Chapter 73

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* Dana gets the Progenitor ship specs, but no details.
* Edraele tells John about the assassinations and the young matriarchs. She had conflicting orders with the ones Progenitor John gave her. John has to get used to the idea of being a Maliri king.
* Tashana pretends to get along with others, but now plans to escape and warn the other Houses.

## Summary

Matriarch Tsarra Perfaren bites her nails apprehensively. For the past two weeks, large fleets from Houses Valaden, Loraleth, Aeberos, and Naestina have held position along her border, poised to strike at any moment. It doesn't make sense. Any two would be a match for her forces.

Dana unlocked the schematics for the Progenitor ship.

* Two kilometers long
* The drive room for the Wormhole Generator
* She can see where everything should be, but the details are missing.

They consider going to Arcadia to see if the Progenitor ship is still there, so that Dana can unlock new tech.

Nymaleth thanks Leena, apologizes for questioning her orders, and swears absolute loyalty.

Tashana has Faye show her the airlock as they approach Valaden's Genthalas Shipyard. She wants to warn her mother about John. She hears others coming, and tells Faye to *open the fucking airlock*. She jumped out, only to see that her mother and her assassins were already thralls.

Fake-Edraele asks Tashana to forgive her. Tashana pretends to forgive her, saying she's happy to be home, and asks if she can get some rest. Fake-Edraele had Fake-Makaela show her to the quarters Fake-Makaela's prepared. House Valaden might be doomed, but there were still other options open to save her people.

Edraele begs John not to break her bond. She's happy as she is. John does anyway. Rather than slashing through connection though, he eases his consciousness back from hers, decoupling the enmeshing of their minds. When Edraele felt the colossal might of his mind brush against hers, she felt like she was in the presence of a god.

Edraele feels the same as she did before. It's not surprising, considering he rebuilt her mind from nothing. John connected them again, this time as more of a supportive partnership without the compulsion to obey him.

John has a threesome with Alyssa and Edraele. He is now a motherfucker.

Edraele doesn't think she deserves to have more children. She's still feeling guilt despite the fact that the emotional pathways of her memories are blank. Alyssa suggests her higher consciousness must be trying to deal with them as best it can.

Tashana leaves her room and walks around the station. Valani starts a conversation with Tashana, who told her that a lot of people are in terrible danger, and she's I’m trying to figure out how to warn them.

Rachel breaks the refit into phases and allocates teams. John and Jade are in their own team, working on *team motivation*.

Edraele assembled 800 engineers. Irillith knows House Valaden doesn't have that many.

Edraele introduces John to the young matriarchs: Leena Ghilwen, Kali Loraleth, Nyrelle Aeberos, and Valani Naestini. John doesn't finds out from Irillith their mothers and sisters had to have been assassinate. Edraele explains: "*It was unfortunate that events had to play out this way, but in order to obey John’s orders to subjugate the Maliri, I was left with no other choice.*"

Edraele's orders:

1. Always address John as "My Lord" (until he subsequently asked only refer to him that way when intimate.)
2. "You will help me subjugate and enslave the Maliri, broken little toy. Your people will make fine servants to begin my conquests."
3. "Do everything you can to improve the lives of the Maliri living on the planets under the control of House Valaden."

The assassinations conflict with John's policy to ban killing and torture, but Edraele's resolution to the conflict was that subjugating all the other Noble Houses will put them under the effective control of House Valaden. Then she'd be able to implement policies to ban torture and assassinations on their worlds as well.

While John was gone, Edraele assassinated 12 noblewomen to achieve his goals. Torture has been banned, and there’s only been 57 murders rather than an estimated 2,317 fatalities, based on trending averages. John will make a magnificent king, and she's taken steps to allow him to take his rightful place as their monarch.

John goes to brood alone at his massively increased responsibility.

Alyndra, the lead technician at Genthalas’ primary Fusion Reactor, thinks Dana's current idea is even crazier than from last time.

John chats with the engineers. Jade reassures him. Now she stays with him out of choice, not by necessity to have a master.

Ceraden receives a call from Edraele, who tells him haughtily that due to his crashing profits she's removing his charter with House Valaden. She'll extend it by another year of he comes to Valaden to deliver a package. He can get a ride with the Valaden engineers she sent to Geniya. He's worrying about it when a white-haired Myriana says, "*Come back to bed Ceraden, my love.*" Ceraden had started courting her a few weeks back. Myriana talks him into going to Valaden, and offers him anal.

They cut the Invictus in two to make room to add Singularity Drivers.

Dana makes some new elements with Alyndra and Makaela. "*I don’t know about you two, but doing this sort of groundbreaking stuff makes me really fucking horny!*"

Tashana finally returns Irillith's call, pleading with her to look at the attached video archives, but she tells Irillith to go fuck herself. Tashana sneaks through the station, feeling sorry for the enthralled, happy women. She talks to Valani again, and finds out she's a matriarch, and that the other young matriarchs and she are waiting see John Blake. Tashana pleas with her, "*It’s not safe for you at Genthalas, Valani. If you have any sense, you’ll avoid John Blake like the plague, and leave on the first transport out of here!*"

Tashana stalks out the room. She has to warn the other Houses.