Princess of the Void

5.45. Just Escalated

A thump on the passenger door. The heavy-browed woman bites her lip as she watches the external cam. Grant tries to watch it from his peripherals; his head’s at a tough angle. A woman in a HAK suit and a man in civilian clothes are standing outside the shuttle.

“Customs,” Hyax’s gruff voice calls from outside. “Anyone inside? You’re parked illegally.”

“Put the infrascope on them,” the woman murmurs. “Sweep the gangplank.”

“No hits.” The ringleader’s copilot, a man almost as scarred as the Brigadier, shrinks into the copilot seat. “Do we take off?”

“No, idiot,” the woman says. “As soon as our engines turn on, she’ll comm the guard interceptors and they’ll be on us.”

“And Steg is still out there.” The broad-nosed guy with the fauxhawk pulls an ergonomically stocked autoflechette gun from under his seat cushion. Expensive piece of kit. “Someone call Tukkar.”

The woman hits the commlink button on the shuttle dashboard. “Tuk, you there?”

A few tense seconds of silence. Grant’s palms sweat where they sit in his lap. He resists the urge to wipe them on his uniform pants—you’re compelled, remember.

Thump, thump, thump. Louder this time. Hyax is leaning into it.

“Tuk,” the woman hisses. She releases the button. “Fuck. Okay.” She turns around in her seat. “Lugo, into the bathroom with the auto. Shek, stay here and stay down. Merik, just inside the door there. Xandor opens it, everyone comes up with the guns, I show them His Majesty, we have two more hostages. Ready?”

No, you aren’t, Grant thinks. But the men nod and scurry to their stations.

Xandor the door guy takes a deep breath, tightens his grip on his driller pistol, and swings the shuttle door open.

He gets a syllable out, a “Hold—” that presumably is about to be followed by an it, and then he goes staggering back into the guts of the vessel, folding in on himself as he slams into the side-row of seats. The buckled harnesses clatter. A deformation in the air. Kymai has flying-tackled the man into the shuttle.

Hyax and Ajax storm through in his wake.

Either Xandor has developed a sudden and self-destructive urge to headbang, or Kymai is repeatedly slamming the back of his skull into the shuttle wall. The guy inside the door takes a panicky step back, trying to aim, and Ajax takes him, spinning with him to the floor.

The woman hisses a curse, seizes Grant by the hair and yanks his anticomps up.

Her eyes flash. Her mouth opens.

A bullet rips through her neck, spraying her bright fuschia lifeblood across the dashboard. That’s Ajax, firing one-handed from atop the goon he’s now choking out with his tail. She crumples backward, terrible red eyes unfocusing.

A furious roar from Fauxhawk as he shoulder-slams the bathroom door open, his autoflechette rising toward the Master Sergeant.

Hyax vaults over Ajax, her tail jerking him into a crouch, as the whirring gun sends a cloud of flechettes across the shuttle. Her HAK chest plate glows with dissipating heat as she charges forward and leaps into the air. Her tail wraps around Fauxhawk’s wrist and jerks the gun high. She tears the anticomp goggles from his face. “Sleep,” she barks, and rides the suddenly unconscious man to the floor.

Scarface breaks cover with the barrel of his break-action. Hyax is in the open. Her visor’s up.

Grant moves.

The Maekyonite’s arm lashes out and catches Scarface in a modified no-tail version of a Taiikarizia’i chokelock, hauling him up off his feet for a brief screaming moment, then swinging him to the ground in a flawless hip-to-ground slam that smashes the air from his lungs. Grant is torn between pride that Ajax is here to witness the Maekyonized maneuver the two of them devised, and praying that he somehow didn’t.

Scarface is far stronger and more dangerous than the Maekyonite who, once upon a time, held a gun to Grant’s face. But Grant doesn’t live on Maekyon anymore, and when his mind superimposes Drake’s doughy features on his captor, it isn’t fear he feels. He twists the rising barrel aside, slams the stock into the man’s chest, then tears the shotgun away from the loosening grip and introduces its stock into its former owner’s face. And again, and then one more time to be safe, to the tune of the man’s nose crunching out of place.

Grant sits back on his haunches and tries to look zoned out as his mind races. How do I sell that to Ajax and Kymai? Hyax is by his side. She plants a gauntlet over Scarface’s ruined nose, provoking a groan of pain. “Open your eyes or I blow your brains out.”

Scarface cranes open the eye whose orbital Grant didn’t crack.

Flash. “Stay down and frozen,” Hyax says. A visible and startlingly naked Kymai thumps his dazed mark in front of her, and her eyes flash again. “On your stomach, hands on your head. Stay.” She compels the rest of the shuttle crew to stillness and steps to Grant, pulling her helmet from her head. “Well, Majesty. Your ridiculous scheme is done.”

Grant’s mouth continues to hang open. Hyax makes an exasperated noise. “Erase all compulsions, Majesty.”

Grant makes a show of snorting like a man awakening from sleep and looks around the cabin. “Hello, everyone,” he says. “Looks like I owe you my life.”

Hyax levers the woman’s corpse from the dashboard and wipes at the bloody controls with her half-cape. “And this poor bastard owes us her death.”

“Well.” Grant forces himself to look at his victim’s galled face. “You know what they say about omelets.”

“What do they say about omelets?” Kymai’s voice comes from near the door guy, whose limp limbs are being ziptied by an invisible hand.

“Don’t worry about it, Quartermaster.” Grant averts his eyes from the dead woman. “How’d you dodge the painter?”

“Underside of the gangplank, Majesty.” Kymai trusses Scarface’s wrists. “Then I climbed to the roof.”

“That is incredibly badass, Kymai. Where’s your pants?”

“I got ‘em.” Ajax stows his handgun and picks its spent brass up from the floor. He drops a heavy canvas bag onto the floor and takes a folded uniform out of it. “I regret I had to resort to lethal force, Majesty.”

“That’s all right, Sergeant Major.” Grant checks himself for blood. A patch of his tunic by his waist caught a splash, but he’s lucky besides. “Did what you had to.”

Ajax gathers the guns into the bag. “Did they not compel you frozen or something, Majesty?”

“Uh.” Grant says. “I guess not.”

“Huh.” Ajax’s brow furrows as he zips the bag shut. “Why’d—”

“A signal’s been sent to Shoskia.” Hyax says, from the cockpit terminal. “Must have been the decedent here. The Marquess will be on the move. We failed you, Majesty.”

“No,” Grant says. “No, you all did wonderfully. Just makes it easier to follow this trail of shit to her threshold.” His hand lands on Hyax’s head and gives her a companionable pat. “Thank you, Brigadier.”

Grant hadn’t realized it was permissible for a Navy superior to pat the heads of their subordinates until he’d witnessed Hyax give one of her corporals an appreciative scratch behind the ear. Apparently, it being intimate is more of a Maekyonite thing, and Sykora had just never told him out of an adorable sense of possessiveness.

Hyax’s ears flatten. “You do this too often, Majesty.”

“Your tail’s wagging.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Whatever you say, Brigadier.” Grant removes his hand. “No ear scritching either, then?”

Hyax tsks and pulls out her communicator. “Let’s not be hasty.” She starts typing a message—her tail beckons her soldiers. “Ajax. Kymai. To me.”

Ajax finishes zip-tying the last glaze-eyed mercenary and hustles to his commanding officer. “Ma’am?”

“I’m going to flash that fight out of your minds,” Hyax says. “Take a knee.”

Kymai frowns back into visibility, zipping his uniform up. “What for?”

“I’m fine, Ma’am,” Ajax says. “Clean kill.”

“Because I’m your superior officer and I say so,” Hyax says. “With your permission, Majesty.” She waggles her communicator. Grant pulls his out. Brigadier Sourpuss has messaged him.they are loyal, majesty, but they'll wonder about you

let them stay unbothered for now. they’ll find out with everyone elseGrant looks with discomfort at Ajax, who gives him a thumbs-up.

“Okay,” he says. “Do it.”

Hyax’s eyes flash into Kymai’s. “Forget everything that happened after you breached the shuttle.” She repeats the compulsion with Ajax.

He blinks confusedly. He refocuses on Hyax. “It’s done?”

“All hostiles neutralized,” Hyax says. “I was forced to shoot one. The rest we’ve compelled and constrained. You both excelled.”

“Nice,” Ajax says, and puts his anticomps back on. “Hey, Majesty.”

“Hey again, Master Sergeant,” Grant says.

“You didn’t flash us because His Majesty had some kind of embarrassing mispronunciation, did you?” Ajax notices the duffel in his hand for the first time. “What’s in this?”

“Guns.” Hyax gestures to it. “Give it here.”

“It’s good to see you, Jax,” Grant says, as Ajax turns the guns over to the Brigadier and Kymai fusses with his crumpled and creased uniform. “How are the kids?”

“They’re good,” Ajax says. “Still in the not quite people stage, but if you ask Meena she’s already sure Karinax is gonna be a big-deal artist. His fingerpainting is that impressive. Once they get a few words under their belt we’ll bring them back to the Pike with us.” He fishes the spent brass out of his pocket and examines it quizzically.Grant jerks a thumb at the shuttle controls. “You know how to fly this thing?”

Ajax hesitates. The man takes to flying the way an ostritch does.

Kymai raises his hand. “I can, Majesty.”

“Thank you, Quartermaster. Bring the ship and the prisoners to the Pike. There’s a score of interceptors waiting in orbit. Take a couple with you, just in case.”

Kymai bows and climbs into the bloodstained seat without complaint. Ajax starts off with him and pauses when Grant claps him on the shoulder.

“You’ve done more than enough for us, Jax,” he says. “Give Meena and the kids my love. I can’t wait to meet them.”

Ajax salutes. “It’ll be soon, Majesty.”

Grant salutes back, then tugs Ajax into a quick hug. “Take the time you need, but I’m excited to have you back, man. Everyone else I spar with is too afraid to kick my ass.”

“Perhaps you’ve just gotten too good, Majesty.”

Grant has the privilege of considering Ajax a close friend; half the time he still can’t clock when the guy is kidding.

They climb from the combat zone and plug their ears as Kymai flies the stolen shuttle—confiscated shuttle, remember, you’re the law around here—back to the Pike. Grant separates from the Master Sergeant and returns to the promenade with Hyax. She has to jog to keep up with his Maekyonite powerwalk. He’s full of spiky adrenaline energy. I’ve got you, Shoskia, I’ve got you, I’ve fucking got you.

He sees Arenta Konia in her usual shoal of babbling baronesses, and diverts his path back to the box to intercept her. He gives a lower bow than usual to his hostess to burn some of the jitters off. “Baroness Konia. If you’d give me a moment.”

Konia gives him a confused look, but excuses herself, going with him to a quiet corner on the waitstaff’s end of the buffet table.

Grant takes a knee and drops to a whisper. “Thank you so much for your hospitality, but I have to leave at once. There has been an attempt to kidnap me.”

Konia’s tail sticks straight out in shock. “Hellfire. I, that is, I, uh. Of course, Majesty. Of course, and please accept my deepest regrets—”

“It’s all right, Arenta.” He makes a show of pivoting his head to make sure nobody’s watching besides his wary Brigadier. “I blame Shoskia, not you.”

She suppresses a gasp. “Shoskia as in the Marquess of Ximik?”

“The same. I’d like to keep it quiet”

Konia bows hastily. “Of course, Majesty.” Another bow right as she comes up, like a drinking bird. “And please, if there is anything I can do to aid you, any investigation you require—”

“Nothing at the moment, Baroness, thank you.” Grant winks. “Just don’t tell anyone, you hear?”

He departs Konia’s company amid repeated assurances and more bowing. Konia’s a nervous bower, a common affliction among the Taiikari.

Hyax scratches the shaved edge of her platinum pixie cut. “She’s telling everyone, you know.”

“I know,” Grant says. “Let’s find Wen.”

The racing skimmers flash past as he returns to the royal box, his soldiers in tow. Tikani waves at the entering Prince from his spot on the box’s front bannister with the kids. The Countess is sitting next to Yori and Governess Doxima, heads together over a tablet readout.

“So, hold on.” Doxima wipes her glasses on the fur-trimmed collar of her Eqtoran council robe. “We don’t even have to bother with the monitor arrays on these GVs?”

“Our analytic scanners can do everything they do for free,” Yori says. The trembly fawn has transformed in Grant’s absence. His eyes gleam. “The vendors pretend like there’s something proprietary in there, but if we get your permission to bypass the frontend, we can just do our endpoint checks ourselves. No monitors, no renting the software, no overpriced specialists cleaning out the cable junctions every damn tenday.”

“Hellfire.” Wenzai adjusts Mava’s position on her lap. “My condenser captains hate those junctions. Would this work on a condenser fleet?”

Yori nods proudly. “Works everywhere.”

“Forgive my intrusion on what seems like some really productive talk.” Grant crouches into the conversation. “But Countess, we have to go. You, me, Tikani, the kids, Lakai, everyone in the House of Korak.”

“Uh. Okay. Tik.” Wenzai stands and hurriedly gestures to her husband, who starts gathering the kids. “What’s going on, Majesty?”

“Nothing bad. It’s good news, actually. It’s great news. But you and your family need to come with me.”

Wenzai dawdles briefly, looking from Doxima’s grave confusion to the re-spooked Representative. “To be continued, I guess,” she says, and hurries with Grant and her family from the box.

“Where are we going?” Mava asks.

Orlo has a customary look of stoic resignation on his face. “Are we in trouble?”

Grant grins over his shoulder, trusting Hyax to clear the path of bewildered racegoers in front of him. “You guys ever want to see the inside of a ZKZ?”

Ana reacts to this as if Grant has asked if she wants to meet Santa. “A real one?”

“That’s right,” Grant says. “You’re gonna love it. The bounce house was surprisingly accurate, but it doesn’t beat the real thing.”

“Uh—Grantyde.” Tikani’s stride falters. “I’m not permitted aboard a ZKZ.”

“Screw that,” Grant says. “Brigadier, you’re head of security. What do you say?”

Hyax’s reply comes without hesitation. “I say that I will obey His Majesty’s command. Emergency suspension. If he says you must come aboard, then you must.”

“We already have a Kovikan guest, anyway,” Grant says. “It would be a great relief to have another one who’s capable of keeping a conversation going. Just promise you won’t write some kind of found-text poem with military secrets in it, and you’re welcome aboard.”

Tikani laughs out some of the tension curling his face tendrils. “You have my oath, Majesty.”

“Great.” Grant waves off a viscountess who’s approaching with a cloying smile. “It won’t be for long—things are about to move fast, I reckon.”

Lakai catches up with them at a jog, her drink sloshing in her fist. “What the hell is going on?”

“We just escalated.” Grant’s too excited; he has to tamp his voice down. “Well, Shoskia just escalated, but we prodded her into it.”

“Oh, shit,” Wenzai says, and then notices the blood on Grant’s uniform and Hyax’s gauntlets. “Oh, shit.”

“If she’s willing to strike at me, I refuse to take the risk that she’ll strike at you.” Grant breathes a sigh of relief as they escape the busy promenade. “I would hate myself forever if something happened. Please forgive my caution. And I swear you can abuse the hell out of our hospitality.”

“If this means that I’m finally gonna taste some of the famous Kymai’s food, you can house-arrest me all over again,” Wenzai says.

Grant has to force himself to slow down on the return to the private berths—even with the Korak children being carried, it’s a jog to his waist-high companions. A cluster of guards and nosy civilians are present around the cordoned-off berth that Grant was lately imprisoned within. Grant snaps a salute to the Pike marines on-duty at his berth, then leads his hurrying flock to the sleek Shymak-4 waiting to ferry them back.

Grant slides into the pilot chair and reflects, as he mechanically enters the preflight check, on the strangeness of becoming a person with opinions on their favorite spaceship to fly. The Shymak isn’t particularly fast, but the handling is snappy as hell and the legroom is fabulous on the new 4s—they’ve adapted quick to a clientele that now includes Eqtorans.

“Ana, sit still, girl.” Lakai adjusts the shuttle’s seatbelt. “I need to buckle you in.”

She wriggles excitedly. “A ZKZ, Aunt Lakai. A real ZKZ.”

“Remember to engage the membrane, Majesty.” Hyax points.

“I know, Brigadier, I know.” Grant flicks the switch on the console and nudges the dial higher. “Making me feel like I’m in a Maekyon driving school.”

“I didn’t know you went to driving school on Maekyon,” Hyax says. “For a land vehicle?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you were a custodian. Why would you need landcar instruction?”

“Okay, first off, I was a night watchman.” Grant pushes his thumb against the ignition reader. “I just took the trash out sometimes. Second, I bet a custodian would need to drive, like, supplies. And anyway, everyone got a license on Maekyon.”

“Everyone?” Hyax’s eyes widen.

Grant raises the shuttle into a preflight hover. “Do I need to put this down as another Maekyon friction point?”

Hyax shakes her head. “Frankly, Majesty, if Sykora agreed to this plan, you could get away with legalizing murder.”

“She agreed to it mostly. I may have downplayed a few elements.”

Grant finally lets himself relax as the shuttle rumbles into the glacier-blue Qarnaq sky. A few kilometers out of the race course’s sensor range, they rendezvous with cloud of interceptors, their weapons hot. One of the many contingencies Sykora insisted upon to allow Grant’s harebrained scheme to move forward.

The dashboard flashes. Lieutenant Atrakai over the comms: “Indus White. Check in.”

Grant hits the comm button. “This is Indus White. Coming back to the Pike with the Brigadier and a crowd of Koraks.”

“Affirm—”

“Indus White, this is the Pike.” Sykora’s voice interrupts the Lieutenant. “Get the hell back here so I can throttle you, Grantyde. And then get to the bridge.”

“After I’ve been throttled?”

“I’ll resuscitate you,” Sykora says. “Shoskia’s hailing us. And she claims to be calling with my horrendous sister.”