Passage on the Nyx Chapter Two
“Catherine? Hard-wired to sit still like some Earther's doll. Damn, I never thought I'd live to see a Fleshee.” Fai scratched behind one of her pointed ears. One of her servant girls- Alice, a young woman that Fai had hired from off the streets- helped Fai try to activate the unconscious girl.
A Fleshee wasn't a human being. They were grown. Humans grown and owned since they weren't born. Their genomes were designed, their bodies patented and mass produced. Installed with standard cybernetics. The Old Nations on Earth had strict laws that corporations used to create living robots for complicated tasks. Most Dusters think your kind isn't real girl, Fai mused that perhaps Earth really wasn't the Eden most Martians thought it was.
Catherine 97801-08111985A still laid frozen on one of Fai's blush maroon sofas. The pale girl stood out against the bright colors of the room. Her glowing, neon blue hair contrasted with warm crimsons, pinks and maroon silk carpets, curtains and other glorious finery. Fai had dressed the girl in something more comfortable than the trash and gunny sack that she had found her in.
“Madam Fai,” Alice looked up from Catherine. “I can try and get hold of the Datamancer-”
“Hold on Alice,” Fai pursed her lips and moved closer to the face of Catherine. “I think our guest is ready to wake up.”
The hard drives and circuits in Catherine's skull booted up first. Then her eyes opened wide, their bright neon cerulean glow switched on like electric light. Data collection programs ran a quick diagnostic while unconscious background processes went through her startup sequence.
Unlike the last however long she had been on Mars, this time she regained muscle and voice control. This took her an eternity- five seconds for Fai to watch her arise from the maroon sofa. In a mechanical fashion, she looked up at Fai. Unlike before, Catherine awoke to the smell of cinnamon and perfumes, not the harsh stank of fish of the alleys of Utopia.
“Where am I? Is this still Utopia?”
Fai suddenly felt enamored by this voice. It rang of an child-like innocence she hadn't seen she had been a child. She almost died the night her innocence had been taken. But Fai had learned from it and refused to be some common whore in Utopia. She offered something different to her clients, an experience of a type higher than the normal street deal. Even then, her clients were the either corporate dogs of the security corporations or leaders of criminal organizations throughout the solar system.
“Yes. You are in Utopia, the Free City. You are in the Fox's House,” Alice answered her question while offering a cup of hot tea to Catherine. She glanced in Fai's direction, hoping to not offend her by speaking first. “What is your name dear?”
“I am the property of the Earth Legion, LLC. As a near-human biological construct, I am valued and priced very steeply.” Catherine replied coldly, ignoring Alice's question. She stared into space.
“Dear,” Fai bent down and grabbed her hands in a gentle and loving manner. “You aren't property here. Earthers can suck fek. Nuke 'em all. You are under my protection here. Utopia is free from Earth rule. You're a free woman in my House. Everything is Halaal here.”
Catherine, looked in Fai's eyes. Fai noticed how Catherine didn't blink. Her face had no emotion at all. “I meant to warn you. The Earth Legion wants me dead. I have some information they do not want known. Anyone comes into contact with me is taking a risk with their own life.”
“Sighter! Where in the Nine Hells of America-” Silva looked away from the fifteen or so orange floating holoframes in front of him. Like any standard Minuteman model, the Nyx had no windows whatsoever. Holocams and holoputers had to be rigged so the pilot could see what was going on outside. Silva was watching Benjamin Savka nearly fall on his face. The entire Hemera Nyx shook from whatever external force making itself known.
“C'mon Amig, take a seat!” Silva turned back to the controls and started to pull levers and make course corrections. “Them haraam Raddies are here- I think.”
“You think Sil?” Benjamin took a seat in one of the lawn chairs behind Silva that had been soldered and duct taped onto the floor. “Was it the Nyx shaking or just a gut instinct?”
“I get stomach rumbles from them. Makes me feel a bit ogish. Now get to the Sightering, Sighter.” Silva smirked. Gravity in the cockpit went out for a moment. It kicked back in, but brought a G or two pull to the right on them as the entire Hemera Nyx dove starboard.
The intercom buzzed. Amy grumbled through the vox. “Nuke Sil! You trying to kill me? At least try to warn me when you decide to take a wild turn!”
“Not now!” Silva pulled out a chunk of wires. The entire vox system went dead. “Sighter! Use that second sight of yours!”
“Nuking pirates,” Hao Bajaj growled. The Reformed Asian Dominion freighter pilot had enough to worry about on the RAD Trade Circuit without having to deal with every haraam fekhole that decided to come along. These damn American privateers, Hao pondered, when will the nukin UAD just finally admit we're better than them?
He spun his little freighter on a hard right. The little ship was at least two years old, small and cramp, but at it least it wasn't like the flying faraj his privateer target were in. His was a converted Dragon-class bomber, its old bomb bays outfitted with freight clamps to attach a freight container.
Hao set another forium charge and launched it in the direction of the Hemera Nyx, or at least that was the name that was brightly painted on the side of the minuteman-class freighter. He moved the freighter downward, and began to aim his cargo clamps toward the freight container that the Nyx had pinned to its side.
If he was quick about this, the RAD freight container would be back where it belonged. Hao also hoped to pull hard enough to rip a hole in the hull of the faraj ship. His more updated ND-78 clamps and winches were ten times more powerful than anything he guessed the minuteman freighter could have. That and his military grade ion induction drive should help yank a nice big gapping hole in the side of the faraj Hemera Nyx.
Let those nukin' pirates suck vacuum.
Benjamin Savka sat still. The Hemera Nyx vibrated around him. His lawn chair in the cockpit shook. He concentrated. His mind needed to be calm in order to activate his telesenses or Second Sight.
The Second Sight. It cost him a college scholarship at Zimbabwe University. Once it 'appeared' his family betrayed him. They alerted the United American Democracies Government. The Nation he was born in detained him, canceled his visas and gave him a nukin exile statement. A little slip of data that shipped him off Earth and permanently prevented him from 'contaminating humanity with illicit mutation'.
Benjamin pushed through the bad memories. His inner eye opened and it moved from his body. It first moved into the cockpit, but then he pushed it outward, through the silksteel walls of the cockpit. He moved it beyond the wiring and tubing that served as the Nyx's veins and arteries.
“There. I am now outside the hull.” Sighter murmured.
“Sighter thats halaal, amigo.” Silva slammed his fist on a switch with a '69' sticker. “Mind giving me a haraam location?”
“Oh right...” Sighter looked around the outside of the Nyx.
The Hemera Nyx was a minuteman-class freighter, which meant it was nothing more than a silksteel box built around a Ion Induction Drive engine. The bottom of the Nyx's hull had a freight container strapped to it. Thick nylon straps held down the container. And there it was. A smaller sleek single seat bomber hovered a little too close below the belly of the Nyx.
“He's right beneath us.”
Silva blinked. “I guessed as much. But the cameras down there should see something-”
“He's practically touching us, Sil.”
“Fek. Halaal then. Perfect as a triangle.” Silva smirked. “Lets get this relationship up to the next level. I like my dates to be a little more intimate.”
The General and commander of the E.L.S. Constantine awoke as she always did. Nude, she performed her usual routine, fifty or so push-up reps, several dozen practice shots at the punch bag and eventually getting dressed for her morning run. Her routine was interrupted by a beep boop before she could exit her carpeted quarter's door. Her run was halted before she could start it.
General Diana Gem washed her face. In the mirror, she merely grimaced at herself. Her youthful dark black locks hung in front of her brilliant almost red hazel eyes. Her muscles were still in good shape, despite her not having trained in over a week. Command in the Earth Legion was more than enough to keep her fit it seemed.
Gem didn't like having to fix things, especially somebody else's fek. The fools at the Ceres Facility let the girl go. The little cyborg was loose. They claimed she'd try for Earth. But Gem was laughed at that stupidity. The Cyke would go to Mars. To the one place the general couldn't go.
General Gem dried her face just as the comm beeped for her attention again. The nervous voice of the pathetic communication ensign called out. “General, there is some fighting going on between some transports, less than a million kilometers from here.”
She sighed. The ensign spoke slowly and didn't get to the point. But then again, he'd gotten his job because of a relative, he was a nihilist addition she was forced to live with. The General was always forced to accept the nihilistic conditions of the Security Megacorporations. What the media had dubbed the 'Megsecs': Gigantic quasi-military companies that the Old Nations had administer and privatize the extraterrestrial colonies. The general ignored the temptation to punish the soft handed ensign for his lack of discipline. “Did either ship ask for Earth Legion assistance?”
After a pause, the ensign replied a short, “No, sir.”
“Then ignore them,” Gem was curt and short. When she had been a kick boxing world champion over two decades ago, when she was still in her thirties, she'd would've sprung to the rescue. Gem herself looked to be no older than thirty, but gene therapy as well as the best diets in whole solar system disguised her true age. She was well into her fifties, often getting stares of surprise from her underlings. There were more important issues she need to handle at the moment. The cyke girl on Mars. The Earth Legion needed to stop her.
“Sir, I think one of them might be a pirate ship-” He was cut off in mid sentence as Gem yelled into the comm. Enough nuking pussyfooting around, she thought.
“Haraam it, Ensign, unless one of those ships is a client, ignore them. Those are the nuking rules. Get this ship to Mars ASAP!”
After a pause, the ensign acknowledged her.
“Yes General.”
Then the comm went quiet once more. The youthful general then got dressed and left for the command center. This was her Saint-class carrier and despite some Earther dilettantes, she was going to find what she was paid to go hunt.
