Page 105 of Veiled Vixen

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - VALOR

Getting to the harem room is easy. It’s on the top level of the Station and just a little ways down the hall from Veila’s airlock. But we take an entire platoon of cyborgs with us, with Veila obscured from view in the middle of them.

She doesn’t look like Veila anymore. And I don’t want people noticing that right away.

Once inside the harem room we head towards Crux’s office. I can see him through the glass walls. He’s sitting at his desk, head in hands, like maybe he’s been there all night. He looks up as we approach the doors, then gets to his feet and comes around the desk so that when I enter, he’s in the middle of the room.

“What is going on?” he growls, his eyes narrowed as he tries to get a glimpse of Veila inside her protective cocoon of borgs.

“We need to talk to you.”

“You and who? The borgs?”

“Veila,” I say. “Come out of there.”

She does and Crux takes a step back. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Never mind that. We have to—”

“Never mind that. Why is she pink?”

“It’s a very long story.” Veila sighs.

“Crux,” I say, bringing his attention back to me. “We’ll get to that. But first, we need to surrender.”

“Surrender to who?”

“To Luck. We need to end this war… rebellion… whatever it is. We can’t be divided like this. The only thing we have going for us is that we’re a freaking station filled with ruthless outlaws.”

“Yeah, and when they find out we’re all planning to leave them here in this shit hole of a station and go through a spin node to Earth, I’m pretty sure they’re gonna turn on us.”

“Or rush the spin node,” I agree. “But this is not our last stand. Tray and Brigit are still out there. Probably ALCOR too. And maybe even Draden. Not to mention Booty and Asshole. We have no idea what’s been happening while we’ve been locked behind these gates. But this cannot be our last stand. We can’t win that way. We have to find common ground and—”

Alarms blare through Crux’s office.

“What the hell?” I say.

“Luck has invaded,” Baby says. “The Succubus and Flicka are in the process of infiltrating my top-level data core as we speak. They will break through my firewalls if they are not stopped.”

“How the fuck did they get in?” Crux asks. “That was the whole reason we transferred your mind up here in the first place!”

“She cloaked herself and Flicka flew her up here.”

“That’s just great,” Crux says, pacing the length of his office.

“All the more reason we need to surrender,” I say.

“Surrender?” Crux laughs. “To who? Luck? Nyleena? Those psycho princesses? You don’t understand how much they want to kill me!”

“And me.” We all turn to see Serpint and Lyra come in. “Those princesses either don’t care about Luck’s spin node, or they don’t know about it. All they want to do is kill us, Valor. If we surrender, they will. So fuck that. No. I’m not surrendering.”

“You’re just gonna fight Luck and Jimmy?”

“Why not? They’re gonna fight us,” Serpint says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why aren’t they surrendering? Luck and Nyleena were the ones who started this stupid rebellion in the first place.”

“For cover,” I say. “It wasn’t supposed to turn into a real war.”

“Yeah, well. Not everyone got that message unfortunately. Nyleena flipped some kind of switch in those princesses and turned them into psychotic soldiers. That Captain Red? She’s made it her personal mission to cut our heads off, Valor. Our. Heads.”