“I’ve come to talk to you again.”
“Do you really want to die today?” Zeph gritted. “Because I’m in the mood to skull fuck you and eat the leftovers.” He aimed his ship’s rockets, shutting off the comm feed at the same time as he jammed the launch button.
The ship swerved out of the line of fire as his head filled with wolfish, cackling laughter. Zeph waited for the rockets to reload and leaned over his console, setting new targets for the next volley. Zeph toggled the ship’s reactor into overdrive, causing a massive power surge. Energy pounded through theOppression, through him, making him partially shift and strain against the seams of his uniform. This output level would tear the ship apart if he didn’t actively control it, but he would need every possible advantage to escape, even if only he and the girls survived.
In unison, the laser arrays around his ship’s outer defense mechanisms lined up to create a gigantic web-like shield. It spread out to encapsulate the entirety of theOppression, ensuring nothing would be able to attach itself to the vessel from the outside.
No way would he let Gunner set one damned foot onboard.
Zeph blasted his digital self through his navigation system and shot forward, partially warping toward the nearest planetary cluster.
The fleet gave chase. Their guns on his ship.
His ship’s sirens went off, and the lights behind him in the open hallway flashed red. He shot forward and zig-zagged through open space, putting his thrusters at max, hoping to lose the slower vessels.
Losing Gunner was going to be difficult, although the other ships had a much higher chance of making a mistake. Human and android pilots were easier to fell.
Zeph tore his eyes from the laser fire outside as his comm went off again. Gunner’s face filled view.
“How did you find me?” Zeph roared, dodging incoming fire. Several of the EPED ships broke formation behind him. He swiped at the radar tech on his console to follow them as they set to micro-warp ahead of him.
You won’t cut me off that easy.Anticipating their movements, he aimed his rockets directly ahead and blasted the space just as the ships finished their warp. An explosion filled his vision for a second before the vacuum of space stifled it.Two down.
Gunner’s voice came through the feed. “You fucked up. Bad.”
Zeph spun his ship into a downward dive, barely evading a missile.
“And you need to tell me this because?” He swooped back up like a bird, coming up behind one of the EPED ships before they could turn and lock on to him again. There was another quick explosion before it too became nothing but broken metal and rubble.
“I love bad fuck-ups. Nightheart contacted Breco and Cypher and you-know-who at Ghost City. They won’t offer you asylum—even if you return Janet and Lily safe and sound. He wants you dead or alive, and honestly, he sounded more excited about the dead than the alive when I talked to him.”
The back of Zeph’s uniform expanded as what Gunner told him really hit home. His shirt’s nanofibers strained to fit the metal-organic material of his body to stop it from ripping open.
He was fucked if he lost the support of Ghost City. Taking Janet there was always an option in the back of his mind, but to lose their support and his former employers in the span of days meant Nightheart was on the warpath.
“Ghost City made a deal with him?” he asked, turning his ship around and losing the last several remaining EPED ships for the time being. Gunner’s ship continued to tail him from a distance. He toggled his rockets to reload and switched his laser shielding to reach out and zap anything that got close.
“You publicly stole a well-off human female and a little girl from a respected family who works with Nightheart’s pet project, the Earth government, and many other very influential beings across the galaxy. We all love our state-of-the-art ships. You done goofed, bruh. It’s all over the networks. Polls are saying the fear of our kind is at its highest point in twenty years. Can you imagine that? You set Cyborg-kind back to mid-war levels of fear. It’s almost impressive, really, and I’m glad I got to tell you that before I liquify you.”
Zeph turned away from the controls and roared. His head shifted to release his snout, his teeth, and he snapped at the air before his face went back to normal. The pressure only built and he fisted his hands, trying to quiet the demon inside him.
“Are you done?” Gunner’s voice came back to him through the haze. Zeph turned to face him, forcibly releasing numbing agents throughout his body to calm himself.
I need to think clearly.
“I haven’t checked the feeds. I disconnected my ship from the system. How bad is it?” he rasped, and checked his localized scans. The EPED ships were catching up.
“Bad enough that they called me. They even offered me supervised access from Pluto to Jupiter if I bring you in. Ghost City won’t intervene but they won’t let you dock if that’s where you’re headed. There’s already an armada of ships sent to trap you if you near its current location, all off the books. Ghost City can’t seem to lose them. Nightheart isn’t making any friends.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Zeph narrowed his eyes. “You’re with them, aren’t you? And yet you haven’t fired one shot.”
“Boredom?”
Zeph scoffed. Of course there would be no other reason coming from the jackal. “So, you’ve come to bring me in and save the day, is that it?” He didn’t want to get into a gunfight with another Cyborg, but couldn’t bring himself to give up, not after everything. Nightheart thought his reach spanned across the universe, but no Cyborg was truly outmatched by another in all circumstances. Everything depended on outside factors. Zeph laughed shallowly. “Leave it to Nightheart to send you over anyone else.”
“No one is willing to do what I do, Croc. Dead or alive means nothing to the pilots in the other ships. They’re here to take you down, cargo included.”
Janet.Lily.
