”Ladies of the Glory Banner,” Narika says. “Ladies of the Black Pike. We come now together in a convocation of our own making. In a sisterhood that has not been seen since the cycles of the earliest expansions, when the first Princesses braved the great undiscovered Void. In that spirit, we—ow. Ow. What are you doing, girl? No pulling.” She tugs the lock of her hair from Rory’s fist.

“Wah,” Rory protests. Her flash flickers behind her big round eyes.

Narika holds her further out as her tiny legs kick. “What does she want, Sykora?”

“I really don’t know,” Sykora says. “She hardly ever does that. Just keep holding her and she’ll stop.”

“She does that when she’s hungry.” Grant fishes into his baby bag and pulls out a bottle of Sykora’s milk. “C’mere, you little tulaberry. Stop torturing your aunt.”

“Grantyde, I was enjoying that.” Sykora pouts. “You have not a single bone of skullduggery in your body.”

“Thank you, Grantyde. Where was I?” Narika blows out a raspberry. “Well, whatever. You understand the import. We are midwifing the new Empire. Five days left and we make contact. Let us discuss how the day is saved.”

Grant offers Rory her bottle. As his daughter greedily drinks he settles into the seat that Narika’s people found him. He took for granted the Pike’s extended supply of comfortable chairs sized for a Maekyonite; here in the Glory Banner sector upon the ship of the same name his hindquarters are bearing the indignity of a narrow, Taiikari man-sized seat whose armrests are squeezing his waist.

The Glory Banner’s floor plan is ninety percent identical to the Black Pike’s. This threw Grant off at first, though it makes a certain sense. Both are, of course, ZKZs. But it’s a woozy feeling of displacement whenever he turns down a hallway and encounters a replica of his and his wife’s ship, just… different.

He could swear it was dimmer, for one thing, although that might have a lot to do with Narika’s primary color being black. Despite what the names would suggest, the Glory Banner is far blacker than the Black Pike. Onyx everywhere, with swirling marble patterns or geometrical textures in threaded gold to keep the visual clarity from dissolving into murky dungeonesque. The milieu reminds Grant of a severely upscale bank.

In Grant’s brief time among the larger crew of the Glory Banner—primarily the path from the hangar to the command deck—he’s gotten brief looks at the Banner’s crew, who returned his scrutiny with jaws agape, forgetting even Taiikari deference in their eagerness to get a look at the Prince of the Pike. Despite their tepid demeanor toward the visitors and the color inversion of their outfits, the crew navigate the ship with the same casual camaraderie that the crew of the Pike display. No crawling privateers have lurked forth from the Banner’s shadowed corners to lick Narika’s boots.

Although they are not alone.

Specialist-Gefreiter Axyna of Taiikar perches in the corner of the room, her omnipresent leer like a gargoyle’s if a gargoyle hummed to itself and kicked its legs occasionally. And kept waving at Grant’s kids. Grant does not like that.

“You’re all mad, you know,” she says now, as the image of Maekyon appears over Narika’s command table. “Mad and with big old pairs of horns. How Zithra didn’t execute you for dropping a relic of a policy on her desk I’ll never—”

“Quiet,” Narika says, with stentorian flatness, and Axyna is quiet, immediately. “Sit still until you are called upon.”

Axyna’s legs freeze mid-kick, one in front of the other. She leers bigger in a see how good I’m being? way. Narika scoffs.

“As she so often is, your pet harlequin is right and wrong,” Narika’s majordomo says. She keeps introducing herself to Grant and he keeps forgetting her name. “It was a pretty piece of historicity. I’ve read the document; truly astounding work from Mme. Lomanza.”

Whatever loquaciousness Lomanza built aboard the Black Pike has been smothered by the command group’s about-face on annexation, and finished off by the austere new surroundings she now finds herself in. She smiles queasily and nods. Grant would say she needed a hug if he didn’t know that she’d react to it in the manner one might welcome a gas can and a lit match.

“We can forget anything useful from the actual Mandate, though,” her counterpart from Glory Banner continues. “Impossible to reproduce its efficiencies here, not when we don’t even have a global body to sign it that would cover every Maekyonite—”

“Let’s strike impossible from the lexicon,” Sykora interrupts. “It’ll be hard goddamn work, which we will dedicate ourselves to doing. Two full command groups. We can make it happen.”

“Artfully said, Sykora.” Narika folds her arms. “I will remind you that it was my Majordomo you said it to. But artful all the same.”

Grant really wishes she’d said the name out loud.

“If you’d prefer, sister, you can take over the meeting entirely,” Sykora says, with a spraycoating of artificial sweetener on her tongue. “But my understanding is we are co-leads.”

“No, no,” Narika adopts Sykora’s forced obsequiousness. “It was merely an observation. A laudatory one. You did well, Majesty.”

“Well, good. I am glad you approve, Majesty.”

“I do, though I wonder about your tone, Majesty.”

Axyna’s leg is trembling where she’s holding it up in frozen mid-kick.

“I wonder about your tone, dear sister,” Sykora says.

“I don’t have a tone,” Narika says, tonefully.

“If I may interject, ladies.” Grant clears his throat. “We’re co-co-leads, in fact. I’m number three. And I’d like to steer us back toward a point. There’s plenty of nations we could present the mandate to, but whoever we select would be a statement that’d piss off basically everyone else.”

“And the more rulers to whom we present terms, the more refusals we can expect, to add their bitterness to the brew,” Hyax says.

Grant sets his baby back on the table. She starts playing with her toes. “So what if we went the other way?”

Narika stares at her giggly little niece and visibly tries to keep the adoration from her face. Mostly she succeeds, but her tail’s wagging. “What’s the other way?”

“Ignoring the nations entirely,” Grant says. “Rory, do you know who that is? Who’s that right there? Can you say Narika?”

“Nekka,” Aurora says.

Narika’s lips twitch. “Well done, Lady Aurora.”

“We provide the Mandate to everyone, everywhere, immediately.” Grant gives Aurora an encouraging push and she sets off at a determined crawl toward her aunt. “Enshrining it as a universal right on Maekyon. That’s more or less what Sykora and I told the Empress.”

“Bold.” Narika retrieves Aurora and returns her to her erstwhile place in her arms. “If I understand you correctly, every Maekyonite would hold their own fate in their hands—whether to remain in their nation of birth or to become an Imperial citizen.”

That’s imp—” Vora casts a guilty look Sykora’s way. “That’s a tall order, from the research I’ve done on Maekyonite geopolitics. Setting aside the attitudes of serfdom and indenturement that would make this impossible in many locales of the world, the sheer population drain might cause major infrastructural problems.”

“If we start sucking up enough people to make a serious dent, surely that’s a Maekyonite vote of confidence in us,” Waian says. “If that’s our biggest problem then we’re doing great. Just because they’d be Imperial citizens doesn’t mean we’re automatically robbing Maekyon of their manpower. It might be a great thing to organize Maekyonite working groups and unions on their own planet to get the public works stuff done.”

“I question whether that’s our place,” Narika’s Majordomo says. “Then again, I questioned whether this vessel was Lady Aurora’s place, and Narika threatened me with court martial.”

Narika frowns as her tail tuft plays keepaway with the baby. “I wish you hadn’t told them that.”

“You guys have corporations and markets and shit, right?” Waian interjects.

“Very famously so,” Grant says.

“There ya go.” Waian tilts further back in her seat. Her boots are on the table; the Glory Banner Majordomo is chewing her lip to ruin with the effort not to comment. “We put some Taiikari firms up in there to make up for the manpower they lose.”

“Surely Maekyonite firms wouldn’t be able to compete,” Narika says. “Not at our tech level.”

Waian’s arm servos click with her thumbs-up. “That’s when we sell ‘em our tech.”

“At what point does this approach become an annexation by some other name?” Brigadier Malus asks.

Every time Grant hears Narika’s Brigadier speak it gives him whiplash, and then makes him guilty about it. He’s gone so Taiikari that it’s odd to hear a man besides himself speak at these meetings.

But a man is exactly what Malus is. It caught Grant by surprise. For all of Sykora’s accusations of holier-than-thou, Narika has never pled her case with the male in her command group. Grant didn’t realize it was possible or permissible; he understood it wasn’t, in fact. But then again he’s Sykora’s husband—in the summation of things, this is perhaps the lesser heterodoxy.

“The more interventionist pressure we allow our baronesses to exert on the Maekyonite markets, the harder it will be to enforce the planet’s independence.” Malus’s voice coarse and heavy as gravel. “And then there’s the matter of protecting the people to whom we give citizenship. Who can say whether they won’t be targeted en masse and moved against as traitors to their own kind?”

Grant longs to countermand that assessment, but he can’t. “Maybe we forget the idea of keeping them on Maekyon. Maybe if someone wants to run away from the planet they’re from, we help them do it.”

Narika purses her lips. “And do what with them? Scatter Maekyonites across the cosmos?”

Waian chuckles. “Majesty, this might not ring true with you thanks to that K-wort you’re on, but most worlds in the cosmos would be pretty goddamn thrilled to have a Maekyonite diaspora come its way.”

“Something to put in their hands, perhaps,” Sykora says. “Whether, once they obtain their Imperial citizenship, they leave or stay.”

“Either way, it’s a messy business. We spend force-of-arms to extract them from their rulers and bring them offworld or into our embassy city, or we spend it protecting them once they’ve stayed put.” Malus removes his anticomps. “Even with the permission we’ve been given, this begins years of violence.”

“I know,” Grant says, trying not to stare as the Brigadier unfolds a microfiber cloth and wipes his fly-eye goggles down. “I was preparing myself for it already; I’m no less prepared now. People will die.”

“Does it make it any better, that it’s those same people doing the killing?” Narika asks, and the probing expression on her face tells Grant this is a genuine question, not a rhetorical trick.

He gives his sister’s question the serious thought it deserves. “It does, in a way. Especially if it means we get to use all the Imperial might for something like goodness.”

“Even if there might ultimately be more deaths from this disruption than from a clean beheading takeover,” Narika’s Majordomo says.

It definitely started with a T. Or maybe a J?

“I disagree, Majordomo Tari,” Hyax says, and Grant sends a mental thank-you to her, partially for the ideological assist but mostly for the reminder. “There is no clean beheading for the people of Maekyon. The inquests I’ve done on their intraspecies wars—these people are brave unto viciousness.”

“We could sufficiently contain them,” Tari says.

“Not without wholesale cultural destruction.” Hyax’s eyes narrow. “Not without turning Maekyon into a global carceral state.”

“Yes; that is how we could contain them.” Tari’s carefully plucked eyebrows furrow. “Your Princess said to strike impossible from the lexicon. I’ve struck.”

“Grantyde’s people are tempestuous,” Vora says. “Their expressions of love are as dramatic as their hatred. Once the tide turns our way, it keeps turning. We need actuation force, that’s all. The initial friendly outreach will help.”

“As will our big ol’ asses,” Waian says, and when Hyax scoffs: “What? They will.”

“I commend everyone’s impulse to get stuck into the problem immediately,” Sykora says. “But I note that we have barely even introduced ourselves to one another and this was, in fact, a digression caused by your… guest.”

She glares at the statue Axyna has made of herself.

Narika rolls her eyes. “Do cease whatever ridiculous freezing game you’re playing, Specialist-Gefreiter.”

Like a spell suddenly lifted, Axyna animates again and tucks her legs criss-cross atop her perch.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to speak for the Empress on these questions, Specialist-Gefreiter,” Sykora says. “Since you seem to profess as to some secret expertise in her perspective on these affairs.”

Axyna shrugs and gestures to her smug mouth.

Narika releases a thunderous sigh. “And you may speak again as well.”

“I have no secret expertise on these affairs in particular,” Axyna says. “Only in how she treats freaks and goofy fuck-ups.”

Sykora scowls. “That’s what you’re implying we are, then?”

“I’m not implying a thing. I am straight-up calling you a goofy fuck-up.” Axyna points at Narika. “And you a freak.” Her finger swings to Sykora, who looks about ready to vault the table and throttle her. “Fortunately for you, the Empress can’t help but like it when bitches like us are brazen. Hence the chance she’s given you.” She giggles erratically. “Ain’t life in the Empire grand?”

The hairs on Sykora’s tail pouf outward at Axyna’s reference to bitches like us. But she doesn’t speak—maybe she, like Grant, is having trouble arguing otherwise.

“I move for an hour’s adjournment.” Narika stands, cradling Aurora’s big blinking head close. “And I suggest each member of our respective command groups spend it in the company of their opposite. We’ll reunify for a working dinner and our evening session.”

The commanders of the Glory Banner salute smartly at Narika’s words. It takes the Pike’s superiors appreciably longer, and Waian doesn’t even bother; she’s already wandering to the swoopback seat of her fellow Chief Engineer, an amaranth pink woman with a complex plaited fishtail braid. “You Narika’s chief, right? Raklin?”

“You know me?” the Glory Banner’s Chief Engineer asks, in a soft and uncertain soprano.

“Sure I do,” Waian says. “Well, by reputation, anyway. You’re the wonderkid, right? Are you even a kilo old yet?”

“I’m, uh… I’m seven hectos. Seven-and-four.”

Waian whistles. “Fuckin’ hell. And already Chief. Narika doesn’t have you on your own silent treatment thing, right? That’s just for Axyna?”

Raklin smiles hesitantly. “No, no—I just—”

“Cause you can speak up, you know. I certainly do. Shutting my ass up is the problem.”

“I—I know. It’s—it can be hard to speak. You know? Unless it’s some sorta engineering problem.”

“The world’s an engineering problem, kiddo. You know the kinda shit these Princesses would get into if we weren’t here? If she can rely on you for your ride, she can hear you about the rest.”

Raklin stands and pushes her chair in. “You’re the origin mind of the W-series, aren’t you? The sweep-engine daemon?”

“That’s right. My metal me.” Waian pats her arm. “Well, more metal. She’s behaving herself, yeah?”

“I love the little drawings it does sometimes.”

“I had to fight so hard to keep the little doodles!” Waian laughs. “Write to the Board with that for me.”

“Sure. It’s the least I could do. Your daemon’s such a trouper for me. She’s—I mean, I guess you’re a genius.” Raklin adds her own nervous titter to Waian’s. “It’s so odd to speak to you. I feel like we’ve been colleagues for hectocycles already.”

“Well, the real me thinks about a hundred times slower, but I got a bunch of extra bits. And I’ve learned a few more things since they printed me off.” Waian gets closer. “Hey. You wanna give me the tour?”

“Oh—I don’t know if I’d be allowed to, uh—I think we’re supposed to stay close—”

“Can I borrow her for the road, Majesty?” Waian pipes up over the blushing, stuttering Engineer. “And can I get a look at the Glory Banner?”

“Hmm?” Narika looks up from Aurora, who’s blowing little spit bubbles with the confident air of a close-up magician displaying their latest trick. “Very well. Bring her back for the evening working group. And promise not to touch anything.”

Waian tsks. “What if I promise to ask first?”

Behind her, Chief Engineer Raklin’s ears turn magenta.

“I suppose that’ll do,” Narika says. “Keep an eye on her, Raks. Steal some trade secrets, won’t you.”

“I—” Raklin has the look of a diver atop a high jump with a pack of impatient followups behind her. “Yes, Majesty.”

“Sweet.” Waian’s purple flesh knuckles join her chrome replacements in a cracking chorus. “Show me this ship’s guts, kid.”

As Raklin leads Waian away, Hyax begins a staring contest with Brigadier Malus—she’s doomed to lose thanks to those anticomps—and Tari sidles up to a semi-comatose Lomanza. Vora, the odd woman out, intercepts her before she gets too close, with a smile and a whispered introduction.

“And then there’s us,” Narika says, off Grant’s survey of the room.

“I think our Chief Engineer is going to try and seduce your Chief Engineer,” Grant says.

“I’m K-worted, brother. Not blind.” Narika pats Aurora’s fuzzy head. “She’s really getting a head of hair up here.”

Sykora joins them. “She’s going to be as hairy as her dad someday.”

“Uh,” Grant says. “Well, maybe, actually. A question for Axyna.”

Sykora frowns. “A question for the firmament to answer itself, then. Why you allow that minimus around I have no idea.”

“I consider her training wheels for my interactions with you,” Narika says. “You see how courteous I am being.”

“Oh, yes,” Sykora says. “Extremely.”

A silence between the three of them.

“Thank you, sister,” Sykora says, quietly.

“Think nothing of it.” Narika’s response is like a trap snapping shut on a mouse. “It’s simply the optimal move.”

“Still,” Grant says. “You, uh…” He clears his throat. “Still. Thank you.”

“And it doesn’t matter to you? That Grantyde and I…” Sykora takes an unconscious step into her husband. “That… you know. The Empress has her problem with us.”

“As long as you’re not taking leashed walks around my throne room, I could not care less,” Narika says, and then, as if forcing it from her mouth is a herculean labor, adds: “Sssister.”

“You’re quite awful at vulnerability, aren’t you,” Sykora notes.

“I have made very certain not to have any vulnerabilities,” Narika says. “Now while our command groups seduce one another, we have two messages to prepare. The first to your man who made contact from the United Nations, or whatever they’re called. To introduce me into the mix and to affirm that we’re no longer approaching with spear in hand and tail.”

Sykora nods. “I’m certainly glad we never got to the intimidation bit with him.”

“The other, I’ll leave to you both. It requires a… deftness. And an intimacy with its audience that I lack.”

“Who’s the audience?” Grant asks.

“Everyone,” Narika says. “Maekyon. The days of secret contacts within your United Nations are at an end. It’s time to say hello, world.”

She looks out into the starscape, at the distant gleaming circle of blue. No bigger than any of the stars around it in the void. But brighter and bluer.