Princess of the Void

5.50. Perfect

One Decacycle Later

Grant mumbles and shifts as his dream flees him, leaving no memory of itself behind. What’s this weight on his chest? Who’s—

It’s Kiar. Grant Hyde has a son, and that son is lying on his chest, staring at him with wide, brown eyes.

“Ba,” Kiar says.

“Morning, bud,” Grant says, grinning the last of the sleep away.

“Baba,” Kiar observes.

Grant sits up. His son coos and clings to him like a kitten. He holds the diminutive Taiikari boy up by his armpits. Kiar’s tiny feet pedal the air. His tail wags.

Kiar’s tail wags constantly, even after he got control over it a few cycles ago. Grant and Sykora took him to the doctor, fearful about some sort of missed milestone, but the medtechs assured them that no intervention was needed. Kiar can control his tail just fine. He’s just excited all the time.

“How about dada?” Grant stands Kiar up on his socked feet, hands under his armpits. “Dada.”

A gummy smile lights up Kiar’s face. “Baba.”

“Dada.” Grant carefully removes his hands from Kiar’s sides.

For a second, his son is standing. Then Kiar lands on his butt and giggles. “Baba,” he insists.

“Dada.”

“Baga.”

“Ooh, he’s got variations.” Grant boops his nose. “Close, Kee, but no cigar.”

“That’s partway there,” Sykora says. His wife’s awake; Ziavra’s in the crook of her arm latched on and nursing. Aurora snoozes on her stomach.

He rolls over, careful not to wake Rory, and pulls Sykora into a long, slow, lazy kiss. “Morning, Batty,”

“Good morning, Boy One,” she says. Kiar reaches his tiny hands toward her, and Grant obediently plops him onto his mother. “Good morning, Boy Two.” Sykora lands a peck on the top of Kiar’s wispy head.

“Hey, I’m Boy One.” Grant sits up and stretches. “Nice.”

“The competition will grow fiercer when this princeling is potty trained,” Sykora says. “Speaking of which, I do believe it’s your turn for Rory.”

The little indicator light on the caboose of his daughter’s onesie is blinking. He plucks Rory from the bed and strolls to the changing table they’ve set up in the kitchenette.

Whatever tech they’ve got in these baby outfits to block the smell is certainly impressive, but it doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it would, changing a diaper. Rory wakes up while he’s changing her and lets out a mewling little cry. She’s their little fusspot so far.

Maybe it’s the difference in species and evolutionary instinct, but the crying of a Taiikari baby isn’t so cloying to his ears as a human baby’s. It’s more like a guinea pig’s squeak than the power drill Maekyonite sound.

“Shh. Hey now, little lady.” He tosses her old diaper into the disposal chute by the window. “Y’know, I won’t have to bug you once you learn how to do this yourself. Little motivation for you.”

He’s surprised when that works to soothe her. Her blood-red eyes open and focus on his as he cleans her off. He chuckles at her expression: solemn and serious, like she’s actually considering what he’s said. “Gweh,” she argues.

“Good point,” he says, and slips her new diaper on. “There you go. All done. Let’s go say good morning to Mom.”

They’re people already. One decacycle in, and they’re little people. Maybe it’s just his imagination, maybe he’s ascribing behavior to them that won’t bear out, and he’s just baby crazy, but it’s getting truer and truer every day.

He washes his hands and returns Rory to her mother’s lap. Sykora has put aside the nursing babies; Ziavra is already crawling around the foot of the recessed bed, peeking up over its edge. She’s their explorer.

“These little gluttons have had their turn.” Sykora opens her arms. “C’mere, lover.”

He holds her close, burying his face in her chest.

She giggles. “You notice they got bigger?”

He nods into her cleavage.

“You did that, you know,” she whispers.

He kisses one. “And now I have to share them. A solemn trade-off.”

Her laugh twinkles as he kisses her birthmark. “My husband isn’t jealous, is he?”

“So what if I am?”

“So this.” Sykora reaches over and activates the intercom. “Connect me to Chief Engineer Waian. Audio only.”

A cheerful chiming connect sound. Ziavra looks up at it with confused concern. “Y’got Waian,” the Chief Engineer announces.

“Waian, are you free?” Sykora plays with Ziavra’s teensy toes.

“Nothing I can’t pass off to an Ensign. I—hmm?” A moment of ambient chatter as the sounds of the bridge filter in. “Your Princess-in-Waiting says hi.”

“Hellooo, Vora,” Sykora sings. “How’s the Alamenko succession crisis going?”

“She wants the thing. One second.”

A shift of air, and then Viscountess Vora, the Princess-in-Waiting of the Pike, is on the line. “Majesty. We’re working toward a solution that the baronesses can be pleased with, but Countess Nazara keeps blowing things up for her faction. I can tell they’re all sick of her, but nobody’s willing to cut off her money.”

“Hey. No pulling. Hey, little tyrant. Ow.” Sykora gingerly removes a strand of her hair from Aurora, who takes the confiscation with stoic grace. “Pardon me, Vora. My daughter is showing her insufferable Maekyonite blood. So what’ll you do?”

“I suppose I need to make Nazara feel inessential, somehow. Tamp back on those outbursts.”

Sykora considers this while she plays with her daughter’s floppy ears. “Inessential can work. But don’t be afraid of unsubtlety, remember.”

“Your title’s bigger than hers,” Grant adds.

“Right,” Vora says. “I need to remind myself to be less... meek.”

“It was tough for me to get used to,” Grant says.

“I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it. Shall I hand you back to Waian?”

Sykora stands Kiar up; he falls on his butt again. This is his favorite game lately. “If you’d be so kind.”

“Of course, mother.” Vora’s smirk is audible.

“I hate when you do that,” Sykora says. “You’re grounded.”

“Who’s grounded?” Waian asks.

“The Viscountess,” Sykora says. “I can ask a caregiver, but if Vora’s got things in-hand, would you like to come take the little terrors on a strollabout?”

“Abso-fuckin’-lutely,” Waian says. “There in two.”

It’s closer to one-and-a-half; the crew of the Pike has gotten used to their chief engineer sprinting to the cabin, a sight that used to be a harbinger of some technological crisis.

With much cooing, blowing of raspberries on bellies, and oh, he’s getting so fats, Waian loads the triplets onto the hover-stroller. She pauses on the way back out and half-turns back to Grant and Sykora, who are already tightening their embrace on the newly vacant bed. “Hey Kora,” she says.

“Hmm?”

“You’ve given me some adorable fucking grandkids, you know that?”

“They will be less adorable if their first words are fuck, Chief Engineer.”

“I beg to differ,” Waian says. “That would be cute as hell.” She shuttles the lord and ladies of the Pike out, humming a song to them as she goes.

Sykora rolls onto her back. Her tail wraps around Grant’s arm and tugs him to her. “All yours, now,” she purrs.

He loves the way his wife’s body has changed, now that she’s a mother. Her breasts have shrunk back down some, from her pregnancy, but not all the way back. The warm flesh spills through his fingers, now, when he holds them. The tight, pebbling nipples blush a deeper blue.

She’s been stubborn about getting her gym hours in, was back at it in a few cycles, as soon as the medtechs were willing to clear her, but there’s still a softness to her from when she was carrying. A motherly amplitude to her hips, a little fluff still on her abdomen. The pale stretch marks on her stomach she doesn’t like; there’s some kind of enzyme that she rubs on them which is fading them quick. He enjoys them, enjoys tracing them with his fingertips, and has assured her they’re lovely. But it’s her body to do what she wants with.

And what she wanted was to give it to you. To give you a family. She let you change her. You turned this alien into a little blue MILF.

He anchors his hands on the hips that bore their children. He kisses the belly that grew them. The mouth that sings them to sleep. The breasts that nurture them.

Her mischievous whisper in his ear. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“About what?”

She laughs and imitates his gravely voice. “About what.” She squeezes the puffy roundness of her breast. “Go on, Maekyonite. You’re the one who filled them up in the first place. Aren’t you curious?”

“Are you?”

“I’m sore,” she says. “I make enough for more than three, you know. That’s a small litter. Come on.” Her hands burrow into the hair at the back of his scalp. “Come help out mama.”

He brings his lips to her nipple, kisses it, and sucks. A sharp inhalation from her; it grows firmer in his mouth. Her foot lands on his back and pulls him further into the compass of her legs. He takes his cue, opening her wider with his hands as his mouth works. A sucking pulse against his fingers, urging him deeper, throbbing and feverish.

He grunts in surprise as hot sweetness bursts across his tastebuds. He shuts his eyes and draws out more. Her rhythmic, husky gasps intensify as her nails rake across his hair. Her heart beats against his cheek. A giggle breaks through her moans. “Greedy Grantyde.”

He hums; the vibration curls her toes against his shoulder.

“Lonesome,” she whispers. “I wanna fuck.”

He releases her breast; he makes a show of wiping his mouth. She scoffs and delivers a light kick to his chest. He catches her foot and leans forward; she obediently tucks her hands under her knees and lifts her legs, her gorgeous pussy gleaming and so deeply, blushingly blue in the golden light of the Pike’s artificial dawn. His bendy little bride, free from her pregnancy, svelte and submissive and clearly impatient to be flattened into their marital bed.

“Squish me,” she says.

He obliges. She sings his name.

She squirms and play-struggles as he fucks her, coaxing his fists tighter around her arms until they’re at the bruising force she prefers. Her tail, pressing on the small of his back, sets the pace, urging him faster and faster still until his hips are clapping against hers, her newfound motherly softness more evident now in the shockwaves jiggling through her under his force.

“Wait,” she gasps. “Wait, hold on. The spot.”

He pauses, halfway out of her. “You sure?”

“Yesss.” She raises her leg past him and flips onto her stomach. She arches her butt into the air and waggles it at him. “Make your Princess scream.”

Maybe the best change of all is the spot. The little ridge inside her has become reachable. They need the right angle for him to get there. He kneads his thumbs between her shoulderblades as he adjusts himself.

“Right there—it—justalittlemore—” Sykora screws her hips further against him. He shoves the love of his life’s face into the bed. “Oh, fuck,” she whines, muffled in the sheets. He slaps her ass and tugs her hips further into the arch, until she’s on tiptoes. “Oh, fuck,” she repeats, as her thighs tremble. and her spine arches one last inch, and “OH FUCK,” she howls, as he finds it, tail thrashing. knees buckling, and he thrusts in again, deep as he can reach, and her climax rips another howl from her lungs, and he yanks her into the air, binding her to his chest as her Nura’s belt clamps on him like a vise. He lingers and slows, and holds her dangling in place, wrung out like a rag.

“Okay,” she mumbles. “Okay. Now you.”

He eases her into the bed. “Little break first, maybe?”

She shakes her head and finds the oil in its side cabinet. “I think I can do it,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to try this. And I think they’re big enough now.”

“It as in...”

“As in this, of course.” She flips the lid off the oil and slathers it across her chest. She squeezes her breasts together to demonstrate.

He laughs. “Ambitious, Majesty.”

“I am an ambitious woman.” Her eyes flash playfully. “Tittyfuck me, Grant Hyde.”

He straddles her midsection and lays his cock across her chest. She hmphs with disappointment as she tries in vain to enclose its length. They’re bigger, but she’s still half his size and a bottom-heavy little woman. They’re not quite big enough.“This big dumb Maekyonite cock,” she sighs. “Hellfire.”

“Okay but maybe if... hold on.” He takes one squishy little sphere in each hand and holds them in place on either side of his shaft. “And you put your hands here...”

She eagerly closes her palms over the top of his cock to bind it against her heartbeat. Her fingers gleam with oil. “Good?”

He experimentally pushes his hips. The head of his cock nudges into her lips. She opens up and the first inch slides into her mouth.

“That—” He grunts and a bead of precum dots the dark pillow of her lower lip. “That’s good.”

She beams and kisses the twitching head of his cock. “Told you.”

He draws back, leaving her tongue questing for him, and then pushes forward again. And again, and again, and now her tits are bouncing as he grinds against her, using them and her hands and her mouth all at once as she valiantly struggles to take all of it.

“Warn me,” she says. “Okay?”

He grunts an approximation of okay and keeps going, chasing it, trying to get himself off so he stops worrying he’s crushing his poor wife’s ribs, sturdy as she is. He sets his jaw, speeds up further, but it’s not easy when it’s just for his pleasure, he doesn’t know if—

She’s leaking. A pale rivulet of her milk shines as it runs down the puffy peak of her breast.

He cums all over her face.

Sykora squeaks in alarm and tries to redirect his cock toward her mouth as it jumps and thick ropes of cum paint her shocked face; the last boiling pulse coats her lips and pools on her tongue. She sputters and gives him an indignant little flurry of open-palm slaps on his thigh. “Vandal.”

“My—my bad,” he pants, as he eases off her. “Let me.” He finds his pyjama sleeve and dabs at her flushed cheeks.

She’s still acting mad, but she can’t help but giggle as he tries to clean his copious orgasm off her. “Is it in my hair?”

“Uh—don’t worry about it. We’ll shower.”

“Too right we will. Hellfire.” She wipes her hands on her stomach. “How such a big bully gave me three perfect children I’ll never know.”

“They are perfect,” he says, and picks her up from the silk. “Everything is fucking perfect. Life is perfect.”

“You’re perfect,” she says.

“You’re perfect.” He bridal-carries her out of the bed and toward the shower.

“You.”

“You.”

“Okay.” She kicks her legs into a slouchy cross. “Carry your perfect Princess to the shower, servant.”

“I was already doing that.”

“Faster.”

They laugh and jabber on and she feigns further outrage as the shower warms up and the steam rises. And Grant knows it’s true: everything’s perfect. And the tiny bruise on his joy, the shadow on its edge that is Maekyon, that’s not something he has to worry about. Not for a few more decacycles of contentment, anyway. And he tells himself he isn’t afraid anymore. And today he believes it.Aagi stares with bloodshot eyes at the terminal screen. He takes off his anticomps and stares some more. There’s something wrong. There has to be. He double checks. Then he triple checks. Then he spends an hour of growing panic checking again and again, finding stealthsat footage and sitting in drymouthed disbelief at what he sees.

As his shift ends he staggers from his observatory office like the living dead. Surta, the other member of the skeleton crew, strolls round the sterile station corner and nearly drops her tea. She rushes to his side. “Aagi. Gods of the fucking Firmament, brother. What’s going on?”

Aagi slumps against a wall and sits on the floor, ignoring the grit he’s getting on the seat of his technician uniform. He holds up a printout. “Here,” he says. “Right here is where they came back into realspace. We have to—we need to send a flyer. It has to be unmanned. Has to be. But it—even then I don’t know how it’s fucking possible, but it has every hallmark. It can’t be happening, but it’s happening.”

“What? What’s happening?” Surta’s trembling fingers unfold the printout. “Aagi, what is—”

She freezes. That same panicky disbelief spreads across her face.

“Get word to the station hangar,” Aagi says. “And boot up the extrasystem array. We have to tell the Pike. Surta.”

He takes her shoulder and shakes her halfway out of her fugue.

“They need to know,” he says. “Maekyon’s discovered the sweep.”