Chapter 29
SOLEIL
The corridors of Cybele Station were sweltering with evening traffic and crowds when Soleil stepped out of Kahawa Metro, done with her shift.
Somewhere down the line, a hawker shouted deals for fresh kelp cakes and steamed alga noodles.
The haze of oil smoke drifted over the clustered stalls.
Soleil walked with her earbuds in, bag slung over her shoulder, lost in the rhythmic brass of an old-world big-band riff.
It was the only thing these days that brought her some semblance of joy.
The sounds of rich saxophones and swing beats tapped against her ribs like a second heartbeat.
She was halfway to the lifts when she caught the sound of a frantic, panicked cry, then another.
She froze and pulled one earbud out.
‘Please don’t take it! That’s everything I have!’
The voice belonged to an older woman, a vendor who sold fried plantains from a foldable cart near one of Deck 17’s side corridors.
Soleil darted around the corner and stopped cold.
Two Accord Legion sentinels, suited in gleaming riot shells with their insignia blinking blue, were holding the woman captive.
One rifled through her satchel. The other clutched an energy baton in his gauntlet.
‘You need a trade permit, you old parasite,’ one growled.
He snatched her last box of food and tossed it to the floor while the man with his hands on her raised his baton and hit her, hard.
The woman cried out, clutching her ribs as she sank to her knees.
Soleil’s fingers curled.
The guards had not yet seen her.
Her pulse surged, and seconds later, she shifted in a blur, her limbs lengthening.
Molten red light erupted around her.
Her eyes flared, a spectral crimson as she growled.
The security personnel turned too late.
She hit them like a comet.
She tackled the first against the metal wall, claws raking through his breastplate before slamming him to the floor with a bone-jarring clang.
He reached for his blaster.
She knocked it away with a growl and bared her fangs just inches from his face.
He passed out cold, soaked in the stink of his own fear.
The second guard lunged with his baton. She spun and caught his wrist in her jaws.
Then she slammed him into the cart, which toppled with a shriek of metal, and he too crumpled.
Soleil stood panting, a spectral apparition.
A red shimmer swept over her fur as she regained control.
The older woman stared in shock, trembling.
Soleil shifted back into her human form.
‘It’s alright, you’re safe now, Auntie,’ she muttered, her chest heaving. ‘I’m done now.’
The woman gasped, then began to weep.
Soleil knelt and helped her gather the scattered goods and food containers while folding up the cart.
‘Come on, Auntie,’ she murmured. ‘You’ll be safer on Deck 9. I’ll walk you there.’
It took thirty minutes and a few awkward elevator rides, but Soleil saw the woman off to a quieter merchant strip before heading back toward her dorm.
The whole time, her mind reeled.
The Accord Legion was turning feral.
This was meant to be a protected outpost; however, the only thing the locals were being shielded from was peace.
The guards bullied traders. They raided homes for ‘random inspections.’ They pulled rank over every rule and shadow.
All the while demanding protection-baksheesh and threatening to disappear those who rebelled against them.
Chatter in the back hallways said more pirates were consolidating off-station.
Rumors floated of a dock crew slaughtered in a silent attack near the debris rings.
Soleil’s gut twisted. As she trudged toward the lobby of her dormitory, her boots felt like lead.
The dorm was an old converted storage facility with twenty floors of narrow steel bunks and communal showers.
The neon at the entry flickered with the name of the collective hovel, DOME A21.
As she pushed in the creaking alloy door, an affronted shout from a cubicle nearby sounded out about the disappearance of hot water again.
She sighed and made her way up the stairs, climbing into her assigned cubicle.
Thank fokk this sorry ass dig was temporary.
In two days, she would be moving to a single room downstairs that opened onto the corridor.
The new space was scarcely wide enough to stretch in.
A box with a view of nothing, but it was hers, paid for with her own wage, and better still, a lot more private.
She couldn’t wait to get the access codes, thankful for the caretaker, Old Thari’s intervention.
The wiry woman with a stooped back and eyes like steel bolts was partial to Soleil and pushed up her move-in dates.
In part due to the delicious pastries that Soleil shared with her every so often.
Soleil pulled the privacy curtain of her cubicle closed and zipped it shut.
Sinking into her mattress, her hands trembled as she withdrew her comm tab from her bag.
She tabbed screens until she paused at one.
For a long moment, she just stared at the balance in the Red Skull account at the Allied flotilla bank.
3,487, 125 schills.
Blood money, almost a freakin’ taunt.
Still, it was a way out if she ever needed it. She had more than enough to book passage to Pegasi with that, on a fast generational cruiser.
She had the means to change her name, bio-hack a face change, and disappear for a decade, until the universe forgot her name.
Yet she was not ready to vanish.
She placed her commtab onto the makeshift shelf by her pillow and lay down, staring as a news feed flickered to life.
She eyed it as headlines slid across the interface.
In time, her eyes fluttered shut as sleep took hold of her.
Moments later, the display switched to a new broadcast.
SIGNET SECURITY AWARDED CONTROL OF 65 CYBELE.
CLASHES ANTICIPATED AS CURRENT LEGION COMMANDER REFUSES TO RELINQUISH POWER.
The display glowed until the screen saver turned black.
SANTIAGO
By defying expectations and jumping straight into Cybele’s periphery, Santi exploited the gambit of total surprise.
The Accord legion had been lulled into complacency by plans for a round of negotiations refuting Signet’s claims on the station.
The stealthed Signet capital ship glimmered within the station’s security perimeter.
They came in quietly and cloaked.
Santi stood at the bridge of the última El Lobo, his arms crossed over his chest as the forward view displayed the looming station.
Metal loading dock struts, rotating habitat wheels, and a staggering web of outdated Accord tech ringed the port.
His eyes narrowed, jaw clenched as a cluster of Accord’s convoy ships lazed about the perimeter, unsuspecting.
‘Legion’s sleeping,’ Kaal muttered at his side, eyes glued to the tactical readout. ‘Poor bastards.’
‘They’re gonna learn today,’ Santi growled, motioning toward the comm. ‘Miral, light it up.’
Miral’s voice crackled back, calm as a scalpel. ‘Target lock confirmed. Firing.’
Outside, a silent blaze of radiance erupted, precise, surgical strikes from the El Lobo’s pulse cannons.
The engines of patrol boats split like paper in the black.
The shock was absolute as the comms Miral had hacked into went wild with shouts of terror, while the Accord tried to get a bead on what had hit them.
Legion gunships tried to scramble, but Signet’s second wave of interceptors surrounded them, boxing them in.
On the view feed, Santi spotted one gunship launching a barrage in his cruiser’s general direction.
Until a harmonized drone volley from the El Lobo surgically clipped its thrusters, flipping it into a spin and sending it crashing against Cybele’s outer cargo ring in a fireball of twisted steel.
‘Confirmed hits,’ Kaal called. ‘Most vessels are out of play.’
‘They’re not taking it well,’ Santi drawled, as the Legion’s autonomous defense platform on the station launched a swarm of three hundred steel-spined insects meant to intercept, retaliate, and overwhelm.
Miral anticipated the pattern.
Interceptor pods activated from El Lobo’s drone bay, bursting into synchronized clusters of counter-fire.
The Accord’s mini horde got shredded mid-flight, cut to ribbons.
‘Damn,’ Santi muttered, eyeing Miral as she manipulated the assault via a holo display. ‘You’ve gotten harder, freakin’ meaner.’
‘I’ve always been mean,’ she intoned. ‘You used to think it charming.’
‘Nada, this level of zero fokks given is new.’
‘Perhaps I’ve an incentive, seeing your eyes light up as we fokk shit up.’
‘You know it,’ he chuckled.
With the outer defense grid wiped, Miral turned her precise focus on the comm tower arrays next.
‘I’m disabling all external comms from the station,’ she said. ‘Slicing off the tongue before they can call for help from their patrols.’
One by one, the Legion’s satellite arrays flickered, then died.
On the lower deck, a junior squad member piped up. ‘No signals are getting out, Commander. They’re isolated.’
‘Sawa,’ Santi said, voice flat. ‘Shall we knock on their door next? See what reception we get?’
He twisted and gave a grim nod to Kaal. ‘Let’s get boots on the ground, folks.’
The docking clamps released with a hiss, and the El Lobo lowered into Bay Twelve of Cybele Station like a war god descending from the heavens.
Santi stood at the head of the inclined ramp, legs akimbo, his dark floor-length cloak flaring behind him.
Miral positioned herself to his left, her Synth-frame shimmering beneath her matte tactical suit.
Kaal flanked his right, silent and stone-eyed, scanning for threats.
Cybele’s air hit them like stale breath, metallic and heavy with a recycled tinge.
‘Lookie here, cabrónes, we have a welcome party,’ Santi drawled.
Bristling before them was a line of battered autobots and two dozen Accord Legion guards.
Each toting stun carbines aimed at the Signet crews’ chests.
‘I love Cybele already,’ Santi muttered, scratching the stubble along his jaw. ‘Friendly bunch.’
‘State your purpose!’ barked a guard with a dark visor, reaching for cuffs.
Miral tilted her head. ‘Did they not get the memo?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Santi rasped, stepping forward. ‘Gentlemen. I’m Commander Santi Alvarro of Signet Security. United Earth and Accord HQ have authorized us to take command of this facility under Directive 49. Care to check your inbox?’
A younger guard stepped up, puffed with bravado. ‘This is an Accord post. We answer to Lieutenant Rexus, not some fokkin’ pampered lapdogs from Signet.’
Kaal cracked his knuckles.
Santi blinked at the insult and used a lean finger to point at the younger man before him. ‘Lapdog. That isn’t very kind. I’ve been called wolf, wraith, lover, felon, but not that one. It’s new.’
‘You’re trespassing,’ the mouthy one insisted, and when Santi took another step, the kid panicked and fired.
The stun bolt bounced off his shielded armor with a high-pitched snap.
‘Tut, tut,’ Santi murmured. ‘Why did you have to make this personal?’
He moved before the guard could react.
He slapped the blaster from the young man’s hands, who also received a full-force palm to the sternum, which got him flying back into his squad mates like a tossed sack of potatoes.
Kaal charged the left flank, fists brutal, his strikes brutal.
One, two, three dropped with cracked visors and snapped knees.
Another raised a rifle,
Miral’s fingers flicked forward. A beam of white energy short-circuited the weapon, sending the guard convulsing to the floor.
The remaining half-dozen wisely chose to flee, slipping into the chaos of the station’s passageways.
Santi nodded to his twelve squad members waiting on the ramp.
‘After those soldiers, remember to keep it clean as much as you can. Patch in to Miral for instructions on where to find us when you’ve got them by the neck.’
The squad raced off in formation after the fleeing security
‘That’s more like it,’ Santi said, adjusting the collar of his jacket as he stepped over the groaning heap of bodies. ‘A nice warm welcome.’
‘Also an efficient way to clear the way,’ Miral deadpanned. ‘In one foul swoop.’
Abandoning the groaning, downed men, the trio moved as a unit through the port’s upper corridors, boots echoing on stained steel.
Lieutenant Rexus’ office was what Santi expected: over-decorated, overstaffed, and oozing with delusions of grandeur.
The man himself stood at the rear of a desk made of fake marble and cluttered with bad decisions.
Darro Rexus was rotund, sweating beneath his tight military tunic, his bald scalp gleaming under the overhead light.
His beard, styled into a tapering triangle, quivered over his bulging belly at the affront. He appeared like a man who hadn’t run a drill since the last administration.
Behind him, four guards bristled with weapons drawn.
Rexus scowled. ‘I don’t know what the fokk you think you’re doing.’
‘Oh, good,’ Santi cut in. ‘We were hoping to skip the pleasantries.’
‘This is my station!’
‘Nada,’ Miral corrected, ‘this was your play pen. Emphasis on past tense.’
‘You think I’ll hand over control to a pack of self-important Signet operatives and Synth-bot? You’ve got another thing coming, '
The rotund man reached for a button beneath his desk.
He was too slow.
Kaal vaulted the furniture like a predator, whirling around with a roundhouse kick that landed in Rexus’ solar plexus.
Darro fell with a heavy thud.
Seconds later, the Signet wolf planted a boot in the middle of Rexus’ chest, flattening the man to the floor.
The Allied guards rushed forward.
Miral moved like silver light, turning out the lights for a pair of them with a nerve disruptor.
Meanwhile, Santi danced with the other two, catching one by the arm and twisting it behind his back with a crunch that made the man scream.
He shoved the screaming man into his friends, and the two collided, stumbling and falling to the ground.
The skirmish hadn’t even lasted ten seconds.
‘Back the fokk down,’ Santi growled to the pair scrabbling on the ground, who promptly dropped their weapons and surrendered.
Rexus wheezed beneath Kaal’s grip as he was cuffed. ‘You’ll regret this.’
Santi crouched beside him. ‘You received a direct order from two legal authorities. You resisted and even fired at your new official bosses. Now you’ll sit in your own brig like a good little turd and reflect on your life choices.’
‘You’ll never hold this station. My men won’t follow you. I’ve scattered them through the levels. There’ll be uprisings, accidents, delays, fokkin’ trouble.’
Santi’s smile didn’t quite touch his eyes.
‘Don’t worry,’ he rasped, ‘when the wolves prowl in, the rats flee and those who remain, we tear to pieces.’
He stood and dusted off his palms. ‘Miral, Kaal, take out the trash.’
As they dragged Rexus and his fallen sentinels away, the command office console flickered as Signet override codes rolled across the screens.
Cybele was theirs now, and Santi, despite the ache still shackling his chest, welcomed the familiar rhythm of impetus returning.