The lights attack my good eye and send throbbing pain all over my face as I take the lift to the mess level. Amon hadn’t exactly been completely joking about sending me to the scullery. He didn’t mention Dione would be there, standing before me with a small bruise and cut on her cheek. I suck in a shaky breath.

“I’m not here to exact revenge on you,” she immediately says, “we were drunk so we shouldn’t hold it against each other.”

“I’m fine. Just wondering what you did to end up here.”

Dione looks around and laughs. “I actually wanted to pull you out, maybe once you can use both eyes.” She looks at my eye and sucks air in through her teeth, subconsciously rubbing her cheek.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re a little bit stronger than humans, but not as dramatically as some try to boast. I’m still feeling that punch.”

“Are you saying I’d be more useful–

“On the battlefield than the kitchen? Precisely.”

“I’m gonna need quite a bit of training,” I say. I’ve never killed anything, but I’ve tackled a couple people in games before. I know I have the strength to hurt someone.

“Not as much as you’d think. It really is as simple as taking down the other person. We’ll start once you can see, shouldn’t be more than a day or two,” she says. She approaches and puts more delicate hands on me, touching the swelling around my eye and lips. “Sorry for this.”

“I’m sorry. You didn’t mean to shove me,” I reply.

“I guess if we’re both sorry then it cancels out,” she says and laughs. I laugh with her even if it’s not that funny.

“Like it never happened,” I joke back.

She leaves soon after to let me get my work regardless of how little I’m enthused about it. I’m even less enthused when Sunisa enters the scullery with a male human. I immediately turn towards anything that looks like it could be cleaned.

“...she didn’t care, Caze. You know how long I worked on it,” she says to him as they pass me. Luckily he notices me before she does.

“Hey, I thought they moved the strong girl to combat training,” he says to me. He’s only a little taller than me, with almond-shaped yellow eyes and short curly green hair. He has a number tattooed under his cheek along with additional tattoos and piercings in his lip and nose. His skin’s black, not stark black like Flux but a warm darkness that makes his eyes pop. Sunisa’s face pales. Her lips tighten to a thin line but she doesn’t slink away.

“In a couple of days when my eye is better,” I say quietly.

“I can still show you around in case you need something to do when you’re not killing people.”

“You make it sound like nothing,” I mumble.

“It doesn’t happen that often, at least for Sunisa and I. Not everyone has the proclivity for combat, so naturally Dione’s a little obsessed with you.”

“Over taking a punch?” I ask incredulously.

Caze nods and says, “She wasn’t holding back. She made a point to say that to anyone who would listen.” I swallow hard. If she thinks I’ll be good at killing then what position am I in to argue?

…

My face is still sore a week later but since both of my eyes are functioning again, Dione whisks me away from the grimy dishes and brings me to the very bottom of the ship to a viewing deck, mostly empty with some boxes stuffed into corners and the smell of dusty musk swirling in the air. There’s a weapons cabinet off to the side displaying large swords, axes, maces, and more. At the end of the room there’s a transparent viewing deck showing off the depths of space. The stars look like tiny dots instead of the routine show of streaks and lights. The ship is currently on its way to the closest hyperdrive station for a more secure route to the Andromeda Galaxy so we’re at a normal lightspeed pace for now.

“We needed to carve out a spot for combat training on this vessel and I like a nice view,” she says to me, letting me take it all in.

“You’re not afraid of it being targeted? It’s made of glass.”

“Not quite. Nymphian royals used to gather down here and watch their enemies get blown up. The material is stronger than traditional glass. Plus it’s got emergency shutters and we keep all our actual gear in the armory above.

“But enough about that. Today’s a big day for you! You ever been in a fight before?”

“Not before you,” I admit.

“How about sports? Humans introduced us to all kinds of ball activities,” Dione says.

“I wasn’t on any teams but I’ve–

“Ever thrown anyone?” She asks.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Once.”

Dione grins wickedly and says, “We can work with that.”

The weapons are generic but definitely real enough to hurt someone. One stands out. A long weapon on the bottom rack, looks like a pole with axe blades on the end. A large blade is on one side and a smaller blade on the other, with a long pointed tip on the tip of the pole.

“That one’s probably not very good in close quarters,” I say, pointing at the weapon.

“We don’t deal in quite that close combat, but I recommend also carrying a smaller blade just in case. You guys like to call that one a halberd.” She watches me and adds, “take it down. See how you like it.”

I wrap my fingers around the weapon with her encouragement. Its weight pulls at my shoulders but isn’t terribly heavy. Dione guides me towards the center of the room. She stands behind me, covering my hands with hers, as she tells me how to handle the halberd. She smells wonderfully exotic; a metallic scent like a garage mixed with the sweet smell of the coating in Ambertos. An artificial flowery perfume is layered over it.

Dione shows me a few basic moves and I perform them in a much less embarrassing fashion than the IT job. Just as we finish, I look out towards the viewing deck. Out in the blackness is a ship in the distance. It’s small but getting larger before my eyes. I point it out to her. Her pleasant expression quickly falls as she stares.

“Keep that on you,” she says.

“Who are they?”

“Not sure,” and with that she shoves me into the lift, “go up to the armory and get a helmet, then get to the top of the ship.” She slams a button that sends the shutters down on the dome as well as activating a loud siren. Then she’s gone, disappearing to literally run-crawl up the stairwell.

I do what she says, following a small group on the upper levels rushing towards the armory. Alarms scream into our ears. I already see Dione wielding four big bone daggers and chasing down Amon and the other seasoned Nymphs. I throw on the oxygen apparatus and make it to the lift again in a bottleneck. None of us speak but the electricity in the air says quite enough. We look between each other, widened eyes and pale faces all obscured to various degrees by whatever apparatus we got to first.

The doors open to chaos. The foreign ship is on us, just close enough to throw people onto our deck while its shields take shots from the Siren’s cannons. Enemies from the other ship have already begun catapulting over.

“Show ‘em what you’re made of!” One of our Nymphs screams and we just go for it. We scatter across the open deck, half as long as the ship and completely crowded with all sorts of individuals. One rushes and I realize too late they’re not one of ours. I’m knocked to the ground and my oxygen helmet is beaten off me. My face nearly freezes solid while they try to get a blade at my throat.

I act automatically; I rip their oxygen tube from their helmet and suck on it. My skin is firm as glass but the rest of me moves well enough to take advantage and kick them hard in the stomach. While they’re winded I jab their face with the halberd, crushing the helmet with a slow-moving spray of blood. The sudden body collapsing on me makes it difficult to get up but I manage.

A dead comrade near me has the same type of helmet I lost so I frantically throw it on my head. A blast of hot air burns my face as I successfully connect the tube and bring life back to my skin. My suddenly watery eyes scan the battlefield, heart trapped in the back of my throat. With a flurry of furious blinking I spot Captain Lister in his welding hood helmet. He wields a large club with two chains attached to it. On the chains’ ends are two large, spiked balls covered in blood. He swings them in an arc around himself every time one of the enemies gets too close to him, but they seem to be dancing around him.

Then I see someone creeping up behind him with a blade. I climb on top of a short pillar and hurl the halberd with everything in me. No one gets in my way except for the would-be assassin. It hits with a force that sends them into the icy depths of space. Both Lister and the enemies look at the assassin and then back to me. Then my foot is snagged and I’m violently pulled down. My head cracks hard against the floor.

…

I come back to reality several hours. Lister sits in the corner of the room, not mine but a medical room full of machines and supplies. He looks unharmed, still dressed in his combat gear with his helmet on his crossed knee. Damp hair clings to his forehead.

“A nasty stunt you pulled back there,” he says.

“Sorry about losing the weapon,” I say. My lips hurt when I use them to speak and there’s a bump on the back of my head that feels especially nasty.

“That happens all the time. I was referring to what you did to that weapon before it was lost. You go from asking stupid questions to spearing someone into space without casualties in what, a week? Amon and Dione said you didn’t have oxygen for the other one you killed. Who are you?” His expression implies it’s a genuine question. I sit up gingerly to look him in the face and feel more pain in the tops of my shoulders.

“I was impulsive on the weapon throwing. I can’t take credit for that. And I’m just a woman from Pluto. My parents made it big when one of their kids became one of the few humans to work on the Nymphian fleets. Directly with the captain, I mean.”

“Wouldn’t that be your sibling?” He asks curiously.

“I guess. I can’t even tell you if they’re a sister or brother. I was a kid when they got rich,” I reply. Lister nods with a knowing air to him, purple eyes softening just a little. He meets my gaze before focusing on corners of the room.

Someone enters the room after a few minutes of silence. He’s no Nymph, as short as me, completely brown and covered in short fuzzy hair. There’s one set of human arms, and eight less human-looking limbs protruding from the back. All of the arms are covered in markings, human arms included, no words but just intricate lines and designs. The exposed bits look humanoid enough with him wearing a lab coat but his stubbed shoes imply the feet might be different.

His face is sharp and angular with three eyes centered in a line across his face and two sets of smaller eyes in the upper corners of the forehead, totaling seven dark green eyes with black pupils. His mouth looks like a human’s but there’s two fangs hanging over the lips. His short silky hair makes my stomach flip at the thought of the woman in Sunisa’s bed that was built so similarly, just much taller.

“How’s my patient?” He asks me with a smile.

“In pain, but I think my brain is still intact,” I reply.

“I can check off the box for your sense of humor too then,” he says with a chuckle.

“You finally got the other person for your comedy show, Triker,” Lister says dryly.

“Prism doesn’t know how to tell a joke to save her life. You know this,” Triker replies.

“I know you and your sister are the least funny people I know. Nova–report to Dione once you feel better. You’re going to be working more closely with us from now on.”

“Huh?” I say stupidly.

“You’re a waste in the scullery. We all see that, so we’re shifting gears.” He stands, wipes a smudge from his helmet. “You might accidentally make your parents proud.” Lister says before he leaves Triker to finish my checkup.