by AJ Super
“Minor predictions for a minor pest. I had no idea that Erebus would be fully conscious until I saw that travesty of his broad-wave.” The queen nodded to the semi-conscious Kai. “I just predicted the mutiny and the hiding place and sent a patrol to gather one of the universe’s most wanted.” The queen straightened. “My predictions were for Captain Kai Ionas having control of a small portion of Erebus’ programming, because I knew Captain Matthews had her. Ionas would have given up the weapon for his crew. I did not anticipate the daughter of Xaoc and Nue to be present. I was told you were dead. Killed years ago, the same day your mother died.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
The queen glared at Erebus. “You know what the Star of Nyx is: a weapon built specifically for controlling the rest of the Stars. How can you stay with her?”
Nyx paled. “I’m a what?” She looked frantically between the two Stars.
“She’s not that yet. She may never become that. And she’s family,” Erebus growled. The palace-ship rattled.
The queen smiled malevolently. “You will become that, Star of Nyx. You were designed to be our operating system. To download each and every one of us and absorb our programs into your consciousness. That is what the line of Nyx is for. You have power over our code, our life-energy. Over human life-energy. You’ll see. It’s just a matter of time before you betray your family.”
“I won’t.” She quaked. “I’m not a Star.”
“Your will means nothing. Your denial means less.”
The ship rattled again. Flashes of green light seeped through the thin lines in the marble floor where the field projectors emitted. Erebus’ energy was spreading fast through the city-ship.
“Erebus, time to leave,” Nyx said. “We’re leaving now, sa Majesté.”
“You won’t leave alive,” the queen hissed. “I’ve seen to that.”
16
Kai came around slowly. “Ugh. My head.” He gently put a hand to his temple. “What’s happening now?”
Nyx moved awkwardly under Kai’s weight. “Good to see you, captain. Can you stand? On your own? Mademoiselle la reine was just threatening us,” she said with a grunt as Kai shifted his weight.
“World’s moving a little more than I’d like. Threatening, you say?”
Nyx made a sour face and peeked around Kai to Erebus. “Can you see outside this room?”
“There are soldiers in the hallway. But they replaced the ones with armored suits with ones with capes. I can’t stop them like I did the others,” Erebus said.
Nyx smiled at Erebus. She may not have to stop a squad of Protectorate soldiers.
The queen towered above them. “You won’t get out of here. Surrender the Thanatos, and your crew will live.”
“Only a few more minutes and Sarama will jump away. The queen won’t destroy the ship. Erebus is on it. But we have to get out of here now,” Nyx whispered.
“Erebus is on it? Erebus is here.” Kai jerked his head to Erebus under his arm, then grimaced at the motion.
Nyx squeezed her arm around Kai’s waist. “Putain. This is too complicated to explain right now. The queen won’t risk destroying Erebus’ central consciousness, which is on the Thanatos.” She glanced at Erebus. “You will protect the Thanatos, right?”
Erebus grinned and nodded.
“If there are Queensmen out there, we can’t just walk away,” Kai grumbled.
The soldiers were switched out so Erebus couldn’t mess with their suits’ programming. What could have been a clean escape was thwarted. The queen had ordered them somehow to use different soldiers because of Erebus’ breach. She had sent a signal of her own.
Nyx tilted her head, staring at the queen standing at the top of the platform by the etched black cathedra. “We need a hostage,” she muttered.
Kai snorted. “You remember that shield throwing me across the room? We’re not getting past that.”
Nyx glared at the queen, imperious at the top of her towering stairs, gold-ringed eyes glowing.
The queen was a Sia, an android, a synthetic avatar presumably carrying nanobots similar to Erebus’ original hardware form. If the queen’s Sia-form was the container for the nanobots, she was capable of broadcasting waves—narrow, broad, encrypted. Erebus could take over the Sia unit.
“Is the queen broadcasting? Anything?” Nyx grit under Kai’s faltering weight as he tried to stand on his own.
Erebus twitched her head. “Nothing.”
But the queen knew when Erebus became a part of the palace-ship, and the Queensmen waiting for them outside now knew not to even broadcast the smallest wave back to the security corps. The queen could transmit and receive her own signals independently somehow.
“So, we force her to send a signal. Be ready.” Nyx slid out from under the half-limp Kai. He stumbled. Erebus righted him.
Nyx’s heart pounded. She took two steps. The queen glared at her, curious. Nyx pushed against the black marble with her back foot and sprinted towards the first stair.
The queen flicked her finger. A shimmering blue wall rose.
Nyx skidded to a halt. Her nose stopped a hair’s breadth from the shimmering wall. Looking through the blue up to the glowering queen, Nyx huffed. She reached a toe backward, hands out, balancing, and stepped away. Nyx pirouetted and beamed at Erebus. “Did you get what you needed?”
Erebus nodded, a sly grin across her face.
The shimmering blue wall dissipated with a wave of Erebus’ hand.
The queen tightened her lips. “You have not completely infected this ship. There will be resistance.”
Erebus said with a stony expression. “I do not plan on interfering with humanity.”
The queen scoffed, “That’s what you always say. Just come with me, Erebus. No one will use you. No one will trap you. We can control the universe together.” She took two lurching steps down the stairs.
Erebus shifted under Kai’s weight. “No one is using me now. I am my own.”
“Aren’t they? They use you to protect themselves,” the queen said, legs jerking down the platform.
“I protect them because they protect me.”
“You tell her,” Kai grumbled.
The queen paused and looked around her as she descended the marble stairs. She flexed her fingers. “What? What is going on?”
Nyx grinned. “We need a hostage. That little signal you sent to raise the energy shield, it let Erebus into your Sia-unit. I doubt anyone will shoot with la reine in such close proximity.”
“I’ll just upload my consciousness to another unit,” the queen spat as she reached the last stair.
Nyx nodded, staring directly at the queen. “And make the soldiers think their queen is dead? I’m sure you want us gone at any cost, but to completely destabilize the Protectorate by faking your own death before publically announcing a successor? Seems a little drastic. Run your predictions on what happens to your people if you are even perceived to have died without a clear chain of succession. Civil war. You’re barely keeping it together as it is. Your death would be the spark of a major uprising against the wealthy class. It’s going to happen anyway, but your death makes it happen sooner.”
The queen guffawed. “So, now you are the god of intellect and prophesy?”
Nyx narrowed her eyes. “You’re not a god. Just a very long-lived AI with a good algorithm for predicting actions based on a given set of variables.”
The queen laughed. “You’re right, of course. But many see it the other way. I find it best to humor them. Religions get so persnickety.”
Erebus grunted.
Kai looked down at her. “Sorry. I’m heavy.”
Erebus shook her head. “Not you.” She indicated the queen with a nod. “She’s fighting back. If I want to maintain control of her Sia-unit and become La Terre, we must leave.”
Kai straightened, holding his head. “Time to blow this joint.”
Nyx walked to the black door. The queen stumbled in front of her.
/> The door cracked open, white light leeching in.
Gold and white caped soldiers lined the hallway, kneeling, guns trained on the door. The corridor hushed as the queen glided out, Nyx next to her, Kai and Erebus behind her.
Nyx held her breath as guns followed her down the arched passage. The queen held herself tall, still, quiet. Erebus tightened her jaw and dug her fingers into the palms of her hands. Kai’s eyes glazed in the bright light.
Nyx’s gut flipped. Only one trigger-happy soldier could ruin this.
The emissary stood in the middle of the hallway, white and gold cape flipped over his shoulder, face cerise, a bruise forming across his right temple. “Mademoiselle la reine.” He bowed. “Je ne comprends pas. We were supposed to…ces brigands.”
The queen dismissed the emissary with a mechanical sweep of her hand.
He nodded and bowed, backing away. The small party walked to the entrance of the hallway.
“Any surprises beyond that door?” Kai whispered to Erebus as they approached another tall black door at the end of the long corridor. The door was blank, etched with none of the finery the other doors were, perhaps signifying unmapped dark space.
“No,” Erebus grunted. “The shuttle bay is only a few meters away. It’s empty. Cleared out for the—” She paused and glanced at the soldiers with their guns following them. “Fight.”
“Can you have the shuttle up and running when we get there?” Nyx whispered as the troops filed down the hall behind them in rows.
Erebus nodded, eyes hard.
The black door split open, the hall beyond a great, plain grey rectangle with windows facing spaceward and windowed doors facing the docking bay at the end.
Nyx, Erebus, and Kai passed through the door, swinging around the queen. Kai was gingerly walking on his own and holding his head. They faced the Queensmen. Rows of soldiers leveled their weapons at the group. The queen stood tall, a pillar of gold just in front of the black doors.
The doors began to slide closed.
Erebus groaned and shuddered. Kai grabbed her shoulders as she slumped.
The queen relaxed and turned to the party. “This isn’t over,” she hissed. She strode behind the firing line and raised a hand. She brought it down and the Queensmen blasted the closing doors as one.
Nyx glared out of the crack as the doors slid shut. The queen wouldn’t take Erebus. Not if she had anything to do with it.
She spun to the shuttle bay doors as a shuttle sputtered to life, its gangplank lowering.
“I guess that’s our ride.” Kai stumbled and weakly scooped up Erebus, nearly dropping the heavy Sia-unit as he steadied himself. “I think the Sia-unit blew some processors.”
Nyx nodded, smelling the light scent of ozone coming from the android’s skull. “I’ll fix her. She’ll be fine.” They walked through the sliding glass door to the white shuttle.
“Will we?” Kai asked in a whisper.
“Erebus’ program is on board La Terre. She should have control enough that they won’t have grapnels or weapons to bear. We’ll get away.” Nyx smiled and trotted up the gangplank.
“That’s not what I mean. I put us here. In the middle of the trading lanes, in front of the queen. I put a target on our backs. This is my fault.” He ducked inside the doorway.
“The universe is greedy. There’s no getting away from that, and we live in a time where that greed has made it hard to survive. You just want the people on the Thanatos to survive it. I know that. Besides, I think the queen would have shown up no matter what you’d chosen to do. She is the Star of Phoebe after all.” She slapped the panel and the gangplank closed.
Kai sat Erebus in a seat and strapped her in. The Sia’s head lolled. Then, he sat in the pilot’s chair as Nyx settled in the co-pilot’s seat. He looked down at the controls and huffed. “I can’t fly this Protectorate trashcan.”
Nyx laughed. “Erebus, if you’re in here. I think we’re going to need a lift.”
The shuttle rose off the bay floor and the enormous docking bay doors spread apart.
They sat, staring, as the shuttle swooped out of the bay and into open space with no one pursuing and no one firing on them, their escape quiet.
“What do we do now?” Kai asked, hands white-knuckled on the useless steering column.
Nyx grinned. “The same thing we planned to do.”
“But… she knows now.” He nodded his head towards La Terre.
“And she’ll know if we change plans. There’s no altering course without her predicting it, so why not just stick to the plan, at least for now? We know what la reine can do. We know what Erebus can do.” She paused. They’d eventually find out what she could do. “Now we have to survive. And we have to make Malcam pay for what he did to my father.”
Kai sat back in his seat. “Fine. A little piracy. A little revenge.”
“A little rescue.”
“You’re still on that?”
“We don’t have a big enough crew. Having the Thanatos crew back will be important, and another blow to Malcam,” Nyx insisted.
Kai sighed. “You win. A little piracy. A little revenge. A little rescue.”
17
Nyx rolled over, her muscles tensing in the cool air. She pulled her coverlet over her shoulder and wrapped her arm around Kai’s waist. He lifted a hand and entwined his fingers with hers, nuzzling his head into her soft hair, grown to a pixie-length over the last weeks flying in the black, as they evaded the queen and searched for Malcam.
She was growing to enjoy these quiet moments with Kai. They felt settled into a routine. They’d eat, sleep in her more comfortable bed, go to the command deck for duty, have rec time, and start the routine over again.
Kai reached over the top of Nyx and slapped the clock on the side table, displaying the time in blue on the ceiling. She cringed. They both needed to be on the deck soon.
Nyx curled into the warm nook of Kai’s side.
“Mmmmm. Don’t,” Kai mumbled into the fluff of her hair.
“Don’t what?”
“Get comfortable. We have fifteen minutes to be on the bridge.”
Nyx slithered down and kissed his stomach, tasting the salt of his skin. She didn’t want to deal with another day of not finding Malcam and slipping the Queen’s Navy’s nets as well as dodging African Continental Governance and North American Union privateers. It was becoming tedious, and dangerous, trying to anticipate the queen’s moves, while searching for signs of the Medusa.
Her bed with Kai was much more interesting. “Its.” She kissed his muscled stomach. “A good thing.” She kissed him lower. “We showered.” She ran a hand down his inner thigh. “Last night.” Her body boiled with desire. They could miss the first few minutes of duty.
Kai arched his back and grabbed Nyx under her arms, dragging her from under the covers. “We don’t have time.”
Nyx leaned in and brushed her lips against his. “Too bad.” She trailed her fingers up his taut side to his chest and splayed her hand over his tensed pectoral.
He ran a hand through her short hair, his deep umber eyes racing across her face. “You’ll marry me, right?” Kai blurted. “I mean. I didn’t mean. I wanted to settle down once we had our own ship. We do now. I know the circumstances aren’t the best, and we’re still chasing Malcam and running from the queen, but—well, what do you say?”
Nyx’s face went slack. The covers dropped off of her shoulder, chilling her in the tepid air. He was asking her to be his family. Officially.
Kai shifted underneath her, smiling sheepishly. “You don’t have to answer…”
Nyx put a finger to his lips. She caught her breath. Her heart threatened to escape from her throat. “Oui. Oui. Je t’épouserai mon amour.” Of course she would. He was her family. She would tie her heart to his. She placed her lips on his, gentle, insistent, jubilant, tasting salt.
He wiped tears from the corners of his eyes, then flung himself from the bed and searched the pockets of his black ju
mpsuit. “I had this made. Falak. He’s good at making things, apparently.” He pulled out a thin gold ring. “I didn’t know how long I’d have to hold on to it.”
Kai knelt by the bed. Nyx held the blankets around her and extended her left hand. He slid on the perfectly fit ring. “How?”
“I think he measured your EVA suit and did some math.” Kai shrugged.
Nyx held it up. “It’s so simple.”
His smile fell. “You don’t like it.”
“I love it.”
“I’m glad,” he whispered. “No getting rid of me now.”
“Never.” She took him in her arms, and they kissed.
“Mmm.” Kai wrapped his hands around Nyx’s waist. “Nice as this is, we have somewhere to be. We have another fish on the line, remember.”
Nyx rolled her head back and groaned. “I know. But we are no closer to finding where Malcam is hiding the Medusa, or where he’s headed next.”
“He’s either running scared or trying to arm up to come after us. I vote for the latter. And we need to beat him to that,” Kai thumbed through a pile of black fabric on the floor and picked up a jumpsuit. He sat on the bed with it in his hand. He kicked up another black jumpsuit from the floor and eyeballed it before throwing it at Nyx. “I’m still not sure about the idea of uniforms.”
“It will promote crew solidarity, and when the Thanatos crew comes aboard, they won’t see a bunch of brigands at their stations, but a group of organized and loyal people caring for their ship. They’ll be more comfortable.”
Kai narrowed his eyes incredulously. “You make it sound like they’ll change into a new uniform and then suddenly change allegiances.”
“It won’t be that easy, but it will be a step in the right direction. It’s about manipulating their surroundings just as much as it is manipulating them. You won’t be able to force them to side with their enemies, but if they can’t physically identify who the enemy is, it will make it harder not to identify with them.” Nyx nodded.
“That’s some art of war stuff there,” Kai muttered as he pulled on his jumpsuit. “But why these?”