by AJ Super
Kai paused. “Cut recording.” He looked at Sarama. “Did you get that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very… pirate-y,” Nyx muttered, staring at Erebus. The Star looked down at her hands, turning them over, flexing her fingers. This was Nyx’s fault. None of this would be happening to Erebus if she had just told Kai the truth. Or maybe he wouldn’t care, and he would have followed through with this idiotic plan to hold the universe hostage anyway.
Kai glared at Nyx. “Package the whole thing and broad-wave it, Sarama. Erebus, thank you for your sacrifice. I’m sure there will be a time soon where you will get a chance to expand. But now is not it.” He sat in his chair. “Are you done fixing the console, Nyx? Because if you are…”
“I’m not. I still need to reroute the transmitter module to the display, and the parallel port is playing up and should be tested again before the whole thing fries,” she grumbled. “I just needed a break from being upside-down.”
Kai hesitated. “You’re making things up.”
“Maybe.” Nyx laughed. “You’ll never know.”
He scrunched his face, indignant. “Consider your break over. Either do the work you said would occupy you or get off the deck. You are supposed to be resting.”
“I am resting.”
“I see that.” Kai’s eyes narrowed. “But I can’t help but think you could be resting elsewhere.”
Nyx’s skin itched as the nano-medics stitched her wounds together. She ran a hand over her shaved head. She could be resting elsewhere, but she wouldn’t be able to insinuate herself into Kai’s plans if she wasn’t on the bridge. He didn’t need to know that. Besides, these little projects made the Thanatos more like home, more hers.
She laid back down under the console. She could definitely make Emlyn’s console speedier and more responsive if she just…
“Set jump coordinates for Ganymede-to-Earth trade lanes,” Kai droned.
Nyx jerked up, cracking her head on the console. She pushed herself out and sprang up. “What?” she cried. “Not even Captain Matthews set the Thanatos down in the middle of Earth-Sol territory.” Nyx clutched the electronic screwdriver, white-knuckled. “It’s too dangerous. Between the Queen’s Navy, privateers, Protectorate ships, and the Medusa. You’ve already put a target on us. Now you’re going to plop the Thanatos right in the middle…”
“Of the richest trading lanes in space. Yes, I am,” Kai said. “I’m going to net us some big fish, and while I’m at it, I’m going to taunt Malcam into coming after us. I want us to be his target. One too big to ignore. We’ve got an ace in the hole after all.”
“ Erebus is not a thing to be played with.”
Kai’s eyes hardened. “Watch it, Executive Officer Marcus. This is my command.”
Nyx glimpsed Erebus whose head was still bowed as she studied her hands.
“I know,” Kai said. “She’s a valuable part of this crew who has a job to do protecting this ship. We have a chance to make ourselves invulnerable. And wealthy. As well as confront our enemies. I’m taking the risk.” He turned to the Navigation Specialist on duty. “Make the jump.”
“Yes, sir,” the sharp-jawed woman clipped.
Nyx’s gut balled as the ship slid seamlessly into the darkness of folded space. Making the Thanatos invulnerable was noble. But confronting Malcam? That was dangerous. She still didn’t know how the Battle Station Kokou knew they were in the far reaches of the trade lanes. Dark space wasn’t a place many went near. Smugglers often went that far to do illicit business, but there had been no sign of anyone close, and smugglers wouldn’t call the Navy.
It niggled at her. Kai seemed unperturbed by that little detail, continuing on with ship’s business, like he had more important things to do. Really, he did have more important things to worry about than what was likely a strange coincidence.
She scratched at the lavender fabric around her leg. She couldn’t shake the prickly feeling of skin healing all over her body.
Erebus sat in the seat by the weapons console. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Hmmm?” Nyx mumbled, with a mouthful of wires. She slid one out of the bunch. “Didn’t do anything.”
“You were trying to defend me. Keep me safe. That’s what sisters do, isn’t it?” A small smile crept across her face.
“I suppose. I just hate that he’s taking advantage of you.” Nyx fixed her eyes on the wire she was connecting to the console. His plan to enter the main Earth-Sol trade system took for granted all the powers that Erebus wielded, and all the powers Nyx had as well, powers she didn’t know if she could control.
Erebus tipped her head. “I’ll help him if it means keeping you and the Thanatos safe.”
Nyx took the bundle of wires from her mouth. “Kai certainly seems to think it will. I think running and hiding would probably suit us better. But then we’d probably all starve. And we have to keep flying. Somehow. Hitting a rich freighter would ensure we’d stay in the sky. I suppose he’s just making it so we don’t have to keep running to the ends of space.”
Erebus nodded. “I see his logic. He has a whole family to look after. Not just me.”
Nyx grimaced, chagrined. Erebus was right. He had the whole crew to look after, not just Erebus, and Erebus was a part of the crew now, too. She would have to make sacrifices just like everyone else.
“I guess we’ll all just have to do our part,” Nyx whispered.
“Jump out,” the Navigation Specialist reported. “Back in real space.”
An alarm blasted through the ship mere moments later. Nyx sat up and nearly hit her head again as she shoved out from under the console. The emergency red lights flashed in sequence across the command deck.
“Weapons up?” Kai shouted over the din.
“Transferred to the ExO’s main control,” Nyx said and bounded to her console. “Weapons to bear. Shields up.”
“What do we have?” Kai boomed. “Cut the noise, Sarama.” The alarm died, but red lights continued to illuminate the bridge in fits and starts.
“Proximity alert,” the Navigation Specialist said curtly.
A giant ship materialized on-screen. It was the size of five of the Kokous and built as if a city were being served on a tray to some god. Its small lights and puffs of exhaust were the only indication of the millions of people living on it.
A wave of fear flooded the command deck; voices pinched into whispers.
“Sir,” First Communications Officer Sarama said, “that’s the palace-city ship, La Terre. That’s the queen’s ship.”
“Signs of hostility?” Kai asked.
Nyx examined her readouts. “No weapons coming to bear. No shields going up. No signs they are even acknowledging that we—wait.” Nyx zoomed in on a sleek white shuttle speeding towards their location. “We have something. Someone coming towards us.”
Something didn’t feel right about this. It was as if someone had predicted where they were going to end up and placed La Terre directly in their path. There was no reason for this behemoth to be sitting here waiting for them, just like there was no reason for the Kokou to be in the middle of dark space. Nyx bit her cheek.
Sarama leaned into her console. She sat up, surprised. “They’re narrow-waving us. On a single, very encrypted secure channel. I barely even noticed it.”
“Bring it up,” Kai ordered.
Nyx fidgeted while the rest of the crew sat in stunned silence.
Sarama’s fingers flew over her console, sending the image of a dark-skinned man in white queen’s livery, gold-lined cape flung over his shoulder, to the main view-screen.
“Greetings. Je suis l’émissaire de la reine. I am the queen’s Emissary. I have been sent to take nos officiers supérieurs to meet avec son Altesse. Please allow me to dock so that I may shuttle them to the appropriate station on board La Terre and escort them to les chambres de la reine. Ce n’est pas une demande. This is not a request.”
The connection cut off.
Kai flu
shed. “Where did le petit branleur go?”
Sarama poked at her console. “Signal’s been lost.”
Nyx rubbed the top of her shaved head. “He’s coming alongside us. Won’t be able to get too close with the shields up, though.”
Kai stared at Erebus. “And you? What’s wrong?”
Erebus screwed her face. “I couldn’t ride the wave from his shuttle to the big one. There were no signals. No communications. It was dark.” She squinted her eyes.
“But you are on the shuttle?” Kai prodded.
“Yes.”
“And is there anything off about it?”
“Off?” Erebus blinked slowly, confused.
Nyx tapped her console. “He’s waiting quite patiently at the edge of our shields now.”
Kai shot Nyx a withering look and turned back to Erebus. “Is there any sign of danger? A hidden death-squad? A virus in the door code? Ninjas? I don’t know. Just off?”
Erebus shook her head slowly. “I don’t see any errant code anywhere on the ship, and the emissary is alone.”
Kai grinned wide. “Well, I guess if the queen summons you, you go. Put the shields down.”
“Belay that order,” Nyx barked at the junior Weapons Specialist hovering above the half-rigged console. She turned to Kai. “What are you thinking?” The last time one of the queen’s minions had summoned her family, her crew, they were massacred. She wouldn’t let it happen again.
“Don’t you think this is the perfect place for Erebus to expand her consciousness?” His grin grew villainous. He motioned to the view-screen, La Terre looming across it. “I didn’t think something this big would come along so soon. Tactically…”
“It’s the hub of the empire. There are millions of people on that ship.”
“It won’t be like what happened with the Kokou,” Kai insisted. “She’ll control the queen’s strongest asset. And we’ll have control of their palace-ship, their armada, their supply-lines in no time!” He was practically giddy.
“Easy there, space-cowboy,” Nyx mumbled. “One ship at a time.”
He squared his shoulders. “Shields down, or do I have to do it myself, ExO?” Nyx hesitated. He bounded up the center stairs and pushed Nyx from her console. He pressed the screen and keyed the shields down. “I’m taking Erebus with me.”
Nyx held up a hand. “Don’t take her. She’ll spread from here.”
Kai squeezed her shoulders. “Sias are programmed as bodyguards. It won’t be out of place to have her there with me.”
“I don’t trust this. The narrow-wave. The quiet approach…”
“Noted. But I want her to control that ship. I think this is the perfect place for her to expand,” Kai whispered. “And anyway, how is she going to learn about human life if she isn’t exposed to it? Most of the people on that ship are civilians. Let her learn about life from them. Not from a handful of pirates.” Kai gripped Nyx’s hands. “She’s meant to spread. She’s not meant to be cooped inside a tiny ship like the Thanatos.”
“You sound like a zealot.”
Kai guffawed. “I don’t actually think she’s a god.”
“Then why are you treating her like something so special?” She wanted to tell him: Especially when it was her, Nyx, that vented the Kokou, not Erebus. Erebus was just protecting her by keeping quiet about it.
“She is special. She’s a highly intelligent AI. We haven’t seen one since the AI Wars. Just because my religion has embraced them as gods, doesn’t mean I believe she’s one of them. And if she is, it doesn’t mean that she’s not just another mortal being like you and me…Maybe she has a longer lifespan, but she’s not really that god-like.”
Nyx curled her fingers around Kai’s. “Fine.” She looked at Erebus. “I’m going with you.”
Kai dropped her hands. “No.”
“He requested senior crew. I’m senior crew.”
“No.”
Nyx balled her fists.
He quickly turned to the FCO. “Sarama, you have the ship. Come on, Erebus. We’ve got a queen to meet.”
Nyx grabbed his shoulder as he turned from her. “You’re not leaving without me. He asked for senior crew. Are you actually going to go against queen’s orders?” She lowered her voice. “Besides, you know what happened the last time someone from the Medusa met with high-ranking Queensmen. You’re going to need back-up.”
Kai rolled his head back. “You’re not going to let me go unless you come with, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Fine. Come along. But this is my show.”
Nyx glanced at Erebus who was staring at the palace-ship on the view-screen. “It’s a big ship.”
Nyx nodded. “It’s an enormous ship. Let’s go.”
15
Polished chrome buttresses sailed over Nyx as she, Kai, and Erebus whisked after the queen’s emissary down the wide, white, marble-floored corridor. One side of the hall was lined with thick windows faced out to the star-scape, the other had massive, rectangular metal doors etched with galaxies and star patterns, which Nyx was certain were merely stylized maps of the known Protectorate-ruled universe. Small plush settees dotted the corridor under the windows, each surrounded by an interesting species of white ficus from Elysion, providing a little privacy in the echoing passage.
It was all Nyx could do to sit still in her seat as they flew over to La Terre. She fiddled with the belt at her waist and Kai sat looking straight ahead, staring at Erebus. The pit of Nyx’s gut twisted into knots. This was a trap, she was sure, and they were walking straight into it, unarmed.
The emissary wouldn’t speak with them, other than to say no weapons would be allowed. He wouldn’t even tell them his name, but he finally conceded that the Sia-unit could accompany them as an assurance to their safety.
Erebus sat motionless while they rode in the shuttle. When Kai asked if she was able to find a signal from the shuttle to the palace-ship, she merely shook her head. Before they had left the Thanatos, Sarama had briefly scrubbed the frequencies and found nothing but dead silence. It unnerved Nyx, but Kai just shrugged it off and ordered a diagnostic on the communications array, obviously thinking it was another glitch of the unreliable system. Of course, with the array constantly going out of alignment, it could have jostled loose in jump space. But the pit in Nyx’s gut disagreed. La Terre shouldn’t have been waiting for them. There were no indications that the Thanatos surprised the city-ship, no weapons coming to bear, no shields going up, no spontaneous communication. And there was a shuttle en route to the exact spot they jumped to. It was as if it was all expected and planned. Kai fairly jittered with excitement at the idea of bringing the queen’s base under his heel. He was bent on using the opportunity to extort the queen herself.
When they docked, the emissary simply held his hand out, stepped in front of them, and strode away.
Nyx’s heart beat hard as they walked to the end of the corridor toward a row of six white-armored soldiers standing stiff at a plain black metal door. The emissary stepped to the door, where a fine blue light pulsed over his body.
The queen wanted something, was planning something, otherwise, they would have been summarily executed the minute they came out of jump space. Nyx could only assume that the broad-wave Kai had sent across space had reached the queen personally, and she wanted to do some kind of trade for the Star of Erebus.
She glanced at Erebus, hairs on the back of her neck rising.
Erebus’ head tilted, and a small smile played across her face.
The emissary turned to the three. “I cannot allow the Sia-unit into the queen’s hall. Je suis désolé. It will have to wait.”
So, the ambush would happen in the room beyond the black door. They were all sitting ducks, the Thanatos too. They needed to leave. “Then I guess we’ll go back to our ship.” She turned to leave.
The emissary motioned to the guards. Their weapons leveled at Nyx in a synchronized click, and they marched around her, Kai, and Erebus, cutting them off
from the way they came.
Kai put a hand on Nyx’s arm. Her bruises tingled. Erebus flexed her hands and pinched her brow together.
“I think we should leave Erebus here,” Kai hissed under his breath.
“They’ll destroy her. It’s a trap,” Nyx muttered.
“Oh, I know. But we don’t know what kind yet.” A grin lolled across Kai’s face. “We’ll be fine. She’ll be fine. Won’t you? Sia?” Kai emphasized the acronym loudly.
The emissary crossed his arms.
Erebus pivoted to Kai and Nyx. “Accessing.” The corners of her mouth played further upwards, her gold-ringed eyes dancing. “I’ll be fine.”
Nyx flexed her fingers as a tiny white tendril escaped from her hands into the ether. A flash of green light played over one of the soldier’s automated armor suits. Erebus finally had access to La Terre, and she was replicating. Nyx whirled to the emissary. “Let’s go.”
Kai laughed. “We’re ready. Sia can stay here with your fine escort. I’m sure she’ll find they’re great company.”
The emissary pirouetted, twirling his waist-length cape in a flourish of white and gold, and stepped to the black door. It split in the center with no previous evidence of a seam, a warm yellow glow burning through the crack, and slid open without a whisper.
Nyx bit her cheek. This was it. Whatever lay beyond the door would be their undoing, and they were walking straight for it.
The emissary took a step. “You will meet la reine, now.”
Kai put a hand on the small of Nyx’s back and pushed her forward. “Come on. Into the breach.”
She squared her shoulders and looked back at Erebus, whose fawn eyes stared into the distance. Nyx edged her way forward, following the shimmering of the gold on the emissary’s cape, her mind buzzing. The hairs on her arms stood on end as she strode through the black door.
Kai grabbed her hand and squeezed. She looked over at him, his smoky-bronze skin pallid. Nyx tried to push away the memory of the night her maman was shot in the head by some unknown Queensman, while her father failed to negotiate amnesty.
