Now Will Machines Devour the Stars: Machine Mandate, #5

By Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Admiral Anoushka rose from nothing to command an army unrivaled in all the galaxies. She did not rise alone.

War between godlike machines is breaking out, and at its center is the AI who aided Anoushka's ascent. Now payment has come calling: her closest allies are subverted, her body is twisted by poison that bends her toward madness, and her wife has been stolen.

The machines will devour the stars as they battle each other for the ultimate prize: the next step in AI evolution, the key that will give them the universe. Yet Anoushka hasn't survived this long to become collateral damage. She will fight until she no longer can . . . and she will take back what's hers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Prime Books
• Release date: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781607015512

Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Benjanun Sriduangkaew writes fantasy mythic and contemporary, science fiction space operatic and military, and has a strong appreciation for beautiful bugs. Her short fiction can be found in Tor.com, Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Solaris Rising 3, various Mammoth Books and best of the year collections.She is a finalist for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Book preview

Now Will Machines Devour the Stars

Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Copyright © 2022 by Benjanun Sriduangkaew.

Cover art by Rashed AlAkroka.

Print ISBN: 978-1-60701-550-5

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-60701-551-2

Prime Books

www.prime-books.com

No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

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Chapter One

The woman seated opposite Anoushka is much diminished from what she once was. In her prime she was imposing, armored in burnt red, in the shades of incineration and war’s aftermath. It is one reason Anoushka chose alabaster for her title when she took over the Armada: a clear contrast, a signal of seismic change.

Now Imhaan is a figure of wireframes and tight flesh stretched across them. It is not that Anoushka has starved her, but of late Imhaan has eaten less and slept more. Has consumed more intoxicants than is customary for her habits. She remains striking, the face and gaze of a raptor, the skin like pale amber.

To what do I owe the honor of this visit?

There’s no need to be formal, commander, says Anoushka lightly. We’ve known each other for so long.

The suite in which she’s put Imhaan up is generous and well-appointed, archaic in style to suit the occupant’s tastes, done in antique gold and burnt sienna. Bare wood furniture, without upholstery and notoriously uncomfortable, though Anoushka tolerates it. For her former commander, she’s spared no expense and has put in every consideration. Imhaan has two entire floors to herself, an access to a greenhouse, inexhaustible media libraries, and the officer posted here to guard her is an excellent cook. As prisons go, it is the lap of luxury. Anoushka has seen no reason to debase the previous Admiral of the Amaryllis.

Anoushka takes a cube puzzle from the table, turning its palladium-and-brass faces in her hand. Do you recall when a giant cyborg challenged you to a game?

I’m older than you, not senile. Yes. You turned on me not long after. Was that the catalyst?

More than a century has passed since: she no longer needs to deny or obfuscate. I went to a golden city ruled by that same cyborg. Who was not a cyborg at all, in that sense that xe had never been human. An unnatural nightmare place. But I did get what I came for. Accesses that allowed her to take over the fleet and, more than that, the cyborg’s wife Numadesi.

The revelation does not seem to perturb; Imhaan accepts it in stride, because after all it no longer makes a difference. There are two reasons you come here, says the woman once known as the Crimson Admiral. One is when you want information, and reminiscing about an event century-plus-change old isn’t it. Two is when you’re bored with your bed warmers.

Anoushka does not rise to the bait. They were lovers for a brief period, back when she was one of Imhaan’s lieutenants, for the sole reason that Anoushka was curious and drawn to Imhaan’s might: power is its own attraction. She’s not indulged ever since she deposed the Crimson Admiral and imprisoned her here—she has no interest in weakness. I have a wife.

Singular? Last we met, you had two of those.

Circumstances change.

Imhaan looks her in the eye. Are you going to give me a choice?

Every Amaryllis soldier is offered two options. Bullet, Anoushka agrees, or toxin. I promise it’ll be painless either way.

Her old commander interlaces her fingers together, as though they’re discussing supply logistics or the prospect of discharging an inadequate medic. You were always going to visit one last time and suggest two paths. I could agree to be your subordinate and serve the Amaryllis, or I could be executed. I haven’t been wrong about you before, except once, so what happened to change your preference to never discard tools you could use?

Anoushka doesn’t bother denying the thought; outside of her wife, Imhaan is the one who’s known her the longest. I’m developing a habit of tying up loose ends. And you’d never consent to serving me, commander.

No, Imhaan agrees. I have more self-respect than that.

Do you regret having made me your lieutenant?

A slow, satisfied smile. I made you what you are, Anoushka. From the moment I recruited you into the Armada, I shaped your trajectory. However long you live, that will remain true—the rest of your life, your future, will bear a piece of me. Whether or not you like the fact.

She doesn’t bother arguing; might have to even concede that it is true, not that it signifies as much as Imhaan would like. So many people want to own a part of her in this way, and more so when she is about to execute them. A drink, then, commander?

Much less barbaric. Don’t trouble yourself—I’ll fetch it.

Anoushka watches her former commander open the wet bar and pluck out a decanter of whiskey. Two lowball glasses, a slow pour into both. Even now there is a certain elegance to Imhaan, a surety of movement that speaks of an unbroken spirit. Despite the tally of decades, Anoushka still does not know why Imhaan has been so docile. Anoushka captured her alive and put her into suspension, under lock and key accessible to Anoushka alone, for a few years while she established the new hierarchy in the Armada of Amaryllis. Consolidating power took time; enforcing her authority took longer—many were loyal to the Crimson Admiral, resistant to the change of command. In those days she executed soldiers by the score, upended the organizational structure, remaking and refining divisions. The Armada went from a phenomenon of brute force to a finely honed tool, as surgical or as apocalyptical as it needs to be.

Imhaan sets the glasses down. They clink on the sanded basalt table. Anoushka takes one—her sensors inform her the drink is clean, no component in it more harmful than the usual, and her implants let her ingest a great deal of alcohol without effect. The whiskey is indifferent to her palate, but she’s never shared Imhaan’s tastes, not even when they were fucking.

The real reason you’ve never tried to escape this place or sabotage me, she says, inviting conversation, too curious not to. After all, she will not have the chance again.

The Crimson Admiral drinks, a long draw, and turns the glass in her hand. The squat shape of it looks clumsy between her tapered fingers. Regret.

I’ve never known you to be capable of that emotion.

Imhaan peers at her over the wet, glistening rim. That is because I know you better than the other way around. There are things you’ll never unearth. But regret, yes. You turned traitor at the right time. I was furious when I woke to find myself here, yet what more could I want for karmic consequence? A softer fate by far than the cinders I foresaw. I regretted the Armada, Lieutenant. I built up a vast organ with only one function—to destroy. A few years before you betrayed me, I was considering what I could do with it, what other purposes I could turn it to, how I could reinvent it. And there you stepped up to rip it out of my grasp. The wealth and the might and the responsibility. Not that you’ve turned into a charity in my absence, but that’s no longer my problem.

Anoushka finds her mouth crooking. Death’s approach can make anyone maudlin. So you view the Armada as a curse you’ve rid yourself of and passed onto me.

Just so. Imhaan lifts the glass, a toast and a taunt. I’m sure you have enjoyed it. You have built it up so well—you were always ambitious, such a visionary in destruction. But a day will come when you discover power in and of itself does not suffice.

She does not say that she’s already had that epiphany—which is why she is here in the first place—and instead returns the toast. To your retirement, Admiral. She takes a vial from her jacket, uncaps it, and pours the content into Imhaan’s glass. Ideally there would be more whiskey, but the neurotoxin is in any case tasteless and odorless. Normally administered via a patch, but she knew Imhaan would prefer a final drink.

To my retirement. Imhaan drains her glass in a single swallow. Admiral. Amaryllis ascendant.

The toxin is fast-acting. First the muscle relaxant, then the sedative; Imhaan’s head tips backward and her eyelids twitch as she fights the effect. Imagine, she says, voice slurring. "You being the last thing I see. What do you want to be the last thing you see?"

Anoushka doesn’t answer. She waits for Imhaan to turn heavy and still. Her old commander topples from the chair. She kneels by the body: much frailer and lighter than it used to be, stripped of its might and heft, and now of presence. Vital signs gone. This toxin has never failed.

She carries Imhaan to the greenhouse, where the old admiral spent much of her sentence. Laying the body down in the black soil surrounded by crocuses and spider lilies, she says, No doubt I’ll meet my end one day—I’m no more eternal than you were. I haven’t decided what I’d like to be my last sight, though. I’ll come back to tell you when I have. Rest well, commander.

Her harrier One of Sunder is as she has left it, enclosed in one of the two berths on this small station. An isolated, secret property of the Amaryllis, unremarkable enough to blend in with stellar debris. Well-protected but its defenses will not register to most ship’s radars. Anoushka nods to the officer she’s assigned to oversee this place. There is a rotation to keep any one of them from getting attached to Imhaan, but this will be the captain’s last shift here, and then she’ll convert the station to some other use. I’ll be sending a vessel to pick you and the body up.

The captain gives her an abbreviated salute. Yes, Admiral.

She can hear the relief. Excited to return to the field?

I’m honored to serve in any capacity.

I have an assignment lined up. Anoushka makes a gesture. You’ll be briefed on your way back to the fleet, but here’s an overview—it should suit you well.

A blink as the captain reviews the information package. Xer smile is quick, surprised; the operation will be the sort where xe can prove xerself, an opportunity she knows xe has been looking for. Thank you, Admiral.

During her reign, Imhaan chose fear as her primary tool of command. A kill-switch installed in every soldier, among other means. Despite recent events Anoushka has found it more effective to meter out rewards, to understand officers closest to her inside and out: their talents and their vices, their nightmares and longings, where they can be pushed or pulled. Learning a person’s levers and tensile strength requires more finesse than brute control, but it tends to endure better.

Scanning One of Sunder reveals nothing out of order. It seldom does, but Anoushka makes a habit of vigilance. She manually checks each compartment and once she finds that satisfactory, she ensures each of the ship’s subsystems is in nominal condition. Once this would have been automated, done for her by an AI, but she went out of her way to untether the Armada from AI dependence early on—a shift that was incomprehensible to most of the fleet until the secession happened and the Mandate began. It left her army as the only one that weathered the change unscathed, and the period of confusion and mass panic was lucrative.

She seals up the ship, activating its defenses, and eases out of the station. Soon she guides the ship into an Amaryllis relay. There is comfort in the routine, and a certain lightness in having settled all outstanding scores. Most have been business-related, a matter of balancing ledgers. A few have been personal. None have been as personal as Imhaan, or as—but she pushes that thought aside. Over and done; no point dwelling on it.

The taste of whiskey remains in the back of her throat. Anoushka considers washing it down with something else, then decides against it. Her overlays are disconnected, her ship’s network access cut off, an effect of lacunal space. She minimizes her time in it when possible: the nature of her work demands constant communication. On occasion she feels the temptation to linger a few minutes longer than necessary, lately more often than ever. Yet what is she without the apparatus she’s built around herself; what is she without the Amaryllis. Regret, Imhaan claimed, tipped the balance. Turned from a chink in the armor to total annihilation.

But she is not Imhaan. And soon she will be on one of her dreadnoughts; she will be welcomed home by her wife. She shall be as she has ever been: absolute.

The first sign she catches is the scent. Rose and stargazer lily.

She draws without thinking and whips around, the muzzle of her gun pressing into the brow of her second wife Xuejiao.

Her dead wife Xuejiao.

Benzaiten, she says, her voice flat. No wonder her scan didn’t detect a single thing. An AI can easily fool the limited systems of a harrier. A perfect reproduction too, the delicate body with its celadon glaze, its apparent ball joints, its ceramic layers. The look of an exquisite doll, to be taken apart or put back together at her whims, this bride who wedded her in red cloudsilk.

The creature’s eyes widen, heedless of the gun, the rose lenses in her irises unfurling bright and scarlet. Admiral, why would you call me that? I’m your wife. Her sapphire mouth curves. Her perfume intensifies. Your spring song.

I don’t find this humorous, Benzaiten. Though she already knows it is not Benzaiten in Autumn, her sometimes-client and ally. Something is off.

I’m not doing this to amuse you, commander. I am here to please and worship you. I am here to ask forgiveness. Did you not offer me a second chance? To be yours again, to be Xuejiao once more . . .

Anoushka pulls the trigger. Almost immediately she regrets it: the splatter is impossible to avoid, point-blank. The body pitches backward but she keeps her gun trained