by AJ Super
Nyx relaxed her fingers on the knife, letting it settle back down to the bottom of the holster, and smoothed her tunic down. She nodded. “I suppose. I lost my kitten and then got turned around. I don’t want to be late. Thank you for the map.” She leaned towards the broad-shouldered man, into his arm. She slapped the pad next to the lift, resisting closing her eyes to pray to the Seven that the pad turned green, that it wasn’t bio-locked to actual members of the Kokou II.
The lift door slid open, and Nyx slipped in.
They traversed two floors in a flash as she leaned against the back wall. Then the lift doors whispered open to a bustling hallway filled with people dressed in grey, white, and navy.
Nyx took a deep breath and stepped out of the lift. She just needed to follow the outer corridor to the docking bay, and from there she would wait until the Battle Station was docked with La Terre. Then she would sneak aboard the queen’s palace-ship.
Glancing out of the windows on her right, the black of jump space whirled by. She walked to the window, dodging a couple of navy-uniformed officers on their way to the lift. No one seemed particularly alarmed by her presence, so there wasn’t an alert for her escape. Nyx stared at the dark folded space through the windows.
An hour until docking parties met with the La Terre recruits. It would take at least an hour for docking procedures to complete between the two large ships.
Nyx knit her brow. But they hadn’t stopped yet. So, the man at the lift must have been mistaken. She stepped back from the window. On cue, the Battle Ship shuddered, and space resolved outside the windows. Everyone turned and looked as La Terre, the city-ship, the palace in the sky, overshadowed the star-scape, gilt at the top as if it were a mountain castle supported by a town of grey plinths.
Nyx pressed her face against the glass to catch a glimpse of the gilded facades of the palace levels, but the ship was too close, so close she could probably jump from the walk she was on to the closest walk on the other side if she were EVA.
The lift slid open behind her, and three Queensmen strode out, gold-lined capelets draped behind them. Nyx gripped the shining black bar in front of the window and faced the queen’s giant ship.
The white-clad Queensmen walked by, searching the faces of the people. These Queensmen knew who they were looking for. They knew her face, and they were looking for it in the crowd. She had to get to the docking bay, and off the Battle Station.
Nyx stepped in line behind them, down the corridor towards the bay, holding the kitten close. The grey puff of fur purred.
They stopped short in the middle of the passage, and Nyx slid by with her head tilted to the ground, continuing down the hallway. Reaching the end of the passage, she glanced back at the Queensmen roaming the hall, randomly stopping people.
The kitten mewed. It echoed down the hushed corridor.
One of the Queensmen met Nyx’s eyes. The white and gold capeleted woman lifted her hand and pointed, shouting, “There.”
Nyx scowled at the kitten briefly and turned down the perpendicular passageway to the right, sprinting through a throng of engineers in white tunics. The door to the docking bay was steps away. She only needed to get in and conceal herself until she could hop onto the gangplank and onto La Terre.
A hand clapped on her shoulder. A Black man in a navy uniform peered down his bulbous nose. She ripped away from him. “Be careful, girl. You’re going to hurt someone running like that.”
“S-sorry,” she stuttered and slowed to a cowering walk. She glimpsed over her shoulder. The Queensmen searched through the group of civilians in white as she slipped into the docking bay. She slid behind a stack of crates covered in canvas and eyed the unguarded gangplank extending to La Terre. The panel next to it turned from red to green. The dock had been successful, and the plank was extended and attached. There were other procedures to adhere to—decontaminations, code-clearing, bureaucratic nonsense—but the hatch-door on the La Terre side was operable.
She looked around the enormous room. There were groups of people gathered. Those dressed in grey moved stacks of boxes. Those dressed in white were having a meeting of some kind. Those in navy stood at attention and listened to an officer making announcements. Now was as good a time as any, before the Queensmen showed up asking questions.
She tiptoed out from behind the crates and walked to the gangplank. She got to the open hatch and peered around one more time.
“Hey. You there!”
Nyx pivoted.
The Queensman with the severe coif shouted again, “Hey you! Stop!”
Nyx dove down the gangplank and onto the queen’s ship.
35
Nyx eased the hatch to La Terre open and popped out of the echoing gangplank. The docking bay on the other side hushed. A slumped woman speaking to a large group of people in white paused and looked over her shoulder, then resumed her lecture. A man in grey with a crate brushed by her and traipsed to the gangplank, dropping his load next to it. Cradling the kitten, Nyx walked calmly across the cavernous room to La Terre’s bay door and hit the pad. The door whisked open.
The little grey cat mewed softly.
“Now is not the time. You already almost got me in trouble,” Nyx hissed at the kitten as she stepped out of the docking bay and into the bustling, square, utilitarian hallway. She bled into the flow of traffic and away from the bay. Glancing over her shoulder, she caught sight of the Queensmen diving into the press, searching each face dressed in white engineer’s tunics. She kept her head down, the kitten close, and strode towards the lift.
She had to go up to the queen’s level, to find Erebus, to find the crew of the Thanatos, to find the Thanatos. Maybe, if she could find Erebus’ Sia first, then she could easily get the crew out. Erebus could manipulate La Terre and break the crew out and get the Thanatos free. That is, if Erebus could with the queen’s virus attacking her.
The lift doors opened, and Nyx stepped in with several other passengers. The Queensmen still blindly searched for her amidst the mob of La Terre operatives. The lift closed and zipped up, stopping several times, letting people off and on.
She could see Erebus’ code, emerald whorls in the moving parts of the ship, glowing through the conduit behind the panels, seeping through the consoles. It was surrounded by the buzzing of little gold bees. Bugs tangled and confined Erebus’ green whirling synapses. It was stronger here than on the Kokou II. Brilliant and powerful. Flowing upwards.
An officer in navy shifted behind her in the lift. The doors slid open, and he slipped past her. He turned. “Last stop. Aren’t you getting off?”
Nyx looked up. She would have to play the random lost girl again. She scrunched her face just as her stomach grumbled, unbidden. It had been a while since she had Crius’ mute friend’s curry.
“Well. That explains it.” He laughed.
Nyx flushed and hopped out of the lift. She didn’t mean for her hunger to get her out of a potentially awkward situation, but it was better than having to attack the kind looking, grey-haired man.
“I get forgetful when I don’t eat as well.” He chuckled again and gestured her ahead of him.
“I forgot this morning.” She lowered her head. Her tunic was mostly hiding the holster. If he didn’t look closely, he wouldn’t notice it. If he just concentrated on her face and what she was saying, she wouldn’t have to hurt him.
He nodded, a lock of grey hair flopping in his grey eyes. “Everything going on lately, I’d imagine so. Got a call for a violent Sia repeatedly pounding on a door. Kept hollerin’ for someone called Nyx. It was bizarre.”
“I know, right?” Nyx played along. “I’ve been fixing so many glitchy things lately. Just fixed a console that wouldn’t do anything other than repeat the words ‘I am one of the Seven.’”
He raised a bushy brow, “That’s a new one. But strange glitches have been appearing everywhere. And now all the Sia units have been ordered deactivated. Causes all sorts of problems. And lots more work.”
Taking over the multitude of Sias on the enormous city-ship would have given Erebus an army and a way to take back the Thanatos. The queen’s order to decommission them stopped that seed of a plan.
“Where are you headed now?” The officer squinted at her.
“I really should catch some grub.” Nyx shrugged. “But the queen’s chambers have a scanner down, and I would rather keep my job.”
He nodded. “I understand. But don’t put off the food too long.”
Nyx’s stomach gurgled again. Talking about food was making it worse. She had too much to worry about, and the feeling of hunger was starting to turn into nausea. She had to move on and find a way to the queen. Phoebe would know where Erebus was, if she wasn’t with the queen to begin with. If Nyx had to guess, Phoebe would want to keep such a precious tool as Erebus close.
The grey-haired officer smiled and pointed down a corridor to Nyx’s left. “Her Majesty doesn’t like people literally falling down on the job. Eat soon. But you’ll find the main lift down there. It goes all the way up to the Hall of Stars and the Queen’s Hall.”
“Thank you.” Nyx turned towards the main lift, then pivoted back to the officer. A thought blossomed. “Out of morbid curiosity, where do the decommissioned Sias get stored?”
The officer scanned her oddly. “I would have thought an engineer would know. You just a trainee, then?” He chuckled, furry eyebrows rising. “Guess they keep some things locked up tight from you all, too.”
Nyx forced a grin. If she had access to the decommissioned Sias, maybe she could turn on a few and get some help from Erebus. She was all alone and planning on facing the queen without any weapons, except for a single energy pistol and a chip-carving knife. She needed some resources.
“Well, it’s about thirty floors up in roughly this vicinity. It’s not terribly hard to find if you know where it is. It’s just…” he gestured around them.
“This place is huge,” Nyx agreed.
“Exactly. If it weren’t for the number of people on this ship, I’d go mad. It’s too big.”
Nyx held out her hand. “Thank you.”
The officer eyeballed it, and then he took it and shook it. “You’re welcome, Mademoiselle…?”
Nyx smiled. She was glad she didn’t have to hurt the kind man. “Newman.”
“Cute kitten, Mademoiselle Newman.” The man waved.
Nyx grinned wider, then she whipped around and sped down the corridor to the main lift, stomach grumbling sourly the entire way.
The lift was quiet. Two exoskeletoned soldiers accompanied her up, but not out onto the floor where the Sia storage should be. There was a cafeteria nearby, too. Nyx could smell the stench of protein cubes and vegetable sludge. Her stomach curdled at the thought, but hunting down food would take time away from hunting down a way to contact Erebus. She hadn’t eaten since Underground, and she was starting to feel fatigued.
She tipped her head back and inhaled the pungent smell of the nearby mess hall. Her stomach would have to wait. She wouldn’t die of starvation, but she might die if someone recognized her in the cafeteria.
What she really needed was Erebus to tell her where the Thanatos was docked, where the crew was being kept, where her Sia unit was being stored, and if the queen was hiding in her throne room. Or, the Queen’s Hall, as the grey-haired officer had called it.
She needed to know that Erebus was okay and find a way to eradicate the virus she had.
Nyx clipped down the hall and palmed open a door to a storage room. She slipped inside. Sias of every model lined the room. Most stood in their docking stations, shoulder-to-shoulder. A few sat on the ground, legs straight out, adult dolls.
A desk sat in the middle of a stack of crates in the corner of the room. She set the kitten on the desk and settled in the chair behind it. Looking through a stack of datapads, she pulled a screen up, scrolling through the display. She searched the inventory for some kind of drive she could use, something in the myriad of black plastic boxes of electronics lining the shelves on the walls in the large room.
The kitten crawled up the edge of a lidless plastic box on the desk and toppled it. The contents clattered all over the desk and crashed onto the floor. The noise thundered through the silence.
Nyx scrambled to pick up the fallen clutter. She couldn’t leave signs she had been here, and a pile of parts fallen on the floor would signal someone not meant to be in the room had invaded. She picked up the pieces by the handful and put them back into the box as softly as she could. The kitten batted one off the desk with a small clink to the floor. She plucked one of the pieces from the desk and turned it between her fingers.
It was a tiny solid-state Sia drive, no bigger than her thumbnail, one easily plugged into the port behind the ear.
Nyx smiled and fingered a drive. She could download an army of Stars with all of these. Fortunately, she only needed one for the queen.
She stood and walked to the green-eyed Sia on the charging station nearest the door. Grabbing behind his neck, she squeezed, activating the android. She walked down the line and squeezed the pressure point on-switch at the back of the necks of a dozen Sias on their charging stations.
“Sia, self-diagnostic,” she ordered.
In unison, they chirped, “All functions nominal-al-al-al-al.”
“Sia, detect virus,” Nyx commanded.
“Virus detect-detect-detect-detect…” they stuttered.
“Erebus are you there?” she begged. “Please be there.”
“I.” The Sia at the door spoke.
“A-a-am,” the Sia next to the one by the door stuttered.
“Heeeeere,” the Sia down the line slurred, eyes glowing gold.
Nyx’s hairs stood on end. The Sias on the charging stations all looked at her, gold haloes around their eyes, wisps of green code marred with gold dust dancing all over them. “Where are you? Where’s the Thanatos? The crew? What about the queen?” Nyx stumbled to get the questions out.
“Virus detect-detect-detect…” the Sias echoed.
Nyx rolled her head back. “I know that.”
“Queen Phoebe is…” the green-eyed Sia by the door paused, blinking.
“Charging. Charging. Charging,” the Sias repeated.
“The queen is charging?”
A Sia that appeared to be from the South Asian Republic spoke to her right, “Yes.”
Nyx jumped, hackles raised. The number of autonomous vehicles for Erebus’ consciousness in the room was eerie.
“The crew? The Thanatos?”
“Detention block A.” A deep brown-skinned Sia behind her lurched forward then settled back into her charging cradle.
“Highly guarded,” the green-eyed Sia by the door whispered.
“So, there’s no way I can break them out alone. How about you? Can you?”
The Sias chanted in unison, “Virus detected.”
She walked between the rows of the Sias and stopped. “I get it. You’re out of the picture until I can find a way to get the queen’s virus under lock and key.” She glanced at the kitten rolling around her feet, nibbling at its tail. “And the Thanatos?”
“In the queen’s docking bay near the Hall of Stars.” The green-eyed Sia by the door tilted his head.
“Okay. Been there. Hated that. But at least I know where that is.” Nyx looked at the Sias. “Do me a favor, though. Once I kill the virus, you’ll get the crew out and help them escape to the Thanatos.”
“Yes,” the Sia to her immediate right spouted.
Nyx jumped again, and the motion-sensitive lights went dim. The Sias were downright unnerving with their unpredictable responses, and now that it was dark, her heart hammered. She hated to do this, especially with the Sias now proscribed on La Terre. It would be a risk since they could get caught and shut down, but if she didn’t make it back, it would be even riskier. “I also need you to do something.” She couldn’t take the kitten with her to the Queen’s Hall, and she couldn’t leave it on La Terre.
The Sias blinked and froze.
The swish of the door snapped Nyx’s attention around. The grey fuzz-ball swirled around her feet. The dark storage room was quiet, and with no one moving, the automatic lights dimmed.
“Whoever gets this post is going to hate it here. How creepy,” a voice boomed as the lights came back up and the room turned white.
“Hmm,” someone grunted.
Nyx stood still among the Sias.
“Set that crate down wherever there’s space,” the booming voice ordered.
Nyx glanced at her feet. The kitten trundled towards the voices. She held in a breath. The kitten would be the death of her, or those workers, if it was found.
The thud of a crate settling on a stack echoed through the room.
“Can’t wait until reassignments are done, and the Kokou leaves. That ship gives me the willies,” the booming voice cracked.
“Just a few more minutes until docking is finalized. We’ll have people pouring out, duty rosters to finish up and—”
“Exactly how does an entire ship empty its entire air supply? How were the environmentals completely shut down and the ship vented? There are protocols. There are contingencies. Every hatch, every door, everything had to be opened simultaneously. It can’t happen. And all the weird stuff that keeps happening around here. It can’t be a coincidence,” the booming voice rang.
“The ship isn’t alive,” the grunting voice said.
Nyx peered through the heads of the Sias next to her, trying to spot where the kitten had wandered. The grey puff bopped a small, solid-state drive behind a stack of crates directly in front of the woman with the booming voice, its puddle of lavender energy rippling.
Nyx clenched her hands. That little fluff was going to cause a problem. She put her hand on the energy weapon at her side and hesitated. An arms-fire alarm would spoil her chances to get to the queen. She shifted her hand to the chip-carving knife.
“Do you hear that?” the booming voice whispered.
Nyx peeked through the bald Sias. The grunting woman shook her tightly coifed head. “You’re hearing things.”
