Tyche's Crown

by Richard Parry

  “Me neither,” said Harlow. “But I’m not sure we’ll get the choice. About the only choice is getting to choose how—” His voice cut off with an urk and his body jerked stiff, eyes wide.

  Grace! Grace! Grace! Grace! Grace!

  You have come.

  You will become.

  Our Grace.

  “Harlow?” said Grace, trying to ignore the Ezeroc speech in her mind. She moved towards the man, checking his pulse — heart still beating. A little fast, but he was carrying a few extra kilos and ran a bar, so that might be usual. She ran her suit’s light over his eyes, checking the pupils. No response.

  He wheezed, causing her to jerk back, startled. His voice, when it spoke, was flat. “Grace has come. Come. To be.”

  She backed away from Harlow, her feet taking her to the other side of the shuttle. You might get ten or fifteen guys in here, sure, but that wasn’t a lot of space to move around in. Not when the other human onboard was now being piloted by a massive, menacing alien intelligence. “I haven’t come.” She thought about it. “What do you mean, ‘to be?’”

  “To be,” said Harlow’s voice, but not his mind. “To become. To join. Do you see?”

  “Not even a little bit,” said Grace. “Why … did you plan to bring us here?”

  “Plans. To Be.”

  “English isn’t your thing, is it?”

  “Mind. Walls. Unbuild walls. Talk.”

  “No fucking way,” said Grace. “No chance.”

  “Grace. Become.” And then Harlow wheezed, animation returning to his face, and he looked around. “What, uh…”

  “It’s better if you don’t think about it,” said Grace. “But I’ll take first watch. Get some sleep.”

  “Did I—”

  “It’s fine, Harlow.” It’s not fine. Goddamn insects just took over Harlow like a sock puppet. “They’ll be coming for us soon.”

  • • •

  Despite the fear and terror and confusion, Harlow slept. Or, Harlow passed out might be more accurate. He sprawled in one of the acceleration couches, head back, limbs jerking every so often in a dream, or a nightmare. Grace didn’t want to wake him. Intelligencers couldn’t get at you when you were asleep. Bugs were probably the same. Different state of consciousness. So she let him sleep. No need for both of them to panic about what was coming.

  That wasn’t a metaphor. She could see a rock moving towards them, a big chunk of asteroid that moved through the hard black without an obvious sign of propulsion. On the surface of the asteroid was a human-looking airlock. A docking collar like you’d find on any starship. One you could, if there was a handy supply of spare parts around you, salvage from an existing vessel. Like one of the hundreds of ships scattered out around the Ezeroc homeworld.

  No wonder the Old Empire had gone down like a cold glass of water on a hot day. All their ships were here, fighting a war against an external enemy. They had nothing else for the internal threat.

  Grace shook herself. No time for thoughts like that. It was time to get ready. She wasn’t going down without a fight. Oh, she knew she was going down, but what had Harlow said? She’d do it in the manner of her own choosing. Grace chose death by the blade. She’d always lived by the sword, and now was her chance to have one final, glorious battle.

  Her father might, just might, have a tiny spark of pride at that.

  Speaking of which, he was here, with her, again. A shadow of himself, standing in the shuttle, like he’d stood on that barren world where the snails had been. Then she’d figured concussion, or oxygen deprivation, but now he was here again, she figured she was cracking. There was no harm in it. She was under a lot of strain. She had been for a long, long time. Alone, until she’d found Nate. And Nate might have been the release that let all the pressure out, let her collapse under the weight of it all.

  You must listen, Grace. Her father frowned. Always, you do not listen.

  “I don’t listen to assholes,” she said. “Fuck off, Dad.”

  There is a battle coming. It isn’t the battle you want. It is the battle you need.

  She almost laughed, looking at Harlow for a moment. “Are you channeling the crazy bugs too? Or have they … got to me too?”

  Save your strength. Your sword won’t help you here.

  “You always said to fight, Dad. I’m fighting.”

  You listen but you don’t hear the lesson. His face twisted in disappointment, a familiar enough expression for her to have constructed out of the whole cloth of her memory. You are my greatest failure.

  “Go die in a fire,” she said.

  Harlow snorted, coming awake, and her father’s vision faded like the sunset. “Huh? What?”

  “Get ready,” said Grace. “They’re coming. It’s time to choose, Harlow. Live or die. Fight or submit?”

  “Well, fuck,” he said. “Where’s that damn maser?”

  • • •

  When the asteroid coupled with the shuttle, it was with a clang that shuddered the whole ship. Grace stood near the airlock, sword blade naked and ready. It was a good sword, the best she’d ever owned. Given to her by a friend, one of the very, very few she had. She would die, and she’d never be able to thank Hope for such a wonderful gift.

  Harlow stood behind her and off to the side, using one of the acceleration couches for cover. His maser was out and ready. Not that Grace figured on him being able to get much mileage from it; if it came to that kind of battle, the Ezeroc would reach out a hand and turn him into a marionette. This close to their eldest Queen, there would be no mistakes. No subtle suggestions. No room for doubt. Harlow — all that he was — would be shoved aside, and the aliens would take over.

  The airlock hissed, Grace’s ears popping as the pressure equalized. That was useful — the rock seemed to have atmosphere. She raised her sword, ready. The lock clanked open, yawning into a cavernous entryway.

  An empty entryway.

  The hissing of the Ezeroc grew to a susurration, then to a roar, an ululation. It was the sound of a million billion insects raising their voices in a song of triumph. Grace found herself on one knee, a groan coming from her, but she held her blade up, that bright line of metal forged in the heart of the Goddess of Luck. Hope gave you this blade. Use it, and die well. Grace forced herself to her feet, struggling under the weight of that vast sea of alien intelligence.

  GRACE! GRACE! GRACE!

  “Fuck off,” she said.

  Silence. Harlow said, from behind her, “What?”

  “Not you, Harlow,” said Grace, her voice more croak than words. She cleared her throat. “They’re waiting for us. In there.”

  “Okay,” said Harlow. “Hypothetically, what would happen if we didn’t go into the rock of death?”

  “We’d run out of air,” said Grace.

  “That’s not so bad,” said Harlow.

  “It’s not the death I choose,” said Grace, and stepped into the Ezeroc asteroid.

  • • •

  Harlow might have been terror/fear/panic/fear/run/run on the inside, but on the outside he just carried a sheen of sweat and the maser. Grace liked that. She liked it when people could be their best selves, even when it wasn’t in their best interests.

  The interior of the Ezeroc asteroid was organic, hollowed-out like the tunnels in the moon had been. Clawed limbs had chipped away at the rock, creating a warren inside. Bioluminescent light came from pods against the wall, their glow a uniform red. There was no heat, the interior as cold as the grave, and Grace shivered. It made sense though: if the bugs could survive in the vacuum of space without air, they could do the same without heat.

  There was a clatter of rock from up ahead and Harlow’s maser whipped up, a whine sounding as the weapon cycled to a ready state. They both froze, waiting.

  Nothing.

  There was gravity in this asteroid. The rock was tiny, too small to have a noticeable drag against the body, but gravity still pulled her down. Perhaps another borrowed piece of human technology
, because the Ezeroc didn’t appear concerned with up and down. Those limbs of theirs seemed well-suited to clambering around the inside of cold, dark places. The gravity meant that there was an up and a down, and the down was where they had come from. Up was where the monsters were.

  Which was borderline insulting. Making them walk up to death was just salt in the wound. Grace gritted her teeth, hand clenched around the hilt of her sword. She wondered if this was where she would regret not packing a blaster at her hip. Grace wondered if she would ever see Nate again. She wondered if she’d be strong enough to die before telling the Ezeroc where he was.

  The tunnel opened into a small chamber, rocky walls bare except for the luminous pods drenching everything in a coarse, ochre light. Her blade gleamed like it was already wet with blood. Except only humans had red blood. The Ezeroc had green and white and bile inside them. In the middle of the chamber were three Ezeroc drones.

  Grace. Become. Grace Grace Grace become Grace.

  To be.

  She raised her sword, ready to charge, when one of the Ezeroc listed. Grace paused, watching the creature as it toppled, the chest carapace rupturing to vent steam. She turned to Harlow, his maser extended in a shaking hand.

  Strike one down. Another comes. To be.

  An Ezeroc drone clambered out of a circular hole in the top of the chamber to drop to where its fallen kin lay. Three had become two, and now were three again. It would be a hard fight. At least Harlow hadn’t shot her with the maser. It was peculiar they didn’t have his mind in a clutch, and she wondered if enough raw terror was enough to keep the insects out. Strong emotions had always buffeted her, forced her away, sometimes made her feel what the person was feeling. It made a weird kind of sense.

  “Who’s next?” she said.

  Not. To be.

  Grace!

  She noticed an odor coming to her, not the stench of ruptured Ezeroc, that rotting cinnamon smell, but something else. Musky. Heady. Like coffee, sex, and roast meat. She looked at the Ezeroc drones — still not moving, then turned back to Harlow.

  Who was on the ground, lights out, unconscious.

  She turned back to the Ezeroc, but found it hard. So hard, because she was down on a knee. Her sword fell from her fingers.

  Grace!

  “Oh, you assholes,” she said, then fell face-first onto the rocky floor of the chamber.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  NATE STALKED THE corridors of the Torrington like it was his ship. It wasn’t; it belonged to Karkoski. Not like she’d been appointed to captain the ship, because that wasn’t the case. Karkoski had taken control of this ship, led a mutiny against the previous captain, and held control of a crew loyal to the Republic under whose flag they all sailed.

  It was worth bearing in mind: Karkoski was skilled at running a starship, and she was also capable of mutiny. It could be problematic. Not that Nate figured on running the Torrington. He had his own ship, made his own luck, and the Torrington was wrong in all the ways the Tyche was right.

  Still. Having big friends in a fight was useful.

  He cleared the entrance to the officer’s mess, charting a path straight for Karkoski. Her uniform was immaculate as always, but she’d left off the formal Republic emblems, keeping just her rank insignia. She wasn’t flying for the Republic as such: she was flying for humanity.

  “Captain,” she said, nodding at him over a cup of what was almost certainly horrible coffee.

  “Karkoski,” he said, slipping down across from her. “I’m here to say farewell.”

  She continued to look at him over the rim of her cup. “Why?”

  He blinked. “Got a person in a bind. Time to go get her.”

  “I understand that. But why ‘goodbye,’ Captain?”

  “Because I’m going to fly,” he pointed out the officer lounge’s wide windows, “out there somewhere.” He wasn’t sure if where he was pointing was the right direction, but it didn’t matter. It made a statement.

  “I see,” she said. “And what makes you think the Torrington isn’t going that way as well?”

  He looked at his hands, splayed on the table in front of him, one metal hand, one flesh and blood, then met her eyes. “Because it’s not your crew. I know how the waters look, Karkoski. You’re not the kind of person to take risks. Not with your new command. Your new Resistance. You’re onto something good, here.” He softened his voice. “That’s unfair. It’s … we’ll need you, but later.”

  “There won’t be a later,” said Karkoski, still not moving her cup. “There is barely a now. The Senate is crumbling, Captain. It was riddled with corruption, which is normally just fine. It’s how things work. But the corruption was rooted in alien mischief. Humanity is rudderless. Without leadership. We’ve routed the bugs from Earth, but how far has the corruption spread? We need to take this fight to them. We need to … cut out the cancer.” She looked out the window, then back to him. “I won’t have a command to enjoy without the rest of the human race.”

  “Also, Grace knows a heap about us,” said Chad, slipping in beside them, a tray of food in his hands. “About how we work. About our plans. If there’s one thing worse than bugs that can read minds and control thoughts, it’s those bugs learning our tricks.”

  Nate sighed. “I figure I need to do a little information sharing.” He pulled up his console, tagging data and sending it across the ship net. “Hope’s found out that some kind of massive force went to the bug world and didn’t come back.”

  “Old Empire,” said Karkoski. “Not Republic.”

  “Not Intelligencers,” said Chad.

  Nate looked between them. “What are you not telling me?”

  “Many things,” said Karkoski. “Spare me a few more minutes before you say goodbye, Captain. I have something to show you.”

  • • •

  The Torrington’s medbay put the Tyche’s to shame. Big, spacious, equipment of the latest manufacture. It was not highly occupied; the odd crew member on a bed here or there from a training injury. One woman was burned, unconscious, machines tending to her. Otherwise, not much of interest here. Excepting Kohl, who was wired up to about a hundred machines, out for the count. No doubt having the best dreams of his life, because he was on medical-grade drugs. The best kind. Nothing here of interest at all.

  That’s if you didn’t count Amedea.

  She was sitting up on the edge of her bed, eyes no longer dulled by drugs or mind control or whatever had happened on Station Echo 9. There was a holo stage showing her vitals, an outline of her body lined in blue. Nate looked at Amedea, then at Karkoski, then at Chad, who was still eating a sandwich. He turned to the doctor, his white medical uniform pinned with a lieutenant’s insignia. Also no Republic branding. Interesting.

  “So,” said Nate. He was itching to go, because his Grace was out there.

  “So,” agreed Karkoski. “Doctor?”

  The doctor nodded, then worked the console, zooming the holo in on Amedea’s head. “Here.”

  “Cool,” said Nate. The image was blues and blacks. “What am I looking at?”

  “First thing,” said Chad, “is that she’s missing pieces of her brain.”

  “Unfortunate side effect of having insects living in her brain cavity,” said the doctor. “What you will note is that the insects are gone.”

  “The cure,” said Nate.

  “The cure,” said Karkoski, “which your Engineer uncovered. The data crystals from Station Echo 9 contain a wealth of hard-won intelligence. One of them is that nanites, programmed in a particular way, will hunt out the Ezeroc larvae and consume them.”

  “Our tiny bugs eating theirs?” said Nate.

  The doctor wobbled his hand in the air. “Kind of. It’s illegal. It looks like AI. It’s a little more complicated—”

  “Is she brain-dead?” said Nate.

  “I’m right here,” said Amedea. “I am … here. I. I. Am.”

  “Not brain-dead,” said the doctor. “The problem is ther
e are … missing components. In Amedea’s case, parts of her cortex that control movement, speech, and facets of memory have been consumed by the insects.”

  “That sounds rough,” said Nate.

  “Memories won’t return,” said the doctor. He gestured at Nate’s hand. “But we can … fix the other problems.”

  “Okay,” said Nate. “What’s this got to do with me?”

  “Amedea has something to tell you,” said Karkoski. “Don’t you, Amedea?”

  • • •

  It took a long time in the telling. The telling was augmented by recordings of insane babbling of Amedea as the nanites fixed her mind. The recordings didn’t make it look painless. The trick, as the doctor explained, was to have the nanites attack the Ezeroc larvae without them being aware of it. They weren’t in the mind-reading state at that point in development. The doctor had said a cure could only be administered if there is not a neighboring watcher intelligence, which sounded to Nate like a clinical way of saying your friends are all fucked if you can’t extract them to a safe haven. The implications were clear: the brain bugs might just clean house inside a brain cavity, taking the ship down with them, so to speak.

  In this instance, it suggested that there were no Ezeroc sleeper agents on the Torrington, which would help Karkoski sleep easier at night. That wasn’t the point.

  The nanites invaded the bloodstream, seeking hostile tissue. The doctor had called it repurposed tech and mentioned something about how cancer was cured, like insects in your skull were a kind of cancer. And Nate figured he was on to something there. The nanites snuck on up alongside the Ezeroc larvae, who were lunching down on brain tissue, and invaded their cells in turn. Like a turducken, a thing inside a thing inside a thing. They coordinated electronically, signals the Ezeroc seemed to have trouble with, working their way up to the Ezeroc ganglion, and shutting it down. From there, they worked like tiny wheat threshers, milling the Ezeroc tissue into slurry, ferrying it out of the bloodstream to be waste matter.

  Amedea had been pissing and shitting bloody material for hours.

  Half-way through the … recovery process, she’d grabbed the arm of a passing medtech, and said she’d wanted to confess. The tech hadn’t known what that meant, but had got the doctor to stop by. The doctor had asked about the confession, and Amedea said she didn’t remember. She said she remembered his brother’s sword, a blade of black metal.