Princess of the Void: An Alien Abduction Romance

Volume 2: Ptolek

The shining spire of the ZKZ Black Pike, its prismatic sails wide and coruscating, soars through the sweep. It buzzes past Gileas IX close enough that the wooly alien beasts and hunter-gatherer humanoids of that moon witness its rainbow passage, like a psychedelic shooting star leaving an ocular ripple against their star-fretted night.

Aboard the vessel, the shift change has begun. Comlinks switch on. Artificial suns rise over hydroponic farms. Towering pylon mainframes hum. Exo mixtures are gauged. Routes and rotations are checked and double-checked. Hundreds of firearms are assembled, primed, and holstered.

Seven hundred souls mark another day of faithful service to their undisputed ruler, Princess Sykora of the Black Pike, who's currently sitting naked in Grant Hyde's lap.

"So that's the E string. Lowest and chunkiest. And we go up in pitch from there. E, A, D, G, B, and the E an octave up." Grant plucks each string. His wife's hand underneath his follows suit. She has to reach to get to the strings—the guitar is almost as big as she is.

Sykora suppresses a giggle. "What are these bizarre words you're saying?"

"The alphabet." He strums a chord. "A B C D E F G," he sings. "H, I… uh… J. K." What's next? ◈? No, that's Taiikari. His implant itches. "And then there were the rest. You only need the first seven. That's the Maekyon alphabet. One of them, anyway. The one I learned."

"Out of how many?"

"I don't even know. We had a lot of languages. Have."

"I always forget your planet was pre-unification," Sykora says. "Pre-unification, and you had satellites. Richly strange."

"Plenty of Maekyonites tried. We don't do well with a ruler of the world sort of arrangement."

"Ahh. It's starting to make sense. If all Maekyonites are as stubborn as you I can't even imagine Vindicatrix Zithra conquering you."

"Who's that?"

"The first Empress. My however-many-great, however-many-times-removed grandmother. My writ of peerage had the exact descendance, but they went and burned it when I became a Void Princess." Sykora goes up the line of open strings. "So it's A, B, C…"

"That's alphabetical order." Grant's grateful for the distraction from that strange and somber revelation. "The string order is E, A, D—"

"Gods of the Firmament. Your species makes things so complicated." Sykora lets go of the guitar and settles her hands on Grant's thighs. "I think I'll make a better appreciator than a player."

"Appreciator?" Grant leans over and puts the guitar on the floor next to the bed. He gathers the Princess of the Black Pike into his arms. "I can do that, too, if you're looking for lessons. I'm pretty good at appreciating." His palm rests on her stomach, on the compact abdomen he discovered last night can flex into a cute little six pack.

Those graceful lines stand out again as she laughs. "I'll do the appreciation. You do the playing." She rubs the knuckle on his index. "You're built for it. Such long, nimble fingers. I wonder." She pulls on his wrist, guiding his hand lower. "What else do you play?"

"Oh, the skills transfer to all kinds of things." His thumb nuzzles into the crease between her hip and her thigh. The pad of his middle finger strokes her feathery little tuft of pubic hair. "And I'm a fast learner."

She caresses his forearm. "How about we—"

A chromatic tone swells over the intercom, accompanied by a smooth, masculine computer narration. "Exiting sweep in fifteen minutes."

"Oh, hellfire. I have to get up." Sykora bends her knee.

"We've got fifteen whole minutes." Grant keeps his arm around her. "Fast learner, remember?"

She laughs, but gives his forearm a tug. "I have a briefing to give. Lonesome."

That's their word. He loosens his grip and his wife slips from his arms. "Do they need you downstairs?"

"I'll just deliver it from here. But I really must be made up, at least a little." She hops to the floor and stretches her back out. She tosses her hair over her shoulder. She is perfect. Every curve flows into the next like calligraphy. That's his wife. This is his view every morning for the rest of his life. Grant's heart expands so thickly it squeezes the air from his lungs.

The Princess winks at him as she crosses to her desk. "Find some pants, dearheart. That ass is for my eyes only."

Grant clambers out of the bed and hunts for his uniform in the pile of sheets and discarded fabric they made last night. "I'm sure we'll be done with this little summons in no time," Sykora shrugs one of her endless collection of silk robes over her shoulders and sits in front of her vanity. "Most pirates are persistent little gnats who flock the tributary lanes and extort citizens. The Yellow Comets are the nastiest of them, owing mostly to their leader, a faceless woman called the Comet Queen. A thumb of the nose at my Empress and I. Compared to your average outlaw, they pack some potent firepower. But there's potent, and then there's the Pike. We'll finish quick and then I'll show you Ramex. The sunsets are just unfairly gorgeous." Sykora flips the glowing strips of her vanity on and gasps. "Grant. What the hell did you do?"

"What?" Grant hops into his pants as he looks over at her. "Oh. Those are hickeys. Do Taiikari not—"

"I know what they are, you horny bastard. You've given me five of them." She twists her neck. "God, six. I'd convinced myself that my feminine wiles weren't working because Maekyonites had modest libidos. I was wrong. You're a beast."

He walks up behind her and lays his knuckles on the small of her back. He takes a deep breath of her hair, takes in the sweetness of her musk. "I'd say sorry." He pinches her butt and gets a little squeak out of her. "But apologies aren't the Taiikari way, and also I don't feel bad."

She glances at the corner of their massive picture window into the scintillating colors of the sweep. A countdown timer has situated itself there. She clicks her tongue as she stands. "No time to conceal these. If I even could. Empress forgive me. I've married a ruffian." Sykora forages through her closet and pulls out a high-necked, brocaded uniform with an onyx epaulette hanging off the right shoulder. She fumbles it on and cinches her gun belt and holster to her balletic waist. "This'll do." She spins around. "How do we look?"

Grant surveys Sykora. She draws herself up and squares her shoulders. Her expression becomes regal and imperious. It changes her beyond any martial insignia or makeup. The giggly girlfriend seamlessly becomes the Imperial warlord.

From the waist up, anyway.

"Your coochie's out, Batty."

Sykora cocks a hip. "The view stops at the shoulders."

"Then you're perfect. Except your horns are out too."

An immediate blush turns the Princess's cheeks a lovely shade of pale merlot. "No, they aren't. Shut up." She sits back at the mirror and finds a tricorne to stick to her head. "Go off-camera somewhere, please, lover. Bathroom or gallery. I'll only be a couple of minutes."

"I can't be out here?"

"Not this time. You look awfully post-coital." She points at her neck. "And you've got love bites, too. Hickeys?"

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

He shrugs. "That's what I've always called them."

"That's cute. I'm going to use that. Okay. Scoot, if you please." She presses a button on her vanity and its lights shift, becoming more natural. Grant slips through the silk curtains in the gallery. Before he closes the flap, he glances back at his wife. She's gone into Princess mode again. "Majordomo Vora."

"Majesty." Her right-hand woman pipes from the intercom. "Ten minutes to sweep exit. Will you give your address?"

"I will. You may patch me through." Sykora's steely command is so stark after all the adoring noises he squeezed out of her the night before.

"Of course, Majesty. Just a moment." A slot slides open in the top of the vanity. The image in it fuzzes as it becomes a video feed with Vora's bespectacled face in it. "By the way." Vora's face fills the frame as her voice drops into a close-to-the-mic whisper. "You never answered. Did you finally get him into bed?"

"Vora. Shush." Sykora likewise goes sotto voce, but he can hear the smile she's wearing. "But, uh." Her earrings clatter as she nods vigorously.

Vora lets out a half-whispered squeal of happiness. "Kora. Oh my God, yesss."

"Uh huh. And…" Sykora holds her hands up, palms about six inches apart from each other.

Vora's hand goes to her face. No, she mouths.

"I swear to God, Vora." Sykora's whisper is so giddy he can hear it from where he's standing. "When I tell you I was screaming—" She glances over her shoulder. Her face colors as she sees him peeking. "Grantyde. Scoot. Address."

Grant lets the flap drop and tugs the silk divider closed with a tasseled rope.

"All right, majordomo." He hears his wife's voice through the muffling curtain, reasserting its formality. "Patch me through. Time to get the crew ready to punt some pirates."

Grant sits on a chaise that acts more like a narrow bench under his oversized body, and examines his wife's trophies as she begins her address. They are copious and bizarre. That frilled skull up there. Is it some kind of recreation, or has the vast firmament grown dinosaurs with golden skeletons somewhere?

"Company of the ZKZ Black Pike. Your Princess wishes you a good morning." Sykora's voice is so formal and smooth on the address. He remembers it last night, breathy and pleading as its owner's mind went haywire. "I hope the half-duty tenday was as enjoyable and rewarding for you as it was for me. In its wake, our sector directive has resumed in earnest: to maintain our Empress's dominion, to explore and expand her commonwealth's frontier, and to stand stalwart in defense of her subjects. We are the mirror that reflects the light of Taiikar to the very edge of the firmament. And today that light shines on Ramex."

Grant sees the painting hung between two antique axes. A stern, unsmiling Taiikari woman, her chest festooned with medals and necklaces, her head covered by a cupola-shaped crown that makes his neck hurt just looking at it. Could that be Sykora's Empress?

Your Empress, too, Grantyde.

He wonders how much his wife believes in what she's saying. Is that painting high up because she wants it out of the way, or is it crowning her collection as a place of honor?

"Corvettes bearing the colors of the Yellow Comet pirate clan have been sighted on the periphery of the Ramex tributary lane," Sykora continues. "We are inbound to deliver them a timely reminder that the Empress rewards her servants with her bulwark. It's my strong suspicion that our entire task will be to appear, flash our cannons, watch them turn tail, and then decamp for Ramex on some fabulous shore leave. I intend to introduce my husband to the sabsum terrace baths. But should I be wrong, and should we see action, I have the utmost confidence in this vessel and its crew to deliver the unfiltered wrath of the Empire onto these squalid outlaws. Make ready for firmament drop and carry forth my faith in you. Glory to the Black Pike and Glory to the Empress."

A pause. Then Batty's voice calls to him, free of its steely command, light and sweet and affectionate. "You can come out now, dear."

He emerges from the gallery. "Nice address, baby."

"Thank you, Grantyde. I'm so out of practice. I nearly tripped over the bulwark bit." She hops off her seat, and he's reminded by a beautiful sky-blue vista that she's still naked from the waist down. "I swear I won't banish you like that next time," she says, as she pulls a pair of breeches from her wardrobe. "Just had to think fast thanks to the hickles."

"Hickies."

"Right." She steps into her boots. "Next time, you're welcome to sit by me or behind me or whatever you like. And look smouldering and dapper."

Grant smiles, but there's a niggling queasy concern behind it. He thinks about keeping it to himself—but this is his wife, and he's pretty sure he's falling in love with her, and if he can't talk to her about this, then he needs to reevaluate a lot of things in his future. "A lot of Empress talk this time. You're a fan, huh?"

"A fan." She shoots him an amused look as she zips her other boot on and sits back at the vanity. "You could call me that. I'm just going to do a quick lip."

"What would you call yourself?"

"A servant," she says. "Her will made manifest on the frontier. The Empress is the entire reason any of us are here. The reason the Pike was built, and I was commissioned, and ultimately the reason we found one another. I owe her everything. A life in her service is small recompense."

"I see."

She looks at him in the mirror. Her head tilts. "My answer perturbs you, Grantyde."

He purses his lips and nods.

"It's all right, darling." She stands and takes his hand. "You've never had an Empress, and your experience with her Empire has been… subpar, so far. Much of that is my fault. I won't begrudge you your shaky feelings."

"I'm gonna try, I promise. To be a faithful subject." He's certainly feeling them shake, those feelings. She's right about that. But his smile to her is genuine. "Like I told you earlier, though. Maekyonites and absolute rulers have a complicated history. We'd gotten rid of most of ours when you picked me up."

"I'll just have to prove to you that her servants have the right of it. By example. I'm sure I sound like some brainwashed moppet to you right now, but give me time, and I'll give you time, too. And know that every little bit of my fealty that doesn't belong to her—" she kisses his jaw. "—belongs to you."

Who would you choose, then? Who's winning? Me or your Empress? He won't ask her that. But he's wondering it. "I'm… having some trouble figuring out how you can revere her and be so willing to hide this thing we have from her."

Sykora sighs. "I've been bracing for this conversation. I have my answer, but it's going to sound like an excuse."

"I'll take it anyway."

"Empress Zithra XIX holds singular dominion over a trillion souls, Grantyde. There are so many edge cases and exceptions that to codify all of them would be a sheer nightmare. And so it is given to Void Princesses the power to… interpret." She rubs his chin. "If she knew you, she'd understand, and she'd agree with my decision to free you. I am simply doing what I firmly believe she'd do if given the chance and the context."

Grant wishes he believed her more than he does. "Do you think she ever might? Do you think there might be a way to change this?"

"I do." And the look on her face tells him she's dedicated sleepless hours of thought to this. "It's not exactly as easy to turn the damn thing around as an interceptor would be. Such a colossus's controls are best, ah… nudged."

He fidgets with his uniform. He tries to believe her. He remembers what Ajax told him: your wife wouldn't suffer the shortsightedness of a zealot on her crew.

Maybe she can tell she's losing him on this, because she changes tack. "It was only a handful of kilocycles ago that compelling an unwilling Taiikari was entirely legal, and anticomps were only worn by our military men. And now it's one of our severest crimes, and you can buy a pair of goggles at the supermarket. Zithra did that, the moment she took the throne. Her reign has been my whole life, and I count myself infinitely blessed for that. Taiikar is in a golden age under her, bounding forward in territory and technology and permissiveness. The Empress has the unique power to recognize you and your fellow husbands-of-the-void as citizens. And I'll make sure she will."

He grins. "So we'll just make you Empress and you'll add husbands-of-the-void to the no-compelling list."

She does not grin. "Let's not joke about that, please, darling. Suggesting that a Void Princess might ever become Empress is… not good."

"It won't happen again," he says. For a while, anyway. "What do you propose, then?"

"Simple." She opens her makeup drawer and makes her selection. "I'll make the Black Pike sector the most halcyon and magnificent sector on the frontier. I'll be the lodestone that every other Void Princess looks to. The prime example."

She pooches her lips out to paint them.

"And when it comes time for Empress Zithra XIX to formally recognize me—either with an Imperial visit or at a Void Convocation, I'm not picky—" she smacks her lips in the mirror to spread the makeup. "I will tell her: your Imperial Highness, this is my husband Grantyde of the Black Pike, my most stalwart companion and my great love, who has inspired me and kept faith in me, who has been indispensable as I've done this great honor in your name, and at every step he has been a free man. And I will ask her to recognize it formally." She turns to him. "And she'll see your worth, and the tradition will be abolished, and you and all the other husbands-of-the-void will be citizens."

"Just like that?"

The look she gives him is steadfast and full of unyielding hope. "Just like that."

"And will we keep hiding the part where I can't be compelled?"

She furrows her brow. "I haven't decided about that part. That bit's under construction, still. Might be best to keep it under wraps. I'd be willing to talk about this more later, darling, but we need to shake a leg. We have to get to the deck before we're out of the sweep, and you haven't washed your face yet."

"Why do I need to wash—"

She leaps onto him, bowling him back a few steps before he steadies himself and holds her up. She launches an amorous assault on his face, kissing him with sloppy, feverish abandon for the better part of a minute.

She points at the vanity, still in his arms. He is smeared with a dazzle-camouflage pattern of indigo lipstick. "Wash your face," she says. She levers his arms open and drops lightly onto the ground, tail-first to slow her momentum. "And I need to reapply this. Busy, busy."

He laughs with his wife and goes to the sink and if he doesn't manage to get all of it off, at least he's a shade closer to Taiikari blue like this. He's sure that anyone looking closely will be charitable enough to forgive their Princess and Prince Consort.

Sykora leads Grant from the cabin, shouldering on her topcoat and adjusting her tricorne to cover her increasingly common horns.

Grant takes one last look at the painted Empress, distant, frowning, and gilded in gold, before he follows her out.