Princess of the Void: An Alien Abduction Romance

A shift in the bed's surface awakens him, as Sykora slips out from the covers. He doesn't open his eyes. He hears her moving around the cabin, the sound of her getting dressed and made up. As she brushes her hair, she hums quietly to herself. He recognizes the tune, a Sister Rosetta Tharpe song he played for her back on Maekyon—Earth. Back on Earth.

He hears the scratching of a pen. There's another subtle shift in the bed as Sykora returns and places something on her pillow. He hears her breath pause. Her hair brushes his exposed shoulder as she leans in and lays a slow, gentle kiss on his temple. And then she's gone, the hydraulic hiss of the cabin door announcing her exit.

He feels a pang of loneliness. And he admits it to himself: It's not his old life he's yearning for. Probably it never was. The TV dinners, the drawn curtains. He's yearning for something new. Something he can't allow himself yet.

Those thighs pressing together so softly, his treacherous brain whispers. What would they feel like pressing on you? That body. So small, but so full. So yielding to the touch. She's right about you. You might break first.

For the first time, he lets himself picture it fully. Being Sykora's husband. Discovering her routines and her loves. Letting her dote on him and tease him, and teasing her back, the way they talked before lunch on Ptolek II. Standing by her side at her affairs of state and trading little affectionate touches, without artifice or reservation. Sharing her bed, and watching her shake and whimper the way she did last night, but from above her, inside her.

This is dangerous. This is Stockholm Syndrome. He must stand firm. He can't want her truly until he can want her by choice.

His lethargy rises again, and he lets it clamber back into dominion over his mind. Sleep isn't nearly so confusing.

When he awakens again, he's still alone in Sykora's expansive bed. There's a folded-up piece of paper lying on her pillow.

Darling—

Early meeting today with the chief engineer. Apparently, there's a score of obsolescences per square foot that MUST be addressed or we'll all suck cold vacuum. Waian says our fine vessel is a creaking jalopy. Who knew?

You may employ the cabin in whatever way you please. Should you wish to tour any part of the Pike, I've made Hyax available to you. Don't take any of her grousing personally or let her intimidate you—it's how she is. The price we so often pay for talented people. She's a doll, honestly. Just a chewed-up doll with its felt all crinkly.

Breakfast is in the nook and there's a communicator for you on the nightstand. My contact information and Hyax's are both present, though I'll be slow to respond while Waian tries to budge my budget.

I wish

I hope that

I will be free at 1300 hours and would be grateful for your company back in our cabin. I hope to have a surprise for you!! A very chaste & proper one. Hands to myself. Promise.

Your wife,

Fondly,

Sykora

Grant eats breakfast. Today it's a wedge of grainy, seeded bread, accompanied by an oblong rinded fruit in an eggplant shade of purple, which he peels to reveal a creamy, peppery flesh that sticks to his fingers like brie.

He picks up the communicator and flicks its on switch. Most Taiikari technology he's witnessed so far is minimalist and tactile—all clacky, chunky controls and purpose-built programs. The communicator's a stark contrast from his old phone with its dozens of apps. Its sole menu is a white-on-black list of names, its only controls a scroll wheel and two pleasingly tactile buttons.

It's still disconcerting, the way the alien glyphs trigger the pathways in his mind. He scrolls from the first entry, which Sykora named MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE, to the second entry, BRIGADIER SOURPUSS.

He picks one of the buttons at random and presses it. The menu flickers and the word SPEAK appears on it.

"Um. Hello, Brigadier Hyax." As he says it, the sentence appears onscreen. "The Princess says you're available to escort me within the ship. I don't have any specific destinations in mind—I guess I don't know enough about the place. But I'd be grateful to visit anywhere that might educate me." He clicks the button again. The text stays in place.

Three familiar dots appear beneath it. They resolve into a response.

on my way

BRIGADIER SOURPUSS

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

you text like a grandmother

BRIGADIER SOURPUSS

"The keyboard is a slide-out. Like this." Hyax pulls and the communicator's back slots downward, revealing a circular touch panel that looks like a radar screen. Glyphs dance across it, each flickering between blocky variants as Hyax's thumb hovers over them.

Grant squints at it. "How do I use that?"

"I will leave a more patient being to show you how to type, Maekyonite." Hyax slides the lift's door shut with the push of a diode. "Shall I teach you how to shoot a Taiikari gun?"

Grant perks up. "Hey, all right."

"Your wife is allowing this. Promise you won't kill her with it."

"Sykora mentioned you were brusque."

"We're headed to the far end of the Pike. I'm going to boost us." Hyax's tail flicks the catch on a button Grant hadn't noticed before, large and bright yellow. "Kindly keep your hand on the rail."

Grant has to crouch to close his fist around the railing. He braces himself. Hyax hits the button. The expected burst of speed doesn't come. Instead, there's a queer weightless feeling in his chest and Hyax floats from the ground. Her tail loops around the railing and she crosses her legs, canting to one side as they go.

A hum rises in pitch. One wall of the lift is glass, and he watches through it as the floors they skid past become a flickering blur of light and color.

"How fast are we going?" he asks.

"The firing range is near the tail of the spire," Hyax says. "About two kilometers. So…"

The flickering slows and becomes floors whizzing by again. Grant sees a crewmate strolling along what he thought was a wall, pushing a handcart loaded with cadmium yellow canisters, and realizes that the lift is turning in space as well. By the time it stops and dings, it's back in alignment. Hyax's legs unfold just in time—the gravity kicks in and her chunky combat boots tap onto the ground.

"That fast," she says.

"How does the gravity work?" he asks.

She disembarks. "What does it matter?"

"I'm just curious." He follows her down a clinically-lit hallway. "It's fascinating. I thought maybe it was from the engine thrust, but then how would the lift—"

"Inquire with Chief Engineer Waian." Hyax interrupts him. "She'll quickly cure you of that. The woman has an endless appetite for words like centripetal."

She rests the edge of her tail on a panel on the wall. The light above it blinks green. They step through a sliding door (Grant, as usual, stoops) into a floor-to-ceiling arsenal of chunky black firepower.

Between a rack of heavy-caliber marksman rifles and a gaggle of grenade launchers, Hyax plucks a pistol from the wall. "Here we are. Unprinted." She presses her thumb to its switch and it blinks blue. She passes it to him. He imitates her action. "Thirty seconds after first activation, it imprints on any thumb that's supplied. Like a baby tek'ka bird."

He gingerly takes the pistol. He could almost imagine this is an Earth gun, though its form factor is squarer. It's small in his hand, like one of those James Bond guns, but it's heavier than it looks. He examines a velcro strap by its stock. "Do I put this on my wrist?"

Hyax shakes her head. "That's for if you have a tail. Ignore it."

"You shoot guns with your tails?"

"We carry guns with our tails, sometimes," Hyax says. "And for our heavy-kicking gear, it's a useful additional stabilizer. You are large and solid enough that it won't matter." She passes him a holster.

Grant clacks his new pistol into it. "Does Sykora know you're giving me this?"

"Are you going to tell her?"

"I guess not."

"Test failed. A husband-of-the-void doesn't conceal. Now you return it after practice." She presses her tail to another door, which releases a trilling buzz and then slides open. "Step through."

He bends his head again and steps into a slate panel hallway. He's going to clock himself on one of these archways some day.

"What does it mean in the Empire?" he asks. "Being owned, I mean."

"It means you have no right to anticomps or protection from her compulsion," Hyax says. "You do as your mistress commands. And if you don't—which you aren't—she may dispose of you however she pleases, whenever she pleases."

"So she could kill me or compel me anytime she wants."

"She can't compel you," Hyax says. "And she won't kill you."

"But she could."

Hyax shrugs.

"And you're not afraid I'll shoot you, knowing what you know about my immunity?"

"Sykora doesn't think you will," Hyax says. "And I trust Sykora without question."

She pauses at the reinforced door to the range.

"And even if she's wrong," she says, "I can stop you. Are you going to try?"

"No."

"There you have it." Hyax opens the door. "I've stopped you."

They emerge into a cavernous shooting range. A pool of light illuminates their firing platform; the tunnel beyond is massive and polygonal, studded in places along every facet, floor-to-ceiling, with craggy outcroppings and geometric cover. Two Taiikari, a man and a woman, look up from their booths, pulling their shooting earmuffs off.

"Brigadier." The woman salutes, fist-to-chest. She's tall for a Taiikari, and a fetching shade of periwinkle. "Uh. And Prince Consort." She salutes him, too, though her fascination slows her.

"Comrades." Hyax's voice echoes. "Kindly give us the chamber."

The woman indicates her broad-chested, amber-goggled companion. "Ensign Kamen and I were in the middle of a shooting competition, Brigadier."

Hyax folds her arms. "You may flirt with Ensign Kamen outside the firing range, Gefreiter Reina. Clock out and I'll permit you back in once we're finished here."

"This doesn't mean we reset," Reina says, as the Taiikari pack up. "I'm still ahead fifteen to twelve in points."

Ensign Kamen stows his rifle onto a magnetized harness. "See, I remember fourteen."

They continue bickering on their way out of the chamber.

Hyax pulls a lever by the chamber entrance. With a deep rumble, the massive tunnel beyond the platform rotates like a revolver's cylinder, until the lane directly before the booths is a smooth, slotted plane.

Hyax taps a console by the closest booth and presses a foot pedal. A set of a half dozen thin wooden targets shunt from the floor.

"Here we are." She gestures to them. "You've shot a gun before?"

"On Maekyon," he says. "Once or twice."

"Let's see Maekyonite technique, then." She passes him a pair of shooting muffs.

He slips them on, squares up in as close to a Modified Weaver stance as he can remember, aims down the sights, and fires.

The recoil he was expecting is barely enough to jostle his wrist. An outsize hole, the size of a fist, blasts out of the closest target's center mass. Four more shots. The action is so smooth on this thing it'd almost feels like a toy, like an arcade center gun, if not for the splintering craters it's opened.

"Better than I expected." Hyax peers downrange. "Your stance is odd. You were expecting more recoil, I think."

"I was."

"I'll feel superior about that, then, if not your accuracy." She turns and saunters back toward the armory. "I'll fetch my own pistol, and then I can give you the diatribe I'd intended to give you."

"A diatribe? What have I done to earn a diatribe?"

"It's what you haven't done, Prince Consort." She opens the hallway door. "Your ridiculous abstinence from your smokeshow wife."

"How do you know about that?"

"Because I'm not a fool, Prince Consort." Hyax rolls her eyes. "Every time I see her, the Princess is so desperate for dick that she's clawing her eyes out. That is not a well-fucked woman. Excuse me a moment while I pick a sidearm."

He sighs and places the gun on his booth counter. "Promise you won't shoot me."

"I promise I won't shoot you," she calls. "Fatally."