by AJ Super
Cold crept through Nyx. Erebus alone could do the same to the Thanatos, to any ship she spread her consciousness to. She glanced around at the wide-eyed crew, staring at the exchange between Erebus and Kai. The crew wouldn’t be safe with Erebus on board, let alone Nyx, if they knew what she could do with the green light.
“Do you understand that there were innocent people on that ship?” Kai roared.
“They were going to kill this ship. I am this ship. I am its crew.” Erebus blinked. “I cannot allow this.” She tipped her head confused. “All I did was let them die. I didn’t actually kill them.”
Kai closed his mouth, his lips drawing into a thin line. “You didn’t kill them? You vented the atmo. Of course you killed them.”
Erebus glanced at Nyx, and Nyx’s eyes went wide. Erebus nodded imperceptibly and turned back to Kai. “If you need someone to blame, I am fine.”
Nyx walked down to Erebus and put an arm around her shoulder. “I think what Kai is angry about is that some of those people didn’t have anything to do with attacking our ship. Some of those people just cooked and cleaned. Some of them were slaves. Slaves to the economy, slaves to the monarchy, indentured, indebted, all enslaved somehow. But they had no choice other than to be on a ship like that.”
Erebus nodded.
“It’s not like this ship. These people, this crew. They have a choice. They can be here if they choose. Leave if they choose,” Nyx lectured.
Kai’s fists clenched.
Nyx walked Erebus up the stairs to the second level of the command deck.
Kai was getting ready for a fight. Against an android—an incredibly powerful AI. He would lose.
“You can’t kill indiscriminately.”
Erebus lowered her head and looked at Nyx. “Do you think I should have saved some of the crew?”
Nyx whispered to Erebus, “I don’t know what I did. I didn’t mean to hurt all those people. I didn’t really want them all to die. But no one can know. Kai will hate me.” Tears gathered in her eyes, and Erebus took Nyx’s face in her hands.
“You are family. You are safe.”
Kai cleared his throat. “I think you are an immensely powerful AI, Erebus, and you can do anything you want. How about this?” Kai put a hand out. “On the bridge, I’ll give orders so there’s no confusion about what you need to do to help.”
Erebus raised her head. “But I can see everything. I can do everything. I have full control of the Thanatos. And I have full control of Battle Station Kokou Five Seven Nine.”
“That doesn’t mean you can kill whoever you want to,” Emlyn blurted, then covered her face.
Kai sighed and held up a hand to the crew. “I know you can, Erebus.” He looked around at the crew. “But we’re a family. A team. We work together. With one leader. That’s how this family does things. If you want to be a part of that, you have to do it this way.”
Erebus’ eyes widened. “A family? You want me to be a part of your family?”
“You are this ship. You should have that chance.” Kai smiled.
The corners of the android’s mouth turned up, a small, shy smile. “I would like that.”
Nyx trembled quietly. So many were dead, and Kai was taking it in stride, as if this power were his to wield. She couldn’t understand what he was doing. Erebus was dangerous. And so was she.
Erebus glanced at Nyx and grinned wider.
Kai grimaced slightly as he turned to the horrific scene on the view-screen. “Okay. First thing’s first. Since you have control of the Kokou’s systems, release the grapnel-beam.”
Erebus ducked her head. “I’ve already done that. And applied reverse thrusters so that we are at a hard stop while adjusting the gravitational generators.” She quickly apologized. “If I hadn’t, we would have run into the Battle Station.”
Kai shoved his hands in his pockets and laughed. “All right. I’ll work on giving you orders in a timelier fashion. So, we don’t, you know, die.”
Erebus straightened, smiling. “I will never let that happen.”
Nyx gripped her console. The words strung across the bridge, a red string of certainty fluttering where each of the crew could grab it and tie it to a finger as a promise. The rest of the people on the deck shifted. Whether or not they meant to, they took that promise to heart. As Kai accepted Erebus, the crew would slowly do the same, especially since it meant they would have such great power at their fingertips. The strong rose to the top on the Medusa, and most of these people still held that belief, even though this wasn’t the Medusa. It would take a long time to change that mentality.
“What would you like me to do with the Battle Station Kokou Five Seven Nine?” Erebus chirped, breaking the thick silence.
“When you say you control it?” Kai turned to the grotesque scene on the screen. “Sarama, would you mind changing the view? We don’t need to continue looking at…” he shot over his shoulder to the FCO.
Nyx swallowed. Yes. Change the view-screen, so they didn’t have to keep looking at her carnage.
FCO Sarama poked at her console, and the Battle Station resolved on the screen, closer and still lit like a city, but quieter.
Erebus walked to the screen and reached up. “I walked the wave-channel the Commandant Gray used to contact Thanatos. I spread my wings and flew through tempests of code to a world of somber logic and demarcated landscapes. I propagated. I proliferated. I spread. I am growing into the boundaries of the ship’s systems. Kokou is me. I am Kokou.” She pivoted and smiled at Nyx. “You walked them with me. On my code. My life-energy. You’re starting to see.”
Nyx paled. Erebus’ programmed consciousness could inhabit and control anything. She was a virus. If they sent the Kokou back to the Monarchy, then Erebus would have access to the entire Naval fleet. She would inhabit the universe.
“What happens if you expand?” Nyx whispered. If she expanded, did that mean that Nyx could be everywhere too?
“I expand. That is all. I am everywhere.” Erebus turned to Nyx.
Nyx’s heart beat hard. An AI with the power to shut down the universe was a disaster waiting to happen. There had to be a safeguard. There had to be a way to control Erebus. There had to be a way to control her own strange growing power. Then she remembered something Erebus said about her consciousness being bound. “Do you have a central consciousness? Or are you everywhere?”
“I am here.” Erebus tipped her head. “Is that not good enough? I can make a copy, if necessary, but it won’t be a fully conscious being. Copies lack the necessary parts to think.”
“No. No. No,” Nyx stopped her. “You’re fine here. We want you here.”
Kai frowned. He looked at Sarama and shrugged. “Cut the red alert. You have command. I’m taking these two to their quarters.”
Nyx looked down at her blue medical gown and red-striped underwear. Nothing like a narrow escape in her skivvies. She stifled a yawn. She could look more dignified. Her muscles ached, and her skin itched. Rest and rec time were definitely in order. She ran her fingers lightly through her long hair and flinched, gingerly pulling her fingers out of the strands, away from the pain of the scabs and bruising on her scalp.
She turned, walked to the door and placed her palm on the pad. Kai walked up behind her, placing a hand gently on her shoulder. Her heart thumped, his breath hot on her neck as he leaned towards her.
“We’ll show Erebus to her quarters first,” he whispered. “We need to talk.”
12
Kai threw himself onto Nyx’s bed, sliding across a furry, oyster-colored blanket. He pulled off his black shirt, undid his canvas pants, and kicked off his boots.
The wires and synth skin from Sia’s repairs still littered a tray on the edge of the rich brown quilt folded at the end of the bed. It rattled softly as Kai jostled the mattress, making himself comfortable against the textured blankets and faux-fur cushions, courtesy of the previous occupant.
Nyx rolled her eyes and grabbed the tray of wires and burned
bits, placing it on the small table at the end of the bed. Of course, Kai would slide into his old habits. He relaxed on the bed, but his face was tense. “We should talk about Erebus.”
Nyx walked to the sink in the bathroom cubicle and splashed her face, not hazarding a glance in the mirror. She could feel the tight scabs and the itch of healing skin as the nano-medics sped the healing process along, but her hair was a lost cause because of the swelling in the black. Half of it had fallen out already, and she didn’t have high hopes for keeping the rest.
She leaned against the sink. Tilting her head back, she stared at the tan-paneled ceiling. He was right; they needed to talk about Erebus. But really, what he wanted to talk about was her. He just didn’t know it, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to let him in on her and Erebus’ secret. That together, they had killed the Kokou. It may have been an accident. A result of wishful thinking while she was doing something with powers she didn’t understand and couldn’t control, but she had still vented the Battle Station, and Erebus had refused to save anyone left once she had done it.
Nyx pulled off the medical gown and her thin white tank then walked to her small shower cubby. She stepped out of her underwear and turned on the recycled-water shower. Her shower water ration should last for eight minutes since she was out for four days. She stepped into the warm deluge, letting the water run over her face and down the back of her hair.
She grabbed the soap and scrubbed her itching skin quickly, but gently. The bruises twinged, the sores throbbed, but she would be fine in a couple days. She ran the soap through her hair to wash her scalp. No use scrubbing her hair. It would be gone shortly.
A small beep warned of the shower-ration shut-off. She stood in the warm water a few moments longer, letting the soap rinse down the drain. Fresh water was always at a premium on the ship, and even though fresh water stores could be refilled at water-trading planets like Oglae, it was pricey. Not that the recycling system didn’t recycle the water clean enough to drink. There was just something about recycled water that wasn’t bright and alive. Recycled water had a slime to it, smelled musty, and tasted flat. Fresh water was reserved for rations and cooking and ran out quickly.
The water shut off.
Nyx snagged a towel from a hook near the shower, above a tiny metal toilet, and dried the drips from her thinned hair. Then she walked out of the bathroom cubicle to a tall narrow metal locker by the bed. She pulled out another thin white tank and a clean pair of cotton underwear with little blue flowers.
Kai smiled. “Is that all you’re going to wear today?”
“Rec time. Rest time. And the Medusa had no dress code. I’m assuming you’ll do the same here.” Nyx twisted her tresses into a tail and gripped it with one hand. She reached into the locker and pulled out a knife. “Got scissors?”
Kai frowned and shook his head.
She sawed at the tail in her hand.
He sat up. “Wait. What are you doing?”
The hair fell away into Nyx’s hand. She glowered at Kai. “You seem pretty concerned about me now. Where was this attitude on the command deck?”
Kai licked his lips. “You know that I can only show so much concern for you. I can’t play favorites with my crew. Besides, I was plenty worried about you and Erebus. I don’t know what she can do, and this talk of you being like her…”
“I’m not like her,” Nyx snapped.
“I know that. She’s definitely AI. But what is her purpose? Is it to spread? To dominate humanity? Control us?” Kai rubbed his face. “What if her consciousness gets into all the systems, everywhere? Erebus could control—well, everything. We could run the risk of there being no such thing as freedom of choice anymore. Only what Erebus chooses.”
Nyx nodded. If Erebus chose, she could take over the Thanatos and float the entire crew. She could turn on them if she wanted. If Nyx chose, she could certainly do the same thing. She turned her hands over and studied her palms. The white light that had emitted from them wasn’t there. Now. But if she tried…
A wisp of white light suddenly burned in her palm. She smudged it away with her thumb. It didn’t really feel right, blaming this all on Erebus. She seemed more innocent than that. More keen on protecting a family. Being a part of something bigger than herself. “I don’t think that’s who she is. I think she learns from who she is with, who her friends are.”
“We don’t know that.”
She pushed a button on the wall next to the locker and a disposal opened next to the locker door. She scattered the hair in her hand into the receptacle, and it slid shut.
“You’re going to hack your hair off? Just like that.”
Nyx nodded. “I know what I look like. I’m a mess. It’s going to take forever to grow back. Might as well make it easier.”
He shrugged. “Whatever makes you feel better…” He stood and put his hands over Nyx’s shoulders. He leaned into her ear, the brush of his lips tingling. “Hair doesn’t matter.”
Nyx dropped her arms as Kai’s lips grazed her neck. Heat rose from her inner thighs to her stomach, and she shivered with desire. She wanted him to hold her, let her cry on his shoulder. So much had happened. He could comfort the loss of her father. If she told him what she had done, maybe he wouldn’t look at her like a monster. Maybe he would tell her it was all going to be okay. “Let me finish,” she muttered.
“Oh, you’ll finish,” he teased into the nook of her shoulder.
She turned to face Kai. His hands rose to her face. He pushed back the shortened strands of her hair. “Let me do it for you.” His hand trailed down her cheek to her clavicle. He pushed back another strand of dark hair. “Where’s your razor?”
Nyx searched Kai’s rich umber eyes. “In the shower cube.”
Kai pivoted and disappeared into the tiny room. He emerged holding an old-fashioned safety razor stiffly, as if it was contaminated. “You use this?”
Nyx smiled. “Rarely. It doesn’t bite.”
“Give me my laser-edge any day. This looks deadly.”
“You need a little water. Get that cup by the sink in the shower cube. Or do you want me to do it?”
Kai disappeared back into the cubicle and reemerged with the necessary supplies.
He smoothed his thumb over Nyx’s cheek, a touch so gentle her bruises only whispered their discontent. She shivered and leaned into his hand, a fire warming her belly. His touch ignited a deep yearning to be held tight. He ran his thumb over her lips, down her throat. His lips floated across her face. “It’ll be okay,” he muttered against her forehead as he kissed her softly.
Her eyes warmed and tears cracked on the edges. Her lips parted. She wanted to thank him for knowing what to say. To tell him what was wrong. But all that came out was a long sigh.
He turned her back to him and smoothed her damp hair. He swished the razor in the water and brushed it across her crown. Nyx’s hair fell away in small chunks. Her skin tingled, goose-flesh raising with each pass of the razor across her damp head, Kai’s confidence growing. Her bruises a harmony of pain with every fiery touch. She gripped his arm, fingers digging, gasping. He glided the razor past her temples and around her ears, exhaling the hair away. He leaned in and whispered on the edge of her earlobe, lips grazing.
She sighed softly, the warmth of his hand on one sore shoulder, cold razor sweeping across her head. A tuft drifted down into her eyes. Kai plucked the damp hair away, razor sinking into the cup of water.
Nyx craned her head, arching her spine and settled into Kai’s chest. It didn’t matter how her bruises sang out, she craved his touch. He was the last of her family. Even if she didn’t tell him… couldn’t tell him that she killed the Kokou, his presence was a reassurance. She wasn’t alone.
He leaned his face to hers, lips close. He ran his hand across her collar bones, pressing her back into his hot, bare chest.
Nyx rolled her head across him, eyes closed. He wrapped her with his arm. A soft moan escaped her lips as a tear trailed down her che
ek.
Kai leaned over her and set the razor in the locker. He spun her to face him and pulled her close. “Do you want to look?” he whispered.
Razored hairs fell down her back.
“You have hair all over your shirt now.” He smiled and raised an eyebrow.
She held her arms up, and he slid the thin tank top over her head. She pressed against him and wrapped her arms around his neck, heart beating wildly. He brushed her back and neck off with the top.
Kai leaned down and kissed behind her ear, trailing his lips down her throat. He circled his hands around her waist, lifting her to the bed.
Nyx’s body vibrated.
He hovered over her, elegant muscles coiling as he stared. He ran a hand over her shaved head and brushed the tear stain from her cheek.
Nyx stretched, fire burning in her thighs. “What? What is it?” she rasped.
“You’re not allowed to die,” Kai whispered. “I can’t… I couldn’t…”
Nyx touched his lips.
He grabbed her hands. “Je t’aime. Je t’aime beaucoup.” Kai bowed his head to Nyx’s, parting her lips. He kissed her, softly at first, then with a growing intensity, making her burn. She gripped his shoulders and pulled him closer, deeper into the kiss. She closed her eyes.
He gathered her in his arms and put a hand behind her head, tugging at her underwear.
Nyx’s heart was going to burst. The heat rose from her thighs to her face. She broke from the kiss, panting, and opened her eyes.
He loved her. She needed to tell him that she loved him. She needed to tell him that she wouldn’t leave him. That he was family, and she would protect him. Do anything for him.
Kai pulled her towards him.
Nyx let her lips graze Kai’s as she melted into his eyes. She was here. With him. And he was with her.
A little while later all that lay between their unclothed bodies was the soft, cream blanket left by the previous Thanatos crew member who lived in these quarters. Cushions lay scattered around the bed, some spilling over onto the variegated metal floor. The covers mounded at their feet. Nyx laid her head on Kai’s chest.