Princess of the Void

“Do you like being here?”

Ajax turns his head as the platform rises through the hab block. “On this lift, or on the Pike?”

“On the Pike.”

“Nowhere else I’d want to be, Prince Consort.”

“You can be as honest as you want,” Grant says. “I’m just asking as myself.”

“I’m aware, Prince Consort.”

“Just making that clear. Sorry for the implication.”

Ajax stiffens. “There’s really no need for that, Prince Consort.”

“For what?”

“The apology.”

“Right. Sorry.”

It’s hard to tell behind the man’s reflective helmet, but something in his mien feels as though he’s staring.

They return to the Princess’s grand door. Grant presses the seal.

A crackle and Sykora’s voice pipes out. “Is that my manly Maekyonite?”

“It’s Grant.”

“Step in, my dear.”

Ajax nods at Grant as he enters the Princess’s cabin. Sykora is seated at a vanity by her bed, carefully applying plum-colored gloss to her lip. She’s wearing a fancier, scantier version of the Black Pike uniform, with an audacious keyhole neckline. A platinum diadem encircles her forehead. “Good evening, Grantyde. I didn’t intend for you to stay so long in that cell, today. But I have been so busy. I’m actually on my way to another meeting with the command group, but I’ve decided you’re attending this one so I can actually spend some time with my new husband before he returns to his cell. Or fucks me?” She glances back to him, brow raised.

He shakes his head.

“Ah, well.” She sighs and returns to her makeup. “Stay where you are for a moment while I finish my face up.”

Grant puts his hands in his pockets. His tunic does have nicely voluminous pockets.

“Did we enjoy ourselves in the cell?” Sykora hangs gold hoop rings from her broad ears.

“No.”

Her topcoat is hanging off a seat a few feet away. On its back, in velvety scarlet, is her twin-halberd sigil.

A holster dangles from the brocaded belt. A holster with an ornamented gun stock protruding from it.

“You know, Grantyde, I couldn’t exactly understand you down in that dungeon you kept me in. But I liked how talkative you were. I thought: I’d love to understand what this man is saying. His smile and his laugh speak well of him. I imagine he has a quick wit. It’s all right if I was wrong. You’re good-looking enough that you don’t need one. And I’ll chalk up how little you speak to how upset you are. But I’m hoping that as we’re reacquainted, we’ll find a groove in our repartee beyond—” Sykora drops her voice to a gravelly imitation of him. “No. What?Go fuck yourself.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

She giggles. “That might count.”

She turns around and sees the gun in Grant’s hand.

“Oh, you insufferable Maekyonite,” she says.

“Stay where you are,” he says.

Her lips twist. Her pupils narrow. “Kindly refrain from shooting me, husband.”

“I don’t want to. But this arrangement needs to change.” He doesn’t know how this thing works, but the switch on the side certainly looks like a safety catch. He thumbs it and a green diode blinks on. “Whatever you want from me, we can talk about it. After you agree to my freedom.”

“Isn’t this déjà vu. You holding me prisoner.” She stands up and swans from her seat. He tracks her with the barrel of the pistol. “I wonder if déjà vu translated. Do you have a comparable idiom?”

“It translated,” he says. “I said stay where you are.”

She freezes. “Although it’s not exactly how it was, was it? If memory serves…”

She unlaces the clasp on her keyhole neckline.

“I had a lot less on,” she says.

“You are fucking crazy, lady.”

“Do you feel better, now that you’re holding me up? Maybe this is how you’d like to have me.” Her dark lips pull into a grin. “Playing the big bad kidnapper. We could arrange that. I’m flexib—”

Her uniform slides apart. A flash of bare cerulean curves. She disappears.

Grant stumbles backward, raising the pistol. His eyes dart to the floor, to the silks, to anything that might track her passage.

An eddy of air disturbs a tapestry. He twists the barrel in that direction and suddenly, hair-first, she’s directly in front of him, staring straight down the barrel.

She seizes the pistol and presses it to her forehead. Her hand wraps around his and pushes his finger down on the trigger.

The gun makes a buzzing noise. Its green light blinks red.

“Oops,” Sykora purrs. “Clumsy hubby.”

The gun is wrenched behind his back. He slams to the floor. His cheek is flush to the carpet. His now-naked captor sits delicately on his back. He feels the globes of her butt shift as she crosses her legs.

“I really thought I put that out of reach.” Sykora’s grip is viselike on his arm. She is squeezing hard enough to brook no movement. Her tail is wrapped around the back of his neck in some strange configuration of a headlock. “I underestimated your long Maekyonite arms, I suppose. For reference, darling, when a gun is properly keyed to a print, it looks like this.” She pulls the gun from his numbing fingers and holds it before him. The panel flashes blue as she lays her thumb against the switch. A whirring hum of building energy sounds from it.

He feels the gun’s barrel kiss his spinal cord where it meets his skull. He shuts his eyes.

Her weight is suddenly off him. “Stand up, and do not try to harm me again.”

He rises to his knees. “That’s it?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Would you prefer I put you over my knee and spank you?”

“I threatened your life.”

“No, you didn’t,” she says. “You couldn’t have. Even if the gun had worked. You couldn’t bring yourself to pull the trigger. Do you see, now? The control I have over you?”

He glares. “Without me, you’d be down there, still trapped in that glass box. You don’t act like it.”

“I told you, darling. You did what I compelled you to do. A locksmith doesn’t thank her picks.”

“She doesn’t try to fuck them, either.”

She laughs, light and buoyant. “Maybe she would, if they were as finely crafted as you are.” She cups his chin. “I’m going to put my clothes back on, now. Or we’ll be late.”

“You are cruel,” he says. “It’s cruel to treat someone this way. Someone whose big mistake was saving you.”

She flicks his nose as she pulls away. “Tell yourself it was your decision, if you prefer. I don’t have the time to further disabuse you.” She zips her uniform back up and holsters her gun. “Come.”

He follows. She grins, as if this was some point she’d proven.

They emerge onto a deck that for all the world seems to be open to space. A ribbon of emerald nebula wraps its way across the void.

A hexagonal table, carved from more of that scarlet wood, rests in the center of the chamber. Hexagons, red, and black. Grant is learning what Taiikari like.

Two Taiikari women rise to their feet as Sykora arrives on deck. A third, older than the rest and with a thumbprint of grease on her face, seemingly forgets to.

“Hail, Majesty.” Vora bows to her. “Good afternoon, Consort Grantyde.” She bows to him as well.

“Yes, co-signed.” The grease-smudged woman gestures with a creaky metal prosthetic arm. Her fleshy hand scrolls one of the handheld tablet things he’s seen them carry, though hers is much bulkier and haphazard than Vora’s slim model. “Bows, et cetera.”

The third, a scarred and strapping woman with thick-trimmed eyebrows and a platinum pixie cut, just grunts and nods, her gauntleted arms folded.

“Tablets at the table? Sullen grunts? You’re setting a bad example for my alien, you know.” Sykora takes her seat. “He’s already such a disobedient boy.” She pats a large, high-backed seat next to her. “Would you like to stand in defiance, Grantyde, or would you like a seat that fits your rear?”

Grant sits next to Sykora. Vora and the scarred woman take their seats simultaneously.

“That is Brigadier Hyax.” Sykora indicates her battle-damaged officer. “And that is Chief Engineer Waian. You’ve met Majordomo Vora. We four are the command group of the ZKZ Black Pike.”

Hyax glowers. “You ought to have seen me yesterday before that address, Majesty.”

“I knew as soon as I delivered it you’d feel that way, Brigadier. That’s why I’ve brought you this as recompense.” Sykora slides a lacquered box across the table.

Hyax opens it and pulls Grant’s pistol from it. “Ooh. Interesting.”

“A Maekyonite hand-rifle,” Sykora says. “Quite the relic, no?”

“That’s mine,” Grant protests.

Sykora beams and takes Grant’s hand. “It’s a gift from both of us, then.” Grant slips her grip.

Hyax slides the box under the table. “Worthy recompense, Majesty and Consort. Thank you and well-met.” She peers warily at Grant under her thick brows. “Though I didn’t count on you bringing him, Majesty.”

“I can’t leave my husband unattended at the moment, Brigadier. He’s undergoing a spirited phase. It’s either by my side or in his cell, and I can’t just coop the poor thing up all day. Don’t worry. He’ll be no harm.”

Grant’s surprised she’d say that when he was just pointing a gun at her, but he elects to stay silent in front of Sykora’s military chief.

“That harmless husband came from a world that held you prisoner,” Hyax says.

“Where was this, again?” Waian looks up from her tablet.

Sykora nods to Vora, who adjusts a panel laid into the table as she speaks. "An H-class world called Maekyon, between the borders of Black Pike and Glory Banner.” The display at the center of the table switches to a view of the Milky Way, pinpointing the Orion Arm. “Third planet in the Prelate system. We didn’t realize its local technology was at a level that could detain a Taiikari.”

“Nowhere close yet to an uplift candidate, I’m afraid,” Sykora says. “Pre-light. It’s a good thing their telecommunications were at an outsized advance. I would never have contacted you without Grantyde’s personal device. Everything else was rather crude.”

Not so crude we couldn’t keep you locked down, Grant thinks, and then admonishes himself. He’s not so resentful that he thinks what they were doing to Sykora was right.

“Well done on escaping, Majesty.” Waian’s prosthetic forearm clicks rhythmically as she zips her tablet into a sleeve by her boots. “Fought your way out, yeah?”

“Honestly, Wai,” mutters Hyax. “I send the debriefs for a reason.”

“I held on,” Sykora says. “Eventually they sent someone whose mind they couldn’t guard and I used him to spring my way out. And that’s how I met Grantyde. Say hello, Grantyde!”

Grant crosses his arms.

“I’m glad I managed to lift one out,” Sykora says. “You’d think being held captive by a race of sexy giants would be a dream, but the reality was quite awful.”

Grant thinks about someone finding Drake the potbellied cowboy sexy and smirks. Sykora sees it, and smirks coldly back. “But that’s over with, now,” she says. She’s misinterpreted him, but before he can tell her so, her gaze has swept past him. “Now onward to our little Ptolek situation. Vora’s mentioned the killings are still going on.”

“Your consort ought not to be present for matters this substantial, Majesty. Not when he’s still this insubordinate.” Brigadier Hyax’s eyes narrow as she takes Grant in. They flash red. “Leave, Maekyonite. Fetch us some tea.”

“Get it yourself,” he says.

“Hyax, you forget yourself.” Sykora leans forward with a glare. “You will not compel my—” Her voice dies. She stares at Grant. “What did you say?”

“I’m not gonna run around making your people tea,” Grant says.

Ten seconds of utter silence follow his pronouncement.

“Hyax,” Sykora says. “You did compel him. I didn’t imagine that. Yes?”

“Yes,” Hyax murmurs. Her scarred face is full of intrigue. “Consort. Tea. Go.”

That flash again. The slow dawn of realization colors Grant’s mind. “No,” he says, carefully.

Sykora’s cheeks are turning the color of a ripe blueberry. “Will you stop compelling my husband, Brigadier!”

“Gods of the firmament.” Waian’s mouth is half-covered by her metal hand. “Are you sick or something, Hyax?”

Vora is scribbling notes furiously. “And you’re sure he’s male by birth?”

“I.” Sykora blanches. “I had assumed—“

“I am,” Grant supplies. “By birth.”

Waian squints. “Has he had some kind of alien lobotomy done? Was the implant installed right? Does he understand?”

“I understand you perfectly,” he says. “The words, anyway.”

Sykora’s mouth opens and closes. “Take your clothes off,” she says. Flash.

“On the deck? No.”

Sykora bites her lip. “Stand on one foot.” Flash.

His brow furrows. He stands on one foot.

Her chair screeches as she stands. “Why did you obey that one?”

“Because it doesn’t involve mooning your command group.”

Hyax’s face is turning a dark violet. “Does it not work on him, Majesty?”

“It must.” Sykora paces around the table to where Grant stands. “I used it on him in my escape.”

And Grant remembers. All the times Batty’s eyes flashed like this. They were times she was telling him to do something.

Sykora is staring at him with slowly mounting horror.

She thought she was controlling your mind. This entire time. She thought you had no choice but to free her.

A huff of disbelieving laughter escapes his lungs.

“Vora.” Hyax turns to the seneschal. “Compel him.”

“Um. Uh.” Vora’s eyes are bugged and anxious. They flash. “Sing a song.”

He looks to Sykora. “Am I supposed to be refusing, here, or obeying?”

“That’s enough,” Sykora snaps. “We’re adjourning.”

Vora’s white-knuckling her tablet. “Majesty—”

“Now, Vora.”

“We haven’t even started the damn briefing,” Hyax protests. “I had slides.”

“We’ll reconvene soon, Brigadier. Thank you for your time.” Sykora turns to Grant. “Come with me. Now.”