Nero pushed open Cobra's hatch and slipped inside. Almost without thinking, he pulled the bottle from his jacket. Before him stretched the Naetilus's wide cargo bay — reflective tape, dim light, six empty berths that had never been filled. Directly ahead, the captured enemy ship, stripped of its battery. The ether synthesizer, a transparent glass column, flickered with each absorbed particle in the middle of all that space.
Human ships didn't usually carry something like that. It was a relic from another era, when nyasuk, manouk, and humans had still been working toward a common technology. Nobody worked toward anything common anymore, but the column didn't seem to know that.
He took a long pull without thinking much about it. Danger had always made him thirsty. His console chimed.
A few minutes later, Nicholas and Nadia appeared. Too far away to hear. He watched the technician laugh at something — that particular reflex he had of covering his mouth when something amused him. Why? To hide the piercings? Nadia leaned in and said something else, which Nicholas received with visible confusion. Then she left. Nicholas headed toward Cobra.
"Problem with the ship, blondie?"
The technician startled. He hadn't expected to find him in there. He brought one hand up to his hair, fidgeting with the dyed streaks.
"I have to — I have the damage report."
"Go ahead. I'm listening."
Nero looked Nicholas over, slowly. The overalls — grey this time, with reflective strips — were too big on him, the collar sliding off one shoulder enough to show the collarbone. He cursed himself for having such a basic reaction. How old was he, exactly?
"For — for your records."
"How considerate."
Nicholas was quiet for a moment.
"The sealant on the upper viewport has separated, and the glass is cracked along the edges — like someone walked across it—"
"That was me."
The technician cleared his throat. He'd seen the whole thing. Nero with his hair loose in the wind, smiling almost, as he dropped into an enemy ship and took control of it. After killing the pilot.
"Dents on the hull, but no structural damage. No significant asymmetry. It'll take a while to repair, though—"
"Pity."
The pilot let himself picture Nicholas working — sweating under the docking bay lights, wiping his face with the back of his hand and getting dirtier in the process. Always smudged with grease somewhere. The alcohol was starting to take effect.
"I'm sorry," Nero added.
"Right, well, with your permission, I—"
"In a hurry?"
"No... not really."
Nero knew the effect he had on him. He wasn't stupid. He adjusted the thin silver chain at his collar and held Nicholas's gaze a moment longer than necessary before asking:
"Can't you find overalls that fit?"
The technician looked down at himself. He'd never thought about it.
"Are they... really that big on me?"
The pilot thought the fabric looks like a bedsheet, honestly, but continuing down that line of thought wasn't going to help anyone.
Nicholas steadied himself.
"Are you staying on the ship?"
"I signed a contract."
"Oh. Right."
"I try to keep my word."
Something like relief crossed the technician's face. Nero found that interesting.
"And you?"
"I... I want to bring help to my people."
"So you're staying."
"I accepted the mission."
"Very honorable," Nero reflected, with a trace of irony.
"Nadia came to ask me the same thing."
"She's staying on board. Is she someone you're interested in?"
The technician took a moment before answering, surprised and a little confused.
"I don't know."
"Why are you here, Nicholas?"
Nicholas looked away.
"I was... I'd been worried."
Nero raised his eyebrows.
"Worried?"
"Of course. You — earlier, you—" He couldn't find the right words.
"If I hadn't, we'd be dead."
The technician bit his lip before speaking.
"Thank you."
The pilot smiled slightly.
"Humans are strange creatures. They don't even know if they have souls. Why does mine worry you?"
"I — uh — I—"
"Human. And too young."
"Everyone says that."
"If I asked for your forgiveness, would you give it?"
"For what you said about my brother?"
"I don't always measure my words."
"I know. You told me that in Nínive."
"You're something... out of the ordinary."
Nicholas felt his heart do something — he wasn't entirely sure if it was pleasant. He could still picture clearly the ship that had taken his brother, landing in the desert: a hulking thing shaped like a dragon.
"Is that good?"
"Still working that out."
"Whatever. I need you to sign the r-report. And the notification."
"It says here... I accept the reprimand, and I agree with the terms and conditions of the Confederation in the event of insubordination," he read, mockingly.
He kept watching Nicholas's dark eyes in that unflattering light. Waiting to see if the boy would hold his gaze. One second. Two. Three—
"It's your ship. But you disobeyed orders, and—"
"I don't sign anything without reading it."
"Understood. I'll leave the form with you, then."
"You're from Sigma, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Don't you want to get there as soon as possible?"
"Yes," he said, with something close to embarrassment, glancing at the captured ship — silent and empty in its berth. Then he tucked a strand of hair behind his ear.
"I think I can make that happen."
From the moment he'd met him in that line in Nínive — and then when he'd walked him through the military base where they'd boarded the Naetilus — Nero had been watching closely. The truth was that if they hadn't been crowded together in this space, forced into proximity, into conversation, into shared air—
Nero let the thought finish itself.
The intercom beeped.
"I have to — I have to go check on the generator."
"We won't need it with the new battery."
"Be careful."
"Of course. Thank you."
"With — with your permission," Nicholas said, stumbling slightly over the words as he disappeared from view.
Not today. Or never.
Patience. This absurd mission on Omega was going to end eventually, and then he'd collect his money and disappear for a few days with someone — anyone. This, honestly, was nothing.
He couldn't lie to himself, and he couldn't blame himself for something this natural. Nicholas wasn't avoiding him. He seemed to want the same thing and was far too naive to know how to hide it. That could be learned. Somehow.
He looked toward the docking berths — the Cult's empty ship. He'd handled the enemy pilot himself, dropped the body from altitude, let the fall do the rest, so he wouldn't have to find a burial site or weigh down the Naetilus unnecessarily. Besides, the lack of cremation — if that nyasuk had been a Cult traditionalist — was its own kind of desecration.
Death was singular.
He thought of his father's body, carried out feet-first. Neither his father nor the Cult's nyasuk would speak again, make any sound at all. He wondered what the old man would say, seeing him here — drunk in a human ship. He didn't remember much from after the funeral pyre. Condolences, too many people. A tide of nyasuk repeating their chants. He'd despised all of it ever since.
That was where he'd had his first drink. Eleven years old. The Sage of Cycles had given him a taste of lavender distillate. He'd thought it was revolting and tried to spit it out. He'd even wondered how adults could drink the stuff willingly.
Remembering made him thirsty. He grabbed the bottle by the neck.
While he drank, a new notification appeared on his console.
The Cult's communiqué — the one announcing they were reinstating the human tribute system, laying out the deadlines, the conditions, the ultimatums. And attached to it: the official response from the crown prince of Naësu, Siderion Aureus Blake. He'd been silent on the matter for years. Nero decided to pull up that document. A few keystrokes.
In short: Siderion condemned the Cult's proposal to reinstate the tribute — in which the finest specimens of humanity would be sent to serve the Naësu court — as unconstitutional, proposed a series of protective measures for the population, advised against direct armed confrontation, and concluded in his characteristically grandiose fashion.
Nero wondered what validity any of it could have, coming from someone who hadn't even taken the throne yet, despite being the official heir. According to the king's edict, he had to marry a noble nyasuk woman before turning thirty. Neither condition had been met. What a hypocrite, the mercenary thought.
Nero started to laugh. Violently.
In the cargo bay, in all that empty space, the laughter echoed back at him like something desperate. He was drunk enough now that nothing mattered. The Cult, the Confederation — they could fill their mouths with whatever they liked.
Every phrase, chosen with tweezers to maintain the fragile diplomatic balance that hadn't quite tipped into open war, struck him as so fundamentally absurd that returning to any kind of normal state seemed impossible.
He read the Cult's communiqué and Siderion's decree several times. By the end he was drunk enough to mix up the names of the signatories — Ethan Idris Blake and Shun-Rui Zhou.
While the Naetilus traveled peacefully through space, the Cult's base in the Asteroid Belt shook with every outburst from Siderion's half-brother, who was pacing his installation before finally dropping into his seat.
The human slave attending him — trying to clean his nose — moved the cloth so slowly, and at such an angle, that he caught the inside of the nostril. The pain burned to the last pore by the time the wretch finished dabbing away the blood.
"Floor," he told the man, who was probably somewhere in middle age, going bald.
Obediently, the man — dressed in a white overol with wide pockets — dropped to his knees, extended his hands to head height, and waited.
Ethan laughed a little, but he wasn't satisfied. The beast in front of him knew exactly what was coming. He didn't touch him, not even with the gloves; he nudged him upright with the toe of his boot, clean and bright.
"Bring the velvet bag. I can't remember the last time I had it."
A sudden memory. He adjusted his grey cloak across the armrest. A double knock sounded at the catacomb's heavy doors.
"I'm even in the mood to talk to you, Satori."
Seok Shin-Il — Satori — didn't enter immediately. When he finally planted himself in front of the prince, his breathing was labored, as if something had interrupted him mid-exertion.
"Am I catching you at a bad time? I hope not."
"No, Your Highness."
"Then come when I call you." Ethan paused. "You know what? You don't look happy. You look older. You're hunching. What's wrong with you?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. Is Miss Zhou on the premises?"
Ethan pretended not to hear at first. The pause he let stretch was unsettling.
"Your Highness?"
"Are you avoiding me?"
Satori swallowed, then cleared his throat and pressed on.
"Miss Zhou has access to certain spheres I can't reach. It would be beneficial to speak with her directly."
"Shun-Rui being female makes some things easier, perhaps. But I'm the one who makes the decisions."
Ethan glanced toward the door. His slave was too slow. Even with the neuroadsentol, these creatures couldn't manage efficiency. He ran a hand through his prematurely grey hair and thought about how time passed.
"No one doubts that. I reached out to you to... manage the situation."
"The situation?"
"Yes, my lord. After Siderion issued his decree—"
Ethan burst out laughing.
"What family are you from, if I may ask?"
"Seok, my lord."
"You're certain? That's an old Atlantean house."
"I wouldn't dream of questioning my lineage, my lord."
"How interesting. So you're nyasuk. Or so you say."
"Yes, my lord."
Despite himself, Satori looked at his own hands. Beneath the surface, his luminescent blood pulsed. The prince was building toward something.
"If I didn't know the house Seok myself, I'd say you were a bastard."
"I beg your pardon, my lord?"
"You hold the position you deserve. Can't you see that the prince—" Ethan's face contracted into a grimace— "by responding at all, acts like a rat in a maze? He didn't even send an emissary. Not Ridley, not that woman he keeps as a puppet — no one. He wrote the response himself."
This thought improved his mood considerably.
"One of the first things I'll do when I take the throne will be to give you the place you deserve. How does that sound?"
"I'm honored at the prospect, my lord."
"You say it so... convincingly. Which is interesting. For you." He paused. "What do you think order is, excellent General Seok? Is it an idea? Can it be made real?"
Satori froze. He didn't want to answer without thinking, but he also didn't want to provoke that volatile temperament.
Ethan stood and swept his cloak back. He wiped his nose.
"If I asked you to do something for me... would you?"
Satori considered. The prince never said things idly.
"Of course, my lord."
"Why?"
"You are the heir. The firstborn. I obey the crown of Naësu."
"Good answer."
One of the human slaves emerged from behind Satori, carrying a pair of metal tongs bearing a brand — heated to a glow. General Satori assumed the prince would order him to mark one of the humans with the Cult's symbol. A simple enough task.
"Come closer."
The general stepped forward.
"Do you know where the Cult came from?"
He felt a flash of something — not quite fear, just the particular discomfort of not having an answer ready. He decided truth was safer than strategy. Ethan could smell a lie at distance.
"You, my lord. And Miss Zhou—"
"No, Satori." Ethan moved to the slave and lifted the tongs from his hands; he turned them slowly, testing their weight, while he spoke. "Many, many years ago, young humans immolated themselves en masse on Terra. Waiting for what they called alien contact. Not once — more than once."
"I wasn't aware of that, my lord."
"Eventually, the nyasuk rescued all of humanity from perishing on Terra. The Cult is human in its origins. Do you understand what that means?"
"Not entirely, my lord."
"Bare your wrist."
The general obeyed immediately. Ethan noted the speed of it.
Satori couldn't understand why the prince still hadn't handed him the tongs, with the human slave standing right there.
Ethan signaled the slave, who pinned Satori's arm. For a human, the grip was a knot.
Then he understood everything.
"That won't be necessary, my lord."
"They condemn us and hunt us because we are the only ones defending what is sacred in this civilization. Only some hear the call. Will you be among them?"
"The Cult's roots run deep. I'm ready."
The prince burned through several layers of skin. He couldn't have said which came first — the iridescent blood, the screams tearing out of him that he didn't hear, or something closer to rapture. He belonged now, because he was worthy of the mark. Unmistakable: a scar in the shape of a triangle.
He was still writhing, so Ethan didn't ask for any further demonstration. He knew exactly where to press.
Before the smell of charred flesh reached him, he cleaned the tongs on the packed earth floor.
He ordered the guards to remove General Seok from his sight while the man was still screaming, practically dragging himself out of the operations center. Despite the searing pain, Satori only produced oaths aligned with the Cult — by the God and the Goddess, by Atlantis, and so on.
Ethan had no patience for the body's disgusting reactions. He liked music: he wasn't so brutish that he could sit calmly through screaming. He let the tongs drop into whatever slave's hands happened to be nearest and stretched, yawning.
When Shun-Rui wasn't distracting him, he did his best work. The Cult wasn't large yet — but then, it wasn't meant for everyone. Only the chosen could resonate with the delicate echoes of their ancestors, with a developed society where each fulfilled their divine role.
It wasn't easy, carrying the burden of being the older brother. He wanted to teach Siderion his proper place in the order of things — because he cared. Regardless of the king's edict. Regardless of the years spent operating in shadow, until the Cult had finally answered what his life was for.
On days like this he recited the sacred texts, one after another.