Chapter Text
“You’re here to kill me,” she stated.
It wasn’t a question. The girl didn’t even look up from her computer. The blue screen cast a ghoulish glow over her pale face, making the purple pipes stemming from her back stand out even more.
“Yes,” Zarpedon replied. “It has to be done.”
“What happens after I die?” the young woman asked. “You descend into the Vault to lose to Jack again? You can’t even walk without limping.” She hadn’t looked at Zarpedon at all.
“I have to try,” Zarpedon said. “If Jack gets his hands on what’s in that Vault, the universe falls. I have no choice, child.”
“You won’t win by fighting,” the girl replied. “Your forces couldn’t beat Hyperion fresh, and now they’re scattered. You hope to unhinge Jack by killing me, but nothing you do could make him more insane than he is now. You truly are out of choices.”
“And I assume you intend to offer me one?” Zarpedon hefted her staff, ignoring the trembling in her wounded leg. “I expected you’d try to manipulate me.” She had expected many things from this person. The only thing she hadn’t been able to find was a name.
“No tricks.” The girl turned her chair around to face Zarpedon, and Zarpedon saw exactly how sickly the girl looked. Her eyes were bruised and dark, and every one of her bones stuck out through her skin. Her veins were tinted purple. “What’s stopping you from destroying the treasure of the Vault?”
“I cannot. The Eridians cannot. Only a Siren could destroy the contents of a Vault.”
The young woman’s mouth twisted into a smile as she held up her left arm. Despite herself, Zarpedon gasped as glowing twisting lines of white appeared on the girl’s skin. The white markings hadn’t been visible before under the fluorescent light, but now Zarpedon saw Jack’s daughter for who she was. A Siren.
No wonder she’d been his ace in the hole.
“You know Jack,” she said. “You know the kind of man he is. What makes you think his daughter doesn’t want him dead?”
Zarpedon narrowed her eyes.
“If you wanted your father dead, you would have killed him by now. You are no doubt stronger than him—and smarter, too, from the intelligence we’ve gathered.”
The girl gestured to her neck with a skeletal hand, where she wore what Zarpedon had initially assumed to be some sort of heavy choker. She didn’t know what the youths were into these days, but on further examination, it was clear that the necklace was no fashion statement. It was a restraining collar.
“Electric shocks, Eridium injections, constant monitoring, take your pick. Believe me, I’ve tried to escape.” She nodded to Zarpedon’s staff. “But I’ve never had an Eridian-crafted blade before. Those things can cut through any metal.”
Zarpedon remembered the road to this room, a place that was supposed to be Jack’s most heavily guarded vault. Yet she hadn’t encountered any robots, and the security systems had easily given way.
“You wanted me to be here,” she guessed.
“Either you free me or you kill me,” the pale girl confirmed. “Either way is better than this.” She gestured to the tubes and the collar.
Zarpedon winced as another wave of pain swept through her abdomen. She hadn’t had time to administer proper care, so the wound was held together by Anshin medicine and a hastily applied bandage. Hell, Jack’s daughter was right. She didn’t stand a chance, and throwing herself into the Vault to die in a blaze of glory wouldn’t stop Jack from unleashing destruction across the six galaxies.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Angel.”
“And how do I know I can trust you, Angel?”
“You don’t,” Angel said. “But trust is the least of your concerns right now.”
Angel had a way of saying things with such complete certainty that they couldn’t possibly be false, and Zarpedon found herself agreeing with her. Zarpedon had said it herself: she was out of options.
“Very well,” Zarpedon said. “We have the same goal, so I will consider you an ally.” She strode over behind Angel, where the tubes slotted into metal implants going all the way down her spine. Zarpedon shuddered at the thought of having such cold, inorganic implements shoved into her flesh and raised her staff. “Hold still.”
She brought the staff down in a violet crescent. It cleaved through the collar like butter. Yet Zarpedon’s attack was a little too restless, and the blade left behind a thin, oozing line of red on Angel’s skin.
Angel didn’t seem to notice. She grasped the collar and threw it away from her. It clattered uselessly onto the tile floor and began beeping.
“Jack’s just been alerted that my collar is gone,” Angel said.
She grasped the tubes on her back and yanked them out one by one, with a little gasp of pain each time. The tubes spilled Eridium onto the white tile. Angel reached up and touched her neck, brushing the cut with her fingers.
“Thank you,” she breathed.
Angel stood up. Her legs shook slightly, but she held herself tall and strong.
“We have to go,” Zarpedon said. “I’ve ordered the Legion to retreat to the Vault, but I have a frigate waiting a sector away.” She pulled a pistol from her Storage Deck and offered it to Angel. “You’ll have to be ready to fight.”
Angel held out her left hand, but didn’t take the pistol. Instead, gleaming light coalesced in her palm until she was holding a digistructed pistol of her own. An Eridian one.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I am.”
Zarpedon nodded decisively and tucked the pistol into her thigh holster.
“Anything you want to take with you?”
Angel shook her head, a storm cloud passing over her face.
“I’ll be glad to leave everything behind.” She grit her teeth and gripped her pistol in both hands. “Let’s go.”
Almost as soon as they passed through the ruined doorway—Zarpedon had hit it with a volley of Eridian missiles—they encountered a patrol guard investigating the buckled metal. Angel fired without hesitation, yet even at close range her shot missed. Zarpedon arced her staff through the air and slit the man’s throat, spraying scarlet blood over both of them. Angel examined the blood with clinical interest.
“Stay behind me,” Zarpedon advised. “You’ll do more harm than good with that pistol.”
“Isn’t that the point of a gun?” Angel joked as the pistol vanished to some unknown realm.
Despite herself, the corners of Zarpedon’s mouth twitched.
They killed three more guards on the way to the frigate. The halls were surprisingly sparse; the alarm must not have been sounded yet. Zarpedon suspected Angel’s preparations had something to do with that. Despite the short distance, Angel was out of breath and panting. They had to take breaks every few minutes to let her catch her breath.
“Sorry,” Angel muttered as they stood back up and jogged for the hangar. “I haven’t really walked outside of a single room in about a decade.”
“Jack kept you locked up for that long?” Zarpedon couldn’t imagine being confined like that. Even on her ship, she could walk the metal halls or look out on the galaxy from the observation deck. “What a horrible man.”
“You can say that again. Ever since my Siren powers came in—“ Angel stopped short as they reached the hangar.
The hangar was abuzz with FIX loaders, all repairing ruined escape pods. Zarpedon hissed as she caught sight of a crew of them strapping down the frigate.
“All right,” she whispered. “I’ll go through the center, dismantle a few, cause a distraction. You sneak around the back, behind those crates, and get in the frigate. If you can get it airborne—“
Angel started walking into the hangar. Zarpedon grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
Angel yanked her arm back.
“They’re FIX loaders, Zarpedon. They never harmed anyone. Watch.”
This time, Zarpedon let Angel go. She walked past the FIX loaders without incident—none of them seemed even to notice her. When she reached the frigate, she made a shooing motion with her hands. Zarpedon’s grip tightened on her staff, but all that happened was that all the loaders abandoned the vehicle and skittered away. Angel started undoing the straps and gestured for Zarpedon to come over.
“Funny little guys, aren’t they?” Angel said fondly. “A little skittish, but they’re doing their best.”
“They’re Hyperion robots,” Zarpedon reminded her.
Angel gave her a sharp look. “They can’t help that.”
Zarpedon opened the frigate and helped Angel into the copilot’s seat. The steps were built for soldiers, and Angel couldn’t have been taller than five feet. Come to think of it, Zarpedon had no idea how old Angel was. She spoke like someone wise yet looked no older than 12.
Zarpedon buckled her seatbelt and started up the frigate. Fortunately, the hangar door was open.
“That experimental tunic isn’t fit for Vault hunting. There’s a spare uniform in the cargo compartment,” she told Angel. “It’s auto-sizing, so it should fit you.” She paused to try again to guess Angel’s age, but it was futile. “How old are you?”
“17,” Angel replied.
Zarpedon raised an eyebrow. “I remember 17. Hopefully you’ll be more cooperative than my daughter was at that age.”
“You have a daughter?” Angel’s voice contained a touch of suspicion.
“Yes. I miss her more than I can say.” Zarpedon pushed the throttle. “I only hope I can make the universe safe for her.”
“There are better things than safety,” Angel murmured, more to herself than Zarpedon. “At least you love her.” She started rummaging through the cargo compartment. “Funny, isn’t it? You’re doing this to save your family, and I’m doing this to kill mine.”
Zarpedon turned the frigate to face Elpis. The purple light of the great well shone through the glass, highlighting the cockpit in delicate lavender. She turned the frigate to full speed autopilot.
They had no time to lose.