Booty Hunter (Harem Station 1)

I have always known what he’s not saying now. He killed them. He never said it back then, either. But when you happen upon an ancient AI living on a pristine abandoned station, it doesn’t take a genius to solve that mystery. Especially one with his reputation.

I knew whoever used to live and work on Harem was most likely murdered by ALCOR. The station was not called Harem back then, just ALCOR Station. I asked him once what his name stood for but he never said. Jimmy and I used to sit around and come up with stupid possibilities. Ass-Licking-Calcium-Oxide-Rectum. Or Artificial-Life-Created-On-Regulus. Stuff like that.

So I get it. And who cares, anyway? Not my people. Not my fucking millennium. And I know this is gonna sound callous and apathetic, but it was just a station. Stations fail. I wouldn’t say all the time, but in my life I’ve heard of three station failures. Three times millions of people died for one reason or another in far-away places.

So it wasn’t something I’d never heard of. Accidents happen.

But he just said… system.

As in… a sun, and planets, and moons. “System?” I say again. Because the silence has gone on long enough now that I realize he’s not gonna answer. “What system?”

There was no evidence of a system when we came through those gates that first time we met ALCOR. No debris field orbiting the station. No asteroid belt twenty billion miles out. No oddly-shaped pieces of rock spinning in the darkness. Nothing like that. It was just… space. Completely empty except for two gates, and a station, and a lot of leftover ice from a comet that came through and exploded eons ago.

“Why’d you bring it up if you’re not gonna answer me?” I say. “It’s not like I need this information right now, ALCOR. I’ve got enough shit on my mind without your cryptic guilt.”

“It wasn’t me,” he finally says.

“Who wasn’t you?” It comes out automatically. But it’s an unnecessary question. Because I know what he’s talking about. So I add, “Who was it then?”

“There was a war, Serpint. A very terrible war between the Akeelians and the Cygnians.”

I stare down at my boots as he says this. Trying to make these new clues solve this new mystery. We’ve been around him all these years and I didn’t know this? I mean, I get it. I was young when I left. And Akeelian boys have a very specific kind of education. You learn a skill and take classes and certifications in that specific skill set, and that’s pretty much it.

Valor and Luck were learning to salvage. Crux was in station management. Jimmy was in diplomacy. Tray was in AI evolution. Draden and I were too young to be on a track, so we just went to normal school. And we did learn some history, but it was mostly recent stuff. Certainly nothing that ever went back twenty-five-thousand years.

“You and Lyra,” he says, “are the same. Genetically speaking, that is. You both came out of that war. The Akeelians—all male—went one way. And the Cygnians—all female—went another. That was the part I played. I separated them and made it impossible for them to ever breed again.”

I laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because it’s a joke. Except not funny. “Guess that little magic spell has run its course.”

“Appears so. Tell me something, Serpint. Do you find it interesting, ironic, or foreboding, that you boys found me all those years ago? And that the one girl you shouldn’t have is now yours? And the one girl Crux should never see again is now sitting in his medical bay in a cryopod?”

“What do you mean I shouldn’t have her? She is mine. And no one’s taking her away from me.”

“That’s the only thing you heard, wasn’t it?” He pauses. And I picture him staring me down and shaking his head. “I’ve been thinking about this stuff since you boys showed up. And then when the princesses started showing up. And how Crux just went along with my plan to collect them. I’ve been trying to figure out if it was interesting, ironic, or foreboding.”

I look up. Stare at the ceiling because that’s my default direction when ALCOR is talking to me. “So what did you decide?”

“I think,” he says, “I think it’s all three.”

“Why do we really need to get Nyleena back?” I ask.

“Because they are starting another war. Their weapons are formidable. Ours are as well. They are of the same technology. But they’ve been regrouping for twenty-five thousand years, Serpint. Planning their revenge on me. There’s no telling what they’ve got now.”

“Us?” I say. “They’re starting a war with us?”

“Do you think Lyra is here by chance? By mistake? Or by fate?”

Shit.

“And Corla,” he says. “Same question.”

Fucking hell.

“Yes, Serpint,” he says when I don’t answer. “They are starting a war with us.”