4: Yet more qu… look, there’s a lot going on.

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The ship, fortunately, mostly ran itself. The nest… well, it was holding together for the moment, even with an incompetent Queen like myself. It was a job I still had no idea how to do, and the dohls’ explanations didn’t help at all. But it seemed like any problems likely to develop from my mismanagement would be cumulative, so I probably had time before anything broke.

Besides, most of a Queen’s more complicated duties seemed to come down to coordinating very large numbers of people. So our tiny, tiny crew was probably an advantage there. If any problems developed between a couple of the aljik that they couldn’t sort out themselves and the dohl couldn’t handle, my normal human conflict resolution skills would probably be good enough to handle it. The crew wasn’t large enough for really complex internal problems to break anything.

Yes, I have conflict resolution skills. Shut up.

I was more interested in solving a couple of self-imposed challenges. One: find a way to ensure that when I had a chance to run for home, I could be certain of doing so without any dangerous alien assassin-spies on board. Two: find a way to divulge information to someone else on the crew without alerting any dangerous alien assassin-spies on board.

For the first one, I checked out the escape pods. They were, of course, pressurised with a breathable atmosphere and ready to use at all times; that was kind of important for an escape pod. But there were ways to pump other gases in, or evacuate the atmosphere from inside them. Of course there were, they were self-contained vessels. That was kind of important for a… you get it.

Could I create an atmosphere in one of the pods that I could breathe, but that would kill a shyr stowaway? So that when I escaped, I could be sure that no one, or at least no one alive, was with me?

No. I already knew that aljik had better tolerance for things like carbon dioxide than I did. Given their role in their society, I could reasonably assume that shyr tolerance was probably even better than the other castes.

But could I create a small area that I could breathe in, where I could see everything, and depressurise the rest of the ship to a vacuum long enough to kill any stowaways? Probably. Aljik couldn’t live in a vacuum any better than I could. If I still had a working space suit, it would be easy – wear the suit and depressurise everything. Instead, maybe if I pressurised the seating area and depressurised the emergency cargo…

Wait, just because I didn’t have a functional space suit any more, didn’t mean that the shyr didn’t. How could I stop her from just wearing a space suit in the escape pod? Damn.

Well, it would have to be a later problem. For now, I had to deal with problem 2: getting information to someone else under the shyr’s nose. Or eyes. Or mandibles. Do aljik have noses?

Whatever. The answer to that problem was easy and obvious.

I tracked down Glath.

“Hey,” I said. “About this ahlda thing. Can I ask you some questions about aljik nest organisational structure?”

“Of course. But the dohl might be better able to explain – ”

“They won’t. This is pretty complicated, I don’t think it’ll translate languages very well.”

When talking just to each other, Glath and I tended to use English. Our shyr stowaway had learned our crew’s invented language enough to talk to me, and I couldn’t rule out the possibility that she had picked up some English by listening to Glath and I speak – I didn’t know what a shyr’s linguistic capabilities were like. But the thing is, I didn’t teach Glath to speak English. Dictionaries did that, dictionaries that were long destroyed by now.

Dictionaries that would have contained thousands of words that we’d never spoken to each other. And I didn’t think our stowaway would have prepared for this mission by somehow tracking down and memorising English dictionaries.

“One begs thee, react wholly unsurprised to the data which shall be distributed to thee forthwith,” I said in the tone of somebody getting into explaining a complex economic problem, “lest all of our lives be forfeit. Our vessel doth possess a hazardous stowaway, one assumes from the bosom of our antagonist, diminutive in stature and coloured as the evening sky upon our previous domocile.”

A couple of words that the shyr might have a chance of recognising there, but none that could give her any context. Glath understood; the spiders on his exterior stilled very briefly.

“Stowaway comprehends the chatter that the conversationalists here make with our deuteragonists, and possibly the chatter made betwixt thee and thy. Mind with focus the chatter thou maketh now. Stowaway has declared unto thee that no awareness of its presence be distributed to these conversationalists’ deuteragonists. Two other points of data must be distributed now.

“First, Nemo possesses not that which thou expects. A transparent treasure of mystery, of length approximate to one of thy digits, is within thine possession, since scarpering from the previous domicile. Second, stowaway hath revealed the presence of others in space. Others of this conversationalist’s likeness and origin.”

Glath was having some difficulty with the whole ‘don’t react with surprise’ thing. His general shape was unmoving, but spiders began to crawl frantically across his surface at the mention of other humans in space.

“So, is that right?” I asked. “I know it’s all a bit complicated, but for Empire structure…”

Glath nodded. “You’re right, that would be difficult to translate to aljik. It wounds about right, I’ll need to think on the details.”

“Great,” I said. “Thanks.”

Easy.

————————-

Sil, captain of the patrol ship Red Four, checked the position of the ship one last time and finally allowed himself to relax. The lack of gravity aboard didn’t allow him to pace fretfully, which was probably a good thing; best not to look stressed in front of the crew. He’d been really, really nervous about getting a patrol ship of his very own, and it was frankly a miracle that the terrifying rogue Princess had been captured right when he qualified for captaincy. He’d never even wanted to be a captain, but there were so few dohl to control such a large Empire, and many of their duties on the heart planet had, by sheer necessity, been replaced by machines. It would have been cowardly to shirk his duty and find some reason not to qualify to head a patrol. And Sil was no coward.

His relief at the rogue’s capture was just relief that a threat to the Empire was dealt with. Not cowardice. He certainly would have stood fast if she’d still been out here and his ship had run into her; he probably would’ve even captured –

“Approaching vessel,” Tryk, the senior tahl, reported.

“What? Where?” Sil instinctively moved behind Tryk, realised that that was stupid (any danger the stranger proposed would be to the ship, hiding behind a soldier wasn’t helpful), and got several metres closer to the escape pods before remembering that they weren’t being attacked yet.

“Sir?” Tryk asked.

“J-just stumbled. Where’s the vessel? Are our guns readied?”

“Readying guns. This is your first command, right, sir?”

“I know what I’m doing, soldier.”

“Never said you didn’t. Just so you know, ships that we run into randomly like this are usually resource transport vessels for some random group of aliens.”

“They might be pirates.”

“Then they’d want to avoid our notice, sir. Patrol ships like ours are dangerous to attack and rarely carry anything of value. Pirates are more interested in the resource transport vessels.”

“I know that. What kind of ship is it?”

“Out here? Probably Yentri. Skep?”

“Identifying,” the atil at the next console called back. “It’s a Lancer.”

An aljik ship. Lancers were small, lightweight and high speed vehicles, generally favoured for fast, stealthy missions. Sil had flown one in training. It hadn’t been a fun experience.

The atil was probably too dim to realise the implication, but Tryk tensed.

“None of our ships are scheduled to be out here,” Sil pointed out, unnecessarily. “We’re close to the border with the In-Western Empire…”

“Skep,” Tryk called, “Get us a better ID on the ship. Empire of origin?”

“None listed,” Skep replied. “Automatic response to hailing, no one at the helm. But the ID’s scrubbed. Captain’s name is scrubbed.”

A shyr ship. Or one on a very secret mission. Probably both.

A shyr on a secret mission would have been able to avoid their notice easily, if she had wanted to.

“The response format matches the one that our ships use,” Skep added.

An Out-Western Empire shyr ship on a secret mission, that had run into their patrol on purpose. (Or another kingdom flying a false flag. Response formats weren’t hard to imitate.) Did they want to tell him something? Report something? Oh no, this was his first patrol, he wasn’t trained for that. He wouldn’t know what to do with –

“We’ve lost sight of it,” Tryk said.

“It left?”

“No. Hiding. They must’ve turned all their systems off.” Louder, she called, “All systems, arm up! Run a thermal search, right now!” Conversationally, as if she was talking to the crew and not explaining things to Sil, she added, “Their ship will take time to cool down, even if they’ve turned everything off. There’s nothing for them to hide behind out here. They’re probably trying to hide that signature by getting between us and a star, but there are only a few stars close enough to hide it, so if we don’t pick up their signature anywhere else then that’s a few select points where they can be.”

“How many points? How specific? How many shots from a Lancer class ship can we take?”

Tryk’s posture changed subtly. Approval. She followed his reasoning. “Three stars, possibly four. Points small and precise enough that the Lancer class would take up almost all of the area, at any reasonable distance.”

“And how many shots?”

“Assuming standard Lancer weaponry, probably seven before any critical systems were exposed, unless they’re really lucky with taking out the shielding.”

‘Standard Lancer weaponry’ was a pretty big assumption, but nevertheless, Sil relaxed slightly. Lancers were light ships, not weighed down with heavy shielding against military fire. If the Lancer was aggressive, and it was in one of three or four places, then if they shot at it they would have a one in three or four chance to hit it. Even if the Lancer was somehow able to conceal the angle of fire in shooting at them, it wouldn’t get in seven shots before the Red Four took it down. The Lancer couldn’t win a firefight, and was unlikely to start one.

Assuming it had standard weaponry. And shielding. One could never be sure with secret ships.

But just because it was hiding didn’t make it aggressive, right? It had revealed itself when it had come out of dash; surely if the Lancer’s crew had wanted to attack a patrol ship, they would have arrived earlier and waited in hiding. Maybe it was hiding because the crew weren’t sure whether Sil was going to attack them unprovoked. They could be watching and waiting for him to make an overture of peace. They might be a ship from a neighbouring Empire, seeking refuge for some reason… was there some recent tension between the Empires that might make simple transition to another nest unusually dangerous? Sil hadn’t been made aware of such a thing, but if the In-Western Empire were about to start a war and the Out-Western Empire weren’t aware of it yet, and these were defectors who assumed that they already knew…

Or they might come from a completely different source. Hadn’t the remnants of the rogue Princess’ court left in the confusion of her capture? Without her, they were probably looking for an avenue to reintegrate into the nest, and possibly wary of being shot on sight. They’d stolen an empire ship to flee, hadn’t they? Sil didn’t know what class of ship it was. It could’ve been a Lancer.

“No heat signatures,” one of the atil reported.

“All systems ready for combat,” a tahl reported.

So they were hiding in front of a star, then. Waiting.

If they wanted confirmation that it was safe to come out, then they’d have someone at the comms by now.

“Hail them again,” Sil said. “Power down the main gun. Stay powered up and ready in all other systems.” The gesture was symbolic – the Red Four easily outgunned a Lancer even without the main gun. But it would be a visual signifier of peaceful intent, and might get a response to the hail that wasn’t an autoresponse with all ID information scrubbed.

“Powering down.”

“Heat flare,” Skep said suddenly, pointing at a particularly bright star.

Everyone automatically braced and waited for the shields to absorb the weapon fire. The nature of light was such that it should have hit almost as soon as they saw the weapon heating up.

It didn’t.

Sil relaxed, minutely. Not a weapon? Manoeuvring? Communication? If their communication system was broken, that explained the auto –

“They’re flaring up for a dash,” Skep said.

Well, then. They were far enough away that by the time the Red Four could see that, and respond, the Lancer would almost be in dash. So there was nothing to worr –

“The… cancelled the dash? I think?” Skep said.

Sil checked the screen. He was a lot smarter than Skep, but he wasn’t trained in her job. The flare was moving, just not into a dash. It was hard to be sure what was happening, because it was still obscured by the bright star, which meant.

It was moving.

It wasn’t going into dash.

It had been obscured by the star ever since it went dark.

Sil had no idea what the ship was doing, but he understood trajectories very well.

“Evade!” he shouted. “Incoming! Evade!”

But it was already far too late.

With a heavy boom akin to the sound of a collapsing nest, the two ships collided.

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