Tyche's Demons_A Space Opera Military Science Fiction Epic

by Richard Parry

  “You’re the emperor,” said Karkoski. “You don’t wait on anyone. Hell, I’m the head of the Admiralty. I don’t wait on anyone.” She turned, opened the door, and stepped through.

  “Like she said,” said Chad, following Karkoski.

  Nate sighed, squared his shoulders, and followed them in. Inside the door was the same huge room he’d remembered from his first visit here when he’d explained how things would be to Chinnery. The man had raged, spluttered, and fallen silent when he’d taken in the stern looks of the men and women in black at Nate’s back. Nate had a feeling today would not be a great day for Chinnery either. It was a bit of a walk to the end of the room where Chinnery stood. The Guild Master was behind a table, turning to face them, a lit holo stage behind him. Behind Nate trailed what could only be called an entourage, including Hope, Ottavia, Saveria, and Baggs, who each took a corner of the case.

  “What is the meaning of this?” said Chinnery. His eyes scanned the group coming in, fixing on Hope. “Engineer Baedeker, who are these people?”

  Nate smiled. “Chief, I’ll cut you off there. It’d be great if we could have a talk.”

  Grace’s hand was on his arm, gripping tight. He looked at her, then at her gaze, and caught the flicker of Chinnery’s holo cutting out. It looked like a video call, the man on the other end cutting comm.

  GRACE My father, it was my father

  NATE You’re sure

  GRACE I’m sure of nothing, this man wears lies like a suit and deceit like a tie

  NATE I’m sure Chinnery has never worn a suit

  She laughed, Chinnery’s eyes flicking to her. “Grace Gushiken.” He looked back at Hope. “Baedeker, there had better be…” He fell silent, on account of October Kohl reaching him at that moment. Kohl wound fingers through the front of Chinnery’s robe, lifting the man like he had all the resistance of a cold frosty beer on a hot day, then slammed the Guild Master onto his back, desk shuddering with the motion.

  Kohl leaned over the Guild Master. “Hey,” he said. “I need to tell you a few things. The first thing is the person you called Grace Gushiken is the empress.”

  “Of all humanity,” offered Hope.

  Kohl looked up. “What?”

  “She’s the empress of all humanity,” said Hope. “Everyone.”

  “Right,” said Kohl. He looked back to a struggling Chinnery, then gave the man a shake. Chinnery quietened. “You’ll address the empress as Her Imperial Majesty, and after a bit of bowing, you can cut it short to Majesty.” He sniffed. “But the real thing you need to understand is that Hope is a friend of mine.” Chinnery made a choking sound, so Kohl relaxed his grip. “Which means I’d like you to be polite. We’re being polite. Cap said to be polite. I’d take it as a favor if you could do likewise.”

  Nate sighed. “Kohl?”

  “Yeah, Cap?”

  “It’s not polite to slam a man on his own desk,” he suggested.

  “He started it,” said Kohl, but leaned back, hauling Chinnery to his feet. “Anyhow, I didn’t hurt him. Much.”

  Chinnery was blinking at Kohl, then looking to Hope, then Grace, and to Nate. “Hey,” said Nate. “Where were we?”

  Chinnery had the look of a man playing an uncomfortable conversation back through his mind for a few cycles. He gave a small bow. “Your Majesty,” he said.

  “It’s just Nate,” said Nate.

  Chinnery looked at Kohl, then back to Nate. “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure,” said Nate. “Look, Chinnery. Sorry, my mistake. Guild Master Chinnery. Here’s the thing. Maybe you’re a fucking traitor, but it could just be that you’re a moron. I’m here to find out which one it is.”

  Chinnery looked at Nate, then at Grace, then did a nice, slow take of the people in the room. Captain of the Black, and one of his troops. The head of the Admiralty. Emperor’s spymaster and two of his proteges. Guild Liaison for the emperor. And, not to forget, the emperor and empress themselves. “Ah,” he said.

  “Sure, right,” said Nate. “It’s a lot to take in. Thing is, I figure you’re not a moron, which brings us back to treason, and with treason there are consequences.” He looked around. “Why are there no chairs in this room?”

  “It makes people uncomfortable to stand,” said Chad. He looked at Chinnery. “The Guild Master has a chair.”

  Chinnery looked at his chair, as if surprised. “Your Majesty, would you like my chair?”

  “No,” said Nate. He tapped his leg. “Metal leg does most of the real work. I do kind of note you’re not surprised at the allegations of treason or stupidity.”

  “It’s not like that,” said Chinnery. He seemed to notice the case for the first time. “What’s in the case?”

  Nate turned to see Ottavia sitting on the case again, Hope sitting beside her. Saveria had walked off to stare at the tall, thin spires stretching to the ceiling. Baggs was looking bored, which was fair as there wasn’t much to do on account of Kohl having seized the moment before.

  Karkoski leaned forward on Chinnery’s desk. “Guild Master,” she said. “I don’t believe you know how hard we’ve worked to not be food for a race of intergalactic insects. We even put this guy,” and here, she pointed over her shoulder at Nate, not looking, “on a throne so we’d have someone to follow. Thing is, he was a good choice. Not even sure whether it was him or his wife that was the bigger win, and I’m not sure I care.”

  Nate was about to say something, but Grace touched his arm. “Not now,” she said.

  “Where I’m going with this is that the emperor has been particular about letting people do what they want. Doesn’t flex his muscles. Doesn’t send nukes to colony worlds. Given a choice, the damn idiot — sorry, your Majesty — puts himself in harm’s way instead of sending my people.” She shook her head. “Do you know about the Paloma system?”

  “What?” said Chinnery.

  “Exactly,” said Karkoski. “You don’t know because we’ve been doing all the dying while you’ve been consorting with the enemy. Do you know what a person looks like when they’ve been turned by the Ezeroc?”

  “I’ve read the files,” said Chinnery. “It’s not an Engineering problem.”

  “Hah,” said Hope. “I used to say that too, Master Chinnery.”

  “There was nobody else to fight the battles that needed to be won,” said Grace. “There were so many people trying to dodge it being their problem, until a man who’d been tossed aside by the universe made it his own. Tell me, Chinnery. Why are you sweating?”

  The doors to the room broke open, four guards rushing in wearing Guild colors. Baggs didn’t so much move as flow, his blaster clearing his holster faster than most people could blink. Four bright blasts of plasma, and the guards were blown back, landing in pieces against the wall.

  Grace hadn’t turned from staring at Chinnery. “Tell me,” she said. Her voice turned into a hiss. “Tell me.”

  Chinnery tried to back away, but Kohl was there, so it was like trying to back into a mountain. He raised his arm as if to ward Grace away, and Nate could see skin around his bracelet, red and burnt. Chinnery cried out, flinging it off.

  NATE Not this way, not this way

  GRACE He was talking to my father

  NATE And he will be again

  Grace’s back was stiff, hand on the hilt of her sword as a trickle of blood ran from her nose. In a smooth motion, she turned from Chinnery, stalking past Nate to stand some distance away.

  Chinnery looked at the bracelet, a faint heat shimmer coming from it as it lay on the tiles, then he looked at Grace. “Esper scum.”

  Kohl sighed, and punched Chinnery in the stomach with an almost resigned air. He waited until Chinnery had finished coughing, then held the Guild Master upright. Kohl glanced at Nate. “That wasn’t too impolite, Cap?”

  “It’s fine,” said Nate. He stepped to pick up the Guild Master’s bracelet, tossing it on Chinnery’s desk. “Thing is, they’re just like armor. They diffuse esper energy, throwing i
t off as heat. If the esper is powerful enough, it’ll burn right through your wrist.”

  “No espers are that powerful,” said Chinnery, staring at the bracelet.

  “Truth, I know at least three that are,” said Nate. “Might be four. Not sure on that point. Not important.” He walked to the case, flipping the lid open. Inside, the inert face of Reiko Crous-Povilaitis lay, eyes closed.

  “Monstrous,” said Chinnery.

  “It’s a naked woman,” said Nate. “Actually, not even a woman. This right here is the first piece of the moron-or-treason part. See, my Guild Liaison has been going to your Archeology Lab. Hope’s worked out what you were doing. You were trying to figure out the AI.” Nate held up a hand. “It’s okay! It’s okay. What’s done is done. Thing is, you weren’t even close.”

  “What’s that, then?” said Chinnery.

  “It’s my wife,” said Hope, sounding tired. “I collected everything about Rei-Rei. Every comm message we’d had, written or voice. I scoured the networks, pulling up cam footage. How she walked. How she talked. Everything she was from when she was a baby to, to, to, when she died.” Hope swallowed, then pointed at Reiko’s still form. “It’s all in her.”

  “That’s an AI?” said Chad.

  “Not yet,” said Hope. “It’s not alive.”

  “Looks real,” said Chad, leaning over the case. He poked the body’s skin. “Feels real-ish.”

  “Polyimine,” said Hope.

  “You what?” said Chad.

  “It’s a polymer of imide monomers,” said Hope. “It’s old tech. We’ve used it in artificial skin or coatings like on the cap’s arm. It can sense temperature and pressure and repair damage.”

  Chad blinked at Hope. “You coated a death robot in a sensing self-healing skin?”

  “She’s not a death robot. She’s not even—”

  “Anyway,” said Nate. “Not the important part.”

  “It feels important,” said Chad.

  “Not now, Chad,” said Nate. “Thing is, it doesn’t work, because it’s not alive. The things we fought today were alive. They were very alive. How did you do it, Chinnery?”

  “I didn’t,” said Chinnery, then said, “I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking…” He trailed off, surrounded by hard stares.

  “I think,” said Hope, then shook her head. “I know. I know it, okay? I know the sad part is that you sent two Engineers with me to Osaka. I know you meant to kill me. It’s okay.” She shook her head again. “Wait, I didn’t mean that. I’m tired? It’s not okay. You shouldn’t try and kill me again. But. You sent two other Engineers with me, and you didn’t warn them.”

  “He didn’t warn me either,” said Ottavia. “I take that kind of thing personally.”

  “You don’t understand,” said Chinnery. “There’s a … monster.”

  “I understand,” said Nate. “I’ve met them.”

  “Not the Ezeroc,” said Chinnery. “They’re just insects. I said a monster. One.”

  “Kazuo Gushiken,” said Grace, from behind Nate. “The head of the Old Empire’s Intelligencers.”

  “He needs an Engineer,” said Chinnery. “A specific Engineer. One who really can do great things.” He sagged into his chair. “Nobody was supposed to die.”

  “Stupid and treasonous,” said Karkoski. “I don’t like his kind.”

  “So,” said Nate, breathing deep. “I guess this has been a good cleansing moment for all of us. What I want to know is, Chinnery, and this is important. What did he want Hope for?”

  “To set them free,” said Chinnery. “That’s what he said.”

  “Seems cryptic and without the details I’d expect an Engineer to be curious about,” said Nate.

  “If you met a monster, would you expect him to tell the truth?” said Chinnery.

  “Not as such, no,” admitted Nate.

  “Then would you bother asking?”

  “I guess I’m still stuck on the why part,” said Kohl. “Sorry, Cap. You know I love to hear you talk, but I’m confused on the particular issue of why we’re not turning this motherfucker into char.”

  Chinnery’s eyes flashed, and he looked at Hope. “He said the old order would return.”

  Chad cleared his throat. “Captain,” he said to Kohl, “I would take it as a personal favor if you’d let me speak with Chinnery.” He emphasized speak, the word suggesting their upcoming conversation might be more robust.

  Kohl squinted at Chad. “You going soft?”

  “Dead men tell no tales,” said Chad. He spread his hands. “Even I can’t get knowledge from a corpse.”

  “You need to work on your skills,” said Kohl, but he shrugged, hauling Chinnery upright and pushing him towards the spymaster. “Be my guest, Chad. But if you kill him, call me.”

  Nate sighed. It was a long day, and his ship was still broken. “Hope?”

  “Cap.”

  “I need a favor.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  OUTSIDE WAS NOT a place Hope was used to. It had bright light, made in the heart of a star, and that hurt her eyes. She was too used to shipboard lights, or the dimness her visor gifted to her. Even the brightness inside Guild Hall was muted compared to mighty Sol, blazing like a ball of nuclear fire in the sky.

  Which was what it was. Hope shook her head. More sleep. You need more sleep.

  Later.

  Osaka had felt darker, not just because she wore her rig at all times there, but because the air was full of dust and decay. Here, outside the Guild Hall, Sol high overhead? The ceramicrete around her was baked in noonday heat, and Hope was sweating inside her Guild robe.

  Nate—

  He’s the emperor. You shouldn’t call him Nate.

  —the cap had asked her to get the Tyche fixed. He’d said he felt a war was coming, and before her nanites had unlocked the hidden talents of his esper abilities, he’d had good hunches. He’d known, for example, that she hadn’t robbed anyone, and he’d given her a bed and a home and friends that were better than she deserved.

  Then, he’d brought October Kohl into her life. At the time, Hope thought her new captain was a crazy person, or maybe a little stupid, on account of bringing a murderous thug on board. But the murderous thug had saved her life, and then he’d saved the cap, and after that, he’d saved the universe.

  Nate was doing okay.

  Stop calling him Nate. He’s the emperor.

  As Hope hurried beside a long, low fabrication facility, the lights and fires of industry shining through windows and around doorways, she wondered if the best thing Nate had ever done was bring Grace into all their lives. El was Hope’s best friend, but Grace felt like Hope’s sister. So, yes, his hunches were good, especially about people. Hope wished, just for a moment, that he’d had a chance to know Rei-Rei, before she was turned into a pillar of fire by a stray plasma round. Because, if he had, Hope might have known whether Rei-Rei was a good person, the kind the cap would bring on his Tyche, or if she was not a good person.

  Since they’d only met that one time, during a bar fight, Hope hoped to recreate Rei-Rei to find out for sure. The plan was so simple, she wondered why no one had ever done it before.

  Step one, find out everything ever about a person. Where they went to school. Were they raised in the gutter? Maybe their first kiss was a girl, before trying a boy, and then going back to girls. Did they like holidays inside, or under brutal starlight? Warm showers, or cool swims?

  Did they take milk in their coffee, or not care when they were with their wife, if they could put sugar in the cup and stir for just five circular motions with a slender hand?

  Hope shook her head. That was a memory. You put it in the AI crystal, so stop thinking about it. Anyway, that was the first step. Find everything that had ever been written, known, touched, and loved by someone. It was hard. It took a long time. Hope had hacked a lot of networks to get the data she wanted. Ganymede, despite being a moon run by the mob, had good encryption around its data vaults. Hope sc
ratched at her pink hair. It’s because it’s the mob the security is so good.

  Step two, a lot harder than the first, was to build an AI. No one had made one for hundreds and hundreds of years. The art was lost, or so the Guild said. After they’d fought a brutal war of technology against the machines, they’d ground them under their heel at Mercury. A final, burning stand for the AI, solar collectors stretched into space to harvest the sun’s light as energy. Weapons, turned against living flesh, humans cooked inside starship hulls like they were morsels inside kilometer-long barbecues. The Guild, working hand in glove with the Empire’s Navy, had lost so many souls as they descended on Mercury. A final, decisive battle, human minds against those of crystal, and as the last AI’s lights blinked into the long dark, that was that. No more AI, and no more knowledge about how to make them.

  Hope had almost given up, until Chinnery had commanded her to go to Osaka. He was annoyed with her being her, pink hair bonded with Empire power, and probably hoped she would die in the dead city. When she got there, and found so many living machines trying to kill humans, Hope thought: well, some AI are still alive, so how hard can it be? Sure, the nanobot swarms of Osaka had about the intelligence of plankton. They weren’t sentient. They had a hive mind, but it was artificial, designed by crystal to fight crystal wars. She got to work in the Archeology Lab, and after hacking through about a hundred levels of encryption, she’d discovered that no, the art of AI wasn’t lost.

  Because no Engineer could bring themselves to destroy such beautiful machines.

  The plans for AI crystal were there. Finely printed lattices, the gaps between the wafers so small they made human neurons look like yesterday’s news. What was missing was enlivenment.

  The Guild hadn’t worked this out yet. They kept on minting new crystal and kept wondering why it didn’t do anything. Hope had got to work on the problem, and realized the problem with life was that you couldn’t just connect jumper cables to crystal and say, hey, how about moving around? You needed to give it context. It was, just like a person, manufactured from the ground up.

  Hope was sure they couldn’t be copied either. The crystal that made AI was stressed on operation, creating micro fractures and junctions. It looked a little like how human minds created new synaptic links, which wasn’t a huge surprise to Hope, on account of most of humanity’s best machines being based on some living creature or other. Copy a mind without the imperfections, and it wouldn’t work. The linkages just weren’t there.