Alien: Revelation | Aliens Vs. Murder Drones 3

05

J’s ship hummed quietly as it sliced through the black expanse of space, her hands steady on the controls, her focus as sharp as ever. Not that Nori made it easy to concentrate. As much as Nori claimed to be “giving directions,” she was actually spending most of her time leaning over J’s shoulder, delivering a never-ending stream of blatantly suggestive comments.

“Wow, you really know your way around a joystick, huh?” Nori cooed, leaning a little too close.

J shot her a sideways glare, jaw clenched. “Could you not?” she said stiffly.

Nori leaned back just a bit, but she still looked way too amused. “Aw, come on, lighten up! I’m just having fun.” She paused, tapping her chin as if she were truly pondering some profound mystery. “Besides, I bet you’ve got a wild side hiding under that hard exterior.”

J’s face was pure ice, and if the controls could speak, they’d probably say she was gripping them a little too hard. “Focus on the mission,” she snapped.

Just then, a groggy groan sounded from the back, and N finally stirred, his head having grown back, though he looked like he’d been through a blender and back. He fixed Nori with a tired but thoroughly irritated glare. “Nori? Why are you here? You couldn’t just watch my daughter, could you?”

Nori shrugged, unfazed. “Kid’s got spirit—she can handle herself.”

N’s glare deepened, and he opened his mouth to go off on her. “Yeah? Handle herself? She’s a kid, Nori, and I’d rather not leave her unsupervised just because you—”

Before the argument could get going, J snapped, “Both of you, shut up.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but it was razor-sharp, her optics darting up to the ceiling.

The ship went silent, save for the faint scurrying sounds above them. N’s expression shifted immediately, his optic lights narrowing as he recognized the noise. Without a word, he slipped out of his seat and climbed up to the nearest vent, disappearing into the dark, narrow shaft.

Moments later, he re-emerged with a smaller figure bundled in his arms. Hecate, his and Uzi’s daughter, blinked up at him with an innocent but mischievous grin. She’d managed to sneak on board somehow, much to her father’s clear frustration.

“Hecate,” he said, voice low but stern. “You realize what we’re doing is dangerous, right? This isn’t just an adventure.”

Hecate’s smile faltered as she caught something in her dad’s expression she’d never seen before: real worry. Not the kind of mild dad concern, but something deeper, something that tugged at her own sense of caution. “I… I know, Dad,” she said, though her voice had lost some of its usual bravado.

When he told her she’d be staying on the ship when they arrived, she opened her mouth to argue, but something stopped her. She’d always seen her dad as a kind of unbreakable figure, someone who brushed off everything life threw at him with a smile. But now, watching him like this, she got the sense that this was serious, maybe even more than she’d thought.

Instead, she pivoted, looking around the cockpit with wide-eyed curiosity. “Fine, but, uh, can I at least see how this stuff works?” She gestured to the controls. “It’s so cool! What does that do?”

N’s face softened a bit as he obliged, his voice taking on an almost teacherly tone as he explained each part of the console. Hecate leaned in, listening intently as he traced the intricate controls, her curiosity lighting up the room in a way that almost made him forget the impending mission. At one point, she looked up, optics sparkling with admiration. “How do you know all this?”

“Spaceship pilot, origin story,” N replied with a slight smirk, brushing off the intensity of the moment.

As she listened, totally absorbed, Nori watched them, her usual smirk slipping just a bit. She’d always thought of herself as a sort of free spirit, someone who didn’t get tied down by anything when there was important work to be done, especially not by family dynamics. But watching N with Hecate made her pause. A fleeting thought crossed her mind: Am I kind of… the bad guy here?