"I have to say... you are full of surprises, Pirate Queen," Nova whispered, as she leaned in and her breath tickled against his neck.

She didn't reply, but shifted in his arms and pressed her body closer against his with a sigh. He could feel her chest rise and fall at a ragged pace, like his own. Despite his exhaustion, he found his thoughts trail away as he pondered the numerous enjoyable things they could still do together.

"I never expected this from you, but... I could really get used to this," he said, and found himself grinning at the thoughts that crossed his mind now.

"Shh..." she hushed him, as she huddled closer into his embrace.

With their bodies so close and their limbs intertwined, he felt her every muscle as she moved. She was leaner than the type of woman he usually preferred, but she definitely had curves in all the right places. He hummed contently.

"Could you move your shoulder a bit – yeah, right there," she instructed him, and he obliged. He could feel her right hand brush against his hip and the side of his torso as she brought it up and behind his back. Her soft touch cast pleasant shivers on his body.

"Like that – yes, perfect," she mumbled.

He silently agreed, despite the fact that their position was not particularly comfortable for him, thanks to her pointy hip bone that sharply dug into his body now. He ignored the pain and held still, focusing on the soft parts of her body instead as she rested against him. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and just listened to her breath as it calmed down and became steadier again, faintly brushing across his cheek. His trailing thoughts calmed down too, and his exhaustion made him begin to feel drowsy. Suddenly, she moved again, her thigh ended up pressed against his crotch, and he was wide awake again.

"Wow. You really know what you want, Pirate Queen," he murmured in a husky voice. "I like that in a woman."

She leaned back a bit to look up at him. Her cheeks were still flushed with red and her hair was disheveled, a few strands of white hair mingling with the black on the other side of her head. She looked more beautiful than ever, even as she narrowed her eyes at him and cast him an irritated glance.

"Nova, shut up. Or I'll bash your teeth in," she hissed.

The irritation in her voice caused him to chuckle. He had always found her feistiness endearing.

"I don't think there's room for you to land a punch," he commented, grinning at the woman he held embraced, even as she rolled her eyes and averted her gaze again.

"I never said I'd use my fists," she mumbled as she leaned forward again. She rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes.

"You know, I just wondered what happened to the last guy who kissed you," he mused as he looked down at the top of her head.

"He died an agonizing, slow death from asphyxiation and heart failure," she stated matter-of-factly.

"Hm. Sounds like it's totally worth it."

She groaned and shifted her weight on top of him again.

"Will you shut up now, I'm trying to hack here."

"I'd help you but..." he raised his scarred hands just as much as the extremely small maintenance tunnel they were crammed into allowed him to. "...You know".

This wasn't exactly how he had expected events to unfold, but all things considered, he found was quite content with the situation. Surely, her plan had completely gone south, and now they were in mortal danger, on the run from a horde of angry hunters and scandroids. They had barely managed to shake them off – having combat augments had given them both a certain edge over them in terms of endurance - and fled by crawling through the maintenance tunnels until they had found a node that she could hack to create a distraction.

He would have considered this a bad turn of events on any other day. He probably wouldn't even have agreed to be part of such an insane plan in the first place if it had been anybody else asking. But she wasn't just anybody.

"Totally worth it," he mumbled, as on top of him, Amy began to push herself back along the narrow tunnel, down along his body.

~ ~ ~

Fifteen hours before he would end up crammed into a narrow maintenance shaft with her, he met the Pirate Queen on her ship, the Blackstar.

His own ship wasn't bad – the stolen, repurposed Tiburon-class fighter was smaller, since he had no crew to work it, but it was perfect for his line of work: stealing, smuggling and pissing off Neo-Tokyo and the military whenever he ran into them. But as he waited for the docking procedure to complete and the airlocks between the two ships to connect, he couldn't help but feel a tiny pang of envy at the sight of her vessel.

The Blackstar was shaped like an arrowhead with slanted wings and a split tail extending in a dozen different directions. Covered in a uniform coat of a strange, matte black material, it was almost invisible against the darkness of space that surrounded them. The surface reflected the lights of his own ship at warped angles. He found the name of the vessel quite befitting of her looks. The Blackstar was strange., but also very beautiful. Just like her captain.

As far as Nova knew, she had never let anybody set foot on her ship, and nobody had ever seen her crew. As soon as he met them, he understood why.

"Ma'am," a Reaper unit greeted him with a curt nod of his white, bullet-shaped head as he stepped out of the airlock port. "Please follow me."

Slightly befuddled, he followed the unit as it escorted him along the brief way to the bridge. The room before him was even more impressive than the outside of the ship. The entire interior design was dark and sleek, the computer systems more modern than anything he had seen anywhere since the Purge and the retrofits, and everything was impeccably well maintained. In the middle of the room, there were three comfortable looking black chairs – one for the captain, flanked by two smaller ones probably intended for a pilot and a helmsman. The ceiling lights were dimmed, and beyond the translucent control panels at the front, a large window provided a clear sight at the vast, star-spangled darkness of the space outside. There wasn't very much to look at out here, where she had asked to meet up. Nonetheless, the view was quite nice.

As he stared out of that window for a few moments, he found himself wondering what kind of material the ship was coated with. It had made it look uniformly matte, black and windowless from the outside.

"Please take a seat. The Admiral is on his way," the Reaper unit said before it left him alone.

Nova stared after him in confusion. "Who...?"

"Mister Nova!" A voice suddenly resounded through the room, causing him to jerk in surprise. He looked around, but the Reaper unit had left, and he was completely alone.

"Welcome aboard the Blackstar. My name is Rutherford, and I am in charge of hospitality aboard this vessel. Would you care for some black tea?" the voice asked.

"Black tea? Eh... no thank you," Nova replied. "I'm more of a coffee person."

"Coffee, then?"

"No, thanks, I'm good... Say, are you this ship's AI, Rutherford?" he asked out of curiosity. From the overly polite way the voice spoke it certainly reminded him of some AIs he had met back in the day. But since the Purge, there weren't many around any longer.

"My primary function aboard this vessel is to serve as the ships maintenance and surveillance AI, yes," the voice explained. "But I do have a body, too."

"Interesting," Nova mused. "Very interesting."

An AI crew certainly explained why Amy had never brought any crew members to the Backside or just so much as mentioned them. And it also explained how a single woman seemed capable of running a ship like this on her own. But even considering that she had at least one Reaper unit at her disposal, he found it difficult to believe some of the things she had supposedly pulled off, according to rumors. He hadn't thought it was possible, but she became yet more interesting by the minute.

Instead of taking a seat as suggested, he stepped closer to the ship's controls to investigate them. In front of the window was a state of the art interface console – well, state of the art from about eight years ago, when all research and development of new interface technology had come to a halt due to the Purge. The console was inactive now, the sleek surface appearing completely translucent. He ran his scarred fingers across it, closing his eyes for a moment. Sometimes, he still longed to feel that tingling sensation of connecting to an interface. But the console stayed dormant at his touch. He would never fly a ship through augments ever again.

"Are you done groping my ship, Nova?" Amy's voice behind him caused him to jerk in surprise once again and made him pull back his hand immediately.

He took a second to focus and get rid of the look of momentary melancholy he was probably wearing on his face right now. Then he turned around to meet her with a smile on his lips.

"Pirate Queen!" he greeted her. "It's an honor. So what can I do for you?"

She didn't reply. She just stood there, leaning against the door frame with crossed arms, and let her gaze wander up and down along his body with a pensive look on her face. He raised an eye brow in surprise, and his grin widened. Whatever it was that she had on her mind, the way she seemed to undress him with her eyes, he had a feeling that he would be happy to comply.

He took his time to take in the sight of her as well during those moments of her silent scrutiny. She wasn't wearing that black and white suit he liked so much, but she wasn't in that black combat armor he had last seen her in on Six either. She wore simple black cargo pants and a tight-fitting black tank top, causing the white half of her hair to stand out even more than usual. On her naked left arm, he could see faint red traces in a pattern that reminded him of his own scars.

He was about to ask her about that, when she stepped forward and began to circle around him, never once moving her gaze away from his body.

"Yes, I think that might work..." she mumbled.

"Enjoying the view?" he asked with a smirk, and turned to face her as she was about to set out on a second tour around him. She stopped in her tracks and her gaze snapped up to his face.

"Except for your hair."

"What?" he asked, unable to hide the offense in his voice. "What about it?"

"It's not exactly... standard cut," she remarked, as she stepped forward to examine his dark purple side cut more closely.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and huffed.

"I thought you of all people would appreciate things that are... out of the ordinary," he sulked.

He was willing to do a lot of things for her to keep looking at him like that. But his hair was not up for debate, ever.

"Quit the sniveling, Nova. It's not like I'm gonna ask you to cut it or anything," she said.

She stepped closer and looked up at him. The rings of her black eye augment turned in rapid readjustment, and the pupil of her organic eye narrowed slightly as their gazes briefly met and she brought a hand up to his face. Her skin felt cool, but that was not why he felt a shiver run down his spine at her touch. For a second, he just stared at her in utter confusion, wondering if she was about to caress his cheek, or slap him, for whatever reason. But she did neither. Instead she grabbed his chin, turning his head from one side, dark purple curls bouncing as he moved, to the other, where he wore a shaved pattern of crisscrossing lines.

"Okay, that's enough now," he grumbled and grabbed her hand to pull it away from his face. "Will you tell me what this is about?"

She slipped her hand out of his and took a step back.

"Yes. You owe me one, remember? I'm calling in that favor," she said.

He raised an eye brow, waiting for her to elaborate. She chewed on her lip and seemed to ponder her next words for a moment. That small gesture distracted him so much that he thought he must have misheard when she spoke again.

"I need your help. To infiltrate the headquarters of Orion's Reach on Astraphos."

He blinked at her, waiting for a punch line, but there was none. She just stared up at him, her face now bafflingly composed, as if she hadn't just suggested the most insane and outrageous operation he had ever heard of.

"You're kidding, right? Is this some kind of metaphor? Code words? Your idea of dirty talk?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

She shook her head.

"What would you even want there?" he asked. "The place is riddled with murderous sociopaths and scandroids. Everybody with just so much as a wire in their body avoids that entire sector!"

"I need information."

"What kind of information do you expect to find in a place like Astraphos?"

"The volatile kind," she just said.

He furrowed his brow. Whatever this was about, it was clearly important to her – he could see it in her eyes as she looked up at him now. He had had his fair share of run-ins with those fanatics, and he hated them about as much as the next augment. Especially after what had happened on Six, and to Blue Ben.

But going for them head on like that sounded utterly insane.

"I'm not going to say this again, Nova. I really need your help. Please," she said.

He wondered if she was just playing a massive prank on him now. He couldn't recall ever having heard her plead for anything. His confusion probably reflected on his face, as he just stared at her, totally bewildered, and she stared back, unwaveringly.

"If Madam Nova is not up to it, I would be happy to assist you, Admiral," the Reaper AI, who had snuck back into the room without Nova noticing, chimed in.

"Now, now, Heisenberg," Amy addressed him with an unfamiliar softness to her voice. "I'm quite good with disguises, but passing as a male hunter would be a bit challenging even for me. And while you did an exceptional job on Hestia, I believe sneaking you into that facility on Astraphos is unfortunately going to surpass all of our capabilities."

The AI seemed to look at Nova, and although it had no face to speak of, somehow he got the impression that it wore a scornful look that said 'suit yourself' as it shoved a grey bundle into his arms. Nova looked down at the clothes in his arms.

"Is this-"

"Yeah."

"How did you get all the blood out?" he asked as he unfolded the uniform. It looked pristine, there were no traces of the mess she had made out of its former owner.

"Rutherford," she just said and shrugged. "Try it on."

"Now, wait a second, Pirate Queen. I never said I'd-"

"Listen Nova," she cut him off. "I'm not gonna ask again. Either you're in, then you'll have to do as I say..."

There was something tantalizing about the thought of her bossing him around like that, and he found it hard to focus on the fact that what she was telling him to do was to walk into a deathtrap with her.

"...or you can leave, and I'll find another way to call in that favor... another time."

She looked up at him, fixing her two-colored gaze under her two-colored bangs on his. Her face was a perfect mask of impassiveness again, but her eyes betrayed all of her thoughts and emotions in that moment. She was angry, but there was more than that, he realized. She was hurting. He had never seen her like that, and it tugged at something different inside of him than the usual places.

"Uh... well..." he scratched his head and averted his gaze from her eyes, looking at the uniform instead. "And who'd you ask for help instead, then? Looks like Robocop over there will probably not fit into this uniform..."

He cast a sideward glance at Heisenberg, who looked back at him with his weird, faceless android head. The lights on the front of his head blinked in a quick series of flashes, and gave him a strangely specific feeling of being looked at through narrowed eyes.

"Yes. Exactly. That's why I'm asking you," she said, a hint of impatience in her voice.

Nova heaved a deep sigh. There were millions of reasons why doing this was a very, very bad idea. But there was also one reason why he really wanted to do it nonetheless, and it was standing right in front of him and looking at him expectantly.

"I get it... I really do, but... Before I decide if I help you, I wanna hear your plan," he finally said.

Her organic eye lit up with a spark of excitement and her lips curled upward in a smile.

"Oh, I think you're gonna like it," she said, and rummaged in a pocket of her cargo pants.

"How so?" he asked.

"Because you'll get to use these," she said, as she pulled out a pair of metal handcuffs. She dangled them before his eyes as if to hypnotize him.

"On me."

He stared at the cuffs in surprise, at the uniform he still held in his hands and then at her. A brief moment of silence passed, and then, a devious grin flashed across his face, and without further hesitation he snatched the cuffs from her.

"Count me in, Pirate Queen!"

~ ~ ~

Fifteen minutes later, Nova was pacing around on the bridge restlessly, while waiting for her to come back. She had told him to put on the uniform and disappeared, so he had done as he had been told. All the while, he felt like the Reaper AI, Heisenberg, had his non-organic eyes fixed on him.

He stopped in his tracks and heaved a sigh.

"So, Heisenberg, how's it like, serving under the Pirate Queen?" he asked the AI, in an attempt to pass the time.

"Please specify your inquiry," Heisenberg replied.

"I mean... what do you do all day?"

"My tasks include piloting this ship, manning battle stations, maintenance of our arsenal, and protecting the Supreme Leader during ground missions."

He rattled down the list rapidly and matter-of-factly, but Nova had a hunch that he was capable of more emotion than he led on.

"Don't let him deceive you, Nova," Amy said as she reappeared on the bridge. "He spends most of his time plugging into the ship's mainframe and watching old movies."

"Only my free time, sir. I never let that come in the way of my duties," Heisenberg remarked with notable offense in his voice.

She smiled and gestured dismissively. Nova wasn't really listening to their conversation any longer anyway, he was staring at her as she approached him now. She had exchanged her black cargo pants and tank top with a grey cat suit. It covered her from neck to toe and to the tips of her fingers, except for her middle and ring fingers, and triangular cut-out sections at the sides of her waist and one below her neck. Anywhere else, the fabric clung to her body so tightly that it didn't really leave anything to the imagination. As she moved, the iridescent fabric flickered between shades of grey as dark as gunmetal and light as pearly silver. It made her look like a walking mirage.

"What is that?" he asked her, fascinated in more than one way with the sight before him.

"Nanomaterial. It's called Sharkskin," she explained and lifted her arm. She ran her hand along her forearm, and her touch seemed to cast ripples across the fabric.

Nova tentatively stretched out his hand to touch the material, and she allowed it. The fabric felt incredibly sleek and soft to the touch – until he ran his hand back along her arm the other way, and it was like millions of tiny needles dug into his skin.

With a yelp of surprise and pain, he pulled back his hand. She chuckled, and gave him a look that made him feel like a complete moron.

"What the hell? What is this?!"

"It's armor," she explained. She stretched her fingers wide, and the fabric changed color to a dark, dull grey at the back of her forearm.

"And also a weapon."

As she clenched her hand into a fist now, the material shifted again. It turned lighter, and as she lifted her arm a bit, he could see that the material consisted of myriads of little spikes that stood up at a sharp angle. At her knuckles, the spikes stood out much further, almost giving the appearance of tiny claws at the back of her hand.

"Well, I'll keep in mind that this is what I get for rubbing you the wrong way," he mumbled, sucking on his fingertips, which were covered in numerous tiny cuts. "Where did you get that?"

"Borrowed it from a friend," she just said with a shrug. Nova was fairly certain that she had not 'borrowed' it, and was about to ask another question, but she cut him off.

"It's not important now. What's important is your disguise."

She crossed her arms before her chest and eyed him up and down again. Before, he had enjoyed it very much when she had looked at him like that. Now that he wasn't wearing his own clothes, he felt strangely self-conscious for some reason. He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders.

"It's tight," he said, rolling his head from side to side and feeling the tension of the fabric across his chest. That hunter she had taken it from was of a similar size than him, but more lanky.

"I think it's perfect," she said and stepped closer to flatten the fabric over his shoulders and chest. "It suits you."

Normally, he hated uniforms with a passion. Right now, not so much. All of a sudden, he didn't feel self-conscious any longer, as her gloved fingertips brushed against his neck to straighten his collar. He had half expected the scraping roughness of a thousand tiny needles, but her touch felt smooth and soft, and cold where her skin wasn't covered with the nanomaterial. A pleasant tingling sensation ran down his spine and his heartbeat accelerated.

Suddenly, she froze.

"Your tattoos," she simply said, her gaze fixed on a spot on his neck.

"What about them?" he asked. He wondered if she had just noticed them for the very first time. They covered his shoulders and arms from neck to wrist, but his usual clothes covered them up almost completely, so he wouldn't have been surprised.

"They look like wire," she pointed out with a quiet, slightly irritated sigh.

He didn't reply to that. He just clenched his teeth, feeling irritated himself all of a sudden. His tattoos where the only other thing that wasn't up for debate, besides his hair. But she just narrowed her eyes a bit, and pulled up the collar further.

"That should work," she said. "Now about the hair."

He groaned.

"Use this," she said, and placed something in his hand. It felt cool and soft, and strangely like something liquid. As he unfolded it, it turned out to be a sheet, a thin piece of silvery fabric not unlike what she was wearing, but much finer and thinner.

"A holo-mask," she explained, "It can cast an illusion on the wearer. Like a different face. Or different hair."

"Where-"

"The same friend." she said, anticipating his question. At his hesitation, she took the fabric from his hands again and placed it on his head. Once it came into contact with his skin, it seemed to meld against his head, causing a cool sensation at the points of contact. Within seconds, the feeling passed. In fact, he couldn't really feel anything different at all, but the look on her face told him that she was satisfied with what the disguise had achieved.

"Absolutely perfect," she said, and nodded.

"Thanks. You're not looking too bad yourself, pirate queen," he remarked with a smirk. "But what about you? Are you really going to waltz in there dressed like that?"

"Of course not," she said, and bent down pick up his jacket from the pile of his own clothes at his feet.

"Hey, you can't just-"

She ignored him, and put on his clothes. From his ripped jeans that sat low on her hips, to his shirt that half-slipped down over one of her shoulders, and his leather jacket that she threw on on top, everything looked way too big on her. But at the same time, it suited her somehow. He could get used to her wearing his clothes.

"I need to look the part too, don't I," she mused, as she pulled down the shirt and looked down at herself.

"The part of what?" he asked, not quite able to pry his eyes away. She looked up at him and grinned.

"The part of the ragged pirate," she replied, playfully tugging at a hole in his jeans.

"Ragged? It's called vintage!" he huffed.

"Sure..." she said, and turned toward the ship's controls, still wearing that grin on her lips.

He really wanted to say something snarky, but his mind was just blank. He stared at her back, wondering how on earth she could look so damn hot to him, even with her lean figure hidden underneath the baggy looking jacket. Perhaps it was because he just couldn't get that image out of his head, of her in that skin tight cat suit. The thought of it put other images in his head now, of her without that cat suit. This mission was not going to be easy for him. It was going to be very hard.

"You're gonna be the death of me, woman..." he mumbled and rubbed a hand over his face, trying to focus again.

"So... what exactly is the plan?" he asked, realizing that she hadn't really told him before he had agreed to her scheme.

"Well, I thought it was kinda obvious at this point," she said, not looking away from the controls. The panel had come alive under her touch and was glowing now as she moved her hands across it.

"Sure, but I mean, how are we actually gonna get in? We can't just casually stroll into that facility," he argued. "We can't even land on the planet without them noticing."

"The ring stations, I know," she nodded. "But don't worry. We have a man on the inside."

"Please tell me you're not referring to that wimpy kid from Six," he groaned.

He could see his panicked, blood-streaked face before him. Muller or whatever his name had been. He had watched his fellow hunters die, and had begged for his life – and she had just let him walk away. He still thought that it had been a bad idea to let him go.

"What happened there opened his eyes. He made a choice, Nova," she said.

"You know nothing about him!" he exclaimed in disbelief. "How can you trust him?"

"I know next to nothing about you," she countered, throwing him a glance over her shoulder, "Heck, I don't even know your first name. Yet I trust you to help me on this mission."

He opened his mouth to argue back, but then he realized that she was right, and his jaw snapped shut.

"We'll leave our ships at the border of the sector and switch to an inconspicuous vessel to continue toward Astraphos. Docking codes have been prepared," she continued to explain. "Set your ship on autopilot and stay aboard, or just follow us, I don't really care. Either way we'll head out in ten."

She turned around to leave the bridge.

"Amy."

At the sound of his voice, she stopped, but she didn't turn to look at him.

"Why do you trust me?" he asked her. "Since you don't really know me..."

"It's precisely because I don't really know you, that I hope you will be content with not really knowing me either," she said. "And right now, that's exactly what I need."

He stared after her, dumbfounded, as she left the bridge without another word.

___________

Dedicated to Nova's #1 Fan @Red_Leasia <3

... and any other members of #TeamNova who may be out there