Epilogue
RóISíN
"It's the Borg," I said, my heart pounding in my chest as the woman in front of me wiped sweat from her forehead with a small towel.
The Empress of the Norratar Empire stared at me, the long purple silks hanging down behind her from their anchor on the ceiling, framing her lithe, muscular, human body.
A blond Norratar rushed forward, taking the towel from her, and the Empress stepped off the thick mat and onto the spring floor, her hips swaying as she strutted toward me like she was on a catwalk, the tight cling of her full-body leotard leaving nothing up for imagination.
"Well, that sums up a problem in one pop culture reference about evil space cyborgs," she said as she reached me. She pursed her lips. "Alright, I'll give you five minutes. That's all the time I have before Zelda is done with her lessons, and I'm not missing out on my kid time, so go."
She walked past me, and I scurried to follow alongside her as her attendants streamed behind us.
She headed across the padded room, away from where the aerial silks hung down to where long poles jutted out of the ground.
A personal acrobatic gym wasn't where I was expecting to meet with royalty, but I didn't expect to meet with royalty at all.
"Thank you, your um, majesty," I said, hoping that was the right term to use, as no one had told me anything.
I'd been hustled off the cruise ship into a shuttle with barely a word, other than that I'd been summoned because of what I'd sent in through the open reporting app.
The Norratar had setup a web portal where anyone could report anything they wanted that they thought was a problem the Norratar should address, so after I'd processed everything I learned from Lithoame, I wrote up a quick summary and sent it in through the portal.
I knew that the actual momentum would come when the Oamelithica ambassadors arrived, but I needed to do something. I didn't think anyone would read it. What I wrote was a mess, a jumble of facts that I hoped would get put into the record somewhere.
I certainly didn't expect to be hustled into a shuttle by a squad of Norratar soldiers with nothing more than a promise that they'd return me to the cruise ship in an hour.
I certainly didn't expect to be brought before the Empress herself and told to explain the problem in a single sentence while she hung upside down from a pair of aerial silks.
"They aren't the actual Borg; they're called the Calicium, but they take people and cut them up to build cyborgs.
The Oamelithica have been trying to reclaim people, but everyone they've rescued dies because their cybernetic implants kill them.
They use a divide and conquer method initially before outright warfare, where they build up the greed and avarice in native populations through the use of infiltrators to trick them into harvesting the natural resources of their own planet to both gain resources and weaken defenses.
When the planet is damaged badly enough, then they come in and scoop up the population to turn into more soldiers," I said, hoping that I could get enough information out quickly enough. We reached the pole.
"And you came by this information by fucking?" the Empress asked, her lips twitching at the corners as she reached up high on the pole and took a good grip. She took another grip lower down and then kicked up, lifting her lower body up high in the air.
"The Oamelithica share all their memories with their scent-bonded mates," I said. "So… yes. I got this information through fucking."
The Empress hooked her ankles around the pole and then let go with her hands, lifting her upper body out away from it.
Then she dropped suddenly with a squeal, one of her arms shooting toward the pole.
Tentacles shot out from between the knuckles of her hands, wrapping around the pole, and she twisted midair, landing on her feet.
This was my second time seeing osae in person before.
One of the humans on board had mated with a Norratar, and her osae expressed itself in a Medusa-like fashion.
I'd seen them when she did her hair. I knew with the Norratar, the symbiote expressed itself in only one way, but in humans, it manifested in different ways.
"That's so cool," I breathed out.
"If it was cool, I wouldn't have slipped. Pole is harder when sweaty. Now, are the Oamelithica capable of sharing information without fucking?" she asked, ignoring my admiration of her alien symbiote.
"Yes, they have ambassadors on their way," I said.
"Good," she said. "I want you and your mate to write up every detail that you know about the Calicium and submit it to the new task force…
. Ratharr, put together a task force to assemble this information.
Not just military, but scientists and social engineers; we need to find ways to identify infiltrators before they do damage.
Make sure there is a Taygetan expert on the task force.
I don't want to ignore the possibility of them working with the Calicium; they're going to be mad about us retaking Earth for some time. "
"Yes, Your Majesty," one of the Norratar sang.
"Ok, Rose was it? Rose, how do you feel about you and your mate ditching your cruise and moving to my mothership to work directly on this?" the Empress asked.
I didn't bother correcting her pronunciation of my name; that wasn't what was important right now. What mattered was that the information had reached someone who could act immediately, and she was making shit happen.
I wanted to be a part of that.
"I would be honored," I said. Then I gave a little half bow. "But um, I do have to warn you, my mate smells bad. He said it would go away after mating, but I am now aware that it can come back if he gets very… excited… and the Norratar that smelled him beforehand had very strong reactions."
"Then stay on the cruise ship for now," the Empress waved a hand. "Veyarr, give Rose a fast shuttle, transfer ownership to her, one of the newer models with the controls set up for humans, and assign her a pilot until she learns how to fly it."
"Yes, Your Majesty," another Norratar sang.
"You're giving me a spaceship?" I gasped.
The Empress leaned in toward me, her eyes sparkling.
"I'm the fucking Empress," she said, as if she was sharing a secret. She let out a witchy cackle as she leaned back and planted her hands on her hips. "You better get to work bitch."
"Um, yes, Your Majesty," I said, feeling both exhilarated and terrified.
My heart leaped in my throat at what I was about to say next, but I had to say it because right now, the Empress of the Norratar Empire wanted me to work for her, and I had the most leverage I had ever had in my entire life.
If she was willing to throw around keys to spaceships as if they were nothing…
what else could she do for me? "But you know, there is something that would help me work even harder. "
"Name it," the Empress declared.
"My cat, Mr. Snookums…." I started.