K5X33-12 Star System

Calling K5X33-12 a ‘named’ star system would be like saying a pile of debris is a spaceship. The only reason it had ever gained a catalog name in the first place was that some poor bastard had purchased the mining rights to it then got there and found the system to be unimaginably poor in just about anything a person could mine for profit. There was iron and nickel and all sorts of material, but not enough to be worth the cost of shipping people out here to work. The only other thing of note was a tiny blue gas giant. So the owner had written it off and died a long time ago, leaving the place abandoned.

Which made it the perfect place for the Asteroid Trading Station to rise again.

An asteroid of appropriate size in the sparse inner debris disk around the weak star had been selected for the new location then hollowed the areas which would function as the station in the future. That was well over a year ago now and Nayla Reyes was very happy with the progress.

Her old passenger ship, the Aster Aster, served as a mothership for four small parasite miners which carved out the interior docking bays and allowed her crew to get to work carving out other smaller areas by hand while the tiny mining ships went to collect more material they needed to build the passages.

So it was a bit rough around the edges at the moment, but the Asteroid Trading Station II was already like home to her.

“Nayla.”

She turned, smile warmly at the man who had called her name. Nayla was no stranger to working with people of all kinds, ATS after all was at its best a fairly lawless place, rules enforced only by whoever was the biggest threat. Criminals of all stripes had made their way through ATS as well as legitimate merchants looking to invest in goods you couldn’t buy in civilized space.

So when a man with no credentials to his person showed up on her doorstep and asked for a job a month before she’d had to flee, she hadn’t been fazed. A bit of questioning and prodding to make sure he wasn’t an outright slaver, (afterall ATS wasn’t that lawless,) she hired Harold on as a sensor tech.

Then quickly fell in love. After she’d left her homeworld and struck out in hopes of making a name for herself, she had all but given on relationships. Flings and one night stands were one thing, a prolonged and serious fling meant there was someone in the universe that could be held against her. Harold had been different though, he was sweet in a strange way, never one for chocolates and roses but more than willing to stand by her side brandishing weapons and cracking heads then giving her a kiss on the cheek once the dust settled. She knew he vaguely may have have warrants out for his arrest, fraud and perhaps assassination attempts? It didn’t matter, Nayla couldn’t claim to be a paragon, so as long as he didn’t sell people for a living, she was happy to have him around.

“What’s up?” She asked as she leaned against the crate in the dim recesses of a newly craved out cargo bay.

“Well I wanted to share a lunch with you but I got distracted by the need to bully a merchant for denting our nice new docking cradle.” He said dryly.

Nayla winced. “Is it bad?”

“Thankfully no, but we are going to need to requisition spares as we only had enough for one replacement of all the damaged parts. We expected not to need them as badly in these early days as even the kinds of rabble that come out here tend to respect the furniture or get thrown out an airlock.” Harold shrugged. “But it's late enough now I could ask if you wanted to share a dinner instead.”

“That sounds wonderful.” Nayla stretched her arms above her head, pausing as Harold none-to-subtly checked her out. “Dessert comes after dinner you hedonist.”

“You look like a main meal to me.” He shot back with a grin.

“Please spare me your terrible one-liners! I’m dating you because you can hit a target at range in a cramped corridor, not because you’re hot.” She complained as the two began their walk back to their quarters to share some sort of food, probably a ration bar and refiltered water as ATS II didn’t have the traffic yet to buy and pilfer the fresher foods yet.

Suddenly an alert buzzed in her ear-piece , making her stop dead in the corridor to press a finger to the device. “This is Reyes, speak.”

“Ma’am. Please come to the control center, there is something here you have to see.”

Nayla shouldn’t expect military precision from civilians who chose to live such questionable lifestyles, but that was so vague she didn’t know what to do with it.

“Details. Is it Novu Sol? A Privateer? Are the Gods themselves manifesting outside in space? Tell me so I know how fast I need to run.” She snapped.

“Sorry, it's Ionosphere Ma’am.”

That actually made her relax for a moment. The Admiral was no threat to her and while basic, they had her hidden dock already carved out and hidden. Then she remembered that for some reason the tech wanted her to come to the control center. Ionosphere on her own wasn’t much to write home about, so what was going on?

“I’ll be there.” She said, tapping the ear-piece to end the call then looked over to Harold with an apologetic expression. “Sorry Harold, duty calls. we can eat later.”

“I’ll come with you.” He said as he once again fell in beside her as she began to quickly walk towards the command center. “What’s wrong?”

“Ionosphere is here and someone in CC decided it was important enough for me to be commed.” Nayla looked around, as though trying to spot something that wasn’t there. “Best go check it out.”

In the command center of ATSII it was busy, but not frantic, so once again nayla had to wonder what was important enough to contact her. She could see on the large hologram of the star system a single green dot representing the Ionosphere, but the contact was moving almost too slowly. No damage could be seen on the ship at all.

“Has she spoken to us?” Nayla asked as she turned towards the communication section of CC.

“Yes, but it's eyes-only for you Nayla.” One of the com people said. “We can’t crack the code on it, but it doesn’t look hostile. Just strange for The Admiral to communicate this way.”

Nayla swallowed hard, that wasn’t good.

She walked over to a console, sat down, then brought up the message, entering the special code she had been given by The Admiral to unlock any eyes-only messages sent her way. She waited while the codes exchanged relevant information and decoded itself into a format she could watch.

There was The Admiral, in her command chair as always, but something was off. The eye over where her red scar started was strangely unfocused and half-closed, usually neat hair disheveled and uniform looking overly worn and dirty.

“Nayla Reyes,” The Admiral’s voice was surprisingly level, but the words sounded like they were pulling energy from her that she didn’t have. “I come to this place because it is the safest place not currently under close watch by Novu Sol agents. My medical equipment is top notch but it cannot properly heal me in my current state. I ask you a favor, one which will…” she coughed, taking several deep breaths, “come with good pay. In order for my body to heal I want you to care for me while my body regenerates. Please highlight where my dock is if it had been built. I am capable of docking but if I do not disembark my ship in a half an hour to greet you, then you will need to come aboard and help me. Admiral, out.”

Nayla sucked in a deep breath. Holy ships in a biscuit The Admiral was coming to her for help like this?

“What’s wrong?” Harold had crept up behind her, peering over her shoulder at the still image of The Admiral that had frozen on screen at the end of the message. “Damn she looks terrible. Nothing wrong with her ship though,” he pointed out.

Nayla shook her head. “We can discuss it in a bit, traffic control, guide The Admiral into her dock and then lock the concealer hatch once she’s safely inside.” She stood, checking the gun at her hip. “I’m going down there to wait for her.”

She didn’t even wait for any acknowledgement as she strode out of the command center with single-minded focus for the hidden dock where she would meet The Admiral. She knew exactly what this sort of thing would buy her. The Admiral had trillions of credits to her name and while yes, that money investment would bring ATSII up to it's former glory quicker and maybe even better than before, she was thinking more long term.

The Admiral didn’t trust. Or when she did she did so selectively and very carefully. The open secret of her being pretty much being sponsored by Callisas meant she trusted them to some degree, but at the moment she didn’t trust their security to protect her. She was trusting this isolated,hidden, half-built station to hide her while whatever injuries she had sustained healed. It would be so easy to watch her fall asleep under her watchful eye, lock the dock down and send a ship to Novu Sol, wouldn’t it?

But it would be the end of ATSII. She might reap the reward of catching The Admiral, clearing her crimes and being offered all she could desire, but the dream of her trading station would die. Novu Sol would scrub this place clean and turn it into something it wasn’t. She didn’t know that, they might leave it, or destroy it, or think she was lying. Whatever it was, she refused to deal with Novu Sol. She barely tolerated them as is.

“Wait! Nayla!”

She was pulled to a stop just outside the unassuming hatch that led to The Admiral’s secret dock by Harold, who looked concerned. “What did she tell you? Can I help?” He sounded just like he looked and she guessed she probably looked more serious than she intended. Nayla didn’t say anything as she opened the hatch and stepped inside, Harold following and closing it behind him. “Please if this is going to be trouble…”

“The Admiral is injured. I will be taking care of her while she recovers.” She replied simply. “I do not need your help for that, though I thank you for your concern. Please go eat dinner, I’ll take care of The Admiral.”

He hesitated for a moment, like he wanted to say something, but just nodded, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, and left.

One month later, Nayla had to admit she wondered if The Admiral was actually getting better.

She rarely woke up, only getting out of bed for an occasional shower and meal. She rarely talked even when Nayla talked to her about things on the station, knowing her famous temper and not seeing her try to threaten her for talking too much was telling of her state. The Admiral occasionally asked for certain drugs, and once had to stumble her with her help back aboard Ionosphere in order to find a drug which Nayla had never seen before one night after she apparently had a seizure.

Weak. It was not a word she would associate with The Admiral, but seeing the tiny woman like this made it clear why she wasn’t just laying in deep space to recover. She needed help, no matter how minimal.

As she walked down the row of living quarters that would soon house more important permanent residents she paused at Harold’s. Helping The Admiral recover cut significantly into her time but she had some time now, maybe they could have a bit of fun with it.

“Oh Harold…” She called seductively as she slipped into his room, more than ready to start unzipping her work jumpsuit and make demands of her lover. She paused as she entered, he wasn’t there. He always had some ocean white noise playing when he was here, so even though he’d left the lights on, unusual for him, his quarters were dead silent.

She sighed in disappointment, he must have been called away, Nayla should have known better than to expect her free time to stay free.

As she walked down the hall to the furthest room, the one she had willed to The Admiral’s recovery, she paused at the hatch. Something seemed different, but for some reason she didn’t think it was related to The Admiral being better. She honestly expected to find The Admiral gone one day like a ghost rather than thanking her. It was the quiet, she thought. There wasn’t anyone else here, just a low hum for life support.

She opened the hatch and stepped in.

Standing over the bed, his form silhouetted from the lights outside, was Harold.

“Harold?!” She said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

Harold didn’t turn. “I’m here to save ATS.”

“What are you on about? Get out of here before you wake The Admiral up.” She commanded.

Finally he turned and she was startled to see his pistol in his hand, a finger resting in the trigger making her instinctively take a step back into the hatch to give her an escape if he fired.

“Nayla, she is a danger to your dream! Why can’t you see that?” He motioned to the sleeping form of The Admiral on the bed, the woman showing no signs of hearing any of this. “She is not your friend, the second she is well she will destroy this place for seeing her weakness because no amount of money in the universe can keep gossiping spacers quiet.”

“The only people that know she is here to recover from whatever injury she sustained are you, me and her. Her ship is in her secret dock and The Admiral is well known for being a recluse. Her not being out and about is perfectly in character.” She argued back. “Now stop pointing that gun at me you dumbass, you know better.”

Harold scowled, but lowered the gun to point at the deck. “I think you’re being blinded by some sort of sentimentality. The Admiral doesn’t care about you or the ATS, it’s all just assets in her life to be used and discarded.”

“She protected the last ATS from the Novu Navy.” Nayla wondered what exactly had gotten into him.

“And then you had to destroy it and move here, losing business in the process and having to spend time building it again! How often are you going to let this psychopath use your ATS as a shield for Novu Sol to beat it's head against?” She started to inject but he rolled right over her. “Think about it, to be free of this curse that makes Novu Sol want to look closer at you, you’ll never need to fear them again if we kill her and turn in the body!”

“Are…are you mad?” Nayla blurted out, “you think Novu Sol, the most powerful nation in the universe right now, is just going to forgive and forget because we took down The Admiral?”

“Maybe not that simple, but at least they might clear our names and turn a blind eye.” Harold said defensively. “It’s better than them coming out here and arresting everyone because they found out you let her sleep here and they want to clean up loose ends!”

“That’s not the way Novu Sol works and you know it!” She snapped. “If they decide they want to do something, nothing will stop them. We all exist on their sufferance, the mice to paw at until they get bored and kill us. If you think you’ll get anything out of Novu Sol, you’ll get a nice warm thanks before they shoot you for your crimes!”

“We can’t keep doing this! We can’t keep pushing back to protect a bastard of a human against the most powerful nation in space!” He motioned wildly with his gun at The Admiral, miraculously still asleep.

“It doesn’t have to be we.” Nayla looked away. “You don’t have to stay here. Next ship going into the Confederacy that stops here I’d gladly finance you a ticket out of here. You can disappear there easily, even pick up your old job, and I will stay here and suffer whatever wild consequences you think I’m going to get from this.”

Harold blinked rapidly and she was surprised to see tears fall from his eyes. “But I don’t want to leave you! I don’t want to see ATS go under or get closed down. I just want you to have your best life and not get arrested for something as stupid as supporting her. Just hand her over to Novu Sol, it's literally that simple. They want her so badly they’d be willing to do anything, and she’s still weak, her ship locked in your dock. Just let's get rid of this mad woman and live our lives.”

“So we just roll over and submit to Novu Sol, just like that?” Nayla said, her anger rising. “That we should just ‘fall in line,’ and ‘speak the language’ and ‘start acting like a normal person?’ Last time someone said that my homeworld got invaded, the government overthrown and in two generations we went from a prosperous planet to a bug squashed under Novu Sol’s boot. My grandfather and his generation died trying to resist the takeover. All it got was a permanent occupation force and propaganda up to our ears to turn us into them.”

“Then you understand why this is such a shit idea!” Harold practically yelled. “Maybe if your world hadn’t pissed them off they wouldn’t have gotten attacked.”

Nayla didn’t know what she would have done. How many times in her life had she heard that? How she remembered the blasé way Novu Solarians dismissed their oppression, the traditions that had been mocked and guilted away to conform with Novu society.

She never had to know what she would have done.

Harold suddenly lurched forward, a flash of fear passing over his face before he fell forward and hit the ground, a sizable dagger stabbed into his skull through his brain stem.

The Admiral stood from her bed, wearing one of her plain Novu Sol uniforms, fixing the sleeves and wrinkles before walking over to Harold’s dead body. She knelt down next to it, careful of the growing puddle of blood, took a firm grim on the dagger then pulled it out; she wiped down the blade with an old rag and studied the blade in the darkness. The fact that she was armed and dressed must mean she felt well enough to leave.

“You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.” She said mildly, “Come, walk me to my ship.”

As Nayla numbly fell in beside The Admiral, she couldn’t help asking. “How much did you hear?”

“Everything. I am a naval officer, I sleep lightly.” The Admiral walked with confidence, though at a pace slower than normal, so perhaps she wasn’t one hundred percent better. “Shame really, if he had waited another five hours I would have been gone.”

It took until they had arrived at Ionosphere’s dock for Nayla to snap out of shock, her eyes refocusing as The Admiral began to walk to her ship to leave. “Wait!”

The Admiral stopped, though did not turn around. Nayla wondered if she should even dare to ask a question.

“Why did you come here?” She asked.

For a moment, The Admiral was silent, staring at her ship and Nayla was sure she was just going to leave, pretending not to have heard as was her usual way of ignoring questions she hated.

So she was very surprised when The Admiral turned and walked to stand in front of Nayla, looking up at the woman with those unsettling blue eyes.

“Naykalaea Reyes.”

Nayla took a step back, eyes wide. How did The Admiral know her True Name? To her knowledge she’d never written it down or had it spoken to her outside her homeworld. Not even what files she had back on her home planet had that name as it was a gift from her grandmother.

“I came to you because I was injured in a way that came very close to killing me. The Empire of Callisas was too far and too public. So ATSII was the best place.” She said simply.

“But if you died there’s a good chance we couldn’t revive you.”

The Admiral actually smiled. It was an unusual expression for her as this one seemed genuine, even reaching up to her usually cold eyes.

“I had plans in place in case I died.” Her tone was amused, more than Nayla thought she was honestly capable of. “If it was my time, it was my time, surviving a transition into hyper inside the redline of a star system is impressive enough as is, but I still have some fight left in me, can’t leave without going out in a more spectacular fashion.”

The Admiral then turned and began to walk away, with Nayla standing there, unsure of what to do with this interaction. The most dangerous person alive had confided some human emotions in her and that was honestly scary.

“Oh and Naykalaea.”

Nayla startled and looked up at The Admiral. “Yes?”

“The stars will see you home, but not without building your own ship. I've had around 3 billion credits transferred to your ATS, use it wisely." She said before she turned back around; the hatch slid shut behind her before Nayla could ask what she meant by that first part.

So Nayla just watched through the viewport as Ionosphere pulled quietly away from her secret dock into space, wondering what she had done to deserve this.