The Queen's Honor Guard
by Nyohah
VIII.
"General."
He turned quickly, pushing his anxiety about the upcoming battle from his thoughts and facing Kei Sa. The news Vendetta had brought of the colonists' location had not eased his dread. They were all together, luckily, but heavily guarded. The route Vendetta had taken to find a way into the building—he had stopped before the final step—was one that most people wouldn't have the nerve to take. The news that all the invaders were armed, and with a weapon they could likely not counter, complicated matters further. He didn't know what to do, and he feared for the rest of the party that had yet to return.
Kei Sa spoke again. "What about the colonists? We promised them they could help."
He sighed, imagining the imminent slaughter, and shook his head. "I can't allow that. If we die here, we were doing our duty. I don't think they know what they're getting into."
"They volunteered. They'll feel betrayed."
"Bring them here," he replied. "I'll explain it personally."
She frowned slightly. "Is there something wrong, General?"
"Quite frankly, Kei Sa, I don't think we can win this."
"Then perhaps you need their help. They did manage to drive back their own attack."
Their help? No, he couldn't allow them to help in the way they wanted; he couldn't allow them to be killed. But perhaps they had something else to offer: information. In his haste to reach the last colony, he had neglected to question any of them on the manner of the attack or their strategies in deflecting it. Haste could indeed easily cause fatal errors.
"Bring them here, Kei Sa," he repeated. "And I shall see what information they can offer us that could aid us in our fight."
She nodded slightly, not entirely satisfied. But she wouldn't get anything more from him, and she knew it.
He turned away from the others again, brooding. He knew he was being avoided and he really didn't care. Failure could not be tolerated. The lives of the colonists depended on the success of the mission, as did his reputation. He'd inherited his title more than earned it, the only option available to a revamped government. During his time of command, the army had defeated the Chiss rebels, but beyond their aptitude for killing they did not have much strategy to their actions, and were easily tricked into defeat. They'd also driven back Shao Kahn's invasion of Kloesh, but that victory could only fairly be attributed to the sacrifice of a Vyrenchi. This was a crucial battle, but an impossible victory. It was unfair that any should judge him based on the outcome of it, but he knew they did, and he was loathe to admit that he found himself thinking of a tarnished reputation with increasing frequency.
"Hey, General," said the voice of Ta Lian Shi behind him. "Mission accomplished."
He watched them enter the area, all five of them completely unscathed. Part of him was relieved, but the part that had already buried itself in fear quavered in anticipation of their—likely grave—report.
Tempest nodded in respect to Wei Yong's rank, then began to explain more thoroughly. "We succeeded in disabling all seven of the invaders' ships—six small fighters, and one freighter much larger than the Templar Aria."
"Terrifying the invaders in the process, I might add," said Zhen.
Tempest nodded. "A possibly unfortunate effect of the unusual methods we had to use to disable the ships left the invaders in an uncomfortable manner. I'm afraid they're more on guard now than they were before. And they're all armed with one of these." Tempest pointed to the weapon Lieutenant Nai held.
Wei Yong breathed deeply. The last thing they needed was for the invaders to get jittery enough to begin executing prisoners.
"Yeah, but like Zhen said," added Lian, "they're more frightened than anything else. After all, it's not every day that the back end of your main ship gets crumpled."
"It imploded," Rah Cai Yue corrected.
"Let's just hope we haven't endangered the colonists," said Wei Yong.
"I think more of them are by the ships now than the colonists," said Lieutenant Nai. "And the colonists were being held on the other side of the colony from their ships."
"Maybe so," Wei Yong said, "but it will be extremely difficult to get to the colonists without alerting the invaders. Unless you think we can kill all of them before they can kill any of our colonists."
"Whoa, wait," said Lian, the beginning of a smile creasing his face. "What do you mean, 'extremely difficult'."
"Vendetta climbed through the trees, jumping from branch to branch at times, hanging upside down from one to pick a lock without touching the roof to set off an alarm, then crawling through a ventilation shaft before seeing that he would have to hang from the rafters on the ceiling while attacking to avoid detection and then drop the fifteen feet to the ground where the colonists were at."
The smile on Lian's face broadened with every word. "Sounds like fun."
"And we did bring along seventy people who share Lian's definition of fun and who we promised to let help us," said Zhen.
"We can't send seventy untrained adventurers in to rescue a few hundred colonists," said Wei Yong, feeling a strain forming on his control of his temper.
"Of course not," said Lieutenant Nai. "There aren't even seventy invaders."
"What about just a few?" suggested Rah Cai Yue. "If we attack head on, we can distract most of the invaders."
"I'll think about it," Wei Yong replied, his harsh tone indicating that he wouldn't. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go speak to those very adventurers."
Rather than let him go speak to the recently arrived colonists by himself, those to which he had been talking followed him, and the rest of the honor guard joined him at the ship. As he approached the people roving about the entrance of the ship, Ken Lih Ne raised a hand in greeting and stepped forward.
"Hey, General," he said.
Wei Yong nodded at him. "As you know," he said, "we are here to liberate this colony, and to do so, we will most likely have to fight."
"Yeah," said Ken Lih Ne. "We're all ready and willing. What do you want us to do?"
Wei Yong willfully ignored the question. "I need to know the details of your fight."
"Oh, that? What about it?"
"How many attacked you?"
"About thirty."
"And they were armed with this?" Wei Yong pointed to the weapon Nai Do Xian held.
"Yeah, stuff a lot like that."
"Can you tell us what this weapon does?"
"It shoots out a red beam, with a loud noise, and the beam's really hot. Some of us have some nasty burns from them."
"Beams of light?" interrupted Yen Sa.
"Think so," answered Ken Lih Ne.
"General," Yen Sa said, "may I have that weapon? It would really help with one of my projects."
Wei Yong nodded. For once, he decided he would support Yen Sa's attempts at a new gadget, if something that could counter these advanced weapons was going to be the result. "How did you manage to defeat them without a single casualty if they were all armed with those?" he asked Ken Lih Ne.
"They didn't all have one. Only about ten of them."
"Only ten of your thirty attackers were armed?"
"The others were trying to take away our food."
"So how did you defeat the ten who were armed?"
"We have a few people who are really good with their element. Six of them were even in your tournament for the honor guard, and two of those even made it to the element testing. They just knocked the weapons out of their hands, or destroyed them. They got some shots off, but most of them missed."
Wei Yong was silent for a long moment. There was no way he could let all the colonists help, but some, these six, perhaps... "There's still no way to keep the captured colonists safe," he mused, quietly, but aloud.
"Excuse me, General," said Yen Sa, "but I think you've forgotten something."
Wei Yong closed his eyes and took a deep breath. If it had anything to do with his life-force swords... "What, Yen Sa?"
"These weapons fire light. Nothing but light. And I have complete control over any form of light."
"You're going to manipulate every beam of light they fire from every weapon by yourself." He crossed his arms skeptically.
"I can try, General," Yen Sa replied, refusing to be discouraged. "If the honor guard stands in a line, I should easily be able to create a field across the front and I could stop every bolt that contacts it."
"What about the colonists?"
Yen Sa looked down. "That'd be an awfully big field," he admitted.
=We think you're all forgetting something,= said the voice of Honor. =Light is nothing but energy. Vyrenchi can manipulate any form of energy.=
Wei Yong shook his head, but the gesture was reflective of his disbelief of his foolishness, not a dismissal. Of course, the Vyrenchi could help. They were an asset he'd never been taught to use, and their almost undetectable presence caused him to forget about them far too often. "Honor," he said, "do you think you and the other twelve Vyrenchi could protect all the colonists if we trust Yen Sa to protect the honor guard?"
=If you distract most of attackers, we shouldn't have problem.=
For the first time that day, a smile began to twist Li Wei Yong's lips. "Ken Lih Ne," he said, his voice assertive, "find those six who participated in the tournament. We have a job for them."
"Oh, they're gonna love this," Lian said.
They did not worry about silence. After all, the six of whom stealth was required had already left, and were possibly already in place, awaiting the distraction to pull the invaders away from the captured colonists. Silent distractions were not the most effective.
Neither did they announce their presence with extra noise or chatter. They walked through the forest as one might on a leisurely hike, albeit at a faster pace and with far grimmer expressions. Their weapons were either sheathed or strapped to their backs, accessible if invaders got too close, but out of the way. They would do no good against searing beams of light.
All their hope of survival rested on Yen Sa, and Li Wei Yong flicked another glance in the younger fighter's direction as they passed a small clearing and the planet's twin moons lit everyone's features. He seemed tense, unconsciously rubbing his sword's sheath, but otherwise in control.
He heard the invaders before he was able to discern any through the foliage. They were indeed agitated by the fates of their ships, to them bizarre and unexplainable. Above all the commotion, Wei Yong could distinguish the voice of what had to be their leader, yelling at his underlings for allowing the damage to occur. Curses peppered his angry questioning, both recognizable to Wei Yong and unfamiliar words he surmised were common to one of the planets in the vast galaxy. From what he could hear, the ruckus caused by the other invaders obscuring some words, the leader couldn't believe that the ships could have been damaged without the perpetrators being seen. Therefore, the guards must not have been doing their jobs. The deaths of two of them only compounded the offense.
As they neared the camp one phrase rang clearly through the area. "Don't tell me we have Jedi here!"
Wei Yong catalogued the word for further investigation. It was the second time he'd heard it used, and he noted the fear that accompanied it. Who were these Jedi, that the alien he'd questioned expected the boy's behavior to be explained with that one word, and whom the invaders seemed to fear as the only force that could have done the damage to their ships?
They stopped in the shadows just outside the colony's perimeter, after which the trees and brush ended, and white, artificial light began.
"Ready, Yen Sa?" Wei Yong whispered.
"Yes, General," the former slave replied.
As one, the twelve participating members of the Queen's Honor Guard took three steps forward, Wei Yong watching Yen Sa as they did so. He took one deep breath and closed his eyes, clenching his fists.
It was too late to back out; Wei Yong would have to trust the boy's powers.
"Hey, how'd you escape?" demanded a man whose voice matched the one Wei Yong had identified as the leader, aiming his larger version of the captured weapon at them.
"Uh, Carn," said the invader standing closest to the leader, "I don't think those are escapees. They all have some...weird...weapon-things."
"Then where'd they come from?" yelled the leader. By the time he'd finished speaking, every human in the clearing—close to fifty—had their weapon aimed at the honor guard.
Then an invader burst from the building in which the colonists were being held, shooting wildly through the doorway. He ran to the leader. "Carn," he gasped, "some people came across the ceiling. We tried to shoot them but our bolts were disappearing and then reappearing and coming back at us!"
"What," said Yen Sa, his eyes still closed and his words startling both the invaders and the Mandalorians, "like this?" A beam of crimson light shot from his hands, passing over the heads of the invaders. There were murmurs and shouts, and it seemed to Li Wei Yong that many of them wanted to flee.
"Kill them," Carn ordered, then fired the first shot.
It hurtled toward them, searing the air, a death wish to one of the honor guard. Wei Yong's breath froze for a split-second as he doubted Yen Sa's ability and tried to scramble for a plan. But the bolt disappeared, a mere foot from them, as did the torrent that followed.
Breathing deeply in relief, Wei Yong raised his hands and began to summon energy above an invader. In a few seconds he released it and an argent bolt of lightning slammed into an invader. Wei Yong watched as the man convulsed violently and fell to the ground smoking, dead. Some of the energy jumped into those standing near his target, shocking them slightly, and Wei Yong frowned. The bolt had been too strong for him to properly control, although there had been no negative consequences in the situation.
Nearly twenty had fallen to the honor guard's various elements by the end of Wei Yong's first attack, but a glance to his side revealed that Yen Sa was trembling. He would be unable to stop the bolts in a matter of moments. They would have to end the fight quickly.
As Wei Yong raised his hands to prepare an even larger bolt, Carn threw down his weapon. "We surrender," he managed, his voice strained with terror. "Who are you people?"
One last man fell gurgling, prey to Zhen Feng Qui's poison. The other invaders threw down their weapons.
Wei Yong glanced at Yen Sa. He was wobbling. If the invaders figured out that Yen Sa was the reason the bolts hadn't reached them and that his shield was down while still in reach of their weapons... "Kick your weapons over here," he commanded hastily.
The invaders complied, and the freed colonists gushed from the building. Mothers took their children and huddled as far from the invaders as they could without leaving the colony grounds. Some gathered up the weapons. Others surrounded the surrendered invaders.
Yen Sa collapsed.
Wei Yong approached Carn. "What are we going to do with you?" he asked. "We can't just kill you, much as we would like to."
"Well, we thank you for your infinite mercies," spat Carn. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he produced a weapon that resembled a knife and held it millimeters from Wei Yong's chest. The blade hummed softly as it vibrated. "Where's your shield boy now?" he asked with a malicious grin.
Wei Yong raised an eyebrow, slightly surprised that the man had deduced their means of defense. Then he grabbed the man's knife hand with his left hand, snapping the wrist. The blade thumped to the ground, but even before it hit, Wei Yong pressed the tip of his sword against Carn's throat.
"They may be primitive, weird weapon-things," he said, "but I assure you they do their job."
Carn swallowed.
"And what do we do with them?" asked Ming, stepping just behind him.
Wei Yong smiled. "Into the building," he ordered. "Since you seem to want this place so much, you can stay here."
The invaders were herded into the building. Wei Yong backed Carn into it, watching the anger flash in the man's eyes. He slammed the door in his face.
"Somebody come lock this thing," he ordered, sheathing his sword. Looking around, he recognized one of the men sent to free the colonists. He nodded to the man and said, "Did you do any irreparable damage to the building?"
"No," he replied. "If we shut the vent we came through, they shouldn't even be able to get out."
"Do that," Wei Yong said. "Nice timing, by the way. Although you were supposed to wait for the distraction to begin before you entered, rather than starting the distraction."
The man shrugged. "There were only five of them. And the Vyrenchi said you were almost inside. We were tired of waiting. We wanted to get to the fun part."
"You did your job well," Wei Yong acknowledged.
"Actually we didn't do much. Those Vyrenchi are sure handy."
"That they are." Wei Yong nodded again as he left.
The colonists were already beginning to gather up their things, understandably eager to leave. With a smile, he finally allowed himself to realize that these were the last colonists, the last place to find, the last fear of invasion.
However, they did have one last destination: home.
And somehow he doubted it would be short or simple journey.