The next day, Nova was riding her motorcycle down the highway, heading for the capital that shared its name with their country.

Of course, she was too young to legally ride a motorcycle. Her driving license was a forgery, which her mother had given to her a while back. When someone had already proven herself capable of driving vehicles ranging from cars to bikes to APCs to tanks to helicopters to airplanes to boats, following proper regulations on the matter didn’t seem quite as critical anymore.

Nova’s motorcycle outwardly looked like an old-fashioned Triumph, but like almost every other motorcycle on this planet, it was powered by an electric engine – Aaron and Nova had retrofitted it together. Nova was a tad ambivalent on this particular matter, though. On one hand, the motorcycle’s new, modern engine was good for the environment, which was a definite plus in her book. On the other hand, she liked the roar of a combustion engine, and her sensitive body really liked the feeling of sitting on what was essentially a giant vibrator with wheels. Still, one couldn’t always get what one wanted…

At her speed, it took 3 hours to make the trip from Saltwell to Altera, then another before she finally reached the business district and parked in a miraculous free space right in front of Ryner’s company’s giant skyscraper.Continue reading

“…”

Nova opened her eyes and let out a mute yawn, squinting against the glare of the sun filtering through the window. Snuggling in the covers of her oh-so-comfortable bed, she glanced at the alarm clock on her bedside table.

15:39

For someone who was in the habit of getting up bright and early, this was a bit much. But after spending the entire night flying a plane into a foreign country’s airspace, performing a halo jump out of said plane, traipsing through a dark forest, shooting down a helicopter, then getting back to the plane and flying back home, this little slip surely was forgivable. Especially since their mission to recover the black box ended up in disappointing failure – the thing was nowhere to be found, in the end.Continue reading

Fortunately, finding Yuri’s team when it wanted to remain in hiding would not be an easy feat. Even using infrared sensors wouldn’t bring any results, as the suits concealed the body heat of their wearer from prying eyes – prying sensors.

After a few minutes of fruitless search, a man’s drawling voice cracked from a loudspeaker attached to the gunship, strident enough to drown out even the roar of the rotors. “Did that bitch Marian come here on her own or did she send her goons to do it? Whatever. I know you’re hiding in there, little snakes. Why don’t you show yourselves and make this easier on all of us?”

Oh, my. Insulting Mom like this. Looks like someone is tired of living.

However, through her scope, Nova could see both the pilot and copilot clearly enough to distinguish facial expressions. And neither of them were talking.Continue reading

The months spent among the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants passed quickly. There was always something to do and people to do it with – most of it training of one kind or another.

It passed so quickly, in fact, that the 3 months Nova had been supposed to spend there for training had come and gone and transformed into 2 years. Of course, Nova hadn’t stayed at the airfield for all this time. She’d gone back to visit her family many times, and she’d also accompanied the PMC in some of their missions, a few taking place overseas. Her assignments had always been pretty peaceful, though, since Marian took great care to place her in the safest positions at all times.

Nova had inquired about what she perceived to be her mother being overprotective, but Marian had claimed that she just couldn’t risk anybody learning that Viper Nest was using an underage girl in a combat position, or the world would see them as outlaws employing child soldiers, and then nobody would ever hire them again. Nova was pretty sure this was nothing more than an excuse. But still, it was a pretty good excuse, so she hadn’t insisted.

Like Nova, the soldiers stationed in the airfield didn’t stay there 24-7. They rotated regularly as they went on and returned from leave in groups of ten, leaving around 30 of them on-site at any one time. As for Marian, she came around perhaps a week out of 3 to take part in the soldiers’ practice and generally see how things were going. The rest of the time, the training Viper Nest’s members went through was self-inflicted. Squad leaders would decide between themselves what today’s menu would consist of, then everyone would be forced to eat it, so to speak.Continue reading

*beep, beep, beep, beep*

Yuri woke up to the strident sound of her alarm clock and blearily slapped her hand against the switch on top to turn it off. She crawled out of the covers, and by the time she was on her feet, all traces of sleep had already disappeared from her face.

Her bedroom was small and stark, only decorated with a few pinned pictures of her husband and son on the full-height mirror on the wall, but simply the fact that she had it to herself made up for everything else. Compared to her days in the alteran army, where she shared a room with a dozen other recruits, Viper Nest’s accommodations were positively luxurious.

The pay, the gear, and the company were much better, too. Hiring herself was one of the best decisions she’d made in her life.Continue reading

This time, when the black car with the tinted windows came to pick up Marian for work, Nova hopped in alongside her, clad in dark-grey military fatigues adjusted to her small body size – probably not standard issue. The inside of the car was spacious, with enough room to stretch her legs. Flat screens were embedded in the headrests of the front seats, though both were powered off at the moment.

“Do you know where we’re heading?” Marian asked abruptly as they left the city of Saltwell behind.

‘Airfield.’

She nodded. “That’s right. We use the private airfield out of the city – which legally belongs to me, by the way – as our headquarters. From there, we can easily deploy anywhere we’re needed. That’s also where you’ll be living for the next 3 months,” she added after a moment with a malicious smirk.

‘With troops?’Continue reading

After getting her breathing back under control, Nova left her running shoes on the rack in the entry hall and headed downstairs. The gym in the basement was well-equipped – and well-ventilated, despite being underground. It had everything she might ever need to whip herself into tip-top shape and keep herself there. It even had a treadmill, actually, but Nova only used it when it was raining too much to go out. Otherwise, she preferred to run in the streets, despite the additional need for shoes.

Ignoring all the tools, Nova walked to the shallow mat in the center of the room and started stretching like she had been taught to do when she was young and had practiced dancing and gymnastics.

Flexibility was set at… 85.

Nova didn’t regret investing the points she had into this stat. It made her body quite easy to use, and quite hard to injure. Even with the rigorous amount of exercise she put herself through, the last time she’d pulled a muscle or twisted something she shouldn’t have twisted was more than 4 years ago. Even while training aikido, which kind of focused on putting pressure on people’s joints to immobilize them, she’d never had the slightest of problems on that front.Continue reading

“Training? You want to train with my troops?”

Nova nodded unhesitantly. She had asked Marian to come see her early in the morning and had then made that absurd request. Although it wasn’t the first such Nova had made over the years, this one might really be the worst of the lot.

“Nova, do you realize what you’re asking me? You might not have a very precise idea what that sort of training entails. Or is there one part in particular you wish to practice? Data analysis or counterintelligence or something else…?”

Marian watched with a bit of trepidation as Nova dug through a pile of papers standing on the edge of her bedroom’s desk.Continue reading

Marian headed towards her husband’s office.

The shadows were long and deep; it was already very late. She would have wanted to go to bed already, to sleep off the tiredness from their trip to the capital – with Aaron’s machines, they didn’t need to drive the car or anything, but still – but Aaron had asked her to visit him, only hours after they’d arrived back home.

Why at this time, though? Something the children shouldn’t hear? Someone else is showing the wrong kind of interest on his facility? Or is it more death threats?

Aaron usually didn’t care about these sorts of things, but there were a few people in the kingdom – like that Duke Bumfuck, or whatever his name was – who could be a tad more troublesome to deal with than most of the nutters who found themselves outraged enough by Aaron’s uncommon intelligence to launch an attack on him or someone related to him.Continue reading

Jamil led the group through more of the opulent hallways of the palace, passing gilded door handles and crystal chandeliers, velvet chairs and masterful paintings. Yet, they had not crossed paths with a single person who might have enjoyed all this beautiful scenery.

This overabundance of needless luxury had always grated on Ingrid’s sensibilities. It might have been one of the reasons that had pushed her to completely retire from political life after handing the reins of the country to her son, in fact. She had even gone so far as leaving the capital to get away from it all.

Well, as queen dowager, Ingrid still had quite a lot of pull, even away from the capital, but she usually didn’t need to use it. Jamil was doing a good enough job of it that she didn’t worry.

Ingrid watched quietly from the back as Jamil, Aaron, and Marian talked happily together. She was pleased that the years they’d spent apart had done nothing to strain their friendship. She knew that the trust her son had for Aaron wasn’t something he’d ever managed to attain towards anyone else.Continue reading