Karega checked his watch. It was a tasteful silver wristwatch, it functioned purely off of clockwork gears and springs, and had three hands and only ten number to match Union time keeping instead of Terran.

Most people preferred gaudy electronic watches, but Karega enjoyed the aesthetics of a real watch. It took a great deal of precision and finesse to make something like this, whereas a digital watch only need a bit of wire, a piece of quartz, and a digital display. Where was the fun in that?

Astarte and Rachel had been gone a while. And the dinner portion of the evening was starting to wrap up.

Tonight had been an intensely unpleasant affair. The two Gin brothers, one of whom might be Astarte father, spent the whole night snipping and japing at each other. While Alexandra and her boorish husband continued to try and wrangle some information out of Karega.

Really, how a brutish pig like Richard landed a wife as cunning of Alexandra was a mystery. Karega had only spent a few minutes alone with the man, and in that time Karega had learned that he was banging every maid and cook in the house, and had needed to discreetly turn down his offer for Karega to enjoy his wife one on one.

Blegh!

Karega was starting to see how Rachel had turned out so touched in the head, if his parents were like this Karega would hate himself as well.

He looked around the room, still no sign of them.

“Goddammit Star, if you left me alone with these sycophants and psychopaths to get your rocks off with Rachel in the garden I swear I’m going to-“

At that moment a figure was thrown through one of the glass doors. They crashed through and flew across half the room and landed hard on one of the dining tables. Unlike in a movie the table, which was made of some alien hardwood, didn’t collapse.

A second figure dashed through the hole where a glass door had been and made a stab for the first figure with some sort of wrist mounted blade.

Rachel ran in after the two figures, hefted up the oversized shovel and swung it overhead towards the second figure before they could stab the first.

There was a ringing sound. But the second figure, a short human woman with a bug eyed mask, turned to Rachel and buried a fist into the girls gut and folded her like lawn chair. Rachel coughed on the ground as the bug eyed woman turned back to the first figure who had crawled off the table and was now gripping her bleeding shoulder.

Astarte faced off against the Reaper Mantis Zera.

The room was still for a moment before someone let out a shriek of terror and everyone began to panic.

Karega sighed, “well at least they’re clothed” he muttered as he pulled a knife from his chest pocket.

~~~*~~~

They were losing the fight. Losing bad.

Aster had received burns to her forearm and calf, and had been stabbed through the shoulder.

Anytime Rachel tried to hurt Zera she got bitch slapped back a dozen meters, or was simply ignored. Zera had almost finished Astarte when Rachel had found a shovel from the family gardeners. It had stunned Zera enough the first time to allow Astarte to slip away. but it was less effective the second time. And the third had earned Rachel of rib crunching punch to the gut.

Astarte glanced at the room around her. The party goers had began a stampede, and she couldn’t find Karega.

The xeno guards who were supposed to be protecting the party took one look at Zera before chucking their guns and joining the stampede. Though they were quickly shoved out of the way or straight up trampled to death.

Cowards. If this had been one of Astarte’s parties then not only would she have hired better guards, but the guests themselves would have turned to mob Zera.

And she would have been armored. Fuck, if she got out of this alive she was never going to go to a party unarmored again. Danm the dress code!

The only thing that had kept her alive was the fact that Astarte was better than Zera. Not stronger or faster, but better in every other metric. That seemed to always be the difference between them.

“Looks like you’ve caused a scene” Astarte quipped as she tried to get her breathing under control.

Zera looked around, and despite the mask Astarte could see the sadistic grin she would have made. “Yes, it seems I have.” She said with a self-satisfied purr.

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“Don’t suppose I could convince you to surrender?” Astarte said, grasping at straws to give her time to think.

“And why would I ever do that? I have you right where I want you.” With that Zera crouched down and rushed in.

The moment she started running a knife was thrown from their side and intercept Zera’s charge. For the third time that night a knife found its way into her neck. Astarte saw Karega out of the corner of her eye, his arm still extended outwards from his perfect throw.

Astarte didn’t waste the opportunity. As Zera stumbled and reached for the knife in her neck Astarte took the chance the dash forward. She bolted right in front of Zera, leapt up, a scissored her between her thighs.

Zera thrashed and attempted to throw Astarte off, but Astarte crossed her legs and locked her heels. She grabbed the assassin’s head by the ears and jerked it violently to the side. She heard metal tear and something inside her crack as Astarte broke the assassin’s neck.

Leaving nothing to chance she jerked her head the other way, breaking her neck a second time.

Zera went limp and Astarte’s weight made her fall forwards.

Astarte leapt off mid fall and turned to Karega. “Were you actually aiming for her neck, or was that just luck?”

“Believe it not, I actually was.” He said with a million-credit smile.

“Danm, drinks are on me then.”

She started walking over to her business partner when she heard the whine of an electrical discharge. Aster turned and saw Zera’s body jerk. Another whine of charging electricity, and it jerked again. Her fingers twitched, and her legs kicked out. Then Zera’s arms pressed against the floor and began to push herself back up.

Goddammit, what did it take to kill this woman?

“What do we do?” Karega asked, panic creeping in.

“Fuckin run!” Astarte roared.

He turned on his heels and began to run out of the room. Astarte was about to follow when she saw Rachel still crumpled on the floor. Without any hesitation Astarte lifted the girl up by her shoulders and legs and ran after Karega.

~~~*~~~

Her head was swimming, bright colors blurred in and out of her vision. Her stomach hurt, and breathing was hard.

Rachel groaned.

“Ooh, did I wake you. Sorry I’m tried to be as gentle as I could, but its not easy when you’re fleeing for your life.” A voice crooned from above her.

Rachel tried to focus her vision, and saw, saw, an angle. “Am I in heaven?” she asked groggily.

Astarte laughed “Not the first time I’ve gotten that response, though usually under much better circumstances.” She quipped with a devilish grin.

The grin was what broke the illusion, the night’s events came back to her, and she realized where she was. She tried to squirm out of the pirates grip, but the pirates hands were like a vise grip holding her in place.

“You’re in no shape to run, and leaving you behind would just be giving Zera a hostage on a silver platter. Bear with it a little longer.” Astarte said, then she jerked to the side as a head sized paving stone shot past where they had been. “Ha, nice aim bitch!” she called back.

“Please! Stop! Antagonizing! The psychopath Star!” a male voice screamed in frustration.

“Make me!” Astarte called back.

Rachel turned her head to see Karega, stripped to his waist, slightly burned, and panting hard.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Close to the edge of the core. We tried to hijack a car, but that didn’t work out, now we’re working on a different escape plan.” Astarte explained.

The edge of the core, how had they come that far on foot? How long had she been out.

Her parents weren’t important enough to earn a place close to the center, but they were still wealthy enough to be a couple kilometers away from the edge.

“That reminds me” Astarte said casually. “Could you reach into my bra.”

“What?” she and Karega shouted at the same time.

“Now is really not the time Star!” Karega chastised.

“Not for that. I need her to grab my phone. I can’t do that while holding her.”

“Then dump her!” he roared.

“I already told you that’s not happening.”

“Are you two really bickering right now?" Rachel asked incredulously.

“YES!” they both shouted.

Rachel was stunned into silence.

Astarte cleared her throat. “So, about that phone?”

Rachel flinched, “Um, right,” she reached in before she could really think about what she was doing. She realized what she was doing thew moment her had slipped in and felt something soft and smooth. Her hand stopped as soon as she realize ‘what’ she had just touched.

“Ehem” Astarte said, breaking her out of her stupor. Her face was tinged red, and she wasn’t sure if that was just from the running. “Other side, that’s where the dagger was.”

Rachel gulped and moved her hand to the other boo-… the other side of her chest. There she found the phone and pulled it out. But as she was pulling it out she noticed an odd-looking brand between the pirates cleavage. An upside-down star in a circle with letters around the outside.

“The passcode is zero, six, six, six.” The pirate explained as the lock screen appeared.

The phone was one of the newer Terran devices that were starting to outcompete their Union counterparts. It was a small plane of flexible glass that fit easily in a human hand, and even had nano technology to grow or shrink to better fit a different species hand.

Rachel punched in the code, and the phone had the same strange pentagram as a background. “You really revel in this whole devil thing don’t you.” Rachel murmured.

“I never do things halfway.” Astarte shot back. “The icon with an E on it, no not that one, next to the big red button icon, please for the love of god don’t press the red button.”

“What does the big red button do?”

“It arms the Astaroth’s self-destruct protocols.”

“And you just… have an app for that?”

“Of course, what if I need to arm it remotely?” she said it like that was a perfectly reasonable thing to say. “Just tap the E please.”

Rachel tapped it, and she heard a ringing noise.

“THIS IS FAN, STATE YOUR NAME AND INTENTIONS” a men’s voice said.

“Captain Astarte, clearance code ‘Awake, Arise, or be forever fall’n’”

Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Really, quoting Milton?”

“You’ve read paradise lost?” Astarte asked, sounding surprised.

“CLEANCE CODE CHECKS OUT CAPTAIN, WE HEAR AND WE OBEY.” The man said.

“Ping my location and send one of the dropships, HALO scenario.”

“RIGHT. HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU HAVE ?”

Another rock flew past their head.

“Maybe a minute.” Astarte answered.

The man on the phone was silent. “WE CAN’T GET EITHER DROPSHIP THERE IN THAT TIME.”

“THIS IS JOHN OF THE LUCIFER.” Another male voice broke in. “WE CAN HAVE HUGIN THERE IN UNDER THIRTY”

Astarte looked surprised. “When did the Lucifer get here?”

“WE’RE TRANISTTING THE STATIONS ENTRANCE RIGHT NOW. DO YOU WANT IT OR NOT?” a stern female voice broke in.

“Shit!” Karega cursed at their side.

Another block flew over their head, this one crashed right in front and Astarte had to jump over it to keep from tripping. “FUCK, YES. JUST GET HERE!” she shouted.

“ROGER, HALO SENARIO IS AUTHORIZED.” The stern female voice said. “COME BACK ALIVE DUAGHTER”

The phone screen went blank as the connection was cut.

“She didn’t have to cut the line” Astarte grumbled “What if I need to change the location?”

“You know Lucile, let’s just be glad she’s here.” Karega said.

“What the hell is going on?” Rachel asked.

Astarte glanced down at her. “We’re running from Zera, I broke her neck, twice, and the bitch still got up. Without some heavy munitions I doubt we can put her down. We’ve been able to keep ahead of her, but we’ll tire out eventually. So we’re going to be extracted by one of our dropships.”

Rachel blinked, “and these dropships will be able to land and take off before Zera gets to us?”

Astarte grinned her devilish grin, “nope.”

A chill went down her spine. “Then how are we-?” she was cut off as Astarte came to a grinding stop.

They were at the edge of the core sector, a railing prevented them from skidding over, but now their backs were to the rail and Zera had caught up and cornered them.

“No where left to run” the assassin taunted. “You can either come quietly, or jump to escape what I’m about to do to you.”

Rachel heard the low roar of an engine, and Astarte’s grip tightened around Rachel. “For once your completely right.” Astarte said.

Then she leaned back. No, not lean, she fell back. Rachel fell off the side of the core with Astarte.

Rachel screamed.

Zera roared in fury.

Astarte, laughed.