I forced my face to stillness, despite the Empress' dead black eyes staring through mine. She would know it for a farce, but her court would not.

"You gave the order?"

"I did." Lying to a telepath was difficult at the best of times. While she actively probed for truth, it became as close to impossible as to make no difference.

"You were aware of Our decree that reincarnates are to be born of women, not of machines?"

"I was." Ghostly hands rifled behind my eyes. She had no need to ask questions. Her lips twisted into a grin that would be mocking were the situation less serious.

"The penalty for knowingly defying Our decree is execution. Are you aware of that?"

"I am. I was at the time as well."

My jaw locked on my last word. She wasn't pleased that I'd offered more than she asked for, and she had no reason to be gentle. I'd made sure of that.

"Were you then or are you now being coerced into your actions?"

She released my jaw from her mental grip. Without slacking from my position of attention or taking my eyes off hers, I worked my jaw around before speaking. "Only by the tactical situation, ma'am."

The dead black eyes captivating mine narrowed. When my jaw locked this time, it strained against itself painfully. She'd given me three chances to repent, to claim my actions were less than a direct defiance of her authority, and I'd thrown them back in her face. A tendril of thought whispered into my mind.

Are you saying I'm a ship, now?

I'd had enough of the puppet show. There was no chance I could break her hold over me, but if I could make her mad enough, she would end this mockery of a trial. I threw a thought back at her with as much force as my mind could muster, focused like a laser to her mind only.

Well, you have put on a few pounds since you kicked me out of the house.

I expected the fire that raced along my nerves. I expected my jaw to creak as the muscles pulled against each other. What I didn't expect was the broad grin that spread across the Imperial countenance.

"So be it. Do you have anything to say, 'Bit?"

The Emperor, who had far more power than most outside the Imperial family realized, shook his fair head, a frown creasing his normally smooth brow. "Only that her actions were in the best interests of the Empire, Beloved. The Admiralty's lowest estimate is three civilian worlds sheltered from the Insectoid invasion. Roughly fifteen billion souls saved from the horrors of live impregnation and ingestion."

She shrugged, made a tossing away gesture as if to say none of that mattered. It was expected. With that, she straightened in her chair, the Empress ready to pass sentence.

"Be that as it may, if the price were to be waived even once, anarchy would be the order of the day. We can't have that, after all. Are you ready to hear Our judgment?"

My jaw was my own once more, and I hadn't even realized. The wise thing to do now would be to beg for clemency, but I'd never been wise. I was my mother's daughter, after all. "Yes, mother."

"Your actions were not intended as an attack on Our subjects. As such, on the greater charge of high treason against the Triumvirate Unity, We find you innocent."

I couldn't help it. My spine stayed rigid, my face expressionless, but a silent sigh of relief whispered from my lips. I wouldn't be disowned, shunned, and marked as ineligible for reincarnation. More importantly, she wouldn't disavow my actions, or hold them against anyone but me.

Her eyes twinkled with barely suppressed laughter. That was bad. Mother's sense of humor was biting at best, downright dangerous at worst.

"On the other hand, you knowingly disobeyed an Imperial edict regarding the treatment of Our subjects. Specifically, you ordered the First Dragon reincarnated into force-grown clone bodies. We have no choice but to find you guilty of deliberate defiance of an Imperial decree. The sentence will be carried out immediately. The sword is traditional for royalty. Gentlemen," she nodded to the guards flanking me, close combat specialists from the First Dragon, "behead her."

The barely concealed glee with which she delivered the sentence stunned me. Before I could recover, a line of fire and ice seared my neck. My point of view wobbled, fell, and bounced across the floor, my neck burning the whole while as my essie pumped astringent agents into the leaking blood vessels. I came to a rest staring at a wall, which at least saved me the embarrassment of watching the court's reaction to my punishment.

The bulk of my punishment, at any rate. Before my essie put me under, Mother spoke once more. "As punishment for being such a brat about it, when you're back on your feet you're cleaning this mess up. Gah, I forgot how far that stuff sprays. Court is adjourned. It's time for lunch."

Darkness took me, and I heard no more.

***

I swam up from the dark pit of memory, screaming every inch of the way. The moment I could feel my hands I clutched my neck, irrationally expecting to feel a wet stump. The coppery tang of blood filled my nose, my fingers stuck to the tacky dampness on my neck, and my screaming went up an octave. My eyes popped open, and against my better judgment I pulled my hands away and looked at them. They were red with congealing blood.

I was screaming loud enough to be heard through the walls, but Quick's voice cut through as if I wasn't making any noise at all. "Are you okay, sir? You slipped and slammed into the back wall pretty hard. You were bleeding, but I think your essie took care of it." His words washed over me, comforting and warm, downy soft and delicate. I didn't know how I could hear him over my screaming.

My mouth was open, but I wasn't screaming. Nothing emerged but a high pitched, warbling keen that I throttled to a stop the moment I realized what I was doing. I wasn't suffering the injuries from Grace's memories. I was hurting myself when I blacked out. There was a sane and logical reason for everything happening here.

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"Sir, are you all right?"

"I'm fine." No matter how hard I tried to hide it, my voice shook with a cluttered mess of relief, terror, and remembered pain. I shouldn't be terrified. Memories couldn't hurt me. I pulled my knees up to my chest and tucked my head down, trying to forget the icy burn of a force blade slicing through my neck.

Without warning, Tomas was there, his bulk looming over me. He reached out, but I scuttled away. My hand went out from under me, and I tumbled, rolling as the floor passed under me at just over twelve clicks an hour. Disoriented from Grace's memories, still in shock from waking to find myself bloody, all I could do was wonder why only half of the floor was still moving.

One second I was rolling, the next dangling from Tomas' paw. He'd snatched me up by the back of my sweatshirt, and when he pulled me around to face him, I could tell he wasn't straining to hold my feet a half dozen centimeters off the floor, despite being a few centimeters shorter than me.

"Can you stand, sir, or should I take you down to the med bay?"

Tiamat's earlier threat slammed into me with the force of a blow. I shook my head, panicked that she might have already scheduled the meeting with the head shrinks. My brain was full of clutter, but it was my clutter. I'd paid in sleepless nights and social stigma for it, and I wasn't having anyone rooting through it.

"Sir, you might have some head trauma, something residual from the shuttle crash. Maybe a concussion?"

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves before speaking. While it didn't help my nerves much, Quick suddenly lost his focus on my eyes. His grip on the fabric of my shirt made it tighter than usual. As always, I took help where I could get it.

"I don't have any brain trauma, Quick. Nothing med bay can help with, anyhow."

His stare returned to my eyes, gaze switching from one to the other so fast his pupils seemed to vibrate. There might have been a slight downward twitch now and then, but not for long enough for me to call him on it.

"Put me down, Quick. I don't have a concussion. I have blackouts." Scrabbling for anything to distract him that wouldn't lead to me having to write him up for staring at my chest, I seized on the one anomaly unrelated to my memory. "Why is only half of the treadmill moving?"

He smirked. He had a cute smirk, the kind of thing you expect on a six-year-old when he's caught sneaking around, but he hasn't done anything wrong to sneak for. I shook myself; I might just have concussed myself on the treadmill if I was thinking that about my First. When I wiggled, he took it as a sign I was getting impatient and set me gently on the unmoving ground. His hand stayed on my back, though, as if he wasn't sure I could stay on my feet on my own.

"Armorer, sir. Head of my class. The treadmill's a moving field projected just above the ground. I set this half to a lower rate while we were running and shut it down when you fell."

"Why didn't you shut my half down, then?"

The Smirk dissolved into a frown as he remembered who he was talking to, and why we needed to talk. "Captain's privilege, sir. I can't countermand your orders unless you've been declared medically unfit or removed from command. I was doing pretty well to finagle the split treadmill, and I think that's because Tiamat thought I was being clever."

Mentioned by name, the ship's presence slipped into the room. I don't know how I know when a ship is paying attention and when it's not, but every Imperial I've ever known can do the same thing. It's a sense of being watched. Of course, they make it obvious when they respond to their name.

"You were being clever, Tomas. I have been the Mother of Dragons for long enough to be a very good judge of clever." She paused, and I had the sense we were both being observed in minute detail. "Are you two getting up to something a Captain and her First ought not be doing?"

His hand leapt from my back like it on fire as Quick and I chorused, "No, ma'am!" He nodded to me, and I continued, "we were talking. I thought it was a good idea for us to have a bit of a private chat."

Tiamat went silent once more, but the sense of her presence didn't leave. After nearly a minute of us standing in silence, she spoke again. "Really? Pity."

We both just stared, eyes swiveling from each other to the walls. "What? You're both mature enough to be Seniors, no matter that twaddle the Captain spouted about you being Middies for long enough to age grape juice into passable wine."

"Uh, ma'am, why aren't we Seniors then?" Tomas voiced the question that was on my mind as well.

"Because she is the Captain, and I am her ship. I have no idea why you don't know that, young lady, but I intend to have words with Glaucus next time he is in communication range. You, Tomas, spend the time you should be studying your command skills studying engineering instead," she sighed, a very human sound, "which is how you got so clever, so I guess I'm not too upset."

"Ma'am? Is there anything you needed?" I wanted to get myself washed off, needed to get away from Quick's rapidly rekindling curiosity, and had to get rid of Tiamat's direct attention before I could do either.

Fortunately, while Tiamat may have been an AI, she was an old AI, with plenty of experience dealing with human foibles. "I'm supposed to be asking you that question, Dustie. Still, I suppose not. I'll let you two get back to your... conversation. Breakfast starts in half an hour. You'd best hurry."

With that, she was gone. Tomas was bright red, embarrassment doing what exertion couldn't. Unfortunately, he wasn't too embarrassed to forget his earlier question, even if I could swear his eyes kept flickering downward every few seconds. "Sir, if you're having blackouts, you ought to be in the med bay."

"If you wanted me there that badly, why didn't you just tell her I needed to go?"

He actually took half a step back in shock. I was going to smack him or develop a thing for him if he kept his emotions on display like this, and I had no idea which it would be. "Well?"

"I wouldn't, sir! It's your decision to make."

"So why won't you respect it?"

His lips twisted into the Smirk. Smacking him was getting more likely by the second. "Because I'm your First, and part of my job is to let you know when I think you're wrong, as often as I think you need me to, until you order me not to. Sir."

To avoid smacking him, I reached up and finger-combed my hair, ruffling it to keep it from setting in a sweat soaked lump. Bits of red scattered through the glittering droplets of sweat, and my face went cold as memories threatened to wash over me again. The floor swayed under me, and I grabbed for the nearest support. It just happened to be Quick's arm.

"Sir? You really ought to tell your essie to look at your inner ear. I'd have them work on keeping you upright when you black out, as well. It will save you some laundry." I had to hand it to him, Quick wasn't slow. When he realized med bay was out, he tried something else. Unfortunately for him, he'd hit one of my legion of pet peeves. I took another long, slow breath to avoid snapping at him. He was my First, and he showed every sign of being a good one.

"I'm not allowed to contact my essie."

This time he didn't try to hide it. His gaze wandered down my front, eventually locking on my fashion-doll feet. One eyebrow slowly cocked upward, and the Smirk twisted his features. "Sir, normally I'd be a little shy about asking, but I did just tell you how I got this way. I mean, I'm kinda freakish, but most of the class thinks it's a good freakish. I'm fast and strong, even if I am a big target on the dodge ball court. You're..." He waved one hand, taking in everything about me that didn't fit anyone's conception of the perfect soldier. With every word, my shame burned hotter. I couldn't speak; every erg of my will was focused on keeping embarrassment from igniting my anger.

"Seriously, what kind of parents would let a Noob walk around looking like you?"

I shoved at him with all my strength. Shock painted his features when the extra leverage of my tweaked feet gave me the strength to make even his huge frame stagger back into the wall.

"I'm not a Noob! I'm a Blank!" The admission made, I turned away. I couldn't stand to see the reaction I knew was coming; a thin veneer of sympathy coating disgust, both of them driven by the horror any would-be immortal has when confronted by the inevitability of death. I'd seen all of it time after time, and I couldn't stand to see it even once more.

I did the only thing I did well. I ran.