Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast by Benjanun Sriduangkaew (read me a book .TXT) 📕

origins—such frivolity would benefit neither of us. Put it this way: your birthplace has something I want and if you lend me assistance, I can offer you . . . ancillary perks.”

Death throes vibrate beneath her feet. In the distance, a muted howl of infrastructure under stress. “I prefer to discuss that in more civilized surroundings. Will you require my help to get out?”

Benzaiten spreads xer arms. Fibrous radiance runs under xer skin, a slow-moving brook. “So kind, but I’d be delighted to assist you rather. No? Indeed not? Very well, I look forward to our discussion, which I’d like to keep as confidential as possible. I’ll contact you soon.”

She does not stay around to watch xer exit, to guess and trace the path Benzaiten takes: it will look like sleight of hand to her regardless. No other ambassador of the Mandate—though xe is not ambassadorial either, too independent even for that—has proven as inexplicable and as ambitious as Benzaiten. Anoushka makes her own way through a roseate corridor, then out via a passage that bores through layers of reinforcement and aegis-shielded hull. Her environmental sheath comes on as she goes, darkening and adapting until she is more wraith than woman.

She slips into her harrier, which awaits latched onto a landing berth’s exterior, a slim shark-shape hidden by chameleon fields.

Anoushka takes one last look at the station. A republic, an autocratic tyranny, an anarchist collective: everything falls the same. Bright points of color against the dark that leave afterimages on the retina. In this way such events are commemorated, though not for long. What a quiet thing, she muses, the death of an entire world.

Home is a fleet. This has been the case for most of her life, and it gives her peace to reside in something that moves. A home in perpetual transit, liberated from the physical fact of a single location, unmoored from national or political identity. Not that Anoushka deludes herself into imagining she can be free from those entirely—multitudes of states and factions have hired her, and she has shifted the course of their history in ways small or large. If not by interference through main force, then by transportation of ruinous neurotech, bioweapons, deadly data. No enterprise in the universe can be clean of blood or politics.

She docks into her dreadnought Seven of Divide. When she steps out of her harrier it is Numadesi, first of her wives, who waits for her with a service drone in tow. The drone extends a tray of drinks: jasmine water, pomegranate tea, milky coffee. “Welcome back, my lord,” says Numadesi. “A refreshment?”

“In fact I’d rather drink you. That would be far more refreshing than any tea.” She deactivates the environmental sheath, letting it fold back into her armor, and puts a gauntleted hand on the small of her wife’s back. “You’re like the first ray of dawn after a relentless night. Have you been waiting long?”

“I could wait here a thousand years and it’d be worthwhile. I wanted to be the first to greet you.” Numadesi leans her head on Anoushka’s bicep as they fall into step. “How did your journey go, my lord?”

“Quite fine.” Though it does not satisfy, but such routine work never does.

The rest of her personal staff onboard file into the bay. Her second wife Lieutenant Xuejiao salutes and her physician Doctor Saamiye bows. At her gesture they take a drink from the service drone; even now Anoushka dislikes waste. The drone, tray now empty, moves to take her luggage. Essential supplies, ammunition, medications and nanite shots that maintain her augments. Most of hers are self-sufficient these days, but she never travels without insurance.

Xuejiao stretches on tiptoes to peck her on the mouth—and for the lieutenant, so slight and delicate, she has to stretch far. “You’re such a pillar, Admiral. I missed you terribly and I always forget there’s so much of you to miss . . . Though you don’t have to do so much of your own fieldwork; that’s what I am for.”

“I thought I was commander here.” But Anoushka says this lightly and retracts her gauntlet to let Xuejiao kiss her hand. “How are the new recruits?”

Her second wife settles back on her heels and drains her glass of pomegranate tea. “The quality isn’t bad, I’d grade most of them above-average. Just two turned out to be spies—I’ve quarantined them. I’ll send you their dossiers to review so you can decide if they need executing. At your own leisure, naturally.”

“A good ratio, all things considered.” Anoushka brushes a pomegranate seed off the lieutenant’s mouth. “Have the rest of them submitted their surgery requests, Doctor?”

“Twenty-five percent have requested complete body revision. The rest want minor adjustments. Vocal cords and endocrine functions, very trivial, a few cosmetic modifications. Iris or jawline changes, that kind of thing.” A flick of a dark, slender hand; bracelets jingle on Saamiye’s wrist. “Nothing concerning; I will have the new recruits up and running in no time. They all agreed to be chipped for the probation period. A relief. I hate it when they get precious.”

Soldiers salute her and her retinue as they board an internal tram. The Armada of Amaryllis is in a fallow period, between campaigns. Small operations go on, as ever, agents dispatched for a heist or escort detail or embedded as part of subtler games. But for the moment the bulk of Anoushka’s force is at rest, ships going through checks and maintenance, personnel the same. Resupplies are done in phases, a logistical chain that includes scores of bases, a dozen contracts with factories and shipyards. No matter the nature of her fleet, there’s never a shortage of eager business partners. Some have assassinated each other’s executives in their bids to win Amaryllis patronage.

By habit, she doesn’t designate a flagship: there’s no gain in providing enemies a single convenient target. Most of her frigates and dreadnoughts have quarters set aside for her, distinct from the captain’s. Not always sumptuous—she is used to living lean—but she does make a point of