Sitting in a bunker uhe royal pa Lonazar, the polycule was rather fused as to what was actually happening. Once or twice Agent Lee had hurried through the room, responding ‘o know’ to any questions they tried to throw at him. The imperial guard weren’t much more useful, simply replying ‘remain calm’.

  It was not very helpful. Worse, rag hearts did not seem to mix well with the persistent higher gravity of the p, so the whole process was exceptionally unpleasant. Vivian hoped she could get somewhere she could actually rex properly soon. Though she did now uand why Kobaroic furniture was so plush and cushioned. It really made a differen high G.

  Finally, after more time than she wao think about, a member of the Kobaroian royal guard tried to hurry past. Both Vivian and Bokarza were able to scramble in front of the woman to get her to stop, though Vivian had worried the taller woman would just barrel through them when she almost didn’t stop.

  “As ynal queen,” Bokarza said with surprising authority, “I and you to tell us what in the gaxy is going on. What were the circumstances of Svetna going missing? Is anyone hurt? Just how missing is she?”

  “And where’s Houyu?” Vivian added.

  “Guuuhh--Har wuk... we believe royal baby is also missing too,” the guard said in heavily ated English after having started in Kobaroic.

  “And no ohought to tell me before now?” Vivian hissed, her maternal instincts fring up despite how distant she often worried she was.

  “We--we thought Earthling guards said it,” the woman replied, quickly tapping her forehead in deference. “Apologies. Apologies.”

  “And what happened?” Bokarza asked.

  “She... empress had... gas. Ventition gas. Everyoo sleep. Somehow empress was not affected. Somehow broke into engine partment of star runner. Separated it. Left with royal baby,” the woman said.

  “What? Was... was Svetna-wife able to stay awake with O’tmyil-love’s help?” Plynx asked, hurrying over from where she was seated.

  “No. O’tmyil was left... left behind,” the woman said. “Must go. Jathek, Kraz.”

  “Urk,” Bokarza replied, accepting the apology and stepping out of the woman’s way.

  After watg her go the group realised they didn’t have a better ratio of ao questions than they’d started with. Sure, they now khat Svetna had run away, and taken Houyu with her, but... they had no idea why she’d have dohat. Or when she’d learo fly an ielr spaceship through jump-space. Oh, also, when had she gained a resistao some sort of knockout gas that apparently worked on Humans, Lanthoneans, and Kobaroians?

  To say nothing of why in the world she’d have left O’tmyil behind.

  Had she somehow kept her p from O’tmyil? Svetna retty terrible at keepis. Especially from someone she had a neural link with.

  Really, the questions had grown signifitly faster than the answers.

  “I knew she seemed off, but I didn’t realise it was a sign of something like this,” Thisbe mumbled, pulling her feet up onto the armchair she was in and hugging her knees.

  Apart from Bokarza she was the only o in powered armour, and Vivian wasn’t sure if she envied her for the fort or was happier with the sense of safety the armour offered. Both physically and noh doing his best to send her calming positivity.

  “Well, hopefully O’tmyil will be able to tell us something when they bring her down?” Vivian said, trying to keep her head level so she didn’t panic about why in the world her wife had just sort-of-kidnapped her child.

  “That will take a while,” Agent Lee said, strolling into the room. “After an initial few moments of wakefulness she insisted she undergo a full diagnostic check. Which is not a rapid process. Ms. Campbell, Queen Bokarza, we require at least two of her siblings to assist and yuardians are the only two initiated who are not currently providing necessary suppainst the local gravity. Might we borrow them?”

  “Oh... yes,” Thisbe said.

  “Sure. Getting O’ktaubr off my tail is a good thing in my books,” Bokarza added.

  Agent Lee nodded, accepting the diss of both guardians before hurrying off again. They found themselves alone once more. With nothing to do but worry.

  With no one else entering the room, eventually Bokarza poked her head out into the hall, getting the attention of guards and requesting a view s so that they could at least watch the news if no one was going to tell them anything. To Vivian’s surprise, when they eventually got the s it turned out that none of the news was c what had happened. It seemed it was still too early to answer many questions and the various royal minders were hoping to solve the whole affair before news leaked out.

  It seemed a rather questionable ao take in Vivian’s mind, and also felt somewhat... unpleasant? Having the fact that her child and wife were missing be covered up as a minor embarrassment didn’t seem right.

  Yet, she supposed the alternative would be a nightmare of iive paparazzi type nonsense. Gactic media didn’t seem as bad as, say, the British media, but it still would probably be a feeding frenzy.

  “It will be alright,” Plynx said, taking Vivian’s hand and a soft purr in encement.

  “I just don’t know how to handle having my family be front page news,” Vivian said. “Well, I also don’t know how to hahe kidnapping, but that’s a bit too big to process right now.”

  “There’s no sign anyone else was involved,” Bokarza offered. “I’ll bet Svetna just got tired of being herded about all the time and decided to go on a little joy ride.”

  “Hopefully that’s all it is--” Vivian was replying when a somewhat nervous looking Kobaroian man stepped into the chamber.

  “Err... sort Campbell?” he asked.

  “Yes?” Thisbe replied, surprised to be called out.

  “A... a Zuumult vessel just ehe system. The pilot is saying that their name is Vahr and that you would be willing to talk to them,” the man said. “Is... is that true?”

  Blinking a few times, Thisbe then nodded. “Yes. I suppose I would be happy to? I mean, they crossed a good k of the gaxy to get here. Whatever they have to say is probably important?”

  The man gave a crisp Kobaroic salute (a specific wagging of their rge forehead horn) then turned and rushed out of the room.

  It was a few more minutes before the group found out anything else, their views switg to a video call, the head of the imperial guard oher end. “Your majesties, we have the Zuumult here now. Are you prepared to lead the questioning?”

  “Questioning?” Thisbe replied, worry flowing off her and into the hearts of all the others (not that Vivian needed any more worry).

  “A Zuumult appearing just after the Empress’ disappearance is... suspicious, at the very least. So we must treat them as potentially involved,” the Lanthonean man replied. “Are you prepared?”

  “Y-yes,” Thisbe said.

  “We-all will try to be polite, due to the ck of the proof, but we are ready,” Plynx added.

  The man nodded and then the camera switched to another room. The Zuumult iion was in a room clearly too small for them with their kig up above the cold crystalliable in front of them, whatever chair they were sitting on pletely blocked from view, and... only their visible in the camera.

  “Err, Vahr?” Thisbe asked. “Is that you?”

  “Yes!” they replied, leaning in towards what must have been a s on their side, but still having their eyebrows and everything above cut off from view. “I... am I too te? Everyone seems even more worried than I’d expected.”

  “Too te for what?” Auguste asked, leaning into the view of the camera on their side.

  “The... the empress... has she--where is she?” they replied.

  “That’s what the security folks want us to ask you,” Vivian said.

  Vahr winced. Even though it wasn’t the same as a human wi was still close enough for Vivian to tell what it was.

  “Then I am too te,” they said quietly. “I had e to warn you... that was not the empress.”

  With that the entire imperial polycule rushed forward towards the s, the word for ‘what!?’ being shouted in in four different nguages (English twice, French, Kobaroid Issiod’rian Standard).

  “My rger sibling produced a replicoid while the empress was visiting... I had been unaware until we departed and ced in charge of keeping her pany in our custody,” Vahr said. “Svetna asked me to warn you while Houyo was still safe, to weaken the empere’s iating position. But now... if they’re already in jump space then it’s too te.”

  Staring up at Ouzzhen from the bed in her cell, Svetna wore the cockiest smirk she could manage. “I hope you realise this is all going to blow up in your face... your jerk-face, since you’re a jerk.”

  That drew a ugh from Ouzzhen. “It’s too te for that, I’m afraid. The replicoid has acquired your spawn. With both you and the baby in my care those cowards at the Imperial cil will be forced to cave to my demands.”

  The hat Houyo was in trouble sent worry though her. It was hard not to be scared, hearing that her child was in the hands of some sort of infiltration android. Still, she kept a poker fa pd decided to try to focus on the big picture.

  “The Issiod’rians and Kobaroiaired of war, that’s the only reason that I was able to be used to make peace. Just a paper excuse. I’m not actually that important to the Gactioh. They fun just fine as a republic. Which means holding me hostage doesn’t do anything but annoy them... a definitely also annoys me.”

  “You uimate how much importahe gaxy pces on the idea of a monarch. We Zuumults hammered it into them through millennia of absolute monarchy. They need someone else to bow to or else those weak in the knee will turn to us anyway... I’ll offer them to give me your ceremonial position, which is far better than they would ever expect. Then I will employ the patience of an immortal and usurp more power with time,” Ouzzhen replied, before croug down to have their eyes level with Svetna. “But I do want to say that I genuinely like you. You’re amusing. Perhaps I’ll let you rule your world as a vassal. Or keep you on as a sort. Perhaps even both.”

  They then fshed another one of those sharp toothed grins which were still just as visually appealing but Svetna couldn’t help but see as annoyingly smug now. Instead of charmingly smug.

  There was a fine liween those things.

  “I still think you’re overestimating your hand. You think you’ve got a...” pausing slightly, Svetna realised she didn’t actually know poker that well. At least she had a different card game she could try. “A hand of fhts in a game of crazy eights, when you’ve really just got a couple twos and a four.”

  Ouzzhen stared at her. “What.”

  “Alright, fine. Crazy eights isn’t the most cultured analogy... sue me,” Svetna muttered, crossing her arms.

  “Court jester, maybe,” Ouzzhen replied, grinning once more before turning about and strolling out of the room.

  Svetna tried to gre a hole in the back of their head as they left. Then into the door as it shut behind them.

  Her situation really did suck. Except... well, she knew she had a and a queen of spades rolled into one in her debsp;

  Ok, that really was stretg the metaphor.

  When the information about the replicoid rocessed by the various security persohere was then a flurry of further questioning for poor Vahr as it became clear they were effectively a defector. Their story was then verified when O’tmyil emerged from her intensive diagnostics, rep that she’d been hit with a rather subtle virus that had interfered with her usual bond with Svetna, causing the replicoid’s differeo be lost on her.

  “Of course the replicoid’s neural patterns would be a atch to Svetna’s to begin with. That’s how they fun,” she expined as everyone was gathered in something of a war room upon the Imperial Guard’s heavy star runner. “They match the repced person but for an underlying programming until the point where they are able to strike... though I find it deeply discerting one was able to get past my defenses.”

  “It was the product of the Zuumult imperial family. They have many of the greatest artisans in the gaxy,” the head of the Imperial Guard said (Thisbe was fairly certain his name was I’phyl).

  “Still, I should have mentiohat I thought there was something up to O’tmyil. Maybe we would have caught it earlier,” Thisbe mumbled.

  “We should have discovered the security risk,” Agent Lee replied. “I had entered a replicoid before, but had mistakenly believed that the Imperial Guard would have detected it.”

  “You entered one? Oh?” O’tmyil asked. “And survived?”

  “Yes. Further details are cssified,” Lee replied.

  “We-all point the cws ter. What will we-the oh, do?” Plynx asked.

  “That... we will have to see what the empere’s demands are. There’s no intercepting the ship to rescue Houyo uhey drop out of jump spa oh territory,” I’phyl replied with sigh and a drooping of his antennae.

  “Perhaps that is what the oh will do, but I do not represent the oh,” Agent Lee replied, adjusting his sungsses slightly. “We will require the defector and any potential voluo assist in the rescue mission.”

  “A rescue mission?” Bokarza asked, stepping forward to loom over the man. “That’s a suicide mission. The Zuumults are the most militarised major power in the gaxy. Wherever Svetna is being held will be a fortress. I know you humans think you’re stubborn, but we Kobaroians are well known for being even more unwavering. If we tell you we must iate we must iate.”

  Agent Lee simply smiled up at her. “The Zuumults’ Gactiasty fell ohey be defeated. they not?”

  That st part he directed towards O’tmyil and her siblings.

  “It was not easy,” she replied.

  “As much respect as I have for O’tmyil, O’ktaubr, and the rest of their family... it was more than just their efforts that took down the First Dynasty,” Bokarza said.

  “Yes. Even if we-here think ourselves as clever as the great heroes who fouhe Sed Dynasty...” Plynx said, before pausing, seeming to grow lost in thought.

  “Mhm, even if we’re twice as clever as we have any right to think we are and we have the imperial guardians, the overthrow of the First Dynasty also took the M’tethon itself,” Bokarza replied. “Which, the st anyone heard the Zuumults were st in their most secure vault in the heart of a p orbiting a bckhole, so... unless you pull the most powerful entity in the history of the gaxy out of your pocket we’re iating.”

  Agent Lee gave a small nod. “I am aware.”

  “You’re aware your mission is doomed?” I’phyl asked.

  “No,” O’tmyil said with a small sigh. “He’s aware that the pn would require the M’tethon. What makes him so fident is that he does.”

  The eyes of every alien in the room turo O’tmyil. Well, every alien except for Plynx who let out aed chirp before spping the table beside her.

  “That was what destroyed Halifax,” she said. “I had wondered what in the Gaxy had happened.”

  AnnouGetting very close to the end, which also means that updates on here might slow down a bit sihey'll be based oing instead of writing... and theually remembering to post them. I get fetful when I don't have the clear 'write a chapter, post a chapter' system. ??

  So, uh... Patreon is there if you're impatient.