by Chris Fox
It wasn’t worthy of a name like the depths, in their eyes.
That contempt was valuable, to her mind. Necrotis flourished because no one thought spirit powerful enough to warrant their attention. They were used to dealing with binders, such as the Krox employed. Shackling another’s will horrified them, and terrified them, and made it worthy of their notice.
Animating the discarded shells of the living though? That barely warranted their attention, and they only looked at the unliving as shock troops. They had no idea how powerful, or how versatile, necrotech could be. Necrotis hadn’t enjoyed much in the last several millennia. Emotions had become muted, shriveled things. This, though, she would savor.
Inura’s death called out for vengeance, and the Maker’s Wrath was finally in a position to deliver that revenge. The Consortium had grown arrogant. They believed themselves not only superior, but utterly unassailable.
How could it be that the recent godswar hadn’t shaken their faith even slightly? They’d escaped unscathed. That was the reason. No one had made them pay for selling weapons to all sides, and for ultimately unleashing a dark goddess on the sector.
All of it had been laid at the feet of one man. A scapegoat they’d conjured named Skare, possibly the ugliest Inuran she’d seen in all her years of unlife. The Inurans had martyred one of their own, and in exchange been afforded total clemency.
Just as they’d gone unpunished for betraying the Vagrant Fleet, all those millennia ago. Necrotis closed her eyes, and suppressed the childish impulse to reach for her old name. To be the woman she’d been in life, the dutiful Outrider, and highly decorated officer on Inura’s own vessel.
No, she’d abandoned that when she’d murdered this ship, then raised its soul as a weapon capable of ending the Inurans forever. And that was only the beginning.
She offered a cruel smile to the uncaring scry-screen. She could see them, but they labored in ignorance. None of her enemies had the slightest inkling of her existence.
The sector had no idea what they were in store for. They’d spent the better part of a decade knocking each other down as hard as possible. Entire Catalysts had been devoured. Gods had appeared, and had just as predictably been killed.
Enough had survived to form a pantheon, though, and that was new and troubling enough to stir her to action. She didn’t fear any single one of these new “gods”, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t wary. She, too, possessed divinity. She was no pathetic mortal necromancer.
She was a goddess, a dark, terrible, vengeful goddess. Inura’s barren daughter.
Her smile increased when the last fly entered the web, the cruiser designated Remora gliding down into the trade moon’s artificial atmosphere. The minister of the few surviving Kemetian sheep had already arrived, and the captain of the Word of Xal was about to. That last gave her pause. This Jerek had been aboard the Flame of Knowledge, if her spies were accurate. Had he touched the Web? What had he learned there? Was he aware of her or her plans?
The Word of Xal had been engineered by Inura and Xal together, and in some ways might eclipse her own vessel. She seriously doubted they had the magic to fight a prolonged engagement, but she hadn’t survived this long without being prudent. That ship could hurt her. Perhaps destroy the Wrath itself. That made this captain dangerous.
Still, the rewards were great. If she won an engagement, then she could add the Word to her fleet. Once she finished outfitting it with necrotech there wasn’t a force in the sector who would voluntarily enter an engagement with her.
Then, in a few short years, she’d reactivate the trade moon and the rest of the ships, and retrofit them with her discoveries. She would take the sector, and if no one stopped her…the galaxy.
It had begun as a quest for vengeance, and it was that still, but she’d lived long enough to think very carefully about what came after the extermination of the Inuran Consortium.
All roads led to victory. She’d made certain of it. And when victory was certain you had plenty of time to dwell on the after.
For now she needed to act. The next few hours would secure the first phase of her plan.
Everything on that trade moon was about to die screaming.
1
The bullshit began the moment I stepped off the Remora’s landing pad, and into the Inuran welcome chamber. A high ceiling with a glass roof provided an epic view of the Vagrant Fleet, though the graffiti on the walls of the atrium’s lower level said this place wasn’t as fancy as the designers had hoped it would be.
I hadn’t wanted to come to the trade moon at all, but my mother had insisted this was where the transfer of power would take place. This was where I’d turn over the captaincy I’d worked so hard to attain.
I fully agreed with her logic, and didn’t want to run the Word of Xal myself, but it was still like a toy being taken away. Yeah, I was petulant about it. I owned it. I’d chosen to go by myself, because my crew disagreed with my choice. They wanted me to keep the captaincy.
A crowd awaited me at the bottom of the ramp, with the immaculately dressed minister at the center of her retinue. Behind and back a few paces lurked the security detail, and closer stood the various attendants jockeying for power. I recognized my mother, who wore Heka Aten armor, like mine, with the helmet retracted. No smile. Damn. She was here on business.
The minister gave me turbo lift eyes, and took no pains to hide her annoyance, which of course triggered mine. She wasn’t the one being ambushed.
“Hello, Minister,” I managed as cheerfully as three hours sleep would allow. I’d just returned from dropping off Cinaka and her surviving hatchings on the Flame, and now I badly wanted sleep. “I wasn’t expecting you or your, uh, friends until morning. You offered us a stay at that fancy hotel, remember? My crew have been tolerant, but the cracks are showing. They need rest.”
“I realize that, and I sympathize. Nevertheless, we’re getting this over with. Now.” Minister Ramachan plucked at the sleeve of her jacket, then smoothed the blouse. “This place unmakes me. The Inurans have spies everywhere. In fact, I’m shocked their personal shopping assistants haven’t glommed onto us yet. They flock like carrion cleaners. This is our last moment of privacy, Jerek, and I wanted to do this with as much dignity as possible. Please. Don’t make this difficult. You’ve already agreed.”
I licked my lips, and wished I had another hour to think, even though I knew it wouldn’t help me in the slightest. Impossible situations couldn’t be solved with more time.
“Of course, but first I want a moment alone with my mother.” I fixed my mom with my best captain’s stare, which had improved a lot after surviving both the Flame of Knowledge and the raid on Jolene’s ship. It still wasn’t easy. “We need to talk, Irala.”
That was the first time I’d ever uttered my mother’s first name when addressing her, and it hung between us.
“All right.” My mother licked her lips, and nodded at a corner of the room. She’d begun sketching brilliant grey and blue sigils even before I joined her, far more rapidly than I’d ever be able to manage, and quickly assembled a privacy ward that rippled outward to surround us both. Once it had completed she nodded at me. “Say what you need to, but please don’t try to wriggle out of this.”
“If you have a shred of respect for me you’ll treat this with the gravity it deserves.” I folded my arms to mirror her judge-y stance, and forced myself to look her in the eye. “This isn’t about me trying to hold onto power. This is about you misusing it once you have it.” My tone rose, and the words came faster. “I can’t say I’m overly found of your girlfriend, Mom. She cut and ran. Visala can be ruthless, but she wasn’t wrong about the minister. Staying could have made a difference. I saw the numbers. It was touch and go until I brought in the Confederacy. And, not to be a little brat, but it was me that brought them in. I have a vested interest in this. I don’t want to turn the ship over to you only to watch helplessly as the minister aims it at her next problem.”
My moth
er stood before the tide of my anger, an immovable, weathered rock of parental stoicism. “Are you done, or was there more?”
“There’s a lot more.” I lowered my hands, which had begun to shake. “Mom, that ship can destroy continents once fully powered. Maybe a planet. You overcame the trials right? Are we allowed to talk about them now that we’re both officers?”
Mom opened her mouth, then after a moment of frustration, closed it again. She barked a brittle laugh. “Not directly, it seems. Well I know what I saw, and I’ll assume it was the same for you. The ship made me face hard choices, and solve difficult puzzles. I’m impressed you overcame the second one. It’s been a long time since you were interested in Kem’Hedj.”
That last was more than I’d expected the geas to allow. A spell like that was woven into our very soul, and had specific dictates. I needed to better understand the limitations. I wanted to know what had been done to me, especially after spending time on the Flame. The shadows still lurked in the corners, and while there were no more of them…there were never any less, either.
“It sounds like we witnessed the same trials. I found the last the most challenging, but the first one shook me.” I shuddered as I remembered tumbling silently through the darkness with no idea if or how fast I was moving, or where I was falling to. “Mom, there is one more thing. This ship is more important than the other Great Ships. The Guardian, Kemet…you know who he was?”
She eyed me in that exasperated way she’d always had whenever something had taken me longer than it should to grasp. My mother had taught me to be a scholar, because she loved knowledge too. I wasn’t surprised she knew of him.
Mom glanced through the ward at the minister. “He was the admiral of the fleet that brought us here, and that made this the flagship. How ironic that our culture has forgotten him almost entirely. It stands to reason that the most important secrets or artifacts are likely stored on the Word. I was a relic hunter too, for a time. What are you hiding?”
“If Kemet hasn’t told you then I’m not sure I can.” I’d been about to say should. If she accepted the lie, or rejected it, I couldn’t tell.
“So there is something important linked to the ship. Maybe he’ll tell me after you promote me.” She reached up and scrubbed both hands through thick rivers of dark hair, then paused for a steep yawn. “Jerek, honey, I want to assure you. I am my own person, not a mouthpiece. Not even for her. And yes, I do love her and trust her, but if she asked me to do something against my principles I would refuse. I am not a mass murderer. I was against fleeing when the assault on the Word began, but the minister’s cabinet voted almost unanimously to go. Some of us surviving was better than none. It was the wrong call, but that’s only clear with hindsight. At the time…I made a mistake.”
That shocked me. I’d seen my mother wrong exactly twice in my life. Both had been minor mathematical errors, swiftly rectified.
“I’m the very last person in the sector who’ll judge you for that, Mom. You, ah, didn’t ask about Dad. I have news. He went out how he wanted.” I raised my hand and extended it palm outwards, and I didn’t bother to hide the tears. “Once you’re captain you can speak to Kemet about his secret. If he chooses to share it, that’s up to him.”
“I’m glad your father had a chance to find himself again. I wish I could have—you’ve studied the procedure?” My mother raised her hand, and pressed it against mine, then gave me a squeeze. The Heka Aten armor was an amazing feat of engineering, and transferred the touch perfectly.
“Of course I’ve studied it.” I tried on a tentative smile, in spite of the shards of glass in my belly that dad’s death had left. “Have you met my mother? I always read the manual first. The process is simple, and mostly verbal. We’ll need Guardian as witness, which means we’ll need our masks on.”
I wondered how far Guardian would be able to transmit if the core were fully powered? We were half a system away, but he’d reached further when I’d been on Kemet.
My helmet slithered over my face, and by the time the HUD lit and began populating with data my mom had also donned her helmet. Neither one of us liked expressing emotion, and that had been…a lot.
“Guardian,” I intoned into my comm. “This is acting Captain Jerek of the Word of Xal. I hereby invoke the right of transfer, and cede my rank and title to Irala, who stands before me.”
A surge of frigid current raced from my heart, through my arm, and into my palm. The magic burst from my hand, and had my fingers not been interlocked with my mother’s, our hands would have burst apart from the force of it.
The magic disappeared into her gauntlet, and she fell back with a gasp. Mom straightened and raised a hand, almost instantly. “I’m fine. I just need a moment.”
“I can’t believe it was that fast. I guess they designed the process for combat situations.”
Once I was certain she was okay I probed within myself. The void magic was still there. The connection to the Word was still there. I couldn’t tell what it was exactly I’d lost, though I could feel the difference, like a missing tooth.
A scarlet notification appeared on the HUD, and I willed it to the forefront. A holographic representation of the Inuran trade moon and the Word of Xal appeared in my field of view.
A third object appeared, roughly the same size as the Word, and much smaller than the trade moon. Another Great Ship?
“What am I looking at, Guardian?”
“I believe,” Guardian began as a holographic dragon hatchling appeared beneath the ships, “that we are looking at the Inura’s Grace. I do not know who flies her, or what their intentions, but they approach swiftly.”
2
If you guessed that I had absolutely no time to process an approaching Great Ship, you’d be right. My mother immediately dropped the ward, and rushed over to the minister’s side, her helmet still up.
“Minister, you’re aware of the approaching threat?” She glanced up and over her shoulder, and when I followed that gaze I saw it land on the holographic ships. Guess our HUDs were linked.
“Is it done?” The minister’s eyes tightened as she faced my mother. “Are you in control of that ship?”
“I am.” My mother placed a hand on the minister’s shoulder. “Div, we need to go. Now.”
“You’re not making sense. Explain.” The minister raised a hand and patted her bun as if inspecting for loose hairs.
“There is an approaching Great Ship, and we have no idea of its intent.” My mother nodded up the corridor, presumably the way from which they’d come. “We can be back to our ship in five minutes. We have control over the Word. We can’t jeopardize that. A ship needs a captain, especially if there’s the possibility of battle.”
The minister nodded, but took a step backward and massaged her temples. “I’m thinking. Just give me a moment.” She was silent for a good thirty seconds, then opened her eyes and rammed some steel into her posture. “Irala, you are to take the Spear of Seket back to the Word. Get on top of the situation, and keep me updated. We cannot afford to flee, however, until we know that ship is a threat. If we can’t ink a deal today we may not get another chance, and our survival hangs in the balance. We don’t just need their cooperation. We need the supplies they can sell us.”
“I understand.” My mother embraced the minister, which earned some shocked gasps from attendants. “Be careful.” Then she turned to me. “Jerek, I need your help. If she’s staying she needs protection. Can you take your crew and get her to her meeting, then bring her straight back to the Word the moment it’s over?”
“I’ll get it done, Captain.” And I meant it. “Minister, I need ten minutes to assemble my crew and get geared up.”
“You don’t have it.” The minister turned and began walking back the way she’d come, her entire retinue in tow. She paused a dozen steps in, and faced me. “I’ll have the coordinates of the meeting sent, and let the Inurans know to expect you. The meeting will be brief, and I will use your ship to return to the
Spear of Seket. Please keep your engines hot, if that applies to spelldrives.”
Then she was off again, and I didn’t try to follow. I needed to get my people up, and fast. This wasn’t the kind of mission we were trained or equipped for, but I had been asked to do more with less. My mom needed this done, and whether I liked the minister or not she wasn’t just an important part of our government. She was extended family.
I darted back up the ramp and into the Remora’s aft cargo hold. Briff and Rava were both awake, and both drinking, while playing an entirely too loud game of Arena. It wasn’t nearly as bad as when Cinaka and her hatchlings were aboard, but it still made thinking difficult.
I didn’t want to draft either into service. They could stay here with the ship. So who did I take? Kurz was the most respectable, but he was badly shaken by his time aboard the Flame, even more than I had been. He needed time to process and decompress.
That left Vee and Seket. I should leave Seket here as he was our only qualified pilot, but if I needed to safeguard the minister then I needed our best fighter with me.
I trotted to the mess, and as expected found Vee busily scanning a tablet as she worked on a holo of a grenade. It took everything to suppress the sudden urge to pepper her with questions about what she was designing, but seconds counted.
“Hey, we’ve got trouble,” I called, loudly enough to get her attention. Vee glanced up with a smile, but it faded when she caught my expression. “The minister needs us to escort her back from a meeting, and we need to get there now. I figured you’d be able to counter any BS their artificers try. Can you be ready in two?”
“Who else is coming?” She rose with a stretch and a cavernous yawn. “And what aren’t you telling me?”
I’d hoped to avoid this part until we were underway, but I knew she wouldn’t budge without at least a little more info. “The Inura’s Grace is on approach. I don’t know what your connection to that ship is, but you might want to think about sharing. I’d love to know who’s flying her, and whether or not I can expect an attack. We’re going to have to discuss it on the run, though. I need to find Seket.”
