"A Dragon.” Zeke stared at her for a moment, and closed his eyes. “....A dragon.”

  He leaned back in his chair, and sighed. “Boss-man. This clearly brings up our exit clause here. We’re damaged, and that thing’s bigger than a gunship. Hell, how big was that thing?”

  Yumi tapped a button on her console. The image appeared; of the creature emerging from the gap in the rocks. “Roughly sixty-five meters wide and over two hundred long. With the way it was flexing, exact length was hard to determine. It outmasses us enormously, and would be the size of, perhaps, a cruiser or… it doesn’t matter.”

  She spun her chair around to face the others. “We aren’t equipped to kill it, and the Empire will be here soon enough. We should collect our pilot and stand back to watch. Then you can claim your reward from BSE after verifying the kill.”

  Zeke slowly nodded… then turned to Kyle. “This is the break-off point. Tell me to return to base, or that I can handle it. Up to you.”

  Kyle studied him for a moment. He had trouble telling the difference between Zeke and his younger cousin through all the fur… but the man had proven himself a competent officer. He doubted the man would get them killed.

  “You’ve got the chair, Captain Rush.”

  “Good. Alright then. You say we aren’t equipped to kill it. What does it take to kill it?”

  She slowly shook her head. “Enormous amounts of kinetic force. Lasers and plasma are almost useless; its got an incredibly thick shell that is evolved to fragment and dissipate away heat, and you’d need either a battleship or a whole fleet of smaller ships to melt their way through that with heat-based weaponry. Ships with a big enough railgun or a whole bunch of needlers can break through with sustained fire, and the flesh beneath can be hurt by almost anything.”

  The captain turned back to Kyle. “Whats kind of kinetic impactors to we have?”

  Kyle spun his chair around to turn to his console. “Out of the couple hundred missiles we have in inventory… I’ve got… Hmm. One nuke, sixty flak, and… does shock work on them at all? We’ve got twelve shock warheads.”

  Yumi blinked. “Not… familiar with those.”

  “Send out a bunch of little orbs that break up and deliver electrical surges on impact. Great for disabling systems. Possibly lethal to the crew on smaller ships, fighters, gunships.”

  “...If you could hit a spot where the shell was thin, or get it to eat it, a nuke would kill it. No idea bout shock. What size flak rounds are we talking?”

  “120s.”

  She shook her head. “Hundred and twenty millimeters across. With scales that thick… you’d need to hit it in the same place with at least fifteen to twenty of them in rapid succession to make a hole to bare skin. They actually shift the scales around after taking damage, so if you wait too long the hole would be gone.”

  He nodded. “Well then. That cave it came out of. Was that its lair, or something?”

  “Possibly. It will store its eggs and any gathered heavy metals in one place. If so, it will return to that area after being satisfied with how far our pilot has fled.”

  “Mmm… So. If we were to prep a nuke and slow-roll it near the cave entrance… with a proximity trigger so it goes off when it emerged… we could startle it out with another drone, and nuke it right as it emerged?”

  “...Possible. If we were forced to engage it, I would recommend wrapping the nuke in some heavy metals. It would try to eat it, then, so a proximity detonation would be at maximum effectiveness.”

  “Okay. Step one. We deploy all of our flak warheads in formation. Step two, we roll the nuke in wrapped in a bit of gold and platinum foil. Step three, I sacrifice another combat drone to wake it back up. Then… the nuke goes off when it tries to eat it, and all of the flak warheads go off at once to fill it with thousands of tiny shards of death.”

  Yumi grimaced. “I would want to be a safe distance away, to jump if need be. But… depending on the scale of the nuke, it might work. Still. It is pointless. The Empire will be here within days, at the latest, to handle this. We should merely sit back and watch.”

  Zeke nodded. “Maybe they will. But I think the corpse of this dragon might be more valuable than this contract, and if they kill it, no way we can claim that.”

  “...Captain, the Empire will not let you retrieve the corpse. If you try to do so, they will destroy this ship. They will likely insist on a non-disclosure agreement to even let us leave this system.”

  “This isn’t an Empire system, girl. They don’t make the rules here. Nobody owns it; BSE hasn’t even settled it with enough folks to claim it yet. Not a damn thing stops us from heading home with a dead dragon. Though apparently, we need to hurry before we get company.”

  She nodded… and pressed a button on her wrist while hiding it behind her console. “Within their space or not. They have not kept these creatures secret for this long by letting their existence be scattered to the cosmic winds, captain. You should tread very carefully. This could be an extremely lucrative moment if handled properly, or a very dangerous one if not.”

  Kyle frowned. “...We should launch a comm buoy. Right now. Pass word back. Just in case the Empire’s idea of ‘secret keeping’ involves wiping out all witnesses.”

  He glanced at Yumi. “...And I should probably handle that. Yumi seems a little too keen to follow the Empire on this one.”

  The captain chuckled. “Good idea. Go ahead and put it together. Yumi… hands off the console for right now.” He tapped a few buttons on the control by his chair. “I’ll handle piloting while you do that.”

  Kyle nodded… and started putting together a package, containing the details of everything, to send back to their employers… and for safekeeping.

  Yumi rose to her feet, and shook her head, gesturing at Kyle while still looking at Zeke. “Captain, that’s a mistake. I can’t let you do that. Please. Just listen to me. If you do this, the Empire won’t tolerate it. Whoever you share it with will be taken out as well!”

  He quietly sent the signal… both to BSE… and to his mother. Both triggering the comm buoy he’d quietly dropped off earlier… as well as one in the launch bay.

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  He could see it. He was right to be concerned. The one he’d dropped off? The signal went out, free and clear. Undoubtedly, hours from now, when the signal reached it, it would be sent home. But….

  “....The buoy on the launch rail deactivated even as we launched it. Its been sabotaged. I suspect….”

  The antenna on the hull suddenly flagged red on the damage control log. “...All of our external communications just died. We can’t even talk to Jenny. Overheat warning…the antenna facing away from the damaged side has been slagged.”

  He glanced at Yumi. “Both at the same time. Only one possibility.”

  Zeke glowered at the girl… “S…” He paused. “Sabot… Sabotage?”

  She smiled at him. “Unfortunately, yes. Sabotage I hoped wouldn’t be needed… and yet… here we are.”

  He started to rise to his feet… only to stumble.. “What… why do I feel so….”

  Kyle blinked. What was… wait. Everything was looking… blurry. Had he been….

  The third-tier system. Lockdown. He couldn’t let… he fell over, as the world slowly faded to black. One hand reaching out towards his console…. Before it hit the floor.

  ***

  When he next woke up… Kyle was standing upright, still on the bridge, but… when he tried to move… his restrictor suit appeared to be holding him back.

  He blinked. That… it was directly connected to his implant. It was supposed to sync up, help him keep from breaking bones with…

  It was locked out. He couldn’t turn to see without breaking it. But someone had interfaced with it. Uploaded new software.

  It was pulling backwards. Any time he tried to move, it gave just enough force to hold him still. He was… almost completely helpless. Unless… he broke the frame.

  He looked around at his environment… and blinked. Ezekiel, Clarice, and Billy were all standing there, arms bound to the ceiling via some sort of magnetic hook, unconscious. Tom…. was dead. His head mostly burned away as he lay against the console.

  They all appeared to be… relaxed. Zeke’s black-furred face seemed far more calm than it did when he was awake, and Billy seemed more child-like than ever.

  He could use his ‘clean sweep’ solution… but that’d kill everyone but him. Fuck.

  Yumi, on the other hand… was sitting in the captain’s chair, looking at monitors… and glanced up at him with a smile. “Sturdier than I’d thought. Well. Might as well wake up the others.” She tapped a button.

  There was an audible popping sound… and the others all awoke, with sounds ranging from a sudden grunt of pain to a shriek from Billy.

  Yumi gave a quick nod. “Now then. You’re probably wondering whats going on…. And why I let you live. And the answer to that is pretty simple.”

  She gestured at the display; showing an image of the star system, the incoming track of Jenny’s Valkyrie, the location of the colonies.

  “We are engaged in a cleanup operation. Every colony and mining ship in the system is going to be rendered into slag. All outgoing messages are being jammed, and anyone who knows the dragon exists and tries to escape will be killed. All of it will be blamed on pirates. You people… have a choice.”

  She turned to face Zeke. “Captain. I can interface with your implants, and upload a set or protective software that will prevent you from talking, revealing anything about whats really happening. If you accept, and go along with the Empire’s version of events? You will be paid one hundred thousand credits, and can negotiate with your existing client for the contract here.”

  She glanced at the others. “The same offer goes for all of you. Having a witness here who isn’t Empire will help with the cover-up, but is not mandatory.”

  Billy shifted against the hook, and glared at her. “What the hell, lady? There’s no way a cover-up is gonna fly. Both our family and Kyle’s will look into it if we turn up dead. They’ll drop a few sensors out and get real-time images from light-days out if they have to.”

  Yumi rolled her eyes. “That sort of operation is expensive. Troublesome. Something that isn’t going to happen for a handful of nobodies. And if it does? More ‘pirates’ will intervene.”

  Zeke sighed. “Nobody’s gonna believe that, miss. We’re related to Commodore Rush. As in, the Crimson Carnage. And if he thinks other pirates are muscling in on his family he’s going to take a very close look, aiming to handle any rivals.”

  “And its even worse with Kyle! You take out..”

  The woman snapped her fingers. Kyle felt a sudden, painful, jolt of electricity through his body, and apparently the others did well, from their sudden twitching.

  “I don’t care who your families are. This is the Empire. The most advanced star nation in the galaxy, and one of the largest as well. There will be a handful of capital ships here, and thousands of people, working to ensure this is handled, and any witnesses dealt with, in… three days.”

  She crossed her arms, looking over each of them. “Here’s the only part that matters. You’ve got two choices here. You can allow me to implant the control software willingly… or you can suffer the same fate as poor Tom here and go out the airlock after getting cooked.”

  Zeke grimaced. “Fuck. Not much of a choice there. I’m in.”

  Kyle felt the restrictor suit. There were servos at the joints, separated by a good solid polymer bar. It would be difficult to break one of the bars… but if he did…

  Yumi turned to Clarice. “And yourself?”

  “...I’ll do it.”

  When the woman focused on Kyle, he pretended to have gone limp. Helpless, only held up by the suit. He mumbled a nonsense reply.

  Yumi rolled her eyes. “Looks like the cripple is finally starting to lose it.” She stepped in closer, leaning forward. “Try that louder, boy.”

  He looked at her, trying his best to pretend like he was still barely conscious… and snapped the bar on his left-arm restraints, disconnecting it from the rest of the frame, fracturing at least two of his arm bones… and jammed the jagged metal bar directly through Yumi’s skinsuit, ribcage, left lung… and hopefully her heart, as well.

  She stared at him. Her mouth opening and closing soundlessly as she collapsed to the floor… blood oozing from both her mouth and the injury.

  She didn’t say another word. Just… lay there, eyes staying open even as she breathed her last.

  Kyle moved his arm a bit. His hand was fine. But… either the radius or ulna was cracked. The humerus fractured. Anything he did with that arm would be just agony for a while. And… he had to use it to free himself, if he didn’t want to break other limbs.

  He growled to himself. “Fuck fuck fuck….” As he reached behind him… and yanked the power supply out of the suit. With every movement, he could feel the broken ends of bones grinding against each other.

  The limbs went limp. Dead weight, dragging him down, leaving him at a terrible risk for more fractures if he wasn’t careful. He let his broken arm dangle, and slowly dragged himself to the nearest form… of Zeke. He reached up, and powered off the magnet holding him up…. Before collapsing to the floor.

  The captain stared at him for a moment… and shook his head, before moving to start freeing the others. “Not bad, kid. I thought you were helpless without the frame.”

  Kyle closed his eyes, trying not to feel anything as he laid on the floor. “No…. just… my father’s type of genetic augment was never meant for kids. Someone fucked up and they thought I had my mom’s until I was too old for the easy fixes. After you’re a toddler…. If you don’t get some extensive and risky surgery as a teenager, you either take supplements til you’re in your twenties, or your muscles are so much stronger than your bones you can shatter them with an errant movement.”

  Zeke nodded. “So. Not something you want to do every day. But if someone assumes you’re helpless without it…” He looked down at the cooling body of Yumi on the floor. Every bit as pretty in death.

  “It can be a fatal error.”

  “Captain...Could you please get me the spare frame from the engineering deck, and open the gate to let Jenny in when she gets here, instead of making terrible jokes?”