Princess of the Void ch 30 - Dumplings

“Thank you for your patience, ladies.” Sykora strides onto the deck. Her command group rises to their feet (except for Waian, who’s texting someone). “The Prince Consort and I had an emergency we needed to address.”

“I banged my head on the door,” Grant adds.

Hyax smirks. “We can tell, Prince Consort.”

“Hellfire. Poor Grantyde.” Waian looks up from her tablet and tuts. “Looks like you have a damn acorn buried in there.”

“Apparently Maekyonites have a lot of blood in their forehead,” Grant says. “Who knew?”

“It’s not as bad as it looks, according to the medtech.” Sykora plops onto her high-backed throne. Grant takes his seat next to her. “So. Onward to the situation that’s worse than it appears. What do you have for me?”

“My team’s finished taking apart that spike the Prince Consort discovered,” Waian says. “Going by the design and the parts used, they have something like a 90% confidence it’s Yellow Comet make.”

“Considering our prior run-ins with them, I’ll take those odds,” Sykora says. “So we have our proof and we have our culprits. Now we need to prove our why. Any word yet from the Baroness?”

Vora shakes her head. “Not to us. She’s mustering her allies, Majesty. Finding surrogates. If I had to guess, she’s going to fight you on this instead of coming to the table.”

Sykora’s brows lower. “She wouldn’t.”

“She wouldn’t twenty cycles ago, Majesty,” Hyax says. “She would now.”

“I’ve returned as capable as I ever was, Brigadier.”

“None of us doubt it, Sykora.” That’s the first time Hyax has used his wife’s name to her face. “But the firmament at large will be seeking any diminishment they can in you.”

“There’s a narrative here, Majesty,” Vora says. “I’m loath to admit it, but there is. Gone for fifteen cycles, and now the famously detached princess is back with a husband she’s very public with, throwing her weight around. There are stories that can be spun. Viciousness made to look like desperation. Vulnerability, volatility… with the Governess on her side, she can do damage.”

One thing Grant’s gotten used to spotting in his wife by now: the moments where she looks like she’s about to snap at someone, then forces herself to take a breath and a moment. Every time she does it there’s a little swivel in her right ear.

“We need another piece, then,” she says. “Something that terrifies her enough to knock her off her war footing and force her into our grip. Tell me about what we’ve lifted from Lorimare.”

“My little forensic goblins are still poring the thing over,” Waian says. “But we’ve found an early gift for you. Majordomo?”

Vora snaps a panel open on the table and punches a few buttons. A shimmering star chart flowers into being in the air above their heads. Ptolek pulses scarlet in the thicket of systems.

“A trace, Majesty,” Vora says. “Five separate times in the last decacycle we’ve observed this pattern. A datacrypt ping, which our code corps can’t translate into anything but gibberish. And then soon after, sometimes within hours, Lorimare flies to this world.” The map zooms out. A golden thread traces from Ptolek, arcs across the firmament, and connects with another crimson blot. “It’s a Class-C industrial planet called Tangrai. Five trips. After the second, her import manifests started showing this, every cycle.”

The stars flicker out, replaced by a scrolling list of data in Taiikari glyphs. Vora highlights an entry on an imports table.

TANGRAI - MISCELLANEOUS - REFINEMENT EQUIPMENT

“Two or three shipping containers each delivery, coming in on the commerce sweep lane. And every time she’s paying dirt-cheap scrap metal prices on it.”

Sykora squints. “That’s an out-of-sector import. What do the customs inspections tell us?”

Vora scrolls further down, to a sparse all clear inscribed on a form entry sized for a significantly larger record. “The inspections always come up clean and minimal.”

“Too clean, I’d say.” Hyax folds her arms. “I smell tariza.”

Grant raises his hand. “Tariza?”

“It’s a kind of lube, Prince Consort,” Waian says. “And a turn of phrase. Hyax is thinking bribery.”

Sykora lips thin. “Tangrai is in the Glory Banner sector. That’s one of Narika’s worlds.”

Her command group exchanges nervous glances.

“A pirate clan is flush with exo they shouldn’t have and they’re killing off Trimonds.” Sykora steps to her feet and paces to the deck’s edge, looking out into the firmament. “A petty noblewoman is taking secret meetings in the sector of my bitterest rival with the knowledge of Ptolek’s governess. What do we think is happening, people?”

“A trade of some kind, perhaps,” Hyax says. “Lorimare is importing something of value in Garuna’s name, in exchange for the Governess keeping the Trimond situation under wraps.”

“But if this is a play from Narika, surely she wouldn’t want it under wraps. She’d want chaos in the sector.” Vora scratches her nose. “And we don’t know that this is endorsed by the Governess. She might be looking for a way to pin Lorimare to the wall.”

Waian shakes her head. “We don’t even know who she’s meeting out there. Might be Narika, might just be the neutral ground for her to meet the Comet Queen, maybe. Lorimare’s on the Trimond board. This might be a shareholder conspiracy. Exo kickbacks for contract killings.”

“The only sure thing is that we need more. This.” Sykora turns around, eyes bearing the light of the stars she was gazing at. “This is the thread we pull to unravel Trimond.” She nods to the Chief Engineer. “Waian. I’m putting you in charge of this. Take that signal, reverse-engineer it, and broadcast it to Lorimare. Time to set up a meeting with her mystery supplier.”

Waian stands. “On it, boss.”

“Hyax, I need you to put together a plan to intercept her. We lure her out into demimonde space, we hold her up, and we get our answers.”

Hyax stands. “I’ll see it done, Majesty.”

“Vora. Once word is out that Lorimare’s taken, her contacts are sure to go to ground and the Baroness will move if she can. I need you to come up with a way to keep this from erupting. Disrupt this growing faction in whatever way you can. Use whatever extortion you require. I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty on this.”

Vora stands. “Of course, Majesty.”

“Grantyde.”

Grant’s head jerks around from the floating file.

“You and me are going to introduce ourselves to Azkaii Trimond. And then we’re going to the agro floor for some ingredients.” Sykora’s tail wags. “I’m making you dinner tonight. Thank you, command group. Let’s be about it.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Grant says, as he follows her out.

“Yes, I do, dove. I was an absolute beast to you at the cloudsprint, and I’m about to be a harridan at this Azkaii introduction.” Sykora is scribbling a list of ingredients on a notepad she’s taken from the command deck. “I need her to be afraid of me. I’m going to play the tyrant with you. Is a compulsion all right?”

“Sure.” Grant can’t help but smile. “You’re always so anxious when you ask me to pretend at compulsion. It’s cute.”

A flustered blush spreads across her face. “It’s not. It’s cruel of me.”

“Whatever you say, Majesty.” But Grant’s grin deepens. It was only a cycle or so ago that Sykora of the Black Pike never would have thought such things.

***

“I should have guessed you were the Princess’s giant when I first saw you. But they all said you were handsome.” Azkaii paces the length of her cell. Her haughtiness is diminished by all the Maekyonite-sized furniture still within it from when it held Grant. “No tail, pallid pink, moss growing on your face. I don’t see it.”

“I’ve been where you are right now,” Grant says. “I got out, and you will too. We just have to make sure you’re safe.”

“Sure you do.” Azkaii folds her arms. “They say you’re commonborn. That you were a night guard. Soooo romantic, they say. Not me. I can still see it clinging to you.”

“You really needn’t try to get yourself in deeper trouble, Azkaii,” Sykora says. “I’m happy to persecute you, if you wish.”

Azkaii thrusts her chin up into the air. “I understand you’re here to preen and intimidate me. Why did you bring your dildo?”

Sykora’s laugh sounds genuine. “You’re not going to get under his skin, Azkaii. Believe me. I’ve tried. You’re afraid, and you think that if you act as though you aren’t, it will help.” She taps her chin. “You’re hoping I’ll be vicious with you, I think. You understand viciousness. That will give you a measure of control over me. But I have no bone to pick with you, Azkaii. What you must accept is that you have no control. None. Your mother will decide your fate. I’m sure that’s difficult for you.”

Azkaii snorts. “My mother is going to bite your head off. You picked the wrong clan, Majesty. We all know Ptolek is on the brink of slipping out of your grasp and into Glory Banner’s. What’ll a work stoppage do to that? What’ll happen when the clans organize?”

“You have such a high estimation of the value your mother places on you.” Sykora picks a slim crescent from her pinky nail. “But she’s rewarded the fealty of your family with meaningless death. If she had come to me, if she’d been honest about whatever is happening, I could have saved them. Your aunt, your grandfather, your cousin. Who else would be there for you, coming to your defense with such outrage? Who else, if the Baroness were loyal? To me, and to you?”

“Baseless accusation,” Azkaii says. “That’s all you have.”

“No. It’s not. I have you, milady. If her love for you is what you say it is, I’ll have her, too, soon enough. And if not… oh well. One fewer spoiled heiress who fancied herself a Cloudsprint bravo. An inexhaustible resource.”

Grant takes a tenuous step forward. “Sykora—”

Sykora’s eyes snap to his. “No protests now, Grantyde.” The compulsion flash bathes him in red. “My husband, bless him, is my kindness. But one must be firm sometimes with those in one’s care. Give me your hand, dove.” Flash.

Grant’s always so self-conscious when he needs to pretend to be hypnotized. How much slack in the jaw is too much? He takes Sykora’s hand as ordered. She grins up at him, then turns the smile back around to Azkaii.

“I am off to eat dinner with the Prince Consort,” she says. “Think about what I’ve said. The guards will bring you whatever you require, within reason. You’ll be safe here, as our guest.” She pivots on her heel. “Until you aren’t.”

The marines around the brig entrance snap a salute as they pass. Grant pauses near one of them. “Is Ajax back yet?” he murmurs.

“No, sire.”

“When he does, you tell him nice job kicking ass, all right? From Grantyde.”

“Yes, sire.”

He catches up with Sykora. Her shoulders shiver as he touches them. “What a cockbreath that little Trimond is,” she says. “Why did you bring your dildo. I should space her.”

“It was kind of funny.”

“Kind of,” she allows. “But you don’t say that to your Void Princess. Well, you do. She doesn’t. Still, I think we made our point. With any luck she’ll be somewhat more fearful of me once the conversation with the Baroness comes around. I’d love a tear or two.”

“Are you sure she won’t just stay cocksure?”

“I’ll ensure it.” Sykora glares over her shoulder at the brig they’ve left behind. “Let’s go back to the cabin so I can give you my recompense.”

“I’ll happily take whatever you give me,” Grant says. “But I don’t feel owed.”

“You ought to. I put you in front of that little strumpet back there. And I’m asking you to keep yet another secret for me. Two secrets, even.”

“The compound thing, and what?”

“That I’m cooking.” She exhales. “It’d give Kymai a heart attack.”

***

The Princess of the Black Pike crushes a golden herb under her knife. Its verdant scent wafts above the rich earthiness of the dumpling filling that simmers on the stovetop.

“That smells heavenly,” Grant says from his seat at the kitchen table. He’s offered to help, but Sykora wouldn’t hear of it. Instead he’s been flying a skimmer through the cloudsprint on a countertop sim. He was curious what it would be like to fly it himself. He’s died seven times so far.

“Thank you, dove.” Sykora wiggles her butt at him from across the kitchen. “I’d originally planned for a kinky little just-the-apron thing, but I’m frightfully out of practice and can’t brook the distraction.” She cracks the oven and slides a rack of saffron-colored pastry rounds inside. “So on a scale of one to twenty, how evil would you say I was today? This’ll be a handy measuring stick.”

“Well, the family seems like a bunch of dicks, but we did kidnap a woman. And I suppose I have to knock a few points off for how we did it. I don’t know.” Grant pauses the race as his doomed skimmer spirals once more into Ptolek’s hydrogen tomb. “How much are you willing to tell me about the juice Waian put in Azkaii?”

“That was Compound Seventy. Which doesn’t exist. I know very little about how it’s made and we have an incredibly limited supply of it, shipped from the Core under the strictest secrecy.” Sykora stirs the filling and takes a taste.

“Okay. Weird black site mind control drug.” He rubs his chin. “That maybe costs another few points. I’d call it… a five.”

“Five?” Her ears perk.

“Ten, I mean. Halfway.” He levels his hand and waggles it demonstratively. “Kind of evil, not so evil I resent you for it.”

“Ah.” She sighs. “That’s what I expected, more or less. We’ll keep this warm while the wrappers bake.” She clacks a lid onto the heavy-bottom skillet atop the oven. Grant quietly stands from the table as she chatters. “Don’t you worry, dove. It’s going to be delicious. We’ll get that number down to a six at the most. You’ll see.”

She squeaks in surprise as his hands land on her shoulders. “I’m sure,” he says.

“But, uh.” She tilts her head up as his shadow falls across her. A quiver runs through her body as his fingers knead into the fabric of her uniform. “Maybe I owe you a little more than dinner.”

He rubs the back of her neck. “What did you have in mind?”

“I have a little time while we’re baking.” The Princess slips an elastic off her wrist and pins her hair back into a long, slender ponytail. The cute little peaks of her horns poke out from the shifting locks. “For repentance.”

“Sykora. Baby. Wait wait. One second.” Grant’s nose wrinkles.

Sykora shakes her head, as well as she’s able to with her ponytail wrapped around Grant’s fist. “Mm-mm.”

“Lonesome.” Grant releases his grip on his wife’s hair. “Do you smell that?”

Sykora heaves a breath as she wipes her mouth. “What—oh, hellfire.”

“Is that how it’s supposed to smell?

“No. Shit.” Sykora shrugs the straps of her dress back on as she scrambles to her feet. “Shit, shit. I forgot to set the timer. I’m such a ditz. This is why I didn’t go just-the-apron.”

“My bad, Majesty.” Grant zips himself back up. “I shouldn’t have distracted you.”

“Not your fault. I just need to cocoon you in bubble wrap next time I cook, so I’m not tempted.” Sykora turns the fume hood on and tugs the tray out of the oven. “Well, that’s the dumplings fucked. I’ll bet Kymai’s horns are tingling.” She straightens up. “How do you feel about eating this with a spoon?”

Sykora digs a loaf of crusty bread out of the pantry to soak up the peppery gravy. They ladle out the filling into bowls and settle across the kitchen table.

“One day.” Sykora pledges it as she saws him a thick slab of bread. “One day I will get you to cum in my mouth. This is my most sacred mission.”

“Well now I definitely can’t, if you’re gonna make it a rivalry thing,” he says.

“Don’t you dare.” She points her spoon at him as she blows a billow of steam off the surface of her bowl. “We can call this a curry, right? This is curry-like.”

“Sure we can.”

They tuck in, and Sykora’s little hum of pleasure as she takes her first taste warms Grant as much as the aromatic fumes rising from his bowl. He ventures a bite and takes a breath through his nose as the bright citrusy broth coats the roof of his mouth, resolving into a rich gamey barbecue flavor.

Sykora swallows her spoonful. “What do we think?”

It’s good.” A ripe berry, savory and saucy as a cherry tomato, pops between his teeth. “Shit. It’s really good.”

Sykora beams. “I had a great many tutors, but cooking I figured out by myself, more or less. Trial and error and the occasional recipe I badgered out of my quartermaster. It’s not exactly a feminine art, traditionally.”

“On my planet, y’know, a lot of this stuff was reversed.” He surreptitiously removes a long dark hair from his bowl. “For a long time, it was women cooking and cleaning and men in the positions of authority. It was still leveling out when you swiped me.”

“How fascinating. A bunch of little lady homemakers? I rather think I could fit right in, if you got me a stepstool and I stopped burning the hell out of things.” She gives him a robotic Stepford Wife smile. “Ooh, husband. Welcome home from the, uh, the guitar factory.”

He snorts. He puts on a deep ‘50s era mid-atlantic voice. “Thanks, sweet cheeks.”

“Let me take your coat and give you your slippers. Do they do that on Maekyon?”

“They used to.”

She does a goofy little curtsey. “Look at me, I’m a submissive little Maekyonite. I’m gonna rub your shoulders and make you dinner and put the babies to bed.” As she says this latter part, the laugh coasting alongside her falls away.

Her smile grows somber. She takes another bite. Suddenly, imagining this absurd life hurts, a little.

Grant reaches his hand across the table. Sykora takes it tightly. Her thumb rubs little circles on his palm.

The way she’s blinking, the little grimace on her face. He won’t ask her. That’ll just hurt her. But he knows. She doesn’t need to say it. The great sorrow at the center of their whirlwind romance. The vacancy.

The lump rises in his chest as he silently acknowledges the truth.

She wants kids.

He wants kids. God help him, he does.

If he could, he would. He’d give her as many as she wanted. He’d do every ceremonial breedmate thing she asked for. He’d shelter her in his arms every night as their family grew inside her. He’d love them with her. Their strong, safe children, with her smile, he hopes, and her laugh. He’d be there every moment. He and Sykora could protect them from the fear and pain of the Empire, could help them become whatever they wanted to become. He knows they could, somehow. With a sudden, rock-solid certainty.

He’d be everything his father wasn’t. If he could. If it was possible. But it isn’t.

What if it is? a voice in the back of his head whispers. You don’t know what kind of technology the Empire has. Who knows what they could do?

Stop giving yourself this false hope, Grant. Even if there is some Taiikari medical miracle, it won’t be given to them. The Empress would never allow them to live. Lady Frelle told him that, and then commanded him to forget it. But he didn’t.

The little hole grows.

“We have us,” she murmurs. “It’s all right. It is.”

His foot tucks under hers beneath the table. He tears a piece of bread off and lifts a cube of marinated meat with it. “Have you ever thought about one of those—what do you call it? A kindek? We could become crazy kindek ladies.”

Sykora laughs. “Oh, God. Pass. Vora and Oryn have two and I’ve seen how they act.” She points her spoon at him. “If I’m going to be cleaning poop, it better be from someone who’ll learn how to do it themselves someday. And besides.” She nudges his hand with the top of her head. “You already have a pet.”

She sighs as he scratches around the horns that are slipping into view.

“May I ask you something about that Compound Seventy stuff?”

“You may,” she says. “I can’t promise I’ll answer.”

“You told me you don’t know how you ended up on Maekyon. And you told me it had to be someone within the Imperial family.”

Her nose wrinkles. “My clever Maekyonite.”

“You think it was the Compound, don’t you? Someone drugged you, strapped you into that rocket, commanded you to forget, and sent you on a one-way trip to Maekyon.”

“I do,” she says. “One moment I was at a dull state dinner, the next I was plummeting through the firmament, terrified.”

“And you reckon it’s Narika?”

“She’s my foremost suspect. I have many enemies, but none quite so personal.” Sykora nudges further into his scratching hand. “Whoever it was made a dire mistake when they didn’t shoot me into a sun. They should have sent me to my death.”

She takes hold of his wrist and stills his hand. She lowers it to her mouth. She kisses his knuckle.

“Instead,” she says, “they sent me to my hero.”

They’re slow that night, with none of the usual playful submission. Slow and snug and deep, trying to fit as much of their mismatched bodies together as they can, her little frame and her plump curves to his oversized angles. The great glow of Ptolek colors Sykora’s skin a rich lavender. The void stretches infinitely around them. His tiny wife gyrates in his lap, her sweet sabsum scent filling his mind.

Sykora’s flesh is so hot and soft and clinging, it’s like she’s melting in his embrace. He’s melting, too.

“I love you,” she whispers to him, trembling in his arms. “I’ll love you forever.” Quiet and close, as if it were the momentous secret that keeps the firmament intact. Perhaps it is.

He feels her little fangs light on his neck. He imagines how they’ll feel when they puncture his skin and sink into him, how he’ll look with the scar that will mark him as hers for the rest of his life.

They stay connected after, her tired body laid across his, pulsing like one heartbeat. He’s half-asleep when she finally stirs and slides off him to go to the bathroom.

She opens the door for him once she’s done cleaning up, and they brush their teeth together, both looking blearily into the mirror, her head laid back against his stomach. Taiikari toothbrushes are thicker-bristled than he’s used to. He’s learning to use a light touch with them. She wipes her makeup off; he shaves with a softly droning razor (with a guard on it to maintain the stubble his wife likes so much).

“I’m thinking of saying yes to Wenzai,” she says, daubing her eyeshadow away. “That invitation she gave us. Marquess Paxea’s going to visit them to recover from the cloudsprint, and she’s wondering if we’d like to share a shuttle to Ptolek.”

“They live on a gas giant?”

“They have a vacation home there,” she says. “In a repulsor bubble. It’s rather gorgeous. And I think Wenzai will make a useful ally. We need more of them on Ptolek, God knows. I’ve leaned on poor Pax too much lately. It threatens her reputation as an independent. What do you think of a weekend on Ptolek?”

“I’m down,” Grant says. “Think she’ll try to put the moves on us?”

Sykora grins. “Her husband talked her out of it, I gather. Apparently, at the race, my husband told him we’re exclusive.”

He spits into the sink. “That’s right,” he says, and kisses her.

They return to bed and bundle into the sheets and pillows. Sykora keeps it cool in the cabin, and the temperature’s programmed to lower further as the night goes on. It bothered Grant when he had his own cot, but now whenever he sleeps, he’s clung to by a little purring pillow with a furnace in her chest. It would almost be too much, the heat that his wife radiates, if she wasn’t so small.

Sykora’s breath goes low and deep, and he wonders if she’s already asleep. Her whisper catches him off-guard.

“Grant.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry.”

He raises his head from his pillow. “What?”

She sounds on the edge of sleep. “You deserve a family, someday. And If we could—“ Her voice breaks. “I’m sorry.”

His stomach drops. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.”

Grant’s arm wraps around her. Her waist fits perfectly in the crook of his elbow.

“They’d be beautiful,” she whispers.

He nods into her hair. “They would be.”

She moves his hand up onto her heart.

“During our early days, when you were first teaching me to fly, I had the thought,” he says, “and it was the first sign, in retrospect, that I was falling for you—I had the thought that you’d be a really amazing mother. I don’t know if this is a comfort or not, but I hope it is.”

Her eyes find his in the dark. There’s sorrow in them, but it’s joined by a fireplace glow of contentment. “It is.”

She wiggles closer and tugs him by the shoulder partway on top of her, like he’s a weighted blanket. He feels the swell and fall of her chest.

“I think,” she whispers, “that you are going to be the great comfort of my life, Grant Hyde.”