The bridge is a floating landscape of urgent murmuring and buzzing, flashing light. Grant’s pulse drums in his throat as he scans the readouts splashed across the main window; the sight of a second grayed-out interceptor, and two more dead Pike soldiers, thumps into his chest like a fastball. Indus Gold is gone.
“I have it,” Waian cries.
Sykora turns. Her emotions slip their leash at the sight of her husband, and play across her face in an overwheld mont: relief, fear, sorrow, love. The tight tension on the bridge shares an unbinding exhale as their chief engineer’s triumphant proclamation rings across it.
“I’ve got your solution, Majesty.” Waian practically dances to her console. Her tail thwacks Sykora’s tricorne askew with her passage. “Handshake disruption.”
“Fantastic.” Sykora straightens her face and hat out again. “What’s it an?”
“It ans we transmit a signal that’ll force a reboot and reconfiguration of their enemy-targeting systems. These things—“ Waian punches into her console and her consciousness saddles into the Pike, turning her words from physical to digital mid-sentence. “—were designed to massacre organic life, with their own systems off the nu. All we have to do is an unobtrusive little tweak to their programming to put it back on. And they’ll rip themselves apart. See, Majesty? Not cancer. Just suicidal dentia. I’m tasking W now.”
Hyax blasts back onto the command deck in a nimbus of scarlet cape and ejecting vapor. Her boots slam onto the hardwood. “Gunfire in hangar four. What the hell happened?”
“Yeah, about that.” Waian’s jaw hangs slack; her eyes quiver eerily in their sockets as her unmoored mind darts through the Pike. “I’d like to move k-Taqa’s designation up from Apprentice to Junior Engineer.”
“Oh. Uh.” Ipqen’s fringe stands up. “Uh. Boss. That’s not necessary—”
“Sure it is, kid.” Waian’s fleshy arm flaps limply toward Ipqen like a marionette’s string getting pulled. “She’s got the juice, boss. And she kept us from getting blown up by a drone.”
Sykora sputters. “A drone nearly—”
“It’s fine. We are totally fine. Grantyde helped too.” A wry grin colors Waian’s digitized voice. “Can I say I love how many sexy giants you’ve strewn across our crew? We should pick up a few more sowhere.”
“Majesty.” Vora’s right at his side, in that majordomo way she has that makes Grant wonder whether she’s privately discovered teleportation. “Are you okay? You’re bleeding.”
Sykora goes chalk-faced.
“Huh? Oh.” Grant checks his stinging elbow and shakes his arm out. “Scraped my arm getting out of the way, I guess. All good here.”
Sykora whirls around to her inanimate chief engineer. “Senior Specialist, you get that program done and deployed so I can kill you.”
“You got it, Majesty.” The chief engineer’s voice remains cheerful. “Load your pistol and practice your execution speech. I’ve fed the paraters to W. We’ll have this in a second.”
“You’re using your own daemon?” Grant asks.
“Sure,” Waian says. “She’ll get it done in a half a minute or so. I’d take a few days, brainy as I am.”
“All vessels.” Hyax speaks into her communicator. “The Black Pike is preparing a digital counterasure. Prepare to raise signal shields on my mark.” She looks to Waian. “Are you done?”
“Are my daemon and I not saving the fucking fleet singlehandedly fast enough for you?” A hand throwing the horns flashes across Waian’s console screen. “Hold onto your big dumb cape, Brigadier. I’m checking W’s work. Count ‘em down from ten.”
Hyax scoffs and raises her communicator again. “Ten seconds to counterasure. All vessels, ten seconds. Nine. Eight.”
The interceptors’ pirouetting trails blaze through the gunfire and shrapnel.
“Seven, six.”
Great spherical explosions bloom from an automaton cruiser like fast-motion fungi.
“Five, four, three.”
Gold two’s readout flashes cherry-red as its mbrane is raked by strafing fire.
“Two, one.”
“Bombs away,” Waian sings.
The interceptor readouts flicker out in unison. Grant has a mont of dumb panic before he realizes that must be the signal shields Hyax ntioned.
The flaring brightness of enemy fire on the Pike’s mbrane ceases, like a switch being thrown. Across the dozens of console banks, cara views show drones and carriers’ engines sputter and die; they still soar through the void, but now they’re moving purely on montum.
“Indus Blue to Black Pike.” An interceptor’s monitor bar blinks back into life; more follow. “Indus Blue to Pike. You read?”
“Reading you, Indus Blue,” Sykora calls.
“It worked, Majesty.” Indus Blue is a Master Sergeant nad Kolari, if Grant recalls. Her flat monotone is unchanged. “All targets inactive.”
The bridge bursts into raucous cheers and applause. Hyax thumps the inanimate Waian on the back, all haughtiness abandoned. “Excellently done, Waian. Excellently done.”
“Thank my daemon too, Brigadier,” Waian says.
“No.”
“All crew, we are exiting combat paraters,” Vora calls across the PA. “Brace for gravity, bridge. And stand with pride.”
Waian’s arm shivers then ejects from her console, and a big smug grin slaps across her face. “Handshake disruption, gals. Told ya.” She leans into the bridge pit. “Get that flagship of theirs in scope.”
The main monitor acquires and magnifies one of the derelicts that float in the new stillness, as it releases a haze of…
That’s blood. It’s pumping blood into space, crystalizing a crimson blizzard around itself.
“Eqt’s tits,” Ipqen says.
“Jesus Christ,” Grant says.
“Gods of the fucking Firmant,” Sykora says.
“A symphony of blasphemy.” Waian kicks her feet onto the banister. “That’s multiculturalism.”
Sykora waves her tail at Vora. “Get the Privateers, majordomo. Brigadier, prepare a detachnt of marines and a carrier to ferry them.“
Hyax salutes. “At once, Majesty.”
“Lady Ipqen.”
Ipqen hastily bows. “Yes, Majesty?”
“Your promotion is approved. Congratulations, Junior Engineer k-Taqa.” Sykora smiles up at her. “And thank you for saving my husband from my scrapbrained chief engineer. You are a credit to your species and a testant to Eqtoran bravery.”
Ipqen’s bow deepens into a kneel. “Thank you, Majesty.”
“Tell Ruaq to pack her things. You’re cycling into one of the second-ring cabins. Excellent views up there.” Sykora gives the Eqtoran a pat on the arm and turns to her majordomo. “What do we know of these two privateers, Vora? What are their cris?”
“Toniak was a smuggler,” Vora says. “Trafficking, dealing, bribery, blackmail. No counts of murder on her, but she operated with them. The sentence was half a kilocycle in re-ed or two hectos of privateering.”
A rustle like a departing murmuration of starlings fills the bridge; gravity has taken hold once again. “And Loriss?” Sykora asks, brushing her hair back into place.
“Loriss is new. I don’t know her. Captain-Warden Exavina had a reputation for taking hardcases, though, and Toniak’s no hardcase.”
“How do you know all this?” Grant asks.
“That’s my job,” Vora says, and the note of pride trills clearly beneath her words. “You are patched in, Majesty.”
Two glass hexagons tesselate into adjacency and beam the Privateers’ faces back onto the bridge, superimposed over the gory constellation outside. Toniak looks even more frazzled; her lip is twitching at one edge and the top button of her austere uniform collar is undone. Loriss looks the sa. Sa frown, sa dark look, sa tattoo on her forehead. Grant presus that’s not a fashion choice.
“Captains.” The shutter into kindness rolls shut behind Sykora’s eyes. “A carrier is on its way to rendezvous with your ships to take you both into custody. We will repair the Promise’s sail arrays; then your crew will accompany us in sweep stream back to our sector, to remain in custody until Dantia of the Bright Covenant agrees to treat for you.”
“Muh. Uh. Majesty.” Toniak licks her lips. “We must protest. The privateer licenses under which we operate—“
“Those licenses are valid in Bright Covenant and its uncontested expansion territories,” Sykora says. Her predatory smile shows her fangs. “This is not uncontested. And your terms of indenturent demand that you be led by a Warden-Captain, yes? Your Warden is dead.”
“She died in battle,” Loriss grunts. “With a dire threat that lay on your border. She and scores of our friends.”
“She died at Bright Covenant’s bidding.” Sykora’s chilly smile flakes from her face. “Bla your Princess for how poorly your fellows were spent.”
“Dantia will punish us if we turn ourselves over to you,” Loriss says. “I am duty-bound to request—“
“I will not be lectured on duty by an outlaw, Loriss.” Sykora’s palm rests on her pistol’s stock. “Understand plainly that, by the laws of the Black Pike sector, you are noncitizens aboard ard vessels, and our usual doctrine would be your destruction. Instead, four of my finest warriors have sacrificed themselves to rescue you. I would be loath to waste their service by blasting you from the firmant. Do not force my hand.”
Loriss’s heavy gaze drops to the floor. “Fine.”
“We submit, Majesty,” Toniak says. “And we thank you for your aid and your rcy.”
Loriss does not look thankful.
“My majordomo will handle the particulars of your internnt.” Sykora gestures for Vora, who trades places with her in front of the cara. “Brigadier Hyax, deploy your marines and retrieve these interlopers. Waian, to .”
She stalks off-cara. Hyax salutes and strides from the command deck.
Waian hops from her seat and wanders to Sykora’s side. “What do you—ow.” She flinches as Sykora flicks her ear. “You gremlin.”
“That’s for putting the Prince in a hangar with a live drone,” Sykora says. She sweeps Waian into an embrace and kisses her cheek. “That’s for saving everyone’s lives again.”
Waian laughs even as she rubs her ear. “You oughta bla your flyers for that. Both bits.”
Sykora flicks her the horns as she unsaddles the PA from Vora’s station.
“Crew of the Pike.” Her voice doubles; one from her and one echoing throughout the Pike’s mile-long bulwark. “Your valor and prowess have pacified the technology tomb known as Xivikan and preserved the peace of your grateful Empire. In the coming hours we will scan the world and make our decision on what’s to be done, whether to scout or to scour its surface.”
Her nostrils narrow with a long breath out. Her shoulders tighten. Grant instinctively plant his hand on her back; she loosens beneath his touch.
“It is my sorrowful task to inform you that in the battle over Xivikan we lost four of our comrades,” she continues. “Lieutenant Suthuk of the Black Pike. Gefreiter Reina of the Black Pike. Corporal Tarsi of the Black Pike. Lance Corporal Varkori of the Black Pike. Their heroism preserved hundreds of lives, at the cost of theirs. A Warrior’s Vigil will be held in Hangar One this evening followed by a service at the Temple of the Omnidivine. Glory to the Empress. Glory to our valorous dead. Glory to the Black Pike.”
The bridge’s ebullience has faded as their leader speaks. They recite the motto back at their matriarch.
Sykora turns from the balustrade and sheds her stern pride like a shrugged-off cloak. “I’ll be right back,” she murmurs to Vora, who nods solemnly.
She doesn’t even need to say anything to Grant; just a quick beseeching look, and he’s stepping off the command deck with her.
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