Tyche's Crown

by Richard Parry

  “Cease fire,” she said. “Orders to stand down, all ships, all weapons.”

  Silence followed her command. Karkoski turned to Communications. “I said, orders to stand down, all ships, all weapons.”

  The comms officer seemed to be coming around from a daze, but nodded, the motion slow and sluggish. Karkoski turned to Chad, who wasn’t standing at her side anymore.

  She found him at the doorway out of the bridge, fingernails broken off where he’d been trying to claw his way out through the steel bulkhead. His eyes were red, staring. She offered him a hand, which he took, and she helped him upright. “Chad—”

  “Karkoski,” he hissed. “We have a very, very small window. There is a Queen down there.” His hand jerked towards the window, the brown orb of the planet suspended like a round turd. “The oldest of them. The strongest. There are others. Other Queens, but they all … they are submissive. Like us.”

  “Got it,” said Karkoski.

  “No,” said Chad. “You don’t. We need to bust that planet open. Everything we’ve got.”

  “Chevell is down there,” said Karkoski. “We saw his ship heading for the crust.” That, at least, she remembered through the haze of the Ezeroc pressing on her mind.

  “No problem,” said Chad. “Get him on the horn. Tell him to get out. You fire your nukes. He gets out. Win-win.”

  “And we win the war?” said Karkoski.

  Chad laughed, a weak, feeble sound. “No, Karkoski. But we win the most important battle of the war. We show those fuckers they can be beaten. They’ve never, ever been beaten.”

  “Nukes it is,” she said, turning from Chad. “Communications? Get me the Tyche. Tactical?”

  Her tactical officer nodded. “Sir?”

  “I want the whole fleet to empty every crust buster they’ve got down there. First, clear all that shit,” and here, she waved an arm, encompassing the debris field, “out of the way. Make a hole with standard weapons. Then drop everything we’ve got onto that crust. I want to see nothing larger than a cupcake floating out there within twenty minutes.”

  “Fucken’ A,” said the tactical officer, then realized his breach in protocol.

  Karkoski thought of a couple choice responses, but settled on one she was sure would send the right message. She stalked around to the Tactical console, leaning over the man. She looked him in the eye. “Fucken’ A,” she agreed.

  Her Communications officer spoke. “Tyche on comm.”

  “One moment,” said Karkoski. She looked out the bridge windows. “Let’s light it up.”

  The Republic fleet, all one hundred and thirty ships, fired on the planet below. It was terrible. It was beautiful. Now, to get Chevell out alive.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  GRACE WANTED TO scream. She wanted to rage, and cry, and kill every insect on this world. They’d made her kill the man she’d loved, and that wasn’t even the worst part of it. The thing that sat like a cancer in her gut was that Nate had come here knowing he would die. He’d had a hypo with him full of ancient human medicine, a last roll of the dice to save just one more person from the evil of the Ezeroc. She’d seen his eyes and his heart, the way he’d held those dice in a fist to blow luck on them. Not luck for him, because his was all spent. For her. For his Grace.

  And she’d killed him.

  The cavern had three souls in it: hers, tarnished and bloody. Kohl’s, bright and hungry. And the remains of something that lingered on the wind, the memory of a dead starship captain who wouldn’t leave anyone behind.

  Kohl was still fussing with Nate’s suit, trying to get human tech to reach beyond the veil that had always been denied their species. There were no do-overs. No come-backs. You stick a length of steel through someone’s heart, they’ll stay dead. There might be machines that could breathe for you, or pump your blood, but there weren’t any of those machines around them right now. Just a barren world.

  Come back to us. There is no place for you in their world anymore.

  Grace pulled her gaze away from Nate’s prone body. She stared at the back of the cavern, into the dark pit that led below. In that pit, there was a Queen, the eldest of her kind. Grace closed her eyes, looking with the new sight they’d given to her. Ah. There you are. I see you. Down below, kilometers below the planet’s crust, there was a vaulted chamber, full of drones, servants of a different empire. The Queen above them was colossal, three stories tall, fat and ripe even after millennia of slumber.

  And we see you. We’ve changed you. Made you anew. Unlocked what was hidden.

  Yes, said Grace. And that will be your undoing.

  Grace knew the Queen had been reaching up into space, controlling the thousands of human minds above them. She’d played them like an expert, because she’d done this before. Not just with humans, who came to flush her out, but with other species who came to do the same thing. There was nothing left of any of them but a lingering remnant: empty starships, silent in the void. Warning markers at the border of their world. And no one listened to the warnings.

  The Queen’s contact had been disrupted when the nanites Nate had injected into Grace had gobbled up the insect in her skull. The pain was exquisite, but nothing compared to what she felt now with Nathan Chevell at her feet. The nanites had left Grace clear-headed and hungry. She had a fixing to use that hunger.

  “Kohl,” she said.

  “Yeah, Gracie?”

  “In no more than thirty seconds, a hundred thousand Ezeroc will come for us.”

  “Awesome.”

  She felt the ghost of a smile touch her lips, like her body remembered what humor was. “It’ll be less awesome for us. For you. For…” She trailed off, looking at Nate, then cleared her throat. “I’ll make sure you can get out. The Queen. She’ll control your mind, crash the Tyche down here.”

  Kohl stood from his fussing with Nate’s suit. Nothing else to be done there. There hadn’t been anything else to do in the first place. “Naw. We’ve got Hope.” He gave her a grin through his helmet. “Bugs have never had a Hope.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Jewelry,” said Kohl, perhaps more cryptically than was warranted.

  She sighed, opening her other sight to look into his mind, and found … blankness. Nothing. A zero where there should have been a one. Her eyes opened in surprise. “What the hell?”

  “Jewelry,” he said again, holding up his arm as if it was supposed to mean something. He pointed at her hand where her fingers taped around the hilt of a black-bladed Old Empire sword. “Hope unpicked how the sword worked. Made it so that the bugs can’t see inside our heads.”

  “Everyone has one?” said Grace.

  “No,” said Kohl. “Just us on the Tyche.”

  “Because?”

  “Reasons,” he said.

  “So, the rest of the human space fleet, complete with its supplies of nuclear weapons, lasers, masers, and—”

  “Yeah, they came loaded for bear.”

  Grace looked back to the pit leading down. “But they don’t have the technology.”

  “Nope.”

  “And the Ezeroc Queen can still control them, so if we get off this rock we’ll just be blown out of the sky.”

  “Maybe,” said Kohl. “I’m figuring something else is more likely. See, Karkoski will crack this crust wide open.”

  “You think the Queen will get the human fleet to destroy any inbound weapons sent to kill her.”

  “It’d be what I’d do,” said Kohl, “on account of not wanting to die.”

  “If she does that,” said Grace, “we might live.”

  “Might,” allowed Kohl. He looked like he was struggling with something too heavy even for him. After a moment, he said, “But if we live because this planet’s still whole? It’ll have been for nothing. The bugs, Gracie. The bugs have got to die. No matter the cost.” He didn’t look happy about it.

  She cast another glance at Nate’s form. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll stop her.”


  “You can do that?” said Kohl.

  “I can try,” she said. “Help me with him. When this happens, it’ll happen fast. Keep the bugs away from us. And I’ll keep their minds away from the fleet’s.”

  Kohl’s plasma cannon whined out on its mounts. “Ready to rock, Gracie.”

  • • •

  The quiet of the mind was like a deep lake on a summer’s day. Blue-black coolness around her, the bright light of reality above. Below her in the depths?

  Sharks swam in the darkness.

  Except they weren’t sharks: alien minds, comfortable with their power. They’d been on top for a long time.

  Chad? Chad. I need you. I need you all. She sent her thoughts to the stars, to those Intelligencers up in space above. The Ezeroc had made her strong, but this wasn’t a fight one person could win alone.

  Chad’s response was weak but steady. Grace. We’re here. What do you need? She could sense the minds linked to his, over a hundred human souls burning bright like stars above.

  Be ready. Grace felt the weight of Nate’s body across her shoulders, but it felt half-real. It was good and bad; bad, because she was carrying her lover and her partner and she’d killed him, but good, because the feel of him gave her strength. She sank slower into the quiet of the mind, seeking the eldest of the Ezeroc.

  The ancient Queen wasn’t hard to find. She wasn’t hiding from Grace. You have come back to us.

  Grace would have laughed if she’d been able to. I have come to end you.

  You? We know the shape of your thoughts. We know every part of you. There is no dissent in the Hive. There is only belonging. To us. And you belong. To us.

  Grace ignored that, swimming further down. The Intelligencers above swam with her, bright motes around her like bubbles in the water.

  A younger Queen — Grace knew this one was closer to the planet’s surface, with a smaller cadre of drones at her command — came for her. Grace met her charge in the blue-black, the sword of her thoughts bright silver. The strength of a hundred other humans tempered the blade of her mind. Grace reached out, feeling the shape of the other Queen, and … cut her apart. It was like kendo, a quiet dance of perfect form. A slice here separated self from selves, leaving the Queen alone. Another cut, and off came the delusional limbs of power. A final cut, and the ability to think and control was gone. The younger Queen drifted, dying, and then was gone, the blue-black once again cool and calm.

  Further down then. The blue-black felt heavier this far down, but Grace welcomed the weight of it. It made her feel whole, compressed, unlike the thousand selves she had been made to be a part of. The Intelligencers with her were a team, not a collective. They fought through shared purpose, not compulsion. It was their strength.

  A shoal of Queens attacked her, coming in with rending claws of thought. They wanted to stake her down, pin her mind into immobility. The number and weight of them should have been sufficient. All that remained after their passing was chum in the deep, and then a spreading nothingness. Grace felt Chad’s triumph as Grace erased the Queens as if they’d never been, their drone armies in the bright light of reality stuttering to a halt without a governing intelligence.

  Finally, the bottom of the lake: almost black, except for the bright intelligence that loomed before Grace. A leviathan, of a size to make the blue whale no more than an ant. Before that majesty was Grace Gushiken. A creation of the Ezeroc, but a creation of humanity too. A despised daughter. A feared esper. A mongrel, hated, cast off, both more and less than nothing.

  Yes, Grace was those things, but she was more. A friend. A companion in the hard black. A warrior. She’d learned to stand instead of run. She’d learned to fear loss. She’d learned to love.

  Here in the dark quiet of the mind, the Ezeroc Queen and Grace joined their battle. Never had the Ezeroc encountered a species with even a fraction of their gift. They’d uplifted Grace to be the greatest of them, a sharp edge to be used in future battles. They hadn’t counted on Grace having companions who would die for her. They hadn’t counted on Grace being so lucky. They’d shrugged off a couple of crust-busting nukes before. They hadn’t factored in the weapon they’d made — Grace herself, and her expanded powers — shaking off her shackles, and carving through the heart of their strongest and eldest. They hadn’t factored on Intelligencers, once enemies of all humanity, lending their strength in this final fight.

  Humanity sends its regards, said Grace. Then she, and a hundred other human minds, struck.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  “TYCHE, THIS IS Torrington actual,” said Karkoski’s voice over the comm.

  El still had a hard burn for the bug’s crust. She clicked her comm. “Torrington, this is Tyche. Go.”

  “Message for Captain Chevell,” said Karkoski. “We’re about to blow up the planet.”

  El looked at Hope, then at the planet. “Wait. No.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “A small one,” said El. “The cap’s down there.”

  There was a pause on the comm channel, the Tyche shaking as they fought atmosphere on the way in. “Say again, Tyche. I think we’re getting atmosphere burr. I thought you said Chevell is on the crust.”

  “Yep,” said El.

  There was another pause on the comm. “Tyche, be advised you need to extract him post haste.”

  “Cool,” said El. “We were on the job anyway.”

  “Because the fleet has just launched nukes at the planet,” said Karokoski.

  El looked at the comm, then craned a neck over her shoulder, as if she could somehow see the nukes chasing them down towards the crust. “How many?” she asked. Maybe a couple would be fine, miss the areas they were in. Or they could chance the target sites. Or something.

  “All of them,” said Karkoski. “They’re on dumb fire, in case … well, the bugs take over our minds again.”

  “Fuck,” said El. “Karkoski?”

  “Roussel.”

  “We’ll have a talk after this.” She clicked the comm off, and looked over at Hope. “I need to know how much time we’ve got.”

  Hope nodded at her, acceleration couch shaking her head more than her neck ever could, and the holo stage cleared. The Tyche was already talking to the ground, trying to find her wayward crew. The holo blinked once, twice, then filled with information.

  First up was the detonation of a chunk of the Old Empire fleet in orbit as Karkoski’s fleet carved a hole towards the planet. Expected, but it’s not like they needed them anymore. Second up? More alarming. Grace’s vitals were all over the charts, Kohl’s were mildly elevated but nothing that a little booze or fighting or whoring wouldn’t explain. Nate’s vitals? Not there.

  “What’s … going on?” said Hope, looking at the empty graphs where Nate’s vitals should be.

  El thought about that, then opted for the safe course of action, the one where she wouldn’t have to think about it. “Time, Hope. How much time do we have?”

  “Right,” said the Engineer. The holo tracked the incoming salvo of weapons, tagging them as crust-busters. Oh my. That’s a lot of nukes. “About ten minutes.”

  El laughed. “Ten minutes to get down through atmosphere, find the team, load ‘em up, and fly out of here?”

  “About. A little less.”

  “We’re fucked,” said El. Her hands rested against the controls, the Tyche singing with thrust around her. Sure, El, you could turn this ship around. You could get the hell out of here while there’s still a here to get out of. Fly the Tyche somewhere safe and sound. Ride out this crazy war. She turned to Hope. “I want to let you know. We’re going down there. We’ll get them all. We might die. But we’re going.”

  “Yes,” said Hope, like it was obvious. “Of course we are.”

  Great. The kid’s way ahead of you. Again. El looked down at the planet rushing towards them, pulling the sticks to get the Tyche’s belly under them. The air — only quarter of an atmosphere — still hammered at the hull like constant thunde
r. Bleed off a little speed. Try and get close to the ground doing a mere five times the speed of sound. Don’t leave an impact crater. All good rules to live by. The ship was trembling around here, frightened and eager, just like she was. A terrain map was on the holo, but she ignored it. She didn’t have time to do this by the numbers. There wasn’t time to go in right, get the insertion correct. She needed to fly fast.

  There. Ahead of them was the spot, the HUD marking the crew’s locations. She gave a quick glance at the holo — seven minutes — as she cut speed, bringing them in nice and close. She could see Grace out in front, hauling — God, no — Nate’s body. El squinted … it looked like Grace had Nate’s sword taped to her hand, but El’s eyes were getting on a bit, and she could have been seeing things. Kohl was bringing up the rear, walking backward out of the cave, his plasma cannon raining fury into the Ezeroc boiling out of the dark.

  Those fucking insects. Every damn step of the way, they’d been plagued by them. Here at the last, with nukes coming down, the literal end of all things, the bugs were still dogging their heels. There was an old saying, you should never bring a knife to a gunfight. Or, as El liked to think of it, you should never bring ground troops against a military heavy lifter. She worked the comm, deploying the Tyche’s PDCs. She turned the hovering ship in a slow circle, sand spraying out from under them as the Tyche rained death and vengeance on the Ezeroc. Chitin cracked, bodies exploded in the tungsten rain. A lumbering crab — heavy armor, massive body — turned into pulp in a second as the Tyche reminded the enemy that these people were hers, and that they could not have them.

  The PDCs spun down, the low rumble from the Endless Drive the only noise. El keyed the comm. She wanted to say is he okay but the words wouldn’t come out, so instead she said, “Ground crew, this is Tyche Helm. Get onboard. We’ve got … five minutes before the planet doesn’t exist anymore.”