Bryce

“Well, what do you think?” Thea held out her arms to show off her new outfit.

She was wearing clothing similar to what she had worn when she fought Teolix; a pair of dark denim pants with a leather jacket and enchanted combat boots.

It wasn’t really armor. Nothing the armorer we visited had in stock could compare to the durability of Thea’s mana-enhanced skin. Well, nothing short of the heavily enchanted powered combat suit that was on display, and besides the several-million-credit price tag, Thea wasn’t happy with its lack of mobility.

We had to switch our goal from protecting Thea’s body to instead protecting her modesty in case she had to go all out.

We took her burnt leather jacket to a tailor, but the older gentleman had never worked with hellhound leather before.

He offered us an alternative that he claimed could be enchanted to be “As fire resistant as a red dragon’s scales.” We bought two sets, just in case.

Thea’s only real armor were her new boots, which were enchanted to allow her to increase her relative mass at will. They weren’t without limits, but they would still allow her to hit harder, and it wouldn’t be as easy to throw her around. Of course, that was only true if she didn’t melt the enchantments, which was a very real risk.

Thankfully, Sora and I had a bit more luck with the armorer. Sora found a suitably skin-tight set of black leather armor that had metal plates affixed over their vitals and a built-in sound dampener. They had claimed that the armor was similar to what Syndicate agents preferred.

My armor was more piecemeal, rather than a single cohesive set. I figured that when I fought, I could rely on shielding spells, but there were shortcomings to that. My shields could defend against most piercing and energy attacks, but they didn’t stop me from massive blunt force trauma or pressure waves from explosions.

I bought a bodysuit equipped with inertial dampeners to deal with the pressure waves, a set of armored vambraces that would protect my arms while leaving my fingers free to cast, and a pair of heavy armored boots that were tall enough to protect my legs and enchanted to keep me standing through heavy impacts. Finally, I got a long crimson jacket enchanted for fire resistance that would help if I were ever fighting near Thea.

We had also spent a fairly hefty amount in order to stock the medical bay with potions of healing, in addition to replacing the nano-boosters I had already used.

“You look amazing,” I said.

“You’re looking pretty great yourself, princess,” Thea eyed me up and down. “Very space pirate-y.”

I couldn’t help a laugh. We were about to board and steal a Syndicate ship, so space pirate wasn’t entirely off. “How about we go see what first mate Sora is up to, then?”

“Fuck that, I’m obviously the first mate.”

“What’s Sora then?” I asked.

Thea looked at me like I was an idiot. “Navigator? Duh.”

And I felt like an idiot as I followed her out of the captain’s quarters. Maybe I should figure out the ranks on a pirate ship.

Actually, how did Thea know anything about pirates? I made a mental note to ask her later.

We found Sora on the bridge wearing their new armor, reclining in the pilot’s seat.

“Any sign of Lysc or our Syndicate friends?” I asked.

“No sign of Lysc, and I can’t scan for the Syndicate while we’re powered down like this,” Sora said.

We had been parked there ever since we got the coordinates for the meeting, powered down and surrounded by a concealment spell.

The spell would prevent visual detection, and was much easier to maintain now that I’ve healed, but we would still be detectable to scans, so we had to power down the reactor. Which meant we were stuck with backup power and couldn’t run any active scans in the area.

The plan was to lie in wait until the meeting, and then disable the Syndicate ship in an ambush, before threatening to destroy them unless they gave up. It wasn’t a perfect plan, and a lot could go wrong. It relied on Sora’s ability to identify and target our opponents’ engines immediately after I finished casting a spell to prevent their short-range communications.

“We’re only about twenty minutes from the meeting time,” I said. “The Syndicate ship is probably already here.”

“Probably, but we’d have no way of knowing unless they got close enough for us to get a visu—Oh, there’s the pack vessel.” Sora sat up. “Daria is patching us into their comms, so we should be able to hear what they're saying. I’ll put it through our speakers.”

There was a moment of static before Lysc’s agitated voice came through clearly.

“—Course it’s you, Rossi. Who else would have the balls to bring an extra ship to a neutral meeting? Looks new too. How many hours did you spend on your knees to convince Rajak to buy it for you?”

“Captain, did you hear that?” Sora asked. They looked nervous and for good reason. If there were two Syndicate ships, there was no way for us to disable both of them in the opening salvo. Which meant one of them could escape, or worse, put up a fight.

“I heard it, let me think.”

Lysc’s ship was purposefully under armed; they wouldn’t be able to help us here, even if we had a way to contact them without giving away our position. We needed more firepower.

“You wound me, Lyscantra. It’s simply a precaution; I wasn’t sure if you would have any hurt feelings from our little exchange in your territory,” a voice, presumably Rossi, said over the speakers.

“Sora, are there EVA suits near the airlock?” I asked.

“Yeah, why? What are you planning?”

“I don’t remember an exchange.” Lysc sounded amused. “What I remember is us slaughtering two dozen of your boys and not losing a single one of our own.”

“Move us closer. Maneuvering thrusters only, no engines. I need a visual on the Syndicate ships. No more than three kilometers,” I said.

“Captain?” Sora asked. Their eyes were a little wide, but they started moving the ship and that’s what mattered right then.

“When are you going to see reason and come to fight for the winning side? I’m sure Rajak would let you join his harem, if you begged. I bet you look great on your back,” Rossi retorted.

“Bryce, I don’t think we have much time,” Thea said.

I nodded and started leaving the bridge, but shouted back to Sora. “On my signal, destroy the communications array of the nicer ship!”

Thea chased after me. She was chewing on her lower lip and had her brows furrowed. I jogged across the upper deck to the wide staircase that led below. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I turned left towards the airlock.

“What are you planning, and why does it feel both dangerous and stupid?” Thea asked.

I laughed. “I won’t argue dangerous, but it’s only stupid if it doesn’t work.”

“That’s not very reassuring.”

The airlock door opened with the push of a button, revealing two rows of lockers on either side of the small room. Each locker contained a black bodysuit and a tight -fitting helmet with a transparent visor.

“Help me get dressed. We don’t have much time.”

Thea helped me remove my armor, and I shimmied into the black EVA suit before pressing a button on the shoulder that caused it to tighten, perfectly forming to my body. I picked up the helmet before turning to Thea.

“I’ll be quick. Make sure Sora doesn’t turn on the main engines until I’m back inside.”

Thea kissed me. “Please, just be safe.”

I nodded before opening the inner airlock door and stepping through. I waved to Thea as the door closed and I put the helmet on.

I could hear the air being sucked out of the airlock through my helmet until the sound disappeared all together. Artificial gravity shut off and the magnets in my boots pulled me to the ground with a jolt.

A red light near the exterior door turned green, signaling that it could be opened, so I opened it. I was staring into the void of space and took a moment to appreciate the merciless beauty of it.

This was absolutely insane. But I couldn’t think of a way that we could coordinate an attack with Lysc that would disable two Syndicate ships, not without giving away our plan.

I reached up above the airlock and pulled myself to the hull of the ship. Activating my boots, I walked along the outside, following the curvature until I reached a spot just above the bridge. I could feel the minor changes in momentum caused by the maneuvering thrusters, as Sora expertly moved us into position.

It took me a moment of scanning the horizon before I could spot the pack, and it was a few minutes longer until I saw the two Syndicate ships. They had positioned themselves forward to the left and the right of Lysc, creating a triangle which Sora so kindly put us in the center of.

I used my implants to identify the two ships. One was notably newer and much nicer. It was pretty easy to guess that Lysc would prefer that we kept the nicer one, which was why I told Sora to only target their communications array.

Pulling up the schematics of both, I identified the critical targets and started casting.

The spell that I chose was a relatively simple one that would turn mana into a highly concentrated beam of plasma. It was commonly used as an enchantment for welders or metal workers who lacked large pools of mana.

I had modified it to remove the upper limit of mana that it could accept, at least theoretically. This version definitely qualified as one of my “too dangerous to test” spells.

An arcane formation floated in the space in front of me after nearly three minutes of casting. I took a hold of it and smiled.

“I hope you get my signal, Sora.”

A beam of green plasma, easily as tall as I was, emitted from the spell formation and impacted the reactor of the older ship, causing a massive explosion. I couldn’t help but laugh as the formation pushed against my hand. The enchantments in my boots activated, bracing me against the pressure of the spell.

Two of The Fury’s antimatter torpedoes flew past me as the maneuvering thrusters worked to keep us level.

I slowly rotated the beam, trailing through the front of the cheaper ship to ensure its destruction. Then, I set my sights on the engines of the newer, more expensive, Syndicate ship.

The first torpedo collided with the ship’s shields, causing them to flicker and fail, and then the second impacted the communications array. They powered their engines just in time for the beam of plasma to make contact, resulting in a rather impressive explosion.

Giddy from the destruction, I ended the spell formation and strolled back to the airlock with a smile.

That spell had used nearly ten percent of my mana. The massive mana expenditure had left my mostly healed meridians feeling tingly and a little sore, but nothing that would be a problem after a few hours.

I just hoped Samira wasn’t upset with the amount of damage we had just done to her new toy.