Opalina Outpost

Chapter 25 /Part 2/

Lio swept his grin across the rest of the crew, and got a few wobbly giggles. Teres shook her head, but smiled. Someone muttered a direction for the seatbelt to release, and Lio echoed it at his own chair. His seatbelt unlocked and liquified into the rest.

He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to congratulate the crew, but a sharp voice blared from outside the ship.

"Opalina Outpost crew! Get the fuck out here, right now!" thundered the voice.

Ravi snapped up from his collapsed state, his features drenched in sweat. "Archcom Huseda."

"She can't have gotten here from the Fennec region so fast," Aziri breathed.

"Must be an imager transmission," Rosareen said. She hugged her arms tight around her body.

A loud thud echoed at the back of the control room, and Lio stared at the door. It didn't move, but it was taking a battering. Someone was pounding at it furiously. His stomach descended faster than a diving lightship. That wasn't a transmission.

"Open this door!" Huseda roared.

"Shit," Duhar said. He looked at Ravi. "Do we let—"

"Yeah." Ravi's teeth were gritted. He stood and marched to the door, reaching for the interior pane to open it.

"Don't step outside the ship!" Lio blurted, just as the door hissed aside, retracting for a retinue of armored bots, Enforcers, and a spitting mad Archcom. The bots forged into the room on treads, pushing Ravi backwards. The human Enforcers who came after them were decidedly more hesitant, staring around at the luminescent interior.

Huseda wasted no time being impressed with their achievements. "What were you thinking!" she bawled. "Stealing the fucking most important asset in all the Amica Territories!"

An Enforcer com at her shoulder advanced toward Ravi. "You're the com of this crew?"

"Yes."

Lio heard Ravi's voice on the edge of wobbling, and he leapt up from his chair to get closer to him. Whatever happened, it wasn't on Ravi's shoulders. "Hang on," he said. "We haven't technically done anything—"

"You have illegally requisitioned the classified property of Suzerain Aureli's Territory," the Enforcer com said, voice unruffled. "This crew will be brigged until special trial before the Suzerain's Commissioners."

Teres whimpered, and Ravi let out a sound like he'd just punctured a lung. Lio shook his head. "We have not," he said, trying to match the Enforcer com's even tone. "We stayed at our post this whole time. This is Opalina Outpost, and we're the currently assigned crew. See for yourself."

There was a long silence. The Enforcer com cast a sidelong look at Huseda, but the Archcom was too busy glaring daggers at him, her eyes slits and arms folded.

"Check the ripples," the Enforcer said, and one of the bots rolled between crew members, scanning the metal circles hanging on the front of their uniforms. Duhar scrambled to fish his out of his pocket. The bot wheeled around, and its mechanical voice broke the quiet. "All ripples authorized. Opalina Outpost crew at full muster."

The Enforcer com's eyebrows lifted slightly.

"Alior, you sneaky little shit—" Huseda closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. He knew what she was debating. She hadn't reassigned them anywhere yet, so Opalina was technically still theirs. The Commissioners couldn't deny that Opalina was still an active outpost when they were about to kick up a fuss about selecting a new crew for it. And there weren't any branch rules forbidding a crew from flying around in their outpost. As long as they didn't set foot off of the lightship, they were within their assigned bounds. Thank the goddesses. Although his mother was undoubtedly still going to consider disowning him after this.