t mean I don’t know about the world! I accepted that sort of risk when I took my job.” She looked down, rubbing at her forehead. “I know I shouldn’t have called, back on the station. I should just have called my boss’s work phone. I should have known it was a trap.”
“Wait.” Nyx looked up with a sudden, almost predatory interest. “What did you say?”
“Oh, now you’re interested.”
“Quit it, Mala. Who did you call?”
“I … the number iss on my comm.” Mala shook her head, not even caring. “That’s how they found me, they probably traced the call.”
“How who found you? The senator?”
“Yes! There was a note saying that they’d gotten my email about Gerren’s Ore, and could I call a private comm number. They wanted to know what I knew about the ring.”
“And you just called?”
“It said it was from my boss!”
“But it wasn’t from your boss! Don’t you see?” Nyx clenched her fingers and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she was clearly trying to be gentle. “This is exactly what I mean. That number, if we traced it, could have been evidence against this senator. We could have gotten it without you getting abducted. No one would have had to be in danger.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“You don’t, that’s my point!” Nyx shook her head. “You have to stop trying to do this yourself. There’s a lot going on here that no one understands yet, and it’s too dangerous for you to keep getting involved. Anything that comes up, you let me handle it.”
Mala shoved away the bratty retort. It was a childish urge, she knew, to fling Nyx’s words back in her face. Nyx was the warrior, the soldier, the one who could get into and out of those facilities. She should have told Nyx at once. She looked up, trying to swallow her pride….
And saw the blood leaking through Nyx’s shirt. The bullet had only grazed her, and the woman hadn’t bothered with a quick heal, only a gauze bandage that had soaked all the way through. There was a bruise at her neck, and more on her arms, and Mala remembered her first terrified glance after the warehouse raid, Nyx unconscious and Tersi stripping off her armor and Loki’s.
“I can’t,” she heard herself say.
“What?” Nyx clearly didn’t understand.
“I can’t just let you handle it. These people are dangerous.”
“That’s why you should let me handle it.”
“What if you die?” Mala burst out. “You said it happened. You said you lost Sphinx. Tersi was worried for you—you could die, it could happen.”
“Mala—”
“No, don’t try to pretend. I know. I’ve seen how you come back from missions.” Mala felt tears in her eyes. “If you’re going to try to make me promise not to get involved because you want me to be safe, then … then it’s fair that I get to make you promise the same. And if you won’t, I’m not going to promise, either. I’m not. I won’t—”
“Mala.”
“I can’t know I killed you,” Mala whispered.
They stared at one another, the Dragon’s lips parting. Her face was softer than Mala had ever seen it, alight and full of warmth. She opened her mouth to speak and for a moment, Mala thought she would close the gap between them and kiss her again…
Then her mouth closed.
“This is what I am,” Nyx said, with a grim finality. “This is what I do. These are the kinds of people I face down every day in my work. I do it because it’s important, because someone needs to and I can. Mala…this is why we can’t—”
“But we can,” Mala whispered. She closed the gap instead, her fingers reaching out to trace Nyx’s cheek. “We can. I just need you to promise—”
“I can’t promise.” The words were like a whip crack, and Mala drew her hand back as if she’d been stung.
“Then I can’t promise, either,” she said, as stubbornly as she could manage. “I don’t care what you say. I started this. I’m going to finish it.”
“And I,” Nyx said simply, “don’t intend to give you that choice. You’re going back to Seneca. And you’re going to stay safe.”
29
The door slammed as Mala left, and Nyx flinched. When the comm rang, she jumped, swore, and jammed the earpiece in hard enough to make herself wince.
“What?”
“…Is this a bad time?” Tersi’s voice was cautious.
“No. This is a great time.” And then, because she sensed he didn’t believe her, Nyx dropped into her desk chair and sighed. “Distract me.”
“Sparring match after this?”
“Sure. Why’d you call?”
“Just a minor thing. Okay, a major thing. We picked up a trace on her ship. Lesedi confirmed—it’s heading for, at a guess, Oceanus. A lot of the senators have houses there, apparently.”
“Really.” Nyx sat up and started paging through charts. “Any outbound communications?”
“None that we’ve picked up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve missed something. She has a secret torture base.” Distaste reverberated down the airwaves. “She’s probably learned ways to keep people from picking up on what she’s doing.”
“True.” Nyx stared at the readout on Oceanus, pondering. “Well, set a course. We’re going in now, before she can call reinforcements. I know she’ll have some there, but…”
“No, I agree.” Tersi’s voice was approving. “The course will be set in a few. You good with a jump in about 30 minutes?”
“Yes. We can—ah, shit.”
“What?”
“No chance of detouring to Seneca, is there?”
“Not if we want to head this off at the pass. Why?”
Because I made a big speech about Mala going back there. “Nothing. It’s nothing. I’ll … meet you downstairs in a bit. Find Loki. Better yet, make him angry.”
“You’re that wound up?” Tersi held himself back from asking the reasons. “Aye aye, boss. One angry Dragon, coming right up. Never managed to piss Loki off yet, but there’s gotta be a way, right?”
Nyx cut the line and leaned back in her chair. She knew the hum in her blood that came from a mission drawing to its climax. And yet…
Her fingers danced on the comm controls, requesting a video call, and she held her breath until the face appeared before her: green eyes, a sharp jaw, dark stubble coming in. Talon raised his eyebrows.
“You don’t look happy. One sec.” He dropped the wrist unit and she caught a dizzying glimpse of walls. When the picture came back, he was seated in a small garden with whitewashed walls behind him. “Okay. Tell me what’s up.”
“I’m not cut out for this,” Nyx told him bluntly.
“No?” Talon settled back in his chair, green eyes narrowing slightly as he studied her. “Why don’t you think so?”
“My instincts … aren’t leading me anywhere good.” She looked away rather than meet his eyes as she admitted it.
“Is that true, or are you just not trusting them?” When she looked up, he gave a little smile. “Not that I would happen to have any experience in that arena….”
“Oh?” She hated how hopeful her voice sounded.
“God, yes. Nyx, when I started commanding, I was a train wreck.”
She was startled into a bark of laughter.
“I’m serious.” He was grinning, but his voice was grave. “Don’t you remember how much trouble I’ve gotten us all in over the years? How many times I charged in no matter what anyone said? How many times I didn’t take an opening that would have…God.” He leaned his head back. “I remember every one of those, even if you don’t.”
