Page 34 of Naughty List Delivery
Behind me, Ober’s breathing has changed—deeper, more controlled, the kind of measured rhythm that means a predator is calculating distances and strike vectors. His enhanced senses are working overtime, cataloging everything: guard positions with mathematical precision, environmental systems that could be weaponized or disabled, the subtle energy fluctuations that indicate the barriers’ control frequency and potential vulnerabilities.
His hand brushes mine as he shifts position, fingers interlacing briefly in what looks like a gesture of comfort but feels like tactical communication. His touch spells coordinates against my palm: Engineering section. Three corridors starboard. Backup transmitter. Twelve minutes if we move now.
I squeeze back in the pattern we used during raids: Distance to families? Guard response time?
His tail tightens around my ankle—acknowledgment and warning. The math is brutal: too far to protect the hostages if we move for the transmitter, too many guards between us and any useful equipment. But maybe, if Mother’s fleet creates enough distraction...
The main airlock suddenly cycles with a sound like grinding teeth, and the temperature in the bay drops five degrees as someone else enters our nightmare. Vex’s phosphorescent patterns shift to colors I haven’t seen before—deep purples and blues that speak to emotions beyond normal fear or anger.
“Brother,” he says, and there’s something in his voice that makes my blood go cold. Not the professional satisfaction of asuccessful operation, but the careful tone of someone trying to manage a situation that’s sliding beyond control.
Krax Korvain flows into the holding bay like liquid shadow given form, his translucent skin shimmering with patterns that pulse in rhythm with some internal emotion I don’t want to identify. He’s smaller than Vex, more delicate, but he carries himself with the kind of controlled grace that suggests violence is always an option, always preferred.
The families sense the shift immediately. Children press closer to parents. The elderly Lividians’ mourning keen cuts off abruptly, replaced by the kind of silence that means prey animals have detected an apex predator. Even the guards shift nervously, weapons tracking the new arrival with the automatic response of people who know they’re in the presence of someone more dangerous than their current assignment parameters covered.
“Vex,” Krax says, and his voice is like poisoned music, beautiful and absolutely terrifying. “I come to check on our... educational demonstration... and find you engaged in conversation with our star pupils. How wonderfully intimate.”
He moves between the energy barriers with fluid grace, and I see immediately that this is someone who enjoys the weight of other people’s terror. Where Vex ran this operation with professional efficiency, Krax radiates the kind of personal satisfaction that comes from making enemies suffer.
“The families are secured,” Vex reports, but there’s tension in his posture now, the subtle stiffness of someone who’s not entirely sure they’re in control of the situation anymore. “OOPS rescue fleet is approaching on schedule. Everything is proceeding according to plan.”
“Is it?” Krax pauses in front of Section B, his black eyes reflecting the frightened faces of children who don’t understand why Christmas became a prison. The human little girl shrinksback against her mother, some primal instinct recognizing that this is something more dangerous than the guards with their weapons.
“Tell me, Vex—what exactly is our plan here? Because from where I stand, it looks suspiciously like you’ve created an opportunity for these two to play heroes again. To sacrifice themselves dramatically and convince everyone watching that reformed criminals can actually achieve redemption through noble death.”
Vex’s phosphorescent patterns flicker with what might be confusion or growing alarm. “Brother, the demonstration is proceeding exactly as discussed. They’ll confess publicly, accept responsibility for our actions, and die knowing they caused all this suffering. The families will go home with the lesson that trusting reformed criminals—”
“Will go home as witnesses to martyrdom,” Krax interrupts, his voice carrying the kind of cold precision that makes smart people reconsider their life choices. “Forty-seven beings who watched Nova Jaxson and Ober Kraine sacrifice themselves to save innocent families. Forty-seven testimonies to the power of redemption, the possibility of change, the heroic potential of people who choose conscience over convenience.”
He turns to face us directly, and I see madness in those black eyes—not the theatrical insanity of someone playing a villain, but the genuine broken places that come from losing everything that matters and deciding the universe needs to pay for it.
“That’s not the lesson I want them to learn.”
The proximity alarm suddenly shrieks through the holding bay, emergency lighting flooding everything in urgent red that turns the tears on children’s faces into streams of blood-colored despair. Multiple vessel signatures approaching fast—Mother’s fleet, arriving exactly when we need them and exactly when Krax can use them against us.
“Perfect timing,” Krax announces, his satisfaction radiating like heat from a plasma core. “Our audience arrives just as the educational program reaches its true climax.”
He keys the main communication array with theatrical precision, his voice shifting to carry the kind of authority that reaches across vacuum to deliver threats. “OOPS rescue fleet, this is Krax Korvain. I’m currently hosting forty-seven families who made the mistake of trusting your organization with their Christmas reunions. I have a demonstration to conduct regarding the true cost of moral choice.”
Static fills the channel before Mother’s voice cuts through with unmistakable authority wrapped in careful control: “This is Madge Morrison, OOPS Command. We’re here to negotiate for our people’s safe return—all of them. State your terms.”
“Simple,” Krax replies, but his smile could cut through reinforced hull plating. “Your courier Noomi Jaxson and Captain Ober Kraine are going to choose which families live and which families die. They’ll demonstrate the same moral calculus they used three years ago when they decided my daughters were acceptable collateral damage for their conscience.”
The families have gone dead silent now, sensing that something fundamental has shifted beyond their understanding. Children clutch parents who can’t promise protection. Elderly beings hold hands with the desperate grip of people who know they might not have much time left to touch each other. Young adults stare at bonding gifts and mating plans and futures that are rapidly becoming hypothetical.
“Here’s how this educational demonstration will proceed,” Krax announces, moving to a raised platform that gives him clear sight lines to all three sections and their respective miseries. “Noomi and Ober will choose one section to live. The other two will die slowly enough for their chosen survivors to understand exactly what their moral choice cost.”
The air in the bay seems to crystallize with horror. In Section B, the human mother covers her children’s ears, trying to protect them from concepts like execution and choice and the idea that their lives depend on decisions being made by strangers. The elderly Lividians begin keening again, their biochemistry responding to stress levels that threaten to kill them regardless of Krax’s threats.
“The families who survive will spend the rest of their lives knowing that children died, elderly beings suffocated, and young love was murdered so they could go home for Christmas,” Krax continues with the kind of satisfaction that makes my skin crawl. “They’ll carry that lesson everywhere they go—that conscience is just elaborate selfishness, that moral choice is always murder by proxy, and that people who claim to be heroes are really just killers who need better marketing.”
“Noomi?” Mother’s voice carries through the speakers, and I catch the careful control that means she’s already spinning up contingency plans. There’s something else in her tone—a subtle emphasis on certain words that suggests coded meaning for anyone smart enough to listen. “Girl, what’s your assessment of the situation?”
Assessment. Not status, not condition—assessment. OOPS code for tactical analysis, for intel gathering, for staying alive long enough to find an advantage.
“Forty-seven innocents being used as leverage for a lesson about the price of moral choice,” I reply, letting steel creep into my voice while Krax’s amusement widens like a crack in space. “The educational value seems limited, unless the goal is demonstrating that some people never learned the difference between justice and revenge.”
“Justice?” Krax laughs, and the sound makes the children in Section B start crying again. “You destroyed my family in the name of justice. Took my daughters away from me because youdecided other people’s families were more important than mine. Now you get to experience the same mathematics—choose which families matter, which ones are acceptable casualties, which ones deserve to die for your principles.”
