Desolation of Erimos
Copyright© 2026 by Rycliff
Chapter 18: The Fragment
On the second day aboard Birsha’s Pride, Alliyanna discovered a forest.
She had been looking for the gym.
That was not entirely true.
She had been looking for anything that did not require a briefing, signature, engineer, shipyard representative or formal explanation.
The Kurkendayhi delivery staff had withdrawn to a much smaller support presence after final acceptance. A skeleton crew remained aboard to assist with transfer and familiarization, but the ship was now legally hers.
That meant everyone had begun asking her questions.
Crew recruitment.
Command appointments.
Provisioning.
Senate registration.
House markings.
Security protocols.
Berthing.
Weapons authorization.
Insurance.
She had escaped into the Archducal residence after breakfast and taken a corridor she had not used before.
One door opened onto a private exercise room.
Another onto a spa.
The third opened onto sunlight.
Alliyanna stopped.
Warm air touched her face.
She stared.
Trees.
Actual trees.
Tall tropical plants rose toward a curved ceiling several stories above. Flowers grew beside stone paths. Water moved somewhere beyond the vegetation.
For several seconds she genuinely wondered whether she had taken a lift without noticing.
Then she stepped through.
The door closed behind her.
Humidity settled against her skin.
Bird calls sounded from somewhere in the canopy.
Alliyanna looked upward.
Blue sky.
Clouds.
Sunlight.
She stared harder.
Not sky.
A projection across an enormous enclosed canopy.
It was good enough that her eyes had accepted it before her brain objected.
She walked farther.
The path opened.
Alliyanna stopped again.
The pool was enormous.
Larger than any private pool had a reasonable right to be. Clear water stretched through the center of the tropical space, surrounded by terraces, cabanas, planted gardens and small shaded seating areas.
Kahlan’s voice entered her mind faintly.
Where are you?
Alliyanna continued staring.
I don’t know.
That seems bad on your own ship.
Come to the Archducal residence.
A pause.
Why?
Just come.
Talak joined the connection.
What happened?
Nothing.
That brought them faster.
Kahlan entered first.
He stopped exactly where Alliyanna had.
“What?”
Talak came through behind him.
Then stopped too.
Alliyanna stood beside the pool with her arms crossed.
“I was looking for the gym.”
Kahlan slowly looked around.
“You missed.”
Talak walked toward one of the trees.
He touched a leaf.
“Real.”
“Yes.”
Kahlan looked upward.
“Is that the actual sky?”
“No.”
The canopy shifted while they watched.
The blue faded.
Clouds moved.
Then the artificial daylight dimmed and stars appeared overhead.
Real stars.
Or a representation of them.
Talak looked around.
“The roof?”
A shipboard familiarization technician had followed them in after Alliyanna finally admitted she had found something she did not understand.
He stepped forward.
“The outer canopy can operate in several modes.”
Alliyanna looked at him.
“Several?”
“Opaque environmental simulation, transparent armored observation, simulated sky, external star field, or recorded environmental programs.”
Kahlan stared upward.
“So the roof opens?”
“Not physically to space. The protective outer shutters can retract, exposing the transparent armored canopy.”
“That makes more sense.”
Alliyanna pointed toward the trees.
“Why?”
The technician hesitated.
“The late Archduke requested a complete private relaxation environment.”
“Of course he did.”
“It can duplicate several programmed locations.”
He touched a control.
The stars disappeared.
The surrounding projection changed.
The vegetation remained real, but the distant walls vanished behind a holographic landscape.
Rolling grounds.
A large estate.
Mountains in the distance.
Alliyanna recognized it.
Birsha’s home.
She said nothing.
The technician noticed.
“This was the preferred residence simulation.”
Kahlan’s humor disappeared.
Talak looked toward Alliyanna.
She walked slowly along the pool.
Birsha had built himself a place aboard the ship where he could pretend he was still home.
That felt different from the gold.
Different from the marble.
For the first time the luxury did not look entirely like arrogance.
Perhaps some of it had been loneliness.
“How much water is in this?” Talak asked.
The technician gave him the volume.
Talak whistled.
“And it stays in the pool during maneuvering?”
“Gravitic retention.”
“What happens if the gravity system fails?”
“Mechanical containment shutters can seal the pool sections.”
Talak nodded.
“And all this water is just recreational?”
“No.”
That got Alliyanna’s attention.
The technician continued.
“The pool is integrated into the vessel’s emergency water reserve. Dedicated purification systems can process the entire volume for potable distribution if primary storage is compromised.”
Talak smiled.
“Now I like it.”
Kahlan looked at him.
“A sixty-meter tropical pool becomes acceptable because you can drink it during an emergency?”
“Yes.”
“Good to know.”
Alliyanna looked around again.
Cabanas.
Spa rooms.
A sauna.
Tanning areas.
Trees.
Flowers.
A pool large enough to serve as an emergency reservoir.
“Birsha built a tropical island inside a warship.”
The technician looked uncomfortable.
“Mobile command cruiser.”
Kahlan smiled.
“Of course.”
The ship became less impossible over the next three days.
Not small.
Never small.
But understandable in pieces.
Talak spent most of his time with the engineering familiarization staff.
Kahlan wandered through operations, communications and intelligence.
Alliyanna divided her time between learning the command systems and discovering how many decisions could be postponed until they had an actual crew.
They did not need five thousand people tomorrow.
They needed enough qualified personnel to operate safely.
That difference saved her sanity.
The shipyard provided temporary certified operators for departure and transfer operations.
House Birsha already maintained several naval and technical officers on retainer.
Recruitment could happen later.
For now, Birsha’s Pride could move.
That was enough.
Then came Viki.
The integration began as a modest idea.
Give Viki access to the new ship.
Allow her to monitor systems.
Let her coordinate Star Shadow from inside the main hangar.
Talak expected several hours of configuration.
The Kurkendayhi systems team expected two days.
Viki expected neither.
“This architecture is inefficient.”
The senior systems engineer looked toward the ceiling.
“You have been connected for eleven minutes.”
“Yes.”
“And you have reviewed the entire primary control architecture?”
“No.”
The engineer relaxed slightly.
“I have reviewed thirty-eight percent.”
He stopped relaxing.
Alliyanna sat at the operations console.
“Viki.”
“Yes?”
“Try not to insult the people helping you.”
“I was describing architecture.”
“You called it inefficient.”
“It is.”
The engineer folded his arms.
“Where?”
A display filled with highlighted pathways.
The engineer stared.
Then leaned closer.
Talak came over.
“What is that?”
“Duplicated routing.”
Viki answered before the engineer could.
“The original control architecture preserves several legacy command pathways added during successive redesign phases. They are functional but unnecessarily complex.”
The engineer looked annoyed.
Then thoughtful.
“How many?”
“Two hundred eleven.”
“Show me the critical ones.”
The display changed.
For the next hour, nobody paid attention to Alliyanna.
She was fine with that.
Viki moved slowly into the new systems.
Not by taking control.
By learning.
Sensors first.
Environmental systems.
Internal communications.
Diagnostics.
Navigation access under supervision.
Engineering monitoring.
Hangar control.
She linked with Star Shadow and treated the smaller ship almost like another organ.
Two days later Talak found her running power simulations across both fusion plants.
“You’re not allowed to change anything.”
“I have changed nothing.”
“You’re planning something.”
“I am always planning something.”
“What?”
“Improved load balancing.”
Talak looked at the projection.
“How much?”
“Current estimates suggest efficiency improvements between four and seven percent under normal cruise conditions.”
Talak stared at the display.
“From software?”
“From not wasting power.”
Alliyanna leaned into the engineering room.
“Is she behaving?”
Talak looked at her.
“No.”
Viki answered.
“Yes.”
Alliyanna smiled.
For the first time since they inherited the ship, she began to understand what Viki had been missing aboard Star Shadow.
Not intelligence.
Capacity.
Star Shadow had limits.
Processor space.
Memory.
Sensors.
Power.
Physical room.
Birsha’s Pride had been designed with vast redundancy, unused computing capacity and enough power that Viki could expand without fighting the ship for every resource.
She was still Viki.
Still irritating.
Still precise.
But faster.
Broader.
More present.
On the fourth evening Alliyanna sat in the Archducal office while Viki displayed a systems summary.
“You have increased available memory allocation by approximately six hundred percent,” Viki said.
Alliyanna looked up.
“Do you feel different?”
“That is an imprecise question.”
“Do you?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Alliyanna smiled.
“Better?”
“Faster.”
“Smarter?”
Another pause.
“No.”
Alliyanna laughed.
“At least you’re honest.”
“Increased processing capacity has not improved my opinion of you.”
“There she is.”
The question of the Fragment came the following morning.
Not from Alliyanna.
From Viki.
“Ran Academy remains listed in the mission archive as current custodian of Fragment One.”
Alliyanna stopped eating.
Talak looked up.
Kahlan lowered his cup.
Alliyanna stared at the table.
“Yes.”
Viki continued.
“The stated mission objective remains incomplete.”
That was true.
They had found the Fragment.
They had survived Erimos.
They had carried it away.
Then they had given it up because it was the only way to keep it out of Imperial military custody while preventing eight warships from opening fire.
Ran Academy had protected it.
Documented it.
Preserved the chain of custody.
But it was not theirs.
Not really.
Alliyanna pushed her plate away.
“We need it back.”
Talak nodded.
Kahlan leaned back.
“And now we own a ship large enough to frighten everyone in the system.”
“That’s the problem.”
Talak looked at her.
“We don’t threaten them.”
“I know.”
“We don’t arrive with weapons active.”
“I know.”
“We request docking.”
“Yes.”
Kahlan looked between them.
“You two have developed a disturbing ability to have arguments while agreeing.”
Alliyanna ignored him.
“What legal authority do they still have to hold it?”
Kahlan thought.
“The Academy agreement.”
“That gave them custody.”
“Not ownership.”
Talak nodded.
“And we were under Imperial custody when we left it.”
Alliyanna stood.
“Which we aren’t anymore.”
The charges were gone.
With prejudice.
Her titles were recognized.
Her legal standing had changed completely.
She was no longer a fugitive avoiding a Senate Notice.
No longer an Imperial detainee.
No longer an accused conspirator.
She was the acknowledged person who had delivered the Fragment into Ran Academy custody.
Alliyanna looked toward the nearest speaker.
“Viki.”
“Yes?”
“Bring up the Ran Academy agreement.”
It appeared above the table.
They read it together.
Custody.
Documentation.
Non-destructive analysis.
Controlled access.
Preservation.
Copies of data to the Academy, Imperial authority and Alliyanna.
Nothing transferring ownership.
Nothing giving Ran permanent possession.
Talak pointed.
“There.”
Alliyanna saw it.
Custody pending lawful resolution of competing claims or subsequent documented release.
Kahlan smiled.
“That sounds useful.”
Alliyanna read it again.
“It means they can return it.”
“If there’s no valid hold.”
Talak nodded.
“Ask.”
Alliyanna looked at him.
“That simple?”
“No.”
Kahlan smiled.
“But it starts simple.”
Alliyanna thought about Doctor Lei Jing Chow.
About her face when they had arrived the first time surrounded by Imperial complications.