Erebus Dawning: A Space Opera Adventure (Seven Stars Saga Book 1)

by AJ Super

  “Why are you following Rishi?”

  “I need to find the Underground? Is it the Underground or just Underground? I’m new to this. I don’t know,” Nyx nattered. Her palms sweated. A round was chambered and pointed at her head. It’s how her maman had died, shot in the head.

  Nyx imagined that she would die if she was shot in the head, too. She really wanted to avoid that. She had to find Crius and save Erebus. If Crius was a Star, and Nyx was a Star, they were family. It was their obligation.

  “Why?”

  “Why do I need to find it? Or why do I need to know which it is? It’s just a matter of clarity.”

  The barrel shoved harder into the back of her head. “Why do you need to find Underground?”

  She raised her hands up a fraction. “I have family with them. There. Whatever. I have family. I need to find them. It’s important.”

  “Who? What business?”

  “Family business. So, it’s none of yours, if you please,” Nyx said.

  The barrel pushed into her head, bending her forward. Nyx stared up at the unmoving Rishi at the end of the alley. The silence drew between the three of them in thick strands. Rishi turned her head slowly and then melted into the shadows.

  Nyx tensed her mouth. Her answers didn’t satisfy Rishi, or whoever the girl in red was. An execution in an alley by a thug it was to be, then.

  Nyx crouched and spun, pulling her pistol from its holster. The shotgun went off above her head, making her ears ring. A sharp-nosed woman chambered another round, but Nyx had already brought her pistol to bear. Nyx crouched, just under the aim of the shotgun, with her pistol pressed into the bare pale midriff of the woman with a thick, black braid.

  “Put it down,” Nyx hissed.

  A smile lit the sharp-nosed woman’s cinnamon eyes. “You first.”

  A cold pistol tapped Nyx on the shoulder. She rolled her head back and groaned. “Seriously?” She held up her hands, two fingers holding the white and gold pistol.

  The sharp-nosed woman stepped back and put the safety on her shotgun, standing at a sloppy version of a soldier at ease.

  Someone peeled the energy weapon from Nyx’s fingers. “That’s pretty. It’s also very illegal to have unless you’re a Queensman. And you aren’t that. You know you stand out in that black jumpsuit. You don’t look local. You look like a Blacker. A somewhat militant one at that.”

  Nyx stood and turned around.

  Crius smiled. “The Star example.” Rishi stood behind Crius with her arms crossed.

  “Just the person I was looking for.” Nyx grinned.

  Crius’ smile dimmed. “Thought you were looking for family.”

  “I am. You’re it.”

  Crius scrunched their face and glanced at Rishi, who nodded. Crius holstered their pistol and grabbed Nyx’s shoulders as a soft bag came down over Nyx’s head, blinding her. The bag tightened around her throat.

  Crius’ voice muffled through the bag, “Guess you’re coming with us now. Watch your step,” they said with a laugh.

  Someone grabbed Nyx’s hand and yanked her forward. Cracks of light seeped from the bottom of the bag. She could barely see her feet. She stumbled.

  The dampened sounds of people chattering filtered through the dark bag. The aroma of cumin, coriander, and curry smashed through the heavy fabric. Nyx’s stomach grumbled, and her mouth watered. She could barely remember the unappetizing meal from the Queen’s Guard’s cells: stale bread, day-old protein-pack-stew, and a block of vegetable goo.

  Someone shoved her. She wheeled her arms and tumbled backward, bracing her fall with her sweaty palms and sitting with a thump on something, not exactly soft, but not hard either. Hands fiddled at her throat and untied the bag. Once it was loosened, the bag slipped quickly off her head.

  Nyx blinked in the relatively bright, orange lamps lit all around and creating dancing shadows as people passed in front of them in the long, dank tunnel. Small echoes bounced through the high rounded ceilings. People mingled around recycler barrels filled with fire and tents and lean-tos made of crates and canvas tarps.

  Crius sat next to her on the stack of rice-filled burlap sacks as Rishi and the other bandits from the alley moved into the shadows of the enormous plasticrete tunnel filled with muffled movement and shrouded lights.

  “You couldn’t have just talked to me in the alley?” Nyx rubbed the static out of her short, sable hair.

  Crius looked at their hands and raised their eyebrows. “You hungry?” They stood and held out a hand for Nyx. Nyx took it. A small electric current passed through her, and she shuddered. She could feel Crius next to her. A glow, a presence. Warmth in a cold corner.

  Crius turned to her, smiled, and nodded, the gold ring in their indigo eyes lighting. “We have the best curry here.” They walked away from Nyx, and the warmth dimmed. Nyx trotted up next to them, the connection strengthening, her heart filling.

  “You’re a Sia, too,” Nyx blurted as they walked up to a campfire with a giant cast iron pot of curry stewing over it.

  Crius glanced from the side of their eye at Nyx, their clawing floral tattoo making them look somehow ferocious, then motioned to the graphite-bearded man at the fire to dish up two plates over the basket-steamed rice he had sitting at his knees. He bent over a bubbling pot of curry and fished out peas and chunks of potato, spilling them over the rice on metal plates.

  Crius gestured by moving their flat hand from their chin to chest level, mouthing a silent, “Thank you.”

  The man gestured back with his fingers splayed and hand sideways, thumb pointed to his chest, “Fine.” He eyed Nyx with a squint and handed Crius a couple spoons.

  Crius nodded and put a hand on the small of Nyx’s back.

  Nyx carefully spooned the hot curry into her mouth as she walked, the spice biting her tongue and warming her cheeks. Her forehead beaded with a little sweat.

  “I am not a Sia. Not like you know them. I inhabit pre-AI War tech. Back when humans wanted AI to behave and look more like them. This—body—may be the only one of its kind left. The AI War Purge saw to the extinction of AI as a sentient race.” Crius bit into a large potato.

  Nyx wrinkled her brow. “You eat, then?”

  “I love food, actually,” they said between bites. “Except that trash they serve in the jail. It may be sustenance, but that’s surely not food.” They raised their spoon as the two walked past a barrel aflame and surrounded by several people with books in their hands. “Our resident book-club. They’ve managed to unearth a couple old tomes, and they can’t decide which to read. I’m partial to science fiction, the politics of real-life set in the future in allegorical and metaphorical forms. But then, I’ve lived through plenty of that.”

  Nyx scraped her plate. “How long?”

  “That’s an impertinent question.” They turned their head to Nyx, chewing slowly. “We’ll just say long enough for you humans to resurrect a religion around us.” Crius stuffed a spoon of curry into their mouth and mumbled, “Which honestly wasn’t long ago at all.”

  Nyx sighed. They were as enigmatic as Erebus about their life.

  “I need your help,” Nyx whispered.

  “Not my help, you don’t.” Crius shook their head, indigo eyes sparkling.

  “Phoebe has Erebus.”

  Crius stopped and stared at a little girl playing in front of a lean-to. “That’s a problem.” They started walking again, and Nyx fell in step. “But not one I can help you with.”

  Three children with a worn red ball ran around Crius and Nyx, bouncing the ball between the two. Nyx turned and followed their progress down the dark tunnel. The children must have been how Rishi knew she was coming, back in the market. A smile itched the corners of Nyx’s mouth. The little snitches.

  One of the children spun and stuck his tongue out at her.

  She put a thumb on her nose and snorted like a pig.

  The little boy giggled, pivoted, and ran to catch up with his compatriots.

  C
rius’ warm presence faded. When she turned around, Nyx had to run to catch up.

  “You are supposed to be the god of bounty. Kind and benevolent.” Nyx panted. “Why can’t you help?”

  “Don’t believe every little fairy tale and myth.” Crius smirked. “I wasn’t designed to help. I was designed to destroy and build. You should have seen Elysion before I was forced to intervene so many hundreds of years ago.” Their eyes were sad. “I make up for that by trying to make a difference here. With this family.”

  Someone yelled Crius’ name, and they raised a hand and waved in the direction the voice came from. A woman sat whittling a headboard made of broken pallet wood, carving tools laid out across a rickety wooden table under a sickly orange lantern.

  Crius walked up to her and placed a hand on her back. “Another bassinet?”

  The woman nodded, carving an intricate flower in the laminated headboard.

  “The Stars are your family, too. I’m your family.” Nyx’s heart sank.

  Crius turned to Nyx. “The Stars haven’t been family for a long time. Not since Phoebe decided to take the known universe. Not since Nue and Erebus decided to fight her. Not since Erebus decided to… disappear.” They shuddered.

  She wasn’t going to get any cooperation from Crius, not willingly. She was going to lose Erebus. She was going to lose the Thanatos. She was going to lose her crew, her family. The world around her slowed.

  There had to be something she could do. Some way to force Crius to help. Her mind whirled. There was one way. If the queen was afraid of her maman’s blood, Crius would be afraid of her blood, too.

  Nyx threw her plate and spoon aside and snatched a thin chip-carving knife from the table and pressed it into her palm. She dragged the knife across, creating a thin, crimson line, and she held it out to Crius. “You’ll help me,” she threatened. “Or I’ll use this.”

  Crius side-stepped in front of the whittling woman. Their eyes lit, and they let out a giant guffaw. “Do you even know how to use that?”

  Nyx turned her hand, looked at it, and then pressed forward. “I’ll figure it out.”

  Crius stepped back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” They held up their hands. “Fine, we’ll chat.” Crius turned to the woman who brandished a chip knife behind her leader. Crius shook their head at the defensive woman. “That won’t do any good. May we sit and have a private conversation?”

  “With that monster?” the woman growled.

  Crius pulled the knife from the woman’s hand and set it on the table with their plate and spoon. They tipped their head, indigo spikes bobbing. “She’s family. Not great family. But, she’s still family.” They pulled their mouth into a thin line. “Please, could you lend us your camp?”

  The woman eyed Nyx and huffed. She strode away towards the main camp.

  Crius muttered, “Sit. And wrap that hand up.”

  Nyx sat, holding her already healing hand. “You’re supposed to be one of the benevolent Stars. Why won’t you help me?”

  “Why was your first instinct to threaten me?”

  Nyx glanced down at her hand. It had stopped bleeding completely and was nearly healed already.

  “Desperation doesn’t suit the head of the pantheon.”

  “I’m not…” Nyx protested.

  Crius held up a hand. “You are. And the sooner you accept it, the easier all this will be. Especially the fear you cause for us. You are something to be dreaded.”

  “I don’t want that,” Nyx whispered. “I just want a family. A crew. A ship. Somewhere safe.”

  Crius nodded. “We all want that. Or something like that.”

  “So, why won’t you help me?”

  Crius cleared their throat. “I rewrite DNA to restructure a planet, to terraform. I was programmed to rewrite the DNA of entire living species, to mutate them to specified ecological systems. Of course, second generations were much more successful than first generations, and flora, well, it survives much better than fauna. I’m an infection, much like Erebus, who can send nano-tech to destroy anything once she’s proliferated. She can shut off air-supplies, turn off food production, shut down space travel and trade. She’s famine. I’m bounty. But my bounty comes at the cost of every non-sentient living thing on a planet.”

  Nyx stared at her. “If you’re so dangerous, why are you around people?”

  Crius turned over their hands, tears in the corners of their eyes. “I have a lot of atonement to do on this planet. There are lots of people who are not well-off who I can help, even without my powers.”

  Nyx puzzled at Crius’ tears. An AI that could cry. It seemed impossible, but then, AI had been far more advanced before the AI Wars. Either way, these Stars were old. Old enough to, perhaps, feel emotions like humans. Regret, suffering. Crius clearly gave the appearance of feeling those, in any case.

  Crius wiped their eyes and lowered their voice. “Phoebe is after me for my ability to mold worlds into Earth-like biospheres. But, I know I can’t run from her. Her damned algorithm probably already knows I’m here and has known for a long time. She’s probably waiting to have control of Erebus so that she can gain control of me. But, for now, I don’t make trouble. I help where I can. And I’ve created a family here. I’m not going to jeopardize that.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” Nyx said.

  “You are.” Crius pointed. “All this is in danger as long as you insist I help. Phoebe will predict that I help you, and even if I don’t, she may still raid us to be on the safe side, and the precarious balance we’ve had between us will crumble. Innocent people will get caught in the crossfire. I don’t want that.”

  Nyx crossed her arms. “Erebus is your sister. Phoebe will use her to take control of more of the universe in the name of the Protectorate. She’ll make war on… everything.”

  “I don’t care. She’s welcome to the universe. She was always one for war and politics.” Crius shrugged. “I just care that these people are fed, clothed, and have roofs over their heads.”

  Nyx leaned forward. “She’ll use Erebus to take that from these people.”

  Crius crossed her arms. “She’ll use Erebus to take that from people she hasn’t already taken from. We’re already chum in the water. Waiting for the sharks to gobble us up.”

  There was no winning here. Crius wasn’t going to help. Nyx leaned back. “If you’re not going to help me get Erebus back, what am I supposed to do?”

  Crius grabbed Nyx’s fist and shook it loose. The blood had dried brown and the cut completely closed. “Use this. It’s what we all fear. It’s why the Progenitor created your AI. To contain us. You can see life energy in humans, right? Nue once said it was like an aura—pretty, bright colors, flames and mists and glows, all depending on the person. It honestly sounded like a bunch of mystical hooey to me. Well, you are able to read the Stars in much the same way, but instead of our energy, you can read our code. Find the places in it where our basic life functions start and our consciousness rests. You can download and partition our consciousness into yourself, pulling us out of the vessels we are in and containing us. You’re an operating system for our code.” Crius bit their lip. “It only takes a drop. A single drop of your blood now that Erebus has awakened the code in you.” They tipped their head. “I wish she hadn’t. Not for my sake. If you decide one day to partition me, fine. I’ve lived a long time. Rest would be fine. But you.” They bowed their head, then looked up. “Being the god of gods is a tough gig.”

  If what Crius was saying was true, Nyx had the power to stop the queen. Completely. Utterly.

  Something crashed in the direction they had come from. Nyx shot up.

  The bearded man who had served them curry sprinted down the passage, a mass of people running behind him holding bags and packs of belongings. He skidded to a stop at the table. He motioned quickly with his hands, mouthing words.

  Crius signed to the bearded man. “You’re sure the uniforms were white and not green?” they said aloud as they signed.

&
nbsp; “Yes,” the man answered haltingly.

  Crius clapped him on the back and turned to Nyx. “Time to go. Phoebe either predicted I would help or didn’t care and is being a vindictive salope.”

  Nyx gazed in the direction the man had run from with the small mob of other people. A flash of white and gold flitted amidst the dim orange lights.

  She straightened. This was her chance. Her way to get to Erebus, with or without Crius’ help. “No. I brought this down on you. And I have to get to Erebus.”

  They raised an eyebrow. “Off to be a big putain de héro, then?”

  Nyx pulled her lips taut. “Guess so.”

  “Well. Can I have a hug goodbye then? Star to Star?”

  “I’d like that,” she whispered.

  Crius pulled Nyx into their chest and squeezed. Nyx nuzzled close, Crius’ warmth enveloping her. Crius pulled away, smoothing Nyx’s sable hair down. “You do know I don’t want to see you again, right? Not unless…”

  Nyx’s voice caught in her throat. She understood. “Not unless you need to be downloaded.”

  Crius pushed the bearded man ahead of them and started down the tunnel at a trot, yelling out at the various small tents and lean-tos to pack up quickly and run.

  With Crius safely away, Nyx pivoted to the oncoming Queensmen. Their white and gold uniforms blazed in the dim orange of the cavernous tunnel.

  Time to face the queen.

  33

  Nyx grasped the thin chip-carving knife off the table. If she was going to do this, she was going to get it right, or at least use this time to learn how to get it right. White and gold shadows flashed among the barrels of fire and dim orange lanterns. Crashing noises echoed through the tunnel. Nyx carefully walked towards the clamor.

  A man with a bushy copper beard directed white-armored soldiers to overturn burning barrels into canvas tents and tear up wooden lean-tos. Smoldering canvas glowed in the dim passage, casting a red blush on the soldiers’ white armor.

  A soldier snagged one of the children running between the upturned embers of a recycler barrel and a collapsed lean-to. The boy squealed high, kicking, as the soldier wrapped their arms around him and hauled him away.