Krystyna snapped awake in a room that was not her own with her head screaming. Even with her eyes closed, she could tell that she wasn’t where she should have been. She wondered why as she directed the cybernetic part of her brain to search the room for any surveillance. All that was found was a small tracker with a pulse monitor buried in the skin between her shoulder blades.

Easily levering herself up, Krys took a long look around the room. It was small; there was only enough room for Krys to stretch out before her hands and feet hit the white walls. The door was reinforced steel; the only thing marring its unbreakable surface was a set of bars at the very top. Krys stood to her full height of about six and a half feet and peered out of the bars. A guard stood to either side clad in black and holding a laser rifle.

The uniform told her where she was, as well as bringing back the memory of the ambush on her while she was on her most recent mission. Krys winced as she glanced around the cell for a way out. Papal wouldn’t be happy. Krys just hoped for her sake that the administrator she was supposed to have rescued wasn’t dead, or Papal would personally kill her.

The door creaked open behind her. Krys spun quickly and crouched into a fighting position, keeping her focus on the two laser rifles aimed at her, one at her heart, the other at her head. A third man walked into the already crowded cell with a syringe, which he immediately plunged into Krys’s arm. Krys hissed and jerked her arm away, expecting to feel the drowsy effects of a sedative. When she didn’t, she narrowed her eyes at the man with the syringe.

“What the hell did you just put in me, asshole?” Her voice lilted in anger, fear having fled long ago.

The man with the syringe smiled. “Truth serum,” he said in heavily accented Common.

As the cybernetic part of her mind processed how long it would take for the serum to work through Krys’s enhanced biological system, Krys cursed savagely. When the readout appeared across the bottom of her vision, Krys cursed harder. Ten minutes of pure truth. Damn. It must be a concentrated dose.

The two guards with the laser rifles grabbed her arms and dragged her out of the cell. She struggled until she felt jab of two more rifles in the small of her back. Growling, Krys reluctantly went where the guards led her.

They stopped at two huge oaken doors, polished until Krys could see her own reflection. She knew the pupils in her honey brown eyes were blown out of proportion from the truth serum, but the doors gave her a full view of her haggard appearance. Most of her black hair had fallen out of its bun to flow down to her waist in disheveled knots. Her healthy tan seemed to have dropped a few shades.

The doors swung open just as Krys finished her scrutiny of her escort. All four of them were burly men dressed in black with laser rifles.

Peachy. Just friggin’ peachy.

The doors swung fully open to reveal a man sitting behind a mahogany desk, wide arched windows flanking him. He stood when the group entered. The rifles on Krys’s back eased off before the guards holding her arms released her and hurried back through the closing doors.

Krys snarled at the man behind the desk as she rubbed the bruised flesh on her arms where the guards’ fingers had dug in. She felt the truth serum thrumming through her veins with the seven minutes of strength it had left. She blamed the sudden stuffy feeling in her head on it.

The man behind the desk began to size Krys up, so she returned the favor. His blond hair hung in an un-military cut to his collar and his black eyes studied her almost in awe. He reached a height of six feet and was lean under the uniform. She saw hidden strength in the way he held himself, and the way he snatched up the recorder and flicked it on spoke of agility.

Krys smiled slowly. It would be quite fun to trick this military hard-ass.

The man’s eyebrow arched as if he were reading her thoughts. “So you’re the infamous Siren.” His Common, like the man with the syringe’s, was heavily accented.

Krys grinned as she searched for surveillance and found only a large vent. “Yep. Got a problem with it?”

“You seem very…comfortable for your current situation.”

Krys snorted. “What, you think you’re the first to capture me? Watch out. Your ego’s showing.”

The man smiled. “Tell me, Siren. What is your true name?”

“Krystyna, though most just call me Krys. I really hate this truth serum.” Only five minutes left. Don’t screw up.

“It was made by the best Union scientists and the best technology in this wondrous year of 3056. I’m glad you find it effective.”

Best technology, my ass. “It’s more annoying than anything else.”

The man nodded, taking in that information. “How old are you, Krystyna?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Very young for an assassin.”

“I’m not an assassin. I like to think of myself as a liberator.”

This time the man snorted. “You Empires are very funny.”

Krys leveled a look at him while she bit her tongue to try and stop herself from blurting the truth. She did anyway. “I don’t work for the Empire.”

The man arched a brow as he sat. Krys silently cursed herself. “I have been rude, Krystyna. My name is Colonel Jeremy Regof. Now tell me, who is it you work for?”

Krys battled the minute of truth serum in her blood. “Myself,” she finally lied, surprised at the potency of the drug even in its weakened state. Krys glanced around the large room again. No surveillance. Odd, especially for the Colonel’s quarters.

“Really. Then who gave you the orders to recover Admin Olga?”

Krys smiled and exploited the weakness ever truth serum had: she didn’t have to tell the whole truth. “The government.”

“So you work for the government.”

“No. I told you, I work for myself. I just decided to take a job the government offered.”

Jeremy massaged his temples as the serum lost its advantage over Krys’s weakened defenses. “Which government offered you the job?”

“The Empire.”

“You said you didn’t work for the Empire.”

“I don’t. I work for myself.”

The Colonel sighed, exasperated. “If you weren’t on the serum, I’d think you were lying.”

Krys grinned at the irony. “Not lying one bit. Can I have a shower?”

“What?”

“I feel like shit. Can I take a shower?”

“Once we’re done here.”

Krys frowned. “We aren’t done? Crap.”

“I have heard that you are not human.”

“-Oid.”

“Excuse me?”

Krys grinned at his confusion. “I’m humanoid. I’m biologically human, but I’ve had a few…enhancements.”

“Give me an example.”

Krys laughed. “Gladly.” Without giving time for him to react, Krys ran on swift legs to Jeremy’s desk and grabbed the recorder, crushing it into small pieces with her bare hands. She dumped what was left on his desk, next to what she recognized as her ear-communicator. She quickly palmed it and smiled. “I think I’ll take that shower now.”

Jeremy nodded and pushed a button on his holo-screen. The doors swung open again and her escort hurried in, shoving the rifles into her back and grabbing her arms again. Jeremy looked paler than when Krys had first walked in. “Take her to the head. She needs a shower.”

Krys smiled smugly as the guards guided her out of the Colonel’s quarters and in the direction of the head.

- - -

Krys was shoved into the small room with little gentleness. Scowling at the door as it slammed in her face, she began to strip and jumped into the shower. She sighed with relief when the hot water she ordered poured over her head.

While braiding her freshly cleaned hair, a plan formulated in Krys’s mind. She grinned at the simplicity of it. Get out without being detected and reach Papal and let him know that she was safe. To start with, she’d have to get the sub-dermal tracker out.

She reached behind her with flexibility only she could manage. Along with increased strength, speed, and limited immunity against poisons and serums, Krys had increased flexibility, durability, and stealth. All of her “enhancements” had been inserted into her test tube just after she had been “conceived.” Except, of course, her cybernetics. Those had been inserted with a series of very complicated surgeries.

The tracker popped out with little problem, especially after Krys had sent an electromagnetic pulse through it that would make it seem like it was still detecting her pulse for about three minutes before going dead. She shoved it in the bar of soap before closing her eyes and letting the cybernetics scan the room.

Two laser scanners jutted out from the wall nearest to the shower. Grinning, Krys easily stepped over and under them to reach her clothes. As she was pulling the stealth suit on, she tugged out her ear-comm and tapped it on.

“Please state passkey,” a tinny voice rang in her ear.

“Siren-528,” Krys whispered.

“Patching, Siren-528. Please hold.”

It didn’t take long before a bass voice picked up the other end. “Siren, where the hell have you been?”

Krys winced. “Sorry, sir. I got caught up in the wonderful world of politics with a bunch of Union soldiers with laser rifles. You’ll like who’s leading them, though.”

“If it’s not the Colonel, I don’t care.” General Papalinloit, called Papal for short, which came about as a joke that his soldiers passed around, referring to the old head of the Catholic church, studied his map of the Union territory as he tried to relate the ear-comm’s signal to a particular place.

“It is the Colonel, sir. And to answer the question I know is plaguing your mind, I have no clue as to where in the hell I am. I’ll let you know as soon as I get out of this rat trap.”

“Do I hear running water, Siren?”

Krys glanced back at the still-running shower. “Yes, sir. I’m putting the brain to work.” She grinned as the ‘dead’ beeper went off and a commotion started on the other side of the door. “And now it’s the body’s turn.”

The door swung open and the single guard behind it didn’t see the well-placed foot that caught him on the jaw and knocked him out cold.

The other three guards were nowhere to be seen, probably having gone to get reinforcements.

“Are you clear, Siren?”

“Yes, sir. Now I’ve got to find a way out of here.” Krys went to the door to the hallway and twisted the knob, only to find that it was locked. She cursed silently and relayed this information to Papal, who cursed out loud.

Footsteps and muffled shouts steadily came toward the head. Krys could hear at least ten different people, more adding on as the group continued down the hall.

Krys quickly searched the room for any escape route. When she didn’t find any, she crouched behind the door and prepared to do battle with more men than she could defeat.

A cold blast of air poured over her head.

Krys looked up and grinned at the man-sized vent in the ceiling. She reached up and shoved the cover off and hauled herself into the vent before replacing the cover.

“Sir, I’m going silent. I’ll report as soon as it’s safe.”

“Good luck, Siren. Get home in one piece.”

The connection went dead just as the door flew open and men with laser rifles rushed in.

Not wanting to stay as the search party started in on the room, Krys turned and began to silently belly crawl through the cold vents.

- - -

Jeremy walked through the door to the prisoner’s head and cursed his own stupidity. He had let The Siren slip through his fingers. He scowled at the bloody still-beeping tracker implanted in the bar of soap and at the slowly recovering guard.

The medic closely watching the recovery glanced up as Jeremy walked up behind her. “Sir, the last thing he remembers is opening the door to try and revive the prisoner. Good clip on the jaw knocked him out.”

Jeremy nodded and turned to the head of his search team. The man blanched as he stood at attention when he saw Jeremy’s scowl. “Sir, there is no sign of her. She tried to open the door, but that’s the only trace we got.”

Jeremy growled and threw his head back. “Damn woman. She’s going to get me killed.”

It was then that he noticed the slightly askew vent cover. He smiled when the head of the search followed his gaze and hurried over to the vent, apologizing for the fact that they had overlooked it.

The scanner in his hand beeped. “Sir, we’ve got her heat signature. She’s in the vents.”

Jeremy’s smile widened in triumph. “I’m going after her.” He held up a hand to silence the objections from his guard. “No one else here can fit through, other than Sherry,” he gestured to the medic. “So I’ll follow her. Give me the scanner and a laser rifle. The Siren isn’t getting away that easily.”

Fueled by anger and victory, Jeremy knocked the cover off and sent it clattering deeper into the vent system before following it.

- - -

Krys jerked at the sound of metal clattering against metal. Busted, she thought. She picked up the pace as she focused her cybernetics on detecting devices. They found a Class 5 heat scanner and a laser rifle set to stun closing in quickly.

Smiling at the stupidity of the Union government, Krys dissipated her body heat into the vents, only keeping enough to sustain life. The laser rifle on stun wouldn’t do anything but slow her pace for a few seconds. Krys then slithered through forks in the system, taking the left once, then the right, then the left again. She finally stopped to take a breath and peer through a vent cover.

The room was another cell, only this one held an aging woman in a white lab coat. Her black hair was streaked with grey and her eyes sagged from lack of sleep.

Krys grinned down through the grate at Admin Olga. “I love my luck,” she whispered quietly.

The woman jerked her head up at the vent. “Who is there?” she asked in Russian.

“A friend,” Krys replied in the same language.

Admin Olga visibly relaxed, then tensed again when she heard Jeremy’s roar of defeat. “What was that?”

“Our ticket out. Come up in the vent system and I’ll get both of us out of here.”

“I can’t reach. I’m too short.”

“I’ll help you up. No more talking.”

Admin Olga nodded and walked over to the vent. She waited until Krys had silently removed the cover before glancing for a last time at the door and letting herself get hauled into the vent system.

Her eyes widened at the sight of Krys. Knowing the usual reaction to her name and face, Krys held up a finger to her lips before pointing down the shaft and making the universal symbol for a gun. Olga nodded again, indicating that the point had gotten across. Nodding back, Krys put her cybernetics on standby. She had lost enough energy already.

Krys then began to lead Olga on the long journey to where she had set off from the path Krys had been on before Jeremy had decided to follow.

With a new body heat following her, Krys had to move quickly. If the scanner was still on, it would sense the heat signature and set Jeremy on their heels again.

As soon as they got out into the main shaft, frantic beeping behind them had Krys’s heart skipping.

Krys let the admin slide ahead of her before telling her to take the first left hand branch that Olga came to. Krys would catch up later.

Krys just hoped the map in her head was correct.

She let her body recover the heat she had kept off and heard the responsive beeping of the scanner. When it suddenly stopped, Krys laid low and silent in wait.

Instead of hearing the telltale scratching of fabric against the metal of the shaft, Jeremy’s voice drifted up to her. “Damn thing’s broken, unless she can split herself in two.”

Grinning, Krys followed Olga.

The admin was sitting inside the first left hand turn that Krys came to. The slanted light from the vent cover not far behind her illuminated her silhouette.

“It’s me,” Krys whispered.

Olga visibly relaxed, then let Krys slide in front of her.

Krys peered through the vent at the Colonel’s quarters. The setting sun was shining through the two windows.

Grinning, Krys grabbed the vent cover.

And jerked back when the doors flew open and a fuming Jeremy walked in.

Rather than risk Olga making some small noise and alerting the Colonel of their nearness, Krys shoved a hand over the admin’s mouth.

The doors remained open and a guard came in. “Sir. You asked for me?”

Jeremy continued to walk over to one of the windows. “Get a man on every damned vent in this building. She’s not getting away.”

Another man puffed his way in. “Sir, Admin Olga’s missing.”

Jeremy whirled on the man that had just entered and mentally kicked himself for not following the two heat signatures. “Block all of the exits as well. She’ll try to escape.”

Both men nodded and rushed off to muster the troops needed for the daunting tasks.

Once the doors had closed behind the two men and Jeremy had turned back to the windows, Krys dropped her hand from Olga’s mouth, but put a finger to her lips for the woman to remain silent. After getting her nod, Krys lifted the cover and placed it silently further down the shaft. She silently slid her feet out of the shaft and into the room, letting the rest of her body follow.

As soon as her head cleared the opening, Krys’s ear-comm screamed in protest.

Cursing silently and violently as she landed just behind Jeremy, Krys ripped the ear-comm out and closed her fist around it. Jammers, Krys thought, remembering the stuffy feeling in her head the first time she had entered the room. That’s very bad. Horridly bad.

Jeremy chose that exact moment to turn around.

Painting a smug smile on her face, Krys stared at the surprised look on Jeremy’s face before clipping him squarely on the chin and knocking him out cold.

A green light on his collar flashed red and emitted a signal that Krys could feel in the marrow of her bones.

Krys now allowed herself the freedom of cursing aloud. She waved at the vent, where Olga still sat silently. “Get down here now,” Krys screamed in Russian, relieved when Olga followed orders and landed just behind Krys.

The doors erupted behind both of them. Krys only spared one glance back before leaping at the window and breaking through it. Alarms screamed through the base, alerting everyone of a breakout.

The Admin wasn’t far behind in following. As she leapt through the broken window, the soldiers opened fire.

Krys watched in detached amusement as a laser caught Olga in the abdomen and stunned her. In one graceful move, Krys caught the small woman, slung her over a shoulder, and jammed the ear-comm back into place.

Papal instantly picked up the other end. Ignoring formalities, Krys turned and ran across the large base grounds toward the outer wall. “I need air support NOW!”

“Already got you covered.”

As if by magic, a dozen Helio-Fighters and a large G class hypership came into view, discarding their invisi-shields. The wall in front of Krys erupted, chunks of plaster flying past her face as she ran at full tilt toward the hovering fleet. The helio-fighters covered her retreat.

“Who the hell do you have with you?”

Krys laughed as she ran. “Never give up on a mission. That’s my motto.”

“The Admin?”

“Duh.” Krys switched frequencies and connected with the hypership’s captain. “Drop the ladder.”

“Aye, sir.”

A large platform dropped in front of Krys. She nimbly leapt onto it and tapped a button on the console in the center. It instantly began to rise.

Once she was inside the hypership, Krys let herself relax. The admin was taken by the medical staff on board, and Krys made her way to the bridge.

When she entered, everyone stood and saluted. “Glad to have you aboard and safe, Cyborg Captain Krys.”

“Glad to be aboard. Let’s go home.” Everyone nodded and sat.

“Sir, it will take a few minutes to prime the hyperdrive, and the Helio-Fighters are dropping on ammo.”

Krys nodded. “Tell the Fighters to back off and only shoot defensively. These Union bastards are persistent.”

“Yes, sir.”

Krys looked around the bridge. “Where’s the Captain?”

“He went to Weapons,” Navigations answered.

“Get him up here. I want him to run his ship.”

“Yes, sir.”

The hyperdrive engines were primed by the time the Captain finally made an appearance. Krys shot him a look that said she wasn’t pleased with the time he had taken and turned over the ship into his care. He immediately ordered the hyperdrive active and a direct course set for Central.

Krys smiled and ordered the Helio-Fighters to cover the hypership’s retreat. As soon as she had finished the order, the hypership gave a sickening lurch as the hyperdrive engaged.

Krys’s smile widened as she leaned back into one of the empty chairs on the bridge. She was going home.