Star Claimed Omega

Chapter 1

THE RED QUEEN

The masked redhead’s boots struck the floor in a syncopated rhythm.

Each step through the scorched metal and molten composite corridor echoed like a war drum.

The elite-class laser weapon was capable of destroying an entire platoon with a single sustained pulse.

She was The Red Queen, her cloak of crimson billowing behind her, in vermilion savagery, her jaw set, hellbent on finishing her mission.

Behind her, the disciplined thud of her team’s boots followed as they picked off the last of the guards guarding the ammunition depot.

She didn’t need to look back; she was confident her warriors were relentless.

They had trained for this for months, their bodies and minds honed for this singular mission.

This raid was a test case against the potent Signet Group, a trial by fire.

With the weapons cache contained within these walls, they would be closer to achieving their sole goal, the one the entire clan was panting for.

Releasing the Carmine Cardinal and consolidating their power to topple and rule over the Wildlight’s close network of mafia houses and clans.

The depot, Loup Nine, a secret Signet vault, was no ordinary armory.

This one housed state-of-the-art prototype xentium rail gun rounds, anti-meta pulse grenades, and ionic bombs.

And, if whispers were true, it also contained XV rail casters capable of collapsing planetary biospheres or imploding a dreadnought on itself.

The cache was gifted to Signet by the all-powerful Sable Group in Pegasi, the final destination of every flotilla and ship in the Wildlight.

Which meant all edge lords and rogue mafia bosses within ten parsecs had taken a shot at finding and raiding the station, in a system-wide pirate rush for the depot’s treasures.

Most failed; their ships found floating in jagged segments outside the vault perimeter.

The woman grimaced beneath her mask. She had no plans to join the losers.

She would prevail, appeasing her clan and pleasing her handler.

Now she had boots on the ground and could almost scent her success.

She slipped past another bulkhead and spotted the cyclic-locked vault door up ahead.

Her pulse picked up, kicking up into a feral rhythm through her veins.

This was it.

Slinging the V-90 across her back, she stepped up to the massive steel door, her eyes scanning the rotating circular locks embedded with kinetic sensors.

She checked the wall and the surrounding area for any holo ID check.

There was none to be seen, just as the intel from a corrupted maintenance engineer promised.

This was an old-fashioned cyclical safe lock, and she had the combination memorized. With a breath, she reached for the glowing access panel.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’

The vocalization slid through the smoke like a blade through silk.

Deep, husky, threaded with a primal, commanding amusement.

She froze. Her hand hovered in the air.

She didn’t turn.

‘Why not?’ she asked, her utterance a cool counterpoint to the heat of the moment.

‘Because it’s bristling with five kilotons of phaseline-triggered magnetic charge,’ the timbred burr growled. ‘Enough to atomize your boots and punch your bones through the far wall. I’d hate to see that happen to such an attractive terror like you.’

‘You’re testing me,’ she clipped, irritated. ‘I’ll warn you, I have a quick reaction when it comes to bullshit.’

As she spoke, she spun, her heels squealing on the metal floor.

Her blaster came up, primed and ready to fire.

Her gaze found empty air.

She caught a whistle, followed by a deep, timbred chuckle. ‘Damn, if you’re not part sweet, part savage.’

‘Where the fokk are you?’ she hissed.

‘Right here, beautiful.’

The atmosphere shimmered with a ripple of disturbed light.

A silver glimmer expanded into a swirling vortex of color, mauve, obsidian, and gold, that coalesced into a form.

He flickered into view like a bad dream, like a god caught mid-shift: Part-man, part-spectral energy.

His body, hell, was sculpted, muscled, tall.

Broad shoulders, a lean waist, thick thighs braced like a soldier.

The shimmer surrounding him revealed brief flashes of dusky skin and radiant heat, like starlight trapped in flesh.

However, it was his eyes that seized her attention.

They were freakin’ beautiful. Piercing in amethyst and sapphire.

He didn’t flinch, nor lift a weapon.

Hell, he had none, yet she still got the sense he had enough power at the tips of his fingers to savage her and her crew to pieces.

His eyes bore through her, a slow, knowing, smoking hot smile on his face.

He gave off such a potent, musky masculinity that for a moment, her desire, long hidden away, flared, and she wondered what those lips would feel like on hers.

Damn.

A wave of shouts and the thump of rushing feet filled the corridor behind him and broke through her reverie.

A chorus of warnings lodged in her throat.

‘Wait! Don’t engage!’

It was too late; her squad was already on the move, weapons hot.

They exploded into action with no hesitation, lunging at the stranger in a feral, vicious attack.

The man moved like vapor and steel.

One lazy, effortless hand swatted three warriors into the wall, their bodies hitting the metal with a sickening thud.

The others charged. He dipped, pivoted, and twisted, and in a breathtaking dance of light and shadow, incapacitated them with mere touches, pressure points, and necks, all collapsing like sacks of grain.

They were not dead, only unconscious.

She turned to run, but she didn’t get far.

Her body froze mid-step, suspended like prey in a hunter’s trap.

An invisible force held her.

His spectral energy glimmered closer, wrapping her in an energy band of hot electric silk, binding her limbs and pressing on her lungs.

‘I’m not sure what to do with you,’ the timbred rasp reverberated, now inside her head and all around her. ‘Capture? Or release?’

She thrashed against the unseen bonds, a useless struggle.

‘I’m wondering,’ he drawled, rounding to face her, a swirl of apparitional smoke curling off his chest. ‘Should I send you and your crew so far across the Expanse you’ll need a map and a prayer to crawl back?

Or fling you back to that cobbled rig you call a ship with the understanding you’ll never set foot on Signet property ever again, Red? Or perhaps we duke it out. You and I?’

‘I ain’t got time to bleed,’ she snapped, intentionally misreading his words.

Under her calm mask, anxiety kicked in. She could not agree to his terms.

He didn’t know what her failure would cost.

Her heart rate drummed in her throat at the thought of the penalty of this miscarriage.

Still, she met his gaze, defiant in the face of her impending ruin.

Her chin lifted, her lips curled in scorn. ‘I’ll give you no such promise, fokker.’

He leaned in.

The heat of him, of his power, swirled in her face, making her breath catch.

Her skin prickled.

Her heartbeat thudded a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

‘You’re a spitfire. I fokkin’ adore that. I’d love to keep you around.’

His smirk deepened. ‘However, Red, you’ve outstayed your welcome. Tell your handler he needs better pilferers. Goodbye.’

With that, his sinewed arms came around her and carried her to the airlock.

She kicked hard, but it was to no avail.

He was freakin’ strong.

With a grin, he slammed a hand on the compartment’s controller, and with a salute, she was thrown out of the depot like a comet, her scream lost in the roar of sound and energy.

Her squad followed, slammed through space, until they crashed one by one onto the open rear deck of their hidden ship.

Unceremoniously dumped beside her, their armor shields scarcely reacting in time to cushion the fall.

She lay sprawled on the cold floor, her breath knocked out of her, her veil cracked, her spine aching.

Groaning, rage burned through her even as she whispered it through clenched teeth.

‘Fokk, fokk, fokkin’ hell.’

For the first time in years, she wasn’t sure if she wanted revenge or another look at the spectral tall drink of water who just outwitted and outplayed her.

The ship’s ramp hissed as it lowered, steam curling at her boots.

The scarlet-suited woman stepped down, her long cloak flowing around her calves.

A half-mask in the same searing hue obscured her face, sculpted to frame her prominent cheekbones and the firm line of her mouth.

Her red thigh-high heels struck the concrete port in an uncompromising rhythm as she marched through the dock.

Men and women dropped what they were doing.

Vendors bowed. Deckhands stared.

Soldiers straightened and saluted, their voices echoing behind her.

‘Your Majesty.’

She gave a well-practiced nod and smile, yet her jaw clenched so tight it ached.

The title grated on her, like rust in her ears.

She hated it and what it epitomized: the utter evil of this place.

The terminus appeared worse than when she left it.

The people were thinner, the oxygen staler, the markets bleaker.

Tattered awnings flapped halfheartedly over stalls stripped near-bare, merchants guarding their meager wares with hollow eyes.

Desperation hung in the air like smog.

Still, the scent of liquor lingered. Life’s last luxury.

She winced as a man stumbled from a shadowed tavern she passed, dressed in a ridiculous feathered pirate’s hat and scuffed boots.

He reeked of rum and the significant lack of a recent bath.

Whirling with a bottle in hand, he crashed into her.

Then froze when he spotted her. ‘Majesty,’ he slurred, trying to bow and stay upright at once.

She caught his arm before he fell and righted him with a steady hand.

He extended his sloshing flask to her in appreciation. ‘Want some?’

‘Nada, I’ve already exceeded my lifetime quota,’ she muttered, moving fast away from him.

The corridors grew darker the deeper she went, narrow alleyways turning into choking corridors, each more claustrophobic and rotted than the last.

Rust bled down the walls, and trash piled in corners. The scent of decay, rot, and burning koko fouled the air.

She reached the final hallway.

Two guards slouched at a heavy metal door, their uniforms grimy, buttons missing, and a haze of blue smoke curling around them like lazy ghosts.

Their eyes were pink-rimmed, and their crooked and cracked grins split their faces as they straightened.

‘Your Majesty,’ one said, a curl of yellow teeth flashing.

She studied them for a moment, hit with a stab of compassion. ‘Are your families well?’

They nodded eagerly, babbling out names, ailments, and recent skirmish wins.

One of them kissed her red-gloved hand in a muttered homage.

She winced, loathing their misguided veneration.

They opened the door.

Smoke rushed out in a thick wave with acridity, tobacco, and dark sentiment.

She coughed once, then stepped inside.

A hoarse, grating voice rolled out from within the cloud. ‘You’re back, niece. A failed campaign, it seems.’

‘We tried but -.’

‘Shut it. I have reports on what happened. It was a shit show from all accounts.’

She bowed her head and braced for her punishment, then blinked when it did not come.

‘I’ve decided to pull you from your ship for now.

It’s time to insert you into the real freakin’ situation.

You’re better off when you’re surrounded by real people and very fokkin’ genuine stakes instead of hiding away on your gunship, from me and from your ultimate clan duty.

Your next assignment is at hand. Your most important one to date. ’

She took an inhale, panic blooming in her stomach. ‘Which do you speak of?’

‘You know the one. The time is nigh.’

A nameless emotion twisted in her gut at the affected buccaneer accent.

Dread flared behind her eyes, a flash of flight instinct, before an agony burst through her skull and down her hands like fire poured through her veins.

There it was, the torment he thought she deserved.

Her knees almost buckled.

She gritted her teeth and forced herself upright, refusing to tremble, to scream, to give him the pleasure.

‘Do as commanded or she dies,’ came a hissed snarl.

‘Sawa!. No need for theatrics, uncle,’ she hissed. ‘I have no choice but to do your bidding.’

‘Indeed you do, indeed you do,’ the wheezing voice chuckled as her feet were compelled to move, lurching forward against her will.