Zoë opened her eyes, something she had not expected to do. The bastard Lemetal had used an arc-emitter, knowing she would get caught in it and knowing medical was a good half an hour away. She should be dead. So why wasn’t she, the thought cascaded through her head. The lecturers at the Academy had always warned them they should not hope to be so lucky for the damned thing to work as intended and simply stun them. That was a pipe dream because they were not civvies, recruits had one too many combat implants.

Therefore, she had only one pressing question at this very moment. How was she able to open her eyes? But since that question was going to be a problem to answer, she would need to figure out where this was and what happened after the arc-emitter went off. Slowly she shifted her head, trying to piece together what she was seeing. A dark room-like chamber that was as decrepit and ran down as the worst sections of Last Hope and those were too many to get a good fix on where this place could be.

She might as well explore and see if she could find some route back to the Command Centre. That idea was cut in its infancy, as Zoë shifted her body. Her arms were tied behind her back and there was something wrapped around her ankles. And the day had promised to be a good one, she thought as she tried to figure when it had turned so bad.

“You really need to tell me that new trick you’ve developed.” A deep voice came from the darkness to her left. “Using a psi-locked slave to communicate is very useful and could change the direction of the war.”

“What?” Zoë tried to turn, but find it problematic due to her bonds.

“Although, I am more curious to know what were you doing here.” The speaker had an odd accent, one that sounded familiar, yet, one she could not place.

“I… What?” She was finding it difficult to follow the line of questioning because none of the questions made any sense at all.

“Sigma 37, is not a place one would mark on any map. Which begs the question; how did you find out about it?” The speaker was moving closer.

“Ah?” Zoë did not need to fake ignorance, but now she had a suspicion as to who was asking the questions.

“I know I am not best person for making you speak, but please, do not insult me by pretending you have no idea what I’m talking about.” She was sure of it now.

The smugness at the end of each question, the odd accent and deep voice.

“Commodore Neverok, I have no idea what you are trying to ask me.” She snapped.

After what she had been through, being interrogated by the propaganda officer was not something she was looking forward to.

“How very interesting.” The voice was close, just outside her line of sight, hidden in the shadows cast by the few fading laminator rods. “You are taking orders from a turn-coat. I could have Preacher check the name, but why don’t you tell me more, Confessor Kurtz?”

“What the hell is a confessor and who the bloody fuck is Preacher?!” Zoë had had enough of all that nonsense; Alexei could look for some other poor sob to play his games with.

A moment later, she knew she had been terribly mistaken. The strange man who had killed Hunter and was the source of her awful day came storming from the shadows. He pressed the barrel of a heavy gauss pistol to her temple and nearly laughed at her.

“You cannot be serious.” He paused just to let out a small chuckle. “Under Imperial regulation 7A-1, impersonating a Black Confessor is grounds for immediate execution.”

“Holy f…” She began, but a light press from the cold weapon cut her words short.

“I mean, everyone knows this. And here you are, outright admitting to it.” The joy in the stranger’s voice evaporated. “Who are you really, Miss Kurtz?”

“No wonder you were using a Ripper rifle! You are an imperial sympathiser!” Zoë was torn between surprise and outrage and trying to keep her skin intact.

Slowly the man removed the gun and locked it to his hip. After a minute, just standing there, kneeling next to her, he stood up. With one hand he grabbed her by the jacket and pulled her into a sitting position.

“Look, I have some connections with the big wigs in security.” She spoke softly with a confidence she was not really feeling. “Surrender and I can put a good word for you. Might even have you get away with just a few years of hard labour.”

The man just stood there, observing her. His arms crossed across his chest, still as a statue. Now that she had a good look at him, Zoë could see he was way too fit to be an ordinary terrorist or conspiracy freak. He had a physique that would put to shame all the trainers at the Academy, and she could see it, despite the fact he was hidden inside his armour.

“What do you think my combat suit is made of?” He broke the silence after a minute.

“I would go with boron nitride plating over an M-13 Kevlar laced body glove.” She gave him a small smile seeing the faint flinch in his shoulders.

“Why do you think that?” He asked keeping his voice neutral.

“My pistol is the same as that of the others. It is a standard N75-S, that fires recycled iridium slugs at .225 klicks. And those bad boys just bounced off of you. That’s some serious military-grade…”

“That’s enough.” He cut her off and began pacing around. “What do you know of the Ripper?”

“What is this? You know what it is…”

“The longer you talk, the longer your pretty head stays hole-free.” He tapped the pistol at his hip.

“I must say, you make some really good arguments.” This time the smile she gave him was forced and conveyed her annoyance to its full extent.

She took a deep breath and unloaded all the knowledge hammered inside her head.

“The Mark 9 was the favourite weapon of the Empire’s shock-troopers during the Liberation War. It has a dual mag usage – solid slugs and energy bullets. Fifty reinforced iridium .75k’s slugs per clip and a hundred helium 23 plasma rounds per mag. It has an active range of…”

“That is enough. I get the picture.” He stopped his pacing and turned to face her. “Or at least I think I do.”

He came at her when Zoë saw it; the tremor in his left arm. His head snapped and followed her eyes, quickly he reached into one of the many pouches at his utility belt and pooled out a foldable auto-syringe. With what looked to hear as very well-practised movements, he loaded a strange pink vial in it and placed the instrument at the back of his head. There was a hiss, and the fluid was injected at the base of his skull.

“Look, I get it. Your grandad or something was a loyal citizen of the Empire, or he could have served. You grew up on stories of the good old days. Somehow you found some grade A gear, dug out the old man’s gun and got a bit too liberal with the chems. Things got out of hand and here we are.” She used the best motherly tone she could imitate.

“Let me go and we can sort it all out. Ok?” Zoë finished with a charming smile and blinked several times.

“That’s very nice of you Miss Kurtz.” The man said and returned the auto-syringe in its place. “But you see, there is a small problem. While I was trying to restart your heart, I injected you with wide-spectrum nanite-inhibitors.”

The smile dropped from Zoë’s face and she felt as if he had just punched her in the gut. Her life-line was gone. That was why she felt no pain and felt pretty well for someone hit by an arc-emitter, this guy had shorted out all her implants. She had formed her entire escape plan from this lunatic on re-connecting to the security grid and sending out a distress signal back to the chief.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I think an apology is in order.” He said and turned his back to her, looking for something outside her view. “I honestly had thought you a Black Confessor. You had the uniform… But you have no idea what that is, do you?” He turned to her for a moment just to see her shake her head.

“And I take it, you have no idea what Sigma 37 is, either?” Zoë shook her head again. “On top of your ignorance, there are some very interesting secrets you are privy to and quote as if they are common knowledge.”

“At the same time, I am curious to know where you got the design for this.” Her eyes were going to pop out of her head as she saw her chest-piece, with a large portion of her body glove, held in his hands.

Zoë could feel her face turn scarlet at the realisation she was naked underneath her jacket and that he had actually seen what was now hidden behind it. Worst of all, she actually was not completely opposed to it. Get a grip, girl, that’s the drugs in your system talking, she chided herself.

“I may not have Puppeteer’s analytical cognitive processors in my cortex, to know asking you about the current date is pretty much useless.” There was a hint of a smile in his voice as if he was sharing a private joke with her.

Either way, she found herself very interested in what this loyalist of the Third Terran Empire had to say. It was way too odd and disconnected from the usual drivel junkies like him spewed in the training clips and simulations. To her surprise, he placed his hands on the sides of his helmet and pulled up.

“Bloody hell! You are a bloody kid!” Zoë couldn’t help but shout at her captor. “You are what? Twenty-one? Shit…”

“You are technically right.” The boy flashed her a charming smile as he lift his hand cutting her off.

This time she could not blame any drugs for why her face turned crimson. The only way she could describe him was as kind of cute. His face was clean shaved and his cheeks were slightly sunken, more to the lack of fat on them than to anything else. Yet, the overall shape reminded her of a skull, as strange as that was.

His skin was slightly pale, due to the lack of light, not like the greying flesh of the other guards on the station. And then there were his eyes. There was fire and mischief in that pair of amber coloured orbs. Combined with his dark blond hair, with a hint of red mixed into it, cropped on the sides and left to grow just a bit at the top, they gave him a mysterious expression.

The way he curled just the right side of his lips when he smiled, made Zoë’s heart skip a beat. Or at least she hoped that was the reason and not some really bad effect of the vital organ having stopped working while she was out. A quiet voice screamed at the back of her head, that this person was going to kill her, but she ignored it the moment the young man stood a step away from her.

“Although, Miss Kurtz, I must point out you are not that older yourself.” He smiled again and she felt the blood rush into her head.

“Instead of wasting my time with pointless questions.” He produced a small auto-injector vial containing a bright orange liquid for her to see.” I have a proposition for you.”

The needle pierced the skin of her neck and she let out a yelp akin to that of a small startled animal. The mischief was gone from his eyes, replaced by a hardness she did not expect from a man this young.

“I think I am right to assume; you have no idea what that was.” He moved back. “No need to answer, I can see the worry written on your face. I’ll be honest with you. It is a nasty type of neuro-toxin.”

He produced a green auto-injector vial this time and dangled it like a prise before her eyes.

“This is the counter agent. Three hours from now and taking it will be pointless as the damaged to your brain will be irreversible. In twenty minutes, you will develop a fever and shortness of breath. In an hour you will not be able to ignore the dizziness. At the mark of the second hour, your muscles will begin to spasm and fainting will occur. Complete brain death will come in four hours and thirty-six minutes.”

Zoë was sure that this time her heart was skipping out of fear and dread. This man was a monster, a complete sociopath. He was the archetype of every imperial loyalist’s profile. A ruthless mental case that had her dancing in his palm. Too focused to find further ways to describe his deplorable nature, she missed the moment he had taken a small wand and had pressed it against her forehead. However, she did feel the low voltage spark that jumped through her skin. It was a short-burst EMP, the kind used by any licensed or not tech, to disable nanites.

The implant in her eye and the coms in her inner ear booted, letting her now that at long last she was going to reconnect to the security grid. At least she would, the moment she disconnected from all hard-lines. Because of the general numbness she was feeling and had completely ignored to this point, she had failed to notice that the port hidden at the back of her right ear had a hard-connection jammed into it. In the gloom of the room, she had missed the cable running down her shoulder and chest and stopping at a small handheld crypto device.

The young man smiled and picked it up.

“Channel RL1Z-2. A cloned secure line to me. Its encryption is way out your league, so don’t bother.” He added as a side note.

“You will keep that one open at all times.” He continued and gently disconnected the hard-line from the port. “When you get back to your people, you will tell them the following. You managed to escape, you are wounded, implants offline and you have suffered cardiac arrest three times.”

He stood back and pulled a non-reflective combat blade and let it dance in his hand for a few seconds, more out of habit than an attempt to intimidate her.

“That story should hold since you were missing for four hours and I’ve moved you quite a bit. Once you are at the command centre, you must gain access to the mainframe and contact me for further instructions.”

“You will not get away with this.” Zoë hissed at him. “There is an entire marine core stationed here and they will come for you…”

“Please, Miss Kurtz. Let’s not insult each other. Sigma 37 is way too far in the middle of nowhere for anyone to bother to keep a large force on it. Especially when, like you, they are clueless to its purpose.”

He took a step towards her, stopped and turned back. With slow measured movements, he picked up her chest armour and ruined body glove and placed them near her. After that, he pulled her pistol from a pile of scrap and examined it for a moment before ejecting the clip and the slug in the accelerator bed. The young man placed the weapon a meter to her right and put a bullet through it from his own heavy gun.

“Can’t exactly have running around with a functioning weapon, can I?” He gave her that damned charming smile.

“Why? What do you hope to gain?” Zoë tried to look him directly in the eyes but was afraid she might not like what she would see there. “The Empire is gone; you can’t bring it back.” She added with a quivering voice.

“I really want to trust you, I really do. But you see, I am not good at reading people. I am good at putting them back together. For all, I know you are telling the truth.” He stopped midway from leaning to her with the blade in hand.

“On top of that, my current theory is too problematic to rely on your word as the only method of confirmation.” He cut the restraints at her ankles and placed his strong hand on her shoulder.

“That’s why I need access to the mainframe. I need it for this place to make sense.” He smiled and cut the restraints at her wrists.

Slowly he backed away and allowed her some free time to rub the irritated skin and put on her armour. Zoë had to admit that for a maniac he was quite polite. He had turned his back, to give her a small measure of privacy. It would have felt less embracing if he had looked at her. She was used to it, after six years of shared baths and dorms at the Academy and a similar arranged her on Lost Hope. Although, she had to point out that her chest-piece was in a poor state making it nearly useless.

“You saved my life, didn’t you?” She made a shot and hope it would count.

“Well, if you are dead, you can’t help me.” He rolled his eyes and tapped a command on the handheld.

< DEMON 8, ‘HELIX’ CONNECTED TO SECURE CHANNEL >

The line danced in the corner of her vision and was accompanied by two beeps from the comm in her ear.

“Helix is a weird name.” Zoë did not realise she had spoken the words out loud.

“As much as I would like to watch you blush and make rude comments, you are on the clock.” The young man crossed his arms around his chest and stared her down.

“Seriously, who the hell are you?” She narrowed her eyes and returned the stare.

“Let me guess, you made an attempt to check the station’s database and got an empty return on my call sign and a bunch of theological crap on the Demon part.” He gave a sigh and shook his head.

“How did you…” She couldn’t help but widen her eyes.

He walked next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. Gently he pushed her and started walking with her. Zoë hated to admit it, but it felt nice and really strange at the same time.

“I personally prefer the definition of the Church of the Third Hell and the Blue Bible Group have some nice depictions that you might want to check out.” Helix stopped and looked into her eyes and smiled.

“You are a curious creature. Not very quick on the uptake, but you are curious.” He took her chin in his fingers and slightly tilted his head.

At that moment Zoë realised her heart had started racing in her chest and that he was a head taller than her. How had she missed it? Because you were way too focused on his face and his words, you idiot she scolded herself.

“Since you are so eager to learn all you can about me, I will give you something to ponder about on your way down.” Gently he pulled her face closer to his and she could feel his breath on her skin, it made her head spin.

Wait a moment, he had just said on her way down, didn’t he? She wanted for her mind to work properly, but all she could think of, was what his lips tasted like and how would they feel against hers. Zoë closed her eyes in anticipation and missed the smug smile that had crept on his face.

“The one I own my allegiance to is Constantine V Rütter, Monarch and Sovereign of the Holy Terran Empire.” Her eyes snapped open as her brain struggled with comprehending what he had just told her.

“That’s… Impossible…” Zoë failed at forming any other meaningful response as Helix pulled away from her and winked at her.

“Tell me about it, cryo-sleep is such a pain.” That comment had her mind kicked into a full panic mode trying to figure out it was she had missed.

“Remember, Miss Kurtz. You have two hours and fifty-five minutes left.” Helix said and pushed her into the dark vertical vent.