Princess of the Void

The Book of Renewal is a slim volume in carnelian red. Its pages are dogeared and crinkled. Someone’s gone over it with a highlighter and pen, scrawling notes in the margins in a spidery hand. In the conference room, which has steadily reobtained the workday clutter that was cleared away for the previous visit, the listening post researchers huddle over it, murmuring and passing instruments over its quilted-cotton cover.

“The subtitle is Songs of the Coming Thaw.” Oorta gestures to the golden deboss in blocky Eqtorish font. “The horizontal canting like this is used for sacred texts or sagas. To represent the immortality of the songs within. Forward into forever.”

“We can’t trust a raw machine translation on this,” Grant says. “We need to be exact. Can I give this to your team, Oorta? And get a translation as soon as possible? Focus on anything dealing with this Tamuraq thing. I want that first. The rest is lower priority.”

Oorta bows. “I’ll have selections for you tomorrow, Majesty.”

“I’d like to accompany you, Administrator, if I may.” Tymar clasps his hands together. “From what I’ve read of the Eqtoran canon, they enjoy wordplay and double-meaning in their scripture. I think a theologian’s insights might come in handy.” He glances to Grant. “If you can spare me, Majesty.”

“Course, man. Grateful for any help you can give.” Grant extends his fist. Tymar hesitates at the gesture, then experimentally bumps it with a smile.

Grant leaves the room and finds Ipqen-mek-Taqa where he left her in the hallway outside. She’s seated on a bench far too low to keep her knees from raising, reading a slim book called The First Empresses.

“This writing’s a trip, man,” she says. “Spirals from out to in.”

“That’s just the printed version,” Grant says. “When you write it out longhand, it’s vertical, just like Eqtoran.”

“Why’d they do that?”

“Ornamentation, Sykora says.” Grant helps Ipqen to her feet. “You start a spiral on a page it’s a sign of confidence you’ve thought carefully about what you’re writing. Now it’s all just word-processed, but it stuck as the fancy structure.”

“Hmmm.” Ipqen shuts the book. “Gotta get used to it, I guess.” She glances uneasily at the door Grant left ajar behind him. “Add that to the pile.”

“Ipqen.” Grant eases the door shut. “I know we’re about to get extremely heretical. But we need you on this. We need your help. I know you can’t be in the room—it’d wreak havoc with your implant. But I’m hoping to have you on call as a resource.”

“Uh—” Ipqen runs her hand down her snout. “Majesty.”

“Grant. Please just Grant when it’s us.”

“Grant.” She slips a slim wood-handled tool out of her pocket. A dental implement, Grant thinks. He’s seen Eqtorans pick at their razor teeth with it. “This isn’t—good, man. This is a bad book. Like, the final war my people fought was over this book and the music in it. I don’t understand the help it’ll give.”

“The tamuraq is the legend being used against us right now. The Book of Thorns version of the tamuraq. There’s a story being told, and we need a different story. If we let it go unopposed, it’s going to get people killed.”

“Sometimes that’s what has to happen.”

Grant frowns. “What do you mean by that?”

“The world you’re making.” Ipqen slides the tool into her maw. “There are people who want no part in it. You gotta understand what we’re all about to lose.”

“Do you know how I became Sykora’s husband?”

“Howzat?”

“She escaped a Maekyonite facility and killed everyone inside it but me. Then she kidnapped me. She tore me away from my home planet. She threatened my life and told me I was her sex slave and that she’d enjoy watching my will break.”

Ipqen’s tooth-picking has frozen. “Fucking hell.”

“But that was all fake. It was all based on a miscommunication. And when we finally understood each other, she became the sweetest person I’ve ever met and the love of my life. And she’s changed. We’ve changed each other.”

“What are you telling me, man?”

“I’ve lost a lot, too. I lost everything, just about. My language, my old life. I was from a republic, and now I’m an Imperial subject. And I know firsthand how shitty the Taiikari’s first impressions can be.”

She lowers her toothpick thing. Her fringe is curled up at one edge.

“It’s not… ideal, all of it,” Grant says. “My new life. But I’m happy with it. It’s going to take a fuckton of change and it’s going to feel unfair and weird and there’ll be conflict and negotiation, and they’re going to have to change. Maybe too much. Maybe you’re right and the people would have been happier cooked alive, and they would never have had a place with the Taiikari. But your people need to be around to find that out. And if it goes right, you’ll have the chance to change the Empire, too. I think it needs changing. I’m trying to change it. And if there are like-minded people in the sector, if—”

If you become my subjects. That’s what he’s asking. He’s not just asking Ipqen to be the subject of a concept or a distant woman on the other side of the firmament. He’s the Prince of the Black Pike Sector. The Eqtorans will be his subjects. The dizzying existential dread of this realization collides with a strange, defiant satisfaction. He’s not just blowing smoke up Ipqen’s ass. Eqtora is about to add billions of new citizens to Sykora’s sector. And he’s in a position to decide how the Empire treats them.

“I want to communicate with your people,” he says. “Really communicate. I need them to understand our intentions. And I think that language isn’t cutting it. We need to operate on the mythological level. On symbols and songs.”

“I’m not an ecclesiast or anything, Grant.”

“But you’re a woman of faith. Right?”

She sighs and nods.

“I’m not ordering,” Grant says. “I’m asking. If you need me to, I’ll beg. I’m hoping I don’t have to, because I’m out of practice.”

She sighs again. “All right. But, uh—look.” She gestures him in and lowers her voice. “I’m doing this for my people, right? And because I think you’re the best advocate they’ve got in this fuckin’ nightmare invasion force.”

“I’m gonna try to be.”

“Not because you’re royalty, I mean. I don’t cotton to that. And I don’t know if I ever will. Something in you makes me think I can admit it.” She shrugs her thick shoulders. “And if I can’t, I figure you need me too badly to chop my head off.”

***

The sound of drilling and welding and heavy machinery echoes through the Rivenland. Tennek’s voice, muffled through the layers of metal, is audible occasionally in the pauses, talking to the engineers who cling to the ship’s exterior. Ynaqi does everything in her power to tamp her curiosity down. You’re just a gunlugger, girl. Let the grown-ups talk.

“Heya, hon.” Suqen’s face appears, upside down in the hatchway. Her silky fringe floats in the zero gravity. “Room for me in the gun pod? Shit’s too loud in the office.”

“Sure,” Ynaqi says.

“All right. Scoot that big sweet butt over.” Suqen climbs into the pod. Her tail tugs the hatch shut behind her and muffles the yowling machinery. Ynaqi grabs her gun seat’s strap and tugs herself further into the pod. Suqen twists herself in the air and slips her lead into the gun seat, next to Ynaqi’s.

Ynaqi offers an earbud to Suqen. “You want I should put something on?”

The keeper shakes her head. “Half the airwaves are playing that spiky Book of Thorns crap. My head needs a break. Let’s just sit, maybe.”

Ynaqi sits with her.

“You know what they’re doing out there?” Ynaqi asks, after a minute of muffled clanging.

“Some kinda retrofit,” Suqen says. “If they’re fucking around with my defaults I’m gonna kick Nek’s teeth in.”

Ynaqi chuckles. But there’s a brewing question in her tamping the laugh down. “Calling him Nek a lot, lately.”

Suqen’s face becomes carefully neutral. “Uh huh.”

“We’re supposed to call him Captain.”

“We are.” Suqen shifts. “You gonna lecture me?”

“No. Of course not. But is what’s happening—is there something going, here?” Ynaqi tries to keep her tail from twitching. “Between you and the captain?”

The little engineer shrugs her sinewy shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess we’re just, uh—we’re both feeling kinda small. Regulations don’t feel as important.”

Ynaqi watches the stars twist in Suqen’s eyes.

“I guess they don’t,” she says.

Suqen’s head tilts onto Ynaqi’s shoulder.

“If there was something. And I’m not saying there is. But if there was, like in the near-to-medium-term.” Her fringe ripples and lays flat across her head. “Would you want to be part of it?”

She waits patiently while Ynaqi tries to find the heart that boosted into her trachea.

“Uh.” Ynaqi attempts a casualness that comes out brittle and nervy. “Why not?”

Suqen’s face lights up. Her giggle shows her pearly little teeth. “Why not?”

“Fuck it. Why not?” Ynaqi has a drifting flutter in her chest that reminds her of her early days in zero-G. “We’re gonna get blown to bits any second. There’s some things I want to get done before I go out. Some, uh…” There’s so much that she’s worried if she starts up now it’s all going to come spilling out of her and it’ll take a whole turning and she’ll be a deflated little balloon at the end. “There’s some stuff I should say. And it’s feeling like there’s not a lot of time to say it.”

“Don’t talk like that, Naq.” Suqen’s eyes go to where their tails are touching. “I don’t want to do this on the assumption it’s all gonna stop mattering.” She looks up with an expression of such needful sorrow that Ynaqi’s throat closes up. “I want to matter to you.”

Ynaqi’s hand creeps toward Suqen’s. “I want to matter to you, too.”

Their thumbnails brush together. Suqen’s fingers are so thin and tapered compared to Ynaqi’s stubby digits. Ynaqi’s thumb slips on top of hers, and covers it completely.

They stare at one another in the emergency-lit dusk.

A basso profondo rap on the gunnery pod’s hatch jerks their faces apart (When did their faces get that close? Ynaqi doesn’t remember).

“Ship meeting.” Tennek’s rumble cuts through the metallic echo.

“Heard,” Suqen calls. She leans back into Ynaqi’s ear. “We’ll talk, okay?” she whispers. “This is just on pause. We’ll talk.”

“Okay,” Ynaqi says. She feels Suqen’s breath on her cheek. You should kiss her. Kiss her. Kiss her right now. But her crewmate is already spinning the hatch open and boosting herself out of the pod.

Ynaqi follows. The ship’s gone quiet again and she can hear her own heartbeat, insistent and elated in her ears.

“You cleared to tell us what that racket was about, cap?” Suqen asks.

“Cable from command.” Tennek slides into his pilot seat. “They needed volunteers to get a jaunt drive installed on their vessel. Our chassis is approved for the retrofit and I’m trained in its use. So we’re signed up. That racket was getting us ready for jaunt.”

“Shit.” Suqen eyes the lumpen new addition to the Rivenland’s engine block, the telescoping array jutting out from it and through a jury-rigged ceiling port. “They fucked up my baby.”

Tennek snorts. “This is the Armada’s baby.”

“They’re absentee, then.” Suqen folds her arms. “I bet if we both said c’mere it’d crawl to me.”

“What’s done is done,” Tennek says. “And now we get to be useful again, maybe.” He frowns out the window at the alien goliath. “Get away from all this.”

“Where are we going?”

Tennek zooms out into the solar system view of the navigation pane. “Out past Tlaqu Boundary.” He flicks the new control pad soldered to his seat console and squints at it. “Jaunted once already. Not a lot of pilots can say that. I’ll see us through.”

“That was in a single-seater fighter, though, wasn’t it?” Suqen is examining the weldwork on the jaunt drive with a critical eye. “A ship of this size? Are we sure we won’t rip in half?”

“I am assured that the Rivenland can handle it,” Tennek says.

“Do you believe it?” Ynaqi asks.

“I’m assured it.”

Ynaqi scoffs. “Great.”

“Naq. Hey, girl. Eyes here.” Ynaqi’s never been great with eye contact, but the gentleness in her captain’s voice pulls her gaze magnetically to his.

“These are the times it’s written about,” Tennek says. “This is the part where we all find out who we are. I have an idea of you. And you have an idea of me.” The scar over his eye is darker than she remembers. Is his face coloring? “And I hope it’s a good one.”

“It’s a good one,” she says.

“Then I’m gonna have to rise to it.” He sits back. “I’m your captain. I’m gonna look after you both. It’ll be okay.”

“Do y’all… would it be okay if we prayed together?” Suqen drifts over from the engine. “Is that an overstep?”

Tennek thinks about it. He shakes his head. “Not an overstep. Could use a prayer said for me.”

“All right.” Suqen crosses her legs and floats in the air like a monk. “My family god is Nuqani.”

Ynaqi smirks. “How’d I know you were gonna be a Nuqani girl?”

“Cause she don’t know how to finish a story,” Tennek says.

Suqen blows him a raspberry. “What about yours, Qen?”

“We’ve got a private one. Just an old hand-me-down from the sledge tribe days.”

“What’s their name?”

“Taneq.”

“How about that. Kinda sounds like Tennek, huh?” Suqen’s tail nudges Tennek’s. “Must be why she’s so obsessed with you.”

Ynaqi laughs in giddy disbelief at the brazen keeper. “Don’t be irritating.”

“How about you, cap?” Suqen prompts.

Tennek folds his hands in his lap. “Lurien.”

“Is that a Nomad name?”

“Uh huh. Means compassion.”

Ynaqi leans across the stodgy recycled air of the bridge. “I didn’t know you were Nomad.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Tennek says.

“Guess we should try and learn quick, huh?” Suqen says, quietly.

“Guess so,” Tennek murmurs.

They lapse into silence.

Tennek clicks his tongue. “Let’s get some praying in and then let’s fuck off outta this orbit, huh?” He holds his hand out. Ynaqi takes it. Suqen’s palm is in her other hand.

“Suqen?” Tennek looks to the engineer. “You wanna lead?”

“Oh, sure. Make the keeper do the chant. Typical bigfolk.”

“Like you haven’t been itching to. I see you at the morning appeal. Lookin over like he’s doing this shit all wrong.”

“Guilty. Okay.” She clears her throat and finds her pitch. She intones, crystalline and beautiful:

“Gods of our families. Your petitioners come together. In your names and by your power, keep these your children safe as they keep one another. Lurien. Taneq. As I trust my body to the hands of your children, I trust my soul to your custody.”

Tennek and Ynaqi glance at one another. This isn’t the prayer of comrades or coworkers or friends. This prayer is bringing something else out.

“May we find comfort in one another’s embrace,” Suqen lilts. “May we be the shelter for one another from wickedness and want. In your names we petition.”

“In your names we petition,” the other two repeat.

“That’s a nice voice you got there, Qen,” Ynaqi says.

The keeper smiles at her. Doesn’t say anything, just smiles.

Tennek’s scarred knuckles fidget. “Thought you were going to do the comrades’ prayer, soldier.”

“Yeah, well. I did, too. But the gods toss out the prayersongs that don’t match how you feel.” Suqen straightens her legs out and kicks off a guardrail back to her engine bay. “When we get back to Eqtora, you can court martial me for conduct unbecoming. If the armada still exists.”

Ynaqi pauses before she follows the keeper out. “What are we investigating, cap? You cleared to tell me?”

“Sure.” Tennek punches a series of calculations into the pad by his elbow. “Codebreakers picked up on some kind of broad band being sent from the flagship. Lasted a few turnings longer than anything else they been throwing out. Might be that it’s nothing. Might be that there’s something to find out there in the dark.”

“Not much to hang your hook on.”

“Can’t just sit on our hands, right? Eqtora ain’t gonna save itself.”

She laughs. “Sure.”

“We’ll be all right. I’m taking care of you, Naq.” Tennek’s turned from her now, focused on his instruments. Brusque and clipped. “Taking care of you both.”

He snaps a few switches and the growl of the engine rises, into the roar that’s always put Ynaqi’s peak up, the way it sounds like a voice raised in anger, or in grief.