by Bex McLynn
He smiled, a bit crooked, and looked uncertain. "Glad you're not mad at me, Seph."
"I’m not mad." And she wasn't. Hurt, yes, but she understood their reasons. Protect Rannik. After all, she never told them about Xander. "Not mad at you. Not at Zver. Just caught me off guard."
"We're all so fucking sorry, Seph," Therion said thickly.
"I know." She remained silent and kept her eyes on her WristCune. However, she felt compelled to share with him. "You remind me of my brother."
"He must be awesome as fuck. Younger brother?"
"Older. Jeremy. We called him Rem," she said, her throat aching a bit. "But he's gone now. He died in an accident a while back."
"Gods, Seph. Sorry."
"Thanks, Ther." She tapped her boots on the deck. "Your brother and I, we never really talked about our families. So, you see, I can't really be angry at him."
Therion grimaced. "I don't want to know your goings-on with my brother. Very serious about that, Seph. Keep those nasty details bottled up inside."
"Understood." She realized that she was dragging the conversation out. Prykimis had only been underway for a few hours, yet she felt a crushing loneliness.
Therion gave her a curious look that encouraged her to speak her mind.
"I just realized something." She lightened her tone, hoping her mood would lighten as well. "You could have told me that you're Zver's brother until you were blue in the face—" he quirked a brow at her turn of phrase, because his praal did make his face blue, "and I still wouldn't have believed you. You're so different. He's the thane. You're the bane."
Therion laughed, big and booming, without a single hint of the coughs that had plagued him since she first met him. This was how Therion was supposed to sound. Hardy and hale. God, so much like Rem.
"Dammit, Seph. How'd you know I adore it when things rhyme? Forget about Zver. Be mine forever."
She just bumped his shoulder. Gazing at the stars, she forgot to panic when faced with the infinite expanse of space.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Zver exited the bridge of Deleo and strode toward his cabin. Two more days, then they'd be home at Bulan Ero. He tried to find joy in returning to his homeworld. Harvest time neared for the Northern Continent, and he had several settlements making rather grand plans for his tour of their districts. These were routine, but festive occasions. The part of his duty that he secretly enjoyed because when he submerged himself, it bolstered his resolve to attend to his duties. He remembered the reason why he dealt with TerTac and the Dominion Council—all for the sake of Bulan Ero.
Rannik would be back with him this season. He'd have his son join him for a few weeks before returning to Fleet Academe. Zver was already slinging messages back and forth with Academe Administration. They wanted Rannik sooner rather than later—due to the Dominion issuing official news of Seph—but he felt the need to keep Rannik close to him. Not indefinitely. He knew that was impossible. But Rannik's time on Prykimis marked his son. The youth pined for Seph. He had seen men neglected by their officers and house. He had witnessed the immediate aftermath of fierce battles. Rannik had aged considerably in the past few weeks, attaining a level of maturity unknown to Zver when he was that age.
He believed this in his bones—Rannik would be a better man than he was.
Even now, Rannik Cuned with Seph. The ridiculous, hourly messages that served no purpose other than communicating wistful longing. My thoughts are of you. Zver had not replied to Seph's only message. She apologized, profusely, for darting him. Which was preposterous. She didn't shoot him. Prykimis did. And even then, the ship had aimed for Arana. But he said nothing, because he'd rather tell her these things in person. When she was forced to acknowledge her own idiosyncrasies, her reactions were singular.
Gods, he missed her.
His data feeds streamed non-stop through his mind. He obsessively devoured any updates from Wies. He even read all of Therion's Cunes, grateful for the candid he sneaked of Seph resting against the Command Console on Prykimis's bridge. The image shredded his chest. Her cheeks were flushed that otherworldly crimson, her lips were parted and turned up in a bashful smile. He couldn't see her eyes, though. She had been looking down, her lashes fluttered a breath from her smooth cheek.
Gods, he wanted her.
"You only growl when you're angry."
He flicked his gaze up. Rannik waited outside his cabin, slouched against the wall, eyes on his WristCune.
"Want to join me for tuck?" he asked his son.
"Nah, just wanted to know when we were gonna turn around and go get Seph."
Ah yes, Rannik's daily check-in.
"We are not." His daily response.
"Okay, then." Rannik moved to walk off. "See you tomorrow."
He wrapped his hand around his son's bicep, halting him. "This is not how you can best aid her."
"Well, if I had access to a TerTac destroyer, a squadron of spires, and several dozen fleetmen, I know precisely how I'd aid her. But no one wants to do what's fucking obvious."
He frowned at his son's deteriorating vocabulary—a remnant of Rannik's time with Therion. 'Fucking' was one of Therion's favorite words.
With a put-upon sigh, he thanked the gods that Rannik was still scrawny enough to be manhandled. He bodily dragged his son into his cabin.
"Obvious," he said as he released him. "And what would happen if we do as you say?"
"Seph would be here," Rannik said fiercely. "Where she belongs."
"And what of Prykimis and her crew? Where would they be?"
"I know what you're doing. You're going to hold my hand like a child and walk me through all the damn scenarios. Every last possible outcome tossed in my face. But that doesn't change the fact that we abandoned one of our own. Seph is house. She's clade. And we left her."
Damn. Rannik jabbed those cutting words into his gut, made him feel each thrust. He tried to recenter this moment, to focus on the fact that Rannik was becoming a man who stood by his convictions, a man with honor.
"We are a breath away from openly feuding with Jahat. You'd have us battling TerTac and Conari as well?"
"None of them would come at us if we had both Prykimis and Vayant."
"They wouldn't come for the ship. They'd come for her. They'd bring war to our world and rip her from us."
"But it's Seph! I promised her I'd take care of her."
"I've made the same promise. I've sent Dius to Radost, to hunt down the Lassie trader, to find out where she truly came from. I gave her Wies and an entire company. She has Therion in the shadows."
"But they won't take care of her."
He knew what his son meant. Wies, his men, Therion—he knew how they all felt about Seph. She was House Borac. She was clade. She was protected. But Seph needed more. She needed someone to keep her steady when the alienness of the world was too much for her.
"Da."
Gods, Rannik hadn't called him that in years.
Rannik pounded his own chest, right over his heart, then struck out, hitting Zver in the same spot. "She's ours, Da. I feel it. She's more than house and clade."
She was family.
Zver stared at his son, suddenly overcome. His boy. Rannik wasn't his, but he'd always felt like his, so he had seized him. Had taken him. Had made him his own.
Could he not do the same thing with Seph?
"Our house is strong," he said to his son. "We're one of the strongest houses in the Dominion. If we took a spirenought and Athela, the other houses would unite and hound us."
Rannik settled some and paced the room. "Do you think she knows that? Knows that we didn't just leave her?"
"She knows." Zver had made sure of it with his words and his body.
"She needs to come to us."
"I've told her." A thought rushed over him. Something he had never considered. "She doesn't need to come to us. She needs to come at us."
Rannik shook his head, appearing confused. "I don't understand."
&nbs
p; "I took you, Ran." Gods, he hadn't called him that in ages. "Claimed you because I wanted you, and Unholde himself couldn't keep you from me."
His son heaved and rolled his eyes. "I know, Da. You've told me this, like, a thousand times."
"No one stopped me." His chest swelled with pride, for Rannik. "No one dared. Son, there was no one."
He knew Rannik understood his meaning. His son didn't dwell on the fact that no one stopped a cavalier thane from claiming a babe for his own—a babe that he had no honest claim to—and focused on Seph.
"You're the Thanemonger. If she attacks, there'd be no aid from the Dominion," his son said, echoing his thoughts. "No one would call out the injustice."
Gods, never had he been so damn glad about that moniker.
"Precisely." He smiled, the curl of his lips a bit bloodthirsty. "Unless the entire Dominion rose up, there'd be no contest."
Rannik swallowed, his eyes alight. "You think Seph will do it?"
"She has to," he said, hoping Seph would do what needed to be done. "She's the only one who can do it. Anyone else, and there'll be war."
Seph hovered over the Cuneiform table in the Athel Chamber, looking at star charts, when Wies entered the cabin.
"Elder Vedma is in the Athel Hall, waiting to see you."
Seph just blinked, dumbfounded, because she just couldn't fathom the possibility. "Repeat that, please."
Wies smirked. "Elder Vedma. Athel Hall."
"No way," Seph said as she made her way through the hatch. "Without wearing armor?"
Sure enough, Vedma sat at the table with a snarky look in her eye. Not a scrap of armor on her. Members of House Conari had been visiting the ship over the past few days. Each officer wore combat armor because the dart turrets fired nonstop on any newcomers. The ship rejected them all.
Seph leaned a hip against the banquet table and crossed her arms. "You know, you're old enough that if the ship darted you, it could kill you."
"Ech." Vedma shrugged. "It can try. Won't be the first time."
"Right." Despite her doubtful tone, Seph found that she believed Vedma. Prykimis could not possibly be the first entity to try and kill Vedma.
Vedma glared at Seph as if waiting for her to say something else. When Seph remained resolutely silent, Vedma grunted, conveying her disgust.
Seph sighed. "I'm not in the mood for your shit, Vedma."
"Well, you need my shit, 'cause you're shitless."
"In what universe do people welcome the gifting of shit, Vedma?" Seph threw her arms up. "Nowhere. There is no place in all of existence that welcomes other people's shit!"
"Well, I call 'em like I see 'em. You're shitless."
"Wha—?" Seph pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, and tried to understand why Vedma would risk her life to simply call her 'shitless.' "Are you saying I'm scared?"
"That too."
Seph laughed, a sharp-edged cackle. "Course I'm scared, Vedma. I'm being dragged, unwillingly, to the core planet of this shit show. That's right. Shit show. There's some shit for you. Shit. And just... Shit."
Out of steam, Seph fell into a chair at the table. She wanted to lower her head. She wanted to wake up and be back on Earth. She wanted to wake up and find Zver next to her. She wanted—
"You done running your mouth?"
"For now," she said sourly.
"'Cause you can't go to Lusin Ero."
Seph shook her head, as if to clear cobwebs. "Since when did you change your mind?"
"Never changed my mind."
"But in the Athel Hall, just yesterday, you—"
Vedma snorted. "I didn't say shit. Didn't mean I agreed with them arses."
"Again with the shit. All right, you silently disagreed. You're such a rebel, Vedma."
"Hell yes, I am." Vedma pounded a fist on the table. "Why do you think I'm at the Academe?"
"To take it down from the inside?"
Vedma just glowered at her.
Seph backpedaled. "What, I'm right?"
"Course I'm taking it down from the inside!" Vedma pounded the table again. "Now why do you think that is?"
"Because the establishment is evil?"
"Nah, not evil. Just stupid. Bunch of imbeciles." Vedma shook her head regrettably. "They didn't learn the first time around, with the breeding and the isolation and the training."
Seph jerked in her chair. "Wait, are you saying, that at one time, the Teras did have an evil lair of technopathy?"
"Course we did," Vedma said, unabashed. "Special housing. Breeding programs. Dedicated training facilities. Know what happened to it all? Worst case of genocide in the Dominion's history. Technopaths declared themselves Supreme Beings. Bunch of arrogant arses."
Seph sat, stunned. "Well, it's not that way now. What happened?"
"What do you think happened? A damn war, and the technopaths lost."
Seph slumped back into the seat. The technopaths lost? "But they had the ships. How could they have lost?"
Vedma smirked. "It was the ships that resisted."
The. Ships. Resisted.
"The ships resisted," Seph echoed.
"That's right."
The ships rebelled against the technopaths. If the ships went against the technopaths, then that suggested that the ships weren't just operating systems. They were sentient. That they had moya...
"What the hell, Vedma?" Seph stood, slamming her fists down on the table. "Why didn't you tell me this before? When Zver was still here!"
"Ech, he's got nothing to do with it."
Seph gasped, aghast that Vedma didn't see the obvious connection. "He wants the damn ship."
"He can want it all he likes. Wantin' is a desert wishin' for rain."
"Oh, you batty old lady. I know you're trying to tell me something. I know it. I know it. Shit." Seph shoved away from the table and paced.
Vedma was a bitter, battle-worn ax of a lady. She was mean, but she wasn't stupid. Or foolish. Or given to romantic notions. She also wouldn't tell a caroa how to seize something like a sarda.
Seize.
"I can't give it to him," Seph said as the plan blossomed in her mind. "That's what you're saying, Vedma. I can't just give him the ship. But I can resist."
And she couldn't resist by seizing the ship. Prykimis, her moya, was making her preferences known. Seph couldn't force the ship. In fact, she didn't want to force the ship, because she wasn't a puppet master. Dear god, she was so not a puppet master.
She could ask the ship, though.
"Prykimis," Seph said aloud. Her eyes darted about the Hall, not quite sure where to settle her gaze. "All stop."
A faint presence trickled through her.
"[I wake,]" Prykimis said.
Seph felt chastised. She did say 'all stop' rather than something specific, like 'apply the brakes.' She could see that Prykimis had a point. The ship just awoke and didn't want to stop. All right. This was going to take some time. Best to be simple, then.
"Change our heading. We want to go to our clade."
"[Lady Seph: clade. Strike Captain Wies: clade. Sergeant Keibin: clade. Acting Commander...]"
Seph found herself sinking back into her seat at the banquet table. "The rest of our clade. The ones not on board. We need to go to them."
"[Cadet Rannik: clade. Systemsmaster Laptrin: clade. Thane Borac: clade...]"
"Yes! Them! The rest of our clade. Can you go to them?"
"[Lady Seph: clade...]"
"You're being too caroa. Just tell the damn ship what you want."
She shook her head adamantly. "That's not the way, Vedma."
The more Prykimis connected with Seph, the more she felt like she was coaxing someone who was newly emerging. Prykimis, at this time, was not a robust personality. Yes, Seph could force her will, but what would that really give her? She had no idea how to operate the ship. She needed a partner, not a puppet.
Vedma smirked. "Then it's gonna take a bit."
"[Acting Commander Therion: clad
e...]"
Seph groaned. "Yes. This is gonna take a bit."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Seph patted the metal corridor with the palm of her hand as she hustled along.
"You are doing so well," she said in a sing-song voice.
"[I go.]"
"Yes, you go, Kimis," Seph said. "Good job."
"[I go.]"
Wies, who trekked alongside her, sternly said, "You're babying her."
Well, of course she was. The newly awoken Prykimis was childlike, and interacting with her was like playing with a toddler. And a puppy. And sometimes a kitten. She was also utterly exhausted. She hadn't been this sleep deprived since Xander was a baby.
But she also felt such pride for Prykimis's emerging moya. Kimis would grow into quite the ladyship—'lady' and 'ship,' pun intended.
Seph walked onto the bridge. Already the crew had reacted to the ship changing its course heading. A simple skeleton crew, comprised of men formerly of House Jahat, manned the stations. The only men from House Borac were her entourage. Conari had a strike team assigned to the bridge, each fleetman encased in combat armor to deflect Prykimis's darts.
"Don't panic anyone." She held her arms out in an effort to calm everyone. "We're just making some adjustments. Everything is fine, I promise."
"[I go.]"
"Yes, you go." Seph sang back.
A Conari officer stepped forward. "M'lady, you're not authorized to be on the bridge."
Seph scoffed and bristled a bit. She didn't have to be on the bridge. Hell, she could be doing this from the lav. Her courteous nature brought her to the bridge. She came to announce that she and Kimis were resisting, and hoped that, because she was so courteous about it, no one would get hurt.
"I can leave, but the course heading won't change. The ship and I are going to Bulan Ero," Seph said.
The officer cocked his head, listening to his C-Cune. "Athela, Commander Sobeck orders you to reinstate the original heading."
Of course he would. "No."
"M'lady," said the officer. "That was a direct order."
Therion sidled up next to her. "So, what's the plan, Seph? We're going to take 'em out? Rendezvous with Zver? A little hurt that you guys excluded me from the planning, but I'm willing to jump in for the thrashing bit. No hard feelings."