The satellite planet welcomed Entropi’s crew into its port. Lunai was still washing off the vomit in the ship’s only shower when they landed. The sudden deceleration caused her to slip forward and hit her head right on the shower wall. She quickly turned off the shower and dressed herself before running back into the cockpit.
“Entropi, I told you I was taking a shower! Why didn’t you tell me we were landing?”
Entropi turned to her pilot. “Pammy, why didn’t you tell Lunai we were landing?”
Pammy flicked Entropi’s helmet and the woman almost fell out of her seat. Kelang was still slumped over in his chair. Lunai checked to make sure his chest was still rising and falling. Now that the ship was settled, Entropi got out of her seat and saw the fallen intern in front of her.
“This is why I only wanted one intern.”
Lunai removed his seatbelt and gently lifted him into her arms. “Come on, I promise he’ll be helpful! I need to practice with something that isn’t deadly space ice eating the ship.”
“He’s not getting back on this ship if he’s still out when we leave.”
Pammy squeezed Entropi’s shoulder. “He probably just needs some fluids; they should be able to fix him right up.”
Entropi glared back at her pilot who had a shit-eating grin on her face. She huffed and crossed her arms before addressing Lunai again.
“That kid won’t be any stronger than the shower you just got out of. Standing under the faucet would be the same amount of training with less of the whining.”
The door to the ship opened and a crew of GSA agents led by one of Dr. Crux’s fragments stood to greet them. One of the agents moved to grab Kelang from Lunai’s arms. She gently passed him off to be carted away for medical treatment. She hoped Pammy was right about the fluids.
Dr. Crux watched the agent take the intern away and sighed. “You jumped into the void siren cluster?”
“Their ship went around us. It was the only way to reach the crew without killing them,” Pammy explained.
Entropi put her hand up in front of the pilot. “We don’t owe you an explanation. I said I’d take Lunai, who’s fine.”
“Yes, yes, I’m aware. I’m not going to chastise you this time,” the man relented.
The agents boarded the ship and removed the two prisoners from the holding cell. They all filed in a neat line behind Dr. Crux and marched into the steel complex resting on the planet’s surface. Lunai followed behind, as did Entropi and Pammy, albeit less enthusiastically. As they moved inside, Lunai felt a buzz on her wrist and looked down to check her CellPulse.
[Bliss]: Your daughter is sad. (Video attached)
Lunai perked up. She hadn’t heard any updates on Bliss’s condition since leaving with Entropi. From the looks of the message, he seemed to be doing just fine. Cromble, on the other hand, was not taking her absence well. Lunai’s heart ached with the force of a thousand suns as she watched the poor creature scream at a fern. It took all of her strength to suppress a squeal.
[Lunai H.]: MY SWEET BABY! Thanks for taking care of her. Btw, how are you doing?
“Is that Bliss?”
She gasped and turned around to find Entropi hovering above her shoulder. The woman must’ve been waiting for an update herself. Both of the women stopped in the middle of the hallway and Dr. Crux turned around to address the attending hero’s concerns.
“Bliss woke up a few days ago, agent Entropi. He’s doing quite alright in terms of physical health.”
She floated down to the ground next to Lunai. “He didn’t even text me…He texted his intern, but not me.”
Lunai scrambled to defuse the awkward energy. “Oh, this is just a video of my cat! I’m sure he only sent it to make sure I wasn’t worried about her.”
“But nothing to make me less worried about him,” Entropi sighed.
“He loves you, agent Entropi,” Dr. Crux said. “He wouldn’t avoid you if that wasn’t true. It scares him. You know that.”
Lunai did not want to psychoanalyze her senior, but Bliss made it really difficult to avoid. Dr. Crux was constantly doing it right in front of her anyway. Now that she was working with Entropi on an official mission, it was nearly impossible to avoid speculation. He was the one thing that pierced under Entropi’s cold exterior.
They’re the perfect dysfunctional family unit. Somehow Entropi is the more open one in their relationship. I never would’ve guessed it just from seeing her on TV and magazines.
Dr. Crux remained still, seemingly still staring at Entropi. It was hard to tell where his attention was when he had no face. Sometimes the glasses helped, if that was even why he wore them. His head turned slightly from Entropi to Lunai, and he started talking once again.
“Agent Hollybrook, would you like to go with agent Blue Fin to the medical room?”
“Agent who? Oh right, that’s Kelang.” She rubbed her forehead. “Sure, I’ll go with him.”
Lunai followed the agent holding Kelang down a separate hallway. She turned back one last time to try and get a glimpse of whatever Dr. Crux and Entropi did next. The two of them stood in the same spot for a bit before disappearing behind the other hallway’s wall.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
While walking, she checked her CellPulse for a reply from Bliss. She found that her message wasn’t even read yet, even though she sent it right after he sent the Cromble video.
If he didn’t feel like talking, why send me the video at all? Did he just feel obligated to as a fellow cat-lover?
It was entirely possible that was the case, but frustrating nonetheless. She put the device away and continued moving forward. It was time to focus on the mission. Kelang needed to recover quickly so that Lunai could continue training. She also started to bond with the man, and having him on the ship didn’t hurt either at this point.
The door to the medical room slid open. Lunai was greeted by the smell of lemons and alcohol. A few medical professionals sat in the center of the room in a large cubicle space. All of the hospital beds were empty, signaling low traffic for the satellite planet that day. Once they started walking in, one of the professionals stood up and approached them with a checklist projecting from his wrist.
“Alright, what do we have here?”
The agent carrying Kelang went to set him down on an open bed. “Void siren exposure. He’s still a bit shocked.”
“Ah. Haven’t seen one of those in a while.”
The man started examining Kelang while an assistant took his vitals. Everything looked good with the exception of mildly low blood pressure and elevated heart rate.
“Nothing surprising here. We’ll give him the proper fluids for his species and he should perk right up.”
Lunai sighed with relief. “Thank you! I was worried he’d be stuck like that.”
“He’ll come back better than ever. Void siren exposure is a life changing experience.”
“Really? Have you been through a cluster?”
“No, but we’re close to one, so lots of heroes come here after going through it. They’re full of energy when they wake up.”
The agent who carried Kelang checked his CellPulse as Lunai talked to the doctor. “Agent Hollybrook, Dr. Crux is asking you to meet him in holding in twenty minutes.”
“Oh, of course. I’ll stay with Kelang for a bit and be right up.”
“Third floor. Just go straight when you get off the elevator.” The agent nodded at her and left the room.
Finally, some normal building directions.
She took a seat next to her fellow intern as the doctor placed a bin of fluid next to him. A tube was inserted into his arm and the machine started with a small hum of pressure. Lunai finally relaxed in her seat when the fluid started flowing in. Kelang’s body started to move as it was replenished. Small whines and coughs escaped his mouth, a clear improvement from before.
“Luh-nai?” he groaned.
“Welcome back to the land of the living!” the doctor yelled, causing Kelang to flinch.
Lunai put a hand on his arm to steady the man. “We’re out of the storm, Kelang. How do you feel?”
He rubbed his head and started sitting up. His shoulders rolled back in a few circles. The doctor was grinning ear to ear. Kelang looked at his own hands and smiled.
“I feel pretty good! Like I just got out of a sauna.”
The doctor clapped. “That is exactly what everyone else says! Void sirens really are a marvel of nature!”
“Especially Bliss!” both the doctor and Kelang exclaimed at once.
They pointed at each other and high-fived in idiot-fanboy solidarity. Lunai sighed and put her head in her hands.
“I’m glad you’re feeling well.” She stood up. “Looks like the doctor here will keep you company. I have to meet Dr. Crux, but I’ll be back soon.”
The men continued gushing over their love of all things Bliss as Lunai removed herself from the room. It was absolutely shameless. She wondered how people could talk like that without immediately cringing inside. She hated herself just for thinking parasocially.
Dr. Crux would hopefully set things back on track. If they were lucky, the imprisoned crew members would have some information about Nula’s whereabouts. There was a good chance this mission would turn into a full-blown takedown operation. Even with Entropi, they’d need a larger crew to accomplish that cleanly.
We don’t even know if Argalax is wondering around her headquarters somewhere.
A list of everything that could go wrong flooded through her mind as she got off the elevator at the third floor. There was a small booth sitting at the entrance to a hallway marked for holding. The attendant waved her inside at first glance, and she started walking forward. Just like the medical room, holding was almost completely empty. It seemed there weren’t many criminals that wanted to lurk around sirens. The poachers were a notable exception.
“Come on, you’re seriously charging us for killing sirens?”
Lunai could hear the panicked voice of the siren poacher coming from down the hall. Dr. Crux must’ve been the one talking to him as she couldn’t hear anyone else adding to the conversation.
“That’s a technicality! You gotta know I don’t care about all that.” Another moment of silence followed. “I’ll tell you what I know, but she’ll know we were captured. She’ll be prepared.”
Lunai turned the corner and found an open room with a desk. Dr. Crux was sitting across from the crew member that was talking. Entropi was standing in the corner and menacing the crew member with a glare. Dr. Crux turned around and finally looped her into the psychic conversation.
“Ah, you made it just in time. This gentleman was just about to give me the location of Nula’s base of operations.”
“It’s useless information,” Entropi scoffed. “Nula’s probably moving everything as we speak, including Placebo.”
“Everyone makes a mistake at some point. Even if she tries to clean the place out, a thorough investigation may reveal leftover clues.”
Ignoring Dr. Crux, Entropi leaned down and grabbed the man’s shoulders. “You really don’t know any secret base locations? You’re one of Nula’s bottom rung bitches?”
“Y-yeah…”
“Say it.”
“I’m…a bottom rung bitch.”
Entropi huffed and shoved him away. “Fine. I’ll be in the ship until you get the coordinates, Crux.”
She stormed off towards the elevator. The poor prisoner was shaking in his seat. Dr. Crux turned on an interactive screen programmed to appear on the surface of the table.
“Don’t mind her. Please write the coordinates here. If everything you’ve said is true, you will be eligible for parole in one year.”
Dr. Crux signaled for his agents to take his place watching the man. He gestured for Lunai to follow him as he stepped out of the prisoner’s eyesight.
“Lunai, I wanted to talk to you privately about Entropi’s behavior. I know you were excited to accompany her, but if it’s been too much for you it’s not too late to back out.”
“O-oh! Uh…Thank you for your concern,” she stuttered. “Don’t worry, I want to push myself further. I don’t mind her teaching method.”
“Entropi usually doesn’t take trainees. The only hero she ever trained was agent Bliss.”
“Well, Bliss is a very talented-“
“Fighter and performer, sure,” he interrupted. “But he has other issues…”
“Sure, but I don’t think Entropi was the problem there.”
“She may not have been the source, but she certainly didn’t help.”
Lunai’s fists tensed up. “With all due respect, I’m an adult and I don’t need a mentor that holds my hand. I’m doing just fine with Entropi.”
Dr. Crux simply nodded. “Very well. Your crew will be accompanied by several support ships for the next phase of this mission. Please grab agent Blue Fin and return to your ship.”
Lunai quickly saluted him and started speed-walking away. Her heart was racing. Her fists remained tight at her sides.
I can’t believe I just said that!
She returned to the ground floor where the medical room was, regret and pride running through her mind at the same time. This was a great step in asserting herself, but she hoped it didn’t go too far. Then again, she would never be able to influence the savior plans for Ya’ar if she acted like a doormat towards authority. This mission was a chance to prove that she could handle bigger operations. She would give her all to make sure it went well.
