Page 38 of Naughty List Delivery
The bay fills with the sound of forty-seven people holding their breath, waiting for salvation or destruction with equal terror. Children press against energy barriers that hum with deadly promise. Parents hold each other with the desperate grip of people preparing to die together. The elderly close their eyes and whisper final words to deities who may or may not be listening.
“Nine... eight...” Vex continues, and I see one of the guards reaching for the console controls, trying to stop what he suddenly understands is a complete betrayal of their mission.
But Vex’s hands move with final precision, dancing over controls with the fluid grace of someone who’s spent years planning this exact moment.
“Seven... six...” The guard’s weapon comes up, aimed at Vex’s center mass, but he’s too late.
“Five,” Vex says firmly, taking over completely now. “Four.”
Krax reaches for his brother one final time, understanding finally dawning in his black eyes as he sees forty-seven lives hanging in the balance between love and revenge. But Ober’s claws find his wrist and hold him back with the last of his strength.
“Three,” Vex continues, his phosphorescent patterns pulsing with resolution. “Two.”
The guard’s finger tightens on the trigger, but Vex’s eyes find the little girl in Section B one last time—the child who reminds him of daughters he’ll never see again, of Christmas mornings that slip away like plasma dissipating in vacuum.
“One,” Vex says softly, and everything explodes into chaos.
11
Oh Holy Fight
Noomi
Energybarriersflickerandfail with cascading electrical displays that turn the bay into a light show of sparks and liberation. Blast doors begin their emergency opening sequence with thunderous mechanical groans while guard communication systems dissolve into static. Automated weapons systems flash red with malfunction warnings as Vex’s sabotage spreads through the ship’s networks like a virus designed to save Christmas.
“Now!” I shout, but even as the words leave my mouth, I can see something’s wrong with Ober. He’s moving toward the nearest guard, but his enhanced reflexes seem delayed, his usual fluid grace replaced by something that looks more like determination overriding pain.
The first guard goes down under Ober’s claws, but I catch the slight stumble as he rolls away, the way his hand briefly presses against his ribs where Krax’s strike connected earlier. Blood seeps through his jacket—more than there should be from superficial wounds.
“Ober!” I call out, but he’s already engaging the second guard, his protective instincts overriding whatever injury he’s hiding from me.
Around us, forty-seven families pour through collapsed energy barriers in a chaos of hope and terror. Children scream for parents, elderly couples clutch each other with desperate strength, and young adults freeze in the overwhelming cacophony of freedom that might still end in death.
“Section A, toward the blast doors!” I coordinate, my voice cutting through panic while my eyes track Ober’s movements. “Lean on each other but don’t rush! Section B, stay low and follow the wall—parents, keep children between you and the barriers!”
The little girl from Section B stumbles past me, her small hand gripping her grandmother’s with white-knuckled determination.She looks up at me with eyes too wide for her age and whispers, “The nice alien cat man is bleeding a lot.”
My heart stops. She’s right. Ober’s jacket is darker on the left side, and his movements are becoming more labored even as he continues to take down guards with methodical precision. Whatever damage Krax inflicted, it’s worse than he’s letting on.
But before I can reach him, Vex’s voice cuts through the chaos with an announcement that changes everything.
“Emergency broadcast activated,” he calls from the control console, his elegant fingers dancing over interfaces with desperate precision. “All frequencies, all channels, maximum transmission range.”
Suddenly every screen in the bay—emergency displays, guard terminals, even the family identification panels—flickers to life with the same image: our bay, our families, our chaos broadcast live across the galaxy. The timestamp shows real-time transmission, and beneath it scrolls text identifying the location, the hostages, and the crime in progress.
“What have you done?” Krax screams, lunging toward his brother, but Ober intercepts him despite his obvious pain. They crash into each other with bone-jarring impact, and I see Ober’s face go white with agony he can’t quite hide.
“I’ve given them what they need,” Vex replies, his phosphorescent patterns pulsing with resolution. “The truth. The galaxy is watching, brother. Every family across known space can see what we’ve become, what you’ve made us become. They can see children who remind them of their own sons and daughters, grandparents who look like their own beloved elders.”
On the screens, I watch our situation from the outside perspective—dozens of families in Christmas clothes, some still clutching gift packages they were carrying when they weretaken, all of them running for their lives while two aliens and a reformed pirate try to save them from a madman’s revenge.
It’s heartbreaking and heroic and absolutely damning for anyone who would harm these innocents.
“Every news service, every communication network, every family watching their evening entertainment,” Vex continues, his voice carrying across the bay as alarms shriek and systems fail around us. “They’re seeing this. They’re seeing what happens when revenge consumes everything good in a person’s life.”
Through the ship’s communication system, I can hear fragments of responses from across the galaxy—news anchors trying to verify the transmission, family members recognizing loved ones on screen, government officials demanding immediate action. The broadcast is working exactly as Vex intended: making this everyone’s problem, everyone’s responsibility.
But Krax isn’t finished. With a roar of rage that makes several children start crying again, he breaks away from Ober and lunges for a control panel I hadn’t noticed before—one marked with warning symbols that suggest nothing good will happen if he reaches it.
