1.12.2

Unrecognizable

Hours later, Astrid stood before the lockers. She caught herself in the mirror mounted just inside her own cubby and stilled.

Half her hair wove back in neat plaits. Her eyelids darkened in charcoal lines and shadows. New armor strapped tight over a thick meshed bodysuit.

She could feel her necklace dig into her chest beneath her underarmor, but she dare not remove it, lest she forget herself completely.

Back at her, blinked a complete stranger. If Keeper Alethea could see her now, would she believe her the same person that left?

She looked…

“A proper battle-maiden,” Anders appraised.

His sudden intrusion on her thoughts made her turn.

He, too, stood geared and prepped, though he bore his armor like a second skin. At ease as if born wearing it.

“This is crazy.”

The man reverted to the pensive stare he’d equipped upon their first introduction. She could hardly fault him as she, too, felt as though she was meeting herself for the first time. But it no longer felt invasive. She welcomed his company.

“So, do you feel like throwing up, or like going out and kicking some ass?” He wandered closer.

“A little of both?”

He relinquished an amused chuckle. “Then you’re exactly where you belong.”

A moment passed between them, and, completely unfamiliar with what this new gear meant for her, and her confidence, she diverted her attention to the weapon secured at her hip.

“Astrid.”

A curled finger seated itself under her chin, and a firm knuckle lifted her face upward. Astrid complied to his gentle direction.

“It suits you,” Anders assured. “You need never be timid again. Not with us.”

The lieutenant withdrew his hand, but Astrid kept her head high under his bolstering. More and more she found herself wanting to meet his eyes.

“I just… I’m starting to realize how easy it would be to lose myself.”

Anders gave a soft smile. “That’s one way to look at it. My first time in that armor, I felt like I’d finally found myself.”

He stepped back, and like a magnet, Astrid almost followed.

“You always wanted to be a soldier, then?”

Anders nodded.

“When I was little, the captain was just an old friend of my dad’s that would visit every few years. But I was enamored with him. His worldly poise. Maybe that was just him. But he climbed the ranks, his status grew, and so did my admiration. My parents disinvited him after I told them at fourteen that I wanted to enlist. But at sixteen, I still wanted it. And they welcomed him back to try to talk me out of it. Instead, he recommended me for the Officer’s Academy.”

“How’d they take it?”

“They eventually came around after I started to find success and didn’t die my first couple tours. They’re a little anxious about my working with the captain. They know his missions tend to be especially dangerous. My only regret is that their friendship now relies so heavily on my longevity.”

Astrid hadn’t considered the strain on parents, to know their children pursued such peril. In that way, perhaps the absence of family favored her, she thought.

“Come on, Princess.” Rue stormed over and interrupted their exchange. “We’re docking.”

Rue herself donned brutal onyx gear, as spikey as her personality.

Anders drew renewed focus. “Stations require airlock access. Mid-level.”

Astrid followed Rue to the exit, with Anders on their heels, to where Karth, Tenya, and Dell awaited.

Tenya, garbed in purple pearlescent plates, gave a wolf-whistle and a cheeky wink.

“Okay, this is the comm unit.” Dell propelled to Astrid’s side and immediately tucked a piece into her ear. “I’ve already attuned them. You’re connected through the Bridge, and through my unit here.”

He tapped his own ear to show her. Then moved on to insert a piece for Rue. The soldier, much more accustomed, wordlessly adjusted the device with her eyes locked on the doors before them.

“And the captain and commander will be listening in from the Bridge, so maybe keep the swearing to a minimum, Rue,” Dell commented to the blonde.

“Not if we want to sell this thing,” the woman pitched back.

On the other side of the door, seals bonded, and a hiss of pressure announced secure contact.

“Good luck, you two.” Karth led the others back from the airlock to close the doors behind them.

“You’re going to have to knock that doe-eyed look off your face, Fresh Meat,” Rue murmured once alone. The lights above the door ahead shifted while the pressure balanced to allow them entrance. “It’s time to look like a killer.”

“I guess it’s easier for you,” Astrid countered.

“Drop the school-girl act,” Rue shot back. “You’re a still a Deathborn. The least you could do it act like it when convenient.”

Whether intentional or not, Rue’s harsh words pushed Astrid to a cool and sharp edge. She hated the title. But her disgust for it hardened her expression, and her spine, just in time for them to march through the threshold and into Penelope Station.

The former research station could hardly be recognized as such. Individual labs sat converted to restaurants and lounges. The quarters were now the residential district, and the former cafeterias and largest holds now sported the hottest bars and dance clubs.

Once sterile walls and tiled floors lay awash in bright paint, adorned in fabric and neon signs of an edgy and unknowable underworld.

Rue combed her hair back, the perfect vision of a badass. Her brooding attitude folded her into the boisterous Statics effortlessly and Astrid worked to not lose her in the overwhelming drone.

“Don’t stand so close.”

“Just trying to not get lost.”

“You look scared. You need to take up more space.”

“What?”

Rue huffed as she tramped on. “Play a rock song in your head or something. Make your energy bigger. Like you’re a goddamned queen. Think you can manage?”

Astrid couldn’t even name a rock song.

“Look, just pretend. Fake it.”

Astrid composed herself to match Rue’s powerful stride.

After the first few halls, she recognized what Rue meant about her original attire. Wearing mere street clothes would have made them stick out like sore thumbs. The strips pulsed with the vigor of hundreds of armored mercs, raiders, smugglers, and outcasts.

Weapons and cybernetic modifications flooded each passage. People moved in pairs or matching packs.

Nearly half a dozen gangs crossed their path as the two worked their way closer to the heart of the station.

The glow of colored placards played in motion on the women’s faces. And when they delved deeper, the crowd thickened.

Astrid found herself grateful she’d grown accustomed to the Aldebaran first. For surely, dropping into such a tightly packed sea of Statics could have brought her to her knees so fresh out of the Sanctuary.

Her head felt full of cotton. She repeatedly refocused to feel her own energy, to remember where she was and keep the aura of strangers from invading her senses.

“Come on.” Rue pushed Astrid into a small lounge without preamble.

“Really, Rue? A bar?” Dell chimed through the comm.

“Nothing sketchier than a client that doesn’t stop for a drink first.” Rue discreetly turned her face, so it looked like she spoke to her partner, rather than the voice in her ear.

She’d at least picked one of the smaller dens, for which Astrid was thankful. The blonde bellied up to the counter, and wordlessly gestured to the tender.

Astrid instead concentrated on appearing as though the paradigm wasn’t completely over her head.

“Order something,” Rue instructed.

Astrid opened her mouth, then Rue added, “A real drink.”

Relying on reading material alone, the Channeler nodded to the man behind the bar.

“Bourbon.”

“Hm.” Rue raised a brow. The tiniest lift at the corner of her mouth shone with the only approval Astrid ever gleaned from the woman, however brief. “Two.”

The bartender went about his business, as if he hadn’t heard them, but in under a minute, two stout glasses of dark viscous liquid set before them. Rue paid, then turned her back to the bar to search the room with her glass in hand.

“Down it. And don’t make a face or I’ll punch you. And no one here will think twice.”

Astrid almost smiled but thought better of it. In this place, so callous it almost seemed savage, Rue looked comfortable. And somehow, she made more sense to Astrid.

Among those growling and chortling, Rue looked at home, and her severity no longer seemed so personal.

Maybe, Astrid reasoned, her cruelty truly sprang from only territorial machismo.

Still, she fought to keep her face blank as she took her first drink. The intense flavor bordered on rancid cherries, and in the panic that she might have to quash her instinct to wince more than once, Astrid downed the whole thing in one go.

Rue’s minuscule smile slid wider, and the soldier hid it behind her glass.

Astrid set her own back on the counter and swallowed as much of the taste away from her tongue as possible. Beside her, Rue nudged with her elbow and inclined her head to a tussle unfolding in the corner.

A woman with short-shorn black hair and covered in ink, threw a hefty blow at a man twice her size. After reeling back, the thug swung in return.

“Feel like getting in your first bar brawl?” Rue teased.

“Rue.”

“Oh, lighten up. It’s practically a custom.”

Still, the trooper downed her own drink, rotated back to the bar, and slid some extra cash across the surface to the man behind.

At the show, he leaned in, and Rue whispered something Astrid couldn’t hear over the din of the surrounding swarm.

But the tender nodded, muttered something back, and Rue straightened. She left her generous tip on the counter for him to collect.

“Come on.” She stalked toward the door.

Astrid followed, though she narrowly avoided bumping incoming patrons.