Desolation of Erimos
Copyright© 2026 by Rycliff
Chapter 17: Kurkendayhi
Talak arrived at the Birsha residence forty-three minutes after Alliyanna contacted him.
Kahlan arrived with him.
Neither knocked politely.
Mara appeared in the office doorway first.
“Your Grace, Captain Talak and Mister Kahlan have arrived.”
“They’re already here?”
“Yes.”
“They were on Star Shadow.”
“So I was informed.”
Alliyanna looked down at the open delivery packet covering most of the desk.
“Send them in.”
Mara moved aside.
Talak entered carrying two tablets.
Kahlan carried food.
Alliyanna looked at the bag in his hand.
“What is that?”
“Lunch.”
“It’s ten thirty.”
“You said you inherited a one-and-a-half-kilometer ship.”
“Yes.”
“That changed the schedule.”
Talak ignored both of them and went directly to the drawings spread across the desk.
“Where are the specifications?”
Alliyanna pointed.
“There.”
Talak picked up the first page.
Then the second.
Then stopped.
Kahlan leaned over his shoulder.
“Is that good?”
Talak did not answer.
“Talak?”
“Two primary fusion plants.”
Alliyanna sat back.
“Yes. I saw that.”
Talak looked at her.
“You saw it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know what it means.”
Talak stared at her for a moment.
“It means this is not a normal ship.”
“I had worked that out from the fifteen hundred meters.”
He turned back to the plans.
Kahlan put the food on the desk and began reading over another stack.
“Two hundred diplomatic suites.”
Alliyanna looked at him.
“I missed that.”
“Apparently Birsha expected to entertain.”
Talak glanced over.
“How many?”
“Two hundred.”
Talak frowned.
“Suites?”
“Yes.”
“Not quarters?”
“Suites.”
Kahlan continued reading.
“Diplomatic representatives, senators, nobles, foreign delegations, senior administrators...”
He looked up.
“Why did he need two hundred suites?”
Alliyanna thought about Birsha.
Then about his relationship to the Emperor.
Then about the ship.
“Because he expected to become Emperor.”
The room went quiet.
Talak looked at the plans again.
“That would explain it.”
Kahlan sat.
“So this wasn’t supposed to be his yacht.”
“No.”
Alliyanna pulled another specification toward herself.
“It was supposed to be his government.”
Talak began moving through the documents faster.
“Command facilities. Secure communications. Operations center. Separate intelligence section. Medical deck.”
“All of it?”
“An entire deck.”
Kahlan leaned over.
“That seems excessive.”
“Not for this many people.”
Talak pointed at another section.
“Three major hangar groups.”
Alliyanna looked up.
“Three?”
“Main utility hangar, fighter bays and support craft.”
“How large is the main hangar?”
Talak stopped.
He enlarged the schematic on his tablet.
Then enlarged it again.
Alliyanna watched his face.
“What?”
Talak said nothing.
Kahlan leaned closer.
“Oh.”
Alliyanna stood.
“What?”
Talak looked at her.
“Star Shadow will fit.”
She stared at him.
“Inside?”
“Yes.”
“The whole ship?”
“Allie, it’s a hangar.”
“I understand what a hangar is.”
“With room around her.”
Kahlan looked at the dimensions.
“A lot of room.”
Alliyanna looked back down at the drawing.
That changed something.
Until that moment, Birsha’s Pride had felt like an enormous object she had inherited.
A replacement.
Something too large and too formal to belong to them.
But Star Shadow could go inside it.
Home could come with them.
Talak was still reading.
“We need to see it.”
Alliyanna looked at him.
“You’ve been here five minutes.”
“We need to see it.”
Kahlan nodded.
“I agree.”
“Of course you do.”
Talak pointed toward the transfer documentation.
“When?”
Alliyanna found the delivery contact page.
“Inspection by appointment.”
“Call them.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
Kahlan began opening the food bag.
“You should call before he starts vibrating.”
“I do not vibrate.”
“You do internally.”
Talak ignored him.
Alliyanna activated the contact.
They left the Capitol three days later.
Alliyanna had expected difficulty arranging time away from the Senate.
Instead she discovered that being Archduchess had one practical advantage.
She could simply tell people she would be absent.
Mara rescheduled two meetings.
The Senate clerk recorded her expected return.
House Birsha’s legal office confirmed that formal delivery of an Archducal vessel qualified as legitimate House business.
Sol’s only response had been:
“Try not to acquire anything else while you’re gone.”
Alliyanna had promised nothing.
Star Shadow cleared the Capitol system shortly after dawn.
The moment the ship entered open transit, Alliyanna felt something inside her relax.
No Senate chamber.
No staff following her with documents.
No one calling her Your Grace every thirty seconds.
Just Star Shadow.
Viki.
Talak.
Kahlan.
Home.
Alliyanna sat in her usual place on the bridge and watched the stars shift.
Talak had spent nearly the entire trip studying the technical summary.
Kahlan had stopped pretending not to be interested sometime during the first day.
Now both of them had questions Alliyanna could not answer.
“How many crew?” Talak asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You inherited the ship.”
“I inherited paper.”
“Minimum crew?”
“I don’t know.”
“Full complement?”
“I don’t know.”
Kahlan looked toward her.
“How many times have you said that since we left?”
“I don’t know.”
Kahlan smiled.
Viki spoke through the bridge.
“Thirty-seven.”
Alliyanna looked up.
“You counted?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was curious.”
Kahlan nodded.
“Useful.”
Talak enlarged another schematic.
“This still doesn’t make sense.”
“What?”
“The power architecture.”
Alliyanna looked at the page.
“It looks like lines.”
“It is lines.”
“Then I understand it.”
Talak gave her a look.
“There are two independent primary fusion plants, but they don’t seem to operate as simple redundancy.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means whoever designed this intended both to run.”
“For what?”
Talak shook his head.
“I want to see engineering.”
Kahlan leaned back.
“We know.”
Talak ignored him.
Kurkendayhi Industrial Shipyard appeared on their forward display six hours before arrival.
At first it looked like a cluster of lights.
Then the display magnified.
Alliyanna leaned forward.
“Oh.”
The shipyard was not one station.
It was an industrial system.
Long fabrication platforms surrounded a central orbital complex. Construction arms extended for kilometers. Half-finished hulls floated between structural frames while service craft moved around them like insects.
One vessel consisted of little more than a spine and engine section.
Another had most of its outer hull installed but entire decks remained open to space.
A military cruiser sat inside a maintenance cradle with its forward section stripped down to internal framing.
Cargo carriers waited near fueling towers.
Private vessels occupied smaller berths along the inner ring.
Industrial tugs moved enormous prefabricated sections between assembly docks.
Talak stopped reading.
For once, the technical document in front of him lost his attention.
Kahlan stood behind the pilot station.
“That’s large.”
Alliyanna looked at him.
“You’ve developed a gift for understatement.”
Star Shadow crossed the outer traffic boundary.
A controller answered almost immediately.
“Freighter Star Shadow, Kurkendayhi Control. Confirm identification and purpose.”
Talak responded.
“Kurkendayhi Control, Star Shadow. Registered House Kar’Jan vessel. Requesting arrival clearance for Archducal delivery inspection.”
There was a pause.
“Confirm principal aboard.”
Alliyanna leaned toward the transmitter.
“Alliyanna Kar’Jan, Archduchess Birsha.”
Another pause.
Longer.
Then the controller returned.
“Confirmed, Your Grace. Welcome to Kurkendayhi Industrial Shipyard.”
Alliyanna still hated that title over communications.
“Thank you.”
“Proceed vector seven-two by four-one. Reduce to yard approach speed. You are cleared to Archducal Delivery Berth Seven.”
Talak entered the vector.
The controller continued.
“Birsha’s Pride is prepared for inspection.”
Alliyanna looked at Talak.
Kahlan moved closer to the forward display.
They followed the vector through the yard.
A completed naval carrier passed nearly four kilometers to port.
Talak looked at it.
“Large.”
Alliyanna smiled.
Then they turned around the edge of a fabrication structure.
No one spoke.
A ship filled the forward display.
Not all at once.
Star Shadow’s sensors had to pull back the view to fit it.
The hull extended along an isolated docking arm, dark and finished against the light of the shipyard. It was long enough that the perspective distorted the far end.
One and a half kilometers.
Numbers had not prepared Alliyanna for it.
The hull was broadest through the central sections, tapering toward the bow and stern. The upper structure rose above the main hull in a long, graceful sail rather than the blunt command towers common on military vessels.
It did not look like a yacht.
It did not look like a carrier.
It looked like someone had taken a capital warship, a government complex and a palace and forced all three into the same hull.
Kahlan finally spoke.
“That’s yours?”
Alliyanna stared at it.
“Apparently.”
Talak said nothing.
That worried her more.
“Talak?”
He leaned closer to the display.
“Look at the drive section.”
Alliyanna looked.
“I am.”
“No. Look at it.”
“I don’t know what I’m looking at.”
Talak smiled.
That was unusual.
“I do.”
The shipyard controller returned.
“Star Shadow, maintain present vector. Delivery dock will tractor you at five kilometers.”
Talak acknowledged.
As they moved closer, details became visible.
Weapons ports.
Sensor arrays.
Docking interfaces.
Windows scattered across the upper sections.
Large sealed hangar doors along the central hull.
Alliyanna searched for the name.
“Where is it?”
Kahlan looked around.
“What?”
“The name.”
Talak adjusted the external camera.
There.
Along the forward quarter, worked into the hull in letters large enough that Star Shadow could have flown through the height of one of them:
BIRSHA’S PRIDE
Alliyanna leaned back.
“Subtle.”
Kahlan nodded.
“Very Birsha.”
They docked at a reception platform rather than directly with the ship.
A delegation waited.
Alliyanna counted eight people.
Then saw several more standing farther back.
She looked down at her clothes.
“I should have dressed better.”
Kahlan looked at her.
“You’re wearing an Archducal crest.”
“On a travel jacket.”
“They know who you are.”
“That isn’t the point.”
Talak was already at the airlock.
“Come on.”
They crossed into the docking reception area.
A tall woman in a dark Kurkendayhi uniform stepped forward.
“Your Grace.”
She bowed.
“Director Sera Vell, Executive Delivery Manager, Kurkendayhi Industrial Shipyard.”
Alliyanna offered her hand.
“Alliyanna.”
Vell hesitated only a fraction before taking it.
“Welcome to Kurkendayhi.”
She introduced the rest of the group.
Chief systems engineer.
Propulsion engineer.
Command systems specialist.
Delivery counsel.
Senior architect.
Medical systems director.
Weapons integration officer.
Alliyanna lost two names immediately.
Vell seemed to notice.
“You are not expected to remember everyone.”
“Thank you.”
“We have allowed approximately four hours for the initial delivery inspection.”
Kahlan looked toward the ship.
“Four hours?”
“That is the executive inspection.”
“How long would the full inspection take?”
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