Chapter 19: Stop Calling Me Ma’am

With a shriek, Ricono was airborne.

Surprise was etched onto her face as she screamed, “Let me down, you cur! How did you get a Telekinesis implant?”

Yan did not bother to reply. Instead, she hovered her opponent in front like a shield as she stepped out from behind the cover of the mining suit. It was just as well. Her own shield belt had been fried by the electro-scrambler.

The pirates’ lasers had ceased the moment Ricono was hurled into the open. Even they were not about to shoot their own leader. Yan suspected that it had less to do with affection and more to do with Ricono’s own history of brutality.

She kept her meat shield’s face turned towards the pirates. Yan had no interest in seeing the butcher any longer. Besides, Ricono still had a knife in her hands and now was not the time to find out whether she could throw it well.

“Tell them to stand down,” she commanded, striding forward. She took care as she moved. The pain in her skull had faded but her left peripheral vision was still absent. Yan would have to do without it for the rest of the fight while Sierra tried to reboot the bionic eye.

“To the Void with you! Men! Shoot this vile sub-human!” Ricono yelled, struggling against the [Telekinesis]. But, without something to cling onto, she was a mere puppet in Yan’s hands.

That did not mean that it was easy to move an adult human, however. Sweat was trickling down Yan’s forehead. Every minute of [Telekinesis] burned enough mana for a Tier 1 spell and she needed every drop for her plan.

She had to make this quick.

Hearing their leader’s command, a few pirates peeked out from behind their crates. Seeing Ricono still held out as a shield, they hesitated.

Neon did not.

Streaks of energy burnt a tight quartet of holes through a pirate’s forehead and he tumbled to the ground, lifeless.

As the rest ducked back down, one risked a shot at Yan. With the distance still between them, she easily moved Ricono to block.

The bullet grazed the pirate’s shoulder, drawing blood.

“Shoot her, not me! You idiots!” Ricono shrieked.

“Ricono, I’ll tell you one more time. Tell your men to stand down.”

“Or what?”

Yan hesitated. No matter how much she wanted to, she was not going to dash this woman against the rocks repeatedly. Torture was just not in her wheelhouse.

Killing her, however, was very much acceptable.

“Or you die,” Yan replied.

“Ha! Then, I go to be with my Mother. Do your worst, Voidspawn!”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Yan was now close enough to the pirates that Ricono dangled over the centre of the pit. She was still struggling, clawing at the air.

“Pirates of House Ariti, hear my demands. Lay down your arms or I’ll drop your leader down into the depths below! Surrender now and you may still live to see tomorrow.”

If it meant saving the life of a hostage, Yan was willing to let a few murderers go. If they made trouble, all she had to do was hunt them down later.

Silence reigned.

Slowly, a rifle slid out from behind a crate to Yan’s left. Then, a pair of hands climbed into the air.

Another gun slid out to join the first on the rocky floor, followed by another pair of shaky hands.

“Traitors!” Ricono bellowed. “You stain the name of House Ariti! You stain the name of my father! Kill those surrendering! Kill the hostages! Kill them all! Or I’ll rip you limb from limb!” The woman had worked herself into a frenzy, limbs punching the air.

Chaos erupted. Pirates popped out of cover. But Yan was faster.

She immediately dropped her [Telekinesis] - and Ricono with it. With a primal shriek, the scarred pirate plunged into the pit.

The unholy shriek ceased abruptly.

Yan paid little attention to her old puppet, instead drawing upon her mana. Her [Telekinesis] had already taken more than a minute and she only had enough mana left for four Tier 1 spells - five, if she was willing to faint again.

She was not. The Digger-class vessel might still appear.

A quartet of [Magic Bolts] flashed into life around her head. For a second, they whirled around her. Then, they leapt forward like arrows loosed from a bow.

Each flew true, slamming through gas masks and burning through throats. Four pirates dropped before they could carry out Ricono’s last order.

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The roar of a shotgun boomed throughout the chamber and the last surviving hostile ducked back down into cover, cursing.

“And stay down!” Luke bellowed, smoke wreathing from his weapon.

“You! This is your last chance! Throw down your weapon!” Yan shouted. There had been enough bloodshed in AC-02.

“Those true to House Ariti never surrender. Never! For Admiral Nikolas!” The loyalist surged back to his feet, his shotgun ready.

A laser from Neon’s assault rifle seared into his shoulder and he screamed, propelled backwards by the force. Two more went sailing over his head.

Reeling, the last pirate fired wildly as he tumbled backwards. Everybody was an enemy to him now.

Pellets sprayed into the air. Yan threw up her arm to shield herself and she felt a pellet ping off her remaining oxygen tank. Somebody screamed.

Yan pulled her knife from her sheath and sprinted around the edge of the pit. More than once, she stumbled, her reduced vision hindering her. Her enhanced reflexes lent her speed but already, the pirate was clawing his way back up, one hand on a crate for leverage.

“Covering fire!” Luke roared. Yan looked back as a barrage of purple lasers flew across the pit, burning into the pirate’s crate and forcing him back into cover. The guard had somehow retrieved his pistol.

That gave Yan the time she needed. Darting towards the man’s cover, she swung her blade over her shoulder.

The pirate’s head emerged.

She flung her knife.

It spun through the air and slammed right in between his eyes, blade first.

The last hostile slumped back down behind his cover. This time, he was not getting back up.

“What the heck! Boss, where’d you learn to throw like that?” Neon hollered across the chamber.

Yan shook her head and scanned the arena. “Enough yapping! Neon, let Narius Port know of our success. Luke, secure the prisoner! And Isabella! I need you here with the hostages!”

As her crew hurried off to their tasks, Yan took a look at the survivors of the firefight.

At a glance, the four remaining hostages looked uninjured. However, the same could not be said for the surrendering pirates. One lay face down on the rocky floor, the back of her head a bloody mess. A spray of pellets had lodged themselves into her skull.

The other, a lanky, sallow-faced man, was clutching a bleeding arm. At least his wounds did not seem too deep.

Yan grimaced. She had not expected the pirates to take such drastic measures against their own men. If only she had enough mana, that last pirate would have died with the rest. She needed to get a lot stronger and fast if she wanted to retake Prometheus. If she wanted to go home.

Fighting off a sudden wave of emotion, she retrieved her knife and moved to cut the hostages free. Isabella scurried behind her, checking on their wounds. Most of those she freed were shaking, clearly traumatised from their recent ordeal.

Just as she sliced through the ropes tying the last hostage’s hands together, there was a shout behind her.

“Wait! Wait! That woman promised that I’d be let go!”

Yan spun around to see that Luke was holding the last remaining pirate at gunpoint. The man’s eyes were wide with fear as he stared down the barrel of Luke’s shotgun.

On closer inspection, what she had at first thought was a lanky man was actually more scrawny. The Ariti-orange bodysuit hung off him, a few sizes too big.

Clearly, the pirate’s life had not been for him.

“Awareness +1”

“Doctor, are we really letting him go?” Luke asked, not looking away from his target.

Turning to their prisoner, Yan asked, “You. What’s your name?”

“M - me? Julian. Julian Tully.”

“Julian. Ariti has a Digger-class vessel nearby. Did Ricono alert them?”

“Hurh… you mean the Asteroid Cracker? Yes! I think she did! Will you please just let me go! Please!”

Fear pulsed off Julian in waves. Yan wanted to press him but she also had no interest in making a grown man soil himself.

Looking back at Luke, she said, “Yes. We’ll bring him back to Narius Port with us.”

It had never really been a question for Yan. She could not find it in her heart to kill somebody who had already surrendered. If it came back to bite her, she would just lob his head off.

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” The pirate rejoiced, arms reaching forward in gratitude.

“Keep your hands up!” Luke shouted, poking the barrel of his gun into Julian’s chest. The man immediately complied, entire body going rigid with fear.

The old guard expelled air from his nose. “Well, I hope we don’t regret this. Either way, I’ll have him tied up for the passage back. And I’ll check the sleeping quarters too.” He gestured to a tunnel further down the cavern.

“Thanks, Luke. Don’t forget to frisk him.” Yan stated flatly as she wiped her knife clean on the suit of a nearby corpse. Almost as an afterthought, she added, “And, if he does anything funny, I’ll gut him myself.”

Julian paled further. “I - I - I won’t! I swear it! I won’t! Lo - look! It would take at least an hour for the Asteroid Cracker to return! If you don’t believe me, you can check the communication logs in that mining suit. It’s linked to this facility’s communication network. See? I’m helpful, I won’t do anything funny!”

“Rizz +1”

“Thank you, Julian.” Yan gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. The man was a coward but she felt bad for him. Julian’s lips trembled into a half-hearted grin.

It did feel like he was speaking the truth, though. She would have Isabella check the communication logs.

Stepping away, Yan wondered what possessed this man to choose this profession. Was he forced into it? From his emaciated body, it certainly seemed possible.

That was not especially important now, though.

Now, she had less than an hour to prepare for the Asteroid Cracker. She just hoped that it actually possessed “minimal offensive capabilities” like what Sierra said. If it was anything like she imagined an actual Asteroid Cracker to be, she was in for a very bad time.

Looking over, she noticed that the younger woman had just finished tending to the last of the hostages.

Feeling Yan’s gaze, Isabella looked up. They locked eyes and the younger woman quickly hurried over.

“M - ma’am! The hostages are in acceptable physical condition. There’s very little I can do for their mental condition, though. A dab of Quick-Heal can heal most bruises but for the mind…” Isabella’s voice trailed off.

Yan nodded. She was not particularly surprised. The mind was often a harder thing to fix than the body. She was testament to that fact herself.

“Once Neon is done -” Yan looked up, saw that Neon had already put aside Faust’s tablet, and corrected herself, “ - Since Neon is done, have him escort the hostages to the Processing Hub. They should be safe there. In the meantime, we need to secure this place, just in case.”

“Yes, ma’am! I think I can reactivate the mining droid I saw in the loading dock.”

“That’s good. But this is more important: Do you know whether Ricono’s suit needs a neural connection?”

Isabella shot a look back at the mining mechsuit that lay across the pit. An arc of electricity danced over the glass dome.

“No, ma’am, it doesn’t! I’ve fixed it before. It’s all pedals, buttons and levers.”

“Good. Can you repair it again?”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s what I’m here for! It will be done!”

Yan frowned but it was not at the news. The news was good. It was just that being called “Ma’am” was still grating. It felt stiflingly formal every time, heavy with the weight of responsibility.

That weight sat uncomfortably on her shoulders as she mulled it over.

“And Isabella?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Stop calling me ‘ma’am’”.

“Really…?” Isabella looked so gutted that Yan almost gave in. “O - okay…”

Then, in a tiny whisper, Isabella added, “… Ma’am…”

Yan let out a long sigh.