Shadow Call

by Michael Miller

  “Do you want what your sister wants, King?” It sounded worse than Prince on my brother’s tongue. Worse than an insult. “To rule the system, to rule us?”

  “No,” Nev said calmly, unruffled, despite momentarily looking as exhausted as he probably was, about as close to death as he had recently been. “In fact, I don’t want Alaxak at all. I’d just ask, politely”—he glanced around, silvery eyes flashing—“if I can borrow the planet for a time. In exchange, after I wrest power from my sister, I will grant Alaxak complete autonomy…including over your Shadow grounds.”

  Already his tone had changed. Gone was the deferential crewman. His ingrained authority, the years spent learning how to rule others, rang in his voice.

  “Borrow it how?” Jerra asked, a suspicious eyebrow raised. His good looks had flustered her, but she wasn’t close to being cowed now, either by his eyes or by his tone. Even though Nev wasn’t my enemy—far from it—I wanted to hug her, for a second.

  “I’ll need a new base of operations in the Dracorte system, preferably one as far from Luvos as possible. Alaxak is exactly that. It’s also conveniently lacking any infrastructure controlled by my sister. Instead of needing to overthrow anybody, I have allies…if you’ll accept me as one.”

  Arjan wasn’t satisfied. “Allies who will benefit you after your victory, no doubt, since an ally would grant you exclusive trade rights to Shadow?” He must have been picking up this stuff from Basra.

  “With fair prices, higher than you’ve ever seen. And in return I’ll lend you military protection until such time as you can build your own military and protect yourselves, if you wish.”

  “You grant us what should already be ours by right,” Jerra said. “What else do we get?”

  Nev pointed unerringly at the wall. “How about that battle carrier?”

  Even Arjan gaped at that. It wasn’t only as big as a small moon; it was worth one.

  “It stays,” Nev continued, “to protect Alaxak from further threat while I’m gone. You can keep it, with a skeleton crew of ours to teach you how to run it, as long as the QUIN remains offline for the duration of your resistance. The rest of the crew will go planet-side with you and help clean up the damage they caused—including Governor Rexius.”

  “And just where are you going?” Jerra demanded.

  Nev smiled at her, though it was as sharp as a knife. “To get more ships, and an army to fly them. I will not let my sister win, and believe me when I say that I have a plan.”

  My own voice rose, as calm and controlled as I could make it. “And if we don’t agree to this?”

  I had to ask. For the people who followed me. Even for myself.

  Nev met my eyes. It was a gaze I could lean into, steady myself upon, believe in. “If you don’t, I’ll still leave to fight my sister and declare your autonomy if I win. Of course, I would rather have the honor of your presence at my side as I did.” He meant to include everyone, but his eyes remained locked on me as he said it. My stomach flipped again. “My chances of success increase with your help.”

  “With our help or our subservience?” Arjan snapped.

  “I will respect you as equals.” Nev abruptly hinged at the waist, bowing about forty-five degrees, his hand to his heart. I didn’t know enough about courtly bows, but it looked as if it were to a peer.

  Arjan nodded, with a mixture of embarrassment and approval, and looked away.

  Like the others, I had one last question. “What will you do about Eton?”

  Nev’s eyes drifted to where Eton stood against the door with his arms folded. The big man suddenly looked like he was trying to make himself smaller. At another time, it might have been funny.

  “He’s complicit in an attempt on my life, and royal assassination is punishable only by death, according to Dracorte law.” Nev paused. “But it was only an attempt, and it occurred on Alaxak, while both he and I were your crewmembers, Captain Uvgamut.” By which he meant, I guessed, that he was no longer my crewmember. He wasn’t subject to me anymore, just like I wasn’t to him—if his next words didn’t make it clear enough. “In my first act as king and as your ally…I leave his fate in your hands.”

  Everyone looked at me, and I nodded, a little impressed myself, despite everything.

  Eton’s face was more tense, not less. I glanced at him only long enough to catch a glimpse.

  Everyone was waiting now. I wished this could have been done privately, but I supposed I’d brought it on by testing Nev.

  “You’re off my ship,” I said quietly to Eton. My voice carried in the silence. I didn’t look at him, but it was only too obvious whom I meant. “Off Alaxak, if you know what’s good for you. If I see you again, I’ll kill you myself.”

  I didn’t see Eton leave, but I heard the messroom door slide open and shut. He would probably catch a shuttle to the battle carrier, and maybe stay there. Or maybe he would wander off somewhere else, to some other distant planet. Maybe rejoin the band of ruthless mercenaries he used to be a part of, who were too cutthroat for him to even tell me much about.

  I told myself not to care. This was what I had been chosen for—to make decisions on behalf of all of us, not to wallow in my personal grief. I suddenly understood the weight on Nev a little better, the authority in his voice that refused to bow to the pressure. I cleared my throat, made my own voice firm. “I accept your deal, Dracorte.” It was probably the first time an Alaxan had used that name without scorn. “We’re allies.”

  There were grim nods around the table. In other circumstances, there might have been cheers for our position to have changed so abruptly for the better. But no one, including me, could forget that Chorda was smoldering and scarred beneath us. I didn’t know how much damage had been done, how many lives had been lost…and I wasn’t going to find out firsthand.

  “Well then, if you’ll excuse me, I have an army to raise.” Nev leaned on the table, muscles cording in his forearms. He would have looked nonchalant except for his knowing gaze as he glanced at me. An answering warmth rose in my chest that I couldn’t suppress. “Captain Uvgamut, would you please accompany me to represent Alaxak?” He gave me a sheepish smile. “Among other things, I might also need a ride to Aaltos.”

  Through the holodesk feeds in my newly installed office on the Volassa, the super-destroyer I’d renamed to become my new mode of interstellar transport in lieu of the Luvos Sunrise, I watched, over and over, the targeted area on the surface of Alaxak light up like a city coming alive at night. A touch of my finger, confirming the order, had done that. That was power. It had nearly made me giggle at the time.

  Three days later, it didn’t even inspire a smile, but it was still the only thing that made me feel better about what had happened after: a Peace Platform and full battle carrier, destroyed, and still another few days before I could mobilize the ships and the funds to retaliate. Nev, still alive, after Suvis had failed to kill him. A new, possibly Xiaolan-backed supporter of Nev—or at least someone wanted me to think it was the Xiaolans. Drones, misbehaving in small pockets all across the systems, with no rhyme or reason. Heathran, sounding reserved in our long-distance missives. Not that that was anything but ordinary from him, but I’d been hoping for extraordinary.

  At least I might be able to do something about Heathran, upon arrival.

  The Volassa was carrying me to Embra, the home planet of the Belarius family, where the leaders of all the systems, mostly royals, gathered on occasion as the Kings’ Council—an archaic name I took issue with—to make group decisions that would affect the galactic empire. Belarius the Elder, addressed as such in their system, oversaw the council as its head, and so was arguably a king of kings.

  Good thing I was a queen.

  Heathran was his heir. Prince of princes. Heirs weren’t always invited to attend the Kings’ Council, but I would at least be in the same palace as he was in their cap
ital city, Tenérus, in one day’s time. Surely our paths would cross.

  A message flashed on one of my floating holoscreens, from King Makar Treznor-Nirmana. There was one king who wouldn’t be in attendance. I almost couldn’t wait to open the recording.

  His rich voice filled my office—cordial, this time, though I’d heard it hit almost every note on the emotional scale. He was an eccentric one, which was perhaps part of an elaborate image that was as carefully cultivated as the Xiaolans’…except it had played right into my hands.

  “I would have seen you at your coronation or the upcoming Kings’ Council,” he said. “However, since I am under house arrest—excuse me, house rest—after a medi-evaluation deemed me mentally unstable and thus unable to perform my duties as king, a member of the Treznor-Nirmana council will take my place. This peace and solitude is giving me plenty of time to contemplate how to best congratulate you on your ascension. Be sure, you will be hearing from me soon.”

  I could already hear it lurking in his voice: that jovial tone was just a mask for something dark and dangerous. Maybe it was because he was speaking my language, but that did make me smile.

  * * *

  When I arrived on Embra the next day, I didn’t have much time to find Heathran before the Kings’ Council began, and he unfortunately wasn’t in attendance to divert me from the tedium—or from the infuriating business on Alaxak.

  All I had were a bunch of hard-eyed kings and queens. There was Queen Shanyi Xiaolan, dressed to kill, perhaps literally, with a full cape made of feathers that looked as sharp as knives, her spiky crown supporting the nearly perfect sphere of her black hair. The Enterio “king,” which was an elected position and so barely deserving of the title, screamed new money in his garish orange ensemble. The head of Orbit—she preferred chief executive to queen—a severe woman with white hair pulled back into a tight bun, wore a suit made of rare white melori fur and studded with teal gems. Only Belarius the Elder, seated at the head of the table, wore a truly plain suit, so deep a purple it was nearly black, and a simple gold circlet on his dark brow—downright austere for this group.

  I myself wore an understated sheath made from cloth of gold, belted at the waist with silver-linked blood tears to match my crown, with a blue velvet stole over my shoulders. I had told Devrak I would pair some blue with my new crown, after all. The dress I’d chosen for Heathran, since I knew it would suit his tastes.

  Lord Khala Treznor-Nirmana was the representative in King Makar’s place, sitting to my left. Before, he’d always been a temporary stand-in for Makar when the king didn’t feel like attending social events. He wasn’t the Treznor-Nirmana heir, merely the king’s nephew. This time, Khala looked like he was making himself comfortable both in his seat at the table and in his shimmering platinum-threaded suit, subdued only by a black cravat.

  Not that recent developments meant Makar would declare him, or anyone, his heir. He had no children and hadn’t given any indication of favoring a possible successor yet, which was another great source of resentment from within the family.

  I leaned toward Khala and asked in a low murmur, “How is your poor, dear uncle, Lord Khala?”

  He gave me a small smile. His expressions were usually thin and too shiny, much like his face, but this one was genuine. The sympathetic sigh was not. “Still resting, I’m afraid. The strain of rule—it was simply too much for him.”

  Makar had made it even easier for me to take advantage of their family hostilities when he refused something so obvious as to loan me money so I could forcibly buy out Hersius Kartolus’s investment in our industries. It was obvious because the Dracortes would be so deeply indebted to their family that we would have a hard time ever being free of them.

  Makar, irritatingly, had seen the less obvious: that freedom from Hersius Kartolus was the best move I could have possibly made, whatever the cost. And he didn’t want what was best for me, even at the expense of greater leverage over us—leverage that he wisely assumed would not be permanent.

  After that, it had taken only the politest speculation about the king’s instability and questions about a curious footnote in the Treznor-Nirmana family accords regarding mental conditions impacting one’s ability to rule, before Khala had called for the medi-evaluation—administered by a very well paid professional, no doubt.

  Makar knew it had been me. But that didn’t matter. He was indefinitely indisposed.

  “And how fares the rebellion on that ice planet of yours?” Queen Shanyi spoke from across the table. Even though her voice was politely disinterested, her dark, black-lined eyes were as knifelike as the feathers of her cape. “I hear you lost a few Xiaolan starfighters. Do let us know if you need more built.”

  She knew I’d lost a lot more than that. I gave her a gracious nod, while inside I simmered.

  Belarius the Elder cleared his throat, saving us from further interaction. The council was in session, so I leaned back, settling in for a long, dry discussion of supply routes and trade arrangements. The sprawling oval table, with a surface of mirror-black when it wasn’t activated, would alight with a touch to project a holographic map of the systems in the air above it.

  I should have hoped for boredom. Instead, I was immediately bombarded with an angry list of grievances.

  “—three settlements in the Enterio system destroyed with no provocation by your drones—”

  “—planetary supply lines were disrupted because we had to avoid a cluster of them that had gathered for no apparent purpose. We expect full compensation for the delays—”

  “—and then they resumed mining in places they hadn’t touched for years. An entire city had to be evacuated—”

  “—your father never would have allowed this to happen—”

  Almost everybody spoke out against me with reservations and complaints and flagrant accusations of subterfuge, all except Khala, and likely only because I’d just done him a large favor. Queen Shanyi summed it up nicely.

  “Your drones, Queen Solara, are out of control,” she said with a cold, imperious nod. “I suggest you take care of it immediately.”

  For a moment, panic flared inside me. I wanted to break down, sob that I didn’t really know what I was doing. It was what had worked in the past when I was in a tight spot. I knew what they thought of me—what everyone thought of me. Harmless and pretty, easy to bully. I’d maintained such an image for so long, despite my decisive public response to my parents’ assassination. But if I didn’t make them respect me now, they would take liberties elsewhere. I had a fine line to walk.

  “Your Majesties,” I said, taking a long, steadying breath. “You are unfortunately incorrect that my father would never have allowed these things to happen. My investigations have led me to believe that, in his duplicity, my late brother was behind inciting the malfunction of our drone network, culminating in an attack on our very home.” It was a complete fabrication, of course, but let my formerly beloved father and brother fall a little lower—lower than dead, even—in their eyes, and make them doubt my legitimacy less. “Of course, any malfunction in the drone network is incredibly dangerous, and could lead to untold damages.” I let my eyes linger on the Enterio “king.” Your markets and safety are in my hands.

  I paused, mustering more concern into my voice. “That is why I intend to stop this. I have already dispatched aid and reparations to the settlements that have been damaged and appointed a crack team of hackers working around the clock to remove the malicious code Nevarian spread. Give me one month, and I will have the situation completely in hand.”

  One by one, they agreed to give me time. I had painted myself into a corner, but one slightly larger than they had first given me.

  Now I needed to get out of it.

  * * *

  Afterward, I let myself wander the wide halls of the Belarius palace, accompanied by only a few of my Home Guard, who hung bac
k far enough to be unobtrusive. It was wise of them. If they had come near me, I would have been tempted to snatch a decorative gold spear from where it was affixed to a marble column and run them through.

  Belarius architecture and finery had none of the embellishments that the Dracortes favored. It was as if their attire and buildings with their refined simplicity in design, coupled with the most expensive materials in the systems, didn’t deign to need such frills. If Dracorva’s cityscape brought to mind white lace fluttering in a breeze, Tenérus’s was the finest cloth of gold, but bolts and bolts of it, in blunt, towering stacks—as if to say since it was obvious they had it, they didn’t need to do anything with it.

  The truth of the matter was, the Dracorte family was nearly bankrupt, which would make dealing with those drones problematic. Unlike with the rebellion, blunt force wouldn’t help. Even if we could attack them, it’d ruin the family to do so. Our drones still mined and harvested a large share of our copious raw materials and resources. They were at times frustrating, since the technology to fully reprogram them—or to even power them off—had been lost in the Great Collapse, but until now, we’d managed. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Their programming hadn’t changed or malfunctioned in hundreds of years. Why now?

  I couldn’t do much without funds, especially from under the collective Treznor-Nirmana thumb. They themselves would probably be happy to lend me more, until I choked to death on debt. Rather, I needed someone who didn’t want to watch the Dracorte downfall with glee, someone sympathetic, and above all, generous.

  The old Hersius Kartolus, the Twelfth, would have been an ideal source of capital, independent from royal bickering. But this new Hersius, the Thirteenth, happened to be an insane young man, or even woman on occasion, or so I’d heard, who happened to be in love with Qole’s brother. Whom we’d tortured. An unfortunate piece of luck, that.