Princess of the Void

“Baby, I thought—” Grant’s smile aches the edges of his mouth. “I thought it was too risky for us to talk.”

“In the latest survey report, they told me we’d be fine as long as I keep to close-band audio only,” Sykora says. “So I can’t see your face, but I can at least hear your voice. There is a minuscule risk of signal interception, but I really—forgive me. I need this.”

“I do, too.”

“I missed your voice so badly.”

“I missed yours.”

“What’s this Book of Renewal you’re chasing, dove?”

Grant rolls onto his stomach and props the communicator up in front of him on the bed’s nesting border. “Are you snooping?”

“You may have been my second call. The first was a request from the listening post for resources and a quick confirmation of your command.”

“Confirmation? They had to run it by you?” He scratches his nose. He surprises himself at how frigid his touch is in this cold-ass facility. “That feels like some princely disrespect.”

“I know it does. Do try to forgive them, dove. They need to get used to obeying an alien male. And I am glad they called. If a mission calls for a planetfall, I want to make sure it’s Pike boots on the ground. They’re the ones I trust. Sergeant Ajax has insisted on leading the effort, in fact.”

“He has?”

“Mmhmm. Wants to deliver the package himself. You know what I think? He misses you. God knows I do.”

Grant grins. “You think?”

“Don’t tell him I told you.”

“Aww.” Grant chuckles. “He’s such a sweetheart.”

“He is. I didn’t realize. I suppose because he’s a protégé of Hyax’s, I thought he was a natural hardcase. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll see him soon. I instructed him to bring my fond regards.” A shuffling acoustic burst accompanies her repositioning on the other end of the line. “Do you know something ridiculous? I’m here getting everything ready to bomb the hell out of Taiqan and you’re there looking for a way to save it. I’m the damn antagonist again.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

“That’s because I’d love for you to come home and stop me. You could tie me to the bed and keep me away from my orbital cannons.”

“That’s a solid Plan B. I might tie you to the bed, regardless.”

“Would you tell me what it is you’re planning yet?”

“I’m close to giving you something real. Let me make sure I’m not chasing my tail, and I’ll fill you in.”

“You don’t have a tail.”

“It’s an expression.”

A rattling rustle as she moves the comm. “I think Maekyonites have tail envy.”

“I think Taiikari wish they weren’t so shrimpy.”

“Shrimpy.” She gasps. “Okay. Now we’re actually fighting.”

“Let’s agree whoever gets their way on Taiqan is in charge of dinner for the next tenday. To make up for it.”

“That’s psychological warfare,” Sykora says. “You’re bribing me with cheese to let you win.”

Their laughs mingle and fade across the unimaginable distance between them.

“The first time we made love, you told me I’d never wake up alone again,” she whispers.

“Do you want me to give you a call in the morning and wake you up?”

“No, no. I’m being foolish. I’m an adult. You’ll be back in no time at all. And you’re never the one who wakes up first. My big sleepy husband.”

“If your pillow purred like mine does, you’d stay in bed all morning, too.”

“I miss you,” she murmurs. “I miss your face.”

“I miss your eyes.”

“I miss your hands. They’re so big.” Her breath thickens. “I’m thinking about them and touching myself and I’m too small.”

“I miss how small you are. I miss picking you up.”

“I want to be picked up so badly right now, Grantyde. I miss your beard.”

“I miss your scent. You have so many of my shirts. I should have stolen your pillowcase or something.”

“I miss how heavy you are. I want to be underneath you again. I want your shelter.”

“I miss your ass.”

“I miss your ass. I want to wrap my ankles over it while you’re crushing me.”

“I’ll be back soon. I’ll come home and we’ll have a big dumb cheesy Maekyonite dinner and then I’ll bend you across the table and fuck the twist out of your tail.”

They stay on the line and whisper the things they want to do to each other until Sykora’s voice cuts out and Grant hears her gasping exhalation in a tangled rush of static over the line.

He breathes with her a while.

“God, we’re ridiculous. Comm sex, like desperate teenagers.” She giggles weakly. “What’s wrong with me? My whole life by myself, relying on myself. And then you’re here for half a decacycle, and suddenly I’m falling apart without you. You bring me something that works, dove. Okay? And don’t let Tymar god-bother you too much. I told him you already had a Maekyon religion, so he’d leave you be, but I think that just excited him. It’s been so long—I forgot how inquisitive a man he is.”

“He’s been nothing but helpful. If anything, I’m the one pouring the questions on.”

“You’re delighting him, I’m sure.” Sykora’s voice saturates as she moves closer to her receiver. “Could I ask you for something?”

“Of course.”

“I’m sleepy, and I’m sure you’re sleepy, too. But could you… could we stay on tonight?”

“All night?”

“Just put the comm by the pillow. So I can listen to your breathing.”

He laughs gently. “Okay.” He rests the communicator next to him.

They don’t speak much more after that. Just a few whispered endearments before she goes unresponsive and her soft snoring pulses across the line.

Sleep finds Grant much easier than it did on the first night.

He dreams about Richard Hyde.

They’re at the mall; at the kind of mall you see in movies where there’s people everywhere and stores stocked full. Not like the malls Grant has been to, the half-dilapidated liminal ones. Dad keeps getting lost, and he keeps having to ask people have you seen a guy who looks like older-me? He’s sick and I have his meds. Have you seen him? He’s pointed all over the place.

When Grant finally finds him, he’s crouched on the ground. A little Taiikari girl is teetering toward him. C’mere, kid, he says. You got it. Come here.

She has hazel eyes, Grant’s daughter. That’s how he knows this is a dream. When she comes, they’ll be red, like her mother’s.

She’s growing fast, Richard says. The Taiikari words are so strange coming from his smoky drawl.

Not as fast as I did, Grant says. Making sure of that.

It’s hard, boy. Hard as hell. There’s so much you just gotta figure out, and so many people know exactly what you gotta do, but nobody has the same advice. And everyone’s so confident.

Hard. You wanna tell me about hard? You knocked up a Chili’s waitress. I’m challenging an interstellar empire for my kids. You never wanted me. And I want mine so goddamn bad.

You think you’re gonna be such a good dad, huh? Gonna do all the shit I never did, make none of my mistakes?

I could make them all, Grant says. I have Sykora in my corner. They’d still end up surpassing me. And I’d still be a better man than you.

No, someone says.

Grant turns around. Thror, the Marquis Consort of Entmok, is standing in the aisle. His head’s open like a rotten melon. His one remaining eye is wide and accusatory. Grant’s throat goes numb; he can’t talk.

“No,” Thror repeats, in his wife’s voice, and Grant sees through the gory hole in his head, out to the other side of the aisle, and Grant’s eyes open. A staticky sound of motion from the communicator.

“No,” Sykora mumbles. “No no no.”

Grant blinks the lingering dream away. “Batty.” He fumbles for the communicator. “Batty?”

Her groan resolves into a wail: “No!”

Grant’s heart bungee-jumps into his guts and back up his throat. “Sykora.” His hands scrabble for the communicator. “Sykora. Baby. I’m here.”

“What?” A shifting hiss from the other side. Heavy breath. “What’s—oh, God.”

“Are you okay? What’s going on?” Grant forces a full breath to calm his galloping pulse. “You were screaming.”

“I just—just a bad dream, dove.”

A wet sniff.

“Just a dream,” she repeats. “Two nights away from you, and I’m having nightmares about that shitty cell again.”

“Fuck. I’m s—that’s terrible.” He sits up, cross-legged, his communicator cradled in his lap.

“No, it’s not. It’s fine. It’s just my stupid brain being pathetic.” Her voice shakes. “I didn’t—I thought I was strong again. I thought I was all the way back, but I’m not. It was all fake. It was just you. You’re what was keeping me above water. And now I’m falling apart so quickly. Everyone needs so much from me and I’m messing up, and I keep on starting some lame joke or aside to you, and then I remember you’re not there. This is what I was afraid of. That I’d shake apart without you. I’m so weak.”

“You’re not weak. I’m your husband. I’m supposed to be there for you. It’s not your fault. Should…” Grant goes ahead and says it. “Should I come home? Should I give this up?”

“No. No, don’t. It was just my mind being silly. Just a nightmare. I’m not a child.” Sykora attempts a lightness in her tone, but she can’t keep her voice from quaking. “I just need to stiffen my chin. What you’re doing is…” A staticky sigh. “The evacuations are just a bare trickle. The takeoffs are all private luxury vessels. Any public efforts have stalled out. And what’s worse—there are no riots. No holding of the takeoffs by force of arms. The people who are left aren’t being kept there. They just aren’t leaving.”

Her words put a vertigo feeling in Grant’s stomach. This isn’t a plan B anymore. She needs this to work.

“These councilors are trying to call my bluff or find some backdoor weakness or else they’re crowing about this Book of Thorns.” Sykora’s sharp scoff hisses the connection. “I wish Vora’d never said that name to me, because now it’s all I can think about. The mentions are endemic now. Those numbers crawling upward.”

“What about Tamuraq?”

“Tamuraq’s there on the edges, and it’s growing, too. I think—I don’t want to put anything on you, but whatever your alternative option is, I’m praying for it.” A stuttering laugh. “Actually praying, I mean. I think my big dumb brother’s influenced me.”

“He’s a sweetheart. And he’s smart. We’re going to figure this out, and I’ll come back.”

“I know you will,” she whispers. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“My whole life, the Pike’s been home. A home I’ve brought with me wherever I’ve gone. My deepest fear on Maekyon was that I’d return, and that feeling would be gone. And then I set foot back on the Pike and I thought—thank God, this place is still home. And it isn’t. I fooled myself. I changed.” She sniffs; he hears the tears gilding her words. “You’re my home now, Grant Hyde.”

His fingers are so longing for her softness beneath them they flex involuntarily.

“You aren’t allowed to leave again, okay?” she whispers. “Not until you give me a son.”

“Okay.”

“With your eyes.” Her voice is getting bleary again with fatigue. “So that I can see them while you’re away.”

“I’m hoping they’ll have your eyes.”

Her words have a soporific slurring at their edges now. “That’s why we’re gonna have three.”

“Three? I’d do three. Like Wen and Tik.”

He hears the sleepy smile on her face. “Mmhmm.”

“They seem happy.”

“They seem so happy.” She’s mumbling at the edge of coherency now as she drifts away. “I want babies.”

“I do too.”

“Come get me pregnant.”

He chuckles. “Be right there.”

A wordless, drowsy hum from the Princess. She’s slipping under again.

Grant rolls onto his back and looks at the shadows shift across his ceiling and imagines the weight of his warm little Taiikari wife across his chest and feels lonelier than he’s ever felt.

***

The shuttle slides into the fluorescent span of the listening post’s hangar. Grant remembers the first time he saw a Taiikari vessel, how silent and foreboding it was. The chattering calls of the hangar crew and the roar of the unfurling landing equipment and the whooping safety siren are a stark contrast. The shuttle lets out a hydraulic hiss as its bay doors open. Brother Tymar stands by Grant’s shoulder; the two watch the marine squad pile out from its crimson interior and file across the gangplank.

“Always so goddamn cold, this system.” The marines aren’t easy to tell apart in their full armor, but Grant recognizes the squad leader’s voice and the shape of his horn sheathes.

“Sergeant Ajax.” He raises his hand in greeting.

“Majesty.” Ajax salutes as he strides down the gangplank. There’s an emergency-red hardshell case in his other hand. “Brought your book. Hope it’s a page-turner.”

“Outstanding.” Grant holds his hands out and the sergeant places the case into his grip. The visible billow of Grant’s breath dulls its metal patina. “Any trouble retrieving it?”

“No, sire. Simple homestead, easy in-and-out infiltration.” Ajax taps a knuckle on the case. “Just about froze a bollock off when I stripped down for the camo, but that was the only threat of casualty.”

“Well, I’m thankful, Sergeant.” Grant inclines his head and dips his shoulders—the superior’s bow (one of five that Sykora taught him). “The Princess told me you personally requested to take this on.”

“Just wanted to make sure it went right. Her Majesty impressed the import, and I don’t know these listening post boys.” A wry tone edges into Ajax’s terseness. “Back to the training wheels.”

“That’s right. We’ll make a stuffed-shirt bodyguard out of you yet.” Grant puts a hand on Ajax’s back and pivots them to Brother Tymar. “This is Sergeant Ajax of the Black Pike.”

“Honored to make your acquaintance, Sergeant.” Tymar shakes the marine’s hand. “Are you His Majesty’s valet?”

Grant snorts. Ajax’s spine stiffens. “I’m a marine.”

“Is it not possible to be both?”

“Let’s just call him my friend,” Grant says. Ajax’s helmet pivots his way. The marine’s face is, as always, hidden.

Tymar gestures to the hardshell in Ajax’s hand. “May I?”

Ajax snaps the clasps open and passes the case to the cleric.

The three men behold the Book of Renewal.