Work Text:
It takes a concerted effort of will to stop herself from grimacing as the herald announces their presence. His voice blasting out from half a dozen points around the massive hall. In unicola, of course; she can already hear half a dozen different dialects of oube even from the top of the impressive set of stairs leading in.
Picking one would have probably set off some sort of minor political upheaval. Imagining her brother trying to master just one of the dialects almost sets her off all over again, though this time it's at least a laugh she has to keep smothered.
"Announcing, The Honorable; Arm of Exigent Justice 3rd Stacie Conrad and Her Highness, Princess The Chord Sung into the Void to Invoke Peace!"
She keeps the smile plastered on her face. No better in unicola than in imperial. But personal names are not fit for princesses, the world certainly can't know her as simply Beca Mitchell, that would be beneath the dignity of her family and blood.
It has to be admitted though, it does lose something in the translation.
Down we go, Princess.
Beca growls across the link to Stacie, and sends her a particularly rude thought, but starts descending the stairs in time, still smiling and waving despite the string of curses she's worked in her head. This whole stupid affair is an aggravating waste of her time. One to clean up a mess that isn't even her own, now that she's here though Beca knows she might as well make the best of it. Try to have a good time.
Her smile turns a bit more genuine as the two of them settle on level ground and Stacie finally lets go of her arm.
The black of her dress uniform almost matches some of the deeper blues of Beca's outfit, a swirly wrap of contrasting deeper and lighter blues that was way more trouble to get on than it should have been. Red accents and moonsilver piping make Stacie almost look like a naval officer, some prissy rich brat that bought their commission. Granted she is a prissy rich brat, one whose family has stake in half of Earth's equator at both ends of the gravity well, but she hardly bought her position. Not that Stacie would have needed to, half the academies were chomping at the bit to have her attend. And not even because of her friendship with Beca.
Stacie is one of the most gifted pilots alive, maybe in the last two centuries. Maybe Beca would feel guilty about having her play chauffeur when she could be playing fighter jockey against asteroids and comets or running laps around other rich idiots, if Beca didn't provide her with the best toys money could buy. And some that money definitely couldn't.
Heads up, future in-laws incoming.
Beca frowned, mentally of course, and sent back.
I'm not the one marrying their… son? Daughter? Which is it?
Daughter. And you know what I mean.
A tall, stately woman, with sharp features and a dangerously amused twinkle in her eye approaches with a broad shoulder and broad chested man on her arm. Both of them have that delicate, long limbed look of low-grav populations, even if the man bucks the trend a bit. In Earth normal grav even Beca could probably break them both, not that she would. Necessary violence is more Stacie's deal. Not that she would either.
Being so far out in the system has Beca thinking weird things.
Thankfully she is saved from any more of that by their arrival, "Katherine and M. Junk," the woman extends her hand, smiling broadly.
She immediately feels like there's something she's missing out on. Which probably means Beca should have actually digested the precis on this whole deal, but seeing as she really didn't want to be here showing up is a victory all on its own.
Katherine Junk is right, but that should be Craig Hardon.
Besides, why bother when she has Stacie to fall back on.
"M. Junk, M. Hardon," Beca uses her most beneficent princess smile, hoping to glide right over any confusion.
"See dear, I told you they wouldn't send us some ignorant know-nothing," says M. Hardon.
"Nonsense, nonsense," his spouse waves him off. "I was only trying to adopt the imperial custom, we are about to join them you know; the lesser spouse takes the higher's name."
Beca hesitates, verges on correcting her, but keeps her smile plastered across her face instead. While it's true that tradition is you take the higher name of the more socially advantageous spouse, it hardly matters outside of dynastic politics; like the ones their daughter is about to marry into. So.
"My daughter took my name," Katherine Junk says, leaning in conspiratorially. "Couldn't exactly have the girl running around with the last name Hardon. Imagine that."
There were of course dozens of cameras and microphones pointed at them, so there was no chance of any real secrecy. Not without a privacy filter.
But from her spouses grin Beca didn't think she was actually looking for that. What exactly the woman was looking for she had no idea, feeling very suddenly even more lost. She was distinctly certain there was a joke she was missing, but for the life of her Beca couldn't figure out; probably some sort of pun that only worked in oube, or a reference that made sense in unicola.
Words games had never been her strength. In imperial her name was something of a backhanded insult, a lot really got lost in the translation from imperial to unicola, and Beca hadn't realized it for three years.
In imperial her name, ati-Bocchem Tzuintze-di entre Uod Mol ou Bocc-di, if you broke it down, worked out to: [the act of singing, henceforth] [one-simple progression of notes] [put into, made to go forth] [emptiness, lack] [calmness, pacification] [from] [one-speaking].
So while, The Chord Sung into the Void to Invoke Peace was technically a correct translation, her name could also translate to A Simple Melody Sung Without Feeling . Not flattering. Practically an insult.
"You'll soon be solving that for us."
At her side, Stacie frowns for a moment, catching something else that Beca doesn't. Or maybe just reading some unpleasant mail, there's a distant look in her eyes that tells Beca she might not be paying complete attention.
Beca smiles, and really wishes her brother were here actually doing the duty he was meant to be doing. It's his wedding and yet somehow Beca finds herself entertaining his soon to be in-laws in his absence, she isn't sure how long it'll be before they start asking questions about his itinerary. Questions she doesn't actually have the answers to. If she can make it through the evening, hopefully her dad and the rest of the family will have figured out how to get him halfway across the solar system in two weeks.
Otherwise it will be down to Beca to smooth things over, get the Junks and Hardons and the rest of the Ushasan shoal to agree to a delay in the ceremony without calling the whole thing off. And honestly, her current efforts are about the limit of her diplomatic skills. It's why she has been swanning around in her own private yacht with her friend for the last five years, not being burdened with official duties.
No one wants another incident like her grandpapa's bicentennial. So Beca smiles and nods, like she knows what's going on.
"What will her name be," M. Junk asks. Stacie pinches at Beca's side, something wrong. "Once she is wedded?"
Not urgent enough to send to her directly though? Or too sensitive? Beca continues resisting the urge to frown and turn on her friend and confidante.
"She will take the private, family name. Which you will of course be free to use, but, ah," she gestures to the room. "It is not for public use."
It's stupid, but some things not even Beca is brave enough to challenge when the eyes of her entire family and a good quarter or the solar system are on her. Another pinch at her side and this time she risks a quick glance at Stacie. A wild look is in her eyes, almost manic. Though she doubts anyone besides herself can tell, the cues are remarkably subtle. Fuck. Beca will have to make a polite escape for them and find out what the hell has gone wrong in the twenty minutes since they left the ship and made their way into the hall.
"It is very impressive, all that your people have done," she waves to indicate everything. Not just the hall, but beyond it and uses the gesture to quickly glance around for somewhere isolated.
Spots a little darkened alcove, probably designed exactly for this sort of occasion. Now all she has to do is work them out of this conversation. Easier said than done, of course.
"Ushas has been, continues to be, the work of generations," M. Junk says. "Birthplace, graveyard, home, and art piece all at once."
"We caught only a glimpse of it on the way in," adds Stacie. "Hopefully we can see it fully before we leave."
Beca nods.
"Oh, for the wedding for sure," M. Hardon.
Junk bobs her head in agreement, "Yes, all the shoal's ships and trawlers will be swanning about. We can be well lit up for the reception, it will be a sign of good fortune before the Honeymoon."
Something about the way she says it is setting off alarm bells in Beca's head, but M. Hardon is already moving on before she can more than note it.
"Now, we saw that beauty you came in on. Any chance…"
*
*
Nearly half an hour later, the two of them finally manage to break away and dodge the circling social sharks long enough to slip into the cubbyhole and drop a privacy filter. The sounds of the party immediately dull to a muted whisper. Beca's vision of the party also blurs into indistinction, a proper filter could give them one-way visibility but neither of thought to take one when before they left the ship so all they have are the built-in features for Stacie's devex.
"We have a," Stacie starts as soon as the filter has settled over them. "Okay, it might not be a problem. But there's some things you need to see."
"All right, what is-"
Before the words are even out of her mouth a stream of data is flying over the link, straight into Beca's neurolace, a barrage of images and snippets of text conversations and scattered audio clips that overwhelm her for an instant. It's a sign of how upset the other woman is that she has to adjust at all. After a moment Beca is a little more oriented and actually processes what's in front of her.
"What!?"
It doesn't make any sense. The marriage was arranged decades ago. Public information for nearly as long, her brother has literally been in correspondence with his fiancee, Beca has seen the messages- well, she's seen him reading them. Admittedly she never bothered to ask whether they were from who he said they were from. Why would she?
But even so, literally no one has ever said anything to Beca about this at all. Not in twenty odd years. Not even a message on the way here. It simply isn't possible. She hasn't pissed them off that much, Beca is sure of that much.
So why the fuck is, what appears to be the entire public social space of Ushas, convinced that Beca is here to marry rather than settled nerves about lateness?
"This can't be right," she says.
"Haha, very funny Stacie. But this really doesn't feel like the time for pranks."
It sounds hollow even as she says it.
"Fuck, fuck a duck," Beca swears, then straightens and blows out a long breath. "Not sure how the hell it happened, but I think we can clear this up pretty quickly."
Stacie's hand on her arm stops her before she can walk out of the privacy filter.
"I'm not sure we should, Beca."
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
"Not yet at least," she says. "I know where the problem is, though I'm not sure I entirely understand everything at play; technically, oube, linguistically, doesn't reference gender under most circumstances. Hardly ever really. And the agreement doesn't actually reference a specific person."
Because her brother had been all of ten at the time and not publicly presented yet.
"Of course, the Imperial version references 'Prince' and 'he' multiple times each, but whoever translated it into oube at the time did a sloppy job."
She frowns, then rolls her eyes. Imperial chauvinism yet again rearing it's ugly head to fuck up Beca's life again.
"Not hearing a reason yet why we should march out and clear this whole thing up."
"Well," Stacie says. "The whole reason for the agreement was to cool things down. If the Ushasans think the wedding is going to happen…"
Beca gaped, shook her head, "You're not seriously saying you think they would attack us?"
"Honestly? No."
"But, we're all alone out here," she let that hang, then, "Let me go back to the ship and use the q-com. Find out how the family wants to handle it. While you just…"
The next words out of her mouth were a foregone conclusion. Really, she'd known they were coming since the second Stacie had stopped her from stomping out of the filter to fix this whole mess straight away. And really she was right, things were too uncertain to risk Beca opening her big mouth without knowing more of what was actually happened further in-system.
"Make nice."
Her brother might only be a few days late, or even on time. Beca can dream.
"Fine," she grit out.
*
*
Once the privacy filter had dropped and Stacie had run off Beca felt more alone than she'd ever felt in her life; technically speaking she could keep talking to the other woman the whole time. But neither of them fully trusted the quality of the cryptography they were sporting, not when the message would be routed over Ushasan relays.
When it was just dumb cat pictures, or ribbing over who hadn't gotten laid recently, or similarly meaningless chatter it was one thing. But now that things are serious, now that politics are involved there really isn't any reason to take any chances. So Beca is functionally alone in a room crowded full of people. M. Junk and Hardon are nowhere to be seen and despite ostensibly being the guest of honor, most of the people in the crowd actually don't pay much attention to Beca.
Not, quite true, perhaps.
With the sudden freedom and desire to pay attention, now Beca is starting to notice that the gathered people are paying attention to her. Just not approaching her.
A difference between social mores? In any imperial court of note she would be beating off enthusiastic conversational partners, metaphorically speaking obviously, at every turn. Maybe they expect Beca to be the one approaching others? Or, they might be snubbing her. The relationship between inner and outer planets has always been somewhat fraught.
Well, no way to know for sure except to test the waters.
Beca selects one group and starts her way over. Dressed in what looks like either very gaudily ornamented vacuum suits or simply suits designed to mimic the appearance of them, she picks them out in the hope that she can at least talk them about fashion or the intricacies of safely egressing a ship for maintenance. Either will do.
"Good evening," she says.
A chorus of Your Highness's go up, but then just as quickly as they acknowledge her the group returns to their conversation. Virtually ignoring her except for the little space they allow in their circle for Beca.
"I'm telling you," one, a fiery haired slip of a boy, says, "Xi, Ratri's alloying sector won't recover in time to meet their shoals' demands. This is a prime opportunity to foster exactly the sort of-"
"So what? You're saying I should send off half my clan's stock to build the- on an errand?" Cut in a square jawed woman to Beca's right. "It would take weeks just to get the transports ready, and Lanti is in a better orbital position besides."
The first speaker scoffed, "They won't lift a finger to help Ratri, not when…"
On and on the conversation went and it wasn't so much that they were excluding her as they were talking about things which Beca had no real base of knowledge in. Deliberately. There were a few points at which it seemed like conversation might be dying down, inevitably one member of the group would reignite it, perhaps in a slightly different direction, but still kept just as incomprehensible for her.
Eventually she wandered away to find another group.
This time she chooses a group of men and women dressed in simple black suits of the sort she had seen at any number of imperial parties, entirely standard fair. Beca hopes maybe that means they have an interest in imperial things.
"Good evening," she says again.
"Your Highness," goes the chorus again. This time accompanied by slight head bobs.
Not quite proper court etiquette, but closer than the simple nods she got with the maybe vacuum suited group.
"Did you see how close Samsonov was running to the ideal trajectory in his last burst?" Asks one of the women. "I'm telling you, he's going to edge out Fung in the end."
One of the men shakes his head, "They're still accelerating. Fung is going to cut him off by cutting directly across the track, hit the next relay direct."
Gladly this is a conversation Beca actually feels qualified to participate in, maybe not at a technical level, but having Stacie at her side for so long she has at least learned something about racing. If only as a spectator.
The Jupiter Major is one of the more prestigious races and the two of them were in fact watching the latest results on the way in to the Ushas, and talking about this exact thing.
"The window for it is tight. Too tight. Fung is going to miss it and have to decel to catch back up," Beca says.
"Her team has never managed that sort of precision before and the fact that she's asking them now means she's desperate. Desperate racers make mistakes."
The man's eyes flick towards her briefly, but otherwise no one actually acknowledges anything she's just said. In fact one of the other women says, without ever looking at Beca, "Whether or not she can make that maneuver, Samsonov still has the edge in total time. He's a full week ahead of her, cumulatively."
And so the conversation goes on. It's distinctly odd, Beca is tempted to chock it up to them deliberately snubbing her for some internal political reason, but there's a distinct discomfort in the group that's not actually directed at her. More like, around her? At the situation.
She tries a couple more times to inject herself, each time to similar results. Then she retreats to try again with another group. And gets the same experience.
Beca moves on again and it's the same. Every attempt she spends less time on trying to insert herself and becomes increasingly confused over the whole deal, she really has no idea what is going on here.
She is literally this close to saying fuck it and skipping out on the rest of the party and damn the consequences, when somoene else sidles up to her.
"It's bad luck to come between the wedding parties."
At first she's not even sure this woman is talking to her, but there is literally no one else around so Beca figures she's safe from misunderstandings. She towers over Beca, the perfect picture of an outer belt princess; long limbs, pale skin, and dark hair. Dressed in something that seems less like a suit or a dress and more like a series of long strips of cloth wrapped tightly over her body to form an interwoven tapestry. Pretty, beautiful, but with a face that screams 'innocent.'
So of course Beca is instantly on her guard. Even more so because she knows this face.
One of the few things she did actually absorb from the info packet the family transmitted before she and Stacie put the hammer down, the face of her brother's fiancee. And maybe Beca should be attaching a 'supposed' in front of the fiancee part. Stacie would tease about the fact that out of all the information they were sent, Beca only took in the part that included a gorgeous woman.
Emily Junk continues, "We're supposed to be spending all our time together, strengthening the bonds of our alliance. Mostly it just seems to lead to awkwardness."
Oh.
Well, that explains things.
Unfortunately it also puts Beca squarely in the position of having the confront the problem she was specifically supposed to be trying to avoid, spilling the fact that 'oops she's not the right imperial offspring and would you mind waiting for him?' Now what does she do? Probably say something vague that can be misinterpreted.
"And as most of the wedding party," including the most important part of it. "Isn't here yet, I've put people in a bit of a bind, haven't I?"
She gets a slight nod.
"But not to worry, I'm here to rescue you."
Beca smirks at that, catches herself and tries to turn it into a more demure smile. Flirting with her brother's fiancee is a supremely bad idea.
"If you can prevent me from further embarrassing myself or my family, both will thank you," which apparently won't stop her from doing it.
The smile that breaks out across Emily's face is dazzling. This is all such a bad, bad, bad idea. She really should just turn tail and make a run for the yacht, no matter what the consequences might be for that they have to be better than pretending to be the fiancee Emily thinks she has.
"Walk with me?"
Emily offers her arm, and Beca like the idiot she is, takes it. Yeah. Good ideas are thoroughly out of the picture now.
"I caught some of your conversation with my parents," she says, and her smile turns sharp for a fraction of a second. "Tell me, what is it you find most impressive about Ushas? I don't imagine you've seen many vessels near its size."
This at least Beca has some idea about, she might not have absorbed much of the important facts about the people of Ushas and it's attendant shoal, but machines and numbers have always been easier for her. People can hurt you. Machines can too, but usually only when you fuck up. Sometimes people do it just because they can.
"Besides the twenty-six point seven one kilometer beam and the seventy-nine point five kilometer length?" she asks.
Rhetorically of course. She knows this is a sort of test of some sort to see if she was just being polite or even going for subtly patronizing by complementing the 'impressive outer system yokels.'
"You have one of the first gravitic torsion engines to be employed out of navy hands and still the largest ever built in nearly five centuries. At any moment your magnetic dynamos produce a shipwide magnetosphere approximately one two-hundred and fortieth as strong as Earth's," Beca knows she's rambling at this point, but this stuff is actually honestly fucking cool to her. "Which allows you, at peak processing, to mass forge enough raw materials to feed three other Great Shoals. And that fact that with a population of-"
"Okay, okay," Emily laughs. Beca immediately wants to hear her do it again, wants to make her do it again. That's bad.
"You've proved you weren't being a condescending ass. Now rather than telling me more about my, wonderful, home why don't you tell me about yourself."
It's only then that Beca realises Emily has led them from the grand hall way she and Stacie arrived in to a side corridor, still busy but significantly less crowded. The other woman shows no sign of stopping any time soon and even though part of Beca wonders where she is being led to, a much larger part of her really doesn't care. Still, she has to ask, if only so she can run screaming in the proper direction later.
"Where are we going? Not that I don't trust you, it's just that-"
Emily laughs again, oh yeah that's the good stuff, "Oh, don't worry we're almost there. Now, about yourself?"
She sighs, wonders how to answer without giving away the game. Bare facts seems best, least room for ambiguity and maximum honesty without actually opening herself up to any tricky follow up questions.
"Second child of Their Imperial Majesties A Light too Bold to be Contained and The Peak Parting the Storm Clouds in Autumn , for the last, oh, five or so years I've bee-"
With a hand pressed just over her heart, Emily stops her. Brings them both to a halt and turns to face Beca.
"No, no, not the biographic facts. I want to know about you; what do you love to do, your great joys and sorrows, how you want to change the world."
She blows out a breath, "That's… a lot."
Emily shrugs, smiles and tugs on Beca's arm to start them going again.
"Start with what you love to do. The rest we can get to later."
"Well," Beca laughs. Her heart thuds against her chest. Later? Later once Emily is married to her brother? Oh but that smile and that laugh.
"I do love machines of all sorts; engines, assembly arrays, mass accelerators, mechanical toys, you name it I've tried to get it working."
She pauses, "Not always well, and you shouldn't put me behind the controls. But making it work I can do."
" Ekzi ra otopi ," off Beca's blank look she laughs and shakes her head. "Hmm, how would I say it unicola? Grease covered mollusc? Someone who's always down in the guts of your ship looking for that last little bit of efficiency."
Finally they pause at a door. Emily opens it, but Beca is still too focused on her to do much more than follow her lead in through the door.
"I'm not quite that bad. Honest. They only thing I really get sucked into is mus-"
Her brain stops processing for a moment. Two. After three seconds of stupefied staring Beca manages to get her thoughts tumbling in something resembling good order.
It's a forest, a jungle. except stretched across three dimensions and backlit by nothing but starlight and distant fusion torches from the darting ships of the shoal. Green and alive with darting feathered things in brilliant oranges, shimmering blues, and half a dozen other iridescent hues. Bird calls or at least something like them greet Beca's ears.
A river literally winds its way through the air, twisting through dense floating copses of swirly trees, and floating boulds drift by dipping their edges through the water. Beca takes a few more steps forward, off the small veranda and onto a short soft lawn, and realises they are on a sort of shelf of artificial ground. Mostly because she can see others like it above and below them. The entire space is technically under zero-g conditions, there are people leaping off of forest-shelves to sail their way to distant tree-islands and a large globule of water into which others are diving from one side only to emerge out the other.
Immediately her mind goes to the stupendous energy budget it must take to maintain all this, the fine degree of control their systems are capable of to keep it all carefully arranged and safe. And how dangerous it would be under a power failure situation. Except of course that that would only mean a return to a normal, or rather it would be the small shelves which would suddenly lose their artificial gravity. But under thrust- no, Beca laughs to herself, thrust on Ushas only comes from the gravitic engine. If there's thrust to move a ship of some almost two-hundred thousand cubic kilometers there's enough spare capacity to maintain this little jungle.
"You did say our engines were a point of interest to you, I thought you should see one of the fruits of that accomplishment," Emily says as she joins Beca.
This must be a familiar sight to her, almost mundane, but there is a delighted smile on her face at being able to show off this sight. To her fiancee. Who Beca isn't.
"It is a wonder," she says. Emily, maybe detecting something in her voice, frowns.
"Do you want to return to the hall?"
She shakes her head, there is nothing she wants less. Beca might be feeling guilty about how she's taking advantage of the situation, but that isn't going to stop her from doing it. Later she'll learn to live with the guilt, for now she'll enjoy being with this woman.
Another brilliant smile.
"Come on then," Emily waves her over towards the edge of the shelf. "There's a spot I want to show you."
Then she dashes forward and leaps, arms out spread. Long trailers of her dress-wrap flutter behind her as she starts to fall into the abyss, only for a moment, once Emily slips free of the localized bubble of gravity her momentum only carries her slowly onward. Twisting with a grace so natural that it can only have come from living in a place where gravity is optional, she flips end over end until she's facing Beca upside down.
Beca laughs, not so much hesitant as enjoying the show, and after barely another moment chases after her. That briefest moment of freefall is still terrifying, the lizard brain insisting she's just leapt to her messy death, but then training takes over and Beca is whooping. In another moment she's catching Emily by the foot and pulling herself alongside her.
That sudden familiarity is probably dangerous. But right at the moment Beca can't find it in her to care.
"I assume you have some hidden thrust in that thing," she gestures Emily's dress-wrap thing.
Months aboard her yacht have Beca in the habit of never going without emergency zero-g utility, her boots have approximately thirteen seconds of thrust in them, rechargeable over three minutes in atmosphere. Having to use her legs to aim can be a bit awkward, but at three meters a second of delta-v she's in no danger of being immobilized.
"Of course, but I have something much better."
And then without explanation Emily whistles a short little tune. Nothing happens at first and Beca looks around, maybe for a pair of assistance drones or something similar. Still no sign of any response.
When she looks back at Emily, there is only an expectant smirk.
That's when Beca feels it, like being sandwiched ever so gently between the fingers of a giant, as two even planes of gravity press against her, front and back. Her ears pop at the subtle but sudden increase in pressure.
An undignified squawk bursts out of Beca. Emily laughs. They are carried off in a rush of wind.
None of the other people enjoying the park, forest, whatever, seemed to be carried about by invisible cocoons of gravity. In fact Beca distinctly remembers seeing most of them wearing belts and gloves of some kind.
"Wha- how do- why even-"
Emily just laughs more and in between, says, "Rank, even out here, has privileges."
Of course her family literally founded Ushas, along with a dozen others true but they are essentially responsible for the lives of much of the population of the ship. It might be less formalized than the titles of nobility of the inner system, but the same hierarchies still exist.
The ship carries them on in those envelopes of gravitic force, careening them in long bending swoops and hairpin turns that would have otherwise been literally impossible. Beca lets herself enjoy the sensation.
It's over soon enough anyways as they were deposited gently on the surface of one of the more distant drifting isles of trees. As the gentle, persistent, pressure of the ships gravity field releases them, Beca looks up at the diamond-glass window that is now less than twenty meters away and marvels. Emily waits a moment for her to get her bearings, before again grabbing hold of her, by the hand this time, and leading Beca deeper in.
The trees are like nothing Beca has ever seen before, curling and twisting about and around each other towards whatever light source fuels them. Walking through this little copse is more like walking through a tangle of vines than any forest familiar to her from Earth or Mars or even Venus' strange inverted groves. They're through them in a moment and into a small paved clearing circled by benches.
Glass and crystal are laid into the stone beneath her feet in a stylized depiction of the solar system. There the warm orange of the sun, Earth in blues and greens, Mars a red-green-blue swirl, the glittering sprinkle of diamonds that is the inner belt, then the Jupiter in muted off-whites and browns with a glaring red spot, and on until eventually the twin blues of Neptune and Uranus. She can understand why someone might want to come out here, it is a very pretty piece of work.
"A peaceful little hideaway," Beca says
"Legend has it some of the stones date before the founding. Stolen from Earth and Mars before our flight," Emily follows the line of Beca's gaze.
"Honestly, it's been a long time since I paid much attention to the art. I come out here for that ."
Looking up she sees Emily gesture up towards the relative sky of the the place, and it is undoubtedly an impressive view; half the solar system open to view, glittering stars and the attended ships of Ushas' shoal. Impressive, if she hadn't seen similar sights just like it thousands of times. Hardly unique or really much better than the view from the original shelf they enter on.
Beca is wondering how exactly this woman who has spent her entire life in space can find it something to marvel over when, at a subtle gesture, the view distorts.
Darkness and stars ripple as the diamond-glass seems to lense. Then the sky above them is filled not with the shoal, but with the banded sphere of Jupiter, the edges of the distortion blended nearly seamlessly into the greater tableau.
"There's something about seeing it like this that never fails to inspire," Emily says.
"Inspire?" Beca asks. "What sort of things does it motivate in you?"
Emily blushes and glances her way, like she didn't expect the question.
"Writing, lyrics for songs."
"Just lyrics?" Beca asks. "Or the music for them too?"
She shakes her head, "No, both. Mostly simply harmonies and melodies. I've never really made much effort to learn how to do anything more complicated, I know I should if I'm going to write songs, but I just- I don't know."
"Um, could you- I mean, would you, maybe, sing something for me?"
"Here?" Emily goes adorably wide-eyed. "Like, now? Right here?"
"Yeah. If- only if you want."
A moment passes where neither of them says anything. Then another. Emily is practically staring Beca down, or maybe staring through her.
Finally she says, "Okay," she nods. "Okay, but I'm not, uh, I'm quite done with it so… um, don't be a dick."
She gasps and brings her hands up to her mouth. Apparently not what she meant to say, Beca finds it fucking hilarious and laughs which makes Emily herself laugh in return.
"Sorry, sorry, that was angrier than I meant."
"It's okay," Beca says, then a thought strikes her and she grimaces. A flash of probably inappropriate anger surges through her. "Have people given you a hard time about it?"
"Oh, no, not really," a sigh of relief floods her. "I just, when I get nervous I have trouble regulating what comes out of my mouth," adorable.
"So, um, okay, here goes," Emily's eyes slip closed as she breathes out and sings.
When tomorrow comes
I'll be on my own
She opens her eyes and Beca can see the uncertainty in her eyes scattering with each note. There's something to her voice, a sort of open vulnerable quality that grabs Beca by the throat and bends her in close.
Feeling frightened of
The things that I don't know
When tomorrow comes
When tomorrow comes
When tomorrow comes
Eyes closing again, Emily really seems to be starting to feel herself in the rhythm of the song. Without entirely meaning to Beca starts humming along. As Emily builds and builds in confidence, she feels herself starting to be dragged along with the passion she gives off.
The other woman notices after a moment and she's clearly thrown a bit, but she doesn't stop, just smiles nervously back at Beca and keeps going.
And though our orbit bends long
I look out into void
Darkness all around
Without breaking rhythm Emily says, "That, that part I'm still working on. Nothing's totally set, yet," then she's back into the song.
I got all I need when I got you and I
I look around me and see a sweet life
I'm stuck in the dark but you're my navlight
You're getting me, getting me through the dark
It's maybe a little, cheesy, the line about navlights and the dark and all that. But the poetry of being someone's navigation light, the literal object which guides their ship into safety, is pretty good. Already Beca can start to see how she could build on that, construct a backing for Emily's voice singing those words.
Maybe something upbeat and bouncy.
You are my navlight
Emily trails off into a whisper, she's breathing a little heavily, and slowly the confidence she had gained through the song seeps away. She doesn't quite get nervous, but she comes down a little from the obvious high of a performance. No matter how small. And then stares at Beca semi-expectantly in silence.
Right, she should probably say something.
Instead of a bland, safe, compliment what comes out of Beca's mouth is, "It's a good start, I think. Maybe some of the lines could use some polishing, but yeah it's good. And I think if you had like a- " she realizes what she's doing in the middle of her thought.
"Oh, oh, I'm sorry! I, um, I make music too. Not the lyrics but all the other stuff and I just, sometimes I get carried away with, um, yeah. Sorry."
Emily is over to her in a flash, "Oh. Oh, that's right! Right before we came in you were saying… no, it's okay, really. I wish I had someone to talk to about this stuff, most of the time it's all just up in my head."
She sits down next to Beca. It does feel nice, talking about things with someone else. Technically she has Stacie, but Stacie is… she's different somehow in a way Beca can't entirely explain. Talking with Emily is different.
*
*
When Beca returns to the yacht later that night, it's actually sometime the next morning. Three in the morning by local clocks, she can do the mental math for what time it is back at the Imperial Palace except she has literally no reason too. Stacie's call should have woken every damn person up within a matter of minutes.
There should be answers waiting for her.
And the second she sees Stacie sitting anxiously in the lounge, her hands clasped tightly together, waiting for her Beca knows she has them. She also knows they aren't going to be ones she'll like.
"Fuck ," she says softly.
Stacie grimaces back. They've known each other long enough that some things don't have to be said, of course this does because there are details but Beca gets the gist of it anyways just from that look. A look that says her family is about to ask her to do something and that Stacie has already worked out that it really is the best option, but Beca still isn't going to like it.
That could mean any number of things. Honestly, right that second Beca isn't totally sure what it is she is and isn't willing to do and why.
It would be easier for both of them if Stacie could just, link all the details over to her, it would take literally seconds. Doesn't mean they'll do it, something have to be done with words.
"Okay," Beca says. "Hit me."
"Your brother has gone completely dark. At first they thought he was just going on one of his jaunts, that he would surface in a week, but that was over three months ago."
Stacie sighs, rubs her face tiredly, probably she's been back and forth with half the naval commands across the system at this point trying to track down any sign of Theo. Fruitlessly. If he managed to avoid being found so far it means he has well and truly skipped out and that he had help.
Heads will roll, eventually. But it means everything is down to Beca.
"The real kick in the twat is that when he first vanished, palace PR put it out that he was starting his way out to the outer belt for wedding preparations on one of the old solar-sailors. Figuring the long travel time could smooth over any blips, meaning even if they found- "
Beca shook her head, "Doesn't matter. What's the solution coming out of the palace?"
Not her family. Thinking of it as being her family deciding will hurt too much. Things like this are always the palace making the decision, or the throne.
"They noticed the same language that I did," Stacie says. "And, the thinking is that since local word is you are the promised heir why not just…"
"Go with it," Beca finishes.
Her friend nods. Six hours ago she would have raged, thrown a fit and threatened to take the yacht and mimic her erstwhile brother and disappear into the vastness of the solar system. Even three hours ago Beca would have been prepared to exact a high blood price from the palace.
Now…
Now she's all but ready to go with it on the spot. And that frightens, but not enough to actually stop her. Stacie nods, well, if she's going to do this she might as well do it her way.
"Okay. Do you think it can wait until morning to let the Junks and Hardons know? They might still be up, but maybe we should think about how to come at them with this."
The way her friend is wincing Beca already knows what's coming and really she should have expected it, after all the imperial family has to appear perfect in all situations. Even when they're splintering and fracturing from the weight history and bullshit.
"Yo- Uh, the palace, is worried about the reaction here; about them calling the wedding off. That they might take it as an insult, you being slotted in your brother's place," Stacie shrugs.
For as much as she's better about reading the packets they get sent, neither of them is exactly good at the whole political game of it all. Charming one person, sure, but pleasing the wants of a whole community? Well, both of them are more comfortable with machines.
And the worst bit of is that Beca sort of agrees now that she is thinking about it. The piece of her that was set to agree is suddenly worrying about what Emily will think or do if she finds out Beca isn't who she was supposed to be expecting. More than the political implications or impacts, that is what makes her hesitate. It's selfish, she knows, and probably more than a little screwed up morally speaking and all sorts of recklessly irresponsible to be ready to marry a woman she's known less than half a day.
Except for the first, Beca has never really been any of those things. She tries to be kind and good and she rarely ever acts without a pretty damn good idea of what it is she wants, without a plan. Granted, Beca's not making any promises on the quality of her plans but she usually has one.
"Fuck fuck fuck!"
Right. So no telling the Ushasans that actually it was her brother who was supposed to be marrying Emily and that he skipped out on his responsibilities, so instead they're getting Beca.
Well, if that's the rub, maybe Beca should extra a nice bloody price from them.
She pours all her anger and all the old bitterness in the grin she gives Stacies, who answers with a smile of her own that nearly matches. Beca says, "Okay, so here's how I want to twist their arms…"
*
*
There are two weeks before the wedding, a wedding Beca was prepared to attend only as family of the groom but it's okay the yacht's onboard extruders can handle something as simple as fabric. As far as the details of the ceremony go, it has all pretty much already been set in stone. Really she barely has to do anything besides give her okay to a few minor details. Beca gets it all done in a couple of hours, though she stretches out her approval over a couple of days just so it seems like she's giving things their proper attention.
Mostly she spends those two weeks alternating between spending hours on hours with Emily and freaking out with Stacie in the yacht. Stacie, who, by the way, is a lot less sympathetic than she could be. At least at first.
Though that might have to do with why Beca freaks out that first time. It happens literally the night after after a morning spent exploring the less three-dimensional public parks of Ushas. Some of them.
"... standing there looking at me. So I panicked and I told her to call me Chord ."
Beca whirls on Stacie and throws her hands into the air.
"Chord!"
Her friend just cackles back at her.
"Dude, this isn't funny. What am I supposed to do? We're going to be married in, like, twelve days and she doesn't even know my name."
"It's a little funny," Stacie shrugs. "If it bothers you so much, just tell her."
"But what will…" oh, right. Fiancee.
"Just don't do it in a public broadcast and it's fine."
Right of course. Privacy exists. Beca has grown so used to living her life out of the yacht; trusting no one but Stacie and the three crew members with even the tiniest piece of her, that it didn't even cross her mind to just tell Emily.
"I'm an idiot," she sighs as she collapses next to Stacie on the couch.
An arm slips around her shoulders, "Yeah, but you're hot."
She doesn't get the chance to tell Emily right away. Even though they spend basically all afternoon and the next night together, it's in public with hardly more than a few stolen moments together in private. It doesn't feel like enough.
Beca enjoys herself, meeting Emily's friends and family. And thankfully the rules about not getting between the wedding parties only applies at public events, apparently, or maybe it's that Emily is with her so no one is getting between them? Whatever the reason is she gets to have actual conversations with people over a series of, light, lunches.
Then they go dancing for hours.
Ushasan dancing shares some similarities with other spacer cultures Beca has experienced in the last few years, lots of tight embraces and exaggerated movements that only balance out when your partner is in sync. Consequences of learning to move in zero-g at a young age probably. The music too shares some characteristics.
For Beca who first grew up with Terran and Martian music it's always a little strange to hear stuff that completely avoids any note that might reverberate strongly. But she can make sense of it, even if the chances of any sort of resonance are low, when the things keeping you alive are in such a delicate balance it doesn't pay to take risks. Things might be far removed from the days when a single fault could kill an entire ship but the lessons have stuck. So she's learned to enjoy music without pulsing bass beats and high, piercing, notes.
It's not unpleasant, just unfamiliar to the ear of someone who grew up most in atmosphere.
She enjoys the sensation of holding Emily close, of feeling skin glide across skin in the heat of the club of watching her sweat and squirm and laugh. Maybe she's not exactly the most graceful dancer. But she is very enthusiastic, which accounts for a lot.
Stacie even hits it off with one of Emily's friends who came along, a redhead that seems to have a similar attitude towards finding people to share her bed with if the aggressive flirting she does with practically everybody is any indication. Beca's not sure if they plan on finding their way into each other's sheets or comparing strategies. She never finds out either, somewhere along the way they lose each other, Beca and Stacie, and when she gets back to the ship sometimes after midnight Stacie isn't there.
Half an hour later she stumbles in and refuses to answer Beca's questions.
For her sins she has to sit through a solid hour of Beca freaking out over the fact that she's lying to Emily. It's probably a fair exchange.
During the late morning Emily makes her first visit to the yacht, sans friends, and Beca gives her a tour. All the systems have lockouts, meaning she can't access anything in the systems beyond basic functions so there's no worrying about Emily discovering anything. The cycle through the lounge, bridge, private rooms, dining room, kitchen and are exploring hydroponics when Beca decides it's time to do it.
She grabs Emily's arm gently and pulls her from the row of tomato plants, "Hey, um…"
But she can't quite get the words out at first, it's been so long since she had to actually tell anyone her private name. Florencia was the last person and they spent nearly six months crawling through the guts of an old broken down Jovian battlecruiser together before that happened.
Emily frowns, reaching out for her hand and clasping it, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm okay, I just- My name is Beca Mitchell," she blurts out.
"When you asked the other day, I was… I panicked, but I want you to know my name, my real name. Um, you still have to call me the public one or part of it, in you know, public. But when we're in private, like this, you can call me Beca. If you want."
Emily gazes wonderingly at her, "Okay," she says. Then, past hooded eyes, with a slow enunciation that curls over the sounds in a long caress, "Beca."
Something powerful fills her hearing her name fall out of Emily's mouth, and she shudders with the feeling.
"I'm going to kiss you now," Emily says. And does.
It's not the first kiss they've shared, though it is the least chaste. Most of the others were simple pecks, experimental and still sort of hesitant as they test the boundaries of their relationship. This is still just lips against lips at first, though there's something deeper about it even then, but then Emily's tongue flicks tentatively against her and Beca's mouth opens automatically.
Soon enough they're pressed against a column of miniature pear trees, practically devouring each other. They're in hydroponics for close to another hour. When they emerge, their clothes are neatly in place, hair tidily brushed, and lips more than a little swollen. Stacie gives Beca a look when the emerged back into the lounge but otherwise keeps quiet.
And so they settle into a sort of routine.
Every day, give or take a few when Emily is called on away for some duty, they spend six to twelve hours in each others company learning about each other and doing some sort of 'activity.' One day they spend several hours playing some complicated zero-g sport, which Beca at no point fully grasps, then retreat into a spa for several more hours while.
Days after the tour they actually take the yacht out, this time with a handful of Emily's friends, and visit some of the larger vessels of the shoal. That actually ends up being a two day excursion. In the midst of it Beca and Emily suit up for a spacewalk and lie in dim light of the sun, barely more than a wan marble at this distance, lay against the hull just talking about nothing over their suit coms for more than an hour. On the way back to the Ushas the next day they watch an incoming asteroid from the belt get caught for processing by one of the shoals myriad ore ships.
Emily takes Beca swimming in one of the coral-kelp forests buried deep within the massive ship. An entire underwater ecosystem that has never seen raw sunlight or touched anything but recycled water or melted asteroid ice; a combination of larder, water filtration system, and oxygen production component. Full of fish so docile Beca can just reach out and grab them. Jellyfish that won't even sting a human. Playful squid/octopod hybrids that circle around them like curious children until, at Emily's urging, Beca tosses them a small light up ball that begins the strangest game of fetch she's ever been part of.
They eat the same squidopods two days later, not literally the same ones, but the same kind and Emily doesn't even blink an eye.
There's more dancing, a lot of eating, and so many quiet walks through small secluded corners of Ushas that Beca literally can't count them all. Her neurolace could tell her in a blink, but she doesn't ask. Two weeks turns into one, turns into mere days.
On the third day before the wedding Emily wakes her up near midnight, most days neither of them wants to push things late, and insists she get dressed. Not in anything fancy she says. So Beca picks out one of the bland crew jumpsuits they wear most of the time on the yacht, which is apparently acceptable, then she's blindfolded and they set off.
At no point is she told where they are heading. Emily keeps insisting it's a surprise and Stacie, who is coming along for some reason, is just as unwilling to give Beca any sort of clue. Traitor.
Their course, long and winding as it is, takes approximately forty minutes, includes two rides on transport capsules and Beca is sure has them well within the deepest bowels of the ship. A low hum starts to build towards the end of the sort that she can literally feel in her bones and that is at once annoyingly familiar and foreign. She tries to reach out with her link one time when they stop and she hears Emily talking in a low voice to someone else and promptly gets slapped down by Stacie.
Moments later they're moving again and the sound of voices surrounds them. Not like people talking at a party, but more like the murmur of conversation as people get on with their work.
They stop.
"Close your eyes," Emily says.
Beca hesitates but obeys. She feels the other woman fiddle releasing the tie on her blindfold, but before she takes it off she leans in to whisper in her ear.
"Don't open them until I say, okay?"
She nods. The blindfold comes off. After a moment Emily grasps her shoulders and moves her a bit, then a bit more.
"Okay."
Beca opens her eyes and blinks away the sudden burst of light.
Finds herself in something that could fit the hall she entered on her first day in one corner. Not so much a room as a building laid on its side, if that concept had any value on a ship, filled with a giant mass of machinery. Vaguely familiar machinery. An irregular cylinder one and a half kilometers long and a hundred and seventeen meters wide capable of generating gravity fields as small as a cubic centimeter and with enough power to shift the massive bulk of Ushas.
The largest ever Gravitic Torsion Engine ever built, staring her down from less then twenty meters away.
"Oh."
"I though, since you admired it so much," Emily says. "You should see it before we…"
She blushes without finishing her thought. Beca kisses her, long and deep, on impulse. Ignoring the low whistle Stacie lets out, she bumps foreheads with Emily once the kiss has ended and enjoys a quiet moment of savoring the care and joy in this gesture.
Then, she turns eagerly to look at the massive machine before her, "How close can we get? What can we see?"
"Anything not behind a sealed security door," answers another voice, a scruffy looking tall guy in an official looking uniform. "And as close as the first safety boundary."
Beca looks back at the engine, sees three layers of brightly colored safety rails surrounding the entire machine. Or rather the slice of it visible to her, there's gotta be at least a floor above and below to access other parts of the machine. Sharing an eager, kid in a candy store look with Stacie, Beca rushes forward.
*
*
The wedding is taking place in a large, multi-tiered plaza, with an overhead diamond-glass ceiling near the prow of the ship. Preparations had to go through the night to make sure everything was ready and running properly, but Beca only arrived two hours ago and has been waiting in various states of dress since then. Stacie has been her near constant companion, leaving only to make sure the parts that they care about are going correctly. So food and booze in that order.
She hasn't seen Emily since the night before.Twice before they said goodnight, Beca was seconds away from spilling everything and right at that second she's regretting that she didn't because her entire gut is twisted into uncomfortable anxious knots. At thirteen minutes she starts pacing and yells at the attendants until they leave.
All three scurry away wide-eyed and gossipy. Her mind is repeating a constant mantra of the most vile swears Beca can think of, usually one of her surest ways to help calm herself down but right now it's doing absolutely nothing.
Eight minutes until she has to go out and prove herself a fraud and a liar. To a woman who Beca is pretty sure she loves more than life itself. And for all that that's romantic love story bullshit that she's never once believed it, doesn't make it any less true. She wants to vomit, to throw up all the awful lies she's swallowed these last few days and come clean.
Five minutes.
At four minutes, forty-five seconds Emily walks in. Beca is inordinately glad that Ushasan culture doesn't have anything ridiculous notions about brides seeing each other on the wedding day.
"Emily," she practically shouts. Emily just smiles and comes over.
Okay. She can do this, at least if she confesses in private she might be able to make her escape to the yacht before the news hits the public net and before everyone knows what she did. Before she has to see Emily's heartbreak play itself out.
"I um, I need- no, that is there's something I should-"
But Emily is there before she can do more than stumble over her words, pressing a gentle finger to her lips.
"Don't say anything. There's something you should know, Beca," she melts to hear her name from those lips.
"When I was seventeen I decided to learn imperial on a whim. Just to do it. It was hard, there's not much call for it, because everything we received gets translated into polta by expert system and anything that doesn't is usually only interesting to academics.."
She pauses, grips Beca's chin in one hand and gives her a long love filled look, "So it was difficult to get material appropriate for my linguistic ability, which is not particularly high," she laughs, "But I did it. And then I discovered it was difficult for another reason."
"Your pronouns are so confusing, see. All this business with feminine and masculine, we have gender in polta of course for when we need it, and unicola too; but that at least treats it sensibly. As a modifier. You imperials though… with your lords and ladies, your hosts and hostesses, your princes and princesses."
Emily let that last word hang.
"It took me some time, but I learned the difference," she held Beca's gaze, then pressed a kiss to her lips.
"Don't make me wait, okay."
And with that she was gone. Leaving Beca alone to process.
One minute.
There wasn't anything to do but laugh, long and loud. From relief and the flood of adrenaline still coursing through her blood. She wonders if they can hear her outside, what they think of her at that moment, then decides she doesn't care.
Twenty seconds.
Beca dashes out. Time to face the music.