“Interrogation mode enabled. Level six.”
“Dahlen of Fontis,” the sergeant said. “What is your directive?”
“Missionary work,” Dahlen said evenly.
“Affirmative,” the droid said.
“My brother fought in the war. He was stationed on Yarazu and said you lot don’t feel pain. Should we test his theory?” the man asked casually. Then after a silence: “Break his finger anyway.”
Rhee brought a fist to her mouth as she heard a terrible snap, and wondered if the droid had done what it was asked: Dahlen had not cried out in pain. The walls around her shifted and contorted her into a new position, pushing her leg at an awkward angle.
“In hindsight, we should’ve avoided the ring finger. It will prove difficult to remove . . .” Niture said without emotion. “Next question: Are you sympathetic to the royal family of Kalu?”
“Of course,” Dahlen said. She thought she could hear a slight strain in his voice. “The last Ta’an girl has just died.”
She shivered, despite herself. It was strange to hear him talk about her like she was already a ghost.
“Let me rephrase. Do you support the Urnew Treaty?”
“I’m not a political man.”
“Let me guess. You’re a man of god,” the sergeant said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “Next question . . .” But his voice trailed off, and a terrible silence hung for a minute. When the sergeant spoke again, his voice was very soft. “Interesting piece. Is it silver?”
Rhee’s heart seized. Julian’s telescope—she’d left it on the console.
The sergeant continued in that soft, falsely courteous voice. “I thought your kind was too good to mine sacred metals. Where did you get this?”
After a short pause, Dahlen said, “It was a gift.”
The soldier droid whirred in the silence. “Negative.”
“Ah.” The instructor paused, a sneer in his voice. “Why lie about a telescope? Robot, second finger.” Another sound like the harsh crack of a whip. Rhee flinched as nausea rose in her throat. Dahlen only exhaled, a small sigh. How long could this go on? How long could she let it?
The walls and floor around her shifted again angrily, clamping down her leg. It seemed to be pulsing, as if in response to Dahlen’s pain—and the other man’s hatred. This was all her fault. It was her telescope. And if she’d just taken the scrambler, then she could’ve saved them both.
She heard her dad’s voice. “Ma’tan sarili” was the last thing he’d told her when he’d kissed her forehead. Such a simple phrase but such a tall demand—to pledge your highest self to someone else, to ask someone else to do the same.
Rhee felt for the knife and moved into a crouch. The wood released her as if it knew her intention. She’d fled her family’s ship and left them to burn up without her. Killed a man she loved like a father. She could not allow someone to die for her.
Get up, Joss had said the day she found Rhee alone and sniveling in the cellars. She hadn’t teased her or called her a baby, but Rhee had never forgotten the look on her face, as if Joss had expected more. Get up.
Now Rhee pounded on the hatch. Outside, Dahlen cried out for the first time. But she knew she had to save him.
“What the—?”
Rhee squeezed the knife in one hand. She breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. She imagined her muscles expanding. Focus. That was what Veyron—dead Veyron, traitor Veyron—had always taught her. Too many fighters fell because they lost focus.
Then there was an explosion of splintered wood as the droid burst open the compartment. Air and light flooded in. She saw Dahlen restrained, staring straight at her—terrified, or perhaps angry with her. It didn’t matter.
The droid was a newer model, made to look like a shiny, metal man. It looked her up and down with its glass eyes. “Rhiannon Ta’an,” it announced, after its program had finished scanning.
“Empress . . . ?” The sergeant nearly choked. “You’re—you’re alive?”
Then the droid picked her up from the back of her tunic, like a mama dog picking up her pup by the scruff of the neck, and deposited her neatly in front of the sergeant. He was entirely ordinary—a paunchy Miseu with a pear-shaped body and deep yellow skin. Antennae came out the side of his head where a human’s ears would be, and the high gravity of Kalu had taken its toll: His face looked like a deflated balloon. Rhee had seen his kind countless times before—little men who squeezed into double-breasted suits, following around some adviser or another, oozing with compliments in hopes of being welcomed into the political entourage. He was like every low-level diplomat she’d been forced to shake hands with, who were quick to point out how articulate she was for her age, or how lovely her light complexion was—as if she were incapable of detecting a backhanded compliment. Essentially, he was an idiot. He was an embarrassment to their military.
“Isn’t this a pleasure?” he said with a traditional bow. “The Regent’s council will be thrilled to know you’re alive.”
He’d no doubt be thrilled to receive his reward.
“The pleasure is mine,” she said sweetly. “But I won’t be joining you.”
In one smooth motion, she threw her arms up, slipping out of the oversized tunic. Still clutching the switchblade, she landed on her knees and drove the knife into the sergeant’s foot with both hands. He screamed in pain. The droid grabbed her head and slammed it down to the ground, and for a split second her vision went black. With her face against the grate, she saw a flash of red as her vision cleared: the DNA scrambler.
The droid picked her up again. For a half second she was staring up into the cool indifference of its metal face. Then she saw a flash of green—a snake?—wind around its neck and yank the droid backward, forcing it to release her.
She scrambled to her feet. She saw now that Dahlen had managed to wrap a vine around its steel throat. For a second the Fontisian and the droid staggered together in a terrible dance, and the droid was squeezing Dahlen’s neck. Rhee was temporarily mesmerized by the sight of dozens of thick vines slithering from the wall, slowly winding their way up the droid’s legs, punching through its steel plates, tightening around its thick metal waist. Protecting Dahlen.
The scrambler. She dropped to her knees again, threading her fingers through the grate, fumbling for the pill.
“Rhee,” Dahlen managed to gasp. “Look out.”
She turned. The sergeant had freed the knife from his foot. Now he didn’t look so ordinary; she could believe he’d fought in the Great War. His eyes were cloudy with rage. He looked like a monster. How would she escape?
You never think before you move, Veyron had said.
Her fingertips grazed the pill. One more inch . . . At last she managed to get it into her palm.
And before the sergeant could attack, she whipped around and kicked at his shins, cutting his legs out from under him. He slammed backward. Before he could recover, she was on top of him, disgusted by the spongy feel of his skin.
When he opened his mouth to call for the droid, Rhee shoved the scrambler down his throat. She clamped his jaw shut so he couldn’t spit it out.
His rounded eyes went wide and he began to choke. Rhee realized in horror that the scrambler was designed for human DNA, and she didn’t know what would happen. She watched as his chubby face began to lengthen, so that the tip of his chin and the top of his forehead stretched out like a piece of dough. Then it thinned out further, worn through in places, nearly transparent in others: She saw down to the bone and blood.
“Stop! Stop!” he screamed. Even his voice was becoming distorted, as if it, too, was being stretched to the breaking point. “Please stop!”
True to its programming, the droid stopped struggling immediately and darkened to standby mode. The vines began to withdraw. Dahlen, still breathing hard, ripped out the external comm unit mounted onto the droid’s neck. I
t was a droid’s equivalent to a cube, except the droid couldn’t function without one.
Dahlen limped up to Rhee, cradling his broken hand. He held out the tunic she’d shed. She wrapped it around herself, and together they watched as the Miseu’s eyes went milky and his cries began to change, higher and then lower like he was testing out a frequency. It was as if he were melting before her eyes, and she turned away, feeling as if she might vomit.
“It was a clever move,” Dahlen said.
“I didn’t do it to impress you,” she fired back. “I did to save your life.”
“My life is not your concern.” He reset his fingers, taking in a sharp inhale that was barely audible over the cracking of his bones. He pulled the black ring off and slipped it on the opposite finger of his good hand. “I’m grateful to you, but you’re meant to be empress. To unify the galaxy. Your survival takes precedence over my life. It takes precedence, too, over your need to be honorable.”
“I don’t believe that.” Honor, bravery, loyalty—these made up her ma’tan sarili, the three values.
“You’re not old enough to know what to believe,” Dahlen answered as he kneeled down next to Niture. As if he were that much older. Dahlen began searching the sergeant’s neck with one thin hand. For a confused second, Rhee thought he was checking for a pulse. Then she saw he was holding the knife.
“That’s my knife,” she said. Her surprise morphed into dread.
He ignored her. “Do you know where they implant cubes on the Miseu?” He grabbed the sergeant—now horribly deformed—and jerked him up to a sitting position. “Here, at the top of the spine.”
“What are you—?” she began to ask, but had to look away, as Dahlen plunged the tip of the blade into the sergeant’s neck and gouged out the microchip.
“He might know something of value,” Dahlen said simply.
Dahlen cleaned the cube of a sticky white substance she assumed was Miseu blood. “Can’t you just enable playback?” she asked, knowing full well it was impossible. There were mechanisms and fail-safes that prevented forced playback, and in any event the holder had to be conscious.
“There’s a driver embedded in the dashboard just under the console. See what you can find.”
Rhee was glad for the opportunity to turn away from the mangled body of the sergeant. Whatever memories he’d willed would be lost; his family would be devastated. Rhee knew the feeling all too well, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. She located the driver and inserted the chip into it, angry, hopeless. Rhee wasn’t sure what Dahlen was trying to do. Sergeant Niture’s death would have triggered an automatic wipe of his memory system. Maybe the cube was outfitted with an identification number, so they could access the sergeant’s files—like his military history, or who he might’ve been reporting to.
The console lit up. The prompts and instructions were in Fontisian characters. She tried her best to navigate through the foreign characters using the touchscreen, not sure what she was looking for. She pressed a word that made the whole ship go dark, with hundreds of holograms creating a circle before her. Most of them looked like photographs, moments frozen in time, and she found herself drawn to an image of a smiling Miseu. Rhee lifted her hand up as if to touch her face, and her hand activated something on the hologram—because the woman threw her head back and her laughter filled the ship. Then she reached her arms out toward Rhee as if to hug her before the file cut out. The sergeant’s mother, Rhee realized, feeling sick. There were hundreds of memories in hologram form, piled on top of one another. It was like being in the man’s mind. It was being in his mind.
Which was impossible. Unless . . .
“He’s—he’s still alive?” she asked, horrified. She turned to see Niture, sitting up, his back propped against the wall of vines, his features so horribly melted and disfigured he was unrecognizable.
“I’ll take over from here,” Dahlen said, temporarily distorting the hologram as he walked through it.
“How is this possible?” Rhee asked. She was using technology that wasn’t supposed to exist. It was a crime to look into someone’s cube without permission—it was more than a crime. Cubes stored not just information but memories, feelings, sensations, thought-impressions. “This is wrong. This is illegal. At the G-1K summit—I can’t remember if it was the third or the fourth—but it was clearly forbidden by law—”
“‘Forbidden by law’?” Dahlen tilted his head and looked at her. Through her. “Have you seen what terrible things the laws of men enable?”
No. She believed in the law. She believed in the laws that came out of those summits, certainly. Over the past sixty years, ever since the cube had been invented, the universe’s greatest scientists had gathered at the G-1K to review and regulate the interplanetary laws around its use. They were high-profile individuals, and every planet or territory inevitably plastered their names on a landmark or their faces on a digital credit.
Dahlen sorted through the holograms with his hands, flicking away the ones that didn’t interest him. There was a pattern to it, and Rhee did her best to follow, but couldn’t make sense of another man’s mind. She was curious, ashamed, but most of all, furious.
“Stop this.”
Dahlen ignored her, working in a way that was methodical and mechanical—but with every image he slid away, a seismic shudder moved through her. She was watching an entire life collapsed, and felt the weight not just of bringing the Miseu to near death, but of something much worse.
“It seems I’m not wrong.” Dahlen said. “Here. Look.” Buried under so many layers of memories, some fragmented and some crystalline, was a recent memory of a priority message sent to all Kalu government personnel. The hologram showed a man, his skinny lips pursed, his expression serious.
Rhee’s breath caught in her throat. It was Crown Regent Seotra. Her father’s best friend, grim-faced and power hungry, who’d stood in the hangar and sent her family off to their deaths. Rhee had seen Seotra as she snuck off the craft, had seen the way he smiled—how many times had she replayed that memory?—and a look of glee, as if he were only inches from the thing he wanted most in the world.
Only hours from what he wanted most.
Dahlen touched the image of Seotra, and like water disturbed by a stone, it began to ripple and move.
“I won’t mince words. This is a dark, dark day for the galaxy.” Seotra paused and brought a closed fist to his mouth like he was desperately trying to contain emotion. “Since she was the last living member of the Ta’an dynasty, Rhiannon’s death places the hard-won treaty between Fontis and Kalu at risk. But I must emphasize that even if the treaty no longer has legal validity, we still have a moral responsibility to honor its provisions.”
Rhiannon’s heart sank. Seotra was smart—too smart. On the face of it, he was encouraging the Kalu to keep the peace. Between the lines, he was reminding them that with her death, the treaty that had ended the universe’s bloodiest war was all but broken.
“I would like to reiterate that for those of you who are so selfishly using the Princess’s death as an excuse to sow violence and chaos in the capital, and in order to justify your despicable acts of civil disobedience, punishment will be swift and severe.”
So the sergeant had spoken the truth: There was rioting in Kalu. Her heart swelled at the thought that some people, at least, were furious about her death, but she clamped any bit of joy down quickly. What did it matter? All it meant was that there were only more deaths, this time in her name.
Revealing herself now would legally reinstate the treaty, but could she wrest power away from Seotra successfully? Would her people welcome or denounce her? Would she be killed before she could get her revenge?
“As of eleven hundred hours, martial law will be in effect across the planet, all Kalusian colonies and territories, and Kalusian designated airspace.” Seotra brought a hand to his forehead, the first sign he’d shown
of discomfort. “I’ll be traveling to Tinoppa to honor the Princess’s life, and her death, at a ceremony three days from now, conducted by Tai Reyanna, Princess Rhiannon’s personal adviser.” His fingers tightened on the podium. Even in holo, Rhee could see his knuckles whiten. “I ask you as a planet to pray for us that we will see our way out of these dark times.”
Rhee balled her hands so that Dahlen wouldn’t see they were shaking. “That hypocrite, ‘paying respects’ with the Tai to win points with the interplanetary community even as he mobilizes for a war in my name,” she said. She wondered, secretly, if it was more than just an act. Could Tai Reyanna have conspired with him? Rhee shook the thought loose, angry for even thinking it. “We need to go to Tinoppa. We need to stop him.”
Dahlen continued to sort through more messages. Reports of a hyperloop hijacked in Uryra, an electromagnetic pulse detonated in Erisha, an occupied embassy in Sibu—Kalusian cities wrecked by havoc.
Rhee’s anger was going to suffocate her. She reached out and pounded on the console. Dahlen turned to her finally, a look on his face that bordered on boredom. “Are you listening to me?” she hissed, and drew herself up a little taller. “I demand we go to Seotra.”
Dahlen walked through the circle of the holograms and fiddled with the navigational controls. With a graceful dip, the ship began to wheel in the sky. They were no longer heading toward Portiis.
“As you wish, Empress” was all he said.
EIGHT
ALYOSHA
ALYOSHA awoke to an explosion that rocked the ship and rolled him halfway to the engine room.
Pavel was back. He extended a zipline down the ladder and clamped on to the leg of Aly’s suit.
“Fifty-three seconds out,” Pavel said, as he lifted Aly with metal hooks and dragged him down the corridor. Aly’s mind was fracturing. He couldn’t keep his eyes open.
“Save yourself,” he wanted to say, but he couldn’t make the words form.
“P, what did he say?” someone asked. That voice. He knew it. He recognized it. But the name, and the image of the guy’s face, came and went like something that passed in a rushing river.
Empress of a Thousand Skies Page 8
