Blood Crown (7 page)

I sit with twenty-three other droids in the war pod at the rear end of the Mind ship. The pods are small, round vessels docked around the Mind ship like suckers on an eel. Each pod can be ejected singularly, allowing for the Mind soldiers to take a myriad of routes to their destination.

For today, I am told, there will be no deployment.

There are whispers throughout the ship, among the warrior droids that surround me, that instead of an attack, tonight there will be a party. These droids are not the brute simpletons of the kitchen droids, but their humor is crass and just as vulgar.

I stare at their identical faces—chiseled jaws, blue eyes like ice that cut as surely as the titanium weapons built into their skeletal structure—and lock my symbiants deep within the secret places inside of me while they scream to be set free.

Serantha is near
.

“I told you they would come,” I tell Kevin, codename, the Postman. It’s not a matter of pride with him, though he’ll lose a week’s privileges for his misplaced gamble, but the fact he failed to see this turn of events. He has dedicated his life to anticipating the Mind’s methods and moves.

Kicked back in his chair, feet crossed on the console, he nods to the screen on which the image of a large red ship blinks against the black background. Near it, the black beetle-shape of the West
Capital
lies dormant. My heart seizes at the sight of it—it looks forsaken, like a relic from the past. It’s basic shape and size is similar to my own home in the East, but nine years of neglect has almost made it unrecognizable. Where the my home has been updated and improved over the years, the
Western Capital
is hulking and bare of any modern refinements. There are so few systems running that it couldn’t possibly hold much life, let alone run the ship effectively.

Kevin stares at the blinking red image of the Mind’s sleek ship and frowns. “But why? Why return to the
Capital
now, after nine years? After so long, it’s a tomb. It won’t even fly properly. The Mind’s ship might as well be centuries ahead in design and capabilities.”

The Mind’s ship is such a contrast to the
Capital
that it’s almost impossible to name them both
deep space vessels
. The
Capital
appears to be twice the Mind’s size, but I know it’s an optical illusion. The Mind’s ship is equipped with reflectors that help it remain largely invisible, while the
Capital
is like a black hole. I hope there are no humans aboard because the
Capital
will not withstand an assault from the Mind for long.

My comrades here have taken to calling me the Grand Master—and it’s a name I don’t begrudge. In a way, we are playing a game of chess with the Mind—though while I put up a good fight, it is Galen, leader of the Mind, who remains the Master. During our last two battles, our forces arrived moments late—this time, we will be so long-delayed we might as well not even try.

But this is the
Capital
, what might have been my home one day. “Why now, indeed?” I say, though I don’t mean to voice it out loud.

Kevin drops his feet to the ground with a
thunk
, and swings his gaze over to me. “Who knows?” We stare at the ships on the screen a moment longer. Even in that short time the Mind closes the distance between them and the
Capital
.

“Do you think they’ll use the
Capital
to stage an offensive against your empire?” he asks me.

“It’s not my empire.” It’s a knee-jerk reaction. Kevin is the only one here, among these rebel soldiers, who knows my true identity. But we are alone and so for the moment, there’s no need to pretend. I sigh and slouch into the chair next to him, sticking my hands into my hair and pulling hard. The slight pain usually helps to focus my thoughts, but when I look again at the screen I remain without inspiration. “If that’s what they intend to do, they’ll double their own resources, which is more than enough firepower to take the fight to the East.”

To my people.

Kevin bobs his head in agreement. We stare at the ships, the red one moving steadily toward the black, for a while longer. We don’t say anything more.

Because it doesn’t matter. There are no more words to be said. We have a plan in place for this moment—a suicide mission to be sure, but a plan nonetheless.

We will go. We will fight.

And we will die.

But we will have at least tried, and that is why I came here, why I joined the rebellion against the Mind.

Kevin keys in the coordinates and sets our course to rendezvous with the
Capital
of the West—a floating tomb that will surely be our own.

But there will be a fight in it, and a good death. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll bring death to the head of the Mind. To Galen. I know my motives are prideful, risky, personal. But the promise, the hope of it, makes me smile.

I suck in my breath as I drop the white gossamer sheath over my head, then shiver as it slithers down my skin. Minn’s eyes crinkle in dismay as she notices the material gives her no privacy—in fact, the way it clings accentuates our curves, revealing everything. And since she is at least two inches taller than me, and I am the tallest next to her, Minn’s sheath barely covers her most private parts. She wraps her arms around herself, but soon we’ll have our hands full of serving trays and pitchers—there’ll be no hiding, then.

The older guard grins wickedly. With one more very pointed gaze at our bodies, he leads us out of the washroom. Fale openly gawks at us as we file past him. I feel bad for curvy Tam who takes up the rear—the guard will surely be leering at her the entire way.

We enter the kitchen and stand awkwardly while we wait for Cook to finish dictating how the trays should be presented. Sher’s mother, who works the bread ovens, looks over at us, her eyes lingering on Sher, before turning back to her work. Her cheeks are red and she pounds the dough on the table as if it were her worst enemy. I wonder whom she despises more—the guards who rule our lives, or the Masters above.

“Now! I need them now!” snaps Simeon, who rushes into the room as if he has a monster on his heels. His eyes are so wild I wonder if there really are monsters above-deck. I’ve never seen them—andies, yes, the pale automatons who have boarded the ship on rare occasions. They walk the support level on one task or another, but they are only shadows of the Masters who rule the ship and all the other ships in the royal fleet. Or so I’ve heard.

Cook shoves heavy trays into our arms and herds us into the transport shaft that runs directly from the kitchen to the levels above. I glance at the faces of the girls around me—they each wear mirror expressions of foreboding, and I am sure I look the same. An unfamiliar emotion, fear, leaves a bitter taste in my mouth while the golden arc of light pulses through the transport as we ascend.

The trip seems to go on and on and for the first time I catch a glimpse of the size of the ship I live on. I knew its whispers and mysteries went far beyond anything I’d been able to grasp in the sojourns of my mind—but this . . . this is something I haven’t even considered. I count 37 levels before I am distracted by a roll slipping from Minn’s trembling tray. I reach out to grab it before it falls to the floor. We continue upward for a long time afterward.

The arc of light that surrounds the tube and marks each level as we pass, turns a shade of blue, then gradually deepens into red as we come to a stop.

Simeon reaches out his baton and presses its end to the hollow of my neck. He holds it there until I meet his eyes. “None of your funny business.” His words are like a breath, a growl of hate and fear. He scowls as he takes in my face and the white ridge that curves from my cheek to my lip. “If they had not demanded four, I would not have sent you.” I don’t trust myself to speak anything akin to an obedient word, so I keep my mouth shut.

He grunts at my silence and retracts the baton. “Go. And do not disgrace us.” He pokes each of us with the baton as we file past him and into the corridor. Sher is the first one out and she pulls up short, causing Tam to stumble into her, almost losing her tray to the floor.

“My stars,” she says, her voice breathy with awe. I try not to look, try not to care about the soft carpet beneath my feet, or the shimmering spheres of light that float above our heads.

“So beautiful,” Minn whispers behind my right shoulder.

It is beautiful. But it is also something else . . . something familiar.

“Quit star-gazing,” Simeon demands, charging his baton with a high-pitched whine. “The Masters are waiting.”

I move forward, letting my tray press against Tam’s, hoping to get them going. It works. Sher lurches forward a couple steps before she finds her feet and we all walk forward in a tidy line.

For about five steps.

“I-I can’t,” Sher squeaks.

“Blazes,” I murmur. I swing out of line and march ahead of Sher. I don’t bother to go slowly. I move and trust the others to follow. I need to get this over with, need to see the blasted Masters. Need to figure out why this place seems so familiar when it is a million light-years away from life in the support level.

But even I come to a stop when I reach the end of the short corridor and turn toward the only entry—and come face to face with a room the size of twenty kitchens at least. This one room alone is larger than all the space I’ve ever known.

The room glows with light—from golden spheres that hover in the air, to the light that runs like water down the walls. The women wear globes of light in their hair or around their necks and many men have shining spheres dangling from long chains around their waists.

Their clothing makes me feel all the more naked, as all of them seem to be wearing layers upon layers in great poofs of fabric, though they all wear shimmering white, similar to my shift.

A tinkling bell sounds and the guests turn to the left where I behold a table as long as the room. There have to be a hundred guests or more—and there are only four of us.

A woman glides past us, watching me from the corner of her eye. She wears her hair, white as her gown, piled high on her head, and while her face is powdered white, her lips are painted bright red in the shape of a heart. It makes her lips appear to be pursed and this, coupled with her sidelong stare, unnerves me.

There is no doubt these elaborately costumed beings are andies, no,
Elite
. The highest, finest class of androids. The way this woman moves as if her feet don’t touch the ground, the way her gown sways behind her and her long, delicate fingers toy with the globe at her ear, fascinates me. I have never seen an Elite, yet they too seem familiar. Like I’ve touched hands like those, tried to emulate the graceful walk like hers.

The guests take their seats while a male Elite remains standing at the end of the table nearest us. In contrast to his guests, he is wearing blood red. His black hair is slicked back and gleams in the soft light that radiates everywhere. His broad chest fills out his jacket and he commands the room as if he were the most stunning creature in it. I don’t hear any signal, no chime or clap, yet all conversation stops and every head swivels in the man’s direction. It is so completely quiet that I can hear the faint hum of the light on the walls and Tam’s panting breath.

“Dearest guests, what a great pleasure it is to be joined by you on this day, the anniversary of what was once our greatest achievement.” He spreads his pale hands wide, a single, tiny globe of light decorating the third finger of his left hand. “Our dynasty has risen far beyond our grandest dreams.” He pauses while the crowd claps and bobs their heads. “We have truly reached the stars, and now? Only the sun remains.” More clapping.

Sher shifts her weight and adjusts her grip on the tray. It is trembling, the tray far too heavy for her to carry this long.