Thunderhead Sector, Erudite System, Venorria, Citadel City

“Open the doors,” Lord Protector Kingston Borealis commanded.

The guards heaved to, grabbing onto the handles of the throne room’s ornate doors. Scraping against the stone floor of the palace, the massive doors opened slowly, and the moment the gap was large enough, Borealis rushed through.

He did not slow his pace among the gilded columns of the throne room. His boots tapped loudly against the polished floors as he hurried to kneel at the edge of the marble dais in the center of the room. “My lady,” he said, bowing his head, “I bring urgent news.”

Upon the dais, seated on a throne of solid gold and carved ivory, the Eternal Empress reached out, gesturing him to his feet. “Lord Protector,” she spoke, tone soft and melodic, “you need not kneel.” That arcane tradition persisted as a gesture of respect. She did not require it. “Tell me your news.”

Slowly, Borealis stood, looking to the Empress. “Malibu Flower has contacted us again, my lady.”

She inclined her head pensively, considering the ramifications of such a report. “So soon?” Her words were not muffled by the white porcelain mask that covered her face. They reached him through the gap in the mask’s painted red lips. “And what cost, pray tell, did he ask of us this time?”

The Lord Protector straightened the blue sash that ran across his crisp, white uniform. “He offered it to us free of charge, Empress.”

“How peculiar,” she murmured softly, leaning forward to wrap her hands around the festooned armrests of her throne. It fit the length of her arm, and the size of her dainty hands perfectly, as this throne had been built to suit her. “It is most unusual for the rats of the underworld to offer anything without turning a profit.” Dealing with them had always been a risk. Rumor of her nation’s wealth would entice such people to charge a high price for their services. Still, the Cassiopeia Coalition had wealth to spare. What the Empress lacked was information.

“I agree,” the Lord Protector said. “I attempted to question Flower’s intentions, but he refused to provide an explanation.”

The Empress lifted her gaze to the decorative capital of the column in front of her. The gold leafing covered the chiseled marble flawlessly. It glittered in the light, one of many that held up the throne room’s vaulted ceilings. “I imagine information brokers do not favor questions regarding their sources or their motive. After all, we did not provide him ours.”

The Lord Protector nodded in agreement. “Still, the data appears legitimate. The coordinates he provided us are not far, galactically speaking, from her last known position in the Paleon Sector. Flower assured she will be in that location at some point, though he cannot guarantee the timing. He also advised us to be aware of an active firefight in the region.” Borealis set his jaw proudly, “I must say I found his concern out of place. The Royal Guard can handle itself.” The Cassiopeia Coalition had one of the most capable national guards in the worlds.

“Be cautious with your pride, Lord Protector.” While the Coalition maintained an able defense force, they lacked the ability to project power beyond their accepted borders. The centralized government would never have allowed the creation of such a fleet. “Flower is right to exercise caution. If any of our forces are caught on the wrong side of the engagement, then our objective is forfeit.”

The Lord Protector kept his shoulders squared. With tidy brown hair, brown eyes, and a strong jawline, he was a handsome man, though perhaps oddly young for his position. As the Lord Protector, he led the Cassiopeia Coalition’s military and defense forces, but he, like every other person within the Coalition’s sovereign borders, answered to the Eternal Empress. “Your orders, my lady?”

“How far must you travel, Lord Protector?”

Borealis could not see her eyes beyond her mask. The black eyeliner painted on its white face only made them look dark, but he could feel the weight of her gaze. “The Startraveler Aurora is our fastest ship. With her, at maximum speed, I can reach Flower’s coordinates in 18 hours. But I shall have to go alone.” The Royal Guard’s other ships could not keep up that pace.

A deep sigh deflated the Empress’ thin figure. She tapped a few nails on the armrest of her throne in contemplation, but eventually spoke, “Go.” This objective was too important to surrender now, regardless of how dangerous it was to send Borealis and his ship alone, far past the Coalition’s borders. “Find the Singularity, Lord Protector, then promise them whatever you must. The Coalition will meet any demand.” Her very worlds depended on it. “By any means necessary, bring me Admiral Gives.”

Borealis bowed deeply. “Yes, my lady.” Then, he spun on his heel, hurried back the way he’d come.

The Lord Protector’s purposeful steps echoed amongst the columns, and slowly faded. A moment later, she heard the throne room doors grind open, then thunk closed once again. Good luck, Lord Protector, she thought after him. It did not please her to send his ship alone on such an important mission, but it could not be avoided. She could only hope that he returned safely. Loyalty like his was all too rare in these worlds.

Bountiful in resources, the Coalition had so far been spared the corruption and profiteering that plagued other nations on the fringe, but she knew that would not last forever. One way or another, the worlds’ cycle of endless violence would find them. And with tensions rising on the Frontier, another civil war looked inevitable. Her guidance would not spare the Coalition that. Her nation was simply too wealthy, too large and too advanced to ignore. It was a threat to the central worlds’ dominance, and that made sending a ship beyond their borders all the more dangerous. Caught in the wrong time, at the wrong place, that could be framed as a hostile action – as the projection of power beyond their lawful borders. And that would be all it took to label the Coalition a separatist state.

The Coalition’s position had long been precarious. A conglomerate of colonies that included everything from planets to mining outposts, the Cassiopeia Coalition was one of the largest nations within the bounds of the Ariean Central Government – the entity that controlled all of human space. The wealth of the Coalition matched that of any of the central worlds, but its influence did not.

Located on the fringes of human settled space, the Coalition sat far distant from the central worlds, and the cradle world of Ariea. It sat so distant, in fact, that the Coalition had once been a lost colony, rediscovered mere decades before the Hydrian War. Perhaps more interestingly, however, was the fact that the Cassiopeia Coalition sat adjacent to the Neutral Zone that had been established by the War, and thus, sat very near the agreed-upon territory of the Hydrian Empire.

Considering the Coalition’s relatively short history with the central government and its location, the Cassiopeia Coalition and all its citizens had been abandoned to their fate during the Hydrian War. As the rest of the worlds pooled their resources to fight, the Coalition had been deserted. No one in the central worlds had expected the nation to survive that plight – not when so many others had fallen, but it had, and diplomatic relations had been irreversibly damaged ever since.

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Abruptly, the Empress stood from her elaborate throne. Like liquid metal, the silver fabric of her gown flowed into place, perfectly tailored to her height. She had a slight figure, thin and not particularly tall, but her skin was flawless wherever it was visible on her arms and with the glimpse of her slender legs revealed by the slit in her gown. Her pale skin and dark hair were common characteristics within the Coalition. Most of the population shared those traits, having descended from a twin set of colony ships that travelled here centuries ago.

Stepping off the dais, the two guards that had stood beside her throne, turned sharply to follow. They shadowed her always, faces stoic, but bodies tense and alert. They moved quietly, and kept a respectful distance between themselves and her. Outside her chambers, she was always guarded by such men: the finest the Royal Guard had to offer. The Lord Protector hand-selected them for their skill and focus. As well-guarded as the palace was, it was a mostly ceremonial post, but the guards were not lax. They were dressed to the nines in the white uniform of the Royal Guard, golden sashes across their chests. Holstered handguns glimmered with polish at their sides, and they carried staves topped with a trio of small golden blades, each delicately curved. The blades were meant to maim, not kill, but the staff they were mounted on – an electrostaff – was perfectly capable.

The Empress headed for the back of the throne room, her steps graceful and unhurried. For a moment she paused to admire the stained glass that filtered light into the throne room. In it, the ramparts of the palace rose above the skyline of Citadel City, and the colorful orbs of the Coalition’s most populated worlds hovered in the background. It was a work of art that lit the cathedral-like room with warm light.

Turning, the Empress headed down a side corridor that opened at the back of the throne room. It was a short path, lit dimly by electric lights designed to flicker like torches. The next door creaked open into a smaller darker room, illuminated only by false candles that burned at the base of the statues. Carved from the same white marble as the columns in the throne room, these statues were busts of regal ladies, exquisite in their detail. They were placed upon pedestals, and a white porcelain mask hung below each. Seven in all, they lined both sides of this small room. They had no name placards, but the Empress did not need them. She knew them all, from Cana, the first, to Ayla, the seventh. With the exception of Cana, each of these women had reigned over the Coalition for fifty years. The portrait of their chosen Lord Protector hung behind them. In all, with each of these women donning the mask, the Eternal Empress’ reign had lasted three hundred sixty-four years, and continued still.

Under the Empress’ reign, the Coalition had thrived. Its resources and population were unburdened, and the country knew no greater loyalty than to its Empress, for the Empress was a woman of the people. None of the statues had been related by blood, and rule of the Coalition was not passed down a genetic line. No, the woman who wore the mask was selected once a generation from the Coalition’s populace by her predecessor. The metrics of such a selection were never revealed, nor was the name of the selectee. She was simply spirited away to begin her service.

Pausing before the seventh statue, a woman of long, wavy hair, the Empress spoke, “Our nation is in dire straits, is it not?” During the Hydrian War, the nature of the enemy had been known. Now, that enemy could be anyone. A diplomat could be a spy looking to cause an incident. “The central worlds want war.” Whipped into a frenzy by the New Era’s ideals and the promise of prosperity, a civil war was brewing, and on worlds like Sagittarion, it had already begun.

The Empress reached out, as if to tuck the bust’s curly hair back, but sighed when her fingers met cold stone. Those curls were truly beautiful. She missed them like old friends. Slowly, her hand slid down the statue until she found the back of the bust’s neck. There, where the skull met the spine, as in all the others, a jewel had been inlaid. The same in every statue, its round shape was uniformly cut, and its brilliant green color glittered in the candlelight.

“Do you regret not undergoing the procedure, my lady?”

The sound of a voice beside her made her jump, but she relaxed as she recognized her company. Neither of the guards by the door had twitched, though they watched the Cassiopeian Minister of Science with watchful eyes. “Professor Daiba, this chamber is not for your use.”

“But it serves,” he said curtly. Behind his glasses, his narrow eyes glinted as he asked again, “Do you regret it?”

“No,” she said, removing her hand from the gem on the back of the bust’s neck. Beneath her short, shoulder length hair, her skin was unbroken. “Lady Ayla struggled with their Voices. It was time to find another way.” Their previous methods would not have proved sustainable.

“But you still hear them?”

“All who have donned this mask hear them,” she answered, tracing a fingertip along the edge of the white mask that hid her face.

Daiba nodded, satisfied by that answer. A man of sweaty, yellowish pallor, the professor was nothing much to look at. His posture was poor, but his mind was a marvel. From his lab below the palace, he had brought the Coalition unparalleled advancements in biology and chemistry, not to mention helped upgrade the equipment of the Royal Guard on many accounts. “I hear you have dispatched your Lord Protector to fetch the Singularity.”

“You have heard correctly.”

Daiba narrowed his eyes. “If you seek to avoid the central worlds’ attention, is that wise, my lady?”

“Under the Eran coup, the Coalition will not be ignored.” A choice would be issued: fall in line or face war. “Their attention will turn to us eventually. We must be ready.”

“I understand readying our defenses and increasing patrols along our eastern borders, but sending the Lord Protector after Command’s little renegade seems a strange choice, my lady.”

“Little.” She sighed with amusement. “Professor, I take it you have been too busy to indulge in historical research.” That was no surprise. His prior project had been urgent, especially once Malibu Flower had reached out to broker a deal for the ship’s position.

Daiba’s nose twitched. “History does not much interest me, I’m afraid.”

Of course not. Daiba was far more interested in the future than the past. “That ‘little’ renegade was the largest ship in Command’s fleet.” A few had come close, but none had surpassed her. “She is everything our Royal Guard is not.” Adept at observation and defense, the Royal Guard was sorely lacking in offensive armaments. “The Singularity’s support could prove critical to the Coalition’s survival. Our intelligence has already reported that the Singularity did significant damage to a task force that heavily outnumbered her.” That had proven her more than effective against Command. “The enemy of our enemy can be an asset to us, Professor. At the least, she could buy us time.”

Truly, if the central worlds turned on them, they would need all the aid they could muster, but allies in this area of space were few. The War had decimated the Coalition’s surroundings. To the galactic west lay the Neutral Zone, where both humans and Hydra were forbidden to tread. Unexplored space lay to the north and the Isolation Gap of worlds burned by the War sat to the south. Far, far eastward were the central planets, and between them was nothing more than emptiness and colonies long abandoned: unorganized space.

“We are alone out here, Professor,” the Empress reminded him. “Unlike the nations of the Frontier,” which lay far beyond the central worlds in the east, “we do not have the luxury of banding together in the face of a threat. We only hope that the central worlds focus their attention there as the rumors of another Frontier Rebellion grow.”

“And if they don’t, my lady?”

“Then I am not willing to let my nation fall to authoritarian rule.” The Eran coup would destroy the nation the Eternal Empress had spent centuries creating. “We have survived a war before, and we will do so again.” The cost, however, would be steep.

The professor followed her attention to the bust of her predecessor. “In such turbulent times, perhaps it would be prudent to identify a more proper Lady-in-Waiting. I fear the current subject may not be able to sustain the Voices for her entire term.”

The Empress reached up to feel the cool porcelain of the mask upon her face, sorrowful that its weight may need to be donned by another so soon. “You are right.” If it came to war, she would be the central worlds’ first target. They had to be prepared. “Begin the search, and in the meantime, re-evaluate the necessary conditioning of the available subject to see if we can improve her endurance.”

Daiba took a step back and bowed, “As you wish, my lady.”