Tea with Captain Vasa.
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: Henson owns it all, and I make nada, zip, zilch off of this. Same for the works of David Drake. Time: Twenty five plus years after Peace Keeper Wars and after my Warriors for the Working Day. Rating: T for soldier's language.
Author's note: This takes place in the crossover universe of Farscape and David Drake's Hammer's Slammers. It is not, strictly speaking, a sequel to any of my other writings in that universe.
This is a two parter.
"Can we stop for just a microt, Chiana?" Jool gasped.
"It's just a few dozen more motras until we're clear of the warehouse, Jool." I slid my arm further around her waist and took more of her weight on me. "Just a few more steps, okay, Princess?"
Jool's knees buckled and we almost went down together.
"Maybe a little rest would be all right." I said as confidently as I could.
"I'm sorry, Chiana. I'm sorry for everything."
I gave her an encouraging smile. By the Goddess! Her skin was clammy, her face was pale and she looked like dren. She was too easy to carry, as well, having lost way too much weight. "It's not your fault, Princess. And don't worry. We'll fix you up in no time."
"It's not your fault, either, Chiana." Her voice was barely audible.
Of course it wasn't my fault. I had told her repeatedly we'd look for the lost Eidolon colony together, as soon as I finished some business on the local pleasure planet. But, no! Jool had had to take off on her own. By the time I caught up to her, the surviving Eidolons were dead and Jool was just starting to get sick. Lots of Eidolons suddenly dying sounded like the Scarrens. And there had been a Scarren Task Force in the area at about the same time Arnessk had been attacked.
To Hezmana with Emperor Staleek and all his kind! He had tried to kill my friend twice. I wouldn't let him succeed.
I was so angry I missed the first barked command.
"Halt! One more step and we'll fire!"
Peacekeepers! Frelling Peacekeepers! How could this get any worse?
I hid my anger and smiled. "Oh, I'm so glad you found us. We seem to have gotten lost. Can you direct us back to the city? I'm sure our servants will have started looking for us by now."
"Do you have permission to be in here?" one snarled.
Luckily, both were male. I had a pistol tucked into the back of my pants, but I'd have to try to be friendly first. I ran my gaze over the two of them. Since the end of what John had called the PK-Scarren Cold War, things had not gone well for the Peacekeepers. These two looked more down at the heels and shabby than many I had seen in the last cycle or two.
"As I said, Captain, we're lost. But I assure you my retainers will reward you for assisting us." Or we'd run like Hezmana as soon as we reached an occupied part of the city where they couldn't just start shooting at us.
"You will pay us a fine now." The leader barked. Typical Peacekeeper eemahole!
"No, you Peacekeeper assholes will either walk out of here or be blown out of here."
Where the frell did that voice come from? Both the Peacekeepers and I scanned the warehouse. The place was poorly lit and littered with the Goddess knew what kind of junk that had accumulated here since the planet's economy and government had collapsed fifty cycles ago. I thought I saw a shadow move, but it could have been just my imagination. The Peacekeepers had their pulse pistols out. One was watching us and the leader was staring into the shadows.
"Who dares to threaten the Peacekeepers?"
There was a laugh. "Everyone. But in this case, it's Captain Vasa. Now, get your asses out of here."
"You have no right to do this. Captain Cilo will be angry!" The Peacekeeper leader didn't sound at all confident.
A second voice spoke from the shadows. A deeper voice. "These two fucking morons just might fight us."
The first voice laughed again. "Cilo didn't send these two assholes out to shake down a couple of civilians. Not in the spaceport area, anyway. Cilo isn't so stupid that he doesn't know the spaceport is our fucking property. These two are here on their own. And since chakon oil is damned rare in the PK's arsenal, I'll bet these two have nothing but fucking homebrew in their weapons. I think these two pricks would be lucky to give us a sunburn with that crap, even if they managed to hit us before they died."
The Peacekeeper leader stared off into the shadows, but from the look on the face of his companion, I knew their weapons were nearly useless.
Suddenly, a small round ball sped out of the dark and rolled to a stop ten motras or so behind us.
"That's a smart grenade. It got a good look at you as it went by and it knows you're supposed to leave. You two morons turn and walk out of here, it'll follow you. If you stop, or try to come back in this place, it'll kill you. Now move your god damned useless asses. Right now!"
The two Peacekeepers turned and walked out, followed by the slowly rolling grenade.
The Peacekeepers had been gone for a good microt when three of them stepped out of the shadows.
The one in the middle was the one who had spoken first. "I'm Captain Vasa. This is Adjutant Goro, "he gestured to a truly huge man on his right, "and Under Officer Leong." He waved absentmindedly to his left.
I gave him my very best smile. "I'm Chiana and this is Joolushko Tunai Fenta Hovalis. I imagine you've heard of us?"
All three shook their heads. "No." Vasa said.
I looked them over, trying to decide the best way to deal with them. Vasa was a big man, at least as tall as John Crichton and heavier. Most of that weight looked like muscle. He wore a uniform that automatically blended with his background. Over that he had a black armored vest. It wasn't just black, but it looked like the complete absence of light. Like you were staring into starless interstellar space. A helmet of the same material covering his head showed a blond mustache and blue eyes. He had those little lines around his eyes that indicated he laughed a lot. I just wished I knew what he laughed at. Not dead female Nebari, I hoped. He was armed, of course. A short weapon consisting of a pistol grip and two tubes, one atop the other, was in one hand. On his hip was what looked like a short vibro-sword.
Under Officer Leong was dressed much like her commander. Since she was tall and very skinny, it took me a few microts to decide that she had loomas and hips and was therefore female. Her hair was no more than a few denches in length and the hair on top of her head stood straight up. She held another short, stubby weapon, with a round magazine of some sort under it. At first I thought she had a glove on her left hand, but I decided it was a metal prosthetic hand.
If Vasa and Leong were rather conventionally dressed soldiers, Adjutant Goro was not. He was at least as tall as my D'Argo had been but wider and thicker. He wore a red coat that fell almost to his bare feet and was worn open. On the shoulders were silver epaulettes and on each sleeve was a set of three blue upside down Vs. The only other clothing he wore was a garish multi-colored kilt held up by an equipment belt of some sort. His face had several geometric tattoos I had never seen before, and his head was shaved except for one long braid that grew from the top of his head and fell down his back. He was armed of course: A huge weapon to match the man. I couldn't identify it, but the bore appeared to be a good two denches across.
In the face of that firepower, I decided to be nice.
"Thank you so much, Captain. I'm sure my retainers will be worried sick at my absence. How foolish of me to wander away like that. We'll be on our way." I started to move forward but they blocked my way.
"Don't treat us like fucking idiots. I don't like it." Vasa said in a level, conversational tone. "If a Nebari had come through the Control Point, every one of us would have heard about it. Now who are you and what are you doing trying to sneak into the spaceport?"
As I've always said, honesty is a policy. I sighed and started. "My friend is very sick. She was exposed to some sort of Scarren chemical weapon. We saw a Diagnosian on Ferrozze. He told us to come here. There's a tea here that will leach the poison out of Jool's system. We're not any danger to anyone. Please, help us."
"Tingue tea?" That was Leong.
"Yes!" I said quickly. "Do you know where we can find some?"
"Anyplace in the town that serves drinks, I suppose." Vasa said. "If you want to drink it." He added.
"Why wouldn't you want to drink it?" I shot back.
"It's ninety-nine percent water. Fish crap in water."
I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I stood there for a few microns. Finally Vasa scratched his chin. It sounded like he needed a shave. "We could go over to O-Lio's for a while, I suppose. Have a bite of food, maybe a real drink."
His two companions nodded, never letting their eyes stray from us.
"Okay, girl, let's see about getting some tea." Vasa said with a smile.
Jool and I walked to the right of Vasa with Goro in front and Leong in back. I had spent a long time sneaking around places and I had to admit that Vasa and Goro moved very, very quietly for big men encumbered with equipment. If I hadn't glanced back every so often, I never would have known Leong was there.
"You're humans." It was a statement, not a question.
"You've heard of us." Vasa said, with a note of surprise in his voice. He turned his head and ran his eyes over me. I had had any number of beings run their eyes over me through the years, but this was somehow different. I wasn't sure I liked it.
I gave him my "I'm just a dumb trelk" smile. "I've met humans. I even know how you humans got here."
"Tell me then, girl."
Luckily, I did know. As John would have said, I had had a ringside seat to the whole show.
There was our Universe, where everything was run by the Peacekeepers, the Scarrens, the Delvians, the Hynerians and a few other races. Humans inhabited a backward world so far from civilization that no one had ever heard of it. Well, come to think of it, there was one human everyone had heard of now.
There was another, alternate, universe however. It was a universe where none of the races familiar to me existed and where humans had colonized thousands and thousands of worlds, becoming the only powerful race in their universe.
The bridge between these two universes was a billion cycle old planet-sized machine powered by a tame black hole that the humans called the Anomaly, or sometimes, now that it was known to be a machine, the Artifact. If it didn't kill you, it would shoot you to the other universe. More than twenty-five cycles ago I had been chased by the Peacekeepers, along with my friends, into that bizarre human dominated universe. Much to my surprise, many years later, humans started visiting our universe. And not just visiting, coming to live here.
Being humans, they had fought since before they had been able to leave their own planet's gravity well. They continued when they left Earth behind. Many poor human colonial planets had found it cheaper to hire mercenaries to fight their wars from them. Eventually war became a business like any other. And business was good.
Eventually, the wealthier human settled planets became alarmed at the political, economic and military power that mercenary units possessed. The majority of human planets couldn't afford to field forces as large, as well armed or as well led and trained as many mercenary commands. Only a few worlds could attempt to fight off the mercenary units. When they tried, the mercenaries, and those governments that made money from the mercenaries, fought back. What began as a series of small, unconnected wars began to spread as anti-mercenary planets made alliances with each other and the mercenaries combined to fight back. The wars spread, for one reason or another, until almost all of human space was at war with someone.
Finally, two of the most powerful human nations realized that if humans didn't end this war, the war would end humans. They combined their strength and forced their neighbors to make peace as well and join them in forcing peace on their neighbors, and so on and so on. Eventually, a dozen or more human star nations, each holding thousands of planets under their sway, brought peace to the human universe.
But how to maintain that peace? There were millions upon millions of troops under arms. Some would serve in downsized peacetime militaries. Others would gladly return to their homes and resume their lives. Some had no homes to return to and some had no wish to live any life other than that of a soldier. What to do with them?
One human warlord, who had a Sebacean wife, of all things, had a solution. Gather up the many units that had no homes and send them through the Anomaly to a new universe where they could do as they wished, as long as they never returned home.
And through the Anomaly they went. Some, like Marshal Edmund O'Donnell, commanded a powerful army and fleet and were able to treat more or less equally with the powers that ruled this galaxy. Others, less powerful, could perhaps force their will on a planet or two. Some were little better than pirates and bandits. I was very curious as to what group our new friends fell into.
"So, who are you and how did you get here?" I asked.
"We're the Straslund Dragoon Regiment, from Gotland." Vasa said sadly. "Not the old Gotland back on Earth, but a beautiful water planet blessed with tens of thousands of fertile islands. Our lost home." Vasa said nothing more for a good microt or two. "The war changed all that of course. The Danske League attacked us. Everyone says our King Gustav is a cold blooded bastard, but he's a damned deadly cold blooded bastard. He bloodied the noses of those damned Danskers but good. We were too weak to really defeat them, so we had to ally ourselves with the Peoples Democratic Socialist Republic of Texas. That, of course, made us the enemies of the Bishopric of Fornovo. Once Fornovo was involved, the French Empire became our ally. And so on."
"Under King Gustav, we fought the bloody Danskers to a standstill, but we could never deliver a knockout blow. Eventually, the Great Powers, as they like to call themselves enforced a peace. Gotland came out on the short end of that peace. The Danskers insisted that King Gustav abdicate and go through the Anomaly. The Great Powers wanted peace and we were easier to bully than those fucking useless Dansker pricks. Gustav abdicated. More than ten thousand of us followed him here. Old soldiers, or mercenaries like Leong or barbarians like Goro."
"Barbarians like Goro don't blow up entire planets." Goro growled.
"Only because you can't." answered Leong.
"Yet." Goro replied with a cheery smile.
Vasa went on. "The fucking Danskers had one more dirty trick up their sleeve. We were all put on the Manchuria Maru, a ten million ton freighter, for what we thought would be a ride to Arsenal where we could join up with Marshal O'Donnell. Instead they took us to this worthless planetary shithole. As soon as we made orbit, the Captain and the engine room crew sabotaged the engines, but good, and left in the ship's cutter. If we really worked at it, we might fix the ship in another century. So we're stuck here."
"With Cilo and the Peacekeepers." Goro added.
"Yeah. How did they get here?" I had wanted to ask that question since those two had stopped me at gunpoint.
Vasa shrugged. "Cilo and his soldiers were the garrison of a planet not far from here. Which meant they took what they wanted and gave nothing in return. A Luxan warlord decided he wanted to take over. The Peacekeepers had no warships to support Cilo, just a crapped out transport. Cilo decided to survive. He loaded his troops up and headed for the nearest Peacekeeper base. His engines fell apart when he got here. He's stuck, too."
I thought that over. "Why didn't one of you try to get a message out?"
The three humans laughed. Vasa answered me. "There's only one ship that comes by here, maybe two or three times a year. The ship you came here on. The ships' captain doesn't want to be bothered with either Peacekeepers or those odd, but very dangerous, human soldiers. He leaves Cilo and King Gustav to growl at each other. Since we have a lot more heavy weapons, we growl better than the Peacekeepers.
"And, that tramp freighter captain, Snuzzex, has a captive market. We both have to trade with him. At his prices."
"Expensive?" I said, with a sly smile. Maybe I should try to meet the ship's captain. He hadn't graced us with his presence when Jool and I had come here on his ship.
I never got an answer because Jool fainted. Vasa knelt beside her and checked her pulse. "Rapid, I think. I'm not familiar with what's normal for her race." He looked up at me.
"I don't know anything about medicine. Jool does al of that for us."
Vasa slung Jool over his shoulder and rose in one smooth movement. "We'll just take her for some tea, then."
Vasa ran steadily down a selection of back alleys, with Goro, Leong and me trailing behind. For a big man he did move awfully well. We came around a corner into a small square. In front of one building was a small open area with tables and chairs. Vasa put Jool down in one of them and called out.
"Mina! Customers!"
"What happened?" I was never so happy to hear Jool's voice in my life.
"You're just a little tired." I lied. "You'll be better with a little rest."
A skinny Sebacean girl stuck her head out the door. "The usual, Captain?"
"That, and a pot of tingue tea for the lady." Vasa added an afterthought. "A big pot."
Mina was smart enough to bring the tea first. I held the cup up for Jool to drink. After a tentative sip, she greedily poured it down. "I feel better." She managed to say as I poured another cup of tea.
By the time the second pot of tea arrived with the rest of the food and drink, Jool was actually looking better.
Vasa put a glass of some brown liquid in front of me. "There you go, girl. No fucking tea for you. That's akvavit, real Viking rocket fuel."
I took a small sip and almost gagged. It was rocket fuel. Vasa just laughed and emptied half of his glass.
"Now, girl, you know all about us. Tell us about yourself."
I shot a glance over to Jool to try to tell her not to contradict me, but she was too engrossed in her tea to pay any attention to me. Well, it wouldn't be the first time I'd kissed, kicked or cried our way out of a problem with no help from Jool.
I gave the three mercenaries a broad smile. "You've actually never heard of us? Chiana and Jool?"
They all shook their heads.
"You must have heard of John Crichton, though. I mean he's from Earth. We spent cycles aboard Moya with him. We're like family to him."
Vasa nodded. "We've heard of Crichton. He arranged some sort of peace conference on his ship a while back. And I doubt he's anywhere near here."
I laughed. "His ship? You mean his full grown Leviathan gunship, Moya?"
Vasa stared at me. "The child was the gunship, we heard. Not the mother."
I shook my head as if I couldn't believe what some people would believe. "If you want a human child, you need a human mother. It's the same with Leviathan gunships. Oh, now that she's mature, Moya's guns and missiles are camouflaged, but they're there. Don't doubt that Moya's big enough and tough enough to take any two command carriers apart with no damage to herself. How do you think Crichton avoided all of the mercenaries, bounty hunters and pirates all those cycles?"
I took a very small sip of my drink. "And that isn't all that Moya has."
Vasa scratched his chin again. "There's more?"
I nodded. "You've heard of Aeryn Sun?"
"Crichton's wife. Some kind of modification of standard humans called Sebaceans."
Close enough, but if he ever called Aeryn that to her face, he might be looking for a new face. I leaned toward him and looked around as if checking to make sure I couldn't be overheard. "Aeryn denies this, of course, but there have been a lot of rumors that she's been genetically enhanced to be a superb Prowler pilot. I don't know anything about genetic enhancement, but I know a great pilot when I see one. There was something odd about her parents, too. Not the usual birthing to fill the ranks, they say. Anyway both Talyn and Xhalax disappeared. Nobody talks about it. But it is odd that a command carrier captain like Bialar Crais would disobey orders to chase after Aeryn when she deserted to Crichton. Even odder, Crais ended up on Moya. Of course people who believe in conspiracies think Crais sent Aeryn as an emissary to Crichton. Do you believe in those conspiracy theories?"
Vasa made no reply.
I moved a little closer to Vasa and quickly looked around again. "Since the Peacekeepers started falling apart, what with being kicked out of the Hynerian Empire, making enemies of the Luxans due to the failed treaty with the Scarrens, not to mention the problems with Delvia, there are a lot of really excellent Prowler pilots out of work. I've heard that Aeryn has about fifty of them, flying brand new Prowlers on Moya. They say she even has a dozen of the new Spitfires, too."
Vasa laughed. "You had me going there, girl. Who care what Crichton has? He isn't here."
"No, but a man who can command wormholes can cross the galaxy in minutes." I shot back.
Vasa stopped laughing. "We heard he lost that ability."
I shook my head. "He can't make wormhole weapons anymore. Everyone admits that they are too dangerous. But he can take Moya anyplace he wants to."
"Of course it's not like John's only allies are on Moya."
"Who else?" Vasa asked, suspiciously.
"The Peacekeepers." I said cheerfully.
"We heard they were trying to kill him, girl. What are you trying to do here?"
I sighed dramatically. "Some Peacekeepers tried to kill him. The dumb ones who couldn't adapt to changing conditions. The Peacekeeper's Grand Chancellor Meryk falls into that category. You heard what happened to him."
Goro mimed a throat being cut.
"You've heard of Vice Chancellor Scorpius?" I asked sweetly. "And Vice Chancellor Grayza?"
Vasa nodded again. "I heard they didn't like Crichton. Tried to kill him. Tried to kill his friends."
"That was Scorpius." I said lightly. "And that was before he realized that Crichton was unique. You don't kill unique. You make friends with unique, or at worst, an ally."
Vasa grunted and I went on.
"Scorpius went so far as to put a clone of his personality in John's head, so John would have the benefit of Scorpius's vast knowledge of this part of the universe. It saved John's life more than once, let me tell you. And, as you may know, John saved Scorpius' life as well."
Vasa just stared at me. Fairly obviously he had heard at least some of the bizarre rumors that had whirled about John for cycles. Best of all, most of what I was telling him was true, sort of. Slightly.
"Commandant Grayza was interested in John as well." I giggled just a bit. "Who knows what might have happened if she had met John before he met Aeryn?" Who indeed? But I certainly didn't want to think about that possibility.
"So they were all pals?" Vasa asked sourly.
I frowned and shook my head. "Not pals. They were intelligent people who had acquired a great deal of power. No, neither Scorpius nor Grayza will ever be best friends with John, but all three of them are smart enough to get along with someone they dislike to reach an important goal."
"Remember, Grazya took her own command carrier to Katratzi to meet with John and the Scarren Emperor. She wouldn't do something that would otherwise seem suicidal unless she knew she could trust John's judgment."
"You're sure about this, girl?" Vasa growled.
"Have I ever lied to you before?" I asked as sweetly as I could.
Vasa's eyes goggled and then he roared with laughter. When he was done laughing, he filled up my glass again. "Tell me more, girl. You interest me."
I briefly touched my lips to the akvavit. "John has good relations with the Scarrens, too."
"Good relations?" Vasa asked again.
"As usual, some stupid underlings made some mistakes by trying to capture John, or kill him. Obviously that didn't work. Once Emperor Staleek realized how powerful John was and how useful he could be, he made every effort to use him."
"Use him?" Leong said. "That sounds more like it."
"Sure, Scarrens are brutal creatures." I said. After all I had reason enough to know that was true. "But not stupid. Staleek invited John to his home world, Katratzi. He gave him the run of the place, actually. Why, John was even able to see the cave where the famous mother crystherium plant is kept. You don't get to see that with the fifty cent tour."
"What's fifty cent?" Goro asked.
Frell! A chance to use my knowledge of human cultural references and they were a thousand cycles out of date!
I brushed that aside. "Staleek even had Aeryn transported to Katratzi in a special medical ship. She was pregnant with John's child, you know."
"Okay, "Vasa said grumpily, "so someone you claim to know has a lot of powerful friends. None of them are here. So?"
I gave him my best "I'm-not-that-dumb-of-a-trelk" smile. "So how many powerful friends do you have?
Vasa nodded slowly. "Damn few."
"Besides," I continued, "I know lots of other people. Dominar Rygel, for one. You've heard of him?"
"Dominar of the Hynerian Empire," Vasa said, "or at least most of it. He's also hired human soldiers."
I nodded happily. This was fun. "I was aboard Moya with Rygel. One thing that Rygel taught me is that you don't survive for cycles and cycles with everyone in the frelling universe trying to kill you unless you cooperate with the people you're with. One for all and all for one. That's Rygel's motto. Believe me Rygel would never leave a friend in the lurch. Oh, I should mention that Jool here is a friend of Rygel, too. She'll vouch for the fact that Rygel will do anything for his friends."
"And don't worry about Ryg being the Dominar of only part of the Empire. He has the richest and most powerful planets under his full control. The few Bishanists that have continued to fight on under other members of his family will soon be crushed."
"Don't count your chickens, girl. And don't count someone else's."
Before I could figure what counting birds had to do with anything, I was interrupted.
"Is Jool some sort of monarch, too?" Goro asked snidely.
"No." Jool replied, sounding stronger than I had heard her sound in a couple of weekens. "I'm like Chiana: A friend of a lot of powerful people." She quickly changed the subject. "Could I have some more tea? It really is working."
Vasa roared for the waitress, Mina, and ordered more tea.
I went on. "I should tell you that I know Marshal O'Donnell as well. As a matter of fact, I met his wife when she was only Peacekeeper Officer Aida Borzon. Of course, they're a lot more powerful now what with…"
"I know who they are, girl." Vasa broke in. "Anyone else in this universe, or any other, that you know?"
"Sure, lots." I started counting on my fingers. "The current Empress of the Royal Planet, the heir to the throne, and her husband. As a matter of fact, they probably wouldn't be alive if it weren't for me a and John Crichton. Then there's the famous Luxan warrior Jothee. I was engaged to his father you know. I know a Disrupter, but I probably shouldn't mention her name. The last time I met her was when Marshall O'Donnell lead a task force to pick us up. I suppose I should mention my brother Nerri is rather high up in the current political opposition to the Nebari government. You know how shaky the government has been since their plague plot was discovered. Nerri could be the next leader of Nebari Prime."
"What ever the hell that is." Vasa said, shaking his head.
Vasa took a long drink and then looked at me levelly. "So why are you trying to impress a few human soldiers on a shithole planet in the middle of fucking nowhere?"
I leaned back and gave the three of them my most sincere smile and then took another sip of my drink. "I'm a lot like John Crichton. I like to help people."
Jool made a slight choking sound, but since she'd been guzzling tea all afternoon, no one noticed.
"Unlike John, I don't have my own ship and I'm not wealthy." I gave them a very serious stare. "But we do have a return ticket off this mudball. Your king can't get in touch with anyone off of this planet because Captain Snuzzex is a smart boy. His is the only ship that comes here so he has a monopoly on trade with this planet."
Trade! That word made me stop for a microt. "What is there on this planet to trade for, anyway?"
Vasa waved expansively at the city around him. "You wouldn't believe it now, but this place used to be fairly nice."
All I had seen since I had arrived on the planet were burned out buildings that outnumbered whole buildings ten to one. The few people I had seen in the streets had been shabby, and looked both hungry and scared. I gave Vasa a skeptical look.
Vasa nodded. "No, really. Of course the servitor class was treated like shit, but the ruling caste lived all right. But, when things started to fall apart, the Planetary Exarch sent his troops out to loot anything that was valuable. They raided museums, the palaces of the ruling caste, hospitals, for valuable drugs, and warehouses near the spaceport. Then he snuck off planet with as much loot as he could manage, leaving his troops behind. One of his generals appointed himself the new Exarch, did some more looting, and then left too, also leaving his troops behind. And so on and so on. The last Exarch didn't have enough loot to buy a ticket off planet, so he stayed, trading what little he had to Snuzzex."
"When Cilo and his Peacekeepers landed, they grabbed the Palace, such as it is. Now Cilo trades for chakon oil, since there's none on this planet. He pays a damned high price for what he gets."
"How about you humans?" I broke in.
"We don't need as much as Cilo and the Peacekeepers. We loaded the Manchuria Maru up with as much shit as we could cram aboard her. And that was a lot. But, in the meantime we can trade a little human technology off of the Manchuria Maru for what we need from off planet."
"We think the captain of the Manchuria Maru double crossed the fucking Danskers as well as us." Leong said. "We think that she was supposed to be blown to bits, but that Captain Kim only did enough damage to keep us from ever fixing her so one day he could came back with a proper salvage ship and grab himself a ship."
Suddenly, a knife appeared in Goro's hand and he sliced a long, very thin section of wood off of the table. "One day we'll find Captain Kim. We'll have a jolly time with him. A very jolly time!"
"Of course our crazy king keeps finding things he needs to buy from Snuzzex." Leong finished casually.
"Crazy?" I asked, looking at the three of them carefully. I never heard of a king who didn't have an effective secret police keeping an eye on what his subjects, especially his military subjects, were saying about him. A horrible thought hit me. Suppose these were the secret police? This was just the sort of thing they'd do: Say something nasty about the king and arrest you if you agreed with them.
Vasa rolled his eyes. "He's not crazy."
"Will you at least give us eccentric?" Goro said slyly.
Vasa looked at me earnestly. "When we first checked out the spaceport, we found three wrecked fusion power plants. Using the Regimental Engineer Company, some Royal Gotland Navy officers and some of the crew of the Manchuria Maru that had been left behind by Kim, we managed to cannibalize enough spare parts to get one plant running. That one gave us about twice the amount of power we needed."
Leong took over the tale. "Our king decided we had to do something with our extra power. So he soon had us out clearing rubble out of long wrecked factories to see if anything could be salvaged. We must have dug out fifty factories for every one we managed to get working, and even then we needed to buy off planet shit from Snuzzex. But, now we do have a few small factories set up making things we need."
"Then there's road building." Goro said happily. "Build a road and the peasants can sell their food in town and we don't starve. The peasants now have money of their own to buy junk in town. But, build a road and the bandits find a reason to rob what used to be just starving peasants with nothing worth stealing. So, we get to patrol the new roads, too. And, when bandits strike anyway, we get to chase them all over the fucking planet. And then we get to build more roads so more fucking peasants can bring more crap to town so more fucking bandits can rob them so we can chase even more bandits around."
Vasa looked very serious. "And as long as were stuck on this planet, we're going to have to work to make it our home."
There were grumbles from Leong and Goro.
"And that's where I come in." I said, favoring all three with a smile. "You can't get any kind of message off the planet. I could get a message to my pal, Rygel. He's hired human mercenaries before. He might even be willing to take over this planet."
That got a sour laugh from Goro and Leong.
"Or, I could send a message to Marshal O'Donnell. He does want to recruit as many human soldiers as he can, if they're any good."
"We're good, girl." Vasa said in a low snarl.
"I might be able to get a message to John Crichton. If he's in a good mood, or needs a good laugh, he could load all of you aboard the gunship Moya and take you to a better world."
"The famous John Crichton again." Vasa said, with just a bit of a sneer in his voice.
"There are other human mercenaries around. Lots of them would like to add a good regiment like yours."
For all I knew, this King Gustav led the most pathetic military unit between here and the end of the universe. But there was no sense in insulting them, was there?
I smiled and added the clincher. "We have round trip passages off this planet and you don't."
Okay, that was not entirely true. We hadn't had enough money to buy two full round trip passages. Snuzzex had insisted we work for the rest. As Jool got sicker, I had had to work my eema off to keep us from getting tossed out an airlock. Now all the dirty jobs that Snuzzex hadn't gotten around to in the last century or so were done and I wasn't sure what he'd want for the return trip. Or rather I had a very good idea of what I'd have to do. Usually, that's no problem. But, Snuzzex's love muscle wasn't anywhere near compatible with either a female Nebari or an Interion. But, his engineer was a Sebacean. He'd had a female "assistant" that rarely left his quarters. Even through the thick ship's bulkheads, I could hear her screaming sometimes. I saw her once or twice. She looked like she'd had the dren kicked out of her and was too terrified of the engineering officer to talk to me. She died in an "accident" just before we had reached orbit. If I paid for two full passages to Snuzzex, my pistol would keep that Sebacean bastard away from me and Jool.
If….
Vasa looked at his two companions. "This is a decision that'll have to be made at the palace."
With that, they downed their drinks and rose. We had a little wait since Jool wanted another pot of tingue tea to go. In microts we had reached a street that was busier than anything I had seen so far. It didn't have traffic jams like Hyneria, or anything, but there was traffic and actual stores with things for sale. I wondered if they had anything worth snurching.
Vasa waved down a hover truck and we all hopped onto the back. In a quarter of an arn we pulled up in front of a shabby looking warehouse.
"How far to the palace?" I asked.
"This is it." Said Vasa.
"I bet it's a lot nicer inside." I guessed.
"It's shit inside. King Gustav isn't one for ostentation."
Inside, the palace was mostly one big room, filled with uniformed humans doing some sort of work around various workstations. No one seemed to pay too much attention to Vasa and the rest of us. I guess that he must have been fairly well known. After all, there weren't that many human officers on this planet.
Vasa pushed his way through a wide double doorway into a smaller room. It took me a second, but I couldn't help screaming when I saw them.
"John! Aeryn!" I ran over to John and threw my arms around him." I am so glad to see you!" He hugged me back. I glanced over to Aeryn and decided a hug was not in order. "Hi, Aeryn."
She nodded at me.
"Thank you, Your Majesty, for finding our friends for us."
I looked around to see who John was talking about. It seemed to be Vasa. There were a dozen of so humans in the room, dressed up in pale blue dress uniforms, whose eyes were following Vasa as he crossed the room. Finally, he threw his body into a chair that was big enough to be a throne, hooked one leg over its arm and smiled at me.
"Your Majesty!" I screamed. "You lied to me." I screeched with all the rage that a life long professional liar can feel when she discovers she's been lied to.
Vasa shrugged. "I am Gustav, the fifth of that name, of the House of Vasa. I am the King of Gotland, and among my other titles, I am Captain-Commandant of Her Majesty Queen Christina's Guard Company." Vasa chuckled. "I do find that sometimes people are more willing to speak freely to Captain Vasa than to His Majesty Gustav V."
Vasa turned to face John and Aeryn. "Now, Commander Crichton, I'm afraid that the information I have gotten from Chiana is quite different from what you have told me. Let us begin with the matter of the Leviathan gunship Moya."
John looked at me with a puzzled look on his face. Aeryn, well, her look was easy to decipher: She wanted to kill me.
How was I going to kiss, kick or cry my way out of this?