Princess of the Void

2.22. Breach

The breach pod drops from sweep with a fizzing splash of radiance that smears the firmament like pastel. Its corkscrew sail, sprouted from its prow like a unicorn horn, folds and rebounds into its bulk as it coasts on mad momentum into Viscountess Lorimare’s voidliner.

The PD membranes of both vessels splash like paperwhite pyrotechnics; the pod’s, concentrated as it was to the prow like a battering ram, stays in one piece. The liner membrane cracks like an eggshell, shattering out into dazzling rainbow refractions. Thick filament cables spring from the breach pod. Its coil guns pivot and shred the liner’s sails to twirling tatters as they extend.

The cables winch taut and yank the pod with terrifying speed into the side of the stilled voidliner.

Sergeant Ajax unbuckles himself from the seat kitty-corner to the pilot’s; his tail tugs him into the away deck. “Ears,” he calls to his marines. “Ears up, grav in five.”

The world muffles. The pod’s breacher array sounds a metal screech and then a triple-tap series of concussive blasts. 

“Four, three, two…”

Gravity reasserts itself and drops the invaders into two stacked-up rows.

At the fore of the righthand one, one spiky black battlesuit is head-and-shoulders shorter than the rest. Brigadier Hyax’s distorted voice clicks through their radio: “Breach.”

The pod door opens into a jagged vacuum-sealed hole where a door-sized chunk of the voidliner has been sawn away. Canister guns skitter their payloads into the hallway beyond. Billowing plumes of blood-colored smoke trail into Lorimare’s vessel. Eight Taiikari in tactical black follow, threading through the scarlet like phantoms.

The bridge crew of the Black Pike watches silently. The video feed splashes movie-theater wide across the window into the firmament. Sykora has quietly moved from her throne to Grant’s seat. Her body in his lap is stiff with tension. He lays a stabilizing palm on the dip of her spine.

Movement in the mist—the feed snaps to it, sending a jolt and a murmur through the viewers. The silhouette of a scrawny Taiikari man stumbles from a corridor, coughing violently. The view blurs with motion. The coughing man’s face slams to the deck underneath Sergeant Ajax’s knee, and the shotgun’s angular barrel swings up into view like a first-person shooter, nudging against the back of his head to keep him still as one of Ajax’s squadmates slaps cuffs onto his wrists and ankles.

A loud whistle in the bridge pit kicks off a round of scattered applause. Sykora glances their way, but her expression stays frosty.

Gauntleted hands pry the man’s anticomps off and flip him onto his back. The shortest of the marines crouches in front of him and raises her visor to reveal Brigadier Hyax’s scar-pitted face. The bright compulsion membrane slides across her eyes. “Sit up and don’t move.”

The man’s gritted jaw loosens; his eyes go wide and placid. Ajax lowers his shotgun. Their captive rolls over and props himself to a seated position against the wall. The smoke is clearing to reveal the marines fanned out, rifles up and trained around doors and corners.

Hyax stands before the man, who gazes up at her with dumb cattle obedience. She flashes him again. Her compulsion-flash is much more staccato than his wife’s, he notices. An insistent boot on the door of the mind rather than Sykora’s beguiling lockpick. “How many on this vessel?”

“Five.”

Flash. “Are they armed?”

“The boss has two bodyguards. Both of them have guns, I think.”

Flash. “Stay still and stay silent.” She turns back to her team. “Move.”

A motion-sickness jerk on the feed as Ajax stacks up again with his group along a gleaming wall. Grant knows the taciturn Taiikari as a dry-witted babysitter. It sobers him somehow to watch through Ajax’s helmet camera as the marine moves through the vessel with tactical ferocity.

They kick down doors and set breach charges on bulkheads. Grant witnesses another civilian takedown from Ajax’s perspective, performed with the same immediate, unhesitant violence as the first time.

They find Lorimare in the compact hangar of her vessel, hurrying through the takeoff protocols on a sleek chrome outrunner skip. The rest of the crew, bodyguards included, have already surrendered, and now huddle at the business end of a wall of high-tech firepower. Ajax drags her from the outrunner and throws her in with the rest. Gone is the haughty woman who imagined compelling her workers. Lorimare’s dark blue face is ashy and crestfallen.

“You’re from the Princess,” she says to the man binding her into cuffs. He doesn’t reply.

Hyax steps in front of her. “It’s time for the truth, Viscountess.”

Lorimare leans forward with abject eagerness. “It was all Trimond. I have what you want. You listening, Majesty? Give me guarantees of lenience and I’ll sing like a Tek’ka.”

The Brigadier cracks her knuckles and grins. “You ever been a hostage before, Viscountess? You’re good at it.”

The soldiers return to the boarding pod, shepherding their new prisoners with them. Hyax stays in the doorway. She thuds a fist into each of their chests as they come.

“Your hands don’t shake on that gun anymore, Loras. I noticed.”

“Thank you, Brigadier.”

“Faster around those corners next time, Pella. You’re squad second, now. They’re following you.”

“Yes, Brigadier.”

Ajax is the last in. Hyax nods at him. “Excellent direction tonight, sergeant.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Thought you might have gone soft on me, guarding the Princess’s boy toy.”

“I’m, uh—” Ajax’s finger rises into frame and taps the camera on his helmet, vibrating the view. “I’m the one casting to them, ma’am.”

She smirks. “I know you are.”

Sykora scoffs at the screen. “Old battleaxe.” But she says it with a smile.

“I didn’t realize how much there was to her, when I first met her,” Grant says. “Under the scars and the fearsomeness. There’s caring in there.”

“There is.” Sykora keeps it down under the steady undercurrent of chatter from the bridge and the command group. “Hyax and Waian practically raised me. The command group is my family. Waian’s my fun aunt, Hyax is my tough older sister, Vora’s my littermate. They were only supposed to train me on the Pike, and all it needed from me. Instead, they taught me… everything. More or less. Everything my other instructors didn’t.”

“That’s beautiful,” he says. “Kind of sad, too. But I’m glad they were there for you.”

Sykora nods. Then she hesitates. “Not the, uh, betrothal bed stuff,” she murmurs. “I had holovids for that.”

“I figured.”

A slender Taiikari women, her hair in two tight pigtails, calls up from the bridge. “Hail from the breach pod, Majesty.”

“That’d be Hyax.” Sykora climbs out of Grant’s lap. “Main screen, Monitor.”

Ajax’s helmet cam dissolves into static. A ten-foot tall projection of the Brigadier fuzzes into being from the primordial noise. She’s seated in the copilot seat, running her hand through her matted platinum pixie cut.

“Brigadier.” Sykora salutes her. “Excellently executed.”

“Nothing but a civilian shakedown, majesty.” Hyax loosens her shoulders out. “But it was a pretty enough piece of work, I suppose. We’re preparing to put the voidliner on scuttle trajectory and sweep back.”

Sykora holds a hand up. “Before you go. Record a confession for me. She seemed eager enough. Then send it on the datacrypt line.”

“So fast?” Hyax purses her lips. “You usually love to be around the prisoners when they finally break down and confess.”

“Hyax. You make me sound like a movie villain.” Sykora casts Grant a guilty glance. “We need to move quickly, yes? I want the Baroness destabilized and unaware. It’s the middle of the night on Ptolek. Perfect timing.”

Hyax salutes. “By your command, Majesty. Won’t take long.” She leans forward, reaching out of frame, and the feed zeroes out.

Sykora turns to one of the silent, omnipresent marines guarding the bridge lift. “Gefreitor Sarel. Get me Azkaii. Bring her to the upper command deck.”

The marine snaps a salute and hails the lift.

Sykora gestures to Grant. “Take a knee, darling.”

He kneels before his wife. He’s done a lot of kneeling lately. But so has the Princess, behind closed doors.

She lays her chin on his shoulder. “It’s time for me to be bad,” she whispers into his ear. Behind her, Majordomo Vora flips the lever to raise the command deck back up to its private quarters. “We have Trimond locked in orbit, now, but she doesn’t feel the spin. I’m going to snap her out of it. If you stand over there—” She points to a corner of the deck—”you’ll be off-camera. Remember what we talked about. Just give me a shake of your head if I need to tamp it back.”

“I’ll be fine, Majesty.” He fluffs the bristles on her tufted tail. “You don’t have to do that.”

She kisses his cheek. “Yes, I do.”

“We need this confession.”

“We do. But I need you more, dove. You’re my kindness.” Her warm fingers run along the brocade on his uniform. “If you step on the brake, I brake. Okay?”

He cups her jaw and rubs a thumb on the softness of her earlobe. “Okay.”

Her eyes drift shut. That feline purr rises in her chest at his touch. “You can’t do that to me,” she murmurs. “I need to go be an evil bitch.”

He chuckles and stands. “Go be evil, babe.”

Sykora gives him a parting peck and returns to her throne. Vora sidles up next to her and shows her something on that little silver tablet of hers. The Princess of the Black Pike gives a grim-faced nod.

“Another trade lane hit,” she says aloud, to Waian and Grant. “The Comet Queen ping-ponging across the firmament, engorged on exo. And Garuna is taking the emergency powers I gave her and doing fuck-all with it to find the piracy pipeline. Just furloughing unionists en masse. Daring them to strike so she can crack some skulls.”

“She’s itching for an excuse to round them up,” Vora says. “I’m afraid the security measures you’ve been signing are being misused.”

“I’m not giving her these powers because I think she’ll use them right,” Sykora says. “I’m giving her enough rope to hang herself.”

“What about the workers whose skulls are gonna get cracked?” Grant asks.

“It won’t get that far,” Sykora says. “They only need to endure her a little longer, until I find the real culprit and leave her with her tits flapping in the firmament. The more she oversteps, the easier it’ll be to pluck her out like a thorn once the real culprit is found. And then the union’s greatest foe is gone. That’s a trade Ondai and her officers would take every time.” She rolls her shoulders back, adopting a brooding slouch across the throne just as the lift chimes and two marines shove Azkaii of Trimond into the chamber.

“Thank you, Gefreitor.” Sykora waves a hand toward her minions. “You may go.”

They salute with a clatter of ceramic armor and depart. Azkaii is left standing, hands bound, eyes narrow and burning like coals.

Sykora returns her look with chilly indifference. “Chief Engineer. Get me a line to Baroness Trimond. Inform her that the Princess of the Black Pike is waiting with her daughter to discuss terms.”

The first hail goes unanswered. The second connects. Baroness Trimond is sitting in a teak-paneled drawing room, her body bound up in a thick shearling robe. The windows behind her show a maroon Ptolek night. “Speak quickly,” she says. “I have no will to chat, Majesty.”

“Baroness.” Sykora crosses her legs and deepens her contemptuous lounge. “I hate to wake you. But new information has come to light in your case. And I thought you might like to see Azkaii, healthy and unharmed. Come here, young lady.”

Azkaii stands rooted to the spot.

“Come here,” Sykora barks, and the sheer noisy surprise of it animates Azkaii’s feet, propelling her into frame.

“There we are.” Sykora beams at Trimond. “Proof of my beneficence. Let’s talk, shall we?”

The Baroness is blinking the sleep away. “I have precious little to say to you at the moment, Majesty. When I’m ready to speak, you’ll know it.”

“Now, Yuka. I think you’ll be quite interested in what I have for you.” Sykora nods at Waian. “I’d like to show you a conversation we just recorded with a friend of yours. Do we have that, Waian?”

“Aye, Majesty. Just in.” Waian punches a few keys on her tablet. “Putting it up on the throne cam.”

Sykora stands aside from her seat. Its armrest holo projector buzzes its emergence and flicks on.

“My name is Viscountess Ruana of Lorimare.” Their prisoner speaks in a firm, clear voice. “At the order of Baroness Yuka of Trimond, I’ve been illegally transporting weaponry into the Black Pike sector, with the goal of helping Trimond Enterprises defend itself against the Yellow Comets. I’m aware of five deep-void battles fought so far. There may be more.”

Hyax’s rough-hewn voice from one side. “Does the Governess know about this?”

“I don’t know. She might. I know she’s been meeting with Trimond behind closed doors.” Lorimare’s frantic gaze returns to the camera in front of her as her countenance dissolves. “Please—if I knew anything more, I swear, Majesty, I’d—”

Sykora stops the video.

“Now, then,” she says. “Would anyone like to say anything?”

The Baroness’s knuckle rose to press against her mouth during the confession. She lowers it now to her chin. Her lips open briefly and shut again.

“Take your time,” Sykora says. “I want you to be very sure of your words.”

The Baroness’s mask of foreboding cracks into a scowl. “Even if this wasn’t clearly a forced confession, it’s only Lorimare’s word against mine—”

Sykora unholsters her gun and thumbs the activator. She pushes the barrel into the side of Azkaii’s head, hard enough to shove the young woman to one side.

“Tell me what’s going on and give your full confession to any misdeeds you’re hiding from me,” Sykora says, “or I‘ll blow your daughter’s brains out in front of you.”