Sora

“How about we all just sit down and discuss this without threatening to kill each other?” Bryce was mostly directing her comments at Thea, but she kept glancing towards me, so I volunteered to be the first one to sit.

Sami sat next to me, she was close enough that I had to put an arm around her or she would have been sitting on top of it. She seemed terrified and I couldn’t blame her. I was still trying to get my heart rate under control and my neck was definitely going to bruise.

I hadn’t been able to stop myself from summoning my blades, which was a massive failure on my part and probably exactly what Thea had wanted.

The small woman was intimidating in more ways than just her strength, and I begrudgingly respected her for it. She had somehow known every time I lied before I even spoke and when she charged at me; she used enough speed and strength to force my hand, but not enough to kill me. It was a far cry from the drunken state that I had first met her in.

She had been slowly increasing the strength of her grip around my neck to force me to yield, and didn’t even flinch at the blade I was pushing into her throat.

Thea had probably felt that we were hiding something that would put Bryce at risk, and she was reminding me of her threat from back at the bar. She protects her people. Bryce was her people and we weren’t, at least, not yet.

“Okay, why don’t you start, Samira?” Bryce asked, her soft tone clarifying that it was a request and not a demand.

She and Thea were sitting close to each other on the far side of the couch. Thea had her arms crossed and was glaring at me in a way that was more promising than menacing, although it wasn’t lacking in either regard.

Her glaring at me instead of Sami was actually a massive relief. If she tried to do to Sami what she did to me, people were going to die.

“Well, I’ll start with the obvious. Sora and I aren’t real siblings.”

Thea broke her glare with me and spoke in a gentle tone.

“Sami, I’m serious, don’t lie to us.”

It hadn’t been a lie, not technically, but I think I was understanding how Thea’s ability worked.

“She means we aren’t related, but she is still my sister.”

That seemed to satisfy Thea, which confirmed my suspicions. She wasn’t detecting whether the statement was true, but if the person speaking actually believed the words they were saying. No part of Sami believed we weren’t real siblings, and for what it was worth, no part of me believed it either.

“Sorry, that’s what I meant.” Sami sounded reluctant, so I pulled her in closer and she continued. “Sora was a gift to Mother a few years before my dad joined her harem.”

“Sora was a gift to your mother?” Bryce sounded confused.

“Not my birth mother,” Samira quickly corrected herself. “She just insisted we all call her Mother. She was the Syndicate lord for the sector.”

“Sami’s real mom died when Mother raided her family home and stole her father.” I clarified for Sami, and she continued.

“Living on the compound wasn’t actually all that bad. As long as I stayed out of Mother’s way, she would leave me alone and the number of ships that came around left me with more than enough to do while Sora was busy.”

I flinched at that remark before covering Sami’s mouth because she had been full of shit, and I didn’t want her to provoke the devil.

“The compound had been horrible for all of us, but especially bad for Sami. Mother had only tolerated the children to keep her harem in line, and Sami’s father died a few weeks before her 12th birthday. She had only been allowed to stay because Lyri, one of Mother’s mechanics, kept her hidden and she only ate because I smuggled her food.”

“So Mother found Samira, and you two ran away?” Bryce asked, and I shook my head.

“That’s not entirely correct. Two years later, Mother invited Lyri into her harem and when Lyri refused, she threatened to kill Sami, which makes me think that she always knew. Lyri arranged for me to become a navigator, and all three of us left together a week later.”

“What happened to Lyri?” Bryce asked.

“Mother doesn’t take rejection very well, and she caught up to us at Cauldra station about a year later. Lyri got a message to us before being taken back to the compound.” I explained. “I’ve seen what Mother does to people she thinks betrayed her, and that was five years ago, so for Lyri’s sake, I hope she’s dead.”

“I’m sorry. Nobody should have to go through all of that.” Thea apologized, but then softly added. “But we need to know. Is she still searching for you?”

Sami bit the hand that was still covering her mouth, and I pulled it back with a yelp.

“She spent a lot of time and money grooming Sora to become one of her agents and she’s ancient so I doubt she’d forget us after only six years, but we haven't heard anything from her for awhile, so I don’t think she’s actively looking anymore.”

Thea nodded at that, but then turned her attention to me.

“Do you agree, Sora?”

“I don’t honestly know. She spent 18 years training me herself, which was most of my life, but barely anything to her and with that same line of thinking, six years doesn’t feel like nearly long enough for her to give up.”

Thea seemed satisfied with my response, and she turned to Bryce, who appeared to be deep in thought.

I didn’t know what to think about all of this.

I hated having our entire life story laid bare in front of two people who were basically strangers. But, my instincts were still telling me to go along with them, and I think I was beginning to understand why.

I had felt in the bar how powerful Thea was and after we heard Bryce's story, I knew how scary she could be. But, it wasn’t until Thea charged me that I actually understood what my instincts were telling me all along.

Mother wouldn’t stop looking for us and when we eventually had to face her, these two were exactly the pair we needed in our corner.

“Okay, so we have to avoid the Federation, every mega-corporation, all demons, and the Syndicate. Sounds easy.” Bryce sighed as she listed all the threats.

Thea laughed before helpfully adding her opinion.

“Well, Sami said she can deal with the Federation and the corporations. Which just leaves the demons and the Syndicate, and those two only really matter if they survive long enough to tell anybody about us.”

Yep, they were exactly who we wanted in our corner.

“Wait, I never said that I could deal with the corporations or the Federation. I can spoof our registration, which should stop most questions before they get asked, but if somebody digs too deep, we won’t be able to fool them for long.”

“That should be enough for now, Samira. How long will it take you to adjust the registration?”

Sami exhaled and moved her hand in a wishy-washy motion before responding.

“On the ground, in a fully functioning port? Maybe three or four hours?” Sami shook her head in doubt. “Out here? A day at least, probably two. I’m going to have to juggle the DRM and TPM connections while slowly shuffling power to and from the reg transponder, but because we’re flying and I assume you guys like to breathe, I can’t just do that through life support like I usually would.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the expression Bryce was making while she attempted to understand whatever technical nonsense Sami had just spouted.

“Right, well, do your best, and thanks for taking our need to breathe into consideration. Can you make those adjustments in the Aether?”

Sami thought for a moment, but then nodded, so Bryce turned her attention to me.

“How long is it going to take for us to get to our destination?”

I shrugged at that. There was really no way for me to know.

“The nav-computer has Drassun listed as the destination, but I don’t think their beacon is anchored. Even if it is, New Eden’s beacon sure as the hells isn’t,” I explained. “but the Fury is the fastest ship I’ve ever been on, and Drassun is relatively close in real-space. I’d say probably under a week, but I can’t promise anything until after we shift.”

The Aether didn’t move like real-space, which meant that you never really knew where you’d end up after you shifted, and the beacons tended to drift in the Aether.

Any half-decent navigator could locate a specific beacon by feel. After that, it was just a matter of flying to it. The problem was that there was no way to know the distance between any two beacons until you knew where they were, and you can't know where they are until you're already in the Aether.

Anchoring a beacon would prevent drifting, but doing that was expensive. Expensive enough that the corporation, who had just bought a planet because they wanted to hide a college professor, wouldn’t even consider it without a damn good reason.

“Thank you Sora, that’s more than I was hoping for. The way I see it, we can get underway now, and we can discuss what we want to do after the delivery while we travel. Are there any objections?”

Bryce must have really enjoyed being an executive, she certainly sounded the part. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, just very different from the type of people I was used to working under.

Nobody objected, so I mentally reached out to the ship’s Aether Shifter and activated it.

I felt time slow dramatically and experienced every cycle of the ship’s reactor as it overworked itself, trying to power the critical subsystems that would allow us to safely shift into the Aether. I redirected power from the engines to give it the final push, and my implants vibrated painfully against the interior of my skull.

I pushed my consciousness outside the hull of the ship, where I allowed myself several milliseconds to bask in the static generated by New Eden’s beacon. I had always relished this feeling, but it was probably just the Pavlovian response to what I knew was coming next.

I mentally captured a microscopic fragment of the static, willing it to freeze before bringing it into clearer focus. The fragment slowly coalesced into a kaleidoscope of familiar senses, each representing a separate and unique passageway into the Aether.

There was no way to know where each passageway would lead or which would be safe, but I rejected a half-dozen of them out of hand and focused on one in particular that tasted slightly purple with just a hint of warm summer showers. The passage responded to my attention, and I had to remind myself to bring the ship as it grew in size and drew me in.

The entire process was over in a matter of seconds, and my consciousness returned just as the transition was visible through the transparent ceiling of the ship. I looked down at a concerned Sami, holding her tighter to brace myself against the effect that always followed navigating a shift.

My vision faded as a sharp stab turned to pleasure, signaling the overload and subsequent override of pain receptors. I was lost in the feeling for some time before I registered the ringing in my ears that heralded the return of my senses.

Darkness slowly faded to light, and I saw Bryce bracing herself as arcane formations appeared around her. Blood was dripping from her nose and eyes as she frantically cast some sort of spell.

Sami was struggling against my tensed muscles, and I could finally hear the shouting as I looked up to see a titanic yellow eye through the screens embedded in the ceiling.