Princess of the Void

5.46. The Unfortunate Truth, pt II

Narika sits in her amber-lit cabin, her boots on the table taking up most of her frame. Dantia’s on her command deck, sitting on a throne much like Sykora’s, though without the many orthopedic cushions that the Black Pike’s monarch has added to support her growing brood. Wenzai watches warily from her desktop terminal’s camera, secreted away in her guest cabin aboard the Pike. Off-screen, Tikani’s sitting with the children, shushing them and holding them close. Corska Ondai has found some sort of closet-sized communication room separated from the Cloudsprint, barely large enough for herself and a ring-geared exo union escort. She chews intently on one of Baroness Konia’s expensive appetizers.

All these women’s faces are captured in a honeycomb of glass hexes across the central screen of the Black Pike’s bridge. At their center, larger than the rest, sits Marquess Shoskia, her smile as brittle and saccharine as sugar spun glass. She isn’t in her airy solar, not on this call—her background is a firmament yacht, its windows tinted to hide the starscape she’s within from any would-be triangulation.

“Majesty,” she says, without preamble. “My time under your rule has come to an end.”

Sykora exchanges a wry look up at Grant, who stands by her throne’s arm rest, his head out of their connection’s frame. “That’s what you think, is it?”

“It’s what I know,” Shoskia says. “It’s what I’m telling you. I am separating myself from your sector, Sykora of the Black Pike. Your foolish xenophiliac misrule I will brook no longer. I declare myself a member of Void Princess Dantia’s coterie.”

Dantia glances up from a studious examination of her nails at the sound of her name.

“Then I declare your holdings on Qarnaq seized,” Sykora says. “And your claim to Ximik dissolved. You are a traitor to the sector and a conspiracist. I have a shuttle full of evidence of your treachery.”

“Do what you will to that sad little Ximik backwater,” Shoskia says. “I have no care for it. But as far as Qarnaq... will you tell her, Narika, or shall I?”

Narika tilts her head. “How about you continue, Marquess.”

“Very well.” Shoskia’s eyes gleam with a huntress’s satisfaction. “Your sister has invested in my company. I am a representative of Narika’s interest on Qarnaq.” She lays a hand on her chest. “And as that representative, with the partnership of several exo-clan baronesses, it is my intention to bring protestation to your world, effective—”

“I’ve changed my mind,” Narika says.

Shoskia lets out an uncomprehending half-laugh. “Majesty.”

“Yes?”

“What, um. You are in jest, yes?”

“I have no interest in backing a play for Qarnaq under your leadership,” Narika says. “You have moved brashly and indelicately. The baronesses who would gladly have followed you into protestation will look at you as a wildcard. They will fear Sykora’s retribution, which you have given her ample legal clearance to inflict.”

“But Majesty. Not if you stand in my corner.”

“I am aware,” Narika says. “I choose not to.”

“You’ve seen my operation on Qarnaq. Haven’t you?”

“I have.”

“I’ve laid it at your feet.”

“I’ll let it lie,” Narika says. “It is no remarkable thing. And I suppose now is the time I ought to tell you.” She swings her boots off her table. “I do not like you, Marquess.”

“But—I—Dantia, then.” Shoskia scrambles to preserve the falling-away shards of her imperiousness. “I am to be a member of your court now, yes? If Narika lacks the horns, surely you are eager. The protestation might need a certain reorienting, but you are as august as personage as any. They’d line up behind us.”

Dantia frowns. “About that.” She’s scrutinizing a tablet handed to her by her majordomo, its edge just visible at the bottom of the frame. “This exo shipment you delivered to me.”

“That’s right. The first of many, if—”

“Have you done your due diligence on it, Marquess?”

“Of... of course.” Shoskia’s voice quavers with confused dread. “Of course we have. We run our checks tendaily.”

Dantia holds her tablet up. “Then I wonder how you didn’t catch this.”

“Catch...” Shoskia’s voice dwindles to nothing.

“It’s contaminated.” Dantia briefly types something offscreen and the readout she was examining broadcasts itself onto the command deck holoprojector. An entry is highlighted on it in angry red. Grant sees the color reflect on every conferencer’s face. “Look at these acetylene quantities your refinery’s let into the mix. If my privateers swept with this exo, their engines might blow.”

“Hellfire. These numbers.” Vicious satisfaction animates Wenzai’s eyes as they race across the readout. “This is rookie-level shit, Marquess.”

“No. No, that’s not—We run our checks tendaily. That’s not possible.” Shoskia’s rapidly scrolling through her own copy of the transmitted document. “Something must be off with, with your instruments, or with the shipment. You must send someone to Ximik refinery, Majesty. An inspector, or a—”

“I will not dispatch my inspectors into Princess Margrave Sykora’s territory without her permission, Shoskia,” Dantia says. “Something wrong with the shipment, you say? You sent the shipment.”

Grant’s eye is drawn by a tin-mic creaking sound as Corska Ondai sits back in her seat, her expression entirely blank. He recognizes the escort she’s brought into the call with her. That’s Aokan of Lilek.

“No.” Marquess Shoskia’s lip trembles. “No, Majesty, I—I have hectocycles of experience running these operations. Surely you can’t—you wouldn’t—not to him. Have you all gone mad?”

“What wouldn’t I do?” Dantia’s long braid drapes past her shoulder. She toys with it idly. “Not to who?”

“He is a fucking alien,” Shoskia snaps. “A male and an alien and a—a pleasure toy the Princess got so cock-shocked by she handed him the keys to the fucking sector, and you’re all willing to sit back while he bulldozes our Empire? While his wife slaves herself to his wze’kaenae and wheedles his freedom from the Empress? Generation upon generation of our foremothers and this stupid slut thinks he can—”

“That is enough, I think,” Sykora says. “Marquess Shoskia, by my authority and the authority of Empress Zithra XIX, you are under arrest for conspiracy, corporate malfeasance, and high treason.” She looks to the other princesses on the call. “Will anyone move to countermand me?”

A tense and leaden silence. Then Narika shakes her head. Dantia shrugs. Shoskia stares wordlessly.

Grant leans in, so that his face is visible in Sykora’s frame.

“You see it now, don’t you, Marquess?” he says quietly. “The unfortunate truth.”

A rapid alchemical reaction catalyzes on Shoskia’s face, from shock to fear to rage. “Fuck you, Maekyonite,” she says. “And fuck your authority, Princess. You are treasonous and foolish and more loyal to your catamite than to your Empress. I can only pray these misguided Void Princesses will see you for the serpent you are, before your venom reaches the Empire’s heart.”

Her image flickers and vanishes, leaving open space where it sat.

“The Marquess has disconnected the call, Majesty,” an ensign calls out from the bridge below.

“Your crew are masters of the obvious.” Dantia’s teeth gleam in her unkind smile. “This concludes our business, Black Pike.”

“Not quite,” Sykora says. “I’ll bet you a score of interceptors that Shoskia is sweeping into the Cloud Gate no-woman’s-land. It behooves us all to coordinate on our search for her. She’ll be vengeful.”

“Of that, I have no doubt,” Dantia says. “But I also have no doubt where that vengeance will be pointed. I have done what you demanded and I wash my hands of you, with relief. You can clean up your own goddamn mess. May the frontier repay you in kind for your conduct within its reaches.”

Another hex goes dark.

Sykora scoffs into the vacant place Dantia left. “Such a dramatic woman.”

Narika chuckles. “One feels sympathy for her mirror, the amount of lines she surely practices into it.”

“She kinda sounds like you two to me,” Grant says.

“That’s because you’re insufferable,” Sykora says.

Narika rests her chin on her ring-encrusted palm. “I can’t imagine a frontier force as farcically run as hers would be much help, anyway.”

“Probably not.” Sykora sighs and tents her hands on her belly. “You, however, have a level of competence, bare and baseline as it is.”

“Your courtesy is as unimpeachable as ever, sister.”

“I’ll expect you to share your sweep sensor data with me.”

“We can talk about that.” Narika rubs her chin. “And discuss what you will trade me for it.”

“You abetted this woman,” Sykora snaps. “I’ll trade you my lenience.”

“We can talk,” Narika repeats.Aokan reaches onto the tray of conference room snacks he and Corska pilfered from the racing party outside, and takes another one of those compote pastries. He has no idea what to call these things or what the currant-colored goop in their reservoir of dough is (probably currants, dimbulb). But he thinks he might have gone through a halfscore.

“I’d say that was quite productive.” Corska drums her palms on the holoprojector table. “Wouldn’t you?”

Aokan’s mouth is full. He resorts to a nod. He starts to swallow, to say something more encouraging, but then the cheapo, last-gen holoscreen table they were using chimes and lights up. They’re being hailed again.

“The hell is this?” Corska brushes her dirty-blonde bangs from her forehead and hits the connect.

Prince Grantyde peers at them. The shaky, shifting background suggests he’s using a private communicator. Aokan isn’t sure where he’s calling from.

“Majesty.” Ondai’s tail swishes, its beads clattering. “So quick to call back?”

The Prince of the sector slides his anticomps to his forehead. He leans into his communicator camera. “Was this you, Corska?” he asks, at a whisper.

“What do you mean?” Corska tilts her head gormlessly. “Was what me?”

“Shoskia is a total prick.” Grantyde’s big brown eyes narrow. “But she knows her business. She wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. I’ve been refining for less than a decacycle and I doubt I would.”

“She knows part of her business, Majesty,” Corska says. “I don’t imagine she’s set foot on the ring in hectocycles, besides the occasional handshaking tour. If her production line has errors or her compliance process has gaps, could one really be surprised?”“Representative, I swear to God. I will not be mad if it was. I’ll name a goddamn ZKP after you.”

Corska sucks in air through her teeth. “All I would say, Majesty, that this is an unfortunate consequence of a venture that uses second-rate scab labor rather than the seasoned experts provided to you and Countess Wenzai by your partnership with the Union.” She smiles. “Will there be anything else?”

The camera background jerks as Grantyde sits down and places the communicator on a surface in front of him. “I really wish I could call you a friend, Corska,” he says.

Melancholy tinges Corska’s crimson eyes. “In a better firmament, Majesty,” she says. “Not this one. Not ever. You are the roof and I am the foundation. We don’t function that way. Not if we want to keep doing our jobs the way we have to. But next time something collapses, perhaps we’ll meet in the middle.”

The Prince of the Black Pike exhales and nods in resignation. “Be well, Corska.”

“You too, Majesty.” Corska terminates the connection and stands. Her tail brushes Aokan’s. “Let’s go, soldier boy.” She puts an extra sway into her hips as she leaves the call room.

Aokan does what he does best: he follows Corska Ondai wherever she wants to take him.

She moves through the fancy Cloudsprint viewing promenade as if it they were aboard one of the barges she commands—head high, shoulders back. Even as every noblewoman’s furious face tracks her as though her boiler boots were leaving a trail of thick mud in their tracks. Whispering to one another about the scandal and the high strangeness of allowing a common unionist and her slave access to the hallowed chambers of the Peerage.

Aokan should be in terrified crisis, being around all these angry royals, stripped of his anticomps by the law that bound a shackle to his wrist. But he isn’t. Not in Corska’s shadow. He has to work to keep himself from strutting.

They return to their dingy and dented four-seat shuttle, parked near the edge of the public berths.

Aokan opens the creaking door for Corska. “Ma’am,” he says. She lays a kiss on his wrist as she climbs in. He follows, and slides into the pilot seat.

“Where to?” he asks.

“Home,” she says.

Our home. He’s been living with her. Of course he has—this is his owner.

They blast out from Qarnaq, riding out the shuttle’s ornery old gyros. The manifold lets out a loud mechanical cha-chunk sound as its artificial gravity kicks in. Corska unbuckles herself from her harness. Aokan eases his seat’s setting back as she slips into his lap.

Her light touch rests on his indenturement cuff. “You’re getting this off pretty soon, Aokan of Lilek,” she says.

He hums. “Guess so.”

“The thing is.” The moisture of her breath tingles his jaw. “I think I wanna keep you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” The thick, hard-won laborer’s muscles in her thighs squeeze his waist. “Keep you right here.”

“Maybe I’m looking to be kept,” he murmurs.

Her eyes flash. “Get this stuff off me.”

He lifts her sash over her head. His fingers are slow and sure as he unzips the front of her refinery jumpsuit. “You can flash me stupid again if you need to,” he says. “But I wanna know. Was that me? The Shoskia job?”

“You’re mine, soldier boy. You remember?” She cups his jaw. “My property.”

As he zips her jumpsuit down past her tight stomach, he pushes his hips gently into hers, lets her feel what she’s doing to him. “That’s right.”

“So my will is yours.”

“Always.”

“Always?” she purrs, as he slips her sinewy arms from her sleeves. “Even when your cuff is gone?”

“Fuck a cuff. I don’t care.” He peels the straps of her top down her shoulders. They leave pale tanlines from a dozen alien suns. “I’m yours.”

Her hand presses warm and firm around his neck. Her lips a breathy centimeter from his. “Then whatever you do is my fault, isn’t it?”

She doesn’t wait for his reply.