Weekly Drabble #199: Hearts in the Void (Patreon)

I'm back, baby.

This (last) week's drabble themes come from Knightress with 'redemption', Pyro Hawk with 'forbidden joining' and LystAiP with 'among the stars'. Enjoy!

~

Hearts in the void:

Nikolai walked through the corridors of his starship, the Primality War Vessel Nemesis. A battlecruiser three and a half kilometers long, with a crew of fifty thousand human souls. As black as the void of space, with a canted arrowhead of a prow and an angled, swollen, thickly armoured engine core, it was a sleek, brutal killer that bristled with weapons. There were less than two hundred like it in all creation, and he was lucky enough to count himself among the ranks of those who commanded such vessels.

The Primality fleet was small by galactic standards – a few thousand ships, weighted heavily towards lighter vessels. For most of the exile nation’s existence, that was all anyone had seen of them – destroyers, frigates and attack ships. Anything larger was new. The Primality had fought in guerrilla and asymmetric warfare for most of its life. Fleet combat – the clash of dozens or hundreds of vessels at once – was new, too, but there was scant time to adjust. The galaxy was burning. The Consolidation was split in half, with each side determined to wipe the other out regardless of the cost. Systems cast off or ignored by either side had to look out for themselves, either by forming fresh alliances with their neighbours, or turning to opportunism; a dozen warlords had sprung up within the first months of the Consolidation’s split and that number had turned to hundreds since, petty dictators, power-hungry governors or desperate rulers all doing what they could to aggregate more power to themselves... or in an attempt to keep their heads above the rising tide.

And then there were those who’d breached the dam in the first place...

Nikolai stopped at ‘the Royal Estates’, a name given and passed about in whispers and chuckles. Nemesis was a ship designed for war, but there were still certain concessions made to its construction – the presence of VIP chambers was once such amenity. This was the ambassadorial suite, a set of rooms slightly larger than his own quarters, designed for the use of visiting dignitaries and their staff. It was somewhat larger than a single person truly needed, but Nemesis was not exactly pressed for space.

The human pressed his thumb to the buzzer. “It’s Commander Cainate,” he announced himself.

“Please, come in.”

As he stepped through the doors, the first thing he noticed was the heat. Akshar was a hot world, made all the hotter by the depletion of its ozone from millennia of rampant industry. By contrast, human vessels were kept at a temperature comfortable for their crew – a temperature that skirted the edge of what Akshari found tolerable.

The main antechamber had been converted to an office and meeting room, the furnishings a blend between human and Akshari, the latter acquired from worlds and ships in the course of Nemesis’s travel. Arina had carefully inspected the first sofa she’d gotten, telling Nikolai that she was looking for bullet holes. “We’re not that ghoulish,” he’d told her. She’d sniffed disdainfully in response.

That exchange had been many, many months ago when there had still been a great deal of acrimony in their relationship, fuelled by mutual hatred and self-loathing. There were still echoes of those things now, but also... a certain comfortableness as well. He wasn’t sure how else to define it. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to.

Inside the room, Arina was at her desk. There was someone else with her, another Akshari. A young man; Artaches Senara, one more refugee from the Empire. He normally stayed aboard Defiance, but when the squadron wasn’t hunting, he’d occasionally come over to visit the princess. Nikolai felt the hint of a small smile, but kept it from his face. Defiance was an unusual ship. Its commander wasn’t human; Asalla Dshena, another Akshari renegade. She’d once been a captain in the Consolidation Navy, fighting on the front lines against the Primality, but as Black Destiny rose in prominence, her superiors had demanded increasingly brutal methods. There were orders I just couldn’t give, she’d explained after she’d turned herself over to her former enemies. Dshena was experienced in void war; now she used those skills against those who’d proven themselves unworthy of her service.

For someone, dear Nikolai, Arina had teased, who supposedly hates the Akshari species, you have a habit of collecting our strays.

He couldn’t argue with that.

Senara raised his head as the human entered. “Oh, ah- hello, Commander.” He was frequently nervous around... most everything, really. Particularly humans and especially Nikolai.

Cainate gave him a nod. “I have the intelligence overview of the Naicomii delegation you wanted,” he said to Arina. Though she preferred to remain aboveboard in her work as much as possible, the Primality had a vast spy network and access to a lot of information. The Naicomii incident had nothing to do with Arina’s current responsibilities, but she tried to keep up to date on the Primality’s other diplomatic ventures – such as they were.

Naicom was one of the worlds cut adrift during the Consolidation’s civil war. Though it officially supported the True Council, Naicom was too far from any conflict zones between True Council and Foundationist forces to rate much in the way of attention. There were worlds, systems and sectors of far more immediate import to the True Council and Naicom had been all but left to fend for themselves. With the might of the Consolidation behind them, Naicom’s safety had been assured. Without it...

In the last year, the star system had been facing increasing raids on its shipping from pirates and its own neighbours, fellow members of the Consolidation that had found themselves in the same situation as Naicom and had decided on a different method of keeping themselves supplied and solvent. Naicom was moderately wealthy, a valuable industrial center for the region – but its output didn’t compare to the Consolidation’s core worlds and currently it was not worth the expenditure in naval forces to protect.

Caught between abandonment by their own government, and the rapacious attentions of their former partners and allies, the Naicomii leadership had reached out to the only power in the region that might be able to keep their planet safe. They were far from the Primality’s own theaters, but they could provide a foothold into the region – and with the Consolidation’s attention elsewhere, the humans could make significant gains in territory and tribute.

“Thank you,” Arina stood, coming over to take the datascroll from Nikolai. “You didn’t have to bring these down personally, Commander.”

He shrugged. “My shift was over.”

“Then if you could spare a few moments, I’d be interested in your opinion on the Naicom situation.”

He tilted his head towards her, cold blue eyes evaluative. “Of course.”

Arina smiled, looking over to Senara. “I’m sorry to have to cut our time short, but could you excuse us? Work calls.”

The young man nodded. “I should be getting back to Defiance. Asalla wanted us to have dinner together.”

“Please, give my regards to Commander Dshena,” Arina told him.

“I will,” Artaches bowed. “Majesty.” He looked over at Nikolai. “Commander.”

Nikolai tipped his head in polite acknowledgement of the other man. He neither liked nor disliked Senara. He respected the determination that lay underneath the Akshari’s outwardly nervous, trepidatious persona, but that same personality could at times be somewhat... annoying.

After the door closed behind Senara, Arina turned back to her desk, setting the ‘scroll onto it. She didn’t sit back down, wandering over to the angled windows of her quarters. Outside, the depths of space stretched into infinity,  the stars joined by a thumb-sized smudge of colour that was a distant planetary nebula.

Nikolai stood behind her. “Am I to assume,” he said. “That the Naicomii situation is not foremost on your mind?”

The alien woman made a sound, of the same type that she ardently insisted was not in any way a purr. “Perhaps not...” she replied, without looking at him, still gazing out into the expanse. She was wearing her hair loose, the dark pink locks spilling down her back. Instead of her usual garb, she was clad in a two-piece ensemble redder than her skin. A skirt split at the sides that ended a few inches above the knee, and a short-sleeved top that left her midriff bare, tapering to a tip under her ribs that would have pointed straight down at her navel... if Askhari had had those.

Nikolai put his hands on Arina’s hips, leaning closer so that his breath kissed her ear. “Then if I may be so bold, Your Highness... what is on your mind?”

She made a noise; like a giggle, but different. Alien, but not unpleasant or unwelcome. Arina put her left hand over his, guiding it up to her stomach. Humans were so warm. Just lying next to Nikolai felt like having a heated blanket... albeit one with certain additional benefits.  “I suppose,” she told him, a slow smile spreading across her lips. “That you’ll have to guess.”