by K. Gorman
“Then I’ll make the bullet go into the Shadow world and it will just destroy this Shadow ship a little bit more.” She glanced back at the now-broken exit door. “I don’t think we’re getting our deposit back on it, anyway.”
Soo-jin blinked. “You just don’t get afraid anymore, do you?”
“Nope.” She glanced around. “Ready for the switch?”
She didn’t need skin on skin contact for the dimensional shift anymore. Tia had shown her that.
Soo-jin gave her a nod. “Ready. Don’t let them kill me.”
“Noted.” Karin focused inward and pulled on the dimensional boundaries. The world swirled around her, light and shadow ebbing together. The energy of the two worlds whispered over her skin.
Then, the atmosphere shifted, the light brightened, and they were back.
And the cyborg who was standing next to her in the narrow corridor gave a jump of surprise and lashed out.
She caught his arm in a blur of motion, directed it into the wall next to her head, and stepped in.
Half a second later, she had him slammed into the instrument panel opposite with his elbow locked between them and her arm to his throat.
To her left, the woman in the pilot’s chair made a little squeak of surprise and a word in Centauri that might have been a swear.
“Do you speak System?” she asked the cyborg.
“Yes,” he said quickly, sputtering the words. “I’m sorry, Regent.”
Regent. He’d called her Regent.
Well, that answers that question. I am the new Grand Regent.
His gaze, a mix of panic and slowly dawning horror, dropped from hers. He relaxed beneath her hold.
She waited a beat, then let him go. There were another two in the small ship, the woman in the pilot’s chair and a smaller cyborg near the exit.
The ramp, she was relieved to see, was closed.
The cyborg she’d fought backed away with a bow of his head.
“I need to speak to Tillerman,” she told them. “Get her for me. Quietly.”
Chapter Thirteen
“I was wondering when you would show up.”
In the small confines of the ship, Sarah Tillerman’s bulkier cybernetic frame seemed even more so. At around six-foot-two by Karin’s guess, she dwarfed the narrow corridor, an image of carefully moving power from the metal on her shoulder, her prosthetic hand and arm, and the strong, mechanical struts that made up her legs.
Whenever she moved, a subtle noise of hydraulics and mechanization followed.
We definitely need to get these guys examining your brain, she thought to Tia. They clearly know what they’re doing.
Gods, she couldn’t believe she was really thinking this. Being Grand Regent still felt unreal. As if she was going to suddenly awaken and realize it had all been a dream.
She was waiting for the floor to fall out from her.
Let’s hear them out first. I’m picky about who gets to look at my parts. I don’t have many of them left, you know.
She hadn’t asked what had happened to Tia’s body when the Corringhams had transplanted her brain and brain stem into a tank isolate. She wanted to think that they either had it on ice somewhere, or that they had given it a proper burial.
However, considering they’d left Tia herself conscious and sentient in a tank, and then abandoned her…
It was more likely that they’d thrown it out. Like trash.
The mood in the shuttle was tense and still, with every Centauri’s attention on her. Soo-jin still sat in the co-pilot’s seat, but she hadn’t sprawled or scrunched like she normally did, instead keeping an air of professional efficiency, exchanging the occasional look between her and the pilot on the other side.
Gods, I really am Grand Regent.
Through the forward windows, a couple of Alliance soldiers were working on something at the supply tent directly opposite.
She eyed them. “That’s not shaded, is it?”
Though she hadn’t detected any of the window’s obfuscating techniques while she’d waited, the Centauri likely had a different method than the tech she was used to.
“Mirrored,” Tillerman corrected. “And no, it isn’t.”
“Right. I’m taking us over to the Shadow world for privacy. If you see a Shadow, don’t attack it.” She glanced over. “Soo-jin, you good here?”
“I’m excellent. I’m sure these lovely people have shitloads to ask me about you.”
“Good. We might as well get this started.” She met Tillerman’s eyes and touched her power. “Switching…now.”
The world twisted, the ship immediately going dark. A second later, the Shadow world’s cool air touched her skin, replacing the warmth of the other world.
Tillerman glanced around, taking in the change in scenery with an elevated interest. “Huh. So this is where you go to.”
“Yes. It’s where the Shadows originate, I think.”
“How convenient. And you got this through genetic engineering?” Her wandering gaze found the door they’d broken, and her eyebrows lifted. “I see you redecorated.”
“Changes here don’t manifest in the other world,” she explained. “Now tell me, how in the ten fucking hells did I end up as your Grand Regent? Did you guys just vote me in?”
“You killed our last Grand,” Tillerman said, her tone flat. “You filled the job automatically.”
Her jaw slackened.
Really? That’s how she’d gotten the title?
She’d thought that sort of thing was limited to wrestling and MMA matches.
“That’s a pretty shitty system.”
“Only for those who lack an understanding of our culture and way of life.” Tillerman’s lip curled back from her teeth. “For us, it works.”
“Sol’s burned child, save me,” Karin muttered, then drew a heavy breath. “Whatever. I don’t care, let’s not argue politics. We all have bigger problems. I assume that Alpha Centauri is under attack by the Shadows. How have you dealt with that?”
“Awfully, but better than you guys in the initial wave. Percentage reports suggest a current rate of Shadow infection of 53.6%. However, roughly two thirds of the system collapsed into infighting. Otherwise, we would have more than two nations making the venture into Sol.”
“Yes, it’s you and Finlai Center Core, correct?”
“Yes, correct.” Tillerman’s lip curled. “Our Center Council, which is the closest we get to a unified Centauri governing body, thought the Shadows were ghosts. Please, tell me they aren’t ghosts.”
A few Shadows had come into sight beyond the door, their forms shifting and undulating. They stood quietly, unobtrusive, but Karin felt their presence like an itch at the back of her shoulders.
More wandered into view through the shuttle’s forward windows, occupying the place where the two Alliance soldiers had been.
“They aren’t ghosts,” she confirmed. “They’re pan-dimensional entities with a connection to the human psyche.”
“Oh,” Tillerman said, her tone flat with incredulity. “Is that all?”
“No.”
Karin closed her eyes and let out a breath.
Gods, I’m the new Grand Regent. I have an army.
More than an army. From what she’d seen, she had one of the most powerful fleets in this sector of the universe, except for the other Centauri nation currently in orbit. Although Fallon had been able to stand against them, the Centauri clearly had access to major firepower, and neither Fallon nor the Alliance had brought much of their fleets across the gate.
Sol, if she was Grand Regent, why hadn’t Fallon used that? And why hadn’t Fallon told her about it? Instead of dumping the entire Menassi Tri-Quad fleet in a nearby field, why hadn’t they mobilized them to help track Sasha? Centauri clearly had the gear for it―just one look at their ships made that obvious―and surely, they could have come up with some sort of system of checks and balances to protect against any…problems.
Then again, why
didn’t they let her explore her new powers?
Fuck. I can’t believe this actually happened.
It didn’t feel real.
But it was. She’d seen it in that cyborg’s eyes when she’d shoved him into the wall, and again in the pilot.
And in the woman before her now.
Fuck. I can order them to do whatever I want. I can order them to find Sasha.
After a moment, Tillerman walked the few steps to the door, her head tilting up to take in the cloudy black mass that was the sky in this world.
“There aren’t any stars. Is this a planet? Is there a universe beyond that, or is this an isolate?”
“I don’t have a clue. Fallon won’t conduct tests.” Her mouth twitched. “I suppose you guys would conduct tests if I wanted you to.”
Tillerman snorted. “We are Centauri, and you are our Grand Regent. We’ll do basically anything you tell us to do.”
“‘Basically anything’?” she questioned, a smile touching her lips. “So there are things that are off-limits?”
“Yes. Very specific things. You will get a list from the Center Council.”
She let out a breath.
I could send them after Sasha.
She buried the thought. She had other things to ask about. She needed to know how this worked.
“If the Center Council allows slavery, I’m not sure they’ll forbid much I disagree with.” She shook her head, disgust twisting her lips. The former Grand Regent, Azrikam Devnath Leisler, had planned to put a ‘slave tag’ in her frontal cortex and have her as a ‘living doll’ by his side. “How many slaves do we have?”
“Three,” Tillerman answered. “All former criminals with behavioral deficits.” Her mouth twitched. “One of your best navigators is a slave.”
She ground her teeth.
Yeah, that will have to change.
“They were looking for you, back in the compound,” Tillerman said. “Wondering where you’d gone.”
Karin ground her teeth. She’d only been gone for thirty minutes―and half of that had been spent in the other world, waiting for Tillerman. She hadn’t received any messages on her netlink. Nothing major, anyway.
Which meant that Fallon had known she and Soo-jin had gone into the Shadow world.
And if this reaction doesn’t just tip those warnings bells…
You already knew they’d been watching you, Tia reminded her.
Yes, but I didn’t think it was this closely. Aren’t I allowed to have breaks? Turn my phone off? They didn’t even try to contact me.
She sighed.
“I’m not sure I trust them anymore. They were supposed to be helping solve this Shadow attack problem, but lately, their actions have been counter-intuitive to that goal.” She scrunched her nose and squinted up at Tillerman. “How much do you know about me?
“Not much. That you’re a person with special powers, and very dangerous. That you’re trying to oppose someone who is trying to replace the universe.” Her head ticked up. “You said that was true. Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Please, tell me about this woman who wants to take over the universe,” Tillerman said. “I’ve heard so awfully little about her.”
“It’s…complicated. The CheatNotes are that she and I were both genetically engineered from embryonic conception using a blueprint based on models of different mythological deities―and yes, I know how fucking weird that sounds. It was some fucked up psychology and genetic engineering experiment. Anyway, my sister and I murdered our way out to freedom and a normal, non-mutated life, but this person―Dr. Evangeline Sasha―was modeled after Program Chaos, a creation entity, and, somewhere along the way, she decided that she needed to make a whole new world to protect her son.”
Actually, Sasha was apparently planning to make the whole new world out of her son. Karin had long ago stopped asking questions.
Tillerman’s eyebrows had slowly risen.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
Karin shrugged. “Like I said, it’s fucked. But there it is.”
“Yes. There it is,” Tillerman echoed.
“Eos.”
They both flinched as the thought-voice touched their mind. A cold, creeping sensation slid under Karin’s skin, like a clammy hand touching her spine.
Outside, the Shadow watched from the ground, its stare fixated on her.
She recognized it. The one that had been following her in the Macedonian complex.
Gods, they were still calling her Eos.
She let out a breath and rubbed the bridge of her nose again. “Ignore that. I have no idea what that’s about, but they haven’t been attacking me for a while.”
“Uh huh,” Tillerman said. “So, about this Dr. Sasha who wants to take over the universe―you can stop her?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s why I went into that tank in the lab downstairs. I have now been genetically engineered enough to oppose her powers. The problem is that I need to find her to kill her. I also have to find the two scientists that created this mess in the first place. They’re on my murder list, too.”
In her head, Tia beamed at her. Thank you for thinking of me and making our vengeance your priority.
Tia, I’ll always have time for murder.
“I see,” Tillerman said.
“Dr. Sasha’s son, Tylanus, showed up yesterday,” she said. “Fallon has decided to keep him sedated. Apparently, they’ve got a team of experts coming out from Nova.”
“Does he have powers, too?” Tillerman asked.
“Yes. Though his mother is the one built to recreate the Grecian deity Chaos, she built him to recreate Tartarus. Similar to Chaos, it is both a person and a place. The hell where they sent the mythological Titans to live out the rest of their immortality in prison.”
Tillerman was silent. In the thin light of the ship’s running bulbs, her stare was flat.
“Yes. It’s a lot.” Karin crossed her arms over her chest. “So, how many people do I now have under my command? One thousand? Three? And how good are they at finding people?”
“Eight hundred and thirty-three thousand enlisted troops, with two hundred warships and two cryo storage supply vessels. We brought twenty carrier warships and three hundred thousand troops into Sol. The rest are guarding our home against attack. You have an excelled position in the Prime.”
Karin’s jaw slackened.
Holy shit.
You became an empress. Congratulations.
Congratulations, indeed. Suns. She still couldn’t believe this was actually real.
Yes. Too bad I don’t want it, she thought back. I have Sasha to deal with.
They could help with that, Tia thought. Especially if Fallon is railroading us for whatever reason.
We need to find out what the hell is up with them. I don’t get it―they used to be so good.
Your goals aligned then, Tia thought, echoing an earlier argument. Something must have changed. Centauri could be useful.
“Huh.” Within seconds, her mind recovered from the shock and went spiraling, churning over tens of new logical paths with the new information. “And how many of them want to kill me?”
“Oh, several hundred, but I doubt more than a few will actually go for it,” Tillerman said. “Despite what you may think, the higher positions in Centauri society aren’t always highly coveted.”
“Plus, I can literally slice people in half,” she said. “What about revenge-killing? I killed…quite a lot of your troops.”
“There will likely be a few of those. But, as you said, you can literally slice people in half. That has a way of persuading people to give it up.”
“Do you want to kill me? You’re second-in-command, after all.”
Tillerman smiled.
“What, for the Grand Regent seat? No, that is not my ambition. And, as you said, you can literally slice people in half.” She shook her head. “No, I think I’ll keep my retirement coming. Only another five or ten y
ears, depending. I have a nice little apartment lined up on Jezebel. I’d hate to squander that.”
Karin frowned. “Grand Regents don’t get to retire?”
“No. The Grand Regent seat is for life.”
“What if the Grand Regent gets old and infirm, or suffers a giant brain injury and becomes comatose?”
“Then someone challenges them to ritual combat and we get a new Grand Regent.”
Huh. Okay. She was starting to see how that system worked. A part of her was even getting excited about it―little flutters of giddiness brushing at the inside of her chest. If it were true, the whole Centauri governance system was absolutely, blindingly stupid and just asking for dictatorships and psychopaths at the helm, but there did at least seem to be more nuance to it. And maybe there were more cultural rules that made it work better.
Otherwise, it had just been asking for someone like her to come along and mess things up.
Gods, I can’t believe I’m actually Grand Regent.
It felt like she was in a dream. A weird, hollow dream that she was too numb to wake up from.
“So,” Tillerman said, bringing up her hands and counting on her fingers. “You need to find Dr. Sasha-the-Chaos-Goddess and end her dream of universe take-over, probably by killing her, and you need to find the two scientists that made you and kill them. Do I have that right?”
“Yes.”
“And what about the crazy doctor’s son, who Fallon now has imprisoned and sedated? Do you still trust them with him?”
“Yes. They have a good humanitarian record and, from a logical standpoint, I can understand why they are keeping him sedated―he is dangerous.”
“So are you,” Tillerman said.
“Yes. So am I.” She let out a sigh and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know. I feel like I’m missing something. I think Fallon has been stalling me, but they wouldn’t do so without a reason. I need to find out what that reason is.”
“You’re their enemy’s leader,” Tillerman said. “I’m sure that has something to do with that.”
“In which case, they fucked that up. I had no idea I was the new Grand Regent. They didn’t tell me.”
That, in itself, is telling, Tia said.
“That’s an act of war, in some places,” Tillerman commented, echoing the sentiment.
