JaydeRussell
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Operative - Ch. 01
🕑 Added 2023-01-28 18:15:29 +0000 UTCOkay! So, I did a little bit of editing for the last 2 chapters, as recommended by a few amazing readers.
Chapter - 62 - I dropped the scene on the ship, instead ending the book with the crew entering the portal. I did it this way because it felt like a more natural ending, and didn't have that strange relief of tension right there at the end.
Chapter - 63 - became an epilogue. To me this chapter felt necessary, but also kind of out of place. We needed some sort of resolution with Sora and Samira not being sent straight to Mother, but having the book end here as a chapter felt weird, which is why I chose to go with an epilogue instead. Plus the chapter is only about half as long as I usually like to target.
To me doing this resolves some of the cliff hanger-y feeling of it, without removing all of the tension. I feel like I'm pretty happy about how I resolved this, but lmk if you disagree!
ALSO! A lot of the issues around this came to light in the #patreon-chapter-discussion channel of the discord. If you ever want to discuss any on-going chapters then it's a great place to hang out with a lot of awesome people!
Without further ado, here's chapter 1 of Operative!
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Chapter 01 - Jailbreak
Sora
“You just killed him.”
I was in an over-the-top expensive study, standing over the corpse of a self-proclaimed pirate king. To make matters worse, the woman who had been helping him drug me was just standing there staring, and I really needed her to move. So, I walked around the couch and held the bloody dagger up to show her.
“That’s right, I did just kill him, which means it’s only a matter of time before I’m discovered and somebody does the same to me.” I took another step towards her, brandishing my knife. “So, you’re either going to take me to my sister right now, or I’m going to leave you bleeding out on the carpet. Which would be a shame, because it looks expensive.”
“Take me with you!” The woman ignored my dagger as she stepped forward to take my hand in both of hers. “Please, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll die if you leave me here.”
“What? Why would I take you with us?” My confusion quickly gave way to outrage, and I tore my hand free from hers. “You were going to stand there watching while your piece of shit boss assaulted me, and now you have the gall to ask me for help?”
“You don’t understand. I was trying to help you! If I hadn’t been there, then Captain Leo would’ve taken you by force from the start.”
“How many other people have you ‘helped’ like this?” I immediately regretted my question. Her guilty expression made it clear that I didn’t want to know the answer. “Where are they keeping Samira?”
“She’s being kept on deck four, in the brig.” She answered quickly, her guilty expression turning to one of undeserved optimism. “Captain Leo wanted her to be awake, in case you resisted.”
“Thanks for the help.” I slit her throat before turning to leave. A quick death was more than she deserved, but I wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. So, I muttered an apology to her victims and moved onto more pressing issues.
I mostly knew where Samira was, but I hadn’t been able to feel the ship since we had been captured. When I reached out for my core, I could feel it somewhere a few decks below me, but I had no way of knowing where exactly. It was going to have to wait. Sami was more important, and the longer it took for me to find her, the more likely the crew was to find their dead captain.
Once that happened, it wouldn’t take many brain cells to connect it all back to me. Normally I was all for betting on pirates being brain-dead, but I wasn’t about to gamble with my sister’s life.
I walked to the door on the far side of the room and opened it to find a surprisingly ornate elevator where I expected a hallway. I walked inside and studied the display.
The ship was huge. Not quite as big as the Legion ship we were on before, but not far off, and I had to imagine a ship of this size belonging to pirates had to be impressive. Not to mention, everything I had seen of it so far screamed old money, which made me think it had been stolen from a corporate CEO or something equally terrifying.
I elected not to think about it, as I activated my invisibility and chose the fourth level. The elevator descended nearly forty floors before coming to a gradual stop. The doors opened to reveal the middle of a hallway with a trio of heavily armed, and very confused, pirates that were trying their best to look attentive.
“You said it was coming from his quarters, right?” A dwarven woman asked as she approached the elevator. I slipped by her and an angry looking human man before they got too close.
“That’s what the early warning system said, and it hasn’t been wrong yet.” An orcish man who was still keeping his distance from the elevator.
“Should we go check on him?” The human asked, which stopped me in my tracks.
“Fuck that. It’s not worth getting yelled at again.” The dwarven woman took a step back from the elevator. “Besides, we aren’t going to make a difference with anything that could give the captain trouble.”
“Back to the game, then?” The human asked with a grin.
“You mean back to handing over all of our hard earned cash to Breezy? Yeah, let’s go. I think I’ve finally figured out how she’s cheating.” The woman lightly punched him on the arm before grinning up at the orc. "Krom, it’s your turn to pay for the next round.”
“I can grab a case on the way back,” Krom, the orc, looked hesitant as he continued to glare into the empty elevator. “The system has never been wrong before, which means that came from the boss’s office. It’s got me uneasy, which makes me want to check on the prisoner first.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever, just don’t kill this one. Boss wouldn’t be happy.” The dwarf motioned for the human to follow her as she left down the hallway.
“You know Sanis would be pissed if she heard you calling her Breezy,” the human laughed as he followed. “How much you gonna give me to not tell her?”
Unfortunately, I didn’t hear how much the human would make off his blackmail, but I wished him the best as I followed the orc in the opposite direction. The walls leading to the brig were lined with what seemed like actual wood, which would make them only marginally less expensive than the captain’s den. At this point, I was sure the place used to belong to some corporate CEO. They were exactly the type to waste their money trying to make everything feel like an ancient sailing ship.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to follow him through the absurd ship for long before we arrived at a set of heavy double doors. Krom placed his hand on a display set into the wall, causing them to open. I slipped in behind him just before the doors closed.
The brig was set up with about a dozen cells inset into the walls with lightly glowing blue force fields instead of doors and a single metal stool up against the wall with a burly looking human asleep on it.
Krom let out a heavy sigh as he approached the sleeping man and pulled the stool out from underneath him, which woke him up in a hurry and nearly made me laugh out loud. “Holy shit, Krom, what the fuck was that for?”
“I had to tap out of the game. I’ll cover your shift if you want to take over for me.” Krom set the stool back down to cross his arms and glare.
“Oh yeah, what’s the catch?”
“You gotta pick up a case of beer from the mess and tell everybody I was the one who paid for it.”
“Deal.” The human scrambled to his feet to shake hands with Krom before rushing out of the room.
“Useless fuck.” Krom shook his head, and I had to remind myself that I’d probably be killing him soon in order to stop the oncoming crush. It helped to snap me out of it when he started walking towards the cells. I wasn’t sure what he was planning on doing, but I expected whatever it was would make killing him easier to justify. Not that I really needed a justification after meeting the man he chose to work for.
“Oh, it’s just you again,” I heard Sami say from the cell where Krom had stopped. She sounded safe, and when I stepped up behind him, I was able to confirm that she was unharmed. In fact, she just looked annoyed. “I already told you that I—Wait, Sora! Don’t!”
Sami had seen right through my spell and warned Krom even before I made a move to attack, which caused him to spin around in time to not just block my attack, but even catch my wrist before I could end his life. I clenched my teeth as I tried to fight back, but the brute was strong. “Sami, what in the hells? Why’d you warn him?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want you to kill him!” Sami shouted, and I shot her a glare as Krom shoved me up against the wall. “Give me a second. I’ll help.”
“Please hurry.” I broke the invisibility in order to transform into a fox, then dart between Krom’s legs and switch back. He swung backwards blindly, which forced me to duck his fist and gave him enough time to square off with me again. This wasn’t the kind of fight where I felt like I could win. Krom was too damn fast, and twice as strong.
“I take it this means the captain is dead?” Plus, he was apparently smarter than he let on. I took a step to my left while maintaining eye contact. He mirrored the movement while keeping his distance. “What’s your plan here? There’s no way you’re getting off this ship alive after killing the captain. Even if you do, the rest of the crew is just going to hunt you down.”
I continued to move around the orc until my back was against the wall again. “Oh? I’ve never been hunted before. Do you think they’ll put a bounty on me?”
“They won’t have to, because you’re not getting past—” Krom violently convulsed and fell to the ground.
“Took you long enough.” I grinned at Sami, who was now standing in an open cell holding a short metal rod wrapped in wire. The rod looked like a part of the bed that had been broken off, but I had no idea where she got the wire, or how she was powering her contraption.
“Don’t be an ass.” Sami dropped the rod and slammed into me with a full-bodied hug. “I’m glad you’re safe. I was so worried.”
“Me too.” I returned the hug as tightly as I could without hurting the poor girl before pushing her away to look her over. “What about you? Are you okay? Did anybody hurt you?”
“I’m fine, okay?” I narrowed my eyes at Sami, which caused her to roll hers. “Seriously Sora, nothing happened. I was just worried about you.”
“Alright, good.” I felt the tension leave my shoulders, and I took a breath before setting my little sister with a glare. “In that case, what the fuck was that about? I could have died!”
“You were completely fine. Besides, all their ships are bio-locked, which means we need one of them alive in order to get out of here.” I raised an eyebrow at her explanation. Breaking bio-locks took Sami all of fifteen minutes. She’d been doing it for years. We didn’t need one of the crew alive. Besides, even if we did, we didn’t need this one alive. It would be easier to just grab a member of their maintenance crew on the way out, instead of trying to haul an unwilling orc halfway across the ship. “Plus, he convinced the captain to not turn us over to Mother, and even made sure I got my own cell that nobody else could unlock.”
“So, you felt bad for the murderous pirate?”
“Well, yeah, sorta.” She shifted her weight and broke eye contact with me. “But we also need allies and I just felt like maybe he’d be willing to help us, you know?”
“We already have allies.” I frowned at Sami. She was acting more nervous than usual, which had me concerned. “Samira, what’s going on?”
“I swear, I don’t know how they figured it out. I didn’t tell them anything.” Sami started panicking, so I interrupted her by placing both hands on her face and locking eyes with her.
“Sami, take a breath.” It took her a second to calm down enough to breathe, but once she did, I continued. “Whatever this is, we can handle it. Just tell me what happened.”
“The hunters who captured us interrogated me to try to figure out where Thea and the captain were and how they were going to get back. I swear I didn’t tell them anything, but they figured it out somehow, and covered our ship in explosive traps. If they set off even one of them, then it would be enough to destroy the Fury and kill everybody on board.”
“Alright, that’s not good, but remember who we’re talking about here. They can handle themselves.” I tried to project as much confidence as I could, but I was worried. My implants were still disabled, so there was no way I could know how long we’d been under. For all I knew, Bryce and Thea had died months ago.
“Seriously, Sora? Do you remember who we’re talking about?” Sami crossed her arms defensively as she gave me a concerned look. “The first thing the captain did after introducing herself was nearly kill herself by casting a spell. Since then, she’s climbed onto the hull of our ship not once but twice while we were in real-space, and I can’t even count the number of times she’s almost died in a fight. Honestly, I’d be surprised if the captain doesn’t walk right into a bomb the moment she’s back on the ship.”
“Okay, maybe it’s worth recruiting Krom to help us.”
