The Queen's Honor Guard
by Nyohah
Part 3:
Extrication
Twenty-Three Years Before MK1
I.
A buzz filled the warm air of Yen Sa's cluttered quarters, accented by the rhythmic click of the electronic clock he had built as it cycled through the seconds.
He hunched over the components of his and Kei Sa's project, carefully fitting the last piece together in the circuits he hoped would intensify and help to focus the power of the sunstone imbedded in them. Snapping the cover over the complete prototype, he rose, wiping the sweat from his brow and brushing unused bits of solder from his clothes.
He held the device up to the unusually bright and harsh light emitted from his room's sunstones—their efficiency was multiplied by his presence. The device was ovoid, about a quarter of the size of his palm, with a sunstone nested in the center. Light filtered through the nearly transparent stone, splashing faceted rays onto his black uniform.
"It's bulkier than I had hoped," he said, approaching the woman of fair complexion who waited on a worn chair. He slipped the device into the pocket on the palm of a leather, finger-less glove that had been prepared for it—the sunstone was left bare on both sides—and handed it to the woman.
Hua Kei Sa examined it, then pulled it onto her right hand, flexing her fingers to test the pliability of the leather. "If we ever thought we'd be able to punch while wearing this, it was an eager hope rather than a rational expectation."
"All I can say is it had better work. We've spent almost five years on this. If it's still not right, then I'm going to be forced to absolve our friendship on the premises of your having obviously used mind control to convince me that it would be possible."
Kei Sa smiled inwardly as Yen Sa ranted as he always did when he felt the pressures of testing an invention.
"And what a ludicrous idea it was," he continued. "Certainly we've made technological and spiritual aspects coexist in our society numerous times before, but to think we could do it in a single device? Inane. I don't care what the angels told you in the sphere—"
Kei Sa closed her eyes, focusing her will and not only activating the sunstone, but channeling her life force through it. A beam of gently glowing blue shot from the crystal, resolving itself into a blade congruent to one of Kei Sa's favored short swords.
Yen Sa's mouth hung slack, his ranting silenced. Then he threw his arms toward the ceiling in triumph. "I'm brilliant!" he laughed as Kei Sa tested her weapon, slashing with the sword and finding that as her body simulated the motions needed for fighting with a real sword, her psyche automatically adjusted the position of the energy blade. It was a bit of a strain, perhaps something that would be costly in battle, especially with the other members possessing weaker mental powers than Kei Sa; if they added a mirror to guide the light in the proper direction, it might lessen the difficulty.
"I knew we would do it, Kei Sa," rambled the thirteenth member of the Queen's Honor Guard, oblivious to anything but his success. "Five years, but undoubtedly worth every minute. We've done it; we've accomplished the impossible, widened the boundaries of science—whoa." He halted his celebrations, snatching the electronic clock and tapping its side to ensure that it wasn't malfunctioning again. He compared it to his tiny watch, identical and synchronized with those he had made for the other honor guard members.
"We're late," he said.
Kei Sa deactivated the sword and glanced at her watch. They sprinted from Yen Sa's quarters.
One of the queen's advisors tapped his fingers on the table's formerly spotless glass surface.
Li Yuen Ming turned her head to face him, the beaded ornaments that hung from her plaited hair swaying from the movement, the glint of light upon her embroidered red satin dress shifting. "They shall be here soon, I assure you," she said sternly.
The advisor raised his eyebrows; the tapping continued.
Between each tap, she could hear slight movements behind her, her husband, and the vacant chair. The nine members of the Queen's Honor Guard arranged in a line behind them seemed to be sharing no less anxiety than she was. The two former slaves had never been late to anything; that sort of action was expected only of Ta Lian Shi and Zhen Feng Qui. In addition to the sheer oddity of the incident, the importance of the meeting had been stressed for days. Where were they?
"My queen," said Nai Do Xian after a substantial wait, his voice soft as though he tried to keep the others on the council from noticing the problem, "it is possible there has been some mishap. Permission to search for Kei Sa and Yen Sa?"
Ming glanced to the high, mahogany-beamed ceiling, then turned slightly to face him and nodded. "Please do."
The sniper bowed slightly, then swiveled and walked in a hurried manner to the door. As he began to open it, it was flung inward from the other side, and Yen Sa stumbled in.
Her anxiety was washed away with relief that faded into irritation.
As Yen Sa looked up, he forgot that he, for a moment, had meant to apologize to Lieutenant Nai for slamming the door into him.
Everyone in the room—all the council members, all the rest of the honor guard, the queen, and worst of all, the general—stared at him, expectancy lingering in their eyes. Kei Sa stepped behind him, and he tried to force a smile.
"Where have you been?" the queen asked, a touch of annoyance seeping into her tone.
Yen Sa's grimacing smile twitched and faltered as he discarded numerous renditions of a possible explanation, but Kei Sa removed any need for him to explain. She stepped around him, raising her right hand and activating the device. Its cool azure glow colored her pale face and the room's occupants stared.
"It's pretty," said Li Wei Yong, "but what is it?"
"It's what we've been working on for five years now," Yen Sa said, eagerness unfreezing his tongue. "See, the circuitry I've designed around the central sunstone should intensify its effects when we—"
"Kei Sa, what is it?" amended the general. Yen Sa shut his mouth slowly and tried to ignore the insult.
"I suppose," she said slowly, "it's a life-force sword."
"As I was trying to say," Yen Sa began again, accelerating his speech yet more, "we activate the stone and along with our psyche, the circuitry focuses and intensifies the light—"
"We?" asked Li Wei Yong, raising his eyebrows in doubt. "Can anyone but Kei Sa manage such a thing with his mind?"
Yen Sa nodded. "Theoretically, anyone trained in using their psyche to summon an element should be able—"
"Have you tested your theories, Yen Sa?" The general enunciated concisely, in slight derision.
Yen Sa would have taken the action to be an insult to his common sense, but the fact that the general was correct melted possible anger into embarrassment. "I would have eventually..." he said, looking down to the floor.
The general sighed. "Yen Sa..."
"I'll do it now," he said, looking up sharply in a burst of new confidence and beckoning for Kei Sa to give him the glove. He pulled it on, closed his eyes, and activated the sunstone. Light began to flicker into the shape of a sword, and Yen Sa could feel it begin to take the shape of his personal weapon, exactly how he wanted it. If he could do it, the general would have to accept the invention as worthy of his time.
Then the blade shattered, flinging intensified beams of light in all directions. In the instant he felt the blade erupt, Yen Sa let the sunstone fall dormant, flinging his hands forward and mentally catching the deadly manifestations of his element before they could harm anything. He opened his eyes and gently diffused the light shards into the normal, harmless spectrum, smiling weakly at the scattered council members. They had begun to duck for cover, some crowding under the table before realizing the glass would do nothing to stop the beams and that they could not have hoped to dodge a danger moving at the speed of light.
"It's, uh, harder than I thought it would be," he said, cringing at the glares of the others.
Li Wei Yong climbed back into his chair, scowling. "Yen Sa, it is not my intention to be cruel, but we do not have time for your little toys. You have delayed this meeting long enough."
Yen Sa felt his face begin to flush at the general's words. Kei Sa sought to give him a reassuring smile as she sat, but he avoided her gaze and stepped to the end of the line.
Last, youngest, always scolded for something...why had he let Kei Sa drag him into this?
The queen, with a slight shake of her head, turned her attention to the visitor at the table. He was a gaunt man, with ever-darting eyes that seemed to search for threats among the council members before him.
"I'm sorry for the delay, Mr. Tse," she said. "Would you please explain your situation to the council?"
Tse nodded sharply and swallowed. "I am a person of little importance, certainly no one a planetary council such as you would typically concern yourselves with. I was a fisherman, but I have more recently been a colonist."
Yen Sa studied the man more thoroughly as he revealed the information about his past. A normal fisherman would perhaps have the attentiveness about him that the man exhibited, the unceasing vigilance that Yen Sa had recognized in the honor guard's sniper. But the haunted look of his eyes suggested fear was the cause of his behavior, not training or nature. The man was the slightest quaver from plunging into unchecked paranoia.
"You see," Tse continued, his shoulders hunched in tension, "when the announcement about the future colonies came, I convinced my wife it would be a way to a better life. We held our own, made enough to support ourselves, but there is always the hope of more, of a life beyond the norm. We thought in a new place, we might for once be the best and gather in the business others sucked from us here on Mandalore. So we joined one of the ships, just a family among many. We were all frightened by the prospect of entering the portal blindly, but we came through it with no harm done. What awaited us somewhat dashed our hopes."
Yen Sa imagined the man's story was not unlike that of most of the colonists'. Some that had gone were the adventurous type, willing to go anywhere just for the sake of bragging rights. However, had they been grouped, and he guessed they eventually were due to their behavior and attitude likely annoying everyone else, they would have filled less than a ship. Each of the Mandalorian ships was slightly different than the others, but all had possessed the capacity for about one hundred with limited baggage after the necessary supplies were loaded. The bit of army sent had occupied four ships, leaving fourteen to be filled by hopeful pilgrims.
"Tell us, Mr. Tse," prompted the queen, for he had halted, searching for the correct way to describe his impressions. "What did you find?"
"We found not the barren worlds, and rare inhabitable planets known to us, but a vast scattering of life. Thousands—no, hundreds of thousands, millions even—of planets, almost a galaxy's worth, and a far more fertile one than ours. They were all unified in a gargantuan government, seemingly as ancient as it was large. We found no worlds uninhabited that could be lived upon, so we settled for a few that seemed under-populated and on the far edge of the government's reach. Five colonies total. You must find it terribly hard to believe that such a place exists. I almost can't, and I've seen it myself.
"Their reliance on advanced technology is incredible," he continued. "They seem to have no appreciation for the wonder of life, having scientifically categorized it to the point it almost ceases to be living. We've encountered little in the way of religion, and what we have seen is pagan at best.
"But that's not important," he said, shaking his head. "I am here because there has been increasing hostility toward us. Our little bits of army have done the best they can, but sometimes the savagery is overwhelming. Those that attack can be little better than thieves and scoundrels, pirates. They have no morals, and seem to delight in destroying us. Why we have been selected I have no idea.
"It became clear very soon that we needed reinforcements, and we decided to send back a single ship with a skeleton crew. After my wife and children were slaughtered by those murdering ruffians, I agreed to come along." He lowered his head, his shoulders hunching more, to nearly hide his head.
"You mean to say that our colonies are in danger and Mandalorian people are being killed," prompted the queen, wanting confirmation of her summary.
Tse jerked his head in a brief nod. "You must help us. It's a nightmare out there."
"Why don't you all just come home?" asked the general. "You are obviously losing."
"We wish we could, General. But you haven't seen their ships. Huge, impenetrable. Battle ships with weapons that shoot...light, like that...thing he had, when it exploded." Tse pointed at Yen Sa, his hand trembling. "Half our ship was exposed to vacuum by their blasts as we tried to escape. It will never be usable again."
Yen Sa blinked as the man pointed at him, and raised his right palm, staring at the device that rested in it. So there was great potential behind his invention, and in a manner he hadn't considered. If he could manage to make the light released in short, focused beams, with his psyche and with another device, as a projectile—
"Gentlemen," the general said loudly, startling Yen Sa, and causing him to drop his hand back to his side, a slight burn filling his cheeks as he realized he'd been daydreaming, in a juvenile mistake that had been—to his chagrin—typical of his conduct in the Queen's Honor Guard for the four years since it had been formed.
"It is obvious," continued the general, "that we must aid our colonies, and either secure their place or bring them home. However, there must be deliberation on the matter of how much aid is needed and how much we can afford to send. Mr. Tse?"
The thin man swallowed. "There's so many of them. They're everywhere, species after species of alien. If they all turned against us..." He shook his head. "We need a huge force. The whole army, maybe."
Wei Yong raised his eyebrows, tilting his head slightly to the side. "We cannot send the entire army, you realize, or there will be none left to guard our home. If the opposition is as substantial as you think, we may need more than what we have spare at the moment." He turned to the council. "But if we take some of the stationed troops from other planets, how will they react?"
"I believe," said the new head political advisor, replacing Mr. Chan, who had been sent to the senate, "we can convince them that, due largely to their aid and cooperation, of course, the need for such extreme protection has passed. If we make them feel proud of the accomplishment, we should be able to remove some of the troops without much fuss."
"But there is always great risk," argued Wei Yong, "as long as the evil that dwells just outside our border exists." As he spoke, a tangible wash of energy entered the room. Its occupants glanced briefly at the energy's destination, and seeing it form into a white-clad fighter, ignored it.
"But we have been in a state of utter peace for three years and counting, General," said the advisor.
=In that you are wrong,= mewed the energy.
"Honor?" questioned the queen, turning her head in a quick motion that thrashed her beads against the face.
=We have just been informed that Centaurions are under attack,= said Honor. =It seems Shokans have taken opportunity to further their barbaric spat, and are aiding our enemy Kahn.=
The political advisor rose in shock. Li Wei Yong pushed away from the table, then jumped over his toppled chair. The honor guard sprinted the short distance from the council room to their headquarters. Yuen Ming ran into her dressing room.
And when he reached his locker, Yen Sa stared at the device on his hand. He began to pull it off, then stopped, and snorted self-derisively as he wished he'd for once been able enough to produce something of worth. He ripped it off his hand and raised it, ready to throw it into his locker so it could be lost in the mess of junk that cluttered its bottom.
"Don't throw it, Yen Sa," said a soft voice. "It might break and then it could take us another five years to make it."
"It doesn't work, Kei Sa," he said.
"It does work. Maybe not as well as we might hope, but have faith. We'll make it work. And then they'll all want one."
Yen Sa glanced up and away from her, staring at the indigo energy that crackled and throbbed as Rah Cai Yue crafted a portal. He turned to Kei Sa, and held out the device. "Do you want it? You could use it now, and then they'd be amazed much sooner, and our job would be all the easier."
Kei Sa took the device, but shook her head slightly. "I'm not coming. I will remain here, sustaining the portal while Cai Yue fights and anchoring it to this side so Kahn cannot trap you."
"What?" He exhaled quickly. "We need you."
"I cannot risk the health of my child," she explained, rubbing the swelling abdomen that held what would be her second baby.
"Indeed not," said Hua Quy Ling, holding his katana in his left hand and wrapping his right arm around his wife's shoulders.
Yen Sa half-smiled. "Just what we need. Another honor guard-bred child."
"What we need," said Quy Ling, "is to leave." He gestured to the portal, which stabilized as he spoke, fully created.
Yen Sa grabbed his sword from his locker, and followed the others, leaping through the portal.