Princess of the Void

Grant sidles up to his wife as she watches Waian storm off the command deck. “Chief Engineer’s kind of intense about the membrane, huh?”

“Let’s not get tetchy with her over it.” Sykora sighs. “It’s her job, after all. And she knows what happens when a membrane’s integrity fails. She was a specialist on a ZKP that broke up in an engagement with rebels on the north spin. Two hundred deaths. She floated in a vacsuit for three days, trying not to bleed out from her lacerations. By the time they’d recovered her, the arm had to go.”

Grant squints at Waian as she paces up a wall. “Jesus.”

“Jesus, indeed. Whatever that means.” Sykora pats Grant’s hand. “It’s not just the membrane, anyway. She’s having a tough day. We all are. Would you mind terribly if I went to go speak with her one-on-one?”

He shakes his head. “Not at all.”

“Once the bridge crew calls out ready on sweep, have the navigatrix initiate immediately, yes? And we’ll get that gravity back on.”

“You, uh—you want me to give that order?”

“Why not?” Sykora’s eyes light up. “Ooh, Grant. I just realized. It’ll be your first, won’t it? Your first shipwide order.”

He nods uncertainly.

“I’ve changed my mind. Wait until I’m back. I want to watch.” She kicks off the deck and calls over one brocaded shoulder. “Look authoritative till I return, yes?”

“Oh. Okay.” Grant puts his hands on his hips.

It’s just an order for a sweep they already figured out, to the next world in his wife’s plan. It’s fine. Grant’s palms don’t need to sweat this much over it.

“Majesty.” Hyax’s boots clatter to his side. “Do you have a moment?”

Grant folds his arms instead. The hips pose is too much. “Sure.”

“I…” Hyax picks an errant thread from her uniform. “I want to register my concern, sire. I fear you’re in danger of influencing Sykora away from standard Imperial doctrine for annexation.”

Grant raises a brow. “Is this about the moon? I didn’t even tell her to do that. Do you have a problem with her logic?”

“No, Majesty. But the way she arrived at it worries me.” Hyax folds her hands behind her back. “She needs a husband who will stand by her without question. For the sake of the mission.” She adopts that clipped, didactic tone he remembers from his first day with her on the firing range. “If this invasion progresses to the point of action, we cannot have a Princess who dithers, who has one eye on conquest and the other on her Maekyonite’s feelings. And this task—”

“I wonder if you’d speak like this to Sykora, Brigadier.” Grant leans forward. “I’m not a Prince Consort anymore. I’m your Prince. Don’t forget that.”

“I meant no disrespect, Majesty.” Hyax shrinks back. “Forgive my lapse. I’ll mind your station.”

Grant isn’t entirely sure what to call the emotion he experiences at Hyax’s deference. He settles on satisfaction. “All right. Go on.”

“It’s only that this might be the most fraught and difficult task the Princess has taken on since her commission,” Hyax says, “and I worry for her. These procedures are well-tested and proven. And for the servants of the Empress, they’re obligatory. We all have the Princess’s ear, but you most of all. You trump her command group. I request only that you be cautious with that power. This goes beyond business as usual. It’ll be a hard cycle for all of us.”

“I—” He hesitates. The word exists for a reason, Grant. For impossibilities.

“I’m sorry, Hyax,” he says, and watches her cringe. “I am. But I have orders that outrank yours. Sykora says I’m to be her conscience. That’s what I’ll do. I can promise you I’ll keep what you told me in mind. And that I want this to go well. I’m as dedicated to the Eqtoran annexation as the rest of you. But I can’t suborn myself.”

Hyax looks poised to reply. She bites it back and chews it over. “I ask only that you and the Princess recall my misgivings when you have cause.” She bows. “I give them as your concerned servant.”

When she straightens, there’s a new look in her eyes. Grant is witnessing some kind of alchemy behind them. An intentional reordering of her internal universe, slotting him out from his old, bumbling position as her captive and placing him above her. He returns the gaze of this scarred, hard-bitten veteran warrior and feels an absurd sense of protectiveness.

Because she’s your servant, Grant. Your subject. Your responsibility.

“All right, Brigadier,” he says. “I’ll keep the Maekyonite moralizing put away for the small stuff.”

“Everything’s small from your vantage point.” Hyax snorts and some of that old Brigadier flows back into the new admixture. “Such a loomer. I’m going to miss the days I felt entitled to push you around some.”

He chuckles. “You can push me around some, Brigadier. I see how you do it to Sykora.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, milord.” Hyax nods past his shoulder. “One eighty north. Wife incoming.”

The Princess is returning, floating through the air like a blue cherub, her face contemplative after whatever words she exchanged with the grousing engineer who raised her. When she sees him looking, she brightens up and waves. “Thank goodness. I didn’t hold anything up.” Her tail wraps around his shoulders to reposition her descent, and she floats bridal-style into his arms.

“Sweep is ready, majesties.” The gravelly call from the Navigatrix. “Sails extended. We’re standing by.”

“Right.” Grant removes Sykora’s tail from his arms. She pouts confusedly. “I don’t think you should be in my arms like a kindek for my first order, babe,” he says.

She tuts and drops to the floor. “Fine.”

Grant clears his throat and looks out at the expectant bridge. “Initiate that sweep, navigatrix. Let’s go brand a moon.”

“Yes, Majesty.” The navigatrix snaps a salute.

The sky full of attackers smears before them, abstracting to bismuth geometries that break into a dazzling rainbow spectrum as the Black Pike rockets into the sweep.

“Tell Vora gravity on in thirty seconds,” Sykora whispers.

“Gravity on in thirty seconds, please, Majordomo,” Grant calls.

“Of course, Majesty.” Vora unhooks her microphone to broadcast the countdown.

Sykora bats excitedly at the hem of his topcoat. “How’d that feel?”

“Unreasonably nerve-wracking,” Grant says, honestly.

“You’ll acclimate.” She kisses his knuckle. “Brigadier, prepare the gunnery crews. I want our cannons heated and prepped by the time we’re out of sweep.”

Hyax bows. “Immediately, Majesty.”

“The bridge is yours, command group. Make sure Waian comes back down so she won’t break her neck when the gravity kicks in.” Sykora taps Grant’s leg. “Let’s get out of here, dove.”

“Where are we going?”

She tugs him to a crouch. “Our cabin,” she murmurs. “I need to be alone for a while.”

“Does that include me?”

“Of course not.” She lets him up and starts for the lift. “You’re my comfort.”

***

The Prince and Princess of the Black Pike stand before the floor-to-ceiling windows in their cabin and watch the garish light show that accompanies their travel.

“What’s Malkest like these days?” Grant asks.

“It’s across the Empire, on the far side of the sector.” The lights slide across his wife’s face. “And it’s a paradise. The waterfalls, the mountains. I’d love to take you. The Malkesti are citizens, now. It took kilocycles to happen, and there were tragedies and atrocities, and their culture and stories and myths have resisted all misguided efforts of expungement, and the Void Princess upon whom the task fell resigned and took the cloth. But they joined us, and they healed, and they are citizens. They haven’t forgotten, though. None of us have. It’s the deepest scar of the third Imperial expansion. But the anger is cured. And it’ll be cured here. We’re going to make these people whole.”

“What about Thror?” Grant remembers the Amadari’s cruel, vengeful grin from the other side of his shotgun. “That was an anger that wasn’t cured.”

“The Amadari uplift… it was difficult.” Sykora’s tail scratches her arm where her topcoat’s stitch left a worming mark. “The Empire’s arrival worsened fault lines that already existed and their unified civilization shook itself apart rather than give a firm answer to the ultimatum. They fully evacuated their world, but it was one with a complete biosphere that was eradicated. And their surrender was slow and fraught and piecemeal. Two kilocycles later, and there are still scars that still have a ways to close. This one will be different. Not the Amadari, not the Malkesti. I’ll see to that.”

“Tikani seemed sort of… morose about the Kovikan annexation,” Grant says. “And the compulsion. That’s going to be an unfamiliar weight hanging over their heads.

“Tikani’s a morose man.” Sykora smirks. “But the Kovikans are a success story. He’s a success story. He lives a different life than he might have, yes. But a better one. I believe that with every fiber of me. A longer and wealthier life in the care of a loving Taiikari wife. And perhaps it’s a more submissive one, too. But there is a profound joy that can be found in submission.” She raises his hand and gently places her chin against his knuckle, so his fingers are brushing her neck. “As long as it’s to the right people.”

He slips his thumb along her jaw.

“The Taiikari don’t always think like the rest of the firmament, I know.” Sykora’s tail flicks her tricorn off her head. He sees the nubs of her horns. “But I hope you can feel that, too. At least a piece of it.”

“I do, I think.”

Her eyes flutter shut. She leans into his touch.

“That was good of you,” he murmurs. “The moon thing.”

“It’s the right move,” she says. “We don’t need any further provocation. And, um.” She huddles against his legs. “The tiny Grant in my head told me to.”

His palm slips up into her hair. He pets her silky head, getting behind the ear where she really likes it. He feels the gentle vibration of his wife’s purr against his thigh.

“I hope—” She blinks her eyes open. “I hope you see why this is necessary, Grantyde. All of this.”

He smirks. “That’s a loaded sentence.”

“Well, it’s true. I don’t know how else to say it. This is doctrine. This is what my Empress spared my life for me to do. I’ll execute it as mercifully as I can, but I’ll execute it. And I’m praying you’ll be merciful with me.”

“I will be. I, uh.” Grant sinks to one knee. “I’ve had conversations. I’ve done some thinking ever since I met her. I guess I have a tiny Batty in my head. And what you said…” He takes a stabilizing breath. “I think I’m ready to call myself a servant of the Empress.”

Sykora’s eyes widen. “You are?”

He nods.

“Oh, dove.” She throws her arms around him. He feels her heart beat fast against her silk tunic. “You’re—come here.” She takes his hand and pulls him toward their bed. He lies facing her and snorts a soft laugh as she touches his face like she’s trying to memorize its contours blind.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. She is infinitely blessed to have you. And so am I.”

“One thing,” he says. “I want to be a servant of the Empress. Not the Empire.”

Her brows furrow. “It’s the same thing, surely.”

“I—hmm.” He props himself up and tries to think of the Taiikari way of saying this. “I mean that want to be the kind of servant you are. The kind that isn’t afraid to interpret her words. And one of the reasons I’m so ready to serve her is that I think she wants to avoid as much pain and death as she can. So I’ll break from this doctrine, if the way it unfolds runs counter to that. And try to convince you of another way.”

“That’s your right,” she says. “That’s why I made you a Prince. You answer to me and to Zithra XIX and nobody else.” Her tail wags against his thighs. “Your two favorite ladies.”

He lowers himself back down. “I don’t know if she rates that high.”

“You see?” She gives a feline grin and wiggles her hips. “You can spout Imperial heresy and I will be so relaxed about it.”

“Your mercy is unmatched.”

“Grant. Would you—” She rolls onto her stomach. “Would you squish me for a while? I’m too overwhelmed for sex and we ought to go back soon. But just lie on me. Is that all right?”

“Of course it is.” He repositions and lowers himself. “Like this?”

She groans gratefully as he lies on top of her. “Yesss. Oh, God. I needed this.” Her limbs splay out.

“I’m not hurting you, right?”

“No.” Sykora’s voice flits up from beneath his chest. “No, no, this is perfect. I’m going to hide underneath you like you’re a big, sexy rock. And nobody will find me. And this will all be someone else’s problem. They’ll all say where’s the Princess and I’ll be down here hiding from the firmament and milking my Maekyonite.”

He laughs. “Gross.”

“Mmhmm.” Her butt cants back and forth. “I’m going to be a gross cave dweller. This is my cave.”

He lays his head on his folded hands. “Batty in her bat cave.”

Her ear twitches. “Bat cave. What’s that?”

“Bat’s a kind of animal. It’s what your nickname comes from.” He shifts. “I could show you.”

“Don’t.” Her tail pokes him. “I like it too much. I wish to live in ignorance.”

“They’re cute,” he says.

“I’m cuter,” she says.

“True.”

They lie together. She is warm and solid and breathing gently underneath him and the quiet miracle that Sykora is alive, that she’s here and she’s real, unfolds again in his mind like the title page of a favorite book.

Eventually, he feels her shift and turn. “Damn it all. I have to pee.” She taps his chest. “And then I have to bomb a moon.”

“Oh, well. Cave’s caved in.” He leans back and sits on his knees.

“Grantyde.”

She catches his sleeve and stills him. She sits up.

In English, she says: “Yuwar my hosband.”

He chuckles. “Yesayam.”

They’ve been working on this together, re-learning his old language. Grant’s picking it up quick, like a half-remembered story from his childhood. Sykora makes up for her lack of experience with enthusiasm.

“Ayamlov yu,” she says.

“Ailov yutu,” Grant says, and wonders how he spent so much of his life speaking such a start-stop language. “I think it’s just ailov, not ayamlov. Love’s a thing you do, not a thing you are.”

“Well, if that’s what the English think, I’m glad I stole you from them.” She tugs him back down to her lips and they linger in each other for a moment. Then she hops to her feet and skitters to the bathroom.

Outside the cabin window, the singing rainbow tessellates and resolves into recognizable reality once again, as the Black Pike scythes into orbit above Taiqan.

The warmth of his wife’s kiss still lingers on Grant’s lips. He gazes out at the medallion-yellow world she’s preparing to destroy.