I sighed softly, pacing in the space next to the brig. I rolled my eyes slightly at that thought. Of course the Vagabond had a brig! Soren had been absolutely overjoyed when I brought our new prisoner onboard in the back of the shuttle. She was a player, that much I had been able to pull from her card. 

[Player: ??? | Level: 4 | Status: Unconscious, Injured | Affiliation: None]

We’d had to cut the spacesuit off of the woman who now lay on the bed in the single cell. She was another synth, though she was definitely more prominent about it than Autumn was. Nearly every part of her was covered in either black metal framing, or a soft black material that held in a translucent blue gelatinous material laid overtop the mechanical innards that made up the core of her body. We had sealed up the punctures in her that I’d made in her side with my pistol the best we could using some medical tape, though they were definitely temporary and she’d likely need proper repairs in the future. 

I nearly jumped in surprise, pulled from my thoughts as she let out a low groan. The prisoner slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position, brushing her long black hair from her face as she looked around her surroundings with a frown. Her dark eyes landed on me, and I pulled my jacket around me a little tighter. She had dark grey sclera with the irises being the same blue as the gel inside her. 

We stared at each other for a long moment, her gaze piercing into me as the silence hung in the air. 

“That was some good shooting.” The android finally said, her voice a silky smooth sound that made blood rush to my face as my cheeks heated up. She slowly stood up, breaking the staring contest as she looked down at the patch-job we had done on her body. 

“Th-thanks…?” I stammered out in reply, stepping back towards the small desk that sat in the opposite corner of the room. It was really the only object I could use as protection between myself and the mysterious woman. 

She cocked her head to the side, turning her attention back to me with a slightly less intense look. “Did you fix me?”

I shook my head. “No, that was Lea… She’s our engineer.” I replied dumbly, before remembering what Soren had said. Don’t share any information with the prisoner, Kaela! I let myself get distracted by her graceful body and sensual voice, and completely forgot. I pressed the button on the desk for the comms, tearing my eyes off her reluctantly.

“Captain, uh… She’s awake.” I said into it, taking a deep breath to steady myself. 

“Alright. Don’t share anything until we get there. I’m going to grab the others.” Soren replied back, before the call was cut off. I looked up at the prisoner again to find her staring back at me.

Soren soon arrived with Lea, quickly followed by Alex and Troy. Both the guys had themselves armed with rifles, though Troy was the only one who really looked like he knew what he was doing with it. The small space in front of the cell quickly got crowded as everyone gathered. 

“Which one of you is Lea?” Our prisoner asked as she looked over the group. “I was told I have you to thank for not bleeding out.” 

Soren shot me a look, which I returned with an apologetic one. I stayed near the back of the group, trying to not get distracted by my own thoughts. 

“That’d be me.” Lea said, teeth clenched as her voice came out as a growl. “Though I would say you ought to be more thankful that you didn’t put any holes into my friend.” 

The mysterious woman tilted her head as she took in Lea’s response, before nodding. “I suppose I am.” She said cryptically, her eyes locking onto mine and making me feel like a deer in the crosshair of a hunter. 

“Regardless,” Soren interjected, drawing her attention back to him as he crossed his arms and put on his ‘captain face’, as he called it. “First of all, who are you?” 

“You can call me Nitra.” She said plainly, sitting back down on the small bed in her cell. “And before you ask, I was working on a contract for an organisation called Dethhead. Yes, the name is as dumb as it sounds.” 

“Why did you try to kill our pilot?” Soren pressed on, to which Nitra only shrugged. 

“I was sent a contract to finish off the shuttle wreckage before anyone got out there. My timing was rushed when we got a frantic call that someone else, you, were sending a shuttle to inspect the wreck.” The android woman explained, gesturing as she gave the details the captain wanted. “My ride dropped me off just as your adorable pilot was coming out of the cockpit. I could only assume she had the blackbox, which was what the client really wanted to disappear.”

“You are… being suspiciously open about this. Why are you admitting to it all?” Lea asked, a frown forming on her face. 

Nitra sighed, leaning back against the wall behind the bed. “I got a message when I woke up stating that Dethhead has disavowed me, and won’t be paying me anymore. I have no reason to lie to you at this point.” 

Soren shared a look with the group. That quick to cut off one of their agents? She was only level 6, so there was a good chance that they didn’t really care what happened to her if she failed. She probably didn’t know anymore than what could be found out about the group through some basic investigating. 

“Alright, say we believe that. I have a couple more questions for you. Why was your spacesuit full of oxygen? I know synths don’t typically need O2 in space, so it makes no sense.” Lea asked, jumping straight into the technical questions. It was something she had been muttering about since our return back to the Vagabond. I didn’t really get why she was so hung up on it, but I let her ramble to me for a bit about how weird the encounter had been. In theory, my two hits on her shouldn’t have even knocked her out of the fight but for some reason they had completely disabled the mercenary woman.

“It’s because of my subrace.” Nitra replied, gesturing at herself. “I’m not exactly a typical synth. Most of my internal structure is a squishy bunch of biogel, which requires oxygen to stay alive. The upside of that is I have a lot more utility. The biogel can take on the form of trackers, computer ports, data storage in a pinch, self repair, that kind of thing.” 

“Huh.” Lea nodded, giving a reappraising look over the woman. “That does make a fair bit of sense. The devs have been talking about expanding the options for player races. This seems on brand for that. The last patch even added like… Four times as many of the appearance changing shops.” 

“Why did you go unconscious so quickly?” I asked after, swallowing down my fear as the attention of the conversation shifted to me. Thankfully it quickly dissipated as Nitra answered.

“You hit one of my battery banks,” came her answer. “Right where my lungs should be are a pair of large battery banks that power the mechanical parts of me. One of your shots grazed it, which triggered an emergency shutdown to protect me.” 

“Oh… Sorry…” I replied, before mentally slapping myself. No apologising to the prisoner who tried to kill you, Kae! What was getting into me?

“All good.” Nitra replied, waving off my concern casually. Did… she not care about getting hurt or dying? She turned to look back at Soren. “So, you seem like you are the one in charge. What are you going to do to me now?”

Soren turned to the rest of us. “That’s a good question. What are we going to do with her?”

“We should turn her over to the Union,” Troy grunted out, glaring at the woman. “She tried to kill one of us, and interfered in our mission.” 

“All the Union would do is make her sit on one of those boring ass player trials, then sentence her to service in the army. Unless she agrees, I don’t think we should do that to her.” Alex interjected, shaking his head. “I feel the consequences the union would dish out are too severe for a newer character, and we should just let her go.”

“Are you speaking from experience, Alex?” Soren asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. 

Alex gave a nod. “My normal forte is fantasy games. I was playing one called Pageantry Online, which has a nation with similar consequences. It was my only attempt at a rogue character, and my first attempt at pickpocketing. It did not go well for me, and I lost interest in the game and that character within a few days after sentencing.”

“Fair enough. Honestly I wouldn’t want to deal with that either.” Lea agreed. 

“We can’t just let her go!” Troy protested. “That’s not fair to us, or Kaela!” 

I looked over at him, surprised. He’d been relatively cold towards me in the time I had been on the ship, typically avoiding me or going out of his way to give me dirty looks. Now he was defending me? 

“Well, Kaela? What do you think?” Soren asked, turning to me.

I felt my cheeks burn as the eyes of the group once again landed on me. Anxiety was building, and I didn’t really have a good answer. A compromise did come to mind as I looked over at Nitra, who was watching us with interest. 

“What if she worked off a punishment on the ship instead?” I asked, “Like… She works with us for a week or two, helps us with this investigation, then we let her go after that?” 

“I can agree to that.” Nitra replied. 

“It’s not a bad idea. Having someone not associated with us will likely help us get places we can’t.” Alex agreed, nodding at me. He had a satisfied grin on his face, and I suddenly realised he may have set me up for the idea. Subtly manipulating the conversation so that I got the credit for the idea. 

“So long as we keep an eye on her, I can live with it.” Troy agreed, giving her the stink eye still. “I don’t trust her, but I can definitely see a use.”

“Looks like we are in agreement then.” Soren said as his sister nodded. “Welcome aboard the Vagabond, Miss Nitra. We’ll have you help us complete the investigation, then we’ll drop you off as soon as we can.” 

“Thank you, Captain.” Nitra said as she stood up again. “I appreciate the opportunity and grace you are showing me.”

“Yeah well, it’s only because Kaela’s tail won’t stop wagging any time she’s looking at you.” Soren chuckled back at her. “She’s a better judge of character than I normally am, so I’m going to trust it.”

“It does not!” I protested, as everyone just laughed at me. I couldn’t even hide the growing blush on my face in my coat as I groaned and turned away. Traitorous tail…

MaeveWerepuppy

Another day, another update. I wrote close to 4k words yesterday as I worked to get both Stellara Nova and Fires of Artemis a full chapter further than they were. Good progress though! Gonna try and find a better balance going forwards. Writing that much is not tenable. 

In even better news though... Art! You may have seen the cover art get updated, and now we finally have art that actually belongs to me instead of stolen off Pinterest! 

Spoiler

Kaela!

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Spoiler

Artemis! 

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Thank you to everyone who makes this story possible. 

If you like my work, I would really appreciate you consider donating a couple dollars to my ko-fi! It really means a lot to me when people support my work.

https://ko-fi.com/maevelycan

Don't forget to drink water!

-Mae