The Queen's Honor Guard
by Nyohah
V.
The trio of Mandalorians walked into an open market. The village in which it was located was not much larger then the Mandalorian colony had been, and certainly no less muddy. But the market was extensive, and seeing the trails of visitors entering from all sides out the Templar's viewport had been the determining factor that chose the particular settlement of the many.
They received strange looks from the shoppers and vendors, being dressed in their simple black uniforms, Cai Yue in his coat, and each carrying a sword, the metal weapon long since antique in this galaxy's society. On other planets they had been whispered about, stared at, but tolerated with the same open attitude the people gave various alien species. But here they were avoided, scowled at.
Li Wei Yong sneezed for the fourth time since leaving the Templar. "At least we know they've encountered our colonists enough to hold a grudge."
"That won't help us much since it also means they recognize us as Mandalorians and won't speak to us." Hua Quy Ling's hand clenched his katana's hilt, but he otherwise calmly scanned the crowd.
"Maybe we should ask someone who is not human," Cai Yue said, turning over a medallion on the table in front of him. The woman behind the counter shrieked and slapped his hand away with a muddy stick as though he were poised to secrete acid from his fingertips and destroy her work.
Wei Yong thought it was a reasonable suggestion. They had only approached humans, and other species could possibly be not xenophobic enough to shun them, but there were other details to consider. "We know the humans speak English—Basic." He corrected himself hurriedly.
"We've already noticed how prominent the language is," said Cai Yue. "Especially among the humans. So surely some other aliens have made a point to learn the human's language. We have."
"We picked Basic because we already knew it." Wei Yong sneezed again. "But we'll give it a try." He scanned the crowd and spied a short, green, scaly thing with a hideous-looking horn jutting from its chin. He took a step toward it and tapped it shoulder, repulsed to find that it was both cold and hard. "Excuse me," he said in lightly accented Basic, his vowels extended.
The alien rumbled at him, its crackling voice forming incoherent growls, then ascending into a piercing squeal that caused Wei Yong to wince. It moved off, pushing through the crowd.
"I don't think that one was capable of speaking Basic, General," said Cai Yue softly, just behind him. "A more humanoid non-human this time. Like us." Cai Yue craned his head in an attempt to see over the passersby, but had to lean to look around the mainly taller-than-he bodies anyway.
He pointed to the customer of a vendor a few stalls down. "Here, General."
The 'alien' in question wore a dark gray flight suit, the bottoms of the legs caked with mud like everyone else's, and speckled to the knees. A towel-like cloth covered his neck, distinguishing him from the humans around him, but other than that, Wei Yong thought he looked as human as the others did. But he trusted Cai Yue's instincts and approached the customer, flanked by his fellow Mandalorians.
The customer held one of the vendor's finest items, an uncut, yellow gem, rubbing it with his thumb. He tossed it once then handed it to the vendor. "Yes, but can you polish it?" he said, his speech marred by flat vowels and preoccupied with consonants, harsh to the Mandalorian's ears. The vendor nodded and took it back to his laser to cut it.
"Excuse me," said Li Wei Yong.
The customer turned at once, then paused, cocking his head and giving Li Wei Yong the impression that although his light olive green eyes tracked others walking behind the Mandalorians, he was giving them the same analyzing glance Wei Yong was giving him.
He was taller than Wei Yong, but shorter than Zhen Feng Qui—about Quy's height. His skin had the same pallor as Kei Sa's, but his seemed dull while hers shone. His hair was whiter than even his skin, short and untidy. He crossed one bare foot over the other to press it against the arch and grinned mirthlessly, casually baring his twin sets of thin, sharp incisors. "You would be...?"
"We're Mandalorians," Wei Yong hastily explained, leery of the alien's tone. "Our colony was destroyed—"
"The smoke."
"Yes, just this morning—"
"So you've come to accuse me."
"What?" Wei Yong's eyes widened in alarm and he raised his hands. "No, no. We got here just after the attack, and we need some information about it."
The alien leaned forward. "I just got here this morning, too. And I'm taking the first shuttle off this wasteland tomorrow." He uncrossed his leg, straightening into what seemed a more alert posture, but closing his eyes.
Wei Yong began a slight bow to politely withdraw, but a taunting snort from a customer at the next vendor halted him. The human standing there didn't hide the fact that he'd been eavesdropping and was staring. "One would think pond scum like you would feel right at home in a dump like this."
The alien's eyes snapped open a sliver, revealing a slit of slightly milky green. His tongue clicked in rapid succession. The human retained his sneer. The alien warningly clicked his tongue again, and the sneer faded, but the human didn't move. Then the alien smiled broadly at the human, a larger rendition of his earlier grin, and he ran his pale tongue across a pair of pointed incisors. An unsettled frown creased the human's face and the alien retained the grin until the human crept away.
The slit eyes followed the departing human then slid shut. "Humans," the pale alien growled. "They think they're special because they're the most prevalent, 'pure' version of the most common form. So they assume we're variations of them: they're humans, we're mere humanoids, obviously inferior." He stomped his foot, splashing the mud. "Maybe they're mutations of Calyaar. Or maybe we're all just variations of your race."
"I don't think they'd like that very much." Cai Yue's Basic was far less coherent than Wei Yong's, but the alien picked it up without apparent difficulty.
"Not at all," he agreed. "They're too self-righteous to believe they're a second-rate anything. And there's no way they'd allow it to be you. It'd be like the Mon Calamari acknowledging that the Quarren have equal right to their planet."
"Calamari? Squid?" Cai Yue began to giggle. Wei Yong felt like disowning him.
The alien crossed his arms. "I'm not here for your entertainment."
"Of course not," amended Li Wei Yong. "My friend is lacking sleep."
The alien cocked his head again.
"The humans?" Hua Quy Ling asked hesitantly, double-checking each syllable.
"What about them?"
Li Wei Yong grabbed the direction of questioning. "Do you think they destroyed our colony?"
"Humans?" The alien opened his eyes. "Nah. They're not fond of you, but it wasn't them. I'd say pirates. In fact, I think I encountered your very attackers."
"Hey." The interrupter was a human, clad in a hooded brown robe.
"What? Have I been picked today as the official target of pestering by idiots everywhere?"
The human was unfazed. "Are you Braeden Leer?"
The alien inhaled deeply. "No."
The human frowned. "But after the account of what happened on the shuttle this morning...they said it was a Calyaar..."
The alien clicked his tongue once. "I'm not the only Calyaar in the galaxy."
"But—"
"Are you Anakin Skywalker?"
The human blinked. "Of course not!"
"But you're human, aren't you? And you're wearing a robe..."
The young human frowned again, but he turned to leave. "Sorry to waste your time," he said.
"Who was that?" asked Wei Yong, as the young human disappeared into the crowd.
"Some Jedi." The alien waved his hand in dismissal.
Cai Yue missed the gesture. "He seemed good at frowning."
The alien's mouth curled into an actual amused smile, incisors safely concealed behind pale lips. "Most Jedi are."
"But about these pirates..." prompted Wei Yong.
"Siznik Pirates. Insectoid, vicious, and do just about anything for a few extra credits. They tried to board the shuttle I was on this morning, probably still riding the pheromone high they got when killing your colony. I'd say it was them, possibly paid by the humans on this planet, but the humans did not attack them."
"Do you think we'll be able to avenge our colony?"
"If you want to chase them all over the galaxy, be my guest." The alien shook his head, a water droplet flying off his hair.
The vendor tapped him on the shoulder. "Mr. Leer?"
The alien turned and grabbed the now-polished yellow stone and felt it once more, then tossed a few credits onto the table.
Then he left without a farewell, leaving the Mandalorians to stand in the midst of hostile strangers, all alone in the mud.
He whistled as he passed through the crowded hallway, the sound shrill and unpleasant to most of the humans, unbearable to a couple of lanky, furred aliens he passed, but commonplace to the rodent-like thief that crouched in the corner.
It glimpsed the yellow stone the pale alien rubbed with his thumb and wiggled its pink snout in anticipation. Then it catalogued the robust carriage of the alien's shoulders, the lithe grace with which he slid down the hallway. It turned its sight to a chunky, less alert-looking human with a fat wad of credits protruding ever so slightly from his pockets.
Braeden Leer ignored the slight thief in the corner, sensing that it had set its sights on a less perilous target. He stopped near a door and pressed his tongue closer to the roof of his mouth, sending the pitch of the whistle beyond human hearing and the two furred aliens into near agony. Sifting through the sounds of the hallway to find the whistle as it bounced off the end of the hall and assuring that he was at the right door, he slid his identity chip through the pad next to it. It hissed and split open in two jerky motions. He stepped into his rented room and the doors closed behind him with an offensive clang.
At the end of the main room, he clicked on the holovid, and was met by an annoying whine that accompanied the news. He flicked if off, the motion accompanied by a soft click of his tongue. The insolent, human employee he'd called with the problem had refused to believe that if he couldn't hear it, it could still be there. And it had apparently not fixed itself in the past two hours.
He ran a finger down the spine of the grayish-brown, long-tailed creature that dwelled on its nutrient frame, as he walked toward the refresher. The room was insult upon indignity, as he had found most hotel rooms were, and the refresher was the worst part of all. The stand-up shower unit in the corner could barely keep the water off the rest of the room's floor, let alone hold any substantial quantity. The sink was shallow and small.
He filled the sink, then unhooked the wrapping on his neck and slapped it into the water. Running a hand along the side of his neck, he wiped excess mucus from the smooth, hard covering on one set of gills. The air in the market had not affected him any less adversely than it had the Mandalorian who had interrogated him. He had almost wished he could sneeze, for the moment ignoring his opinion of the act as a most vile contamination of the air. His gills had become irritated, and his secondary larynx burned. He shook his head slightly at the irony of calling his air-breathing respiratory system 'secondary' when in the two decades since he had left his home he had only infrequently used his gills and the rest of his primary respiratory system.
He rubbed the mucus from his hand on a worn, if clean, towel, and wiped his other set of gills. He was interrupted by a buzz that indicated a visitor. Opening the door, he recognized the human outside and the arm that held the towel dropped so the towel's ends draped on the ground.
"You," Braeden groaned.
The young Jedi did not seem much happier. "Why didn't you tell me the truth about your identity, Braeden Leer?" He enunciated the name deliberately. "I heard the accounts of how easily you dispatched an entire shuttle full of the Siznik Pirates. Maybe you are not the only Calyaar, but last I checked not many of your species leave your planet, and I find it impossible to believe there is another with your skills."
"Truth is but one aspect of reality." Braeden was motionless.
The Jedi let out a quiet laugh. "Your famous last words. But the irony is that you sound almost like the Council when you say them."
Braeden clicked his tongue. "They obviously lack the serenity to see it as you do." He slung the towel over his shoulder and turned away. "Now go back to your master before you get in trouble."
"I am not a Padawan," said the Jedi, sounding irritated. He stepped into the room and gasped audibly; even a human could have heard it. "It's like being blind," he breathed.
Braeden stopped. "So you've met my ysalamir, have you? They make nice little bubbles in the Force, wouldn't you say?"
"It's like it just doesn't exist."
"A useful pet."
"Useful?" The Jedi's voice brimmed with disbelief.
"For training and the like. Develop our skills without the Force and we should be better with it."
"So you're saying we should blind ourselves in order to see."
Judging from the tint of scorn in the Jedi's voice, Braeden wondered if the comment was meant to injure. But Braeden just shrugged and stepped into the refresher.
"You are a radical," muttered the Jedi. Braeden was unsure whether he was familiar with Calyaar hearing capabilities, whether he had intended the comment to be heard.
He pulled the wrapping out the sink and slapped it around his neck, allowing the cool tendrils of water to slide down his skin. "Now that you've agreed with the Council's judgment, can you leave?"
"If I had wanted to accept the Council's viewpoints so easily," the Jedi returned, "I wouldn't have come to speak with you."
"Careful, boy," said Braeden, returning to the main room. "With an attitude like that you may become an individual, and we all know what our blessed Council thinks of those."
"You think so poorly of them?"
"I think they developed too much philosophy based around a tool. A tool that requires discipline, yes, but any tool of great power requires discipline. And we don't see soldiers philosophizing about their blasters, do we? I think they've become too engrossed in a debate over the nature of something that should be respected as is, not analyzed.
"I think you would do well to reevaluate everything you've been taught. We're here to make our own opinions; it's why we're sentient, is it not?
"But then, what do I know. I am, after all, just a radical."
The Jedi remained silent; he had apparently not expected his former comment to be heard.
"Now go," Braeden concluded, "before someone finds out where you've been and who you've been talking to and takes you down with me."
The Jedi stood, frozen with an obvious reluctance to leave.
"Go. Now. Before I throw you out physically."
Finally the Jedi moved, a frown fully developed on his face.
With a sigh that was far too human for his liking, Braeden Leer shut the door.
When the Mandalorian convoy set off a few hours later, it was with low spirits, an urgency to arrive in time to save the next colony, and a sense of relief that they knew exactly how to get to it.
For Li Wei Yong, the last bit eased his mood more than much else could have. In a few minutes—they had been traveling for hours—they would reach the exact point designated on the map and be able to direct a portal to their next colony. Before him, Kei Sa studied the map of the colony on the table that separated them, her eyelashes concealing the mismatched color of her eyes. In a few moments she would speak again, probably with some brilliant idea that he would have never been able to conceive and that would almost ensure their victory should a battle occur...she was amazing. But he could never love her as Hua Quy Ling did.
No, the woman he loved huddled in her chair in front of the bridge, her defeated, entirely unroyal posture epitomizing the mood of the Templar's crew. Her hair had long since unraveled from its tidy braid into a tangled mess, falling immodestly without restraint to such a length that the tips rested on the chair. Reveling in the chance to skip royal dress certainly did not authorize such extreme lack of decorum, but he doubted Ming cared. Maybe she didn't look like the queen she was; Ming certainly didn't mourn that loss. Maybe at the moment she did not even resemble a proper lady; well, there were those who would argue she never had been.
He could tell she was exhausted, but she stubbornly refused to leave the bridge, even though they only approached a checkpoint, and nothing requiring her authority was expected to occur until they reached the colony, and certainly hadn't in the past few hours. They had managed to cajole Cai Yue into sleeping after all the colonists were loaded. The others had gone to bed willingly, whether understanding there was nothing for them to do, or pouncing upon the opportunity to slack, or, as he suspected, a combination of the two depending upon who was in consideration.
Kei Sa had stayed; he had stayed. They had too much shared responsibility to be allowed sleep. Nai Do Xian had stayed, dutifully flying the Templar to the designated point on the map. He'd heard among the chatter of his men that the lieutenant had once stayed awake for an entire week to keep watch simply because it needed to be done. While he knew it was an embellished legend, he did not doubt that it had been based upon some aspect of truth. Lieutenant Nai would allow himself to sleep when he needed to and not before.
And Ming sat on her chair, her knees drawn to her chest. He could only imagine her anguish. She had fought with all her being to become a competent leader, learning the cultures of others, studying politics, even teaching herself how to be a leader. To be thrown into a situation where, once more, she could do nothing that someone else couldn't do better only piled another layer of despair unto that caused by the dilemma of the colonies.
"General," Kei Sa said with a hint of worry escaping her voice. His attention snapped back to her. "Are you feeling well, General? I can do this myself, if you need some rest."
"No, no," he said, a bit hurriedly. "I'm fine."
She smiled a little, a false smile born of uncertainty. "I think we should try to enter the camp this way," she said, trailing her finger across the map. "It will take us to the area in which we have already decided the colonists would likely choose to seek refuge in case of an attack, so we can protect it before having to fight through an entire army."
"It's a plan founded on sound reasoning," he said, never having expected anything other. "Though any clearing suitable for landing the Templar is far from the intended path."
"Indeed," she agreed. "And expediency is the true factor in question. Which makes our situation seem hopeless. We haven't the time to waste to come in from the side, and we haven't the resources to waste to come through the bulk of any attacking force."
"And all of this is based on a hope that any attack will be from the ground when it's unlikely they'll bother with such ancient tactics when they can just pound it from the sky." He sighed, rubbing a hand across his forehead.
"It does seem unlikely," she said, rubbing her hand across the map to smooth it.
"But we plan anyway, because protecting these people is our duty." He rested his head on his hand, covering his eyes. His imagination expanded the map, developing it into a three-dimensional fictional replica. Any number of occurrences or stray landmarks in reality could ruin their plan, or open up a dozen new opportunities. But— "It's sounds good, Kei Sa," he said, raising his head.
"Are we ready?"
"Yes. As soon as we reach our checkpoint." He turned. "Lieutenant, how long?"
"Two minutes," he replied.
And probably exactly that, not a second more or less, knowing the lieutenant. "Someone had better go wake up Rah Cai Yue, then."
"No need."
He turned, surprised to hear the voice. Apparently, Rah Cai Yue's sleep had cured his overactive larynx, and his silent entrance had been missed. Of course, Wei Yong had never been prone to hold the priest in high regard. He would have had to be more than blind to miss the affection between him and his wife. But they were moral people. He trusted them both. And ignored it. What else could he do?
"Well, then," he addressed Cai Yue. "Get ready to make your portal." He turned away. "Let's go wake everyone else up and get ready, in case we need to make use of our plan."