Chapter 9 When Christmas Comes to Die #3
“The families who survive will spend the rest of their lives knowing that children died, elderly beings suffocated, and young love was murdered so they could go home for Christmas,” Krax continues with the kind of satisfaction that makes my skin crawl.
“They’ll carry that lesson everywhere they go—that conscience is just elaborate selfishness, that moral choice is always murder by proxy, and that people who claim to be heroes are really just killers who need better marketing. ”
“Noomi?” Mother’s voice carries through the speakers, and I catch the careful control that means she’s already spinning up contingency plans.
There’s something else in her tone—a subtle emphasis on certain words that suggests coded meaning for anyone smart enough to listen.
“Girl, what’s your assessment of the situation? ”
Assessment. Not status, not condition—assessment. OOPS code for tactical analysis, for intel gathering, for staying alive long enough to find an advantage.
“Forty-seven innocents being used as leverage for a lesson about the price of moral choice,” I reply, letting steel creep into my voice while Krax’s amusement widens like a crack in space.
“The educational value seems limited, unless the goal is demonstrating that some people never learned the difference between justice and revenge.”
“Justice?” Krax laughs, and the sound makes the children in Section B start crying again.
“You destroyed my family in the name of justice. Took my daughters away from me because you decided other people’s families were more important than mine.
Now you get to experience the same mathematics—choose which families matter, which ones are acceptable casualties, which ones deserve to die for your principles. ”
Behind me, Ober shifts slightly, and I feel his alien heat intensify. His enhanced senses are working overtime, cataloging every detail of our prison while calculating odds that probably don’t favor anyone in this room.
“The choice you gave Sera was accept your crimes or lose her children,” I say, memory and rage sharpening my voice to a blade. “She chose to protect them from growing up thinking family separation was normal business. That’s not the same mathematics.”
“Isn’t it?” Krax’s black eyes reflect satisfaction like oil on water.
“You decided abstract principles were worth more than concrete relationships. That hypothetical future victims mattered more than my actual daughters. Now you get to make the same choice—abstract morality versus specific lives, principle versus people, conscience versus love.”
The communication array crackles with Mother’s voice again: “All stations, be advised—we’ve got forty-seven civilians in immediate danger and unknown structural integrity on the target vessel. Prepare for precision extraction operations. Authorization Omega Seven Seven.”
Omega Seven Seven. I’ve never heard that code before, but Ober’s tail tightens around my ankle in a rhythm that suggests he recognizes it. Something serious enough that Mother’s willing to risk everything, authorization from high enough up the chain that she can ignore normal diplomatic protocols.
But Krax’s smile suggests he was expecting exactly this kind of response.
“Attention rescue fleet,” he announces, moving to secondary controls that probably do exactly what I’m afraid they do.
“Any attempt to board this vessel will result in immediate decompression of all three family sections. Your choice: watch from a safe distance while Nova and Ober demonstrate the true cost of moral evolution, or be responsible for forty-seven deaths by trying to play hero.”
The countdown displays suddenly flicker to life throughout the bay, showing three minutes in stark red numerals that begin ticking downward immediately. Three minutes to choose which families live and which die. Three minutes to prove that conscience is just another word for selective murder.
Around us, forty-seven families wait for salvation that might cost them everything, their Christmas clothes now serving as potential funeral shrouds for dreams that were supposed to come true yesterday.
But as the countdown begins and Krax prepares to force us into an impossible choice, I feel something fundamental shift between Ober and me.
His alien warmth seeps through my jacket as he positions himself to shield me from multiple angles, his enhanced senses cataloging every detail of our prison while his presence reminds me that some partnerships are worth any price.
Some promises matter more than survival.
Some deliveries are too important to fail.
“Three minutes,” I murmur, studying the energy barriers and calculating impossible odds.
“Three minutes,” he agrees, his tail tightening around my ankle in a rhythm that spells tactical coordinates and desperate affection against my skin.
Vex’s attention keeps drifting to the children in Section B, his phosphorescent patterns flickering with what might be conscience fighting against loyalty.
Behind his elegant features, something is cracking—perhaps some remaining piece of the person he was before revenge consumed his brother and made monsters of them both.
The countdown continues, and with it, the most crucial mission of our lives. Because this Christmas, we’re not just delivering packages.
We’re delivering hope itself. Even if we have to choose who lives to receive it.
Even if it kills us.
Even if it kills them.