Nero's reception aboard the Naetilus had been mixed — but there was no denying he had a certain pull. He was the only nyasuk on board besides Kotori Fujisawa, known as Birdie, and the Confederation, the planetary organization they answered to, always looked favorably on diversity.
They were cutting through the skies of Omega, the jungle planet, after loading the ship with everything they were meant to deliver to Sigma: water, food, medical supplies.
The sky was beginning to clear after a heavy rain, showing through in shades of blue and violet.
The Naetilus's engines roared — but there wasn't much movement to match the sound.
"Crew — we don't have much battery left. The ship isn't optimizing its resources. I want you all to know that if we don't find another fuel source, we could be looking at months before we reach Sigma," said Katherine Parker, the red-haired captain.
Nero exhaled through his nose, reining in his irritation. He thought perhaps she needed a reminder.
"I have no intention of being here a moment longer than necessary."
The captain sighed.
"I agree with that. But there are no refueling points nearby."
"Captain," Alex, the first officer, cut in. "Nyasuk vessel detected — a grey fighter."
"Friendly or hostile?"
"Nothing to lose by trying."
"Send a message."
Nadia, at communications, sent a brief text through the official channels to the unknown ship, informing it that this was a humanitarian mission to Sigma.
"Captain, I'd be delighted to revisit the terms of my contract with you," Nero said to Katherine,
with a hint of impatience. "But right now, it isn't my responsibility that the Naetilus has no command buffer. I need to step out for a moment."
They were still close to the launch center, between the volcanic valleys and wide jungle stretches of Omega. The Naetilus hadn't departed the way it should have, and Nicholas was down in the engine room trying to diagnose the problem. Katherine spoke firmly.
"I haven't authorized that. You're the pilot."
"Even a pilot has to—" he paused a moment— "use the facilities, occasionally."
"You couldn't have gone before you sat down?"
As if responding to some silent instruction, the Naetilus began to tremble, shaking itself slowly into motion.
"We're ascending. I've done my job," he said, pushing up from his seat.
Nadia watched him go with barely-concealed disbelief, still waiting for a response from the unknown vessel. Then she looked at Alex, searching for some shared exasperation. Samantha, the navigator, smiled faintly to herself behind her oversized glasses.
Nero left the bridge, checking that he still had his cigarettes in his uniform. Once everyone had written him off as headed to the bathroom, he veered toward the docking bay — and walked straight into Nicholas. The surprise nearly sent a mop flying out of the kid's hands.
"I told you not to go near my ship."
"I haven't touched it. Though if I did, I'd be doing you a favor," Nicholas said, trying to salvage
what could have ended in disaster.
They both looked at Cobra — the small black human-made vessel. Nero had managed to get his own ship loaded aboard the Naetilus in defiance of every Confederate regulation. The captain had tried to talk him out of it, had even offered him space in a cargo ship. But Nero didn't change his mind.
Nicholas wrung the mop against the bucket.
"What are you... doing here?"
Nero smiled.
"I ask the questions."
"I'm checking if there are any ducts I missed drying. The humidity can get into the machines.
That might be why the Naetilus wasn't lifting."
"This place is genuinely a rubbish heap."
Nicholas had nothing to say to that. Nero moved closer — almost prowling.
"I don't suppose you're going to say anything. Are you."
The kid went red.
"What are you going to do?"
The pilot reached for his most disarming smile and disappeared into the docking bay.
Nicholas went back to work, trying not to think about any of it, while the Naetilus — following its programmed sequence — began to lift away from Omega. He thought he caught a glimpse of Nero heading toward Cobra, but he didn't let himself look. He was too rattled.
On the bridge, Alex raised the alarm shortly after.
"Captain, unusual movement at the main hatch."
"Get me a visual."
"Zooming in."
Samantha's mouth opened slightly. She adjusted her glasses.
"So that's where he was."
"Get him out of there immediately," Katherine ordered.
"He's already done it, Captain."
The ship's hatch opened — and before anyone could react, Nero was out in Cobra, moving at a speed the Naetilus, which had been carrying him, could never have matched.
"You authorized that?" Alex demanded, pointing at the small black ship.
"Do you think I'm out of my mind?"
Nadia smiled nervously. Birdie, the nyasuk on monitoring, closed her eyes and began reciting a mantra.
"Birdie — please, not right now," Katherine said.
"Who does he think he is, disobeying your orders?" Alex asked.
"Take the controls. I want to see what this son of a bitch is doing."
"The nyasuk fighter responded, Captain," Nadia reported.
"What does it say?"
"It says: We are the rightful heirs, pure blood of Atlantis—"
"Damn it. It's the Cult."
"They can't attack us. We're a humanitarian mission," Birdie said.
"You never know with these people," the captain said. "Tell Nero to get back immediately. He needs to evade the fighter before—"
The bridge shuddered. The impact of a projectile shook the whole structure.
The nyasuk fighter had opened fire, and showed no signs of pulling back — while the Naetilus climbed, finally, but far too slowly.
Nero pushed Cobra to speed, cutting deliberately past the front viewport of the larger ship, then locked onto the grey fighter.
It kept appearing and vanishing on the radar. He was going to have to push Cobra to its limit. He frowned slightly as the controls fought back against him. The velocity pressed him into his seat. The green light on the console blinked. Katherine was trying to reach him from the Naetilus, but he didn't have time for that.
When he checked the screen, the enemy ship was slightly behind and below him — exactly where he needed it to be. He programmed an automated sequence into Cobra: reduce speed in a moment, open the hatch.
He was close to ground level. The ambient humidity was relentless. Cobra's operating system startled him with its neutral voice.
"High-risk maneuver detected. Safety lock engaged."
"Override safety lock," he said, impatient.
"Voice recognized. Nero Lumina, 1N-912888467C. Awaiting instructions."
Sliding the door up, Nero freed his jacket — it had caught on one of the hull latches and was now trailing down the outside of Cobra. The ship kept cutting through Omega's skies, bleeding speed so the pressure shift wouldn't destroy him. The enemy nyasuk fighter was directly below, its lines clean and aerodynamic.
The grey fighter's pilot looked up — disbelief written across his face at the sight of Nero hanging off the outside of Cobra like a dangerous shadow — and accelerated. He felt the impact of boots on the roof immediately and tried to tilt the ship to shake whatever had landed off, but it was already in place.
Landing squarely on the hull, Nero allowed himself a smile as the magnetic clamps on the nyasuk ship locked into position.
The smart ship responded to his fingerprints from the outside. He pulled at the trap door with one hand and forced it with his foot until it gave. The ship wouldn't allow two pilots — the silence bomb detonated almost hard enough to burst their eardrums. Nero held the nyasuk pilot's face in his gaze for one second — pure panic.
"This can't be happening—" the nyasuk stammered, scrambling for something to defend himself with.
With one clean, precise motion, Nero pressed the blade to the side of the man's throat — and without another thought, settled into the pilot's seat as the body slid sideways and dropped like dead weight. The skin flared silver-green and turquoise before going dull. On the wrist, a scar in the shape of an inverted triangle was still visible — the Cult's mark.
Absurdly, the official nyasuk crown motto surfaced in his mind: May the gentle lunar mantle cover Naësu until dawn. That bastard, thanks to him, would never see the sun again.
"Another one," he said, to no one, as his cold gaze settled on the controls and he opened a line to the Naetilus. "Sam — I need confirmation that the Naetilus has docked with Cobra."
"If you're not back here this instant—" Katherine's voice came through, louder now, barely containing her fury — "I swear you're going to end up scattered across that jungle."
"On my way back. Requesting hatch clearance."
"You just wait, you bastard," Katherine said — and cut the line.
The nyasuk ship's own operating system tried to resume normal functions after the chaos. Nero knocked the console a couple of times to shut it up — it was almost entirely buttonless, and he was in no mood. His temples had started to throb. A headache was setting in, as it tended to.
After a couple of aimless loops over Omega's skies, he came in through the Naetilus's hatch — and a moment later he was standing in front of Katherine and Nicholas.
"You want to tell me what the hell you were thinking?"
"Captain," Nero began, stating the obvious — "I brought back a nyasuk rechargeable battery, so that—"
Katherine slapped him across the face. Nicholas actually flinched at the sound. Nero held himself perfectly still, eyes fixed on a point just behind her.
"Orders are orders," she said. "That is the last time you put your own objectives above this crew and this ship. I don't know when you're going to understand that you don't operate alone. Nicholas — go get Samantha. I need a medical evaluation."
Once the blond had taken off at full speed through the cabled corridors — enormous tunnels running through the Naetilus — Katherine brought her voice close to Nero's ear.
"Do you have any idea what could have happened? To the mission. To everything we're doing here."
"We'll reduce our operation time. I was thinking about mission efficiency."
"I should never have taken on a mercenary for an official pilot position," she muttered.
"I'm prepared to face the consequences," Nero said, inclining his head with cold composure.
"Sure, whatever you say." Katherine raised an eyebrow and looked him over. "Explain yourself to the crew," she finished — and walked straight toward the cabin and the bridge.
When the door closed behind her, he thought: of all the decisions he'd made, getting on this flying tin can might have been the worst.
Now Nero was alone with his conscience. The sounds of the enemy fighters, the fire he'd threaded through with the Naetilus, with Cobra, and finally when he'd boarded the nyasuk ship — all of it pressed in on him at once. He walked back onto the Naetilus bridge in a cold sweat, holding himself together.
"Pilot assuming functions," he said, his voice flat.
As long as Katherine held command of the ship, he could hold command of his own life. A nyasuk for hire — no ties, no allegiances, following orders from a human captain aboard a ship that was falling to pieces.
He remembered the way Nicholas's face had lit up the moment he'd been accepted into the Naetilus crew. The kid had no idea how to hide it.
"You're going to come with us... to Sigma?"
"Yes, kid. You can show me around your hometown," he'd said after the negotiations with the captain were done.
"Then we'll go to—"
"Then I do whatever I like."
Nicholas had smiled — carefully, quietly — while gathering his tools from under the Naetilus's landing struts and packing them into a case so he could board.
Maybe Nicholas deserved some kind of explanation for what he'd done. Or maybe not. Did he actually care what Nicholas thought? Whether he was worried?
He remembered how fast Nicholas had gone — those red canvas shoes, the jumpsuit half falling off his shoulders — to get Samantha when they were coming in. She'd taken his temperature and said he was cold, that it was an organic response.
The Naetilus leveled out with Cobra and the captured nyasuk vessel both secured in storage. Alex — gunner and second-in-command — watched Nero without sympathy, but understanding the point Katherine was making. He raised his eyebrows as he loaded manual ammunition into the turret and thought it through.
It had been a reckless move, and the pilot hadn't accounted for the possibilities — what if the Naetilus had taken another, heavier hit? What if the attack had doubled down? But it was done, and they had the stolen nyasuk battery. The blood from the punctured jugular still stained the interior lining. That battery would power the Naetilus for months.
Nero had no regrets. What he had was an overwhelming need to smoke. His fingers trembled slightly as he ran them across the worn controls of the Naetilus, eyes catching the details of the plastic casing — once white, studded with small circular ridges where his hands rested — as the dense greenery of Omega fell further and further behind them.
"Are you... are you okay?" Nicholas's voice came through the intercom, unsteady, meant only for him.
"Operational."
"Why did you do that?" Nicholas continued, barely above a whisper.
Nero was already exhausted by the limitations of this ship. He wanted nyasuk propulsion — stolen or otherwise — and to finally put an end to this ridiculous mission. Load the ship, go from Omega to Sigma, deliver the cargo. Get paid. That was all.
The green surface of Omega was shrinking now as the Naetilus pushed to its full speed — leaving behind even the tallest tree crowns and palms, threading through the clouds that fed the tropical rain.
The controls of the enormous ship, as always when it pushed past a certain speed, gave way after a long resistance, and the whole machine shuddered. Nero rubbed his knuckles. He glanced to his right — Samantha at navigation, confirming clear routes through space. She wasn't happy about his maneuver either. Birdie, to his left at monitoring, was updating drone targets and murmuring to herself, as if none of it had happened. Nicholas had spoken to him through the private line from the engine room, where he was working to bring down the Naetilus's temperature, checking the cooling fans on each propulsion system one by one. Nadia was decoding the nyasuk characters and the last transmissions sent from the captured ship to its base. Everyone settling back into routine.
He entered a command sequence to activate autopilot and, after a moment, went to his quarters. The adrenaline was still moving through him — his training was efficiently suppressing his biological responses — but he was genuinely, completely exhausted.
The image of the dead nyasuk surfaced in Nero's memory without warning. That flash of death across the skin, the empty eyes, the body slipping from the seat. The inverted-triangle scar of the Cult, still sharp in his mind
The longer he thought about it, the more that symbol seemed to belong to his own skull — under enemy fire, in an unknown ship, somewhere in the Asteroid Belt