Out in the vastness of space, a speck of near black and glittering gold sporting a bright blue tail of fire, like a buzzing fly, encroaches on another ship. The skiff slows a safe distance away. By even the accounts of Abrasax' mighty vessels, this second ship is massive, bristling white and silver tipped with ebony. Whorls and spires extend like feathery quills, while six paired stabilizers float like an excessive array of crystalline wings. Gliding at the fore, a delicate neck reaching forward and lifting what must be the pilot's cabin far into the wash of stars. Portals glow like jewels embedded at the base of each quill. Whereas the Titus ship reminded Jupiter of the great green grasshoppers devouring their small back garden in late summer, this floated more like dandelion fluff down in a Spring breeze.
In the near distance, a trio of smaller, fleeter, dull black ships, sleek and yet bristling with armament, glide in a growing formation. Together, they carve space into a massive triangle of softly glowing blue which ripples, flows out, congeals together, a ship at each point, pulling the platform ever wider. The ethereal, feathery white ship slows as it pulls into range, angling toward the smaller, stern black vessels which continue to hold aloft the pool of blue, where it ripples gently like the surface of some pristine, fairy tale lake, just waiting for a swan princess to alight.
"That's Captain Tsing's cruiser," Kiza remarks. The oval confines of the planetary shuttle behind them, the assemblage now spreads a somewhat more comfortable distance around the more slightly more spacious cabin of Titus' skimmer. Famulus pilots once more, her twin guards standing with watchful tension while Knight and Felicia flank her chair. She shoots Night an accusing glance at the sight.
"What's this about? Knight? Explain."
"Aegis vessels?" Gemma perks up, twisting about on her perch strapped once more to Bob's back, in order to better view the screen. "That's a diplomatic conclave. That signifies a meeting which broaches no interruption." Famulus, minus the power of her own Lord, hesitates t the controls. Night nudges her with his elbow, creating a protective stir among her guards.
"Keep going. Even they," Night jerks his chin towards the white beast of a ship where it hangs in expectantly just beyond the Aegis vessels "don't dare interfere once Her Majesty expects me." All puffed up with himself, Felicia can barely control her finger's desire to preen his pale locks.
"Better and better. " But Jupiter does not sound as if she believes anything is 'better' as they glide beneath the mass of the ship, slip between crystal white protrusions that, upon closer inspection, could be turrets, or the giant noses of glittering guns, and up to a dark hole settled squarely at the base of the ship. "Servent's entrance?" she taunts Night's display of hubris, then sobers as dozens of those brilliant spikes, hollowed like giant canons, follow their trajectory with solemn malice.
Where Titus' clipper had resembled nothing so much as a playboy's over compensating cruise liner, and Kaliques alcazar an immense, luxurious country estate, Morkenin's ship resembled pictures Jupiter had seen of royal museums. For all she proclaimed that she eschewed the trappings of the living in favor or the chill found in the company of immortal sims, yet here was the clutter of an overly long life suffused with the boredom of eternity. As austere had been her palace atop the ice, here must be her true heart. Flanked by a parade of armed sims and royal guards, Jupiter cranes her neck to gawk at the glorious display. Every passage overflows with sculptures of any variety of beasts. Another is filled with rows of busts of children, elegant forms of dancing men and women, even a few chiseled lines of aged faces. As they follow the sim into a final chamber, paintings of a hundred alien skies, tapestries of heavy fabric portraying stories from ancient lives. And overhead, hanging with luminous clarity, the image of the pool of blue hung between its delicate needles of black against the flush of silent stars.
"Why are you here? Mr. Night?" The Empress Morkenin turns dangerously slow, her glittering blue eyes fixing on the albino splice. Diamond and peach pink pearls flash from within the recesses of her thick, black spreading over her shoulders. From beneath folded layers of midnight blue silken cloak, a sheath heavily embroidered with periwinkle blue-on-blue drapes low over her breasts, its train flowing behind her like a mountain lake. Wide bracelets of alternating diamonds and pearls wrap her arms and grace her long neck. Upon her words, the entourage of sims and silver skinned royal guard raise their collective weapons, aiming at the assemblage filing in behind Night. His bravado fails, and he falls to one knee.
"Your majesty, I come bearing gifts!" Chickanery exclaims, swinging an arm to encompass Jupiter and company. Bob's ears whir at the betrayal, while Kiza's eyes narrow and shifts into a fighter's stance to stand in front of Jupiter. Jupiter lays a gentle, restraining hand on her shoulder, swallows hard on the thick lump of fear threatening her throat, and steps forward. Schooling her voice to a confidence she doesn't quite feel, Jupiter rebukes Night, but her words are for Morkenin.
"Wrong. I bring you a gift," she says with equal emphasis on 'I' and 'you.'
"You!" Morkenin spits the word, stabbing Jupiter with her ice blue eyes. "Shall I kill you where you stand? You bring only revolution and death! This outcome was inevitable, tersis."
"Don't believe everything you see on TV," Jupiter replies drolly, shifting her weight to hide her nerves. Morkenin's cold regard flickers along Jupiter's spine, and she spares but a single moment to chide herself for the pointless reference. Brushing aside any further chance of making more fool of herself, she jumps straight to the point. She lifts the sheave. "This is why I'm here."
"Your speech?" Felicia scoffs, reaching out with a flourish as if to swipe the sheave from Jupiter's unsteady grip. Jupiter blocks with her elbow, flashing a momentary grin that Caine and Kiza's work was being put to good use. Stung by that fleeting image, she shoves the ancient sheave just beneath Morkenin's disdainful nose. Running her royal seal over the quiescent surface, the sheave glows its response.
"Look at it!" She commands, then more softly, "Just look." Morkenin scans the image hovering just above the flat glass face. Her eyes narrow and her nostrils flare with disgust.
"My unlamented great, great grandfather." She pushes the sheave back towards Jupiter with a scowl. "Destroyer of our family honor. Creator of the great gene plague."
"Wrong." Jupiter glances at the sheave herself, offering Morkenin a deeper look. "They lied." A tumble of other words collide behind Jupiter's eyes, but she stills them, allowing Morkenin the time to absorb the concept. Her terse words stoke the fires of Morkenin's longing, of a dignity robbed, of a family denied her, something Jupiter understood all too well, and had recognized the same in this, her enemy.
With a slow determination, Morkenin reaches out one strong, elegant hand, accepting the sheave.