I strap myself into my seat in the cockpit. Very soon, we will arrive at the medical outpost. Hard to believe that it's been two days already. Time sure does fly when you're having fun.

Being in the pool with Althea was certainly an experience. I don't think I've ever been in water that deep, and I can't remember the last time I received so much attention from women. Not just Althea and Persephone, but Lyra too. I was popular at school, but even then I don't think I ever had so many lustful faces examining me at the same time. I guess all of that gym work the navy made us do really paid off.

I'm not sure I believe Persephone when she says she doesn't have a romantic interest in me. Why would she want to deny it though? Is she ashamed that she has romantic feelings for a simple human?

Not wanting to continue to drown in my narcissistic thoughts, I look around the cockpit of the mining ship, through the tinted visor of my spacesuit, to make sure everything is in working order. I then down towards the touch screen displays below me. Everything looks fine. Hard to believe it's in such good condition – considering what Persephone did to its former occupants. That thought could be premature of course, as I've yet to turn on the engines. I hope Persephone knows what she's doing.

Sat beside me, is a smiling Althea – I can just about make out her face underneath the visor of her black spacesuit. I still can't believe Persephone put her up for this. Even though it's just a small medical outpost, it's highly likely that it will have a squadron of interceptors to defend itself. But I guess that's where I come in.

"This should be fun," Althea happily declares, "I can finally put my target practise to good use."

Target practise? Has Persephone been training her up to be a warrior? Perhaps she is one of the people that kills humans for Persephone to eat. Is she already that desensitized to killing? Probably best I don't dwell on that thought.

"You know we're not supposed to kill anyone, right? Unless, they fight back of course," I say, my voice full of concern.

"You really think they're not going to fight back?"

"Well, your mummy said she was going persuade them not to attack us, so let's hope."

"I know, but killing idiot humans is fun!"

"Pardon?"

Did I hear her correctly? Before she can reply, a green button, on the middle touch screen, starts flashing. That means Persephone is requesting contact with us. Althea presses the button and, as expected, Persephone's chest appears on the screen between our seats – her breasts dominating the view. Not sure why she's decided to wear her pink bikini all of a sudden, but I won't question her decision.

"I've just finished having my heart-to-heart with the doctor in charge of the hospital, so you shouldn't have anybody bothering you. Do you remember what you're supposed to do?"

"Yes Mummy," Althea groans, "We're not stupid like your other humans."

Persephone clenches one of her fists. She waves it in front of the camera for a brief moment and then lowers it out of view. When she starts talking again, her tone catches me off guard and I flinch.

"Althea! Don't talk to mummy like that!"

I think now would be a good time to interrupt. I don't want this situation to get out of hand. I'd hate to find out what Persephone is like when she's in a bad mood.

"We're supposed to dock onto the medical outpost," I say, wanting to project my confidence to the two ladies – or four if I count Persephone's twins, "And you'll give us an escort of a few fighters in case they are defiant. If either one of us gets harmed you will not hesitate to use your ion cannon to blow the station into a million tiny pieces. And Althea is here to make sure I don't run away."

"Excellent, Hercules."

"One quick question though..."

"Go on."

"What if they start shooting at us once we're inside?"

"Don't worry, I've thought about that too. If you're touching Althea's spacesuit, it can teleport you back to me along with her. Now get going!"

"If I don't make it back, I just want to say how grateful I am for your company. You've been more fun than I expected."

"Awh, Hercules..."

She trails off. Then one of her hands moves up to fondle of her breasts. If this woman isn't trying to flirt with me, then I don't know what it is.

"I will turn on the thrust reversal now," I say, trying my best not to sound flustered, "And we'll let you know when we've docked."

"I expect you two back here within an hour! If not, they'll be trouble."

Persephone abruptly closes the communication channel. When she does, I place my hands on the joystick, beginning the careful process of manoeuvring out of the hanger. Since this mining ship is larger than the average fighter, it could get tricky on the return for sure.

After this stunt, I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to show my face on Mars again. It'll only be a matter of time before Maxine and my family finds out what I've done. Killing Eris would restore my reputation, but I don't think anyone would believe me if I was to say I single-handedly took out Eris. Guess it's the pirate life for me after this is over.

As we reverse out of the hanger, I get my first look at the exterior of Persephone's flagship. Perhaps predictably, it's covered in pink. However, it's shape is vastly different from Nyx's ship, and even Eris's. Seems as though each of the Angels has a unique ship. Makes sense given how fiercely independent each of them are.

As I turn the fighter around, I see a vast stocky flagship. I don't get to see much of it though, so a clear view will have to wait until the return flight. On the radar, a few apparently friendly fighters appear, and in the distance is the medical outpost.

The hospital isn't nearly as fanciful or, I assume, as big as Persephone's flagship, being a simple grey cylinder – positioned vertically. Not that it needs to be of course. Judging by its distance, and our speed, it looks as if we'll be there in around ten minutes.

Why did Persephone have to give me such a slow ship? Was there really nothing more suitable? My Laser Fighter could be there in half the time – less than. Even though Persephone told me not to be, I'm still bitter about that.

I wonder if I can get revenge on Nyx for what she put me through. If Wayne knows how to kill Eris then he surely must know how to kill all of the Angels. But do I kill Persephone too?

Ugh, why did I have to start pondering such philosophical questions now? All of a sudden, Althea snaps me out of my deep thought. She pokes my arm.

"You look sad. Why are you sad?" she asks, apparently concerned.

"Just thinking about things," I reply, trying my best to mask my unease.

"I see. My mummy often thinks about things too."

"What sort of things does she think about?"

"Lots of things. Mostly about how lonely she is. She's seen how some of you humans love each other, and I think she wants that for herself."

"She does? Althea, thank you. I think you may have just helped me to make up my mind about something."

"What do you mean?"

Althea looks at me confused. I can't tell her what I was thinking though. I can't tell her I possibly considered killing Persephone.

"It's nothing important," I blurt.

"Fine."

Althea falls silent. I hope I haven't offended her. Perhaps I did voice that last sentence a little harshly? Persephone is frustrating to think about though. I get so many conflicting thoughts every time I think about her.

Like Althea, she is an enigma. But, one thing is certain: She's a woman of contradictions. She likes to believe that she is vastly superior to humans, and eat them even, yet she wants to love them. She cares deeply for Althea and Lyra – it's easy to see. Although I wouldn't be surprised if even Lyra is simply obeying Persephone out of fear. Or perhaps that's too cynical of me?

I can't imagine someone as intelligent as Lyra went to Persephone willingly though. If she wants to have meaningful relationships with humans, besides Althea, she needs to understand she can't view them with disdain and force them to love her. And, most of all, she needs to understand that humans may have certain qualities she may not have. If she was as perfect as she claims, then she would be able to do this assignment all on her own – without the help of any humans.

As we close in on the medical outpost, I start to wonder how on Mars I'm going to get inside. It's not obvious. Does this thing come with a targeting system to lock onto station entrances?

There's lots of buttons on the touch screen display, but none of them look as if they do what I want. Rather than spend the time to study each of them in detail, I manoeuvre the ship upwards in the hope of finding the entrance. It doesn't help that the station is spinning. You'd think they'd have done artificial gravity properly. Guess it must be an older station without proper gravity generators.

As I move up, a narrow slit comes into view at the top of the station. Still there is no sign of any foes. It looks like Persephone was right; they won't be bothering me. If they were going to harass us then they would have come out by now, surely.

It can't be that a station this far out doesn't have any security personnel – that I know for sure. They are way too many pirates out here on the fringes. And the threat of Eris too. I don't think they will go down without a fight, despite Persephone's assurance. Desperation brings out the best in people is what my commanding officer would say.

"Make sure you have your gun ready Althea," I say to her, though not making eye contact, "You never know what might happen."

Immediately, she picks up her Laser Pistol from the floor beside her. The small metallic gun fits neatly into her hand. Unlike an ordinary pistol, its muzzle is cone shaped.

"Ready, Hercules," she replies, placing both hands on the trigger of the gun, "Where's your gun?"

"I left my pistol on the table; it's of no use whilst I'm driving."

Althea turns to look at the table directly behind us. She stares at it for a couple of seconds and then turns back to look at me. I don't like the way that she's waving that gun around, but I don't want to cause a fuss over it – not now anyway.

"Oh yeah, I see it."

"Okay, I need to focus now. We're almost there. I have to get into that narrow hole in the distance below us."

Upon being directly above the slit, I start the descent. Very gradually, I lower the ship into the slowly spinning hole. As I do so, more of the station comes into view.

In front of us are various antenna that I'm careful to avoid. Either side of the slit are landing pads for large ships – marked out by yellow lines. And below us is the deep hole containing all of the slots for small ships.

"Can you contact your mummy to let her know that we've almost arrived?" I ask.

"Sure."

Althea presses some buttons on her section of the controls. This brings up the image of Persephone in the screen between our seats. Like before, the camera is focused on her chest – still clad in her pink bikini.

I hate how distracting her breasts are – or maybe that's the point of flaunting them? Is it psychological warfare? Does she really think that little of a human like me? Of course I want more – it's only natural after all – but she should understand that she can't use her twin girls to get her way forever.

"We're there, well here," Althea declares, cheerily.

"Excellent. I was told to direct you to the hanger with the only set of doors that will be open," Persephone says, "The ones with the flashing red light above them. It should be obvious once you're inside."

As soon as she finishes talking, the screen goes blank, allowing me to return my focus on landing the ship. All around us are various hanger doors. Fortunately, I quickly notice the flashing light that she is referring to. I turn my ship slowly to get into position and turn on the landing gear. It's quite a tight squeeze in here, but we'll make it.

When we touchdown onto the grey hanger floor, the doorway in front of us opens to reveal a narrow corridor. However, nobody comes through. Behind us, the sensors indicate, the doors to the outside have closed.

I turn off the engines and look towards Althea. She smiles at me and gets up. She walks towards the table and hands me my pistol.

When I turn to walk towards the airlock, I notice some movement in the corner of my eye. When I peer out of the cockpit windows, however, I don't see anything. What could they be planning?

"I want you to stay in here for the moment," I command.

"Why?" she says, a hint of anger in her expression.

"There's a big blue button on my control panel to turn on the electromagnets. If anything happens as I leave, I want you to press it. You will press it on my command. Understood?"

(Author's note: Magnetic wormholes, something contemporary scientists can create, will prevent the ship from becoming damaged by the strong force of the electromagnets).

Sure, the electromagnets would hurt me too, and there might be magnetic elements in my spacesuit, but I can't take any risks. If they do come at us gung-ho, then the electromagnets should render their weaponry ineffective, and disable any nearby electronics too. The electromagnets could damage a large part of the station, but it's a risk I have to take. Not sure if Persephone thought of that, but I'm beginning to see that there's more utility to this mining ship than I first thought.

"I understand," she says, a smile returning to her lips.

"Good. I don't want you to get hurt. Your mummy will probably kill me if I allow you to get hurt. I'm about to open the door, so have your hand ready on the button."

As Althea makes herself comfortable, I begin to open the first door of the airlock. At the same time, I feel the vibrations of the steps (ladder) extending to the ground below me. The door opens inwards. I twist my head for the briefest of moments to look back at Althea, who is happily humming away, before closing the door. Not sure how she can be so relaxed at a time like this.

The second door opens outwards. I slowly descend the steps but still nobody comes to greet us. When I reach the hanger floor, I walk, crouched, staying close to the front of the ship.

I hold the pistol close to my chest, hand on the trigger. My heart begins beating faster as I anticipate who or what could be hiding behind the doorway. Other than that though: silence.

I cautiously make my way around to the front of the electromagnets and wait for a moment – just in case somebody comes in. But it doesn't look like they sent anybody to welcome us.

Not wanting to take any chances, however, I pause, my eyes darting around the area, expecting something bad to happen. Then I notice a canister of some kind fall through the doorway. Before I have a chance to think about what might have just happened, a cloud of smoke rushes out of the hallway. Fuck! We've been ambushed! Those bastards!

"Althea," I call over the radio, "Now! Do it now!"

I fall to the floor and roll underneath the ship – so that I'm behind its two electromagnets. Given that I'm still holding my gun, I don't think she heard me. I shout again.

"Now, Althea! Now, dammit!"

I hear voices coming from the hallway. Oh crap! Come on, Althea, what are you waiting for? They're coming for us!

"Surrender, scum!" I hear a woman's voice yell, air now apparently present inside the hanger.

As the smoke begins to clear, several sets of feet emerge from the doorway. Surely Althea must know by now to turn on the electromagnets. Are they not functional? Why didn't we think to check beforehand? How could I forget to do something so obvious like see if and how the electromagnets work?

"There's the heat signature of one underneath the cockpit! Look," I hear another voice, this time that of a man, shout.

Not wanting to wait for Althea any longer, I aim my pistol at one of the feet of the attackers. I fire a single bullet. The person, a man, falls to the ground with a thump. Panic ensues. The other people around him all scramble as they struggle to understand what just happened.

I swiftly take aim at the arm of the man. I fire again, this time managing to knock his weapon – a pistol with a telescopic sight – out of his hand. Blood erupts from his wrist and ankle.

I shuffle about on the floor, taking a good look at my surroundings. A couple of people still remain standing. To my right, next to the stairs, I see my next target.

"There's one inside the cockpit!" I hear the fallen man shout.

I'm just about to fire my pistol when I see the person beside the steps, a woman, collapse to the floor, creating another pool of blood. As I'm about to shuffle back around, to face the opposite direction, a bullet pierces my spacesuit.

"Argh!" I cry, "Fuck!"

The bullet has zipped straight through my arm. In the corner of my eye, I see another set of legs sprint past me. I guess this is the end of me.

"Come out with your hands up!" I hear another man shout.