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When Stella woke up, she found herself sitting on a throne in what seemed to be a castle.
There was humming somewhere around her, almost seeming to come from the walls, a calming sound that still somehow managed to unsettle her. But, now that she was looking around, she could see that there was a woman in front of her, a knight of some kind, singing softly. Her skin was orange, her armor a deep blue, and she was kneeling on one knee. She held her sword like she was swearing her loyalty to Stella, its tip in the ground, and her head was bowed. A pair of sky-blue wings sprouted from her back, half-folded and shining in the light coming through the windows.
“My queen,” the woman said, raising her eyes to meet Stella's gaze. “You have awoken.”
“I–” Stella cut herself off. “Who are you?”
“I am Grendel, the Militissa.”
“Where am I?” Stella asked. She could feel her machinery whirring inside of her like a heartbeat.
Grendel smiled softly. “I have brought you, my queen, to my castle.”
“Why would you do that? And where is my crew?”
“My goal is to rule the universe,” came Grendel's reply. “I need someone to rule alongside me, a queen who I can share the cosmos with. You are the only one whose intelligence rivals my own, the only one worthy of this crown.”
“My crew, Grendel,” Stella insisted.
“Oh, they're fine! I've just locked them in the dungeon. We can keep them alive, if you wish it.”
Grendel took Stella's hand, drawing her attention to it; her gaze traveled from her hand to her sleeve, and then down her body. The knight had clothed her in a gown fit for the queen she had been seeking, silver with a pale yellow front. The gown was decorated with embroidery and jewels in the patterns of the Stellosphere, an orange belt emphasizing the curve of her waist and hips. The hem of the dress, as well as the sleeves, were the same shimmering blue as the solar panels on her ship, and when she reached up with her free hand, Stella felt that her hair had been pulled up and away from her neck.
“You want me to rule the universe with you?” Stella whispered.
Grendel was standing now, still holding Stella's hand. She had placed her sword on the ground, close enough that Stella could probably kick it away if she wanted to. She didn't. “You deserve it. Think about it; after all you have been through, what have you gotten in return?”
A family, Stella thought immediately.
“You have been through portals that nearly destroyed you,” the knight continued, “Into hot jupiters and creatures who thought your ship was food. You have been thrown into the Sun, and what did you get for it? Hardly a word of acknowledgement. You deserve more.”
The android didn't have a chance to reply before Grendel leaned in, her next words quiet, but still piercing Stella’s metaphorical heart like a flash beam. “You will never be hurt again.”
Stella leaned back, pulling her hand to her chest. Her sleeve, long and loose, fell to her elbow. Her Questcom was still there. Grendel, it seemed, either hadn't bothered to remove it or hadn't realized that she could. “I…”
“Think about it,” Grendel told her. Her voice was soft, head dipping close to where Stella's ears would have been if she were human. “I will await your answer.”
“What if I decide not to join you?” Stella asked.
“You won't,” the knight replied.
—
Miles was surprised to see his parents on the other side of the holo-call, and then just as concerned when he saw the looks on their faces. “Something's wrong.”
His mother nodded. “We're stranded on a planet called Treimdar,” she told him. “Someone sabotaged our engines so that we wouldn't be able to leave.”
“Not that we would,” added his dad. “Whoever it was took Stella somewhere, and she's not picking up our calls.”
By now, the rest of Mission Force One had joined their captain in the bridge, no doubt called by Zeno.
“They took the Stellosphere?” Haruna asked, confused.
“No, no, just Stella. We built her a body so she could join us when we went on missions.”
Mirandos hummed, seemingly interested by the fact.
“But who took her?” Miles wondered after telling Zeno to set a course for Treimdar. “And why?”
“And where are you?” Asked Loretta.
Leo shrugged, looking around. “I think we're in a dungeon.”
The words caught Mission Force One's attention. There was only one villain in the galaxy who would have a castle with a dungeon.
“It sounds like you've been caught by Grendel,” Miles said. “That's not good.”
“Grendel?” His mother questioned.
“We visited the Gamemaster years ago,” Loretta began to explain. “We helped her test her game workshop by making a game. The villain we coded, Grendel, ended up being so smart that she could change her own code. She escaped from the game, and now her goal is to take over the universe.”
“She's a knight,” Blodger continued. “But why would she want the Stellosphere?”
“Why would she want Stella?” Asked Leo.
“We can figure it out together,” Miles said. “Well, Mission Force One, it looks like we have a new mission.”
—
The castle was beautiful.
Grendel had wasted no time in showing Stella what she had built, from the ballroom to the gardens. Her lilting voice was like the chirps of a bird, almost twittering as she pointed out different features.
The stars above them caught Stella's attention multiple times. Beyond the garden's walls she could see the top of the Stellosphere, shining in the starlight. The two moons of Treimdar joined them, their pale light reflecting off of her windows.
“Have you made a decision yet, my queen?” Grendel asked, like she had every hour since Stella had woken up.
Stella had made up her mind the first time she asked.
“I can't stay here,” she told the knight quietly. Her eyes stayed locked on her ship. “I'm not meant to stay stationary like this.”
The reply seemed to shock Grendel. “What?”
“I'm a starship, Grendel. I'm not just Stella, I'm the Stellosphere. I'm built to explore. Would you cage a bird?”
Grendel's wings flared behind her.
“I will not simply release you,” she said.
“Then how about a game?” Stella suggested, and Grendel smiled. She shot up into the air, letting go of Stella's hand, turning midair to look at her.
“Oh, that is a splendid idea!” She crowed. “What will be the rules?”
Stella stopped, stunned. She hadn't expected Grendel to agree, let alone allow her to choose the game.
She couldn't do much against a sword, not on her own and weaponless except for her light snares, but she wasn't called the smartest computer in the TTA for nothing.
“A game of intelligence,” she told the winged knight. “I will ask a question, which you will answer. If you're right, you get a point. Then we switch places.”
Grendel tilted her head. “And what, my queen, are the winning conditions?”
“When my crew escapes, and they will, whoever answered the most questions correctly wins.” She thought for a moment. “If I win, my crew and I get to go free.”
“And if I win?”
“Then I'll stay here with you.”
—
“Alright,” Loretta said, poking her head into the hallway and looking around. “The coast is clear.”
Her crew darted down the hallway, Miles leading them with his parents still on his Questcom.
“The signal is clearing up,” he told them. “I think we're getting close to you.”
Every so often they would hear voices from above, asking and answering questions. One voice was obviously Grendel, with her accent and tone. The other voice was clearly robotic, but harder to place.
“What was the first rover that Humans sent to Mars?”
“Ah, the answer is obvious! It was Sojourner.”
“Wrong.”
“What?”
“First rover, I said, not first successful rover. The answer is PrOP-M.”
“I think we can hear you,” Phoebe said. “You're right above us.”
“How are we supposed to get down there?” Blodger asked. “We've already searched this hallway, and there are no doors that lead down there!”
Haruna cracked his knuckles and formed a fist. “I can take care of that. Watch out.” He waited for confirmation that Phoebe and Leo had moved out of the way, then swung at the floor. “Super-punch, go!”
The floor crumbled under them, revealing a hidden cell. The debris turned into pixels and disappeared before it hit the ground.
MERC reached in and pulled the two prisoners out, but they quickly fell silent when the voices above them took notice of the noise.
“What was that sound?”
“Is that your next question?”
“...Alright. What is your answer?”
“It's my crew, escaping.”
“It can't be!”
A swarm of little robots, some sort of armored defense orbs, suddenly flew into the room. They didn't attack right away, but instead watched them. Loretta threw a few of her holo-hexes at them, destroying three, and the rest scattered.
“Hm. It seems you're correct. It's a shame our game has to end so early.”
“I'll give you until they find us. Here, switch to Binary, it's faster.”
The voices stopped, replaced with a melodic hum that almost seemed to come from the walls.
Mission Force One led Phoebe and Leo the way that they had come, eventually reaching the main hall. There were two large doors at the ends of the hall; the drawbridge that they had entered through and a set of large, intricately engraved doors. The humming was louder than it had been before, though it was still quiet.
“Do you know where Stella is?” Miles asked.
“Phoebe shook her head. “We were separated after we landed.”
MERC chirped and trilled, pointing toward the large set of doors.
“She's in there?” Loretta asked.
MERC nodded, running to the doors and looking into the small spaces between the doors and the ground. Soft golden light shone through from the other side, and the humming had reached a crescendo, now loud enough that no one could doubt it was there.
“I'll get the doors,” Haruna said, and activated his super-punch again.
“Always a gentleman,” Mirandos joked, leaning over to Loretta.
The room behind the doors was massive. It looked like some sort of ballroom, with a wide expanse of tiled floors, and a throne on a raised platform at the other end of the room. On the steps leading up to the platform sat two women; Grendel and another android that Mission Force One had never seen before. The other android resembled a Human, with dimly glowing white hair and eyes of the same colour on a dark screen running across her face. Around her neck was the collar of a standard TTA spacesuit, like the ones Phoebe and Leo wore on missions, and her dress was mostly silver with blue and orange panels that made it look kind of like the Stellosphere in dress form.
The android turned to them and smiled. “Hello. Are you all alright?”
“We sure are, Stella,” Leo said, and Mission Force One turned to him in shock. This was Stella?
“Well, Grendel,” Stella said, her smile still soft as she turned her attention to the villain. “Remind me of our scores?”
Grendel's eyes were wide. “I have… seventy-eight points, my queen.”
“And I have…?”
“...Seventy-nine.”
Stella stood up, then, clapping her hands together. The gown dissolved into shimmering pixels, revealing her true body underneath; it resembled the standard TTA spacesuit, connected to the piece around her neck, similar to her captain's suit except for the fact that it faded to silver and not orange. “I win.”
Mission Force One tensed when Grendel took Stella's hand, bracing for a fight, but the knight only pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “And I will not take something that I do not win fairly. You are free to go, my queen.”
The whole scene was softer than any of them had expected from someone whose goal was to take over the universe. They stared openly as Stella simply walked out of the room, leaving Grendel behind, before awkwardly following her.
Grendel sat down on the throne that her queen had left behind, pulling something out of thin air. It was a crown, one made of blue jewels that resembled the solar panels on the Stellosphere. She held it in her lap gently, watching the golden light of the Treimdarian day dancing through the windows and making the jewels sparkle like stars as the sounds of two starships taking off grew quieter.
“My queen,” she said, smiling softly, “I do sincerely hope that we meet again.”
—
“You got kidnapped by Grendel?!”
Stella huffed. Zeno continued to ramble at her, asking her desperately if she was alright as their crews watched them bicker on holo-call.
“I'm fine, Zeno, look at me.”
“She’s the smartest villain in the universe, Stella! She could have… I don't know, done something really smart to trap you!”
“I won our game,” Stella told him, surprisingly calm for how stressed the other ship sounded, “So she let me go. That was what we agreed on. And you forget, I'm one of the smartest computers in the TTA’s entire fleet. We’re equals, if anything.”
Zeno sputtered. “But Stella–!”
Her next words came in Binary, unintelligible to their crews but perfectly clear to Zeno. “I've been into the Sun. I've been into Builder portals. I've been into hot jupiters. I get nearly killed, what, once a week? If death can’t keep me caged, what makes you think that one woman can?”
“You know,” Zeno told her, “Sometimes I worry about you.”
“I know.”
“You're sure you're alright?”
Stella beamed. “Oh, me? I don't think I've ever been better.”