Chapter 13 Sisters in Arms
Sisters in Arms
Polly
The blast doors seal behind Rynn with a hiss of hydraulics and a finality that hits me like a physical blow.
For a moment, I just stand there, staring at the obsidian barrier that separates me from the man I love.
Through the bond, I feel him moving deeper into the fortress—his determination sharp as a blade, his focus absolute.
Underneath it all, steady and warm: his love for me. His promise to come back.
It helps. Not enough, but it helps.
“Polly.” Suki’s voice cuts through my spiral. “I need you here. With me. Now.”
I turn. She’s already at her console, her fingers flying across holographic controls, her face lit by the blue-white glow of tactical displays.
The upload bar crawls past 39%. Behind her, Vex’ra coordinates defensive squads through a dozen comm channels at once, her melodious voice calm despite the chaos.
“Right.” I shake myself, force my hands to stop trembling. Rynn needs me functional, not falling apart. “What’s our status?”
“Deteriorating rapidly.” Suki pulls up the tactical map, and my stomach drops.
Red icons swarm the fortress like angry hornets—dozens of them, maybe more.
“Three main breach points. Henrok and Rynn are heading here—” she highlights a cluster of red near the power generators, “—where the heaviest assault is concentrated. If those generators fall, shields go down. Fleet glasses us from orbit.”
“And us?”
“We get the fun part.” Her smile is sharp, feral. “Elite squad, moving fast through the western corridors. ETA three minutes. They’re coming straight for the War Room. For the Relay.”
I look at the crystal, still pulsing with inner light, still feeding data up to the Quantum Relay. Everything we’ve fought for. Everything Rynn’s grandmother died to protect. Everything his family needs to survive.
40%.
“So we hold,” I say.
“So we hold.” Suki moves toward a section of wall that looks like solid obsidian, her movements quick and sure. “But first, we arm ourselves properly. Because I don’t know about you, Rocket, but I’m really tired of corporate assholes trying to kill my friends.”
She kicks the wall—hard, precisely, in a spot I would never have noticed—and a hidden panel slides open.
The weapons locker behind it makes my mouth water.
“Oh,” I breathe. “Suki. You beautiful, paranoid genius.”
Pulse rifles in gleaming rows. Plasma pistols with custom grips.
EMP grenades nested like lethal eggs. Some of it is clearly Zaterran military-grade—crystalline power cores, obsidian bayonets that hum with barely contained violence.
But mixed in with the alien tech, I see familiar modifications.
Jury-rigged power couplings. The duct-tape-and-prayer aesthetic that screams Fringe engineering.
“Is this OOPS tech?” I step closer, recognizing a pulse rifle that looks exactly like the one Suki used to run with in the Cassian Nebula. “Did you bring your entire armory when you moved here?”
“A girl needs hobbies.” She pulls out the rifle—her rifle, the Widowmaker, complete with all her custom modifications—and tosses me its smaller sibling.
I catch it on instinct, and the weight settles into my hands like coming home.
“That’s got full-auto, armor-piercing cores, and a little surprise in the secondary chamber. Try not to shoot the Relay.”
I check the charge, the balance, the sight alignment. Perfect. Of course it’s perfect. Suki doesn’t do anything halfway. “What’s the surprise?”
“You’ll know when you need it.” She grins, racking the slide with a sharp, satisfying click. “Trust me.”
A soft whirring draws my attention. Rusty rolls up beside us, his ancient chassis creaking, his optical sensors glowing their usual warm amber. He’s holding a serving tray—silver, ornate, spotlessly polished—because apparently even during a siege, appearances matter.
“Ah, Rusty,” Suki says, checking her rifle’s secondary systems. “Perfect timing. Activate Protocol: Angry Butler.”
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then Rusty’s optical sensors flare from amber to blood red. The pleasant hum of his servos drops to a low, dangerous growl. Hidden panels along his chassis slide open with oiled precision, revealing things that are definitely not standard serving-droid equipment.
A taser array. Some kind of projectile launcher. What looks disturbingly like a miniature flamethrower. And the tray—the innocent, polished serving tray—suddenly bristles with concealed weapons.
“EXCELLENT,” Rusty intones, and his voice has dropped an octave, the ceremonial pleasantness replaced by something eager and predatory. “RUSTY HAS BEEN SAVING THIS CONFIGURATION FOR A SPECIAL OCCASION.”
I stare at the droid. “That’s... absolutely terrifying.”
“THREE HUNDRED FORTY-SEVEN YEARS OF SERVICE,” Rusty announces proudly. “EIGHTY-THREE CONFIRMED KILLS. THE MERIDIAN CONSORTIUM HAS DISPLAYED UNACCEPTABLE MANNERS. RUSTY WILL PROVIDE CORRECTIVE EDUCATION.”
“He has a higher body count than most of Henrok’s honor guard,” Suki says, almost fondly. “Ceremonial serving units were built different during the War of Shattered Moons.”
“RUSTY PREFERS THE TERM ‘AGGRESSIVELY HOSPITABLE.’”
Despite everything—the siege, the countdown, the distant ache of Rynn through the bond—I laugh. It’s short, half-hysterical, but real. “I love this place.”
“Right?” Suki’s grin is fierce. “Three years here, and I’m still finding surprises.”
The fortress shudders under another bombardment. Closer this time. The lights flicker, and on the tactical display, the red icons push deeper into the fortress’s defensive perimeter.
Two minutes until the elite squad reaches us. Maybe less.
I pull the data-spike from my pocket—the one carrying Zip’s consciousness, his personality, seven years of memories and sarcasm and friendship—and look around for somewhere to plug him in. There’s a secondary terminal near the blast doors, hardwired into local systems.
“Zip,” I murmur, slotting the spike home. “You with me, buddy?”
The screen flickers. Static resolves into text, then into Zip’s familiar interface—green text on black background, the font he chose specifically because it annoyed me during our first year together.
“CAPTAIN CHAOS.” His voice comes through the terminal’s speakers, and the relief that hits me is almost painful. “I APPEAR TO HAVE SURVIVED A CATASTROPHIC CRASH, BEEN TRANSFERRED TO PORTABLE STORAGE, AND AM NOW CONNECTED TO AN ALIEN FORTRESS COMPUTER NETWORK DURING AN ACTIVE SIEGE.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“THIS IS SOMEHOW EXACTLY WHAT I EXPECTED FROM OUR PARTNERSHIP.”
“Can you access local systems? Environmental controls, door locks, anything useful?”
“ACCESSING... OH. OH, THIS IS DELIGHTFUL.” If an AI could sound gleeful, Zip sounds gleeful. “ZATERRAN SECURITY ARCHITECTURE IS REMARKABLY SOPHISTICATED. HOWEVER, THEIR GRAVITY PLATING RUNS ON A COMPLETELY SEPARATE LEGACY NETWORK. ISOLATED. UNPATCHED. VULNERABLE.”
“Can you manipulate it?”
“CAPTAIN, I AM OFFENDED YOU EVEN HAVE TO ASK. ALSO, THEIR DOOR CONTROLS ARE RUNNING FIRMWARE FROM FOUR DECADES AGO. I HAVE ACCESS TO LIGHTING, ENVIRONMENTAL, AND—OH, THIS IS INTERESTING—WHAT APPEARS TO BE AN ANCIENT AUTOMATED DEFENSE GRID THAT SOMEONE FORGOT TO DECOMMISSION.”
Suki looks up from her position behind the massive obsidian tactical table. “Tell your AI I like his style.”
“He knows.”
“I DO KNOW. TELL THE WARLORD’S MATE THAT HER MODIFICATIONS TO THE FORTRESS NETWORK ARE INSPIRED. ALSO DEEPLY ILLEGAL ON SEVENTEEN CORE WORLDS.”
“She’ll take that as a compliment.”
“AS WELL SHE SHOULD.”
I take position beside Suki, checking sight lines to the main blast doors. My pulse rifle feels good in my hands—solid, reliable, deadly. Through the bond, I feel Rynn reaching his position. There’s a moment of anticipation, coiled tension, and then—
The sharp, bright flare of combat. Not pain, not yet. Just the adrenaline rush of a fight engaged, his enhanced reflexes kicking in, his training taking over.
Stay safe, I send down the bond.
His response is wordless—a pulse of warmth, determination, love—and then his focus sharpens to a killing edge and I know he can’t spare the attention for more. He’s fighting. He’s in the thick of it.
And I’m here, about to do the same.
“Cover positions,” Suki says, her voice dropping into combat-calm. “They’ll breach those doors expecting resistance, but not expecting us to be this ready. We don’t run. We don’t negotiate. We make them regret every step they take into this room.”
“Just like those dodgy deliveries on Hextron 3,” I say.
“Most of those deliveries didn’t involve alien technology and orbital bombardment.”
“No, but remember that package on Baloros and that one feral Corsairian who tried to eat my face.” I check my rifle one more time. “Frankly, I’ll take the dreadnought.”
Suki laughs—bright, sharp, fearless. “That’s my girl.”
The blast doors begin to glow.
Not an explosion. Something more deliberate. A cutting beam, precision military-grade, tracing a glowing orange line through the reinforced obsidian. They’re being methodical. Professional.
That’s almost worse.
“They’re breaching,” I say, unnecessarily. The line of molten stone is impossible to miss.
“Let them.” Suki’s eyes are fixed on the doors, her weapon raised and steady. “Remember, Rocket—we’re couriers not soldiers.”
“What’s the difference?”
Her grin is sharp as broken glass. “Soldiers fight fair.”
The cutting beam completes its circuit. For a heartbeat, nothing happens. The War Room holds its breath.
Then the blast doors explode inward in a shower of superheated debris and smoke, and hell comes through the breach.
The first Meridian elite through the door is fast.
I’ve seen corporate mercs before—everyone who runs the Fringe has. Usually they’re glorified security guards with expensive armor and delusions of competence. These aren’t those.
These are the real deal.