“Clever,” a rotund man snorted on their viewscreen. His pants were worn too low, his shirt too high and his stomach spilled onto his lap. If it weren’t for the cybernetic legs, Kiera didn’t think he would be able to stand. Just the sight of him sent a chill of disgust up her spine. “Dangerous as well. You showed loyalty by not betraying our contract, but that little stunt isn’t going to earn you many favors.”
“What would you have done, Admiral Pugh?” Locke drolled, propping his head up with his own prosthetic and gently massaging Kiera’s thigh with the other hand.
“Destroy the station when they were evacuating, then take whatever was left!” he squealed. “But a pass is a pass, I guess. The Grand Admiral was impressed by your opportunistic mindset. Whatever that means. Are you ready for your next task to prove yourself worthy of joining the Red Moon?”
“I am,” Locke said.
“Good, the first part of your task is to send that woman on your lap to me. This is your tithe to the New Moon,” Pugh said, leering at Kiera.
“You’ll have to talk to Admiral Uller about that,” Locke said, “I gave her to him, he’s just letting her decorate my ship.”
Pugh squealed, an actual pig squeal, he slapped his thighs making his stomach jiggle, “Damn it, damn it! Fine. Your task is to go to Charon Penal Colony and liberate two of the convicted. Dalton and Arun Snowden. Duncan Trosk is not to be touched. Once those two are free you will deliver them to their new ship, the Eclipse being held at the Ithycan Shipyards. Then escort them back here. Succeed and you will be granted membership into the Red Moon. Fail, and,” he laughed and snorted, “You’ll be breaking rocks for the Empire!” He laughed again, “If you had just given me that whore I wouldn’t have given you such an impossible task! Refuse and I’ll simply destroy you!”
Kiera soothed away Locke’s sudden anger, his hand on her thigh relaxed. She kissed his neck once. He tensed. One kiss was the signal that they were going to go through with the mission. Like they had a choice. Pugh’s ship was a heavy cruiser with as many weapons as he could fit on it. All of them were primed and all of them targeting the Satisfaction. She had no idea how in the void they were going to pull this off, but then she didn’t need to. That’s what Kinsley and Jaina were for; her two genius intelligence officers.
“A porcine would be more your type,” Locke said, “Where do we deliver them to?”
Pugh narrowed his beady eyes, “You still need three Admiral to approve you! I know that The Waxing Gibbous has already made his choice against you! You may be out before you even finish this task! You don’t get coordinates until you’re out of Imperial space!” the communication abruptly cut off. Kiera had extended her calming radius to reach everyone on the bridge. She’d continued her daily practice since they left Pantaurus.
“Calvin, contact the rest of the senior staff and have them meet in the captain’s office. I want Tara and Jaina in there, too,” Kiera said, standing up and taking Locke’s hand, “You have the bridge.”
“Yes ma’am,” Calvin said.
=+=
The captain’s office had a desk for the captain, a pair of couches and an espala bar with a tray for baked goods that Emily kept filled. Saturnian espala had quickly become Kiera’s favorite hot drink, especially with the nat-nat crystals that gave it a sweet caramel flavor. The closest thing in the Empire she could compare it to was a cross between a latte and a frappuccino. To Kiera, drinking it felt like being given a warm hug.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
She sat Locke down on the couch and walked over to the bar, “nat-nat crystals or soulin?” Kiera asked. Soulin was something similar to chocolate, she already knew that Locke would say ‘both’; his sweet tooth was worse than Emily’s. He didn’t reply. Kiera finished the drink and carried it over to him, putting it in his hands as she sat down. “We’ll figure something out. The thing I’m most worried about is the Snowdens recognizing us.”
“Unconscious people don’t recognize others,” Locke said darkly, accepting the drink and the kiss on the cheek Kiera gave him with the comment.
Kiera offered drinks to the rest of the women as they joined them, Tara took her up on the offer taking hers the same way as Locke did; Kiera already had Kinsley’s ready when she arrived. Emily had put brownies in the pastry dish, made with soulin, and they quickly disappeared. Sweets were always a good way to prepare for bad news in Kiera’s opinion. While they ate she went over the task they were given.
“Freeing those two puts a green flag in my mind,” Kinsley said, “Especially with Admiral Snowden being responsible for putting Roderick in charge of the Everlight and having us shot down onto a planet that was practically guaranteed to kill us.”
“I can get us into the Ithycan Shipyards,” Tara said, “It’s where we do analysis of captured enemy ships and other technology. The Eclipse is your standard light cruiser, despite being classified as a corsetta. It has ion engines that the Empire uses and it looks like it has a secondary propulsion system, which was what Trosk wanted me to get working when I was captured.. What they’re probably interested in is the modified mecha that were stored on it. Getting it out of Ithyca will be the harder part.”
“We should get the ship before freeing the Snowdens,” Jaina commented, “If we made the attempt in a Kingdom ship and things went poorly then the Kingdom might have more problems then they do, or the guy that gave us the ship might face a lot of trouble.”
“That depends on how we do the attempt,” Tamalyn said, “and what kind of Penal colony it is. If it’s a mining colony then those are usually done in space suits inside of a mine with mecha patrolling around them, right?”
“Yeah,” Kiera said, “Guarding is a standard assignment. They can be first commands, too.” Only officers piloted mechas. The enlisted MCC crew usually did maintenance on the mechas or assisted in transportation, loading and unloading. Very few of them had clearance to fly, but most of them could at least move mecha.
“So if we can get our mecha in place acting as the guards and wait for the Snowdens to leave their mine, if it is a mine then we could pick them up and sneak away,” Tamalyn concluded her plan, “It won’t be easy but…”
“Sounds like a decent plan to me,” Locke said. He glanced at Kiera missing Tamalyn’s blush; Kiera didn’t, “Thoughts, Commandant?”
“It could work, the only problem I see is trying to get the other pilots away and replace them and if Charon isn’t a mining world,” Kiera said, “We need to find that out before we can do anything. This would be so much easier if Tara could get to Ithyca and say she needs to run some tests with the pilots who operated the mechas because of some kind of lockout that’s not letting her activate them for one of her tests.”
“Why can’t we?” Locke asked, “It'd be like needing Tallah to show us how to access the power on the shuttle before we could fly it, right?”
“Like a DNA lockout,” Tara mused, “Those were made illegal but there’s nothing that said the Red Moon wouldn’t use them.”
“Oh….” Kinsley said, “Oh…you two are geniuses. That gives me an idea.”