Chapter 74

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* The Kintark Empire requests a cease-fire with the Terran Federation, but is secretly refitting every ship on Kinta with Brimorian tech. They plan to enslave all Terrans.
* Alyssa and Edraele bond, creating one-to-many connections with each other's network.
* Tashana, having the same DNA as her twin Irillith, escapes with Edraele's private shuttle. She appeals to Matriarch Tsarra Perfaren with her proof of Mael'nerak to help stop John together with other Houses.

## Summary

The Kintark Empire is suppressing news of its losses in the Regulus system as as the Emperor ordered, Grand Prelate Melkadian told the massive dragon.

They requested a cease-fire from the Terran Federation. The Kintark believe they seek to use the lull in the conflict to repair all their forces in preparation for a counter-offensssive from the Dragon March, as the Emperor suspected.

The Kintark made a deal with the Brimorians for their tech, and they're recalling their entire fleet for refits. After that, they'll crush the Terran Federation and use the billions of Terrans as slaves. The reptilians, not humanoids, will become the dominant species in the galaxy, Melkadian believes. *(Note: Kintark are actually reptilian humanoids.)*

The Emperor sends for The traitor who had just arrived in Kinta. Then he asked Melkadian for news of the Lion of the Federation, with his voice muted to a cautious rumble, the first time Melkadian heard him speak like that.

Tashana uses her old security ID on a terminal to access her data for every Progenitor and thrall artifact and facility that she'd managed to uncover.

She found what she was looking for: an image of hand-sculpted friezes on the walls of a Maliri thrall facility in Epsilon Aquarii IV, from the same system she's in now. It was a depiction of Mael'nerak and his white-haired Maliri thralls massacring his enemies. She copied that along with more damning evidence to a data stick. For evidence of John Blake subverting the present day Maliri, she took still images of the videos that Irillith sent her.

Alyssa and Edraele bond.

Tashana sneaks around the station, knocks two guards unconscious, and then cuffs and gags them. She steals her mother's private shuttle, which was easy considering she has identical DNA as her twin sister. As she leaves the Epsilon Aquarii system, she summons a burning ifrit and fries her tracking chip that was an inch above her collarbone. She is finally free.

John got a quadruple blowjob from the young matriarchs and emptied his quad.

The girls oversleep and no one has heard from Alyssa or Edraele that morning. On the way to check on them, Luna and Rachel find out about gagged and bound guards from Melandris, an officer from the garrison forces. When they find out that Edraele's private shuttle was stolen, Rachel realizes goes to get Jade and Irillith.

Dana turns on Faye's server.

It's afternoon by the time Rachel, Irillith, and Jade check on Alyssa and Edraele, and they still haven't woken up. They tell John about Tashana. The Genthalas Flight Control gave them Tashana's exit vector, which showed she was heading back towards the Unclaimed Wastes.

Rachel scans Alyssa and Edraele, showing that they're both fine, but there is greatly increased activity in their frontal cortices.

Rachel explains it like a relational database:

* When Alyssa bonds with a girl, it’s a one-to-one relationship. She represents a central hub, with each of the girls linking only to her, and their combined strength augmenting John with psychic energy.
* As another Matriarch, Edraele's mind is designed to work in the same way. She’s set up basic one-to-one connections with every Maliri in her network.
* Alyssa and Edraele probably tried to set up a similar one-to-one relationship with each other, but each of them has their own network of girls linked to their mind. Their minds are trying to set up a one-to-many relationship with every girl in each other's respective network.
* If it works, then Edraele will be able to communicate telepathically with each other's network.
* If they set up a many-to-many relationship then they'll all be able to communicate telepathically with one another, rather than just with their Matriarchs.

When Rachel suggested that Luna bring the two guards to John for healing, Luna thought it would be sensible to also bring the young matriarchs' bodyguards for John to fix. Edraele had done something to their minds to get them to assassinate the old matriarchs and sisters, and there is still something unnatural in their bearing.

Irillith has the Valaden Fleet Commander relocate some fleet assets to spreading out to form a sensor web on the edge of Valaden territory, to make sure Tashana wasn’t able to slip past and make her way back to the Unclaimed Wastes.

Irillith checked the tracking device only to see "Signal terminated." Faye apologizes, saying she didn't think this would happen. Irillith suppressed her flare of anger and asked her everything that happened.

Alyssa and Edraele are now awake, both with extreme migraines. Rachel was right; they do have one-to-many connections. She was amazed at the intensity of Alyssa's bonds. In a deadly-serious voice, Alyssa replied, “*We fuck a lot, and I’m very good with my fingers.*”

Alyssa realizes Tashana's heading to the Unclaimed Wastes was a ruse. "*She’s wily, like her mother and sister.*" Edraele suggests she may be seeking asylum in another House.

Alyssa and John work to install the Singularity Drivers. Afterwards, Alyssa telepathically tells Rachel, "*Maybe I should look into getting a big strapon? The Maliri seemed to love watching me and John laying some pipe with two huge shafts..."*

John wonders why the rules regarding Edraele's connections to the Maliri are quite different to Alyssa's. Edraele is able to establish empathic links with the Maliri after John's only been with them once, while it takes three times before they’re permanently bonded to Alyssa. They resolve to ask Rachel.

Sakura chats with House Aeberos engineers that she was coordinating politics engineers.

* The intricate web of precarious treaties and vicious feuds amongst the Maliri Houses remind Sakura of the deadly games played by the Shoguns in feudal Japan on Terra.
* Aeberos and Naestina are as close to allies as was practical in the Regency.
* Houses Valaden and Loraleth are viewed with fear.
* Ghilwen is overlooked as a once-great player that was now on the decline.

Sakura’s engineers keep to themselves, and barely speak to women from rival Houses, and view them with suspicion. However, the first group of white-haired Aeberos engineers have a dramatically different outlook regarding Maliri inter-House politics. They greet any white-haired Maliri like friends regardless of House affiliation, while being courteous to any of the dark-haired girls from other Houses. By contrast, those Maliri viewed Edraele’s wards with an air of reverence. The recent recruits have a calming effect on tensions between Houses.

John empties his quad in four bickering noblewomen. When he asks Edraele why she chose *them*, she asks him to just consider it a personal favor. He starts regenerating the neural whip scars that marked all of their backs, and then focuses his will, and starts undoing the mental trauma they suffered that turned them into *horrible little bitches*.

Tashana meets with Matriarch Tsarra Perfaren, who first asks Tashana why her mother is poised to strike Tsarra's territory with an overwhelming alliance of enemies. Tashana tells her it's a bluff; her mother would never risk damaging Tsarra's fleets, because she wants to take every ship Tsarra has, and give them as a gift to her Progenitor Master. Tashana's mother’s been enslaved by a Progenitor, as have her sister and at least four other Matriarchs. Edraele assassinated the old Matriarchs from Houses Loraleth, Aeberos, Naestina, and Ghilwen, and has replaced them with the youngest daughters of each ruling family. They are her pawns, and have almost certainly been enslaved as well by now.

Tsarra asks why she should listen to Tashana, who removes her mask and says she hates her mother more than Tsarra does. "*Because my cunt of a sister and vicious bitch of a mother took every **fucking** thing away from me! But I'll be damned before I let them destroy our whole civilization!*"

Seeing Tashana's disfigured face makes Tsarra feel sick. Aadya tells Tsarra she thinks Tashana at least believes she's telling the truth. Tashana shows Tsarra and Aadya the data stick with proof, who are affected by behavior modification when they see Irillith. Tashana explains the Maliri are conditioned to respond that way to thralls. The effect is far more dramatic with a Progenitor, so she didn’t dare show them him.

Tashana suspects the reason she isn't as affected by the Progenitor and thralls is because spent over twenty years studying Mael'nerak and that foreknowledge protected her, and also allowed her to identify him on sight.

Tashana says her sister has a sophisticated recording device that contained testimony from Mael'nerak’s original Matriarch, who warned of the threat the Progenitors posed, and was the one who ordered the Maliri to hide their faces behind armor. By keeping themselves hidden, she hoped to avoid attention from another Progenitor. It worked for nearly 10,000 years.

Tashana convinces Tsarra, and suggests getting help from other Houses.