Inside the Naetilus, Nero's reception had been mixed, but it was undeniable that he exerted a certain fascination. He was the only nyasuk on board alongside Kotori Fujisawa (Birdie), and diversity was always looked upon favourably by the Confederation, the planetary organisation they served.
"Crew, we don't have much battery left. The Naetilus does not optimise resources. I want you to be aware that if we don't secure another fuel source, it could take us months to reach Sigma," explained Katherine Parker, the red-haired captain.
Nero let out a short laugh.
"My contract is objective-based."
"Exactly. Until we deliver the supplies in Sigma… but there's no time limit."
"I won't be here any longer than necessary."
"I agree. But there are no refuelling points nearby."
"Captain," Alex, the first officer, interrupted, "we've detected a nyasuk vessel… a grey fighter, from Naësu."
"Ally or hostile?"
"Naësu… we lose nothing by trying."
"Send a message."
Nadia, communications, sent a brief text through official channels to the unidentified ship, explaining that this was a humanitarian mission to Sigma.
"Captain, I'd be delighted to discuss this in detail with you," Nero said to Katherine with thinly veiled impatience, "but it's not my responsibility that the Naetilus can't memorise sequences. I need to step out for a moment."
They were still in the middle of the launch centre, between Omega's volcanic valleys and vast jungles. The Naetilus had failed to depart as scheduled, and Nicholas was in the engine room trying to diagnose the problem. Katherine spoke firmly.
"I haven't authorised that. You're the pilot."
"Even a pilot has to…" he paused, "…use the loo at some point."
"Couldn't you have gone before sitting down? Do I have to manage that too?"
As if obeying a silent command, the Naetilus began to tremble, slowly lifting.
"We're already ascending. I've done my job," Nero replied, rising from his seat.
Nadia stared at him in disbelief while waiting for a response from the unknown ship.
Nero gave her a small smile and left, checking whether his cigarettes were still in his uniform. Once everyone assumed he was heading for the restroom, he veered toward the docking bay—where he ran straight into Nicholas.
"I told you not to come near my ship."
"I haven't touched it. But if I did inspect it, I'd be doing you a favour."
They both looked at Cobra, the small black human-made craft. Nero had insisted on carrying his own ship inside the Naetilus, against every Confederation regulation. The captain had tried to dissuade him, even offering transport in a cargo vessel. Nero hadn't budged.
"What are you doing… here?"
"I ask the questions."
"I'm checking whether any conduit still needs drying. Humidity can affect machinery. Maybe that's why the Naetilus wouldn't lift."
"This place really is a dump."
Nicholas didn't know what to say, as usual. Nero stepped closer.
"Listen… I'm assuming you won't open your mouth like a good little boy. Right?"
The young man blushed, but felt the urge to speak again.
"What are you going to do?"
Without answering, the pilot reached for his most charming smile.
The technician returned to his work, trying not to think about any of it, as the Naetilus, its sequence now programmed, began to rise and leave Omega's cleared skies behind. He thought he saw Nero heading toward Cobra, but chose not to look. He was intimidated.
On the bridge, Alex raised the alarm almost immediately.
"Captain, we have unusual movement at the main hatch."
"Give me visual confirmation."
"Zooming in."
Samantha, the manouk hybrid navigator, parted her lips slightly, then adjusted her glasses.
"So that's where he was…"
"Get him out of there immediately," Katherine ordered.
"He's leaving, Captain."
The ship's bay doors opened, and before anyone could react, Nero was already departing in Cobra, at a speed the Naetilus—which had been carrying it—could never hope to match.
"Did you authorise that?" Alex demanded.
"Do you think I'm insane?"
Nadia smiled nervously. Birdie, the nyasuk monitor, began reciting a mantra.
"Birdie, please. Not now."
"What does he think he's doing, disobeying your orders like that?"
"Take the helm. I want to see what this son of a bitch is up to."
"The nyasuk fighter has responded, Captain."
"What does it say?"
"It says: We are the legitimate children, pure blood of Atlantis…"
"Damn it. It's Cult."
"They can't attack us. We're an aid mission."
"You never know with these bastards. Tell Nero to return immediately. He needs to evade the fighter before—"
The bridge shook violently as the impact rippled through the structure.
The nyasuk fighter had attacked and showed no sign of disengaging, while the Naetilus finally ascended—but it was too slow.
Nero accelerated Cobra, deliberately passing in front of the main viewport before focusing on pursuing the grey fighter.
It flickered in and out of radar range. He'd have to push Cobra to its limits. He frowned as he wrestled with the controls, which resisted him. The speed pressed him into his seat. The green console light flickered. Katherine was trying to reach him from the Naetilus, but he didn't have time.
Finally, guided by the display, the enemy ship drifted slightly behind and below him—exactly where he needed it. He programmed an automated sequence: after a brief delay, reduce speed, open the hatch.
They were still relatively close to ground level. He tried unsuccessfully to compensate for the ambient humidity. The neutral voice of Cobra's operating system startled him.
"High-risk manoeuvre detected. Safety lock engaged."
"Override safety lock," he snapped.
"Voice recognised. Nero Lumina, 1N-912888467C. Awaiting instructions."
Sliding the hatch upward, Nero freed his jacket, which had snagged on one of the hull tabs and now trailed along Cobra's exterior. The ship continued cutting through Omega's skies, slowing just enough to avoid a lethal pressure shift. The enemy nyasuk fighter was directly beneath him, its aerodynamic design cleaner, simpler.
The grey fighter's pilot looked up, stunned to see Nero clinging to Cobra's exterior like a living shadow, and accelerated. He immediately felt boots slam onto the roof and tried to tilt the ship to shake the intruder off—but it was too late.
Landing squarely on the hull, Nero allowed himself a smile as the nyasuk ship's magnetic hooks finished locking into place.
The intelligent vessel reacted to his fingerprints from the outside. He yanked open the access hatch with one hand and forced it wider with his foot until it gave way. The ship wouldn't allow two pilots—the silence bomb detonated, nearly rupturing their eardrums. Nero spared a second to look at the nyasuk's panic-stricken face.
"This can't be—" the nyasuk babbled, scrambling for something to defend himself with.
In one clean, efficient motion, Nero pressed the dagger to the side of his throat and, without another thought, settled into the pilot's seat as the limp body slid aside and collapsed like dead weight. The skin shimmered silver-green before dulling. On the wrist, a scar shaped like a bull's skull was still visible—the Cult's symbol.
Absurdly, he thought of the official nyasuk crown motto: "May the gentle lunar mantle cover Naësu until dawn." That bastard would never see the sun again.
"Another one," he muttered, his cold gaze fixing on the controls as he opened a channel to the Naetilus. "Sam, I need confirmation that the Naetilus has re-docked with Cobra."
"If you don't appear right now," Katherine's voice rang out, barely contained fury, "I swear you'll explode in the middle of the jungle."
"I'm on my way back. Requesting hatch clearance."
"Oh, you'll see, bastard," Katherine snapped, cutting the channel.
The nyasuk ship's own operating system struggled to recover from the chaos. Nero struck the console a couple of times—nearly buttonless—to shut it up. He wasn't in the mood to interact. His temples throbbed. A headache was blooming, for a change.
After circling aimlessly over Omega, he entered the Naetilus's bay, and moments later stood before Katherine and Nicholas.
"Care to explain what the hell you were thinking?"
"Captain," Nero began, stating the obvious, "I brought back the nyasuk rechargeable battery, so that—"
Katherine slapped him across the face. Nicholas actually jumped at the impact. Nero remained rigid, staring at a fixed point behind her.
"Orders are orders," she snapped. "This is the last time I tolerate you putting your objectives above this crew and the Naetilus. I don't know when it'll sink in that you're not alone. Nicholas, fetch Samantha for a medical evaluation."
As Nicholas sprinted off through the cable-lined corridors—vast, tunnel-like arteries of the ship—Katherine leaned close to Nero's ear.
"Do you have any idea what could have happened? To the mission? To our work?"
"We've reduced operational time. I'm thinking in terms of mission efficiency."
"I never should've accepted a mercenary as an official pilot," she muttered.
"I'm prepared to face the consequences," Nero said, bowing his head coolly.
"Yeah, whatever," Katherine replied, arching a brow as she looked him over. "Explain it to the crew." And with that, she headed straight for the bridge.
When the door closed behind her, he thought it had been a terrible idea to climb into that flying tin can in the first place.
Now Nero was alone with his conscience. The sounds of enemy fighters, of fire narrowly avoided with the Naetilus, with Cobra, and finally during the boarding of the nyasuk ship—all those hums crowded his mind. He entered the cockpit of the Naetilus sweating cold, forcing himself to remain composed.
"Naetilus pilot assuming duties," he said, voice unchanged.
Nothing more than a crew member. Katherine was the captain.
As long as she controlled the ship, he could control his own life. A nyasuk for hire, unattached, answering to a human captain aboard a ship that was falling apart.
Of course, Nicholas deserved an explanation. Or did he? Did Nero truly care what Nicholas thought? Or whether he was worried?
He remembered how fast Nicholas had run off in his red canvas trainers, jumpsuit flapping, to alert Samantha he was coming in. She'd taken his temperature and told him he was cold—an organic response.
The Naetilus gained altitude, with Cobra and the captured nyasuk ship secured in storage. Alex, gunner and second-in-command, watched Nero without sympathy but understanding the lesson Katherine meant to teach. He raised his brows as he manually loaded ammunition into the turret, thinking it through.
It had been a risky move, and the pilot hadn't considered every possibility—what if the Naetilus had taken another, stronger barrage? If the attack had intensified? But it was done. They had the stolen nyasuk battery. The blood from the enemy's punctured jugular still stained the interior lining. That battery would power the Naetilus for months.
Nero wasn't sorry. An uncontrollable urge to smoke took hold. His fingers trembled as they slid over the dulled controls, his eyes focusing on the details of the plastic casing—once white—now marked with small circular ridges beneath his hands as the lush green expanses receded.
"Are you… are you okay?" Nicholas's shaky voice came through the intercom, private channel.
"Operational," Nero replied, conserving words.
"Why did you do that?" Nicholas pressed, his voice barely above a whisper.
With a sigh, Nero understood he hadn't really expected an answer.
He was already sick of manoeuvring with the ship's inadequate systems. He wanted nyasuk propulsion—even stolen—and to finally finish this ridiculous mission. Load the ship. Omega to Sigma. Deliver the cargo. Get paid. That was it.
The Cult had no reason to attack them.
Omega's ground fell away as the Naetilus surged to its maximum speed, leaving behind even the tallest treetops and palms, punching through rain-heavy tropical clouds.
As always when surpassing a certain threshold, the ship's controls finally yielded after a long strain, and the massive machine shuddered. Nero rubbed his knuckles. From the corner of his eye, he saw Samantha to his right, ensuring clear routes through space—she wasn't happy with his manoeuvre either. Birdie, to his left, monitoring and adjusting drone trajectories, hummed a tune as if oblivious. Nicholas had spoken to him over the private line from the engine room, where he struggled to calm the Naetilus's overheating, checking fans in every propulsion system, nuclear and chemical. Nadia, meanwhile, decoded nyasuk characters and the last communications sent from the captured ship to its command, finding none of it amusing.
He input a command sequence to engage autopilot and, after a moment, went to his quarters. Adrenaline still coursed through his veins, and thanks to his training he was efficiently suppressing his body's biological responses—but he was, truly, exhausted.
In Nero's memory, the image of the dead nyasuk surfaced without warning. That flash of dying light beneath the skin, the empty eyes, the body sliding from the seat. He remembered clearly the bull-skull scar of the Cult.
And the more he thought about it, the more it seemed to him that the symbol was his own head—under enemy fire, aboard an unfamiliar ship, on one of the planets within the Asteroid Belt.